MINNEAPOLIS—A study published Monday in The Journal Of Child Psychology And Psychiatry has concluded that an estimated 98 percent of children under the age of 10 are remorseless sociopaths with little regard for anything other than their own egocentric interests and pleasures.

Enlarge Image

Data shows that many seemingly innocent children—such as this one—are not to be trusted.

According to Dr. Leonard Mateo, a developmental psychologist at the University of Minnesota and lead author of the study, most adults are completely unaware that they could be living among callous monsters who would remorselessly exploit them to obtain something as insignificant as an ice cream cone or a new toy.

"The most disturbing facet of this ubiquitous childhood disorder is an utter lack of empathy," Mateo said. "These people—if you can even call them that—deliberately violate every social norm without ever pausing to consider how their selfish behavior might affect others. It's as if they have no concept of anyone but themselves."

"The depths of depravity that these tiny psychopaths are capable of reaching are really quite chilling," Mateo added.

According to the Hare Psychopathy Checklist, a clinical diagnostic tool, sociopaths often display superficial charm, pathological lying, manipulative behaviors, and a grandiose sense of self-importance. After observing 700 children engaged in everyday activities, Mateo and his colleagues found that 684 exhibited these behaviors at a severe or profound level.

The children studied also displayed many secondary hallmarks of antisocial personality disorder, most notably poor impulse control, an inability to plan ahead, and a proclivity for violence—often in the form of extended tantrums—when their needs were not immediately met.

"Children will use any tool at their disposal to secure gratification," Mateo said. "And as soon as the desire is fulfilled, be it some material want or simply an insatiable and narcissistic desire for validation, they quickly become bored and lose interest in their victims, all the while thinking only of satisfying whatever their next hedonistic craving might be."

My daughter who has a one year old sent me this today - ring any bells?

Two poets - what a team - what a song!

All our lives we’ve dreamed about it
Just to find that it was never real
This sure ain’t no great Valhalla
Coming closer each turn of the wheel
Forlorn, adrift on seas of beige
In this our Golden Age

Even in our darkest hour
Never thought that it could get so bad
Bullied, suckered, pimped and patronised
Every day your tawdry little lives
So loose your head
And step within
The silence deafening

Now you saw it coming
And I saw it coming
We all saw it coming
But we still bought it
Now you saw it coming
And I saw it coming but still
Running full steam ahead

In and out of consciousness
It breaks my heart to see you like this
Crying, wringing hands and cursing fate
Always so little far too late
It’s 3am I’m wide awake
There’s still one call to make

Now you saw it coming
And I saw it coming
We all saw it coming
But we still bought it
Now you saw it coming
And I saw it coming
We all saw it coming
But we still bought it

Now you saw it coming
And I saw it coming
But still running full steam
Now you saw it coming
And I saw it coming but still
Running full steam
Now you
And I
We all saw it coming
But we still bought it
Now you
And I
We all saw it coming
But we still bought it

0

KETC, the public television station in St. Louis, MO, is using social media to keep its audience informed about H1N1. Specifically, it has put a blog front and center on its H1N1 page. Dale Berenc, KETC’s director of education and community engagement, explained to me why the station is blogging and what it’s learning.
 
When the mortgage crisis began, KETC experimented with blogging as “a way to get information out to the community” during critical situations, Berenc said. The station’s mortgage-crisis blog (which is still up and running) “proved highly successful,” she told me. It generated lots of audience comments and drove traffic to KETC’s site.
 
So when swine flu emerged, Berenc said it was a no-brainer to create another blog “as part of an overall strategy to connect people to information on-air, online, and in the community.” To get started, KETC “convened a group of community organizations that have a stake in H1N1,” she explained, to solicit advice on “how to connect people to trusted resources.” The group included people from the city and county health departments, regional school districts, the United Way of Greater St. Louis, and the American Red Cross, St. Louis Area Chapter. Using their input, the station created a Wordpress site and started a group blog. KETC’s web coordinator vets posts written by staff, interns, and the Red Cross.
 
Although KETC doesn’t have stats yet on the success of the H1N1 blog, Berenc assured me that the station will continue it until H1N1 is no longer an issue. She believes the H1N1 page as a whole is “a prime example of what happens when public media organizations collaborate with trusted partners — the community wins.”

The Flywheel turns faster and faster - When we began to wonder how to use TV and an issue as a Social Object - to convene and help a community - we spent months finding our way. It was all new - we had absolutely no idea what to do or what would work.

Now with many such projects done and the most recent with 60 plus stations in over 30 markets (Facing the Mortgage Crisis) it took a few days to start our work on Flu.

Not only did we know more - but we knew more people - many in the flu project are in the Mortgage Project such as 211 (United Way)

Of course as we expand here into the community health arena - we will be able to know more things and more people - making the next project in health even better.

Watch this space!

The number of Canadians living with diabetes will rise dramatically over the next decade, spurring an “economic tsunami” that will be felt well beyond the health system, new research predicts.

By 2020, there will be 3.7 million Canadians with diabetes, up from 2.5 million today, and from 1.3 million a decade ago, according to projections prepared by Robin Somerville of the Centre for Spatial Economics in Milton, Ont.

Stated simply, more than 20 people will be diagnosed with diabetes every hour for the foreseeable future.

The numbers are soaring because of Canada's changing ethnic makeup (diabetes rates vary by ethnicity), the population is aging (the risk of diabetes increases with age) and due to poor health habits of Canadians (obesity and inactivity raise the risk).

The report stresses that while some of those factors cannot be altered, the key is catching diabetes early so it can be controlled and so that harmful, expensive complications can be averted.

If current trends continue, the economic burden of the disease will climb to $16.9-billion in the next decade, up from $12.2-billion today, the analysis shows. (The cost data are all in 2005 dollars to allow for direct comparisons.)

Type 2 Diabetes is 90% of the problem. It is a lifestyle disease. There is no "Cure" and the "Treatment" is a stop gap.

The only way to reduce the risks and to lower the human and social costs is to change the lifestyle - how and what we eat and what we do.

Of course, on our own this is impossible. We can't change hard wired habits on our own.

But we can help each other make these changes. The only way to make such changes is through a peer based social interaction over a long time. Not a doctor telling us to eat differently. Nor relying on drugs to mitigate the effects of our life.

I am thinking that Type 2 diabetes may be a starting point for a revolution in health - social healing?

Sophia is getting better and just walking

An entire generation's prosperity vanishing, food stamp use exploding. Welcome to the jobless future.

This month's jobs numbers drive home the point. The unemployment rate fell at the fastest rate for years — great news, right? Wrong. The lion's share of the gains came from (wait for it) "temporary help services." See what just happened? We subtracted thousands of real jobs — and replaced them with low-value, no-future McJobs instead. Want fries with that so-called recovery?

In the States, journalists have reported that this uptick in temp jobs is a leading indicator of "real" jobs to come, a conclusion also promoted by the staffing industry. But i suspect you won't find an economist who will fully concur. That's because the actual evidence is weak at best for a "stepping stone effect." In this case, it's more than likely just a seasonal holiday effect — the rise is too big and too sudden to be meaningful, sans a spike in demand.

And in fact, the numbers we've looked at at the Lab suggest America's employment problem is bigger and badder than yesterday's financial crash: it's a trend that's been gathering strength for decades.

Here's why America has a jobs crisis: We failed to seed tomorrow's economy yesterday. A better health care, transportation, energy, media, education, auto, banking — etc — industry?

Venture investors failed to fund them, entrepreneurs failed to create them, Wall Street failed to discipline incumbents towards them, academia failed to point out the need for them, and economists simply assumed we lived in the best of all possible worlds. That was the point of my Manifesto for the Next Industrial Revolution — written over a year ago.

America needs a new Manhattan Project. Its goal? To put to rest a zombieconomy: one that's failing to create tomorrow's jobs because it's failing to create authentic, thick value in the first place.

The problem is that we just spent trillions bailing out banks — and there's now a pretty tight budget constraint on funding the Manhattan Project 2.0. So how could we do it?

Here's what I'd do: run a series of national innovation awesomeness tournaments, in each of the industries above. The prize? Let's take a page from Netflix and offer a million bucks each. The challenge? To radically reimagine each industry for the 21st century. Then, I'd seed the top ten ideas in each category with $10 million each, syndicating further investments with the private sector — and let 'em rip. Total pricetag to the people? About $150-250 million — a drop in the bucket compared to the bailouts. Total returns? They promise to be exactly what we need today: disruptive, radical, and world-changing.

Who'd judge my national awesomeness tournaments? Economists and venture guys (the good ones) would play a role. But more important would be open voting, so everyone's voice could be heard, and info efficiently aggregated.

President Barack Obama has just spent millions hiring mega-consultants to cook up a national innovation strategy. That's so 20th century, it hurts.

What America needs today is a national awesomeness strategy instead. And there's no better way than an open tournament for those fed up with the status quo to unleash the future on an economy trapped in a creaking, rusting, industrial era.

Now Umair - speaks not only the truth but also sense.

His thesis is that we live in a Zombie Economy - where all the gains go to a few - where traps are set for the many.

I have just finished Elizabeth Warren's book The Two Income Trap where she makes the case so well that the financial services industry is now a predator - designed to feed off its victims/customers - the ultimate Zombie!

The unemployment issue is more than jobs - it is the design of enterprise - the "New Capitalism" will have to be one designed where ALL who participate share value.

It's certainly good news to hear the unemployment rate unexpectedly dropped last month. But the Labor Department data released this morning included a few things that raise concern for me.

According to the Labor report, the manufacturing sector lost 41,000 jobs; the "trade, transportation, and utilities" sector lost 34,000 positions and construction jobs were down 27,000. Retail employment also fell by 14,500 - a potentially worrying sign for an economic recovery pinned on consumer spending and a strong holiday spending season.

Another weak area: the number of people who are eating out -- often an early harbinger of economic recoveries. According to the labor data, 4,000 food services workers lost their jobs in November.

Many economists continue to predict the jobless rate will rise again in the coming months. It's hard to know who is right but warning signs that we aren't out of the woods just yet remain.

In all the discussion about saving newspapers etc - one of the "Big Ideas" is that traditional journalism is more accurate.

What I find annoying about most of it, is that they spout the party line

That it's not so bad really - that the good times are just ahead - that there are always two sides to an issue (Is the planet warming or not - that peak oil is just one idea - that we can build states etc)

Planet Money is an honorable exception that tries to see through the bull.

Sorry I could not resist this - I am a bad person

How will the remake better this scene - note the very long tracking shot without one edit at the outset - here is also the first time in the film that the great musical theme is used - I always cry knowing how many will never return.

Todd was himself a Para and was involved in the capture and holding of Pegasus Bridge in the night of D Day. He was no stranger to setting off on a mission of great moment and peril. His sang froid is for real.

Like many who lived though great danger - he was the most unassuming man.

Here is a link to a full post on the film and Todd

Todd played Wing Commander Guy Gibson in The Dam Busters Richard Todd, best known for his role in classic war film The Dam Busters, has died at the age of 90, after a battle with cancer. Todd, a war hero in his own right, was also known for playing dashing heroes like Robin Hood and Rob Roy. Born in Dublin in 1919, Todd was one of the first British soldiers to parachute into France on D-Day. A spokesman for his family said he died peacefully in his sleep on Thursday at his home near Grantham in Lincolnshire.

Friends on mine knew Todd well - he was a lovely man. A real Gentleman - a quiet hero who happened to have been a great film star as well. You can get a sense of him in this short clip.