More about the insula, a small but key part of the human brain

Clipped from WaPo:

WEDNESDAY, Oct. 29 (HealthDay News) — British researchers say they’ve identified a “hate circuit” in the brain.

This hate circuit shares part of the brain associated with aggression, but is distinct from areas related to emotions such as fear, threat, and danger, said researchers Professor Semir Zeki and John Romaya, of University College London’s laboratory of neurobiology.

The study was published online Oct. 29 in the journalPLoS One.

“Hate is often considered to be an evil passion that should, in a better world, be tamed, controlled, and eradicated,” Zeki said in a journal news release. “Yet to the biologist, hate is a passion that is of equal interest to love. Like love, it is often seemingly irrational and can lead individuals to heroic and evil deeds. How can two opposite sentiments lead to the same behavior?”

Related articles by Zemanta

• Brain Doesn’t Lie: Mapping Love and Hate

Gov. Sarah Palin’s “bad week”, or same old, same …

Image via Wikipedia

Now it’s a top McCain national security adviser:

Lawrence Eagleburger, who served as Secretary of State under George H.W. Bush and whose endorsement is often trumpeted by McCain, said on Thursday that the Alaska governor is not only unprepared to take over the job on a moment’s notice but, even after some time in office, would only amount to an “adequate” commander in chief.

“And I devoutly hope that [she] would never be tested,” he added for good measure — referring both to Palin’s policy dexterity and the idea of McCain not making it through his time in office.

Oh well what does he know anyway!

But the NY Times adds this sour note about La Palin:

A growing number of voters have concluded that Senator John McCain’s running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska, is not qualified to be vice president, weighing down the Republican ticket in the last days of the campaign, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll.

Here in Canada our Conservative PM just appointed a 41 yr old woman to be Minister of Health, the biggest budget in this government. I read this morning that she is from the north, Nunavut Territory, ambitious and “tough”.

Does this mean that we may have our own Inuit version of La Palin? Who needs that?

Pictures of a nebula in space NGC 604

The magic of Hubble:

Now it’s the right wing press who’s quibbling about Gov. Palin’s role in this campaign

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

The byline says “If she is so awful, why did McCain pick her?” Politico’s Roger Simon goes on this way!

John McCain’s campaign is looking for a scapegoat. It is looking for someone to blame if McCain loses on Tuesday.

And it has decided on Sarah Palin.

In recent days, a McCain “adviser” told Dana Bash of CNN: “She is a diva. She takes no advice from anyone.”

Imagine not taking advice from the geniuses at the McCain campaign. What could Palin be thinking?

Also, a “top McCain adviser” told Mike Allen of Politico that Palin is “a whack job.”

Maybe she is. But who chose to put this “whack job” on the ticket? Wasn’t it John McCain? And wasn’t it his first presidential-level decision?

And if you are a 72-year-old presidential candidate, wouldn’t you expect that your running mate’s fitness for high office would come under a little extra scrutiny? And, therefore, wouldn’t you make your selection with care? (To say nothing about caring about the future of the nation?)

First time I have heard of this “word”, soulgasms

Image by smiteme via Flickr

From the London Literary Times Supplement:

October 29, 2008

Soulgasms of the Christian Right

A revolution in American sex, and its Evangelical regulators

Thomas Laqueur

The Christian Right, as both Dagmar Herzog and the Republican nomination of Sarah Palin make abundantly clear, is not anti-sex. “We are the ones with the babe on the ticket”, gushes the conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh. “Run to the arms of your prince and enter your dream”, advises the author, media star and abstinence-before-marriage advocate Lisa Bevere in her book Kissed the Girls and Made Them Cry, on sale at Palin’s old Pentecostal church in Wasilla. Evangelical conservatives have outflanked their enemies: “Christian sex”, and not what the revolutionaries of the 1960s had to offer, turns out to be “the most amazing sex on God’s Green earth”.

So they get it and love it!

Related articles by Zemanta

• Paul Abrams: The Palin Paradox: Does Her Candidacy Mark the Death of the Christian Right?
• Palin’s Pentecostalism
• Pastor: GOP may be downplaying Palin’s religious beliefs

Gov. Palin just doesn’t know when or how to stop!

Image via Wikipedia

I guess she didn’t do very well with her English classes at those 6 colleges she attended on the way to a journalism degree. Here’s her latest sally in an interview with ABC News:

Ms. Palin also defended her recent characterizations of Mr. Obama as “palling around with terrorists,” and his past association with William Ayers, the 1960’s radical. She insisted that she wasn’t implying that he is “un-American.”

“I am sure that Senator Obama cares as much for this country as McCain does,” she said.

It’s like she is preternaturally disengenuous or just plain dumb. She says it and then meekly says that she didn’t mean it! What the F..k!

Sarah Palin is touted as future GOP right wing leader

Image via Wikipedia

Well Chris Hitchens can think what he prefers about la Palin but some GOP right wingers disagree completely with his bleak assessment of her. Here’s a sample from an NY Times article:

Despite all the criticism, she has many supporters among Republicans who see her as bright, tough and a star in a party with relatively few on the horizon.

“She’s dynamite,” said Morton C. Blackwell, who was President Ronald Reagan’s liaison to the conservative movement. Mr. Blackwell described vying to get close to Ms. Palin at a fund-raiser in Virginia, lamenting that he could get only within four feet.

“I made a major effort to position myself at this reception,” he said, adding that he is eager to sit down with her after the election to discuss the future. Asked if the weeks of unflattering revelations and damaging interviews had tarnished her among conservatives, he replied, “Not a bit.”

Brent Bozell, president of the Media Research Center, a conservative group, called it a “top order of business” to determine Ms. Palin’s future role. “Conservatives have been looking for leadership, and she has proven that she can electrify the grass roots like few people have in the last 20 years,” Mr. Bozell said. “No matter what she decides to do, there will be a small mother lode of financial support behind her.”

The comment “She’s dynamite” sticks out for me. I recognize that she has considerable but probably thin appeal to a certain type of GOP registered voter. I wonder how she would measure up over a long primary season competing with the likes of Mike Huckabee?

While “she gives a good speech” she obviously understands very little about what she says. For example she derided an earmark for fruit fly research without knowing that this earmark was for child autism research, which is supposed to be something she wants to alleviate or eradicate with a government program. More socialism?

Update: It seems that not every senior GOP rep agrees that Palin is such a great leader for the future.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Palin Excites Reagan-Loving Dobson

Can somebody explain for me why there is such a disconnect

Image via Wikipedia

between polls in this final week of the campaign for the US presidency.

First of all there is Reuters/Zogby:

By John Whitesides, Political Correspondent

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Democrat Barack Obama has a 4-point national lead over Republican John McCain as they head into the final week of the presidential campaign, according to a Reuters/C-SPAN/Zogby poll released on Tuesday.

Obama leads McCain by 49 percent to 45 percent among likely voters in the three-day national tracking poll, a slight dip from his 5-point advantage on Monday. The telephone poll has a margin of error of 2.9 percentage points.

Then there is Pew Research:

Barack Obama leads John McCain by a 52% to 36% margin in Pew’s latest nationwide survey of 1,325 registered voters. This is the fourth consecutive survey that has found support for the Republican candidate edging down. In contrast, since early October weekly Pew surveys have shown about the same number of respondents saying they back Obama. When the sample is narrowed to those most likely to vote, Obama leads by 53% to 38%.

Then there is Nate Silver

Are they talking about the same political race?

So many things seem out of synch in this last week of the campaign! A bit like this interaction with Fox News yesterday.

Yes I want an Obama/Biden victory, but what will happen if he doesn’t win and falls short during this last week?

Related articles by Zemanta

• Pew Research: Obama Crushing McCain Nationally
• Obama and McCain Tied with White Voters
• GOP Polling: McCain Up Just 3 Points in Arizona

“Let Sarah be Sarah” and let the chips fall where they may!

Image via Wikipedia

After reading a Robert Draper blog post it seems amazing to me that there are still commentators out there who wonder why McCain campaign operatives are still struggling to “manage” la Palin. Why was it considered necessary to do that in the first, and second, place?

McCain, whose body language and facial reactions don’t hide very many of his own doubtful internal reactions to what she says and how she says it on many videos, repeats his mantra that she is great and her record complements his so well. Who is he kidding?

Christopher Hitchens says it so well when he describes her as a ” proud boastful ignoramus”! I would add “singlemindedly ambitious” and unblinking in her readiness to take advantage of all opportunities thrust on her.

For his part I believe McCain is willing to do and say anything to win this election, his last hurrah! But I feel pity for him, especially when I see how physically awkward he is on stage with his own wife. Because of this obvious situation it is sad and ironic that her personal fortune has been the most constant support in his political quest and he can’t even show natural affection for her.

Is this a case of his blind ambition leading him from an awkward connection with his wife to just another one with his VP running mate?

Related articles by Zemanta

• Hitchens on McCain: “Borderline Senile”
• “John McCain [seems] to be someone suffering from an increasingly obvious and embarrassing deficit, both cognitive and physical.”
• McCain adviser: Palin is ‘a whack job.’
• Why I can’t vote for John McCain.

Hitchens hits it outta the park re McCain/Palin

In his latest Slate post, Christopher Hitchens says in his usual pungent way what he likes least about la Palin and her brand of politics:

This is what the Republican Party has done to us this year: It has placed within reach of the Oval Office a woman who is a religious fanatic and a proud, boastful ignoramus. Those who despise science and learning are not anti-elitist. They are morally and intellectually slothful people who are secretly envious of the educated and the cultured. And those who prate of spiritual warfare and demons are not just “people of faith” but theocratic bullies. On Nov. 4, anyone who cares for the Constitution has a clear duty to repudiate this wickedness and stupidity.

He’s not one for the PC soft-pedal. But I like the pungency!

Related articles by Zemanta

• Hitch On Palin