Everytime I hear something along the lines of:
...on the eve of the strike, UK ministers again urged the public not to panic buy fuel.
I'm currently reading Steven Pinker's 'The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature' (a birthday present from my younger brother), which I'd highly recommend. I seem to be on sort of an evolutionary psychology roll at the moment, having recently finished Matt Ridley's 'Nature via Nurture: Genes, Experience and What Makes Us Human' (also highly recommended) as well. The genetic aspect of psychology was always something that bored me at A-Level (leading to a less than great mark in the subject), but both these books manage to make the subject fascinating and are incredibly readable (although some basic knowledge of evolution and biology will probably help quite a bit).
One of the benefits of reading these books is allowing you to see just how cack the media (even scientific journals) are at reporting any genetics-related discoveries. Take this comment from the Times' 'Comment Central':
Here's what's wrong with Robert Mugabe. His AVPR1a is too long.
Brace yourself for a new wave of scientific work linking genes with behaviour. Nature brings a cracking example with research suggesting that the behaviour of the world's most reprehensible despots is derived from their genetic code.
Ebstein and his colleagues decided to look at AVPR1a because it is known to produce receptors in the brain that detect vasopressin, a hormone involved in altruism and 'prosocial' behaviour. Studies of prairie voles have previously shown that this hormone is important for binding together these rodents' tight-knit social groups.
Ebstein's team wondered whether differences in how this receptor is expressed in the human brain may make different people more or less likely to behave generously.
To find out, they tested DNA samples from more than 200 student volunteers, before asking the students to play the dictator game (volunteers were not told the name of the game, lest it influence their behaviour). Students were divided into two groups: 'dictators' and 'receivers' (called 'A' and 'B' to the participants). Each dictator was told that they would receive 50 shekels (worth about US$14), but were free to share as much or as little of this with a receiver, whom they would never have to meet. The receiver's fortunes thus depended entirely on the dictator's generosity.
About 18% of all dictators kept all of the money, Ebstein and his colleagues report in the journal Genes, Brain and Behavior 1. About one-third split the money down the middle, and a generous 6% gave the whole lot away.
Long and short
There was no connection between the participants' gender and their behaviour, the team reports. But there was a link to the length of the AVPR1a gene: people were more likely to behave selfishly the shorter their version of this gene.
It's a strange world: A sculpture of an erect Christ gets complaints and media coverage, yet there's barely a peep of discontent about something like the BBC's 'Messiah V: The Rapture', which focused on a religious serial-killer obsessed with the idea of the apocalypse.
It even made it as a pick-of-the-day in 'The Telegraph', a paper usually eager to attack both the beeb and "aggressive secularists".
Not that I'm complaining. I'm just confused at the logic behind it.
DI Hedges: The world will end one day. In five billion years the sun will die and take us all with it.
DCI Walker: If you believe in science.
(Watches as the body of the killer is wheeled away)
DI Hedges: I'll take it over religion any day.
From ZeroPaid:
It's a sad day for streaming video fans everywhere as news has been reported that TVLinks has been shut down and the owner, a 26yo man from Chelteham in the UK, was arrested.
Though not hosting an actual content himself, and rather merely providing links to where particular titles can be found, he was nonetheless apparently charged for the "facilitation" of copyright infringement.
Dizzy Thinks on the resignation of Ming Campbell:
Anyone notice that when Simon Hughes and Vince Cable announced Ming Campbell's resignation the whole press conference and tone was done as if Campbell had died? Simon Hughes said "I'm now going to let Vince Cable say a few words about Ming" like he was offering someone up to give a eulogy.
Brian Eno (former keyboard player in Roxy Music) defends dictatorships on the Guardian's 'Comment is Free':
"Dictator" is an automatically pejorative word. "Autocrat" is more neutral. There are many sorts of autocrats: from those who seek to control everything entirely in their personal interests to those who seriously care about those under their charge. Those latter can have the interests of the whole community in mind, and they can be "democratic" in the sense that they pay attention to the feedback they get from their people: indeed many tribal and clan systems of government are like this. Leaders are considered "wise" or "good" when they are able to synthesise what they hear about the state of the world and arrive at a decision which works well for most people.
The biggest objection to autocrats is not that they're automatically bad but that you can't get rid of them easily if they turn out to be. However, since the outcomes of our "democratic" elections are increasingly shaped by lobbyists, conditional campaign contributions and partisan media, it could be argued that we also aren't able to get rid of the real powers behind the throne, but just to occasionally change its occupant.
You know that bit in 'A Clockwork Orange' where they force Alex to watch barbaric images while making him feel sick - the idea being to get him to associate the two, thereby encouraging good behaviour?
It's the only explanation I can think of for this:
So remember: Think vegetarian... think naked Alicia Silverstone.
For the last 10 weeks I've been watching 'Heroes' on BBC Three, resisting the temptation to find them online and resolutely sticking to the BBC pace. It's probably the first time I've waited a week between episodes for any major TV series.
It's been quite nostalgic. A reminder of what TV was like before the Internet with it's Wikipedia entries and online content came along.
However, I was weak and spent most of the weekend watching the remaining episodes online. Never have so many episodes been watched in so few days and enjoyed so much. Probably.
It started off with deciding to just watch the next episode - it'd fallen into a bit of a slump on BBC Three, not gripping me quite as much as it used to and so I thought I'd see whether it was worth staying with it. Unfortunately (or not, depending how you look at it) things do get better, much better, to the extent that not immediately watching the next episode seemed complete lunacy. It really does get better and better as it goes along.
So now I get to watch the BBC Three episodes, knowing what's to come: who lives and who dies. Part of me wishes I'd stuck with the weekly showing. I blame the makers of the show - they made it too good.
(WARNING: BIG SPOILERS IN THE COMMENTS)
Birds do it, bees do it, even circus elephants in India do it...
A tame female elephant has fled an Indian circus after eloping with a wild bull elephant that broke open a gate and led her off into the jungle, her distraught handler said today.
"I brought up Savitri since she joined the circus two decades ago," Kalimudddin Sheikh, who unsuccessfully tried to lure his charge away from her new beau, added.
When handlers called for Savitri to come to them, she looped her trunk around the bull's leg and "he protectively shielded her like in a Bollywood blockbuster," the official said.
Went to see 'Transformers' last night.
(I'd like to point out that I didn't actually pay to see a Michael Bay film – I have kind friends who work at the cinema and get free tickets)
I went to see giant transforming robots blasting the crap out of each other and I got giant transforming robots blasting the crap out of each other. So on that level I can't say I was disappointed.
Character, plot and logic were as expected. This is definitely a film where you leave your brain at the door and simply enjoy some robot-based carnage. Only two things really niggled me at the time: Firstly, the attempt to give the transformers some personality – which simply managed to slow down the action without adding anything more than some banal observations about human beings. Secondly, although it seems strange to complain about a plot-hole in a film like this (and there were many of them), there's a point which had me thinking “what!” for about twenty minutes afterwards before just letting go and enjoying the film again. If you don't want a minor spoiler stop reading, although it's pretty difficult to spoil a plot that could be written in full on the back of stamp. But it goes like this: “Now we have the thing the evil robots will stop at nothing to find, let's take it into the middle of a big city – full of people – and try to hide it there”. I'm paraphrasing, but only very slightly.
The whole thing whips along fairly quickly though, helped largely by the dollop of (actually quite funny) humour.
Numerous other bloggers have looked in detail at the Learco Chindamo case, most notably Unity, so I'll keep this brief.
The opinion of the Daily Mail and others is that he should be deported to Italy, as that's where he was born. But given that he's spent over twenty of his twenty-seven years away from the country and has no real family there, surely such a move would dramatically increase the chances of him committing future crimes? He doesn't know the country, probably doesn't speak the language, and has no-one there to turn to - how exactly is he supposed to stay on the straight and narrow?
Or doesn't it matter as long as any future victims aren't British?
Neil Clark, responding to the campaign to get Iraqi translators working for British forces asylum, has a piece up on 'Comment is Free' which manages to achieve the almost impossible: it gets most of the comments on the same side.
A selection:
"Are you mad?!?"
"Normally trolls post in comment threads. Here, the actual blog post is a work of trollism."
"I cannot believe what I have just read"
"Wow. Quite possibly the most offensive article ever written on CiF."
"To be frank, I think you should be very ashamed of yourself"
"This article is deliberately inciting the murder of civilians"
"what an unpleasant, irrational article"
"a shameful piece of writing"
The New Statesman website runs a weekly faith column, in which various believers talk about their faith and what it means to them.
This week: Satanism:
So what is Satanism? Satanism is a religion that accepts man as he most naturally is. Our philosophy is one of elitism, whereby the strong rule over the weak and the productive over the wastrel through a process of Social Darwinism that occurs as a consequence of stratification. The compounding effect of egalitarianism has provided a firm foundation for the abysmal propagation of the parasite. Counter measures are long over due. Satanism espouses justice. And that extends to upholding the principle that only a meritocracy can truly serve the human race. In nature there is a pecking order and higher resources must not be drained by the wilfully less effective who are happy to sit at the bottom of the ladder and drain everyone else like a bloodsucker. No one is suggesting greasing the rungs. The strong stratify themselves, pull themselves up by their own boot-straps and pick themselves up again when they get knocked down – they seek to attain the sweet fruits of indulgence found on the higher plateaus of human endeavour.
Ben Adler, over at CiF, manages to criticise ‘The Simpsons’ for mocking the environmental movement, while simultaneously (though unintentionally) showing exactly while parts of it are such a ripe target.
"Oh, so mother nature needs a favor? Well, maybe she should have thought of that when she was besetting us with droughts and floods and poison monkeys."
- Mr. Burns
Has anyone else managed to catch ITV’s Golden Balls? It’s a game-show, on weekdays at 5pm and presented by Jasper Carrott.
I won’t bore you with the full details of the game, as I haven’t really figured them out myself. What’s interesting about the show is the final round: The two surviving contestants are given the chance to win either all, half or none of the money they’ve managed to accumulate. Both have two options to (secretly) choose from – Steal or Split. If both choose to split they get half the money each, if both choose to steal they don’t get anything, and if one chooses to steal while the other chooses to split then the stealer gets all the money and the splitter gets nothing.
In what circumstances would you ever choose to split? If your opponent has chosen to steal then your best bet is to choose steal as well – as, although you don’t win anything, you at least deny them the money as well. If your opponent has chosen to split then your best bet is choose steal – as that way you get all the money.
Choosing split never makes sense: you’re either going to lose all the money to your opponent or needlessly give away half.
Chris Dillow has a piece in today's Times - it's essentially a summary of his views on managerialism (those familar with his blog or who've read his book will find little new in it), but it's still worth reading.
Policy failures aren’t due to having the wrong personnel in charge. Nor are they exceptions to the rule of general competence. They are the inevitable result of bad organisational structure.
Anytime someone complains about the Human Rights Act, point them towards this post.
(Via Stumbling and Mumbling)
