iNow

Well, according to my crystal ball and tarrot cards...

It's not as worthy of insult and derision as you might believe, ParanioA. Three videos at the link below of police holding press conferences on these issues. http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2008/09/do_the_saint_paul_police_need.php I know these anarchists. Well, of course, I don't know any of them personally, how would that ever happen. But clearly, and you know this is true from seeing the films, that the great bravery of the officers that is emphasized in these videos ... in their fight against the dangerous intimidating masked criminals ... is significantly overstated, absurdly touted. These anarchists are mostly 17 to 23 year old suburbanite turned urbanites, college students, untrained and inexperienced in the use of weapons or hand to hand combat. Hey, big scary police guys wearing body armer and carrying big sticks, you do realize do you not that half of these dangerous masked criminals you felt so threatened by are girls wearing sun dresses (and goggles), and the other half, if you met them on the street, you would call fags? Why are you so frightened of these people? These kids are not even close to the threatening hoard they are described as being. The kids themselves are indeed brave, if possibly (or possibly not) misguided, to stand up to the police like this, and apparently, the scared the shit out of the Men in Blue. And Black. What seems most important here is the statement, again and again, that the police are wonderful and have acted in a most heroic manner. How much of this absurd, offensive, and totally unbelievable rhetoric is an outcome of the shift from viewing first responders (police included) as people doing a tough and important job to viewing first responders as saints, martyrs, and in essence, semi-demi-gods who are above the law, an attitude which in my opinion has arisen as an effect of 9-11? In the meantime, we have calls for investigations of the Saint Paul police for their use of excessive force, and some very serious questions about the treatment, indeed suppression of the press.

It's the text box, Box 6.1, right when you open the link.

So, it's complete hearsay, huh? Wowsers wally. I wonder about this, then: http://news.bostonherald.com/news/2008/view.bg?articleid=1117009&format=&page=2&listingType=2008pres#articleFull Back in 1996, when she first became mayor, Sarah Palin asked the city librarian if she would be all right with censoring library books should she be asked to do so. According to news coverage at the time, the librarian said she would definitely not be all right with it. A few months later, the librarian, Mary Ellen Emmons, got a letter from Palin telling her she was going to be fired. The censorship issue was not mentioned as a reason for the firing. The letter just said the new mayor felt Emmons didn't fully support her and had to go. Emmons had been city librarian for seven years and was well liked. After a wave of public support for her, Palin relented and let Emmons keep her job. <...> In December 1996, Emmons told her hometown newspaper, the Frontiersman, that Palin three times asked her -- starting before she was sworn in -- about possibly removing objectionable books from the library if the need arose. Emmons told the Frontiersman she flatly refused to consider any kind of censorship. <...> When the matter came up for the second time in October 1996, during a City Council meeting, Anne Kilkenny, a Wasilla housewife who often attends council meetings, was there. Like many Alaskans, Kilkenny calls the governor by her first name. "Sarah said to Mary Ellen, 'What would your response be if I asked you to remove some books from the collection?" Kilkenny said. "I was shocked. Mary Ellen sat up straight and said something along the line of, 'The books in the Wasilla Library collection were selected on the basis of national selection criteria for libraries of this size, and I would absolutely resist all efforts to ban books.'" Palin didn't mention specific books at that meeting, Kilkenny said. Palin herself, questioned at the time, called her inquiries rhetorical and simply part of a policy discussion with a department head "about understanding and following administration agendas," according to the Frontiersman article. <...> Books may not have been pulled from library shelves, but there were other repercussions for Emmons. Four days before the exchange at the City Council, Emmons got a letter from Palin asking for her resignation. Similar letters went to police chief Irl Stambaugh, public works director Jack Felton and finance director Duane Dvorak. John Cooper, a fifth director, resigned after Palin eliminated his job overseeing the city museum. Palin told the Daily News back then the letters were just a test of loyalty as she took on the mayor's job, which she'd won from three-term mayor John Stein in a hard-fought election. Stein had hired many of the department heads. Both Emmons and Stambaugh had publicly supported him against Palin. I think one of the things that hurts these Republican right wing ideological bullies who try to intimidate people and make them fearful of losing their jobs is the fact that we have access to information and print stories done so we can research questions and issues. McCain really should have had his team vet her more fully.

At some point, Pangloss, are you going to split this sex ed discussion into its own (and deserved) thread? Starts with post 138 to 142, half of 143 and all of 144, then continues from 146 to 149, and picks up again in the post previous to this, 152. Maybe that helps in such a thread trim, I don't know. I hope it does. Cheers.

This actually turns out to be an excellent question. Theism is a very poor source of morality. All we need to do is examine it critically for a few moments. Theism is generally based on false or untestable hypotheses, and it is from those hypotheses which it draws firm conclusions. Quite frequently, though, those conclusions are way off the mark. Killing homosexuals or blowing yourself up in a crowded market are obvious examples, but let's also look at calls to stone your wife if she's not a virgin on your wedding night, or the vast tribal massacres not only sactioned by god, but downright demanded by him. Even in the new testament the treatment of slaves indicates clearly how these texts should not be used by any sane person as a source of morality. They mention how it's not only okay to have slaves, but it's also okay to beat them as long as you don't hurt their eyes or teeth. Well, I sure am glad theists have THAT pearl of ancient wisdom on which to base their behaviors and outlooks. Theistic guidelines are based on Iron age tribal nonsense, and we can do far better. In various non-Christian religions, it takes the opinion of two women to equal that of one man. A woman cannot leave the house without her husband unless she is fully covered up, and she must stick to dark alleys so as not to be seen or interact with others. She cannot look anyone in the eye, nor speak, even if the intent of her words is to find help for someone who is in need. However could theists survive without such wisdom, I really can't say. As for christianity, all one must do is look to books like Leviticus or Romans to see the pettiness and unpallatable instructions being provided. Most theists, however, choose to reject these teachings. If their theism and teachings from these books are the source of their morality, then how would they know to reject those clearly obscene instructions in various parts of said books? Somehow they know that those instructions are not moral, and that they should be rejected. Well, to me, it sure would appear that their sense of morality is coming from somewhere other than their theism since they are rejecting instructions based on that theism. The point being, they are picking and choosing which stories they are going to live by, so clearly it cannot be the stories themselves informing their choices. I ask... name one moral action performed or one moral statement made by a theist which could not equally be performed or stated by a non-believer, a non-theist, or an athiest. Just one. Take your time. No rush. All I am asking for is one example. Now, name one immoral action performed or one immoral comment made by a theist expressly on the basis of their theism, stemming directly from the beliefs into which they've been indoctrinated. You've already thought of 3 or 4, and will have thought of more by the end of the day. Morality does not come from theism. We are predisposed toward certain behaviors and those behaviors are shaped as we develop in our specific environment and culture. This predisposition is evidenced by numerous studies, some showing how even 3 year olds will try to comfort other children who were sad, in tears, or distressed in some way. On top of this, monkeys and other apes understand concepts of fairness and equality, as demonstrated time and again in experiment after experiment. Morality doesn't need rigid structures. It stems from our evolved condition being pack animals. The dominant animal in the group sets the behaviors and those that choose not to follow them get ostracized from the group. This decreases their likelihood of survival, and also drastically decreases their reproductive potential. This logic even applies to wolf packs. Morality comes from something far more profound than some fear of punishment from a trite, petty cosmic dictator, something much more beautiful. I find it much more inspiring to think that one would help the poor, or feed the hungry, or vaccinate the children of the 3rd world, or help the elderly or a young child just because they want to... just because it's the right thing to do. It limits the heroics and honorability of those acts if someone is doing it simply due to some fear of punishment, fears taught to them based on some stories written in some book thousands of years ago.... stories from which they somehow manage to pick and choose and decide which to follow and which to ignore. On the other hand, the practices of theism and the beliefs which generally accompany it far too often makes people feel justified in committing disgusting and discriminatory acts, and, if you ask me, that's really no morality at all.

Google is your friend.

There is no black and white answer. The answer is subjective, relative to the situation and context, and dictated by too many factors to account for in a simple binary, yes/no approach. I can, however, agree that infants should not be physically punished because their neural development is not far enough along for that to be a valid form of learning or reinforcement. I think there are good arguments on both sides of this, and, in fact, I'd wager that there is far more alignment here than it may appear. In the meantime, I think this talk below is illuminating, and applies very well to humans as well. Enjoy.

An interesting post yesterday over at Stoat: http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2008/09/sea_level_rise_pfeffer_et_al.php The story so far... IPCC sez sea-level rise (SLR) by 2100 (0.18 to 0.6 m), but this excluded dynamic effects on the grounds that present understanding of the relevant processes is... <more at the link> And another good one today: http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2008/09/sea_level_rise_from_ipcc_90.php This starts from Pielke Jr commenteing at RC that the 1990 IPCC grossly overestimated sea level rise to date, and pointing to his post here as proof. It's nonsense, of course. Pielke does the familiar rub-out-all-the-uncertainty estimates stuff... <more at the link>

Yuri - I think you fail the Turing Test.

I like to urinate on electric fences and run naked through fire ant mounds.

But, DH, that's not a specific legend, but instead a relatively common group behavior. Legends have details and specifics and descriptions about events, whereas religion is (unfortunately) not a "one-time event in history" which is passed down through stories. It's like suggesting that baseball has been around for millenia and then sharing a link that humans and other animals compete with each other to support the assertion.

Studies show that people are much more likely to go out and leave their homes on Fridays than on Thursdays. It's pretty straight forward, but of course we cannot chalk this up to one single thing. It's a combination of factors. It's also more likely that a democrat would watch the republican convention to learn more about the opponent than a republican would watch the democratic convention (where they feel it's all leftie liberal crap to which they cannot expose themselves). I am, of course, speaking in generalities, and there will of course be outliers in both groups, but my anecdotal encounters these past several days certainly lend support to the conjecture. YMMV. Also, more people watched the republicans because we are so hungry to learn information about the relatively unknown Palin pick. Obama has been vetted for 2 years, under public scrutiny, and during INTENSE primaries. Palin is a no-name from nowhere that nobody knows, so this was a chance to learn about why she was picked and who she is. That said, I find McCain's inaccuracies and questionable facts not very statesmen-like. More republican slander due to a lack of fortitude and ability on the issues themselves. Joe Biden summed it up rather well here (still partisan and somewhat of an attack, I concede, but he's still at least making an insightful point): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=955Y3NJTRIE

It would be nearly impossible for me to add to what Glider has already said, so I will just share this interesting post which I read this morning and leave it at that. http://scienceblogs.com/notrocketscience/2008/09/the_right_side_of_fair_play.php Human beings seem to be strongly motivated by a social sense of justice. Those that play fairly are rewarded, and those that don't, like you friend here, are punished. Now, Daria Knoch and colleagues at the University of Zurich have discovered that this desire for justice is influenced by a small part of the brain - the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex or DLPFC - which constantly suppresses our more selfish urges. Brain imaging studies have shown that this region is strongly activated when people play the Ultimatum Game, and especially when they receive unfair offers.The DLPFC is implicated in dealing with conflicting thought processes and allows us to plan our behaviour in order to reach a goal. Knoch and her fellow researchers believed that the DLPFC may allow a person to weigh up their desire for financial gain with their sense of fair play.<more at the link> Repeated for importance.

You know what kills me about that? While they are using the article to admonish the people who are posting doctored photos on the web of her in a bikini holding a gun, they simulatanously share the same photo at the very start of the article knowing it will appeal to people (whether those people care that it's doctored or not). It will stir that, "damn, I wouldn't mind looking at her during a few more press conferences" mentality, forming a deeper connection based on more primal instincts and gut level decision making, and all the while they get to criticize the people who are sharing it online. Talk about having cake and eating it, too. If you really want balance, you should read this: http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,1837918,00.html

You're quite right, especially about how powerful an open and honest relationship with the parents can be. Unfortunately, sex before marriage can often carry a tremendously strong taboo, and the child is too often forced to reconcile their pounding biological urges and surging hormones with the fact that their parents and preachers teach them that these feelings are wrong, and that acting on them could resist in eternal damnation. That doesn't strike me as an environment where the child is likely to engage in open discussion with the parents that they wish to explore their natural and evolved sexuality. It's much more likely they will try to find a way to do it without getting caught and in secret, and this is where the lack of education on this topic becomes especially problematic.

Care to support this with any hard data? I know I could argue against it, but I've found that rationality and evidence rarely seem to work against ideological entrenchment. The environment has gotten better? Let me give you the benefit of the doubt here. What parameters are you using to define "better?" What parts of the "environment" are you talking about? I've got increasing extinctions, receding sea ice, increased cancer incidence, increased drought, increased storm intensities, exponetially increasing ppms of CO2, and countless other scientifically verified factors showing significant detriment to the environment in past years which seem to basically cut the point which you made above off at the ankles.

It's hard to say from limited words on a forum (No! This is not a request for a picture, so don't even freakin' think about it!) Most likely a pimple. If you're sexually active, see a doctor just in case. If you've only been masturbating, then it could just be the oils from the skin on your hands reacting with that sensitive skin on the penis. You could try putting some pimple cream (like Clearasil or whatever the kids are using these days) on to it and seeing if matters improve. Note: I'm not a doctor, so could very well be wrong.

The shape and location of the pinna most certainly impacts both those things. A lot of the "echolocation" part is from comparing the difference in signals between the two ears. Much like we can see 3 dimensions with our two eyes, we can locate sound by interpretting the difference in signals arriving to the right ear from the signals arriving to the left (clearly, one ear will be closer to the source, and that difference in placement can provide valuable information about its location). I'd also suggest that the cochlea plays a critical role. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinnae http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cochlea Another interesting area to consider would be the cilia, the small hairs suspended in the fluid of the inner ear. The pressure wave from the sound causes them to bend, and that bending triggers the chemoelectric response of the nerve cells, generating the neural signal which travels to the brain. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereocilia_(inner_ear) One of my favorite classes in college was Perception. While we covered a lot of philosophical viewpoints, we also spent several weeks on anatomy and physiology.

Please do not equivocate a "guess" with a "well informed and realistic conjecture."

Hey Pete, Considering your post above, you might find this article interesting: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/22/science/22brain.html?ref=science the findings, appearing online yesterday, in the journal Nature, confirm the central role of the damaged region, the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, which is thought to give rise to social emotions, like compassion. Previous studies showed that this region was active during moral decision making, and that damage to it and neighboring areas from severe dementia affected moral judgments. The new study seals the case by demonstrating that a very specific kind of emotion-based judgment is altered when the region is offline. In extreme circumstances, people with the injury will even endorse suffocating an infant if that would save more lives. “I think it’s very convincing now that there are at least two systems working when we make moral judgments,” said Joshua Greene, a psychologist at Harvard who was not involved in the study. “There’s an emotional system that depends on this specific part of the brain, and another system that performs more utilitarian cost-benefit analyses which in these people is clearly intact.” Since that was a news media piece, and I'm always apprehensive to trust the reporting done in the news regarding scientific studies (even well respected sources), I tend to find it best to read the study itself... The one on which they are reporting. In this case, here's the link to the article described in the story above: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v446/n7138/full/nature05631.html Damage to the prefrontal cortex increases utilitarian moral judgements

I'm not a robot. I'm rational and critical thinking human being who cares about his country and the people who live in it. There are things I agree with on both sides of the political ideological spectrum, and also things I disagree with on both sides. I don't have to agree with everything a particular side says or does in order to prefer them over the other. I don't have to surrender my personal ideas to go along with the herd. I prefer Obama over McCain. Again, this thread is not about me, though. It's about McCain's choice of Palin to run with him on the Republican ticket as the VP.

Explain to us all exactly how you go from this: The primary leaders of the so-called founding fathers of our nation were not Bible-believing Christians; they were deists. A necessary consequence of these beliefs was a rejection of many doctrines central to the Christian religion. Deists did not believe in the virgin birth, divinity, or resurrection of Jesus, the efficacy of prayer, the miracles of the Bible, or even the divine inspiration of the Bible. Many of the founding fathers—Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, Madison and Monroe—practiced a faith called Deism. Deism is a philosophical belief in human reason as a reliable means of solving social and political problems. Deists believe in a supreme being who created the universe to operate solely by natural laws—and after creation, is absent from the world. The men mentioned above and others who were instrumental in the founding of our nation were in no sense Bible-believing Christians. This notion—that our country’s roots are explicitly Christian—is both foolish and wrong, for it devalues the Christian faith and disrespects the genius of the founding fathers. To this: a religious person who believes Jesus is the Christ and who is a member of a Christian denomination following the teachings or manifesting the qualities or spirit of Jesus Christ Simply repeating yourself does not add any validity to an invalid point. I'm sorry, mate, but your persistence on this point is causing you to make a total ass of yourself. line[/hr] Now, I will again try to move us past this and return to the issue itself. I think it's about more than her "political positions." She was explicitly asked if she had a problem with the words "Under God" in the pledge of allegiance, and she responded, "If it was good enough for our founding fathers, it is good enough for me, and I'll fight for it." Issues about what deism means and how it's FAR from christianity pushed aside, she's wrong on multiple levels, and is clearly clouded by her religious views. That was my problem with it. This is reinforced by the fact that she wants creationism taught in schools, that she thinks a war with Iraq is a mission from God, opposes all abortion even in the case of rape and incest, and all of the other dumb shit that tends to come with religion, especially so with the fundie conservative variety. The "Under God" in the pledge response was just one among many reasons why she's failed my personal litmus test.

So, in one post, you state that there is "weakness in Obama's position being hidden," and then in the very next post you state that you think "Obama was telling the truth and you happen to think his position is the correct one." That's some double-speak, if you ask me, and it's no wonder people are confused by what you are saying.

Exactly. Our founding fathers were NOT that. I rest my case.