inkbluesky

Humans hard-wired to be generous

Neuroscientists Jorge Moll and Jordan Grafman of the National Institutes of Health say experiments they conducted have led them to conclude unselfishness is not a matter of morality, The Washington Post reports.

Rather, the two say altruism is something that makes people feel good, lighting up a primitive part of the human brain that usually responds to food or sex.

I’ve done a little low level conflict resolution which ultimately involves both sides giving up something. Sometimes it involved a team of people. While tempers flared the day things grievances were aired, it was amazing how once everyone came to agree on terms and had a chance to vent a little how good everyone seemed to feel much better the next day. I used to call it the after the vent high. People so seem to get a sense of well being after doing what they feel is the right thing; that making a donation or doing some volunteer work also has that effect for the average person isn’t that surprising.

storm clears over grand canyon

This seems strange. If they don’t want us there will certain Whitehouse occupants insist on staying anyway - Iraqi Lawmakers Pass Resolution That May Force End to Occupation

Without the cover of the U.N. mandate, the continued presence of coalition troops in Iraq would become, in law as in fact, an armed occupation, at which point it would no longer be politically tenable to support it. While polls show that most Iraqis consider U.S. forces to be occupiers rather than liberators or peacekeepers — 92 percent of respondents said as much in a 2004 survey by the Independent Institute for Administration and Civil Society Studies — the U.N. mandate confers an aura of legitimacy on the continuing presence of foreign troops on Iraq’s streets, even four years after the fall of Saddam Hussein.

The resolution was initiated when a majority of Iraqi lawmakers signed a nonbinding legislative petition two weeks ago that called on the Iraqi government to demand a withdrawal of all foreign troops from the country.

Secret Service Operative Moonlights as Identity Thief

Brett Shannon Johnson is a credit-card and identity thief. In five years of crime, the 37-year-old estimates he’s stolen about $2 million — some of it while working as a paid informant for the U.S. Secret Service.

That headline is a little misleading. He was a paid snitch rather then an operative.