In another affirmation of the obvious, this study says people with greater intelligence are more likely to be atheists. Raise your hand if you are surprised that people who are more curious, well-learned and better at figuring out cause-and-effect relationships are more likely to poo-poo the supernatural…

Less obviously, they’re also apparently more nocturnal. Finally, for men, more intelligence is correlated to monogamy and fidelity.

It seems the human brain is pre-wired to react strongly to inequality. I was just thinking that ants and bees have highly stratified social structures that are quite different in terms of responsibility and danger. I wonder, if humans didn’t have this brain circuitry, would we have ever claimed a universal distribution of inalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness?

When buying “From Eternity to Here” on Amazon, two books listed at the top of the list look almost identical. The first book, “From Here to Eternity: The Quest for the Ultimate Theory of Time” looks yummy! The next book, “From Here to Eternity: Rediscovering the Ageless Purpose of God” is rather less so. Guess which one I bought by accident. Yuck!

According to a new CNN poll, 86% of American’s think government is “broken”, but of those, 81% think it can be fixed. A similar poll by CBS finds 70% dissatisfied. Most interesting (at least to me) is the CBS finding that ”
81 percent of Americans believe members of Congress don’t deserve re-election.”

Although the poll did not seek to determine the causes of these sentiments (though the CBS poll did show that less than 15% of Americans thought congress works “for the people”), I suspect well-publicized partisanship and obvious lack of cooperation is a significant contributor.

The two parties are, it seems, more interested in ensuring they keep the loyalty of their respective bases, than they are in swaying independents. To that end, they are becoming less likely to compromise, less likely to sway from impractical ideology, and less likely to cooperate with moderates in their own party, much less in the other party.

In difficult times, when American’s security is threatened (most often this comes in the form of lack of financial security), they expect government to help fix things. Right now, it seems Americans think government is getting in the way of fixes due to obvious intransigent internecine imbroglios.

Once again, I predict that if these poll numbers don’t change, and more to the point, if congress’ behavior doesn’t change, incumbents will see a thorough drubbing this November, as well far-left and far-right ideological candidates – which candidates I suspect the parties are most likely to field as part of their circling of the wagons.

Right now political cognoscenti should be sending wagons out to scatter among the people, gain their confidence, and provide visible help – instead they’re huddling in fear and paralysis.

The ballot box will tell.

Apparently, chickens have color-vision that’s a lot better than a human’s. RGB monitors probably look like washed-out cartoons to the bird-brain, when compared to real life.

Apparently, Senator Bayh is leaving because he sees the Senate becoming more stridently partisan – a trend others have also noted.

Consider this (reported on CNN): “Fifty-six percent of people questioned in an ABC News/Washington Post survey released this week said they are inclined to look around for someone else rather than re-elect their representative, with 36 percent saying they’re inclined to vote to re-elect their representative.”

Perhaps we centrists, which data shows constitute the majority of Americans (see http://www.independentnation.org/moderate_majority.htm), now have hope that the pendulum will swing like an axe in the coming mid-terms.

I believe the current anti-incumbent mood is really an anti-extremist mood. The irony is that the GOP and the Democrats are running and shoving each other far left and right while encouraging those in the middle to abandon ship. All the while, American voters are clearly sending warning shots over these far aft and stern elements of our ship of state and expressing deep disgust with partisanship.

The wonderful thing about democracy is that eventually our political “leaders” WILL get the message; when the myopic clusters of polarized of extremists are forced to walk the plank on election day. We can hold out hope they get a clue in advance, and start behaving like respectable pragmatists and cooperative congressmen, but if hope fails the ballot box won’t.

Bidding a terse bon-voyage to the ideological zealots can’t happen too soon.

Scientists have recently discovered that running without shoes is far easier than most people think. Not only that, it’s far less likely to cause injuries and physical stress than running with shoes. Amazing! It’s almost as if we evolved from ancestors who didn’t have Prada or Nike…