Daredevil

Fascinating news from neurology - the woman without fear:

Spiders, snakes? Brain-damaged woman knows no fear

NEW YORK – Meet SM, a 44-year-old woman who literally knows no fear.

She's not afraid to handle snakes. She's not afraid of the "The Blair Witch Project," "The Shining," or "Arachnophobia." When she visited a haunted house, it was a monster who was afraid of her.

SM isn't some cold-blooded psychopath or a hero with a tight rein on her emotions. She's an ordinary mother of three with a specific psychological impairment, the result of a very rare genetic disease that damaged a brain structure called the amygdala (uh-MIG'-duh-luh).

Her case shows that the amygdala plays a key role in making people feel afraid in threatening situations, researchers say.

Her life history also shows that living without fear can be dangerous, they said.

Well, sort of - here we go:

She apparently hasn't felt fear as an adult, not even 15 years ago in an incident described by the researchers. A man jumped up from a park bench, pressed a knife to her throat and hissed, "I'm going to cut you."

SM, who heard a church choir practicing in the distance, looked coolly at him and replied, "If you're going to kill me, you're going to have to go through my God's angels first."

The man suddenly let her go. She didn't run home. She walked.

"Her lack of fear may have freaked the guy out," Feinstein said.

But it also got her into that situation in the first place, he noted. SM had willingly approached the man when he asked her to, even though it was late at night and she was alone, and even though she thought he looked "drugged out."

SM has also walked into other dangerous situations because of her lack of fear, and all in all, it's remarkable she's still alive, Feinstein said.

I am hazy as to just what they mean by "fear", as contrasted with judgment and experience.  For example, I don't quake in terror at the prospect of crossing a busy street - it is obviously dangerous, but my years of experience in simultaneously walking and chewing gum have equipped me to deal with it.  Similarly, when I was a young man linving in the Greatest City in the World, I knew certain areas and certain behaviors were high-risk; I didn't tremble in terror at the thought of entering Central Park at midnight, but I rarely entered it, either.

I would think that anyone with an intellectual (as opposed to visceral) appreciation of the downside in approaching a drugged-out strager and having one's throat slashed would modify their behavior appropriately, fear or not.  But I'm afraid I am not an expert on this.

I do like this study:

In another experiment, published in 1995, she was blasted with a loud horn every time she saw a blue-colored square appear on a screen. Despite the repeated blasting horn, she never developed the fear an ordinary person would feel when seeing the blue square.

Well - if the horn bothered her, one might expect she pretty quickly developed an "Oh, bother, here we go again" response, which would relate to her ability to detect patterns and evaluate potential hazards and annoyances (such as loud horns or knife-wielding druggies).  But I would guess that "Oh, brother" does not need to show up as fear.

 

Comments

[Charlie (Colorado)]

Part of the issue here is the word "fear". What the amygdala does is mediate greater nervous system excitement. You don't feel "fear" thinking about the possibility of entering the park, but your body does respond physiologically in some ways mirroring fear. This (dammit, I can't think of the precise word) extra excitement reminds you, physiologically, not to do that.

Sounds like she's missing that step, so she doesn't learn to be annoyed in advance by the horn either.

[Charlie (Colorado)]

Come to think of it, amygdala tumors have some other interesting effects. They don't seem to mention it but she's probably hypersexual and less able to understand other people's emotional responses.

[The Kings garments are suddenly transparent.]

Still pondering the safe position on Wikileaks, eh Maguire?

B of A is the next data dump. Looking forward to the details nefarious(excuse me, ALLEGED) deeds of our Banking Institutions.

Assange is under attack from those most at risk in his efforts to inform everyone everywhere about everything

[bgates]

she's probably hypersexual and less able to understand other people's emotional responses

Man, did I dodge a bullet - I must have had an amygdala tumor all the way through high school.

Adding to Charlie's first comment, I think TM is overestimating the amount of rational thought that goes into decision-making, or perhaps confusing it with the ex post facto rationalization that we can manage if we have to. "Intellectual appreciations" of risks are just stories we tell ourselves after something visceral has motivated an action.

[Young Lurker]

the amygdala is thought to "house" emotion. so possibly this woman will have all of her analytical faculties (i realize i need to be careful not to get hit by a car, i realize this guy with a knife could kill me), without the emotional reaction to go along with it. so i agree with the blogger that it's odd that she still engaged in dangerous activity. however... it's a sample size of 1, and who knows what other confounds exist within the subject (how specific is her tumor, is she just dumb in general, etc. her response about god's angels may indicate that she's devoutly religious, perhaps she approached him to do some of god's work, who knows).

i've read that there is an anti-PTSD drug in some stage or another of conception that would temporarily inhibit the amygdalar connections to other brain regions, such as those for memory, while soldiers go off on a patrol/ raid/ unpleasant task. they wouldn't lack a memory of what occurs, but it wouldn't have an emotional consequence. of course this is highly controversial- do we want unfeeling soldiers operating on the battlefield.

ah, taking the time to write this while at work doesn't make my feel too guilty.. at least it was about the brain :-)

[DebinNC]

""Her lack of fear may have freaked the guy out," Feinstein said.

Or maybe, as she said, God's angels have protected her through decades of exposure to hazards. I wish the writer had taken an interest in exploring that.

[Porchlight]

For example, I don't quake in terror at the prospect of crossing a busy street

No, not at the prospect of it, perhaps. I think the unusual thing about this woman is that she doesn't feel any fear when she's doing the scary thing, either. Most of us would at minimum feel our hearts beat a little faster as we walk into the dark train tunnel while the rumbling sound grows louder. It sounds like she wouldn't.

Sounds like my four year old.

[Clarice]

Hi,YL. I'm interested in how much of our heightened fear reaction is socially determined..often the product of our mother's emotional state. I know two very high anxiety people and both had mothers who were always anxious and fretful. I suppose babies pickup on that and it creates in them a heightened anxiety reaction to things which carries on thru all their lives.

I suppose mothers who are braver and more matter of fact in handling their children generally raise kids who share that reaction to life.

[Saudi, Swiss and American Bankers United in their smear]

Assange was arrested in Britain on Dec. 7 on an arrest warrant issued by Sweden after two women alleged they were sexually assaulted by the founder of the whistleblowing website.

He has denied the allegations.

Assange's arrest followed WikiLeaks's publishing last month of 250,000 secret U.S. diplomatic cables, and his supporters suspect the sexual assault claims are politically motivated — a charge Sweden denies.
'No evidence whatsoever'

Assange said Thursday he is "not aware of the inner detail of these [sexual assault] allegations," and has seen "no evidence whatsoever" of the "incredible claims" made by prosecutors.

"We have done everything by the book," he said."We have tried as hard as possible to set up a situation where we can clear my name of these allegations. But what we have not seen is a provision of any evidence or material to allow us to do that."

As he did with NBC, Assange spoke to the BBC from the grounds of Ellingham Hall, the estate in where he is to remain while out on bail.

He was released after a failed appeal by prosecutors working on behalf of Swedish authorities to have bail denied.

"It's a very Orwellian situation, in which I am placed under high-tech house arrest," Assange said of his bail conditions.

"As someone who has always proclaimed their innocence, it is something that I find disturbing," he said. "It is a disturbing situation for me to be in."

It is also "a gross impediment to my work," he said. "Nonetheless, as an organization, we can work around it."

He said his whistleblowing website would soon release sensitive information about banks, including the Bank of America.

Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2010/12/17/wikileaks-assange-smear-campaign.html#ixzz18Pcbug5g

[Rick Ballard]

YL,

I would think that your research into differential cognitive ability within a generally compatible social group would qualify as work. You can even toss in study of the effect of a high dosage vodka/Percodan blend upon material that once may have had the potential to become a cerebral cortex.

[Nervous types desperate to hide themselves]

Assange Accuser Worked with US-Funded,
CIA-Tied Anti-Castro Group
By: Kirk James Murphy, M.D.

Yesterday Alexander Cockburn reminded us of the news Israel Shamir and Paul Bennett broke at Counterpunch in September. Julian Assange’s chief accuser in Sweden has a significant history of work with anti-Castro groups, at least one of which is US funded and openly supported by a former CIA agent convicted in the mass murder of seventy three Cubans on an airliner he was involved in blowing up.

[Gordian knot]

Here's the most damning evidence Shamir and Bennett have compiled against Assange's accuser:

1) She's published "anti-Castro diatribes" in a Swedish-language publication that, according to an Oslo professor, Michael Seltzer (who?), is "connected with Union Liberal Cubana led by Carlos Alberto Montaner," who reportedly has CIA ties. Let me repeat that: She has been published in a journal that is connected with a group that is led by a guy with CIA ties. Says this one guy.

2) "In Cuba she interacted with the feminist anti-Castro group Las damas de blanco (the Ladies in White). This group receives US government funds and the convicted anti-communist terrorist Luis Posada Carriles is a friend and supporter." That link goes to an English translation of a Spanish article noting that at a march last spring, Posada "wander[ed] unleashed and un-vaccinated along Calle Ocho in Miami, marching alongside" -- wait for it -- "Gloria Estefan in support of the so-called Ladies in White." Apparently, it's "an established fact" that Posada and the Ladies also share a shady benefactor, which means he should clearly be called a "friend" of the organization, and this is totally relevant to the rape charges against Julian Assange, because the accuser once interacted with them in some manner.

3) The accuser is a known feminist who once wrote a blog post about getting revenge on men, and "was involved in Gender Studies in Uppsala University, in charge of gender equality in the Students' Union, a junior inquisitor of sorts."

[Gordian knot]

Assange's solicitor, Mark Stephens, said: "The allegations of the complainants are not credible and were dismissed by the senior Stockholm prosecutor as not worthy of further investigation." He said Miss A had sent two Twitter messages that appeared to undermine her account in the police statement.

Assange's defence team had so far been provided by prosecutors with only incomplete evidence, he said. "There are many more text and SMS messages from and to the complainants which have been shown by the assistant prosecutor to the Swedish defence lawyer, Bjorn Hurtig, which suggest motivations of malice and money in going to the police and to Espressen and raise the issue of political motivation behind the presentation of these complaints. He [Hurtig] has been precluded from making notes or copying them.

"We understand that both complainants admit to having initiated consensual sexual relations with Mr Assange. They do not complain of any physical injury. The first complainant did not make a complaint for six days (in which she hosted the respondent in her flat [actually her bed] and spoke in the warmest terms about him to her friends) until she discovered he had spent the night with the other complainant.

"The second complainant, too, failed to complain for several days until she found out about the first complainant: she claimed that after several acts of consensual sexual intercourse, she fell half asleep and thinks that he ejaculated without using a condom – a possibility about which she says they joked afterwards.

"Both complainants say they did not report him to the police for prosecution but only to require him to have an STD test. However, his Swedish lawyer has been shown evidence of their text messages which indicate that they were concerned to obtain money by going to a tabloid newspaper and were motivated by other matters including a desire for revenge

[BR]

When does the Wikileaks banking expose start?

[Gordian knot]

"When does the Wikileaks banking expose start?"

Dunno. But the sooner, the better

[BR]

I wonder what time period it will cover. Before and after merging with Nationsbanc.

[BR]

Btw, does anyone know what time period the State Dept. "cables" (or e-mails) covered?

[~FR]

Interesting. I guess SM doesn't experience anger very much, if ever.

[BR]

Yah, FR, and for some it's more a spiritual strength than a jeans thing :)

[Old Lurker]

Rick, if you change your comment from "vodka/percodan" to "gin/limes", YL might have more direct data growing up from which to draw a scientific conclusion...

[Gordian knot]

Of course, our beloved watchdogs of the Media, aka NYT are on top of this story.

Are they the same paper that published the pentagon Papers. It's a brand new generation of swine herders......

GG gives it to John Burns, who belongs on the WSJ Editorial Staff.

"

It shouldn't be surprising that Burns is filling the role played in 1971 by Henry Kissinger and John Ehrichman. His courageous and high-quality war reporting from Iraq notwithstanding, it's long been clear from his U.S.-glorifying accounts that Burns was one of the media's most enthusiastic supporters of the occupation of Iraq. That's why even the NYT-hating necons regularly lavished him (along with Judy Miller's partner, Michael Gordon) with uncharacteristic praise (National Review's Michael Ledeen: "Rich [Lowry, Editor of National Review] and I share an admiration for Michael Gordon, one of three (along with Burns and Filkens) NYT reporters who really work hard to get the Iraqi story right"). To justify and excuse his and his media colleagues' gullibility about Iraq, Burns wrote two months ago -- falsely -- that "there were few, if any, who foresaw the extent of the violence that would follow or the political convulsion it would cause in Iraq, America and elsewhere" and that "[w]e could not know then, though if we had been wiser we might have guessed, the scale of the toll the invasion would unleash."

The Iraq War is John Burns' war, and for the crime of making that war look bad, Julian Assange must have his character smeared and his psychiatric health maligned. Burns -- along with his co-writer Ravi Somaiya -- is happy to viciously perform that function:

"Julian Assange moves like a hunted man. . . . He demands that his dwindling number of loyalists use expensive encrypted cellphones and swaps his own as other men change shirts. He checks into hotels under false names, dyes his hair, sleeps on sofas and floors, and uses cash instead of credit cards, often borrowed from friends. . . .

Now it is not just governments that denounce him: some of his own comrades are abandoning him for what they see as erratic and imperious behavior, and a nearly delusional grandeur unmatched by an awareness that the digital secrets he reveals can have a price in flesh and blood. . ."

'Flesh and blood' often has a
price when justice deals in reciprocity.

[Gordian knot]

December 16th, 2010 9:17 PM
Dear Government of Sweden ...

1 of 1

Dear Swedish Government:

Hi there -- or as you all say, Hallå! You know, all of us here in the U.S. love your country. Your Volvos, your meatballs, your hard-to-put-together furniture -- we can't get enough!

There's just one thing that bothers me -- why has Amnesty International, in a special report (described in detail here by Naomi Wolf), declared that Sweden refuses to deal with the very real tragedy of rape? In fact, they say that all over Scandinavia, including in your country, rapists "enjoy impunity." And the United Nations, the EU and Swedish human rights groups have come to the same conclusion: Sweden just doesn't take sexual assault against women seriously. How else do you explain these statistics from Katrin Axelsson of Women Against Rape:

** Sweden has the HIGHEST per capita number of reported rapes in Europe.

** This number of rapes has quadrupled in the last 20 years.

** The conviction rates? They have steadily DECREASED.

Axelsson says: "On April 23rd of this year, Carina Hägg and Nalin Pekgul (respectively MP and chairwoman of Social Democratic Women in Sweden) wrote in the Göteborgs [newspaper] that 'up to 90% of all reported rapes [in Sweden] never get to court.'"

Let me say that again: nine out of ten times, when women report they have been raped, you never even bother to start legal proceedings. No wonder that, according to the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention, it is now statistically more likely that someone in Sweden will be sexually assaulted than that they will be robbed.

Message to rapists? Sweden loves you!

So imagine our surprise when all of a sudden you decided to go after one Julian Assange on sexual assault charges. Well, sort of: first you charged him. Then after investigating it, you dropped the most serious charges and rescinded the arrest warrant.

Then a conservative MP put pressure on you and, lo and behold, you did a 180 and reopened the Assange investigation. Except you still didn't charge him with anything. You just wanted him for "questioning." So you -- you who have sat by and let thousands of Swedish women be raped while letting their rapists go scott-free -- you decided it was now time to crack down on one man -- the one man the American government wants arrested, jailed or (depending on which politician or pundit you listen to) executed. You just happened to go after him, on one possible "count of unlawful coercion, two counts of sexual molestation and one count of rape (third degree)." And while thousands of Swedish rapists roam free, you instigated a huge international manhunt on Interpol for this Julian Assange!

What anti-rape crusaders you've become, Swedish government! Women in Sweden must suddenly feel safer?

Well, not really. Actually, many see right through you. They know what these "non-charge charges" are really about. And they know that you are cynically and disgustingly using the real and everyday threat that exists against women everywhere to help further the American government's interest in silencing the work of WikiLeaks.

I don't pretend to know what happened between Mr. Assange and the two women complainants (all I know is what I've heard in the media, so I'm as confused as the next person). And I'm sorry if I've jumped to any unnecessary or wrong-headed conclusions in my efforts to state a very core American value: All people are absolutely innocent until proven otherwise beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law. I strongly believe every accusation of sexual assault must be investigated vigorously. There is nothing wrong with your police wanting to question Mr. Assange about these allegations, and while I understand why he seemed to go into hiding (people tend to do that when threatened with assassination), he nonetheless should answer the police’s questions. He should also submit to the STD testing the alleged victims have requested. I believe Sweden and the UK have a treaty and a means for you to send your investigators to London so they can question Mr. Assange where he is under house arrest while out on bail.

But that really wouldn't be like you would it, to go all the way to another country to pursue a suspect for sexual assault when you can't even bring yourselves to make it down to the street to your own courthouse to go after the scores of reported rapists in your country. That you, Sweden, have chosen to rarely do that in the past, is why this whole thing stinks to the high heavens.

And let's not forget this one final point from Women Against Rape's Katrin Axelsson:

"There is a long tradition of the use of rape and sexual assault for political agendas that have nothing to do with women's safety. In the south of the US, the lynching of black men was often justified on grounds that they had raped or even looked at a white woman. Women don't take kindly to our demand for safety being misused, while rape continues to be neglected at best or protected at worst."

This tactic of using a rape charge to go after minorities or troublemakers, guilty or innocent -- while turning a blind eye to clear crimes of rape the rest of the time — is what I fear is happening here. I want to make sure that good people not remain silent and that you, Sweden, will not succeed if in fact you are in cahoots with corrupt governments such as ours.

Last week Naomi Klein wrote: "Rape is being used in the Assange prosecution in the same way that 'women's freedom' was used to invade Afghanistan. Wake up!"

I agree.

Unless you have the evidence (and it seems if you did you would have issued an arrest warrant by now), drop the extradition attempt and get to work doing the job you've so far refused to do: Protecting the women of Sweden.

Yours,
Michael Moore

[Sara (Pal2Pal)]

Just as an aside, after my Mother's 2nd stroke, she no longer recognized danger and if you don't recognize something as dangerous, I assume you wouldn't know/show fear. In my Mother's case, it was as if I had a 2 year old genius on my hands. Intellectually, she could understand why you wouldn't want to get out of the car in the middle of the freeway (as she tried to do) or stick your foot in the fire in the fireplace (she did and got seriously burned), yet there seemed to be no brakes on the impulses that compelled her to check things out that could kill her. It was like telling a child not to chase a runaway ball into traffic and yet in the midst of playing, the child forgets the warning and just goes for it anyway. She lost all inhibitions. Once we fully recognized the problem, I had to set rules, very sternly, to get her to recognize that even if she didn't understand why we were so worried about what she was doing, she would fully agree that the behavior was upsetting to us, so she would agree to the rules and the next day she'd be plotting how to get away with something I or others wouldn't approve.

[Wake up ! Tea-Baggers............]

The lower elementals among us seem to favor
the sexual arena as the method of discrediting
those vocal iconoclasts who call them out of their moral hibernation. You don't want to awaken those bears, because they have many teeth, and many co-conspirators.

[Threadkiller]

YL, I never did well when it came to Big-Word-Fridays. Does this mean SM’s husband was spared or suffered more?

">http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19758762"> Neural mechanisms underlying changes in stress-sensitivity across the menstrual cycle.

"Moreover, the larger the increase in allopregnanolone concentration across the menstrual cycle was, the smaller the amygdala and medial prefrontal cortex responses were after stress induction in the late luteal phase. Our findings show that moderate psychological stress influences menstrual cycle effects on activity in the emotion regulation circuitry. These results provide potential insights into how fluctuations in allopregnanolone that naturally occur during the menstrual cycle may change stress vulnerability"

[Extraneus]

I suppose mothers who are braver and more matter of fact in handling their children generally raise kids who share that reaction to life.

I bet you're right about that.

[Jack is Back!]

I flew with a guy who was our EWO and he told me once that he had "no fear". I asked him what did he mean and he told me that nothing seems to bother him that bothered others including his sister and brother when growing up. He wa a pretty smart guy, engineering grad at RPI, played hockey with a vengence and once worked in a heptology lab. I don't know if he had a defective amygdala but now that I have read this (in today's Daily Telegraph by the way) I am even more curios. He is still alive and must be at least 65. I have to find him and see how many mountain lions he has stared down or how many buses have missed him crossing the road:)

[Captain Hate]

Fat turd Mike al-Moor likes Swedish meatballs; what are the chances? Other than that he seems as addled and ignorant as the imbecile that cut and pasted him.

[matt]

wasn't Amygdala a character in Star Wars?

[Danube of Thought]

SM never met the Vile Banshee.

[narciso]

Testing one two three.

[narciso]

Like I was saying Ardin did write some critiques of Castro, for an exile magazine,
in Stockholm, but she's still fairly naive
on the subject. Now, in Sweden's crazy politics, that makes her a raving rightist.

[Wake up ! Tea-Baggers............]

"that makes her a raving rightist."

Your erudite contribution to the elevation of information leaves me breathless.

[Wake up ! Tea-Baggers............]

yer a credit to yer credit rating.

[Champions of the Status Quo-Tea Party My Ass]

I think I know why there is reticence to discuss this subject..................

history repeats.......................

968

* November 1968: Richard Milhous Nixon, the 55-year-old former vice president who lost the presidency for the Republicans in 1960, reclaims it by defeating Hubert Humphrey in one of the closest elections in U.S. history.

1970

* July 23, 1970: Nixon approves a plan for greatly expanding domestic intelligence-gathering by the FBI, CIA and other agencies. He has second thoughts a few days later and rescinds his approval.

1971

* June 13, 1971: The New York Times begins publishing the Pentagon Papers -- the Defense Department's secret history of the Vietnam War. The Washington Post will begin publishing the papers later in the week.

* September 9, 1971: The White House "plumbers" unit - named for their orders to plug leaks in the administration - burglarizes a psychiatrist's office to find files on Daniel Ellsberg, the former defense analyst who leaked the Pentagon Papers.

1972

* June 17, 1972: Five men, one of whom says he used to work for the CIA, are arrested at 2:30 a.m. trying to bug the offices of the Democratic National Committee at the Watergate hotel and office complex.

* June 19, 1972: A GOP security aide is among the Watergate burglars, The Washington Post reports. Former attorney general John Mitchell, head of the Nixon reelection campaign, denies any link to the operation.

* August 1, 1972: A $25,000 cashier's check, apparently earmarked for the Nixon campaign, wound up in the bank account of a Watergate burglar, The Washington Post reports.

* September 29, 1972: John Mitchell, while serving as attorney general, controlled a secret Republican fund used to finance widespread intelligence-gathering operations against the Democrats, The Post reports.

* October 10, 1972: FBI agents establish that the Watergate break-in stems from a massive campaign of political spying and sabotage conducted on behalf of the Nixon reelection effort, The Post reports.

* November 11, 1972: Nixon is reelected in one of the largest landslides in American political history, taking more than 60 percent of the vote and crushing the Democratic nominee, Sen. George McGovern of South Dakota.

1973

* January 30, 1973: Former Nixon aides G. Gordon Liddy and James W. McCord Jr. are convicted of conspiracy, burglary and wiretapping in the Watergate incident. Five other men plead guilty, but mysteries remain.

* April 30, 1973: Nixon's top White House staffers, H.R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman, and Attorney General Richard Kleindienst resign over the scandal. White House counsel John Dean is fired.

* May 18, 1973: The Senate Watergate committee begins its nationally televised hearings. Attorney General-designate Elliot Richardson taps former solicitor general Archibald Cox as the Justice Department's special prosecutor for Watergate.

* June 3, 1973: John Dean has told Watergate investigators that he discussed the Watergate cover-up with President Nixon at least 35 times, The Post reports.

* June 13, 1973: Watergate prosecutors find a memo addressed to John Ehrlichman describing in detail the plans to burglarize the office of Pentagon Papers defendant Daniel Ellsberg's psychiatrist, The Post reports.

* July 13, 1973: Alexander Butterfield, former presidential appointments secretary, reveals in congressional testimony that since 1971 Nixon had recorded all conversations and telephone calls in his offices.

* July 18, 1973: Nixon reportedly orders the White House taping system disconnected.

[Champions of the Status Quo-Tea Party My Ass]

40-year increments.

The synchronicity is awe-inspiring.

[Clarice]

Champions and Gordo why are you effing up this thread? I don't think anyone here has expressed the idea that the Swedish claims are sound--even if that nitwit Naomi Klein might agree with that assessment.

Some of us think much ( though probably not all) of the leaks are more embarrassing than dangerous to national security and I, at least, think the espionage act is a weak thread to prosecute Assange on.

Maybe there's someplace else your work could be more valuable and rewarding.

[anduril]

I was thinking of getting involved in this thread, but I'm having trouble getting a handle on it. When I try to read here, my head starts hurting.

[Champions of the Status Quo-Tea Party My Ass]

"don't think anyone here has expressed the idea"

That's the first idea seen expressed here, other than mine.

Why must it be squeezed out of you?

Fear of the consequences?

Where is your work found valuable and rewarding, American Expectoration?

[Porchlight]

Hi Cleo! Good week? I thought it was awesome when the spending bill went down in flames and then more Dems than Repubs voted to extend the Bush tax cuts!

[Champions of the Status Quo-Tea Party My Ass]

Hi Pooch !

You must have been fed yer Alpo already.

That flea powder I recommended work for you?

[narciso]

Meanwhile, no good goes unpunished, the Omnibus tried to get Gitmo detainees transfered to US soil.

[Champions of the Status Quo-Tea Party My Ass]

"the Omnibus tried to get Gitmo detainees transfered to US soil."

Wrong, Narcissist !

the House bill was written solely by Democrats -- meaning Democrats put the detainee transfer ban in. Attorney General Eric Holder wrote to the Senate's majority and minority leaders after that vote, pleading with them to keep such a provision out of the Senate's version.

[Rob Crawford]

Amazing how the lefts' assessment of rape accusations depends on the political utility.

What an evil pack of animals.

[DrJ]

Right, Rob. Remember Clenis.

[Rob Crawford]

And Duke.

[Danube of Thought]

There's an article up at Salon arguing that the Obama administration is ulawfully torturing Bradley Manning. The author says that they are teed off that Manning's leaks have vindicated Bush and embarrassed Obama.

Will Obama be able to travel abroad without fearing arrest pursuant to an order from, say, a Spanish Magistrate?

Or will torture of an American citizen by the Obama administration never really become an issue with the left or with the MSM?

[narciso]

I guess they put it back in:

http://www.redcounty.com/content/democrats-slip-bringing-terrorists-american-prisons-defense-bill

[Danube of Thought]

The author of the Salon piece is Glen Greenwald? Who else will rise to denounce Obama's torture campaign?

[narciso]

It's Glenn Greenwald, the defender of the murderous Nazi preacher turned wannabe lawyer, also his partner Durkin, is part of
the Gitmo bar.

[Champions of the Status Quo-Tea Party My Ass]

"Manning's leaks have vindicated Bush and embarrassed Obama."

It' is a shame that that low-level military
analyst (I think Mannings rank) deleted a Terabyte of data re; the run-up to the Iraq war of choice.

That would make for interesting reading.

[JM Hanes]

From the article:

"For their report in the journal, researchers exposed her to scary situations — snakes, scenes from horror movies and the haunted house. They observed her behavior and asked her to rate her fear levels."

That sounds like pretty half-assed "research" to me. There are a few additional details of the study -- undertaken by a grad student -- at Science Now which don't sound any better. Jotting down answers on a questionnaire seems pretty loosey goosey. Screaming at "scary movies" strikes me as a poor substitute for the kind of fear elicited when you think there's an intruder in your house. Jumping away from a haunted house monster (or someone who shouts "Boo!") has as much to do with the startle reflex than genuine fear, even if all of the above aren't entirely unrelated.

Ditto for the ambiguity of "fear." As TM suggests, SM's absence of fearfulness alone doesn't explain what is really an apparent inability to anticipate the full range of potential consequences for her acts, or to recognize/extrapolate repetitive patterns. While the amygdala is clearly associated with fear, the fact that her intellectual deficiencies may well be unique even among others with similar damage, makes the researchers' conclusions, such as they are, sound a little simpleminded to me.

[Champions of the Status Quo-Tea Party My Ass]

"What an evil pack of animals."

penultimate projection perfection, CornCob !

[Champions of the Status Quo-Tea Party My Ass]

I guess Chickenhawk is an appropriate name confronting the bona fides and intestinal fortitude of the Far Right for just about any situation. Glad I'm not in the foxhole with the likes of y'all.

Chicken is as chicken does.

[Danube of Thought]

That sounds like pretty half-assed "research" to me

Me too. My reaction to horror movies is generally laughter.

[Danube of Thought]

low-level military
analyst (I think Mannings rank)

Analyst is not a rank. Anyone whose dead son had once been a marine would know that.

[Champions of the Status Quo-Tea Party My Ass]

"Analyst is not a rank"

I didn't say 'rank', asshole.

Just so you know, my sons' MOS is Geospatial
Technical Analyst.

You would never qualify with your ASVAB scores.

[Champions of the Status Quo-Tea Party My Ass]

Lots of times the guy I get my downers from laughs at me in front of his friends. I have to meet him in the john at the local bar. It stinks in there.

[Champions of the Status Quo-Tea Party My Ass]

Chicknhawk has a special meaning for you
Effluent of thought. (Pedophile)

[Champions of the Status Quo-Tea Party My Ass]

Hope I meet you in that Okie Bar you stink up some day, Effluent...............

[Danube of Thought]

You said rank:

analyst (I think Mannings rank)

Has anyone ever told you you're beautiful when you get mad?

[sbw]

The narcisolator is your friend.

[boris]

while the narcisolator might work to protect cleo from DoT it would sorta defeat the whole idea of being a troll

[Frau Steingehirn]

Charlie has probably left his keyboard in light of the current invasion. In case he returns, I want to thank him for replying to my request for his thoughts on net neutrality.

[bgates]

Hey, speaking of Wikileaks and Cuba, here's the funniest thing you'll see all week:

Cuba banned Michael Moore's 2007 documentary, Sicko, because it painted such a "mythically" favourable picture of Cuba's healthcare system that the authorities feared it could lead to a "popular backlash", according to US diplomats in Havana.

The revelation, contained in a confidential US embassy cable released by WikiLeaks....

[Champions of the Status Quo-Tea Party My Ass]

When my pusher doesn't have pills all's he has is weed. So I have to drink alot and smoke alot of the weed. It tides me over. Those are the times I'm not around alot.

[Clarice]

really jmh missed her calling. I'd like to see her overseeing Social science PhD orals.

[Clarice]

bgates, that is hilarious.

[Jim Ryan]

Too funny, bgates, thanks for sharing that.

[You deserve the gobmint you get]

When Maguire gives you permission to speak, I'm sure the prattle will damage the hearing for all within chickenshit earshot.

[Rob Crawford]

The revelation, contained in a confidential US embassy cable released by WikiLeaks....

Amazing, innit, how many lefty fantasies are being punctured by WikiLeaks?

If it didn't threaten to destroy our ability to conduct diplomacy, I'd almost applaud it.

[narciso]

That is the double edged sword isn't it, Rob, Moore probably wishes he could cancel that bond right about now, the State Department true to form, doesn't think highly of the dissidents on the Island, Armitage probably goesn't like the glimpses shown of the Aliyev
clan, for whom he flacks, the real obsessions
of the Gulf States, the nature of the siloviki
regime.

[Stephanie]

Gerson's elevator finally approaches the top floor:

It is difficult to imagine the president's advisers sitting in the Oval Office and urging this approach: "Mr. President, the best course here would be to savage likely supporters of the bill and to embitter your political base. This will show just how principled you are, in contrast to the corruption and fanaticism all around you." There can be little doubt this communications strategy was Obama's own.

LUN

[Gigi LaRouche]

The Lib's and Obama's massive failures over the last two years, and peaking just recently, have gotten the lefty trolls all riled up.

I love it!

[squaredance]

Cleo, what MOS are you talking about?

There is no such MOS as the one you name. (Note that these are WO slots)

The closest one might come would be an MOS. This would be a Geographic Intelligence Specialist.

Now, you may be "exceptional" but most Marine parents would have a description of their son's MOS burned on their brains, an probably magnetized to their refrigerator door.

It would appear that your imaginary son has an imaginary MOS.

[What's all this about the dragon kim?]

er, the MOS is encrypted. Listen, we must accept the reality. Leo's son lives. Trust me.
=========

[squaredance]

Only in his mind, and, of course, I do not trust you.

[Charlie (Colorado)]

You know, I'm actually a little worried about Cleo. These outbursts of irrational anger seem to be getting more and more excessive.

[And always has.]

You'll learn to trust me, squada. Leo's son serves for all.
==============

[Jeff]

don't forget before you had "judgement and experience" your approach to life would have been driven mostly by inate fears ...
Years later your experience would have been colored by those fears being proven out as valid and thus would have become your judgement and experience instead of your "fears" ...