Link Bloggy! There IS a Theme

Kick the tires and light the fires. We're back once again with an new old school jam.

If you've ever wondered why the national media is always cutting to some poor reporter in Dearborn, Michigan whenever there's “muslim issues” to report on, the reason's simple: Outside of the middle east, it's one of the largest arabic communities in the world (New York's is larger but a smaller percentage of the overall population. Dearborn is one of the many suburbs of the city of my birth, Detroit. Never exactly the nicest of addresses, it's old auto-industry worker territory. And, as these things go, it attracted a lot of immigrants who settled in the area. There are a lot of such enclaves around Detroit from the Polish Hamtramck to the Mexican town and even Chaldean – middle eastern christians, if you don't know – in the exurbs and white trash in Downriver. What? The 313 has to represent, you know...). It has the largest mosque in North America, a museum, a long tradition of involvement in the twisted politics of the region, a lot of signs in the area are even in arabic, and, as I've spent long hours on this particular quest I can say with some finality, some of the best hummus you can find. The newshounds flock there because if there's such a thing as the Arab Street in the United States, if there's a pulse of mainstream islam in America, it's in Dearborn.

I mention this because of this chilling article I stumbled across. Give it a read, it's well worth even though I first heard about the issue when talking with a relative who still lives in the area. It's the sort of thing that flashes up in the local news as far more important than it does nationally, after all. But as the gist is that the tensions between Sunni and Shiites is spilling over from Iraq, I think it's important enough to warrant mention. I've, in case you haven't noticed, spent some time in the area and while that sort of tension's been there, it's more like the tension between British-Americans and Irish-Americans during the darkest days of the Troubles – not exactly on the best of terms but they didn't go firebombing each other on a regular basis or anything. That was, you know, over there. Not here.

Anyhow, I'm from Detroit, obviously, and one of the nice things about living there is that you get to watch a lot of Candadian content. Windsor's right across the river, after all, and that means the CBC comes in loud and clear and you can watch things like Hockey Night in Canada (Worth it for the Don Cherry comedy factor alone.) and the hockey playoffs.

So, when I hear about things like Little Mosque on the Prairie I can just call up a friend in the area and ask them to record it for me (For the rest of you, there's always YouTube. But in the wake of this, I think I'll take a raincheck on passing along any links.). It's an interesting show that would never, under any circumstances, be made for American television. It's not exactly good, mind – the standards of Canadian television aren't exactly ready for primetime stuff. But it takes on a challenging topic and does so in a way that shows like All in the Family used to – with heart and humor and with an open mind but, above all, class. Like I said, it would never get made in the US. So, I hope the BBC or someone picks up on the idea and runs with it.

Shifting gears slightly, many have called for stronger measures to, as the late, great Molly Ivins said, stop the surge. Rather than a nonbinding resolution from an institution the President has seen fit to ignore time after time. I don't mind so much because I'm of the understanding that this is just the first salvo in what promises to be a long, bitter fight to extract ourselves from this national nightmare. And the war in Iraq is only one front – a resolution, a mark on the record that, yes, Mr. President, that election we just held wasn't just some kind of sick joke and the polls aren't figments of your imagination, 3/4 of the country really does disagree with you that strongly - even if we can't quite agree on what to do next, we're all pretty sure the first step is stopping you from doing any further harm – well, that's just the first step. There are many more steps we can and will take beyond that. If, of course, we have to. If we're forced to, we'll pull them out of our bag of tricks and put them on the table for you to deal with. It's a little thing called diplomacy. Negotiations, you understand. Then again, since we apparently have an imperial vice presidency now, you probably don't.

Anyhow, I'm much more worried about a mistake that would be orders of magnitudes worse than the botched job in Iraq is – we're there and it's not going to get better any time soon but we have time to decide what we're doing with ourselves (Because, after all, it's not like the blood of thousands of soldiers and Iraqis has caused us to pause before now.) - and that would be attacking Iran. There's just no way that ends well, as far as I can see (Although, since I said the same thing at the start of the Iraq war, I guess that means I'm a spineless coward who's baseless opinion doesn't count. Instead of, you know, right.) So, it's there that I think the line needs to be drawn – there should be a congressional resolution, somehow, precluding any attack on Iran. This is ruinous diplomatically, of course, but if I had any faith in the Bush administration to find a diplomatic solution that doesn't involve crosshairs, I wouldn't be suggesting it. Mr. Henley, however, raises some interesting counter-arguments, though (Had a good link to a page arguing exactly why war with Iran was so bad but darned if I can find it now.).

Speaking of war, let's turn to my favorite kind – the electronic ones where no one gets killed and everyone can have fun. Adam's back at it again, dropping the knowledge in yet another excellent State of the Game article. It's a primer for pressure strategies and while it's basic, Adam's analysis and advice is spot on. He covers everything from e-denial to knockdowns to spiking as that rock to finish off a weakened opponent. Even my old buddy Morello gets a mention (At the end. Great metaphor.). I have no idea what he's talking about with Debil Shot, though – it's the best e-denial weapon a Ranger has, sure, but when you're talking pressure the Ranger's better suited to overloading overlapping conditions with things like Apply Poison, for my money the best Ranger skill ever (Narrowly edging Distracting because more characters can use it.).

I've mentioned pressure before, but only in passing. Really, there's little I'd say that Adam hasn't already covered. I would add, though, that there's an important element to the pressure ur-strategy to be considered. If spike teams are about running the sprint, then pressure teams are about the marathon. A spike build tests the opponent's reflexes. But a pressure build also tests the opponent's ability to react. Just in a different way. You're testing their ability to come up with a proper response to your threats. Each and every time, they have to come up with that answer. If they don't, well, that's when kills happen. It's by stressing their energy pools or harassing them through knockdowns and other forms of disruption that it actually takes place but it can also happen because your opponent makes a mistake. They're human and they can't always make the best decision especially not when you're forcing them to make so many of them in rapid order. Just by constantly pressuring them you're keeping them on their heels and reacting to what you're doing – that puts you at an advantage.