The saga of the anonymous CIA author continues. According to the Boston Phoenix, Michael Scheuer is compelled to publish anonymously because of CIA restrictions. He’d rather let his name out, but can’t. This means I was more or less wrong in my fevered speculations a couple of weeks ago. He’s pissed off, but he’s not a kamikaze. Although I suppose if he gets fired in the next couple of months, there’s something to be said for the notion that he’s too angry to care about his career.

Minor blogroll readjustment: people whose blogs I read because they are a friend (among a multitude of other estimable qualities) have been moved to my Bloglines account. If you would like to share my brainspace in this regard, you can read those blogs there in one easy-to-manage chunk.

Nader is cozying up with the far right, yes. He’s cutting into Kerry’s support, yes. It is still wrong to play legalistic games (original) in order to keep him off the ballot (original). I don’t doubt that Nader may have violated the letter of the law in Arizona, and maybe he doesn’t yet qualify for the Florida ballot on a technicality. Great. Does that mean it’s morally right to control ballot access? Fuck no. Controlling ballot access is a method of controlling who can be elected, pure and simple. It is a way to say “minority opinions of a certain size don’t count.” I dislike Nader vastly, but let the hypocritical bastard run.

So Rachel Ray, Bobby Flay, Anthony Bourdain, Emeril Lagasse, Frederic van Coppernolle, Jamie Oliver, and Alton Brown get kidnapped by Princess Florimel to compete for the post of Head Chef of Amber Castle… Cooking ensued. Lots of fun, despite the fact that I am somewhat Food Network challenged. Mostly posted for the sake of my foodie friends, who can now proceed to be properly amused.

Yep, I saw it. Chances are most people reading this will have seen it or will intend to see it (and for the rest, read on for a special offer). So instead of reviewing, I’ll ramble. It’s a Michael Moore movie. From some comments I read previously, I expected it to be less of a polemic, and perhaps more objective. Nope — he’s narrating the thing and even if he doesn’t come out in front of the camera much, it’s still got a heaping helping of Moore sarcasm and innuendo. I think I could have done without mocking members of the Iraq War coalition; even if I don’t think Costa Rica made a significant contribution to the war, I still believe the country deserves the same respect as any other sovereign nation. And I noticed that Moore left out England and Spain when listing coalition members. ...

Doc has taken over the Game WISH, renaming it the Game Dream. Cool! Question 1: When Role Playing Games are discussed, the subject of first-person versus third-person character narratives sometimes surfaces. When you play a character, do you assume first-person, using your voice as his or hers, or do you use third person, simply describing what he or she is doing? Do you switch between first and third person, or try to adhere to one? When other players are in character, does the use of first or third person affect your immersion in the game? ...

The Nation provides a hypothetical article (original) on the Bush/career civil servant battles. I say hypothetical because Greider is just guessing, no matter how good the guesses might sound to my conspiratorial nature. It’s a fun hypothesis, though.

The Got Milk? typeface is Phenix American. Looks like it needs a little kerning before it looks right, but that’s OK. Agfa will sell it to you for twenty-two bucks. I know I wanted this information for some reason, so I’ll just tuck it away here until I can remember why I wanted it. Late edit: no, I will not send you the font. Someone spent a great deal of time creating the font, and if you want to use it you ought to pay for it.

Let me get this straight. Nicholas Cage is playing Benjamin Franklin Gates, scion of the family Gates, which has been sworn for generations to find and protect a legendary treasure. The Founding Fathers of the United States left clues to the location of the treasure in the symbols of America, in particular the eye in the pyramid. Now he’s racing against a British rival to reach the treasure before it’s too late? ...

So I figured I might as well go to an Amber convention because I like new things and I have friends who said “You should come!” And if I’m going to go do something new, I’m of course going to write about it. Thusly. The Black Road has something like 36 people attending, which makes it the smallest con I’ve ever been to. The small size means it’s relatively easy to get all the GMs and all their players talking before the game. I had two PCs in hand weeks before the convention, which boosted my anticipation considerably. It’s tempting to think this could work for bigger cons, but that way lies madness. At least for the convention organizers. ...