Daily Archives: April 13, 2011

Apr 13 2011

Look within, not towards external conditions: Choose the habits of happiness!

Want to be happy?

These 10 ‘secrets’ to achieving just that, almost seem too easy to even be worth the attempt…

1. GIVING

Do things for others – volunteer to work for a charity in your spare time

2. RELATING

Connect with people – get in touch with friends with whom you have lost contact

3. EXERCISING

Take care of your body – go for a run.

4. APPRECIATING

Notice the world around – take time to appreciate wildlife in your area.

5. TRYING OUT

Keep learning new things – learn a new language.

6. DIRECTION

Have goals to look forward to – make resolutions and stick to them.

7. RESILIENCE

Find ways to bounce back – learn from defeats to do things better in the future.

8. EMOTION

Take a positive approach – focus on the happy moments of your life rather than the sad.

9. ACCEPTANCE

Be comfortable with who you are – do not dwell on your flaws.


10. MEANING

Be part of something bigger – join a society or club. [Read More]

But if you consider what’s at stake?

[via Telegraph] Research suggests that despite having much more materially than previous generations, the country is no happier than it was half a century ago.

Experts warn that unless we undergo a “radical cultural change”, Britain [But I believe suits other countries as well. Hello, US - Looking at YOU!] will slide into unprecedented depths of despair blighted by rising rates of suicide and depression.

A group of eminent British thinkers from the worlds of education, economics and politics – backed by the Dalai Lama – yesterday launched a campaign to halt the nation’s psychological decline.

Action for Happiness, a mass movement to promote mental wellbeing, calls on people to address 10 key deficiencies in their lives to counter our growing gloom.

Led by Lord Layard, Professor of economics at the London School of Economics, it warns that we do not give enough to others, have lost the art of connecting with those around us, and no longer possess a sense of belonging in society.

Our happiness is also being hampered by a blinkered approach to the world around us and a lack of exercise, direction, resilience and ambition, the study claims.

Anthony Seldon, headmaster of Wellington College, who helped establish the campaign, said it is vital that better values are instilled in children at a young age to prevent unhappiness later in life.

Mr Seldon, who pioneered “wellbeing” lesson’s at the independent school in 2006, said: “Children today are like balls in a pinball machine – constantly bounced around without a solid grounding in how to behave towards other people and the values which bring wellbeing.

“Young people now are being brought up grasping for what they don’t have rather than appreciating everything they already do.

“For everything we have gained in material wealth and sophistication in recent years, we have lost in happiness and the overall richness of the fabric of society. [Read More]

And why is that last statement so true?

Because people are looking towards the WRONG things for happiness.

What is happiness, and how can we all get some? Buddhist monk, photographer and author Matthieu Ricard has devoted his life to these questions, and his answer is influenced by his faith as well as by his scientific turn of mind: We can train our minds in habits of happiness. Interwoven with his talk are stunning photographs of the Himalayas and of his spiritual community.

Happiness comes from within…

Not from outside influences.

“Happiness Can Only Be Found Within” by Epicticus (AD 55 – AD 135 a Greek Stoic philosopher)

Freedom is the only worthy goal in life. It is won by disregarding things that lie beyond our control. We cannot have a light heart if our minds are a woeful cauldron of fear and ambition. Do you wish to be invincible? Then don’t enter into combat with what you have no real control over. Your happiness depends on three things, all of which are within your power: your will, your ideas concerning the events which you are involved, and the use you make of your ideas. Authentic happiness is always independent of external conditions. Vigilantly practice indifference to external conditions. Your happiness can only be found within. How easily dazzled and deceived we are by eloquence, job title, degrees, high honors, fancy possessions, expensive clothing, or a suave demeanor. Don’t make the mistake of assuming that celebrities, public figures, political leaders, the wealthy, or people with great intellectual or artistic gifts are necessarily happy. To do so is to be bewildered by appearances and will only make you doubt yourself. Remember: The real essence of good is found only within things under your own control. If you keep this in mind, you won’t find yourself feeling falsely envious or forlorn, pitifully comparing yourself and your accomplishments to others. Stop aspiring to be anyone other than your own best self. For that does fall within your control. [Read More]

Apr 13 2011

Mexico in desperate need of their very own ‘Untouchables’!

The violence inspired by American Prohibition in the 1920′s and the drug violence going on in Mexico now?

Yes…

Very, eerily similar.

(CNN) – The most dangerous city in Mexico wrapped up another bloody weekend with 39 killings between Friday and Monday, including the murders of three police officers, the Chihuahua state prosecutor’s office in Ciudad Juarez said Tuesday.

In one of the most high-profile homicides, Ismael Sergio Apodaca, coordinator of the Police Station “Chihuahua,” was executed on Friday. Hours earlier, a municipal official was attacked and taken to the hospital in serious condition, the state prosecutor’s office told CNN. In all, eight people were killed that day.

On Saturday, another 16 people were killed, including six victims shot dead at a workshop and another four killed in front of a garage. The victims, all male, were between 20 and 30 years old.

Nine people were executed on Sunday. Juarez municipal police officers were operating on high alert after finding “narcopintas” — graffiti messages left by suspected drug traffickers — on public walls near a local park. By day’s end, another two police officers had been killed by suspects thought to be involved with organized crime, the prosecutor’s office said.

Perhaps the most gruesome homicide in the four-day period was that of a man whose torso was found Monday. The body had no head or limbs, officials said. He was one of six killed that day, and has not been identified.

According to unofficial estimates, as many as 600 people have been killed in Ciudad Juarez since the beginning of the year. More than 3,000 people were killed in drug-related violence in 2010.

In a visit to the Texas Senate in Austin in the wake of the bloody weekend, Juarez Mayor Hector “Teto” Murguia Lardizabal told reporters that improved communication between U.S. and Mexican officials is a key to combating the drug violence. [Read More]

Communication is the key to stopping THIS violence?

I’m sorry, did you miss the

Pffft.

No.

The time for talking is over.

What Mexico needs is enforcement…

They need their own ‘Untouchables’.

Pronto…

[via Wikipedia] The Untouchables was a group of 11 U.S. federal law-enforcement agents, led by Eliot Ness, who, from 1929 to 1931, worked to end Al Capone‘s illegal activities by aggressively enforcing Prohibition and tax laws against Capone and his organization. In their conduct, they became legendary for being fearless and incorruptible, earning the nickname “Untouchables.”

Upon taking office in 1929, the 31st President of the United States, Herbert Hoover, charged his Secretary of the Treasury, Andrew Mellon, with bringing down Al Capone. The federal government approached the problem by attacking Capone’s organization on two fronts. The first front was mounted by criminal investigators of the Treasury’s Bureau of Internal Revenue, who would examine the financial records of Capone and his subordinates to see if they could be prosecuted for tax evasion. This unit of IRS agents was headed by Frank J. Wilson under the close supervision of Elmer Irey.

The second front would consist of a special unit of the Bureau of Prohibition, then a branch of the Department of Justice, who would attack Capone’s beer and liquor empire by raiding speakeasies, stills, and, particularly, breweries. The unit’s main purpose was twofold: to make it apparent that law enforcement was indeed still active against Capone, whose opulent lifestyle was turning many people against him as the Great Depression progressed, and to deprive Capone of his sources of the income he needed to pay the corrupting graft that was his greatest protection against prosecution. Ness was chosen to head this elite squad.

Raids against stills and breweries began immediately, and within six months, Ness claimed to have seized breweries worth over one million dollars. An extensive wire-tappingoperation was the main source of information for the raids.

An attempt by Capone to bribe Ness’s agents was seized on by Ness for publicity, leading to the media nickname “The Untouchables.” [Read More]

Heck, it worked for Chicago…

Wouldn’t it work for Mexico?

I’m kinda betting it would.

That is, if they could ever find the men brave enough to pull it off…

But it seems that is one thing in short supply these days in Mexico.

A reason for bravery.

[via Blog Del Narco] Eduardo Valentin Canseco, born in Loma Bonita, Oaxaca, was executed at least 10 bullet wounds, according to some law enforcers.

The execution took place during the afternoon yesterday, when the man walked by a vacant lot in the Yucatan and Cuauhtemoc Street, was at that place when heavily armed gunmen intercepted him and shot him, finally threw a brick on his genitals. 
When killed he left a nail with a screwdriver narcomensaje which read as follows:

“THIS WILL HAPPEN TO ALL THAT YOU SUPPORT AND CARE TO STEAL CARS PUTOS Z” [Read More - Click here for graphic pics. WARNING: Graphic in nature!]

Apr 13 2011

Addiction is fundamentally a learning and memory disorder?

Believe it or not?

That’s exactly what this research is saying.

Only in Texas…

Would such a study take place.

ScienceDaily (Apr. 12, 2011) — Drinking alcohol primes certain areas of our brain to learn and remember better, says a new study from the Waggoner Center for Alcohol and Addiction Research at The University of Texas at Austin.

The common view that drinking is bad for learning and memory isn’t wrong, says neurobiologist Hitoshi Morikawa, but it highlights only one side of what ethanol consumption does to the brain.

“Usually, when we talk about learning and memory, we’re talking about conscious memory,” says Morikawa, whose results were published last month in The Journal of Neuroscience. “Alcohol diminishes our ability to hold on to pieces of information like your colleague’s name, or the definition of a word, or where you parked your car this morning. But our subconscious is learning and remembering too, and alcohol may actually increase our capacity to learn, or ‘conditionability,’ at that level.”

[Source for picture]

Morikawa’s study, which found that repeated ethanol exposure enhances synaptic plasticity in a key area in the brain, is further evidence toward an emerging consensus in the neuroscience community that drug and alcohol addiction is fundamentally a learning and memory disorder.

When we drink alcohol (or shoot up heroin, or snort cocaine, or take methamphetamines), our subconscious is learning to consume more. But it doesn’t stop there. We become more receptive to forming subsconscious memories and habits with respect to food, music, even people and social situations.

In an important sense, says Morikawa, alcoholics aren’t addicted to the experience of pleasure or relief they get from drinking alcohol. They’re addicted to the constellation of environmental, behavioral and physiological cues that are reinforced when alcohol triggers the release of dopamine in the brain.

“People commonly think of dopamine as a happy transmitter, or a pleasure transmitter, but more accurately it’s a learning transmitter,” says Morikawa. “It strengthens those synapses that are active when dopamine is released.”

Alcohol, in this model, is the enabler. It hijacks the dopaminergic system, and it tells our brain that what we’re doing at that moment is rewarding (and thus worth repeating). [Read More]

In other words what this is saying is that people aren’t actually addicted to alcohol or drugs, but are addicted to the subconscious learning that stimulates the brain as a result of alcohol and drug consumption.

Uh-huh.

Sure.

Whatever you say, guys!

Apr 13 2011

Advancements in technology are great for war…Until they’re not.

Autonomous planes.

Taking the human danger out of combat missions?

Yes…

I suppose one could say that.

[via Popsci] To fly the military’s baddest, most technologically advanced planes, you once had to have what Tom Wolfe called “that righteous stuff,” the willingness to strap yourself to a jet-fuel laden machine and push it to the very limits of its mechanical capabilities. Nowadays, unmanned systems have taken the human danger out of some combat missions, though human pilots remain at the sticks.

But not for long. The Navy’s experimental X-47B combat system won’t be remotely piloted, but almost completely autonomous. Human involvement won’t be of the stick-and-rudder variety, but handled with simple mouse clicks.

Speaking to reporters at the Sea Air Space convention near Washington, reps from both Northrop Grumman (maker of the X-47B) and the Navy said the X-47B would be piloted not by human handlers in some steel box in Nevada, but by 3.4 million lines of software code. The rest of its functions will be able to be handled by non-pilot personnel (or your average child), as they will only require clicks of the mouse; a click to turn on the engines, a click to taxi, a click to initiate takeoff, etc.

For flyboys proudly boasting their nighttime carrier landing cred, the idea is anathema. But given the difficulty and danger of carrier takeoffs and landings, automating them is one way to ensure safety–provided the systems work the way they are supposed to. The X-47B has already taken to the skies from Edwards AFB earlier this year, but this is a Navy plane. As such, it will begin “learning” the ins and outs of carrier operations via simulated takeoffs and landings starting in 2013.

If all goes well, the X-47B could be autonomously showing Navy pilots how to put a multimillion aircraft down on a sea-tossed carrier deck by 2014. Those carrier landings, of course, take a certain kind of touch. Specifically, that of an index finger on a standard issue mouse.

[Danger Room via IEEE Spectrum] [Read More]

Well…

That is until they start killing humans.

Then?

D A N G E R O U S!

WASHINGTON – The military is investigating what appears to be the first case of American troops killed by a missile fired from a U.S. drone.

The investigation is looking into the deaths of a Marine and a Navy medic killed by a Hellfire missile fired from a Predator after they apparently were mistaken for insurgents in southern Afghanistan last week, two senior U.S. defense officials said Tuesday. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing.

Unmanned aircraft have proven to be powerful weapons in Afghanistan and Iraq and their use have expanded to new areas and operations each year of those conflicts. Some drones are used for surveillance and some, such as the drone in this case, are armed and have been used to hunt and kill militants.

Officials said this is the first case they know of in which a drone may have been involved in a friendly fire incident in which U.S. troops were killed, and they are trying to determine how it happened. [Read More]

Apr 13 2011

Circadian clocks: The sleepy ties that bind!

Humans.

As much as we often like to pretend that we are a unique creation, crafted by Mother Nature’s loving touch to be superior to all the other species She hath created…

Articles like the first two just go to show that there is far more equality to be found in all Her creations, than humanity often likes to acknowledge.

One such thing? The similar way biological systems adapts to stress through their circadian clocks.

Fine example.

Plants do it to be able to withstand extreme environmental stresses put on their system in the forms of extreme cold or drought:

All living things – humans, animals, , microbes – are influenced by circadian rhythms, which are physical, mental and behavioral changes that follow a 24-hour cycle. In the current issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Michael Thomashow, University Distinguished Professor of molecular genetics, along with MSU colleagues Malia Dong and Eva Farré, has identified that the  provides key input required for plants to attain maximum freezing tolerance.

“The integration of cold-signaling pathways with the circadian clock may have been an important evolutionary event that has contributed to plant adaptation to cold environments,” Thomashow said. [Read More]

Humans circadian clocks make the needed adjustments to help the body withstand the biological stresses that come with old age.

Our sleep cycles are governed by the circadian genes in our cells. These genes are expressed at different strengths during the day, with the peak periods corresponding to when we’re awake. These circadian genes work in a 24-hour cycle, but the precise times at which the genes peak and dip shifts earlier as people grow older. That’s why older people tend to get up and go to bed much earlier than their younger peers. [Read More]

In the end, it all comes down to a biological entities need to adapt…

We all need it.

And Mother Nature?

She gave.

Equally.

It’s what she does and quite honestly? I often find our connection to Mother Nature and all her creations breathtaking and should be respected, appreciated and honored…

But THIS?

Come on – Seriously?

What are ‘people’ laws don’t screw things up enough NOW, we have to add to it…

UNITED NATIONS — Bolivia will this month table a draft United Nations treaty giving “Mother Earth” the same rights as humans — having just passed a domestic law that does the same for bugs, trees and all other natural things in the South American country. [Read More]

COMING SOON: Tree and Bug Lawyers!

Sad part is?

This is probably more predictive than any of us realize.

Jeez.

Apr 13 2011

No Deloreans On Chinese TV?

Oh. Uh-hu. OK. Suuurrre.

This isn’t a big deal and certainly not news worthy…

Unless one really thinks about it.

What – They want time traveling shows banned?

Makes one wonder…

What are they hiding?

[via Gawker] Chinese government censors have issued new guidelines that essentially ban television programs that feature time travel as a plot device. I really wish we could do this, because there is no deus ex machina more overused or annoying than time travel.

This action was supposedly taken to prevent shows, like the popular drama Palace, from sending characters back in time and idealizing China before the Communist takeover. We think some Communist official is just still more than a little miffed at the lousy Lost finale. [NYT, image via Shutterstock] [Read More]

OR…

They have created a super-duper time machine and are trying to keep people’s suspicions down.

If so?

They needn’t worry.

I’ve already seen the movie.