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POPSWhy our dogs beg at the table Operant conditioning? "It is a dog’s natural inclination to avoid the leaders of the pack when the leaders are eating. Not doing so in a real pack situation is a good way to get bitten. If your dog sees you as the boss, it will treat you with this same respect. However, even dogs that normally are respectful can easily be taught to beg at the table. All you have to do is occasionally give them a sample from your plate. Presto. A beggar is born. The solution? Never feed a dog from the table. It’s a hard behavior to control once started. So don’t start. And don’t let anyone else start, either. It’s really that simple. Start the holidays with well-behaved pets. Keep it that way by not feeding them from the table."
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POPS Five Japanese Gardens Learn More… Explore the Portland Japanese Garden, discover a fresh perspective, and learn about Japanese arts and culture through our online articles and expert columns.
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POPSWe Must Be On Guard For Extremism "When dealing with soldiers far from their homes and families and subject to the greatest imaginable stress, the Army needs to be on the watch for the predatory inroads of any form of political or religious extremism -- whether it be the jihadism to which Hasan was drawn or the Christian identity nonsense that inspired Timothy McVeigh."
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POPSIn Her Simplistic Universe "She has also chosen to ignore the views of religious scholars who do not share her incurious perspective. Yet, Kern is capable of being a cafeteria Christianist."
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POPSH1N1 (Swine 'Flu) overhyped After an otherwise healthy 13-year-old boy died of a H1N1 infection, demand for the vaccine jump drastically after the heavy media attention what was given to a horribly tragic, but still singular death from H1N1. Clinics were forced to shut down due to lack of supplies, and people who really should have gotten the vaccine first (like young children, pregnant mothers and seniors) lost out. H1N1 Influenza is a mere fraction of the virility of normal seasonal 'flu, and has fewer serious cases and deaths than seasonal 'flu. The normal, sensible steps you take to avoid getting the 'flu every year will work as well for H1N1. Yes, it looks serious when the media focuses on individual deaths from H1N1, but such coverage is deceptive. A few hundred deaths, Canada-side from H1N1 is tragic, but seasonal 'flu will claim several thousand, as it does every year. Just keep some perspective. Be aware; be mindful, but don't be scared. Think sensibly.
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POPSFighting Fraud
To put it into perspective, ACORN received about $53 million of federal funding over the past 15 years. Meanwhile, Blackwater, the private military contractor to which the U.S. government has farmed out security duties, may owe the government as much as $55 million for allegedly failing to fulfill the terms of one of its federal contracts. Yet Blackwater (now known as Xe), a company that has five of its employees facing murder charges in a massacre of Iraqi civilians in 2007, got a $217 million contract from the Obama administration to provide security in Iraq. The former Haliburton subsidiary, KBR, got $80 million in contract bonuses to provide electrical wiring in Iraq -- wiring that has fatally electrocuted 16 soldiers and two contractors. They haven’t been defunded by Congress. According to the nonpartisan Project on Government Oversight, the biggest three defense contractors -- Lockheed Martin, Boeing and Northrop Grumman -- have been cited 109 times for misconduct since 199
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POPSThe Democrats have lost the source of their passion This point by Paul Krugman is so true. Many people who voted for Obama, including myself, did so primarily out of hope that his spirit and belief in change deserved a chance to succeed. My candid perspective is that his spirit began to diminish during his swearing in and has continued to dissipate ever since. It's hard to understand and very frustrating...but i think my feelings of disappointment are shared by many in this country.
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POPSThis Mob Is Big in Japan Most Americans think of Japan as a law-abiding and peaceful place, as well as our staunch ally, but reporting on the underworld gave me a different perspective.
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POPSMy Take on Google Wave Let me know if you are on Wave and if not let me know if you are interested. Should I get more invites I'll keep you in mind.
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POPSYour Babies Are Killing Our Planet!
Monday, October 26, 2009 Moonbattery in the U.K: "The worst thing that you or I can do for the planet is to have children" From the U.K. Guardian: Fewer British babies would mean a fairer planet. The worst thing that you or I can do for the planet is to have children. If they behave as the average person in the rich world does now, they will emit some 11 tonnes of CO every year of their lives. In their turn, they are likely to have more carbon-emitting children who will make an even bigger mess. If Britain is to meet the government's target of an 80% reduction in our emissions by 2050, we need to start reversing our rising rate of population growth immediately. And if that makes sense, why not start cutting population everywhere? Are condoms not the greenest technology of all? Actually, if you ask a true ghoul, it would be abortion, not condoms. In fact, scratch abortion, just cull all humans without discriminating based on anything other than productivity
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POPSObama Ties GWB on Golf Just for my own perspective purposes. While our troops w-a-i-t for Obama to decide, while the jobless rates apparently are soaring, while $$$ is being printed as fast as humanly possible and given away for stupidity's sake, etc.... our Commander-in-Chief continues in the joys & perks of a figurehead.
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POPSAHIP Declares War On the U.S. Read the article and then DO SOMETHING! Following are a couple more paragraphs to whet your curiosity. "For many years America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) have been fighting an undeclared war on US citizens. According to the Harvard Study cited recently by Alan Grayson (D-Fla.), lack of health insurance and denials of legitimate claims kill more Americans each month than died in the attacks on the World Trade Center. When Al-Qaeda or Nazi Germany declared war on the United States, their intent was to kill US citizens and to cause economic collapse in the United States. That’s how a modern war works. The study released by PWC and commissioned by AHIP reveals the arsenal the Health Insurance companies plan to use in the coming war. They are going to kill Americans by putting the price of health care out of reach. They are planning to kill their paying customers by finding new ways to deny care."
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POPSReady to Revolt: Oath Keepers pledge to prevent dictatorship in U.S. They are armed and promise to keep the oath they took to protect the Constitution. Founder Stece Rhoades: "We say if the American people decide it's time for a revolution, we'll fight with you." That type of rhetoric has caught the attention of groups that track extremist activity in the United States. In a July report titled "Return of the Militias," the Alabama-based Southern Poverty Law Center singled out Oath Keepers as "a particularly worrisome example of the Patriot revival." SPLC now monitors Oath Keepers on its Web site blog "Hatewatch." Oath Keepers is not preaching violence or government overthrow, Rhodes said. On the contrary, it is asking police and the military to lay down their arms in response to unlawful orders. Group supporters compare President Obama's America to Adolf Hitler's Germany. They also liken Obama to England's King George III during the American Revolution. One member calls Obama "the domestic enemy the Constitution is talking about."
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POPSDo our brains interpret our values and beliefs as facts (objective truths)?
Such messages caused activation in the brain region that is responsible for error detection. So in other words (and yes, I am grossly simplifying here), it was as if people's brain's were indicating "error, error, error; this message does not compute." This is consistent with research by Emily Pronin (psychology professor at Princeton University), which shows that people of all beliefs see their own beliefs as LESS biased than others. In other words, republicans see themselves as less biased, and so do democrats, and for that matter, so do mailman, coperate CEO's and homeless people. I think this goes a long way in explaining the depth and extent to which people defend their beliefs. Perhaps, Berger and Luckmann are right; we do live, in some sense, in alternative forms of reality. Sure, we all know a rock won't bite us and 2 + 2 = 4, but what I "know" (George W. Bush was lousy) is not what many Republicans "knows" (George W. Bush was a good president).
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POPSSelf-loathing FTA: Here is a trick: Recognize that there are different ways to look at things. Realize that you tend to bump into elephants from the same perspective, characterologically, but that you can change perspective and see things in a different way, just as "real." Understand that you can change your perspective and therefor your reality and that from some perspectives you are more likely to be happy and safe than from others. Resolve that you are going to practice trying to look at things in a variety of ways and pick your reality.
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POPSI'm sorry to Debbyski I made this comment to debbyski "Sick. Nothing gets under my skin (black skin) more than a bunch of white people using the cry of racist against those who abhor this administration. Am I a racist? I prefer to say you are a racist because you are of a group who seem to discharge the word so casually. Where is your evidence that people who disagree with Obama are racist? I know what a black racist believes and from my experience with black racists the charge that Obama is a racist holds much more water." I publicly apologize to debbyski for any misunderstanding. I was just giving my opinion and perspective. If you want to keep me from commenting on your clips, that is ok. Just know I did not mean anything personal with my comment.
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POPSMark Morford: The gang rape and 30 Republican senators who don't give a damn about battered women
More: Turns out, when faced with such vileness, all filters fail. All balance is thrown off. You thought you had some sort of way to process and attain perspective? You are proven wrong. So perhaps all we can do is ponder how pathetic and sad these various senator's lives must be, how these bitter old men will now go home at night and announce around the dinner table that, yes, today they worked very hard to help improve the welfare of the nation by essentially enabling rape and sexual abuse, tried their darndest to prevent women who've been viciously attacked from having much legal recourse. And lo, Satan will chuckle happily. Then maybe these senators will try and hug their wives, or their daughters. And maybe, if there's any justice in the universe, their wives and daughters will slap them as hard as humanly possible, lock them in a shipping container, and never let them touch them again.
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