I always wanted to know which states had lots of people with my last name. I just didn’t know it till I found this link. There are few of my kind anywhere, except there’s a cluster in Maine, which is completely expected. There’s also a cluster in Oregon, which doesn’t surprise me in the least cause I already knew about that branch. French names cluster in New England and Louisana. Scandanavian names cluster up in the Dakotas and Wisconsin and Minnesota. Cool stuff. (Via gtexts.)

Charlie Stross draws comparisons (original) between the museum losses in Baghdad and hypothetical losses of equal scale in London. Imagine London bombed. The V&A trashed, the Tower of London and the Crown Jewels looted, the British Library complex on Euston Road burned (along with all those annoying old bits of paper like the original draft of Magna Carta, the Gutenberg Bible, and so on), the Natural History Museum used as a defensive fortification and shelled. (Goodbye, Apollo 10.) ...

Campaign season has apparently officially started. Ari Fleischer spent more time answering questions about Bush’s campaign (original) yesterday than he spent on anything else, including this little gem: Q Secondly, on fundraising. Governor Dean has said that it’s a threat to democracy for any one presidential candidate to have two or three times more money to get his or her message out than any other candidate. Regardless of how much money the President plans to raise, does he see any merit whatsoever in that argument? ...

Bush is now claiming that questions about his justification for the invasion of Iraq are coming from “revisionist historians.” Saddam was a threat, and that’s that. Apparently he was the kind of threat who can be ousted in about two weeks flat — but maybe pointing that out is revisionist history. It’s probably also revisionist history to point out that Iraqis are killing more Americans per week now than they were in 2002. ...

WISH 51 asks: What are three genres that you’ve had limited exposure to as a gamer that you’d like to try or play more of? Hard question, cause I’m not sure what limited exposure means. I’ll take it as “haven’t played a lot in.” Lesse. Off the top of my head, I might say pulp, but I think the old Feng Shui games I’ve been in qualify. They were more Asian pulp, but pulp nonetheless. Dear old Clarice, British counter-terrorism expert, was pretty much a pulp character down to the quirky name for her gun. So OK, I’ve played pulp. ...

Everyone’s linking to this one (original), but what the heck — let’s dogpile. Rand Beers resigned from his position as a counterterrorism advisor in the White House just before the war on Iraq began. Not because he didn’t support the war; he did. Rather, he couldn’t take working for Bush. Beers had been working in the NSC since the 80s; he replaced Oliver North as director for counterterrorism and counternarcotics. He worked for Reagan, Clinton, and both Bushes. He’s a registered Democrat but it would be hard to argue that he dislikes Republicans. ...

This really shouldn’t be a surprise, but I was a bit surprised. The official British investigation into those trailers decided they weren’t WMD labs. They were, apparently, hydrogen gas producing units, which is exactly what the Iraqis claimed they were. The Brits may have had an easier time figuring this out, since Iraq’s original artillery balloon systems were sold to Iraq by a British company. So let’s go back to the surprise. Why was I surprised? Because I can’t help believing, on some level, that there are WMD in Iraq. Despite the fact that no Iraqi official has decided to let us know where they are, and despite the fact that we can’t find the tens of thousands of tons of WMD that Bush claimed, and despite the fact that Iraq didn’t use ‘em even at the 11th hour — some of me says “Well, they must be there.” ...

Looks like the Killer D T-shirts are finally available. Paypal 20 bucks (includes shipping) to dkz@swbell.net, subject line “T-Shirt Order”, tell him what size you want. Or use this link, which I just whipped up and used myself.

Unsurprisingly, Bush’s faith-based programs have taken that fateful next step. This one involves the Head Start preschool program. In eight states, it’s now possible for religious organizations running Head Start programs to discriminate in hiring based on religion (original). This is ludicrous. The rationale is that religious organizations might not participate without being able to discriminate. I am forced to say “So?” Religious groups that feel the need to discriminate based on religion are not appropriate teachers for our children.

The Guardian has another piece on Guantanamo. Five points off for using scare quotes and the term “death chamber.” Ten points granted, however, for quoting the British Foreign Office regarding their concern about the British citizens currently interred down there. Remember, while we won’t subject our own citizens to a military tribunal, we’ll do it to the citizens of our allies.