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The secret of self-control.

In the late nineteen-sixties, Carolyn Weisz, a four-year-old with long brown hair, was invited into a “game room” at the Bing Nursery School, on the campus of Stanford University. The room was little more than a large closet, containing a desk and a chair. Carolyn was asked to sit down in the chair and pick a treat from a tray of marshmallows, cookies, and pretzel sticks. Carolyn chose the marshmallow. Although she’s now forty-four, Carolyn still has a weakness for those air-puffed balls of corn syrup and gelatine. “I know I shouldn’t like them,” she says. “But they’re just so delicious!” A researcher then made Carolyn an offer: she could either eat one marshmallow right away or, if she was willing to wait while he stepped out for a few minutes, she could have two marshmallows when he returned. He said that if she rang a bell on the desk while he was away he would come running back, and she could eat one marshmallow but would forfeit the second. Then he left the room.

Although Carolyn has no direct memory of the experiment, and the scientists would not release any information about the subjects, she strongly suspects that she was able to delay gratification. “I’ve always been really good at waiting,” Carolyn told me. “If you give me a challenge or a task, then I’m going to find a way to do it, even if it means not eating my favorite food.” Her mother, Karen Sortino, is still more certain: “Even as a young kid, Carolyn was very patient. I’m sure she would have waited.” But her brother Craig, who also took part in the experiment, displayed less fortitude. Craig, a year older than Carolyn, still remembers the torment of trying to wait. “At a certain point, it must have occurred to me that I was all by myself,” he recalls. “And so I just started taking all the candy.” According to Craig, he was also tested with little plastic toys—he could have a second one if he held out—and he broke into the desk, where he figured there would be additional toys. “I took everything I could,” he says. “I cleaned them out. After that, I noticed the teachers encouraged me to not go into the experiment room anymore.”

Continue reading “Don’t!”

Why can’t we have an honest debate about ‘enhanced interrogations’ of confessed Terrorists; without the Lies from the Leftists.

. . . from First Things

Radical evil sets the threshold of victory so high that we risk contamination by confronting it on its own terms. Terrorists tempt us to torture them, by striking against innocent noncombatants out of the shadows. The present debate over torture is a black cloud as big as a man’s hand announcing a storm to come. How do we arrogate unto ourselves the right to inflict death and extreme pain upon innocents—leave aside not-so-innocent terrorists—without corrupting ourselves? The insidious character of radical evil seeks to contaminate us through our own response. Ordinary evil kills for profit or rapes for pleasure. Radical evil rapes and kills so that terror and horror will blot out the memory of the good and leave behind only the capacity for more evil.
Radical evil seeks to destroy the good out of envy; if we cannot envision the Good, we must stand dumb and uncomprehending before radical evil. And no secular philosophy can explain the Good; no mainstream current of modern philosophy even tries. All the less can secular philosophy explain radical evil. The erosion of the West’s theological understanding of good and evil since the Second World War and the Cold War leaves us vulnerable to radical evil. It is in this context that the present debate over torture should be situated.

Commencement Demonstration Details

Palin Haters Livid at Juneau
Tourism, Outraged Over
Little Piper’s Lemonade Stand

NewsBusters, by Warner Todd Huston

Tourism has recently been up a little in Juneau, Alaska. More folks than ever have been interested in taking bus tours through Alaska’s capital city with a major attraction being the Alaska State House.(Snip)The bus tours are so popular that adorable little Piper has even set up a lemonade stand to sell tourists a glass of lemony goodness to quench their thirst.(Snip)What sort of a sick man would attack a little girl’s lemonade stand?

More hate speech from the Obama Administration.

This is what she said: “Rush Limbaugh said he hopes this
administration fails, so you’re saying, ‘I hope America fails’, you’re, like, ‘I
dont care about people losing their homes, their jobs, our soldiers in Iraq’. He
just wants the country to fail. To me, that’s treason.”He’s not saying anything differently than what Osama bin Laden is saying. You know, you might
want to look into this, sir, because I think Rush Limbaugh was the 20th
hijacker. But he was just so strung out on OxyContin he missed his flight.”

She then concluded: “Rush Limbaugh, I hope the country fails, I
hope his kidneys fail, how about that? He needs a good waterboarding, that’s
what he needs.” Obama seemed to think this bit was pretty hilarious, grinning
and chuckling and turning to share the “joke” with the person sitting on
his right.

That Dinner is for good natured poking fun at people, not pure unadulterated ‘Hate’. Will the Obamites be criticized by the Corespondents?

The hater looks on ‘approvingly.

The main strategy for Leftist survival. SHUT UP!

How long will it take! How long will it take for the people who put this guy in power, to see what is happening but more importantly, how all this has happen to take place:

Central Route and Peripheral Route to Persuasion

People may be persuaded in
different ways. Petty and Cacioppo (1981) suggested that there are two
different ways or routes to persuasion: the central route and the
peripheral route.

The Central Route to Persuasion

The central route to persuasion involves being persuaded by the arguments or the content of the message. For example, after hearing a political debate you may decide to vote for a candidate because you found the candidates views and arguments very convincing.

The Peripheral Route to Persuasion

The peripheral route to persuasion involves being persuaded in a manner that is not
based on the arguments or the message content. For example, after reading
a political debate you may decide to vote for a candidate because you like the
sound of the person’s voice, or person went to the same university as you
did. The peripheral route can involve using superficial cues
such as the attractiveness of the speaker.

ReferencesPetty, R. E., & Cacioppo, J. T.
(1981). Attitudes and persuasion: Classic and contemporary approaches. Dubuque, Iowa: Wm. C. Brown Company Publishers.

Do most of these people believe in where this guy is taking us. They cannot see beyond the facade. This dream world they want to be in. They have put all their hopes and dreams in this guys hands and they cannot, yet, tell themselves that they were wrong.

This is the only thing that makes any sense; because what is happening, doesn’t.

More in depth

Mr. Obama,

Given the uproar about the simple question asked you by Joe the plumber, and the persecution that has been heaped on him because he dared to question you, I find myself motivated to say a few things to you myself. While Joe aspires to start a business someday, I already have started not one, but 4 businesses. But first, let me introduce myself. You can call me “Cory the well driller”. I am a 54 year old high school graduate. I didn’t go to college like you, I was too ready to go “conquer the world” when I finished high school. 25 years ago at age 29, I started my own water well drilling business at a time when the economy here in East Texas was in a tailspin from the crash of the early 80’s oil boom. I didn’t get any help from the government, nor did I look for any. I borrowed what I could from my sister, my uncle, and even the pawn shop and managed to scrape together a homemade drill rig and a few tools to do my first job. My businesses did not start as a result of privilege. They are the result of my personal drive, personal ambition, self discipline, self reliance, and a determination to treat my customers fairly. From the very start my business provided one other (than myself) East Texan a full time job. I couldn’t afford a backhoe the first few years (something every well drilling business had), so I and my helper had to dig the mud pits that are necessary for each and every job with hand shovels. I had to use my 10 year old, 1/2 ton pickup truck for my water tank truck (normally a job for at least a 2 ton truck).

A year and a half after I started the business, I scraped together a 20% down payment to get a modest bank loan and bought a (28 year) old, worn out, slightly bigger drilling rig to allow me to drill the deeper water wells in my area. I spent the next few years drilling wells with the rig while simultaneously rebuilding it between jobs. Through these years I never knew from one month to the next if I would have any work or be able to pay the bills. I got behind on my income taxes one year, and spent the next two years paying that back (with penalty and interest) while keeping up with ongoing taxes. I got behind on my water well supply bill 2 different years (way behind the second time… $80,000.00), and spent over a year paying it back (each time) while continuing to pay for ongoing supplies C.O.D.. Of course, the personal stress endured through these experiences and years is hard to measure. I do have a stent in my heart now to memorialize it all.
Continue reading “An American businessman’s letter to Obama”