I can't say I'm too bothered by the idea.

Thanks to Michael.

Posted by: Ace at 01:57 PM | Comments (45)
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He means afford, as in money.

Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said in a news conference at the UN that the United States is not in a position to attack his country because Washington cannot afford another costly war in the region.

It seems they assigned a crack team of accountants to assess our ability to pay for it.

"Our analysis is clear," he said. "U.S. is not in a position to impose another war in our region against their taxpayers."

O RILY?

He also outlined their strategy for retaliating to a US attack.

Asked how Iran would retaliate, he said: "The relevant people at that appropriate time will explain to their public opinion."

That sounds pretty severe.

I don't know who these guys are but I want em to do my taxes next year.

Posted by: Dave In Texas at 01:52 PM | Comments (31)
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That's the headline from Bizarro World, where Barbara Walters quipped "Me so happy me could cry."

In the real world, the questions weren't terribly antagonistic. Unless you consider Whoopi Goldberg's invitation to have a three-way with Nancy Pelosi and her husband to be a a "tough question."

Which, of course, it's not. Given the choice between sex with Whoopi Goldberg and having my eyes put out with hypodermic needles filled with battery acid -- well, look. I've already seen enough shit, haven't I? Maybe it's time for my other senses to get off their asses and start pulling their weight.

Posted by: Ace at 01:00 PM | Comments (32)
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Who'd've guessed?

The fear of being punished makes people less likely to violate social norms, according to a study by Swiss and German researchers.

Using scanning technology, the scientists were able to show which parts of the brain react to the threat of punishment, highlighting that lesions in these regions might lead to antisocial behaviour.

The study, published on Wednesday in the brain research journal Neuron, aimed to understand the effects of potential punishment on the decision-making process.
..

"Most people are willing to comply with [social] norms in the absence of punishment," he told swissinfo. "But a significant minority will only do so if threatened."

Shockingly enough, those who engage in bad behavior have stronger impulses towards egotism/selfishness than empathy and concern for others:

"People who primarily comply with a norm because of the threat of punishment probably have to suppress their egoistic impulses more strongly, which then activates this region of the frontal lobe more strongly," said Fehr.

"This result extends previous results we found showing that egoistic decisions are more likely to be made if this area of the brain is suppressed in its activity."

For the researchers, the implications of their study go beyond highlighting that some people only respond to threats. In many young people, the regions of the brain involved are not fully developed, perhaps explaining why potential punishment does not prevent anti-social behaviour.

There is some real news here, though: They find we shouldn't punish the young, who tend to be more selfish than the mature, and probably shouldn't punish psychopaths either, who seem to have all of their empathy centers switched off.

Posted by: Ace at 12:54 PM | Comments (20)
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Even better, it's not illegal, unconstitutional fiat money, but rather money backed with hard assets such as gold and his supporters' extensive collections of MEGO Star Trek action figures and Enterprise playsets.

Most of this money is written on cocktail napkins or stretched and dried human flesh, but it's genuine specie.

Posted by: Ace at 12:18 PM | Comments (21)
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Funny or Die? Well, I don't know how funny it is. But it is a slow news day, and it does seem to co-star the guy who played "The Dick" character in the grossly underrated Not Another Teen-Age Movie.

Thanks to 3rd_Bird.

Posted by: Ace at 11:59 AM | Comments (14)
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Because it's a slow news day and my even my tipsters are taking the day off.

Maybe you've come across some good stuff.

Posted by: Ace at 11:34 AM | Comments (45)
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Fun for geeks. I liked it a few years back when Raymond Chandler began to get the literary respect he so deserved (Dashiell Hammett had always had it, partly owing to his creation of the noir form, probably owing also to his politics and glamorous Hollywood connections). And so it is now, sort of, for Conan's creator.

There's something of a tale of our time here, if you look somewhat closely.

BURKE: He was a master of the opening paragraph, and one of my favorites is the beginning of the Conan novel The Hour of the Dragon:

"The long tapers flickered, sending the black shadows wavering along the walls, and the velvet tapestries rippled. Yet there was no wind in the chamber. Four men stood about the ebony table on which lay the green sarcophagus that gleamed like carven jade. In the upraised right hand of each man a curious black candle burned with a weird greenish light. Outside was night and a lost wind moaning among the black trees.”

That gives you just enough information to set the scene Howard wants, while letting you decide what the “long tapers” look like, what the walls are made of, what color the velvet tapestries are. And that last line gives me chills whenever I read it.

MILLER: So Howard told great stories, but did he traffic in ideas?

BURKE: The idea that is most often mentioned is his notion that civilizations always inevitably rise and fall: a young, vigorous race or nation of “barbarians” fights its way to civilization, sometimes building on the ruins of a decayed society it displaces; inevitably, though, when the people become comfortable, when they are no longer working constantly to build their society, they become first complacent, then indolent, and finally decadent, from which point the society decays to the point that a new young race of barbarians can overthrow or displace it.

Howard also saw that violence was the inevitable result of breakdowns in “civilized” societies. In his view, humans are really just apes who learned how to build things: when our societies begin to break down, we revert to our innate savagery. I’ve just been re-reading Leo Grin’s essay “The Reign of Blood” and I think he’s right that Howard sees man’s primal emotion as hate, and so when confronted with forces we see as hostile we see them as “something not only to be battled but to be hated.” I think anyone who has looked at what happens on the frontiers between societies in conflict would have to agree that Howard’s views were pretty dead-on. Even when the initial contacts are not hostile, man’s tendency to turn hatred on perceived threats frequently serves to escalate into conflict and ultimately violence. At the end of the Turlogh O’Brien story “The Dark Man,” a priest asks “Almighty God, when will the reign of blood cease?” “Turlogh shook his head. ‘Not so long as the race lasts.’” It seems a bleak and pessimistic view, but on the basis of our history to date, it also seems a realistic one.

Then there's this:

MILLER: How did Conan become such an iconic figure?

BURKE: Well, if I knew the answer to that, I should be able to pick out the next big iconic figure and invest heavily. But I think the answer probably lies in a phrase you used in your Wall Street Journal article last year: he came along at just the right time and really captured something of the zeitgeist. Charles Hoffman first made the claim back in the 1970s that Conan was an existential hero: ConanÂ’s story is not that of a boy who sets out on a quest to fulfill some noble destiny (as in the story of young Arthur, or Aragorn in The Lord of the Rings), nor to find some Grail, but is the story of a man who recognizes that there is no inherent meaning in the world, that we make of ourselves what we can, and who seizes opportunities to become what he wishes to become. He is fiercely independent, and that is certainly a characteristic that a great many Conan and Howard fans share. He does not recognize authority as superior simply by virtue of its being in authority. He was a perfect anti-establishment figure, as well as one who seemed to embody the ideal of self-reliance while possessing a strong sense of morality.

I guess Conan appeals partly for the same reason Firefly does: It's a pessimistic view of the world while a somewhat more positive depiction of actual people. Those with faith in organizations and causes may flock to Star Trek, while many of us are turned off by its antiseptic and gray view of humanity, preferring the dirtiness, horniness, and human-ness of Firefly.

Conan wasn't fighting for a damn thing except himself, and, occasionally, a hottie or young warrior he took a shine to. At no point in any Conan story was there ever the promise of a coming utopia and final defeat of evil; evil always had to be fought, but it could never be conquered, and would be present so long as man existed. In National Review/WFB terms, there was no Immanentization of the eschaton in Hyboria, ever, and the very nature of the world precluded such a soft-headed notion of a Return to the Original State of Grace. Hyboria looked a lot like earth, in other words, at least as many saw it. (Thanks to Thomas D for the correction on that NRO/WFB catchphrase.)

Speaking of Scene-Setting: Chandler is a past-master of it. more...

Posted by: Ace at 11:17 AM | Comments (20)
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Notice they never make comparisons to "Trutherism," as the Truthers are their comrades-in-arms and they don't wish to alienate their ideological fellow-travelers.

So, Global Warming skepticism is now like saying the "moon landing" happened in Arizona, Sharon?

I don't go in for those lunatic theories... but you have sort of made we wonder if indeed the "Greys" are interbreeding with humans:

Compare:

I'm telling you, we may have an intergalactic Uruk-Hai right here in Riverville.

Posted by: Ace at 10:39 AM | Comments (45)
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Quick, let's surrender to Al Qaeda before it's too late.

The U.S. military is eliminating Al Qaida's chain of command in Iraq.

Officials said several leading aides to Al Qaida network chief Abu Ayoub Al Masri have been killed by the U.S.-led coalition. They said two out of the four foreign aides of Al Masri remain alive.

On Sept. 25, the U.S. military killed an Al Qaida chief deemed responsible for transporting foreign operatives to Iraq, Middle East Newsline reported. The Al Qaida commander, identified as Abu Osama Al Tunisi, was killed in a U.S. air strike as he met his colleagues in Musayib, about 60 kilometers south of Baghdad.

Shortly before he died, Al Tunisi wrote a letter that warned of a threat to Al Qaida operations in Karkh. The lettter, found by the U.S. military, sought guidance from Al Qaida leaders amid coalition operations that hampered Al Tunisi's network.

"We are so desperate for your help," the letter read.

"This was a dangerous terrorist who is no longer a part of Al Qaida in Iraq," U.S. Brig. Gen. Joseph Anderson, chief of staff of the Multinational Corps Iraq, said. "His death deals a significant blow to their operation. Abu Osama Al Tunisi was one of the most senior leaders within Al Qaida in Iraq."

Anderson said Al Tunisi and two other Al Qaida operatives were killed in the U.S. Air Force bombing mission. The brigadier told a Sept. 28 briefing that an F-16 multi-role fighter leveled the building where Al Tunisi had been meeting Al Qaida operatives.

Al Tunisi was said to have been a leading adviser to Al Masri, officials said. They said Al Tunisi, a Tunisian national, might have been designated Al Masri's successor.

"The inner circle of leadership with Abu Ayoub Al Masri consists of foreigners, and Al Tunisi was in this top tier of leadership," Anderson said.

This was the second leading aide of Al Masri killed in less than a month. On Aug. 31, another member of Al Masri's inner circle, Abou Yaakoub Al Masri, was killed near Tarmiyah, north of Baghdad. Anderson said the two remaining foreign leaders of Al Masri's inner circle remain at large.

Posted by: Ace at 10:14 AM | Comments (18)
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