noted. 04/12/2012

• Low-Effort Thought Promotes Political Conservatism

  • The authors test the hypothesis that low-effort thought promotes political conservatism. In Study 1, alcohol intoxication  was measured among bar patrons; as blood alcohol level increased, so did political conservatism (controlling for sex, education,  and political identification). In Study 2, participants under cognitive load reported more conservative attitudes than their  no-load counterparts. In Study 3, time pressure increased participants’ endorsement of conservative terms. In Study 4, participants  considering political terms in a cursory manner endorsed conservative terms more than those asked to cogitate; an indicator  of effortful thought (recognition memory) partially mediated the relationship between processing effort and conservatism.  Together these data suggest that political conservatism may be a process consequence of low-effort thought; when effortful,  deliberate thought is disengaged, endorsement of conservative ideology increases.

• Lee veto protects the SFPD's ability to spy on you | SF Politics

  • While Lee says he will support a so-called “consensus ordinance” introduced yesterday by Sup. Jane Kim, the sponsor of the vetoed measure, his veto letter makes clear that he wants San Francisco to reserve the right to spy on whoever the FBI wants to, echoing post-9/11 fear-mongering and right-wing bait-and-switch tactics while still trying to placate civil libertarians with his rhetoric.

• Worst job list includes 'enlisted military' - Stripes Central - Stripes

  tags: military employment precarity

  • In their ranking of 200 professions, “enlisted military soldier” came in third worst, only ahead of dairy farmer and lumberjack. The best jobs in America, according to the web site, are software engineers, actuaries, human resource managers and dental hygienists – all professions with significantly better salaries and significantly less stress.

     

    The list puts the average soldier’s salary at $36,261 and the stress and work environment desirability among the worst of any job. For perspective, garbage collectors came in at spot 159, well above troops. Newspaper reporters also ended up in the bottom five, just two spots ahead.

     

    The good news for troops? If you can rise through the ranks and become a general, you’ll jump all the way up to the 141st most desirable job in America.

• US military combines green and mean to fly drones on biofuels | Damian Carrington | Environment | guardian.co.uk

  tags: drones

  • The unmanned drones used by the US Navy to bomb its enemies without risking its pilots have been tested using a 50-50 mix of biofuel and regular jet fuel. The use of drones has become increasingly controversial, but that's a debate for another place.

• Katy Perry - Part Of Me - YouTube

  hahha wow, fuck Katy Perry and fuck her mindless shilling for the military of the most belligerent country in the world.  The past ten years of brutal imperialist wars clearly aren't enough to kill America's boner for this kind of spectacular sentiment.

  tags: spectacle cultureshit imperialism katyperry

• OLA AntiSocial Media - Billy: Tool or Provocateur?

  • Fifty lone Occupiers with cardboard signs bringing police presence into a predominantly Latino low-income area who frequently suffer from racist policing and do not support the Occupiers, would do nothing but say: Hello. We’re Occupy White Privilege. We don’t give a fuck about you and your community. The fact you lost that battle against City Council to get back the land Jan Perry illegally sold to Ralph Horowitz, despite overwhelming local and celebrity support and awareness, is because you’re not Occupy. We’re going to take that land back for fifteen minutes, get everyone in jail on felony charges, bring massive police presence to the neighborhood, and look like White Savior Kony-ass dipshits who don’t have a clue about organizing in the local community. Oh wait! People think we’re that already!

• OLA AntiSocial Media - White Boy’s Laments

  tags: prison

  • However, as a white male entering jail, the first thing you’ll notice is that the “presumption of innocence” is not just a myth, but an outright lie. There is no such thing. If you aren’t bailed out awaiting arraignment, you are considered guilty. That is the natural order of things.
  • If you aren’t convinced by the way the police treat you when they brutally arrest you, observe the jailers. They aren’t carrying those green shotguns into your “pod” every two hours because they respect that you have merely been accused of a crime and have yet to be convicted of anything. To them, your incarceration is proof enough of your guilt. You are a criminal. If you weren’t, you’d have posted bail. In its simplest form - in America, money equals innocence, poverty equals guilt. There is no other way to parse that reality once you’ve awaited arraignment in jail.
  • Which brings me to my next point: if you get arrested as an activist, have no prior convictions - and force the movement to post your bail before even your arraignment - you are a fucking asshole. You are wasting the movement’s limited money.

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