The clever and studious Brant has discovered and shared with us Deb’s Historical Research Page (original), which is simply brilliant. As Brant says, “Generally I don’t trust sites whose title involves the name ‘Deb,’ but I’ve made an exception in this case.” Awesome collection of links.

Some have argued (original) that the UN Baghdad bombing, the oil pipeline sabotage, and the water pipe sabotage mean that the Iraqi resistance/terrorists have given up on attacking military targets. Three British soldiers (original) in Basra, an American soldier in Hillah, and a convoy of Humvees in Baghdad would disagree with that argument.

The California recall election is definitely the most hope-inspiring thing to happen to third party politics since Perot. Here’s a theory (original) laying out how a libertarian could win it all. Look, like it or not, the whole line about winning with 15-20% of the vote is wishful thinking. Either the Democrats or the Republicans are going to come together behind one candidate. The winning candidate is going to have upwards of 35% of the vote. ...

WISH 61 (original) asks: Come up with a character concept for one to three other gamers you know. System, genre, stats (if you even bother with stats) up to you. How did the gamer(s) influence the concept(s) you came up with? Would you play the character(s) you came up with yourself? OK, that’s an awesome question. So, let’s see. System will be Exalted, cause I’ve kind of been on an Exalted kick of late. And I will pick on the core members of my old group back in California, because I miss them. ...

After a lot of futzing around caused by my own lack of coordination, the server that brings you this very blog is up to a hefty 1 GB of memory. With any luck, this’ll cut down on mysql crashes. Can’t hurt, anyhow. Total cost: under $100. I love the future. (Damn. That post seemed faster… too subjective to know if I’m really getting improvements, though.)

CNN ran a nice story on Warren Zevon (original) the other day. The new CD comes out Tuesday; there’s a VH1 special airing 10 PM on Sunday, Eastern time. Set your TiVos.

If you’re interested in CafePress Publishing, you ought to check out this report (original) from someone who’s tried it. He’s pretty positive, on the whole, but he provides enough information so that you can easily decide for yourself. They still aren’t doing perfect bound books, and they still plan to put CafePress advertising in each book, though, so my interest level is pretty low at the moment.

To my vast amusement, the Koppel-Argamon Gender Predictor (original) believes Reese is female. Seriously! There’s some sort of gender-determining algorithm which looks way too simplistic from where I’m standing which is meant to determine whether the author is male or female. The latest Dear Brother tests as feminine. Link thanks to Kip (original), who I don’t know at all so why am I using his first name?

Poland’s decided to adjust its military committment (original) in Iraq. There aren’t any fewer Polish troops over there, but they’re not quite as interested in administering the area near Baghdad as they once were. You know, we’re gonna wind up turning this mess over to the UN sooner or later, whether or not that’s a good thing.

Absolutely awesome campaign concept, plus a bonus first session writeup. Man, I am beginning to yearn for some good pulp. Here’s the most brilliant gem out of all the brilliant gems: The characters were all previous associates who had been in Paris just before the bombs were dropped. They don’t talk about what happened there, but as a result of it they all swore an oath — an oath which takes preference over loyalties, family and faith. Each of them can call on the others to help them with any situation once and once only. For the first time, one of them has invoked the oath. ...