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POPSMe, Myself and I The generally accepted linguistic explanation for the capital “I” is that it could not stand alone, uncapitalized, as a single letter, which allows for the possibility that early manuscripts and typography played a major role in shaping the national character of English-speaking countries. So what effect has capitalizing “I” but not “you” — or any other pronoun — had on English speakers? It’s impossible to know, but perhaps our individualistic, workaholic society would be more rooted in community and quality and less focused on money and success if we each thought of ourselves as a small “i” with a sweet little dot. There have, of course, been plenty of rich and dominant cultures throughout history that have gotten by just fine without capitalizing the first-person pronoun or ever writing it down at all. There have also been cultures that committed atrocities even while capitalizing “you.”
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POPSGeorgia Woman Faces Eviction Because of Decades-Old Sex Act Funny, isn’t it, how we can have an administration that destroys our economic infrastructure and violates the Constitution and escapes punishment and accountability; yet, a woman who had oral sex with her boyfriend stands to lose everything because of a few moments of mutually consensual pleasure.
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POPSWhen Human Rights Extend to Nonhumans The 300 apes in Spanish zoos would not be freed, but better conditions would be mandated. Meanwhile, even in democracies, the law accords diminished rights to many humans: children, prisoners, the insane, the senile. Teenagers may not vote, philosophers who slip into dementia may be lashed to their beds, courts can order surgery or force-feeding. Spain’s Catholic bishops attacked the vote as undermining a divine will that placed humans above animals. One said such thinking led to abortion, euthanasia and ethnic cleansing.
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POPSThe 14 characteristics of a fascist society Dr. Lawrence Britt, a political scientist, wrote an article about fascism which appeared in Free Inquiry magazine, a journal of humanist thought. Dr. Britt studied the fascist regimes of Hitler (Germany), Mussolini (Italy), Franco (Spain), Suharto (Indonesia), and Pinochet (Chile). He found the regimes all had 14 things in common, and he calls these the identifying characteristics of fascism. The article is titled "Fascism Anyone?," and appears in Free Inquiry’s Spring 2003 issue on page 20.
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POPSBreaking rules makes your brain light up. They write their findings could have implications for understanding the behaviour of psychopaths. They mention the activity regarding subjects that are presented with the possibility of punishment for their actions. Should guilt be another focus of this study? Guilt is related to both the action, and the fear of punishment. There is the idea that a psychopath has a conscience that is dysfunctional, but if this research leads to means if inducing subjects to condemn themselves, for failing to comply with arbitrary regulation, what can this research contribute to the development of crowd control, and social engineering aspirations? I know this seems alarmist, but they are trying to gather what they can from the location of a thought. When we have trouble explaining consciousness. While the conscious mind may be the tip of the ice berg, we have no idea how much ice there is.
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POPSWhy the Brain Follows the Rules
Not surprisingly, the threat of punishment made people act more fairly. In the “punishment threat condition” people split the money close to equally. However, when Person B had no recourse, the people given the money acted very differently and gave away, on average, less than 10 percent of the money. When the researchers looked at the brain activity of people playing this simple game, they found a consistent pattern. One region in the frontal lobes, the orbitofrontal cortex, seemed to be responsible for evaluating the potential for punishment. In other words, it figured out whether or not violating the social norm would get us in trouble. A second brain region, the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, was responsible for inhibiting the natural tendency to keep most of the money (this would be the greedy thing to do) if this action might lead to future punishment. Interestingly, these brain areas only were activated when the threat of punishment came from a real person, and not a compute
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POPSTexas will Execute 10 Men in 30 days This is the worst place of the free world for execution, this is not just the worst place for America," he said of Texas. Before the state revised such laws in 2001, a defendant could be represented by a divorce lawyer with no experience in criminal prosecutions, and judges were not required to instruct juries of alternative punishments such as life in prison without parole, he said. Nine of the 10 to die this month were sentenced before 2001. Mr Halperin claimed "judges are very happy to get rid of these people as quickly as possible." He described a sort of year-end catch-up
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POPSThe student asked why Bush wasn't IMPEACHED, for that he was TASERED I can hear the conservatives yelling all over the blogesphere, THE NUT DESERVED WHAT HE GOT... I wonder what they would be yelling if it had happened to one of them or someone they loved. I watched the tape of the young student more times than I could stand to watch and still I could not see a reason for such a harsh punishment. Some believe we are becoming a police state with all the tasering going on by those who are suppose to protect us. I say, we're not becoming a police state ... WE ARE A POLICE STATE. I hope the American Civil Liberties Union, will get involved in this case it is just so outrageous. No one will want to allow their son or daughter to attend anything political... A closing of the minds of the young who are attending college so their minds can be opened, will be the result. It was a chilling event!
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POPS1 in 3 Female Recruits RAPED by fellow Soldiers in "this man's army"
There is a deeper problem of widespread abuse and a system that protects the criminals. Unfortunately, the abuse in the recruitment system is prescient of military service, where a third of women who serve will be raped by fellow soldiers. It's high time that girls courted by military recruiters are kept out of harm's way here at home. Compare this with highly publicized abuse cases involving Catholic priests. Recruiters given administrative punishment do not. Ironically, priests aren't fixtures in most public schools but military recruiters are. Recruiters have unprecedented access to girls thanks to the No Child Left Behind Act which demands that public schools turn over student contact data to military recruiters so they can "work their market." The majority of school districts in the country have relaxed rules that allow recruiters to come and go at will. So more young people have personal and sustained contact with recruiters. by Former Army Specialist Aimee Allison
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POPSExecution as human sacrifice A very interesting interview with historian Thomas Cahill where he argues that execution, which shows no deterrent qualities, is not punishment but is likely a deeply held, ancient behavioral need to kill that was acted out in ancient societies as human sacrifices.
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POPSIsrael Using Cluster Bombs on Gaza Cluster bombs do not "target" militants tightly, urban areas especially. "Collateral damage" is absolutely guaranteed. More evidence that Israel is not making war on just Hamas, but Palestinians in their "collective punishment" tactics. The first pic was posted on Drudge. The last link in this clipmark has posted the CNN video showing general news of the Israeli attacks on Gaza which inadvertantly captured these bombs in action. 93 nations have banned them, except for US, Russia, and Israel.
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POPSGaza goes dark. Food supplies limited. Gads: Collective punishment. Apartheid. The slow starvation of over a million people right in front of our eyes. And Bush just returned from Israel last week, with all the bull*hit words of yada yada blagh blagh peace bull*shit they've been feeding us for decades. The elections can come soon enough. Sorry Gaza. Really sorry.
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POPSProposed law to ban spanking Hooray for more government control. We can't be trusted to make any decisions anymore. I welcome the big inclusive handbook for Government Sanctioned Childrearing. Do you think NY and CA will get together and propose criminalizing feeding transfats to a child? Wouldn't it be safer and smarter to just take our kids away at birth and put them in a Government Controlled Childcare Facility? Why take a risk that parents might screw something up?
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POPSCan a 13-year-old refuse treatment? "How old is old enough to decide whether to live or die? Priscilla Alderson, professor of childhood studies at the Institute of Education, says her research had found that even very young children could give or withhold informed consent to medical treatment. Decisions about treatment, or even about whether to live or die, cannot be based on age, she argues. "Our research has found that age isn't a helpful criterion - but experience is," she says. She has found that even at four years old, a child who has diabetes can understand the principle of insulin treatment - and it is vital they do understand or they risk interpreting the pain they as some kind of parental punishment."
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POPSWaterboarding Demo in Congress !? To Prove not Torture!? "In the war crimes tribunals that followed Japan's defeat in World War II, the issue of waterboarding was sometimes raised. In 1947, the U.S. charged a Japanese officer, Yukio Asano, with war crimes for waterboarding a U.S. civilian. Asano was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor. "'All of these trials elicited compelling descriptions of water torture from its victims, and resulted in severe punishment for its perpetrators,' writes Evan Wallach in the Columbia Journal of Transnational Law." Begs the question. How could he be charged in WW2 with the WAR CRIME of waterboarding? The recipient was a civilian seemed to be the point? Well so are the detainees in Guantanamo Bay. If there were POWs then it would NOT be a WAR CRIME but as Bush says they are not POWs then it is a WAR CRIME.
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POPSAmerica's "BRUTAL Approach to Punishment. " Inextricably linked to the long history of racial inequality, with blacks put away in numbers vastly disproportionate to their overall population. The states with the highest ratio of prisoners per population are all former slave states with long traditions of jailhouse brutality, chain gangs and other barbaric practices: Louisiana (816 prisoners per 100,000 people), Texas (694) and Mississippi (669). In many states, blacks are up to 15 times as likely as whites to find themselves behind bars. In Florida, one in three adult black men has a criminal record. Some trends are more recent - tied, in particular, to the mania for tough-on-crime legislation that has swept state after state in the past 25 years. The national prison population up 400% since 1980, the increase fuelled in particular by the "war on drugs" and incarceration of petty drug offenders. Exacerbated a host of problems from overcrowding to prison rape to the formation of ultra-violent prison gangs, many racial
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POPSTheists Will Deny This! Theists will dust off the oft repeated mantra that without eternal punishment in hell people just can't behave. The law must come from God. Totally baseless and false but they'll drag it out anyway.
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