Free Republic

A video posted on YouTube appears to show a New Jersey elementary school class being taught to sing praises of the "great accomplishments" of President Obama. Just like Obama, Romania's dictator Ceausescu started as an extremely popular leader. He promised change from the Stalinist type of communism imposed by the Soviets and people put all their hope in him to liberalize and open the country towards the Western world. Just with Obama, the media quickly become Ceausescu's personal lap dog, always praising him and his wife, never criticizing them. Just like with Obama, his cult of personality grew and grew...

For 14 years, my wife, Claire Fitzgerald, and I have worked at Stanford University as counselors assisting hundreds of couples prepare to be married at the campus' Memorial Church. Because Stanford stresses diversity in its student population, the couples come from all over the world - China, Russia, South Africa, Mexico - and from all over the United States. This diversity has sometimes presented us with challenges, but marriage has commonalities: It can enable each partner to grow in generosity, compassion, understanding and patience. To help brides and grooms reflect on each other's personality traits, the university requires they complete...

During his first 100 days as president of the United States, Barack Obama revealed how different he is from all the white men who preceded him in the Oval Office, and the differences run deeper — in substance and style — than the color of his skin. Barack Hussein Obama is the nation’s first hip president. This, of course, is subject to debate. But watch him walk. Listen to him talk. See the body language, the expressions, the clothes. He’s got attitude, rhythm, a sense of humor, contemporary tastes. This much is clear: Whether dealing with the Wall Street mess,...

Scientists may one day be able to find out what a young child’s personality will be like by simply scanning their brain, new research has shown. New research has found that the shape of your brain gives a clue to what type of person you are. The differences in the shape of the brains of 85 people were scanned and measured. They found that larger or smaller amounts of tissue in certain areas of the brains were linked to specific personality traits...

In Japan, "What's your type?" is much more than small talk; it can be a paramount question in everything from matchmaking to getting a job. By type, the Japanese mean blood type, and no amount of scientific debunking can kill a widely held notion that blood tells all. In the year just ended, four of Japan's top 10 best-sellers were about how blood type determines personality, according to Japan's largest book distributor, Tohan Co. The books' publisher, Bungeisha, says the series — one each for types B, O, A, and AB — has combined sales of well over 5 million...

CHICAGO — Almost one in five young American adults has a personality disorder that interferes with everyday life, and even more abuse alcohol or drugs, researchers reported Monday in the most extensive study of its kind. The disorders include problems such as obsessive or compulsive tendencies and anti-social behavior that can sometimes lead to violence. The study also found that fewer than 25 percent of college-aged Americans with mental problems get treatment. ... Experts praised the study's scope — face-to-face interviews about numerous disorders with more than 5,000 young people ages 19 to 25 — and said it spotlights a...

We’ve seen the emphatic cries of adoration and loyalty hurled at the “Dear Leader”, Kim Jong Il of North Korea. We’ve seen the images of Mao and Stalin paraded through the streets of communist China and Russia. We’ve seen posters of Saddam in Baathist Iraq, and are all too familiar with the cult of personality that surrounded Adolf Hitler in NAZI Germany. Such blind worship of political leaders however has always been a hallmark of totalitarian regimes in far flung places, not of America. A free people could never fall under the spell of such ridiculous hero worship. That is,...

<p>Yesterday Rush said the reason the "they" commitee (as in Noonan and company) doesn't like Sarah Palin is because of her grammar and speaking. She drops her "g" when saying good morning. You know this really has me pissed, who do these hippocrites think they are. Are they afraid of BEAUTY because anyone can learn to speak.........Beauty, Elegance and Grace are attributes they lack and Sarah has.</p>

A company in Birmingham's Jewellery Quarter is making commemorative coins for American presidential hopeful Barack Obama. ...When they got in touch with the Democrats the party jumped at the chance. And the coins have proved such a hit that locally produced versions have already been launched to compete with the UK originals. The coins show Senator Obama’s face, along with a picture of the White House and the legend “President of the United States of America”.

When men and women take personality tests, some of the old Mars-Venus stereotypes keep reappearing. On average, women are more cooperative, nurturing, cautious and emotionally responsive. Men tend to be more competitive, assertive, reckless and emotionally flat. Clear differences appear in early childhood and never disappear. What’s not clear is the origin of these differences. Evolutionary psychologists contend that these are innate traits inherited from ancient hunters and gatherers. Another school of psychologists asserts that both sexes’ personalities have been shaped by traditional social roles, and that personality differences will shrink as women spend less time nurturing children and more...

Bicultural people may unconsciously change their personality when they switch languages, according to a US study on bilingual Hispanic women. It found that women who were actively involved in both English and Spanish speaking cultures interpreted the same events differently, depending on which language they were using at the time. It is known that people in general can switch between different ways of interpreting events and feelings – a phenomenon known as frame shifting. But the researchers say their work shows that bilingual people that are active in two different cultures do it more readily, and that language is the...

Not to be unkind, but how can one purport to conduct a serious post mortem of Hillary Clinton's failed candidacy without mentioning what would seem an obvious—and very important—factor: her personality that to many American was less-than-appealing, in a contest pitting her against the unusually charming Barack Obama? Yet David Gregory ignored the personality factor entirely in his "post mortem, Powerpoint edition" on this evening's Race for the White House. Instead, he identified—and asked his panel to comment on—these five factors: * The Iraq War Vote * Change vs. Experience * Dysfunction in the Campaign * Overconfidence * Bill View...

A woman claims to have undergone a complete "personality transplant" after receiving a new kidney. Cheryl Johnson, 37, says she has changed completely since receiving the organ in May. She believes that she must have picked up her new characteristics from the donor, a 59-year-old man who died from an aneurysm. Now, not only has her personality changed, the single mother also claims that her tastes in literature have taken a dramatic turn. Whereas she only used to read low-brow novels, Dostoevsky has become her author of choice since the transplant. Miss Johnson, from Penwortham, in Preston, Lancs, said: "You...

You can't buy happiness but it looks like you can at least inherit it, British and Australian researchers said on Thursday. A study of nearly 1,000 pairs of identical and non-identical twins found genes control half the personality traits that make people happy while factors such as relationships, health and careers are responsible for the rest of our well-being. "We found that around half the differences in happiness were genetic," said Tim Bates, a researcher at the University of Edinburgh who led the study. "It is really quite surprising." The researchers asked the volunteers -- ranging in age from 25...

Change is obviously the buzzword of the 2008 presidential race, at least where the Democratic nomination is concerned. But let's face it, change is the buzzword of every election (with the exception, perhaps, of the incumbent). It is the catch-all container for the American voter's outrage and frustration, the magic box in which each candidate swears they can turn that disappointment into gold. So let's set aside the buzzword for a second and think about what's really on people's minds when they go into the voting booth. It's not policy. It's not past experience. It's not even values. For better...

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Why home doesn't matterMay 2007Judith Rich Harris The BBC series "Child of Our Time" assumes that studying children with their parents will help us understand how their personalities develop. But this is a mistake: parents influence their children mainly by passing on their genes. The biggest environmental influences on personality are those that occur outside the home During much of the 20th century, it was considered impolite and unscientific to say that genes play any role in determining people's personalities, talents or intelligence. But we're in the 21st century now, the era of the genome. So when Robert Winston informs...

Source: Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Date: April 6, 2007 Good Behavior, Religiousness May Be Genetic Science Daily — A new study in Journal of Personality shows that selfless and social behavior is not purely a product of environment, specifically religious environment. After studying the behavior of adult twins, researchers found that, while altruistic behavior and religiousness tended to appear together, the correlation was due to both environmental and genetic factors. According to study author Laura Koenig, the popular idea that religious individuals are more social and giving because of the behavioral mandates set for them is incorrect. “This study shows that...

For all the policy blueprints churned out by presidential campaigns, there is this indisputable fact: People care less about issues than they do about a candidate's character. A new Associated Press-Ipsos poll says 55 percent of those surveyed consider honesty, integrity and other values of character the most important qualities they look for in a presidential candidate. Just one-third look first to candidates' stances on issues; even fewer focus foremost on leadership traits, experience or intelligence. "Voters only look at policies as a lens into what type of person the candidate is," said Ken Mehlman, chairman of President Bush's 2004...

I visit various blogs, message boards, and websites. I go to each one for different reasons. I have a lot of different interests. I go to Milblogs to get the war, defense, counterterrorism, and military scoop. I visit blogs run by former Intel officers (or they say they are, one never really knows with Spooks as people remind me all of the time, since some call me a Spook of sorts, and I guess I am sortta but I'm also not, so there you go, that's the way that kind of thing works doesn't it?) to catch a drift or...