A back story from the 2012 Republican primary campaign has been revealed: there was a secret "unity ticket" being negotiated between Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich that might have changed the nomination outcome.
The sticking point, however, was that they couldn't agree on which one of them would be the the top dog and which the VP dog.
Well, that is sort of the basic questions, isn't it?
Bad as the Romney campaign was, the duo of Gingrich and Santorum would have been twice as nauseating. But think of the possibilities for mockery: "The Choir Boy and the Bad Boy." or "Mr. Cosmic Ego and Mr. Super-Ego."
Glad we avoided that one.
Ralph
Friday, March 22, 2013
Thursday, March 21, 2013
Study of cell phone distraction
In a study published in PLoS One, college students were asked to
complete cognitive tasks that required concentration. They were
divided into two groups: one group was in the room with someone carrying on a conversation on her cellphone; the other group was in a room where two people were carrying on the same conversation.
The first group was far more distracted and did less well on the puzzle-solving problem. One explanation interested me: Our brains are set up to focus on things that are novel or unexpected, and we try to figure them out. When you hear only one side of a conversation, each new piece of it is a surprise, and your brain gets busy trying to imagine what the other person said. That is distracting from the task.
There's even a word for hearing half a dialogue: it's called a "halfalogue."
Another study tested the common belief that people talk louder on a cellphone than they would in an ordinary conversation. This is not true, according to actual measure of sound levels comparing both. But, even so, people typically feel that the person is talking too loud. The explanation: when we feel we are trapped, or something is unavoidable, we tend to over-rate it. Public cellphone use is one of the top pet peeves among Americans in a survey.
There is one counter-tactic I tried once: jump into the conversation yourself. Comment on what you hear, like, "Oh, my God. How awful for you. What did you do then?" Apparently I didn't say it loudly enough, and I don't think the cellphoner heard me. But I felt better.
But, think about it. How could she object? She's the one making her conversation public. You can innocently counter that you thought she was eliciting suggestions or advice. If she complains, sweetly suggest she might rather find a more private place for her private conversations. But I'm taking bets: 10 to 1 you would, at least, be accused of being rude.
Modern life. Bah humbug !!
Ralph
The first group was far more distracted and did less well on the puzzle-solving problem. One explanation interested me: Our brains are set up to focus on things that are novel or unexpected, and we try to figure them out. When you hear only one side of a conversation, each new piece of it is a surprise, and your brain gets busy trying to imagine what the other person said. That is distracting from the task.
There's even a word for hearing half a dialogue: it's called a "halfalogue."
Another study tested the common belief that people talk louder on a cellphone than they would in an ordinary conversation. This is not true, according to actual measure of sound levels comparing both. But, even so, people typically feel that the person is talking too loud. The explanation: when we feel we are trapped, or something is unavoidable, we tend to over-rate it. Public cellphone use is one of the top pet peeves among Americans in a survey.
There is one counter-tactic I tried once: jump into the conversation yourself. Comment on what you hear, like, "Oh, my God. How awful for you. What did you do then?" Apparently I didn't say it loudly enough, and I don't think the cellphoner heard me. But I felt better.
But, think about it. How could she object? She's the one making her conversation public. You can innocently counter that you thought she was eliciting suggestions or advice. If she complains, sweetly suggest she might rather find a more private place for her private conversations. But I'm taking bets: 10 to 1 you would, at least, be accused of being rude.
Modern life. Bah humbug !!
Ralph
Millions on the mantle
A New York couple had no idea of the worth of the small glass bowl they bought at a garage sale for $3. It sat there on the mantle where the cat could have knocked it off to land in pieces on the hearth below.
It turns out to be an extremely rare (only other known one is in the British Museum) Chinese ding bowl from the Song Dynasty, more than 1000 years old. Sold at Sotheby's aution for $2,220,000.
Forget the ugly vase that Aunt Susie Belle bought in a store to give you as a wedding present. But if there's a strange looking piece that's been in the family for generations, or that someone picked up at a flea market or garage sale . . . . might be worth checking out.
That's why Antiques Road Show is such a popular tv show.
Ralph
It turns out to be an extremely rare (only other known one is in the British Museum) Chinese ding bowl from the Song Dynasty, more than 1000 years old. Sold at Sotheby's aution for $2,220,000.
Forget the ugly vase that Aunt Susie Belle bought in a store to give you as a wedding present. But if there's a strange looking piece that's been in the family for generations, or that someone picked up at a flea market or garage sale . . . . might be worth checking out.
That's why Antiques Road Show is such a popular tv show.
Ralph
Wednesday, March 20, 2013
Letter from a dying soldier to Bush and Cheney
A Message to George W. Bush and Dick Cheney From a Dying Veteran
To: George W. Bush and Dick Cheney
From: Tomas Young
I write this letter on the 10th anniversary of the Iraq War on behalf of my fellow Iraq War veterans. . . . on behalf of those whose wounds, physical and psychological, have destroyed their lives. I am one of those gravely wounded. I was paralyzed in an insurgent ambush in 2004 in Sadr City. My life is coming to an end. I am living under hospice care.
I write this letter on behalf of husbands and wives who have lost spouses, on behalf of children who have lost a parent, on behalf of the fathers and mothers who have lost sons and daughters and on behalf of those who care for the many thousands of my fellow veterans who have brain injuries. I write this letter on behalf of those veterans whose trauma and self-revulsion for what they have witnessed, endured and done in Iraq have led to suicide and on behalf of the active-duty soldiers and Marines who commit, on average, a suicide a day. I write this letter on behalf of the some 1 million Iraqi dead and on behalf of the countless Iraqi wounded. I write this letter on behalf of us all—the human detritus your war has left behind, those who will spend their lives in unending pain and grief.
I write this letter, my last letter, to you, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney. I write not because I think you grasp the terrible human and moral consequences of your lies, manipulation and thirst for wealth and power. I write this letter because, before my own death, I want to make it clear that I, and hundreds of thousands of my fellow veterans, along with millions of my fellow citizens, along with hundreds of millions more in Iraq and the Middle East, know fully who you are and what you have done. You may evade justice but in our eyes you are each guilty of egregious war crimes, of plunder and, finally, of murder, including the murder of thousands of young Americans—my fellow veterans—whose future you stole.
Your positions of authority, your millions of dollars of personal wealth, your public relations consultants, your privilege and your power cannot mask the hollowness of your character. You sent us to fight and die in Iraq after you, Mr. Cheney, dodged the draft in Vietnam, and you, Mr. Bush, went AWOL from your National Guard unit. Your cowardice and selfishness were established decades ago. You were not willing to risk yourselves for our nation but you sent hundreds of thousands of young men and women to be sacrificed in a senseless war with no more thought than it takes to put out the garbage.
I joined the Army two days after the 9/11 attacks. I joined the Army because our country had been attacked. I wanted to strike back at those who had killed some 3,000 of my fellow citizens. I did not join the Army to go to Iraq, a country that had no part in the September 2001 attacks and did not pose a threat to its neighbors, much less to the United States. I did not join the Army to “liberate” Iraqis or to shut down mythical weapons-of-mass-destruction facilities or to implant what you cynically called “democracy” in Baghdad and the Middle East. I did not join the Army to rebuild Iraq, which at the time you told us could be paid for by Iraq’s oil revenues. Instead, this war has cost the United States over $3 trillion. I especially did not join the Army to carry out pre-emptive war. Pre-emptive war is illegal under international law. And as a soldier in Iraq I was, I now know, abetting your idiocy and your crimes. . . . . On every level—moral, strategic, military and economic—Iraq was a failure. And it was you, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney, who started this war. It is you who should pay the consequences.
I would not be writing this letter if I had been wounded fighting in Afghanistan against those forces that carried out the attacks of 9/11. . . . I would not have to lie in my bed, my body filled with painkillers, my life ebbing away, and deal with the fact that hundreds of thousands of human beings, including children, including myself, were sacrificed by you for little more than the greed of oil companies, for your alliance with the oil sheiks in Saudi Arabia, and your insane visions of empire. . . .
My day of reckoning is upon me. Yours will come. I hope you will be put on trial. But mostly I hope, for your sakes, that you find the moral courage to face what you have done to me and to many, many others who deserved to live. I hope that before your time on earth ends, as mine is now ending, you will find the strength of character to stand before the American public and the world, and in particular the Iraqi people, and beg for forgiveness.
Tomas Young
To: George W. Bush and Dick Cheney
From: Tomas Young
I write this letter on the 10th anniversary of the Iraq War on behalf of my fellow Iraq War veterans. . . . on behalf of those whose wounds, physical and psychological, have destroyed their lives. I am one of those gravely wounded. I was paralyzed in an insurgent ambush in 2004 in Sadr City. My life is coming to an end. I am living under hospice care.
I write this letter on behalf of husbands and wives who have lost spouses, on behalf of children who have lost a parent, on behalf of the fathers and mothers who have lost sons and daughters and on behalf of those who care for the many thousands of my fellow veterans who have brain injuries. I write this letter on behalf of those veterans whose trauma and self-revulsion for what they have witnessed, endured and done in Iraq have led to suicide and on behalf of the active-duty soldiers and Marines who commit, on average, a suicide a day. I write this letter on behalf of the some 1 million Iraqi dead and on behalf of the countless Iraqi wounded. I write this letter on behalf of us all—the human detritus your war has left behind, those who will spend their lives in unending pain and grief.
I write this letter, my last letter, to you, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney. I write not because I think you grasp the terrible human and moral consequences of your lies, manipulation and thirst for wealth and power. I write this letter because, before my own death, I want to make it clear that I, and hundreds of thousands of my fellow veterans, along with millions of my fellow citizens, along with hundreds of millions more in Iraq and the Middle East, know fully who you are and what you have done. You may evade justice but in our eyes you are each guilty of egregious war crimes, of plunder and, finally, of murder, including the murder of thousands of young Americans—my fellow veterans—whose future you stole.
Your positions of authority, your millions of dollars of personal wealth, your public relations consultants, your privilege and your power cannot mask the hollowness of your character. You sent us to fight and die in Iraq after you, Mr. Cheney, dodged the draft in Vietnam, and you, Mr. Bush, went AWOL from your National Guard unit. Your cowardice and selfishness were established decades ago. You were not willing to risk yourselves for our nation but you sent hundreds of thousands of young men and women to be sacrificed in a senseless war with no more thought than it takes to put out the garbage.
I joined the Army two days after the 9/11 attacks. I joined the Army because our country had been attacked. I wanted to strike back at those who had killed some 3,000 of my fellow citizens. I did not join the Army to go to Iraq, a country that had no part in the September 2001 attacks and did not pose a threat to its neighbors, much less to the United States. I did not join the Army to “liberate” Iraqis or to shut down mythical weapons-of-mass-destruction facilities or to implant what you cynically called “democracy” in Baghdad and the Middle East. I did not join the Army to rebuild Iraq, which at the time you told us could be paid for by Iraq’s oil revenues. Instead, this war has cost the United States over $3 trillion. I especially did not join the Army to carry out pre-emptive war. Pre-emptive war is illegal under international law. And as a soldier in Iraq I was, I now know, abetting your idiocy and your crimes. . . . . On every level—moral, strategic, military and economic—Iraq was a failure. And it was you, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney, who started this war. It is you who should pay the consequences.
I would not be writing this letter if I had been wounded fighting in Afghanistan against those forces that carried out the attacks of 9/11. . . . I would not have to lie in my bed, my body filled with painkillers, my life ebbing away, and deal with the fact that hundreds of thousands of human beings, including children, including myself, were sacrificed by you for little more than the greed of oil companies, for your alliance with the oil sheiks in Saudi Arabia, and your insane visions of empire. . . .
My day of reckoning is upon me. Yours will come. I hope you will be put on trial. But mostly I hope, for your sakes, that you find the moral courage to face what you have done to me and to many, many others who deserved to live. I hope that before your time on earth ends, as mine is now ending, you will find the strength of character to stand before the American public and the world, and in particular the Iraqi people, and beg for forgiveness.
Tomas Young
March 20, 2003 - March 20, 2013
Ten years ago today,** President Bush started the Iraq war under false pretenses.
It should never have happened. After all the killings and destruction and sectarian divisions within the country, all we can say is that Saddaam is gone and the country is a little more democratic than it was before.
But, rather than a vital, pro-Western democracy in the middle of the Middle East, we have a government that tilts more toward Tehran than to the U.S. and continuing violence and insurgents from the Sunni minority that was displaced from power.
Dick Cheney is probably the most culpable culprit in starting this war -- he and his hand-picked Rummies. Dubya was weak and uninformed and let himself be led.
No, there's not much we can point to with pride for our intervention in another country that was no immediate threat to us. Was it really just about oil? Driven by an oil man who wrangled himself in the VP slot after having procured the presidency for a weak man he could control -- up to a point?
I think history is going to show that one of Bush's least examined, least heralded decisions was the one where he finally stood up to Cheney and refused to pardon his boy, Scooter Libby for lying about the outing of Valerie Plame. We're told Bush and Cheney were barely on speaking terms after that.
Ralph
** News media have been calling March 19th the 10th anniversary, remembering that at 10:16 pm on the 19th President Bush addressed the nation, saying the invasion of Iraq had begun. But it was already March 20th in Iraq. And Wikipedia says it began on the 20th.
It should never have happened. After all the killings and destruction and sectarian divisions within the country, all we can say is that Saddaam is gone and the country is a little more democratic than it was before.
But, rather than a vital, pro-Western democracy in the middle of the Middle East, we have a government that tilts more toward Tehran than to the U.S. and continuing violence and insurgents from the Sunni minority that was displaced from power.
Dick Cheney is probably the most culpable culprit in starting this war -- he and his hand-picked Rummies. Dubya was weak and uninformed and let himself be led.
No, there's not much we can point to with pride for our intervention in another country that was no immediate threat to us. Was it really just about oil? Driven by an oil man who wrangled himself in the VP slot after having procured the presidency for a weak man he could control -- up to a point?
I think history is going to show that one of Bush's least examined, least heralded decisions was the one where he finally stood up to Cheney and refused to pardon his boy, Scooter Libby for lying about the outing of Valerie Plame. We're told Bush and Cheney were barely on speaking terms after that.
Ralph
** News media have been calling March 19th the 10th anniversary, remembering that at 10:16 pm on the 19th President Bush addressed the nation, saying the invasion of Iraq had begun. But it was already March 20th in Iraq. And Wikipedia says it began on the 20th.
Tuesday, March 19, 2013
Yes, John Boehner did say he agrees with President Obama: There is no immediate debt crisis.
After spending years pounding into the American psyche that "we have a huge debt crisis, John Boehner backtracked. In an interview with Martha Raddich, he answered her clarifying question, "So you agree with President Obama?"
Boehner looked momentarily stricken, as though it pained him to say it; then he said: "Yes. I agree with the President. There is no immediate debt crisis." He did go on to clarify that there is a severe long-range debt crisis, but it is not going to affect us in the immediate future.
How can they just change their answer like that? Spin around on a dime and say the opposite to what they've been hammering for years -- through at least two presidential campaigns.
Well, according to some experts: because it wasn't working for them politically. They finally realized that the American people are not with them on all this austerity cuts in spending.
So Laurence O'Donnell went further on his tv show and said he wished Raddich had instead asked him if he agreed with Paul Krugman, who has been a rather lone voice proclaiming that there is no immediate debt crisis -- and so we should increase, not decrease government spending. The job recovery in the private sector has been good; it's in government jobs that there is no improvement but rather a continuing loss of public sector jobs.
Just look at the facts: The deficit has declined steadily over the past few budget cycles. The feared inflation and stagnant economy are not happening. Recovery would be faster if we increased stimulus spending, but it is happening.
Rush Limbaugh sounded off in the opposite direction. But who cares? In fact, who really cares what John Boehner says, except that it may signal a readiness to reach a budget compromise where they actually give in on austerity and reach a grand bargain.
Ralph
Boehner looked momentarily stricken, as though it pained him to say it; then he said: "Yes. I agree with the President. There is no immediate debt crisis." He did go on to clarify that there is a severe long-range debt crisis, but it is not going to affect us in the immediate future.
How can they just change their answer like that? Spin around on a dime and say the opposite to what they've been hammering for years -- through at least two presidential campaigns.
Well, according to some experts: because it wasn't working for them politically. They finally realized that the American people are not with them on all this austerity cuts in spending.
So Laurence O'Donnell went further on his tv show and said he wished Raddich had instead asked him if he agreed with Paul Krugman, who has been a rather lone voice proclaiming that there is no immediate debt crisis -- and so we should increase, not decrease government spending. The job recovery in the private sector has been good; it's in government jobs that there is no improvement but rather a continuing loss of public sector jobs.
Just look at the facts: The deficit has declined steadily over the past few budget cycles. The feared inflation and stagnant economy are not happening. Recovery would be faster if we increased stimulus spending, but it is happening.
Rush Limbaugh sounded off in the opposite direction. But who cares? In fact, who really cares what John Boehner says, except that it may signal a readiness to reach a budget compromise where they actually give in on austerity and reach a grand bargain.
Ralph
Monday, March 18, 2013
Hillary supports marriage equality
Hillary Clinton has announced her support for marriage equality -- something hubbie Bill did a couple of weeks ago.
Both sides in the SCOTUS hearing have long since submitted their amicus curiae briefs, but this is all about building a sense of momentum and hoping the justices will feel the tide as an indication of the people's changed intention.
In addition, a new poll out yesterday shows an astonishing leap in support for marriage equality to 58%. It's only been about a year since a consensus of polls topped the 50% mark.
For people under 30, support is 87%.
Hearings on DOMA and Prop8 are next week, beginning March 26.
Ralph
Both sides in the SCOTUS hearing have long since submitted their amicus curiae briefs, but this is all about building a sense of momentum and hoping the justices will feel the tide as an indication of the people's changed intention.
In addition, a new poll out yesterday shows an astonishing leap in support for marriage equality to 58%. It's only been about a year since a consensus of polls topped the 50% mark.
For people under 30, support is 87%.
Hearings on DOMA and Prop8 are next week, beginning March 26.
Ralph
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