Back to American politics, where an update on the Neuroscience Party brings us the unfortunate news that my candidacy for public office has gone nowhere. The Superhappy Evolution and Neuroscience Party has failed to qualify as an official party. Sadly, it is no longer even listed as attempting to qualify in the state of California. However, they are attempting to qualify in Santa Cruz county. No word yet on Nevada.
We want every woman to live like a princess with robotic servants and we want everyone to live like wealthy billionaires, wealthy members of royalty, and wealthy slavemasters with robotic servants and robotic slaves that will do all of the work for them.
Sick of American politics?The 2008 Canadian federal election (officially called the 40th Canadian General Election) is scheduled to be held October 14, 2008, to elect members to the Canadian House of Commons of the 40th Canadian Parliament. The previous parliament was dissolved by the Governor General on September 7, 2008.
The Wikipedia page also tells us that the Marijuana Party of Canada has eight candidates, but the Work Less Party has only one (too much work, perhaps, to have others run under their mandate?).1. Reduce our environmental footprint.2. Reduce unemployment and increase the minimum wage.3. Decentralize decision making.4. Promote community, arts, music, health, culture and education.So work less (32 hrs/week), spend less, and save the environment.
BIDEN: I'll be very brief. Can I respond to that?
Look, the maverick -- let's talk about the maverick John McCain is. And, again, I love him. He's been a maverick on some issues, but he has been no maverick on the things that matter to people's lives.
He voted four out of five times for George Bush's budget, which put us a half a trillion dollars in debt this year and over $3 trillion in debt since he's got there.
He has not been a maverick in providing health care for people. He has voted against -- he voted including another 3.6 million children in coverage of the existing health care plan, when he voted in the United States Senate.
He's not been a maverick when it comes to education. He has not supported tax cuts and significant changes for people being able to send their kids to college.
He's not been a maverick on the war. He's not been a maverick on virtually anything that genuinely affects the things that people really talk about around their kitchen table.
Can we send -- can we get Mom's MRI? Can we send Mary back to school next semester? We can't -- we can't make it. How are we going to heat the -- heat the house this winter?
He voted against even providing for what they call LIHEAP, for assistance to people, with oil prices going through the roof in the winter.
So maverick he is not on the important, critical issues that affect people at that kitchen table.
--Transcript of Palin, Biden debate from CNN.com.
Bad Boys (Cops Theme)NewScientist suggests that an increase in cortisol might be warranted...
by Inner Circle
Bad boys, bad boys
Whatcha gonna do, whatcha gonna do
When they come for you
Bad boys can blame behaviour on their hormones
15:37 30 September 2008
Andy CoghlanOut-of-control boys facing spells in detention or anti-social behaviour orders can now blame it all on their hormones.
The "stress hormone" cortisol – or low levels of it – may be responsible for male aggressive antisocial behaviour, according to new research. The work suggests that the hormone may restrain aggression in stressful situations.
Researchers found that levels of cortisol fell when delinquent boys played a stressful video game, the opposite of what was seen in control volunteers playing the same game.
It has been suggested that individuals with EO-CD show neuropsychological impairments. In contrast, AO-CD is considered to arise primarily because of social modeling of deviant peers. We investigated whether this hypothetical distinction between CD subtypes would extend to differences in patterns of cortisol secretion or cardiovascular activity under basal conditions or during stress.The basal samples were collected at 4 different times during the day over the course of 3 days. Psychosocial stress was induced by subjecting the boys to the frustrating experience of playing a game against a hostile opponent, and by providing them with ample negative feedback. Basically, the procedure
What were the results? Briefly, the basal levels of cortisol in the CD group were slightly elevated at the evening time point, when the diurnal rhythm of cortisol is typically at a low point. In contrast, the boys with CD showed a drop in cortisol levels during the stressful game, as opposed to the elevated cortisol levels exhibited by the boys without CD (shown below)....involves inducing frustration and provocation between the participant and a prerecorded video opponent.
The competition began between 1 and 2 pm with a task involving confrontation, the Prisoner's Dilemma Game (PDG), in which the opponent always failed to cooperate and sent antagonistic messages. Frustration was induced by having the participant perform a difficult, computer-based manual precision task (MPT) under time pressure while the video opponent and experimenter watched. By design, all participants failed to achieve their target score and received negative evaluations of their performance from the opponent. Following these tasks, participants completed further challenging cognitive tasks aimed at increasing performance uncertainty. Finally, they watched their opponent play the MPT and could remotely disrupt the opponent's performance. At the end of the session (between 3 and 4 pm), participants were told they had won the competition.
Our findings of blunted cortisol and cardiovascular responses to stress in AO-CD and EO-CD participants relative to control subjects contradicts the developmental taxonomic theory, which implies that such neurobiological differences should be unique to EO-CD. Physiologic hyporeactivity during stress could reflect a latent trait that increases vulnerability to CD, whereas age of CD onset may be moderated by psychosocial factors (e.g., differences in parental supervision, exposure to antisocial models). Alternatively, it may be unnecessary to invoke a latent trait in either subgroup: rather, both CD subgroups may have experienced increased social adversity during development (e.g., maltreatment), or, because of heightened risk-taking behaviors, they may place themselves in stressful situations more frequently than other adolescents (leading to habituation to stressors).So those bad boys need a cortisol adjustment...or else a more relaxing and supportive environment.
Can't get an interview with Sarah Palin? We've got you covered.
A: John McCain and I think our presence in Iraq and Afghanistan will lead to further security of our economy. It is, somebody was saying this morning, a toxic waste there on the side of the United States of America, where where do they go? It's Alaska. It's just too impacting, we had to step in there. I was not a part of, I guess, that culture. The way that I am so proud of his desire to control energy supplies, also, coming from and through Russia, that's a dangerous position for our world to be wired in a way of being so committed to Georgia.
