Happy birthday to me! Happy birthday to me! Happy birthday dear me; happy birthday to me! That is all.

OK, I think I figured this one out. And you thought I’d forgotten all about it… Without further ado, the Population: One two axis predictive political graph. Axis one is still freedom vs. safety. Which matters more in your personal calculus? Will you give up safety for freedom, or vice versa? Axis two is privileged position vs. one among many. Do you think that your club/state/nation/special interest group has a privileged position vis a vis the rest of the world, for whatever reason? If so, perhaps you think God granted said status; perhaps you think it’s been earned by means of a sterling diplomatic record. The question is whether or not you think it exists, not why it exists. ...

Kevin Drum challenges us to come up with a two-axis system of political temperament classification that makes sense. OK, I’ll bite. Preferatory, I’ll note that I think it’s important that the ends of the axes are non-pejorative. The Libertarian quiz fails because the questions are slanted. Any useful system can’t be biased towards one result. That’s propaganda, not political science. So: axis one is Freedom vs. Safety. What’s more important to you? There’s no “right” answer to this question, in my book. I have my own strong preferences. That’s me. Someone else might have different preferences. Note that this isn’t a question about rights; I might think that everyone has a natural right to be safe but personally prefer to give up that right for the sake of freedom. ...

Turns out the Sharpton fire was just an overloaded extension cord. My cynicism was unwarranted, too. I’m glad.

Al Sharpton is a demagogue of a fairly virulent sort, and I have little sympathy for him. However, the news that his offices burned down this morning is potentially very disturbing. According to Susannah of cut on the bias, it was a two alarm fire, which means it’s more than a cigarette in a trash can. It took out his civil rights group HQ and his presidential campaign HQ. ...

Martin Kimel (original) has an interesting blog.

My incredibly cool brother Ben’s design group has just been asked to design an environment for the International Contemporary Furniture Fair. You can see some more of his work here (original); the table won an award for student design distinction from ID Magazine. ID Magazine also recently gave Release1 an award for Best Concepts (original). Ben’s a cool guy.

I’m at the Apple Store watching the Macworld Expo keynote broadcast. Lots of audience shots onscreen right now, so I got into the spirit of the thing and snapped two pics, visible at Hiptop Nation. I’ll update this if Jobs says anything interesting. My, this is an excited crowd locally. Steve can’t hear you clapping, you know. OK, an iPod jacket with controls on the sleeve is cool. More integration between the iApps is pretty cool. Updates for all of ‘em, it sounds like… ah, except iTunes, which had hiden features in 3.0. iPhoto 2, with integration plus really slick retouch. Wow, very solid integration. ...

Apparently Robin Laws (original) will soon be [writing Iron Man](http://web.archive.org/web/20250325004002/http://web.archive.org/web/20250325004002/http://www.comicon.com/pulse/ (original) “Mile High Comics presents… COMICON.com PULSE”) (original). Yes, as in the Marvel Comics Iron Man. Tony Stark. Buh! For those of us not versed in roleplaying games, Robin Laws has been an influential figure in the industry for the last decade or so. He contributed to the classic RPG Over the Edge, which found its inspiration in William S. Burroughs and David Lynch, an entirely new source of ideas for the roleplaying community. He went on to write GURPS Fantasy II, which kicked the normal fantasy RPG tropes in the balls and then went off to get drunk by itself on cheap tequila. With Feng Shui, he abruptly shed the “weird non-commercial designer” tag and demonstrated his ability to write sound mechanics that actively support a game’s genre. Since then he’s worked on Star Trek, various White Wolf games, and whatever else caught his interest. ...

Virginia Heinlein passed away yesterday; thanks to Kevin Drum for the news. I’m saddened.