The circumcision of boys is controversial and hotly debated in many countries.

Advocates of circumcision point to cultural, religious, hygiene-related and medical reasons for the procedure, while opponents argue that it infringes on bodily rights and is a severe, painful assault on the individual which can lead to life-long physical and mental damage, with no relevant advantages to health.

A study now pours a little more oil on the flames.

According to the new study, which included 340,000 Danish boys, it looks as though circumcision increases the risk of developing autism.

http://sciencenordic.com/study-links-autism-circumcision

A Yangon court on Tuesday sentenced a New Zealand bar manager and his two local colleagues to more than two years hard labor for insulting Buddhism by using the embellished image of the iconic sage to promote cheap drinks.

The trial centered over a social media posting promoting the V Gastro bar in the former capital city, in which a Buddha was depicted wearing a pair of DJ headphones amid psychedelic colors.

The bar subsequently deleted the post and wrote an apology on the Facebook page, saying it had no intention of causing "offence to anyone or toward any religious group."

But that didn't satisfy authorities, which prosecuted bar manager Philip Blackwood, 32, of New Zealand and his two Myanmar colleagues, owner Tun Thurein, 40, and employee Htut Ko Ko Lwin, 26, in December and charged them under the Religion Act, legislation that criminalizes written insults to religion.

Judge Ye Lwin said that despite the apology, Blackwood had "intentionally plotted to insult religious belief" when he uploaded the image to Facebook.

About half a dozen monks and hard line Buddhists gathered outside the Yangon court and applauded Tuesday's verdict.

"The verdict is fair," said Paw Shwe, a member of a Buddhist organization. "This punishment will deter others from insulting Buddhism or other religion."

http://www.dw.de/myanmar-court-jails-three-over-insult-to-buddhism/a-18320079

San Francisco, CA — A video was submitted to the Free Thought Project Wednesday, which shows what life looks like when you live in a police state.

San Francisco rap artist, Yung Lott was filming a music video at a public park in Bayview-Hunters Point, when their production was rudely and unlawfully brought to a halt.

As the video begins rolling the group is quickly interrupted as swarms of SFPD officers surround the group and demand they all put their hands up and get on their knees.

Cameraman, Brian Storm posted video of the raid on his Facebook page and it quickly began to go viral.

http://thefreethoughtproject.com/swarms-cops-guns-drawn-raid-music-video-set-unlawfully-cuff-search-entire-cast/

http://www.vocativ.com/usa/justice-usa/watch-some-cops-raid-a-rap-music-video-set-cuff-and-search-actors/

http://blog.sfgate.com/stew/2015/03/13/video-san-francisco-cops-raid-rap-video-shoot-arrest-2/

A week into the ground campaign for Tikrit, Iraqi forces and allied Shi'ite militias continue to clash with Islamic State group militants on the city's outskirts in an attempt to regain territory one outlying town at a time.

The coalition is battling for al-Dour and Albu Ajil, where IS snipers are hampering efforts to clear the towns of the rebel extremists.

Thousands of troops launched Iraq's largest anti-IS offensive last Sunday to reclaim Tikrit, a strategic stronghold between government-controlled Baghdad to the south and Islamic State-held Mosul to the north.

Iraqi forces with tactical help from Iran are carrying out the operation without intervention from the U.S.-led coalition, which continued to bomb IS targets Sunday in Iraq and Syria.

The airstrikes have not supported the Tikrit offensive, but hit 12 other IS positions in Iraq on Sunday, including Mosul, Kirkuk, and Fallujah, as well as in the Syrian border city of Kobani.


http://www.voanews.com/content/battle-for-tikrit-enters-second-week/2672268.html

Businessmen, politicians and self-important college freshmen, take note: That firm-but-friendly handshake you’ve been perfecting over the course of your career — the one that’s supposed to say “I am a proper, professional person doing proper, professional things” — conveys more than you think it does.

Far from being merely a polite greeting between two members of civilized society, a handshake may be an evolutionary adaptation to promote the exchange of body odors between acquaintances. In other words, it’s the human equivalent of two dogs sniffing each other’s hindquarters.

Perhaps President Obama’s much-discussed fist bumps were the right way to go all along.

These revelations about the smelly scientific origins of handshakes were published by the Olfactory Lab at Israel’s Weizmann Institute of Science. There, researcher Idan Frumin and his team examined the handshake behavior of nearly 300 test subjects (who were not told that they were participating in a study on body odor). Researchers would come into the examination room and introduce themselves, some shaking the subject’s hand, some not.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/03/04/the-secret-smelly-science-of-handshakes/

A slide projected onto the wall at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee gathering Monday contained a warning to delegates: “AIPAC is Bipartisan,” it said, next to an image of a Democratic donkey and Republican elephant in boxing gear. “Check your gloves at the door.”

They checked their gloves, all right — but less to practice bipartisanship than to pummel the Obama administration with bare knuckles. In the brawl between President Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over Iran nuclear negotiations, AIPAC has joined congressional Republicans in siding wholeheartedly with the Israeli hard-liner.

The rift with Obama is nothing new; four years ago, AIPAC delegates were urged not to boo Obama when he spoke to the group (most obeyed). But this situation is worse, because Netanyahu, by accepting House Speaker John Boehner’s invitation to address Congress Tuesday — snubbing Obama, who wasn’t consulted — is exploiting a partisan rift in American politics and driving a wedge through the American Jewish community. And congressional Republicans, by giving Netanyahu their pulpit 14 days before Israel’s elections, are brazenly taking sides in that country’s politics. This all is likely to backfire by firming Democratic resistance to more Iran sanctions — and, in the long run, by politicizing U.S.-Israeli relations.

The AIPAC delegates left no doubt where they stood as they listened to speeches at the Washington convention center Monday morning by Netanyahu and by an Obama administration representative, U.N. Ambassador Samantha Power. The transcript will show that they applauded Netanyahu 59 times in his 22-minute speech, compared with 34 times during Power’s 30-minute address. But that doesn’t reflect the rapturous nature of the reception for Netanyahu (who got an 80-second standing ovation, with thousands of phones raised to take photos, on either end of his speech) and the polite but tepid response to Power (who received a perfunctory 18 seconds).

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/aipac-pummels-obama/2015/03/02/e05ee4c2-c10d-11e4-9ec2-b418f57a4a99_story.html