This is the funniest thing I've read in a while. It's an article from teh Wall Street Journal about how democrats are aborting all their voters and that's why they're losing elections. In effect, they're encouraging political parties to outbreed each other. Plus the statistics and logical reasoning are laughable. It could be a fun to have a "find the flaws" sort of game if you want to play.
The Empty Cradle Will Rock
How abortion is costing the Democrats voters--literally.
BY LARRY L. EASTLAND
Monday, June 28, 2004 12:01 a.m. EDT
More than 40 million legal abortions have been performed and documented in the 30 years since the U.S. Supreme Court declared abortion legal. The debate remains focused on the legality and morality of abortion. What's largely ignored is a factual analysis of the political consequences of 40 million abortions. Consider:
• There were 12,274,368 in the Voting Age Population of 205,815,000 missing from the 2000 presidential election, because of abortions from 1973-82.
• In this year's election, there will be 18,336,576 in the Voting Age Population missing because of abortions between 1972 and 1986.
• In the 2008 election, 24,408,960 in the Voting Age Population will be missing because of abortions between 1973-90.
These numbers will not change. They are based on individual choices made--aggregated nationally--as long as 30 years ago. Look inside these numbers at where the political impact is felt most. Do Democrats realize that millions of Missing Voters--due to the abortion policies they advocate--gave George W. Bush the margin of victory in 2000?
The number of abortions accumulate in size and political impact as the years roll along. Like an avalanche that picks up speed, mass, and power as it thunders down a mountain, the number of Missing Voters from abortion changes the landscape of politics. The absence of the missing voters may not be noticed, but that doesn't mean its political impact disappears. As seen during a famine, what no longer exists becomes as relevant as what does.
Let's begin with the obvious: Children born in any given year arrive at voting age in 18 years; conversely, children not born in a given year are "Missing Voters" 18 years later. Permanently so, unless someone discovers a way to give birth to a teenager in a nine-month gestation period. This table gives the number of Missing Voters from abortion and election years affected:
Table 1: Abortions in the U.S., 1973-90
Years
Abortions
Aggregated Election
Affected
1973-74 1,643,200 1,643,200 1992
1975-78 4,939,800 6,583,000 1996
1979-82 6,202,800 12,785,800 2000
1983-86 6,314,800 19,100,600 2004
1987-90 6,325,400 25,426,000 2008
The question arises: Who would these Missing Voters have been if they had reached voting age? What would their values have been? How would they have voted? What impact would they have had on the great debates in America, including the abortion debate? Here's what we know from several generations of social science research about children:
• They tend to absorb the values of their parents.
• They tend to have the same political views as their family (parents, siblings, immediate relatives) and share common views on political causes.
• They tend to develop the same lifestyle as their family.
I remember the guy at my 30th high school class reunion who looked over the people there and remarked, "I can't believe I came in person, while everyone else sent their parents!"
With these factors in mind, the internationally respected survey research firm Wirthlin Worldwide was commissioned to ask 2,000 respondents in a stratified random sample of adults the following question: "As far as you know, has anyone close to you had an abortion?" The emphasis here was on "close to you" in order to bring to mind only those people inside the respondents' circle of socio-demographically homogeneous family and friends.
Of the 2,000 respondents, 636 responded "yes." The various socio-demographic characteristics of these respondents were then imposed on the abortion statistics (Table 1, above), with a special emphasis on the 2000 and 2004 general elections to see what impact they likely would have made had the Missing Voters been present to vote in those two elections.
There were 105,405,100 votes cast for president in the 2000 general election, representing 51.2% of the Voting Age Population. The Missing Voters would have been 6,033,097 based on that portion of the 51.2% represented by (at their lower voting level) 18-24 year olds. This means that Missing Voters would have been 4.48% of all actual voters in 2000.
Given the extremely close result in 2000, these voters could have been a crucial factor in the outcome. This is borne out when viewed by political party as defined in the Wirthlin survey.
There is a significant difference between Republicans with someone close to them who have had an abortion, and Democrats with someone close to them who have had an abortion:
Table 2: Missing Republicans vs. Missing Democrats
Party % of total abortions % of party w/abortions Party as % of electorate Party loss/gain
Republican 35% 28% 39% +4
Independent 16% 30% 17%
Democrat 49% 36% 44% -5
This tells us:
• Republicans have fewer abortions than their proportion of the population, Democrats have more than their proportion of the population. Democrats account for 30% more abortions than Republicans (49% vs. 35%).
• The more ideologically Democratic the voters are (self-identified liberals), the more abortions they have. The more ideologically Republican the voters are (self-identified conservatives), the fewer abortions they have.
This isn't particularly surprising given the core constituencies of both political parties. But translating percentages into numbers for the purpose of evaluating their impact on politics makes the importance of these numbers real. It's one thing to quote percentages and statistics, it's quite another to look at actual human beings. For example:
• There are 19,748,000 Democrats who are not with us today. (49.37 percent of 40 million).
• There are 13,900,000 Republican who are not with us today. (34.75 percent of 40 million).
• By comparison, then, the Democrats have lost 5,848,000 more voters than the Republicans have.
These Missing Americans--and particularly the millions of Missing Voters--when compounded over time are of enormous political consequence:
Table 3: Missing voters by political party, 2000 general election
Republican 2,096,406
Independent 958,086
Democrat 2,978,605
Total 6,033,097
Let's look at the 2000 election to see what those 6,033,097 Missing Voters meant to its outcome. What would these Missing Voters have meant to the election in Florida?
Table 4: Florida 2000, with and without Missing Voters
Candidate Vote Missing
voters Combined
vote
Bush 2,912,790 107,799 3,020,589
Gore 2,912,253 153,163 3,065,416
In the actual popular vote for president in the 2000 general election in Florida, George W. Bush was declared the winner by 537 votes. But if the 260,962 Missing Voters of Florida had been present to vote, Al Gore would have won by 45,366 votes. Missing Voters--through decisions made in the 1970s and early 1980s, encouraged and emboldened by the feminist movement at the height of its power--altered the outcome of the U.S. presidency a generation later, in a way proponents of legal abortion could not have imagined.
Examining these results through a partisan political lens, the Democrats have given the Republicans a decided advantage in electoral politics, one that grows with each election. Moreover, it is an advantage that they can never regain. Even if abortion were declared illegal today, and every single person complied with the decision, the advantage would continue to grow until the 2020 election, and would stay at that level throughout the voting lifetime of most Americans living today.
The next question is: What do these numbers tell us about the 2004 election? If we use the seven closest states from the 2000 election as our guide, we can see what these Missing Voters would do to the vote in each state. This is important because most analysts today believe that the 2004 election is likely to be a replay of the 2000 election, except with an incumbent Republican president this time. Given the usual advantages of incumbency, the swing of marginal states from 2000--shoring up Republican victories and tipping the scales from Democrat to Republican in Democratic states--may very well determine the popular and electoral outcome in 2004.
The popular vote in these seven states, with 63 electoral votes in 2000, was less than 1% apart between the two candidates. By adding the votes of the Missing Voters, Democrats could have picked up Florida, and solidified their vote in the other six states (where election challenges could certainly have been seriously considered). The Democrats could have increased their popular and electoral count beyond the scrutiny of the courts and "the court of public opinion."
Table 5: The seven closest states from 2000, with Missing Voters added
State/EVs Bush 2000 Gore 2000 Missing voters 2000/revised 2004 totals
Florida
25 (27) 2,912,790 2,912,253 R: 107,799
D: 153,163 '00: R by 537
'04: D by 45,366
Iowa
7 634,373 638,517 R: 23,556
D: 33,469 '00: D by 4,144
'04: D by 14,057
Nevada
4 (5) 301,575 279,978 R: 10,762
D: 15,291 '00: R by 21,597
'04: R by 17,068
New Hampshire
4 273,559 266,348 R: 9,992
D: 14,196 '00: R by 7,211
'04: R by 3,006
New Mexico
5 286,417 286,783 R: 10,608
D: 15,072 '00: D by 366
'04: D by 4,830
Oregon
7 713,577 720,342 R: 26,536
D: 37,703 '00: D by 6,765
'04: D by 17,932
Wisconsin
11 (10) 1,237,279 1,242,987 R: 45,900
D: 65,216 '00: D by 5,708
'04: D by 25,023
This table shows the actual vote from 2000, then shows what the change would be in 2004 with all else remaining the same, except that the Missing Voters were added. Numbers in parentheses are 2004 electoral votes.
A similar scenario can be constructed for the U.S. Senate races this fall. The Republican advantages are real: more Democrats (19) are up than Republicans (15), more Democrats are retiring than Republicans (and from advantageous states for Republicans), and Republicans usually do better in a presidential election year. Generally accepted "givens" are:
• Incumbents typically win. In fact, 96% of incumbent U. S. Senators win re-election. The McCain-Feingold legislation will not change this. No legislation passed in the name of reform--including the 1974 post-Watergate campaign finance reform legislation--has ever increased the challenger advantage or lessened the incumbent advantage, no matter what the intended goal.
• In open-seat contests, the party vacating the position cannot "hand over" the seat to the new party nominee. Traditional factors are far more important, such as a strong candidate, solid organization, appealing issues and sound finance. Still, long-term party allegiance is a major factor.
Consequently, the impact of Missing Voters could be considerable in states where the electorate is evenly divided between the two parties over a period of elections. Consider the open seats whose incumbents have chosen not to run for re-election. The following figures represent all votes cast in those states in 1996 and 2000 in the last two presidential year general elections for candidates to Congress--a traditional bellwether for predicting base federal candidate vote.
Table 6: Open Senate seats, 2004
State Incumbent Party GOP adv/disadv
Colorado Ben Nighthorse Campbell R (R) 1.122
Florida Bob Graham D (D) 1.202
Georgia Zell Miller D (R) 0.970
Illinois Peter Fitzgerald R (D) 0.941
Louisiana John Breaux D (D) 0.981
North Carolina John Edwards D (R) 1.050
Oklahoma Don Nickles R (R) 1.151
South Carolina Fritz Hollings D (R) 1.096
The party of the retiring senator is listed first; the party of the state's other senator is in parentheses.
If voting patterns in the past two presidential elections (combined) hold true for 2004, then five of these states should be an advantage for the GOP: Colorado, Florida, North Carolina, Oklahoma and South Carolina. Conversely, three states would lean Democratic: Georgia, Illinois and Louisiana.
What do the Missing Voters take away from the Democrats in each state?
Table 7: Missing Voters (net) in 2004 open Senate races
Colorado 12,013
Florida 37,783
Georgia 17,783
Illinois 78,845
Louisiana 15,520
North Carolina 48,980
Oklahoma 20,983
South Carolina 22,005
Most major reporting and analyzing institutions would rate each of the open seats, with the possible exception of Illinois, as "too close to call" at this stage of the campaign. When election time comes, these Missing Voters will be missed. The most expensive campaign a candidate will ever run, the adage goes, is the one he or she loses. For half of these candidates, this will be that most expensive campaign.
Abortion has caused missing Democrats--and missing liberals. For advocates so fundamentally committed to changing the face of conservative America, liberals have been remarkably blind to the fact that every day the abortions they advocate dramatically decrease their power to do so. Imagine the number of followers that their abortion policies eliminate who, over the next several decades, would have emerged as the new liberal thinkers, voters, adherents, fund-raisers and workers for their cause.
Table 8: Missing by ideology
Ideology % of pop % of total abortions % of group having abortions
Liberal 37% 47% 41%
Moderate 5% 5% 31%
Conservative 59% 48% 26%
Look at the results:
• Six out of 10 Americans call themselves conservatives. Only a quarter of them are having abortions.
• A little more than one-third of Americans call themselves liberals. More than four in 10 are having abortions.
• This means that liberals are having one third more abortions than conservatives.
By combining party and ideology, an even sharper contrast comes into focus:
Table 9: Liberal Democrats vs. conservative Republicans
Ideology/party % of pop % of total abortions % of group having abortions
Liberal/Democrat 40% 48% 3 8%
Moderate/Independent 11% 10% 30%
Conservative/Republican 49% 41% 27%
Liberal Democrats are having both more abortions--and more abortions as a percentage of their ideological and political group--than either of the other groupings.
As liberals and Democrats fervently seek new voters and supporters through events, fund-raisers, direct mail and every other form of communication available, they achieve results minuscule in comparison to the loss of voters they suffer from their own abortion policies. It is a grim irony lost on them, for which they will pay dearly in elections to come.
Mr. Eastland is managing director of LEA Management Group LLC, a public policy research organization. This article appears in the June issue of The American Spectator.
This is a FASCINATING article on how the mind works and the simple fact that humans are not robots.
"Mind Reading: The new science of decision making. It's not as rational as you think The fMRI captures the interplay of fear, anger, greed and altruism in our reporter's money matters"
By Jerry Adler
NewsweekJuly 5 issue - Flat on my back, my eyes shrouded with LED goggles and my ears encased in headphones, I was trundled into the maw of an fMRI machine in a basement lab at the California Institute of Technology. The business end of an fMRI is a giant cylindrical magnet, similar to the MRI machines doctors use to diagnose tumors, but with the added ability to show changes in brain activity as they happen—hence the "f," which stands for "functional." In the magnet's powerful field, blood sloshing back and forth inside my head reveals its presence control room next door are Steven Quartz, a Caltech neuroscientist, and Colin Camerer, an economist, who are looking inside my brain to help understand some of the most vexing problems in postmodern society—irrational market bubbles, intractable Third World poverty and loser brothers-in-law who want to borrow $5,000 to open a franchised back-rub parlor. My brain was helping science explain why, despite centuries of progress in economic theory since Adam Smith, actual human beings so often refuse to behave as equations say they should.
For all its intellectual power and its empirical success as a creator of wealth, free-market economics rests on a fallacy, which economists have politely agreed among themselves to overlook. This is the belief that people apply rational calculations to economic decisions, ruling their lives by economic models. Of course, economists know that the world doesn't actually work this way; if it did, you wouldn't need Jane Bryant Quinn to remind people once a month to save for retirement. But until recently the anomalies were chalked up to the pernicious influence of emotions, emanations from the primitive regions of the brain, a kind of mental noise interfering with the pure, rational expression of economic self-interest. The new paradigm sweeping the field, under the rubric of "behavioral economics," holds that studying what people actually do is at least as valuable as deriving equations for what they should do. And when you look at human behavior, you discover, as Camerer and his collaborator George Loewenstein of Carnegie Mellon have written, that "the Platonic metaphor of the mind as a charioteer driving twin horses of reason and emotion is on the right track—except that cognition is a smart pony, and emotion a big elephant." The fMRI machine enables researchers in the emerging field of neuroeconomics to investigate the interplay of fear, anger, greed and altruism that are activated each time we touch that most intimate of our possessions, our wallets.
Economists have many ways of demonstrating the irrationality of their favorite experimental animal, Homo sapiens. One is the "ultimatum game," which involves two subjects—researchers generally recruit undergraduates, but if you're doing this at home, feel free to use your own kids. Subject A gets 10 dollar bills. He can choose to give any number of them to subject B, who can accept or reject the offer. If she accepts, they split the money as A proposed; if she rejects A's offer, both get nothing. As predicted by the theories of mathematician John Nash (subject of the movie "A Beautiful Mind"), A makes the most money by offering one dollar to B, keeping nine for himself, and B should accept it, because one dollar is better than none.
But if you ignore the equations and focus on how people actually behave, you see something different, says Jonathan D. Cohen, director of the Center for the Study of Brain, Mind and Behavior at Princeton. People playing B who receive only one or two dollars overwhelmingly reject the offer. Economists have no better explanation than simple spite over feeling shortchanged. This becomes clear when people play the same game against a computer. They tend to accept whatever they're offered, because why feel insulted by a machine? By the same token, most normal people playing A offer something close to an even split, averaging about $4. The only category of people who consistently play as game theory dictates, offering the minimum possible amount, are those who don't take into account the feelings of the other player. They are autistics.
The fMRI machine shows how all this works inside the brain. A low offer stimulates activity in the brain's insular cortex, a relatively primitive region associated with negative emotions including anger and disgust. This appears to compete with the more highly evolved prefrontal cortex, the locus of the rational impulse to take the dollar and go buy a soda with it. The more activity in the insular cortex, the more likely subjects were to reject the offer. This is a big step toward being able to see on a screen what people actually want, rather than what they say in focus groups or interviews. Would brain-scan-assisted matchmaking or employee headhunting be more efficient than the way these have been carried out until now? Or would the fMRI merely ratify the judgments of intuition? Psychologists can hardly wait to find out.
And for their part, economists can hardly contain their glee at the research horizons this opens up. "Imagine if you could go on the floor of the stock exchange and see what was going on in traders' brains," says Camerer. "We kept hearing during the bubble that people were behaving as if they were in a delusional state. Well, were they or weren't they?" People don't save enough for their retirements because of a phenomenon known as forward discounting: they value money more in the here and now than 20 years down the road. If we could understand how this process works in the brain, says Paul Glimcher, a leading neuroscientist at New York University, we would have a head start on figuring out how to overcome it. Much of Glimcher's work is with monkeys, which can be implanted (safely and painlessly, he stresses) with electrodes that can detect in real time the firing of a single neuron. By contrast, the fMRI only indirectly tracks brain function by measuring blood flow. This is an im-precise indicator both spatially—it deals with regions of hundreds of thousands of neurons—and temporally, since it lags several seconds behind the neural activity it reflects. Monkeys, obviously, don't save for their retirements, and you couldn't expect them to grasp the rules of the ultimatum game. But they do have a rudimentary concept of economic choice, and researchers have discovered a medium of exchange—Berry Berry fruit drink—that can usefully stand in for money in a monkey's mental life. To illustrate how monkeys make economic decisions, Glimcher's former colleague Michael Platt, now at Duke, has investigated how they value status within their troop. Male monkeys have a distinct dominance hierarchy, and Platt has found they will give up a considerable quantity of fruit juice for the chance just to look at a picture of a higher-ranking individual. This is consistent with field observations, Platt says, which have found that social primates spend a lot of time just keeping track of the highest-ranking troop member. It isn't known exactly why monkeys do this, but the finding might help explain the behavior of human beings who pay $1,000 just to sit in a hotel ballroom with the president. You can draw whatever conclusion you choose from Platt's finding that there is no quantity of juice sufficient to get a male monkey to look away from the hindquarters of a female in estrus.
Glimcher is trying to piece together the building blocks of economic choice in the brain, starting at the most basic level of a single neuron. In weighing options—a gamble on a roulette wheel, say, or the purchase of a bond—economists invoke the concept of "expected value." It is the potential payoff of a given course of action, multiplied by the chance of collecting it. Hence the expected value of tossing a coin to win $1 is 50 cents. A more sophisticated mathematical function called "expected utility" takes into account most people's inborn aversion to risk, and appears to more accurately reflect how people actually make these choices. Tossing a coin for $10 million or getting a guaranteed $5 million both have the same expected value, but a different expected utility—and most people who aren't already millionaires would take the sure thing. (Or so economists believe. No one has come up with the funding to test the hypothesis.) In his monkey research Glimcher has isolated individual neurons that fire in response to the expectation of getting a drink of juice. By manipulating the odds of getting the drink and the size of the drink, he has shown that the rate at which these neurons fire is proportionate to the expected utility of the juice payoff. The implication is electrifying, especially to economists: an abstract, mathematically derived formula appears to be literally hard-wired into the primate brain.
And that, in turn, is a step toward the holy grail of marketing: being able to figure out how people will make choices that haven't been offered yet. The same tools that can answer deep questions about primate behavior can also be used to get people to sign up for more cell-phone minutes than there actually are in a month. A handful of researchers in the United States and Europe are already using fMRIs to test how product brands are represented in the brain. The goal of every consumer marketer is to have people "identify" with a brand, to develop the kind of loyalty that goes far beyond a utilitarian preference for, say, one kind of pickup truck over another. Emory University psychologist Clint Kilts scanned subjects as they looked at a variety of products, from cars to soft drinks, and found that this sense of brand identification elicited a strong response in the medial prefrontal cortex. This is the brain area associated with what psychologists call the "sense of self," one's self-constructed identity. His insights are now being offered to the corporations of the world through the BrightHouse Neurostrategies Group in Atlanta, a pioneer in the emerging field of neuromarketing. "There's a pretty big gap in our understanding of consumers, which neuroscience can help close," says Justine Meaux, a researcher at BrightHouse. But—well aware of the Orwellian implications of this work—she hastens to add that "there's no 'buy button' out there to be found. We're not going to subvert free will. This isn't about screwing the consumer."
Glimcher has thought about these questions, too. Based on his research into choice and preference, he says, "If a corporation came here and said, 'We want to be able to tell the lowest salary a candidate will accept for a job,' I wouldn't do it. But given six months or a year, I think it would be possible." Of course, he admits, you couldn't scan people's brains, practically or ethically, without their knowing it. So they would have to voluntarily submit to an fMRI scan. Would they? Well, Glimcher says, "how badly do you want the job?"
Inside the scanner at Caltech, I played a version of what economists call the "investment game." Quartz, in the next room, watched images of my brain while I manipulated a thumb switch and studied choices on fiber-optic goggles. At the same time his collaborator Read Montague was overseeing a subject inside a similar machine in his laboratory at Baylor University. The game is played thusly: at the start of each of 10 rounds, I am given an imaginary stake of $10. I can keep it all, or "invest" some or all of it with my opposite number at Baylor. Anything I invest gets tripled, and the other player then has the option of returning any portion of that amount back to me. If I keep $5 and invest $5, the other player has $15 to divide between us. He can keep it all and send me nothing if he chooses, but since in this version of the game we play for 10 rounds—there are also one-round variations—he obviously has an incentive to keep my trust. This game investigates one of the hottest topics in behavioral economics: interpersonal trust. Observing that some societies are consistently richer than others, social scientists have invoked such ingenious explanations as "the Protestant ethic" (of working and saving for the future) or "the resource curse" (when an elite controls a valuable natural resource, such as oil, and has no incentive to encourage political and economic modernization). One of the newest explanations is "trust," which varies widely between societies and is strongly correlated with economic growth, says Paul Zak, an economist at Claremont Graduate University. Trust encourages savings and investment, and reduces the "transaction cost" of investigating the people you do business with. But, compared with well-studied behaviors such as aggression, relatively little is known about the biological basis for trust. (Zak's own research is not on brain function directly, but on oxytocin, a hormone that seems to promote trust. It is usually studied in relation not to the stock market but to lovemaking and breast-feeding.)
"If we knew what creates trust and could intervene to encourage it, we could do a lot of good for the world," says Camerer. Hence the investment game. Because the participants have no outside force to keep them honest, it represents an unusually pure test of interpersonal trust in a laboratory setting. And I was determined to ace it! I didn't get a seat on the subway to work for 39 consecutive days last year by trusting the other passengers to leave one for me.
My approach, it turns out, is consistent with some of the findings coming out of Quartz and Montague's research. The cingulate cortex, which processes both emotions and abstract thinking, becomes especially active after one player betrays the other by cutting back on how much he shares—as if the brain, or at least this crucial part of it, is "hypertuned" to detect betrayal. Quartz has also seen intriguing differences between men and women in the scanner. Men's brains tend to shut down after they've made their decision, awaiting a reply from the other subject. But women don't relax so easily; they show continued activity in at least three areas—the ventral striatum (the brain's center for anticipating rewards), the ventral medial prefrontal cortex (which is involved with planning and organizing) and the caudate nucleus (a checking and monitoring region, sometimes associated with obsessive-compulsive disorder). Women, says Quartz, seem to obsess more over whether they did the right thing—and how the other subject will react to them.
There's one other intriguing discovery coming out of this work, which has even the scientists baffled: with approximately 85 percent accuracy, the subjects, separated by the distance from Los Angeles to Texas, can guess whether they're playing against a man or a woman. They appear to be picking up on subtle clues in the interactions that the scientists themselves haven't identified.
So here was my strategy. In total defiance of the social norms that should incline me toward cooperation and trust, I pursued the single-minded goal of amassing as many points as possible. Recognizing that the more I invested the more money there would be for both of us to split, on each round I sent all 10 dollars to my counterpart, who routinely returned $16 (of $30) to me—just enough over half to keep me going.
That is, until the ninth round, when, I calculated, the other subject could come out ahead by keeping the whole $30. So I got there first: I "invested" zero. I did the same on the last round and cleared a hypothetical $148 ($16 times eight rounds, plus $10 times two rounds) to her (or his) $112 ($14 times eight rounds). And I pulled off one more coup: I figured out, correctly as it happened, that I was playing against a woman. I reasoned that a man would have been just as competitive as I am, and guessed that I was going to betray him on the ninth round—so he would have kept all $30 to himself on the eighth round. At least, most of the ones I know would have, although maybe a sample consisting mostly of journalists isn't entirely representative. Out of such tiny insights, scientists are constructing a model for some of the most intricate and sophisticated decisions a fully evolved human being can face in the modern world. And maybe, in some small way, if Camerer and his colleagues are right, making the world a more trusting and cooperative—and peaceful—place.
With Mary Carmichael
© 2004 Newsweek, Inc.
This article would have us believe that a boy with super strength was just RANDOMLY born in Germany. OH YEAH.....like it was all some big coincidence, it had NOTHING at all to do with decades of eugenics.... He's only 7 months old but I bet they're harvesting his sperm as we speak....
Hmmm, I wonder if he's blond or not? you KNOW the gestapo is dancing in the streets. I bet they're bad dancers....quite ridged....
You know how there are people you meet all over the world who look like each other? And not just certain characteristics, but the whole person? I notice this quite a bit and even have been keeping track of certain categories of people. Like people with wide eyes that always look too alert. Or certain groups of red-haired women: those with thick wastes, large breasts, and large lips as opposed to those with paler skin, thin noses and no lips. This latter group tends to have collies and cocker spaniels with red hair to match them.
So, what I’m wondering is, are these people related? Was there a time when they formed clans in villages in Europe? Or migrated together across Asia? When you came to a town a few thousand years ago, did everyone look exceptionally similar? Or is it simply the inevitable coincidences from combining physical characteristics randomly?
There are people who are very cool everywhere. Like those people who do the super hardcore stuff first such as getting their face tattooed. Then there are people who know those people are cool and admire them and secretly want to be them. And there are some of those people who really really want that hardcore cool status and are a little wacky. These people will sometimes simply move to a new place and adopt whatever aspect of cool they had dreamed of appropriating. There’s always a while there when they’re hard to distinguish from the genuinely hardcore people but little eye movements set them apart. It’s hardcore cool succession.
This is totally making me think I have syphilis...
June 22, 2004
A Retrospective Diagnosis Says Lenin Had Syphilis
By C. J. CHIVERS
OSCOW, June 21 - Whispers have circulated for decades that Lenin, founder of the Bolshevik Party and the totalitarian Soviet state it ushered to power, was afflicted with syphilis throughout his career. Now a new study turns that speculation into a retrospective diagnosis.
In an article this month in The European Journal of Neurology, three Israeli physicians sift through historical references to build what they regard as a probable diagnosis that Lenin contracted the sexually transmitted disease in Europe years before he led the October Revolution in 1917. Not long after the socialists' victory, the authors write, the illness strengthened its grip, leading to an agonizing decline and, in 1924, his death.
The idea is not entirely new. Despite the former Soviet Union's efforts to preserve a near theology around its central political figure, Lenin was long rumored to have suffered from the disease. The new thesis is not so much a breakthrough as a historical rumor revived and reframed.
To do so, the authors quote the journals of doctors who treated Lenin in Europe and the Soviet Union and review materials related to his medical condition and autopsy, which they suggest was a propaganda job.
They ask a question of enduring importance to civic life. Do modern societies know enough about the health of their political leaders? In Lenin's case, they strive to show, the answer is a resounding no.
"If you take Lenin's case and you cancel Lenin's name on the file and you give it to a neurologist who is an expert in infectious disease, the expert will say, 'Syphilis,' " said Dr. Vladimir Lerner, head of the psychiatry department at the Be'er Sheva Mental Health Center in Israel and an author of the study.
Reviews have been mixed. Some scholars of the early Soviet period are skeptical, saying the talk of syphilis circulated for decades, to little effect. "There has been a vague rumor of this," said Dr. Robert Conquest, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford. "But of course in Russia, as you know, you have rumors about most everything."
Dr. Gregory L. Freeze, a professor of history at Brandeis, was direct. "They don't have the smoking gun," he said.
The study's authors concede this point but insist that they have a strong circumstantial case. They also propose a possible way to settle the question, further testing of Lenin's brain material, which is stored in Moscow.
" 'Skeptical' is a healthy position," said another author of the study, Dr. Eliezer Witztum, a professor of psychiatry at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. "But the point is that there are a lot of medical questions that have to be answered."
Lenin was 53 when he died, after battling an erratic but progressively debilitating illness. His death has been variously attributed to cerebral hemorrhage, stroke, syphilis, exhaustion or cerebral arteriosclerosis, which had killed his father.
The difficulty with a diagnosis of syphilis is that the symptoms are common to other ailments, so much so that it is called "the great imitator."
The infection, caused by a bacterium called the Treponema spirochete, first appears as an ulcerous sore, from which it spreads throughout the body, including the brain. Fever, an extensive rash and malaise typically follow. After initial infection, a syphilitic can spend years alternating between bouts of illness and apparently fine health.
When they occur, symptoms can be severe, including headaches, nervous disorders and gastrointestinal, muscle or joint pain.
In late stages, often 20 or more years after infection, the victim can experience mood swings and bursts of creativity, as well as depression, lethargy and dementia. Cardiovascular damage can lead to paralysis, aneurysm or stroke.
Until the advent of therapeutic penicillin in World War II, the disease was incurable.
Lenin's illness at least mimicked the progression of syphilis, afflicting him for months with occasional seizures and excruciating headaches, as well as bouts of nausea, sleeplessness and partial paralysis. As Stalin plotted for control of the Communist Party, Lenin was alternately lucid and incapacitated. Sometimes, he was unable to walk without assistance or to speak.
The worst spells were horrific. According to "Lenin: A Biography," by Dr. Robert J. Service, professor of Russian history at St. Anthony's College, Oxford, he twice asked for poison with which he might end his life, remarkable requests from a man whose name was synonymous with struggle.
Communist Party orthodoxy required suppression of the deterioration, and many details were kept secret. But time has unlocked some of the confidences, and the authors combed the disparate evidence, some from archives available only after the collapse of Communism, to render their diagnosis.
Among the supporters of their conclusion is Deborah Hayden, author of "Pox: Genius, Madness, and the Mysteries of Syphilis" (Basic Books, 2003).
"A number of Lenin biographers have reported that the doctors attending him at his death suspected syphilis, but until this article no one has pulled the relevant information together in one place," Ms. Hayden wrote in an e-mail message. "The authors argue convincingly that Lenin was suffering from meningovascular syphilis on his deathbed."
Ms. Hayden, who playfully calls herself a "syphilographer," said she was impressed by evidence that prominent syphilis specialists examined Lenin. And she noted that in previous work, listed in the footnotes, the authors found that Lenin was briefly treated with salvarsan, a drug that was used specifically to combat the disease. Salvarsan had powerful side effects. In a telephone interview, Ms. Hayden said there would be no reason but syphilis to give it to him.
Dr. Frances Bernstein, an assistant professor at Drew University who specializes in sexuality and public health in the Soviet period, also called the theory plausible. "I think the science does support, or could support, a diagnosis of syphilis," she said.
Dr. Bernstein pointed to a potentially curious context. Venereal disease was an acute problem under the tsars. After the revolution, the Soviet Health Ministry reversed the imperial position of suppressing sex education and launched a campaign to treat syphilitics and ease the stigma of the disease.
In light of that campaign, Dr. Bernstein said, "it would have been the height of irony if Lenin died of syphilis."
Disagreement over the merits of the theory seems unlikely to end soon.
Dr. Freeze found two factual errors in the article that he said undermined its credibility. Lenin survived an assassination attempt in 1918, not 1919, as the authors wrote, and the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, not 1992. (Dr. Witztum said the errors came from sources quoted in the study.)
Dr. Freeze also described Lenin as a dynamo of activity in the years after the October Revolution and added, "The massive amount of documents he wrote in that period do not suggest a man who was suffering from syphilis."
Ms. Hayden said that many syphilitics did not lapse into full paralysis or dementia and that some experienced intense periods of creativity not long before dying. "People think that if you have syphilis you get to be feeble minded, but the opposite is true," she said.
Although Lenin's stature has been eroded by the terror he relied on to build the Soviet state and by its eventual collapse, he remains a colossus. Eight decades after his death, his corpse still lies in state outside the Kremlin. In some circles, reverence clings to his name.
Importantly, for those seeking an answer to the syphilis question, his brain tissue remains at the Moscow Institute of the Brain, where in early Soviet times it was sliced into wafers in an effort to find anatomical explanations for genius.
The authors end their article by suggesting that an examination of the tissue might find the DNA of syphilis and yield a definitive answer. Dr. Freeze said he would support a conclusive test. "That would settle it," he said.
But like much of the discussion, the suggestion is subject to disagreement. A representative of the brain institute declined even to discuss syphilis last week.
"We don't have any wish or time to discuss this," he said, adding that the theory had been reviewed in the past and proved wrong. "We simply don't want to rake over the dust and ashes of the past."
Ms. Hayden also cautioned that even if tests were conducted, the results might not close the case. In late-stage syphilis, she said, the spirochete was not always found in the brain.
"The justification for the policy is that allowing gays and lesbians to serve would undermine military readiness." Those damn gays take too long to get dressed.
Interesting fact: There are currently about 1.5 million people serving in active duty in the military, and another 1 million in the Reserves.
Article: http://www.sacbee.com/24hour/nation/story/1446212p-8819826c.html
This is a GREAT article found on Drudge about what the US has give Iraq besides pretend democracy.
"Viagra sales have at least doubled since the war ended. Lives are not good. There's bombs and tension. When you see bodies and destroyed houses, you have psychological disturbances that affect sexual desire."
Everyone who reads my spams with any regularity will know all about oxytocin and prairie voles, but for those of you who don't: oxytocin is the hormone/neurotransmitter/peptide that is released in the brains of women when we fall in love and breast feed. It enables social bonds by releasing dopamine. Anyways, one species of prairie voles has receptors for a male version of the hormone, vasopressin, and one doesn't. As you may have expected, one species is monogamous, the other isn’t. The article below relates a recent successful experiment in which promiscuous voles were turned monogamous by increasing the receptors for vassopressin. Way better articles are in Nature, but you have to be a member to read them. IMAINGE THE IMPLICATIONS!
Gene treatment for male monogamy
From AFP, The Australian, June 18, 2004
YOU'VE just met the man of your dreams. But will he love you forever? Or will he love you and leave you? If only there were some sort of blood test to find out for sure...
Well, if one day a "fidelity test" for men does emerge, women may have the humble vole to thank, according to a study published Thursday in the British science journal Nature.
In a remarkable experiment in hormone chemistry, behavioural scientists implanted a single gene into promiscuous male voles, transforming them at a stroke into faithful, attentive and caring partners.
The rodent in question is the meadow vole, Microtus pennsylvanicus -- and he is the original love rat.
The male vole thinks nothing about mating with several females at one time and leaving them to rear his offspring while he wanders off in search of his next conquest.
In contrast, the meadow vole's cousin, the prairie vole (Microtus ochrogaster) is a model of fidelity.
After mating, the male prairie vole sticks close to his partner, protects her jealously and looks after the little ones after they are born.
This is such a rare thing in nature -- fewer than five per cent of all male mammals are monogamous -- that the prairie vole has become quite a celebrity in biology labs.
Previous studies have shown that its brain is studded with receptors for a hormone called vasopressin, which appears to encourage pair-bonding.
Intrigued by this, researchers led by Miranda Lim and Larry Young at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, implanted a gene for the V1a receptor in question in the brains of naughty meadow voles.
They tucked the gene into a harmless virus which then delivered the V1a gene to the ventral pallidum region of the voles' brains.
What happened next was dramatic. Once, the voles were Don Juans forever on the cruise. Now, they had a chosen partner, and would only ever mate with her.
Even when temptresses came by and flaunted their voley charms, the genetically-modified males only had eyes for that one partner.
The study theorises that when the modified meadow vole has sex, his brain release vasopressin, which is picked up by the V1a receptors.
They, in turn, unleash serotonin, a "feel-good" chemical, to flood the brain. Put together, it means the vole associates the feeling of reward when he has sex with this specific mate, and does not want to prejudice that sensation by having sex with others, according to this notion.
In a commentary, also published in Nature, US anthropologist Melvin Konner, says the work helps strengthens theories that an "organic subculture" -- our genes and the chemicals they produce -- lies at the root of the psychology of relationships.
That theory is bitterly contested by sociologists, who say social forces and environmental influences are the primary moulds which condition human bonds.
"We are a long way from a commitment pill, but perhaps closer to a neurology of romance," says Konner.
He adds: "We do not yet know if a similar system helps explain male attachment in non human primates, much less humans. But a medicine that might someday be offered to certain men is an interesting prospect."
The interesting thing about the article below is that it claims that what women need to get off in porn is "context." I like this much better than the "emotional security" and "lovemaking" people have used as rationals for the apparent disinterest of women in porn previously. Personally, I think context is great and while of course not applying to everyone (Lulu for instance could care less about context) I can see how a sense of what the people are feeling can make things more sexy.
Girls on top By Lilly Bragge
June 16, 2004, published in The Age
It’s called chick porn, pornography that is made by women for women, and it’s now doing for the X-rated film industry what Playboy did for the nude centrefold 50 years ago — legitimising explicit sexual entertainment for the mainstream.
While in the past porn was widely considered fetishistic or the domain of men in grubby raincoats, pornography is moving away from its secretive underground and is becoming discreetly popular, particularly among middle-class women and couples.
The world has a voracious, never-ending appetite for explicit sex on video and the internet. Ten thousand new film titles are made each year in the United States alone.
Leading the international suburban charge to make porn more palatable to women is American Candida Royalle. The former porn star turned writer, director and producer, is the world’s most successful purveyor of XXX films aimed at women and their partners.
Royalle created her Femme line to give XXX movies a woman’s voice and explore what women desire from sex. Since 1984, her production company has produced 15 films.
She says adult entertainment is no longer the sole domain of male cravings and inclination, and that women are actively seeking it out.
“Women are eager to explore erotic entertainment and to create a sexual language of our own. Men also want to share the fun of adult films with their female partners — an activity that was not easy to accomplish until movies like mine came along.”
So what sort of porn do women want? Royalle says women like to see a context. They do not want a wham-bam mechanical approach. They want to see lovemaking the way they want to be made love to.
“They want real women with real lives; they want to see women where men treat them well and make love to them.”
Traditional adult movies stick to a formula of seven scenes that include certain sex acts and specific camera angles. Royalle’s biggest complaint about her male-oriented counterparts is their misogynous predictability.
“They all have at least one girl-on-girl scene, fellatio, cunnilingus, anal sex, double penetration and group sex. The camera angles and the way it’s shot — they have to show things as grotesque and graphically as possible.
“Cunnilingus looks like open-heart surgery. The ‘money shot’ is always the external ‘come shot’ — it’s like your typical bad sex — no imagination and it’s always over when the man comes.”
For the men making these movies there has been no need for creativity. Women’s pleasure was, and continues to be, of no great concern. Royalle’s films are less “goal oriented” and focus on sensuality, reminding people that the whole body is an erogenous zone. She says, “We get right away from the Three Step Sex approach.”
Most XXX movies are made in California, whereas Royalle’s are shot in her native New York.
The cover on a video or FVD can make or break a porn film. Even the cheapest gonzo flick will have a high-end production cover to help it move off the shelves. Royalle says often distributors spend more on the cover than the actual film. She recommends that people choose movies by the director and not the cover.
“You’ll never confuse a Candida Royalle film with a Seymore Butts movie.” (Not surprisingly, a Butts film is a festivity of devotions to all things anal).
Femme films have a distinctive Mills and Boonish motif. One glance and the aficionados know it’s a Royalle production.
Anyone unfamiliar with her work might be forgiven for thinking these films are little more than risque, amusing tales of romantic seduction. Indeed, each film comprises such elements, but they are rated XXX for a reason.
While perhaps not quite as gynaecological as the blokey ones, they feature myriad graphic hard-core sex scenes.
Most Femme protagonists are “real” looking women with “real” looking breasts.
Roughly 20 per cent of the actors have had some kind of surgical enhancement or procedure. The characters are high-minded career gals who are often juggling postgraduate studies alongside their sexual hijinks.
An advocate for safe sex, Femme productions insists its performers have proof of negative HIV status before filming begins.
Condoms are always used unless the actors are a real-life couple, clear of the virus.
Straight porn has a short shelf life — a mere two months. Royalle says people’s continued thirst for the medium means a constant supply is churned out.
Taking time and care with a film seems to make a difference. Of Royalle’s 15 titles, at least three are considered “classics” and continue to sell well.
Statistically, from 1986 to 1996, women have become the consumers to be reckoned with in the industry. Most orders for Femme films and products (she also does a line in female vibrators), are from women.
Interestingly, Royalle maintains that couples have always indulged in her movies — (usually at the woman’s behest), and none of them are really intended for solitary practices.
Royalle was brought up a Catholic, and while no longer practising she defines herself as an “ethical and compassionate person”. People who criticise her work misunderstand her, she says.
“It’s as if being religious or spiritual or whatever I would call myself would preclude working in the sex industry. I believe I am doing good things for people, helping them to appreciate and see their sexuality in a positive way. Helping women to embrace their sexuality and helping couples to come together in better understanding, which only furthers their overall relationship.”
A committed feminist, and now in her very well preserved 50s, she says, “In my day (the ’80s), it was very taboo for a woman to direct a porn film. I would say that it all changed in the ’90s.
“Women in their 20s are now wanting to do very explicit stuff. They are not looking to do art, they are looking to do racy, in-your-face sexy XXX movies and they make no apologies about it.”
So is there still a shame factor attached to the women who watch?
“Amazingly, I think there is. Although, I’m feeling a very fast level of change occurring now. It seems like there is a big growth spurt in women’s comfort level, their sexuality and being open about it.”
Gallery Entertainment distributes Royalle’s films in Australia. Brett Allen manages the Canberra division and says the Femme line is popular in Australia, but the figures can’t be compared to the huge number of sales in the US where Royalle has a large media presence.
“The female vote has always been hard to get,” Allen says.
Royalle is often asked to speak on talk shows and at conferences on sex, women and pornography. A regular guest at the annual American Association of Sex Educators, Counsellors and Therapists, she says therapists tell her again and again how often they recommend her films to clients.
Australia has a booming amateur and gonzo XXX-rated film industry. Allen says it’s surprising how many “normal couples” film their shenanigans and offer them up for the public gaze.
Royalle has long encouraged her female friends and contemporaries to direct and write films under the Femme label. Her Star Director Series includes Annie Sprinkle, Veronica Hart, Veronica Vera and Gloria Leonard.
In 2002, Melbourne feminist and erotic filmmaker Anna Brownfield co-wrote and directed a low-budget film, The Money Shot.
Rated R, it was a comedy-drama based on the Australian porn industry.
Coming from an art background, Brownfield says just because it is porn doesn’t mean it has to be bad filmmaking.
Having watched “a lot of porn”, she nominates the German Expressionist film, Caf Flesh and a lesbian porn flick Madame and Eve as her two all-time favourites in the genre.
“Candida’s (films) are a lot more interesting than the usual crap porn films,” Brownfield says. “Her women actually partake in the sex scenes — they are not just being f-----d, stereotyped and submissive.”
With its virtual anonymity, Brownfield says the internet has totally changed porn consumption for women. What was taboo has become a lot more mainstream and openly discussed.
In the interests of equality Brownfield wants to use naked men in all her films. “The more penises on screen the better. I want to objectify them as much as possible.”
She also wants women with natural bodies. “No blonde Barbie dolls with silicone tits and plastic homogenous surgery to the max whatsoever.”
Brownfield is touting for funding for a semi-autobiographical script about being a “door bitch” in the Melbourne rock ‘n’ roll scene that she wants to make as an XXX feature film.
Since it is illegal to film live sex acts in Victoria (and most other states), she will have to shoot her sex scenes in NSW or Canberra. Brownfield is also in talks with Royalle regarding another script she has written.
Like Brownfield, Royalle is a self-confessed ethicist. Her motto is: Enjoy life to the fullest and do the right thing.
“I believe I am doing good things for people, helping them to appreciate and see their sexuality in a positive way.”
Candida Royalle’s book, How to Tell a Naked Man What to Do: Sex advice from a woman who knows, will be published in Australia and New Zealand by Piatkus Books at the end of the year.
"Naked cyclists get their butts in gear"
by Judith Lavoie, in the Times Colonist, Sunday, June 13, 2004
The crotch and bum were carefully ripped out of Josh Lawrence's velvet shorts, so no one could accuse him of not getting totally naked.
"I feel good about my body," he said, waving some of the relevant parts at the police and bemused tourists who gathered at the legislature Saturday evening.
Rain and wind did not deter about 16 cyclists from taking it all -- or in some cases strategic bits of it -- off for the World Naked Bike Ride round town.
Lawrence felt comfortable being the first to strip, while others, already chilly while fully dressed, waited until the last minute before the ride to bare their assets.
"I have dreams where I am naked and this is not nearly as frightening as in my dreams," Lawrence said.
Dreams also figured in Milen Kovich's decision to ride through downtown Victoria almost naked.
Kovich tempered his nudity with long woolly socks, boots, a scarf, bike helmet and strategically strapped-on bike seat.
"I always wanted to ride my bike around naked. It was a dream and now I am living it -- thank you, Victoria," he said bowing to the growing crowd.
Only a few in the loosely organized group knew exactly what the ride was in aid of, while many said they were there for simply for fun.
"And I wanted to see my female friends naked," added one man as Mandy Daley took the plunge as the first woman to take it all off.
"It's just fun. I think people will take notice," she said, with studied understatement.
The rides, which are held around the world, are to promote awareness of non-fossil fuel transportation and are also a statement against consumerism.
Similar rides were scheduled to be held in Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal, the U.S., England, Scotland, Germany, Spain and the Netherlands.
Rebecca McMackin took 45 minutes to dress for the naked bike ride, covering herself in strips of black electrical tape, much of it strategically located.
"I thought stripes would be good. At least it's totally not that sticky, so taking it off should be OK," she said.
The ride comes at the end of Bike to Work Week and should encourage people to use their bikes, said Mike Wilson, draped in floating, leopard skin print.
"It is a little humiliating though," he said as he tried to tastefully arrange the drapes.
On Saturday evening I spent 45 minutes dressing up for the World Naked Bike Ride. I was the organizer for Victoria and it looked like we were going to have a huge crowd given the amount of emails I had been getting from people, nudists especially.
I had been warned about organizing nudists. They’re a weird bunch. Too friendly. Too eager to talk about being naked. Like Christian fundamentalists. They have that look in their eyes like they’ve found the answer and want to share it with you, naked. Apparently they try to get naked in public all the time but can’t organize themselves for an actual event. But I had heard word an entire colony of them were coming from a town nearby (children and all) to participate in the ride.
Unfortunately it rained and was freezing. Only 16 people showed. But we were all amped and ready to rock out buck. In the end, we were a group of naked cyclists and one clothed nudist. Someone made a joke about them being “fair weather nudists” and someone else observed in all earnestness that “they’re not really nudists, they’re sun worshiping pagans.”
There were two cops there trying to find the organizer and I told them the whole point was that no one was leading anything. My friend Josh then saw fit to tell them I was the organizer and they gave me the cop talk about keeping in line and not harassing tourists. Of course we did neither.
We biked around the busiest spots of the city and the crowds loved us. Only a few people gave dirty looks and thousands of people cheered and seemed thrilled that we were biking by naked. We chanted, “don’t use gass, show your ass” and anything else anyone could rhyme with “ass” (there's a lot). I made up the cheer, “What do clothes and cars have in common? They both start with “c” and they suck!” but it didn’t catch on. Not wanting to waste the opportunity that was afforded by being at the center of attention, we also started yelling things like “don’t waste water” and “be nicer to animals.”
The whole thing was hilarious and I couldn’t stop laughing. I tried to give a speech to the media about how “we are em-bare-assed about the global dependency on fossil fuels” but digressed into hysterics and pointing at people’s butts as they smashed around their bike seats. Apparently the nightly news cameras zoomed in on my butt as we biked away and a friend said he now knows where three more of my stars are. In the end, I realized how much more comfortable I am being a spectacle than a bystander.
We had great articles before and after in the Times Colonist but they’re offline. I’m trying to get them digitally and can then post them.
And photos are being posted here: http://photos.groups.yahoo.com/group/worldnakedbikeride/lst?.dir=/Victoria&.view=t
Check back in the future for more.
This is an amazing site from the Environmental Working Group. The gist is that you type in whatever type of product you are using (from makeup to toothpaste) and it tells you what types of chemicals are in it that are proven to cause cancer, harm to unborn children, and other health risks. Given that products deemed “not ingested” by the FDA don’t have to be approved by them, this site is absolutely necessary.
Diebold (the company making the electronic voting machines) has decided to ban its executives from making political donations. The company came under fire last year when the president of the company held a fund raiser for republicans and said he was "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year."
It would be a terrible mistake to assume that this is not a serious problem.
US lawyers working for Rumsfeld have surprisingly decided that the Geneva Convention doesn’t apply to Bush because, “he had the authority as commander in chief to approve any technique needed to protect the nation's security.” This is hilarious.
The report also advised that if an interrogator "has a good faith belief his actions will not result in prolonged mental harm, he lacks the mental state necessary for his actions to constitute torture."
Another great point, “The March memorandum also contains a curious section in which the lawyers argued that any torture committed at Guantánamo would not be a violation of the anti-torture statute because the base was under American legal jurisdiction and the statute concerns only torture committed overseas. That view is in direct conflict with the position the administration has taken in the Supreme Court, where it has argued that prisoners at Guantánamo Bay are not entitled to constitutional protections because the base is outside American jurisdiction.”
House introduces bill so that churces can donate more to political parties.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/08/politics/08church.html
“The survival of the species is at stake, literally.”
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=40&ItemID=5660
There was a blue paque put up to commerate Allan Mathison Turing. Hardly enough to commerate such a cool guy who killed himself so poetically (eating a poisoned apple) after he couldn’t curb his homosexual desires. He pretty much invented the computer and if you’ve read Cryptonomicon, you’ll know all about it.
Higher Social Status leads to a longer life.
Tonight Canada lost the Stanley cup to Tampa Bay and I watched my first hockey game ever. The report back is that hockey is great. The players all have beards and smash each other into walls and are totally hot and get all bloody. The only drawback is that they have on these huge pads so you can’t watch the beauty of bodies in motion like with ballet or basketball. I bet 5 bucks on the Americans for posterity but I really did feel bad for the Canadians because I don’t know one American who even knew we had the Stanley Cup before that (we’ve had it for years) much less cared about keeping it. Plus the irony of a hockey team from Florida is just too much to handle. Although one Canadian did tell me that if they were truly patriotic they would be going for Tampa because there are more Canadians on that team than on the Canadian one. The US buys all Canadian players and the Canadians buy Russians. It sort of makes sense if you think about it.
But the really funny thing about the Stanley Cup is the actual Stanley Cup. It’s huge. And it has to be, they inscribe the name of every player on the team that wins it every year so they keep on adding all these rings to the bottom to make room. Once the winning team actually wins and is presented with the cup there is a lot of fanfare over “hoisting” the cup. Each player takes a turn to hoist the cup over his head, kiss it, and possibly skate around in a circle yelling something. I was hoping someone would start making out with the cup as a joke but it didn’t happen. Everyone says “hoist” over and over and it makes you think of what a funny word “hoist” is. The guys who actually present the cup wear white gloves (the sterile kind, not the classy kind) and I’m sure there is some completely elaborate sterilization process the cup goes through each year before everyone starts kissing it. After the game, the entire team shares the cup throughout the year. They pass it from player to player. But the cup itself has been stolen in the past so it has a keeper who comes along with it. It is this man’s job to take care of the cup, so if you have it at your house, you have to let the keeper live with you as well. This strikes me as hilarious and you know he’s got great stories to tell. In addition, the whole hockey thing is operated by the government (ah, socialism) so it’s taxpayer money going to pay this guy to protect the cup. It’s such the classic sacred object, endowed with all this magical power, and men must prove themselves to get access to it. I neglected to mention this to the room.
I watched the game with three guys drinking beer and eating chips and BBQ like I felt I should. At one point, of course, I asked why they thought no black people ever play hockey and this one guy who was actually quite smart answered that black people are usually from very warm climates and the ice is simply too cold for them. There was no descent in the room. I just sort of sat there thinking for a while. It’s so odd, to be in an entirely white culture. Bizarre actually. They're not racist per se, just completely clueless. I’m sure they all think black people are very cool. I’ve even heard the phrase “African Canadian” thrown around a few times. It’s funny. Later I asked the guy if that was really what he believed and another guy chimed in with the simple fact that hockey gear and access to a rink is hundreds of dollars generally. I’m sure I have all kinds of ignorance from living in New England and New York (I know I do) but it’s fun to see other people’s.
Later we went down to the water for a walk and there were seals just hanging out and no one seemed to care but me. There were literally thousands of crabs running all over the rocks, so much so, that each step was sure to kill one. Which made walking quite difficult and a moral dilemma. Did I need to walk there so bad that it was worth the lives of these crabs? I felt like a Janist (those people who don’t walk on grass and wear cloths over their mouths so bugs don’t fly in and die). But then it became obvious that all of life involves the taking of other lives. It’s silly to pretend otherwise and almost disrespectful. Which is one of the reasons I am so down with eating meat these days. Who am I to pretend I am not killing things and why should these crabs be worth less than a cow? Because they're small? Or not as smart? Regardless, I spent a lot of time in one place and it made me have a great realization.
At first I was chasing the little crabs all over, catching cute ones and playing with them. If there is anything cuter than watching a tiny crab rear up and try and frighten me, I don’t know what it is. So of course they were all running away from me. But then I just sat very still and watched them and they got so much closer than when I had been chasing them. Which is a great way to see animals all over: don’t hike through the woods, just find a nice spot and sit there for a few hours, they’ll come by and might even try to check you out. I had my hand in the water when I was sitting there and one little crab came up and started gently pinching me. I thought it was trying to hurt me but it turned out to be eating something on my hand, possibly dead skin. Soon other crabs came and were all eating my hand, fighting over my hand actually. It was hilarious, to be eaten by crabs. It was also so nice because I didn’t need that dead skin. I would love to go diving and get my teeth cleaned by one of those shrimp who have mouth cleaning stations for large fish. Maybe it’s my female urges coming to the fore but it’s really cool to be able to actually produce food myself for other organisms other than bacteria. I really wanna do an art project where I photograph all the organisms living off my body, like the mites in my eyelashes or the E. Coli in my lower intestine. It’s really neat to think of the body itself as an ecosystem, a very diverse one, for such a host of life. I need a dog. The end.
My cousin Aaron just got in a huge motorcycle accident and destroyed his leg. His insurance capped off at $50k and now he’s $200k in debt and who knows what his walking abilities will be in the future. His career as a personal trainer is null and void. So my sister set up this site to collect donations and sell his paintings. He’s an *amazing* artist so if you want to buy one of his paintings, you would also be helping out a great cause.
Also this is really cool and doesn’t involve reading:
Also, ladies and gentlemen, my friend Will.
This is a link to an interactive map of all the wars all over the word.
Shoot to Kill orders are a possibility for Georgia’s G8 conference, and then possibly the RNC.
Ok, I’m just spreading paranoia. But it is a possibility and last week a bunch of activists who post information about people who attempt to shut down a lab (Huntingdon Life Sciences) in which numerous animal welfare violations have occurred were arrested as “terrorists.” What is the definition of “terrorism” you may ask? Well, the activists aim to cause "physical disruption to the functioning of HLS, an animal enterprise, and intentionally damage and cause the loss of property used by HLS." INENTIONALLY CAUSING PROPERTY LOSS of a CORPORATION is now considered terrorism.
Transsexuals will be able to compete in Athens
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/olympics_2004/3496678.stm
Kurt Vonnegut on the USA.
Nothing like an old man to tell it like it is.
He should hang out with Tom Waits.
Seems like there are a lot of cool guys named Kurt.
Draft legislation for 2005 in progress.
You know, Canada is not that bad of a place to live….
Pixies article that sucks! But it’s about the Pixies... The author apparently didn’t even go to see their last tour because he would have seen the “Pixies sell out” shirts. Pixies-bashing is the latest craze among hipsters and I for one am appalled.
Ninjas are totally Sweet
http://www.realultimatepower.net/
Rumsfeld Hand Technique
http://www.poe-news.com/features.php?feat=31845
Bruce Lee Remixer!
http://skop.com/brucelee/index.htm
Monkey Steals Peach testical ripp move:
http://members.shaw.ca/Digitalvisions/Monkey_steals_peach.jpg
I'm having a hard time believing this is an actual ninja move and not something this guy in super tight jeans thought of to get felt up by a ninja.
You know, I was just reading about spiders today and I just have to say thanks to whoever's idea it was to have digestion go on inside the human body. Many animals prefer to squirt or hack up digestive juices to break down food before they actually consume it and I just think it's fabulous that we do that inside ourselves and don't have to look at the process or eat it. Thanks.
Stayfree Interview with Public Enemy's Chuck D and Hank Shocklee
http://www.stayfreemagazine.org/archives/20/public_enemy.html
