"Alabama’s reputation has also taken a huge hit just when it is trying to lure international businesses. No matter how officials may try to tempt foreign automakers, say, with low taxes and wages, the state is already infamous as a regional capital of xenophobia." —It's funny how times change. It was only 40 years ago that Alabama was infamous as a regional capital of racism.

Some people are very concerned about the next invasive species vying to be the DEATH OF AMERICA!!!, the brown marmorated stink bug, also known as the Asian stink bug. "This is something we're calling 'the perfect pest,'" says University of Maryland entomologist Mike Raupp. "Because it feeds on fruit, it feeds on corn, it feeds on soy beans, it feeds on vegetables and it comes into your house." More, umm, xenophobically, Valeria Studal of New Jersey's Star-Ledger writes:

It's good to remember-for reasons both depressing and, in the misery-loves-company way, oddly comforting-that other countries struggle with the same issues America struggles with. Take Sweden, for instance, where a television station's refusal to air a clearly racist television ad promoting an anti-immigrant political party has raised an interesting debate over censorship-and calls from neighboring Denmark for international election observers to monitor the September 19th vote. Here's the ad, from the Sweden Democrats party.