Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Tenchusatsu who wrote (350125)	9/10/2007 7:27:53 AM
From: Road Walker	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1572016

And maybe Gore invented the Internet ... Yawn. You ought to get whoever writes your material to come up with something new.

To: Tenchusatsu who wrote (350125)	9/10/2007 10:33:12 AM
From: Road Walker	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1572016

Homo politicus: brain function of liberals, conservatives differs by Marlowe Hood Sun Sep 9, 1:33 PM ET The brain neurons of liberals and conservatives fire differently when confronted with tough choices, suggesting that some political divides may be hard-wired, according a study released Sunday. Aristotle may have been more on the mark than he realised when he said that man is by nature a political animal. Dozens of previous studies have established a strong link between political persuasion and certain personality traits. Conservatives tend to crave order and structure in their lives, and are more consistent in the way they make decisions. Liberals, by contrast, show a higher tolerance for ambiguity and complexity, and adapt more easily to unexpected circumstances. The affinity between political views and "cognitive style" has also been shown to be heritable, handed down from parents to children, said the study, published in the British journal Nature Neuroscience. Intrigued by these correlations, New York University political scientist David Amodio and colleagues decided to find out if the brains of liberals and conservatives reacted differently to the same stimuli. A group of 43 right-handed subjects were asked to perform a series of computer tests designed to evaluate their unrehearsed response to cues urging them to break a well-established routine. "People often drive home from work on the same route, day after day, such that it becomes habitual and doesn't involve much thinking," Amodio explained by way of comparison in an e-mail. "But occasionally there is road work, or perhaps an animal crosses the road, and you need to break out of your habitual response in order to deal with this new information." Using electroencephalographs, which measure neuronal impulses, the researchers examined activity in a part of the brain -- the anterior cingulate cortex -- that is strongly linked with the self-regulatory process of conflict monitoring. The match-up was unmistakable: respondents who had described themselves as liberals showed "significantly greater conflict-related neural activity" when the hypothetical situation called for an unscheduled break in routine. Conservatives, however, were less flexible, refusing to deviate from old habits "despite signals that this ... should be changed." Whether that is good or bad, of course, depends on one's perspective: one could interpret the results to mean that liberals are nimble-minded and conservatives rigid and stubborn. Or one could, with equal justice, conclude that wishy-washy liberals don't stick to their guns, while conservatives and steadfast and loyal. As to the more intriguing question of which comes first, the patterns in neuron activity or the political orientation, Amodio is reluctant to hazard a guess. "The neural mechanisms for conflict monitoring are formed early in childhood," and are probably rooted in part in our genetic heritage, he said. "But even if genes may provide a blueprint for more liberal or conservative orientations, they are shaped substantially by one's environment over the course of development," he added. Obscuring causal links even more is the fact that the brain is malleable and neural functions can change as a result of new experiences.

To: Tenchusatsu who wrote (350125)	9/12/2007 5:40:59 PM
From: tejek	Respond to of 1572016

Old School Inanity _____________________________________________________________ By MAUREEN DOWD Columnist The New York Times September 9, 2007 Dying for a daddy, the Republicans turn their hungry eyes to Fred. Fred Thompson acts tough on screen. And like Ronald Reagan, he has a distinctively masculine timbre and an extremely involved wife. In his announcement video, Mr. Thompson stood in front of a desk in what looked like, duh, a law office, rumbling reassuringly that in this “dangerous time” he would deal with “the safety and security of the American people.” As Michelle Cottle wrote in The New Republic, far more than puffy-coiffed Mitt and even more than tough guys Rudy and McCain, the burly, 6-foot-5, 65-year-old Mr. Thompson exudes “old-school masculinity.” “In Thompson’s presence (live or on-screen),” she wrote, “one is viscerally, intimately reassured that he can handle any crisis that arises, be it a renegade Russian sub or a botched rape case.” But she wondered, was he really “enough of a man for this fight,” or just someone who meandered through life, creating the illusion of a masculine mystique? Newsweek reported that some close to the Tennessean “question whether moving into the White House is truly Thompson’s life ambition — or more the dream of his second wife, Jeri, a former G.O.P. operative who is his unofficial campaign manager and top adviser.” It took only two days of campaigning to answer the masculine mystique question. Fred gave an interview to CNN’s John King as his bus rolled through Iowa. “To what degree should the American people hold the president of the United States responsible for the fact that bin Laden is still at large six years later?” Mr. King asked. “I think bin Laden is more of a symbolism than he is anything else,” Mr. Thompson drawled. “Bin Laden being in the mountains of Afghanistan or — or Pakistan is not as important as the fact that there’s probably Al Qaeda operatives inside the United States of America.” Usually, you can only get that kind of exquisitely inane logic from the president. Who does Fred think is sending operatives or inspiring them to come? Fred is not Ronnie; he’s warmed-over W. President Reagan always knew who the foe was. Fred followed W.’s nutty lead of marginalizing Osama on a day when TV showed another creepy, fruitcake manifesto by the terrorist, who was wearing what seemed to be a fake beard left over from Woody Allen’s “Bananas” and bloviating on everything from the subprime mortgage crisis to the “woes” of global warming to a Kennedy assassination conspiracy theory to the wisdom of Noam Chomsky to the unwisdom of Richard Perle to the heartwarming news that Muslims have lived with Jews and not “incinerated them” to the need to “continue to escalate the killing and fighting” against American kids in Iraq. Can we please get someone in charge who will stop whining that Osama is hiding in “harsh terrain,” hunt him down and blast him forward to the Stone Age? Fred must have missed the news of the administration’s intelligence estimate in July deeming Al Qaeda rejuvenated and “a persistent and evolving terrorist threat” to Americans. Pressed by Mr. King on the fact that the Bush hawks went after Saddam instead of Osama, Fred continued to sputter: “You — you’re — you’re not served up these issues one at a time. They — they come when they come, and you have to — you have to deal with them.” Democrats pounced. John Edwards issued a statement saying, “That bin Laden is still at large is Bush’s starkest failure.” John McCain and Rudy Giuliani also stressed the need to take out Osama. Fred quickly caved on the matter of men in caves. At a rally later in the day he manned up. “Apparently Osama bin Laden has crawled out of his cave long enough to send another video and he is getting a lot of attention,” he said, “and ought to be caught and killed.” He continued to insist that killing bin Laden would not end the terrorist threat, without realizing that this is true now because, by not catching bin Laden, W. allowed him to explode into an inspirational force for jihadists. Republicans are especially eager for a papa after their disappointing experiences with Junior. After going through so many shattering disasters, W. seems more the inexperienced kid than ever. In Australia, the president called Australian soldiers in Iraq “Austrian troops,” and got into a weird to-and-fro on TV with the South Korean president. W. cooperated with Ropert Draper, the author of a new biography of him, yet the portrait was not flattering. Like a frat president sitting around with the brothers trying to figure out whether to party with Tri-Delts or Thetas, W. asked his advisers for a show of hands last year to see if Rummy should stay on. And W. is obsessed with getting the Secret Service to arrange his biking trails. “What kind of male,” one of his advisers wondered aloud, “obsesses over his bike riding time, other than Lance Armstrong or a 12-year-old boy?”