ParanoiA

And you'd be right since I said this in that same post: And now I see that you're only concerned with written documents and not right and wrong. Thanks for clearing that up. Torture is totally cool with bascule, so long as we're not violating the constitution. I suppose slavery wouldn't have been much of an issue for you when it was in the constitution right? In fact, you'd have brought folks up on charges for helping to free slaves right?

4, in my opinion. Statist, Liberal, Conservative and Libertarian. Or no parties at all. Probably the best solution is indeed, zero, but that doesn't seem very realistic. I remember watching this bit on group psychology where kids in blue shirts naturally started competing with kids in red shirts even though they were not instructed to do so, nor were they ever associated as a group - they did it on their own without really talking about it. So maybe we should insist on a dress code that all of them wear the same T-shirt and blue jeans (suits are pretentious, seriously, cover your ugly torso with some cloth and get your eye on the ball here) and no party affiliation. Although ideological preferences won't be a secret, perhaps there wouldn't be the same partisan-like vehemence at the expense of national interest.

I'm not convinced a central banking system is necessary. But more importantly, I'm not sure a lender of last resort is the only weapon against bank runs or the supposed need for elastic currency. A lender of last resort promotes bad behavior just like the implied, and later confirmed, federal backing of Fanny May and Freddie Mack and bailing out failing companies right now. The safety net is best when no one knows it's there. I'm not sure how we achieve that. Could FDIC prevent bank runs from self fulfilling prophecies of insolvency? I'm not sure. It's another safety net, but geared more for depositors, so maybe it won't promote the same kind of irresponsible investment we see on the large scale? Central planning, however, fails because we cannot predict every variable. So it will always fail. Free banking fits with our model for freedom and responsibility inherent in capitalistic consequences. Without legal tender laws, bad money won't force out good money either. This is far more natural, allows everyone to assess risk, both buying and selling, the quintessential nature of trade between humans. And perhaps more workable now with such an established currency. It would be interesting to see the dollar compete within the union. All that said, I'm still reading and trying to soak this stuff in. The banking panics do put quite a wrench in the gears and create a valid expectation of some kind of solution. I'm certainly not comfortable with the power of the federal reserve though.

Yeah, the rendition retention by Obama is a slap in the face to anyone that knows what it is. Not to mention it comically counters the whole anti-outsourcing ideology of the democrat platform - one of the few things I actually liked about democrats. I'm against any politically motivated investigations - it's just hard to distinguish legitimate ones in this kind of political climate. That said, I'm not against investigating Bush. There are plenty of political reasons, but there are also some decent legitimate ones. And I like ecoli's last statement, that would seem the responsible assumption.

Coming from a man that struck a deal with Khrushchev to remove missles from Turkey in "secret". Apparently even the democrat's favorite guy practiced a little repugnance ever now and then huh?

Yeah, Taylor doesn't say that either. Tend-and-Befriend is a description of a pattern of behavior associated with the Fight-or-Flight response in females, it doesn't take the place of it. It's not an either / or. The paper is saying both males and females have fight-or-flight responses, rather it is that email that carelessly reframes this as "testosterone-elicited" fight-or-flight - though even still, it also doesn't say women don't have fight-or-flight responses. Nothing I've read in this thead says that.

Oh, I so miss Sam Kinison. I loved the routine where he'd pick someone from the audience and call their ex-girlfriend to verbally abuse them.

Well that's a good point. I guess I didn't see it as money actually going out the door. I didn't notice my 3,000th. Thanks, but I'm no scientist.

And that's precisely why I was asking. I was thinking of printing a little counter piece I could tack on to their bulletins pointing out that our CEO also froze the salaries of 120,000 managers and has foregone his 2008 bonus, which is supposed to make up about 1/4 of his earnings. It doesn't speak well of the union to answer to that by distributing a bulletin that points out he didn't cap his stock awards. Nothing is good enough, it seems.

That's the exact same quote I posted in my post # 9. I didn't ask if Taylor is positing a Tend-and-Befriend pattern of behavior, I'm asking if Taylor is making the case that women are better than men. We must separate the author of this email in the OP from Taylor. We know the author is misusing Taylor's results to score political points. But is Taylor doing that as well? I don't know, I'm asking. From what I've read, she isn't, but rather we are jumping to conclusions and frying her along with this mysterious author. So, is Taylor trying to say that women are better than men? And perhaps a better question might be, is Taylor's paper hogwash, or is it legitimate?

So you are of the opinion that, generally speaking, females are every bit as likely to react aggressively in a fight-or-flight situation as males? See, I'm not any more sure about that than I am tend-and-befriend. People are going to react differently to the same stessor. It's hard to believe that no pattern could be found along gender lines. And I'm not sure why that's charged with fears of devaluation.

Hmm, I guess I don't know. Maybe that's the deal. I need to find that out. Ok, then setting accounting aside for a moment, is there any other reason why stock options or grants would be bad?

Well yeah it's a pile of hogwash to make that political point, or even the philosophical point of females being better than males. But what does that have to do with Taylor's research? Does she, and the other writers, attempt to make that case in "Biobehavioral Responses to Stress in Females: Tend-and-Befriend, Not Fight-or-Flight"? (That's actually the paper I took the abstract from, above. I didn't have access to it without paying for it).

What in the world are you talking about? Males better than females? Where did that come from? I didn't read anything that attempted to assign primacy to one or the other, let alone to the sexes. If that's the point of that publication, then yeah, that sounds like a perversion for sure. I took the abstract at face value, and please correct me if I shouldn't, that it was about a Tend-and-Befriend pattern of behavior associated with females due to physiological differences associated with oxytocin and estrogen, within the context of fight-or-flight stressors. I certainly don't see anything inferior about that, do you? Also, I never said I supported Taylor's conclusions anyway, only that it supports the background the author of this email did misrepresent and use for his political point. He said it was proven, it was not. I don't have the credibility to determine what scientific publication is legitimate and what is not, I rely on you guys for that sort of thing. In my first post I stated I had always wondered something similar, and that it was personal observation and not a belief, nor anything I would attempt to posit. Hope that didn't get misinterpreted.

Ok, our union here is posting up bulletins making a stink about our CEO capping his pay but not his 394,000 shares of stock. I guess I'm confused, what exactly could the problem be here? I don't see how his shares of stock hurt the company, nor how selling them would somehow be a good signal to investors in a troubled economy. What is it that I don't understand about this?

The author I was talking about was the OP email paragraph. It seems that author took the research study from Taylor and made absolute statements out of it like "proving that women do not have a testosterone-elicited "fight or flight" response". And then further, McCarthy seems to support the author's (albeit carelessly written) notion that testosterone could affect the nature of the male's fight-or-flight aggressive tendency. In other words, there is research to support the background the author uses, but is being entirely mangled for political points.

George Carlin and Bill Hicks are definitely my favorites on the RIP list. Loved their opinionated indictment of the human race. Eddie Izzard is a recent discovery for me. Really enjoyed his Dress to Kill special, especially the world history related stuff. One of my favorites has always been Lewis Black. I guess I just really like the "angry" comedian because most of my favorites are doing comedy dressed in a rant. There's tons of Lewis Black stuff, here's a teaspoon full. Lewis Black on Starbucks (a classic): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9iMgSNrwv4 Lewis Black on hunting (Dick Cheney slam included!): "These people are watching the Flinestones, as if it were a documentary" - Lewis on people who believe the dinosaurs and man lived together.

Are there any proposed solutions to this debris with any credibility in circulation? I read that any particles larger than a mere centimeter can damage or destroy other satellites. Sounds like we need one hell of a vacuum cleaner.

Right, exactly. And the email paragraph in the OP is in reference to the crisis on Wall Street, not a short-term stress. That's why I think they got sloppy with the language and mangled Taylor's verbiage, but they're clearly not talking about a short-term monster in the bush scenario. Here's something else I found on the subject that would seem to support the "testosterone-elicited" qualifier describing the fight-or-flight nature of males as compared to females, used in the OP: http://www.personalityresearch.org/papers/mccarthy.html I think the author is really just guilty of making absolutes out of generalities.

Sounds like it's alluding to "tend-and-befriend", which Shelley Taylor has written about prolifically. Here's an abstract from a 2000 publication on the subject (sorry I don't have the spare cash to actually buy it): http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10941275 There's some truth to it, but it sounds like whoever wrote that email did to Shelley what Tim "The Toolman" Taylor did to Wilson's moral lectures.

I don't think they're saying women don't have a fight or flight response in an emergency, and it's their use of the word "testosterone" that I believe suggests that. I think they're saying that in a bad situation, women are less likely to leap into fight or flight in reaction, and instead calculate and analyze and make a better long term decision, even if it means a short term discomfort. Whereas men are more likely to answer directly to their testosterone and protective tendencies and react without as much reverence to any long term result. Both will still run from a rabid wolf, fueled by adrenaline. That's what it sounds like they're saying, to me, probably because I've always wondered something similar. Seems like women have a superior capacity for doing what it takes to stay alive and protect their children - particularly self sacrifice. But that's purely speculative from personal experience.

Are you all saying there is nothing to be said for the idea that worship in deity could be "selected"? Haven't considered it much, maybe you all have, but it seems plausible that some groups could perform better with this kind of motivation, or security in delusion. After all, self delusion wouldn't be very useful if it didn't. Evidence, you say? Alright, I'll bring up some irrefutable evidence. Battlestar Galactica. Adama gave them 'earth' to believe in, when they still believed it was only legend and fairy tales. But the rationale was that we could live better if we had something to live for. Perhaps deity, filling in the gaps of the unknown, helped groups live better, more successful, with purpose?

Hmm..it's almost as if you're implying we can't justify spending on everything that helps the economy. That's just silly. If it helps the economy, then why throw such an ideological partition in there? You're a republican aren't you?