I’m going in for surgery tomorrow, a procedure I can have done because I have an employer that provides health insurance. Thank heaven for that, but deserve it. Not like those millions of uninsured Americans. They must not be working hard enough.

Now those radical, bleeding heart, liberal Democrats want to provide insurance to everybody and all these radical groups are lining up to support them, like the American Association of Retired Persons(AARP) and the American Medical Association. Oh, and the American Cancer Society, the American Diabetes Association,
and a whole bunch of other godless communist organizations like that.

Seriously America, reform is in your interest and if it fails the only people who will have won will be the insurance companies!

continue reading "Socialists like the AARP and the AMA"

A 2009 AAA Foundation study found that 91.5 percent of drivers considered talking on the phone while driving a serious threat to their safety; 97 percent said it was completely unacceptable to send a text or e-mail while driving. But two-thirds of those people admitted talking on their own phones while driving, and 1 in 7 have texted while driving.

That little tidbit exposing the hypocrisy of the American driver comes from an article in the Christian Science Monitor, “Texting while driving: the new drunk driving.”  I wouldn’t be surprised if a good percentage of the 1/3 who didn’t admit to talking on the phone while driving were people who don’t even have phones. When the phone rings and you are driving, its a difficult temptation to resist.

I’m going to leave aside the question of texting while driving because, although I must confess I have done it, it is so obviously a stupid thing to do and clearly dangerous.  Apparently simply talking on the phone  is quite dangerous, as well, moreso than I realized.

At the University of Utah’s Applied Cognition Laboratory, Professor Strayer has been testing this do-as-I-say theory for a decade. Using neuroimaging and a drive simulator, he and his colleagues have watched what happens when drivers – including those who claim to be able to text, tweet, and talk safely at the wheel – mix cellphones and cars.

The results are stark: Almost nobody multiprocesses the way they think they can. For 98 percent of the population, regardless of age, the likelihood of a crash while on a cellphone increases fourfold; the reaction to simulated traffic lights, pedestrians, and vehicles is comparable to that of someone legally intoxicated.

Although some critics claim that the simulator isn’t real enough, studies of real-life driving in Canada and Australia had similar findings.

Now here is the thing I find really interesting.  Strayer’s research found that there was little difference between the distraction level of those on hand held sets and hands free headsets.

The disruption, he says, is cognitive. Unlike a conversation with a passenger sharing the same physical space of the car, the electronic conversation takes a driver into a virtual space away from the road.

“We record brain activity,” Strayer says, “and we can show that it’s suppressed from the cellphone conversation.”

That’s odd and interesting, but believable.  Phone conversations are different from in person conversations and even if you could hear both sides of the conversation, you would probably know very quickly it was a mobile phone conversation.  And I feel like a lot of people can’t even walk straight while talking on their mobile phones.  They wander around drunkenly obliviously to everything and everyone around them. Its very odd.

Anyway, this is a good article, full of interesting tidbits.  Check it out.

Today is the International Day of Climate Action, with more than This was one of over 5,200 events happening around the world. This was one of them. Read about events in and near Boston at Boston.com. There is a great collection of images on Flickr.

In this image, Bright Academy students from Cebu City, Philippines joined blogger Esperanza Garcia and people all over the world to make a 350 statement and take a stand for a safe climate future. The photo will be printed in local and national newspapers to spread awareness of 350.

One of the more curious creations is the collage by the International Planned Parenthood Federation/Western Hemisphere Region which consists of 350 condoms.
continue reading "International Day of Climate Action and Condoms"

So, you want to borrow money from me? Sure. I’ll just need you to fill out this very brief application.

Name: ____________________
EMail: ____________________

Thank you.

Find out why a new report from Credit Karma suggests this just may be enough via a post at Mashable.

The text below provides some statistics about “gadget-savvy online individuals” under the age of 35 surveyed on behalf of the website Retrevo.com.  The first percentage is shocking, the second frightening, the third not a bit surprising and the last, well, what’s the big deal?

The younger crowd is also quite keen on tweeting, texting, and checking Facebook after sex (36%), while driving (40%), while at work (64%), and when on vacation (65%).

via Young Social Mediaphiles: 36% Tweet and Check Facebook After Sex.

It isn’t so much the numbers themselves that are surprising.  The survey is, after all, a survey of gadget-savvy people,  so one would expect the numbers to be higher than they might in the general population.  So that 64% of respondents use these tools at work or on vacation seems reasonable.  In fact, it surprises me the number isn’t higher.

Tweeting, texting and Facebook?  That’s a lot of tools.  Increasingly people use one or more of those tools for work.  As for using them on vacation, they are called social networking tools, and socially is how most people started using them.  It is their use for business and professional purposes that is new.  So why wouldn’t they be used on vacation.   I like to be unplugged on vacation sometimes, but that’s because I work online.  Many people are thrilled by the possibility of posting their vacation snapshots while on vacation.  And , if family members went off to do different things during the day of a family vacation, it can be awfully handy to text them if you want to change the meeting place for dinner.

It’s the social networking after sex thing that boggles the mind.  Exactly what message does one post after sex?  Does one provide comments or ratings of the experience?  Or maybe the texting is just a substitute for the post-coital cigarette–something to do with the hands?  The group with this high percentage is under age 35.  Maybe some of the respondents are too young to drive, so they are texting someone for a ride?  I wonder what percentage post or text during?

That leaves only the driving to talk about.  Tell me more please.  Where were those numbers highest?  Certain states?  Cities?  Do they drive more at certain times of the day?  Do they use highways or byways more?  Tell me all you can.  ‘Cause I want to do all I can to be OFF THE ROAD whenever and wherever they are!

NB: This entry has bee corrected in response to the comment below. (10/13/2009)

It seemed to me that my local NPR station, WBUR in Boston, had been giving undue attention to the findings of a Stanford University study of “Cognitive control in media multitaskers,” recently published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Science. I first heard it reported on one of the news programs, Morning Edition or All Things Considered. Then Talk of the Nation did a show on it. Then a nationally syndicated show produced by WBUR, On Point. Counting them up, that’s only three times the story was featured, but it seemed like more, perhaps because I found it so disconcerting.

Anyway, the study found that “heavy multitaskers” have trouble filtering distractions and switching tasks compared with those who do it less. In other words, those who multitask most are the least proficient at it.

As someone who is myself a heavy but not particularly proficient multitasker, I found that surprising, but possible. I had thought it was just me. But the study also found that frequent multitasking affects cognitive abilities across the board, and this I found worrying. Is multitasking making me stupid? In trying to become more efficient, am I not only being less efficient, but also less able to follow an argument and to construct and argument?

At least that might explain some of the postings in this blog when I go back and read them. Blame it on the multitasking.

Here is the abstract of the article by Eyal Ophir, Clifford Nass and Anthony D. Wagner of Stanford.

Chronic media multitasking is quickly becoming ubiquitous, although processing multiple incoming streams of information is considered a challenge for human cognition. A series of experiments addressed whether there are systematic differences in information processing styles between chronically heavy and light media multitaskers. A trait media multitasking index was developed to identify groups of heavy and light media multitaskers. These two groups were then compared along established cognitive control dimensions. Results showed that heavy media multitaskers are more susceptible to interference from irrelevant environmental stimuli and from irrelevant representations in memory. This led to the surprising result that heavy media multitaskers performed worse on a test of task-switching ability, likely due to reduced ability to filter out interference from the irrelevant task set. These results demonstrate that media multitasking, a rapidly growing societal trend, is associated with a distinct approach to fundamental information processing.

Putting my personal anxieties aside and assuming the study replicated and the findings supported by other research, these are obviously findings that have enormous implications for educators. Unfortunately his is not the first study to suggest there are such problems with multitasking.

In a 2001 study Joshua Rubinstein, Ph.D., of the Federal Aviation Administration, and David Meyer, Ph.D., and Jeffrey Evans, Ph.D., of the University of Michigan raised questions about the efficiency of multitasking. They used the metaphor of a “mental CEO” to describe brain’s prefrontal cortex and other key neural regions establish priorities among tasks and allocate the mind’s resources to them. They found that this process of allocation of resources reduces efficiency and slows down processes.

Earl Miller, a neuroscientist based at MIT dismisses multitasking as a myth, saying that what we are really doing is task switching. “People can’t multitask very well, and when people say they can, they’re deluding themselves…The brain is very good at deluding itself.”

Yet there is no question that multitasking is a fact of life, an increasingly unavoidable fact of life. March Prensky argues that the minds of those who are being raised with technology are changing (Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants, Part II: Do they Really think Differently? pdf file).

Technology has become such a major part of our lives that we sometimes forget how new it is. In 1991, the year that an 18 year-old first year college student was born, Microsoft had just released MS DOS 5.0, the internet was first made available for public use, and the first web browser was introduced. Windows 3.0, the first version of Windows to be widely accepted by the buying public wasn’t introduced until 1992. The participants in the Stanford study were college students. Some say the Digital Native was born after 1980, others say 1990. But if we use the analogy of language acquisition, today’s colleges students became fluent early, but still aren’t native speakers. Between 1990 and 1997, the percentage of households owning computers more than doubled, increasing from 15 percent to 35 percent, and in in 2000 that number was still only 60%.

Moreover, the capacity of computers to run multiple applications at the same time really efficiently is relatively recently. Remember how often Windows 95 crashed? AOL Instant Messenger only came into being in 1997, Facebook in 2004, YouTube in 2005. Text messaging via mobile phones, while possible for quite some time, is a very new phenomenon in the United States, not really taking off until 2004-2005. So perhaps the generation now in college are not yet digital natives. Or maybe they are, but they are the children of immigrants, and thus not quite acculturated.

Not matter what, the findings give me pause. Maybe I need to turn of my IM client and email notifications. It’s a start. I’ll be out of touch for the next hour or so.

The Philadelphia Inquirer reports that last week the Pennsylvania State House of Representatives was set to turn out a seemingly uncontroversial resolution declaring October Domestic Violence Month because to do so would support a homosexual agenda.

The state House of Representatives churns out uncontroversial resolutions every week to commemorate the dead, honor people’s achievements, raise awareness of health issues, and recognize things important to Pennsylvania, such as pretzels.

So it took many people by surprise when a resolution designating October as Domestic Violence Awareness Month was derailed Wednesday by Rep. Daryl Metcalfe (R., Butler), who claimed it “had a homosexual agenda.”

The Western Pennsylvania legislator said he detected that agenda in this phrase: “one in six women and one in 33 men have experienced an attempted or completed rape.”

Metcalf insisted that the resolution not go forward unless the gender of perpetrators and victims was specified.

I don’t know which to be angry about first, the homophobia or the disdain for victims of domestic violence Metcalf exhibits. The vast majority of cases do involve violence by men directed at women, but not all. Women can be abusers too and we should be careful to to stigmatize the man who might be the victim of violence from his wife, or partner of whatever gender. There are many kinds of domestic violence, involving married couples and couples simply in a relationship, involving parents or other adults and children, and even involving children and other children. Or does Metcalfe also see abuse as a “privilege” which, like marriage, is to be reserved for heterosexuals?

But Metcalfe has a history of revealing his prejudice by blocking resolutions that have little real impact, almost as if he wants to go our of his way to demonstrate his intolerance and rigidity. In 2008 he blocked a resolution recognizing the 60th annual convention in Harrisburg, PA of the U.S. chapter of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, a community with the mantra, “Love for All, Hatred for None,” because “the Muslims do not recognize Jesus Christ as God.” That’s pretty shocking. By that logic, the US should never honor anyone or anything Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist, Atheist, etc.

A Jewish lawmaker, Democratic Rep. Babette Josephs of Philadelphia, also protested and said she would seek to have Metcalfe’s remarks stricken from the official record.

She said Metcalfe’s position places a religious test on House resolutions, which generally clear the chamber quickly and unanimously.

“I wonder what I would not also qualify for — being on the floor myself?” she said later. “Having the right to vote? Having the right to practice my religion? That’s what I was responding to. And we have other people who are not Jewish and not Christian on the floor — some elected, some not.”

Mr. Metcalf needs to meet Mr Ali from the state legislature in Maryland.

Frustration with this kind of record has led to the establishment of the Dump Daryl Metcalfe web site.

These informational web sites are part of a campaign to educate the voters and expose Pennsylvania state representative Daryl Metcalfe’s fear mongering and the other tactics he and his campaign use against citizens of the 12th District of Pennsylvania. All of the items listed under public outrage are previously published “letters to the editor” and/or articles from the public.

Politics, recently, has gotten increasingly mean and, it is sad to say, the meanness most often comes from the Christian right. It’s not very Christ like, is it.

Did you know:

Morocco is one of the first countries to recognize the independence of the United States as the Sultan Sidi Mohammed Ben Abdullah issued a declaration in 1777 allowing American ships access to Moroccan ports. In 1787 a Treaty of peace and friendship was signed in Marrakech and ratified in 1836. It is still in force making it the longest unbroken treaty in the U.S history.

The U.S had also its first consulate in Tangier in 1797 in a building given by the sultan Moulay Slimane. It is the oldest U.S diplomatic property in the world.

Below is the Treaty called the “Marrakech Treaty” in its original form as was written in 1786.

via Treaty of Peace and Friendship.

There have been a lot of reports about a new movie about the beginning of Facebook, most of which have focused on the film’s star. I’m more intrigued by the writer. Sports Night, The West Wing, even the ill-fated Studio 60, Sorkin has given us a lot of good entertainment.

BBC News reports:

Film trade paper Variety said the singer would play Sean Parker, who became Facebook’s founding president.

David Fincher is directing The Social Network, which was scripted by The West Wing’s Aaron Sorkin.

Jesse Eisenberg and Andrew Garfield have also been lined up to star in the project, which starts filming next month in Boston.

The movie will focus on the overnight success of Facebook, which was created in 2004 on the campus of Harvard University.

Opening sequence from the first episode of the first season of Studio 60 Live from the Sunset Strip. Small wonder the show didn’t last on network tv.

I should have a category in the blog called “Are you F—ing kidding me!”  I could use it to include things like some of the right-wings arguments against health care reform, the conspiracy theories of the “Birthers” and this little doozy right here, reported on CNET.

Songwriters, composers, and music publishers are making preparations to one day collect performance fees from Apple and other e-tailers for not just traditional music downloads but for downloads of films and TV shows as well. Those downloads contain music after all.

These groups even want compensation for iTunes’ 30-second song samples.

Royalties on song samples?  Are you F—ing kidding me?  To be fair, the way in which composers and songwriters are compensated when their music is used in movies on televison is complicated and not entirely fair to them.  But to even suggest that they might deman royalties on previews and clips is just foolish.  Talk about shooting themselves in the feet.

How else do they expect the full length TV shows and movies featuring their material to sell, let alone their songs themselves? In the digital age the last thing you want is to place any barriers to the distribution of trailers and clips.  They don’t compromise revenue, they enhance it.  You want those things to go viral.

Why did I go see a movie as bad as Snakes on a Plane when I knew I probably wasn’t going to like it?  Because I had seen those clips from it everywhere and my curiosity was piqued.  Why were there snakes on the plane?  And that brief scene of Sam Jackson yelling how he was tired of the snakes was emblazoned enough that I just really wanted to see how it fit in.  So I went.  The movie was terrible.  Really terrible, just as my better judgment expected.  But viral marketing did the trick and got me to shed my $10.

Plus there is the ill will that even making such a suggestion generates.  By many estimates, more than 90% of music downloads are “illegal.”  This practice will never be stopped through law enforcement strategies.  Law enforcement can’t even stop the buying and selling of marijuana and a much smaller percentage of the population smokes pot than does the percentage that downloads music illegally.  In fact, many people that do it don’t even understand the difference between legal and illegal downloads.

So the best strategy the recording industry has is one of public education and cultivation of good will, i.e. helping people understand which downloads are which and how artists are affected when their material is downloaded through illicit channels.

But how likely is the public to care about any of that when the industry is charging them for what is, in effect, advertising?