[research] spilt some gravy, sorry

Wiki shot of animals for research

We all need to go out on the street and bring in some stray cats:

A study by the University of Minnesota’s Stroke Research Center presented Thursday at the American Stroke Association meeting found that people who had previously or currently owned cats were less likely to die from heart attack and other cardiovascular disease.cats may help prevent heart attack?

The study examined data from 4,435 people, ranging in age from 30 to 75, participating in ongoing research with the National Health and Nutritional Examination Study.

Uh-huh and how much did it cost in research funds to come up with that one? What about the study which found that enough LSD will kill people - by the way, how did they determine that?

Every six months or so a bunch of scientists get together and decide to administer what are called LD 50 tests to a population of animals, such as rats, monkeys or beagles. This is done to determine the level at which a Lethal Dose (LD) of any substance will kill 50 per cent of the population. This then allows the same group of scientists to issue pronouncements such as "Eating 50kgs of marzipan is not good for you and/or may result in death"

And the topics hypothesized on are all in the serious category, of course:

Their study of 329 drinkers in Los Angeles found that malt liquor drinkers are different from those who choose other tipples. Ricky Bluthenthal, who led the study, said malt liquors were both higher in alcohol than other beers and tended to be sold in larger containers.

"We found that the combination of these differences resulted in the average malt liquor drinker in our study consuming 80 percent more alcohol per drink than the average regular beer drinker," he said in a statement.

Quite serious studies, say the detractors - the research might seem spurious to the layman but it takes 90% of research for every 10% of result. This costs money. Er, yes - exactly how much money? I did a little cursory research and came up with people who are quite shy to exactly say. This was as far as they'd commit themselves:

A major problem arises for universities because funding from external sources rarely covers the full cost of research. The trend amongst external agencies is to provide less than the direct full costs of research, leaving the universities to "top up" not only the direct costs of a project but also to fund fully the indirect research costs ...

So it's necessary to turn to detractors to put a figure on it and it's not peanuts:

Circa 1999-2002, David Touretzky was given $338,334 in grant funds obtained from the National Science Foundation, to conduct experiments involving the use of rats and "Amelia" a mobile robot.

I think the one I love most of all is this:

We all know that women like pink and men prefer blue, but we have never really known why. Now it emerges that parents who dress their boys in blue and girls in pink may not just be following tradition but some deep-seated evolutionary instinct.

Researchers have found that there could be sound historical reasons why women have developed a heightened appreciation of reds and pinks, while men are drawn to blue.

In the light of the current economic climate, bird flu and so on, I'm sure you'd agree that colour research requires heavy investment and an overseas trip to some resort.

[blogfocus monday] eight of the best

1. The Teddacotta army is on the march and Julie says they're coming for you!

2. You need a special lamp, girls? Bob G's your man.

3. Is it my mind or is there something wrong in John's photo?

4. You need some of JMB's wood carvings? Pretty fearsome.

5. Your pet smoke much these days? Scottish Diary has the lowdown.

6. Omnium asks what one does after Friday prayers.

7. Sackers is having a little trouble deciding which animal he is.

8. Cassilis reports on Hillary's sense of modesty and decorum.

Bonus: Let Cherie help you see February out.

[enlightenment] and the allure of the dark

Don't mess with dark forces or you might end up inside a Wicker Man.

Eva Green, ex-Bond girl was quoted:

There is no verbal fat with Green, no messy non sequiturs. The only cracks in her composure appear when she talks acting projects: a Jordan Scott drama set in an English boarding school and something "very exciting I can't tell you about yet" - all with the common thread of being "dark". "I do like dark things," she admits with relish.

With relish - yes. Tell me, which persona do you find more interesting in me - reformed sinner with a suspect lifestyle or staid moral crusader? I didn't ask which you approved of. :)

Changing tack, you might recall this incident:

After putting her four-year-old daughter into the back seat of the family SUV, Madelyne Gorman Toogood took a quick look around the parking lot just to make sure nobody was watching.

But despite her best effort to conceal what she was about to do, nearly everyone with a television has seen what happened that afternoon outside an Indiana department store, where a surveillance camera captured Mrs. Toogood shaking and slapping her daughter Martha in a violent fit of rage.

Before we get on to who the Irish Travellers are, a glance at the incident involving a Romani and Giovanna Reggiani might jog the memory.

The Romanian government commented on it at the time.

This post appears to be jumping all over the place but contends that it's all part of the same process, so that gives it continuity.

Another jump cut - remember this film?

Sergeant Neil Howie is sent an anonymous letter recommending that he investigate the disappearance of a young girl, Rowan Morrison, on the remote Hebridean island of Summerisle.

He flies to the island and during his investigations discovers that the entire population follows a neo-pagan cult under the island's owner Lord Summerisle, believing in re-incarnation, worshipping the sun and engaging in fertility rituals and sexual magic in order to appease immanent natural forces.

Howie, a devout Christian, is increasingly shocked by the islanders' behaviour; yet he is attracted and repelled by the alluring and sexual Willow, the daughter of the landlord of the inn where he is staying.

Here is an excellent analysis of the plot, which includes:

The Wicker Man puts the liberals on the defensive by showing what a society literally based on and worshipping sex might be like. Sergeant Howie is as noble as any Knight of the Round Table, yet defenseless against the wiles of foes who do not believe in his goodness.

Another great analysis here although Christians should be warned it's a bit irreverent.

The most famous scene is Howie's temptation by Willow [Britt Ekland] which was really a test by the local laird to see if Howie was corruptible. The Youtube here is the original, from the movie and deals with the real issue.

Warning, a clean, innocent version is below this clip if you'd prefer :

[Well, I'm stunned - YouTube have this evening pulled this clip - post to follow now. OK - I'll just have to describe the clip to you:

Britt Ekland, playing Willow, daughter of the publican on the island, has been put up to seduce the Christian policeman Edward Woodward, who is investigating her disappearance years ago. She dances naked round her room, slapping the walls and tables and inviting him to come into her room. He almost does but resists the temptation, which ultimately leads to his doom.]

And here is the Wiccan sanitized version with lots of lovely Bambis and nature love which the morally upright should view instead.

Germane to this post is James Berardinelli's review, which says, in part:

The Wicker Man places us in Howie's shoes, although his dour disposition and puritanical outlook on life makes it difficult to sympathize with him entirely. He sees the men and woman of Summerisle as monstrous heathens; we view them a little less judgmentally (at least initially). But, like Howie, we suspect that there's something rotten at the core of the community, and, also like the dauntless police officer, we don't figure out what it is until it's far, far too late. The brilliance of the writing is such that we don't seen the twist coming until it's nearly upon us.

Could almost be a commentary on the years we're moving into now, dour prophets of doom being ignored and marginalized.

While we're still in Scotland, the little matter of the Scottish Rite of Freemasonry is worth exploring. There's a lot of wild material out there but this seems the sanest [although admittedly Christian] source:

Establishing the facts concerning the incompatibility of Freemasonry and Christianity requires having access to the documents which contain the evidence.

And now, swinging back to the Irish Travellers, here is coverage, including an interview, of that Toogood baby beating case:

Murphy Village Travelers dress their preschoolers - kids as young as five to six years old - in sequined designer gowns. They put makeup on their toddlers.

"They're taught to dance early in very voluptuous ways that you wouldn't have your little girl you know, to touch themselves, to rub themselves, to move, to get attention," says Patsy Hart, one of few outsiders to marry an Irish Traveler in Murphy Village.

She says those parties are often negotiations for money and marriage.

"They could be playing in a sandbox one day, and snatched up and took and got married the next and be ten years old and have a baby by the time they are 11," says Hart.

Patsy Hart says her husband was 17 when he married his first wife - who was only 11.

Slate refers to white gypsies:

Irish Travelers, also known as "White Gypsies," are members of a nomadic ethnic group of uncertain origin. Scholars often speculate that they are descended from a race of pre-Celtic minstrels and that their ranks were swelled by displaced farmers during Oliver Cromwell's bloody campaigns of the mid-1600s.

A further insight is this message board comment by a Romanichal connected young man. This then brings us to the question of "white witchcraft":

Although nominally Christianized, there is little doubt that the early medieval Irish retained many remnants of their former paganism, especially those with elements of magic.

One of my friends over here is a faith healer, I suppose a "white witch", who knows all the incantations. He also knows about "black witchcraft" which this post won't deal with, on his advice but this article does:

Magick really isn't black or white. It just is.

By the way, what do you think of the current popular games [last ten years] which the kids love on the net? Healthy or dark?

The point of this post is that it all emanates from the same Firm, which currently has the environmental movement in its grip and herein lies the problem.

No one inside will recognize whom they are following, who the Lucis Trust is, who Maitreya and Djwahl Kuhl really are and who all the political and business organizations adopting this type of bureauspeak, relativism and light diffused colours are really serving at their upper management levels.

I'm not even going to try to argue it because it's a question of mindset. To me it is quite clear why the declining educational, judicial and moral standards, e.g.:

"Never before in the history of telecommunications media in the United States has so much indecent (and obscene) material been so easily accessible by so many minors in so many American homes with so few restrictions." - U.S. Department of Justice, Post Hearing Memorandum of Points and Authorities, at l, ACLU v. Reno, 929 F. Supp. 824 (1996).

... but those not of my bent would put it all down to the "incompetence" of Blair, Brown, Bush and of sprawling bureaucracy. No one will lay the blame at the upper echelons who really must know that selective incompetence at certain key times trumps overt malice aforethought.

We can look at any example you like of "incompetence" in the political sphere. What about the London Bombings and the incompetent surveillance operation which David Davis bought into, one claim being:

But the serious mistake that Panorama has identified is that at the time MI5 never informed West Yorkshire Special Branch about the surveillance operation that ended up in its patch.

Or how about on 9 July, 2005 when it came out that all four CCTV cameras on the 30 bus were not working. The Guardian said "the security camera" wasn't working.

Or Diana. CTV's London Bureau Chief Tom Kennedy said, about the security cams suddenly breaking down before Diana's death in that tunnel:

"For example we do know that as they were driving into that Paris tunnel that night... the car they were driving hit another car... that car was never found and the eyewitness driving that car was never found." "The security cameras in Paris that night, many of them were not working, so there's not a detailed security camera record of the movements of the car that night... conspiracy theorists will always say that this was something that was organized by very powerful people.

Maybe so but non-conspiracy theorists might say there is an interesting motif of incompetence of this nature at the time of key tragedies. Certain things always happen to go wrong.

You probably feel I've gone off the deep end but IMHO, the Wickerman and this "selective incompetence" are not so far apart when one peels back sufficient layers to reveal the ultimate source of all the mischief.

Incompetence versus Intention

This dilemma will never be resolved because we are arguing from vastly different standpoints. As a Christian [and the Black Magicians and Satanists would also agree inwardly here] - it's as clear as night what it's all about and nothing in world events in the last four decades, along with the deterioration of western culture, provides any surprise whatsoever.

Others will argue, till the cows come home, bringing up quite intelligent models which would explain all the phenomena. The whole Philosophy Industry is about that and bloggers can wile away hours arguing over the "bleedin' obvious". Some of my best blogger friends do this.

Interesting hand gesture, seen being used by Bush, Clinton, Berlusconi, various industry leaders and the Queen, among others. Of course, the one of the Queen must have been photo touching.

Politeia declares:

After roaming the earth for some decades I can now declare beyond a doubt, that man - while knowing what's right and wrong and thus being a moral creature - has a talent for the worst.

I can therefore officially join the ranks of Calvinists and paleo-conservatives who, on theological grounds have always said so.

Man doesn't do the worst because he is bad. Intentional evil is rare and in a class of its own, but it exists and we have to shield against it.

But he is lazy, preferring the easy way out rather than the best. Man moreover, loves shortcuts: getting something for nothing. So he demands love and respect so he can fool others in believing that he's earned it.

On one hand, a certain mindset puts world problems and the slide into the new feudalism down to instincts mentioned by Politeia above here and to sheer human incompetence. A different mindset, interestingly shared by sworn enemies, puts it down to intention, a game plan, utilizing subterfuge to cover-up and obscure what's going down.

I like this in the above quote:

Man moreover, loves shortcuts: getting something for nothing ... Intentional evil is rare and in a class of its own, but it exists and we have to shield against it.

But if you don't believe in intentional evil in the first place, then surely you're a sitting duck?

Warning the villagers that killing him is not going to save them

[ugggh] feel like dying

Must be punishment for my sins - just got in and think I have flu - epidemic in this town - off to bed, hope all will be well. Had posts for this evening but just can't. More tomorrow morning [photos of work too].

[britain] high disease risk

[paradigm shift] from the macro to the interpersonal

There's little doubt we're running into a dire period in the world [see any number of blogs] and there seem to be three schools of thought:

1. ruthlessly expose the bstds, rise up against them, endlessly blog about how terrible Brown and Bush are;

2. pretend it's not happening;

3. change the whole paradigm and focus on interpersonal relations as the key to sustainable resistance.

Forget macro-politics - micro-politics is the new resistance. The more people who:

1. clean up their minds, observe a moral code and teach their children to do the same;

2. learn to be satisfied and take only that which they need;

3. adopt the business principle that you're always going to have to give far more than you'll get back, that a filtration process takes place to weed out "takers" and that sufficient investment into other people will inevitably pay off ...

... and a strong foundation is built which can resist the new age of Self Gratification and Moral Ambiguity. To put it simply, a well brought up person will always win through and if the majority are well brought up [too late for many in this generation but they can start with the next] then the horrors of today's society can be resisted and circumvented.

If people are giving to one another, they can't act against each other. I think Susanna Hoffs [see last posting] is a great example. The Bangles broke up in 1989 due to internal pressures:

It's often focused on, perhaps unfairly, that the feeling of unease over Susanna Hoffs being seen as the centre of attention was the catalyst for the break-up. Different band members had different opinions, and the stresses of recording and touring took their toll.

Combined with an alleged plot by management to break up the band to ring-fence Susanna as a solo artist, the lawyers were called and the band split up ... Susanna was initially the most keen to reunite the Bangles, and eventually the other band members were persuaded.

I think one needs to go deeper. I ran some of the Youtubes past my mate and a French woman friend of mine today and certain things came out clearly. Hoffs is a honey. Why are men so hot for her and not for the equally facially beautiful Michael Steele?

Easy, says the Frenchwoman.

Hoffs is not afraid of being feminine, she doesn't feel "oppressed" by playing up to men which is a big feminist no-no, she comes on to men using innuendo, those sloe-eyes, sultry voice and every trick of personal appearance she can dream up. She stands with knees together and hands demurely in front of her, she smiles [another feminist no-no], she wants those men to want her and doesn't apologize.

She's a giver. Result - we want her badly. Not all but many, judging from the Youtube comments. Facial beauty is one thing and sure it's a big factor with her but it's how she uses it which is everything. With the greatest respect, Michael Steele could have done that but she didn't. Where in those clips was there evidence that the other three were interrelating with the audience as Hoffs always does? So one or two got all jealous.

I'm no expert but it seems it's first of all about acting sensually but not sleazily, about looking after yourself physically and perhaps dressing nicely but far more importantly - walking into any interpersonal situation with a mindset of giving to that other person. That takes some adjustment.

Yet it will always win in the end.

Example - we have three wall mirrors down in the foyer at uni, always with 12 or so girls trying to use them. You only need to walk up to one of the mirrors and they'll step out of the way to give you space. But if you indicate no - she should continue and you'll just look over her shoulder at the mirror, there'll be no result but days later, on the 3rd floor, she'll remember it and come up and talk.

Coming back to the original dilemma in this post - the dark era we're now entering. If every husband never demanded conjugal rights, if she phoned him at work and detailed in just under a minute the disgraceful things she was planning for his anatomy that evening, if she was weary and he took care of things then came and lay with her, just chatting about this and that, if they were to continually seek common ground rather than sticking to entrenched positions - it goes on and on - then nobody could divide them, the kids would pick up on it and outside attempts to divide and rule would ultimately fail.

Goody Two Shoes? Don't think so.

The new politics should have a micro-focus - each one of us should take care of the interpersonal and put it on an altruistic footing rather than a hedonistic. Pleasure and power will then come back at us like a wave or else if it won't - we move on and try again.

It's a war of attrition [note the Fabian roots].