Category: The Dish

A nasal spray to counter shyness:

The researchers say that the spray harnesses the powers of a feel-good hormone called oxytocin, a neurotransmitter in the brain that is involved in social recognition and bonding.

The mammalian hormone is produced naturally by the body when a person is in love, and it also induces labour in pregnant women. The spray contains a synthetic version of it, created in the laboratory.

University researcher Dr Markus Heinrichs says that the spray was found to "dramatically" change the behaviour of 70 adults during a study. He says that all study participants had stopped feeling anxious, and started to engage better with others in the group.

(Hat tip: Integral Options.)

A variation:

Q. How many paleocons does it take to screw in a light bulb?

A. It’s not our job to go screwing in light bulbs. Let the light bulb change itself.

Spackerman offers a helpful guide to what the hell just didn’t happen.

More debate. Jeff Jacoby tows toes the line:

But for all the clamor to quit Iraq, there is little serious discussion of just what quitting will mean.

Not on this blog where I’ve been writing and thinking about that as honestly as I can. Rod Dreher counters:

The ugly truth is, the only way there’s going to be a settled peace in Iraq is if the two (at least two) sides fight it out, and separate their populations. If we were to stay there with current troop strength for 30 years, this would still be the case. We are a superpower, but we are not omnipotent.

Alas, our president appears unaware of his lack of omnipotence. He decides and the world must obey, right? And when it doesn’t, he just decides a little more loudly.

For a position he once held himself.

Petraeus seems to have the Pentagon civilians behind him in turning the politically neutral military into a branch of the Cheney wing of the GOP:

In a stinging rebuke to a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Undersecretary of Defense Eric Edelman responded to questions Clinton raised in May in which she urged the Pentagon to start planning now for the withdrawal of American forces.

A copy of Edelman’s response, dated July 16, was obtained Thursday by The Associated Press."Premature and public discussion of the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq reinforces enemy propaganda that the United States will abandon its allies in Iraq, much as we are perceived to have done in Vietnam, Lebanon and Somalia," Edelman wrote.

He added that "such talk understandably unnerves the very same Iraqi allies we are asking to assume enormous personal risks."

We need an honest, neutral assessment of the situation in Iraq from military professionals, divorced from any partisan agenda. But Bush and Cheney will see to it that we don’t.

It’s crack for Dobsonites. But there’s much less to the story than meets the eye. So expect an O’Reilly segment forthwith.

Who says fiction has to be unread to be any good? Elizabeth George writes:

Novels were designed to entertain, and those of us who wish to keep the art form alive need to keep this in mind. To aim for lofty literature instead of aiming for a good story with real characters who grow and develop and a setting that’s brought to life is to go at the art form, like putting the varnish on the canvas first. I attempt to write a good novel. Whether it is literature or not is something that will be decided by the ages, not by me and not by a pack of critics around the globe.

That’s the spirit.

A reader nails it:

Q. How many neocons does it take to screw in a light bulb?

A. Go fuck yourself.

They’re pulling "Law and Order" re-runs with him in them once he makes up his mind and runs.