Monday, May 01, 2023
Aging and the brain
A reader has just drawn my attention to the 2011 article below. It suggests that while certain brain capacities wane as we get older, we compemsate by using more of the brain's resources -- explaining why high level intellectual activity is often found among the elderly. I am in my 80th year so I find that encouraging.
My impression of my own writing is that I marshall arguments as well as ever. I was rather pleased that I was able to show the hole in an argument by a prominent Leftist economist recently
Changes in Regional and Temporal Patterns of Activity Associated with Aging during the Performance of a Lexical Set-Shifting Task
Authors: Ruben Martins et al.
Abstract
Some older individuals seem to use compensatory mechanisms to maintain high-level performance when submitted to cognitive tasks. However, whether and how these mechanisms affect fronto-striatal activity has never been explored. The purpose of this study was to investigate how aging affects brain patterns during the performance of a lexical analog of the Wisconsin Card Sorting Task, which has been shown to strongly depend on fronto-striatal activity. In the present study, both younger and older individuals revealed significant fronto-striatal loop activity associated with planning and execution of set-shifts, though age-related striatal activity reduction was observed. Most importantly, while the younger group showed the involvement of a "cognitive loop" during the receiving negative feedback period (which indicates that a set-shift will be required to perform the following trial) and the involvement of a "motor loop" during the matching after negative feedback period (when the set-shift must be performed), older participants showed significant activation of both loops during the matching after negative feedback period only. These findings are in agreement with the "load-shift" model postulated by Velanova et al. (Velanova K, Lustig C, Jacoby LL, Buckner RL. 2007. Evidence for frontally mediated controlled processing differences in older adults. Cereb Cortex. 17:1033-1046.) and indicate that the model is not limited to memory retrieval but also applies to executive processes relying on fronto-striatal regions.
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Jan. 6 Defendant Jacob Chansley Files Motion to Vacate His Sentence Over Newly Revealed Footage
The conviction of the Shaman was a bum rap
The man known as QAnon Shaman has asked a judge to vacate the sentence he received over his actions on Jan. 6, 2021, pointing to surveillance footage made public for the first time on Fox News’ “Tucker Carlson Tonight.”
Jacob Chansley, through lawyer William Shipley, filed a motion on April 27 to vacate his sentence, noting the footage showed him being escorted by U.S. Capitol Police (USCP) officers throughout the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. It also showed one officer opening a door to the Senate Chamber and following Chansley inside when he entered.
The government violated Chansley’s rights by not handing over the potentially exculpatory footage, the new filing states.
“Because this material was favorable to Mr. Chansley for purposes of sentencing, and it was suppressed by the Government, Mr. Chansley’s due process rights were clearly violated by the failure to produce the CCTV camera video from inside the Capitol,” Shipley wrote.
The motion asks to vacate Chansley’s sentence and permit additional discovery to figure out why the footage was not produced.
Conflicting Dates
Albert Watkins, Chansley’s former lawyer, has said he has never seen the videos aired by Carlson and that they were not produced by the government during discovery.
Prosecutors challenged the latter claim. In a filing in a different case, they said the videos had been given to Watkins by Sept. 24, 2021.
Prosecutors offered a different story, though, in correspondence with Shipley. They said they produced the videos on Oct. 21, 2021.
“Both representations cannot be correct—and it is quite likely that both are false,” Shipley said. He pointed to prior letters from prosecutors, including one sent Oct. 21, 2021, that said footage from Capitol grounds had been produced but with no specific mention of any video from the interior of the Capitol.
In another letter dated Oct. 25, 2021, authorities said they expected future productions to primarily be from the interior of the Capitol, including footage that had been deemed “highly sensitive.”
“Mr. Chansley and his counsel did not have the CCTV video from cameras inside the Capitol for use at before his change of plea or at sentencing,” Shipley said. “But the Government did.”
Motion to Vacate
Chansley pleaded guilty to obstructing an official proceeding. in 2021. He was sentenced to 41 months in prison. He was released on March 28.
Under federal law, a motion to vacate may be approved if a sentence was imposed “in violation of the Constitution or laws of the United States” or the sentence given was “in excess of the maximum authorized by law.”
Because prosecutors failed to meet their Brady obligations, or their need to produce potentially exculpatory material, Chansley’s sentence should be vacated or corrected, Shipley said.
“The discovery/Brady material was not provided in a manner that meets the standard in this Circuit for disclosure of exculpatory material,” he wrote. To figure out exactly what happened, further discovery should be permitted, the lawyer said.
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85% of Anglican Leaders Reject the leadership of Canterbury
How should Christians respond when LGBT activists demand they compromise the truth of Scripture by endorsing same-sex marriage and transgender identity?
A global gathering of Anglicans just provided an excellent example.
In February, Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, the head of the Church of England and the “first among equals” in the global Anglican Communion, the third-largest Christian denomination, defended blessings for same-sex couples while insisting that the move did not violate the church’s doctrine that marriage is between one man and one woman for life.
“For the first time, the Church of England will publicly, unreservedly and joyfully welcome same-sex couples in church,” Welby said in a joint statement with Archbishop of York Stephen Cottrell at the time.
Leaders at the Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON) wouldn’t stand for this. On Friday, they signed the Kigali Commitment, condemning Welby’s move as “blasphemy” and declaring that he and the Church of England had abdicated their leadership of the Anglican Communion.
“It grieves the Holy Spirit and us that the leadership of the Church of England is determined to bless sin,” GAFCON leaders wrote in the Kigali Commitment. “Since the Lord does not bless same-sex unions, it is pastorally deceptive and blasphemous to craft prayers that invoke blessing in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.”
GAFCON, which met last week in Kigali, Rwanda, declared Welby’s leadership “entirely indefensible.” The Kigali Commitment declares that the Church of England has “failed to maintain true communion based on the Word of God and shared faith in Christ,” therefore noting that GAFCON’s “communion with them remains broken.” That represents a kind of revolution and excommunication from below, in which the top leaders of Anglican churches—referred to as primates—brush away the historic head of the denomination.
“We consider that those who refuse to repent have abdicated their right to leadership within the Anglican Communion, and we commit ourselves to working with orthodox primates and other leaders to reset the Communion on its biblical foundations,” the commitment reads. The statement notes that GAFCON and the Global South Fellowship of Anglican Churches (which has also effectively excommunicated the Church of England) represent 85% of the primates in the Global Anglican Communion, the third-largest Christian denomination after the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches.
It remains unclear what will happen next for GAFCON and its ally, the Global South Fellowship. “The GAFCON primates are still finalizing the practicalities of the statement,” a spokeswoman for the conference told The Daily Signal on Tuesday.
Welby responded to the commitment in a statement Friday, noting that the structures of the Anglican Communion “are always able to change with the times,” but arguing that “no changes to the formal structures of the Anglican Communion can be made unless they are agreed upon by the Instruments of Communion.”
Yet the Kigali Commitment declares that GAFCON has “no confidence” that the archbishop of Canterbury, nor the other Instruments of Communion he leads (the Lambeth Conference, the Anglican Consultative Council, and the Primates’ Meetings), “are able to provide a godly way forward that will be acceptable to those who are committed to the truthfulness, clarity, sufficiency, and authority of Scripture.”
Welby’s statement did not address the Kigali Commitment’s central concern about blessings for same-sex couples, but merely urges GAFCON “to walk together as Anglicans” with the Church of England.
GAFCON leaders are no so easily cowed. Their statement cites Genesis 2:24, Matthew 19:4-6, and 1 Corinthians 6:9 in reaffirming the biblical teaching that “the only appropriate context for sexual activity is the exclusive lifelong union of a man and a woman in marriage.”
“Public statements by the Archbishop of Canterbury and other leaders of the Church of England in support of same-sex blessings are a betrayal of their ordination and consecration vows to banish error and to uphold and defend the truth taught in Scripture,” the statement explains.
GAFCON also argues that Welby and others repudiated Resolution I.10 of the 1998 Lambeth Conference, which declared that “homosexual practice is incompatible with Scripture” and advised against the “legitimizing or blessing of same-sex unions.”
Welby and the Church of England have tried to weasel out of their repudiation of Resolution I.10 with promises not to change the definition of marriage, but GAFCON isn’t having it.
The Kigali Commitment also cites other Church of England departures from Christian orthodoxy, such as “the uniqueness and divinity of Christ, his bodily Resurrection, his promised return, the summons to faith and repentance, and the final judgment.”
Many Christian leaders have shied away from these central Christian doctrines to declare a more nebulous gospel of love and acceptance unmoored from the clear teaching of the Bible that if Jesus was not bodily raised from the dead, “our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain” (1 Corinthians 15:14). Christianity can only offer hope of ultimate joy, reconciliation with God, and salvation from sin in the context of doctrines such as the need for repentance, the historical truth of the Gospels, and the promised resurrection of the church.
The rush to embrace modern sexual morality often coincides with a wishy-washy Christianity that does not take the Gospel’s central truth claims seriously. This “Christianity-lite” cannot offer salvation because it does not first condemn sin. It cannot offer assurance of salvation because it downplays the importance of faith. It cannot offer the ultimate hope of resurrection because it rejects the bodily resurrection of Jesus.
A Christianity that does not preach the Resurrection is not Christianity, and a Christianity that rejects the clear witness of Scripture about sexual morality is also not Christianity.
Christians must love and sympathize with those who struggle with same-sex attraction and gender confusion, and a keen awareness of our own sin must restrain us from thinking ourselves superior to them. However, sympathy and Christlike charity do not excuse those who bless sin in the name of God.
The Kigali Commitment upholds biblical sexual morality while affirming that “every person is loved by God” and opposing “the vilification or demeaning of any person, including those who do not follow God’s ways.” As the commitment states, it is “unloving” to “mislead people by pretending that God blesses sexually active relationships between two people of the same sex.”
Thank God for church leaders who are not afraid to speak these truths. I am honored to count my own church’s head pastor, Sam Ferguson, among those who attended the conference. May GAFCON’s leadership here shame the Church of England into repentance.
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Customers hit back at new dining trend taking over Aussie restaurants
I find mobile phones very tedious so use them or anything like them only to a minimum. So I object to ordering food by using one. Unless I can order from a person, I walk out. That usually makes the place back down. But if not there are thousands of other places to eat. Quality of life matters
They were an ubiquitous presence at cafes, restaurants and bars during the pandemic, but love them or loathe them, industry insiders say QR ordering is here to stay.
While some expected it to fade away as the pandemic dissolved and check-ins were no longer relevant, the opposite has actually been true.
Not everyone is a fan. In fact many people appear downright hostile to QR ordering and restaurants and cafe’s not providing physical menus.
Social media is filled with people raging against it.
One person wrote on an angst-ridden Reddit stream that they just “hate it”.
“I hate paying for dinner on my phone,’ the person complained. “I hate navigating through menus to find food.”
Another said they disliked being forced to “give every-f***ing-detail about myself or sign up”, while another observed “having phones out was a terrible way to start dinner together”.
While one person claimed they often go to the counter and refuse to do it or threaten to go elsewhere: “I haven’t had anyone let me leave yet”.
Others pointed out it isn’t practical for some.
“My grandparents never really got onto the smart phones (and with dementia it’s not the time to start) and I have a friend who has fine motor skill issues so he struggles to control the scrolling function that’s required,” one person explained.
“It’s embarrassing for them to have the menu read to them or to have others decide what they have because they can’t use a menu in that format.”
Another noted it was difficult for families with kids with “everyone is fighting over mums phone to see what they can order”.
Despite not all Aussies being a fan of the new system, Square, which provides a range of technology for restaurants and other industries, says QR codes are here to stay saying sellers were increasingly turning to tech to run their business.
“QR code ordering has definitely become mainstream for restaurants,” said Colin Birney, head of business development at Square in Australia.
“As cost-of-doing-business pressures remain and staff shortages continue, restaurants are seeing technology as a non-negotiable and a way to find efficiency gains and unlock new ways to sell.”
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My other blogs. Main ones below:
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
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Kristina Pimenova, once said to be the most beautiful girl in the world. Note blue eyes and blonde hair
Bliss: What every woman wants: to feel safe and secure in the arms of her man. Robert Irwin and Rorie Buckey. See
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