Archive for June, 2008
High Gas Prices Are Turning More Consumers Into Criminals
Saturday, June 21st, 2008I am not freaking kidding. MSNBC’s national news blames oil prices for making people criminals. My brother said, “Next up, unemployment turns more people into armed robbers.” And the genius they quoted said, “stolen fuel costs the industry $140 million last year, and I expect it to go up this year.” Ya think? I mean gas prices have doubled. If less gas gets stolen this year, and this is a stretch because I was public school educated, it will still cost the industry more money. Sometimes I’m so impressive. I can’t help it.
And there isn’t a direct link for this stupidity because it’s not on their website yet.
Thank God Abortion Is Legal
Saturday, June 21st, 2008I mean, if it were illegal, people would prey on women and women would be harmed by untrained people posing as medical personnel:
The owner of a clinic has been charged with posing as a doctor to perform abortions, some of them unsuccessful or resulting in severe complications and hospitalization, prosecutors said Friday.Bertha Pinedo Bugarin, 48, was arrested Thursday after a yearlong investigation, San Diego County district attorney spokesman Paul Levikow said.
She was charged with 10 felony counts, including performing medical procedures without a license and grand theft, he said. She faces more than nine years in prison if convicted.Bugarin, who was being held on $500,000 bail, was scheduled to be arraigned July 2. An call to her attorney Peter Hughes after business hours Friday was not immediately returned.
Prosecutors said Bugarin at one time operated six clinics in Southern California that provided abortions. For her clinic in Chula Vista, near the Mexican border, she advertised her service on Spanish-language television and charged $500 for an abortion.
Wow, America dodged a bullet. Legal abortion makes everyone safe.
Nobody’s An A@@hole Anymore
Friday, June 20th, 2008Sorry, folks, that’s rather raw, but whatever. A friend was telling me about her troubles with her man and suggested that the guy had “manic-depression”. I responded, “How about, he’s just an a@@hole?” I mean, come on. Why the need to pathologize everything and everyone?
Ace points to this research that men with this “dark triad” get more women:
A “dark triad” of unpleasant personality traits lie behind James Bond’s success as a womaniser, say researchers.
Two studies suggest that men who are narcissistic, psychopathic and Machiavellian tend to have large numbers of sexual conquests.
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Narcissists are self obsessed and manipulative, psychopaths are impulsive, thrill-seeking and callous, and people with a Machiavellian nature are deceitful and exploitative. There is evidence that the traits have an up-side – they lead to men having a prolific sex life and fathering more offspring. As a result, they have not been “weeded out” by natural selection.
Oh, and the research subjects were 200 college-age men not 50 year old 007 types. You know, the dudes who have sex with as many women as possible, will say anything to get laid and just generally seek conquest are at first worshipped, then they are viewed as dicks, and then they end up being viewed as just plain lame. I mean, it’s one thing to be that guy in college. It’s another thing to be, well, an old dude hanging out at the bar this way.
Narcissistic? Psychopathic? Machiavellian? How about pathetic a@@hole? Forget the elaborate research and diagnoses. Some people are just jerks. The need to pathologize is the need to shoe-horn anti-social, jerk behavior into evolutionary theory. These guys mess up the theory. They’re uncooperative. They’re self-seeking. So, in theory their behavior would open them up to harm because they are, well, a@@holes who no one likes and no one wants to help.
But the researchers miss the obvious. These thrill-seeking dudes can channel their testosterone into noble roles–killing lions, making heroic treks, winning feats of strength. So these guys spread their seed, but they were often warriors and maybe even general protectors like 007 even if they didn’t commit to one unit to protect. So they’re jerks, but maybe they have some redeeming characteristics which is why they have yet to be weeded out of the gene pool. Ace says:
Shock: Dicks Get More Tail.
Psychopathy? Really?
It actually sounds like this is just extroverted sociopathy or even just plain old being a bastard. They really seem to be overselling the “dark triad’ thing with that “psychopathy.” Isn’t it enough to be sociopathic without wanting to butcher people and wear their genitals as hats?
Nerdy researchers, I have a newsflash: These guys survive and will continue to thrive. Psychologically “normal” guys often finish last. It sucks, sorry.
Cross-posted at Right Wing News
Comparing Obama and Limbaugh
Friday, June 20th, 2008Ann Althouse does and says this:
I’m inclined to say Rush is wrong, but I note that he’s only asking a series of questions, so I can’t. I’ll have to say that, ironically, Rush is a bit like Obama, wandering aimlessly for syllabic combinations that will equal a cogent, salient thought. Both men mesmerize their listeners and move them along on a current of verbiage.
Well. Limbaugh is a radio personality and entertainer. His schtick is his ability to craft a sentence and provoke. Obama’s ability to “mesmerize” and “move them along on a current of verbiage” is a little more distressing because the President actually has to stand for something as he will represent the country. Limbaugh represents his capitalistic imperative. More power to him, but he won’t be representing me or America or defining foreign policy or imposing government solutions. (And I’m not saying that Althouse believes this, only that the comparison seems odd. Liberals pick fights with Limbaugh all the time–and Ann is no liberal. The compare and contrast should be with McCain.)
Believing Barack–UPDATED
Friday, June 20th, 2008We can expect more tap dancing on a grand scale from a future President Obama based on his response to the women banned from his photo op the other day. Gateway Pundit via Debbie Schlussel finds that the women are not sweet little Muslim girls who were discriminated against by Obama but rather radical anti-Israel activists and friends. That’s interesting enough, but it’s Obama’s response to these two yahoos that’s more interesting. When CAIR suggested he personally call them and apologize, he did.
Obama stepped in it over the unpartitioned Jerusalem and backtracked. Obama just generally seems befuddled a lot. Like most politicians, he’ll say anything to anyone for one reason: to get elected. Perhaps the most disturbing thing about this though, is that no one will believe him. People need to believe the word of the Commander-in-Chief.
George W. Bush is hated because of his policies and because of his beliefs. He also has the temerity to follow through with his word. So, conservatives are angry about illegal immigration and No Child Left Behind, but can anyone act surprised? Bush did what he said he was going to do.
Barack Obama says anything to anyone. As President, he’s preside like he’s campaigning: appeasing everyone. It worked for Bill Clinton, but this is not Bill Clinton’s world. America, for all the Left’s denial, is at war and will still be in November should the Savior take the helm. Tough decisions requiring coherent ideas will make enemies. Maybe, at that point, Obama won’t care. I suspect he won’t. He will have won the prize and that’s the goal. America’s standing is secondary to the symbolic magnificence of Obama in the White House.
He appeases now. He will appease later. It’s a disturbing thought.
Cross-posted at Right Wing News
UPDATE:
Right Wing Sparkle notes how the Brits see Obama:
My guess is that British voters would really prefer a dual presidency, with Obama handling domestic policy and McCain in charge of foreign policy. Obama could make America more like Britain with universal, government-managed health care; higher taxes on the “rich” and on capital gains; expanded social services; trade unions made more powerful; continued preferences for blacks seeking university places and government jobs; gay marriage or some variant thereof; abortion on demand.
He goes on to describe what McCain would do in foreign policy, but has anyone in America ever described so well Obama’s domestic policy????Simple, brief, and completely scary.
I think it’s safe to believe this is what Obama wants domestically. And it is completely scary.
Babies For Love
Thursday, June 19th, 2008This is what the world is coming to:
There’s a stunning twist to the sudden rise in teen pregnancies at Gloucester High School. Seventeen students there are expecting and many of them became that way on purpose.Time Magazine first reported that nearly half of the girls confessed to making a pact to get pregnant and raise their babies together. None of them is older than 16.
Schools Superintendent Christopher Farmer told WBZ’s Bill Shields Thursday the girls had “an agreement to get pregnant.”
No parents of the 17 girls were interviewed. What causes a peer group to come up with such a self-defeating scheme? The Superintendent says the girls “lacked love”. Teenagers can be mind-numbingly stupid, though. It seems to me that at least a few of these girls had loving families. It’s possible that they all had uncaring parents but I doubt it.
I’m putting this one to a vote. It just seems too crazy.
Cross-posted at Right Wing News
Testosterone Supplementation To Stay Young Feeling and Healthy
Thursday, June 19th, 2008Testosterone does good things for a body, both male and female. It increases bone density, muscle mass, mental acuity, increases metabolism, enhances libido and according to this research, fights against metabolic syndrome in older men. So researchers are encouraging older men to supplement with testosterone.
Futurepundit (via Instapundit)worries about the evolutionary implications of declining testosterone in older men and that it might be a protective adaptation against diseases like cancer (since hormones, especially testosterone and estrogen can be tumor growth factors). Maybe.
Testosterone, for men, is the defining, healthy hormone just as progesterone, is the defining, healthy hormone for women. For both men and women the ratio of testosterone:estrogen and the ratio of progesterone:estrogen changes as they age. In both cases, estrogen increases proportionally. Part of it is age. Part of it is diet. Part of it is environmental. Estrogens are everywhere in the environment–from plastics to soy. Fat stores and releases estrogen. Estrogen, in and of itself, isn’t bad, but it can be problematic when it’s in the wrong proportion to testosterone and progesterone.
So, men can supplement with testosterone and women can supplement with progesterone and testosterone, too, for that matter, and this will happen: the body will down-regulate. That is, the body will stop producing as much testosterone and progesterone in response to the supplementation. This happens with all hormones which is why, once a person is on Synthroid, (synthetic thyroid hormone) he or she is on it for life. The body will stop producing it.
Now, there are vegetable-based hormone replacements that are less manipulative of the system and they can give the body a rest to recover, but the ideal is to produce these hormones oneself without the aid of supplementation. The answer to hormone balance is simple, but no one wants to do it because it’s certainly not as easy as a supplement:
- Lose the fat. Fat produces the estrogens. Lose the fat, the hormone ratio gets better.
- Build muscle. Especially lower body muscle. Muscle growth produces testosterone.
- Eat right. You know what that means. Everyone knows what that means. Lean protein. Eggs. Veggies. Good fats like butter and olive oil and flax. Skip fast food. Skip soda. Skip fried food. Drink alcohol moderately. Drink coffee moderately. Eat chocolate moderately.
- Keep moving. It’s not just the muscle, it’s the metabolic rate. Aerobic exercise burns off the stress hormones that cause you to accumulate fat in the first place (which stores estrogen). So work up a sweat a couple days a week.
- Get some sun. Without Vitamin D, all sorts of bad things happen. Increased bone density helps a person carry more muscle mass which helps increase the metabolic rate. See how these things work together?
Unfortunately, as people age, they become more sedentary which itself creates risk factors for Metabolic Syndrome. I have read articles by doctors who have been on long-term supplementary testosterone themselves, and they seem perfectly healthy. I have had patients (women actually) who have supplemented, short term with testosterone, for weight loss. The usage is going up. People are making experiments of themselves.
I suspect that it will be agreed that testosterone has salubrious effects for men and women short term, but like supplementary estrogen, the long-term effects won’t become apparent until after years of use. Manipulating mother nature usually has a downside even if it’s not immediately apparent.
What would I recommend to my patients? Well, short term use could be beneficial, but long term, the advice would be the same old boring stuff: lose weight, get fit and eat right.
Cross-posted at Right Wing News
What Parents of Special Needs Kids Worry About
Thursday, June 19th, 2008We all hear the stories of sexual abuse, and unfortunately, it happens too often. Parents of autistic children in particular worry about this because the child, if he or she is non-verbal, can’t express what happened. So this story (via John Hawkins) is particularly egregious:
Leduc’s weird tale began on May 30, when she dropped young Victoria off for class at Terry Fox Elementary and headed in to work, only to receive a frantic phone call from the school telling her it was urgent she come back right away.
The frightened mother rushed back to the campus and was stunned by what she heard – the principal, vice-principal and her daughter’s teacher were all waiting for her in the office, telling her they’d received allegations that Victoria had been the victim of sexual abuse – and that the CAS had been notified.
How did they come by such startling knowledge? Leduc was incredulous as they poured out their story.
“The teacher looked and me and said: ‘We have to tell you something. The educational assistant who works with Victoria went to see a psychic last night, and the psychic asked the educational assistant at that particular time if she works with a little girl by the name of “V.” And she said ‘yes, I do.’ And she said, ‘well, you need to know that that child is being sexually abused by a man between the ages of 23 and 26.’”
Victoria, who is non-verbal, had also been exhibiting sexualized behaviour in class, actions which are known to be typical of autistic behavior. (See other typical actions here) That lead authorities to suspect she had a bladder infection that may have somehow been related to the ‘attack.’
Leduc was shaken by the idea. “It’s actually your worst nightmare your child being violated,” she admits. “So for them to even suggest that, and that be my worst nightmare, it was horrific.”
So, then, the mother is investigated by CPS, but thankfully she had proof to back herself up. She bought a GPS system that records, non-stop, all sounds around the child because the school had “lost” her child a couple times.
A psychic? You’d be surprised, right, but you’ve dealt with the public school system or heard the stories, so nothing is shocking. The teacher won’t be fired. The assistant teacher won’t be fired. The principal won’t be fired. The school district won’t pay for the education the child needs.
The school district will dedicate its resources to defend against this woman’s lawsuit when the same amount of money, or less, could help her child. You see, the policy is to deny, deny, deny, because if they help one child, they’d have to help them all. So no children will get adequately helped, or will get the bare minimum of assistance and it will be couched in ARDs as the “least restrictive environment” which is code for–we don’t want to pay. And parents have no choice. They’re stuck. Private schools are under no obligation to take on a special needs child. And the private schools that specialize in helping these kids are expensive.
John says, “If we had a voucher system, Colleen Leduc could simply send her kid to a private school that isn’t run by complete morons.” Well, the money would be a start. Public schools are woefully deficient at dealing with these children. It’s a problem nationally. There simply just isn’t the training or desire to be trained to deal with children outside the mean.
I’ve been to continuing ed seminars for teachers dealing with autism. The level of apathy among the teachers was appalling. The parents in attendance, took it all in. In fact, while the teachers ignored the speaker (who happened to be one of the brightest thinkers and a leader in autism education), I was learning and went home and taught my son how to speak that week. The information was good, but you can’t teach someone who thinks she knows everything or who just doesn’t care.
And out there, there are amazing teachers, wonderful teachers who are underpaid, overworked and unappreciated. That’s the problem with public education. A teacher can phone it in or can work and care, she gets paid the same. She can be dull-witted and show zero judgment and still get paid. It’s almost impossible for her to get fired.
What a mess. On the word of a stupid assistant teacher’s psychic, a woman and her child can be completely traumatized, meanwhile, there’s the little problem of the child not being educated.
