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DURHAM, N.C. -- Making a snap decision usually means following your initial reaction -- going with your gut. That intuitive feeling sprouts from the limbic system, the evolutionarily older and simpler part of the brain that affects emotion, behavior and motivation.
But during adolescence, the limbic system connects and communicates with the rest of the brain differently than it does during adulthood, leaving many adolescents vulnerable to riskier behaviors, according to Duke University researchers.
"We know adolescence is a time of profound social change. It's also a profound time for risk-taking -- a time period when peer influence is more important," said Kevin LaBar, a professor in the Duke Center for Cognitive Neuroscience. "This is when we start establishing independent relationships with adults, and some of those relationships are going to be influenced by how trustworthy those people are. It's important in these relationships to evaluate who you can and can't trust."
To date, there has been significant research into how the adult brain processes and judges trustworthiness, said LaBar, who is also a member of the Duke Institute for Brain Sciences. But few studies look at the adolescent brain's ability to evaluate trustworthiness.
The study, which appears in the March 2014 Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, examines this capability in adolescent girls, ages 10 to 20. LaBar said boys weren't included in the study because they mature at a slower rate than girls.
The research team enrolled 43 girls and showed each 34 pictures of adult faces in extremely fast (50-millisecond to 100-millisecond) glimpses while recording their reactions in real time using functional MRI (fMRI) brain scanning. After each flash, the images were immediately scrambled to prevent the girls from developing any lasting visual memory of a face, LaBar said.
After each image, participants rated the face as very untrustworthy, untrustworthy, trustworthy or very trustworthy. The fMRI whole-brain scans recorded where blood flow and oxygen increased in the brain for each picture. Areas of increased activity helped the researchers isolate the regions of the brain responsible for processing social and emotional information from faces.
Existing research from Princeton University on how adults process trustworthiness helped LaBar's team pinpoint the facial features that prompted feelings of mistrust in these participants. According to the research, faces with downward-turned mouths and furrowed eyebrows are among the most untrustworthy. In contrast, faces with U-shaped mouths and wide-set eyes rank among the most trustworthy.
Based on the fMRI results, the components of the limbic system known as the amygdala (which evaluates negative emotions) and insula (which plays a role in gut-level decision making) were the most active for the faces participants rated as untrustworthy. Among all ages, the right amygdala showed high levels of activity when presented with an untrustworthy face. Other spots within the amygdala and insula also demonstrated increased activity in these instances, peaking among the 13- to 15-year-old participants.
"These heightened responses for untrustworthiness suggest that during this time, girls this age are particularly sensitive to the facial features they feel are untrustworthy," LaBar said. "We don't know why. Maybe it's a post-pubertal hormone change that brings on the heightened response, or maybe they're more motivated to scan for social threats during this period."
The fMRI results also revealed that during mid-adolescence, the amygdala, while active, shows reduced connectivity with other parts of the brain involved in facial processing, including the insula and temporal lobe. Rather than these areas working in sync, LaBar said, participants this age experienced enhanced limbic system (emotional and behavioral) responses and a greater disconnection from brain regions that could help regulate responses.
"This disconnect can lead mid-adolescents to process untrustworthiness in different ways," he said. "If you look at mid-adolescents, they don't rate trustworthiness the same as adults or younger or older adolescents. There are clearly some changes happening in the mid-adolescent brain in how regions talk to each other, and can lead to behavioral differences in how trust is established."
These findings contradict the traditional view that social and emotional behavior fluctuations caused by the limbic system even out steadily in later adolescence as the prefrontal cortex -- the brain region responsible for cognitive thinking and decision making -- develops.
It may be possible, he said, to generalize the findings beyond trustworthiness to other domains, such as intuitions and responses that go beyond the set of faces used in the experiment. In fact, according to LaBar's co-author, Duke associate professor of psychiatry Nancy Zucker, these results could also have future clinical implications, especially among girls with anorexia nervosa.
This research is part of a larger study into how healthy adolescents and those with anorexia nervosa -- an eating disorder characterized by excessive weight loss -- use signals from their bodies to guide their decisions.
"Anorexia nervosa principally onsets during adolescence, with 14- to 15-years-old being one of the peak periods," said Zucker, who is also a faculty member of the Duke Institute for Brain Sciences. "If the state of the body is uncoupled from what is important to us, then this period may be a 'window of opportunity' for those with anorexia nervosa to engage in behaviors that are starkly in contrast to the body's need."
This study's findings could help design prevention and treatment interventions that hone in on risky decision-making or help adolescents with mental illness rely more on themselves to make decisions.
"Our ability to use our bodies to guide optimal decisions may go through some risky developmental windows," Zucker said. "Knowing these periods, we can better educate adolescents about how to maneuver the challenges of adolescence."


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Newswise — Dark matter, which researchers believe make up about 80% of the universe's mass, is one of the most elusive mysteries in modern physics. What exactly it is and how it came to be is a mystery, but a new Johns Hopkins University study now suggests that dark matter may have existed before the Big Bang.
The study, published August 7 in Physical Review Letters, presents a new idea of how dark matter was born and how to identify it with astronomical observations.
"The study revealed a new connection between particle physics and astronomy. If dark matter consists of new particles that were born before the Big Bang, they affect the way galaxies are distributed in the sky in a unique way. This connection may be used to reveal their identity and make conclusions about the times before the Big Bang too," says Tommi Tenkanen, a postdoctoral fellow in Physics and Astronomy at the Johns Hopkins University and the study's author.
While not much is known about its origins, astronomers have shown that dark matter plays a crucial role in the formation of galaxies and galaxy clusters. Though not directly observable, scientists know dark matter exists by its gravitation effects on how visible matter moves and is distributed in space.
For a long time, researchers believed that dark matter must be a leftover substance from the Big Bang. Researchers have long sought this kind of dark matter, but so far all experimental searches have been unsuccessful.
"If dark matter were truly a remnant of the Big Bang, then in many cases researchers should have seen a direct signal of dark matter in different particle physics experiments already," says Tenkanen.
Using a new, simple mathematical framework, the study shows that dark matter may have been produced before the Big Bang during an era known as the cosmic inflation when space was expanding very rapidly. The rapid expansion is believed to lead to copious production of certain types of particles called scalars. So far, only one scalar particle has been discovered, the famous Higgs boson.
"We do not know what dark matter is, but if it has anything to do with any scalar particles, it may be older than the Big Bang. With the proposed mathematical scenario, we don't have to assume new types of interactions between visible and dark matter beyond gravity, which we already know is there," explains Tenkanen.
While the idea that dark matter existed before the Big Bang is not new, other theorists have not been able to come up with calculations that support the idea. The new study shows that researchers have always overlooked the simplest possible mathematical scenario for dark matter's origins, he says.
The new study also suggests a way to test the origin of dark matter by observing the signatures dark matter leaves on the distribution of matter in the universe.
"While this type of dark matter is too elusive to be found in particle experiments, it can reveal its presence in astronomical observations. We will soon learn more about the origin of dark matter when the Euclid satellite is launched in 2022. It's going to be very exciting to see what it will reveal about dark matter and if its findings can be used to peak into the times before the Big Bang."

subset: commoncrawl


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We're living at a time when more than 80 percent of Americans fail to eatthe recommended amounts of fruits and vegetables. At the same time, many Americans overeat refined grains and sugar.
This may help explain why the obesity rate seems stuck. The most recent estimate is that 36 percentof adults in the U.S. are obese.
But, as a nation, we seem to have our blinders on. Despite much evidence to the contrary, most Americans say they have a healthy diet.
This comes from a poll NPR conducted with Truven Health Analytics, which surveyed a nationally representative sample of 3,000 U.S. adults in May.
One question they asked: How healthy would you consider your eating habits to be? About 75 percent of respondents ranked their diets as good, very good or excellent.
Hmm. Are Americans confused about what constitutes a healthy diet? Do they say one thing, but do another? Or perhaps it's a matter of portion size: We may be choosing foods that are healthy in moderation, but are eating too much of them.
We asked a range of experts who study eating habits.
Nutrition scholar Marion Nestle at New York University says portion size — just eating too much — is an issue. "I'd vote for that as a major cause of obesity," Nestle told us by email.
"Some of the problem is that individuals pay more attention to getting good things in their diet than they do to limiting overall intake," adds David Just, a behavioral economist who studies food psychology at Cornell University. "It is hard to monitor overall consumption. It is easy to remember to add a fruit or vegetable to the plate."
As a culture, we seem to have food on the brain more. "We eat two more large snacks a day [compared to] 25 years ago," says Barry Popkin, a professor of nutrition at the University of North Carolina. His research points to the trend of kids eating every few hours throughout the day.
"Most people try to do the best they can, given their circumstances," Nestle adds, but there are lots of factors that shape our eating habits: "Education is an issue, but so is relentless food marketing."
As we've reported, the industry spends billions of dollars marketing junk food and sugary drinks. And celebrity endorsements have also been shown to play a role in influencing our habits.
"The industry has people thinking that many of their items are healthy," Popkin says, pointing to sugar-filled granola bars as an example.
And that marketing has proved quite effective, creating a disconnect between what nutrition experts and the public perceive to be healthful foods.
As a recent poll by The New York Times found, 71 percent of the public thinks granola bars are healthy, while only 28 percent of the hundreds of nutritionists surveyed agreed with that assessment.
Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.


text: Top of the morning to you. I'm Rachel Martin. And of course there's more to St. Patrick's Day than beer. But today is not the day to mess with Guinness, which is what Railtown Cafe in Vancouver did. They posted a photo on Facebook, a Guinness glass with a messy trail of foam down the side. Irish newspaper The Mirror wrote that the picture made Irish people everywhere grimace in disgust. To make amends today, the bar is giving away Guinness - neatly poured, of course - to customers with an Irish passport. It's MORNING EDITION. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.


text:
About us
In over twenty years of working with a varied client base in the local area and London, we have established a reputation as reliable and forward-thinking accountants and business advisers.
We pride ourselves in delivering the highest quality service to all of our clients, and in constantly striving to improve the range and nature of that service.
We like to develop good relationships, taking the time to learn about you and your business in order to tailor our service to your needs.
When you choose us, you'll find yourself working with a team that's focused on making your financial affairs run smoothly from the very start – and on saving you money!
That makes us flexible, and able to offer you:
- Accountancy and financial advice
- Services that grow with your business or circumstances
- A fresh outlook – we're a modern business facing the same challenges as our client


text:
Found 2 results
Author [ Title] Type Year Filters: Keyword is Aged and Author is Brickman, Adam M [Clear All Filters]
Changes in posed facial expression of emotion across the adult life span. Exp Aging Res, 30(4), 305-31. presented at the 2004 Oct-Dec. doi:10.1080/03610730490484399
. (2004). Perceived Stress Is Differentially Related to Hippocampal Subfield Volumes among Older Adults. PLoS One, 11(5), e0154530. presented at the 2016. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0154530
. (2016).


text:
Update 1/25/20: Added reviewer 👍A.C. Wise (click link to highlight).
Every month, on the 1st, we add the most recommended👍 stories from the previous month's ratings to our Year-To-Date (YTD) list, grouped by story length and current score (must be 2 or more). This is our annual library.
After year's end, during the three-month award nomination season, the YTD list becomes the SF/F Ballots list and story scores are updated as "year's best" anthologies📙 and award finalists🏆 are announced. For some awards and the Locus Recommended Reading List, we'll create an annotated list of the finalists sorted by latest score to help people choose stories to read.
After most nominations close in March, the SF/F Ballots list becomes the Best SF/F list and story scores continue to be updated until November when the last award winners (World Fantasy) are announced. During this time, we'll produce themed selections of outstanding stories🚀✨🌈📚 with final scores from the annual library.
1. Year-To-Date
2. Hugo Awards
Update 3/2/18: Added links to 7 Analog's stories from 2017 AnLab Readers Awards finalists.
Update 2/26/18: Added link to free F&SF story "Dirty Old Town".
Update 2/23/18: Added links to 11 Asimov's stories from 2017 Asimov's Readers Awards finalists.
Update 2/20/18: Added 2017 Nebula Award finalists.
Update 2/10/18: Added recommendations for stories in RHorton's The Year's Best Science Fiction and Fantasy, 2018 Edition.
Update 2/7/18: Added link to 2018 Pro Artists page.
Update 2/7/18: Added links to 5 Asimov's stories; Added GDozois and RHorton recs from 2/18 Locus Magazine.
Update 1/23/18: Added recommendations for stories in NClarke's Year's Best SFF v3.
[Old version without dynamic table available at Bing & Google caches.]
[Best stories before 2017 available at the RSR Library.]
To make it easier to nominate in Hugo Award categories other than Best Novel, we have collected key information from all the stories in 11 magazines and 8 major anthologies published in 2017. Taken together, this makes it a lot easier to pick things to read and nominate in five categories and the Campbell Award.
1. Help Making Short-Fiction Nominations
If you're still looking for things to read
You can find recommendations on this page for:- Novellas (30 out of 55 reviewed)
- Novelettes (85 out of 191 reviewed)
- Short Stories (130 out of 501 reviewed)
There are also the RSR-compilation of the "year's best" SF/F anthologies, RSR-annotated versions of the 2017 Locus Recommended Reading List and 2017 Nebula Award Finalists.
If you've already finished your reading
It's easy to remember which novels you read last year, but it's hard to remember all the short fiction. Even a list of titles and authors doesn't always help because that's often not enough to remind you what the story was about--much less whether it was a novella, novelette, or short story.Here are links to lists of stories in every magazine and anthology reviewed by RSR in 2017. The stories are sorted by title and contain a brief description and category (novella, novelette, short story).
- Print Magazines: Analog, Asimov's, F&SF, Interzone
- Online Magazines: Apex, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Clarkesworld, Lightspeed, Strange Horizons, Tor.com, Uncanny
- Anthologies: Behind the Mask, Chasing Shadows, Cosmic Powers, Infinite Stars, Infinity Wars, The Book of Swords, The Djinn Falls in Love, Visions, Ventures, Escape Velocities
- Other Sources: Tor Novellas, Miscellaneous
2. Help Making Campbell Award Nominations
The Campbell Award goes to the best new writer based on the last two years of work. The challenge here is knowing who's eligible. Our Campbell Award-Eligible Writers page contains the same information per-story as the list above, but filters out all but the new writers.3. Help Making Best Pro Artist Nominations
To pick candidates for Best Professional Artist, you need to be able to look through a lot of full-sized images quickly, separating out the ones worth more study.Our 2018 Professional Artists post uses a "lightbox" display to let you scroll through the cover art from the major magazines and novels of 2017, and it includes links to the original publications and the artists' online galleries (where possible). With this system, you can riffle through about 300 pieces of cool art in just a few minutes.
4. Help Making Best Editor (Short Form) Nominations
Finally, to help people make nominations for the Best Editor (Short Form) category, we collected together all the statistics we could think of on our 2018 Editors (Short Form) post (coming soon) and we offer some suggestions on how to combine them to pick candidates.Everyone has a handle on Best Novel, but we think this makes nominating for the other categories a whole lot easier, and we hope you will too. (Rocket Stack Rank is a free service and is not monetized in any way, shape, or form.)
5. Worldcon Registration
2018 Hugo Awards nominations will begin soon. To nominate, you must have either 1) been registered for Worldcon 75 (Helsinki, Finland) or 2) registered for Worldcon 76 (San Jose, California) or Worldcon 77 (Dublin, Ireland) before January 1, 2018.
3. Best SF/F
Update 8/23/18: Tagged 20 Best American Science Fiction & Fantasy 2018.
Update 5/21/18: Tagged 5 Eugie Award finalists.
Update 4/30/18: Tagged 30 Locus Award finalists.
Update 4/17/18: Tagged 11 Sturgeon Award finalists.
Update 3/31/18: Tagged 18 Hugo Awards finalists.
RSR's tables are now dynamic, meaning you can change the way the stories are ordered, and also highlight different types of stories. For example, click this link 🌀Publication & Score to regroup stories from categories to magazines. Click these links to highlight stories that are 📖free online, by ✍new writers (Campbell Award-eligible), and 🌐translations.
You can also flag and rate stories to track your reading progress over weeks and months and end up with a shortlist of candidates in the ⚑★My Ratings page at the end of the year to nominate for the Hugo, Locus, Nebula, and various magazine-specific awards.
When you're ready to try the new features, expand the Dynamic Table Features help box below for further details, and expand the gray Command Box pinned to the bottom of the window to access all the new functionality.
Eric Wong Updated Friday June 21, 2019


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What Is Spousal Support (also known as Maintenance or Alimony)?
In many divorce proceedings, spousal support is a major focal point. This is particularly true when one spouse has been a stay-at-home parent and has not worked in recent years. While there are no set guidelines or requirements for spousal support in Missouri, that doesn't mean that spouses are not entitled to seek it. It only means that a compelling case needs to be made no matter what side you are on in a maintenance case.
Be sure that you have an experienced lawyer on your side who understands the law and will fight to protect your interests. At Stange Law Firm, PC, we represent clients throughout Missouri, Illinois, Kansas and Oklahoma in all types of spousal support matters. No matter which side of the case you are on, we are committed to doing everything in our power to secure the most favorable possible result on your behalf.
Building the Strongest Possible Case to Support Your Position
Maintenance in Missouri
Spousal support, sometimes referred to as spousal maintenance or alimony, is not automatic in Missouri. The court has broad discretion to award maintenance or not award it. If the court awards maintenance, in Missouri, limited duration maintenance is almost never awarded unless the court can point to a fixed date where maintenance is not needed. This means that in most instances, the court can either award maintenance in an open-ended manner terminable upon death, remarriage or a change of circumstance of a substantial and continuing nature or else not award it at all. This can make maintenance an all or nothing proposition at trial.
Parties can agree to contractual maintenance on a fixed term, but fixed terms are not likely in Missouri, absent an agreement, unless the court can point to a future, non-speculative date where maintenance is no longer needed. The issue of whether "cohabitation" terminates maintenance is complex, not automatic and based on numerous factors.
When you hire our firm, we will present the strongest possible case for or against an alimony award based on your best interests. In many cases, we will examine whether a vocational examination would be helpful to your case.
The court looks at several factors when considering spousal support, including:
- The need of one spouse versus the other spouse's ability to pay
- The earning capacity of each spouse
- The length of the marriage
- The age and health of the spouse seeking support
- The impact on the children
- The conduct of the parties during the marriage
In most cases, spousal support can be modified if there is a substantial change in circumstances for either spouse. Our attorneys are prepared to help you if the need for a spousal support modification arises. If you have already received an adverse spousal support order, Stange Law Firm can represent you in the filing of an appeal.
Handling Spousal Support in Arnold, Missouri
To speak to an spousal support lawyer who can help you in Arnold, MO in Jefferson County, call us at 636-296-3060 or contact our law firm online.
To learn more about the Jefferson County Family Court, please visit the following links:
- Jefferson County Family Court: Any additional information regarding the Jefferson County family court can be found here.
- Jefferson County Local Court Rules: Wondering what all of the Jefferson County court rules may be? Click here to take a look.
- Jefferson County Courthouse Directions: Do you need directions or a map of the Jefferson County courthouse? Click on this link provided to help you out!
Contact Our Spousal Support Attorneys in Arnold, Missouri in Jefferson County
Are you looking to hire an experienced family law attorney to help you with your spousal support matter? If so, schedule a confidential appointment with one of our attorneys, contact us online.
Jefferson County (Arnold), MO Office: 636-296-3060 click here for office information 16 Municipal Drive, Suite C, Arnold, MO 63010.


text:
Earlier this evening, we received a phone call from Dr. Robert A. Pastor, the Executive Director of the Baker/Carter National Election Reform Commission.
It was an interesting conversation.
Apparently, he was irate at us because Americans are sending Email to him and the commissioners complaining about the fact that James A. Baker, III is co-chairing the Commission. Baker, of course, is the long-time Bush Family loyalist and Bush/Cheney trial law attorney who architected the strategy to ensure that Americans' votes would not be counted in the 2000 election.
Pastor made it clear that he felt those Emails, sent by individual American citizens to the commission, actually constituted "harassment" and he charged that the thousands of Emails that he and the commissioners were receiving was, in actuality, being sent by "about 6 or 7 people"!
Velvet Revolution is a coalition of some 100 Election Reform and Voting Rights organizations, none of whom were invited to participate in this commission in any way, nor even knew anything about its creation. VR is co-founded by BRAD BLOG and has created a page where Americans can send Email to Jimmy Carter and the commissioners to let them know how they feel about Baker sitting as Co-Chair and some of his other cronies being seated on this commission.
If you are not one of the "6 or 7 people" who have already sent Email via that page, feel free to do so now.
If you are one of the "6 or 7 people" that have sent email via that page, you can let Bob Pastor know that it was really you who sent the email hoping to make your voice heard, by sending him another email to that effect at his email address, email@example.com (Ed Note: Please write to Pastor for now at email@example.com - See this later article for an explanation as to why), which is posted on his public webpage at the American University, Center for Democracy & Election Management site. His phone number is also listed on that page if you'd like to chat with him, but we will do him the courtesy of not reposting it here.
We did our best to make notes of the extraordinary conversation that took place during the phone call as it unfolded...These are some of the highlights...or lowlights as the case may be...
"If you're trying to make sure you are heard," he yelled at us on the phone, "you've been heard! But we're not going to work with you because you are harassing us!"
"How is individual email being sent by individual American Citizens to let you know that they find it absurd that the man responsible for ensuring the votes of Americans would never be counted in the 2000 Election would be appointed as co-chair of a secretly formed Election Reform Committee?...That there couldn't be a more inappropriate choice for the job...how is that harassment?" we asked him.
ROBERT PASTOR: You are harassing us. And we're not going to talk to you, or anybody in your group. We've heard you, but unless you turn off that email, we're not going to...
BRAD BLOG: You are receiving mail from Americans who are letting you know how they feel?
RP: It's the same message over and over again.
BB: They are welcome to add any text they like as a P.S., but would you feel better if we removed the text and let them write whatever they wanted?!
RP: No. We are not going to talk to you, you've been heard, but we're not going to talk to you.
BRAD BLOG: You keeping saying you've "heard us", but what have you done about it? Have you made any changes to the commission? Anything at all other than giving us lip-service that "we've been heard"?!
RP: The commission is done, we're not making any changes.
BB: So what good is "hearing" us?...If we take down the page where Americans can Email you --- you asked on your web page for input from Americans after all --- will you place Velvet Revolution or any of our affiliates on the commission? Since not one of them --- over 100 Election Reform and Voting Rights groups --- was even invited to participate in this commission?
RP: The commission is done, we're not making any changes to it. It's closed...What you are doing is harassment...Stop the harassment, sending us the same Email over and over again.
BB: We're not doing any such thing...Those are individuals sending you email...
RP: It is not individuals! We've received thousands of Emails and they were sent from only about 6 or 7 people only!
BB: Wait, wait, wait...What are you talking about?!...Do you have any evidence of that, sir? Do you have one single iota of evidence to make that claim that the thousands of emails you're receiving are in fact from "6 or 7 people"?...Do you have any evidence? ...Why don't you try replying to a few hundred of those notes, and see if they bounce back, or see if they get to people and you get a reply back...Those are thousands of Americans who are trying to have their voice be heard!, Bob!...That's the only way they can be heard since they've been shut out of this commission entirely! People who have been working for months and years on the very thing your secret commission is supposedly working on!
RP: Well, they are not going to be listened to.
BB: So, you are suggesting that somehow, for some reason, you should have more power over our American democracy than any other American Citizen? Are you kidding me?!
RP: Well, apparently I do have more power because otherwise you wouldn't care so much about what the commission is doing.
BB: Yes, we care, because it's an important commission...It needs to happen...Such a commission is necessary, very necessary...but the way this thing has been fixed and stacked...
RP: It is not stacked.
BB: Who appointed the members of that commission?
RP: The members of the commission are Republicans and Democrats and individual non-partisans...
BB: Who appointed them to this commission?
RP: You have a problem with three or four of the commission members and one of the academic advisors, but there are probably more Democrats than Republicans on the commission...
BB: I don't care how many...This isn't about Democrats or Republicans, Bob. There should be Republicans on the commission...We have no problem with that! What we do have a problem with is Bush/Cheney and Voting Machine Representatives...is the lead attorney from the Kerry/Edwards campaign on the advisory board, Bob? [As is Thor Hearne, the National Counsel for Bush/Cheney '04 Inc.]
RP: No he's not. But there are people on the Right that have problems with all the Democrats on the committee.
BB: I don't give a damn about the...There's no problem with Republicans on the committee, Bob...It's not...
RP: Do you know who won the last election?
BB: Uh...Not really...Do you?...
RP: You don't know who won the election?
BB: Not really...I wish I did, but...
RP: The Republicans won the Presidency! And both houses of Congress, the House and the Senate!
BB: How do you know that?...
RP: Look, if you...
BB: How do you know that, sir?
RP: Look, if you think you speak for 51% of the American people you are wrong, you don't...
BB: How. Do. You. Know. That. Sir?...How do you know the Republicans won?!
(No answer.)
At that point, apparently, Mr. Pastor had no answer or simply refused to discuss it any further because he then hung up the phone on us.
It's a pity that we never got to ask him why John Conyers, who compiled some 102 pages of evidence of what went on in Ohio last Election, was not invited to either join the commission, nor even testify before it.
Also not invited, were any of the scores of speakers present at the "Nash-ional" Election Reform Conference held last week in Nashville, where mountains of evidence was presented to suggest that something went terribly wrong in last November's general election.
On the other hand, Mr. Pastor's commission did have time to invite hard right partisans like John Fund of the Wall Street Journal's editorial board (and a frequent contributor to the Fox News Channel) to present unsupported anectodal evidence suggesting there was some trumped up, phoney-baloney problem with "provisional voter fraud" that would be solved by throwing out all provision votes not placed in the voter's own precinct.
Disallowing provisional votes not cast in the voter's precinct, Fund was allowed to inform the commission and America via CSPAN, would help the "problems" from the last election because the poll workers would be able to determine if the voter "looks as if they belong the neighborhood."
Get it?
Apparently, they had time for that. But not the work of Conyers and others who have worked tirelessly for months, if not years, on problems in the rapidly disintegrating American Electoral system.
Dr. Robert A. Pastor and his Blue-Ribbon National Election Reform Commission hard at work to assure that there will be no true Election Reform in America. And the "6 or 7 of you" out there who feel that American democracy deserves much better, can apparently all go to straight to hell.
Dr. Robert A. Pastor
Executive Director for the Commission on Federal Election Reform
(Ed Note: Please write to Pastor for now at firstname.lastname@example.com - See this later article for an explanation as to why)
Pastor's AU webpage
Be heard.