The evolution of punishment explained

Modern hunter-gatherer societies, which are assumed to be similar to those of early man, have a maximum size of 150-180 people. Without punishment, the computer simulations suggest that co-operation would have died out in groups of this size.

It is interesting to note that, in terms of this article, public schools are still operating at a pre-civilization level. But I already knew that.

Thanks, once again, to J. Orlin Grabbe.

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HYSTERICAL REDNECKS FORCE COUNTRY SINGER TO RETRACT ANTI-WAR REMARKS

Dixie Chicks Learn the Truth About Southern Hospitality

"There were a few radio stations (around the country) that immediately went out and banned them," said Michael Cruise, program director for KKBQ and KTHT (97.1 FM). "We didn't want to be hasty. We knew how the wind was going to blow, because you know how patriotic Texans and country music listeners are. We decided the fair thing to do was to put a Web poll up and ask our listeners, and whatever you guys decide, we'll abide by. "We ended the poll at 2:30 p.m. today. It was 72 percent in favor of dumping the Chicks from the playlist."

Of course, anybody reading Eschaton on Thursday already knows that KKBQ was tampering with the poll in order to get the results it wanted...

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SPOCK WITH A BEARD

"Mirror matter is not anti-matter, it is altogether weirder. It is somehow a "reflection" of normal matter, a sort of parallel series of particles required to restore the balance of the Universe."

I'm beginning to miss the Einsteinian universe. It seems like there's some new rub or take on either the nature of the universe or the nature of physics every six or seven months now. Okay, fine. Not anti-matter. Mirror matter it is, then.

HOLLYWOOD'S WORST SEQUEL YET: THE BLACKLIST

Godless homosexual communist actors and directors scare the crap out of Oscar TV executives.

"Meryl Streep, Sean Penn, Vanessa Redgrave, George Clooney, Dustin Hoffman and Spike Lee...Sarandon and Robbins are also among those on this year’s unofficial blacklist, along with Ed Norton and Dennis Hopper...Top of the loose-cannon list this year is the Bowling for Columbine director, Michael Moore, a favourite to win the documentary feature award."

For retro cold war fun that's happing again, click here.

Links nabbed from J. Orlin Grabbe.

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BLOOM COUNTY RETURNS?

It's kind of hard to tell if Breathed is actually going to be doing new strips; they may just be making old stuff available online. But then, alas, it is "morning in America" once again, so perhaps we will get to see new adventures of Opus and company. But it's gonna cost...

Thanks to retroCrush for the link.

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THE US PRESS SUCKS, SO LET'S TAKE A LOOK AT THE UK PRESS

From Saturday's world section of the Independent:

Top US military planner fears a 'likely' repeat of Somalia bloodbath.

"Colonel Turner outlined a worst-case scenario: 'Within hours of our attack, Saddam launches Scuds on Israel. Israel's government launches a full-scale attack on Iraq, creating a holy war. Saddam, threatened with his own survival, uses chemical and biological weapons and human shields. He torches his own oil fields, thousands of his own people are killed. Photos of US soldiers amid landscapes of Iraqi civilian bodies blanket the world press which aligns unanimously against the US.'"

They'll call the movie Apocalypse Now. Wait, that's already been used...

Secret US report scorns Bush policy, attacks Middle East policy

"The intelligence source who leaked the document concluded: 'This idea that you're going to transform the Middle East and fundamentally alter its trajectory is not credible.'"

Well, DUH!

US preparing to abandon UN and launch war within a week

"At the same time, Ari Fleischer, the White House spokesman, said President George Bush would allow Britain to keep trying a bit longer, perhaps until Monday."

Yes, the United States now "allows" the UK to play its fun little UN game. We're too old for that stuff, though. The US is run by grownups...(punchline provided by Eschaton)

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QUIS CUSTODIET IPSOS CUSTODES

Here is a cool list of police corruption links. Enjoy.

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DEATH TO THE CONSERVATIVE ENABLING DEMOCRATS!

Tom Tomorrow puts it so well that I'll just paste it on to Real Art:

"Short story: "partial birth abortion" is a canard, a wedge issue, a way for the anti-abortion crowd to inch closer to their objective through stealth rather than honest debate. It's the equivalent of marijuana legalization advocates who also happen to be really, really enthused about the many practical applications of hemp fiber in everyday life.

And they just won an important victory. The vote was 64-33, with 3 abstaining. Which means that it was the 16 Senate Democrats who voted "yes" who put this thing over the top.

For what it's worth, they were:

Bayh (D-IN)
Breaux (D-LA)
Byrd (D-WV)
Carper (D-DE)
Conrad (D-ND)
Daschle (D-SD)
Dorgan (D-ND)
Hollings (D-SC)
Johnson (D-SD)
Landrieu (D-LA)
Leahy (D-VT)
Lincoln (D-AR)
Miller (D-GA)
Nelson (D-NE)
Pryor (D-AR)
Reid (D-NV)

Thanks, Democrats!"

Mr. Tomorrow then goes on to list Democratic Senators who voted for the war. Check it out. This should put to rest any moronic accusations that somehow Ralph Nader got us into this mess. Democrats and Republicans are destroying this country without any help at all.

ALSO, Mr. Tomorrow has a link to a blogger who clearly articulates some of the workings of the thirty year conservative rise to power by analyzing a little known Lewis Powell memo from 1971 and more (I'm still a bit dim on linking to blog entries--you may have to scroll down to the February 25th entry called "Some History of the Conservative Movement"). I'm happy to note, that Real Art has hit upon a very similar topic back on February 16th.

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STEAL THE SECRET PLANS

"On July 11, 2001...it was stated by the (US officials) that the United States planned to launch military strikes against Afghanistan in October of that year. The purpose of these strikes was to topple the Afghanistan government and the Taliban in order to replace it with a government 'more sensitive to the needs of American oil interests.'"

"On August 20, the Government of France, through the American Embassy in Paris and their Embassy in Washington, issued a more specific warning. This warning specified the exact date, time and places of the attacks."

"These investigations disclosed in late May of 2001 that an attack was to be made against certain specified targets in the American cities of Washington and New York. But it was apparent that the Mossad was not only fully aware of these attacks well in advance but actually, through their own agents inside these Arab groups, assisted in the planning and the eventual execution of the attacks."

"The terrorist attacks on American targets were fully known to many entities well in advance. The US President was fully informed as to the nature and exact time of these attacks."

These quotes are supposedly from some German intelligence document regarding the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. This could be a fake; I'm hesitant to believe such a thing. But the document's line of thinking seems reasonable. I certainly wouldn't put it past King George II and his advisers. Anyway, read at your own risk.

Link courtesy of J. Orlin Grabbe.

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QUIS CUSTODIET IPSOS CUSTODES

Undercover cops monitoring peace protesters, documents show

"In a two-page message he sent to Capt. Paul Chignell, Crenshaw described 'First Amendment activities' as a 'guise' used by some radical groups to 'conduct their contemptuous acts against corporate and government structures.'"

Back to San Francisco. Link taken from J. Orlin Grabbe.

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THE COOLEST TOYS EVER

If you don't enjoy this list of cool old toys aimed at baboomgenxers, you're a freak.

(You see, I made up the word "baboomgenxer." Bah boom JINX ur. It kind of combines "baby boomer" with "generation x-er" and makes just one huge pop culturally homogenous demographic...'cause, you see, what with decades of television series reruns and movie reruns, the establishment of the classic rock cannon, and the continual recycling of styles and fashions, everybody born from around 1950 to around 1988 has roughly the same pop cultural experiences...and...it's a very clever word...and...ah, just go look at the old toys...)

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DOONESBURY

Gary Trudeau is giving some mainstream exposure to a conservative economic idea that I wrote about on January 6th. Cool.

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STILL MORE BS OUT OF TEXAS

Remember my post on Dick Cheney from Monday? No? Well scroll down to the post, check it out, and scroll back up. Now, here's the follow up: in addition to getting a sweetheart deal for post-war Iraq, Halliburton still has the vice president on the payroll! Of course, they all say that the arrangement is such that there could be no conflict of interest. So I guess that the sweetheart deal just ended up that way. Kind of like how Wendy Gramm just ended up on Enron's board of directors.

Link courtesy of Tom Tomorrow.

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HARRY CALLAHAN'S DILEMMA: Why the "War on Terrorism" Will Damn America's Soul

Dirty Harry was one of the first cultural artifacts in what would eventually be an enormous mass media backlash against the progressive gains of the 1960s. Harry Callahan is San Francisco's avenging stormtrooper, brutally violating civil rights while his audience can't help but cheer him on; in fact, to the manipulative credit of the makers of the film, and Clint Eastwood's charisma, it is quite difficult for film viewers to resist his fascist allure. By the film's end, Harry asks Scorpio if he feels lucky: the narrative is such that audiences almost beg the psychotic killer to reach for his gun. When he does and Harry blows him away, we are satisfied. Dirty Harry helped to give an emotionally powerful mythology to Nixon's "War on Crime" rhetoric--it is no accident, I think, that the film is set right smack dab in the middle of one of the USA's most liberal cities.

(To be fair, the film is, in fact, more sophisticated than I am saying, with some subtle nuances that play against Harry's violent contempt for civil rights--in fact, to this day, Eastwood denies that the film promotes fascism; he says it's "anti-authortarian." For the most part, however, the message that the film strongly pushes is clearly a mandate for cops to gleefully violate the Constitution while apprehending crooks.)

However, Dirty Harry's sequel, Magnum Force, throws a wild card into Callahan's ideology. Harry is confronted with the dark and distorted logical conclusion to the argument that he makes in the first film. A secret quartet of crack-shot rookie traffic cops conspiring with Harry's superior, Leiutenant Briggs (Hal Holbrook), acts as an anti-Mafia death squad, dramatically decreasing organized crime in San Francisco. Harry is appalled--these new guys go too far. Harry, of course, deals with the situation in typical form and, of course, his murderous ways are entirely satisfying on an emotional film-viewing level. This is, however, simply a deus ex machina, a plot device that resolves the movie's story but not its themes. Magnum Force asks an enormous moral question that inconspicuously goes unanswered.

This, then, is Harry Callahan's dilemma: at what point does the ruthless efficiency of violence and murder become unacceptable?

This is also America's dilemma. Terrorism (as defined by Bush, rather than being inclusive of state-sponsored terrorism, which actually makes for a better definition) is used by desperate people who have a massive grievance against an institution or a state, but do not have an army with which to make war. The United States cannot possibly wage "War on Terrorism" because, by definition, terrorists have no military with which to fight. Blasting civilian populations in the Islamic world will not end terrorism. It will, however, inspire even more terrorism in retaliation for very real injuries inflicted by the United States. The State Department and the Department of Defense agree: it's called "blowback."

How will the American warmongering establishment react when it becomes clear that its military adventures have been utterly ineffective? My best guess is that they will do what the death squad in Magnum Force did: turn up the heat. So, too, will the forces of Islamic terrorism. And, then, so will the US. And so will they. And so will we.

Israel's Prime Minister Ariel Sharon (who Bush called "a man of peace") is already an expert on this dynamic.

The dark and distorted logical conclusion to this line of thinking can be seen in the history books. The Nazis, in retaliation for "terrorism" or partisan resistance, massacred entire villages. American soldiers slaughtered the elderly, women, and children at My Lai and hundreds of other villages during the Vietnam War. Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet ruthlessly eliminated his political opposition at the National Stadium in Chile. Salvadoran right-wing para-military soldiers murdered liberation theologist and Cathloc Archbishop, Oscar Romero, while he said mass. It has already begun anew in Afghanistan.

(It is important to note that, except for the Nazis, from whom our military learned, all of the above mentioned examples involve the US government in some way).

This is our future if we continue along these lines: the US will continually escalate its own violence and killing; all the while, terrorism will escalate. Our future will be less like Dirty Harry and more like Mad Max or Brazil. This is the end of morality for our people. The very soul of America will turn from its traditional tarnish to a deep, dark, wretched rot. I know that President Bush, as a fundamentalist Christian, believes in Hell. I wonder if he ever fears going there.

some research also done at ClintEastwood.net

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WOODY ALLEN: JAZZMAN

"For more than three decades, filmmaker Woody Allen has been playing jazz clarinet on Monday nights in intimate Manhattan settings. He spent 25 years performing weekly at Michael's Pub, famously missing the 1978 Oscar ceremony. While Annie Hall was winning multiple trophies, he was back East doing his regular Monday night gig at Michael's."

This is a pretty good article that does a nice job making connections between the artistic impulses behind both music and film.

Click here.

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WHO GUITARIST CLEARED OF PEDOPHILIA ALLEGATIONS

Thank god. I really didn't want to believe it was true, anyway. I mean, Pete's no Michael Jackson: we all know that he likes "Rough Boys" but I'm pretty sure that he meant grown up guys in leather jackets at seedy pubs...

Click here.

"And the morals that they worship will be gone."

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CONFLICTING REPORTS ABOUT THE CAPTURE OF BIN LADEN

He may already be in custody but the US isn't about to admit it. Here's Houston Chronicle coverage, and here's Yahoo coverage provided by Eschaton. Here's my own take which I just wrote about on Eschaton comments: I'll paste it here.

"I think that I can offer some small bit of corroboration here. Last weekend late at night I saw a cable news channel "breaking news" spot (I forget which network) that said something to the effect that bin Laden had been cornered in Pakistan, a shootout was in progress, and more details would be forthcoming. During the voiceover, they showed video of a suburban neighborhood with soldiers running around.

At first I thought, "what the hell?" But when I heard nothing more about it, I just figured that they were rehashing the capture of that Ron Jeremy guy and that I had misunderstood.

Now I'm thinking that I heard it correctly. Perhaps a late night producer ran the story trying to get a huge scoop over rivals and his bosses then killed the story at the request of the Pentagon.

That kind of thing has happened before..."

Did anyone else see this report? Has anyone run across it on the internet?

My life is more and more like the Matrix every day.

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AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT

Monty Python alumnus Terry Jones considers the coming war.

"And yet it worries me that Mr. Bush says that one of the reasons he wants to kill a lot of Iraqis is because Saddam Hussein has also been killing them. Is there some sort of rivalry here?"

Click here. Link culled from Eschaton comments.


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RON'S SOAPBOX

I now present a rousingly riotous new rivet in the superstructure of REAL ART: permanent links! Yes, that's right. After futzing around for seemingly several hours, I have doped out enough of the screamingly simple, yet tantalizingly tedious HTML code to provide you, true believer ("true believer"? Where the hell did that come from?), peril free pathways to your pondering penman's most prized places on the World Wide Web. (What's with all the alliteration?)

(What's happening to me?)

Excelsior!

makeminemarvelmakeminemarvelmakeminemarvel!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

AND THEN THERE WAS ONE

CBS is now reporting that there is a good chance that the UK may be dropping out of Bush's mercenary army.

Link via Eschaton.

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A POINT OF LIGHT IN THE CONSERVATIVE WASTELAND

And I don't mean one of those thousand points of light. Who says Houston is all conservative? Well, I usually do, but not today:

Peace activists, newlyweds gather at Mecom Fountain. I think I'm going to try to join in this Friday.

Also

Bhopal protesters block access to Dow plant. Remember the Union Carbide distaster in Bhopal, India? No? Click here. Now, it's Dow's problem since they bought UC: welcome to Houston, Greenpeace activists! (Okay, I know that Greenpeace has actually been in Houston for years, but they haven't been so noisy, lately.)

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