A Link for the V-day: Texas Stupidity
For your V-day viewing pleasure: a Molly Ivins video, titled “Dildo Diaries”, on the Texas sex legislature. NSFW.
For your V-day viewing pleasure: a Molly Ivins video, titled “Dildo Diaries”, on the Texas sex legislature. NSFW.
I need someone to educate me how free markets would help in this case, where military contractor KBR is accused of covering up sexual assaults on their female employees in Iraq. (via Balloon Juice)
Before you jump to inform me that this is not free market, keep that argument to yourself. Or that rule of law is prerequisite for free markets to function, hold that thought. What we are seeing here is a shift of duties from what would traditionally be done by army to private contractors; the shift being carried out and cheered by limited government folks (I am one of those limited government types).
Free markets are best at doing what they are meant for: transaction of money and stuff (ala Atanu Dey). They do not ensure oversight and checks and balances.
I hope these people get justice.
Pat Condell on Archbishop’s comments about the Sharia law and the ensuing fiasco:
Use this link if the above video does not work.
Some quotes:
The Archbishop is a very clever man, but he is clever in a useless way. […] All this stuff is theoretical to him; none of this will have any impact on his life in any way.
Exactly. Pick any issue and you will find the religious heads expressing righteous indignation precisely because it does not affect their lives in any significant way. Although it affects a lot of people in what they are and how they live, all these people need to just shut up and screw themselves because some invisible entity in the sky might just wet his/her pants.
Whenever [Islamic and indigenous cultures in Britian] clash, the indigenous culture is always presumed to be in the wrong, in the interests of community cohesion. For example, polygamy is illegal in Britian, but Muslim polygamists […] now receive extra state benefits for their extra wives.
The reason we do not want Sharia law is because it is a manifestation of clerical facism and because it favors men over women, which makes it a violation of civilized democratic values. [R]ather than calling things honestly by their name, we are encouraged to hide behind cowardly euphemisms to avoid offending people who have nothing to be offended about.
[…] We are talking about terrorism carried out in the name of Islam by Muslims and justified using their holy scripture; and apparently, it has nothing to do with Islam. I am sorry, but just because every Muslim doesn’t support it doesn’t mean it is not Islamic [terrorism].
[…] Unfortunately, for all of us, that is Muslims and non-Muslims alike, the driving force behind the religion is Saudi Arabia[…] And this particular brand of Islam preaches intolerence, hatered and righteous bloodlust to children.
[T]he solution is to enforce the law, equally and impartially to everyone, regardless of whether it is inconvenient to some Muslims.
The solution is to enforce the law to everyone. Equally. Impartially. Needless to say, that includes nitwits like Raj Thakre and Modi and a whole bunch of others. Pat reserves punchline for the end:
Peace to everyone, especially to all the Muslims who are as embarrassed as I am by this cloistered bubbleheaded fool of an Archbishop.
And lest you think I am quoting a rightwing nut job, let me tip my hat to PZ Myers, who can be accused of many things, but not of being a rightwing hack.
FSP was describing her recent experience with a person with Attention Deficit Disorder:
After I was finished editing, I glanced over to see what my companion was doing. He had said that he was going to work on a manuscript, but when I glanced at his laptop, he was reading a political blog. Seconds later he went back to his manuscript, wrote a sentence, then checked some news headlines — then he went back to the manuscript to write another sentence or two, then he checked the weather online, then he went to some journal websites to scan the tables of contents, then he wrote a sentence, then he jumped up to get something to drink, came back and wrote a sentence, and so on. It was amazing. In the course of a few hours, he made progress on the manuscript, and entertained me with pieces of information gleaned from his internet expeditions.
A number of these symptoms describe my behaviour too. For example, when I write a manuscript, I always have a browser open with blogs, news and video sites. As soon as I finished writing the first sentence of this post, I got up from my chair, circled it and sat back to writing. I have a habit of pacing up and down every time I need to think… I do not seem to be able to think while being seated at my desk. And I have difficult time listening to someone, and this is true even on one-to-one chats, if there is a TV playing or someone else also talking.
The question is when do these symptoms resemble “normal distractibility” and when they resemble ADD, which requires medical attention. Well, to the best of my knowledge, I didn’t exhibit distractibility or hyper-activity as a child, the behaviour has not significantly affected important areas of my life and I am able to work with much less distraction closer to deadlines* (though, you will always find a browser window open on my computer). So, essentially my behaviour amounts not to ADD but to one requiring a better discipline and incorporating some of the behavioural aspects of coping with distractibility.
* Funny that just as I started writing this sentence, I stepped out of my office to fill my water bottle and haven’t yet taken a sip from it.
Feb 09, 2008
My first experience with someone sufferring from ADD was in 2003. J was a fellow graduate student at Georgia Tech. We interacted for a very brief period and I reckon we met not more than 3-4 times. Meeting him and interacting with him was an experience in itself. His brain would process the next train of thought while he spoke. Initially, discussing things with him would be very odd. Every now and then, it would seem that he wouldn’t be listening.
I remember our second meeting. It was raining and we were planning to go grab some dinner. We were contemplating whether to go to the restaurant or order in. His response was something to the effect “temperatures fall when it rains.” What he really wanted to say is that he didn’t want to eat pizza and by the time sandwiches arrive from the restaurant at Tech square, they would not be warm enough.
His coping strategies were amazing. First of all, he was “comfortable” with his condition; he mentioned once that this was the most difficult thing he had to face. Another interesting thing was that he did not blank out the objects of his distractions. Much the same way as FSP describes, he would switch between various activities and get back to the work at hand. Even if he received no email, he would still log on to his email account, check email, log off and continue with our work. Any work would be split into “bite size pieces” and he would stick to some schedule. There was an amazing structure and pattern to his life… something I believe he built as a coping strategy.
I remember him specifically not only because he is the only person diagnosed with ADHD that I met but also because we met during a lean portion of my graduate school. Spring 2003 was a particularly difficult time as my research was not going anywhere, my advisor was to spend the summer in Korea and he (advisor) actually had to speak to me about my distractibility. To add to the stress, my parents were to arrive in Atlanta to spend the summer with me.
Thankfully, things got back on track that summer. My parents’ presence helped a lot, so did the discussions with my colleagues (especially, Jong Min Lee) and in some way, knowing J.