The MacArthur Foundation announced its 2003 MacArthur Fellows today. It’s such a great concept: $100,000 a year for five years so that you don’t have to worry about anything but your work. Makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

Remember that huge Straight Dope thread a year or so ago in which countless people rewrote Lord of the Rings in another author’s voice? Now it’s been collated (original). Imperfect but amusing.

Dear Brother #13 was pretty harrowing to write, and if I’ve written well, it should be tough to read. I can only hope I’ve done justice to the emotions of the session.

Muqtada al-Sadr, a Shiite cleric, is putting together a shadow government in Iraq. The Sunni guerilla action, which continues to take its toll (original), provides excellent cover for the Shiite efforts.

Jay Allen just released a beta of MT-Blacklist. It’s really easy to install; you copy three files into various places, go to a Web page, and you’re good to go. So of course I installed it. If anyone has any trouble posting comments, let me know.

Heartworm is a funny one-panel Web comic. And I mean it’s both funny and well-drawn; we’re not talking the usual Web comic fodder. (And by “the usual Web comic fodder,” I explicitly don’t mean Joey Manley’s sites, but let’s face it — Sturgeon’s Law applies to Keenspace. In spades.) Six comics, go read ‘em, it won’t take but a moment.

There is always more White Wolf v. Sony. Here’s Danny McBride’s declaration (original), as promised (the third screenwriter). I also have White Wolf’s interrogatory of 9/18 (original) for you. The relevant bit seems to be the five questions asked, which I will reproduce for those who scorn PDFs: Identify all sources for the items listed for Underworld on the comparison chart attached hereto as Exhibit “A.” Identify all documents read, references or used at any time by anyone with any involvement in creating or contributing to the script, screenplay, treatments, character studies, script or production notes, movie, comic book or novel for Underworld. ...

Worthy of note: Kip Manley’s City of Roses kicked off today. If you don’t recall, it’s a piece of “urbane fantasy” (his coinage as far as I know, and a lovely one) provided to us with webcomic pacing but not in webcomic form. I.e., we’ll get a piece of it on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays; and it’s text, not pictures. Eloquent text. The setting is Portland. The magic is indeterminate. I expect it to be very good, because Kip can write.

I’ve been chewing over these two posts from Kevin Drum about the Texas Republican Party platform. First off, I agree with him: the platform as a whole is pretty damned radical. I would certainly be interested in hearing President Bush, who presumably has signed a similar document, talk about whether or not he supports all those positions. And much of the platform is way the hell out of the mainstream. However, it’s wrong to say that the platform has no place in American politics. For example, there is absolutely no reason to recoil from the sight of a politician who wants to return to the gold standard. It might not be a bright thing to do, but it hardly signifies the destruction of the republic. Most if not all of the economic planks fall into that bucket. Dumb ideas? Maybe. Radical? Sure. Shouldn’t be discussed in polite company? Uh… ...

The implication of this Metafilter post is that someone is providing soldiers with pre-written letters which they simply sign and send to newspapers. Or, according to this article, someone is signing the letters for them. This kind of thing has been nicknamed astroturf — i.e., a fake grassroots. The Republican Party is fairly fond of it. I think it’s more than usually repugnant when it’s used to misrepresent what our soldiers think, however. The men dying in Iraq deserve better than to have their views hijacked by a public relations flack.