Real Differences?

Here's a story about how "Liberals" are wired differently from "Conservatives".

Individuals who call themselves liberal tend to have larger anterior cingulate cortexes, while those who call themselves conservative have larger amygdalas. Based on what is known about the functions of those two brain regions, the structural differences are consistent with reports showing a greater ability of liberals to cope with conflicting information and a greater ability of conservatives to recognize a threat, the researchers say.

Notice how careful the wording is.  I'm thinking the author wanted to avoid inviting the inference that somehow liberal people are better equipped to cope with the world; that libs are operating at a higher level of consciousness in some way.

Not only am I willing to infer exactly that, I'll take it a step or two farther (big surprise) and say that many of the so-called conservatives in politics and punditry are working on a level low enough to qualify for a subsidy from Purina.

The amygdalae are where your fear lives (emotions are mainly centered in the amygdalae).  That 'emotions center' helps in threat situations (eg) by telling your renal glands to give you a quick shot of adrenalin - fight or flight reactions and all that.  But that emotional response can also become a real problem if you fixate on the fear.  You get anxious or neurotic or even paranoid.  Starting to sound familiar?  Do you think politicians don't know about these things?  Do you think a politician wouldn't try to take advantage of this knowledge by deliberately spurring those fear reactions?

I've wondered about the ridiculous lengths we've been going to as we try to cope with the crazy changes we've been through - especially since 9/11.  I think some of this nonsense is getting clearer now.  It seems we've been in the grips of a full-blown National Anxiety Attack for almost 10 years.

All of this also fits nicely with Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine too.  I've had that book for a while; maybe I should actually read it(?)

Larnin'

What A Dope

Sarah Palin really is a dumbbell sometimes.

"It's not America's role not to be out and about nation building and telling other countries how to live."

It started when somebody on DumFux News asked her about Bill Maher taking a shot at her, and of course, she then gets a chance to enlighten us all with her foreign policy acumen. (here's a report from CNN)

I'd be willing to take her a bit more seriously if she could actually string a coherent sentence together.  We had 8 long years of this kind of dolt in office -  as muddled and as flummoxed as Obama can seem sometimes, he's a damn sight better'n anybody the Repubs have shown us so far.

Tax Season

We've been conditioned to feel bad about paying our taxes, so this is the time of year when everybody is supposed to piss and moan about what a horrendous burden we're all carrying.

Maybe it's just my contrarian nature, but I kinda like it.  I think it's a good thing to add it all up once a year to see where you stand.  And when I take a close look at it, I think I'm gettin' a pretty good deal here.

I live in a great part of a great country; I can go where I wanna go, and I can do what I wanna do, and I really don't have to worry a lot about the basics.  There's a lot I'd like to see improved.  There's plenty to be done to get some balance back into the power structure, etc - that's all a given.  If you want democracy, you have to practice at it.  My point is that when I'm in the "28% Bracket", and I actually pay less than 16% of my total income for both Federal and State taxes, I find it hard to complain about the "burden".  We had a boatload of deductions last year, but still, 16% total?  That's cheap.

Random thought: with all the wacky shit that goes on in Congress, how long before some knucklehead stands up and proposes that what I pay in taxes this year should be allowed as a deduction on my taxes next year?  Just wonderin'.

Drought

When we moved to Virginia 23 years ago, we were amazed at how lush it was. Of course, that could've been due simply to having grown up in the west where it's amazingly dry and airy, so by comparison, just about anywhere is going to seem wetter.  But over the years, it's gotten drier - until it seems like we're always under some kind of drought condition now.

Take a look at February vs April 2011 via Drought Monitor, Univ of Nebraska:

They caution against reading these things "too literally", but this doesn't look like a happy trend, especially for the South Central states.

Fab Faux

No excuses - if you're a Beatles fan in any way, and you're near the east coast, you MUST go see these guys. You won't find much in the way of recordings - you'll have to see it live.

The Fab Faux - Abbey Road Side 2 (mostly) from The Fab Faux on Vimeo.

On The Attack

Dodge This, Bitch

Nicky mugs a Tribesman.

Fools' Play

Terry Jones is a straight up asshole.  He makes a show of his "faith" so you have to know he's a fuckin' phony right off.  Anyway, he sets up his little Burn-a-Quran day and then sits back and collects the accolades and (most important) the dollars that start flowing in as soon as certain other straight up assholes react in a totally and predictably asshole-ish way to his being an asshole.

Here's a question: why is this news to anybody?

Make no mistake; there are no good guys in this.  The Muslimist assholes who react violently are no better than the Christianist assholes who deliberately foment Muslim rage; and anybody who sits around worrying about the politics instead of standing up and shouting a full-on gut-level condemnation of the whole sorry mess is an asshole too.

A Little (re-)Education - updated

If you control the story of your country's history, you have a much better chance to mold its future.

One of the things Ayn Rand warned us about is what she called "the amputation of history".  She was talking about how power structures manipulate us through propaganda - and one of the main points they rely on is that most of us don't remember our history lessons from school.  Of course, the Right Radicals have been telling us for 30 years that all the schools suck; that they never taught us anything straight.  So we're open to the suggestion that what we learned wasn't the true story, and we're also open to accept a substitute version that The Party is more than happy to supply.

Think about some of the ridiculous things we've heard from Haley Barbour and Michelle Bachman lately.  Barbour made claims that race hatred in Mississippi wasn't really all that bad; and Bachman spun a whopper about how the founding fathers worked so hard to end slavery.

Now think about what they're telling us about the Boston Tea Party - how it was a revolt against taxes.  It wasn't anything of the sort.  It was actually a rebellion against the tyranny of a government that was being used by a mega-corporation to impose croney capitalism on people who simply wanted a chance to compete on a level field.

BTW: in case you're some kind of bone-head Libertarian who insists that this is just an example of 'counter-propaganda' and you can't trust anything you hear; go blow a rock.  There are actually ways of discovering the truth about things, and there's this little matter of critical thinking that requires you to accept facts when they present themselves in some reasonable way.

I love this kinda shit (assuming I haven't been April-Fooled of course).