by liberal japonicus
I was going through a backlog of links I had saved and finally got to listening this NPR Fresh Air interview about dreaming. I’ve had a small bit of success with lucid dreaming, but it has not been to the extent of being able to alter my dreams, I just realise I am asleep in my room and I can look around the room but am unable to move. While that doesn’t seem exciting, when I can do it, I feel that my sleep is much better and I feel much more relaxed when I wake up and perhaps others might discuss their own dreams here.
But the interview had this, which interested me.
in one condition, and in particular called REM behavior disorder, people really, they start acting out their dreams a lot. And this often occurs in men over 60. […] And it’s actually an indication of, it’s often – I mean, up to 90% of people who develop this sudden acting out of usually violent dreams, they might start punching or kicking while they’re asleep. And they dream about these aggressive or violent things. And it’s actually one of the earliest indications of someone developing neurodegeneration. So up to 90% of people who have REM behavior disorder, they will go on to develop some type of neurodegenerative disease – like Parkinson’s, I think, is the most common – within a decade of diagnosis. So it’s actually a really – it’s an early indicator that something, you know, some kind of neurodegenerative process has begun in the brain. And it’s resulting in this acting out of aggressive dreams, essentially.
This is really interesting, because I remember reading about awhile ago, how a some wives of NFL players said they would often get hit by their husbands while they were both sleeping. At the time, I wondered if it was just a cover story for some sort of domestic violence, but now, I wonder if that would be a symptom of CTE, perhaps happening at an age earlier than 60. Anyway, a thread about sleep and dreams.
Just murdering people didn’t provide enough ROI?
…having oil not under US control…
Regarding today’s seizure of a loaded oil tanker, reportedly in transit from Venezuela to Cuba… As I understand how these things are done, ownership of the oil transferred FOB some oil terminal in Venezuela. The owner is almost certainly not the company that owns the tanker. Trump has said regarding the oil, “Well, we keep it, I guess.” Part of me wishes that there’s some back room paper shuffling going on and tomorrow China issues a statement asking, “Did we just hear you say that you’re keeping a million barrels of our oil?”
A bigger part of me fears irrationality, and a back channel message being sent that says, “Nice AI bubble you’ve blown there. Be a shame if anything happened to TSMC’s ability to deliver chips to American companies.”
If your opinion-poll numbers are tanking, start a war you can win.
In the abstract and in principle, Venezuela should be an easy win. With these morons in charge, a whole lot of people (US troops as well as Venezuelans) are going to get killed. But victory is about as likely as the Russians in Afghanistan.
“A short, victorious war” is a fantasy of incompetents everywhere. I can think of only one case where it actually happened**. (And that time the war wasn’t a domestic political operation.) Mostly it proves to be neither short nor victorious.
** Gulf I, taking Kuwait back from Saddam. But generals competent enough to pull something like that off? Not likely to be put in charge by Trump or Hegseth. More likely to get sacked for insufficient toadying.
Grenada. They even made a propaganda film about it.
Spanish-American War!
who doesn’t want to be Teddy R?
Teddy the Treehugger? No thanks. Before this ends all National Parks will likely be privatized (to private = to plunder); to be logged and mined into moonscapes.
Before this ends all National Parks will likely be privatized (to private = to plunder); to be logged and mined into moonscapes.
The national parks are so small, and generally don’t have the resources the private sector is looking for. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management [1] holdings are potentially more attractive. OTOH, as privately held lands, they fall under state jurisdiction for royalties and restoration requirements. Why is so much of Wyoming’s coal mined on federal lands? Because even deep-red Wyoming levies much higher royalties and taxes than the feds do, and has much more stringent reclamation requirements.
[1] I spent too many years in western states, and on a western state government legislative staff in particular. In my head, the BLM acronym is always associated with “What have those d*ckheads done now?”