Month: July 2009

I married Iranian girls for their execution

In the Islamic Republic it is illegal to execute a young woman, regardless of her crime, if she is a virgin, he explained. Therefore a “wedding” ceremony is conducted the night before the execution: The young girl is forced to have sexual intercourse with a prison guard – essentially raped by her “husband.”

“I regret that, even though the marriages were legal,” he said.

Why the regret, if the marriages were “legal?”

“Because,” he went on, “I could tell that the girls were more afraid of their ‘wedding’ night than of the execution that awaited them in the morning. And they would always fight back, so we would have to put sleeping pills in their food. By morning the girls would have an empty expression; it seemed like they were ready or wanted to die.

via I married Iranian girls before their execution | Iran news | Jerusalem Post.

Culinary Maximalism

le-pigeon-2This trend is obviously a backlash, a thumbing of collective noses against years of picky eaters, sauce-on-siders, vegans and other dietary malcontents so frequently bemoaned by fine-dining chefs, as well as a celebration of that delightful category of ingredients that will likely send you — both literally and figuratively — to heaven. Moderation and good common dietary sense have no place here. Foie gras jelly donuts, on the other hand…

via When The Chef Is Trying to Kill You | Meat.

Acquired Attention Deficit Disorder

John Ratey, an associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard University and a specialist on the science of attention, explained that when people use digital devices, they get a quick burst of adrenaline, “a dopamine squirt.” Without it, people grow bored with simpler activities like driving. Mr. Ratey said the modern brain is being rewired to crave stimulation, a condition he calls acquired attention deficit disorder.

“We need that constant pizzazz, the reward, the intensity,” he said. He largely dismisses the argument that people need the time in the car to be productive. “The justification for doing work is just that — a justification to be engaged,” he said.

via Driven to Distraction – Dismissing the Risks of a Deadly Habit – Multitasking on the Road – Series – NYTimes.com.

Why Men Share Too Little—and Women Too Much

There are deep-rooted reasons why we share the way we do. Men don’t want to appear vulnerable. (Why else won’t they ask for directions when they’re lost?) They are raised to be strong, after all, not to appear sad, scared or needy. Women, by contrast, are taught it’s OK to be emotional.

Biology plays a part, too. Scientists at the University of California, Los Angeles, have shown women respond to stress by releasing oxytocin, a feel-good hormone that produces a calming effect and helps them bond with children and others. Estrogen enhances its effects. (Men, too, release oxytocin in response to stress, but male hormones minimize its effects.)

via Why Men Share Too Little—and Women Too Much – WSJ.com.

The Politics of Lithium For Batteries

At the moment, China provides a lot of the batteries that go into consumer electronics, and Tibet is known to have a large source of lithium. Additionally, estimates are that Bolivia has the largest reserves of lithium in the world with 36% of the global pie. Currently, the U.S. holds about 3% of world reserves.

Regardless of whether they believe lithium is running out sooner or later, most experts have come to agree that lithium’s greatest abundance is in Bolivia, Chile, and Tibet. Bolivia’s president, Evo Morales, is already trying to avoid foreign investment, and talks consistently about the importance of Bolivia having state control over its natural resources. Automakers approaching Bolivia have not received a warm welcome either. The challenges China faces in Tibet (politically speaking) are already well publicized.

via The Politics of Lithium Reserves | Green Business | Reuters.

Pimps of false hope and salvation by materialism

lakewood_chProsperity’s slap-happy belief system evolved from a spiritual imperative to accumulate wealth found in the end-times view known as postmillennialism. It holds that God promises 1,000 years of Christian dominion will precede his return; thus, wealth accumulation is a tool of evangelism, and a materialism arms race is the harbinger of Armageddon (a good thing in the Christian view). Today’s Prosperity movement has shed postmillennialism’s eschatological literal-mindedness, recasting it at times in rosier phraseology, like optimillennialism, best said with Osteen’s aw-shucks smile, but not abandoning the groundwork it laid for the unencumbered pursuit of success of “Prosperity Theology”

via How will Prosperity Gospel ride out the hard economic times? – By Clint Rainey – Slate Magazine.

The Power Of Negative Thinking

Wood, Lee and Perunovic conclude that unfavorable thoughts about ourselves intrude very easily, especially among those of us with low self-esteem — so easily and so persistently that even when a positive alternative is presented, it just underlines how awful we believe we are.

The paper provides support for newer forms of psychotherapy that urge people to accept their negative thoughts and feelings rather than try to reject and fight them. In the fighting, we not only often fail but can also make things worse. Mindfulness and meditation techniques, in contrast, can teach people to put their shortcomings into a larger, more realistic perspective. Call it the power of negative thinking.

via Yes, I Suck: Self-Help Through Negative Thinking – TIME.

The Real Quagmire in the Middle East

The reason American minds can’t really grasp the Middle East is because our minds are trained for concepts that are at variance with the mindset of Middle Eastern fundamentalists – and by that I mean both Muslims and Jews. The importance of today, the importance of pleasure, the importance of compromise, the importance of pragmatism, the relative unimportance of land. We have a house, we sell it, and then we move to another house. We don’t build our houses on top of our fathers’ houses.

Coexist stickerYeah. Solutionism is an American religion. That’s the most dangerous one. The other aspects of this are the misunderstandings. We can’t understand why a Palestinian would want his son to become a suicide bomber.

It’s because his son is not an individual in the same way Americans are. He’s a valuable instrument in the deliverance of salvation for his people. His desires, dreams, and goals are all selfishness. ? But our categories of success and failure are not their categories of success and failure.

It leads to the immorality of narcissism, that their collective need is so important that they can kill children with moral impunity. That’s one place it leads. The importance of remaining steadfast to the cause gives them license to do anything. Man, but when you’re licensed to do anything, it gives you power.

via Michael J. Totten: The Real Quagmire in the Middle East.

Iran’s Fascist Coup

The economic role of the Revolutionary Guards has been much remarked on in recent years. The Guards themselves and companies run by the Guards have won major contracts in every corner of the economy, from airport construction to telecommunications to auto manufacturing. They have also allied themselves with some of the most conservative clerics, who view the revolutionary government not as an alliance of Islam and the people but as divinely ordained rule by a philosopher king who is to be regarded as absolute in his judgments—political as well as theological.

These elements combine to form an impenetrable core that arrogates to itself all authority in the Islamic republic. This is a formula for the kind of militarized and nationalist corporate state under a single controlling ideology that is not dissimilar to fascist rule in an earlier day. Like fascism, it defines itself not only in terms of its own objectives but even moreso by what it opposes: liberalism, individualism, unfettered capitalism, etc

via The Thugs Who Lead Iran’s Supreme Leader –  The Daily Beast.