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For many years, research has pointed to specific neural pathways as the presumed locus of spiritual thoughts, feelings, and experiences. Famously, studies have shown similar patterns of brain activation in Buddhist meditation and Christian contemplative prayer for example. The majority of this research relies on a simple correlation between observed neurological activity and reported experience. A new study adds to the emerging picture by comparing a measure of spirituality, self-transcendence, both before and after surgical manipulation of the complex architecture of the brain. In fact, for some cancer patients brain surgery led to a spiritual awakening.

According to a new paper by Italian researchers Cosimo Urgesi, Salvatore M. Aglioti, Miran Skrap, and Franco Fabbro, selective damage to left and right inferior posterior parietal regions induced an increase in self-report scores on the self-transcendence (ST) scale of the Temperament and Character Inventory (TCI) (Cloninger et al., 1994). Twin studies have shown that the ST scale is associated with heritability estimates of 0.37 and 0.41 for male and female individuals, respectively (Kirk et al., 1999). Self-transcendence scores measure the extent to which subjects feel connected to or drawn toward an experience beyond their individual lives. People with high levels of self-transcendence often report frequent feelings of "boundlessness" or the loss of awareness of themselves as separate beings. Famously, these kind of "oceanic feelings" as Freud called them, are a common feature in the descriptions of many mystics. The extraordinary religious experience of "union" with God is a common example but increased sensitivity to and appreciation of unity, whether the natural kinship of all living things or the unifying power of human culture can also be associated with "self-transcendence."

Augustin: Ja, auf jeden Fall. Die FDP war mal liberal, ist jetzt neoliberal. Die Leute wollen aber das klassisch Liberale, und das sind wir.

Die Piraten sind eine neue Oppositionspartei - bei ihnen machten vor allem Nichtwähler und enttäuschte Linkenwähler ihr Kreuz, zeigt die Analyse. Aber auch im bürgerlichen Lager sammelten die Piraten Stimmen: Es kamen mehr Wähler von CDU und FDP zu den Landtagsneulingen als von SPD und Grünen.

EU commissioner Maros Sefcovic, in charge of administration, says salaries for the commission are too low to be attractive to candidates from rich member states.

"For some time we are facing quite a serious problem recruiting people from so-called high-wage economies," he said Monday (26 March).

The problem goes across the board from entry-level salaries for policy officers (€4,349.59 a month before tax) right up to the top bureaucratic posts in the commission.

Après avoir approuvé bruyamment la couverture douteuse du journal, qui le représente avec un casque à pointe (que les journalistes lui ont offert et qui trône maintenant dans son bureau), il a expliqué que « Nicolas Sarkozy a eu raison de dire que l'Europe a beaucoup à apprendre de l'Allemagne », que le modèle allemand était « le meilleur possible, parce qu'ils ont inventé un modèle de croissance sans dette excessive » ; que la meilleure chose que pouvaient faire les Allemands, c'était « de ne pas changer de politique » (donc voter Merkel) ; que « le modèle social européen était mort, parce qu'il ne pouvait se financer que par la dette publique » ; que « l'essentiel de la crise européenne est derrière nous, si chaque pays faisait le nécessaire pour rétablir l'équilibre » ; pour terminer par dire son hostilité aux eurobonds.

D'abord, tout cela est historiquement faux, parce que l'Allemagne est aussi endettée que la France, et que ce sont des gouvernements conservateurs qui, en France comme en Italie, en Grèce ou ailleurs (aux Etats-Unis en particulier), ont fabriqué des dettes publiques insurmontables ; c'est aussi contraire à l'action de la BCE, qui a injecté en un mois mille milliards d'euros dans un système bancaire européen en  crise de liquidité , pour lui permettre de rembourser ses dettes, installant un système de Ponzi à l'échelle du continent. La BCE n'a pas sauvé l'Union Européenne en décembre. Elle s'est juste sauvée elle-même par le maniement de la planche à billets. Cela ne lui donne pas le droit de tenter d'imposer à l'Union un modèle économique et politique.

De fait, ces déclarations sont en violation à son mandat : la Banque Centrale Européenne n'est pas là pour choisir le meilleur dirigeant allemand, ni pour dénoncer la social-démocratie et encore moins pour faire l'apologie du libéralisme. Elle est là pour protéger les épargnants européens des dérives d'une inflation excessive, dans le cadre de la politique économique de l'Union, décidée par les instances de l'Union, et dans le respect des choix politiques de chaque pays.

After aproving of the doubtful coverage of [Bild], which represents him with a spiked helmet (offered by the journalists and which now presides his office), he explained that «Nicolas Sarkozy is right to say that Europe has much to learn from Germany», that the German model was «the best one possible, because they have invented a model of growth without excessive debt»; that the best thing that the Germans could do was «to not change policy» (thus, to vote Merkel); that «the European social model was dead, because it could not be financed but by public debt»; that «the worst of the European crisis is behind us, if each country does the necessary to restore balance»; to end by stating his hostility to Eurobonds.

To begin with, all that is historically false, because Germany is as indebted as France, and it is conservative governments that, in France as in Italy, in Greece or elsewhere (in particular in the USA) have manufactured public debts impossible to overcome; it's also contrary to the action of the ECB, which has injected in a month a trillion Euros into a banking system in a liquidity crisis, to allow it to repay its debts, installing a Ponzi scheme the size of the continent. The ECB hasn't saved the European Union in December. It has just saved itself by means of money printing. This doesn't give it the right to try to impose on the Union a political and economic model.

In fact, there statements are a violation of its mandate: the ECB is not there to choose the best German leader, nor to denounce social democracy, and even less to make apology of liberalism. It's there to protect European savers from excessive inflation, in the framework of the Union's economic policy, decided by Union instances, and respecting the political choices of each country..

Please be patient while this page loads -- it takes several minutes. But it does include, after all, the entire universe.

You may see a blank space below, then a gray box. Stick with it. When it's finished loading, prepare to be mesmerized.

Click "Start," and then use the slider across the bottom, or the wheel on your mouse, to zoom in -- and in and in and in... or out and out and out... It will take you from the very smallest features postulated by scientists (the strings in string theory) to the very largest (the observable universe.)

Steve Keen has a new post up (with a link to a new paper) about Minksyan (Minskyite?) economics, and how people like me get it wrong. Good for him; debates like this are always productive, and I wish domestic responsibilities weren't keeping me from going to the Berlin conference.

...

So, first of all, my basic reaction to discussions about What Minsky Really Meant -- and, similarly, to discussions about What Keynes Really Meant -- is, I Don't Care. I mean, intellectual history is a fine endeavor. But for working economists the reason to read old books is for insight, not authority; if something Keynes or Minsky said helps crystallize an idea in your mind -- and there's a lot of that in both mens' writing -- that's really good, but if where you take the idea is very different from what the great man said somewhere else in his book, so what? This is economics, not Talmudic scholarship.

...

I always try to find the simplest representation I can of whatever story I'm trying to tell about the economy. ...

Keen doesn't seem to be doing that. His paper contains a number of assertions about what is crucial, without much explanation of why these things are crucial. And I guess I just don't see it.

Also, the point here appears to be to avoid saying that Spain is being or has been "rescued" or admitting that policy is being dictated from Brussels/Frankfurt, even if it has and it is.

[Spain's Finance Minister Cristobal] Montoro warns that the budget will be "the most austere in [34 years of Spanish] democracy"

There are three stories about the euro crisis: the Republican story, the German story, and the truth. -- Paul Krugman

Zbigniew Siemiatowski confirmed to Gazeta Wyborcza, a Polish newspaper, that prosecutors had charged him as part of their long-running investigation into a secret detention centre in eastern Poland used by the CIA from 2002 to 2003 for suspects in transit to Guantanamo Bay, but said he refused to co-operate.

"While in the prosecutor's office I refused to answer questions and I shall continue to do so at every stage of the proceedings, including in court," Mr Siemiatowski told the paper.

Investigators allege the spy boss exceeded his powers and breached international law through the use of "unlawful deprivation of liberty" and "corporal punishment" against prisoners of war.

A spokesman for the prosecutor's office refused to confirm the charges owing to state secrecy.

Media seem to be lax in that the North Sea is large enough to absorb this, forgetting that the damn rig is installed in only 70 (90?) meter water.

Evacuations are not only on the rig itself, but adjacent rigs, shutting them down as well, affecting about 3.5% of UK gas and 5% of UK oil in total.

If it comes to being untenable to drop the cement from the rig, it will take some six months to bore from another rig to the side.

the difference between the damage here and the Gulf spill is that these are very shallow waters, compared to very deep waters in the Gulf. There will likely be all manner of damage to fish, fowl and coral. Plus more pressure on fossil prices for the blind humans.

When i drily discuss the real cost of externalities, this is one that hurts. some of my best friends live in the sea.

building a society on fossil fuels is poison, and mad.

"Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage." - Anaïs Nin

60 centimeters does not compare favorably to the 10 meters TEPCO reported covering the place where the already melted down fuel was supposed to be just last December.

Leaks were discovered which go to the surface and the sea.

Tell me again why we should be debating a half-cent Feed-In Tariff change, or the end of wind in Spain?

I am such a fan of the wisdom exhaled by this civilization.

"Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage." - Anaïs Nin

Large portions of Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania shivered through a hard freeze (temperatures below 28°F ) this morning, and cold temperatures will cause widespread damage to flowering plants fooled into blooming by last week's unprecedented "Summer in March" heat wave. Growers of apples, pears, peaches, nectarines, plums, and cherries worked during the night and early morning to minimize the damage by running large fans and propane heaters in their orchards in an attempts to keep temperatures a few degrees warmer.

To quote Herr Drew von Tallahassee, "Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!"

Ever since I learnt about confirmation bias I've started seeing it everywhere