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It's one thing to compare crime rates between countries. But wouldn't it be interesting to know what percentage of the population is responsible for those crimes? Are a lot of people likely to commit misdemeanours and felonies (to use the American terms). Or is it the same small percentage of...

In 1992 Denmark accepted 321 Palestinian refugees. The Danish government checked what happened to them in 2019 and it turned out that 64% of them had acquired a criminal record. I obviously don't support Nigel Farage, who was one of the biggest supporters of Brexit. But that doesn't mean that...

Sweden is one of the world's most liberal, permissive and tolerant countries. Until not so long ago it was one of the safest countries in the world and one of the most egalitarian. But the naive immigration policy of its socialist politicians have destroyed all this. Sweden now has one of the...

When writing about dangerous chemicals found in American fast food, it made me wonder why so many people eat that kind of junk food on a regular basis. I am in my 40s and I have always known since my childhood that junk food like McDonald's is bad for health. It's common knowledge in Belgium...

This is the conclusion of an American study published in October 2021. I am not surprised. That's not really news. I read before about the plastics McDonald's or KFC put in their nuggets for a Subway's in their sandwiches to "add cohesion" to the ingredients. That's why I almost never eat in...

It has been known for a while that exposure to some pesticides greatly increase the risk of developing Parkinson's Disease (PD). A 2023 study found that other chemicals used in dry cleaning also seem to have that effect. The most dangerous is trichloroethylene (TCE), but 2 other solvents...

Every year I see different companies making lists of the most powerful passports in the world. The most famous of them is probably the Henley Passport Index by Henley & Partners, which has been ranking countries according to the travel freedom allowed by those countries' ordinary passports for...

It may sound like a strange question. Many Westerners still have an image of Sub-Saharan Africa as an underdeveloped place where people live in huts and hunt with spears like in the early 20th century. But even if some tribes of hunter-gatherers survive in isolated parts of the continent, this...

I have been progressively adding new thread prefixes since adopting Xenforo instead of vBulletin a few months ago. Thread prefixes announce the topic category. This allowed me to reduce the number of subforums while keeping everything organised. For example in the European News & Hot topics...

Have you ever wondered how many ancestors you had 200 years ago, or 500 years ago, 1000 years ago, 2000 years ago? Venture to take a guess? It's easy enough to count how many ancestors we have after 3 generations (8 great-grand-parents), 4 generations (16 g-g-grandparents), etc. But what about...

War is expensive. It is all the more expensive when one's military uses the latest military technology as the US does. Since 2001 America has waged war especially in Afghanistan (between 2001 and 2021), in Iraq (from 2003 to 2011) and in Syria (2011 to present). A report from the Costs of War...

This was posted on Twitter by Archeohistories. The author of the post gave the following description. "Distribution of Ancient Greek Dialects, 500 BC : The image presented is a map depicting the distribution of ancient Greek dialects around 500 BC. This map not only illustrates the...

This is what the British newspaper The Economist says in its latest featured article. This may seem ironic considering that British people have voted for Brexit did it in great part to limit immigration. Here are a few excerpts from the article. Britain also has more varied foreign...

This year's report has just been published. As usual Nordic countries top the list, although Israel now managed to climb to the 5th place, ahead of Norway. I had analysed the 2018 report thoroughly at the time. Back then Israel ranked 11th. Kuwait rose from the 45th to 13th place in the last six...

I have been three times to China, but the first two were about 20 years ago. If there is one country that has changed beyond recognition in 20 years it is definitely China. New megacities have emerged from almost nothing. There are now skyscrapers over 4300 skyscrapers in China, about four times...

I felt the need to open a thread to rent about Christianity and religion in general. There were some really good quotes on Twitter.

If true, that would be terrible news for the world as a whole. Brain fog, poor memory and lower IQ would significantly affect the economy, reduce scientific research, and more generally cause a diminution of well-being and productivity. It could also lead to the election or worse politicians...

Here are some of the biggest construction projects at the moment.

About 80% of the food you find in supermarkets is ultra processed. This includes all breakfast cereals, the vast majority of frozen and ready dishes, juices and sodas, biscuits/cookies, snack bars, breadsticks, cakes and industrial breads, and many more things. The food in fast food restaurants...

Communication between Europeans is much more complicated than between, say, Americans. Obviously Europe has a lot of different languages. But even if everybody speaks the same language, for example English, misunderstandings often result from cultural differences in the way people express...