Thursday, June 23, 2011

Monday, June 20, 2011

The Brain on Trial

6/20/11. If the brains of criminals are different from law-abiding citizens, should we rethink our laws about criminal responsibility and punishment?

n.b. Dr. Brian Weeks recommended this article.

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/07/the-brain-on-trial/8520/

Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Collapse of a Rotten Edifice

6/7/11. Some elites among us --- the more equals --- have cornered the market with their haughty, self-righteous, morally high ground sermons standing on quicksand.  These big shots - e.g. Spitzer, DSK, Edwards - have powerful rifles with bad aims,  strong IQs, and rotten judgment.

http://pajamasmedia.com/victordavishanson/

Monday, June 6, 2011

Monday Quotations

6/6/04

"Man is equally incapable of seeing the nothingness from
which he emerges and the infinity in which he is engulfed."

---Blaise Pascal (1623 - 1662)


"I cannot grasp all that I am."

--- Augustine (354 - 430)


"Man is a masterpiece of creation, if only because no amount of determinism can prevent him from believing that he acts as a free being."

--- Georg C. Lichtenberg (1742 - 1799)

Friday, June 3, 2011

Dalia Skye Ceresnie's Blog

6/3/11. My smart and beautiful grand-niece has a blog. I wonder what she will do at 6 months?

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/04/us/04kevorkian.html?hpw

R.I.P. Dr. Jack Kevorkian

6/3/11. Dr. Death dies.

His blunt, passionate, audacious, often reckless support for the right to die made him both a hero and villain.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/04/us/04kevorkian.html?hpw


"...Over 130 people died painlessly with the help of these machines and the doctor who invented them. The first was Janet Adkins, a former college instructor on disability, who resolved to kill herself the day she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, and did so, with Dr Kevorkian in attendance, in his rusty van in a Michigan campsite. Those who followed her seemed unremarkable: a bus driver, a doctor, a supervisor at a pillow factory and so on, all terminally ill, or so they believed. Studies of those who sought out Dr Kevorkian, however, suggest that though many had a worsening illness, cancer perhaps or a neurological disease, it was not usually terminal. Autopsies showed five people had no disease at all. Those who came to him were more likely to be women than men, often unmarried and typically ill-at-ease when talking to doctors. Little over a third were in pain. Some presumably suffered from no more than hypochondria or depression..."
http://www.economist.com/node/18802492

National Dating Standards Lowered

6/3/11. The Federal Government took steps to lower the national dating standards, although many groups protested that mandating lower standards was not possible.

http://www.theonion.com/video/national-dating-standards-lowered,20647/