ideology
clock | April 7, 2007Here, have a go at it. Even better, if you can get the actual paper and dissect it on your blog, let me know so I can link to that. Have fun!
Good Behavior, Religiousness May Be Genetic:
A new study in Journal of Personality shows that selfless and social behavior is not purely a product of environment, specifically religious environment. After studying the behavior of adult twins, researchers found that, while altruistic behavior and religiousness tended to appear together, the correlation was due to both environmental and genetic factors.
According to study author Laura Koenig, the…
clock | April 5, 2007Energy Use Study Demonstrates Remarkable Power Of Social Norms:
Most people want to be normal. So, when we are given information that underscores our deviancy, the natural impulse is to get ourselves as quickly as we can back toward the center. Marketers know about this impulse, and a lot of marketing makes use of social norms. This is especially true of campaigns targeting some kind of public good: reducing smoking or binge drinking, for example, or encouraging recycling.
This tendency may not always be used for good. This is, after all, the idea behind the Overton Window, which the Right…
clock | April 5, 2007Neural Gourmet and Blue Gal are organizing a massive blogospheric Blog Against Theocracy weekend:
I'd like invite you all to Blog Against Theocracy. This is a little blog swarm being put together by everybody's favorite panties blogger Blue Gal for Easter weekend, April 6th through the 8th. The idea is simple. Just post something related to, and in support of, the separation of church and state each of those three days. Something big, something small, artistic, musical, textual or otherwise. The topic is your choosing. Whether your thing is stem cell research, intelligent design/Creationism,…
clock | April 4, 2007McCain, the Media, and Baghdad Security and A sadly necessary introduction
Unfortunately, that second one of them appeared as 'Most Popular' on Google News so the comments are filled with stupid Bushies (but hey, traffic must be great!). Perhaps an avalanche of readers not encumbered by irrational fear of terrorists, moslems, gays, women, blacks, liberals, etc. can go there and do some spring cleaning (I already did too much troll-feeding there...).
clock | March 31, 2007The best way to make it easy for the low-brow followers to kill the enemy is to dehumanize it. That is what right-wing talking-heads have been doing for a while. Of course, if someone actually gets killed, they did not do it - they were just telling "jokes" on radio or TV.
clock | March 26, 2007...yet even at the start of it, back in March 2003, The Onion understood the dynamics of war and the psychology of defenders of war better than almost half of Americans and all of GOP today.
[Hat-tip, commenter Lindsey]
clock | March 20, 2007A few months ago, Mike defined the Compulsive Centrist Disorder and I have argued something similar a number of times in the past, e.g., here and here. In short - there is no such thing as a political middle. There is no line between "Left" and "Right" that you can put your own dot on. Most issues are quite binary - there is a "for" position and an "against" position, with each perhaps having additional modifiers. On each issue, one makes a decision. If on most issues you take a conservative option, you are predominantly conservative, and likewise for liberal option. Most people hold…
clock | March 5, 2007Via Pam and Melissa, from Nation, the CPAC: The Unauthorized Documentary - must-see video showing what conservatism is:
clock | March 5, 2007And you don't even have to believe in dinosaurs to share their fate.
From here. And the preceeding paragraph? Another great quote:
"You know how taking so long to end slavery is a shameful part of our history, and how long it took us to give the vote to women is a shameful part of our history? Well, I think in 20 years, we're going to think that denying marriage to gays for so long is one of the great shames of our nation, too." That's from a teenager in Redneckville. She's our future--and Donohue, LaBarbera, and company are just desperate dinosaurs.
clock | February 23, 2007Evolution works according to a very small set of simple rules. If a) there is variation in a trait in a population and b) that variation is heritable and c) one variant is better adapted to the current local environment, then d) the best adapted trait will increase in the proportion within the population in the next generation. Once you understand this simple algorithm (perhaps, for fuller understanding, learn some basics of the ways genotype maps onto phenotype via development), everything about the living world is explainable without magic.
John McCain works according to a very small set…
clock | February 22, 2007Trying to push an anti-free-speech bill in Arizona:
The Arizona bill, if enacted, could take self-censorship in schools to a new level.
"This is yet another bill that is seeking to restrict the free exchange of ideas on campus, and, frankly, this is probably the most extreme form we've seen yet," Fitzgerald said. Unlike its cousins in other states, it lays out specific penalties when a teacher or professor advocates "one side of a social, political or cultural issue that is a matter of partisan controversy."
And where MSM has to retain a dignified tone, the blogs can move in and trash the…
clock | February 20, 2007Back in May 21, 2006, Montenegro seceded from Serbia. Here is what I wrote:
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Right now, there are five countries in the place of Yugoslavia: Slovenia, Croatia, Macedonia, Bosnia & Herzegovina and Serbia & Montenegro. Considering the very high turnout at today's referendum in Montenegro, there soon may be another split, as Serbia and Montenegro go their separate ways.
Of course, the whole thing is misguided. Just like a division into Red States and Blue States (and you remember some of those "Jesusland" maps right after the…
clock | February 20, 2007You know that I think that Wimp Factor is one of the most important yet least appreciated books about ideology and politics in recent years. So, I was really glad to see an excellent review of it by Amanda:
Regardless of you feelings about whether or not he's got the right reasons for why anxious masculinity exists, his examination of the effects of it is right on the money.
clock | February 16, 2007This is less than a year old (March 05, 2006), but instructive now that the campaigning has actually started...Also, click on the spiderweb icon to see interesting comments on the original post.
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In his latest op-ed (here is a link from News and Observer: Edwards and poverty's character), George Will, writing in his typical "I-write-so-elegantly-you-will-never-detect-the-underlying-stupidity" mode, takes on John Edwards.
Was it a slow week, lack of inspiration, or was it a depeche from the RNC, only George knows, but it contains several points that need…
clock | February 16, 2007Escalating Truth:
Words have meanings; they express ideas and ideas are important. The word "surge" came with the idea of a relatively small short-term increase in force that would be effective. Such previous troop increases had been ineffective and the joint chiefs saw no reason that this one would be effective either. The actual proposal called a "surge" was the opposite of what the word meant. In short, the very use of the word "surge" was a lie.
People all over the country noticed the "surge" framing immediately, and quickly -- and accurately -- reframed the President's proposal as an "…
clock | February 8, 2007Ah, why do I have to be so busy on a news-filled day (no, not Anna Nicole Smith)? I barely saw the computer today. I'd get home, have about 5 minutes before I have to go out again and so on. NPR did not mention Edwards until 4pm or so (that I heard in the car), so when I first got home I only had time to open e-mail, scan about 50 new messages, home in to the one that had the news, open it, get the links and quickly post without more than a quick skim of the statements by Edwards and others, let alone any time to add commentary (except for what the title implied I felt at the time). And…
clock | February 6, 2007If they think that something like this will endear them to anyone not certifiably insane (via PZ), or to think that WorldNutDaily is not satire... It's like when you catch your kid in a lie and he starts spinnikng and digging himself depeer and deeper. Exept that thse guys, like wounded beasts, can be dangerous.
clock | February 2, 2007Continuing with the last week's topic (originally posted on March 11, 2005 - click on the spider-clock icon to see the comments, including by Mark O'Connell - who I subsequently met and blogged about, on the original post)
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Last night I listened to NPR's "On Point" about adolescent sex (http://www.onpointradio.org/shows/2005/03/20050310_a_main.asp). As you may have guessed, I am interested in this topic as it can reveal something about the current fixated-on-sex femiphobic culture, as well as evolution of the institution of marriage (http://…
clock | January 26, 2007This is two years old (February 16, 2005) but still as provocative....(also my belated contirbution to the Blog For Choice Day) and I'll repost the second part of it next Friday.
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William Raspberry wrote an editorial in Washington Post last weekend (I picked a link to a syndication that does not require registration instead of dinosaurid WaPo) about the sexual practices of young people, mainly college people. This is not the first time he wrote on this topic. For instance, he wrote a column a few years ago, immediately after the release of the…