how you doin?

plenty of people in our generation (apparently we're gen Y?) are having a hard time:

http://www.slate.com/id/2214712/

luckily, i'm ok.

its all related

GG on point again, on how our handling of the torturing we did is so similar to the handling of the financial crisis

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/03/26/comparisions/index.html

well then Jack...

who the fuck's fault is it??

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/25/opinion/25desantis.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2&ref=opinion

personhood...

somewhat related to previous post:
http://www.salon.com/mwt/broadsheet/feature/2009/03/25/personhood_laws/

if we are more than just our brains, than even a fetus that has developed a brain is arguably not yet a person. pro-choice advocates may want to get on board with that position.

actually i'm not really ok with abortion at a term as late as after the brain has (somewhat fully) developed, and i dont most pro-choice people i know are either. so maybe its moot anyway.

but 8 cells does not a person make, and we should not let these people make laws claiming otherwise.

you aren't you brain!

very interesting stuff: http://www.salon.com/env/atoms_eden/2009/03/25/alva_noe/

i suppose the main point is that a brain in isolation is not concious, that it needs an environment to interact with, and that sounds good to me. after all as far as i know most of the interetsing parts of the brain are dealing with some kind of stimulus; visual, audio, tactile, what have you.

there was an article i read years ago about some "pregant" man who had been carrying his twin brother in his body for his whole life. (i love google, here it is: http://abcnews.go.com/primetime/story?id=2346476&page=1)
i wonder what they did with the twin's brain, as this is probably the only kind of chance we'd have to study what a brain that had never really received any stimulus looked like.

i'm pleased with myself because about three sentences before they got to the paragraph that starts with "Evolutionary biology is one good example of the way to proceed. " i was thinking the exact thoughts laid out in that paragraph. aren't i smart? yay.

anyway,  fascinating stuff.

matt tiabbi rocks my socks

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/26793903/the_big_takeover/1

he's the only one doing "investigative reporting". 

ok probably not true, but the only one i know about, which is kinda the point.

just like gleen greenwald is one of the very few doing "informed commentary".

most people are doing "complete bullshit"

especially people like glenn beck....