Oh, this “news”paper

Posted on October 6, 2009 by Michael

So the Kennebec Journal has been advertising for certain political positions lately. This hasn’t come in the form of regular ad space, but by a devotion of front page space.

A little while ago the editor, Richard Connor, printed an article advertising a political strategy for pro-bigots on the front page. This was done when Obama had just given a widely-anticipated speech on health care. After multiple opinion pieces printed by the KJ by its editors saying Obama needed to make his positions known, his speech found itself on page A3. There are two possibilities: Connor is a dumb editor who does not have a basic ability to recognize front page news or – and here’s where my money is – he’s a hack who wants to use a newspaper to prop up his particular views.

A couple days later, he followed up. The article said nothing other than “We had a meeting and decided we still hate da gays”. Not long after that, Connor, hack extraordinaire, advertised an anti-abortion rally.

Now there’s yet another article. In today’s paper, he advertised some rhetoric from the bigots. It was all about how proponents of same-sex marriage are utilizing outside resources to help with their campaign. The sub-headline said something to the effect of “People from away are helping with the campaign”. I would quote that directly, but I do not waste my money on rags, so I don’t have a copy of the paper on hand. But how about a link? Well, sir, I cannot find it. The KJ is not featuring this article on its website, despite the decision to put it on the front page of today’s paper. But I can tell you that the Vassalboro boat ramp will be closed. Because that’s important.

My favorite part of this is that this is the exact rhetoric used by the bigots. Both sides are guilty of it, actually, but the bigots seem to be more aggressive with their tactics. “From away” is a Maine phrase which means anyone who isn’t from Maine. In this context, it is designed to alienate the opposition from voters. It’s an unsubstantial ploy to woo their votes. Who really sits at home and says, “Hmm, people from out of state are trying to persuade me. Yeah, all right, voting just to spite them is a good idea”? Come on.

The kicker to all this is that it was only about 6 weeks ago that the KJ had an article which noted, simply, that both sides are getting outside funds. I guess Connor forgot about that when he decided to get hung up in all his campaigning.

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Oh, this "news"paper

Posted on October 6, 2009 by Michael

So the Kennebec Journal has been advertising for certain political positions lately. This hasn’t come in the form of regular ad space, but by a devotion of front page space.

A little while ago the editor, Richard Connor, printed an article advertising a political strategy for pro-bigots on the front page. This was done when Obama had just given a widely-anticipated speech on health care. After multiple opinion pieces printed by the KJ by its editors saying Obama needed to make his positions known, his speech found itself on page A3. There are two possibilities: Connor is a dumb editor who does not have a basic ability to recognize front page news or – and here’s where my money is – he’s a hack who wants to use a newspaper to prop up his particular views.

A couple days later, he followed up. The article said nothing other than “We had a meeting and decided we still hate da gays”. Not long after that, Connor, hack extraordinaire, advertised an anti-abortion rally.

Now there’s yet another article. In today’s paper, he advertised some rhetoric from the bigots. It was all about how proponents of same-sex marriage are utilizing outside resources to help with their campaign. The sub-headline said something to the effect of “People from away are helping with the campaign”. I would quote that directly, but I do not waste my money on rags, so I don’t have a copy of the paper on hand. But how about a link? Well, sir, I cannot find it. The KJ is not featuring this article on its website, despite the decision to put it on the front page of today’s paper. But I can tell you that the Vassalboro boat ramp will be closed. Because that’s important.

My favorite part of this is that this is the exact rhetoric used by the bigots. Both sides are guilty of it, actually, but the bigots seem to be more aggressive with their tactics. “From away” is a Maine phrase which means anyone who isn’t from Maine. In this context, it is designed to alienate the opposition from voters. It’s an unsubstantial ploy to woo their votes. Who really sits at home and says, “Hmm, people from out of state are trying to persuade me. Yeah, all right, voting just to spite them is a good idea”? Come on.

The kicker to all this is that it was only about 6 weeks ago that the KJ had an article which noted, simply, that both sides are getting outside funds. I guess Connor forgot about that when he decided to get hung up in all his campaigning.

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Greensburg Salem High School follow-up

Posted on October 4, 2009 by Michael

Sometime back I wrote about the irrational rule internalization which resulted in six teens from Greensburg Salem High School in Greensburg, PA being charged with distributing child pornography. In short, six teens (3 girls, 3 boys) were involved in sending or receiving photos which featured three of them in the nude or partially nude. Each person involved in these exchanges is allowed to engage in sex with each other under Pennsylvania law. So according to the Greensburg DA and the city’s police captain, George Seranko, these teens may see each other nude, even have sex, but if they do it via scary electronic devices*, they are subject to prosecution.

Since I never followed up on this case, I have gone ahead and found out what happened to these kids.

In January, six Greensburg Salem High School students were charged in juvenile court with child pornography offenses for sexting. The teens were sentenced to community service or a curfew and didn’t have to register as sex offenders.

These punishments are either too harsh or irrelevant. Had they all stood in a room together naked, would anything have happened? Of course not. The law in Pennsylvania says nothing can happen in terms of prosecution; the teens have been deemed legally responsible enough to engage in these activities. Giving any of them community service is too harsh a punishment for that reason. They should not be subject to servicing a community which has already given them the rights to engage in sexual behavior with each other. If anything, those leading the community – namely Capt. George Seranko – owe these teens an apology. As for the curfew, that is entirely irrelevant to the ‘crime’ with which they were charged. Their phones work just as well in the evening and at night as they do in the day. Curtailing the freedom of these teens (especially the ones who may work) serves no purpose. It says nothing of what they did and does nothing to prevent it from happening again. Not only are the police, prosecutors, and judges of Greensburg internalizing rules like robotic morons, they aren’t even applying the punishments for the rules appropriately. That city is obviously not run with intelligence.

*The older one beomces, usually the more mature and worldly one becomes. Not so with technology. It frightens the elderly.

UPDATE: I would email this to the Greensburg PD, but they insist on showing their lack of grasp of technology and its role in our lives, so they have no email address.

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PZ is speaking in Lewiston Tuesday, September 29 at 5.

Posted on September 26, 2009 by Michael

Psyched psyched psyched psyched

More travel this week: I’ll be in Lewiston, Maine to speak at Bates College, at 5 p.m. Tuesday, 29 September, in Room G65, Pettengill Hall. And from there I’ll be flying to Los Angeles for the AAI convention.

Lots of flight time is lots of writing time, right?

He’s also writing a book (hence the last comment).

And this.

Called one of “the fiercest, most public critics of the intelligent design movement” by the Minneapolis newspaper City Pages, biology professor and blogger PZ Myers visits Bates College to give a talk titled “The Importance of Blasphemy” at 5 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 29, in Room G65, Pettengill Hall, 4 Andrews Road (Alumni Walk).

Sponsored by the Bates Secular Student Alliance, the lecture is open to the public at no cost.

Myers, an associate professor of biology at University of Minnesota Morris, is the author of the popular blog Pharyngula, which address both his biological research interests and his outspoken views about his atheism, about religion and about “intelligent design,” the belief that a divine being was instrumental in the presence of life on Earth.

At the University of Minnesota, Myers studies developmental biology and neuroscience. His particular interests are in the formation of early neuronal circuits and the development of behavior in the zebrafish, and in genetic variation in motor behavior in different lines of fish. He also studies the cellular mechanisms of responses by embryos to agents that cause birth defects, such as alcohol.

“We’ve never had the good fortune of hosting a personality like Myers before,” says Christopher Ray, president of the Bates Secular Student Alliance. “No one is as qualified as he is to speak to the importance, and dangers, of speaking honestly and openly about even our most cherished superstitions.”

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Spank ’em till they’re stupid

Posted on September 24, 2009 by Michael

Spanking and intelligence

Spanking can get kids to behave in a hurry, but new research suggests it can do more harm than good to their noggins. The study, involving hundreds of U.S. children, showed the more a child was spanked the lower his or her IQ compared with others.

“All parents want smart children,” said study researcher Murray Straus of the University of New Hampshire. “This research shows that avoiding spanking and correcting misbehavior in other ways can help that happen.”

One might ask, however, whether children who are spanked tend to come from backgrounds in which education opportunities are less or inherited intelligence lower.

But while the results only show an association between spanking and intelligence, Straus says his methodology and the fact that he took into account other factors that could be at play (such as parents’ socioeconomic status) make a good case for a causal link.

“You can’t say it proves it, but I think it rules out so many other alternatives; I am convinced that spanking does cause a slowdown in a child’s development of mental abilities,” Straus told LiveScience.

Intelligence quotients

Straus and his colleague Mallie Paschall of the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation in Maryland studied nationally representative samples of two age groups: 806 children ages 2 to 4, and 704 ages 5 to 9. The researchers tested the kids’ IQs initially and then four years later.

Both groups of kids got smarter after four years. But the 2- to 4-year-olds who were spanked scored 5 points lower on the IQ test than those not spanked. For children ages 5 to 9, the spanked ones scored on average 2.8 points lower than their unspanked counterparts.

The results, he said, were statistically significant. And they held even after accounting for parental education, income, cognitive stimulation by parents and other factors that could affect children’s mental abilities.

Straus will present the study results, along with research on the relationship between average national IQ and prevalence of spanking around the world, Friday at the 14th International Conference on Violence, Abuse and Trauma, in San Diego, Calif.

Spanking science

Whether or not spanking equates with dumber kids is not known, and may never be known. That’s because the only way to truly show cause and effect would be to follow over time two groups of kids, one randomly assigned to get spanked and another who would not get spanked. Barring that method, which is unfeasible, Straus considers his study the next best thing, as he looked back at a nationally representative set of kids who were followed over time.

Jennifer Lansford of Duke University’s Center for Child and Family Policy and Social Science Research Institute called the study “interesting,” and agrees the method is a strong one. Lansford, who was not involved with the study, said following kids over time as this study did rules out the possibility that children with lower IQs somehow elicit more physical discipline.

However, unlike research showing the link between spanking and a kid’s aggressive behavior, in which kids model parents’ actions, this link is less clear to her. She added that a question still left unanswered is “what are some of the other mechanisms that could be responsible for this link between physical discipline and lower IQ?”

How spanking harms

If spanking does send IQ scores down, Straus and others offer some explanations for what might be going on.

“Contrary to what everyone believes, being hit by parents is a traumatic experience,” Straus said. “We know from lots of research that traumatic stresses affect the brain adversely.” Also, the trauma could cause kids to have more stressful responses in difficult situations, and so may not perform as well cognitively.

By using hitting rather than words or other means of discipline, parents could be depriving kids of learning opportunities. “With spanking, a parent is delivering a punishment to get the child’s attention and to get them to behave in a certain way,” said Elizabeth Gershoff who studies childhood development at the University of Texas, Austin. “It’s not fostering children’s independent thinking.”

So when a child gets in a bind, he or she might do the right thing to keep from a spanking rather than figuring out the best decision independently, added Gershoff, who was not involved in Straus’s current study.

And then there are genes, as some kids are just born smarter than others.

Even though spanking has been shown to cause negative consequences, Gershoff said many parents still fall back on the behavior-shaping tool. As for why, she says it’s a quick fix, though its seeming success is short-lived and the negative consequences often outweigh the positives. Parents also might have been spanked themselves and so continue the tradition.

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Spank 'em till they're stupid

Posted on September 24, 2009 by Michael

Spanking and intelligence

Spanking can get kids to behave in a hurry, but new research suggests it can do more harm than good to their noggins. The study, involving hundreds of U.S. children, showed the more a child was spanked the lower his or her IQ compared with others.

“All parents want smart children,” said study researcher Murray Straus of the University of New Hampshire. “This research shows that avoiding spanking and correcting misbehavior in other ways can help that happen.”

One might ask, however, whether children who are spanked tend to come from backgrounds in which education opportunities are less or inherited intelligence lower.

But while the results only show an association between spanking and intelligence, Straus says his methodology and the fact that he took into account other factors that could be at play (such as parents’ socioeconomic status) make a good case for a causal link.

“You can’t say it proves it, but I think it rules out so many other alternatives; I am convinced that spanking does cause a slowdown in a child’s development of mental abilities,” Straus told LiveScience.

Intelligence quotients

Straus and his colleague Mallie Paschall of the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation in Maryland studied nationally representative samples of two age groups: 806 children ages 2 to 4, and 704 ages 5 to 9. The researchers tested the kids’ IQs initially and then four years later.

Both groups of kids got smarter after four years. But the 2- to 4-year-olds who were spanked scored 5 points lower on the IQ test than those not spanked. For children ages 5 to 9, the spanked ones scored on average 2.8 points lower than their unspanked counterparts.

The results, he said, were statistically significant. And they held even after accounting for parental education, income, cognitive stimulation by parents and other factors that could affect children’s mental abilities.

Straus will present the study results, along with research on the relationship between average national IQ and prevalence of spanking around the world, Friday at the 14th International Conference on Violence, Abuse and Trauma, in San Diego, Calif.

Spanking science

Whether or not spanking equates with dumber kids is not known, and may never be known. That’s because the only way to truly show cause and effect would be to follow over time two groups of kids, one randomly assigned to get spanked and another who would not get spanked. Barring that method, which is unfeasible, Straus considers his study the next best thing, as he looked back at a nationally representative set of kids who were followed over time.

Jennifer Lansford of Duke University’s Center for Child and Family Policy and Social Science Research Institute called the study “interesting,” and agrees the method is a strong one. Lansford, who was not involved with the study, said following kids over time as this study did rules out the possibility that children with lower IQs somehow elicit more physical discipline.

However, unlike research showing the link between spanking and a kid’s aggressive behavior, in which kids model parents’ actions, this link is less clear to her. She added that a question still left unanswered is “what are some of the other mechanisms that could be responsible for this link between physical discipline and lower IQ?”

How spanking harms

If spanking does send IQ scores down, Straus and others offer some explanations for what might be going on.

“Contrary to what everyone believes, being hit by parents is a traumatic experience,” Straus said. “We know from lots of research that traumatic stresses affect the brain adversely.” Also, the trauma could cause kids to have more stressful responses in difficult situations, and so may not perform as well cognitively.

By using hitting rather than words or other means of discipline, parents could be depriving kids of learning opportunities. “With spanking, a parent is delivering a punishment to get the child’s attention and to get them to behave in a certain way,” said Elizabeth Gershoff who studies childhood development at the University of Texas, Austin. “It’s not fostering children’s independent thinking.”

So when a child gets in a bind, he or she might do the right thing to keep from a spanking rather than figuring out the best decision independently, added Gershoff, who was not involved in Straus’s current study.

And then there are genes, as some kids are just born smarter than others.

Even though spanking has been shown to cause negative consequences, Gershoff said many parents still fall back on the behavior-shaping tool. As for why, she says it’s a quick fix, though its seeming success is short-lived and the negative consequences often outweigh the positives. Parents also might have been spanked themselves and so continue the tradition.

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Sydney dust storm

Posted on September 23, 2009 by Michael

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Well, let’s just internalize the whole damn world

Posted on September 22, 2009 by Michael

Christ.

Today’s moment-of-pause has been brought to you by Wal-Mart and the city of Peoria, Az. Apparently, some photo-clerk vigilante, diligently on the lookout for child pornography, saw photos of kids during bath time and decided to call the cops, according to a story on Good Morning America.

Next thing the parents of these kids knew, the children were removed from their home. For an entire month. Mom got suspended from her job for a year and both — Anthony and Lisa Demaree — were added to a list of sex offenders. The judge in the case said the pix were harmless.

“I don’t understand it at all,” Anthony Demaree told GMA, with his wife by his side. “Ninety, 95 percent of the families out there in America have these exact same photos.”

Now they’ve got another shot to take. This time it’s directed at Wal-Mart and their hometown.

I’ve long railed against the stupidity of rule internalization. This is where someone is aware of a rule or law and applies it to inappropriate situations; they ignore the reason for the rule in favor of the rule itself. It is an exercise in infringing upon the rights of others for no other reason than to be a tattle-tale.

The above case is awful. No sexual deviancy was at hand. No harm was present for anyone. There was no issue. All that happened was that someone noticed a rule and sought to enforce it without any good reason. Perhaps the Wal-Mart clerk was being overly cautious, not maliciously stupid. But the police? And child services? And Lisa Demaree’s employer? None had concern for reason. They have all apparently reached a point where the very ideas of rules take precedence over what is right, what is just, what is good, what is reasoned.

Filed under: News | Tagged: , , | 1 Comment »

Well, let's just internalize the whole damn world

Posted on September 22, 2009 by Michael

Christ.

Today’s moment-of-pause has been brought to you by Wal-Mart and the city of Peoria, Az. Apparently, some photo-clerk vigilante, diligently on the lookout for child pornography, saw photos of kids during bath time and decided to call the cops, according to a story on Good Morning America.

Next thing the parents of these kids knew, the children were removed from their home. For an entire month. Mom got suspended from her job for a year and both — Anthony and Lisa Demaree — were added to a list of sex offenders. The judge in the case said the pix were harmless.

“I don’t understand it at all,” Anthony Demaree told GMA, with his wife by his side. “Ninety, 95 percent of the families out there in America have these exact same photos.”

Now they’ve got another shot to take. This time it’s directed at Wal-Mart and their hometown.

I’ve long railed against the stupidity of rule internalization. This is where someone is aware of a rule or law and applies it to inappropriate situations; they ignore the reason for the rule in favor of the rule itself. It is an exercise in infringing upon the rights of others for no other reason than to be a tattle-tale.

The above case is awful. No sexual deviancy was at hand. No harm was present for anyone. There was no issue. All that happened was that someone noticed a rule and sought to enforce it without any good reason. Perhaps the Wal-Mart clerk was being overly cautious, not maliciously stupid. But the police? And child services? And Lisa Demaree’s employer? None had concern for reason. They have all apparently reached a point where the very ideas of rules take precedence over what is right, what is just, what is good, what is reasoned.

Filed under: News | Tagged: , , | 1 Comment »

CVS fined for deceptively peddling alternative 'medicine'

Posted on September 19, 2009 by Michael

Sorry for the redundant post title. I suppose there is no way to peddle alternative medicine without also being deceptive. That’s the whole point of all these snake oil salesmen.

Anyway, CVS has been fined $2.8 million for marketing a dietary supplement called AirShield. They made the claim that it could “prevent colds, fight germs, and boost immune systems”, all without evidence. Pesky thing, that.

“Students returning to college campuses and parents sending their kids off to school want to take precautions to fight the germs that can cause coughs, colds, and the flu,” said David Vladeck, Director of the Bureau of Consumer Protection of the Federal Trade Commission. “As the CDC has advised, there are good practices to follow. But consumers should not be misled by false claims about the germ-fighting properties of dietary supplements. With orders against Airborne, Rite Aid, and the one proposed against CVS, manufacturers and retailers are on notice that they have to tell the truth about what dietary supplements can and cannot do.”

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