<Manhattan Nanny Is Convicted in Murders of Two Children>

<Yoselyn Ortega (YOH'-sih-lihn ohr-TAY'-guh) bludgeoned 6-year-old Lucia Krim and 2-year-old Leo Krim in October 2012>

I heard this idiot on the radio yesterday:

<One of the jurors took off his glasses and wiped the tears pouring down his cheeks.>

What is it with these idiots?

So "against"convicting murderers?

These are the folks who are "against"
the death penalty, after several
"death penalties" have been inflicted.

...and what the heck is this:

<Yoselyn Ortega (YOH'-sih-lihn ohr-TAY'-guh)>

Is that such a complex name?
Is this a new political correctness:

Who knows, maybe the juror was crying because he heard about how this evil pig smashed her two kids to death. I don't know, but either way, all this weakness sickens me.

<Notice the bandwagon approach?>

http://www.darwinthenandnow.com/201...

<The industry’s longest-running research experiment reached a milestone in October studying the evolution of more than 68,000 generations. Biologist Richard Lenski started the now legendary experiment in his laboratory early in 1988 with just 12 flasks seeded with genetically identical bacteria known as Escherichia coli (E. coli). The bacteria have since been growing in a carefully measured solution of glucose, a type of sugar – “food” for bacteria.

Each flask contained just a sparse amount of glucose to create a stressful environment along with a high concentration of citrate, a molecular close cousin of glucose, pushing the bacteria to evolve. Every day, since 1988, Lenski’s laboratory team has transferred a small sample into new 50 mL Erlenmeyer flasks. Although wanting to quit this laborious experiment many times, Lenski has continued this process non-stop for over 30 years – now recognized as the industry’s longest evolution experiment dead-end.

Model
Bacteria have been extremely important in studying evolution. The University of Colorado’s website entitled Bacteria as a Model System asserts that bacteria have “been one of the great vindications of the theory of evolution.”

Enduring the permeating annoyance of E. coli’s infamous reeking putrid smell, Richard Lenski’s (right) lab at Michigan State University embraced a design for what has become the most widely recognized experiment to test the star of the evolution industry. Bacteria offer scientists a fast-forward glimpse of evolution.

Reproductive rates, often measured in doubling-times, allow scientists to track and trend changes over short periods of time. The higher the doubling-time, the greater the number of generations available to study over the same time. In bacteria, while the doubling-times average 20 minutes, in humans the doubling-time requires 20 years. Writing for Science Alert, Fiona MacDonald puts the comparison between bacteria and human evolution into context –

“Scientists have spent the past 30 years carefully tracking evolution across more than 68,000 generations of E. coli bacteria – the equivalent of more than 1 million years of human evolution.”>

Read the rest.

http://www.breitbart.com/big-hollyw...

After 2 issues I was disgusted with it. Would never consider buying even 1 single issue ever again. I don't even read any of it in the bookstore, where I could read a little bit without actually buying.

They talk down to their readers - you don't know about this; you don't know about that... blah blah blah. I guess they assume their readers are ignorant of most things?

I came across this article on Breitbart and found it interesting, if not all too predictable, so I read it. It disgusted me, as many things do nowadays, but it was worth sharing. The Breitbart article is great, but the PC of GQ is disgusting.

25 descriptors of eccentricity listed in descending order of importance:

Enduring non-conformity

Creativity

Strongly motivated by an exceedingly powerful curiosity and related exploratory behavior

An enduring and distinct feeling of differentness from others Idealism

Happily obsessed with a number of long-lasting preoccupations (usually about five or six)

Intelligent, in the upper fifteen per cent of the population on tests of intelligence

Opinionated and outspoken, convinced of being right and that the rest of the of the world is out of step with them

Non-competitive

Not necessarily in need of reassurance or reinforcement from the rest of society

Unusual eating habits and living arrangements

Not particularly interested in the opinions or company of other people, except perhaps in order to persuade them to their contrary point of view

Possessed of a mischievous sense of humor, charm, whimsy, and wit

More frequently an eldest or an only child

Eccentricity observed in at least 36% of detailed family histories, usually a grandparent, aunt, or uncle. (It should be noted that the family history method of estimating hereditary similarities and resemblances usually provides rather conservative estimates.)

Eccentrics prefer to talk about their thoughts rather than their feelings. There is a frequent use of the psychological defense mechanisms of rationalization and intellectualization.

Slightly abrasive

Midlife changes in career or lifestyle

Feelings of “invisibility” which means that they believe other people did not seem to hear them or see them, or take their ideas seriously

Feel that others can only take them in small doses

Feel that others have stolen, or would like to steal, their ideas. In some cases, this is well-founded.

Dislike small talk or other apparently inconsequential conversation A degree of social awkwardness

More likely to be single, separated, or divorced, or multiply separated or divorced

A poor speller, in relation to their above average general intellectual functioning

Oh, but why is this even here? Do eccentrics have "feelings"? :)

Rather than posting all that describe me, at least 50% I'll post those that don't, by process of elimination you can discern the ones that do.

"Happily obsessed with a number of long-lasting preoccupations (usually about five or six)" Not me and not relevant, in my eccentric opinion.

"More frequently an eldest or an only child "
Possibly relevant, but probably not.

"Midlife changes in career or lifestyle "

I started my current job at 32, so this doesn't apply to me, really, but I understand why this may be the case. However, this is fairly normal regardless of personality type.

A poor speller, in relation to their above average general intellectual functioning.

I use spell checker, so my spelling is impeckibal.

I play the French defense, Dutch defense.
I have to be!>

Heretic!

Frenchy is bad enough, but at least Korchnoi was a practitioner. I liked Korchnoi because he was rancorous, especially toward the darling Communist Karpov.

Talk about a glutton for punishment.

By the way, I've noticed that a lot of players who specialize in the French also play the Dutch quite a bit. I prefer the Leningrad variation over the classical Dutch, but I do play the Stonewall from time to time. In the Leningrad I finally switched from 7...Qe8 to 7...c6.

And now for some truth:

That's actually two characteristics, but I missed that at first because they were on the same line.>

That is correct. I just noticed it myself. For some reason the bullet pointed article didn't paste well, so I had to go to the end of each sentence and hit enter to create a space. I missed "Idealism" in this process. Glad you pointed it out.

I scored myself for about 18 out of 25.

I figure the one place where we all differ is "Feel like others can only take them in small doses"

My point is that although I'd like the world to be a better place, doesn't mean that I am strictly speaking an idealist or an optimist. I think that any good person would want that. One can want that and still be a gloomy pessimist or at least a realist.>

Yes, this is an interesting point. I think you are right in sensing some ambiguity and I think I agree with you, if Idealism describes a worldview or philosophy, but does it? Yes, the ambiguity!

The more I think about it, the less clear it becomes.

I think the definition given in celebratingeccentrics.com is a bit facile. I understand a Dr. wrote the article and I'm sure he knows what he's talking about, but in this specific case, the way he used the word idealism seems superficial.

In fact, he seems to use it to describe an attitude more than a philosophy. The operative word being "want", as in "wanting" to make the world a better place. Such a thing as "wanting" expresses an attitude more than a philosophy, so in this case "idealism" can be thought of as a word describing an attitude.

But as you may know, Idealism is usually a word that describes a philosophy, a set of metaphysical ideas.

From the wikipedia article on Idealism, <In philosophy, Idealism is the group of metaphysical philosophies that asserts that reality, or reality as humans can know it, is fundamentally mental, mentally constructed, or otherwise immaterial. >

So in this case, and I think we agree that this is the normal, more common usage of the word, it describes a philosophy, and in that case, one may be an optimist or a pessimist and still be an Idealist.

Very interesting is the following, also from the Wiki article, <Epistemologically, idealism manifests as a skepticism about the possibility of knowing any mind-independent thing.

In contrast to Materialism, Idealism asserts the primacy of consciousness as the origin and prerequisite of material phenomena. According to this view consciousness exists before and is the pre-condition of material existence. Consciousness creates and determines the material and not vice versa. Idealism believes consciousness and mind to be the origin of the material world and aims to explain the existing world according to these principles>

In this light, all people who think that your beliefs can orchestrate the circumstances in life, usually thought of as beyond your control, are idealists. Success coaches like Napoleon Hill and Dale Carnegie come to mind. They teach that you must believe in your success as though it is already manifest, long before it has manifest, and once you believe in that, reality will conform to your belief.

They had these ideas in the early 1900s, but they were confirmed in a scientific sense at the end of the 20th century, to at least some degree.

In the article titled "Quantum Theory Demonstrated: Observation Affects Reality" authored by the Weizmann Institute Of Science, we read in a study on quantum theory that the consciousness of the observer has an effect on the behavior of subatomic particles.

The summary of the article given at sciencedaily.com: <One of the most bizarre premises of quantum theory, which has long fascinated philosophers and physicists alike, states that by the very act of watching, the observer affects the observed reality. >

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releas...

And thus we have scientific evidence of the truth of this aspect of realism.

<REHOVOT, Israel, February 26, 1998--One of the most bizarre premises of quantum theory, which has long fascinated philosophers and physicists alike, states that by the very act of watching, the observer affects the observed reality.

In a study reported in the February 26 issue of Nature (Vol. 391, pp. 871-874), researchers at the Weizmann Institute of Science have now conducted a highly controlled experiment demonstrating how a beam of electrons is affected by the act of being observed. The experiment revealed that the greater the amount of "watching," the greater the observer's influence on what actually takes place.>

This strongly implies that belief itself, a seemingly abstract object, is actually causally efficacious!

If this is accepted as true, then the power of the Will does lie, as Jesus as implied, in using one's faith.

I think that a person can be idealistic without being religious, but such a person would tend to be very tolerant of religion.

I prefer the Leningrad variation over the classical Dutch,>

Of course you do, pinko.

Leningrad was the Czar's capital, called St. Petersburg. It is where the Commies started their revolution.

http://www.thechesspiece.com/prodim...

<Wow, you guys are sick. You call people with mental illness crazy? Really? How immature. >

Ah, yes, I do call people with mental illness "crazy".