Life of Smiley

The Halo universe is clearly the stuff of pulpy space opera, and the Master Chief is as hard-boiled as they come. Much of the action consists of the Master Chief shooting alien antagonists while swapping Eastwoodian one-liners with his sidekick, a computer program named Cortana who appears as a sexy hologram. But the Halo games also have a curiously lyrical quality about them. They're full of literary touches and evocative phrases--the Master Chief travels in a spaceship called the Pillar of Autumn. The Halo universe is rich in lore--gamers love to be there the way some people love to pretend they're in Jane Austen novels. The action isn't nonstop; instead it includes dramatic beats and even moments of melancholy solitude, with Romantic weather effects and sublime vistas and soaring Gregorian chants. The game has a moody, Wagnerian quality--the Master Chief is dwarfed by towering alien architecture that recalls Piranesi. Halo takes itself seriously as, if not art, certainly...

Okay, I know guns kill a lot more people than helicopters do, but after reading about this latest disaster I can't help feeling that helicopters are unacceptably dangerous, even for a war zone. We can't easily stop insurgents from shooting at our troops (well, we could pull out of Iraq, or at least stop arming them , but I digress). What we can control is the use of a vehicle which appears to be a flying death trap. Lets look at some data. I got these numbers from icasualties.org . Are they a reliable source of information? Supposably. The first thing I noticed when querying the database is that there are no fewer than five categories for helicopter-related deaths (well, six if you count one poor guy who fell out). The second thing I noticed is that there are nearly as many deaths due to non-hostile helicopter crashes as there are for hostile encounters. Cause Deaths Total fatalities to date 4020 Hostile - helicopter crash 108 Hostile - helicopter crash (missile attack) 2...

Armed Robots Pushed to Police Armed robots -- similar to the ones now on patrol in Iraq -- are being marketed to domestic police forces, according to the machines' manufacturer and law enforcement officers. None of the gun-toting 'bots appear to have been deployed domestically, yet. Both cops and company officials say it's only a matter of time, however. "Other than some R&D with the shotgun mount, we haven't used it operationally," Massachusetts State Police Trooper Mike Rogowski tells DANGER ROOM. "But they're on the way. They're coming. " Heh - "R&D with the shotgun mount," sounds like someone's been having some fun. Foster-Miller, maker of the armed SWORDS robot for military use, is also actively promoting a similar model to domestic, civilian police forces. The Talon SWAT/MP is a "robot specifically equipped for scenarios frequently encountered by police SWAT [special weapon and tactics] units and MPs [m...

Seriously? The Daily Show doesn't even need writers anymore.

If it did, I guarantee you no one would be calling for a lifetime ban of Michael Vick from the NFL. I'm just saying.