Bush’s remarks on Middle East Democracy are quite fortuitous, since I wanted to talk some more about that war of civilizations thing. Bush is about to say, or said, that the changes we want to see in the Middle East are not “synonymous with Westernization.” But that’s really the heart of the matter. The thing we call Western culture (and if ever there was a loose definition, there it is) is immensely viral. It spreads. It is intensely aggressive. Give us a new market, and we’ll shoulder our way into it if it all possible. McDonalds on every corner, etc., etc. ...

Ordinarily, I’d be pretty dubious about this report, but one of the sources is Richard Perle. If it’s true, Iraq was trying pretty hard to negotiate a peace — including allowing thousands of US scientists into the country to look for WMDs and UN-sponsored free elections. One could argue that Saddam would have gone back on his deal. But it would have been a lot easier getting international support for an invasion at that point. ...

So, about Matrix: Revolutions… It was worth ten bucks for me to watch the Wachowskis do cool visual sequences, and I don’t just mean the SFX. They do astounding visual stuff better than just about anyone. Check out Bound sometime, which is an utterly beautifully filmed movie with no special effects at all. Revolutions does not disappoint there. Plot? Yeah, there’s plot. It’s less unwieldly than Reloaded, and not as complex as one might suspect or expect. But don’t see it for the screenplay. ...

Jack Gulick is the man when it comes to stats and gaming. He also plays a lot of Amber; go figure. Anyhow, he followed up my earlier post about dice here (original) and I wanted to make sure nobody who was interested missed it.

More hot White Wolf vs. Sony action! The plaintiff mandatory disclosures have been filed; I’m not going to further disseminate the PDF because, well, there are home addresses in there and I don’t see any reason to make ‘em more public than they already are. I’ll do a fuller transcription later if I have the chance. In the meantime, here’s a no doubt inadequate summary of the bits which are interesting to non-lawyerly me — i.e., what’s White Wolf asking for? ...

One of my rules of thumb for evaluating RPG combat systems is the number of times you have to roll to resolve an attempt to hit, on average. For example, in D&D, you have to roll twice — once to hit, and once for damage. In Vampire, you roll at least three and often four times — once to hit, maybe once to dodge, once for damage, and once for soak. In Feng Shui, you roll once — the roll to hit is also the roll for damage. ...

First, read this post. OK. So, yeah, blogfight. I don’t really want to get into the question of who’s a Democrat and who’s not, since I’m not a Democrat — y’all can have your own arguments. I will say, tangentially, that I do not think Kevin’s comment regarding liberal qualifications is any more divisive or damaging than the belief that criticizing Bush is traitorous. And that’s all I wanna say about that. ...

I’ve mentioned before that the key to Dean’s success is redirecting the blog energy out into the real world. Here’s an example (original). The Internet is just a tool for communication. Using it as such works. No mystic special nature, no slogans needed, no marketing fluff. It’s just a way for people to talk more easily. I get value out of asking my friends about movies they’ve seen and reading newspaper reviews; thus, I get value out of using movie review aggregators. Presidential candidates get value out of recruiting get out the vote workers; thus, they get value out of doing the same damned thing online. ...

Your reading material for the morning: Zbigniew Brzezinski’s New American Strategies for Security and Peace speech. The second condition, troubling condition, which contributes in my view to the crisis of credibility and to the state of isolation in which the United States finds itself today is due in part because that skewed view of the world is intensified by a fear that periodically verges on panic that is in itself blind. ...

The significance of today’s casualties is not so much that it’s the worst attack so far, although it was a terrible thing. What worries me is that we knew it was going to be a bad weekend, and we still couldn’t stop the worst attack of the occupation.