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| Helen Thomas's Reputation | ||||
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Schopenhauer’s pessimism has had few defenders over the past two centuries, but one has recently emerged, in the South African philosopher David Benatar, author of a fine book with an arresting title: “Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming into Existence.”Singer sounds quite sympathetic to the arguments, but in the end outs himself as an optimist after all. That's a shame in the way; I would find it quite funny if he joined a philosophical movement that seemed to want to apologise for drawing breath, and causing a new icky human life form to trod the earth.
The researcher is keen to point out that this has nothing to do with the discredited idea that vaccination causes autism.Children with autism appear to have a characteristic chemical signature in their urine which might form the basis of an early diagnostic test for the condition.
The finding also adds weight the hypothesis that substances released by gut bacteria are contributing to the onset of the condition.
The next step is to confirm the results in a much larger group of age-matched children, as well as following high-risk children from birth in order to identify whether there are markers that precede the development of autistic symptoms.
The wild Asian elephant wrapped its trunk around Parul Chambu Gong's husband and dragged him, kicking and screaming, into the forest.
There aren't too many of them in Bangladesh, but those who get angry at being shoo-ed away from crops can be mean:His badly damaged corpse was recovered some hours later, and the father-of-five joined the list of an increasing number of Bangladeshis killed by wild elephants each year.
"I've seen an elephant snatch a torch from a man with its trunk while we were driving away a herd, and throw the flame on a house setting it on fire," said Luise, 51.I guess it's just lucky that it's hard for an elephant to hold a box of matches with feet like that
Meanwhile, there has been no official word yet from China after backroom comments Mr Rudd made during last year's Copenhagen climate change conference were reported in an essay by the Herald journalist David Marr. ''Those Chinese f---ers are trying to ratf--k us,'' Mr Rudd reportedly told a group of journalists and officials during a background briefing.While our socially inept Opposition Leader doesn't know when to stop talking politics at an Italian Day function:
At this point, many in the 500-strong audience became agitated, murmuring among themselves that their guest was using the event to play politics.This is the most depressing election choice in the history of Australian politics.Mr Abbott kept trying to make his point, but much of the last part of his speech was almost lost as crowd members yelled at him to keep politics out of the event. One man stood up, telling the Opposition Leader: ''I'm sorry Tony, this is not a political forum.''
"This doesn't question the actuality, and the seriousness, of man-made climate change in any way," says Matthias Huss, a glaciologist at the University of Fribourg in Switzerland, who led the study. "But what we do see is that current glacier retreat might be equally due to natural climate variations as it is to anthropogenic greenhouse warming."
The price of the Opposition Leader’s plus 8 rating among men aged 35 to 49 is consistently poor numbers across all other groups: younger and older men, and all women.His problem is, officially, with women.
Abbott turns off women of all ages at roughly the same rate - minus 10 - unlike Rudd, who has the young on his side.
Abbott is also in the red with men aged 18 to 34, where his net rating is minus 6. This is possibly the most interesting distinction of all because this is the group where Rudd has residual respect, notwithstanding his reversal on climate change.
Perhaps young people see through Abbott’s tough-guy pose, while adults and seniors see through Rudd’s pretence of having a personal connection to middle Australia.
As to why Abbott is more popular with middle aged men:
The Opposition Leader is increasingly popular with men aged 35 to 49, a sign that the triathlons have impressed blokes confronting midlife crises.Well, that's kind of embarrassing for my own gender and age cohort.
I have to say first that, of course, it's just stupidly easy to get your hands on socks-knocking-off-good cheese in France. On my very first day here, my friend Julia and I went down the street and randomly came home with a wedge of Brie from Melun so good, so soft and so sticky and so rich and woodsy and creamy that I caught her talking to it the next day. "Hey, Brie," she purred after getting home from work. "I've been thinking about you, baby. You been thinking about me?" (No, really. That happened.)All of the article is good; you should read it.
| The Colbert Report | Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c | |||
| Lisa Miller | ||||
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What I found from actually studying eunuchs in history is they were not wimps, as our modern presumption is, these were the most powerful people in government. From one end of Asia to another, for the last 3,500 years, the most stable governments were run by castrated people, and we actually know why. This is unpublished, but with a colleague we've been studying people who wish to be castrated, a very strange group of people, we ran what's called the big five personality test, and we now know what it actually means to have no balls, and it isn't what most people think. The major personality change appears to be in agreeability, which may sound to a macho male like somebody who just obligingly agrees with everybody, but if you actually look at the roles that eunuchs played in history, they had to be great negotiators, they had to be empathetic and listen to both sides of an argument in order to maintain a stable government. That skill is enhanced by getting off testosterone.In the Australian context, it's hard to imagine Kevin Rudd being oversupplied with testosterone; I think his problems are more just a personality defect.
Amanda Monti, 24, flew into a rage when Geoffrey Jones, 37, rejected her advances at the end of a house party, Liverpool Crown Court heard.She pulled off his left testicle and tried to swallow it, before spitting it out. A friend handed it back to Mr Jones saying: "That's yours."
The Shimizu Corporation, a Japanese construction firm, has recently proposed a plan to harness solar energy on a larger scale than almost any previously proposed concept. Their ambitious plan involves building a belt of solar cells around the Moon’s 6,800-mile (11,000-kilometer) equator, converting the electricity to powerful microwaves and lasers to be beamed at Earth, and finally converting the beams back to electricity at terrestrial power stations. The Luna Ring concept, the company says, could meet the entire world's energy needs.Someone there must be looking for free publicity. I like the first comment:
Pfffft I say Dyson Sphere or bust!
Mohenjo-daro, a ruined city in what is now Pakistan that contains the last traces of a 4,000-year-old civilisation that flourished on the banks of the river Indus, today entered the modern history books after government meteorologists recorded a temperature of 53.7C (129F). Only Al 'Aziziyah, in Libya (57.8C in 1922), Death valley in California (56.7 in 1913) and Tirat Zvi in Israel (53.9 in 1942) are thought to have been hotter.This article does go on to talk about how hot 2010 is shaping up to be globally, and ends on a cautious note about how some think this is part of "long-term climate change". (Note: journalists still seem too spooked to talk too clearly of AGW.)Temperatures in the nearest town, Larkana, have been only slightly lower in the last week, with 53C recorded last Wednesday. As the temperatures peaked, four people died, including a prisoner serving a life sentence for murder and an elderly woman. Dozens are said to have fainted.
The extreme heat was exacerbated by chronic power cuts which have prevented people from using air-conditioning. The electricity has cut out for eight hours each day as part of a severe load-shedding regime that has caused riots in other parts of Pakistan where cities are experiencing a severe heatwave with temperatures of between 43C and 47C.
