I was going to comment on this, but Ikram got there first with most of what I had to say. For the record, my views on the future of Israeli demographics owe a great deal to this study, which predicts that Orthodox Jews and Arabs will each be ~30 percent of the Israeli population in 2050. It's based on an extrapolation of current census figures and demographic trends that seems fairly sound, particularly in light of other indications that Arab and Jewish living standards are converging.

Keep in mind that there are groups with a vested interest in seeing the "safe" lead level lowered. The level was lowered from 25 to 10 in 1991, and many cities adopted aggressive lead paint removal programs at about the same time. There are now very few new cases of childhood lead poisoning at a level of 10 or higher - which means that the lawyers who were making a living suing landlords for failure to abate lead hazards have to find another line of work. If the medical and legal threshold for lead poisoning is reduced to a blood lead level of 5, then there will be a whole rash of new cases.

Conspiracy theory? Maybe. On the other hand, the lead poisoning prevention programs I mentioned above required legislation, and were the result of lead intoxication researchers working hand in hand with lawyers. Many of the top research physicians working on lead poisoning have worked closely with trial lawyers for a decade or more, and the influence has gone both ways. I wouldn't be surprised if there was at least some subtle impetus from the legal community to undertake this study.

The District Attorney of Westchester County, New York, is a Lebanese woman with an Italian husband. She looks more stereotypically Italian than he does.

Fiji and Mauritius both got two waves of Indian immigrants - agricultural laborers from Bihar and U-P in the 19th century, and Gujarati merchants in the 1920s. While neither country compares to Singapore, both are enormously successful by regional standards - Mauritius compares favorably to South Africa (or even Malaysia), and Fiji is certainly head and shoulders above Vanuatu or Tonga. Mauritius and Fiji are probably at least as wealthy compared to their nearest neighbors as Singapore is to Malaysia or Thailand. Given the resources available to them, I'd say that the Indians in Fiji and Mauritius have created prosperous societies.

Ashkenazic Jews are an ethnic, not a religious, minority. Orthodox Ashkenazic and Sephardic Jews differ only in a few matters of observance.

No, nothing that complicated. Click on "Who Is The Head Heeb?" on my sidebar and you'll see where the name came from.