Free Republic

Study pegs Democratic presidents as brighter By RICHARD ORR Herald Correspondent It´s really not all that hard finding GWB´s brain. It´s right there in the files of the Lovenstein Institute of Scranton, Pa., which has been publishing its research on each new president since 1973. The GWB study published in October 2004 took four months to complete and compared him to all the presidents from Franklin Delano Roosevelt through Bill Clinton. Based on the report´s findings, Democrats are smarter than Republicans -- quite a bit so, in fact. The three smartest Democrats were -- in order of intelligence -- Bill...

For a long time now, secularists have been trying to come up with reasons why people believe in God. If you take a strictly naturalistic view of the world, after all, it can be pretty difficult to understand how anyone would put their faith in an invisible supernatural being. And yet, generation after generation continues to hold to do just that. It’s a question that has puzzled and fascinated some of the most prominent minds of our time. Now there’s an intriguing new explanation for religious faith. Paul Bloom, a Yale professor of psychology and linguistics, argues in the Atlantic...

"In Aug., 2003, the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) and the National Science Foundation (NSF) announced the results of their $1.2 million tax-payer funded study.  It stated, essentially, that traditionalists are mentally disturbed.  Scholars from the Universities of Maryland, California at Berkeley, and Stanford had determined that social conservatives, in particular, suffer from 'mental rigidity,' 'dogmatism,' and 'uncertainty avoidance,' together with associated indicators for mental illness."  (B.K. Eakman, Chronicles, Oct. 2004, pp. 28-29)   As usual with leftists, the true meaning of their words is couched in deceptive code.  When the deceptions are peeled away we discover that ''dogmatism''...

The Problem with Psychoanalyzing Bush Like many people, I read Newsweek's mid-December, high-octane burn of Bush with more than a bit of wonder, and not a good "Christmasy" kind. Halfway through the article, encountering what must have been the twenty gigillionth unnamed source, I thought to myself, "This is what happens when a President plugs all the leaks. The stories don't stop -- they just become a reflection of the journalist's preconceived notions." This Newsweek piece was the latest in an ongoing series of attempts to psychoanalyze this President. Here is Newsweek's take on the essence of the Dubya: Bush...

BARBIE, that plastic icon of girlhood fantasy play, is routinely tortured by children, research has found. The methods of mutilation are varied and creative, ranging from scalping to decapitation, burning, breaking and even microwaving, according to academics from the University of Bath. The findings were revealed as part of an in-depth look by psychologists and management academics into the role of brands among 7 to 11-year-old schoolchildren. The researchers had not intended to focus on Barbie, but they were taken aback by the rejection, hatred and violence she provoked when they asked the children about their feelings for the doll....

By Shankar Vedantam Washington Post Staff Writer Saturday, December 10, 2005; Page A01 The 48-year-old man turned down a job because he feared that a co-worker would be gay. He was upset that gay culture was becoming mainstream and blamed most of his personal, professional and emotional problems on the gay and lesbian movement. (you can see where this is headed)

The 48-year-old man turned down a job because he feared that a co-worker would be gay. He was upset that gay culture was becoming mainstream and blamed most of his personal, professional and emotional problems on the gay and lesbian movement. These fixations preoccupied him every day. Articles in magazines about gays made him agitated. He confessed that his fears had left him socially isolated and unemployed for years: A recovering alcoholic, the man even avoided 12-step meetings out of fear he might encounter a gay person. "He had a fixed delusion about the world," said Sondra E. Solomon, a...

When the Firm Foundation Worship Center got the call that a family of nine escaping Hurricane Katrina had arrived in Westminster needing a house, church members jumped into action. "They came here with nothing," said Marge DiMaggio, the church's co-pastor. As quickly as possible, church members made a house on church property look like a home. When the Brown family left on Sunday, the DiMaggios were horrified to find the house in shambles. "Hurricane hits Firm Foundation," said Marge DiMaggio. While answering the call in September, church members' hearts were filled with compassion for the unknown family. "We brought our...

MSU professors link hunting with sexual violenceBy Page W. H. Brousseau IV Three female Michigan State University professors studied the magazine "Traditional Bowhunter," and concluded that hunting is a form of sexual violence with animals substituted for women. They describe hunting as, "erotic heterosexual predation, sadomasochism, restraint for aggressive sexual energy, and allied with the abuse of women." I think I need to take up bowhunting. The article entitled, "Animals, Women and Weapons: Blurred Sexual Boundaries in the Discourse of Sport Hunting" was published by the Society & Animals Forum. The genesis of the article was the 2003 video "Hunting...

Three female Michigan State University professors studied the magazine "Traditional Bowhunter," and concluded that hunting is a form of sexual violence with animals substituted for women. They describe hunting as, "erotic heterosexual predation, sadomasochism, restraint for aggressive sexual energy, and allied with the abuse of women." I think I need to take up bowhunting. The article entitled, "Animals, Women and Weapons: Blurred Sexual Boundaries in the Discourse of Sport Hunting" was published by the Society & Animals Forum. The genesis of the article was the 2003 video "Hunting for Bambi," which reached national attention that year when many news-outlets reported...

Volume-holographic optical imaging instrument with the capability to return three-dimensional spatial as well as spectral information about semi-translucent microscopic objects in a single measurement is in use in different parts of the world for the last three years. The four-dimensional volume-holographic microscope is characterized theoretically and experimentally by use of fluorescent micro-spheres as objects. According to some scientists working under classified projects these special instruments are revealing secrets of the nature that can be totally bizarre to our knowledge of science and technology. These four-dimensional volume-holographic optical imaging instrument with the capability to return three-dimensional spatial as well as spectral...

It is the adults who should be afraid this Halloween. Not of ghouls and goblins, but of permanently scarring their children. In a recent study of six- and seven-year-olds in the Philadelphia area, Penn State psychologist Cindy Dell Clark found that most parents underestimate just how terrifying the holiday can be for young kids. Halloween has been scaring the heck out of kids of all ages for centuries. Two thousand years ago, Celts living in what is now the United Kingdom celebrated their new year at the end of October. During these days of transition from the end of summer...

For President Under Duress, Body Language Speaks Volumes It's only 6:17 a.m. Central time, and President Bush is already facing his second question of the day about Karl Rove's legal troubles. "Does it worry you," NBC's Matt Lauer is asking him at a construction-site interview in Louisiana, that prosecutors "seem to have such an interest in Mr. Rove?" Of President Bush's participation in a building project in Covington, La., ABC News said he showed a "cowboy swagger and yuppie self-consciousness." Bush blinks twice. He touches his tongue to his lips. He blinks twice more.

When a man's masculinity is threatened, watch him turn into Macho Man. In a Cornell University study, men who perceived their masculinity to be maligned displayed more homophobic attitudes, tended to support the Iraq war more and would be more willing to purchase an SUV over another type of vehicle. In other words, men overcompensate when they feel their masculinity is threatened. The results: When the men who felt threatened were questioned about their political attitudes, including how they felt about a same-sex marriage ban and their support for President Bush's handling of the Iraq war, they displayed strong macho...

Also at JoeClarke.Net Ohio InJustice Files< Following Entry Posted 9/06/2005 06:26:00 AMAt http://interested-participant.blogspot.com/2005_09_01_interested-participant_archive.html No Prosecution for Dumb Juvenile Rapists (Cleveland, Ohio) Apparently, rape and sexual assault by mentally retarded juveniles are not crimes. From The Plain Dealer:A judge threw out the cases against three 15-year-old East Tech High School students after finding the boys mentally incompetent to stand trial on charges they raped a classmate. In April, the 17-year-old accuser told police and Cleveland schools officials that the boys - all special education students - raped and assaulted him at least three times. He said the attacks were in a...

City brokers have never enjoyed the best of reputations. The popular image is of a brash and boastful twentysomething with more money than sense or sensitivity. But now a study by a group of eminent American academics suggests that star performers on the stock market may be even worse and could best be described as “functioning psychopaths”. In a study of investors’ behaviour, the team from three US universities suggest that people with brain damage can make better financial decisions than the rest of us. Market traders may feel slighted, but this study comes from the growing field of neuroeconomics,...

Day One: Attend an actual Cuddle party! Day Two Morning Session: Creating the Context - In this section we will examine who we are to ourselves and to others, both in our day-to-day lives and in our roles as facilitators. We will discuss what it is that we are trying to create and what it means to set and maintain the intention for a group of people. Afternoon Session: Building the Relational Skillset - In this section we will create a new understanding of what it means to listen to others and to be with them. We will learn how...

Men whose masculinity is challenged become more inclined to support war or buy an SUV, a new study finds. Their attitudes against gays change, too. Cornell University researcher Robb Willer used a survey to sample undergraduates. Participants were randomly assigned feedback that indicated their responses were either masculine of feminine. The women had no discernable reaction to either type of feedback in a follow-up survey. But the guys' reactions were "strongly affected," Willer said today. "I found that if you made men more insecure about their masculinity, they displayed more homophobic attitudes, tended to support the Iraq war more and...

ITHACA, N.Y. -- Threaten a man's masculinity, and he will assume more macho attitudes, according to a study by a Cornell University researcher. "I found that if you made men more insecure about their masculinity, they displayed more homophobic attitudes, tended to support the Iraq war more and would be more willing to purchase an SUV over another type of vehicle," said Robb Willer, a sociology doctoral candidate at Cornell. Willer is presenting his findings Aug. 15 at the American Sociological Association's 100th annual meeting in Philadelphia. "Masculine overcompensation is the idea that men who are insecure about their masculinity...

A path-breaking new study by Robb Willer, a Cornell doctoral candidate in sociology, finds that, as Willer tells the Cornell University News Service, "if you made men more insecure about their masculinity, they . . . tended to support the Iraq war more": Willer administered a gender identity survey to a sample of male and female Cornell undergraduates in the fall of 2004. Participants were randomly assigned to receive feedback that their responses indicated either a masculine or a feminine identity. While women's responses were unchanged regardless of the feedback they received, men's reactions "were strongly affected by this feedback,"...