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moral compass
german
bishop drunk in charge of machinery
“Over the weekend, the head of the Protestant
church in Germany was caught drunk driving. While German
commentators condemned Margot Kässmann's actions,
most did not feel that she should lose her job. Nevertheless
on Wednesday it became clear that the bishop felt her
position was untenable.
“The head of the Protestant church in Germany,
Bishop Margot Kässmann, has announced her resignation.
Her decision to step down came after she was caught
driving with three times the legal blood alcohol limit
on Saturday night in Hanover.”
priest
sacked for being a heterosexual - archbishop says he’s
ill
“The Archbishop of Toledo has now relieved the
sinner of his priestly responsibilities, while the bish's
representatives asked worshippers to forgive Martin
because he was evidently "ill"
“Posing as "Hector" (see pic), he
punted himself in a net ad which read: "Heterosexual
man for women and couples. Real photos. Well hung (15cm)
to give you pleasure and happiness." ”
mp
resigns over false claim for £25 - when will the
clown resign over £12,000+ false claims?
“Phil Heatley, a politician in New Zealand immediately
tendered his resignation to the Prime Minister when
it appeared that a $70 receipt for two bottles of wine
at a party conference had been accidentally claimed
on his expenses. Heatley told the press “I believe
I’ve failed to live up my own standard and for
that I’m embarrassed and immensely sorry.”
He immediately repaid the money.
the web address for the article above is
https://www.abelard.org/news/behaviour112009.php#moral_compass_250210
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ideal parenthood - the world is changing, adjust
Pitt is 46, Jolie is 34.
Moving on - will they, won’t they?
Shades of Burton and Taylor.
“For most of her life, Jolie has suffered from
emotional instability. She has said she contemplated
suicide several times as a child, and later when she
lived in New York she planned to end her life with a
knife or pills but couldn't go through with it.”
—
“ Then it begins, as it has so many times. The
screaming and swearing. The wild accusations of affairs
on both sides - Jolie with a young actress, Pitt with
an African model.
“It is the latest in a series of rows sometimes
so loud and abusive that the staff have felt obliged
to remove the children from the house.” [Quoted
from dailymail.co.uk]
six children so far, and counting
“Maddox and Zahara were adopted by Brad Pitt,
the biological father of Jolie's daughter, Shiloh Nouvel
Jolie-Pitt.
“Shiloh Nouvel was born in Namibia on May 27,
2006, by cesarean due to a breech presentation. Pitt
was there to cut the baby's umbilical cord.
“Pax Thien, was adopted at age 3 1/2 from Vietnam
in March 15, 2007. There was some controversy as many
complained that the adoption was "fast-tracked"
and went against Vietnam law as unmarried couples are
not allowed to adopt. Which is why Jolie initially filed
alone. Brad Pitt did adopt Pax once they arrived home.
“2008 brought the birth of twins to Angelina
Jolie and Brad Pitt! Jolie gave birth to a boy and a
girl on July 12 in Nice, France. Knox Léon Jolie-Pitt
weighed 5lbs 3 oz. and Vivienne Marcheline Jolie-Pitt
weighed 5 lbs.” [Quoted from adoption.about.com]
the web address for the article above is
https://www.abelard.org/news/behaviour112009.php#hollywood_families_070210
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britain’s no. 1 jew also now attacking socialist ‘new’
labour on civil rights
The first article is recommended reading.
“There are times when human rights become human
wrongs. This happens when rights become more than a
defence of human dignity, which is their proper sphere,
and become instead a political ideology, relentlessly
trampling down everything in their path. This is happening
increasingly in Britain, and it is why the Pope’s
protest against the Equality Bill, whether we agree
with it or not, should be taken seriously.”
—
“ Alexis de Tocqueville, a Frenchman impressed
by American democracy, said that in America (and England),
religion and liberty are friends; in France they were
enemies. He was writing in 1832, but what he said still
holds true today. Religion in Britain is part of the
ecology of freedom because it supports families, communities,
charities, voluntary associations, active citizenship
and concern for the common good.” [Quoted from
timesonline.co.uk]
Benedict [Pope] has also complained about
the socialist ‘new’ Labour attacks on civil
liberties.
“...the Pope has allied himself to an attack
already well advanced by Church of England bishops.
He framed his denunciation in terms of religious freedom,
which nowadays seems to take second place to other sorts
of freedom. The Equality Bill, he suggested, would "impose
unjust limitations on the freedom of religious communities
to act in accordance with their beliefs". That
is a very serious charge to be levelled against the
Government by the leader of some one billion Catholics,
five million of them in the UK.” [Quoted from
telegraph.co.uk]
Rome has been railing against the curse
of Marxism from the very early times:
“8 December 1849: On the Church in the pontifical
states / nostis et nobiscum: Pope Pius IX
Written the year following the publication of the Communist
Manifesto
“18. As regards this teaching and these theories,
it is now generally known that the special goal of their
proponents is to introduce to the people the pernicious
fictions of Socialism and Communism by misapplying the
terms "liberty" and "equality."
The final goal shared by these teachings, whether of
Communism or Socialism, even if approached differently,
is to excite by continuous disturbances workers and
others, especially those of the lower class, whom they
have deceived by their lies and deluded by the promise
of a happier condition. They are preparing them for
plundering, stealing, and usurping first the Church's
and then everyone's property. After this they will profane
all law, human and divine, to destroy divine worship
and to subvert the entire ordering of civil societies.”
[Quoted from papal
encyclicals and marx - some extracts: on socialism and
liberalism]
More at the link.
the web address for the article above is
https://www.abelard.org/news/behaviour112009.php#uk_civil_rights_010210
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best
quality of life listing
Out of a 94-country list, the first ten are
- France
- Australia
- Switzerland
- Germany
- New Zealand
- Luxembourg
- United States of America
- Belgium
- Canada
- Italy
The United Kingdom is no. 25. Note that other European Union
member countries are ahead of the UK.
Tabulated
listing of results.
related material
GDP
and other quality of life measurements
the web address for the article above is
https://www.abelard.org/news/behaviour112009.php#quality_of_life_060110
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it’s not my fault, says brown the clown
the parable of feckless britain:
Come close and listen, Best Beloved.
In our house, we have a 600-inch TV. We have a Roller
in the drive. I now have my sixth house valued at
£7 million. We have separate nannies for our 4
children.
Unfortunately, the bailiffs are due in tomorrow and
the company is bankrupt. And I’m going through
little difficulties with the tax man and some mean bastards
at the Old Bailey.
I’ve just found out Granny has a hospital-acquired
disease, the wife has cancer and I can’t get the
specialists. Oh, and none of our teenage children can
read.
My daddy left me a farm, and I lived boozing and partying there for years,
on borrowed money and by selling of sections of the farm. Now I’m on
the dole.
My next door neighbour is an uptight Scrooge. I keep trying
to borrow money from him. I’ve even sent in one or two
of my mates to rob him. But, lacking sportsmanship, he has
a bl**dy great strong room, and has shifted most of his wealth
off-shore.
I’ve been super-generous. I’ve given some
gold bars I stole to my aunts and uncles and nephews
and nieces and brothers (I don’t have any sisters)
and to thousands of friends. But none of them are now
returning my calls, the liars keep telling people they
didn’t know the gold bars were stolen! Or they
even say that they don’t know me - would you believe
it - some people are so-o-o-o dishonest and ungrateful!
But I believe I have done a marvelous job for my family.
Every one of them has an iPhone and highly overpriced
trainers and membership of god knows how many clubs.
Shame I’ll be indisposed for a while, but I do
have a Swiss account none of them have found yet.
I’m trying to blame it all on my accountant,
because I told him to fix up the books for me and now
he’s gone and got caught. But he’s turning
Queen’s evidence and saying I told him to spend
as much as he liked and I’d take responsibility.
So, here I am. I’ve tried to blame it on the neighbours.
I’ve tried to blame it on my predecessor. I’m
trying to blame it on my successors. I’m trying to blame
it on the capitalists. Why, I’ve even said that it’s
America’s fault, which everyone tries to blame. But
despite my courage and my moral compass, even my lawyers are
laughing.
It’s all so very unfair.
the web address for the article above is
https://www.abelard.org/news/behaviour112009.php#feckless_britain_parable_030110
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the russian creative period -
the auroran sunset
While rereading Chekhov’s plays,
I noticed something pretty freaky:
- Alexander Pushkin (1799-1837)
- Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821-1881)
- Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910)
- Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893)
- Anton Chekhov (1860-1904)
- Constantin Stanislavski (1863-1938)
- Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943)
- Sergei Diaghilev (1872-1929)
- Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971)
- Sergei Prokofiev (1891-1953)
- Eduard Nápravník (1839-1916)
- Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (1844-1908)
- Modest Mussorgsky (1839-1881)
- Alexander Dargomyzhsky (1813-1869)
- Nikolai Gogol (1809-1852)
- Peter Carl Fabergé (1846-1920)
- Vladimir Nabokov (1899 - 1977)
- Mikhaïl Boulgakov (1891 - 1940)
- Anna Akhmatova (1889 - 1960)
- Alexander Blok (1880 - 1920)
- Boris Pasternak (1890 - 1960)
- Kazimir Malevich (1879 - 1935)
- Wassily Kandinsky (1866 - 1944)
- Marc Chagall (1887 – 1985)
- Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (1870-1924)
- Joseph Stalin (1878-1953)
It’s like the place didn’t
exist before Pushkin! It seems as if 99% of Russian culture
happened in one approximately 50-year period, and is probably
all attributable to one man: Pushkin.
For obvious reasons, there has been
roughly no Russian culture since the early 1900s; while
until the close of the 18th century; the official language
in Russia remained a kind of Church Slavonic.
Reading up on Pushkin, it seems Russia
had their Shakespeare (someone to free and reinvent half
the language) a few centuries late, then Stalin and his
wreckers destroyed the culture in its infancy.
related material
socialist religions
the web address for the article above is
https://www.abelard.org/news/behaviour112009.php#russian_creativity_211209
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evolution
and plasticity
A major error of the social sciences
is to concentrate on what does not work, and try to stop
the problems, rather than to concentrate on what does
work - and teach it.
“This orchid hypothesis also answers a fundamental
evolutionary question that the vulnerability hypothesis
cannot. If variants of certain genes create mainly dysfunction
and trouble, how have they survived natural selection?...”
—
“In this view, having both dandelion and orchid
kids greatly raises a family’s (and a species’)
chance of succeeding, over time and in any given environment.
The behavioral diversity provided by these two different
types of temperament also supplies precisely what a
smart, strong species needs if it is to spread across
and dominate a changing world. The many dandelions in
a population provide an underlying stability. The less-numerous
orchids, meanwhile, may falter in some environments
but can excel in those that suit them. And even when
they lead troubled early lives, some of the resulting
heightened responses to adversity that can be problematic
in everyday life—increased novelty-seeking, restlessness
of attention, elevated risk-taking, or aggression—can
prove advantageous in certain challenging situations:
wars, tribal or modern; social strife of many kinds;
and migrations to new environments. Together, the steady
dandelions and the mercurial orchids offer an adaptive
flexibility that neither can provide alone. Together,
they open a path to otherwise unreachable individual
and collective achievements.” [Quoted from theatlantic.com,
p.1/3]
“A maturing female will stay with this group
all her life. A male, however, will leave—often
under pressure from the females as he gets rowdier and
rougher—when he’s 4 or 5, or roughly the
equivalent of a 16-to-20-year-old person. At first he’ll
join an all-male gang that lives more or less separately.
After a few months to a year, he’ll leave the
gang and try to charm, push, or sidle his way into a
new family or troop....”
—
“The other type, generally male, is what Suomi
calls a “bully”: an unusually and indiscriminately
aggressive monkey. These monkeys accounted for 5 to
10 percent of each generation. “Rhesus monkeys
are fairly aggressive in general, even when young,”
Suomi says, “and their play involves a lot of
rough-and-tumble. But usually no one gets hurt—except
with these guys. They do stupid things most other monkeys
know not to. They repeatedly confront dominant monkeys.
They get between moms and their kids. They don’t
know how to calibrate their aggression, and they don’t
know how to read signs they should back off. Their conflicts
tend to always escalate.” These bullies also score
poorly in tests of monkey self-control. For instance,
in a “cocktail hour” test that Suomi sometimes
uses, monkeys get unrestricted access to a neutral-tasting
alcoholic drink for an hour. Most monkeys have three
or four drinks and then stop. The bullies, Suomi says,
“drink until they drop.” ” [Quoted
from theatlantic.com,
p.2/3]
Revolution
and war [p.3/3].
related material
feedback
and crowding
the web address for the article above is
https://www.abelard.org/news/behaviour112009.php#evolution_plasticity_191209
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socialism generates failure - new report on child management
“According to the report, qualities such as
application, self-regulation and empathy were more likely
to be developed in children whose parents employed a
"tough love" approach.
“It found that these qualities made "a vital
contribution to life chances, mobility and opportunity".
“The report said these characteristics were profoundly
shaped in pre-school years.” [Quoted from bbc.co.uk]
The
report from Demos is now published - online as 104-page .pdf, or as a £10 print version:
“As social mobility has stalled during this same
period, opportunities to develop strong character are
becoming more and more the privilege of already advantaged
children. Through an exploration of developmental psychology,
parenting technique, and social change, Demos seeks
to understand when and how good character develops and
what the implications are for parents, communities,
and public policy.
“Psychology shows that the early years and antenatal
period are the most important times for child development
– the scaffolding for key life skills and character
traits is built from birth: when babies learn that crying
brings (or will not bring) parental intervention, parents
set the groundwork for the development of agency. Throughout
childhood and adolescence, children internalise notions
of social and behavioural norms from observing and interacting
with their parents and adults close to them.”
And this recent book looks interesting: Nurtureshock
by Bronson and Merryman. It’s a summary of recent research
results.
Delenda est socialismus.
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Nurtureshock:
New Thinking About Children
by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman
$16.49
[amazon.com] {advert}
amazon.co.uk
Twelve, 03/09/2009
ISBN-10: 0446504122
ISBN-13: 978-0446504126 |
the web address for the article above is
https://www.abelard.org/news/behaviour112009.php#child_management_081109
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