Viewers would be released from the freeze only after paying a fee to the broadcaster. The freeze would be implemented on a program-by-program basis, giving viewers a choice at the start of each one.” (CNET)

“…it would have been a suicide mission” to “deliberately lie” about his conversation with Cooper because he knew beforehand that it eventually would be revealed…

Rove wants the grand jury to believe that he wouldn’t have lied in 2003 about his role in the Plame affair because he knew journalists would ultimately tell the truth. But in fact, President Bush and the White House believed in 2003 that journalists would remain silent about the case and would refuse to name their sources…” (Think Progress)

After six days of a nonjury trial, the grandmothers and dozens of their supporters filled a courtroom in Manhattan Criminal Court to hear whether they would be found guilty of two counts of disorderly conduct for refusing to move, which could have put them in jail for 15 days. The women call their group the Granny Peace Brigade and said they wanted to join the armed forces and thus offer their lives for those of younger soldiers in Iraq.” (New York Times )

In ‘Memetics and the Modular Mind’ (Henson 1987) I wrote about memetics as a path to social prediction, but while memetics provided an epidemic model for the spread of memes (that is, elements of culture), it didn’t develop as a science of social prediction. In retrospect, the focus was too narrow. The scope had to be widened to include the evolved psychology of a meme’s host in order to predict–given particular environmental circumstances–which memes would flourish and which would die out.

The present article proposes an evolutionary psychology based model of social prediction, particularly for wars and related social disruption such as riots and suicide bombers.” (kuro5hin)

However, one measure—the Implicit Association Test, or IAT—has proved especially popular.” (Science News)

Future versions of the eyeglasses may incorporate a distance sensor to automatically adjust the focus as the viewer’s gaze changes between far and near viewing, says one of the inventors…” (Science News)

…In 1991, not a single district in India had a child sex ratio of less than 800:1,000. By 2001, there were 14. “What we’re dealing with,” says Sabu George, India’s leading activist, “is a genocide.”

…If such trends continue, the future could be nightmarish. In their 2004 book Bare Branches: the security implications of Asia’s surplus male population, the political scientists Andrea den Boer and Valerie Hudson argue that the existence of all these millions of frustrated Asian bachelors will boost crime and lawlessness. They speculate that, to find an outlet for the continent’s sex-starved males, Asian governments might even need to resort to fomenting wars. Indian activists also fear that the girl shortage will create a hyper-macho society.

Spiralling numbers of rapes and rates of violence will lead to the increasing sequestration of women. Men with money will be able to afford wives, who will quickly become a status symbol. “Powerful men would maintain zanankhanas [harems] to demonstrate their power and influence,” writes the activist R P Ravindra. Poorer men, “finding no companions, might resort to any means to force a woman into a sexual/ marital relationship”.

In pockets of India, this has already begun.” (New Statesman )

Take the compliment. Our career choice means we really do think that you–with your aches and pains–are more interesting than trading hot securities, more fun than a courtroom full of lawyers. Massaging the ego is the key to manipulating responsible types like doctors. When we feel your trust, you have us.

The most compelling reasons to be a good patient are selfish ones. You will get more than free drug samples if your doctor is comfortable and communicates easily with you. You’ll get more of the mind that you came for, a mind working better because it’s relaxed–recalling and associating freely, more receptive to small, even subliminal clues. That means better medical care. But you should try to be a good patient for unselfish reasons too…” (Time)

Now, in early 2006, Bush has continued to sink lower in his public approval ratings, as the result of a series of events that have sapped the public of confidence in its President, and for which he is directly responsible. This Administration goes through scandals like a compulsive eater does candy bars; the wrapper is barely off one before we’ve moved on to another.
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Currently, President Bush is busy reshuffling his staff to reinvigorate his presidency. But if Dr. Barber’s work holds true for this president — as it has for others – the hiring and firing of subordinates will not touch the core problems that have plagued Bush’s tenure.

That is because the problems belong to the President – not his staff. And they are problems that go to character, not to strategy.” (FindLaw)

This isn’t what the party base wants, but the party base is so abused that it is lining up behind it, willing to get screwed over by their leadership, because they are realizing that the alternative to Bush lite, is getting Bush whacked. Finally an election where the slogan of the Democratic hierarchy of the last 10 years: ‘Vote for us, serfs – or it’s so much the worse for you’ can actually work.” (BoP)

The grand jury session in federal court in Washington, DC, sources close to the case said, was the first time this year that Fitzgerald told the jurors that he would soon present them with a list of criminal charges he intends to file against Rove in hopes of having the grand jury return a multi-count indictment against Rove.” (truthout)

But as Clover sat in the theaters, she noticed something curious. Sure, the young men would laugh and cheer as the villain hunted down his female prey. But eventually the movie would whittle down the victims to one last terrified woman — the Final Girl, as Clover called her. Suddenly, the young men in the audience would switch their allegiance — and begin cheering just as madly for the Final Girl as she attacked and killed the psycho.

This, Clover argued, was not mere garden-variety sexism. On the contrary, it was a generation of young guys who apparently identified strongly with the situation of a woman who faced agonizing peril yet came out victorious. The slasher dynamic was unprecedented in film history: ‘The idea of a female who outsmarts, much less outfights — or outgazes — her assailant (was) unthinkable,’ Clover wrote. With this new crop of slasher movies, the young men in the audience essentially became the Final Girl: exhausted, freaked out and ultimately triumphant. They weren’t just ogling the sexual violence. They were submitting to it.

The sexuality of young men, Clover concluded, is profoundly weirder than you’d imagine.

I think she’s right, and what’s more, I think her idea maps perfectly onto the success of Tomb Raider. ” (Wired via walker)

The West’s big problem, he believes, is that people have become too self-absorbed. ‘I don’t think people have become more selfish, but their lives have become easier and that has spoilt them. They have less resilience, they expect more, they constantly compare themselves to others and they have too much choice – which brings no real freedom.'” (Telegraph.UK thanks to walker)

They believe that only the sacrifice of one or more of the big beasts of the jungle, such as Cheney or Donald Rumsfeld, the defence secretary, will convince voters that Bush understands the need for a fresh start.

The jittery Republicans claim Bush’s mini-White House reshuffle last week will do nothing to forestall the threat of losing control of Congress in the November mid-term elections.” (Times of London)

Bush traveled Friday night to Stanford University, where he met privately with members of the libertarian Hoover Institution to discuss the war. He concluded the day with a private dinner held by George P. Shultz, a Hoover fellow and former secretary of state.

Why is this significant? The Hoover Institution is a think tank that has been aggressively promoting the viability of a preemptive military strike in Iran.” (Think Progress)

They believe that only the sacrifice of one or more of the big beasts of the jungle, such as Cheney or Donald Rumsfeld, the defence secretary, will convince voters that Bush understands the need for a fresh start.

The jittery Republicans claim Bush’s mini-White House reshuffle last week will do nothing to forestall the threat of losing control of Congress in the November mid-term elections.” (Times of London)

Surgeons removed the nails with needle-nosed pliers and a drill, and the man survived with no serious lasting effects, according to a report on the medical oddity in the current issue of the Journal of Neurosurgery.” (Yahoo! News)

Said to be the minutes of a secret council of Jews discussing their plot for world domination, this slim volume, first published in Russia in 1905, has become a nearly sacred text for political and religious movements ranging from American nativism and German Nazism to Arab Islamicism.” (New York Times )

In the Today Show studio, Greenberg lathered up his face with English shaving cream and a badger brush, whipped out a vintage double-edge razor, and made a passionate case that the multi-billion-dollar shaving industry has been deceiving its customers ever since 1971, when Gillette (no small advertiser on network television) introduced the twin-blade razor. Everything you need for a fantastically close and comfortable shave, Greenberg said, was perfected by the early 20th century.

With his Today Show segment, Greenberg became the highest-profile convert to ‘wet shaving.’ He is still one of its most fervent evangelists, with—what else?—a blog, www.shaveblog.com. At 120,000 words and counting, Greenberg’s blog could best be described as gonzo shave journalism. He explores every nook and, for that matter, nick of the wet shaving experience, whose defining elements are a single sharp blade (whether ensconced in a safety razor or exposed in the fearsome straight-edge), a brush, soap, and lots of hot water.

But Greenberg’s blog is just the most visible salient of a movement that has all the ingredients to reach its tipping point.” (Christianity Today)

The lopsided decision of historians should give everyone pause. Contrary to popular stereotypes, historians are generally a cautious bunch. We assess the past from widely divergent points of view and are deeply concerned about being viewed as fair and accurate by our colleagues. When we make historical judgments, we are acting not as voters or even pundits, but as scholars who must evaluate all the evidence, good, bad or indifferent. ” — Sean Wilentz (Rolling Stone)

If there is one quality that marks out the scientific mind, it is an unquenchable curiosity. Even when it comes to things that are everyday and so familiar they seem beyond question, scientists see puzzles and mysteries.

Look at the letters in the words of this sentence, for example. Why are they shaped the way that they are? Why did we come up with As, Ms and Zs and the other characters of the alphabet? And is there any underlying similarity between the many kinds of alphabet used on the planet?

To find out, scientists have pooled the common features of 100 different writing systems, including true alphabets such as Cyrillic, Korean Hangul and our own; so-called abjads that include Arabic and others that only use characters for consonants; Sanskrit, Tamil and other ‘abugidas’, which use characters for consonants and accents for vowels; and Japanese and other syllabaries, which use symbols that approximate syllables, which make up words…

The shapes of letters are not dictated by the ease of writing them, economy of pen strokes and so on, but their underlying familiarity and the ease of recognising them. We use certain letters because our brains are particularly good at seeing them, even if our hands find it hard to write them down. In turn, we are good at seeing certain shapes because they reflect common facets of the natural world.” (Telegraph.UK )

…The brain’s ability to “switch off” the self may have evolved as a protective mechanism, [the chief researcher] suggests. “If there is a sudden danger, such as the appearance of a snake, it is not helpful to stand around wondering how one feels about the situation,” Goldberg points out.

It is possible that research into how the brain switches self-awareness on and off will help neurologists gain a deeper understanding of autism, schizophrenia and other mental disorders where this functionality may be impaired.” (New Scientist) Another fMRI study.

‘Thank God for Dead Soldiers,’ read one of their placards. ‘Thank God for I.E.D.’s,’ read another, a reference to the bombs used to kill service members in the war. To drive home their point — that God is killing soldiers to punish America for condoning homosexuality — members of the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kan., a tiny fundamentalist splinter group, kicked around an American flag and shouted, if someone approached, that the dead soldiers were rotting in hell.” (New York Times )

Mr Uribe, the last man standing among Washington’s right-wing allies in South America, is riding high in the polls ahead of the presidential election on 28 May. His success is crucial to the White House, which has seen a succession of sympathetic governments defeated in the so-called ‘pink wave’ of left-wing leaders who have swept to power in Latin America.

But allegations that have haunted the short-tempered politician since he won the presidency in 2002 have resurfaced. They involve an alleged conspiracy to assassinate leftists and union leaders, and leaking sensitive information to drug traffickers and right-wing paramilitary groups.” (Independent.UK)

…Has leveling out federal income tax rates produced a cornucopia of financial benefits?

The answer is probably yes — if you’re a millionaire. And probably no — if you’re almost anyone else. Flattened, and thus lower, tax rates have contributed to huge increases in the wealth of the wealthy, but so far most people haven’t seen significant economic improvement.” (LA Times)

Not long after recording the song ‘Let’s Roll,’ a tribute to passengers who apparently fought back against hijackers on doomed United Airlines Flight 93 over Pennsylvania, Young came out publicly in support of the U.S. Patriot Act.” (Yahoo! News)

But there is even more to the story.” (New York Times )

…And as long as we’re taking bets on how long Rummy might be along, why don’t we throw into the mix the possibility that Lieberman will take this opportunity to vacate a potentially embarrassing and definitely difficult primary race to take the job. Just some things to ruminate on on a Friday night.” — McJoan (Daily Kos)

If you thought things were bad now, wait till Iran retaliates against our air strikes by bombing Israel. When Israel strikes back, the whole Middle East will have to get sucked into the war. And then the fun really starts.

Do any of you have any confidence that George W. Bush knows what he’s doing when he contemplates starting a war with Iran? Do any of you believe he has carefully thought out all the possibilities and has a plan for every contingency?

I don’t care how Republican you are, that is an inconceivable thought. No one could believe that’s true. The man who lost New Orleans and accidentally started a civil war in Iraq is going to have a sound strategy for Iran?” — Cenk Uygur (Huffington Post)

Their decisions are based on new evidence suggesting that prisoners have endured agonizing executions. In response, judges are insisting that doctors take an active role in supervising executions, even though the American Medical Association’s code of ethics prohibits that.” (New York Times)