Washingtonian's Best and Worst of Congress

Check out the results of this survey about members of Congress. Includes categories like nicest, meanest and biggest jock. Some samples:

Senate

Falling Star
1. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.)
2. Larry Craig (R-Id.)
3. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska)

Republicans stuffed the ballot box for Clinton.

House:

Funniest
1. Barney Frank (D-Mass.)
2. John Boehner (R-Ohio)
3. Ralph Hall (R-Tex.)

Frank wins in a landslide. Should voters worry that the architect of mortgage-assistance bills is given to one-liners? “A funny thing happened on the way to foreclosure. . . .”


From Washingtonian via my new favorite RSS feed: OpenCongress.org

Mind Voodoo and Weight-Loss

Based on my personal experience, I've always thought there was a mind-voodoo component to weight-loss.

Simply by telling 44 hotel maids that what they did each day involved some serious exercise, the Harvard psychologist Ellen Langer and Alia J. Crum, a student, were apparently able to lower the women’s blood pressure, shave pounds off their bodies and improve their body-fat and “waist to hip” ratios. Self-awareness, it seems, was the women’s elliptical trainer.

Source: NYT via Metafilter

Extreme Ironing

I'd settle for a man ironing in my living room.

Extreme ironing might be the coolest sport that didn't make it into the Olympics this year. Started over a decade ago by UK knitwear factory worker Phil Shaw, it requires four simple criteria: a man, an iron, an ironing board, and a crazy natural environment that makes people think, holy crap I can't believe he's ironing on that thing! Shaw calls extreme ironing "the latest danger sport that combines the thrills of an extreme outdoor activity with the satisfaction of a well pressed shirt."

Source: boingboing.net

Elected Officials: Focused on the Real Problems

This is real. You can look it up on Thomas: H.Con.Res.404

Supporting the goals and ideals of Complaint Free Wednesday:

Whereas the average person complains approximately 15 to 30 times per day, resulting in approximately 4,570,350,000 complaints per day in the United States;

Whereas people complain in order to negatively get attention from others, avoid taking action, pre-excuse poor performance, brag, or exercise control over others;

Whereas complaining damages a person’s health, relationships, and ability to solve underlying problems;

Whereas violence usually begins with complaining by expressing grief, pain, or discontent;

Whereas it is not complaining if a person acts proactively to resolve an issue;

Whereas ‘A Complaint Free World’ is an organization that encourages people to wear purple bracelets as a symbolic reminder to change a person’s complaining nature;

Whereas ‘A Complaint Free World’ has delivered approximately 5,439,532 purple bracelets to people throughout the world;

Whereas ‘A Complaint Free World’ hopes to inspire 1 percent of the world’s population to have a positive attitude;

Whereas supporters of this movement have worked with thousands of schools in the United States through the Complaint Free program and have achieved amazing results in creating positive attitudes; and

Whereas Complaint Free Wednesday will be observed on the day before Thanksgiving, providing each person in the United States a day free from complaining in order to prepare for a day of gratitude: Now, therefore, be it

Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate concurring), That Congress -

(1) supports the goals and ideals of Complaint Free Wednesday;

(2) encourages each person in the United States to remember that having a positive life begins with having a positive attitude; and

(3) recognizes and reaffirms the meaning of Thanksgiving by asking each person in the United States to use Complaint Free Wednesday to refrain from complaining and prepare for a day of gratitude.

Source: Opencongress.org

Jim Thorpe, greatest athlete of all time

Every four years when someone does something remarkable in the Olympics, he suddenly becomes the greatest athlete of all time.

But speaking of history, let’s go back to the time of Jacobus Franciscus Thorpe.

Better known as Jim Thorpe, this [Sac and Fox Indian from Oklahoma] had a pretty impressive resume.

Let’s see … he won gold medals in the pentathlon and decathlon during the 1912 Stockholm Games.

As a football player he was a running back, defensive back, kicker and punter for his college team, the Carlisle Indians.

...

He also participated in baseball, basketball, lacrosse and track while in college, excelling at all of them.

He went on to play in the National Football League, earning All-Pro honors one season and being named to the NFL’s All-Decade Team for the 1920s.

Thorpe played two seasons of professional baseball, and even found time to play pro basketball, starring for a barnstorming team made up entirely of [Indians].

Oh yeah, he was also a ballroom dancer. And I don’t mean just some guy who could cut a rug while trying to impress the opposite sex, but one who actually won the 1912 intercollegiate ballroom dancing championship.

By Scott Adamson at Independent Mail.Com (via Indianz.com)

Sleep Deprived High

This explains a few things about being at Clarion West.

People who are sleep-deprived often report getting a "second wind" where they suddenly wake up and feel great — though they are still too fatigued to do any major problem-solving. A group of researchers have discovered there's a good reason for this. Sleep deprivation floods your brain with dopamine, the very same hormone that amphetamines like crystal meth shoot into your neural receptors.

Source: io9

How Accurate Are Stories in the News?

"No one was ultimately harmed (physically, anyway - a couple of folks had their lives upended, though) in this incident, which is certainly a good thing. But the frenzy around it was unsettling to me; as soon as it was published (including some really stupid factual errors) the story was around the world and it made me wonder: how accurate are the stories I know nothing about but read all the time? If something as small as this could have errors in it (some of which I won't go into as they really should be kept in the courtroom, as far as I'm concerned) because of a feeding frenzy does that bode well for our acceptance of everything else we read in the Oregonian or hear on the Today show? A small example: somewhere, somebody got the idea the video was taken with a cell phone and you can tell from the headlines that the media thought this was a cool concept."

Source: Roadrage Incident