treetops redux, not everything
December 31, 2008 at 7:13 pm | In photography, photoshop | Leave a Comment
Let the river rock you like a cradle
Climb to the treetops, child, if you’re able
Let your hands tie a knot across the table.
from Follow by Richie Havens, lyrics Jerry Merrick
That not everything is gonna be the way
You think it ought to be
It seems like every time I try to make it right
It all comes down on me
from I Shall Believe by Sheryl Crow and Bill Buttrell
contrast lily, glowing green liars, top rightie propaganda stories of 2008
December 30, 2008 at 6:16 pm | In photography, photoshop, progressive, sociology | Leave a Comment
I thought I knew. Between certain political leaders past and present there are plenty of examples, How Lying Works
* To conceal misdeeds and stay out of trouble. Wrongdoings often can’t be undone, and it’s rare that owning up to a misdeed will result in a positive outcome (at least in the short term). These lies are told to avoid responsibility and repercussions.
* To preserve reputation. A recovering drug addict may lie about time spent in a treatment facility, especially to a potential employer or romantic prospect. A lie like this is told to avoid shame or embarrassment.
* To avoid hurting someone’s feelings. Children learn early on to be polite, not to point out physical flaws, and to say “thank you” even after they receive something they don’t like. These “white lies” are distinguished from other types because they carry no ill will or bad intentions.
* To increase stature and reputation. Some lies are told without any obvious external stimulus, such as a demand for an answer to a specific question. This type of lie is often narcissistic in nature, told to make the liar seem more accomplished, skilled or gifted as a means of gaining favor in the eyes of others.
* To manipulate. These lies aren’t evasive or defensive, but rather aggressive and malicious in nature. Such lies are told to gain wealth, love, favor or other assets by damaging another’s reputation or spreading harmful untruths.
* To control information. As opposed to airing a falsehood, indirect lying is withholding or concealing important facts. This is often seen as a more acceptable form of lying, since a person doesn’t actively construct lies, but only sits tightly on the truth. A missing piece of information can completely alter the understanding of an event, leading American courts to demand not only the truth, but “the whole truth.”
The third one composes a good sized part of the foundation of civilization, marriage, friendship and safe passage on some public transportation. The day those kinds of lies stop might be the day that the earth, or humanity anyway stands still. Five and six have their merits if you’re mental make-up tends toward the sociopathic. You can indirectly, see Ma no blood on my hands, murder someone or lots of people. The banana split school of murder, slather the top with some creamy noble sounding BS about national security and patriotism, toss on some sugary blather about carrying out the will of a deity and you’ll even have some people working overtime defending you. I wonder if this woman couldn’t work on manipulating some proteins that make the unrepentant five and sixers glow green.
The Top 10 Rightblogger Stories of 2008 – by Roy Edroso
#8: The Hoover Boom. “This election year does look quite a bit like Hoover vs. Roosevelt (and given that choice, I’ll take Hoover),” said National Review’s Jonah Goldberg, setting off a little avalanche of rightblogger warnings that “electing Obama and the congressional Democrats will be like electing FDR in 1932.”
You hear that America if you do the right thing you’ll be punished – I can imagine Mr. Goldberg’s still wagging, but gangrenous finger of freakish self righteousness falling off in about a year.
#6: The War on Starbucks. For Michelle Malkin, even hot beverages are political. Malkin announced she was giving up Starbucks because they wouldn’t let customers put the phrase “Laissez Faire” on their gift cards, and switched to Dunkin’ Donuts because they were “unapologetic supporters of immigration enforcement.” Then she denounced Dunkin’ Donuts because Rachel Ray wore a keffiyeh in one of their ads, but relented when the ad was pulled. The price of breakfast is eternal vigilance!
Proper scarf attire was all important to Jefferson and Madison. First women wear scarfs and what’s next – short skirts and hip huggers. Everyone with an ounce or 29 ml of common sense knows that neck adornments are the lubricant on the slippery slope to Purgatory. They banned scarfs in the original Constitution which was burned by jihadists that came over as stowaways on the Mayflower.
public figures and scientific illiteracy, rain on wall, sex and breakfast
December 29, 2008 at 5:49 pm | In news, photoshop, science, sociology | Leave a CommentScientific illiteracy all the rage among the glitterati
Mr Obama and John McCain blundered into the MMR vaccine row during their presidential campaigns. “We’ve seen just a skyrocketing autism rate,” said President-elect Obama. “Some people are suspicious that it’s connected to the vaccines. This person included. The science right now is inconclusive, but we have to research it,” he said.
His words were echoed by Mr McCain. “It’s indisputable that [autism] is on the rise among children, the question is what’s causing it,” he said. “There’s strong evidence that indicates it’s got to do with a preservative in the vaccines.”
Exhaustive research has failed to substantiate any link to vaccines or any preservatives. The rise in autism is thought to be due to an increased awareness of the condition.
Sarah Palin, former VP candidate and currently selling a calender to help buy a new home made the list for her ignorance about fruit fly research. Tom Cruise, who comes from an educated family should know better then proclaiming that psychiatry was a crime against humanity – such sweeping condemnations should never pass the lips of a Scientologist. The whole thimerosal and vaccine controversy should be a mote point by now. Thimerosal was removed from vaccines in 2001. So had there been any statistically discernible relationship between thimerosal and autism there would have been a corresponding decline in rates of autism. There hasn’t been. Then there was the wonderful actress Julianne Moore who thinks that because it comes raw from nature its safer to put on your face or body then something that might contain some synthesized products. Health and beauty products that are natural ingredient based might well be better for the environment and we’ll have fewer chemicals mixed in with our water supply, but nature naturally makes some pretty toxic stuff. I would stay away from the poison frog punch, the digitalis brownies and the lion fish stew, for instance.
A Mr. Connor who wrote this piece might make the dubious journalism awards for remarks like “is no better than many of us” which is more then obvious sensationalism. Even the title with the word glitterati. What is that. It is apparently so loosely defined it includes John McCain and Kate Moss. John did ditch the first wife for a rich heiress, but I didn’t realize he and Kate hung with the same crowd.I’ve read some writers complain that sometimes editors push a more provocative title for a piece to grab reader’s attention, maybe that was the case.
No breakfast, earlier sex: Japan study
There are many theories on the links between food and sex, but Japanese researchers have came up with a new finding – young people who skip breakfast tend to lose their virginity earlier.
In a study of 3,000 people, those who did not regularly eat breakfast when in their early teens said they lost their virginity at an average age of 17.5, versus an overall average age of 19 for all Japanese.
For those who had a morning meal when they were younger, the average age of having the first sexual experience was 19.4.
To be fair I should try to find the original research, but it seems the only connection they have found is a correlation between early loss of virginity and not eating breakfast. They have not found a cause and effect. Further down in the piece one of the researcher makes a statement that lends one to suspect they are aware of this on some level, “If children don’t feel comfortable in their family environment, they tend to go out,” and acknowledged that teens that are having relations tend to get home later and sleep in rather then eat. Missing breakfasts might be a sign of a lot of things – not liking breakfast for one, but missing it might be the result of other activity, not the cause of that activity.
the jungle, orangutans calculate reciprocity, simple ratings or censorship
December 28, 2008 at 3:11 pm | In photography, photoshop, science, tech culture | Leave a Comment
Orangutans learn to trade favours
Orangutans can help each other get food by trading tokens, scientists have discovered – but only if the help goes in both directions.
Researchers from the University of St Andrews found orangutans could learn the value of tokens and trade them, helping each other win bananas.
An article in Biology Letters, claims it is the first evidence of “calculated reciprocity” in non-human primates.
It shouldn’t matter in terms of who routting for one species or the other because of the dangers of anthropomorphism, but for years gorillas, orangutans, gibbons and chimpanzees were in competition as our closet relatives. After some modern era DNA hybridization and chromosomal structure analysis, as well as some protein studies the majority of scientists thought the chimp was our closest relative. Its not an unimportant evolutionary biology contest since chimps are frequently the last stage of testing for new medications. Since chimps were not able to put the pieces of this behavioral puzzle together – imagining the results of a future behavior that might not have immediate rewards ( the female orang caught on quickly while the male she used her tokens for took a while to understand how reciprocating benefited him – again, no anthropomorphizing), I wonder if the closest relative contest won’t be revisited in terms of higher brain functions rather then just genes and proteins.
The story is from the U.K., but since he mentions president-elect Obama its pertinent for the U.S. too.When I first glanced at this headline I thought the obvious, it was about simply assigning sites a rating like a movie or video game, Internet sites could be given ‘cinema-style age ratings’, Culture Secretary says
However, Mr Burnham said: “If you look back at the people who created the internet they talked very deliberately about creating a space that Governments couldn’t reach. I think we are having to revisit that stuff seriously now. It’s true across the board in terms of content, harmful content, and copyright. Libel is [also] an emerging issue.
“There is content that should just not be available to be viewed. That is my view. Absolutely categorical. This is not a campaign against free speech, far from it; it is simply there is a wider public interest at stake when it involves harm to other people. We have got to get better at defining where the public interest lies and being clear about it.”
Mr Burnham reveals that he is currently considering a range of new safeguards. Initially, as with copyright violations, these could be policed by internet providers. However, new laws may be threatened if the initial approach is not successful.
Burnham said without irony that some of his proposals might be seen as “heavy-handed”. Let’s say that WordPress started asking bloggers to self regulate and assign their sites a rating that in turn would activate some filters on end user PCs. Not a bad idea, but while the government can be very effective at accomplishing some goals, looking out for content that might corrupt someone is not one of them. Using children as an excuse and a buttress against criticism usually smacks of a shabby agenda – put a child lock on the MAC, electronically lock your TV. If they leave it up to ISPs that might open a back door to ending net neutrality – just get your group together and report a site as offensive to choke off their traffic.
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