Curt Schilling’s online presence really caught a lot of Boston sportswriters by surprise. Bill Simmons went from a guy who wrote about sports on his personal web site to an ESPN columnist (original) and Hollywood writer. That probably should have been a wakeup call; the Curt Schilling chats definitely are. When fans can go to fan-run sites and get news before it’s hit the talk shows and newspapers, that’s got to be at least a little disturbing. I tend to think that most smart writers will embrace the new possibilities (original), but some are going to react poorly. ...

Yeah, I’m feeling flamingly political this week. So: the Guardian claims that some of the Guantanamo Bay defense team was fired. If the report is accurate, and it might not be, a few of the selected defense lawyers objected to the rule that says the government can listen in on conversations between the lawyer and the defendant. They were fired immediately. The question is obviously not whether the government can fire lawyers who aren’t willing to work under the procedures outlined. The question is whether or not the procedures are reasonable. When you pick a team of lawyers who know in advance that they’re working as part of a military tribunal, and they still object to the procedures once they see them, there is perhaps something wrong with the way you want to do things. ...

Ginger pointed out that I didn’t mention the violence committed by the anti-abortion crowd. She’s right; it’s another example of extremist right-wing violence that at the very least verges on terrorism. So let’s talk about that some. Start out at Abortion Violence, a site run by anti-abortionists. (Brant, this is one of those links. You’ve been warned.) About five seconds into reading it, I realized that the tactics were incredibly familiar. It’s the same stuff I talked about in my previous post on right-wing terrorism. ...

You don’t care, but I do. Putting my packing list online worked so well for GenCon (I didn’t forget anything) that I’m gonna do it again. Nyah.

So there’s this cheesy essay out there now, The Pussification of the American Male (original). I’ve been sort of meaning to write about it, but I’ve also been unable to think of anything I could add to the discussion other than “You know, I agree; Kim Du Toit is kind of a wimp for freaking out over a Cheerios commercial.” (Speaking of which, I’m glad to report that I was listening to sports radio the other day and heard a commercial in which a guy demonstrated the meaning of bitter by calling up his bitter ex-girlfriend. It was pretty funny. More significantly, I take it as conclusive proof that the trend Du Toit documents has been defeated. Or, perhaps, conclusive proof that ad agencies target advertisements to target markets. Not sure which.) ...

Looks like it’s a go — Curt Schilling, Advanced Squad Leader owner, EverQuest player, and 20 game winner will be playing for the Boston Red Sox next year. It’s been a pretty surreal 24 hours; first Schilling posted a letter (original) on the official Red Sox bulletin board, and then he dropped by the Sons of Sam Horn board for a live chat or two (original). Both appearances have been confirmed to a certain degree, although one never knows. The guy’s a computer geek, though. ...

WISH 74 (original) is all about dreams and hopes: Name three or more supplements (or core books, for that matter) for existing game systems that you’d like to see. Why? What inspires your interest in these supplement? What existing supplements or materials are you using instead? I’m not an Amber player anymore, but I’d still kind of like to see Rebma… no? OK, I’ll come up with three others. First off is a two in one, since the reasons I want them are similar. I would like to see the promised HeresyRPG. The background was cool and the card art was superb and I like games that use the Christian mythos quite a bit. Heretical cyberpunk hit all my buttons. I want Anoch’s MystickRPG for similar reasons; the cards hinted at a dense intricate background which played to my love for conspiracy. ...

A transcript of an informal chat with Curt Schilling i”s up on Sons of Sam Horn”:http://pub208.ezboard.com/fsonsofsamhornbostonredsox.showMessage?topicID=12304.topic. CurtSchilling38: and then had an email from someone telling me about the SoSH board CurtSchilling38: so I dropped by and read up, and it was pretty cool CurtSchilling38: knowing that an entire “nation” of people was rooting for us to make that decision to come to Boston, and CurtSchilling38: as i said the other day, I am human, its pretty cool to see people wanting you to be a part of “their” team so badly ...

Last week, Lawrence Haws wrote me to point out this post (original), which is — well, it’s what it is. As best I can untangle the logic, Lynxx Pherrett thinks that right wing talk radio isn’t creating a culture of violence because Andrew McCrae was a leftist. There’s also a lot of really flawed rhetoric about how our colleges are producing left-wing assassins by the boatload… OK, I’m going to digress here for a moment. I experienced Harvard’s General Education program, as it happens, and not only did I not become a brainwashed leftist cop-killer, I remember what General Education courses I took. One of these, which was and is the largest course at Harvard, was Michael Sandel’s Justice. Michael Sandel teaches an unrepentantly communitarianist theory of justice; a large portion of the course is dedicated to refuting the theories of John Rawls, patron saint of modern liberalism. It is difficult, to say the least, to reconcile the popularity of a course which preaches the importance of society with claims that Harvard’s General Education curriculum is a breeding ground for dangerous loners. ...

Speaking of maps, holy shit. That’s a lot of map links. (Via Making Light.)