Topic: Fourth Reich Blues
RED GENES, BLUE GENES

THE NEW YORK TIMES

Political scientists have long held that people's upbringing and experiences determine their political views. A child raised on peace protests and Bush-loathing generally tracks left as an adult, unless derailed by some powerful life experience. One raised on tax protests and a hatred of Kennedys usually lists to the right.

On the basis of a new study, however, a team of political scientists is arguing that people's gut reaction to issues such as the death penalty, taxes and abortion is strongly influenced by genetic inheritance. The research builds on studies that indicate that people's general approach to social issues is influenced by genes.

Environmental influences such as upbringing, the study suggests, play a more central role in party affiliation as a Democrat or Republican, much as they do in a person's affiliation with a sports team.

The report, which appears in the current issue of the American Political Science Review, uses genetics to answer several open questions in political science.

They include why some people defect from the party in which they were raised and why some campaigns, such as the 2004 presidential election, turn into verbal blood sport, though polls find little disparity in most Americans' views on specific issues such as gun control and affirmative action.



NATURE AND NURTURE

Geneticists who study behavior and personality have known for 30 years that genes play a large role in people’s instinctive emotional responses to certain issues — their social temperament.

It is not that opinions on specific issues are written into a person's DNA. Rather, genes prime people to respond cautiously or openly to the mores of a social group.

Only recently have researchers begun to examine how these predispositions, in combination with experiences, shape political behavior.

In the study, three political scientists combed survey data from two large continuing studies that include more than 8,000 sets of twins.

From a battery of surveys on personality traits, religious beliefs and other psychological factors, the researchers selected 28 questions most relevant to political behavior.

The questions asked people about issues including property taxes, capitalism, unions and X-rated movies. Most of the twins had a mixture of conservative and liberal views. But overall, they leaned slightly one way or the other.

The researchers then compared dizygotic or fraternal twins, who, like any biological siblings, share 50 percent of their genes, with monozygotic, or identical, twins, who share 100 percent of their genes.

Calculating how often identical twins agree on an issue and subtracting the rate at which fraternal twins agree on the same item provides a rough measure of genes’ influence on that attitude. A shared family environment for twins raised together is assumed.

On school prayer, for example, the identical twins' opinions correlated at a rate of 0.66, a measure of how often they agreed. The correlation rate for fraternal twins was 0.46. This translated into a 41 percent contribution from inheritance.

As found in previous studies, attitudes about issues such as school prayer, property taxes and the draft were among the most influenced by inheritance, the researchers found. Others such as modern art and divorce were less so. And in the twins'; overall score, derived from 28 questions, genes accounted for 53 percent of the differences.

But after correcting for the tendency of politically likeminded men and women to marry each other, the researchers also found that the twins'; self-identification as Republican or Democrat was far more dependent on environmental factors such as upbringing and life experience than was their social orientation, which the researchers call ideology.

Inheritance accounted for 14 percent of the difference in party, the researchers found.



UNDER SCRUTINY

The study's senior author, John Hibbing of the University of Nebraska, said his research team found the large difference in heritability between ideology and party affiliation difficult to believe but that it held up.

The implications of this difference may be far-reaching, the authors argue.

For years, political scientists tried in vain to learn how family dynamics such as closeness between parents and children or the importance of politics in a household influenced political ideology. The study suggests that an inherited social orientation may overwhelm the more subtle effects of family dynamics.

A mismatch between an inherited social orientation and a given party may also explain why some people defect from a party. Many people who are genetically conservative may be brought up as Democrats, and some who are genetically more liberal may be raised as Republicans, the researchers say.

In tracking attitudes over the years, geneticists have found that social attitudes tend to stabilize in the late teens and early 20s, when young people begin to fend for themselves.

Some "mismatched" people remain loyal to their family's political party. And circumstances can override inherited bent. The draft may look like a good idea until your number is up. The death penalty may seem barbaric until a loved one is killed.

The researchers are not optimistic about the future of bipartisan cooperation or national unity. Because men and women tend to seek mates with a similar ideology, they say, the two gene pools are becoming, if anything, more concentrated, not less.

Reichskanzler Bush and his cohorts may start to rethink their position on human cloning if they ever become cognizant of this study!!!

The Republiscum Paulists are the only ones really pro-creating in this cuntry at a rate that can rival those who traditionally become Democrats...Blacks and Hispanics...and the recent "majority" that got GW into the White House is precarious at best, and we all know how much they have been looking foward to their thousand-year rule.

A Wal-Mart nation
Topic: Voodoo Economics 101
The big bad
By Melinda Welsh

Let's deal with the size issue in one obit-like paragraph:

Wal-Mart is the most giant corporation in the world. It's the largest retailer, grocer, private employer and jeweler, and--oh yeah--it owns the nation's largest trucking fleet. The company is also the richest one in the world, employing one out of every 115 Americans. If Wal-Mart were a sovereign nation, its gross domestic product would be larger than that of 80 percent of the world's countries.

Phew, that's a lot of large. But does big have to be bad? It's a good question for Sacramento citizens to ponder right now, since a Wal-Mart Supercenter may be plunked into Downtown Plaza soon, despite some indications to the contrary.

A just-published paperback by occasional SN&R contributor John Dicker may help inquiring minds find the answer. The United States of Wal-Mart--which doesn't pretend to be neutral about the retail giant everybody loves to hate--is a compelling and irreverent read that provides everything a reader ever wanted to know (and then some) about the empire that Sam Walton built.

It details Walton's personal story: his storied childhood; his retail rise; and his most triumphant victories over Sears, Kmart and JCPenney. Readers get a good feel (satirical stereotypes notwithstanding) for what the Wal-Mart ethos is really all about--the down-home, thrift-rules philosophy (everyday low prices!) that Walton managed to steep deep down into his company's stew.

The United States of Wal-Mart was clearly written by an author who is both horrified and fascinated by his subject matter. The book is broken into two parts. The first, credits much of Wal-Mart's success, interestingly, to its vast and intricate data-mining operation. The mega-corporation's database carries virtual oceans of information, the better to wipe out costs and competition. Wal-Mart owns the largest satellite and computer systems outside of government and is ultra-adept at using this advantage when it comes to buying, stocking and sell-sell-selling. In "Size Matters," Dicker also touches--perhaps not enough--on how Wal-Mart, with its $256.3 billion in annual sales worldwide, is the muscle behind the push for globalization, siphoning off good manufacturing jobs from industrialized countries to developing nations.

The second half of the book, "The United States of Wal-Mart," puts a focus on Wal-Mart's influence from a political and cultural standpoint. The company is the second-largest corporate political-action committee in the country, giving mostly to Republican candidates, especially President George W. Bush. So, its political influence is strong. Dicker examines its cultural influence based on what it does and doesn't allow on its shelves. But it's oversimplifying to label Wal-Mart a flat-out censor, warns Dicker. Better to ask a question: "Are Wal-Mart's conservative tendencies shaping the larger culture in its own image?"

What's the future for this massive company? According to Dicker, it's more growth and more controversy. Famous for its union-busting ways and what Dicker calls "everyday low wages," Wal-Mart's 2002 plan to enter California with 40 new Supercenters was the real spark that ignited, in Southern California, the longest and most bitter grocery-worker strike in recent history.

There is no denying, at least for now, that the Wal-Mart cheap-and-homogenous ethos dominates, to a near-religious degree, in populist America. We've become crazy for a good bargain. After all, writes Dicker, "How do you convince a poor person that a $28 DVD player sucks?" Still, the author wants to know: Why is it that all we Americans can agree about, at this pivotal point in history, is our right to "everyday low prices"?

First response to a query letter
Topic: Work in Progress
My fingers are crossed as i just submitted in response to this answer---

I honestly am taking on very little new ficiton at the moment, since as a oneperson agency I am basically full up, but if you'd like to e-mail me say the first 5-10 pages I will take a look. Please send as a Word attachment, orcut andpaste into e-mail. Also do tell me whether anything you've written has been published, and ifso what and where. Thanks.

i was so excited that i forgot to tell her whether i published anything...hoefully she will be so overcome by the POWER of my little Joycean tome that she will overlook that!!!!

Fair & Balanced Tax Cuts
Topic: Dittohead Dogma
This is part of an editorial in today's Sacramento Bee---

Editorial: Shared sacrifice? Nope, Robin Hood in reverse

Published 2:15 am PDT Sunday, June 12, 2005
George W. Bush said in the 2000 presidential campaign that the majority of his proposed tax cuts would go to the "bottom end of the spectrum." And the president has said of his tax cuts, passed by Congress in 2001, 2002 and 2003: "Everyone who pays income taxes benefits - while the highest percentage tax cuts go to the lowest income Americans."
A chart in the June 5 issue of the New York Times shows just how false his statements have been. Bush's three rounds of tax cuts have gone to the highest-income households at a time when income has become more and more concentrated at the top.


This has had serious consequences for the nation.
The Bush tax cuts have contributed to a dramatic drop in tax revenues as a portion of the U.S. economy. Where revenues typically have been 17 percent to 20 percent of the economy, according to the Congressional Budget Office, in 2004 they were 16.3 percent - the lowest level since 1950. That makes it more difficult to pay for government services, including the ongoing war in Iraq.

In short, the Bush tax cuts have had the effect of turning budget surpluses into huge deficits. And the greatest share of tax cuts have gone to those who need them least.

Just look at the people at the top of the income scale, the 145,000 Americans who make more than $1.6 million a year. Those 145,000 taxpayers have received 15.2 percent of the Bush tax cuts.

Then look at the 116 million people making less than $44,000 a year. They received just 15.1 percent of Bush's tax cuts.

For that bottom 60 percent of Americans, the average tax cut was $328 - 90 cents a day. In contrast, the average tax cut for the 0.1 percent making over $1.6 million a year was $195,762; that's $536 a day.

====================================
While Richard Nixon will always be remembered for Watergate, many people have forgotten that fiscally, he was faced with one of the greatest challenges since FDR!

What he did in 1971 would be considered subversive communism by today's dittoheads, and as George the Second continues to plunge this country into dire straits whilst the Democrats sit quietly like lap dogs, Amerikkka is in abject need of another economic visionary as the 37th president, but the rabid partisianship now dividing this country will never let another fiscally responsible person into the White House.

The forecast for the future???

Look for the sun to also set on the american empire.

Stuff of sci-fi nightmares? An army of robots that reproduce
By Steve Connor, Science Editor
12 May 2005

It has been the dream - and nightmare - of science fiction writers for decades. Now a team of engineers has conjured up a robot that can reproduce itself.

The robot can self-replicate in much the same way that some living organisms are able to reproduce by cloning themselves.

Although the machine in question serves no useful purpose other than to make copies of itself, scientists believe it has set a precedent for a future in which robots will proliferate on their own.

In the long term, the scientists envisage a day when armies of self-replicating robots will be able mend themselves when broken, expand their population, explore space and even establish self-sustaining colonies on other planets.

Hod Lipson, a mechanical engineer at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, who led the research team, is one of a number of robot specialists who believes that machines will one day design and build themselves as a form of "artificial life".

"Self reproduction is central to biological life for long-term sustainability and evolutionary adaptation, " Professor Lipson writes with his colleagues in the journal Nature.

"Although these traits would also be desirable in many engineered systems, the principles of self reproduction have not been exploited by machine design.

"Here we create simple machines that act as autonomous modular robots and are capable to physical self-reproduction using a set of cubes."

Modular cubes called "molecubes", each of which contains the machinery and computer program necessary for replication, are at the heart of the robot's ability to self-replicate.

Electromagnets on each of the cubes' facesallow them to attach and detach themselves to another cube according to the computer's instructions.

This allows a damaged robot to jettison defective cubes and replace them by working ones or for it to construct a separate robot from scratch by building a stack of individual cubes.

When the newly-formed robot reaches a certain height it helps to finish off its own replication by adding the last molecubes to its own body.

Professor Lipson said that although the robot they have designed would only work in a laboratory, it would - in theory - be possible to adapt the design to enable self- replication to take place in space or other hazardous environments.

"Self-reproduction is an extreme case of self-repair from an engineering point of view," Professor Lipson said. "Ultimately we hope that we can build machines that can self-repair, especially in a hazardous environment when we need machines to work for an extended period without human maintenance.

"Although the machines we have created are still simple compared with biological systems, they demonstrate that mechanical self-reproduction is not unique to biology. This design concept could be useful for long-term, self-sustaining robotic systems in emerging areas such as space exploration and operation in hazardous environments, where conventional approaches to maintenance are impractical."

The researchers were able to demonstrate a robot made from four modules that could build a replica of itself in two and a half minutes by lifting and assembling the cubes from a "feeding point" on the ground.

Just in case you missed the Laura Bush joke,you can click on the link to find out about how our beloved Reichskanzler likes to milk cocks.

The growing GOP split
Topic: Dittohead Dogma
Other view: Republicans rebel against DC gang
Environmental stance and ethics issues trouble 'elders'
By Pete McCloskey -- Special To The Bee
Published 2:15 am PDT Friday, April 22, 2005

Several weeks ago, a group of lifelong Republicans, all of us of Social Security age, decided to rebel. We had been increasingly concerned by the party's drift away from traditional Republican principles such as balanced budgets, environmental protection and no governmental intrusion into individual rights such as freedom of choice.
What triggered our decision to launch a quiet revolt, however, was the unfolding scandal involving allegations about fund-raising activities and abuse of power by House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, conduct for which he had been properly admonished by the Republican-led House ethics committee under rules initiated by Republicans when they took control of the House in l994. In January, the Republican leadership, including two Northern California Republicans, U.S. Reps. John Doolittle and Richard Pombo, forced through a rules change to protect DeLay from further investigation by the ethics committee. Doolittle had benefited from the same questionable fund-raising activities of one Jack Abramoff, a lobbyist who had furnished a luxury box at an athletic event to Doolittle and foreign travel costs for DeLay and Doolittle.

Abramoff took in more than $82 million from Indian tribes, for which he is now under investigation by both the Justice Department and the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs. Two of DeLay's closest aides have been indicted, and DeLay has been admonished three times by the House ethics committee.

Doolittle's political action committee has paid commissions to his wife's special-events business, and his wife's business records were subpoenaed last summer in connection with a grand jury investigation of Abramoff.

DeLay and Pombo both paid family members from their political funds for campaign work.

We wondered, "What manner of men are these whose wives and families take money for assisting in campaigns where there is no real opposition?"

Faced with growing public knowledge of their activities, DeLay, Doolittle and Pombo led an effort to emasculate the ethics committee through a rules change that required a bipartisan vote of the evenly divided 10-member committee to even investigate an ethics charge.

This led three of the elders - former Republican U.S. Reps. Jim Johnson of Colorado, Paul Findley of Illinois and me - to write to House Speaker Dennis Hastert on Jan. 3l and again on March l7, suggesting that the former rules be reinstituted.

We got no response but learned that DeLay, Doolittle, Pombo and the House leadership had decided to remove from the committee its chairman, Joel Hefley, R-Colo., and to replace two other members with three men, each of whom had either given funds or received them from DeLay. This was too much.

We asked other former members who had served under impeccably honest leaders such as Gerry Ford and Bob Dole to join us, this time in an open letter to the House leaders. On April l4, seven other former House members from six states joined us in a letter that was the subject of a news story in the New York Times last week.

There has been no affirmative response, and it appears there will be none. The abandonment of an effective process to determine ethics complaints will continue. So, the revolt will continue.

It isn't a question of conservatives vs. moderates. The most conservative Republicans adhere to the principles of a balanced budget, honesty and accountability, the trademarks of the Republican Party since Abraham Lincoln.

Thirty-five years ago, on Earth Day l970, young people rose up in rebellion across the nation and started a movement that turned out of office five Republican incumbents who had demonstrated contempt for environmental values. It is no secret that the DeLay Republicans, and particularly Doolittle and Pombo, are of this view today. Given their way, these congressmen would dam the American and Yuba rivers, stop protection of the slowly returning salmon runs on the Klamath and Sacramento rivers, allow roads in wilderness areas, and support an increase in logging in our national forests and snowmobiles in our national parks. Perhaps worst of all, they would continue to support the administration's appointment of lobbyists from the coal, oil, utility and timber industries to run the very agencies that regulate their former employers, suppressing and rejecting the scientific opinions of their professional staffs.

It is the hope of their elders that the young people of Earth Day 2005 will rise up in revolt, as their parents did 35 years ago. It is they and their children who will enjoy the priceless wilderness of the Sierra Nevada in future years, not us elders to whom backpacking along the John Muir Trail has meant so much.

The need to save the remaining beauty of Northern California will be at that greatest of American institutions, the ballot box, in 2006. We would be honored to have those of similar views join the revolt.


About the writer:
Former U.S. Rep. Pete McCloskey was co-chairman of the first Earth Day on April 22, l970. As a member of the House Fish and Wildlife Conservation Subcommittee, he co-sponsored the National Environmental Protection Act and the Endangered Species and Marine Mammal Protection acts. Reach him at P.O. Box 3, Rumsey, CA 95679.

Topic: Voodoo Economics 101

With the economy gearing up for a downturn that is going to shock this country into realizing that you can go warring whilst tax-cutting, i just have to start a new category!!!

Ironically, the term voodoo economics came from George the First when he was running against Ronald Reagan, and the elder Bush realized then that welfare for the wealthy was no way to run a country, but i guess since his daddy lost to a man who wanted to sink billions into a "defense" system based on a fairy tale, George the Second, like most dittoheads, probably saw Ronald (6) Wilson (6) Reagan (6) as his personal lawd & saviour---ER

Dow plunges 190 points, steepest drop in 2 years

By James F. Peltz and Thomas S. Mulligan / Los Angeles Times

Stock prices suffered their hardest fall in more than two years Friday -- with the Dow Jones industrials plunging more than 190 points -- as evidence mounted that the U.S. economy's once-robust growth is slowing.

Even another drop in oil prices, to nearly $50 a barrel, couldn't ease the malaise on Wall Street amid a growing debate over whether the economy is merely hitting a soft patch, or is at risk of a more serious pullback.

Either way, "investors are in a lousy state of mind," said Al Goldman, chief market strategist at the investment firm A.G. Edwards & Sons Inc. in St. Louis. Another sharp downturn Monday could put the Dow Jones industrial average below the psychologically significant 10,000 mark.

Friday's retreat was partly a reaction to disappointing profits at IBM Corp. and a slump in consumer sentiment, as reported by a widely watched survey.

But the sell-off began Wednesday, triggered by data signaling that the stout economic growth of the past two years has slowed, hobbled in part by high energy prices. Reports on retail sales and industrial production both failed to meet expectations this week.

"This suggests an economy that is rapidly losing steam," Kathy Bostjancic, senior economist at Merrill Lynch & Co., said Friday in a note to clients.

The blue-chip average plummeted 191.24 points to 10,087.51, its steepest daily drop since March 24, 2003, and its third consecutive decline of 100 points or more -- the first time that has happened since January 2003.

That gave the Dow a loss for the week of nearly 374 points or 3.6 percent, its worst weekly showing in more than two years, and dropped the average to its lowest level since Election Day last Nov. 2. Broader market indexes also suffered sharp declines.

Some analysts said Wall Street was overreacting, contending the economy isn't in danger of falling into recession and in fact is continuing to expand at a respectable pace.

Anthony Chan, senior economist with J.P. Morgan Asset Management, said the markets have shifted in just a matter of months from believing that the economy was overheating to fearing that it would plunge into recession.

"Both of those extremes were exaggerated," Chan said.

Even so, warning signs abound. IBM -- a bellwether for technology spending -- posted a disappointing first-quarter profit after the market closed Thursday. Its shares plummeted nearly 7 percent on Friday to $76.70 a share. Because IBM is a major component of the Dow, it contributed heavily to Friday's damage on Wall Street.

The stock market is seen by many as an indicator of future economic trends, since investors are buying and selling based on whether they see the economy, corporate profits and consumer spending rising or falling in the coming months.

Stocks had rallied for the past 2 1/2 years -- with the Dow hitting a four-year peak of 10,940.55 on March 4 -- as the economy grew briskly. After the economy expanded 4.4 percent last year, its best showing in five years, many analysts predicted that growth would slow a bit this year.

One reason: The Federal Reserve, concerned that the economy was heating up inflation, has been raising short-term interest rates since mid-2004. The higher rates, combined with high energy prices, have indeed helped brake the economy, many analysts say.

Continued strong economic data in January and February probably created unrealistically high expectations for full-year growth, said Richard D. Rippe, chief economist for Prudential Securities. The March numbers were a cold shower, but that's not necessarily a bad thing, he said.

"I'm not sure the markets want booming growth," Rippe said. For one thing, the pause gives the Fed more flexibility to continue raising rates gradually or even take a break from rate increases, he said.

In any case, Joseph LaVorgna, a senior economist at Deutsche Bank Securities Inc., said the recent "lousy" economic data strikes him as merely "a pause that refreshes," rather than a sign that the economy is poised to fall off a cliff.

"We're still pretty bullish," LaVorgna said.

Indeed, another bellwether company -- the industrial conglomerate General Electric Co. -- reported an unexpectedly strong 25 percent gain in first-quarter profit Friday. Its stock rose 25 cents to $35.75 a share.

Corporate profits overall are expected to grow another 7 percent to 9 percent in the first quarter, which is down from their torrid double-digit growth last year but still a healthy advance, some analysts said. (Notice no mention of salary increases---ER)

"The economy is doing just fine, but the economic recovery is in its fourth year and it's slowing down," Goldman said. "Yet investors are looking at everything as though the glass is half-empty."

Positive signals seem to be ignored by investors hunting for data that confirm their pessimistic views, LaVorgna said. Another example is how Wall Street has largely ignored the drop in oil prices from record highs set two weeks ago.

Richard B. Hoey, chief economist at Dreyfus Corp., said that things seem to be working out according to the Fed's plan. Since the Fed started raising rates last June, he said, its goal has been to slow economic growth -- but not squelch it -- and keep inflation moderate.

Posted by eminemsrevenge at 10:23 AM EDT

Updated: Saturday, 16 April 2005 10:43 AM EDT

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