Women Provided the Leadership Needed

Senators John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Mark Pryor (D-Ark.) stated last week that their female colleagues can take most of the credit for driving the compromise that is expected to temporarily reopen the U.S. government and raise the debt ceiling before Thursday's deadline.

"Leadership, I must fully admit, was provided primarily from women in the Senate," McCain said after the bipartisan deal was announced.

Pryor said that people sometimes like to joke about women in leadership, but he is a huge fan of his female colleagues after watching them negotiate. "The truth is, women in the Senate is a good thing," he said. "We're all just glad they allowed us to tag along so we could see how it's done."

Following weeks of stagnation, The New York Times reported on Monday that a bipartisan group of women senators was playing a crucial role in opening discussions between Republicans and Democrats over how to move forward and reopen the government.

Out of the 14 senators on the bipartisan committee that laid the framework for the debt deal, six were women. Susan Collins (R-Maine) started the group, and Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.), Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) and Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.) took part in negotiations.

“I don’t think it’s a coincidence that women were so heavily involved in trying to end this stalemate,” Collins told The New York Times. “Although we span the ideological spectrum, we are used to working together in a collaborative way.”

Klobuchar said on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" last week that the friendships the Senate women have developed will help them work together to craft a long-term budget without the counterproductive barbs that some politicians throw at each other when they don't agree.

“The 20 women in the Senate have formed such strong friendships of trust, even though we come from different places, that I’m very hopeful as we go forward with Patty Murray, head of the Budget Committee, Barbara Mikulski, head of Approprations,” Klobuchar said. “Those relationships are going to make a difference as we get into what matters, which is the long-term budget.”  Read more…

Hump Day Art

Street Art with Chalk

Whaduya Know and...

Why do we do the things we do?

Despite our best attempts to "know thyself," the truth is that we often know astonishingly little about our own minds, and even less about the way others think.

As Charles Dickens once put it, 

“A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other.”

Psychologists have long sought insights into how we perceive the world and what motivates our behavior, and they've made enormous strides in lifting that veil of mystery.

Aside from providing fodder for stimulating cocktail-party conversations, some of the most famous psychological experiments of the past century reveal universal and often surprising truths about human nature. 

Here are 10 classic psychological studies that may change the way you understand yourself.

1. We all have some capacity for evil.
2. We don't notice what's right in front of us.
3. Delaying gratification is hard -- but we're more successful when we do.
4. We can experience deeply conflicting moral impulses.
5. We're easily corrupted by power.
6. We seek out loyalty to social groups and are easily drawn to intergroup conflict.
7. We only need one thing to be happy.
8. We thrive when we have strong self-esteem and social status.
9. We constantly try to justify our experiences so that they make sense to us.
10. We buy into stereotypes in a big way.

  

But, what is Psychology?

Psychology is both an applied and academic field that studies the human mind and behavior. Research in psychology seeks to understand and explain how we think, act and feel. As most people already realize, a large part of psychology is devoted to the diagnosis and treatment of mental health issues, but that's just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to applications for psychology. In addition to mental health, psychology can be applied to a variety of issues that impact health and daily life including performance enhancement, self-help, ergonomics, motivation, productivity, and much more.

Did you notice #7 above?  What is the one thing we need to be happy?

It's A Violation Guys...

A US predator unmanned drone armed with a
missile stands on the tarmac of Kandahar military airport.
Photograph: Massoud HossainiAFP/Getty

A United Nations investigation has so far identified 33 drone strikes around the world that have resulted in civilian casualties and may have violated international humanitarian law.

The report by the UN's special rapporteur on human rights and counter-terrorism, Ben Emmerson QC, calls on the US to declassify information about operations coordinated by the CIA and clarify its positon on the legality of unmanned aerial attacks.

Published ahead of a debate on the use of remotely piloted aircraft, at the UN general assembly in New York next Friday, the 22-page document examines incidents in Afghanistan, Yemen, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Pakistan and Gaza.

It has been published to coincide with a related report released earlier on Thursday by Professor Christof Heyns, the UN's special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, which warned that the technology was being misused as a form of "global policing".

Emmerson, who traveled to Islamabad for his investigation, said the Pakistan ministry of foreign affairs has records of as many as 330 drone strikes in the country's north-western tribal areas since 2004. Up to 2,200 people have been killed – of whom at least 400 were civilians – according to the Pakistan government.

In Yemen, Emmerson's report says that as many as 58 civilians are thought to have been killed in attacks by UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles). 

"While the fact that civilians have been killed or injured does not necessarily point to a violation of international humanitarian law, it undoubtedly raises issues of accountability and transparency," the study notes.

Reaper UAVs, used by the RAF in Afghanistan, have a range of 3,700 miles (5,900 km), a maximum airspeed of 250 knots and can ascend to 15,300 meters (50,000 feet), the document explains. Their missions can last up to 18 hours.

The Reaper carries three cameras as well as laser-guided bombs. Three communication networks relay information between the RAF ground station in the UK and the UAV: 

"a secure internet-based chat function, a secure radio routed via satellite and a secure telephone system".  

Read more…  

More Than Just Education

The bipartisan education reform movement sweeping the nation calls for opening up public schools to free-market competition. That has meant sending billions of tax dollars to private, for-profit companies to educate kids.

Click on image to enlarge

But the companies do more than pay teachers, develop curriculum and buy supplies with all that revenue.

They use it as a launchpad for new products, new brands and new markets.

Consider K12 Inc., the nation’s largest private operator of public schools. It runs 54 online schools in 33 states and Washington, D.C. But it also runs a tutoring center in the United Arab Emirates. 

It sells courses to the Cook County correctional system in Chicago. It’s making a big push to get its new online curriculum for toddlers into Head Start preschools for low-income kids.

 “These companies are invited in to bring an entrepreneurial spirit to education” — and they’re doing just that, said Gary Miron, an education professor at Western Michigan University.

Advocates argue that the energy the private sector brings to the table will transform education for the better. Miron, however, worries that the relentless drive to grow and conquer new markets distracts companies like K12 from the job the public pays them to do — teach kids to read, write and reason.

K12 Executive Chairman Nathaniel Davis says he remains intently focused on his No. 1 goal: 

“To make sure we have everyone in the organization focused on the best academic results for students.”

But he also has to report to investors who expect quarter after quarter of strong growth. Here’s a look at how K12 has expanded beyond its well-known role of running virtual public schools.  Read more: 

New Ideas For Core

Scientists from Stanford University have shown that iron metal (above) will flow through rocks 1,000km beneath our feet.

Using sophisticated X-ray imaging, they watched molten metal moving through rocks, squeezed to huge pressures between the tips of pairs of diamonds.

Their results suggest that Earth's core did not form in a single step, but grew in a complicated sequence over time.

The depths of Earth are complex and multi-layered.        

At the surface, the rocks forming the foundations of our cities, the stones that we build our lives upon, also provide the raw materials for society - metals, fuel, water and nutrients.

These are no more than a thin geological veneer on the planet. In many respects, the deep Earth remains as much of a mystery as Jupiter or Mars.

But new research in the journal Nature Geosciences gives new clues about how Earth may have taken shape and built its core.

A group of scientists, led by Stanford's Prof Wendy Mao, have shown how metallic iron may be squeezed out of rocky silicates more than 1,000km beneath the surface to form a metallic core.

If you were to follow Jules Verne on a journey to the center of the Earth, you would find a chemistry dominated by just three elements, until you got almost half the way to the centre - that's the first 3,000km of your journey.

Oxygen, silicon and magnesium (plus a little bit of iron) make up more than 90% of Earth's blanketing "ceramic" mantle.

Electrically and thermally insulating, the mantle is like a rock-wool blanket around the core. The minerals of the mantle are the stony part of the planet. But as you delve deeper on this "thought field trip", things suddenly and drastically change.

With more than half your journey ahead of you, you cross a boundary from the stony mantle into the metallic core. It is initially liquid in its upper stretches, and then solid right the way to the center of the Earth.

The chemistry changes too, with iron forming almost all of the core, segregated into Earth's dense inner sphere.

The boundary between the metallic core and rocky mantle is a place of extremes. Physically, Earth's metallic liquid outer core is as different to the rocky mantle that overlies it as the seas are from the ocean floor here near Earth's surface.  Read more…  

Racist Police Dogs

In the first six months of this year, every single victim of a bite by a LASD dog was African-American or Latino…

A new report focusing on the Canine Special Detail of the LA Sherriff’s Department (LASD) has uncovered a vast increase in the number of minority individuals bitten by police dogs since 2004.

And in the first six months of this year, every single victim of a bite by a LASD dog was African-American or Latino. 

The data was published in a new report by the Police Assessment Resource Centre (Parc), a Los Angeles-based non-profit organization, devoted to “advancing effective and accountable policing”.

According to Parc records, the number of Latino individuals bitten by LASD canines went up 30 per cent between 2004 and 2012, from 30 to 39 bites. The number of African-Americans bitten increased by 33 per cent over the same period.

Meanwhile, police dog bites caused injuries at a much higher rate than alternative deterrents such as batons, tear gas and even guns. “Large swathes of LASD’s jurisdiction, encompassing generally affluent areas with smaller minority populations, had few [canine] deployments or bites,” the Parc report states.

“Crime rates are lower in these areas, but the stark disparity leads us to wonder why canine deployments seem to occur disproportionately in less affluent areas with larger minority populations.” 

During the period covered in the report, the largely black or Latino areas of Century, City of Industry, Compton, Lakewood and South LA/Lennox suffered more dog bites than all of LASD’s other 21 districts combined.

A recent investigation by the US Department of Justice also found that in areas policed by the LASD, “African Americans, and to a lesser extent Latinos, are more likely to be stopped and/or searched than whites, even when controlling for factors other than race, such as crime rates.”

The authors of the Parc report recommended that the LASD work on improving its canine-deployment policies, and keep track of the enforcement activities of individual dogs and their handlers. In 2004, a Pennsylvania police dog named Dolpho was suspended from duty, after the German Shepherd displayed a propensity for biting black children.

During the 1980s, some Los Angeles police officers would allegedly refer to black youths as “dog biscuits”.

Still In Use

Roman baths in Khenchela, Algeria (above and below) are not remarkable because of the ancient architecture or remarkable state of preservation but the fact there is still a free and plentiful supply of hot water feeding into two open air baths.

"The Romans built them, before Jesus, but they were damaged in an earthquake and that's when the Ottomans came and repaired it," a friendly visitor will likely tell you since the daily ritual of public bathing is still clearly alive and well in Khenchela.

The important social function of a bathhouse has also been retained - family issues are discussed and resolved and jokes and stories are told to echoing laughter and the sound of a slapped thigh, back or hand.

Sport is heatedly debated, politics perhaps less so in this country - suspicion of who is hearing what remains a hangover from the civil war when careless talk cost lives. Few have the stomach or wish to risk more conflict - one of many plausible explanations as to why the Arab Spring went largely unnoticed in Algeria.

Aside from this striking continuity, what makes Khenchela stand out from many other historical sites in Algeria is the fact that despite being amongst the smallest, and certainly lesser known, it is one of the few places where you can easily interact with the local people.

There are several other sites for Roman Baths in Algeria, see below:

• Timgad
• Guelma (Calama)
• Héliopolis
• Hammam Meskoutine (Aquae Tibilitanae)
• Hammam Righa (Aquae Calidae)
• Hammam Essalihine (Aquae Flavianae)

Roman Baths

Taking a bath was not a simple chore. There was not one bath to use in a large complex such as the one at Bath. A visitor could use a cold bath (the frigidarium), a warm bath (the tepidarium) and a hot bath (the caldarium). 

A visitor would spend some of his time in each one before leaving. A large complex would also contain an exercise area (the palaestra), a swimming pool and a gymnasium. One of the public baths at Pompeii contains two tepidariums and caldariums along with a plunge pool and a large exercise area.

The building of a bath complex required excellent engineering skills. Baths required a way of heating up water. This was done by using a furnace and the hypocaust system carried the heat around the complex.

Water had to be constantly supplied. In Rome this was done using 640 kilometers of aqueducts - a superb engineering feat. The baths themselves could be huge. A complex built by the emperor Diocletian was the size of a football pitch. 

Those who built them wanted to make a statement - so that many baths contained mosaics and massive marble columns. The larger baths contained statues to the gods and professionals were on hand to help take the strain out of having a bath. 

Masseurs would massage visitors and then rub scented olive oil into their skin.

Sunday Funnies

Caturday

Well...  

you shaved your head...

T. G. I. F. Solitude

Alone in time...

When I'm 64

It's too tedious to list all Sir Paul (age 71) has done in the past five years, but let's pick some highlights: two trips to the White House for prizes (Gershwin Prize for Popular Song, Kennedy Center Honor), off to Paris to get the Légion d'Honneur from François Hollande, in 2008 for Outstanding Contribution to Music and, last year, the MusiCares Person of the Year award.

It's noticeable, though, that his recent accolades have tended to come from outside Britain. Abroad he is revered: one recent Italian review described going to a McCartney concert as being on a cultural par with visiting the Louvre.

New is his first LP of original songs since 2007's Memory Almost Full and is a sparky, upbeat piece of work. Several tracks have a Beatles feel, including the single, also called "New". The big news – for music buffs, though I'm not sure how much most listeners will care – is that there are four producers.

They are Paul Epworth, who produced Adele's 21; Mark Ronson, known for his work with Amy Winehouse; Ethan Johns, an acoustic, folky musician who is Laura Marling's producer; and Giles Martin, who worked on the Beatles's awful Cirque du Soleil show in Vegas (still running; a naff-a-mungo cash pumper).

Johns and Martin have an intergenerational connection to McCartney: Johns is the son of Glyn Johns, who was hired to do production work with Wings but walked out, and Martin's father is Sir George Martin, the Beatles producer.

Starting in 1960, the Beatles built their reputation playing clubs in Liverpool and Hamburg over a three-year period. Manager Brian Epstein molded them into a professional act and producer George Martin enhanced their musical potential.

They gained popularity in the United Kingdom after their first modest hit, "Love Me Do", in late 1962. They acquired the nickname the "Fab Four" as Beatlemania grew in Britain over the following year, and by early 1964 they had become international stars, leading the "British Invasion" of the United States pop market.

From 1965 on, the Beatles produced what many critics consider their finest material, including the innovative and widely influential albums Rubber Soul (1965), Revolver (1966), Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967), The Beatles (1968), and Abbey Road (1969).

After their break-up in 1970, they each enjoyed successful musical careers. Lennon was shot and killed in December 1980, and Harrison died of lung cancer in November 2001.

When I’m 64 Lyrics

When I get older losing my hair,

Many years from now,

Will you still be sending me a valentine

Birthday greetings bottle of wine?

If I'd been out till quarter to three

Would you lock the door,

Will you still need me, will you still feed me,

When I'm sixty-four?

oo oo oo oo oo oo oo oooo

You'll be older too, (ah ah ah ah ah)

And if you say the word,

I could stay with you.

I could be handy mending a fuse

When your lights have gone.

You can knit a sweater by the fireside

Sunday mornings go for a ride.

Doing the garden, digging the weeds,

Who could ask for more?

Will you still need me, will you still feed me,

When I'm sixty-four?

Every summer we can rent a cottage

In the Isle of Wight, if it's not too dear

We shall scrimp and save

Grandchildren on your knee

Vera, Chuck, and Dave

Send me a postcard, drop me a line,

Stating point of view.

Indicate precisely what you mean to say

Yours sincerely, Wasting Away.

Give me your answer, fill in a form

Mine for evermore

Will you still need me, will you still feed me,

When I'm sixty-four?

Whoo!

Be Like US

The looming prospect of a US default on debt prompted China to call for the world to “de-Americanize”, amid warnings of a new global recession.

In China, Xinhua, the official government news agency, said that as American politicians continued to flounder over a deal to break the impasse, “it is perhaps a good time for the befuddled world to start considering building a de-Americanized world”.

The jibe came as Christine Lagarde, the International Monetary Fund chief, raised the spectra of a repeat of the 2008 financial crash as hopes dwindled for a resolution of the crisis over the debt ceiling and partial government shutdown.

Harry Reid, the leader of the Democrat-controlled Senate and Mitch McConnell, who heads the Republican minority, met on Sunday for “preliminary” talks following the acrimonious collapse of negotiations between the White House and Republicans in the lower chamber.

Jack Lew, the Treasury secretary, has said that the US will run out of money to pay its bills on Thursday if Congress does not authorize an increase in federal borrowing limits.

Ms. Lagarde (left) repeated her warning about the impact of failing to raise the debt ceiling following the fund’s annual meeting of finance ministers in Washington.

“If there is that degree of disruption, that lack of certainty, that lack of trust in the US signature, it would mean massive disruption the world over,” she told NBC’s Meet the Press program. “And we would be at risk of tipping, yet again, into recession.”

Xinhua attacked America’s pre-eminent position in the world, adding that “such alarming days when the destinies of others are in the hands of a hypocritical nation have to be terminated”.

State-run newspapers nonetheless have also noted the inseparable economic ties which bind China and the US together. China is the biggest foreign holder of US Treasury bonds, worth a total of $1.28 trillion according to American government data.

“The cyclical stagnation in Washington for a viable bipartisan solution over a federal budget and an approval for raising debt ceiling has again left many nations’ tremendous dollar assets in jeopardy and the international community highly agonized,” said the commentary.

Back in Washington, Mr. Reid did not strike a particularly optimistic tone as he described the first meeting with Mr. McConnell. “I hope that our talking is some solace to the American people and the world,” was the best he could offer after leaving the discussions. 

Big Talker

North Korea refused to sign a non-aggression pact that John Kerry, the US Secretary of State, offered last week on condition of denuclearization.

In a thinly veiled threat to strike the United States, the North's National Defense Commission (NDC), chaired by leader Kim Jong-Un, said the US government must withdraw its policy of hostility against the North if it wants peace on both the Korean peninsula and the "US mainland".

"(The United States) must bear it in mind that reckless provocative acts would meet our retaliatory strikes and lead to an all-out war of justice for a final showdown with the United States," a spokesman of the NDC was quoted as saying in a statement carried by Pyongyang's Korean Central News Agency.

"We emphasize again that the United States must withdraw various measures aimed to isolate and strangulate us. Dependent upon this are... peace and security, not only on the Korean peninsula but the US mainland as well."

The comments come after a two-day joint naval drill between Japan, South Korea and the US, which included an American nuclear aircraft carrier, sparked a series of angry responses and threats from Pyongyang.

On Friday the North slammed a naval drill by US, South Korean and Japanese warships as a "serious military provocation" and vowed to "bury in the sea" the American carrier taking part in the exercise.

The latest bellicose statement from the NDC demanded that the US lift sanctions against the North, stop the "constant nuclear blackmails" and various war drills.

It rejected as "intolerable contempt" a US demand that it should show tangible commitment towards abandoning its nuclear programs if it wants substantive talks with the United States.

"The denuclearization of the Korean peninsula is an inalterable policy goal of the DPRK government," it said, but added that getting rid of such weapons should also include a total removal of US nuclear threats against the North.

The US and South Korea have long demanded that Pyongyang show tangible commitment to ending its nuclear weapons program before the six-party talks, which have been stalled for several years, can resume.

The North has said for years it wants denuclearization of the whole Korean peninsula and that it is developing a nuclear arsenal to protect itself from the US military, which occasionally sends nuclear-powered warships and aircraft capable of carrying atomic weapons.

In February the North carried out its third underground nuclear test in defiance of UN Security Council resolutions, sending tensions soaring and raising fears of possible conflict. It also launched a rocket in December that Washington said was a disguised ballistic missile test.

As well as the two Koreas, China and the US the six-party talks also involve Russia and Japan.