Milgram experiment

The Milgram experiment on obedience to authority figures was a series of social psychological experiments conducted by Yale University psychologist Stanley Milgram which measured the willingness of study participants to obey an authority figure who instructed them to perform acts that conflicted with their personal conscience.

Findings....

"Ordinary people, simply doing their jobs, and without any particular hostility on their part, can become agents in a terrible destructive process. 

Moreover, even when the destructive effects of their work become patently clear, and they are asked to carry out actions incompatible with fundamental standards of morality, relatively few people have the resources needed to resist authority."

Read More here...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment 

 More in-depth article in Harper's Magazine...
 The Perils of Obedience by Stanley Milgram

A social psychologist's experiments show that most people will hurt their fellow man rather than disobey authority.

Read more here....
 http://www.laquintahs.org/ourpages/auto/2007/9/26/1190783482193/Milgram%20-%20perils%20of%20obediance.pdf

Welcome to Post-Constitution America

What if your country begins to change and no one notices?

Excerpt:
 
Consider, for instance, the rise of the warrior cop, of increasingly up-armored police departments across the country often filled with former military personnel encouraged to use the sort of rough tactics they once wielded in combat zones. Supporting them are the kinds of weaponry that once would have been inconceivable in police departments, including armored vehicles, typically bought with Department of Homeland Security grants. 

Recently, the director of the FBI informed a Senate committee that the Bureau was deploying its first drones over the United States. Meanwhile, Customs and Border Protection, part of the Department of Homeland Security and already flying an expanding fleet of Predator drones, the very ones used in America’s war zones, is eager to arm them with “non-lethal” weaponry to “immobilize targets of interest.”

Read more...
http://www.thenation.com/article/175589/welcome-post-constitution-america#

Argentina's Slum Priests Focus on Helping rather than Converting

Truly inspiring...

Excerpt:

He has scuffed work boots and dirty nails and hears confession from dealers and hit men. When residents spot his trashed 4x4 bumping down dirt roads, they call out his nickname: "Charly!"
He spends most of his time addressing practical rather than spiritual problems. That means navigating governmental bureaucracy, helping immigrants obtain state identification cards and finding beds to get addicts off the street.

"If we don't get people a home, it's insane to think about other kinds of lives for them," Olivero said.
So far this day he had talked to the directors of two state hospitals, attended a brainstorming session with other slum priests and handed out fliers about a religious festival for the neighborhood's large community of Paraguayan immigrants.

As he left to prepare for that evening's wake for the addict, he suddenly remembered something.
"Oh," he said, bringing his hands to his head. "I have a wedding tonight!"

READ MORE HERE...
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-argentina-slum-priests-20130806-dto,0,4329979.htmlstory

Alvin Langdon Coburn

 Art photography by the late Alvin Langdon Coburn...

See more great images here...

http://www.geh.org/fm/coburn/alcoburn/coburn_sld00001.html

Confessions

Very interesting and a great idea!

http://candychang.com/confessions/

Global Threats

 

Various countries are surveyed to find out what they believe is the biggest Global Threat..;.

http://www.pewglobal.org/2013/06/24/climate-change-and-financial-instability-seen-as-top-global-threats/

Revealed: how Microsoft handed the NSA access to encrypted messages

• Secret files show scale of Silicon Valley co-operation on Prism
• Outlook.com encryption unlocked even before official launch
• Skype worked to enable Prism collection of video calls
• Company says it is legally compelled to comply

READ MORE HERE:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jul/11/microsoft-nsa-collaboration-user-data

Statement from Edward Snowden

This guy's a hero in my books...

One week ago I left Hong Kong after it became clear that my freedom and safety were under threat for revealing the truth. My continued liberty has been owed to the efforts of friends new and old, family, and others who I have never met and probably never will. I trusted them with my life and they returned that trust with a faith in me for which I will always be thankful.

On Thursday, President Obama declared before the world that he would not permit any diplomatic "wheeling and dealing" over my case. Yet now it is being reported that after promising not to do so, the President ordered his Vice President to pressure the leaders of nations from which I have requested protection to deny my asylum petitions.

This kind of deception from a world leader is not justice, and neither is the extralegal penalty of exile. These are the old, bad tools of political aggression. Their purpose is to frighten, not me, but those who would come after me.

For decades the United States of America has been one of the strongest defenders of the human right to seek asylum. Sadly, this right, laid out and voted for by the U.S. in Article 14 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, is now being rejected by the current government of my country. The Obama administration has now adopted the strategy of using citizenship as a weapon. Although I am convicted of nothing, it has unilaterally revoked my passport, leaving me a stateless person. Without any judicial order, the administration now seeks to stop me exercising a basic right. A right that belongs to everybody. The right to seek asylum.

In the end the Obama administration is not afraid of whistleblowers like me, Bradley Manning or Thomas Drake. We are stateless, imprisoned, or powerless. No, the Obama administration is afraid of you. It is afraid of an informed, angry public demanding the constitutional government it was promised — and it should be.

I am unbowed in my convictions and impressed at the efforts taken by so many.
Edward Joseph Snowden

Monday 1st July 2013

Read full article here: Wikileaks

Breakthroughs in Health

The future of health looks promising...especially with these breakthroughs.

Researchers in Japan have used human stem cells to create tiny human livers like those that arise early in fetal life - New York Times 

No sign of HIV return in bone marrow transplant patients, say scientists: Two men who had longstanding HIV infections have stopped taking Aids drugs and have no detectable HIV in their blood - Guardian

Researchers have created contact lenses which, when paired with special spectacles, bestow telescopic vision on their wearers - BBC News 

10 Medical advances in the last ten years....CNN