Long Game

"In any case, it took me a while to realize what should have been perfectly obvious: that Atlas Shrugged (about which I've written several times in these "pages") was and is so ripe for parody, it's not even funny. It's not even necessary, either, in some ways, since, like all truly horrible books, it parodies itself, brimming and fit to bust as it is with excellent, excellent examples of awful, awful writing. "

"It was back in 1852 that College of New Jersey astronomer Stephen Alexander first suggested the galaxy has a spiral shape. Since then, we've identified at least six arms of that spiral, and in the 1990s we found evidence that there is a star-heavy central bar running through the galactic plane. It's not easy figuring all this out because our neighboring stars tend to obscure the ones further away, making it difficult to identify our galaxy's larger structures with precision."

"Analyst Reva Bhalla discusses the increased violence at the annual nakba demonstrations and how Syria and Iran are using the demonstrations to further their regional aims. "

"Throughout America's history, New Orleans has really been the axis through the heartland - the core, if you will - of the United States of America. The colonization of the Midwest is really what allowed America to become a great agricultural power and also eventually an industrial power. This is why the battle for New Orleans in January of 1815 was actually one of the most key moments of American history. To this day, New Orleans remains a critical piece of infrastructure in the United States. The Port of South Louisiana is the largest port in the U.S. by tonnage, and New Orleans retains its role in transportation of not just energy, but also petrochemicals, fertilizers and agricultural products."

""Byronic" Romanticism. With Rand's division of free will into two parts, one pertaining to consciousness and the other to existence, she proceeds to develop a second category of Romanticism:"

"Vice President of Intelligence Fred Burton examines the U.S. stealth helicopter used by Navy SEALs in the raid on Osama bin Laden's compound."

"Test Drive Unlimited 2 developer Eden Games is initiating a "symbolic day strike" in response to layoffs and alleged "mismanagement" by parent Atari, according to a statement sent to Gamasutra. The statement said that the studio is in the middle of a redundancy plan that targets 51 out of the total 80 employees at the Lyon, France-based developer. The strike is taking place today."

" It's been a nightmarish three weeks for Sony, as it struggles to recover from massive hack attacks on three separate gaming systems it runs. Not only are the PlayStation, Qriocity and Sony online gaming networks still offline, but tens of millions of credit card numbers may have been stolen." - May. 10, 2011

"Apocalypse buffs and international development types have one thing in common: They're both wrong. "

""Our sun formed 4.5 billion years ago, but it's got 6 billion more before the fuel runs out," Sir Martin Rees, the Astronomer Royal, told the audience seated among the busts and weathered books of the institution's second-story library. "It won't be humans who witness the sun's demise: It will be entities as different from us as we are from a bug.""

"Volition, consciousness, and existence. Rand's contention that Romanticism is a "volition-orientated" school of art offers a curious distinction which, if applied consistently, demonstrates the bankruptcy of Rand's aesthetic categories. Those who assumed that volition applies to will or decisions are in for a bit of shock. According to Rand, volition applies, rather, to consciousness and existence:"

"Two announcements this week on China are critically important for understanding their main policy of addressing social instability. The first came from Zhou Yongkang - who is China's intelligence chief - who reiterated his call for social control. The second announcement came from U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke - who is also tipped to be the next ambassador to China - who criticized Beijing for its policies against foreign investment, discouraging foreign investment and promoting domestic industries. These two issues highlighted Beijing's policy toward maintaining social harmony or in Chinese, hexie shehui."

"Two events in Europe on Wednesday drew our attention amid the continued global focus on the Middle East. The European Commission drafted a proposal for a set of new rules to govern the European border-free zone - the 25-country Schengen area. The draft proposes to reintroduce temporary borders between Schengen states "under very exceptional circumstances," which the commission will approve on a case-by-case basis. Also on Wednesday, Sweden and Poland signed a partnership agreement in Warsaw on issues of mutual strategic importance."

"Syria is clearly in a state of internal crisis. Protests organized on Facebook were quickly stamped out in early February, but by mid-March, a faceless opposition had emerged from the flashpoint city of Daraa in Syria's largely conservative Sunni southwest. From Daraa, demonstrations spread to the Kurdish northeast, the coastal Latakia area, urban Sunni strongholds in Hama and Homs and to Aleppo and the suburbs of Damascus. Feeling overwhelmed, the regime experimented with rhetoric on reforms while relying on much more familiar iron-fist methods in cracking down, arresting hundreds of men, cutting off water and electricity to the most rebellious areas and making clear to the population that, with or without emergency rule in place, the price for dissent does not exclude death. (Activists claim more than 500 civilians have been killed in Syria since the demonstrations began, but that figure has not been independently verified.)"

"The United States told the Iraqi government last week that if it wants U.S. troops to remain in Iraq beyond the deadline of Dec. 31, 2011, as stipulated by the current Status of Forces Agreement between Washington and Baghdad, it would have to inform the United States quickly. Unless a new agreement is reached soon, the United States will be unable to remain. The implication in the U.S. position is that a complex planning process must be initiated to leave troops there and delays will not allow that process to take place."

"Analyst Reva Bhalla examines the implications of a unity government between rival Palestinian factions Hamas and Fatah."

"Did you see the story of the respected surgeon who got in trouble for writing an editorial about the alleged benefits of semen exposure to women? His writing started out all science-like, and referred to an actual study, but concluded with an attempt at humor that went off the tracks. He closed his editorial with "So there's a deeper bond between men and women than St. Valentine would have suspected, and now we know there's a better gift for that day than chocolates." Apparently the study he was discussing is in dispute. But that's not the real issue. Women saw his closing witticism as demeaning. The surgeon, who has a strong record as a mentor and advocate of women in a male-dominated profession, was asked to step down as editor in chief of the surgeon's newspaper. He apologized for his editorial, but that didn't help. "

"Vice President of Intelligence Fred Burton examines the strengths and weaknesses of bin Laden's safe-house and discusses how the al Qaeda leader was able to hide for so many years in a populated urban area."

"The fallout continued Tuesday from the revelation that until his death at the hands of U.S. forces on May 2, al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden been living in a large compound not far from the Pakistani capital. A number of senior U.S. officials issued tough statements against Pakistan. President Barack Obama's counterterrorism adviser John Brennan said that while there was no evidence to suggest that Pakistani officials knew that bin Laden was living at the facility, the possibility could not be ruled out. The chairwoman of the U.S. Senate's Select Intelligence Committee, Diane Feinstein, sought more details from the CIA about the Pakistani role and warned that Congress could dock financial assistance to Islamabad if it was found that the al Qaeda leader had been harbored by state officials. CIA chief Leon Panetta disclosed that American officials feared that Pakistan could have undermined the operation by leaking word to its targets."

"Apparently not. Neil Parille plumbs the latest depths of Objectivist apparatchik stupidity so you don't have to."