Monday, July 28, 2014
On Sunday’s Meet the Press, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu profoundly slapped down moderator David Gregory’s assertion that Israel had been involved in the “targeting of a U.N. school that killed children and those civilians who were fleeing a safe place to go in the fighting.”
Netanyahu resoundingly condemned Gregory’s statement and insisted that the “Secretary General of the United Nations before this incident took place, said that, admitted that two U.N. schools in Gaza were used to stockpile rockets.”
The NBC host began his line of questioning by lamenting “about the price to Israel, [in] this ongoing conflict. The staggering number of dead civilians on the Palestinian side in Gaza” before falsely claiming that Israel had deliberately targeted a U.N. school in Gaza. Gregory continued to distort the facts in the case and wondered “was this a mistake on the part of Israel even though the U.N. says this was clearly marked and that the Israeli forces knew the GPS coordinates of this school?”
Read more: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/jeffrey-meyer/2014/07/27/benjamin-netanyahu-confronts-nbc-s-david-gregory-over-claim-israel-ta#ixzz38mHbDQok
Netanyahu resoundingly condemned Gregory’s statement and insisted that the “Secretary General of the United Nations before this incident took place, said that, admitted that two U.N. schools in Gaza were used to stockpile rockets.”
The NBC host began his line of questioning by lamenting “about the price to Israel, [in] this ongoing conflict. The staggering number of dead civilians on the Palestinian side in Gaza” before falsely claiming that Israel had deliberately targeted a U.N. school in Gaza. Gregory continued to distort the facts in the case and wondered “was this a mistake on the part of Israel even though the U.N. says this was clearly marked and that the Israeli forces knew the GPS coordinates of this school?”
Read more: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/jeffrey-meyer/2014/07/27/benjamin-netanyahu-confronts-nbc-s-david-gregory-over-claim-israel-ta#ixzz38mHbDQok
You’d think I’d declared myself a Republican. Since I said yesterday on ABC’s “This Week” that I was impressed with much of Representative Paul Ryan's discussio...n paper on "Expanding Opportunity in America,” many have accused me of selling out to the devil. Can we get a grip? Unlike Ryan's previous proposals, this one doesn’t cut a dollar from programs for the poor; in fact, it expands the Earned Income Tax Credit – a wage subsidy for low-wage workers. It gives states more discretion for how they use money for the poor, but it’s not a block grant: State plans would still have to be approved by the federal government, and they’d have to monitor various measures of success -- families lifted out of poverty, percentage of people finding work or getting off assistance, growth in wages, high school graduation rates and so on. The proposal puts attention where it belongs -- on poverty and upward mobility for those at the bottom.
I know, I know. State governments unsympathetic to the poor have too often syphoned off federal money for other purposes. And look at all the Republican state governments that refuse to expand their Medicaid programs under the Affordable Care Act, even though federal taxpayers will foot nearly the entire cost. But the Ryan plan at least offers a starting point for discussion. Have we become so polarized and distrustful we can’t even talk?
“Human consciousness is a specific form of consciousness that creates a model of the world and then simulates it in time,” or so says Michio Kaku in his new book, The Future of the Mind. Only thing I can add to that is, then by this definition there are probably more species on Earth than we like to believe that could be called "human".
http://consciousresonance.net/?p=3655
Show lesshttp://consciousresonance.net/?p=3655
I had been posting "Repeal 2" comments around, perhaps a little overzealously, but with a strict purpose: the 2'nd Amendment needs to be upgraded to meet modern technology, and that need is only getting is growing greater every year. I do not propose an outright ban on private arms ownership, however.
There are several problems with the 2'nd as written. First, it speaks in terms of "well regulated militia" securing "free state[s]"; second, the word "infringe" (rather than "deny", e.g.) suggests that no restriction on private arms ownership is allowed at all, for to infringe is to even gently step on toes, albeit unintentionally. A Supreme Court could throw out All gun laws, state or federal, in this nation based on that word alone, one suspects.
The notion that our country is little more than a alliance of free states has always been false, as the events from 1865-1965 demonstrate. Though still retaining considerable autonomy, federalism has come to mean, for good or bad, states' subservience to Washington, Congress, and the President. For good or bad, I'm going to take this as a given. As to militia, whether they should play a role should be the subject of debate.
Full private access to any and all "arms", particularly in the nuclear age, is, I hope, beyond debate. It would be madness to allow individuals, or random collectives, to own tanks, jets, machine guns, WMDs, or weapons of such magnitude. At the same time, if we do have "... the Right to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness" as the DOI proclaims, then we have the rights derived therein -- such as the Right to Self Defense, the Right to Sufficient Medical Care, the Right to Basic Needs such as clean air, water, food, etc. Bear in mind, government must provide for the defense of all these rights, whether in the form of police, courts, Obamacare, the DOD, etc. At the same time, as we correctly recognize that provision by government alone, especially centralized government, is suspect; for governments, like all human institutions, are subject to human corruptibility and so must be guarded against (why we have the federal system of course, with its separation of powers, state and local rights, again etc.).
This could, and probably should, be expanded into a full thesis, which cannot be done in a forum like this. So I'll simply state my Revised Edition (first cut!) of the 2'nd Amendment, and leave it up for feedback. Here goes:
"A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free nation, the right of the people to self defense by necessary means shall not be denied. Congress and the states will cooperate to regulate and support such militia and their facilities."
There are several problems with the 2'nd as written. First, it speaks in terms of "well regulated militia" securing "free state[s]"; second, the word "infringe" (rather than "deny", e.g.) suggests that no restriction on private arms ownership is allowed at all, for to infringe is to even gently step on toes, albeit unintentionally. A Supreme Court could throw out All gun laws, state or federal, in this nation based on that word alone, one suspects.
The notion that our country is little more than a alliance of free states has always been false, as the events from 1865-1965 demonstrate. Though still retaining considerable autonomy, federalism has come to mean, for good or bad, states' subservience to Washington, Congress, and the President. For good or bad, I'm going to take this as a given. As to militia, whether they should play a role should be the subject of debate.
Full private access to any and all "arms", particularly in the nuclear age, is, I hope, beyond debate. It would be madness to allow individuals, or random collectives, to own tanks, jets, machine guns, WMDs, or weapons of such magnitude. At the same time, if we do have "... the Right to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness" as the DOI proclaims, then we have the rights derived therein -- such as the Right to Self Defense, the Right to Sufficient Medical Care, the Right to Basic Needs such as clean air, water, food, etc. Bear in mind, government must provide for the defense of all these rights, whether in the form of police, courts, Obamacare, the DOD, etc. At the same time, as we correctly recognize that provision by government alone, especially centralized government, is suspect; for governments, like all human institutions, are subject to human corruptibility and so must be guarded against (why we have the federal system of course, with its separation of powers, state and local rights, again etc.).
This could, and probably should, be expanded into a full thesis, which cannot be done in a forum like this. So I'll simply state my Revised Edition (first cut!) of the 2'nd Amendment, and leave it up for feedback. Here goes:
"A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free nation, the right of the people to self defense by necessary means shall not be denied. Congress and the states will cooperate to regulate and support such militia and their facilities."
(From Michael Shermer on Facebook):
Psychologists have demonstrated the value of diversity—particularly diversity of viewpoints—for enhancing creativity, discovery, and problem solving. But one key type of viewpoint diversity is lacking in academic psychology in general and social psychology in particular: political diversity. This article reviews the available evidence and finds support for four claims: 1) Academic psychology once had considerable political diversity, but has lost nearly all of it in the last 50 years; 2) This lack of political diversity can undermine the validity of social psychological science via mechanisms such as the embedding of liberal values into research questions and methods, steering researchers away from important but politically unpalatable research topics, and producing conclusions that mischaracterize liberals and conservatives alike; 3) Increased political diversity would improve social psychological science by reducing the impact of bias mechanisms such as confirmation bias, and by empowering dissenting minorities to improve the quality of the majority’s thinking; and 4) The underrepresentation of nonliberals in social psychology is most likely due to a combination of self-selection, hostile climate, and discrimination. We close with recommendations for increasing political diversity in social psychology.
http://journals.cambridge.org/images/fileUpload/documents/Duarte-Haidt_BBS-D-14-00108_preprint.pdf
Show lessPsychologists have demonstrated the value of diversity—particularly diversity of viewpoints—for enhancing creativity, discovery, and problem solving. But one key type of viewpoint diversity is lacking in academic psychology in general and social psychology in particular: political diversity. This article reviews the available evidence and finds support for four claims: 1) Academic psychology once had considerable political diversity, but has lost nearly all of it in the last 50 years; 2) This lack of political diversity can undermine the validity of social psychological science via mechanisms such as the embedding of liberal values into research questions and methods, steering researchers away from important but politically unpalatable research topics, and producing conclusions that mischaracterize liberals and conservatives alike; 3) Increased political diversity would improve social psychological science by reducing the impact of bias mechanisms such as confirmation bias, and by empowering dissenting minorities to improve the quality of the majority’s thinking; and 4) The underrepresentation of nonliberals in social psychology is most likely due to a combination of self-selection, hostile climate, and discrimination. We close with recommendations for increasing political diversity in social psychology.
http://journals.cambridge.org/images/fileUpload/documents/Duarte-Haidt_BBS-D-14-00108_preprint.pdf
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