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POPSObama's Gay Outreach: All Talk, No Action Well, just as I predicted, last night when he the addressed the annual dinner of the Human Rights Campaign, the all but de facto gay auxiliary of the Democratic National Committee, the President got his “standing ovation“.* The “cheering crowd” gave the Democrat a warm welcome even as he acknowledged “some policy changes he promised on the campaign trail are not coming as quickly as they expected.“ Promises, promises, but not a plan. That’s not enough for many gay activists, but it will win over the Washington-based leadership of HRC and other gay groups, ever eager to sing the praises of a politician with a (D) after his name who says the right things to their audiences. Of course, to those activists, with highfalutin language and that (D), it really doesn’t matter what he does. Once again, it was typical Obama, lofty words with little to show for them. Sickening. Wake up gay lefties....wake up.
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POPSA terminally ill girl is back with family and friends - thanks to FedEx
I don’t mean to use a human tragedy for political message purposes, but this had me crying with pride and sympathy – it is just touching. Sadly, it fits all too well with the current debate over government control vs individual choice (and responsibility). This giving part of America is poised to be snuffed out by Obamacare. Companies can decide on their own when it is time to just fill the need and forget the bottom line, as Fed Ex did in this case. I have no doubt a US Post Office manager or worker would jump into the breach and do the same if they could. But the difference here is a government run entity is bound by libraries full of regulations. They cannot make an exception, they cannot redirect resources. They cannot perform the simple act of human charity without permission. This little girl’s family did not have time for a waiting list like the long one in Canada. And the evil private company (for profit) stepped in and made it happen. Waaaahhhhhh corporations....wahhh
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POPSA Teachable Moment: Police Authority and Racism I know from experience that taking on the persona of a law-enforcement officer results in a surge of internalized boldness; it’s just part of the job. At times this is a necessity because police officers often find themselves in situations where a high degree of assertiveness is all that stands between them and losing control of a situation. I also know from personal experience that if police officers are not constantly reminded of the dangers of crossing the line through their use of their authority, then abuse of their power is a virtual certainty. Further, as with any minority (and police are a minority), associates tend to stick together. That police will back up one another, even when their fellow officers are wrong, is as dependable as sunrise.
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POPS"It’s The Vaccines Stupid!" "By countless scientific accounts, far more dangerous to human health than any reported incidences of Swine Flu are the dangers of severe health issues including paralysis, brain damage and even death arising from what is added to vaccines by virtually every major vaccine maker. Almost without exception, all commercial vaccines today contain various substances known as adjuvants designed to make the vaccine “work.” These adjuvants are the source of horrendous and sometimes deadly damage." More at source, make sure to read the article.
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POPSSelf Proclaimed Multitaskers Aren't that Good at Multitasking
Anyone who claims they can multitask is LYING. The human brain cannot multitask, PERIOD. You might think you're multitasking, but you are really switching between tasks in your brain. Every time you switch tasks, your brain has to reload the context of what it was last doing on that task. This is not a big deal for small tasks, as the state information is not that much. But the bigger (conceptually) a task is, the longer it takes to reload all the state information into your brain, and the bigger the efficiency hit against you is. If you find that you can do things no problem by switching tasks, it most likely means that what you're doing is not that mentally demanding, or you are not being effective in what you're doing. A perfect example is if you are surfing the web, watching TV, and twittering at the same time. You might be able to do all 3 of those tasks at once, but no one can argue that any of those things requires more than a sliver of brainpower.
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POPSMore on the Whackjob Science Czar the MSM Ignores
President Obama’s top science adviser, John P. Holdren, advocated the “de-development” of the United States in books he published in the 1970s. In the vision expressed by Holdren and his co-authors, the Ehrlichs, the need for “de-development” of the United States demanded a redistribtuion of wealth. “The need for de-development presents our economists with a major challenge,” they wrote. “They must design a stable, low-consumption economy in which there is a much more equitable distribution of wealth than in the present one. Redistribution of wealth both within and among nations is absolutely essential, if a decent life is to be provided to every human being.” Holdren, who is director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, made these comments in the 1973 book “Human Ecology,” which he co-authored with the Ehrlichs, long-time advocates of curtailing population growth. And Terry Jeffrey reported: President Obama’s top science adviser said in a book . .
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POPSThe Myth of Progress <<<Solitude is inimical to power, shuns power, seeks its own progress. A progress that is an illusion, enhancing the few and fooling the masses, is for the solitary the opposite of progress, for it does not consult nature or quiet the mind in order to begin reconsturcting the self. But the theory of progress is an old device masking power, and concealing what the 20th century creative souls — and those brave 19th century figures like Kierkegaard and Nietzsche — unmasked as lies about human nature. What is the alternative to progress for the grand institutions of today? It is a devolution to simplicity, to individuals and small social units, to natural industry and exchange, to a relationship to nature based on value and not exploitation or power. The alternative to progress is a devolution of artificial wealth, privilege, and legitimacy.
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POPSAn Open Letter to Closed Minds
A challenge to orthodoxy tends to be ignored at first. But if it gains popular support, the first move is to discredit and silence the challenger. “Belief” is the crux of the matter. No amount of evidence will change the consensus view until a sufficient number “convert” to a belief in the new theory. “It gets worse. As the evidence accumulates, the two camps will not only fail to reach consensus but actually be driven further apart - propelled by their different views ..And worst of all, there is no prospect of such a consensus unless the two sides can agree about the cause of the data.” Such a conclusion bodes ill for any attempt to change the status quo. An important scientific innovation rarely makes its way by gradually winning over and converting its opponents. What does happen is that its opponents gradually die out, and that the growing generation is familiarized with the new ideas from the beginning.” Applicable to both science and religion, I reckon. :)
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POPSDangers of NeuroBabble A very important point is being made in this article.While the materialist reduction of identity is as philosophically risible as it has always been, the ideological aspects of the discourses which see so much hot- eyed enthusiasm for popularised neuroscience require attention. The article concludes: "Hard-line identity theorists, and eliminativists above all, don’t appreciate how much they would change things if indeed we could come to believe and implement their theories. Our world would increasingly be leeched of meaning, morality, dignity and freedom, and if we rejected folk psychology in favour of scientific terminology about brain states, not only would we know less, not more, about ourselves; we would also have less to know about, because we would be less."
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POPSTweenbots – silly, sweet... and heartening Sweet in a non-cloying way, and a reminder of the basic inherent generosity and goodness of people. More: The results were unexpected. Over the course of the following months, throughout numerous missions, the Tweenbots were successful in rolling from their start point to their far-away destination assisted only by strangers. Every time the robot got caught under a park bench, ground futilely against a curb, or became trapped in a pothole, some passerby would always rescue it and send it toward its goal. Never once was a Tweenbot lost or damaged. Often, people would ignore the instructions to aim the Tweenbot in the “right” direction, if that direction meant sending the robot into a perilous situation. One man turned the robot back in the direction from which it had just come, saying out loud to the Tweenbot, "You can’t go that way, it’s toward the road.”
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POPSHow absurd is this; A patent on a human gene? How absurd is this; A patent on a human gene? I believe the patent law is way out of line. You would not believe what has been patented, from seeds, conventional plant varieties and ANIMAL SPECIES to herbs, spices, oils and sugarcane, they never got around to PATENTING marijuana for entertainment or medicinal purposes, they just outlawed that altogether. It wouldn't surprise me that sometime in the future the air we breathe will have a patent owned by some corporation who can thus charge a fee for BREATHING. I've got a good idea, why don't some big corporation take out a patent on GREED, they would own the whole GD world if they could do that. Please watch the video and sign a message of support to stop BIG PHARMA from taking patents out on human genes. http://thinkingblue.blogspot.com
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POPSSplenda causes weight gain, impairs digestion, and affects chemotherapy & other drugs More: As of 2006, only six human trials have been published on Splenda. Of these six trials, only two of the trials were completed and published before the FDA approved sucralose for human consumption, and the two published trials had a grand total of 36 total human subjects. 36 people sure doesn’t sound like many, but wait, it gets worse: only 23 total were actually given sucralose for testing, and here is the real kicker — The longest trial at this time had lasted only four days, and looked at sucralose in relation to tooth decay, not human tolerance. Even more shocking, the absorption of Splenda into the human body was studied on a grand total of six men! Based on that one human study, the FDA allowed the findings to be generalized as being representative of the entire human population. Including women, children, the elderly, and those with any chronic illness — none of whom were ever examined.
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POPSour missing chromosomes we have 46- our nearest ape relatives have 48- which led to the question- how could we have a common ancestor with great apes, but fewer chromosomes? They are not missing....they just fused, and have been found
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POPSThe seeing hand A nice experiment into the way the neural system operates. An autonomous internal dynamics, an autonomous environment, and a meeting line.
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POPSMedia Hype on Climate Change Is Nothing New "America in Longest Warm Spell Since 1776; Temperature Line Records a 25-year Rise" stated an article in the New York Times on March 27, 1933. The media of yesteryear was also not above injecting large amounts of fear and alarmism into their climate articles. An August 9, 1923 front page article in the Chicago Tribune declared: "Scientist Says Arctic Ice Will Wipe Out Canada." The article quoted a Yale University professor who predicted large parts of Europe and Asia would be "wiped out" and Switzerland would be "entirely obliterated." December 29, 1974 New York Times article on global cooling reported that climatologists believed "the facts of the present climate change are such that the most optimistic experts would assign near certainty to major crop failure in a decade."
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POPSAmnesty USA stops anti-Palestinian Kyl amendment Sen. Kyl proposed an amendment to the budget bill prohibiting use of any of its funds for assistance to Palestinian refugees resettling in the USA - the first time refugees would have been officially discriminated against by nationality in US law. 12,000 AIUSA volunteers emailed or faxed the Senate. Kyl withdrew it.
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POPSOf Dogs And People
"And it seems to me they are smiling at every manifestation of my problems. Likewise, I've been watching them. And although I of course don't take pleasure in their aches, pains and flatulence (which they themselves seem to regard with pleasure), I do notice. It's hard not to feel that we are vying, dry nose to wet nose, to win the first prize, the only prize, in "Last (Whatever) Standing. But the dogs have made it crystal clear that they have no interest in a truce and no intention of conceding defeat. In fact, they appear to have undertaken a hostile, life-lengthening training regime. For every step I take on one of our walks, they take four. For every power nap I take, they sleep for four days. I will fight this last battle honorably, and, should Providence decree that I precede my beloved companions to the hereafter, I will know as I breathe my last that I have run the race well. I also will take to my grave the knowledge of where the treats are hidden and that I've paid the groo
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POPSWhy kindness has become our forbidden pleasure? "What is to be done? Nothing, many would say. Human beings are innately selfish and that is that. Newspapers bombard us with scientific evidence to back up this pessimism. We read about greedy chimpanzees, selfish genes, ruthless mate-selection strategies, even about meerkats - those famously cooperative creatures - who instead of looking out for their fellows spend most of their time "watching their own backs". Richard Dawkins of "selfish gene" fame lays it on the line: "Human society based simply on the gene's law of universal ruthless selfishness would be a very nasty society in which to live. But unfortunately, however much we deplore something, this does not stop it being true ..." Yet Dawkins does not despair: "If you wish, as I do, to build a society in which individuals cooperate generously and unselfishly towards a common good, you can expect little help from biological nature. Let us try to teach generosity "
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POPSShame of War in Congo What's that line from Tears of the Sun - "God left Africa a long time ago?" Seems no one is shamed enough to do anything about Congo, the Sudan, or Zimbabwe?
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POPSbuddha baby flicks "much of Buddhist practice is about the refrain from excess - it is, after all, called "the Middle Path" - that is, it consists of stepping back from the entanglements of emotional attachment and aggressive desire, and understanding how to free oneself from these things by being more mindful and aware of them. Its teachings attempt to make us more human by questioning our usual human reactions."
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POPSU.S. Corporations are Ugly Americans American corporations pay foreign countries for rights to extract oil, gas, and minerals from within their borders. Those governments have done nothing to regulate oil company practices that pollute the environment and otherwise endanger the lives of local residents. The Bush administration, in their typically arrogant, misguided, neocon, "corporations-can-do-no-wrong" attitude, have turned a blind eye to how U.S. corporations (as representatives of our country) have done little to provide for the locals needs and security. The security for these U.S. corporations are local military who use villagers as forced laborers and freely rape local women and children. U.S. corporations, stalwarts of democracy and human rights that they are, also turn a blind eye as long as they can keep their bottom line healthy.
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POPSRock art He seems Indiana Jones :) but with an academic angle...
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POPSMoscow’s Plan is to Redraw the Map of Europe: Mikheil Saakashvili Since Russia’s invasion, its forces have been “cleansing” Georgian villages in both regions – including outside the conflict zone – using arson, rape and execution. Human rights groups have documented these actions. It hopes the west will forget ethnic cleansing in Abkhazia drove out more than three-quarters of the local population – ethnic Georgians, Greeks, Jews and others – leaving the minority Abkhaz in control. Last week Vaclav Havel, the former Czech president, put us on alert: “Russia does not really know where it begins and where it ends.” He noted that the Moscow regime is “a lot more sophisticated” than the Soviets under Leonid Brezhnev. He should know – he was on the front line the last time Russia invaded a European country. Backing Georgia with Europe’s political and financial institutions is a powerful response. The most potent western response to Russia is to stay united and firm by providing immediate material and political support.
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POPSLifelike Animation Breakthrough AMD last week released a new chip with a billion transistors that will be able to show off creations such as Emily by allowing a much greater number of computations per second. "If you're trying to process the graphics in a photo-realistic animation, in real-time, there's a lot of computation involved," said Mr Koduri. He said that AMD's new chip - the Radeon HD 4870 X2 - was able to process 2.4 teraflops of information per second, meaning it had a capability similar to a computer that - only 12 years ago - would have filled a room. AMD's chip fits inside a standard PC. But he said that the line between what was real and what was rendered would not be blurred completely until 2020.
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POPS"How Your Brain Can Control Time ??" "Even in a healthy brain, time is elastic. Staring at an angry face for five seconds feels longer than staring at a neutral one. It may be no coincidence that the pulse-generating neurons are directly wired into regions of the brain that handle emotionally charged sights and sounds. And recent experiments by Amelia Hunt at Harvard University hint that we may actually backdate our mental time line every time we move our eyes."
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POPSHumanity Was Genetically Divided For 100,000 Years the study provides insight into the early demographic history of human populations before they moved out of Africa. “These early human populations were small and isolated from each other for many tens of thousands of years,” says Rosset. MtDNA, inherited down the maternal line, was used in 1987 to discover the age of the famous “Mitochondrial Eve,” the most recent common female ancestor of everyone alive today. This work has since been extended to show unequivocally that “Mitochondrial Eve” was an African woman who lived sometime during the past 200,000 years.
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