http://www.smashingames.com/games/spaceinvaders.html (Space Invaders)

Obesity Ages Men By 10 Years

A new study examining the links between obesity and testosterone has
discovered that men who gained just 30 pounds (13.6kg) lost as much
testosterone as if they'd aged 10 years, Reuters reported this week.

Scientists from the New England Research Institute tracked 1,667 men
during their study and published their findings as Australian doctors
warned that exploding obesity levels are creating an epidemic of teenagers
with man-boobs, prompting increasing numbers of Australian boys to seek
reduction surgery.

"We are getting a lot more requests for surgery for young people, and
we are refusing to do it in some cases," said Dr Rod Cooter, spokesman
for the Australian Society of Plastic Surgeons Adelaide.

"Some of the expectations are unrealistic, some think they can go out
and eat whatever they like, and we'll fix it," he added (Adelaide
Advertiser).

http://www.springfrog.com/games/asteroids (Classic asteroids)

http://www.flashteroids.com (Flash asteroids)


http://samvak.tripod.com/abuse8.html (Identifying abusers: "Haughty"
body language – The abuser adopts a physical posture which implies and
exudes an air of superiority, seniority, hidden powers, mysteriousness,
amused indifference, etc. Though the abuser usually maintains sustained
and piercing eye contact, he often refrains from physical proximity (he
maintains his personal territory) . .)

http://www.bemyastrologer.com/body_language_plus.html (Limp-Wrist
Shake: 'A person who extends only the fingers or whose hand feels like a
west fish when you grasp it is saying, "I don't want to touch you; I don't
like intimacy." It's also a sign of submission and weakness. When a man
uses this handshake in a business setting, he may be indicating that he
intends to secretly manipulate the situation . . .')

http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/humanbody/mind/surveys/smiles (Spot the
fake smile)


http://www.skeptictank.org/hs/vanish.htm ('How to disappear in America
without a trace:' Always over-estimate the resolve of those seeking to
find you yet keep your estimations reasonable. Greatly over-estimating
your opposition can cause you to behave in predictable, patterned ways,
however. It is the predictability of your actions based upon your
opposition's controlled stimulus which can get you caught . . .')

http://www.bushrag.com (Camouflage Tips)

http://www.divine-interventions.com/baby.php (Baby Jesus buttplugs:
'Slap him on the dashboard, Use him as the ultimate pacifier or make Baby
Jesus the centrepiece of your magnificent Dildo Creche . . .')

http://www.blowfish.com/catalog/toys/symbolic_dildos.html
('high-quality silicone dildos in the shapes of religious figures. Perfect gifts for
the iconoclasts in your life . . .')

http://users.frii.com/gosplow/cgsa.html (A Christian's Guide to Small
Arms: 'The Lord Jesus Christ gave very clear instruction to His
disciples in the upper room after the Last Supper. They were to be sent on a
mission, and were to take with them certain things - moneybag, knapsack,
and sword . . .')



New York's Limelight Sold For Shops

New York nightlife received another brutal blow this week, with the
announcement that seminal superclub venue the Limelight is to be turned
into a shopping mall.

In recent years the 6th Avenue converted Episcopal church traded as
Avalon though remained best known for being the centre of Michael Alig's
club kid scene of the 90s. The club also continued to be targeted by
local police who most recently closed it down during a Halloween Party
over licensing technicalities.

The 1am raid prompted a despairing response from the venue's last chief
Ricky Mercado, who told the Village Voice' It's just like they are
saying, 'Nightclubs—get the f**k out of New York City', a prediction that
appears justified with Limelight's future.

"The landlord has decided that he doesn't want to go forward with
another nightclub," financial broker Frank Terzulli, of Winnick Realty Group
told the New York Post this week.

"He's going to cut it up for retail tenants and a restaurant with patio
seating."

Eddie Dean from rival superclub Pacha was sympathetic, telling Skrufff
'Whew, what a shame. Limelight will always be part of New York City
nightclub history'.

"I'm not quite sure what happened, but what little I've heard is the
overhead of being located on 6th Avenue was tremendous," Eddie continued.

"The costs of operating a club in New York City have been steadily
rising and the cost of being actually on 6th Avenue had to have made things
very difficult. Avalon has had great success in other cities, but
clearly New York is different," he said.

Some very interesting stuff there, Bathroom Coffee. I went through some of them. But jeez, my fingers are a bit sore from all that copy-pasting of hyperlinks :P

This thread reminds me a bit of the Cinabon ad - "you are what you eat". By the same token, I wonder are we what we read? :) Or more scarily, do we become what we read? :D

Anyways, I found this rather interesting article about finding your voice when you are living in a foreign country. Something I am quite a few expats can relate to:

(This is page one of the article. If you are interested the link to page two is at the bottom)

- http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/01/26/news/avoice.php

Speaking up, regardless of your accent
Expats can effect change despite hurdles
By Gretchen Lang
Published: January 26, 2007

BERLIN: One day last winter I was struggling up the habitually icy sidewalk with my daughter when I saw an older woman slip and fall right on her behind. I was horrified. Why weren't these sidewalks ever cleared of ice? Someone should do something about this!

But then the usual passivity settled over me. It isn't my country, I thought to myself. It isn't my problem.

One of the things I miss most living abroad is my right to complain, in my own language, about problems in my community — and the chance, even the obligation, to fix them. Community participation — everything from raising your hand at a town hall meeting to voting in a presidential election — is entirely taken for granted by those living in their own countries. For those of us living as the Eternal Guest, it seems a wonderful gift.

If I try to fight a rate increase from the local utility company, or get the playground equipment fixed at the local park, or simply object when someone takes my parking place, I risk being ignored or, worse, told, "If you don't like it, go home."

This is no exaggeration. David Gordon Smith, editor of the expat Web site Expatica Germany, recently joined in the debate over flying the German flag during the World Cup — something every German was talking about. His opinion, that patriotism is unhealthy, was shared by many Germans. But the response from German readers was swift: As a non-German, what right did he have to talk about this? "If you don't like Germany, you should leave," one reader wrote.

Foreigners are at an inherent disadvantage when speaking up in their host country. They don't vote, although many pay taxes, so local politicians don't have to take them seriously. They may live in fear of running afoul of a legal system they only dimly understand. Many do not speak the language of their host country. Poor immigrants from minority groups are least likely to stick their necks out, but even middle-class expats find it daunting to try.

The temptation, as a foreigner, is to keep your head down. But how long can you live like that? Maria Balboni, who recently moved from Austria back to the United States, put it this way: "After nine years abroad with no voice, I felt castrated."

"It scares you," said Carol Albers, a psychologist, when I described my reluctance to attend a local community board meeting to bring up the icy sidewalk problem.

I have to admit that this is so. If I raise my hand and complain, I fear, I will invite all kinds of unwanted attention: anti-Americanism, xenophobia or just plain scorn for my atrociously accented German.

The last outcome is the most likely. Language is the barrier that separates most of us from our host countries. The shared joke, the ripe insult — language is the glue that holds a society together. "You are really shut out of the community until you learn the language," Albers said.

But there are a host of other things that shut us up and out. We may know the language, but we do not know the territory. Common sense would dictate that we stay quiet, listen and learn for as many years as it takes to really know a country. This is a lot to ask.

And then there are good manners. Many people — and I include myself in this group — were taught that a guest never criticizes the host's home. One of the first rules we learn as foreigners abroad is that when asked by a local, "Do you like it here?" the only acceptable answer is "Yes."

Of course, there are those who ignore all that and charge ahead. Smith, the Web site editor, has lived and worked in Germany for eight years and argues he has the right to speak his mind. "I write about Germany because I live in Germany," he said. "I am a long-term resident. I pay German taxes. I am a part of German society."

Smith said he often felt that long-term residents who pay taxes should be able to vote. "I don't think we can participate like we would at home, and I do feel frustrated sometimes," he said. "It would be nice to have more ways of influencing the society."

Some long-term expats consider applying for citizenship to gain the right to vote in their adopted country, but generally only if they are allowed to keep their birth citizenship. Fewer than half of European countries allow dual citizenship, so those immigrants to countries like Germany and Austria can expect a lifetime of taxation without representation.

More here

Capt. saab, very interesting and so true..

Here's what caught my eyes this morning..Read budha budhi (in my case :)) instead of teens..lol..

China locks up teens addicted to Internet
Strict clinic near Beijing is operated by a military researcher
Ariana Eunjung Cha, Washington Post

Friday, February 23, 2007

(02-23) 04:00 PST Daxing, China -- Sun Jiting spends his days locked behind metal bars in a military-run installation here, put there by his parents.

The 17-year-old high school student is not allowed to communicate with friends back home, and his only companions are psychologists, nurses and other patients. Each morning at 6:30, he is jolted awake by a soldier in fatigues shouting, "This is for your own good!"

Sun's offense: Internet addiction.

Alarmed by a survey that found that nearly 14 percent of teens in China are vulnerable to becoming addicted to the Internet, the Chinese government has begun a nationwide campaign to stamp out what the Communist Youth League calls "a grave social problem" that threatens the nation.

Few countries have been as effective historically in fighting drug and alcohol addiction as China, which has been lauded for its successes -- and criticized for harsh techniques.

Now the country is turning its attention to fighting another supposed addiction -- one that has been blamed in the state-run media for a murder over virtual property earned in an online game, for a string of suicides and for the failure of youths in their studies.

The Chinese government in recent months has joined South Korea, Thailand and Vietnam in taking measures to try to limit the time teens spend online. It has passed regulations banning youths from Internet cafes and has implemented control programs that kick teens off online games after five hours.

There's a global controversy over whether heavy Internet use should be defined as a mental disorder, with some psychologists, including a handful in the United States, arguing that it should be.

Backers of the notion say the addiction can lead people to neglect work, school and social lives. But no country has gone quite as far as China in mounting a public crusade against Internet addiction.

To skeptics, the campaign dovetails a bit too nicely with China's broader effort to control what its citizens can see on the Internet. The government runs a massive program that limits Web access, censors sites and seeks to control online political dissent. Google and other Internet companies have come under heavy criticism abroad for going along with China's demands.

In its Internet-addiction campaign, the government is helping to fund eight in-patient rehabilitation clinics across the country.

The clinic in Daxing, a suburb of Beijing, the capital, is the oldest and largest, with 60 patients on a normal day and as many as 280 during peak periods. Few of the patients, who range in age from 12 to 24, are here willingly. Most have been forced to come by their parents, who are paying upward of $1,300 a month -- about 10 times the average salary in China -- for the treatment.

Led by Tao Ran, a military researcher who built his career by treating heroin addicts, the clinic uses a tough-love approach that includes counseling, military discipline, drugs, hypnosis and mild electric shocks. Located on an army training base, the Internet-addiction clinic has metal grates and padlocks on every door and bars on every window.

Among the milder cases are those of Yu Bo, 21, from Inner Mongolia, and Li Yanjiang, 15, from Hebei province. Both said that they used to spend four to five hours a week online. Both said that their daily lives weren't affected, but that their parents wanted them to cut their computer usage to zero so they could study.

He Fang, 22, a college student from the western autonomous region of Xinjiang, said his grades tanked when he started playing online games several hours a night. The clinic "has mainly helped me change the way I think," he said. "It's not about getting away from pressure, but facing it and dealing with it."

Before Sun, the 17-year-old, checked into the clinic about a month ago, he said, he was sometimes online playing games for 15 hours nonstop. "My life was not routine -- day and night I was messed up," he said.

Since he's been there, Sun said, he's decided to finish high school, attend college and then work at a private company. With the help of a counselor, he has mapped out a life plan from now until he's 84.

Intersting stuffs BC, Captain and Sndy..Hope more are coming..
Here is one which caught my eyes earlier today..
What a good way to make money ...

$1500 electric guitar made from 1/3 of a $15 Ikea table
Zachary built a very nice looking electric guitar top from a $15 Ikea end table. He says he can build three tops from one end table.
This is one of the most interesting guitars I ever built and it is also one of the best.
The action is great, the tone is unbelievable, the neck is super fast, tuning stability is as good as it gets. In short, everything just worked out great on this guitar. This amazingly figured top is from Ikea Furnishings. I bought one of their unfinished end tables for $15 and I can get three guitar tops from it. What a shame that they would use such amazing "tone-wood" for their cheap furniture. Its a sacrilege.

Source: http://www.boingboing.net/2007/02/21/1500_electric_guitar.html

He he ...nice one. Time to cancel your next vacation plans and head to to China to get cured of the darned addiction, huh?! :P

Talking about China, lots of babies this year:

Source: - http://www.economist.com/displayStory.cfm?story_id=8681045
Chinese babies
The golden pig cohort

Feb 8th 2007 | BEIJING
From The Economist print edition
As China enters an auspicious year, the birth rate is expected to soar

HOSPITALS across China are bracing themselves for what is expected to be a surge of babies born in the year of the pig, which starts on February 18th. Pig years, which occur every 12 years, are considered auspicious. But the coming one, or so many believe, will be especially fortunate since it is not just a pig but a golden pig, the first in 60 or even 600 years, depending on which astrologer one consults.

China's state-owned media have carried numerous stories of gynaecologists struggling to cope with unusual numbers of expectant women. Life Times, a weekly newspaper, quoted an official as saying that Beijing alone could see 170,000 births this year, 50,000 more than in 2006 (quite an auspicious year itself). The increase is partly the result of a mini-baby boom in the 1980s, which was in turn caused by a boom two decades earlier. But officials say the golden pig has much to answer for.

In recent years, Hong Kong has become a magnet for urban Chinese women trying to evade China's strict one-child policy and enjoy better standards of hospital care (often free since many leave without paying their bills). But those hoping for a golden pig baby in Hong Kong will face difficulties. To stem the influx, Hong Kong introduced new rules on February 1st requiring mainland women who are more than seven months pregnant to prove they have a hospital booking in the territory before they can cross the border.

China's top family-planning official, Zhang Weiqing, said last month that given the current bulge in the number of people reaching childbearing age, the government would not relax its one-child policy. This will probably mean that the golden pig's impact on the birth rate will be followed by a correction once the auspicious period is over (next year is also being tipped as lucky, what with the Olympics and all).

But problems are bound to arise as the golden pig cohort reaches school age. In some parts of China, children born in 2000, the year of the dragon (also very auspicious, as suggested by the chart), are already facing stiffer than usual competition for places. In Shanghai last week, deput ies to the local legislature's advisory body called on city planners to start taking account of auspicious years when considering education demand. They also appealed to citizens to abandon superstition, but that is much less likely to be heeded.

Nepalkochoro,
very interesting..cool guitar..:)
Capt. saab, I'm a pig too..not a golden one though..I hog :)

THE 79TH ACADEMY AWARDS
Departed evening of bloated, boring Hollywood babble
Tim Goodman

Monday, February 26, 2007

It was long. It was flat. And it was bloated. Worst of all, it was boring. In the time it could have taken to see two of the five best picture nominees, the 79th annual Academy Awards managed to become one of the least interesting television shows of the entire season.

Below is a kind of timeline of the time suck that was the Oscars:

-- Why is the preshow red carpet stuff so inherently bad? Yes, yes, you people who love it just love it so. But for the rest of us, it's just unbearable fawning and loads of bad questions, which, come to think of it, are probably related.

-- Errol Morris did the opening film. The simplicity of it was a nice touch. Although much of the world might have been helped if a name and film title had been put below the faces. Just a thought.

-- The odd thing about the Oscars is that after about 18 hours of buildup it starts with such a whimper. At least the Emmys -- one of the most boring of all awards shows -- starts with major categories. At the Oscars, it starts with someone from food services, segues into some kind of strange interpretive dance, trots out some kids and a slew of tech awards and hopes that you'll still be glued to your seat. You know you're in trouble when the best thing in the first 10 minutes is a commercial for the new iPhone.

-- Will Ferrell, Jack Black and John C. Reilly temporarily brought it back, though. If you're going to do a musical, it should be done like that.

-- Host Ellen DeGeneres is normally wonderful and has a quirky, low-key charm to her, but it seems that any host -- save for Billy Crystal and the late Johnny Carson -- has a tough time making a positive impression. "It's a dream come true," DeGeneres said of hosting. "Let that be a lesson to you kids out there. Aim lower."

-- Those moments were nice, but it was difficult for Ellen's subtle rambling to translate because people want pop and humor and declarative sentences in their Academy Awards. Which they didn't exactly get.

-- Ellen: "If there were no blacks, Jews or gays, there'd be no Oscars." Good line, but next time -- no tambourine. No walking down the aisles nonchalantly.

-- Was that the worst-looking stage ever? As a matter of fact, it was. At least in the past 20 years.

-- Is Nicole Kidman actually a cat?

-- Jessica Biel may not yet have a great role under her arms, but she's sure got great arms.

-- Loved the Diet Coke commercials. They should be a reminder to the Dove people that amateur ads look amateurish.

-- Wait, wait, wait. These awards are deadly dull, and now they bring out James Taylor? What next, a lecture from Melissa Etheridge?

Oh.

-- "This show has officially gone green." -- Leonardo DiCaprio. Well, yeah, but it went boring about an hour ago.

-- Apparently Al Gore has eaten the world's excess carbons.

-- "Well, Valium does work." -- William Monahan, winner of the best adapted screenplay. So does 75 minutes of Oscar tedium.

-- Wes Anderson's American Express commercial was witty and weird and oddly riveting. Maybe next year he can direct the Oscars?

-- Is 90 minutes in too early to ask this question: Are you going to give out an award people care about? OK, that's cruel. A lot of deserving winners. It's true. But you just know it's going to run long and all the actors and directors people most want to see will be played off the stage because the show is hitting the eight-hour mark. The Oscars have always been a time-management blunder filmed for our alleged pleasure.

-- Someone tell the movers and shakers in "the movie industry" to stop thanking themselves for changing and/or saving the world. Whether or not it's true, it's just unseemly.

-- Robert Downey Jr. Love that guy. More self-effacing drug jokes make even the driest of affairs seem more pleasant.

-- Let's get this thing worked out for when four people -- say, special-effects guys -- come onstage: History tells us, time and time again, that only two of you will be able to thank anyone; the other two will get cut off, rudely. And if the first guy stumbles over his words, the camera will cut away to Beyoncé.

-- Thank God the guy from Germany, who sounded as if he was from the San Fernando Valley, won for "The Lives of Others" because at least he hadn't taken his Valium.

-- Jennifer Hudson won. Do you think that annoyed Peter O'Toole somehow?

-- The appearance of Jerry Seinfeld and his softly acceptable topical comedy was more welcome than ever.

-- Hey, Al Gore, we've found a cure for global warming -- glacial pacing!

-- In all seriousness, here is one major problem with the Academy Awards: By taking themselves so seriously, by wanting to separate themselves from the awards pack by being Very Important, the entire affair develops a fustian air that sucks the joy out of the room. Nobody can have much fun. Human blunders seem like being bad in church. An informal host like DeGeneres seems wrong. The expectations are absurd. Lighten up, Oscars.

-- Oh, Lord, please don't be Celine Dion. Don't forsake us now!

-- Was Clint Eastwood really translating for Ennio Morricone or making it up? And are they still talking?

-- Reading the screenplays did not add drama. It just seemed awkward. "Olive stands next to the phone booth."

-- Michael Arndt's acceptance speech for "Little Miss Sunshine" was short, sweet and pleasantly devoid of faux pauses.

-- If Al Gore is as "inspiring" as everyone said, can he host next year? Direct?

-- Michael Mann did a montage somewhere in the past six hours that was essentially your life passing by.

-- Three hours, 12 minutes later -- best film editing. Yes! All right! Can sound effects be next?

-- At the 3:20 mark, the score was Ellen three outfits, Oscars, two awards anyone cared about.

-- Helen Mirren -- a true gold star.

-- Oh, for God's sake, more interpretive dancing. We're out of here. And perfect! One of the backstage suck-ups just said, "Now it gets interesting."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6397373.stm

Jesus had a son named Judah and was buried alongside Mary Magdalene, according to a new documentary by Hollywood film director James Cameron.

It examines a tomb that, it is claimed, belonged to Jesus and his family, and was found near Jerusalem in 1980.

The Oscar-winning director of Titanic says statistical analysis and DNA show the tomb is that of Jesus.

Archaeologists say that the burial cave is probably that of a Jewish family with similar names to Jesus's family.

Samples tested

Israeli construction workers building an apartment complex in East Talpiot, in the West Bank, first uncovered 10 2,000-year-old ossuaries - or limestone coffins - in a tomb in March 1980.

According to the Israel Antiquities Authority, six of those coffins were marked with the names Mary; Matthew; Jesua son of Joseph; Mary; Jofa (Joseph, Jesus' brother); and Judah son of Jesua.


It doesn't get bigger than this
James Cameron
Hollywood film director

The documentary The Lost Tomb of Jesus, produced by Mr Cameron, claims tests on samples from two of the coffins show Jesus and Mary Magdalene were likely to have been buried in them and were a couple.
The filmmakers used this finding to claim that the coffin marked "Judah son of Jesua" contains the son of Jesus and Mary.

But they say the discovery of the tomb does not mean that Jesus was not resurrected three days after his death - a key Christian belief.

Israeli archaeologist Amos Kloner says the names marked on the coffins were very common at the time.

James Cameron
Film director James Cameron produced the documentary
"I don't accept the news that it was used by Jesus or his family," he told the BBC News website.

"The documentary filmmakers are using it to sell their film."

Mr Cameron will show two of the coffins at a news conference in New York on Monday.

"It doesn't get bigger than this," he said in a press release.

"We've done our homework; we've made the case; and now it's time for the debate to begin."

Local residents said they were pleased with the attention the tomb has drawn.

"It will mean our house prices will go up because Christians will want to live here," one woman said.

"Manufacturing Dissent": Turning the lens on Michael Moore
By John Anderson

Monday, February 26, 2007
Michael Moore, who carries around controversy the way Paul Bunyan toted an ax, has won legions of fans for being a ball- cap-wearing fly in the ointment of Republican politics. For tweaking the documentary form. Even for making millions of dollars in the traditionally poverty-stricken genre of nonfiction film.

Many despise him for the same reasons.

The Toronto-based documentary filmmakers Rick Caine and Debbie Melnyk started out in the first camp. But during the course of making an unauthorized film about Moore, they wound up somewhere in between. In the process, their experience has added a twist to the long-running story of an abrasive social critic who has frequently been criticized from the right, but far less often, as is the case with Melnyk and Caine, from his own end of the political spectrum.

"What he's done for documentaries is amazing," said Melnyk, 48, a native of Toronto and a freelance TV producer, who even now expounds on the good she says Moore has done. "People go to see documentaries now and, as documentary makers, we're grateful."

But according to Caine, 46, an Ohio-born journalist and cameraman, the freewheeling persona cultivated by Moore, and the free-thinking rhetoric expounded by his friends and associates were not quite what they encountered when they decided to examine his work. "As investigative documentarists we always thought we could look at anything we wanted," Caine said. "But when we turned the cameras on one of the leading figures in our own industry, the people we wanted to talk to were like: 'What are you doing? Why are you throwing stones at the parade leader?'"

Melnyk added, "We were very lonely."

Their film "Manufacturing Dissent" will have its premiere on March 10 at the South by Southwest Film Festival in Austin, Texas. To say it sheds an unflattering light on Moore — whose work includes the hit "Fahrenheit 9/11" and the Oscar-winning "Bowling for Columbine" — would be an understatement.

Moore, who was reportedly in London finishing "Sicko," a planned exposé of the American health care system, did not respond to voice mail, e-mail messages or third-party requests for an interview; a spokeswoman for the Weinstein Company, the distributor of "Sicko," said Moore had no comment on "Manufacturing Dissent," and referred inquiries to a Web address, www.michaelmoore.com/books-films/ f911reader/index.php?id=16as.

That link contains a refutation of a number of complaints taken up by conservatives regarding "Fahrenheit 9/11," but the Melnyk-Caine movie isn't really about that. "We didn't want to refute anything," Melnyk said. "We just wanted to take a look at Michael Moore and his films. It was only by talking to people that we found out this other stuff."

In part the "stuff" amounts to a catalogue of alleged errors — both of omission and commission — in Moore's films, beginning with his 1989 debut, "Roger & Me." That film largely revolved around Moore's fruitless attempts to interview Roger Smith, then the chairman of General Motors, after his company closed plants in Moore's birthplace, Flint, Michigan: an interview that occurred, Melnyk and Caine said, although Moore left it on the cutting-room floor.

"I'm still a big proponent of 'Roger & Me,' especially for its importance in American documentary making," said John Pierson, the longtime producers' representative who helped sell the film to Warner Brothers and now teaches at the University of Texas in Austin. "But it was disheartening to see some of the material in Debbie and Rick's film. I wouldn't say I was crushed. I'm too old to be crushed. But my students were."

Calling the Melnyk-Caine film "unbelievably fair," Pierson said it asks what really matters in nonfiction filmmaking: Should all documentary-making be considered subjective and ultimately manipulative, or should the viewer be able to believe what he or she sees? "I found it encouraging," he said, "that my students were dumbstruck."

In "Manufacturing Dissent" Caine and Melnyk — whose previous films include "Junket Whore," about movie journalists, and "Citizen Black," about Conrad Black — note that the scene in "Fahrenheit 9/11" in which President George W. Bush greets "the haves, and the have-mores" took place at the annual Al Smith Dinner, where politicians traditionally make sport of themselves. Melnyk and Caine received a video of the speeches from the dinner's sponsor, the Archdiocese of New York. "Al Gore later answers a question by saying, 'I invented the Internet,'" Caine said. "It's all about them making jokes at their own expense."

Still, support for Moore can be found in the film, from the likes of friends like Ben Hamper, from the actress Janeane Garofalo, and even from Pierson, a self-proclaimed "flag-waver" for "Roger & Me." Others, including the writer Christopher Hitchens, and filmmakers Albert Maysles and Errol Morris, take exception to Moore's methods, which have involved questionable lapses in chronology and what some would call a convenient neglect of pertinent material.

There have been attacks on Moore: "Michael Moore Hates America," a rebuttal of "Bowling for Columbine," was produced in 2004 by Mike Wilson, who says he was inspired by "righteous indignation," but came to a more temperate conclusion. "I understood what the guy struggles with," Wilson said.

Melnyk and Caine, who are married, admit to one fabrication of their own: They printed their own business cards before an appearance by Moore at Kent State University, identifying themselves with Toronto's City TV and its owner, CHUM Limited, their chief financial backer and owner of Bravo! in Canada, where the film will eventually be broadcast. (The network is no relation to the American Bravo! network.) "We weren't employees, so we didn't have cards," Melnyk said. Despite their ruse, the Kent State sequence ends with them being banished from the event by Moore's sister, Anne, who also knocks away Caine's camera.

The incident represents in microcosm the obstacles Melnyk and Caine said they faced while trying to make their portrait of Moore. Among other incidents, they said, they were prevented from plugging into the sound board at Wayne State University in Detroit during a stop on Moore's "Slacker Uprising" tour and were kicked out of his film festival in Traverse City, Michigan, while other press members were admitted.

"I don't think he expected us to follow him around," Melnyk said.

Caine added: "We're bit more persistent than your average film crew that way."

Nepalkochoro, SNDY, Bathroom Coffee, NPL2US -

Que pasa?! Thanks for the articles. Thought this might be of interest to some. It's all about figuring out our brains I guess :)

Source: - http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/02/07/healthscience/snbrain.php

The small brain part that makes us human
By Sandra Blakeslee
Published: February 7, 2007

The recent news about smoking was sensational: some people with damage to a prune-size slab of brain tissue called the insula were able to give up cigarettes instantly.

Suppose scientists could figure out how to tweak the insula without damaging it. They might be able to create that famed and elusive free lunch — an effortless way to kick the cigarette habit.

That dream, which may not be too far off, puts the insula in the spotlight. What is the insula and how could it possibly exert such profound effects on human behavior?

According to neuroscientists who study it, the insula is a long-neglected brain region that has emerged as crucial to understanding what it feels like to be human.

They say it is the wellspring of social emotions, things like lust and disgust, pride and humiliation, guilt and atonement. It helps give rise to moral intuition, empathy and the capacity to respond emotionally to music.

Its anatomy and evolution shed light on the profound differences between humans and other animals.

The insula also reads body states like hunger and craving and helps push people into reaching for the next sandwich, cigarette or line of cocaine. So insula research offers new ways to think about treating drug addiction, alcoholism, anxiety and eating disorders.

Of course, so much about the brain remains to be discovered that the insula's role may be a minor character in the play of the human mind. It is just now coming on stage.

The activity of the insula in so many areas is something of a puzzle. "People have had a hard time conceptualizing what the insula does," said Martin Paulus, a psychiatrist at the University of California, San Diego.

If it does everything, what exactly is it that it does?

For example, the insula "lights up" in brain scans when people crave drugs, feel pain, anticipate pain, empathize with others, listen to jokes, see disgust on someone's face, are shunned in social settings, listen to music, decide not to buy an item, see someone cheat and decide to punish them, and determine degrees of preference while eating chocolate.

Damage to the insula can lead to apathy, loss of libido and an inability to tell fresh food from rotten.

More here : - http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/02/07/healthscience/snbrain.php

captain chor, euta research ma help garday bhaneko garinas, sajha ma ta khub article post garchas

LOL,Jayamatadi..

Very interesting Capt. saab..

Jayamatadi aka Real Maobadi (aka ...) - Why make an ass of yourself? Go pop your pills.

Hypnosis Links (Definitely dodgy for some workplaces, check at your own
risk, NOT SAFE FOR WORK!!!):

- http://www.warpmymind.com (hypnosis mp3 files: includes Crotch addict:
'this curse file makes you totally addicted to men's crotches. You
stare at them when you walk down the street and when you talk to them . .
.')

- http://www.wanttoknow.info/mindcontrol10pg (The secrets of mind
control: 'The evidence in hand suggests that the technology to produce 'voices
in the head' does exist. The Department of Defense has already acquired
the technology to alter consciousness through various projects and
programs . . .')

- http://sickflash.com/hypnotize.html ('how to hypnotise a man'

- http://www.mind-course.com/subliminal.html ('Human beings sense,
perceive and react to a lot of consciously undetected stimuli. Ultrasonics,
infrasonics, radar, microwaves and various forms of radiation can
produce bodily reactions without conscious awareness, so obviously there are
various levels of awareness within human beings . . .')

- http://jeffmilner.com/backmasking.htm (Stairway To Heaven, Another One
Bites the Dust MP3s etc backwards)


Metrosexual Man Invents Sporno

Lifestyle marketing guru Mark Simpson, who infamously coined the phrase
metrosexual, has invented a new buzzword 'sporno' to describe the
increasingly gay porn style poses adopted in pictures by sportsmen including
David Beckham and the Italian national soccer team.

"In Europe and Australia, sport is the new gay porn," he declared in a
feature published in Out magazine in July (and reprinted in the New
York Times this week) and predicted that his new buzzword will soon
supersede metrosexual.

"It's no longer enough for the male body to be presented to us as
desirable, or desiring to be desired, as it was in the early days of
metrosexuality. This doesn't proffer an intense enough image," he suggested.

"It's not shocking or arousing enough any more. In fact, it's just too
. . . normal. Now the male body has to promise us an (immaculately
groomed, waxed and pumped) gang-bang in the showers."

The hugely influential writer cited Italy's decision to pose semi-naked
and oiled in their changing room for Dolce & Gabbana before the World
Cup as a prime 'homo-provocative' 'sporno' shot and claimed soccer stars
have even stopped kissing each other after scoring 'to maintain the
impression that they're only gay for pay'.

The new trend is likely to alarm Bucks County Courier Times columnist
JD Mullane in America, who this week launched a unilateral assault on
the fast growing male cosmetics industry.

"American men are buying anti-wrinkle "serum," skin "brighteners" and
other exotic lotions to lift, firm and soften?" he asked, "No wonder
we're losing Iraq," he moaned.

- http://marksimpson.com/blog/2006/07/10/sporno-wins-the-world-cup (Italy
in sporno action, might not be that safe for work)

Cone Sex's Royal Prerogative

Prince William's girlfriend Kate Middleton was spotted leaving a Soho
sex shop this week, where she reportedly bought a fluffy Santa Claus
outfit including elbow length red gloves and a new vibrator sex toy known
as a Cone.

"Kate's friend were all ribbing her about what she bought and they were
all in hysterics," an 'onlooker' told the Daily Star.

"Prince William is definitely going to be getting more than a kiss
under the mistletoe at Christmas if her gets treated to all this stuff," he
predicted.

The Cone is a brand new 'hands-free, moderately penetrative' vibrator,
adult gift set Liberator.com explain, which is designed for use on both
genders.

"Made of silicone, the smooth contours are sensational to rub against,"
say Liberator, "Lie on it, sit up against it or even use it standing
up."

The product could provide welcome relief for Scotsman Ross Watt, who
three years ago was spared jail after he was caught having sex with a
traffic cone in front of a group of 20 teenagers on an Edinburgh street.

The registered sex offender had previously been on probation for
beating himself in his groin as he posed in the window of his flat, and
claimed his cone sex act had been a performance art display in the spirit of
the Edinburgh Festival.



Cone Links:

http://www.conevibrator.co.uk/positions.php (Cone positions)

http://www.machinehead-software.co.uk/traffic_cones/alien_cones.html
(alien cone sex)

http://www.ohmibod.com/overview.html ('The OhMiBod vibrator is a whole
new way to enjoy your iPod® or any other music player. Everyone loves
music. Everyone loves sex. OhMiBod combines music and pleasure to
create the ultimate acsexsoryâ„¢ to your iPod . . .')


http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/dp5/flatto.htm (Sex may be
hazardous to your health: '"Fainting, vomiting, involuntary urination and
defecation have been noted as occurring in some young men after their
first coitus... Lesions of various organs, even rupture of the spleen,
have sometimes taken place . . .')

- http://www.sivanandadlshq.org/download/celibacy.htm (SWAMI CHIDANANDA :
'Man is a mixture of three ingredients: first, an animal with all the
physical propensities and sense urges that one shares in common with
animals; second, the rational, logical human level; and third, the dormant
Divinity, the sleeping God within. The whole of the spiritual life is a
gradual elimination, eradication, of the animal within . . .')

- http://www.ktk.ru/~cm/index.html (Antisexual stronghold: 'Sex is
similar to drugs, both in physical and social effects. It places primitive
instincts higher than intellect, a human being - a sentient being -
turns into a primitive animal. The system of priorities suffers
deformation. This leads to many nasty perversions of all kinds, including socially
dangerous ones . . .')

- http://similarminds.com/match (Compatibility test (includes 'I am
attracted to unavailable people', I desire some level of fame in my
community', 'I am either am extremely loyal to the authorities in my
environment (job, school, etc.) or totally against them',)

- http://20q.net (20Q.net is an experiment in artificial intelligence: 20
questions)

- http://www.concentrationtest.com/for_men (Concentration test (tricky-
NOT SAFE FOR WORK) )

- http://www.zefrank.com/racinggame (Racing Game, multiple levels)

- http://www.freeworldgroup.com/games/ga2 (Bow & Arrow game)

- http://www.brackeen.com/home/scared/index.html (3D Shooting game)

-https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Esp0rIfJrp4&NR (Vagator party footage)

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwJm_L5Bxmk (Arambol Sunrise party)

-https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4M005KwvhvU

Govern by law, not faith


Wednesday, February 28, 2007
The U.S. Supreme Court hears arguments on Wednesday in a case that could have a broad impact on whether the courthouse door remains open to ordinary Americans who believe that the government is undermining the separation of church and state.

The question before the court is whether a group seeking to preserve the separation of church and state can mount a First Amendment challenge to the Bush administration's "faith- based" initiatives. The arguments turn on a technical question of whether taxpayers have "standing," or the right to initiate this kind of lawsuit, but the real implications are serious. If the court rules that the group does not have standing, it will be much harder to stop government from giving unconstitutional aid to religion.

Soon after taking office, President George W. Bush established the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, and faith-based offices in departments like justice and education. They were intended to increase the federal grant money going to religious organizations, and they seem to have been highly effective. The Freedom From Religion Foundation and several of its members sued. They say that because the faith-based initiatives favor religious applicants for grants over secular applicants, they violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, which prohibits government support for religion.

The courts must decide whether the plaintiffs have the right to sue in this case before they can consider the constitutionality of the faith- based programs. An appeals court has ruled, correctly, that the plaintiffs have standing.

Procedural issues like standing can have an enormous impact on the administration of justice if they close the courthouse door on people with valid legal claims. The Supreme Court should affirm the lower court's ruling and move on to the important question: Do Bush's faith-based policies violate the Constitution?

Hey Bathroom Coffee - Thanks for that piece. How's it going? Thought this was rather amusing:

Source: - http://www.boston.com/news/odd/articles/2007/03/01/girls_5_weeks_of_hiccups_finally_end/?p1=MEWell_Pos3

Girl's 5 weeks of hiccups finally end

March 1, 2007

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. --She sipped pickle juice, held her breath, breathed into a bag, even went to a neurologist, but for more than five weeks nothing would stop a 15-year-old girl's rapid hiccups -- until they finally just stopped on their own.

After trying countless remedies and attracting national media attention, Jennifer Mee said her hiccups suddenly stopped around 5 p.m. Wednesday. No one is certain why.

"Right now, my nose is burning and my throat hurts," she told the St. Petersburg Times, but she said she felt a lot better than she has in weeks.

Jennifer had started hiccuping Jan. 23 close to 50 times a minute and said it only stopped when she was sleeping.

She saw an infectious disease specialist, a neurologist, a chiropractor, a hypnotist and an acupuncturist. She tried a patented device that is designed to stop hiccups, plus all the old remedies. Her mother called the media two weeks ago to try to find more help for her daughter, who ended up on NBC's "Today" show.

According to the National Institutes of Health, hiccups can be triggered by anything from spicy foods to stress, and they can start for no reason at all. They're caused by involuntary contractions of the diaphragm, which causes the vocal cords to close briefly, making that distinctive sound.

That must be excruciating..

Lonely man in latex with donkey in hotel room arrested
Check into a hotel wearing latex and handcuffs with a donkey in Ireland, get arrested.
A man who was found dressed in latex and handcuffs brought a donkey to his room in a Galway city centre hotel, because he was advised “to get out and meet people,” the local court heard last week.
Thomas Aloysius McCarney with an address in south Galway was charged with cruelty to animals, lewd and obscene behaviour, and with being a danger to himself when he appeared before the court on Friday. He was also charged with damage to a mini-bar in the room, but this charge was later dropped when the defendant said that it was the donkey who caused that damage.

- http://www.galwayfirst.ie/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=114&Item

Homeland Security replaces migrants with prison labor
A reader says: "Colorado proposes replacing 'illegal' farm workers with Homeland Security-mandated prison labor."
The inmates will be watched by prison guards, who will be paid by the farms. The cost is subject to negotiation, but farmers say they expect to pay more for the inmate labor and its associated costs than for their traditional workers [...]
Prisoners who are a low security risk may choose to work in the fields, earning 60 cents a day. They also are eligible for small bonuses [...]

"If they can't get slaves from Mexico, they want them from the jails," said Mark Krikorian of the Center for Immigration Studies in Washington, which favors restrictions on immigration.'



Dear CSPAN: you're not Disney, Congress isn't Mickey
Carl sez, "Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi posted a minute of video of herself testifying on her blog. C-SPAN sent her a take down notice and she caved in complied. The Speaker should have stuck to her guns and told C-SPAN to fug off that she was asserting her fair use rights to that material. C-SPAN told the New York Times that they were simply protecting their copyright "like CNN." But, C-SPAN is not like CNN or Disney. In this open letter to C-SPAN's CEO, I submit my purchase order for 6,251 congressional hearings and assert my fair use rights.
If C-SPAN were Disney, I might understand (though I would not sympathize with) a desire to milk an asset for every penny allowable by law. But, C-SPAN is not Disney and you should not treat the U.S. Congress like Disney would treat Mickey Mouse.
C-SPAN is a publicly-supported charity. Your only shareholders are the American public. Your donors received considerable tax relief in making donations to you. You and your staff were well paid for your excellent work. Congressional hearings are of strikingly important public value, and aggressive moves to prevent any fair use of the material is double-dipping on your part. For C-SPAN and for the American public record, the right thing to do is to release all of that material back into the public domain where it belongs.



Tadpole limb regeneration, human tissue regeneration?
Researchers have identified the electrical switch that turns on a tadpole's regeneration system so it can grow a new tail or leg. Someday, a detailed understanding of this phenomena could possibly lead to a way to stimulate human tissue regeneration. Michael Levin and his colleagues at the Forsyth Center for Regenerative and Developmental Biology in Boston report that a molecular pump that moves protons across the cell membrane, generating a current, is the "master control to initiate the regeneration response." From News@Nature:
Researchers have known for decades that an electrical current is created at the site of regenerating limbs. Furthermore, applying an external current speeds up the regeneration process, and drugs that block the current prevent regeneration. The electrical signals help to tell cells what type to grow into, how fast to grow, and where to position themselves in the new limb...

...The complex networks needed to construct a complicated organ or appendage are already genetically encoded in all of our (human) cells (too) — we needed them to develop those organs in the first place. "The question is: how do you turn them back on?" Levin says. "When you know the language that these cells use to tell each other what to do, you're a short step away from getting them to do that after an injury."

Peru: report on links between unsafe sex and public 'net cafes
Health researchers in Peru have produced a report that explores the sociological links between public internet cafes (cabinas públicas) and unsafe sex -- in particular, anonymous male/male encounters that take place inside the cafes, sometimes arranged online. Snip from the Public Library of Science announcement:



One recent survey, for example, found that a small number of men--10 out of 1,112 in the survey--reported having had their last sexual intercourse inside a private module of an Internet cafe. Nine out of the ten had anal sex (only four used a condom), and one out of the ten had oral sex without a condom. Of those who had anal sex, four out of nine had a casual partner, three out of nine an anonymous partner, and two out of nine a stable partner. All last sexual partners were males and all had met on the Internet.

"Given the possible association between HIV/sexually transmitted infection transmission and the high level of Internet use by men who have sex with men in Peru," say the authors, "cabinas públicas are a logical place to deliver Web-based interventions."

"Cabinas also may be an effective means for delivering low-cost prevention messages to a great number of people, especially those who are not being reached using more traditional methods."


FAIR Use Act: copyright reform bill introduced in House
Derek Slater from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) says,
Reps. Rick Boucher and John Doolittle's FAIR Use Act [PDF] would remove some of the entertainment industry's most draconian anti-innovation weapons and chip away at the Digital Millennium Copyright Act's (DMCA) broad restrictions on fair use. Take action now and tell Congress to help restore balance in copyright now.

Technology companies play a game of Russian roulette whenever they create products with both infringing and non-infringing uses. Current "secondary liability" standards don't provide enough certainty, and if innovators guess wrong, they can be hit with statutory damages as high as $30,000 per work infringed. When it comes to mass-market products like the iPod or TiVo, damages could run into the trillions of dollars -- more than enough to bankrupt anyone from the smallest start-ups to the biggest companies. Unlike in other areas, the private assets of corporate officers, directors and investors are not shielded from liability in copyright cases.

The FAIR USE Act would eliminate statutory damages for secondary liability and allow innovators to make more reasonable business decisions about manageable levels of legal risk. Meanwhile, copyright owners could still get injunctions and actual damages for harm suffered, putting them in no worse a position than civil litigants in most other areas.


Biodiesel from liposuctioned human ass-fat powers race boat
Here's some video from a Current TV segment about a biodiesel boat race to circumnavigate the globe. The boat featured in the video runs on a mixture of fuel from various sources -- 4 gallons of the stuff was produced from liposuctioned butt blubber (a hundred grams of that came from the captain's own backside). Welp, there's a renewable fuel source America has plenty of. Here's a blog post with more info.
- http://www.current.tv/studio/media/23072562?cpg=vmmA&video=Earthrace



Tooth as drug delivery device
Researchers are developing a dental implant that automatically spews precise amounts of time-released drugs for individuals with diabetes, hypertension, and other diseases. Devised by the Fraunhofer Institute for Biomedical Technologies, the Intellidrug implant contains a drug reservoir, valve, sensors and actuators yet fits inside two faux molars. A wireless transmitter lets the patient know when the teeth need a refill. The dosage can also be remotely adjusted. The first clinical trials will begin soon, using a medication to help drug addicts kick addiction. From The Engineer:
'It is important for some conditions that there is a constant level of drug in the blood plasma,' said (researcher Thomas) Velten. 'Also, for people at risk from heart attacks, these attacks commonly take place very early in the morning when the patient is asleep and cannot self-medicate. With this system we can time the dosage to take place — even when the patient is sleeping...'

Once the device is fitted, saliva in the mouth enters the reservoir via a membrane and dissolves the solid drug, forming a solution. When the system is triggered, a valve opens and allows a controlled amount of this saturated solution to flow into the mouth where it is then absorbed by the mucous membranes in the patient's cheeks.

In light of a related conversation on another thread, I found this somewhat relevant article about how the American South has changed even though it is still more conservative than the rest of the country.Like many articles tackling issues of substance with facts and figures, this is a bit long, but worth the read. Also, at the end of the article below, there are a series of other articles on the subject that you can check out.
###############################################

Source: - http://www.economist.com/surveys/displaystory.cfm?story_id=8729871

SURVEY: THE AMERICAN SOUTH
Goodbye to the blues

Mar 1st 2007
From The Economist print edition
The American South, once notorious for violence, poverty and racism, is now pleasant and prosperous, says Robert Guest (interviewed here). But it still has some catching up to do



IN 1943 Achie Matthews quit sharecropping and headed north to seek a better life. He found it. His wages in a steel factory in Ohio were fatter and more predictable than the pittance he had earned coaxing cotton out of Mississippi's soil. And although race relations in Ohio were hardly ideal, he was at least free of the daily indignities and the pervasive threat of violence that made life so cruel for a black man in the segregated South.

His story was typical. Seventy years ago the average income in America's South was $314 a year. In current dollars that would be about $4,400, meaning that southerners then were about as rich as the people of Botswana are today. Half the workers in the South in the 1930s were farmers, and half of those did not own the land they farmed. Some paid rent. Others, like Matthews, gave their landlord a share of their crop. The average landless cotton farmer made $73 a year ($1,023 today). Small wonder that by the late 1930s a quarter of those born in the southern countryside—black and white—had emigrated to the north or to southern cities.

Matthews lived and worked in Ohio for the rest of his life and died, much lamented, last year. During his lifetime the South was transformed. A political system based on fear and division was replaced by multiracial democracy. Southerners no longer subsist by sweating in fields, but by making cars, pampering tourists or flying urgent packages around the world.

In 1937 southern incomes were only half the American average; today they are 91% of it. If you allow for the lower cost of living in the South, the gap all but vanishes. Since the 1960s, more whites have moved to the South than have left it. Since the 1970s, the same has been true for African-Americans. The South's share of America's population has risen from just over a quarter in 1960 to a third today, making it the most populous American region. (This special report defines “the South” as the 11 states of the old Confederacy plus Kentucky and Oklahoma; see map.)



Last May, Matthews's granddaughter, Katrice Mines, joined the southward surge of young black professionals and moved to Atlanta, Georgia. Over a lunch of chicken with peaches, crushed walnuts and snap peas, Ms Mines admits that, before she moved, she was somewhat afraid of the South. But she quickly found a job, as an associate editor of the Atlanta Tribune, a black business magazine. Up north in Sandusky, Ohio, she had felt her talents were untapped. Down South, she feels more optimistic. Atlanta is majority-black. It is also rich, with more Fortune 500 headquarters than any other American city bar New York and Houston. “There are so many African-Americans in powerful positions,” says Ms Mines. “You can get your foot in the door.”

The new New South

It is old hat to talk of the “New South”. The phrase dates back at least to 1886, and the writer Joel Garreau counts “at least six major, widely hailed, New Souths since Lee's surrender to Grant, not to mention the minor, trial-balloon, New Souths that the sad surplus of New Southern journalists float from time to time (everybody's got to eat).” But repetition does not make a label false. People talk about the New South because the region really has changed, dramatically and repeatedly, in a startlingly short space of time.

Before the civil war the southern economy depended on slavery. This was not only inhuman; it was also inefficient. The slave-owners prospered, to be sure. Their workers did not have to be paid, and their assets multiplied by having children. But only a small minority of southern whites owned slaves, and the system hurt nearly everyone else. Blacks, obviously, were the principal victims. Unskilled whites suffered, too, since unpaid black labour depressed their wages. And slavery helped keep the South backward. The planters, with all their capital tied up in slaves, had little incentive to invest in labour-saving technology. And with few modern industries to man, the southern ruling class saw little point in mass education.

Then the civil war wiped out two-thirds of the South's wealth. Partly, this was for the happy reason that freed slaves were deemed to be human beings, not chattels. But the Unionist troops also burned several cities to cinders, ransacked farms and tore up most of the South's railways, tying some stretches of track around trees to form “Sherman bow ties”, named after a northern general, William Sherman. Roughly a quarter of able-bodied male southerners were killed or wounded. In the first year of peace, Mississippi spent a fifth of its state budget on artificial limbs.

During the “Reconstruction” period of 1865-77 the South was occupied by northern troops. This humiliation—something no other part of America has tasted—still rankles for some white southerners. For blacks it was a blessing: the occupying northern army upheld their right to vote. But when that army withdrew, they lost it again. During the “Jim Crow” era, southern Democrats ruthlessly reasserted white supremacy. Blacks were barred from voting, and their disfranchisement allowed white politicians to keep white schools white and black schools shabby. Any black who protested could be lynched.

In short, for nearly all of its recorded history the South has been ruled by violence, or the threat of it. From 1619 (when the first shackled African landed in Virginia) until 1865, slaves had to work or be whipped. From the end of Reconstruction until the triumph of the civil-rights movement in the 1960s, southern blacks who tried to vote risked a beating or worse. It took a war to dismantle the first system. The second was swept away almost without bloodshed, by peaceful protesters whose televised encounters with thuggish policemen shamed the federal government into intervening once more.

The lesson of southern history is that non-violence works, both in that narrow sense and in a broader one. An economic system based on free labour and free exchange is far more dynamic and adaptable than a system based on coercion. And a political system that heeds all voices is far more stable than one that heeds some and seeks to silence the rest.

For those whose freshest impressions come from news coverage of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, it may seem odd to describe the South as peaceful, pleasant and prosperous. Surely the storm that hit New Orleans revealed a society plagued with poverty and teetering on the edge of barbarism? No. Granted, there was a lot of looting, but reports of widespread murder and even cannibalism were hysterical and false. And pundits who likened the flood's aftermath to a third-world disaster cannot have seen many of those.

New Orleans, for all its joie de vivre, is one of the worst-run cities in America. For the South as a whole, the picture is much brighter. Indeed, the question is no longer “will the South rise again?” but “will it one day overtake the north?” Mark Sanford, the governor of South Carolina, does not hesitate before answering “yes”. The South, he says, has low taxes, weak unions, business-friendly state governments, sunshine and a quality of life that will increasingly attract people who can work anywhere with a broadband connection.

The South's share of American GDP has risen from 22% in 1963 to 31% today. Its share of America's population is still growing, but income per head, which peaked at nearly 96% of the national norm in 1981, has struggled to regain that proportion. Does this matter? As Georgia's governor, Sonny Perdue, points out, it is not a race. There are worse fates than remaining nine-tenths as rich as America, a country that is richer and grows faster than any other large rich country. There is even an argument that growth, by attracting so many newcomers to the South, threatens the region's unique charm. Walker Hodges, who manages a trucking firm in Wilson, North Carolina, laments that the “Tom Sawyer adventures” of his youth in the 1950s are now impossible, because the deserted rivers where he enjoyed them now have thousands of boats on them.

On the other hand, faster economic growth could solve many of the South's lingering problems: the large remaining tracts of relative poverty; the 19% of southerners who lack health insurance; perhaps even the South's high rate of violent crime. Greater prosperity translates into more choices for individuals—no small boon in a culture that so fervently celebrates cussed individualism. Most southerners would be happy to see more economic growth. The biggest obstacle, many believe, is the poor state of southern schools, though even those are improving.

This special report will describe how success has changed the South—economically, politically and culturally. It will offer food for thought about America's most distinctive region (and some brief thoughts on its food). It will examine the changing (but undiminished) role of religion in southern society. But it will start with the most explosive subject: the partially cleared minefield of race.

Next article : - http://www.economist.com/surveys/displaystory.cfm?story_id=8729837

(you might need a free pass to the Economist site for some of these. I get it about one in 5 or 6 visits to the site)