Rants:

Reuters has reported that Grammy-winning rapper Lil‘ Wayne pleaded guilty to attempted criminal possession of a weapon on Thursday. He will serve at least a year in prison for the crime. Ja Rule, another rapper who performed at the same show, was also arrested for possession of a weapon and has pleaded innocent. He is awaiting a court date.

Two special-education teachers from Montana were charged with assault of a minor after being accused of waterboarding a child with autism. According to ABC News, the mother of the child also accused the teachers of forcing him to eat his own vomit and to sit in his stool after he soiled himself.

Raves:

In a recent survey reported by Yahoo! News, men who voted for John McCain had their testosterone levels drop by a significant amount after the 2008 election. However, on the other side, men who voted for Barack Obama saw their testosterone levels remain the same after the election. The study explained this by saying, “Political elections are dominance competitions. When men win a dominance competition, their testosterone levels rise or remain stable to resist a circadian decline; when they lose, their testosterone levels fall.”

The Senate has now passed an expanded hate-crime law that makes it a federal crime to assault any individual based on his or her sexual orientation or gender identity. According to CNN, Joe Solmonese, president of the Human Rights Campaign, called the measure “our nation’s first major piece of civil-rights legislation for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.”