Fat, Mean, and Stupid Is No Way To Go Through Life

Bradley Long takes an "ideological Turing test" and shows that while he is fatter than I am, he is also less intelligent, which is pretty sad, since we're both supposedly in the same field. (Actually, the chances are that I will be practicing law instead of economics, but that's another story.)

Been Ladin

Ron Paul has been getting a lot of flak for saying he wouldn't have ordered the SEAL raid that killed OBL. Well, retired US Army Ranger John T. Reed (one of my heroes) also would not have ordered the raid, for several reasons; instead, he said it should have been done by the Air Force with three 2,000-pound bombs spaced 30 seconds apart. A "SWAT-type" raid (as he aptly describes it) was irresponsible grandstanding by our Incompetent-in-Chief.

The SWAT approach was simply too risky—again, assuming the fix was not in with the Pakistan Air Force and that the U.S. knew there were only three guys protecting Obama and they were not well armed and booby trapped and all that.
If I were in the military now and were offered the chance to be on or command this operation, I would have said, "No way. This is totally unnecessary. It’s strictly an Air Force operation."
Bin Laden was a symbolic military mission, not a valid military target like, say, Adolf Hitler would have been during World War II. Bin Laden was a financier and leader back in the day, but lately he seems to have evolved into a sort of elder statesman/philosopher with a Just-For-Men colored beard and an intermittent, lame TV show on al Jazeera. You do not risk men’s lives to kill such a person. If the chain of command wanted not only me but also my men to go on this mission, I would have gone to war with my chain of command fighting all the way to the president if necessary and resigning my commission in protest. I went to war with my chain of command over a lot less when it came to mistreating my men when I was an officer.

Drum and Dumber

/B/r/i/t/n/e/y/ /S/p/e/a/r/s/ Kevin Drum at Mother Jones magazine claims that

I voted for Obama in 2008 is because I trust his judgment. And not in any merely abstract way, either: I mean that if he and I were in a room and disagreed about some issue on which I had any doubt at all, I'd literally trust his judgment over my own. I think he's smarter than me, better informed, better able to understand the consequences of his actions, and more farsighted.

I couldn't agree more. Kevin, on whether you're less-intelligent than President Obama, I trust *your* expert judgement!

On Wisconsin!

As a good progressive, of course I support the State-employee unions in Wisconsin and elsewhere. (See the photo of me helping out at their protest!)

In fact, I urge them all to go out on strike for their rights immediately.

Even if this means shutting down all government schools and most other government agencies, it will be worth it!

Brothers and sisters, venceremos, we will be victorious!

I Oughta Be In Pictures

Daniel Drezner explains, using small words, why films about Iraq don't do well at the box office

There's not a whole lot of escapism in films about Iraq. Anyone who sees a well-crafted movie on Iraq will feel angry. Why would anyone who supports the war pay ten bucks for the privilege of having their core assumptions challenged? Why would anyone who opposes the war pay ten bucks for the privilege of having their core assumption -- that the war is a mess -- confirmed?

and concludes that "The only way I could see an Iraq war movie doing well would be if it was, like M*A*S*H, a very black comedy."

Ironically, I'm writing such a film right now, inspired by the New Republic articles of Scott Thomas Beauchamp; its working title is Shock and Awe.

Market *This*

"Having to learn a new system every time you pick up a new role-playing game is like having to learn an entirely new operating system every time you buy a computer."

My strong suggestions for anyone considering creating RPGs for a living are:

1. Don't quit your day job yet (unless you can afford it, and maybe not even then) and

2. Start out by designing a scenario or other supplement for an existing RPG like D&D/d20, GURPS, White Wolf/World of Darkness, or Champions/Hero System.

After all, if you can't sell your scenarios or game-world for a system that people already know and enjoy, what makes you think you can sell them for a system they will have to learn from scratch?

It's perfectly reasonable to add new rules, or change existing rules, to achieve your vision within the basic framework of the games that I listed. For example, there are horror supplements for D&D/d20 that have new rules for fear, insanity, and taint!