The move to freedom in the Middle East at a glance.

Posted by: Ace at 01:43 PM | Comments (7)
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This is a horrible story, but honestly, anyone who attempts to "reason" with 1) wild rampaging animals or 2) vicious space aliens is just asking for trouble:

A man who was severely mauled by two chimpanzees at an animal sanctuary last week was quickly overwhelmed when the apes attacked, his wife said Monday.

"One was at his head, one was at his foot. But all that time ... he was trying to reason with them," a sobbing LaDonna Davis told ABC's "Good Morning America." "I couldn't do anything."

Eminent primate researcher Dr. David Atlee was asked why "reason" proved futile in calming the chimps. "I would have to view the video to watch for hostility displays and behavioral clues, but at the present moment, my working theory is that attempts to reason with them failed because they're fucking monkeys."

Posted by: Ace at 01:34 PM | Comments (16)
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Sure, he's a good actor, and I've liked him since I first saw him as "Court" in The Quick and the Dead.

But... I don't know... I'm not sure the kidnapping of Russell Crowe would have nearly the same effect on American morale as, say, Jeff Gannon losing his White House press credentials.

If they really want to shake American civilation to its very foundations, they ought to go after someone really important to us, like, oh, just throwing out names here, Keanu Reeves, Ethan Hawke, Steven Dorff, and/or Willie Aames.

It's weird how these people think.

The Oscar winning actor was first contacted by the FBI in 2001 and warned of the threat, according to GQ Magazine.

The FBI approach was made in the months before Crowe's Oscar win for Gladiator.

"That was the first (time) I'd ever heard the phrase al-Qaeda," Crowe said.

"It was about -- and here's another little touch of irony -- taking iconographic Americans out of the picture as sort of a cultural destabilisation plot."

A Message From Al Qaeda

Surrender, America, or we will kidnap all your great actors, like Sean Connery, Gerard Depardieu, Paul "Crocodile Dundee" Hogan, and that little bald-headed guy from The Benny Hill Show.

Crowe was protected by the FBI on subsequent film shoots and industry engagements such as the Golden Globe awards.

...

"I never fully understood what the fuck was going on," he said.

Here's my working theory: Al Qaeda consists chiefly of drooling Islamoretards.

more...

Posted by: Ace at 01:07 PM | Comments (26)
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Out-frickin'-standing essay about how 19th-century legislator Thomas Reed got sick of the Democrats' use of the "silent filibuster" in the House and finally broke it.

With even more shouting and screaming than we're witnessing today. There was even the possibility of actual violence breaking out:

When a Democratic member appealed the ruling, Reed firmly denied the appeal. Every Democrat was on his feet yelling, except for a Texas representative, who was conspicuously sharpening a Bowie knife against the sole of his boot while sitting quietly in his seat.

Even Teddy Roosevelt was impressed:

Theodore Roosevelt, who would later break with Reed over the annexation of the Philippines, was in awe. He called the breaking of the silent filibuster a reform "of far greater importance" than any piece of legislation.

The parallels with today are thick, and a bit hopeful.

Interestingly, just as Bush has been likened by a former KKK Kleagle to Hitler, Reed was called "Tyrant," "Dictator," and "Monster," all because he held to the controversial principle that, in a democracy, the majority ought to actually rule once in a while.

Great stuff. Thanks to NickS for this fun bit of secret history.

Posted by: Ace at 12:21 PM | Comments (5)
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In a comment I mentioned Glenn Reynolds' interesting, and quite old, article on "preference cascades" and how they applied to displays of patriotism... and the sometimes astonishingly-quick fall of authoritarian regimes.

No fool he, he's cannibalized his old essay and sold it a second time to TechCentralStation (no slam on him-- any writer who only wants to sell his work once is just daft).

Definitely worth reading, although I think the original article (linked in the new article) is better:

Such regimes have little legitimacy, but they spend a lot of effort making sure that citizens don't realize the extent to which their fellow-citizens dislike the regime. If the secret police and the censors are doing their job, 99% of the populace can hate the regime and be ready to revolt against it - but no revolt will occur because no one realizes that everyone else feels the same way.

"This works until something breaks the spell, and the discontented realize that their feelings are widely shared, at which point the collapse of the regime may seem very sudden to outside observers - or even to the citizens themselves. Claims after the fact that many people who seemed like loyal apparatchiks really loathed the regime are often self-serving, of course. But they're also often true: Even if one loathes the regime, few people have the force of will to stage one-man revolutions, and when preferences are sufficiently falsified, each dissident may feel that he or she is the only one, or at least part of a minority too small to make any difference.

Or, as Morpheus could tell you: The Matrix can only imprison you so long as you believe it's real. When enough people begin to realize there is no spoon, the system of deceit and intimidation fails, catastrophically.*

* I think I've decided that I'm going to try to hit every major geek erogenous zone in today's postings.

Next up: How Bush's call for freedom is much alike the wave-motion cannon in Star Blazers. And then an essay I'm especially proud of: George Soros: Decipticon?

Posted by: Ace at 12:04 PM | Comments (4)
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Okay, I actually despise these "Which Somethin'-Somthin' Are You?" quizzes, but I'll make an exception for this one.

Not that it's a good quiz, mind you. I mean, they pretty much just come right out and ask you up front, "Are you an elf? Are you a ranger? Do you dig on scimitars?," and then, surprise surprise, you turn out to be an Elven Ranger with a scimitar.

There has to be some craftier, less-obvious way of getting at your D&D character than simply asking, "If you're stuck on a desert island, which of the following would you most want in your possession: a) a +3 Dwarven Thrower Warhammer, b) material components for your Magic Missile spells, c) a set of sweeeet +4 thief's picks and tools, or d) a Holy Symbol, or e) the faggy shit Druids carry around with them so they can Commune With Woodchucks?"

Not exactly subtle is what I'm saying.

Still, if you're interested, the quiz can be found here.

It was sent to me by long-time on-line correspondent VonKreedon. Half the reason I'm posting this quz is so I can tell this tale out of school:

VonKreedon is a good guy, but he's a super-liberal super-dork.

What do I mean by this?

I mean, he used to protest nuclear plants and then, after being arrested, play GURPS (an even dorkier version of D&D, in case the name doesn't give that away) while in jail. He actually offered this information up.

And then he (jokingly of course) said his favorite chant was "What do we want? An enjoyable session of communal fantasy role-playing! When do we want it? How's next Thursday sound?"

Playing a fantasy role playing game in the joint. You need to be either very brave or very stupid to try that one. Or just trying to "get lucky."

I never grew tired of asking him if he ever failed a saving throw against forcible gang-sodomy.

Sorry, VonK: But if you didn't want that out there you should never have said it, on the record, to an, ahem, on-line journalist like myself.

Besides. Comedy has no loyalties, no friends, and no conscience. It's like the Terminator programmed primarily to attack with "Yo Mama" jokes.

Posted by: Ace at 11:33 AM | Comments (19)
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He just wanted some aspirin:

Hospital staff treating a retired school teacher for a headache found a five inch knife blade wedged in his head.

The discovery was made after doctors X-rayed Leonard Woronowicz to see if he had cracked his skull in a fall while climbing over a stool in his kitchen four days earlier.

Instead they found a blade that had penetrated the 61-year-old's head just below his right ear. It had snapped off at the handle without touching any major blood vessels or nerves - or causing any lasting damage.

He said: "I thought they might give me an aspirin, instead they pulled a five inch knife blade out of my head."

Give the man his props: he's no whiner. When one of my cuticles tears back I'm hyperaware of it for a week.

In related news, doctors were surprised to discover that former President Jimmy Carter did not in fact have a brain in his head. The organ occupying the space in his skulls could not be immediately identified, but it appeared to be some sort of cross between hardened custard and a dyspeptic liver.

Thanks to Ron.

Posted by: Ace at 11:20 AM | Comments (7)
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Well, not really:

The spokesman for police in Bremen said on Monday police broke open the door after being alerted by neighbours that loud music was playing non-stop for five days and the lights were left on. No one answered the door when they knocked, police said.

"There was a fear the occupant might have been disabled or dead," a police spokesman said. "All we found was a pet hamster. The occupant was away on holiday. A friend of his arrived and said he left the music on so the hamster wouldn't feel lonely."

A big waste of police resources? Not necessarily. The police discovered thousands of CD's of underage-hamster porn this little sawdust-smelling bastard was distributing via the Internet.

On his distribution list? That's right, you guessed it: Paul "Pee Wee Herman" Ruebens.

Thanks to GregS.

Posted by: Ace at 11:07 AM | Comments (2)
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Last week I noticed that Little Green Footballs had a report about Clinton apologizing to Iran's mullahs at Davos for American sins, as well as making this startling statement:

Iran today is, in a sense, the only country where progressive ideas enjoy a vast constituency. It is there that the ideas that I subscribe to are defended by a majority.”

I didn't blog it, because LGF himself seemed incredulous that Clinton would say such things, and the sourcing wasn't rock-solid-- it came, it seems, from an Arab newspaper, and I suspected his comments had been maybe taken out of context or "sweetened" for the home audience.

But now there's audio.* And he said pretty much what he was reported to have said:

And I apologized when President Khatami was elected, I publicly acknowledged that the United States had actively overthrown Mossadegh and I apologized for it. And I hope that we could have some rapprochement with Iran.

And:

“Iran is the only country in the world that has now had six elections since the first election of President Khatami (in 1997). (It is) the only one with elections, including the United States, including Israel, including you name it, where the liberals, or the progressives, have won two-thirds to 70 percent of the vote in six elections: Two for president; two for the Parliament, the Majlis; two for the mayoralties. In every single election, the guys I identify with got two-thirds to 70 percent of the vote. There is no other country in the world I can say that about, certainly not my own.”

So: Clinton thinks the Iranian populace is more "progressive" than the population that elected him President twice.

But here is the partial defense of Clinton's remarks: He isn't speaking about the regime being progressive; he is speaking about how the actual populace votes. Their voting preferences are of course frustrated by the regime's wholesale disqualification of reformist candidates, and the Iranian constitution gives an outsized amount of power to the mullahs, no matter what the voting might say.

And part of Clinton's point seems to be what we all realize (including President Bush, of course): That taking action against the regime controlling Iran could result in alienating the citizens of Iran, who are, by and large, in favor of reform and in favor of rapprochement with America.

Still: What's this business of apologizing to maniacs and giving their insane hatred of the United States legitimacy-- legitimacy straight from the mouth of an ex-President?

As Geraghty says:

ClintonÂ’s earlier remarks also sound suspiciously like blaming U.S. foreign policy for the Iranian revolution (guess our embassy employees had it coming, huh, Mr. President?) and for SaddamÂ’s crimes of the 1980s. Obviously, that played well with the Davos elites. But one wonders if President Clinton would make the same remarks if he were, say, on the campaign trail with Senator Clinton in 2006?

One wonders if Senator Clinton agrees with the former presidentÂ’s foreign policy analysis, and huzzahs for the Iran elections process

One begins to wonder if there's not something to Dick Morris' pet theory that Bill Clinton's ego will simply never allow his wife to become President. Whether he winds up suggesting that "maybe Osama bin Ladin is just misunderstood" or boinks a sixteen-year-old waitress at Hooters, he's going to tank Hillary, perhaps entirely subconsciously.

And for that, I thank Bill Clinton. This is the part of his "legacy" I applaud.

* Confused By the Sourcing: TKS implies this tape is from Davos (hes'a actually unclear about it); LGF says it's from a "recent interview with Charlie Rose." It's definitely an interview with Charlie Rose; did this interview occur at Davos? I honestly don't know.

But whether or not he said these things at Davos or elsewhere, he did say them.

Posted by: Ace at 10:51 AM | Comments (6)
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At least Austin Bay thinks they're threatening it if we take their nuke-building to the UNSC:

The Persian Journal website speculated that Iran was considering closing the Straits of Hormuz. The Straits of Hormuz connect the Persian Gulf to the Indian Ocean.

The Strait is a bottleneck for oil tankers. From 35% to 40% of the world’s crude oil shipments passes through Hormuz. In 1988 Joe Balkoski and I collaborated on a wargame titled “Light Division: The Straits of Hormuz.” 3W (World Wide Wargaming) published the game, and it is now out of print.

The Iranians think we're spread too thin right now, but as Bay points out the Navy isn't tied down much at all, and that there are other countries which depend on the Straights which could be convinced to join a Hormuz-capturing coalition.

I don't want to sound all blustery and eager for another war. Because I genuinely don't want another war; at least not yet, not until our troops have had time to rest.

But in a way, Iran would be doing us a favor by taking this sort of action.

Bay suggests that the mullahs really had better think this one through:

The Iranian people know whatÂ’s going on in the world, and the big story (one even the NY Times now appreciates) is the freedomÂ’s surge in the Middle East. Put US troops in Hormuz and presto, Free Iran has a toehold.

Meanwhile... The Bush Administration plans to increase Persian-language broadcasts into Iran.

Those broadcasts will likely not say "Trust Authority" or "Maniac Mullahs 4 Ever."

And... The NYT continues to surprise by actually reporting on developments they don't much like:

The mood around the table in a battered downtown Cairo office veered between humor and trepidation, participants said, as they faced the prospect of fielding presidential candidates in just 75 days. "This is all totally new, and nobody is ready," said Mahmoud Abaza, deputy leader of the Wafd Party, one of Egypt's few viable opposition groups. "Sometimes even if you don't know how to swim you just have to dive into the water and manage. Political life will change fundamentally."

The entire Middle East seems to be entering uncharted political and social territory with a similar mixture of anticipation and dread. Events in Lebanon and Egypt, following a limited vote for municipal councils in Saudi Arabia and landmark elections in Iraq, as well as the Palestinian territories, combined to give the sense, however tentative, that twilight might be descending on authoritarian Arab governments.

A mix of outside pressure and internal shifts has created this moment. Arabs of a younger, more savvy generation appear more willing to take their dissatisfaction directly to the front stoop of repressive leaders.

And even more astonishing:

Arabs differ on the degree to which American influence helped foster the changed mood, but there is no doubt that pressure from the Bush administration played some role.

I could be churlish, I suppose, and point out that this is mentioned beyond the jump. But still.

Posted by: Ace at 11:19 PM | Comments (12)
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