Obama legal team meets with anti-torture generals
WASHINGTON - A dozen retired generals met with President-elect Barack Obama's top legal advisers Wednesday, pressing their case to overturn some of the Bush administration's terrorism-fighting policies.

Jamiol’s World

Threat of Punishment Works, Study Suggests
The threat of punishment actually does stamp out freeloaders, tending to transform them into rule-following members of a society, a new study suggests.
To paraphrase Lambert, the THREAT of beatings will continue until morale improves.—Caro

Obama Had a $400 Million Edge (Political Wire)
[W]hen money raised by the national parties is taken into account, the Democrats likely raised closer to one billion dollars, compared to roughly $630 million for the Republicans. Which means Obama had, approximately, a $400 million advantage over McCain.
How many people could a billion dollars feed?—Caro

$1 million inaugural package for disadvantaged (MSNBC)
It was billed as the biggest, most eye-popping of the inauguration hotel packages: the JW Marriott's $1 million "build-your-own-ball" offer. You get 300 rooms, four suites, $200,000 worth of food and drink, and a primo site overlooking the Pennsylvania Avenue parade route. Earl W. Stafford, 60, of Fairfax County, the founder of a Centreville technology company who grew up as one of 12 children of a Baptist minister, said he will provide his guests lodging, food and special access, as well as beauticians, gowns and tuxedos, if necessary.
Because beauticians, gowns, and tuxedos are what the disadvantaged really need. Maybe we could solve the entire poverty problem by giving celebrity makeovers to the poor.—Caro

Obama in Your Heart (Slate)
In his forthcoming book, Born To Be Good (which is not a biography of Obama), [Dacher Keltner, a professor of psychology at the University of California-Berkeley] writes that he believes when we experience transcendence, it stimulates our vagus nerve, causing "a feeling of spreading, liquid warmth in the chest and a lump in the throat." For the 66 million Americans who voted for Obama, that experience was shared on Election Day, producing a collective case of an emotion that has only recently gotten research attention. It's called "elevation."… Elevation evokes in us "a desire to become a better person, or to lead a better life."

The 58 million McCain voters might say that the virtue and moral beauty displayed by Obama at his rallies was an airy promise of future virtue and moral beauty. And that the soaring feeling his voters had of having made the world a better place consisted of the act of placing their index fingers on a touch screen next to the words Barack Obama. They might be on to something. [University of Virginia moral psychologist Jonathan] Haidt's research shows that elevation is good at provoking a desire to make a difference but not so good at motivating real action.
Showing, once again, that most of the people WANT TO BE FOOLED most of the time.—Caro

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Carolyn Kay
MakeThemAccountable.com