Decision fatigue is the newest discovery involving a phenomenon called ego depletion, a term coined by the social psychologist Roy F. Baumeister in homage to a Freudian hypothesis. Freud speculated that the self, or ego, depended on mental activities involving the transfer of energy. He was vague about the details, though, and quite wrong about some of them (like his idea that artists “sublimate” sexual energy into their work, which would imply that adultery should be especially rare at artists’ colonies). Freud’s energy model of the self was generally ignored until the end of the century, when Baumeister began studying mental discipline in a series of experiments, first at Case Western and then at Florida State University.

These experiments demonstrated that there is a finite store of mental energy for exerting self-control. When people fended off the temptation to scarf down M&M’s or freshly baked chocolate-chip cookies, they were then less able to resist other temptations. When they forced themselves to remain stoic during a tearjerker movie, afterward they gave up more quickly on lab tasks requiring self-discipline, like working on a geometry puzzle or squeezing a hand-grip exerciser. Willpower turned out to be more than a folk concept or a metaphor. It really was a form of mental energy that could be exhausted. The experiments confirmed the 19th-century notion of willpower being like a muscle that was fatigued with use, a force that could be conserved by avoiding temptation. To study the process of ego depletion, researchers concentrated initially on acts involving self-control ­— the kind of self-discipline popularly associated with willpower, like resisting a bowl of ice cream. They weren’t concerned with routine decision-making, like choosing between chocolate and vanilla, a mental process that they assumed was quite distinct and much less strenuous. Intuitively, the chocolate-vanilla choice didn’t appear to require willpower.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/21/magazine/do-you-suffer-from-decision-fatigue.html?_r=2&hp=&pagewanted=print

Gus: decision fatigue is not new... I have delt with this problem for many years and on this site I have expressed a solution (N-RD  — non-reactive defocusing) that requires about 20 minutes to reset the brain and the body activities in tune with each other. Considering that I am an old self-employed atheist (nihilist), I have to make an enormous amount of decision in regard to my activities every day. I have a vague idea of what I want to do — usually about five times more than I can do in a day — but I will adapt each task according to weather, my mood, other people's demands — and I perform like a classic dancer and a juggler combined with a brickie's brawn — all hopefully with some artistic vision. In this enormous amount of activity, one can suffer from decision fatigue... At some time, being undecisive on one task, still unfinished, I will pop the question: what do I do next here?... If I don't have the answer within 3 seconds, I shift to another task including say do the laundry and vacuum the floors... Meanwhile in the back of my mind I "cogito ergo sum" — free-wheeling on the subject of what to do next about what I got stuck upon... If a solution does not appear, I do a session of N-R D, these days a ten second shut eyes stint is enough. And bingo, within a few seconds I can finish a task that may have taken a couple of hours of procastination.

Just my thoughts.

Nothing can justify or excuse the terrifying wave of violent lawlessness that swept through London and other British cities earlier this month. Hardworking people in struggling neighborhoods were its principal victims. Public support for racial and ethnic coexistence also suffered a damaging, and we fear lasting, blow.

The perpetrators must be punished, the police must improve their riot control techniques, and Prime Minister David Cameron’s government must do all it can to make such episodes less likely in the future. We are more confident about the first two happening than the third.

Mr. Cameron, a product of Britain’s upper classes and schools, has blamed the looting and burning on a compound of national moral decline, bad parenting and perverse inner-city subcultures.

Would he find similar blame — this time in the culture of the well housed and well off — for Britain’s recent tabloid phone hacking scandals or the egregious abuse of expense accounts by members of Parliament?

Crimes are crimes whoever commits them. And the duty of government is to protect the law-abiding, not to engage in simplistic and divisive moralizing that fails to distinguish between criminals, victims and helpless relatives and bystanders.

The thousands who were arrested last week for looting and for more violent crimes should face the penalties that are prescribed by law. But Mr. Cameron is not content to stop there. He talks about cutting off government benefits even to minor offenders and evicting them — and, in a repellent form of collective punishment, perhaps their families, too — from the publicly supported housing in which one of every six Britons lives.

He has also called for blocking access to social networks like Twitter during future outbreaks. And he has cheered on the excessive sentences some judges have been handing out for even minor offenses.

Such draconian proposals often win public applause in the traumatized aftermath of riots. But Mr. Cameron, and his Liberal Democrat coalition partners, should know better. They risk long-term damage to Britain’s already fraying social compact.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/18/opinion/wrong-answers-in-britain.html?_r=1&hp=&pagewanted=print

http://media.smh.com.au/entertainment/red-carpet/anderson-coopers-giggle-fit-2567211.html

I know it's a bit weak for me to present what is really an innocuous event — a French actor peeing in the aisle of a plane — on this site. But of all things it expresses what we do right and wrong in a democracy... How far do we let someone individuality rule or destroy the comforts of others... How much desperation is there for someone to act badly, or is there no limits? The rioting "deconstruction" of the social fabric in England is on par with someone deciding to have a pee in front of all passengers on a jet, and with profiterers making the stock market go like a yoyo...

For example, to me, Tony Abbott is peeing daily on science. How far can we let him get away with it?.

FRENCH President Francois Hollande is under fire after reports that his policy of increasing taxes for the rich has prompted actor Gerard Depardieu to flee the country and move to Belgium.
 
Depardieu is reported to have bought a property just over the border from Lille, and according to The Times the news has prompted "a bout of hand-wringing in Paris over the loss of a figure widely considered to be a national treasure".
 
Belgian newspaper Le Soir said on Thursday that Depardieu had agreed to purchase a property in the village of Nechin and, after agreeing the deal, was seen dining in a "chic and gastronomic" restaurant where he posed for pictures with fans.

Read more: http://www.theweek.co.uk/people/50015/actor-gerard-depardieu-joins-french-tax-exiles-belgium#ixzz2BletVcAW

Not the first Frenchman to "be exiled" to Belgium... Jacques-Louis David, a famous revolutionary painter, who also painted the annointment (coronation) of Napoleon, fell from grace when the French royals came back to the throne... His self-imposed exile had nothing to do with taxation but with ideology...

French actor Gerard Depardieu, who has threatened to forsake his homeland for Russia to avoid massive new taxes, has travelled to the central Russian region of Mordovia where he may next hang his hat.

Costumed women greeted Depardieu with folk dancing on the tarmac as he arrived in the capital Saransk on Sunday and was served blini, or traditional pancakes.

Last week Russian president Vladimir Putin signed a decree granting the 64-year-old actor Russian citizenship.

The eccentric star, a multi-millionaire and a household name in France with nearly 170 films to his credit, was seen on Russian television on Sunday showing off his new red passport.

"I am very happy, it's very beautiful here," the Interfax news agency quoted the portly actor as saying, adding: "Beautiful and soulful people live here."

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-01-07/depardieu-checks-out-new-russian-homeland/4454706?WT.svl=news3

see toon at top... More on individuality versus individualism soon...

Gérard Depardieu has been made an honorary citizen of Belgium. The French star continues to accumulate passports in the wake of his decision to quit his native homeland last year over a proposed supertax on the very rich.

Depardieu was unveiled yesterday as the newest citizen of the Estaimpuis municipal area, just over the border from France, where the film icon owns a home. The actor's journey towards becoming a self-proclaimed "citizen of the world" began last year when he was handed Russian nationality by Vladimir Putin after vowing to quit France over incoming socialist president Francois Hollande's efforts to implement a 75% income tax on revenue greater than €1m per year. The policy appears to have floundered after being ruled unconstitutional by a court in December last year, but Depardieu has continued to accumulate citizenships nonetheless. In June he told France's Le Journal du Dimanche that he now owns a grand total of seven passports.

According to the Green Card star the whole affair has been considerably exaggerated by journalists. "It's a huge misunderstanding," he told Le Figaro. "I've never left! I refuse to be trapped within borders. It is completely different. I'm a free man. I feel at home everywhere in Europe."

"We are glad you made your nest in Nechin," said Estaimpuis's municipal mayor, Daniel Senesael, at Depardieu's Belgian investiture, prior to a post-ceremony barbecue at the actor's five-bedroom chateau with 200 fellow citizens of the town. "Gérard, Estaimpuis loves you."

http://www.theguardian.com/film/2013/aug/29/gerard-depardieu-belgian-citizenship-passport

Jacques Louis David exiled himself to Belgium for ideological reasons... There he did some of his greater works for money... rather than political glory...

According to the Hollywood Reporter, the French actor, who is also a Russian citizen, will play the Soviet dictator in an adaptation of Jean-Daniel Baltassat’s 2013 novel Le Divan de Staline. It will be set in the 1950s and focus on an artist commissioned to make Stalin’s monument.

While the film will be produced by French/Portuguese company Leopardo Filmes, Moscow-based studio Mosfilm will provide costumes and props.

Since becoming a Russian citizen in 2013 to avoid paying wealth-based taxes, Depardieu has also announced another project dealing with the former Soviet Union. He wants to make a “historically accurate” film about second world war French fighter aces who flew alongside Soviet Air Forces pilots.

Depardieu denounced the US, while reaffirming his love for Russia at a press conference last October. “They fought each other, destroyed the Indians, after that they perpetrated slavery, then there was the civil war. After that, they were the first to use the atomic bomb … I prefer being Russian.”

read more: http://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/dec/29/gerard-depardieu-to-play-joseph-stalin-new-film-fanny-ardant

Italian actress Ornella Muti has been told she could go to jail if she fails to pay damages for cancelling tour dates to attend a dinner with Russia's Vladimir Putin and actor Kevin Costner.

Muti had been due to perform on stage in December 2010, but called in sick for three nights and flew to St Petersburg to attend the charity gala.

Now Italy's top appeal court has upheld her conviction for attempted fraud.

The actress has said in the past she is unable to pay the theatre damages.

The Supreme Court of Cassation confirmed on Thursday her six-month suspended jail term as well as a €500 (£445; $560) fine and €30,000 in compensation to the Verdi theatre in Pordenone, in north-eastern Italy.

Her conviction for attempted fraud stems from a sick note she gave the theatre that said she was suffering from acute inflammation of the trachea, with a fever, a cough and a hoarse voice. 

The medical certificate recommended five days of rest and reports said she then travelled to the Russian charity gala to which President Putin had invited her some time before.

...

Ornella Muti, 64, is known outside Italy for films such as Flash Gordon and Oscar and continues to feature on screen and stage in Italy.

Italian media said she had 30 days to pay the compensation before the court took further action.

At the original trial in 2015, the actress said she did not have the funds to pay up.

Two years later she and her family were evicted from her home in Rome over €80,000 in arrears to an estate agency, Italian media report.

Muti has told Russian media in the past that she has a flat in Moscow and would like Russian citizenship.

Read more:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-48635599

So what's this "story" doing in this line of comments about the French actor peeing in an aeroplane? (read at top)... Well, both of these actors "love" Russia. Wow! Second, Muti and Depardieu played together in the famous series "The Count of Monte Cristo"... Third, who in their right mind would refuse dinner with Vladimir?

Why not send the bill for the fine and court case to the KGB (or the new equivalent, the GRU, though more obviously bumbling these days by employing dorks as spies)...

I don't think I mentioned this anywhere here: Toon at top by Gus Leoniksy...

MEANWHILE:

LONDON — European authorities Friday blamed Russia for a misinformation campaign designed to depress voter turnout in last month’s European Union elections and warned that new rules might be needed to force internet platforms to do more to stop the spread of false news.

A preliminary review of the parliamentary elections by the European Commission and the bloc’s foreign policy and security arm found an effort by Russian-linked groups and other nonstate actors to undermine credibility in the European Union through social media. The initiative tried to spread misinformation about divisive topics such as immigration and major events like the cause of the Notre-Dame fire in Paris.

“The evidence collected revealed a continued and sustained disinformation activity by Russian sources aiming to suppress turnout and influence voter preferences,” the report said. “There was a consistent trend of malicious actors using disinformation to promote extreme views and polarize local debates, including through unfounded attacks on the E.U.”

European officials did not provide details about what groups in Russia or elsewhere were behind the campaigns. The report also stopped short of assessing whether the efforts had an impact on how people voted, although turnout in the elections reached a 25-year high. Instead, the report largely cited the findings of outside researchers who had been tracking the European elections.

Independent investigators had warned that the region remained vulnerable to misinformation campaigns ahead of last month’s vote. Reports highlighted efforts by Russia-linked groups and those in favor of far-right policies to use Facebook and Twitter to spread false information and exaggerate political divisions.

Facebook blocked more than 1,700 pages, groups and accounts engaged in inauthentic behavior targeting European Union countries during the first three months of 2019, the report said. Voters in Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Poland and Spain were among those targeted.

read more:

https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/russia-sought-to-use-social-me...

amori perduti...