tons o' fun!

My first game night at chelona and voltbang's, and what a crowd. Played Carcassone with tall_man, draakken, and Melissa, then played Ivanhoe with Adam, Jesse, xydexx, and another chap whose name I didn't catch. Lots of fun, and lots of other games going on that looked fun. Got to giveblueinva a hug and exchange news for the first time in ages. Chatted with Jesse and chrisv about Warhammer. Left around 10.30 and proceeded to get lost, figured out where I was, got lost again (OK, yes, I now remember that the Reston Parkway runs into the DTR but the Herndon Parkway just runs around in a circle...) and got home around quarter past 11. My copy of Empires of the Middle Ages still hasn't arrived (there's a story there...) but the box of Mythos decks I got on ebay did. And there was a nice message from a friend waiting for me, suggesting lascivious delights waiting in the near future...

A few links to items of interest (sad, heartwarming, and infuriating)

don't ask a question if you don't want to hear the answer

a reaction to someone horrifically mean-spirited

and

local reaction as well
(this requires a free account)

in the "someone better be going to jail for this" category

Really??

You are one of the few out there whose wings are truly ANGELIC. Selfless, powerful, and divine, you are one blessed with a certain cosmic grace. You are unequalled in peacefulness, love, and beauty. As a Being of Light your wings are massive and a soft white or silver. Countless feathers grace them and radiate the light within you for all the world to see. You are a defender, protector, and caretaker. Comforter of the weak and forgiver of the wrong, chances are you are taken advantage of once in awhile, maybe quite often. But your innocence and wisdom sees the good in everyone and so this mistreatment does not make you colder. Merciful to the extreme, you will try to help misguided souls find themselves and peace. However not all Angelics allow themselves to be gotten the better of - the Seraphim for example will be driven to fighting for the sake of Justice and protection of those less powerful. Congratulations - and don't ever change - the world needs more people like you.


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from Spies, Lies, and Weapons: What Went Wrong

Throughout the spring and fall of 2002 and well into 2003 I received numerous complaints from friends and colleagues in the intelligence community, and from people in the policy community, about precisely that. According to them, many Administration officials reacted strongly, negatively, and aggressively when presented with information or analysis that contradicted what they already believed about Iraq. Many of these officials believed that Saddam Hussein was the source of virtually all the problems in the Middle East and was an imminent danger to the United States because of his perceived possession of weapons of mass destruction and support of terrorism. Many also believed that CIA analysts tended to be left-leaning cultural relativists who consistently downplayed threats to the United States. They believed that the Agency, not the Administration, was biased, and that they were acting simply to correct that bias.

If Mr Pollack and his sources are correct, the problem (at least at the policy end--Pollack discusses many other interesting possible contributions to the "WMD Gap" in Iraq) really was the "honest" belief of those in the Administration that Iraq was "the root of all evil" in Middle East affairs and acted both passively and actively to shape intelligence to fit that preconception. It would not be the first time a government refused to believe intelligence findings that did not square with its view of the world (Stalin's refusal to accept that Germany intended to invade the Soviet Union in 1941 springs to mind), but I have to confess to a chuckle of amusement at the irony of the intelligence community, which many of my friends regard with hostility and suspicion as a tool of the Man, being dismissed as a bunch of "left-leaning cultural relativists" by the Man Embodied (Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Perle, Rice, Powell, et al.)