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Via Patrick: the Pentagon has asked the White House to figure out a way to keep detainees in custody indefinitely without a trial. Note the chain of requests carefully — if the article’s accurate, the Pentagon instigated this. I see three possibilities, only one of which has any silver lining. It could be exactly what it looks like: the Pentagon chipping away at civil liberties. It could be the White House asking the Pentagon to ask them for ideas, so that the White House can claim it was the Pentagon’s idea and they’re horrified — plausible deniability. Or, and I’m not saying this is what’s going on but I think it’s possible, the Pentagon could be sick and tired of holding these guys without trial and they could have done this as a way of forcing the White House’s hand. ...

Cate Blanchett as Katherine Hepburn: great, unrelentingly great, ought to be an easy choice for Best Supporting Actress. Great directing, unsurprisingly. The rest of The Aviator: merely pretty good. The thing is, Leonardo DiCaprio wasn’t up to the role. I still think he’s a decent actor, but he doesn’t have the gravitas necessary to play this part and — like Tom Cruise and his smile — he’s allowed one physical tic to overtake and overshadow his acting. By the end of The Aviator, I badly wanted Scorsese to sneak into DiCaprio’s trailer and inject him with Botox. Anything to get rid of that little crease between his eyes; anything to keep him from substituting a furrowed brow for action. Whether he was portraying concentration, unhappiness, madness, anger, concern, confusion.. it’s all the squint and frown. This was particularly painful when contrasted with Cate Blanchett’s ability to convey a novel by blinking just so. ...

Beyond the cut, the curious will discover a map for the interactive fiction game The Awakening. The map contains spoilers for the puzzles, but not for the story. I found the game to be a moderately effective (if short) piece of horror. There’s essentially one big reveal, and during the course of the game you get closer and closer to it. The scale of the horror remains constant. You’re not constantly discovering that things are worse than you’d imagined; rather, you’re discovering the ways in which they are bad. Which is OK, but it’s no Anchorhead. While it’s based on a Lovecraft story, it’s not really all that Lovecraftian. But it is creepy.

Hugh Hewitt has a fairly revealing piece (original) this morning calling for reporters to answer a short questionnaire. What questions would I like answered? Very simple ones: For whom did the reporter vote for president in the past five elections? Do they attend church regularly and if so, in which denomination? Do they believe that the late-term abortion procedure known as partial birth abortion should be legal? Do they believe same sex marriage ought to be legal? Did they support the invasion of Iraq? Do they support drilling in ANWR? ...

How to help tsunami victims. For general news (and more relief links), try Wikipedia.

Every now and again I really miss living in San Francisco (original).

Credit where credit is due on tsunami relief: Bush is sending an aircraft carrier and working closely with several nations in the region on relief efforts. Also, as expected, there will be future monetary support as the U.S. Agency for International Development requests additional funds. I still think it’d be a good gesture to cancel the inauguration and redirect those funds, but that’s me.

Li asks (original), “I’ve often said that one of the best science-fiction authors whose work you probably aren’t reading is Connie Willis. Along the same lines, what’s the best game that I’m probably not playing?” Well, I am reading Connie Willis, but I would recommend Primetime Adventures. It isn’t necessarily an easy game to figure out, but the screen presence and fan mail systems at the very least illuminate often under-considered aspects of roleplaying and at the best they produce some really fun play.

[ Ed: still with apologies to Television Without Pity. And to anyone who’s confused by this, actually…] This week on Dungeon Majesty: Oliver suffers the slings and arrows of outrageous childhood, Cassie and Millie get hit on by a swim team, Alvin gets a job, Andrew uncovers secrets, and Ferdinand is mostly away this episode. We’re grumpy about that last.

Bush’s inauguration will cost between 30 and 40 million dollars (original), before the cost of security is added. We have, so far, sent around 15 million dollars in tsunami relief aid (original). Quite the contrast. I’m fairly sure we’ll send more money over the course of the next month or so. I also think we’d earn a lot of good will if we cancelled the inauguration and put the unspent money towards relief. It would hurt some American companies, yes, but chances are nobody would die of it. ...