I’m sort of having trouble wrapping my mind around this one. I just got my birthday gifts from my Mom. Among them was something I was actually given thirty-three years ago: a pair of gold diaper pins from Tiffany & Co. with my initials monogrammed on them. Inside the little Tiffany box is a note: “For Bryant, with love from Uncle Alex.” That’s apparently Alex Haley; yeah, the one who wrote Roots. (Not actually my uncle.) ...

Sure; when there are easy ways to send text messages around on little tiny devices, students will cheat (original). I wonder how you keep that from happening in the Steve Mann vision of always-on cyborgs? You’d have to actively jam the devices, since communication inside the classroom is as much a problem as access to the Internet. Or just retool to an open book system, which might be much better.

I think I’ve pinpointed the problem with Bush’s drug addiction treatment voucher proposal (original), and can explain it in fairly unmistakable terms. Here goes. Under Bush’s proposal, federal money for drug treatment could wind up going to Narconon (original). Don’t look at me like that. They’re faith-based.

Elmore Leonard’s [ten rules for writing](http://216.239.53.100/search?q=cache:n86b1euSCw0C:www.elmoreleonard.com/archives/010elrules.htm %22elmore leonard%22 rules writing&hl=en&ie=UTF-8 “Filmfour Sings the Blues with Elmore Leonard”). Plus one. Good stuff. By the way, it’s deucedly cold here, chill battering at my windows like a sly ghost determined to silently invade my home and steal away my precious warmth. Also: cold!!!

I should note that my tentative approval of the current multilateral diplomatic efforts should not be taken as approval of the rumored methods by which the war might be prosecuted. Nor am I unaware of these issues. It is simply necessary that any war plans include a serious, concerted effort to minimize the impact of the war on the Iraqi people, for all kinds of reasons. But if we condemn the possibility of torture on the part of the US — and I do — we must be at least as concerned with Saddam’s practices. That’s not just propaganda. Saddam is well documented as a torturer.

The theme of US policy over the last few days, despite Bush’s tough talk in the State of the Union, has in fact been multilateralism. (Which is driving some people nuts.) I think the most important speech delivered in the last week was by Colin Powell at Davos. That’s the administration speaking for an international audience, not for a US audience, and that’s where we need to look for the administration’s real position. ...

I upgraded my back end database this morning, in the hopes that it would clear up some of the posting problems I’ve been having lately. Please let me know if you experience any problems, particularly when posting comments.

It seems worthy of note that Rick Veitch (original) did a fill-in issue of JLA this month. It’s a one issue story, so you could even pick it up and read it if you don’t read JLA. Although it’d be kind of pointless if you’re not a comics fan, but we can’t have everything. Veitch is one of those guys who slips back and forth between alternative comics and mainstream superheros; I guess you’d say he’s an alternative comics writer and artist who happens to like the superhero genre a lot. Kind of a psychedelic orientation. I really liked his JLA.

OtherWorld Creations has, as it were, bitten the bullet: it’s the first D20 Modern scenario set in Iraq. Man, they gotta be hoping that when this sucker hits shelves it feels both relevant and not overly painful. I guess stuff along these lines sells well enough, since Holistic Designs (original) did well enough with Afghanistan D20 (original) to warrant Somalia D20 (original). Historically speaking, GDW made a mint on their Desert Shield Factbook, but lost most of it (original) on their Gulf War Factbook. Loren Wiseman attributes the good sales on the former to being the only available book on the topic at the time. “The second was ‘just another Gulf War Book.’” ...

Who knew the Pentagon had a futurist? Wired interviews Andrew Marshall (original), who has been Director of the Office of Net Assessment since Nixon. Interesting stuff. My favorite quote: A friend of mine, Yale economist Martin Shubik, says an important way to think about the world is to draw a curve of the number of people 10 determined men can kill before they are put down themselves, and how that has varied over time. His claim is that it wasn’t very many for a long time, and now it’s going up. In that sense, it’s not just the US. All the world is getting less safe. ...