Another Edition of Stealing Someone's Bit

Why not negotiate with Iran when we can do so with North Korea? Simple. N. Korea has the bomb. Iran doesn't yet.

Respeck

This is how it's done.



That awesome ad comes from VoteVets.org.

Guild Wars: I Take Back Everything I Said About the Monkeys

Well, shit. This weekend's crazy extravaganza is in the HA. Double fame points is...tempting since I'm only a few away from rank 4. Not that I really need it, of course, since the increased to the faction cap doesn't mean anything to me now, it's more of a pride thing. Of course, if points from the BWEs and test carried over, I'd have been at, like, rank 8 - I had a pimp staff more than once - when the game shipped so it's more a testament to how much I haven't been playing than anything else. With a lowly r4, though, it's going to be impossible to find a group. Especially since I haven't HAed in months at this point, have no idea what the meta is like, and am horribly rusty in general. Oh, and I have absolutely no time to sink into a lengthy Tombs run this weekend.

So, yeah, fuck, still a bonus completely and utterly without rhyme or reason but one I actually find useful so I can't complain. G fucking g, ANet. The Tombs is going to be packed with scrubs looking to get their rank up, driving out the big boys - who'll flee in disgust at the hordes - and making for easy pickings. Looks like I need to start brushing up on my Halls techniques.

Ahem, "lfg lfg lfg lfg lfg lfg" "/rank" "lfg lfg lfg lfg lfg"

Where's the Outrage?

One of the untold tales of the Iraq War is the contractor issue. It's the sort of story that's going to inspire outrage and despair. Or at least it should because that's what it does for me. But, long story short, the American military has massively outsourced its functions to a private army. One that's nearly as numerous in Iraq as our actual armed forces. Or so I believe because I don't really know. The point of this privatization - besides the dubious claims of savings and efficiency - is avoiding oversight. Private security contractors don't answer to the military code of justice and, thanks to an 11th hour act by the provisional authority, don't answer to any Iraqi laws, either. Like Abu Gharib, like Guantanamo, they're gray areas where the lack of transparency and regulation allows for the grossest sort of abuses. By design. And more that makes me too angry to type just thinking about it. If you want to know more, though, I'd direct you to the Jeremy Scahill who's written an excellent book and many articles on the subject (Like this one.)

With the Blackwater shootings it's all hopefully coming home to roost. I know there was a big article in my morning paper about the issue. And, today, the reclusive CEO of Blackwater testified before Congress. Not about much, really, since the FBI's suspiciously timed investigation meant that the shooting was a forbidden topic. Of course, there was still plenty to talk about but it took away the fire, the passion, and probably a lot of the planning.

I tuned out pretty quick, in other words. But I do want to address something that I did hear in my brief viewing experience, Rep. Issa's attempt to refute unmade claims that Blackwater is a Republican company. Which, frankly, it is. They channeled a lot of money to the Green Party in Pennsylvania, true, but that was an attempt to split the vote and undermine the Democratic challenge there. Erik Prince, the CEO of Blackwater - who hails from my home state of Michigan (The deep red west side of the glove, near Grand Rapids, though. Not, you know, the D.) - and his family are among the biggest donors to conservative candidates and causes. His sister is married to Dick DeVos, former chair of the Michigan Repubilcan Party. And failed candidate for the Michigan governor's mansion. The anointed heir of the Engler conservative movement that ruled the state during the 90s. The DeVos family were one of the compassionate capitalists (And I mean that in the most derogatory and slanderous way, of course.) who founded Amway. And there's some scary fundamentalist, religious right connections, there, too. And it's not just limited to Prince, either, as the company's vice chairman, Cofer Black of "before 9/11 and after 9/11" fame was a former counter terrorism official in the Bush administration with ties to Mitt Romney. They've also become a retirement home, of sorts, for ex-Intelligence Agency officials like the offices of K-Street became a home away from home for ex-legislators. The idea that Blackwater isn't a conservative company run by conservatives is, simply, laughable.

But the hand behind the curtain here is Dick Chenney, who was the first to grease the skids towards privatizing the military when he was Bush the Elder's Secretary of Defense. Now, companies like Blackwater have become a conservative's play ground. Off the books, unaccountable, restrained only by the "free" market and their no-bid contracts. They even get to mow down filthy brown peoples with impunity! A company that's hurting us in Iraq, for whom incentives are in place to extend and escalate the conflict. And who's funneling massive amounts of money from the public coffers not just for continuing this war but also to shuffle into the conservative machine. Because legal money laundering is probably the Republicans ultimate wet dream.

Shrill Thuggery

I'm not sure, but I'm pretty certain that making threats, even veiled ones, against a sitting Congressman amounts to treason. Shooting one, as Rep. Issa seems to imply here, surely is. I wonder what the penalty for that is?



Oh, right, they'll pay out $15k and get a free ride out of the country.

This Is How You Do It, Son

The power of America is soft power. We do not destroy our enemies through force, we drown our foes in laughter.



I, incidentily, didn't watch the SNL premier, instead chosing to allow the internets to guide me to the gems hidden amidst the drek, like the above. I've caught a few clips proving this was a wise decision. No insane moment like the Peyton Manning United Way skit from LeBron. Although the 106+Park sketch is worth hunting down. "Can't a black man...Can't a SHORT black man, get a break?"

I Have A Robe And Fuzzy Slippers, I Shall Be Wearing Them Soon

Ah, back in the groove at the moment. Feeling pretty good about last month, all told. Finishing off that script was a slog but I did it and I feel good that I stuck through it enough to perservere. Wish I'd been able to keep up with some other things while doing so but, hey, I'm not perfect.

This month's project is gearing up for NaNo. No big huge scripts or other projects to busy myself with, I just want to get into a good writing flow, get used to prose again, maybe write a short story or two. But mostly just work on my story document. My outline, my notes, the preplanning leading up to the event, whatever you want to call it. Because I've got plans. I've been building to this for a while now.

My classes are in full gear, too. It was easy enough to ignore them in the beginning when we were going over the introductory material. But I've skimped enough on studying and homework that I'm falling behind and starting to suffer the consequences now.

All of which to say that I'm probably going to be taking it easy this month. Not sure exactly how the posting's going to go. But I know that I'm not going to be too obsessed with it as I ready for next month and more. As I stop trying to pull myself in five or six directions at once and start focusing down.

But Novemember should be a big month as I intend to hit the ground running with NaNo. And, incidentally, as this site approaches its first anniversary. For now, though, it's all about getting there with my sanity intact.

I Can't Leave You People Alone For Five Minutes

Let's see, what happened while I wasn't paying attention.

The Michigan budget crisis has come and gone, a deal being reached some time in the dead of the night after the government went into shutdown mode. Here's how it happened for me: I stayed up late enough to see the newscasts go into full on circling vulture mode, went to bed, dreamt that I was a hamburger in Elisha Cuthbert's refrigerator (Don't ask.), woke up, and found everything had been solved. Well, not solved, so much as kicked into the future by a last minute arrangement that will hike taxes and broaden the sales tax to all-new, all-annoying frontiers. Still, better than the Republican plan which was to shutter prisons and beggar schools and the like.

Of course, the important thing was that the casinos would have stayed open.

Actually, it is pretty important considering they pump something like $400k in revenue into the tax coffers every single day they're in operation. It's not the Michigan doesn't have money or tax revenues, it's that they have a balanced budget provision and a shortfall in revenue that was a small but appreciable fraction of their overall budget. The casinos, by the way, pay that much in taxes because they make an obscene amount of profit. I had a friend who worked for them in marketing around when they opened (The turnover in their staff is amazing, too.) and even then they were making one mil. A day. In profit. The problems, though are two fold. One is that those funds from the legalization of gambling are being siphoned from the populace of Michigan, especially the poor working folk in Detroit, as the casinos haven't drawn in people from outside the region much. The other is that people take the freeways to the casinos and then they take them home. They don't stay in the city and spend their money at shops and restaurants and stores as the economic benefit of the casinos spills over to the larger community. Instead, it's all kept inside the casino's box (Which are, of course, carefully designed to close out the outside world and anything else that might keep you from gambling.). The first problem, though, might be taken care of - some what - with this week's grand opening of the MGM's permanent casino. My mother works, literally, across the street so I've had first hand accounts of the massive edifice to probability and false hopes being raised next door for the past few years. But this new casino building features a hotel which might induce some travelers to come and stay and enjoy the town for more than an afternoon. New convention space, etc, etc, I'm not saying it will work just that, like so many other things, it could. And my hometown could do worse than pulling the lever and hoping things line up right, for once.

After the original, troublesome wording of the Kyl-Lieberman amendment that I was so concerned about was toned down, the net effect is something like this: 77 Senators voted to declare the Iranian Republic Guard, a branch of Iran's government, a terrorist organization. This flies in the face of logic, historical precedent, conflates the terrorist actions of a group of thugs, like Al-Qaeda, with the military operations of an actual government, legitimizing what are supposed to be our enemies while shredding our credibility, and roughly half the Democrats in Congress voted for it. Oh, and from what I understand it's also pt us on the short track to war with Iran. Bush has now given up on the WMD line with respect to Iran's nuclear ambitions they're going for the "messin' with Anbar" rationale, instead. Claim that Iranian interference in Iraq amounts to terrorism and let the bombers fly. If you don't think the Bush administration won't do it, then you haven't been paying attention for the past seven years. Just like the Democrats in Congress, apparently.

Like a lot of people I think, I've grown increasingly disgusted with the actions of the Democrats since they took that small amount of power in 2006. Amid talk of change and action, promises that they were going to at least try to fight. Hollow words that ring sad, empty tones now that we've seen the results. I've become increasingly bitter, increasingly disillusioned, that something, anything can make a difference. At the same time, I want to scream, want to grab them and shout, "What the hell are you doing? Haven't you been paying attention? Haven't you learned the lesson of the past few years? We need to do something. Anything. Fight, dammit! Stand up for what I believe in." Even as I've become increasingly certain that no one who actually wields power would listen. Still, I refuse to disengage. Refuse to cede my responsibility here, to return my attention to trivial pursuits that will only lull me into restful complacency. There is a solution, somewhere, somehow, and if I could but find it, I'd burn as much energy as it took to make it happen.

Guild Wars. Yes, I'm still playing. A mission, a quest, a trade at a time as I whittle away the hours of my freetime.

This weekend they held another bonus event. The dart-throwing monkeys in charge of such things picked out triple faction rewards in the Alliance Battles. Which, since I'm stuck on the treadmill trying to grind out some titles (And, boy, do I really have to rant about that one of these days), actually appealed to me. Unlike the previous week's increased drop rates on greens in the expansion I've still yet to buy. But, still, I didn't take part because a) No time. And b) No guild. Sure, I could have stood around in the Great Temple or something and begged for an invite from one of the many spammers or whatever, but to take part would have meant playing the AB game. I'd rather huff paint because it's easier on the brain cells.

Seriously for a moment, though, I've been ragging on the bonus event weekends for a while now, and the fact that they're apparently randomly selected by a bunch of rabid monkeys trained to throw darts at a board. That it's like the developers play madlibs. Mixing, matching amounts and locations and mechanics at will. Because there's really no rhyme or reason to how these things are decided on, as far as I can tell. No concerted effort to use them to drive players or get them exciting about different parts of the game again. Instead, it's "play during the weekend and we'll throw random crap at you and see if it sticks!!!"

I'm midned of a friend of mine who worked in retail. She once told me about a study she'd read about sales. Slashing prices might seem like a good way to pump up the receipts, to encourage more people to come to the store and to buy. Which makes the manager, the store, the executives, the profit margins, everything involved look good. But there's a balancing point there because people also become accustomed to sales if you hold them too often. They'll hold off coming to your store, waiting for things to go on sale and cost less, instead of coming in whenever. Or decide to skip heading to the store because of a big sale, figuring it will be packed - no one likes to go shopping on Christmas Eve, after all. That ends up costing you sales in the long run, even though you might still spike them in the short run. The danger here is that by holding these events week in and week out that players tune them out. They lose that special flair that makes them important because they've become routine.

And, lastly, the great machinery of the National Novel Writing Month has restarted once more. One month. Fifty thousand words. An incredible ride. I can't wait for that Merry-Go-Round to spin again. Haven't signed up yet since it wasn't up when I checked earlier in the day. But there's always tomorrow.

Success!?

Welcome back to the blog that sometimes suspends. Normal posting that is. In case you didn't figure it out I went into full on tunnel vision mode by the end of the week. Just had to close everything out and focus.

Final tally:
Songs of the Dying
Page Count: 205
Word Count: 25k
Death Toll: 5,635 (5 of which were characters with speaking parts)

So, I have a script now (And, yes, I changed the title.). It's a crappy script so any dreams I had of sharing it with anyone have long since swirled down the drain. Maybe I'll see if I can salvage some excerpts or something but towards the end there all I cared about was getting to the finish line. I suspect it'll look better after a few days.

If I learned one lesson from this, it's this: When you have a buffer, it helps if you actually post them. Sigh.

Always Remember

I am still completely not here. I am working on my script. I am typing this with my toe on my laptop as I type furiously away.

Riiiiiight.

Anyway, slow day at the salt mines today as I worked on some other stuff and hammered out a few last minute quirks in the plot. And I needed to rebuild a system of civil servants ranks and customs from the ground up, which took a while. Took me a little while to find my legs, but I was getting there by the end, I think. Started with the very cold open. Had to resort to a massive infodump of a voice over which is lme, but it was that or devote the first act entirely to world building. Still, I'm going to call it a night and kick it off again tomorrow. It's late, it's hot, and I'm getting tired.

Swamp Opera
Page Count: 10
Word Count: 2000
Death Toll: 0