MindMover
MindMover's JournalThe Next Susan Boyle ?
=============================================
What a voice.......
GOD HAS BLESSED AMERICA: The Santorum Bubble Finally Bursts
Source: Business Insider
Since the beginning of the Republican primary process, a loud minority of GOP voters have embraced one candidate after another in a desperate attempt to find an acceptable one who wasn't named Mitt Romney.
Why?
Because these folks assume that Mitt Romney is actually far more centrist and reasonable than he sounds.
And based on Romney's track record, that's probably a fair assumption.
In this anyone-but-Romney process, right-wing Republican voters have become briefly infatuated with candidates that no one gave even a snowball's chance in hell at the beginning of the race
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/god-has-blessed-america-the-santorum-bubble-finally-bursts-2012-3?
=================================================================
Interesting graph at the end.....
GOD HAS BLESSED AMERICA: The Santorum Bubble Finally Bursts
Source: Business Insider
Since the beginning of the Republican primary process, a loud minority of GOP voters have embraced one candidate after another in a desperate attempt to find an acceptable one who wasn't named Mitt Romney.
Why?
Because these folks assume that Mitt Romney is actually far more centrist and reasonable than he sounds.
And based on Romney's track record, that's probably a fair assumption.
In this anyone-but-Romney process, right-wing Republican voters have become briefly infatuated with candidates that no one gave even a snowball's chance in hell at the beginning of the race
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/god-has-blessed-america-the-santorum-bubble-finally-bursts-2012-3?
Interesting graph at the end.....
Electroacupuncture May Help Relieve Depression
Electroacupuncture stimulation can quickly reduce the severity of depressive symptoms, offering an alternative option for depressed patients, according to researchers at the School of Chinese Medicine at The University of Hong Kong, Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine and the Department of Psychiatry in Kowloon Hospital.
The study consisted of a clinical randomized controlled trial using dense cranial electroacupuncture stimulation (DCEAS) on patients with major depressive disorder (MDD). DCEAS is a novel acupuncture treatment, which was developed by Dr. Zhang Zhang-jin, associate professor of the HKU School of Chinese Medicine.
According to traditional Chinese medicine, stimulating acupoints on the head can increase brain power, regulate yin yang and relieve depression. Traditionally, acupoints called Bai Hui and Yin Tang are the focus when treating depression.
In DCEAS, Zhang believes that stimulating Bai Hui and Yin Tang, as well as other acupoints including Si Shen Cong, Tou Lin Qi, Tai Yang, Shuai Gu and Tou Wei, triggers the release of serotonin (5-HT) and other chemicals in the brain more efficiently, resulting in better treatment outcomes.
http://psychcentral.com/news/2012/03/31/electroacupuncture-may-help-relieve-depression/36784.html
============================================================
Now to find a practitioner.....
Egypt's Brotherhood picks presidential runner
Source: AlJAZEERA
Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood is to field Khairat al-Shater, its former deputy chairman, as a candidate in May's presidential election, the group's party said on its Facebook page.
"The parliamentary bloc of the Freedom and Justice Party will nominate Khairat al-Shater as a candidate for the presidency," the FJP said on Saturday. The FJP is the political arm of the Brotherhood.
Al-Shater is a millionaire businessman, and was imprisoned for 12 years during Hosni Mubarak's rule - longer than any other Brotherhood member during Mubarak's rule.
The Brotherhood's supreme guide, Mohammed Badie, confirmed Shater's nomination in a news conference and read out a brief statement from Shater, who was not present.
"After it was decided to field my name in the presidential elections, I can only accept the decision of the Brotherhood," Shater's statement said.
"I will therefore resign from my position as deputy chairman."
Read more: http://www.aljazeera.com/news/africa/2012/03/2012331191231210148.html
Important news.....
Ariz. sheriff faces crossroads in civil rights case
Source: USA Today
PHOENIX – America's self-proclaimed toughest sheriff is fast approaching a crossroads where he must decide either to settle claims that his officers racially profiled Latinos in his trademark immigration patrols — and overhaul his practices — or take his chances at trial.
Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio faces an April 14 deadline for concluding talks with the U.S. Justice Department to settle a wide range of civil rights allegations, including that the sheriff launched some immigration patrols based on letters from people who complained about people with dark skin congregating in a given area or speaking Spanish but never reporting an actual crime. The sheriff has become nationally known for his tough stance against illegal immigration.
A settlement could lead to changes long sought by Arpaio's critics and short-circuit a separate racial profiling case set for trial this summer. Most police agencies facing similar pressures from the Justice Department opt to settle, but critics wonder whether the sheriff's stubborn streak — a quality that endears him to his supporters — will lead him to confront the allegations in court.
"It makes him a hero," said Antonio Bustamante, a Phoenix civil rights attorney and member of a group of Latino and black leaders calling for an overhaul of Arpaio's policies. "We have a different character as a sheriff."
Read more: http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/story/2012-03-31/joe-arpaio-civil-rights/53912354/1?
I cannot say what I am thinking about this person.....
Keith Olbermann to file against Current TV
Keith Olbermann's full statement in response to the termination of his contract by Current TV:
I'd like to apologize to my viewers and my staff for the failure of Current TV.
Editorially, Countdown had never been better. But for more than a year I have been imploring Al Gore and Joel Hyatt to resolve our issues internally, while I've been not publicizing my complaints, and keeping the show alive for the sake of its loyal viewers and even more loyal staff. Nevertheless, Mr. Gore and Mr. Hyatt, instead of abiding by their promises and obligations and investing in a quality news program, finally thought it was more economical to try to get out of my contract.
It goes almost without saying that the claims against me implied in Current's statement are untrue and will be proved so in the legal actions I will be filing against them presently. To understand Mr. Hyatt's "values of respect, openness, collegiality and loyalty," I encourage you to read of a previous occasion Mr. Hyatt found himself in court for having unjustly fired an employee. That employee's name was Clarence B. Cain.
In due course, the truth of the ethics of Mr. Gore and Mr. Hyatt will come out. For now, it is important only to again acknowledge that joining them was a sincere and well-intentioned gesture on my part, but in retrospect a foolish one. That lack of judgment is mine and mine alone, and I apologize again for it.
http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2012/03/keith-olbermann-to-file-against-current-tv-119218.html
=======================================================
The Kind of Stress That Doesn't Kill You, but Makes You Stronger
More than a half century after Dr. Terman collected his data on work and occupational success, we looked into the long-term consequences on health and longevity. Would Paul's easygoing, free-flowing approach to his career as a bookstore manager be a benefit or a curse? Would John's dedication to physics lead to a stressful but long life like that of fellow physicist Norris Bradbury, or was Bradbury's very long life an anomaly -- an exception to the rule?
We gathered together our research assistants, filling our computer programs with a whole host of relevant information, including the personality indexes we had constructed and validated earlier. We recorded how much alcohol they drank, the participants' reports of their ambition, and even their parents' reports. Most importantly, we used the death certificates to see how long they lived.
The results were very clear: Those with the most career success were the least likely to die young. In fact, on average the most successful men lived five years longer than the least successful.
Especially convincing about this finding is that the men who were independently rated by Dr. Terman as most successful more than a half century ago were the ones least likely to die at any given age in the decades that followed. Some studies in this field of research might be inadvertently biased by the classifications or judgments used by the epidemiologists, but in this case, we did not have to do any job classifications or make any judgments -- we simply relied on those careful categorizations Terman and his associates had made decades ago.
Read more: http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/03/the-kind-of-stress-that-doesnt-kill-you-but-makes-you-stronger/255298/
=========================================================
Supreme Court Decision Tree
Once again America is having one of its “national conversations” on health care reform. This time the buzz is over arguments before the Supreme Court on the constitutionality of certain provisions in the Affordable Care Act. The justices’ rulings will be landmark decisions, because they will indirectly go much beyond the act itself to our entire system of governance.
A fine synopsis of the issues now before the court is provided in a report by the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. The following decision tree illustrates the logical sequence of decisions.
http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/30/the-supreme-court-and-the-national-conversation-on-health-care-reform/
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Very interesting decision tree......and a very profound statement: "The justices’ rulings will be landmark decisions, because they will indirectly go much beyond the act itself to our entire system of governance."
================================================================
We Cannot Kill Our Way to Peace
I'm far more interested in forgiveness than justice.
I say this just to calm myself down after a morning of media overkill, so to speak. There are so many murdered mothers and children in the news, some with names and faces, so many just adding anonymously to one death toll or another.
An Iraqi mom, 32 years old, is beaten to death in her house in El Cajon, Calif. A note by her body reads: "Go back to your country, you terrorist." Was it a hate crime? An isolated incident?
The guy who killed Trayvon Martin is still at large, somewhere. But his 2005 mug shot is everywhere, making him the poster child of vigilante justice. Do I have to reduce the killer to that viral scowl to feel compassion for Trayvon?
Dehumanization, the death of the human soul, is now reaching an advanced stage and its consequences are spreading across the country and the planet like global warming. I feel my own immune system breaking down. I can't absorb the news anymore without hearing a deep alarm go off somewhere, insistent, berserk.
It's not just the violence. Violence is a symptom - of social brokenness, alienation, profound disconnection at so many levels, perpetuated by our institutions and popular culture.
So I think about the deaths of Trayvon Martin and Shaima Alawadi and the Afghan civilians allegedly murdered by a lone, drunk American soldier (with the implausibility of the official scenario of yet another lone gunman growing in magnitude) and I feel myself groping for so much more, in all these tragedies, than - at best - the discharge of sterile justice.
The soldier, whisked out of Afghanistan, is sequestered in a holding cell in Kansas: "Sgt. Robert Bales Joins Military's Notorious Criminals at Ft. Leavenworth," ran the ABC News headline. This is like a cartoon show of crude stereotypes.
Please read more here: http://blog.buzzflash.com/node/13412
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
We cannot kill our way to peace.
Understanding this, I wish only for a moment of collective calm and a social shift toward forgiveness. Let the moment be fleeting, but let us feel the harm we keep inflicting on ourselves and then both seek and bestow forgiveness for all we have done. And let us drop our weapons, if only for that moment, so we can understand that it's possible.
Profile Information
Member since: Sun Jul 31, 2011, 05:36 PMNumber of posts: 5,016
