Could boredom be curable?

Published December 7, 2012 | By Iowadawg

An elusive human annoyance may finally be yielding its secrets

You’re driving to work one morning when you find yourself stuck in a traffic jam. You’re sitting in math class, listening to your teacher explain the afternoon’s lesson. You’re labeling envelopes to send out party invitations, letter after letter after letter. What do these seemingly unrelated experiences share? They have the potential to be unbelievably boring.

Boredom is more than just one of life’s minor irritations. It has been implicated in drug use and alcoholism, problematic gambling and compulsive behavior—and has even been tied to potentially lethal errors in job execution. Bored nuclear military personnel perform less reliably than colleagues engaged in their work; bored airline pilots become more likely to rely heavily, and dangerously, on automated processes.

Philosophers and scientists alike have found ways to describe boredom as an experience, from the ochlos of ancient Greeks to the unresolved conflicts of modern psychodynamic theory. But when it comes to what actually triggers boredom, an answer has remained elusive. Boredom can occur in a perplexingly broad range of situations and seems to involve both our external environment and our inner resources.

Now, after an exhaustive survey of every study they could locate that mentioned boredom—over 100 are referenced in the final paper—a group of psychologists from York University in Canada has proposed an answer, essentially a new unified theory of boredom. In a new review paper published this fall in Perspectives on Psychological Science, cognitive psychologist John Eastwood and his team suggest all boredom may result from essentially the same thing: a conflict of attention, or attention misfocused in a way that disrupts our engagement. Sometimes the problem is that there is too much competing for our attention, sometimes too little. In all cases, they argue, boredom has as much to do with our inner response to our circumstances as to the circumstances themselves.

Finish reading HERE.

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Benghazi: Looking Like A Middle East Fast and Furious

For months we’ve heard nothing but lies about lies from this administration since four Americans were murdered by terrorists in Benghazi, Libya. One of the big questions that has plagued those following the story is why this administration chose to lie for weeks on end about the cause of the attack being an obscure YouTube video. We might finally be seeing a reason for that lie. From the NY Times, committing a random act of journalism:

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration secretly gave its blessing to arms shipments to Libyan rebels from Qatar last year, but American officials later grew alarmed as evidence grew that Qatar was turning some of the weapons over to Islamic militants, according to United States officials and foreign diplomats.

No evidence has emerged linking the weapons provided by the Qataris during the uprising against Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi to the attack that killed four Americans at the United States diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, in September.

But in the months before, the Obama administration clearly was worried about the consequences of its hidden hand in helping arm Libyan militants, concerns that have not previously been reported. The weapons and money from Qatar strengthened militant groups in Libya, allowing them to become a destabilizing force since the fall of the Qaddafi government.

The experience in Libya has taken on new urgency as the administration considers whether to play a direct role in arming rebels in Syria, where weapons are flowing in from Qatar and other countries.

The Obama administration did not initially raise objections when Qatar began shipping arms to opposition groups in Syria, even if it did not offer encouragement, according to current and former administration officials. But they said the United States has growing concerns that, just as in Libya, the Qataris are equipping some of the wrong militants.

The over the top, schoolyard like outrage feigned by this President over the criticism of Susan Rice now looks even more pathetic, as does this administration’s childish games of playing hot potato with who altered the now famous talking points.

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Obama (or someone in his administration) is No Idiot

Sometimes you hear from the right, this outcry of how stupid Obama is, how he’s ignorant and doesn’t know how the economy works. Well, I’m not here to argue he’s the #1 source on how to get the economy moving, but he’s a genius. Back in 08′ I thought, “Here is this senator who speaks pretty well and he’s got his act down, but he’s not a threat to Republicans because he’s just not smart enough. He wasn’t smart enough to know that if he wants to be president, that he needed to do at least something while in the senate. Plus, we don’t really know if his policies work, because we haven’t seen any bills sponsored by him go into effect.” But unfortunately, just like last november, I was wrong about Obama’s charisma, appeal, and charm, which carried the day. But that’s not all. Someone, maybe Obama, maybe Axelrod, has been making political moves up there with the likes of Karl Rove and Lee Atwater (remember him). While there are tons of political moves which I could talk to you about, there’s no need to dwell on the past, let me give you two examples happening right now. First, Obama refused to compromise with Boehner, whom he knows will do what it takes to compromise, so Boehner keeps coming back to Obama making better deals for him, which makes him seem unprincipled and causes and even bigger divide among the republican party (as if the rift between the tea party people and the moderates wasn’t big enough) which makes an ineffective party, making it easier to for the democrats to pass their agenda. Second, Obama wants to see the middle class and the upper class get taxed higher. Much higher. So he will keep refusing Boehner’s offers and then when he dramatically raises taxes, Obama will say, “Well Republicans couldn’t meet in the middle and I was forced to raise taxes” coming out looking like roses. Click here if you want to know more about the scary truth.

Found HERE.

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Okay, I am sure the bean counters in the obama regime has figured out that hey, all we need to do is tax more rich people to continue paying.

Weekly Standard:

“Based on data from the Congressional Research Service, cumulative spending on means-tested federal welfare programs, if converted into cash, would equal $167.65 per day per household living below the poverty level,” writes the minority side of the Senate Budget Committee. “By comparison, the median household income in 2011 of $50,054 equals $137.13 per day. Additionally, spending on federal welfare benefits, if converted into cash payments, equals enough to provide $30.60 per hour, 40 hours per week, to each household living below poverty. The median household hourly wage is $25.03. After accounting for federal taxes, the median hourly wage drops to between $21.50 and $23.45, depending on a household’s deductions and filing status. State and local taxes further reduce the median household’s hourly earnings. By contrast, welfare benefits are not taxed.”

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Malcolm X: Black Democrats are Political Chumps-Pt. 1

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Selfish Psychology: Revealing the Lie of Liberals’ Apparent Moral High Ground [Reader Post]

The left consistently takes the moral high ground, and the right is left grasping at air. In order to prevent this happening, conservatives need to be secure in the values they stand for, but they also need to understand the twisted psychology behind the left’s celebration of victimhood.

Romney has been roundly beaten up over his now infamous 47% comment regarding the culture of entitlement that afflicts our country. He was then beaten up again for his comments about the Obama administration in effect bribing sections of the voting community with ‘extraordinary gifts’. Never mind that both comments were patently true – both left and right wing queued up to condemn Romney’s apparent moral failings – such, sadly, is the level of debate in our country.

However it would be a mistake to confuse the left wing censure with that of the right. Grindrich, Jindal and Walker’s comments were simply those of pragmatic politicians positioning themselves so that they didn’t disaffect the 47%, and those sections of the community that were in fact the recipient of extraordinary gifts.

The outrage from the left is another matter. What is concerning is that the left – those “elite, smart people” that Rick Santorum identified (he would be better served if he labeled them ‘intellectual’), actually believe their rhetoric – which is that a huge proportion of the population needs the State to look after them.

These patrons of the culture of entitlement become shrill with anger if it is pointed out that there is even such a thing as a culture of entitlement, not to mention that trying to support over 100 million people on welfare is a recipe for ruin. Equally unacceptable to them is the notion that sections of the population are cynically fleecing the system of all the welfare they can get – this doesn’t fit with their image of the helpless victim.

The irrational and aggressive reaction of these elite liberal to what are obvious truths is evidence of what in psychological parlance it is called a psychosis. It is apparent, that for deep psychological reasons liberal intellectuals need to feel that they are looking after people, and they resist with a vengeance any truth that shows the real motivation for their position.

This psychology of the liberal mind has been discussed occasionally, but it needs to be raised again and again until it is well understood, because without a thorough understanding, it is difficult to defeat the apparent moral high ground the liberal takes. Indeed dissent, as Romney demonstrated, is a politically perilous position. Bruce Cameron, the somewhat conservative British Prime Minister, was alluding to this difficulty, when he said of their out of control welfare system: “There are few more entrenched problems than our out-of-control welfare system, and few more daunting challenges than reforming it”.

Despite the need to understand the psychology of the liberal, there is precious little work being done on it – most critics tend to simply argue the deficiencies of their policies without attempting to understand what motivates them.

A case in point is Michael Savage’s popular Liberalism is a Mental Disorder (2005). Despite the title it turned out to be more of an investigation into the logical fallacies of the liberal agenda, rather than a look into what was driving them. He did not venture far into insights into the liberal mindset, beyond observations such as liberalism was a ‘naïve worldview’, and while ‘often well intentioned’ came with disastrous consequences.

The following year the psychiatrist Lyle H. Rossiter, Jr M.D. published The Liberal Mind: The Psychological Causes of Political Madness. This was an attempt to understand what it was that drove the liberal. Like Savage, Rossiter identifies what amounts to the liberal’s all consuming celebration of victimhood. He says, “What the liberal mind is passionate about is a world filled with pity, sorrow, neediness, misfortune, poverty, suspicion, mistrust, anger, exploitation, discrimination, victimization, alienation and injustice.”

Where Rossiter breaks new ground is that he connects this obsession with deep childhood fears. He describes it is an extension of their need to control others, which is: “rooted in fears of separation, abandonment loss or abuse – the residual effects of early attachment gone wrong.”

Finally, the biologist Jeremy Griffith goes further again in his explanation about the human condition drawing a connection between an increasingly dysfunctional society, the subsequent emotional damage (or fears) inflicted on new generations, and why celebrating victimhood then becomes such an irresistible attraction.

Read it all HERE.

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