Re: What America Does with its Hegemony
Gautam wrote: Since Bill Clinton himself has stated on many occasions that he agreed with the Bush Administration's interpretation of Iraqi threat, that's a remarkable statement of his omniscience there, Doug. Would Clinton have depended on stove piped intelligence from expatriate Iraqis with an agenda to make the case for invasion, while ignoring evidence to the contrary from more reliable sources? Would Clinton have commissioned a study on the costs and difficulties of a war on Iraq and then ignored its results? Would Clinton have cut short the new inspection regimen that was revealing that Iraq had no stockpiles of WMDs? You are right (and I was wrong), Clinton believed that Iraq was a threat. But he never would have approached the problem in the haphazard, incompetent manner the Bush administration has. -- Doug ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Favorite bad Sci-Fi movies on DVD
-- From: Ronn!Blankenship [EMAIL PROTECTED] At 01:59 PM 5/16/04, Julia Thompson wrote: Ronn!Blankenship wrote: At 12:10 PM 5/16/04, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: In a message dated 5/16/2004 9:43:00 AM US Mountain Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Julia Forget Babies R Us, Toys R Us -- Insanity R Us, that's the way to go Yes, but under theoretical rules of super string super-symmetry, there's really no such thing as a reversed R. R, 2! D, 2! Wouldn't a d2 die be a coin? A Cone. Sphere. Cone. Cylinder. Triangular Pyramid. 5-Sided object. Cube. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Favorite bad Sci-Fi movies on DVD
At 03:24 AM 5/21/04, The Fool wrote: --===1310530864== -- From: Ronn!Blankenship [EMAIL PROTECTED] At 01:59 PM 5/16/04, Julia Thompson wrote: Ronn!Blankenship wrote: At 12:10 PM 5/16/04, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: In a message dated 5/16/2004 9:43:00 AM US Mountain Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Julia Forget Babies R Us, Toys R Us -- Insanity R Us, that's the way to go Yes, but under theoretical rules of super string super-symmetry, there's really no such thing as a reversed R. R, 2! D, 2! Wouldn't a d2 die be a coin? A Cone. I think a coin would be more likely to be fair. Sphere. I don't know how many times I've wished I had a d1 when I really didn't want to make a choice . . . Cone. Cylinder. Again, a cube with 2 faces with each number or other choice would likely be fairer. Triangular Pyramid. AKA tetrahedron. 5-Sided object. A square pyramid would work, although again the unequal faces would likely impact its fairness. A d10 with 2 faces for each choice or a d20 (icosahedron) with 4 faces for each choice would work better. Or one could make a right prism with a regular pentagon as the base, label the sides 1-5, and roll it rather than toss it . . . Cube. -- Ronn! :) ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Favorite bad Sci-Fi movies on DVD
-- From: Ronn!Blankenship [EMAIL PROTECTED] At 03:24 AM 5/21/04, The Fool wrote: From: Ronn!Blankenship [EMAIL PROTECTED] Wouldn't a d2 die be a coin? A Cone. I think a coin would be more likely to be fair. ___ I'm sure a cone with a fair ratio of base to pointy-end could be made. ___ Sphere. I don't know how many times I've wished I had a d1 when I really didn't want to make a choice . . . Cone. Cylinder. Again, a cube with 2 faces with each number or other choice would likely be fairer. Triangular Pyramid. AKA tetrahedron. 5-Sided object. A square pyramid would work, although again the unequal faces would likely impact its fairness. Same with the cone. A d10 with 2 faces for each choice or a d20 (icosahedron) with 4 faces for each choice would work better. Or one could make a right prism with a regular pentagon as the base, label the sides 1-5, and roll it rather than toss it . . . Cube. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Br!n: group still active?
At 12:05 AM 5/21/2004, you wrote: In a message dated 5/20/2004 7:57:48 PM US Mountain Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: The web server was just unhappy... but I believe I just fixed it. Nick Voice of the web server: What do you mean it was out? Aww come on, it was in by a mile! Are you blind? * * * * * How did you fix the server? Vilyehm Took it to the PC vet? OSL! Kevin T. - VRWC What I need are a couple days off.oh I got them ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
More on Iraq's WMD
Convenient analysis of the alleged WMD artillery shell found in Iraq. http://www.lt-smash.us/archives/002919.html#002919 Damon. = Damon Agretto [EMAIL PROTECTED] Qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum. http://www.geocities.com/garrand.geo/index.html Now Building: __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Domains Claim yours for only $14.70/year http://smallbusiness.promotions.yahoo.com/offer ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Brin: group still active?
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: How did you fix the server? So many smart-ass possibilities... but I fixed it by starting it. ;-) /etc/init.d/httpd start, for those who want details. I think that the server had had a misconfigured domain name, which I fixed earlier, but neglected to restart the web daemon afterwards. Nick -- Nick Arnett Director, Business Intelligence Services LiveWorld Inc. Phone/fax: (408) 551-0427 [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
1Cav and CW
Here's another interesting article: http://www.stripesonline.com/article.asp?section=104article=22295 In particular note this section: Some of the shells were leaking, according to soldiers on the scene. Even if the shells turn out to be conventional, it would still be one of the most significant weapons seizures during the Fort Hood, Texas-based 1st Cavs four months in Iraq. The leakage may be from smoke rounds (speculation: I actually don't know how smoke rounds are produced, though its reasonable to assume they use a liquid that vaporizes upon impact/explosion), or of course chemical rounds. Damon. = Damon Agretto [EMAIL PROTECTED] Qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum. http://www.geocities.com/garrand.geo/index.html Now Building: __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Domains Claim yours for only $14.70/year http://smallbusiness.promotions.yahoo.com/offer ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: 'Expect less, be happier...?'
Gary Denton [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Deborah Harrell [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: snippage Debbi who subscribes to the 'gourami fish theory' of mating That I would have to see ;-) Breeding gouramis can be a tricky issue though, as they can be aggressive towards and even kill the females If she is ready to mate and the male is not too aggressive in his pursuits (some males are just not mateable at all because they will beat up even females are responsive) Real Kinky Unless you mean kissing gouramis, who do not build a bubble nest but just just start kissing along each others sides and get excited until thousands of sticky eggs are released and then fertized all over the tank. grin It was indeed kissing gouramis, but because I recalled reading that the 'kissing' behaviour was actually a 'sizing-up' of the potential mate; weaker fish were chased away as unfit, while two 'equals' would find each other suitable and mate. I don't recall where I read that (it was quite some time ago!), and was not able to find anything really corroborating it on the net. Some articles stated that only males 'kissed' in establishing dominance, others that it was to remove parasites or feed on algae, others that only males/females exhibited this behavior... http://www.liveaquaria.com/product/prod_Display.cfm?siteid=21pCatId=968 http://www.aquariacentral.com/fishinfo/fresh/kisser.htm http://mikejacobs.50megs.com/SecretKissingGourami.html [from the last:] There are several theories as to why Helostoma temmincki kisses, but actual scientific proof seems to be lacking. As L. P. Aronson states that assumptions are often made about the nature of aggressive and reproductive behavior without adequate evidence about what is actually taking place. Three main theories seem to be: 1) That kissing is an aggressive action derived from the formation of territories and social organizations. 2) That it is an act of courtship and/or presexual behavior. 3) That it is merely a habitual play trait, characteristic of other fishes also. A more recent suggestion claims that may possibly be a method by which the fish remove tiny parasites from each others mouths. An extensive research in the future may finally solve this mystery; until that time, however, this strange little ritual remains the secret of Helostoma temmincki This researcher's viewpoint could apply to cichlids - or us: http://www.sru.edu/depts/artsci/bio/scb/scbres.htm 4. How do aggressive and courtship motivations and behavior result in successful pair formation in sexually monomorphic cichlid species? This is, in some sense, the most persistent question in my research, and one that has been pursued by researchers since the 1930s. I don't think the answer lies in the traditionally examined realm of simple, sexually dimorphic coloration, olfactory cues, behavioral stereotypy, or auditory cues. All have been investigated. Instead, the process may be essentially dynamic, and its local unpredictability an inherent component of the dynamic interactions between the sexes. I would like to know the basics of the decision rules that yield this unstable behavioral system... Perhaps this subscription to the gourami fish theory of mating relates to your lowered expectations? snort of amusement Exactly the opposite -- I want an equal! scratches side-of-face And, um, well...if he _wasn't_ my equal, I'd drive him away from my territory; not trying to be mean, ya see, but why would I settle for a guy I'd have to stifle myself for? Debbi Locally Unpredictable Maru ;) __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Domains Claim yours for only $14.70/year http://smallbusiness.promotions.yahoo.com/offer ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: More Spent on Drugs for Behavior Disorders in Children Than on Asthma Medications and Antibiotics
Ronn!Blankenship [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: snip Spending Reflects Popularity of Children's Behavior-Disorder Drugs For the first time, spending on drugs for behavior disorders in children has eclipsed that for asthma medications and antibiotics. The last three years have seen a 49 percent increase in the use of drugs to treat attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder in children under age 5, yielding a 369 percent increase in spending for those drugs. Over the same period, spending rose 21 percent for antidepressants and 71 percent for drugs to treat autism and other conduct disorders. Spending for antibiotics rose 4.3 percent. Behavioral medicines have eclipsed the other categories this year, said Robert Epstein, chief medical officer of Medco Health Solutions. It certainly reflects the concern of parents that their children do as well as they can. Overall, 5.3 percent of children took some behavioral medicine in 2003, leading some to fear it was overprescribed. Psychiatrist James McGough of the UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute said children on attention-deficit drugs tend to do better in school and avoid substance abuse, but warned that antidepressants can increase suicide risk in children. I find this scary; while I do not doubt that some children need such medication, I think that using psychoactive drugs in very young children (I've read of 3-year-olds on some) has a real chance of distorting brain architecture and chemistry, with unknown consequences. I personally would want at least two psychiatrist's/neuropsychologist's concurrence before considering such drugs in a preschooler, and possibly for an older child as well. Debbi __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Domains Claim yours for only $14.70/year http://smallbusiness.promotions.yahoo.com/offer ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Bullying and Battering (was: The Savage Solution)
Keith Henson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: snippage Of course, battered wife is an arrested or recirculating (trapped) version of the capture-bonding sequence. Capture-bonding in the human wild state was a one time event, applied to captives for about the time hazing is today. There is a bit of a precursor to this trait in chimpanzees. Males are fairly brutal at first to females they take out of the group into remote areas during consortships. I would not say female chimpanzees bond with males who take them on consortships, but they do quit trying to escape after a few beatings. Also in baboons, where males regularly smack the females about. An intriguing paper reports on how this behavior was greatly diminished in a baboon troop whose alpha males were killed off by tuberculosis; now males tend to fight others of their own rank, and indulge in more mutual grooming: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/13/science/13BABO.html?ex=1085284800en=2cc8aafc0e63c9b1ei=5070 (our login/password: brinl/brinl) http://makeashorterlink.com/?T27513D58 Sometimes it takes the great Dustbuster of fate to clear the room of bullies and bad habits. Freak cyclones helped destroy Kublai Khan's brutal Mongolian empire, for example, while the Black Death of the 14th century capsized the medieval theocracy and gave the Renaissance a chance to shine. Among a troop of savanna baboons in Kenya, a terrible outbreak of tuberculosis 20 years ago selectively killed off the biggest, nastiest and most despotic males, setting the stage for a social and behavioral transformation unlike any seen in this notoriously truculent primate... ...researchers describe the drastic temperamental and tonal shift that occurred in a troop of 62 baboons when its most belligerent members vanished from the scene. The victims were all dominant adult males that had been strong and snarly enough to fight with a neighboring baboon troop over the spoils at a tourist lodge garbage dump, and were exposed there to meat tainted with bovine tuberculosis, which soon killed them. Left behind in the troop, designated the Forest Troop, were the 50 percent of males that had been too subordinate to try dump brawling, as well as all the females and their young. With that change in demographics came a cultural swing toward pacifism, a relaxing of the usually parlous baboon hierarchy, and a willingness to use affection and mutual grooming rather than threats, swipes and bites to foster a patriotic spirit. Remarkably, the Forest Troop has maintained its genial style over two decades, even though the male survivors of the epidemic have since died or disappeared and been replaced by males from the outside. (As is the case for most primates, baboon females spend their lives in their natal home, while the males leave at puberty to seek their fortunes elsewhere.) The persistence of communal comity suggests that the resident baboons must somehow be instructing the immigrants in the unusual customs of the tribe... ...The researchers were able to compare the behavior and physiology of the contemporary Forest Troop primates to two control groups: a similar-size baboon congregation living nearby, called the Talek Troop, and the Forest Troop itself from 1979 through 1982, the era that might be called Before Alpha Die-off, or B.A.D... ...But in the baboon study, the culture being conveyed is less a specific behavior or skill than a global code of conduct. You can more accurately describe it as the social ethos of group, said Dr. Andrew Whiten, a professor of evolutionary and developmental psychology at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland who has studied chimpanzee culture. It's an attitude that's being transmitted... ...Jerkiness or worse certainly seems to be a job description for ordinary male baboons. The average young male, after wheedling his way into a new troop at around age 7, spends his prime years seeking to fang his way up the hierarchy; and once he's gained some status, he devotes many a leisure hour to whimsical displays of power at scant personal cost. He harasses and attacks females, which weigh half his hundred pounds and lack his thumb-thick canines, or he terrorizes the low-ranking males he knows cannot retaliate. Dr. Barbara Smuts, a primatologist at the University of Michigan who wrote the 1985 book Sex and Friendship in Baboons, said that the females in the troop she studied received a serious bite from a male annually, maybe losing a strip of flesh or part of an ear in the process. As they age and lose their strength, however, males may calm down and adopt a new approach to group living, affiliating with females so devotedly that they keep their reproductive opportunities going even as their ranking in the male hierarchy plunges. For their part, female baboons, which live up to 25 years compared with the male's 18 inherit their rank in the gynocracy from their mothers and so spend less time fighting for dominance. They do,
Re: More Spent on Drugs for Behavior Disorders in Children Than on Asthma Medications and Antibiotics
Another take on drugging kids: http://www.bruderhof.com/articles/ritalin.htm Dave ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Bullying and Battering
While I was in the Bruderhof neighborhood... http://www.bruderhof.com/articles/Fight-or-Flight.htm There /is/ an alternative to the kill 'em all, let God sort 'em out mentality. Dave ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Dog's breed can be determined from DNA with 99% accuracy . . .
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/21/science/21dog.html ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Dinosaur with a hole in its head . . .
http://www.newsday.com/news/health/ny-hsdino213812293may21,0,4801296.story?coll=ny-health-headlines ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Dinosaur with a hole in its head . . .
The new find - Suuwassea emilieae - is a sauropod, a classification of plant-eating dinosaurs with long necks and tails, small heads, and four elephant-like legs. At 50 feet long, it's a smaller cousin of better-known sauropods Diplodocus and Apatosaurus. That hole is where the saxaphone went. And they got the name wrong. It's Sousawatusi Emiliemyemilie. Vilyehm ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
FDA prohibits gay sperm donors . . .
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/20/health/20organ.html ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Dog's breed can be determined from DNA with 99% accuracy . . .
Ronn!Blankenship wrote: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/21/science/21dog.html NPR's coverage of this story highlighted the fact that some very different-looking dogs are actually fairly closely related, and among the group of breeds most closely related to their wolf ancestors: everything from Alaskan Malamutes and Siberian Huskies, which most people would agree look pretty much like wolves, to Pekingese, Shih Tzus, and Shar-Peis, which hardly anyone would take for a wolf. Dave Yappy Little Throwbacks Maru ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Tiny life forms?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3729487.stm ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: The Savage Solution
- Original Message - From: Keith Henson [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Killer Bs Discussion [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, May 20, 2004 9:22 PM Subject: Re: The Savage Solution Now I can't see *any* logic for battering behavior for either the man or the woman to be selected--any more than susceptibility to addictive drugs is selected. Damaging the mother of your children is not an effective way to pass on genes. Further, battering women is rare in the hunter gatherer societies that have been studied. (Others are almost always within earshot and intervene before damage is done.) That really isn't all that clear. We know that studies of our own culture has drastically underestimated the frequency of battered women and abused children until very recently. Since it is shameful for the person being battered, it is often hidden. We also know that investigations the result of anthropological studies need to be taken with a grain of salt (e.g. coming of age in Samoa). We also know that nomadic societies that can be considered as pre-agricultural often treat women as property. So, I don't think we can draw many conclusions. So the default assumption is that battering behavior on both sides is a side effect of other things that were selected. Capture of women in hunter gatherer societies was probably the gene selection filter. Those that reoriented toward their captors often became ancestors, those who did not did not become breakfast.. Perhaps 10% of your ancestors were captives. While this is understandable generalizing, it is not emperically based. Quite a few reasonable sounding things turn out false, once a systematic study is done. The argument for where the abuser side came from is something I only recently figured out: If humans respond to capture and abuse by bonding, then the trait to abuse captives is likely to have also been selected. The argument isn't as obvious as the survival link with capture-bonding. But it figures that in a world where 10% of an average tribe's females were captured, those who had the genes for an instinct for the brutal behavior needed to capture and turn on the capture-bonding trait in the captives left more descendents than those without it. Of course, battered wife is an arrested or recirculating (trapped) version of the capture-bonding sequence. Capture-bonding in the human wild state was a one time event, applied to captives for about the time hazing is today. My understanding from ancient literature is that slaves were taken in battle and everyone knew what the place of slaves was. Indeed, while the Iraquois were not strictly hunter-gatherer (they did farm), they were a society that had slaves. Your description is not consistent with what I've read about their practices. Are there any factors that predict that a woman is more likely to enter a relationship with someone who batters her? Probably not. Certainly true. One looks at her home environment. If there is abuse in that environment, she is much more likely to enter into an abusive relationsip. You could argue that it's genetic, but there are considerable amounts of data that indicate that this type of behavior is learned...as detailed below. Are there any factors that predict whether a woman will leave such a relationship? Unfortunately no. The ones that I would think would apply if your theory were correct (getting out of the environment and having one's own source of income) have not been found to apply. It is possible that explaining the evolved psychology of what is going on to both parties might help in some case. I remember explaining another psychological mechanism, drug like attention rewards, to an ex-scientologist. He reported later that understanding (or at least having a plausible explanation) for what had screwed up his life and that of his children was a great relief and stopped his nightmares cold. Humans *can* invoke higher order rational mental mechanisms to change their behaviors and sometimes do. It helps if they understand the reason for washing hands. (To invoke Dr. Semmelweis.) Is a battered woman more or less likely to be abusive to her children? From first pass theory, neither more or less. There is no particular reason for the psychological mechanisms involved to be conjoined. An abused women is definitely more likely to abuse her children than a woman who has not been abused. The best way that has been seen to reduce the abuse is to teach the woman how to take care of herself. To the extent considerable extent that the mechanisms are genetic, children of wife batterers are statistically more likely to be abuse themselves, even if raised away from their biological parents. Most data suggests that it is mostly environmental. Indeed, my wife knows of no studies that indicate a genetic link. She has not worked in the field for about 10 years, so it is possible that there has been a
