I promised the Lensman series, and thus the Lensman series will be mashed. Onwards, stalwart companions! If you haven’t read the Lensman books, you should. They are a fundamental part of science fiction history; get past the sexism and you’ll find a surprisingly liberal — even radical — set of ideals. Particularly in Children of the Lens. You’ll also find big explosions, and everyone likes big explosions.

All the hip liberals (original) are dogpiling on libertarianism this month, and skillfully missing the point. Apparently the lure of libertarians potentially voting Democrat in the face of Bush’s overspending is too much for some. The question is not “would it be OK to let everyone in the world own nukes right now?” That’s a very easy one. “No, it would be pretty much completely not be a good idea.” The question is “Would this be a better world, and if so, what do we need to do to get there?” ...

Bob Barr is fairly peeved at the Transportation Security Administration for their new list of fines. $1,500 for “non-physical interference with screening” does seem a little high, particularly since attitude is one of the aggravating factors. The new TSA guidelines are available as a Word document. I’ve also stuck the ones relevant to travellers in the continuation of this post. I can’t get that miffed about high fines for people bringing hand grenades on flights, mind you, but I do keep coming back to $1,500 for non-physical interference. Would that be filing charges (original)?

In the DoSS universe, Mercury owns a clock just like this (original). So does Doctor David Brent.

Wish #87 (original) asks: What are three or more web sites you’ve used recently as a player or GM? Why do you use them? What do you get from them? 20’ by 20’ Room, of course! But also: ThePulp.Net, which is the best source for pulp info, plus links to lots of free pulp ebooks. The FAS IRP, which is the Federation of American Scientists’ Intelligence Resource Program. Essential for modern-day espionage/technothriller games. And for Feng Shui. ...

Brad DeLong has graphed the 2004 long term budget projections. Ignore the partisan discussion of what they mean, if you like, and go right to the graph. This is from the numbers Bush sent Congress; it’s not a liberal extrapolation or anything. It’s what the current administration said the numbers would be.

Full kudos to Adriaan Tijsseling, who tracked down my ecto bug (as bitched about earlier) and will be fixing it in the next version. In the meantime, I skillfully avoid the bug by not using the Text Only option for the toolbar. The fact that he kept track of who was having the problem and let me know personally about the fix wins points with me.

I just got a Nigerian scam message as a blog comment. End of the Net predicted; Trackback at 11.

On my way home from work today, I heard an interesting rumor on NPR. James Bone, a London Times reporter, claimed that Blix left some details out of his oral report. If this story is accurate, Blix’s written report includes a note on the possibility that Iraq has developed unmanned drones. If these drones exist, and certainly if Iraq has tested their range as over 500 kilometers, Iraq is clearly in serious breach of UN resolutions without any escape hatch. They can’t say “Well, we didn’t think those missiles were in breach” with any plausibility. ...

I hereby coin the following internet neologism: google://search+terms+here I almost believe that browsers should implement that. Actually, I do believe they should implement search://search+terms+here. Someone go write a paper, OK?