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The Hidden Cost of the Iraq War - Infographic Movie
Such a beautifully done movie for such a sad subject -- from the people at GOOD.
"In 2003, Donald Rumsfeld estimated a war with Iraq would cost $60 billion. Five years later, the cost of Iraq war operations is more than 10 times that estimate. So what's behind the ballooning figures?"
Click thru at http://www.good.is/?p=12104 for the high-res version Such a beautifully done movie for such a sad subject -- from the people at GOOD. ... more -
Examining the Lucifer Effect
“The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing.”
—Albert Einstein
“In threatening and survival situations, we look for evidence of hope—a small sign that the situation may improve. When an abuser/controller shows the victim some small kindness, even though it is to the abuser's benefit as well, the victim interprets that small kindness as a positive trait of the captor. In criminal/war hostage situations, letting the victim live is often enough,” writes Dr. Joseph M. Carver in his article “Love and Stockholm Syndrome: The Mystery of Loving an Abuser.”
As with many hostages of the FARC (Fuerzas Armadas Colombians or Colombian Armed Forces), or with the famous publishing heiress Patty Hearst after she was abducted by the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA), some kidnapped individuals are known to develop a psychological condition known as Stockholm Syndrome—named for an event in Sweden where a pair of criminals kept hostages in Stockholm’s Kreditbanken bank for six days in August 1973.
When police rescued these captives who had been held for 131 hours and faced violent threats and abuse, they actually feared the law enforcement personnel. They had come to believe that their captors were protecting them from the police. Even more surprising, one of the hostages got engaged to her captor while another helped aid the criminals in their defense.
Such behavior seems out of step with what should be expected in these situations. What would lead an individual to befriend or even protect a captor? According to modern psychology, the most rational explanation for Stockholm Syndrome stems from a natural fear victims develop due to the physical risk the situation exposes them to, creating a total obedience toward their captors. In this environment, the subject restructures his or her value system in a confused manner, unconsciously coming to defend the same ideals as the assailant.
The Milgram Experiment
Some, like Dr. Carver, believe that the symptoms of Stockholm Syndrome can develop in abusive interpersonal relationships as well, such as in battered women who refuse to press charges on their abusive spouses, even after enduring years of mental and physical assault. While a majority of people are unlikely to face these circumstances, other situations involving a powerful authority figure can still bring about unexpected behavior.
The Milgram experiment, a psychological test developed in 1961 by a scientist of the same name, shocked the scientific community with its implications for individuals with seemingly stable mental faculties.
A year after the execution of Nazi Lieutenant Colonel and Holocaust promoter Adolf Eichman, Stanley Milgram wondered how it was possible for otherwise stable, even peaceful, individuals to degenerate to the point where they contribute to genocide.
With this idea in mind, Milgram enlisted numerous volunteers of sound mental health to take a simple test. Acting as “the teacher,” one subject would administer electric shocks to a fellow participant, called “the learner,” when that person answered a question incorrectly. With each incorrect response the voltage would be increased, and the cries and supplications of the learner would match the intensity of the rising voltage. The teachers were told that they were helping to develop a new system of learning, but they had no idea that the electric shocks were fake or that the learner was a professional actor.
But despite cries of pain and torment from the learner, the teacher was found, again and again, to continue to administer the increasingly painful shocks. Even though the majority of the 40 psychologists assessing the project predicted that none of the teachers would continue the experiment past 150 volts, two-thirds of the participants, blindly obeying the experimenter’s insistence that “the shocks are required to continue,” applied the maximum possible—450 volts.****CONTINUES “The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing.” ... more -
800,000 poor Dominican homes to get help with cooking gas this month
Some 800,000 of the most impoverished Dominican households will receive as of the 25th of this month a subsidy to buy cooking gas with the "Bonogas" card distributed by the government through the Solidarity Program, headed by vice president Rafael Alburquerque.
The investment,whose monthly allocations is RD$ million, will benefit around 4 million Dominicans whose receive RD$228 each month for the purchase of gas.
Alburquerque said the program will include 400,000 new homes that participate in the program "Eating is First" and also receive the benefit of subsidized gas.
He said to date 200,000 Visa electronic cards have been distributedto for use in the 700 gas stations participating in the program and the remaining 200,000 cards expected before next Saturday.
He said that with the targeted gas subsidies, the government will save RD $6.0 billion per year. Some 800,000 of the most impoverished Dominican households will receive as of the 25th of this month a subsidy to buy cooking gas with... more -
Children are born with a natural sense of good.
Research finds that children are born with a natural disposition to empathize with others.
The study showed that empathy appeared to be "hard-wired" into the brains of normal children and was not entirely the product of nurturing or good parenting.
Further findings conclude that this was only true with boys. Girls seem to born naturally mean and like animals may not have souls !! . ha ha... ok .. the last part I made up !!!I
Anyway, I liked this info, shows that maybe we humans might not be born bad. Research finds that children are born with a natural disposition to empathize with others. ... more -
Good Friday parade, Jesus's cross
A gathering in the town centre for the Good Friday parade, a symbol of this is when the cross Jesus carried is brought to the centre of the town square, carried by hand all the way. A gathering in the town centre for the Good Friday parade, a symbol of this is when the cross Jesus carried is brought to the centre o... more
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This man can actually predict the future!
...Bueno de Mesquita has big ideas, and he's more than happy to put his career on the line for them. Back in March 2004, when al-Qaeda bombed a Madrid train station, influencing the course of Spain's general election three days later, a lot of U.S. security folks were nervous. Worried that al-Qaeda might try something similar here in the run-up to the November, 2004, presidential elections, the Pentagon hired Bueno de Mesquita to run some data through his forecasting model to tell them what to expect. The results were unequivocal. "I said there would be no homeland attack. I also indicated that bin Laden's second-in-command, Ayman al-Zawahiri, would resurface around Thanksgiving, 2004," he says. Just after the elections in November that year, Zawahiri released a new videotape. Bueno de Mesquita was right on both counts. "One of the things government needs most is advice that's not wishy-washy. I try to be as precise as I can." ...Bueno de Mesquita has big ideas, and he's more than happy to put his career on the line for them. Back in March 2004, when al-... more
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If it ain't broke...
A list of things that are oldies but still goodies.
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GOOD Magazine: Guest Edit Introduction
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