Doing More than Soothing the Savage

How singing unlocks the brain

All I can say is my Grandma seemed a lot happier and alive, once she moved in with her sisters in Tennessee, got some meds for her dementia, and started singing and playing guitar with her siblings.

Wow

Using Ocean Waves to Power Desalination

Oh, how terribly clever.

Edwards: I was wrong

The world desperately needs moral leadership from America, and the foundation for moral leadership is telling the truth.

George Bush won't accept responsibility for his mistakes. Along with Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, he has made horrible mistakes at almost every step: twisting intelligence to fit their pre-conceived views about Iraq's threat; failed diplomacy; not going in with enough troops; not giving our forces the equipment they need; not having a plan for peace.

I think Senator Edwards is too kind: twisting intelligence to fit pre-conceived views is not a "horrible mistake". It was not a mistake at all. It was deliberate.

Going to be Ruined? Try "Has Been"

McCain: Torture Ban Needed for U.S. Image

I feel about John McCain the way a lot of people feel about Colin Powell: he failed to stand up when necessary, and is thus a failure. His moral authority has been squandered.

Going to be ruined? Try already has been ruined.

Why is it so hard for a representative of the people to speak the truth? I think we should ban incumbents' campaigning or something.

Indigenous People and Unrest in Columbia

Columbia Unrest

I read a couple of articles that talked about FARC when I was writing a paper on guerrilla warfare earlier this year (for my international humanitarian law class), but there was nothing on indigenous peoples' issues.

Columbia timeline

What Happened to the U.S.?

Carter 'Disturbed' by Direction of U.S.

"Everywhere you go, you hear, 'What has happened to the United States of America? We thought you used to be the champion of human rights. We thought you used to protect the environment. We thought you used to believe in the separation of church and state,'" Carter said Friday at Unity Temple.

Huh. I wonder if Jimmy could win if he ran in '08.

Genetic Component to Loneliness?

Loneliness could be in your genes

The researchers suggest that loneliness may stem from prehistoric times, where hunter-gatherers may have deliberately shut themselves away from others so they did not have to share food.

That would have meant they were better nourished and therefore better able to survive and have children.

Um. How? That is one of the most astonishingly simplistic explanations I've ever heard for anything as complex as the human psyche. How is someone who hides themselves away from other people going to survive better, much less attract a mate? Survival is more than the eating of food, you know.

I mean, honestly.

First, hunting and gathering - both - are communal activities. Human beings, you may have noticed, are soft, squishy, and don't have sharp teeth. We're such awful natural hunters that we have to make spears and knives and stuff, to compensate for our complete lack of claws or ability to run quickly on four legs, and we have to work together to kill one fricking gazelle.

How, pray tell, is refusing to share food ever going to get Thag invited on a hunt again?

And what about Ooga? Who gathers tubers and insects and plants in a squad of other women and youngsters - some watching for danger from outside, some watching over each other, and some grinding nuts into a tasty paste, even though there's no grape jelly, or come to mention it, bread, for peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

Back then, kids, we were all Communists. I know, I know, but we were.

Second, did I not just mention our complete lack of predatory characteristics? A lone human can't watch his or her back, even with one of those cool spear thingies.

In kindergarten we learn the most fundamental lesson of human society: share. For alone, you die.

Loneliness may be in my genes, but it's not to make me a reclusive lone hunter-gatherer.

America's Moral Crisis

Buzzflash makes a darn good point in their comments on the review of Our Endangered Values: America's Moral Crisis by Jimmy Carter, in the St. Petersberg Times:

Carter, a winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, is living proof that the radical right wing fundamentalists don't give a hoot about Christ. Otherwise, they would have embraced him and his presidency.

That's a darn good point. A darn good point.

Oh, and blaming the CIA for 'bad intel'? Maybe not so much.

Prewar CIA report questioned al Qaeda-Iraq ties (Well, so did I, and no one listened to me, either.)

CNN on Thursday obtained a CIA document that outlined the history of the claim, which originated in 2002 with a captured al Qaeda operative who recanted two years later.

The CIA report appears to support a recently declassified document that revealed the Defense Intelligence Agency thought in February 2002 that the source, Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, was lying to interrogators.

Habeas Corpus? What's That?

Senate Bars Detainees From Filing Lawsuits

The Senate voted Thursday to bar foreign terror suspects at the U.S. prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, from filing lawsuits in American courts to challenge their detentions, despite a Supreme Court ruling last year that granted such access.

As TalkLeft put it, No Habeas for Them, No Habeas for Us.

GAO Says 2004 Election Stolen

Powerful Government Accounting Office report confirms key 2004 stolen election findings

Several of the details the article lists are things I have observed with my own eyes, while working as an election inspector in California, in March 2004.

GAO's report (PDF)

Greenhouse Gas projected increase

Greenhouse gases 'to rise by 52%' by 2030.

The IEA's warning comes at a time when the Kyoto climate change agreement calls on developed nations to cut their greenhouse gas emissions to 5% below 1990 levels by 2008-12.

There are days when I fear for our survival as a species.

Bird Flu Map

How Bird Flu Has Spread

'Logic'

The U.S. Doesn't Torture in Secret Prisons

But We Want to Be Able To, Just in Case

Naval Sonar and Dolphins

I'm not up to more than a link salad these days:

Navy denies Tasmania whale deaths

One thing I noted in Why sonar may harm whales and dolphins is this quote:

"Can marine life hear it [the sonar]? Yes. Does it have a major effect? We don't know."

This uncertainty alarms wildlife groups. They're now threatening legal action to protect sea-life from the sonar.

It's the 'we don't know' that has my attention. I'm taking a lot of environmental law or related topics just this second, and there's this idea, the precautionary principle, that gets a lot of airtime -- deservedly so. It goes like something like this:

Uncertainty is normal, and people have to make decisions anyway, even if they're not 100 percent sure what the best course of action is. That's no excuse for refusing to make a decision. Nor is it an excuse for being a putz -- if you don't know what the results of your action will be, BE CAREFUL.

Call for study on impact of sonar

Disorientation Seen in Mass Australia Whale Deaths

NAVY SUED OVER HARM TO WHALES FROM MID-FREQUENCY SONAR

Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society