Julian Englis
Julian Englis's JournalNo sex necessary: Women have orgasms at the gym, study shows
Source: MSNBC
Women may not need a guy, a vibrator, or any other direct sexual stimulation to have an orgasm, finds a new study on exercise-induced orgasms and sexual pleasure.
The findings add qualitative and quantitative data to a field that has been largely unstudied, according to researcher Debby Herbenick, co-director of the Center for Sexual Health Promotion at Indiana University. For instance, Alfred Kinsey and his colleagues first reported the phenomenon in 1953, saying that about 5 percent of women they had interviewed mentioned orgasm linked to physical exercise. However, they couldn't know the actual prevalence because most of these women volunteered the information without being directly asked.
Since then, reports of so-called "coregasms," named because of their seeming link to exercises for core abdominal muscles, have circulated in the media for years, according to the researchers.
"Despite attention in the popular media, little is known scientifically about exercise-induced orgasms," the researchers write in a special issue of the journal Sexual and Relationship Therapy released in print this month. [5 Myths About Women's Bodies]
Read more: http://bodyodd.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/03/19/10759818-no-sex-necessary-women-have-orgasms-at-the-gym-study-shows
Politico: For Democrats, GOP budget is Christmas in March
I sure hope Politico is correct:
Democrats are organizing media blitzes, House floor speeches and town halls back home to seize on the changes to Medicare that Republicans are expected to propose Tuesday. To blunt GOP talking points that only Republicans are willing to confront the debt, Democrats intend to unveil their own budget next week calling for a mix of spending cuts and tax hikes on the rich.
The Republican budget plan last year was a political winner for Democrats, and party leaders expect nothing less this time around.
“They can run, but they cannot hide from their Medicare plan, which ends the Medicare guarantee at the same time they’re providing big new tax breaks to millionaires and protecting special interest tax loopholes,” Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) told POLITICO in an interview Monday.
At the heart of the Democrats’ war against the House GOP proposal — spearheaded by Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) — is its plan to dramatically reshape Medicare in order to contain costs and keep the health care program for seniors viable. This year’s budget is expected to incorporate a modified version of the Medicare revamp drafted by both Ryan and Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) that would allow seniors to keep the traditional Medicare program or enroll in an alternative private plan.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0312/74206.html#ixzz1pczsr8d8
Shock Therapy’s Effect on Depression Discovered, Researchers Say
Source: Bloomberg
After using electroconvulsive therapy for more than 70 years to treat severe depression, doctors say they now have discovered how it works.
Shock therapy, in use since 1937, appears to tamp down an overactive connection between two parts of the brain involved in emotional processing, thinking and concentration, according to a study released today by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The procedure mimics a seizure, sending a brief electric current to the brain. ECT has the strongest supporting data among treatments for patients whose depression doesn’t respond to medication, according to the American Psychiatric Association. About 10 to 20 percent of depressed patients receive shock therapy, said Paul Holtzheimer, an associate professor of psychiatry and surgery at Dartmouth Medical School.
“This gives us a much more powerful view of the brain,” Holtzheimer, who wasn’t involved in the study, said today in a telephone interview. “If this study holds up, it tells us this is a network problem.”
In the study, nine patients scheduled to undergo shock therapy had their brains scanned using functional MRI before and after treatment. This type of imaging detects blood flow to specific areas of the brain. Then the researchers analyzed the brain’s connectivity using a new mathematical model.
Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-03-19/shock-therapy-s-effect-on-depression-discovered-researchers-say.html
ECT is actually very safe compared to medications. The problem is with the side effects. In, particular some people memory loss. This new information may help pave the way to better, safer treatment of depression, where the treatment is more carefully targeted to parts of the brain that most involved in causing the depression.
Here is a link to the abstract of the original article in the Proceeding of the National Academy of Science:
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2012/03/12/1117206109.abstract?sid=293419e9-94ec-44d4-be58-b49a2740a56d
Election poll: 'Cavernous' gender gap gives boost to Obama
Source: The Christian Science Monitor
Andrew Kohut leads the nonpartisan Pew Research Center and the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press. He appeared at the March 14 Monitor breakfast in Washington, D.C., to discuss a new Pew national poll.
The gender gap between President Obama and Republican candidates:
"There is a cavernous gender gap in the horse-race poll…. Obama leads [GOP front-runner Mitt] Romney by 20 points among female voters. And [Obama] leads [candidate Rick] Santorum by 26 points among female voters."
Read more: http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/monitor_breakfast/2012/0319/Election-poll-Cavernous-gender-gap-gives-boost-to-Obama
I believe that this the report on the survey to which Kohut refers:
http://www.people-press.org/2012/03/14/romney-leads-gop-contest-trails-in-matchup-with-obama/?src=prc-headline
The specific data are found on this page, you have to scroll down:
http://www.people-press.org/2012/03/14/section-2-the-general-election-2/
From the WP, why we need to keep the pressure up: A Conumdrum for Conservative Radio Talk
A good exploration of how their inflammatory attacks and tactic have finally begun to hurt conservative hate radio.
Dan Sileo just got a taste of what might be called the Rush Limbaugh Effect. On his sports-talk radio program in Tampa last week, Sileo enthusiastically endorsed the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ interest in a trio of free-agent players. Maybe a bit too enthusiastically.
“If they got those three monkeys, I’m good,” Sileo said about the players, all of whom are African American. “I’m ready, man .?.?. I want those guys. Those guys are great players.”
That was Monday. By Tuesday, Sileo was gone, fired by WDAE-AM (“The Sports Animal”), where he’d worked behind the microphone for nearly 15 years. The station, owned by radio giant Clear Channel Communications, has declined to talk about Sileo’s dismissal.
Nevertheless, in the wake of the furor over Limbaugh’s denunciation of Georgetown law-school student Sandra Fluke last month, Sileo’s firing suggests to many that something has changed about the sensitivities of talk-radio stations. A medium built on pushing the limits of acceptable speech appears, once again, to be reassessing just where those limits are.
More at:
www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/a-conundrum-for-conservative-talk-radio/2012/03/15/gIQAVbAQLS_story.html
[link:http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/a-conundrum-for-conservative-talk-radio/2012/03/15/gIQAVbAQLS_story.html|
From Crain's New York Business: Groups aim to crush Rush
While a great title, the story is more of the business problems Mr. Limbaugh may be facing:
Over the more than two decades that Rush Limbaugh has been king of talk radio, plenty of critics have called for his head—or at least for an end to his free pass to make outrageous attacks. This time they might get it.
But even if he escapes semi-intact from his latest controversy, brought on by over-the-top invective against a women's health advocate, Mr. Limbaugh's days of offending with impunity are over.
*******************
Radio insiders say that both Premiere and its affiliated stations are feeling the pain of lost ad revenue, and that it will be a long time before that money comes back. Indeed, radio networks are restructuring some of their inventory—creating packages that are free of right-wing talk so that marketers won't have to worry about ending up in The Rush Limbaugh Show or with any other controversial host.
“It's created a really long tail of changes in the industry, and a long tail of lost revenue for everybody carrying the show,” said Kim Vasey, director of radio for media-buying giant GroupM.
Read more: http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20120318/SUB/303189976#ixzz1pXTBCV21
Study finds state governments at risk for corruption; New Jersey listed as most transparent
Source: Washington Post
State governments lack transparency and accountability to citizens, and remain at high risk for corruption, according to a new study of all 50 statehouses.
Not a single state received an A in the State Integrity Investigation ranking, a product of the Center for Public Integrity, Public Radio International and Global Integrity.
“It’s telling that no state received an overall grade of A,” said Caitlin Ginley, a staff writer for the Center for Public Integrity and a project manager on the study. “In every state, there’s room to improve the ethics laws, the level of transparency on government proceedings, the disclosure of information, and — most importantly — the oversight of these laws.
“One of the major findings was that even when ethics laws are passed, they are difficult to enforce and lack meaningful consequences for violators.”
Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/study-finds-state-governments-at-risk-for-corruption-new-jersey-listed-as-most-transparent/2012/03/18/gIQAhzayKS_story.html
The study site: http://www.stateintegrity.org
They have a Facebook page, which seems to be something you might kick a "like" to: https://www.facebook.com/StateIntegrityInvestigation
'US, Israel agree Iran abandoned nuclear bomb'
Source: The Jerusalem Post
US and Israeli intelligence agencies mostly agree that Iran has not restarted its development of a nuclear bomb, the New York Times reported on Saturday.
According to the report, the assessment among top US officials is that Iran has not yet decided to pursue a nuclear weapon, a conclusion which was established based on intelligence analyses.
Israel - while seeing an existential threat in Iran's possible pursuit of a nuclear bomb - mostly agrees with those assessment, a US intelligence official speaking on the condition of anonymity told the Times.
“Their people ask very hard questions, but Mossad does not disagree with the US on the weapons program,” the Times quoted the official as saying.
Read more: http://www.jpost.com/IranianThreat/News/Article.aspx?id=262275
The New York Times article cited:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/18/world/middleeast/iran-intelligence-crisis-showed-difficulty-of-assessing-nuclear-data.html?_r=1&hp=&pagewanted=all
How Voter ID Laws Are Being Used to Disenfranchise Minorities and the Poor
This is a story that needs to be spread. We need people to understand where the real fraud in the election process is.
From The Atlantic
First, let's call it what it is. The burgeoning battles over state redistricting and voter ID laws -- and the larger fight over a key part of the Voting Rights Act itself -- are all cynical expressions of the concerns many conservatives (of both parties) have about the future of the American electorate. The Republican lawmakers who are leading the fight for the restrictive legislation say they are doing so in the name of stopping election fraud -- and, really, who's in favor of election fraud? But the larger purpose and effect of the laws is to disenfranchise Hispanic voters, other minorities, and the poor -- most of whom, let's also be clear, vote for Democrats.
Jonathan Chait, in a smart recent New York magazine piece titled "2012 or Never," offered some numbers supporting the theory. "Every year," Chait wrote, "the nonwhite proportion of the electorate grows by about half a percentage point -- meaning that in every presidential election, the minority share of the vote increases by 2 percent, a huge amount in a closely divided country." This explains, for example, why Colorado, Nevada, and Arizona are turning purple instead of staying red. "By 2020," Chait writes, "nonwhite voters should rise from a quarter of the 2008 electorate to one third. In 30 years, "nonwhites will outnumber whites."
Which is why "whites," and especially white men, seem so determined this election cycle to make it harder for nonwhites to exercise their right to vote. The news from the front this week is telling. On Wednesday, in Pennsylvania, GOP Governor Tom Corbett raced to sign a bill that requires photo identification of voters. The day before, in Texas, GOP Attorney General Greg Abbott amended the Lone Star State's complaint against the federal government to seek to strike down the pre-clearance section of the Voting Rights Act, which had in turn been used by the Justice Department to block Texas' recent efforts at a stringent new voter-ID law.
More at: http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/03/how-voter-id-laws-are-being-used-to-disenfranchise-minorities-and-the-poor/254572/
All Odds Aside, G.O.P. Girding for Floor Fight at Convention
From The New York Times
For the first time in a generation, Republicans are preparing for the possibility that their presidential nomination could be decided at their national convention rather than on the campaign trail, a prospect that would upend one of the rituals of modern politics.
The race remains Mitt Romney’s to lose, and if he continues to accumulate delegates at a steady clip starting with contests in Puerto Rico on Sunday and Illinois on Tuesday, he has a good chance of amassing the 1,144 necessary to secure the nomination before the last primary, in Utah on June 26. But as he struggles to win the hearts of conservative voters and hold off a challenge from Rick Santorum, party leaders, activists and the campaigns are for the first time taking seriously the possibility that neither he nor anyone else will get to that total.
In that case, the nomination would be decided by the more than 2,200 delegates — from obscure local officials and activists to national figures — who will attend the party’s convention in Tampa, Fla., in late August. They would embark on an unscripted, contentious and televised drama that has not played out in 36 years, a period in which both major party conventions have become slickly produced and highly choreographed pep rallies kicking off the general election campaign.
With that in mind, campaign and party lawyers are dusting off their party rule books, running through decades-old procedural arcana and studying the most recent convention-floor fight, between Ronald Reagan and President Gerald R. Ford in 1976. Republican officials also are bracing for the possibility of a prenomination clash between the party’s establishment and members of the Tea Party movement, many of whom may be attending their first national convention.
More at: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/18/us/politics/republicans-brace-for-possible-open-convention.html
I have to say that this would break my heart.
Just kidding.
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