Teh interesting (non-PHL-related) news stub thread

[Twin-Skies]

@Sforza

Aggression can mean a lot of things, such as being louder, moving faster, having an increased heart rate. It does not necessarily equate to violent behavior. There is a correllary, NOT a causational link between the two.

http://www.slate.com/id/2152487/

Not sure how valid that study is, in light of other studies...
Does pornography breed rape? Do violent movies breed violent crime? Quite the opposite, it seems.

Jacob Weisberg classified the different types of movie violence. Nancy Griffin found that even screenwriters worry about too much blood and guts. Laura Kipnis probed the cultural significance of Deep Throat. Dahlia Lithwick argued that "no means no" is still a good rule.The bottom line on these experiments is, "More Net access, less rape." A 10 percent increase in Net access yields about a 7.3 percent decrease in reported rapes. States that adopted the Internet quickly saw the biggest declines. And, according to Clemson professor Todd Kendall, the effects remain even after you control for all of the obvious confounding variables, such as alcohol consumption, police presence, poverty and unemployment rates, population density, and so forth.

OK, so we can at least tentatively conclude that Net access reduces rape. But that's a far cry from proving that porn access reduces rape. Maybe rape is down because the rapists are all indoors reading Slate or vandalizing Wikipedia. But professor Kendall points out that there is no similar effect of Internet access on homicide. It's hard to see how Wikipedia can deter rape without deterring other violent crimes at the same time. On the other hand, it's easy to imagine how porn might serve as a substitute for rape.

Then there's this:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,473688,00.html

Be prepared to see a lot of doom and gloom this week. Those year-end video and photo montages, year-in-review summaries and "a look back" reflections are inevitably gloomy even in boom times. That's likely to be especially true in 2008, a year that, admittedly, wasn't particularly filled with hope (Barack Obama's campaign promises aside).

I recently heard a conservative talk show host bemoan the "lack of God in our society" as reason for, among other things, the recent "Santa shooting massacre" in Covina, Calif. The left, meanwhile, is pointing to the financial meltdown as indicative of a different kind of moral failing — the unbridled greed they associate with free enterprise.

Truth is, they're both wrong. The last 12 months may prove not to be the most fondly recalled in recent American history, but things aren't all that bad. Most social indicators are still moving in the right direction. In general, our standard of living continues to improve. Advances in technology are helping us beat the diseases most likely to kill us; giving us more leisure time; making us more comfortable; giving us more convenience; and with the Internet, putting much of the world — quite literally — at our fingertips.

So here's the good news:

— Crime rates are still falling. Violent crime in America has been in a freefall since the early 1990s, despite a slight uptick in 2005 and 2006. Economists, criminologists, and sociologists can't conclusively say why. Explanations range from the 1990s economic boom to changes in crime-fighting strategy to the legalization of abortion to reductions in childhood exposure to lead. Whatever the reason, long-term trends show crime is down across the board.

— Sex crimes are down, too. Many conservatives and some leftist feminists often argue that the widespread availability of pornography and the "mainstreaming" of sex may effect an epidemic of sexual violence. It hasn't happened. Incidence of rape in America has been in swift decline for 20 years. In 2006, it hit its low point since the government started keeping statistics. Crimes against children have also been in decline. Both trends have taken place over a period in which there has been less social stigma attached to being the victim of a sex crime — meaning we're seeing fewer rapes, even as rapes are more likely to be reported. More interestingly, they've also taken place alongside the rise of the Internet, the medium that has done more than any other to mainstream and provide easy access to pornography, gambling, and a host of other vices. Somehow, society has managed to stay afloat.

Our allegedly sexualized culture hasn't had much effect in other areas, either. The divorce rate is at its lowest point in four decades. This is in part because people are waiting longer to get married. More women in the workforce means more women are waiting to get married. And they are getting married for the right reasons, not merely for financial security. It's hard to argue that society is worse off with strong marriages, even if that means fewer marriages over all.

— Life expectancy is up. In June, the Centers for Disease Control announced that in 2006 (the latest year for which data is available), Americans once again set a record for life expectancy. Men, women, blacks, whites — all can expect to live longer today than at any point in American history. Discrepancies in the average age of death between ethnic groups are narrowing, too. All of those things we're told need heavy regulation because they're potentially killing us — obesity, alcohol, coffee, sodium, pollution, stress, cell phones — aren't doing a very good job.

— We're beating our biggest killers. The same CDC report noted that mortality rates for eight of the 10 leading causes of death in America dropped in 2006. In fact, deaths from the two biggest killers — cancer and heart disease — have been in decline for a decade. Deaths from the third leading cause of death, stroke, are also down.

The latter was written by Radley Balko, a relatively credible commentator who just happened to post this piece on Fox News. He's also written for Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Playboy, TIME magazine, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, Slate, Reason, and Worth magazine.

[AppleHead]

I did not read the above post because it was very very long BUT
I am addicted to the internet, and I have not killed anyone IRL so the article that says I am aggressive is a lie.

I have a lot of news today brought to you by SankakuComplex! Most of it is late but I think you will find it useful!

Top 3 most hated fetishes by Japanese women:
1. Swimsuit
2. Cosplay
3. Gym uniform/Bloomers

http://www.sankakucomplex.com/2008/12/10...gst-women/

Top 3 types of otaku figures women do not want to see in a guy's room:
1. Bishoujo/eroge sexy figures
2. Nekomimi/animal figures
3. Evangelion figures

http://www.sankakucomplex.com/2009/02/14...-by-women/

Top 3 most hated otaku types by women:
1. Gambling
2. Anime/manga and 2D things
3. Loli otaku

http://www.sankakucomplex.com/2008/12/15...-by-women/

[Shintetsu]

Wew. At least they have a clear choice between acceptable and borderline lame/insane/sick/whatever.

[Twin-Skies]

Top 3 most hated otaku types by women:
1. Gambling
2. Anime/manga and 2D things
3. Loli otaku

http://www.sankakucomplex.com/2008/12/15...-by-women/

Hey, 2 out of three ain't bad ! (hint - I don't gamble)

According to this survey, it appears that 90% of RR will have trouble finding a significant other

[clonezero]

in japan ... a sad though but still the world is larger than that *sheds a small tear*

[strawhat_luffy]

Stones similar to Stonehenge may reveal Garden of Eden.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/a...-Eden.html


Carbon-dating shows that the complex is at least 12,000 years old, maybe even 13,000 years old.

That means it was built around 10,000BC. By comparison, Stonehenge was built in 3,000 BC and the pyramids of Giza in 2,500 BC.

Gobekli is thus the oldest such site in the world, by a mind-numbing margin. It is so old that it predates settled human life. It is pre-pottery, pre-writing, pre-everything.

[NiX]

That Gobekli story was really fascinating.

It reminds me of Xenogears or something.

[Grim]

Nice. I feel like I want to go there once in my lifetime.

[Twin-Skies]

Disgruntled building owner opens sex shop to spite city council
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/con...01976.html

To many in Old Town Alexandria, the sex shop that opened recently on King Street is nothing short of scandalous, a historical desecration just blocks from the boyhood home of Robert E. Lee.

But to Michael Zarlenga, it's justice.

Zarlenga spent $350,000 on plans to expand his hunting and fishing store, the Trophy Room. He worked with city officials for almost two years and thought he had their support -- until the architectural review board told him he couldn't alter the historic property.

Furious and out of money, Zarlenga rented the space to its newest occupant, Le Tache.

"I can't say I didn't know it would ruffle feathers," said Zarlenga, 41. "Actually, I was hoping for a fast-food chain because I thought that would be more annoying to the city."

Sticking it to the man...and other inapporpriate places! (Hmmm, that sounds like a good sig...)

[Lord_Leperman]

http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2009/02/27/b...-you-dumb/

Books and music that make you dumb. Done by the creator of the Wikiscanner that tracks which people edit wiki entries.

Griffith used aggregated Facebook data about the favorite bands and books among students of various colleges and plotted them against the average SAT scores at those schools, creating a tongue-in-cheek statistical look at taste and intelligence.

For example, the favorite musician of the smartest students was Beethoven, with an average SAT score of 1371. Also on the “smart” end of the scale were Sufjan Stevens (1260), Counting Crows (1247), and Radiohead (1220). And sadly for Lil Wayne, enjoying his music was associated with being the dumbest, with an average SAT score of 889.

On the book front, Lolita was favorite tome of the brightest students (a result which Griffith called “charming”), with an average SAT score of 1317. The lowest-scoring students liked the erotica author Zane, with an average score of 980. And strangely, the students who listed their favorite book as “The Bible” were smarter (1047) than those who said it was “The Holy Bible” (980).

[maitreya]

Trying to quit smoking? Go to the bank
Written by Lilita Balane
Thursday, 05 March 2009
An anti-poverty group and a local bank in Agusan del Norte have started a savings program to help smokers kick the habit

How can somebody who’s poor but addicted to nicotine stop smoking? Nicotine substitutes and cessation therapies, at P80 to P100 a day, would definitely be prohibitive for a low-income smoker.

In Agusan del Norte province, the non-government group Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA) partnered with the Rural Green Bank of Caraga to offer an alternative quit-smoking program. Adopting the slogan, “Put your money where your butt is,” they started a program where a smoker opens a savings account and, for six months, deposits there the money he would have spent on cigarettes.

If he successfully kicks the habit of smoking at the end of six months, he gets his entire savings back and is encouraged to start a small enterprise. If he fails, he has to give up to charity whatever he has deposited.

“Smoking cessation programs are rarely available in the rural areas. We designed the CARES product to support smokers who want to quit smoking, by providing financial incentives for smoking cessation,” said Gerald Owen Guillen, head of Green Bank’s microfinance department. CARES stands for Committed Action to Reduce and End Smoking.

Nicotine, a natural yet addictive substance, is found in cigarettes. Smokers who attempt to quit suffer from craving to smoke, irritability, headache, tightness of chest, and coughing, among others.

Nicotine replacement therapy is one way to help smokers gradually lessen their dependence on nicotine. It reduces their withdrawal symptoms by letting nicotine get into the bloodstream without puffing a cigarette. Instead of cigarettes, smokers have to take nicotine in other forms, like gums, patches, or tablets.

Dorotheo Ulysses, Southeast Asia Tobacco Control Alliance’s coordinator for the Southeast Asia and Western Pacific regions, said that at present smoking cessation means in the Philippines are limited only to nicotine substitutes, like transdermal patches, nicorette chewing gums, and a drug called Champix.

Some NGOs and religious groups offer cessation counseling for smokers. The Seventh-Day Adventist Church, for example, has a “Breathe-Free” clinic in their headquarters in Cebu City. The clinic provides counseling for nicotine-dependent patients, while encouraging them to adopt a healthy lifestyle.

IPA thought that a savings commitment program would be a less expensive smoking cessation alternative.

Launched in 2006, the program has since brought 249 clients to Green Bank’s microfinance branches in Butuan City—in Barangay Ampayon and the in the city proper. Each of these clients earns an average of P3,000 to P4,000 and spends an average of P92 a month on cigarettes.

A smoker who signs up for the program is required to make an initial deposit and maintain a minimum balance of P50. Green Bank gives him a lockbox where he will put his tobacco money. Every week, a Green Bank field staff collects the money that the smoker has saved and deposits it in one of the bank’s microfinance branches.

At the end of the sixth month, the smoker undergoes a nicotine test. If he passes, he can withdraw his savings, without interest. If he fails the test, CARES closes his account and donates the money to charity. As of March 2008, says Ann Mayuga of IPA, their organization has donated P21,652.75 of smokers’ monies to Balay Silongan, an orphanage in Butuan City.

In cases where a client fails to show up for a scheduled nicotine test, he is given three more weeks. Failure to appear again would mean forfeiture of his account balance. Same thing applies for clients who failed to deposit their tobacco money for three consecutive weeks. The average amount of confiscated balances is P277.

Mayuga says that, on the average, a client makes 11 deposits and saves P551 over the six-month smoking cessation period. A good number of them—around 80 percent of the clients—decide to set aside more contributions during that cessation period and end up with an average balance of P1,079 at the end of the program.

However, Mayuga says they do not monitor how the successful clients spend their money after the program.

In their evaluation report in 2008, Green Bank and IPA said that CARES clients are 3.3 to 5.8 percent more likely to pass the nicotine test than smokers who are trying to quit smoking on their own.

“We see the same level of impact six months and 12 months after the program implementation. Even though the CARES program duration was only six months, the clients were able to abstain from smoking in the long-term,” Guillen said. “It’s a way to encourage long-term welfare improvements of the clients and their families.”

One of the successful clients, 34-year old Iris Cua, started smoking when she was 18, and had since found it hard to quit. “I attempted to quit [smoking] when I got pregnant in 2003, but after I gave birth, I continued my one pack of cigarettes a day.”

She says CARES motivated her to reduce her tobacco use and eventually helped her stop smoking.

Dorotheo says that the CARES program is unique and might be effective if smokers will first realize that they need a smoking cessation program. “It’s a matter of supply and demand. Smoking cessation would come in if the smokers realize the need for it. When they realize the ill-effects of smoking, and begin to ask who could help them,” he said. (Newsbreak)

http://newsbreak.com.ph/index.php?option...d=88889066

[Hempire]

nicotine is the worst drug ever! Alcohol is second......and to think they're legal...,but the softest drug of them all which is marijuana remains illegal -no one can overdose from it,-... = (

[Twin-Skies]

Give a name to part of the International Space Station

NASA wants your opinion in naming the International Space Station’s Node 3 – a connecting module and its cupola – before the two segments travel to space and are installed on the orbiting laboratory. The name should reflect the spirit of exploration and cooperation embodied by the space station, and follow in the tradition set by Node 1- Unity- and Node 2- Harmony.

Space shuttle Endeavour will deliver the Node 3 components during the STS-130 mission targeted for December 2009. Once the cupola is attached to one of the module’s six ports, it will offer astronauts a spectacular view of both their home planet and their home in space. The cupola’s six rectangular windows and one circular window overhead will show a panoramic view that will be unrivaled by any other spacecraft ever flown. Aside from providing a perfect location to observe and photograph the Earth, the cupola also will contain a robotics workstation, where astronauts will be able to control the station’s giant robotic arm.

Node 3 will connect to the port side of the Unity Node and will provide room for many of the station’s life support systems, in the form of eight refrigerator-sized racks. After Node 3 is installed, the station’s crew will transfer over many of the Environmental Control and Life Support Systems (ECLSS) currently stored in various places around the station, including:


Oxygen Generation System (OGS), which takes the station’s water and splits it apart into hydrogen, which gets vented into space, and oxygen, which is returned into the cabin for the crew to breathe


Atmosphere Revitalization System (ARS), which controls the station’s carbon dioxide levels and maintains the temperature and atmospheric pressure at comfortable levels


Water Recovery System (WRS) and Urine Processor Assembly (UPA), which take waste water from the station and purify it, separating any contaminants and making it safe for the crew to drink


Waste and hygiene compartment, which provides a place for the crew to use the bathroom in a way that allows the station to process the majority of the water used onboard so that it may be used again, greatly lessening the need for resupply flights from Earth.

NASA and its station partners traditionally have named each habitable part of the station, including its three laboratories (the U.S lab- Destiny, the European lab- Columbus, and the Japanese lab- Kibo or Hope), two airlocks (Quest and Pirs or Pier), and two Russian-built modules (Zvezda or Star, and Zarya or Dawn).

First wiseguy to call it Death Star or Millenium Falcon gets chucked out of the air lock

I'll name it the "Solar Sarcophagus," or "Cosmic Crematorium"

[clonezero]

I suggested Matriarch XD

and watched the Colbert Report a while ago lol so it was true his name was leading

[Twin-Skies]

I suggested Matriarch XD

and watched the Colbert Report a while ago lol so it was true his name was leading

I voted for Serenity. It's winning so far at 86%

Huzzah for Firefly fans!

As for today's dose of craziness...

Brazil girl, alleged rape victim, aborts twins
The procedure on the 9-year-old girl draws complaints from Catholic church

RIO DE JANEIRO - A 9-year-old girl who was carrying twins, allegedly after being raped by her stepfather, underwent an abortion Wednesday despite complaints from Brazil's Roman Catholic church.

Police said the stepfather has been jailed since last week.

Abortion is illegal in Brazil, but judges can make exceptions if the mother's life is in danger or the fetus has no chance of survival.

Fatima Maia, director of the public university hospital where the abortion was performed, said the 15-week-old pregnancy posed a serious risk to the 80-pound girl.

"She is very small. Her uterus doesn't have the ability to hold one, let alone two children," Maia told the Jornal do Brasil newspaper.

But Marcio Miranda, a lawyer for the Archdiocese of Olinda and Recife in northeastern Brazil, said the girl should have carried the twins to term and had a cesarean section.

"It's the law of God: Do not kill. We consider this murder," Miranda said in comments reported by O Globo.

Calls to Miranda were not immediately returned.

Brazil is home to more Catholics than any other nation.