He was goofing around, and there's only one way to interpret that kind of behaviour just seconds before announcing war on Iraq: the man is an idiot.

...

I've seen the footage they're talking about. It's not the hair combing, it's the antics. I watched as he sat there trying to practice his serious face and asking if it was good or not. It was pretty sickening.

Look to here for link to video footage:
http://www.memestreams.net/thread/bid5716/

George's little antics

] While flipping through the channels last Saturday night
] trying to pick up news on the war, I came across a show
] that was teaching kids about the conflict. It looks like
] the show (or segment) is called Kodomo Nyusu (Kid's
] News). They were using toy props and cartoons to show a
] trio of very glum-looking kids what was happening in
] Iraq. It was too bizzare to pass up, so I grabbed my
] camera and started snapping photos.

Teaching Japanese Children about the Iraq War

Abstract: Both laboratory and field data suggest that people punish noncooperators even in one-shot interactions. Although such "altruistic punishment" may explain the high levels of cooperation in human societies, it creates an evolutionary puzzle: existing models suggest that altruistic cooperation among nonrelatives is evolutionarily stable only in small groups.

Thus, applying such models to the evolution of altruistic punishment leads to the prediction that people will not incur costs to punish others to provide benefits to large groups of nonrelatives.

However, here we show that an important asymmetry between altruistic cooperation and altruistic punishment allows altruistic punishment to evolve in populations engaged in one-time, anonymous interactions.

This process allows both altruistic punishment and altruistic cooperation to be maintained even when groups are large and other parameter values approximate conditions that characterize cultural evolution in the small-scale societies in which humans lived for most of our prehistory.

This article appears in the March 18, 2003 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). It is provided here by the author with no subscription required.

The evolution of altruistic punishment [PDF]

] A Florida-based Web hosting company knocked a small news
] site offline after it posted controversial photos of
] captured American soldiers, stoking accusations that
] private firms are censoring free speech.

] "I'm going to a small provider in San Francisco, which
] is like going overseas," Marquadt said.

USATODAY.com - POW pictures spark Internet censorship debate

] You have seen the last of "Connie Chung Tonight."
]
] Effective immediately, CNN has canceled the prime-time
] newsmagazine that had been on the air only since last
] June. Also gone is anchor Connie Chung -- the broadcast
] network news star CNN had wooed to become its crown jewel
] in a new star-strewn prime-time lineup.

Good.. I thought her show sucked.

If only Fox would axe O'Reilly. I hate O'Reilly..

CNN Pulls the Plug on Connie Chung

] This amazing image is included in the standard US
] Department of Defense briefings on North Korea. It was
] mentioned in a news briefing on 23 December 2002 by
] Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, who stated that "If you look
] at a picture from the sky of the Korean Peninsula at
] night, South Korea is filled with lights and energy and
] vitality and a booming economy; North Korea is dark."

I've been looking for a good link to meme this image for awhile. It's a satellite view of the night-time landscape in eastern Asia, including Japan on the right, and the Chinese coast on the left. In the middle is the Korean peninsula. What's remarkable is to see how lit up the southern part of the peninsula is, and how completely dark that the North Korea part of the peninsula is. It's a dramatic indicator of the differing economic and technological levels between North and South.

North Korea Is Dark

] There's a new breed of combat personnel at the war front:
] soldier "bloggers."
]
] Once the narrow domain of geeks and technology
] journalists, "Web logs" -- or diary accounts published
] online -- have gone mainstream, making it possible for
] even soldiers to transmit daily updates to Web sites
] about the rigours of battle.
]
] War-themed blogs, appearing on sites such as
] www.blogsofwar.com and www.sgtstryker.com, have become a
] popular alternative news source since fighting broke out
] in Iraq a week ago, sometimes beating newspapers and
] television with war developments.

Soldier 'bloggers' report from war

So there's this 14 year old, "The Boss", and all he wanted to to do was figure out "how he could make money, fast." The plan? "The Boss envisioned making as much as $100,000 by assigning various 'jobs' to his friends, then taking a 25 percent cut for himself. The Boss, according to one of the lists he compiled, envisioned his "family" making money in prostitution, weapons sales, money laundering, recruiting hit men - even candy sales." Well, atleast they new their market with the candy sales. So the story gets better. Another student "arrested on the misdemeanor charge was nicknamed 'The Hacker' because he was supposed to alter grades in the school's computer system." Now, I won't ruin the plot or climax for you but I'm thinking this should be a TV show or movie called Youngfellows.

Middle-school 'mafia boss' arrested on felony charges

Norris is demonstrating something called HyperSonic Sound (HSS). The aluminum plate is connected to a CD player and an odd amplifier -- actually, a very odd and very new amplifier -- that directs sound much as a laser beam directs light. Over the past few years, mainly in secret, he has shown the device to more than 300 major companies, and it has slackened a lot of jaws. In December, the editors of Popular Science magazine bestowed upon HSS its grand prize for new inventions of 2002, choosing it over the ferociously hyped Segway scooter. It is no exaggeration to say that HSS represents the first revolution in acoustics since the loudspeaker was invented 78 years ago -- and perhaps only the second since pilgrims used ''whispering tubes'' to convey their dour messages.

I have seen several articles about HSS. I'd love to get my hands on one of these emitters.. I'll fully admit that its primary use in my hands would be pratical jokes..

The Sound of Things to Come

“I have challenged regulators, business professionals and utility companies in Iowa to work toward achieving 1,000 megawatts of renewable energy by 2010, which will require the addition of more than 500 megawatts of renewable energy facilities,” Vilsack said. “I am pleased that MidAmerican is taking a leadership role in that effort.”

Now that just plain rocks. It's nice to see some good news these days.

MidAmerican to build Largest Wind Farm in the World