And if I agreed with the Senate's existence, I'd love those old fools too.
NDP outraged as Senate kills climate change bill
OTTAWA — Prime Minister Stephen Harper has turned back the clock on Canada's democracy by centuries after allowing unelected Conservative senators to use their majority to kill climate change legislation adopted by a majority of MPs in the House of Commons, NDP leader Jack Layton said Wednesday.
Conservative senators used a procedural tactic Tuesday night to scrap the bill, adopted in the Commons last spring in a vote of 149 to 136, without allowing it to be examined in Senate hearings or debated in the Senate chamber.
"That is totally contrary to the constitutional tradition of this country," said Layton, standing with his caucus in front of the Senate chamber on Parliament Hill. "It is totally contradictory and every Canadian should now be worried because these senators are here for one heck of a long time. And what's going to be next? What bill, representing the will of Canadians, is this Senate going to stop next? This Senate should be abolished. It should be ashamed of itself."
The climate change accountability legislation, introduced by the NDP, was also previously adopted by the Commons but died on the order paper when Harper called the 2008 election. NDP MP Bruce Hyer sponsored the latest version of the bill that calls on the government to adopt science-based targets for reducing pollution linked to global warming and to regularly report results and effectiveness of its policies.
Layton compared the Harper government tactics to the regime that prompted rebellions in what was then Upper and Lower Canada in the 1830s.
"The Senate hasn't done that for a private member's bill on second reading in 70 years," said Layton. "Stephen Harper is turning back the clock on democracy in this country and he starts with the climate change bill . . . We must not as Canadians allow the Senate to get away with this, because it would re-establish a system of government that we had thrown out 200 years ago and it's got to stop. OK, maybe not 200 years — the rebellions of (1838) — I'll start there."
He added that it also contrasts with Harper's previous criticism of the Senate when it was dominated by a Liberal majority.
"What's it going to be next?" Layton asked. "Is he saying it doesn't matter if Canadians throw Stephen Harper out of office in the next election. But he's now got his majority socked in here to make sure that his agenda gets established and that anything positive that the House of Commons wants to do can get blocked."
Marjory LeBreton, leader of the government in the Senate, said the Conservatives were prepared to debate the legislation, and suggested the Liberals were the ones who forced the 43 to 32 vote that killed the bill.
The Liberals said the Conservatives were to blame.
Environmental groups said the legislation provided guidelines for meeting Canada's international climate change obligations in a clear and transparent manner.
"It would have been difficult to watch the Senate defeat this groundbreaking legislation under any circumstances," said Clare Demerse, associate director of climate change at the Pembina Institute, an Alberta-based environmental research group. "But to see it lost in this way is even tougher: C-311 was defeated without any debate, without the chance to call a single witness to explain what it offered, and at a moment when key supporters of the bill happened to be away from the Senate."
— with files from Meagan Fitzpatrick (Postmedia News)
mdesouza@postmedia.com
© Copyright (c) Postmedia News
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Saturday, November 13, 2010
Live in the Moment or Be Unhappy
Live in the Moment or Be Unhappy
Link
By RICK NAUERT PHD Senior News Editor
Reviewed by John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on November 12, 2010
A new study finds that the admonition to “live in the moment” is more important than we imagined.
Researchers found that people spend almost 50 percent of their waking hours thinking about something other than what they are doing — and that mind-wandering typically makes one unhappy.
The research is described this week in the journal Science.
Psychologists Matthew A. Killingsworth and Daniel T. Gilbert of Harvard University used an iPhone web app to gather 250,000 data points on subjects’ thoughts, feelings, and actions as they went about their lives.
“A human mind is a wandering mind, and a wandering mind is an unhappy mind,” Killingsworth and Gilbert write.
“The ability to think about what is not happening is a cognitive achievement that comes at an emotional cost.”
Unlike other animals, humans spend a lot of time thinking about what isn’t going on around them: contemplating events that happened in the past, might happen in the future, or may never happen at all. Indeed, mind-wandering appears to be the human brain’s default mode of operation.
To track this behavior, Killingsworth developed an iPhone web app that contacted 2,250 volunteers at random intervals to ask how happy they were, what they were currently doing, and whether they were thinking about their current activity or about something else that was pleasant, neutral, or unpleasant.
Subjects could choose from 22 general activities, such as walking, eating, shopping, and watching television. On average, respondents reported that their minds were wandering 46.9 percent of time, and no less than 30 percent of the time during every activity except making love.
“Mind-wandering appears ubiquitous across all activities,” says Killingsworth, a doctoral student in psychology at Harvard. “This study shows that our mental lives are pervaded, to a remarkable degree, by the non-present.”
Killingsworth and Gilbert, a professor of psychology at Harvard, found that people were happiest when making love, exercising, or engaging in conversation. They were least happy when resting, working, or using a home computer.
“Mind-wandering is an excellent predictor of people’s happiness,” Killingsworth says.
“In fact, how often our minds leave the present and where they tend to go is a better predictor of our happiness than the activities in which we are engaged.”
The researchers estimated that only 4.6 percent of a person’s happiness in a given moment was attributable to the specific activity he or she was doing, whereas a person’s mind-wandering status accounted for about 10.8 percent of his or her happiness.
Time-lag analyses conducted by the researchers suggested that their subjects’ mind-wandering was generally the cause, not the consequence, of their unhappiness.
“Many philosophical and religious traditions teach that happiness is to be found by living in the moment, and practitioners are trained to resist mind wandering and to ‘be here now,’” Killingsworth and Gilbert note in Science.
“These traditions suggest that a wandering mind is an unhappy mind.”
This new research, the authors say, suggests that these traditions are right.
Killingsworth and Gilbert’s 2,250 subjects in this study ranged in age from 18 to 88, representing a wide range of socioeconomic backgrounds and occupations. Seventy-four percent of study participants were American.
More than 5,000 people are now using the iPhone web app the researchers have developed to study happiness, which can be found at www.trackyourhappiness.org.
Source: Harvard University
Link
By RICK NAUERT PHD Senior News Editor
Reviewed by John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on November 12, 2010
A new study finds that the admonition to “live in the moment” is more important than we imagined.
Researchers found that people spend almost 50 percent of their waking hours thinking about something other than what they are doing — and that mind-wandering typically makes one unhappy.
The research is described this week in the journal Science.
Psychologists Matthew A. Killingsworth and Daniel T. Gilbert of Harvard University used an iPhone web app to gather 250,000 data points on subjects’ thoughts, feelings, and actions as they went about their lives.
“A human mind is a wandering mind, and a wandering mind is an unhappy mind,” Killingsworth and Gilbert write.
“The ability to think about what is not happening is a cognitive achievement that comes at an emotional cost.”
Unlike other animals, humans spend a lot of time thinking about what isn’t going on around them: contemplating events that happened in the past, might happen in the future, or may never happen at all. Indeed, mind-wandering appears to be the human brain’s default mode of operation.
To track this behavior, Killingsworth developed an iPhone web app that contacted 2,250 volunteers at random intervals to ask how happy they were, what they were currently doing, and whether they were thinking about their current activity or about something else that was pleasant, neutral, or unpleasant.
Subjects could choose from 22 general activities, such as walking, eating, shopping, and watching television. On average, respondents reported that their minds were wandering 46.9 percent of time, and no less than 30 percent of the time during every activity except making love.
“Mind-wandering appears ubiquitous across all activities,” says Killingsworth, a doctoral student in psychology at Harvard. “This study shows that our mental lives are pervaded, to a remarkable degree, by the non-present.”
Killingsworth and Gilbert, a professor of psychology at Harvard, found that people were happiest when making love, exercising, or engaging in conversation. They were least happy when resting, working, or using a home computer.
“Mind-wandering is an excellent predictor of people’s happiness,” Killingsworth says.
“In fact, how often our minds leave the present and where they tend to go is a better predictor of our happiness than the activities in which we are engaged.”
The researchers estimated that only 4.6 percent of a person’s happiness in a given moment was attributable to the specific activity he or she was doing, whereas a person’s mind-wandering status accounted for about 10.8 percent of his or her happiness.
Time-lag analyses conducted by the researchers suggested that their subjects’ mind-wandering was generally the cause, not the consequence, of their unhappiness.
“Many philosophical and religious traditions teach that happiness is to be found by living in the moment, and practitioners are trained to resist mind wandering and to ‘be here now,’” Killingsworth and Gilbert note in Science.
“These traditions suggest that a wandering mind is an unhappy mind.”
This new research, the authors say, suggests that these traditions are right.
Killingsworth and Gilbert’s 2,250 subjects in this study ranged in age from 18 to 88, representing a wide range of socioeconomic backgrounds and occupations. Seventy-four percent of study participants were American.
More than 5,000 people are now using the iPhone web app the researchers have developed to study happiness, which can be found at www.trackyourhappiness.org.
Source: Harvard University
Saturday, November 6, 2010
Friday, November 5, 2010
Cops beat innocent man and are vindicated.
As with any situation, the cops have one story and the "offender" has another. If only it was filmed.
Nonetheless, with the VDP's current record of abuse, we the public have reason to be skeptical of the "official" story. But regardless of who's story is true, the fact that the cops had the wrong address should be enough for them to admit fault; of course, they did not.
http://www.vancouversun.com/Report+Vancouver+police+beating+case+reveals+different+accounts/3785897/story.html
VANCOUVER -- To Yao Wei Wu, the encounter in January was a textbook case of police brutality: Two heavy-handed officers banged on his door in the middle of the night, roused the 44-year-old from his sleep and beat him until he was bloodied, in front of his family, for no reason.
To Vancouver police, it was the appropriate response to what they believed was a violent, drunken man threatening the safety of a woman and baby, their efforts unfortunately derailed by a case of mistaken identity but the situation exacerbated by a resistant and combative Wu.
The result is a high-profile case that for nine months has been the subject of an investigation by the Delta police department, which Vancouver Police Chief Jim Chu asked to take over after learning Wu had retained prominent lawyer Cameron Ward.
The two officers were cleared of any wrongdoing on Wednesday, a written decision by Delta Police Chief Jim Cessford saying they had acted "in good faith," had reasonable grounds to believe Wu was their suspect and "used reasonable force" to arrest him.
The final investigation report, which was completed Oct. 18 and includes transcripts of interviews with Wu and police constables Nicholas Florkow and Bryan London, illustrates two very different accounts of what happened at Wu's south Vancouver home in the early hours of Jan. 21.
A woman had called 911 at 2:16 a.m. to report that her intoxicated husband had assaulted her and that her 10-month-old baby was at the residence. However, she was reluctant to provide details to the 911 dispatcher, saying she was afraid her child would be taken away by child services, according to the report. After some initial confusion, Florkow and London, both in plain clothes with badges worn around their necks, arrived at the right Lanark Street house — but the wrong door. The female caller, Wu's tenant, lived in the basement suite of the house, accessed through the rear.
awoo@vancouversun.com
The Vancouver police version:
1. At about 2:25 a.m., police knock on the front door and ring the doorbell. Wu asks through the door who it is, to which officers reply, "Vancouver police" and hold their badges up to a small window in the door. They identify themselves as "Vancouver police" between seven and 10 times.
2. Wu opens the door about 10 inches. Florkow holds his badge and police ID card up to Wu's face and states again that they are police and need to enter the home to investigate a domestic disturbance. Wu says "no" repeatedly. Florkow sticks his foot in the doorway so Wu can't close the door.
3. Wu shoves Florkow in the chest with both hands, then grabs him around the shoulders and attempts to pull him to the ground. Florkow attempts to step backwards and disengage.
4. London grabs hold of Wu and takes him to the ground outside the front door. The left side of Wu's face makes contact with the concrete as he is taken down.
5. London tells Wu several times to put his hands behind his back and that he is under arrest. Wu does not comply and instead swings his arms and attempts to stand up. Florkow employs three unsuccessful "close-handed tactical strikes" to Wu's upper shoulder. Wu continues to resist and Florkow employs two more "close-handed tactical stuns" to Wu's upper back.
6. London and Florkow eventually press Wu onto his stomach and handcuff him. It is then that the officers learn from other people at the residence they have the wrong person.
Yao Wei Wu's version:
1. After hearing someone banging on his front door, Wu, who speaks very limited English, walks downstairs, looks through the door's peephole at the two men and asks, in English, who it is. One man responds, "police." Wu says the man was wearing what "looked like a police badge."
2. Wu opens the door eight to 18 inches after Florkow and London identify themselves as police.
3. The officers immediately push the door open and pull Wu outside without explaining why they are there.
4. Florkow and London press Wu to the ground and beat him for 10 to 20 minutes. "It was very quick when I was outside. ... I didn't know whether I was scared or what."
5. Wu cries hysterically and screams for help in Cantonese. He covers his head as they hit him in the face. He doesn't remember how his eye is injured. "It was very chaotic."
6. The officers handcuff Wu and pin him to the ground. The officers then call emergency health services to attend to Wu. Wu's handcuffs are removed when he is in the ambulance. More officers arrive, including a Cantonese-speaking officer who explains the situation and apologizes for the mix-up.
Nonetheless, with the VDP's current record of abuse, we the public have reason to be skeptical of the "official" story. But regardless of who's story is true, the fact that the cops had the wrong address should be enough for them to admit fault; of course, they did not.
http://www.vancouversun.com/Report+Vancouver+police+beating+case+reveals+different+accounts/3785897/story.html
VANCOUVER -- To Yao Wei Wu, the encounter in January was a textbook case of police brutality: Two heavy-handed officers banged on his door in the middle of the night, roused the 44-year-old from his sleep and beat him until he was bloodied, in front of his family, for no reason.
To Vancouver police, it was the appropriate response to what they believed was a violent, drunken man threatening the safety of a woman and baby, their efforts unfortunately derailed by a case of mistaken identity but the situation exacerbated by a resistant and combative Wu.
The result is a high-profile case that for nine months has been the subject of an investigation by the Delta police department, which Vancouver Police Chief Jim Chu asked to take over after learning Wu had retained prominent lawyer Cameron Ward.
The two officers were cleared of any wrongdoing on Wednesday, a written decision by Delta Police Chief Jim Cessford saying they had acted "in good faith," had reasonable grounds to believe Wu was their suspect and "used reasonable force" to arrest him.
The final investigation report, which was completed Oct. 18 and includes transcripts of interviews with Wu and police constables Nicholas Florkow and Bryan London, illustrates two very different accounts of what happened at Wu's south Vancouver home in the early hours of Jan. 21.
A woman had called 911 at 2:16 a.m. to report that her intoxicated husband had assaulted her and that her 10-month-old baby was at the residence. However, she was reluctant to provide details to the 911 dispatcher, saying she was afraid her child would be taken away by child services, according to the report. After some initial confusion, Florkow and London, both in plain clothes with badges worn around their necks, arrived at the right Lanark Street house — but the wrong door. The female caller, Wu's tenant, lived in the basement suite of the house, accessed through the rear.
awoo@vancouversun.com
The Vancouver police version:
1. At about 2:25 a.m., police knock on the front door and ring the doorbell. Wu asks through the door who it is, to which officers reply, "Vancouver police" and hold their badges up to a small window in the door. They identify themselves as "Vancouver police" between seven and 10 times.
2. Wu opens the door about 10 inches. Florkow holds his badge and police ID card up to Wu's face and states again that they are police and need to enter the home to investigate a domestic disturbance. Wu says "no" repeatedly. Florkow sticks his foot in the doorway so Wu can't close the door.
3. Wu shoves Florkow in the chest with both hands, then grabs him around the shoulders and attempts to pull him to the ground. Florkow attempts to step backwards and disengage.
4. London grabs hold of Wu and takes him to the ground outside the front door. The left side of Wu's face makes contact with the concrete as he is taken down.
5. London tells Wu several times to put his hands behind his back and that he is under arrest. Wu does not comply and instead swings his arms and attempts to stand up. Florkow employs three unsuccessful "close-handed tactical strikes" to Wu's upper shoulder. Wu continues to resist and Florkow employs two more "close-handed tactical stuns" to Wu's upper back.
6. London and Florkow eventually press Wu onto his stomach and handcuff him. It is then that the officers learn from other people at the residence they have the wrong person.
Yao Wei Wu's version:
1. After hearing someone banging on his front door, Wu, who speaks very limited English, walks downstairs, looks through the door's peephole at the two men and asks, in English, who it is. One man responds, "police." Wu says the man was wearing what "looked like a police badge."
2. Wu opens the door eight to 18 inches after Florkow and London identify themselves as police.
3. The officers immediately push the door open and pull Wu outside without explaining why they are there.
4. Florkow and London press Wu to the ground and beat him for 10 to 20 minutes. "It was very quick when I was outside. ... I didn't know whether I was scared or what."
5. Wu cries hysterically and screams for help in Cantonese. He covers his head as they hit him in the face. He doesn't remember how his eye is injured. "It was very chaotic."
6. The officers handcuff Wu and pin him to the ground. The officers then call emergency health services to attend to Wu. Wu's handcuffs are removed when he is in the ambulance. More officers arrive, including a Cantonese-speaking officer who explains the situation and apologizes for the mix-up.
Sunday, October 31, 2010
An extremely interesting article about our brains' natural negativity...
Our Brain's Negative Bias
Psychology Today
Why do insults once hurled at us stick inside our skull, sometimes for decades? Why do some people have to work extra hard to ward off depression?
The answer is, for the same reason political smear campaigns outpull positive ones. Nastiness just makes a bigger impact on our brains.
And that is due to the brain's "negativity bias": Your brain is simply built with a greater sensitivity to unpleasant news. The bias is so automatic that it can be detected at the earliest stage of the brain's information processing.
Take, for example, the studies done by John Cacioppo, Ph.D., then at Ohio State University, now at the University of Chicago. He showed people pictures known to arouse positive feelings (say, a Ferrari, or a pizza), those certain to stir up negative feelings (a mutilated face or dead cat) and those known to produce neutral feelings (a plate, a hair dryer). Meanwhile, he recorded electrical activity in the brain's cerebral cortex that reflects the magnitude of information processing taking place.
The brain, Cacioppo demonstrated, reacts more strongly to stimuli it deems negative. There is a greater surge in electrical activity. Thus, our attitudes are more heavily influenced by downbeat news than good news.
Our capacity to weigh negative input so heavily most likely evolved for a good reason—to keep us out of harm's way. From the dawn of human history, our very survival depended on our skill at dodging danger. The brain developed systems that would make it unavoidable for us not to notice danger and thus, hopefully, respond to it.
All well and good. Having the built-in brain apparatus supersensitive to negativity means that the same bad-news bias also is at work in every sphere of our lives at all times.
So it should come as no surprise to learn that it plays an especially powerful role in our most intimate relationships. Numerous researchers have found that there is an ideal balance between negativity and positivity in the atmosphere between partners. There seems to be some kind of thermostat operating in healthy marriages that almost automatically regulates the balance between positive and negative.
What really separates contented couples from those in deep marital misery is a healthy balance between their positive and negative feelings and actions toward each other. Even couples who are volatile and argue a lot stick together by balancing their frequent arguments with a lot of demonstrations of love and passion. And they seem to know exactly when positive actions are needed.
Here's the tricky part. Because of the disproportionate weight of the negative, balance does not mean a 50-50 equilibrium. Researchers have carefully charted the amount of time couples spend fighting vs. interacting positively. And they have found that a very specific ratio exists between the amount of positivity and negativity required to make married life satisfying to both partners.
That magic ratio is five to one. As long as there was five times as much positive feeling and interaction between husband and wife as there was negative, researchers found, the marriage was likely to be stable over time. In contrast, those couples who were heading for divorce were doing far too little on the positive side to compensate for the growing negativity between them.
Other researchers have found the same results in other spheres of our life. It is the frequency of small positive acts that matters most, in a ratio of about five to one.
Occasional big positive experiences—say, a birthday bash—are nice. But they don't make the necessary impact on our brain to override the tilt to negativity. It takes frequent small positive experiences to tip the scales toward happiness.
Psychology Today
Why do insults once hurled at us stick inside our skull, sometimes for decades? Why do some people have to work extra hard to ward off depression?
The answer is, for the same reason political smear campaigns outpull positive ones. Nastiness just makes a bigger impact on our brains.
And that is due to the brain's "negativity bias": Your brain is simply built with a greater sensitivity to unpleasant news. The bias is so automatic that it can be detected at the earliest stage of the brain's information processing.
Take, for example, the studies done by John Cacioppo, Ph.D., then at Ohio State University, now at the University of Chicago. He showed people pictures known to arouse positive feelings (say, a Ferrari, or a pizza), those certain to stir up negative feelings (a mutilated face or dead cat) and those known to produce neutral feelings (a plate, a hair dryer). Meanwhile, he recorded electrical activity in the brain's cerebral cortex that reflects the magnitude of information processing taking place.
The brain, Cacioppo demonstrated, reacts more strongly to stimuli it deems negative. There is a greater surge in electrical activity. Thus, our attitudes are more heavily influenced by downbeat news than good news.
Our capacity to weigh negative input so heavily most likely evolved for a good reason—to keep us out of harm's way. From the dawn of human history, our very survival depended on our skill at dodging danger. The brain developed systems that would make it unavoidable for us not to notice danger and thus, hopefully, respond to it.
All well and good. Having the built-in brain apparatus supersensitive to negativity means that the same bad-news bias also is at work in every sphere of our lives at all times.
So it should come as no surprise to learn that it plays an especially powerful role in our most intimate relationships. Numerous researchers have found that there is an ideal balance between negativity and positivity in the atmosphere between partners. There seems to be some kind of thermostat operating in healthy marriages that almost automatically regulates the balance between positive and negative.
What really separates contented couples from those in deep marital misery is a healthy balance between their positive and negative feelings and actions toward each other. Even couples who are volatile and argue a lot stick together by balancing their frequent arguments with a lot of demonstrations of love and passion. And they seem to know exactly when positive actions are needed.
Here's the tricky part. Because of the disproportionate weight of the negative, balance does not mean a 50-50 equilibrium. Researchers have carefully charted the amount of time couples spend fighting vs. interacting positively. And they have found that a very specific ratio exists between the amount of positivity and negativity required to make married life satisfying to both partners.
That magic ratio is five to one. As long as there was five times as much positive feeling and interaction between husband and wife as there was negative, researchers found, the marriage was likely to be stable over time. In contrast, those couples who were heading for divorce were doing far too little on the positive side to compensate for the growing negativity between them.
Other researchers have found the same results in other spheres of our life. It is the frequency of small positive acts that matters most, in a ratio of about five to one.
Occasional big positive experiences—say, a birthday bash—are nice. But they don't make the necessary impact on our brain to override the tilt to negativity. It takes frequent small positive experiences to tip the scales toward happiness.
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Maybe Obama Won't Disappoint?
Though it doesn't directly effect me personally, I got super stoked when saw this in the news today simply because it shows where Obama's at sociologically. He sees the shamefulness in CEO greediness, and is in tune with economic health of ALL citizens. His strong words are very welcome, and I hope many execs reflect on Obama's stance
.
.
Monday, February 2, 2009
Hello... Hello... Is Anybody Home???!???
Uninhabitable ocean by the time I'm 70??
We worry about so many things, yet our own planet is dying and nobody cares.
We worry about so many things, yet our own planet is dying and nobody cares.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)