Ramblings of Lefty and Right

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Short snippet of thought...
Man I have been way to busy today, a proper update tomorrow including possibly a posting on the trip in June.

For now, enjoy the Penny Arcade, I have seen many a Mixed Martial Art contest end up just like this. Hot, sweaty guys rolling around on the floor for a temporary advantage.

Tomorrow, final corrections for the UCON dealer packet and then promo mailings begin!

Oh, and a blast from the past - my Star Wars LARP, Project Mongoose, a draft of the final idea has actually been written and sent to my co-GM for thoughts. The first step of an insane journey has been taken.

Stand Back! I'm doing history!
First off though, the obligatory plug for this weeks DungeonMonkey.com article, I need to write up some more columns because Gabe has a neat idea for promoting this at U*CON and honestly, I want to have a bigger reserve stored up for the impending "season of PhD applications." Go team! Anyway this week's column touches on super powers.

Second, today's XKCD was quite nice actually, I've felt that way on occasion on the bus, good to know my fellow riders probably feel the same about me. Personal new life goal, smile at people on the bus and attempt random conversations with the crazy rider. I did it once and it actually was fun.

Third, I found this online which proves that anyone, anyone, can open a business. If I chose to go business owner, this inspires me.

But it is time for HISTORY! So last night I was watching the original Pink Panther movie which centers around a large gem owned by a Princess of some vaguely India-esque nation. She had been given the gem by her father when she was a little girl and in the course of the film fakes its robbery (minor plot detail.) But what was intensely interesting about the film, which was made in 1963, was the double layer of subtext on the history of the period. Our Princess/Queen (her rank is never fully explained) is met by the villian while she is staying at a ski resort on a holiday, the actual attempt to steal the gem takes place at a society party the Princess/Queen hosts at her permanent home (somewhere in Europe.) In the film when she and the villian are talking they allude to the Princess/Queen's father, an absolute ruler with a soft and a hard side, her time studying in the West which made her "a paradox, western acculturated and eastern indoctrinated" and about how she was known as "The Virgin Queen" a ruler of ten million subjects.

But why is said ruler sort of roaming around Europe going to ski resorts and hosting parties, with one man-servant and no apparent duties as a head of state? Well the film also mentions that her ownership of the gem is contested by the "new government in power" that claims the stone should be returned to them because "it belongs to the people," the Princess/Queen claims it was a personal gift from her father and is hers therefore, the characters talk about how the issue might be resolved in "the International Court."

The first thing that makes this cool is that it represents the period in question, the 1950s and 1960s was a period of massive de-colonization, when nationalities/ethnicities around the globe formally ruled directly by European powers or by proxy rulers backed by European support yielded power to nativist and/or Communist movements. In this period a large number of former crowned heads in Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia, and in India fell from power/lost their thrones/had their privileges revoked as royalty and were replaced by other government forms. Although many would later revert to dictatorships of one sort or another this was a period filled with political change, the rejection by people around the world of purely European models of government, and also the appearance of a class of former monarchs who made up a new idle rich, traveling Europe and the United States as wealthy individuals living off the proceeds they had squirreled away/fled with from their former nation.

The Pink Panther captures this time and does so through secondary references and comments, for example the claim by the new government that the stone "belongs to the people" probably reflects a Communist government in power or a left leaning government. Phrases like this are used throughout this period as rallying cries but claiming something in the name of "the people" is usually a mark of Communism or Communist rhetoric.

But the even cooler secondary layer in all of this is that the film never explicits explains any of this. The people living in the 1960s knew all about it and therefore needed no further explination for what was happening. A modern audience, not knowing about these events, might be a bit lost as to why the Princess/Queen is and what she is doing, but to someone in 1963 it would make perfect sense. So the film also captures the period in another way because it reflects how the common public knowledge base at the time included an understanding of decolonization and the spread of Communism in the developing world so the characters did not have to spend time explaining this context within the film.

This sort of thing is part of why history tickles me on a daily basis and also further proof that I am an utter geek. (Doubly so when in the opening sequence of the film when the ruler shows his daughter the gem, talks about its flaw, and the we cut to the cartoon I was trying to figure out where said ruler ruled based on dress, architecture of the palace, and history. It looks like India but India at the time was centrally part of the British Empire, the various ruling princes having been consolidated as a power bloc. Possibly Afghanistan...)

Roleplaying Games and Board Games - thoughts and headaches
So first off I was struck today by an idea for a board/card game mechanic I rather like, no theme for it yet but the basic mechanic seems fun:

Players are presented with an array of cards, one for each player, each worth something [victory points, powers, etc.] Each player then, in turn, bids for selection order, ranked from one to six [bottom being the last player in number], each player can either bid an amount higher then the bid before them or pass, if they pass they pay one half [rounding down] of their bid and take the lowest selection order face up. When all the players have a selection order they can either: pick a card of their choice from those face up OR steal one card from any player with a LOWER position on the picking order. However the player who has a card stolen from them gets a bonus selection from the array of face up cards when it is their turn to pick.

I think that makes for a nice universal mechanic I can use for a few differently themed games, the added chrome are goals you compete for, types of cards that combine to do interesting things, cards that make income, cards that give VP, but I think that makes for a nice engine.

So gaming wise one of the challenges I am facing is with the Friday group and Seventh Seas, swashbuckling fun however there has been an interest in the group in running it in a manner which is, honestly, sub-optimal play wise. You see it is a dice pool system (roll skills + stats, keep stats) and based on probabilities the game runs centered upon the concept that players want to hit certain taget numbers, so in each campaign the group has focused on increasing their stats rather then skills. Unfortunately a great amount of the game, as the authors intended, hinges on improving skills and the game really does not allow a player to do that successfully. For reasons I'll not go into here, basically each player in the Friday group after character creation works as quickly as possible to advance their stats and, because of the cost of boosting stats, each player spends most of the campaign doing just that.

I've been asked by some of the players to change that drive, make playing a Swordsman (skill based thing more valuable/viable) however to do so in a way that makes the group NOT act in an optimal building manner. This of course sparks some resistance from members of the group but also made me tense because I'm being asked by the players to curb their innate nature in this campaign, but do it cleverly. I've spent the last week trying to figure it out, naturally, the solution presented itself just now because I had not thought about it all day:

Reverse the kept dice/unkept dice, roll skill + stat, keep skill. Leave all the other rules the same. Players get bonus dice (to augment their rolls if needed, give them extra XP at the end of the night, or activate special powers) based, per night, on their lowest stat. Keep that the same. Stats universally add dice to many skills, so boosting them will allow you to get a little better in a range of abilities. But to get better at doing something, you need to build your skill in it, which is cheaper but more focused. Even leaving the stat costs the same solves the problem, or at least, changes the way the game will be played and I think that is what the group is more oriented towards in this campaign.

My mood has suddenly, greatly, improved from this weekend.

Couple of non-gaming things, I love schlocky horror film fests on local television stations, reading about this made me happy and I'll be watching Wolfman Mac now on Saturdays I'm not out.

Finally I bought a shiny (used) role playing game I've wanted for a while, It Came From The Late Late Late Show, which I might never get to run and cost a bit but now is mine. Mine, all mine! *EVIL CACKLE*

Edit: I also just solved, with another minor rules clarification, a problem with the game involving Hubrises. See they are supposed to be negative things that impact a player character, they give you a bonus in character generation points at the start of the game and, in play, as the GM I spend a drama die to activate it. Although in the past players have attempted to roleplay the hubris (some) I recently recieved a pronouncement that in the upcoming campaign the players all plan to foce me to spend dice to activate their hubris, putting a strain on me (honestly) because I'll have to think of six seperate ways to harm them and it reduces my random bonus dice pool sharply. That or let them get away with free bonus points and occasionally have the players whine about my picking on them if I activate the same player more times then others.

Better way - if you take a Hubris once per night, if you roleplay it and put your character in real hazard, I will reward you with an extra Drama dice. (Bonus XP, bonus modifying die roll.) I limit it to once per player because otherwise you end up in chaos land.

Final alternate history novel idea/space commerce

So yesterday while I was walking home I was struck by an idea, a vision, for an alternate history novel that is both neat and has not been written yet, but would not require a huge amount of research. Meet this fellow, Ernst Rohm, he died in 1934 as the pinnacle kill of the Night of the Long Knives, a Nazi internal purge to remove political rivals and challengers to Hitler's position of power. I learned in one class that when Hitler showed up to arrest Rohm personally he was intercepted by a large group of armed stormtroopers (SA) who Hitler convinced to lay down their arms and depart.

In my version, Rohm is tipped off about the impending purge by someone in Hitler's inner circle who learns of it but is more aligned to Rohm, so on 30 June 1934 when Hitler rolls out to arrest Rohm he meets with that same band of armed SA, but Rohm is awake in this case and the SA are highly loyal to him. There is a confrontation, yelling, Hitler pulls his pistol, Rohm's men shoot Hitler to death. Right there on the street, kill Hitler's two bodyguards as well. Rohm then carries out a counter-purge against the SS and goes on national radio announcing the assasination of Hitler by his SS bodyguards and assumes the leadership of the Nazi state (after ensuring the deaths of Gobbels, Goring, and Himmler.) [There were real tensions in the Nazi party at this time, check out the Stennes Revolt.]

Then the book will follow the events of the 1930s up through the early 1940s but with Germany lead by Rohm, a figure closer to Mussolini then Hitler in his ability to rule and organize power. I'm figuring that the Austrian reunification in 1938 would still occur, the Rhineland would be remilitarized but after negotiations with France, the army (bloodily) merged into the SA creating a force of moderate ability, a territorial exchange with Poland to reunite East Prussia with Germany, and a relocation of those in the Sudetenland. Anti-Semitism but no mass extermination of Jews and homosexuals (of which Rohm was one) left unattacked.

Of course this all ends up leading to a period without World War II. My kicker at the end is Rohm's death and state funeral, as German Furher, in 1953. US President George S. Patton attends.

As for space travel, check out this comic, with annotation if you can see it, this honestly covers my arguement for years with Traveler the space RPG.

Alternative History Thoughts - Part II
So today I spent part of lunch reading up on alternate histories of World War II, in particular the forms the literature took, and I noticed that there are a few "classic" novels of alternate history in the World War II era. Turtledove has a new one coming out called Hitler's War in which Chamberlin stands up to Hitler in 1938. (Honestly that man pumps out more basic alternate history texts then a possie of monkeys with an army of typerwriters.) Anyways I was thinking what could make for a fun/unique alternate World War II history as a potential November novel and I stumbled on this: the Saar Offensive of 1940. A pretty solid chance that France, if it had undertaken a hard offensive in compliance with its treaty obligations, could have actually made some serious headway against the German positions, Siegfried line not withstanding.

My thought - what if Charles de Gaulle is allowed command of a unified French heavy tank division and the French, along with the British, did launch the major forty division assault into Germany. I would not argue they would win but it would have modified the western war, possibly driven the Germans to slow their offensive in Poland, and might have also detracted the Soviet Union from moving in. (As Germany would not have been as successful in defeating the Polish Army as it would have needed to move resources to its Western front.)

As a kicker maybe include Hitler removed from power and a negotiated peace.

You know I did not know the details about the assasination attempt on Roosevelt in 1933, amazing.

Alternative History thoughts...
So one of the side questions rattling around in my skull these days is about what to do my "Write A Novel In November" project on (this might be last year I have time to do so.) One possibility is a cheesy thriller about a plot to assasinate the President via his/her Secret Service Guards. (For purposes of Federal Law I do not advocate this plan, nor believe it possible. Thank you. Cue Patriotic Image Montage.)

However an idea that has been rattling around in my head for an alternate history novel was sparked by the boardgame Fortress America, the Zimmermann Telegram, as well as the Black Tom and Kingsland Explosion incidents, both of which I had not heard of before today. A good game, or novel, dealing with the US under invasion is always a fun topic (although Fortress America is not one of my favorite games) and an alternate history scenario came to mind:

Anglo-Japanese alliance of 1902 signed, real history, pledging Great Britain and Japan to neutrality in war with one other power and to come to each others aid in wars involving multiple powers. (Renewed and extended 1905 and 1911)

Anglo-German alliance of 1903 signed, alternate history, similiar in terms to the alliance between Great Britain and Japan in terms, also includes a pledge by Germany to respect the low countries neutrality in future wars/allow them to remain independent.

Russo-French agreement of 1894 strengthened in response, 1903. Italy joined to these two powers in alliance, 1904. Alternate History.

See my vision is that this alliance configuration results in a US versus Japan, Germany, and Great Britain war over US/British tensions in Central and South America coming to a head resulting in a three-versus-one war. The combined fleets of these three powers would in the early 20th century have been enough to overcome US resistance on the high seas (probably) and British and German manpower would have been able to field an army capable of causing the US some problems in the event of forced landings.

I'm not sure if it is a crazy concept but it has me thinking and could make a fun novel.

(As an alternative concept I've also got a wacky idea for a wacky future political boardgame pitting the US against outside power blocs interested in investing in Central America/South America. Also a historic one with the CSA and USA involved in diplomatic games around the world with the actual results of the battles being secondary to the diplomatic conflict.)

Of course the real kooky US history question, what if to stave off war with Great Britain and gain greater cooperation between France and Great Britain, Napoleon sold the Louisiana Territory in 1803 to Great Britain rather then the United States? (Fits potentially within the timetable for the renewal of the war between the two powers.)

Islamo-Fascism - it makes me sad inside as a term
So first off, I enjoyed reading this news article today about Obama's visit to Russia, for those unfamiliar with the Kellog-Briand Pact, this is the same sort of diplomatic collective kiss on the cheek. We both agree we need to "talk to each other" and "open dialogues" while we continue to "agree to disagree on issues that divide us." Nothing like having an international get-together where we agree that peace is good and everyone loves kittens. Franken is now sworn in at the Senate, it will be interesting to see how his experience changes him from populist comedian of the people to smooth politician. I'm betting inside of two years we hear him talking about how "you have to understand that things work differently in Washington." None the less I'm pleased to see a nice sixty vote position in the Senate for the Dems, now maybe the Republicans will be finally willing to "consider compromise." (Snark intentional.) Finally the current regional violence in China is actually, from a geopolitical perspective and a historical perspective, good to see. Ethnic tensions are one of the stages of development a power has to go through as it slowly winds its way towards becoming a more open society. That or in this case once more China proves itself to be the frictious, internally divided nation of many ethnic groups it actually is rather then the smooth veneer of "Chinese" the outside world assumes it to be.

Oh and catch the Dungeon Monkey, this week and last week, feel the cool!

But on to my topic of internal sadness, the use of the phrase Islamo-Fascism, a phrase I bumped into while reading a review of this book. (I had borrowed it from the library under the heading of "Really, really? You are really trying to sell this?" I returned it unread but it tickles at me.) But Islamo-Fascism as a term annoys me because it is hammering out a new term that is both highly misleading and unnecessary, allow me to introduce a better term for these movements,theocracy. Fascism as a political movement is based, broadly, around the idea of a single supreme leader-figure around which the power of the state is clustered, ideologically. As a movement is generally centered upon the advancement of the nation-state/single ethnic group/identity above other nation-states or ethnic groups, the key concept being that Fascism is strongly rooted in the identity of the nation-state. Ergo why when referring to it in its various forms one must designate the geographic region (Italian, German, Spanish, Portugese, France, Albanian for example) to more properly zero in on the concept of Fascism being described. Plus Fascism is rooted deeply in a national myth, either one with historic roots or one generated for political gain, Germany and Italy being prime examples of this trend. (The mystique of the Volk and the Roman roots "shared" by all Italians.) As well it seems to delightfully ignore the fact that many Fascist governments were atheist at their core or seperated religion from the actual levers of power/limited its impact.

The current militant Islamic movement is, broadly, based upon a decentralized model of power/shared model of power, with a goal towards forging a new pan-national identity rooted in a shared faith. Granted both Fascism and this modern pan-national theocratic movement do share a trend towards totalitarianism but even that is not that strong a link. Fascists centralized the power of the lash, focusing its control on a narrow ruling elite, while the current Islamic militants seem to move towards a model of community based organization and power. Very very different.

So why does this make my happy little innards twist up? Because buzzwords like this become the means by which people refer to, and understand, complex political concepts. When you accept a catchy phrase, and what it implies, you miss key subtle points that can be used to actually better guide your policy choices and actions when interacting with these political forces. In the 1970s the United States missed some key diplomatic opportunities because our leaders, and our citizen-base at large, believed the People's Republic of China and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics were one massive Communist bloc that marched in lock-step. Instead they were actually two powers that came together and apart as needed and engaged in regular duels with each other. (If this seems like a minor point to debate, I'll put it this way, we lost time in our diplomacy in the Korean War, and therefore the lives of US soldiers, while we dicked around trying to get the USSR to curb China's support for North Korea. Had we gone right to the source we might have had better luck in getting the results we wanted [ceasefire] sooner.)

In the case of this lovely pan-national Islamic movement...we need to understand that this is attempting to rebuild the Islamic Empire of the sixth and seventh centuries, an empire bonded together by faith and working together towards advancing that faith. Decentralized, with respect for ethnic and regional differences. Which means that those who wish to create it need to overcome those ethnic and nation-state identity ties, a major challenge. Our efforts to oppose this new political alignment would be greatly aided by our attempting to understand regional and sect differences in Islam, as well as regional differences, and support these idenities rather then allow a new pan-national identity to gain ideological power. (But that's hard, it is so much easier to pretend that it is Islamo-Fascism and if we just kill Osama Bin Laden then it will all topple into nothing. Might have worked with Hitler, not so likely with Osama.)

Anyway...that was my happy rant thought that has been bothering me since yesterday.

I've been emailing professors at various schools to lay some groundwork for my PhD applications (and because these are the people, if admitted, I might get to work with.) So far it has begun well but I had a great idea for my title if I got to do my dream project:

"Conflicting Passions: Contrasting the International Brigades with the Black Shirts in the Spanish Civil War"

See that gets my muster up, sadly, far more then the gimpier projects focusing on interwar diplomacy and re-examining the treaties of the 1920s outside the context of the Hitler lens. Although some backup sexy projects include a contrast of the early UN handling of various crises against the League of Nations, doing some other League of Nations work, or work on the French-German diplomacy of the 1920s. (Which is actually kind of fascinating and I'd love to do a write-up for an article on the Soviet-German treaty of 1919 that said, basically "Poland is a fiction that should be stomped like a grape as soon as we can do it." Seriously...in fact I might work on that write-up if I can get a good translator of German and Russian on my side.)

Thoughts on healthcare, politics, infastructure
Yesterday I read a fascinating article on the current national healthcare act and I was pleased by one of the proposals that is currently on the table, the idea of funding federal healthcare by placing a tax on employer offered healthcare. What pleased me was the response that people had "By taxing employer provided healthcare you will actually force private healthcare out of business, you'll make the entire country reliant on nationalized healthcare." To which, if government was honest to the citizens, would be "Yes, gradually, but yes." Which, whether or not you agree with it as a policy, you have to admire the subtle touch of the government in this one. Destroying private health insurance not by federal act or blanket legislation, not by using the harsh fist of the federal government directly, but instead tinkering with market forces to push private health insurance out of existence. It's got a subtle grace to it you have to admire, no matter if you like the policy. Pass or fail it once more reflects something I really adore about President Obama, the man can be politically subtle.

I saw a show two nights ago on the History Channel that could be titled "America: Why our infastructure is going to crap, Holy Bat Shit!" Pretty much it was a show reviewing how the various dams, bridges, the power grid, sea walls, and flood control systems were all built in the first half of the twentieth century and are all now in need of desperate repair and/or upgrading. A valid point and the show cited the figure of a trillion and a half dollars to improve and upgrade our infastructure, amazing how fast a trillion gets tossed around. However, something that came to mind from the show was that there is an underlying assumption, especially in the case of dams, roadbed, and sea walls, that the best plan of action is to shore up and repair all the infastructure we have built as a nation. That is a potentially faulty assumption because much of that infastructure was built in a time when all infastructure was felt to be an improvement and concern about the environmental impact was minimal. Gabe has told me many times about dams that have been built over the years that are useful in keeping flood waters back but have also ruined vast areas of wetlands.

So I honestly think the first thing we need to do as a nation is actually evaluate the infastructure we have, determine what we need to keep in good repair and upgrade, and what we can let go. We should really, as a society, consider how to return some of our territory back to a more human-free/development free state. Part of the natural cycle of watersheds and wetlands involves regular flooding, regular forest fires, and allowing land to sit idle because, honestly, it's not really sitting idle. Instead what it is doing is all the enviornmental services we recieve from the landscape such as filtering water and air, replenishing ground water reserves, a host of activities that once land becomes parking lots or malls, it ceases to do.

The other thing that struck me was the shows horrified tones about the idea that global warming and increasing violent storms could force the US to abandon coastal settlements to become natural "breaks" against storms and retreat to the interior of the country. A human uninhabited/uninsured zone stretching around twenty miles from the coastline to serve as a shield against further damage. The show made it sound like this was the end of the world and honestly, that surprised me, because it wouldn't be. Now it would be damn expensive and damn annoying to deal with, that is an honest truth, and would require a huge national effort to relocate the infastructure, industry, and cultural landmarks associated with our great coastal cities. It would modify how we gathered resources and changed where we got resources from.

But it could be done and if that was the means by which we avoided devestating damage and loss of life due to climate shift, then that is what would have to happen. Canals could be dug to the sea and artificial ports made. Shipping focused on a few functional only ports on the coastline. People can be relocated as can factories, businesses, and communication systems. Rail and road can be rebuilt. The show seemed to pass on the belief this would be horrendous, it would be hard, but not impossible.

Plus in the end it might overall improve our enviornmental situation.

History Moment - League of Nations and the current headache in Korea
First off please find the usual, and nearly obligatory, plug for the most recent Dungeon Monkey column. This one is probably one of the few issues I've not only dealt with but is one that can really break a gaming group up internally. In any case if anyone has a question they'd like to have answered shoot me an email or comment here, feed the monster!

There were several interesting moments in the news today but this one in particular caught my eye, the tidbit on how a North Korean ship continues to steam towards North Korean ports loaded with probably weapons/supplies for war. It strikes me because it ties strongly into the research I have done, and the historical work on, the League of Nations from about 1931 through1939. The League of Nations (predecessor to the United Nations and honestly the more egalitarian of the two institutions on many levels) has long been criticized by historians of the 1950s and 1960s for its failure to successfully contain aggression. This has often been blamed on the unwillingness of the member nations to risk war, a failing of political will, and from the 1970s onwards scholarly work has taken on a more moderate outlook, mainly that the idea of using moral force to prevent aggression was a flawed, but noble, ideal that never had a chance of working.

A viewpoint I agree with however historians of those years, and even up to the present day, ignore or downplay the fact that the League of Nations also had the power to coordinate trade sanctions and even to field combined military "peace keeping" or interventionist military forces. (In fact the League of Nations did so successfully to maintain order and oversee a plebicite in the Saar region in the mid-1920s.) What strikes me in this case is that it has some similiarity to Italy's actions in Ethopia from 1935 - 1936. (Post the initial aggression in Japan resulting in the conquest of Manchuria and the northern provinces, but pre-the general outbreak of the Sino-Japanse war of 1937.) The League of Nations in response to the assault by Italy upon Ethopia (a fellow member nation of the League) imposed a trade embargo on Italy. The embargo though did not actually target any vital strategic materials such as steel or oil, the fear of the European powers being to do so would anger Italy (more accurately its bellicose leader, Mussolini) and then in turn push Italy closer to an alliance with Germany or into outright European war.

Which resulted in the European powers accepting the conquest of Ethopia, even though the blockade that was imposed hurt Italy's economy and did nothing to prevent Mussolini becoming angered and moving towards an alliance with Germany. (One of many factors for this diplomatic alignment.) The key link to the above current event - if you notice no nation is willing to directly engage North Korea and board its ship, out of fear of reprisal. As in the 1930s holding "Great Power" status bought you immunity from direct intervention, out of fear of the war you could inflict on Europe or the world, today nuclear weapons define the new status of a power that must be handled carefully.

One of the projects I hope to work on someday is a re-assesment of the League of Nations and its effectiveness using the UN as a comparative body. Incidents like this serve as a reminder the same problems of the 1930s affect us today.

Seperate Piece of Thought - the morality questions
So I was reading an interesting article last Friday which argued that part of the problem in policy debate was quite often we, as human beings, resort to using our feelings or "gut instinct" to determine our outlook on complex issues. The article included in its text two examples of moral behavior which our gut makes us condem but our intellect should see as not being morally negative:

Example One: "A brother and sister decide, after careful thought and imbibing some alcohol, that they are both curious about having sex with each other. Both of them are healthy, have no sexual diseases, and the sister is on birth-control medication to prevent pregnancy. For added safety her brother wears a condom and they both have sex, afterwards they discuss what happened and find it has brought them closer together and strengthened their relationship rather then harmed it. They both agree that was a single incident due to curiosity and never repeat the action."

Example Two: "A poor family has a beloved pet dog which they have taken care of for years. Sadly the dog dies of natural causes and the family, after careful thought, decides to cook and eat the dog because they are hungry for protein and the dog dead. They do so, preparing the dog carefully to avoid risk of food-borne illness, and suffer no ill effects. The family afterwards was thankful to the dead dog for helping them in a hard time and remembered it fondly as a friend and provider."

Now the author argued that by the definition of "causing harm" both of these behaviors did not cause harm to anyone, so they are not immoral by that definition. Yet people confronted with these cases will respond to the first saying "Well they might have gotten pregnant" or "It might have ruined their relationship" and when told it did neither will simply scrunch up their face and say "Well it's wrong!" The author argued this was the emotional power of the incest taboo at work. Similiarly with the dog people might argue it would cause emotional harm or give the family an food-borne illness, again when confronted with "Well it didn't" we have face scrunching and saying it is wrong based on an emotional reaction. The author went on to say that when confronting college students with this, in a philosophy class, only that group having a broader grasp of morality as a defined concept understood that this was an exercise in defining harm. As I recall the author even mentioned how one student on the dog case complimented the family on its efficency in dealing with the dead animal.

First off let me say the author, even when reading the article, struck me as as a pretentious ass and someone far to wedded to the superiority of his intellect and education. Coming from me, a fellow self-confessed pretentious ass, that is saying alot. (Although I'm workng on it, I need a good support group. We could have a mantra: "We don't know it all, we're not necessarily right, and gosh darn it a degree doesn't make us an expert." I digress.) The author would even argue with my description of him, probably based on the idea that I find these concepts uncomfortable and I lash out.

I spent the weekend giving this considerable thought and actually I believe those who argue against the actions and cite the harm are correct, they are merely framing their concerns incorrectly. The issue is not "did the action of the family or siblings do harm" because the game, in that case, is rigged, you as the framer of the question provide the answer. So from our perspective after the event no it was not immoral, by the definition it did no harm, because you have said as such. But to those at the time undertaking the act, they, by definition, could not know if the act would cause harm and that makes the act immoral at the time. Morality is, therefore, by definition a completely relative thing and depends on your perspective within the framework of a situation. If you know the outcome will do no harm then you can argue an action is moral, but unless you know that for certain before undertaking the act, you must assume it might be immoral if it could result in harm. Pregnancy might have occured between the brother and sister leading to genetic malformity that might have been avoided, emotional harm might have occured in both cases, the dog might have given the family an illness. Caution mitigates this risk but does not cancel it entirely and therefore leaves the actions as potentially harmful and therefore, immoral.

When it comes to policy this still comes into play, will a new law due harm? Well we don't know, really, till it actually comes into play meaning we have to make a call based on the assessment of potential harm. An assessment in which emotion, and intellect, plays a valid role.

Oh my weekend was also filled with gaming, reading up on 17th and 18th century Italy, and planning an RPG campaign. For those wondering it is for 7th Seas and I've settled on the Duchy of Savoy/Piedmont as my probable starting point. Between two areas of great power influence, territorily ambitious, and it undertakes a late 17th/early 18th century period of heavy reform. So I move the date of reform back and modify the strong drive to maintain the duchy as a bastion of absolutism in government, is that so wrong? (Answer - yes, it makes me a filthy alternate history GM, but I accept the role, accept it with vigor!)

Monday Monday Monday! I love Yahoo news
First off I was enjoying the contrast this weekend between Geico's current theme song "Somebodys Watching Me" and Men at Work's "Who Can It Be Now?" There is an interesting contrast in those two songs, honestly, they are both paranoia inducing songs and yet so different. Both though are songs that you probably don't want to listen to barreling down a road at high speed on a dark night.

Iran's internal conflict over its destiny, and control of the Islamic Revolution which swept that nation in 1979, continues to balance although as I read the news I'm reminded of the quote from V from Vendetta. "What will probably happen is what always happens when people without guns confront those with guns." What I find particularly compelling is the use of language and how it changes based on the situation, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard has stated protestors who do not comply with orders to disperse may face a "revolutionary confrontation," which is a use of the term "revolutionary" which actually fits both sides understanding of revolution neatly. For those attempting to change the ruling President towards a more reform minded leader this election is a revolution, for those who remember the time of the Shah, the entire national structure of Iran, with rule by clerical leaders and Islam at the head, is a revolution of its own.

Of course one might consider the comments from Iran against British intervention in their elections as bizzare if one does not know the history of the twentieth century and Iran, the British Petroleum Company and the United States in the 1950s basically stopped a nationalist leader through a coup and slapped the Shah back on the throne of Iran after popular uprisings knocked him off. This, by the way, ensured that the British Petroleum Company faced no nationalization of its production facilities in Iran. The problem Iran faced was simple, their movement to increase Iran's control over its own petroleum production and sale smacked too much of that old "Communist tarbrush" and then, well, then it became a matter of national interest to the United States to contain that problem.

Honestly I look forward, in the next couple of decades, to a new assessment of the actions of the US during the late 1940s through the 1950s in the Cold War. We, as a nation, have an interesting history we need to contend with and we've put an interesting mark on the history of the world from that period forwards. (Such as the current insane penis waving by North Korea, stems from the same decade, the division of the Korean pennisula, and our actions in facing off against the spread of the "Soviet menace" in that period as well.)

Now the current anti-smoking legislation signed by Obama into law and the current Health Care bill legislation debate, I find these interesting, linked, and more critically one of the odd examples of a mindset of the left that I find disturbing, because it reflects an unwillingness to deal with humans and humans. (Long history of that as well, join me on the bus ride of happiness!) The crusading left, the reforming left, this branch of the political left has a long history of not being able to deal with humans, humanity yes, humans no. The new anti-smoking law is designed to prevent tobacco companies have advertising aimed at children, it requires new more graphic labeling, and it allows the FDA broader powers to regulat the tobacco industry. So then, what do you do with a youngster who turns eighteen, roles down to their local gas station, buys a pack and picks up the habit because they want to? Call it a link to peer pressure, call it their falling victim to advertising, but at the heart of that is an assumption that if somehow you could remove all those evil temptations why people would chose the right course of action. The belief that humans are rational and want to live healthy, long, bountiful productive lives.

Then again you have someone who, despite the warnings, the negative advertising, the taxes, simply wants to smoke. Period. They don't care about the health hazards, they accept the risks to their health, they simply like smoking. Tobacco numbers are declining but they are also getting new smokers each year, and smoking is just one extreme example of this sort of negative behavior that people still engage in. Toss in their eating fatty foods, red meat, candy, drinking to excess, drinking hard alcohol, driving above the speed limit, unprotected sex, protected sex with multiple partners, poor dental hygine, each of these are choices made by people because humans are humans. Granted each has varying levels of risk and harm, smoking being king of the hill, but each is a behavior people are warned against and engage in anyways.

Each of these also has a direct chance of increasing your health care costs, which is how it all links together to my mind. Part of a national health care plan has to handle this problem, humans engaging in behavior they know is bad for them and not caring about the long-term harm or risk. In fact, national health care might encourage some of these higher risk behavior because you, as a person, know that you will not be devestated financially for engaging in them and later having to pay the health care bill. I do not bring this forward as an arguement against national health care but I do bring it forward as a statement that I hope when considering the future costs of health care the plan does not include things like "reducing smoking through education" as a means of lowering costs. It might help but if it does take it as a bonus to the budget, not a planned reduction.

(For those wondering the historical link is to Prohibition, the roots of which rested upon the assumption by groups like the Anti-Saloon League that hard alcohol, and alcohol in general, were responsible for disrupting families, increasing poverty, and increasing criminal behavior and that if the provider of this temptation was removed then the behavior would stop. Prohibition represented the ultimate expression of this policy, to my eye, applying severe fiscal and legal penalties for engaging in said behavior. In turn though people simply responded by drinking to the same degree and accepting the risk of punishment.) Crude I know but its Monday morning.

Bit of adventure on the drive home...
It has been an eventful day and the drive home this evening around 11pm was particularly eventful. Driving home on Pontiac Trail along a fairly deserted stretch with my high-beams on a fox dashed out onto the road just ahead of the car, it and I realized it was there at the same moment. I applied the brakes but it was too close and I was going to fast to stop in time, I swerved hard and the fox dashed back the way it had come. I missed it but I had to make sure, so I stopped the car on the side of the road. A car behind me slowed down to make sure I was fine, I waved it on and then I ran back along the blacktop to see if the fox was on the road. I hustled up the road until I could not see the car clearly anymore, it was dark, deeply dark, I could barely tell the blacktop from the open air and shrubby to the sides of the road. Seeing no body, and hearing a loud crunching nearby in the woods, I hustled back to the car and finished the drive home.

Bit of an adventure on a dark road, glad I'm home now with a tasty dinner to enjoy.

Also had an interesting moment on the radio, heard someone talking about their new book and about how horrible it was what liberals "were doing to the country." How far liberals were pushing America away from the vision of the founding fathers. Be that as it may the greatest thing our founding fathers provided our nation was/is the power to shape "America" to what we wish it to be. Fine points and politics aside, that is probably our greatest legacy as a nation, our ability to shape ourselves however we wish without needing revolution or violent clash necessarily.

So the report currently coming out is that, after all the sturm und drang over health care in the United States, all the pressue to "Just fix it damn you government" when the actual plan comes out, with a price tag of $1.6 trillion over the next ten years, suddenly the American people look to lose their collective nerve. (By the way you pick up sexy German phrases for Enlighment/Romatic period artistic movements from getting a European history degree, and I utterly love using that phrase.) The article just cited though has some quotes that make me want to beat people with my fists of fury:

"Public concerns with heavy government spending are rising. A new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll found more people want to focus on deficit reduction, not new spending to boost the economy." Okay people, now we need to define our terms with a bit more precision here, by "deficit reduction" do you mean "Lets cut our deficit spending to either a slower rate or to zero deficit spending" or do you honestly mean "lets reduce the US deficit, i.e. the national debt." Look people at the pretty pie chart of federal spending, that is where our money is going, see that chunk for paying interest on the current debt? That, based on the phrase "the good faith of the United States government" is really the only chunk we actually need to pay. Now check this out, raw information, in 2008 the US federal government took in $2.521 trillion in revenue and spent $2.931 trillion, with a total deficit of $450 billion. (Check out the sources here and here.) The government, in other words, spent 16% more then it collected, a fairly typical year all things said and done. So up there you have the pie chart of federal spending, all you need to do is slice 16% out of everything BUT the mandatory interest payments. No tax rebates or anything, but suddenly we have a balanced budget. Better plan, cut 18% out and we can put the surplus to reducing the debt.

So though, who ends up taking it in the shorts, really? The US military? Massive cuts to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid? Perhaps we should stop sending rockets into space to save some nickles on the exchange. Ooh...maybe we can end that pesky Department of the Interior spending. The truth is we as the good people of the United States spend this money because we require Congress to spend it, we do so because we are in some ways one giant nation and in other ways still a confederation of fifty smaller semi-nations. No one wants to see their particular baby cut and the nation splits, roughly, fifty-fifty on where our money should go, guns or butter. So Congress and the President try to have both and if they cut either they anger that sides advocates.

Simple, yes, crude, yes, but honest. What makes me screech though is this entire conversation is a valid one and a point of major debate. Jawing about reducing our overall deficit/debt level, that is an entirely different point and is a step beyond where this debate should be. Currently we, as a nation, are spending on our collective credit card like crazy, stopping that is more critical then talking about paying ahead on the balance owed on one of the credit cards. What further enrages me about this though is that apparently it is commonly accepted by those in power that "Oh yeah, the Republican plan is a piece of horse crap, no one thinks a damn thing will come of it, total PR job. Their goal is just to sink the current plan and win some political chops." Plus hopefully block something they are ideologically opposed to as well.

We have fifty million uninsured, of which, let us be honest, a good wad of them are uninsurable because they are not going to be a profit to any health insurance plan. The question is, should we as citizens provide them with health coverage? Honestly what I say is this issue should be resolved, one way or the other, either we provide everyone with health care and focus on prevention or we remove the emergency health care coverage allowed to those who cannot pay. By law if you roll into a hospital with a life-threatening problem in any state (as far as I know) and guess what, you get treated. Afterwards if you cannot pay there are engines to suck the value of the money from you but if you are poor and have no means of paying your bill it eventually falls upon the tax payers and/or consumers of voluntarily health care to pay for it. (If you ever wonder why medical procedures cost so much it is, in part, cost recovery for these lost income streams.)

As a citizen I'm not opposed to private health care I just honestly think that for us as citizens, in the long term, a nationalized healthcare system to provide basic medical needs is probably the best way to go. Let us not dress this in anything cute, it is a tax being imposed on the citizen body as a whole to then redirect this revenue into a smaller subset of the body politic. It will be expensive and we should pay for it in a series of taxes, higher sin taxes on health harming products, a national sales tax, higher income taxes, and higher use taxes. Soak the whole population evenly for the cost. Private health care can survive and thrive selling "premium" plans and services to those with the pocket books to afford them and, believe me, they will be out there in droves. Middle class citizens fear the risk of not being able to get access to limited hospital beds when suddenly droves of formerly uninsured people flow into doctors and hospitals for care. So let them pay for access to exclusive health services, clinics, and hospitals.

In any case I sincerely believe that an insurance company should be required to complete any and all due dilligence of its risk factors before insuring someone. If you want to require a certain number of health checks, tests, physicals, what-have-you to properly determine if someone is health risk before you insure them, fine, you are a business and that is your right. But cancelling coverage when they get sick because of an undeclared condition or fraud, after they've paid premiums and become ill, guess what, that should be a cost of doing business. The burden of proof should be on the insurer to prove the fraud was intentional, known to the ill individual, and would have prevented the insurance company from insuring the sick had they known when the sick applied.

Meh...fist of anger overall. To those in Iran currently protesting the election results and calling for a change in leadership, my wishes of good luck to you. Perhaps international oversight might help, although it is an internal matter. Actually honestly I think the US in 2010 and in future elections should hold itself out as an example to the rest of the world and voluntarily submit its elections to an impartial international review board to confirm there are no irregularities. The US can really only call for other nations to undergo such efforts when it does so itself first and, in my opinion, one of the key changes that would move our planet and species forward would be untrammeled access to all citizens to elections that are fair and impartial.

Well I'll try to get my historical post up later, current events make me curl up a bit with wrath bunnies.

Random thoughts of happiness....
So first off I enjoyed this cartoon immensely today, this is why I would personally, if I played Sims, never make a mini-version of me. Honestly I'd probably make "Ed, the Sociopathic Killer and/or Criminal" as my personal version and attempt to make the mini-me eventually kill itself out of unhapiness because he did not amass enough happiness providing items. Then again though I have noticed that the Sims linke sees to have a fairly high degree of consumer culture worked into the basic fabric of the game.

Second, I enjoyed this video again today of the mass dancing in the train station and the song made me think about the lyrics, give them a look if you are not clear on them, I have to feel sorry for poor La in this song. Poor note, you just know he is one of those under-appreciated producers in the musical workplace, coming in each day, pulling a hard shift, and yet look at his position in the system of music. Just "A Note To Follow Sew," how demoralizing that must be for La. I bet after work La goes to motivational workshops, maybe some after-work classes, pushing so that he can become a more valued note. But I'd also bet La must have one hell of a therapy bill.

Why work sucked yesterday and assorted thoughts...

I think it is safe to say that everyone's job at some point, honestly, sucks giant donkey balls, however there are some points in our work experience that really stand out as sources of frustration and annoyance. In my job that is symbolized by MOSIS, a company/non-profit with a notoriously primitize system of handling prototype chip fabrication requests. They are, however, one of only a handful of foundrys that will make prototype chips and the only one I know of in North America that does the work my bosses need done, so they get to have whatever magical rules they wish. (Our payments must be 80% up front and 20% after the work is done! What about 100% up front and you send us a check for the 20% if you screw up and don't do the work? Take your 100% and shove it in your pie hole! 80% and then 20% and now that you have angered us you must file your order wearing silly pants and a chicken hat!) I exaggerate of course but only marginally, they actually have a penchant for dumping your phone calls on the master phone line if you call one particular agent "too much" even if that agent is the one handling your order.

But my wrath did not come from MOSIS itself this time but the order currently being assembled for MOSIS by one of our graduate students. Said graduate student has never actually filed a MOSIS request in the past (first time for everything) and I learn of his involvement when he stops by my office with a random form to gain access to some restricted design files. It requires a contact person for the eventual PO to be issued, I inquire with the graduate student (now known as WINGUS) as to if he knew if any payment paperwork had been filed for this. WINGUS blinked at me. I then asked if he knew who was going to pay for it, turns out Professors A and B were splitting the cost. WINGUS also did not know which of them was in charge of the order, which of them actually was coordinating the order, or which of them was the primary contact for the order. I decided to end my stupid pain train and simply took the form to process and assumed "data gathering" control of the order and the generation of the nasty PO MOSIS requires. WINGUS then informed me the "go date" on this project was next Monday.

WINGUS, by the way, is from a non-English speaking nation and there were communication gaps throughout this, especially when I got to explaining how there were serious problems with the proposed "Go Date," mainly that U of M would not produce a PO in that time frame if Jesus himself came down to Earth and sanctified the request with his own blood and/or other bodily fluids of holiness. Seriously, U of M just doesn't move that fast, and Purchasing feeds upon the sweet sound of your begging and laughs. WINGUS become quite upset explaining how Professors A and B would be filled with vast unquenchable wrath if this date was missed. I explained, again, that their wrath would do nothing to move purchasing and the best I could do was grovel and file the paperwork for the PO. I asked where the quote was from MOSIS listing how much this would cost.

WINGUS blinked at me again. I'll spare you the joy of explaining to WINGUS that a quote or some other documentation outlining how much this thing would cost was necessary, as U of M did not normally spit out blank checks to companies with a smile and a slap on the ass. WINGUS then wondered off so we could resolve this tomorrow.   This all took place on Monday starting at 4:59 PM, I leave at 5PM.

YESTERDAY was the topper though, WINGUS had filed his design request and still had no quote and had no idea how to get one. I called MOSIS and found out there is an automated quote requesting service and WINGUS had been told how to get the quote. WINGUS denied this but he also is a shifty bugger, I sat him down at my computer to fill in the technical parts of the electronic quote request form. WINGUS did not know the answers to all of the questions AND LOOKED AT ME FOR ADVICE AND ANSWERS! Look, I'm a paperwork monkey, I make the money flow, but I know Jack and Shit about chip design and fabrication. WINGUS is getting a PhD in chip design and fabrication, why he looked at me to answer technical questions I'll never know. BUT IT GETS BETTER! Later on, when the quote had been generated, I stopped by to find out from Professors A and B who was paying for what, an answer no one knew. But the quote turned out to be too low and when Professor A examined it HE asked me questions about why we were not paying for technical services A, B, and C. I explained I did not know, as I don't even know what those services were and that WINGUS had filled in that part. The entire graduate student group in the meeting then explained, in detail, to WINGUS why he was a moron and what he had done wrong.

Finally WINGUS and I ended up on the phone with MOSIS to hammer this out and guess what, when the ENGINEER at MOSIS was asking technical questions about the chip layouts and production of the prototypes, WINGUS multiple times looked at me with a "What do I tell him" face. I actually ended up miming multiple times "I don't know, really I don't, you're the one getting paid to do PhD work, not me, this is your area." Eventually they hammered out the details, sort of, and I got to ask my one question, "Can all three designs, if under different work numbers, be paid on one PO?"  The answer from MOSIS: "Yes." Fabulous, thirty minutes of my silently reminding WINGUS he is actually trained in the engineering details and I am not, thirty seconds to get my information.

Although I had to be at the phone call so WINGUS did not freak out and run away, a problem with him.

High point was today when I was informed that the total charge would be billed to a corporate account however the oh-my-god-move-it-and-die deadline had been moved back four weeks because...ready for it....THE DESIGNS WERE NOT DONE! That's right, all this fuss and the deadline and it turns out of four designs to be made one, and only one, is actually uploaded. Oh and they want to tweak that one design some more so it might not be ready for a bit either, since they have time now. They pay me but sometimes the gear grinding makes me a sad panda, dealing with the more...challenging of the graduate students only makes it worse.

This and this make me happier then I want to admit, I love the concept as outlined in this cartoon and the visual images. This is one of the few concepts that I have seen done by someone else that I want to steal, entirely, and turn into a role-playing game. I even know what system I'd use, Star Wars, with a pulp setting and using droid rules for making AI characters. I think it would be pretty awesome as a role-playing game, I hope that strip wins the contest and we see more of this idea and feel in the future. (Any suggestions for graphic novels with that sort of feel and set in the 1920s or 1930s would be much appreciated.) *chuckles*  Actually linking artificial intelligences to the Depression, and their being forced out of work to make room for full citizens, fits neatly as well.

For my impending 7th Seas campaign I'm toying with setting the groups home base in San Marino. Which would be awesome if it works with the storylines I have in mind.

Finally, there is nothing really more scary then a furry klingon giving hugs is there?

Sometimes work makes me want to kill things with my mind!
So first off this week another fine installment of Dungeon Monkey, for all of you to enjoy, Light Fingers and Gun Fu. Just a plug but if anyone out there has a question they're dying to see answered with my magical powers of commentary and snark, email it to me at the address on there or post it here as a comment. Fresh questions are always yummy.

But work today was just evil, just horriby horribly evil. I'll post on it later as I've been busy, but the tag line covers my squirrely rage.

Probably darkest single shot RPG idea
So Gabe's regular Tuesday group has offered me a chance to run for them this upcoming week and I'm bouncing around a few ideas in my skull to decide what to run. One came up just now which will not make it to the final cut, but it was so awesome that I could not help but save it here:

Have the group be a group of well-educated and affluent individuals living on the frontier, a close-knit clan of a family, who are also practicing cannibals. Violent, probably utterly mad, but also kind and courteous cannibals. Their neighbors get a bit of a negative feeling from them but generally accept them, however things have changed because someone new has moved into the county, Mr. Hank, who, with his boys, has been pressing local farmers to sell their cattle at prices below market rates. Mr. Hank has decided to put some pressure on our group to get them to sell their cattle at discount rates or else...

Come on, who doesn't love playing the monster on occasion? :-)

Probably never going to run it but it makes for some great mental images.

Movie moment and a cartoon of awesome
First the cartoon of awesome, todays XKCD is just amazing, I especially love the last panel. Never cross sex and powered tools, life rule.

Second last night I watched From Hell, I just filed a request for the original graphic novel at the library, and I was once more blown away by Johnny Depps amazing performance. Honestly I have yet to see him in a film that I have not enjoyed. Even his over the top presentation in Pirates of the Carribean was really amazing.

So role-playing wise this upcoming week is going to be interesting, on Monday I get to run my first Star Wars adventure, a thrilling tale actually of smuggling and piracy/raiding. Tuesday I get to do a lovely one-shot with Gabe's current group, they are down a player so I've been trusted with a single shot run. Not only is this going to be fun but currently I'm torn between running a Call of Cthulhu OR running a Teenagers From Outer Space. (Of course there is nothing saying I cannot run both at once...evil trademark laugh of madness!)

Finally I have a stack of books to read/review for the writing/running of my upcoming 7th Seas arc, which will be set in 17th century Italy. Which is interesting and a bit of a challenge because that is the period most historians writing about Italy considering "boring and stable" so there is not much detail.

News commentary and a minor historical giggle....
First off, of course, the usual plug for this weeks Dungeon Monkey column, "Dragons and not being a crunchy snack." For those interested you can also tune in on the RSS feed and get regular updates. A couple of new additions, Gabe drew a lovely cartoon for the first and second column, check them out, I think they add alot to it. Hopefully we'll be seeing more of her work as it really makes the column special to my eye. I'll be writing some more columns this evening, must stay ahead of the ever hungry publication deadline for that thing. I like to keep it with a buffer of five or so columns minimum, that way it is always eating ahead.

(Although questions that are fresh always get bumped ahead in the order of things.)

So the news today was actually pretty interesting, I love that fact that Newt Gingrich is already announcing that Obama's various economic policies have failed. It took over a decade plus for Reaganomics to boost our economy to the heights of spasming orgasm but Obama's policies, having not turned the nation into a new decadent Rome in a month, utter failure. Go team rhetoric. On a side note, I really loved his comment about how government should not meddle in the running of business and really can't run business. Sure Newt, government employees with an MBA are inherently worse then non-government MBA employees. Politics may not blend with business but our government hires people more the competent enough to actually run a modern corporation. Unless of course they are all hired to the standard of George W. Bush (easy zinger but it had to be done.)

I'm pleased to see that the various US banks that are doing well are being allowed to repay their TARP money early, I'm deeply amused at how rapidly they are seeking to shed federal oversight and get back to doing business "they way they want to." Such horribly unpleasent rules, like limitations on executive compensation and controls on what rates they charge for interest. Horrid horrid government influence, best shed as quickly as possible. Although I am pleased to see we are getting a return on our investment as tax payers. At least until said banks then find themselves overstrapped and hoping for more money, perhaps in four to eight years or so. (Unless of course the Dems remain in power in which case they'll be just fine, thanks, no funds needed here!)

Fiat contines to express interest in Chrysler and has publicly committed to staying with its purchase plans. Of course it is 9 June 2009 and they have till 15 June 2009 to back out without penalty. I'll believe it when it actually happens, although that sporty Fiat 500 they plan to sell in the US looks like fun. For the record, full brava to Fiat, while others are panicing about the end of everythign, they are cooly snapping up a bargin in market access and production facilities. I hope that the initial commital of funds in the long haul gives them a nice return.

Of course the situation in Pakistan is the most interesting to read about, nothing like the military following an apparently spontaneous movement of armed citizens to repel a hostile force.

( Minor historical giggle... )

An odd question of economics...differences in pay scales
Over the weekend I ended up asking Gabe a question I was trying to hammer out, why do unskilled workers (and skilled workers) in India make far less per head then workers in the US? Which of course links to the other question, why are the prices of goods so much higher in the US then in India? Now it does, on the surface, present a bit of a chicken and an egg principle in that one could say "Well the prices of goods are higher in the US then in India because wages are higher" and "The wages in the US are higher then the wages in India because the prices of goods are higher" but, as you can see, that goes round and round without cutting to the heart of the issue, WHY does a worker in the US get paid more to cut down a tree then a worker in India? Presumably it takes the same amount of effort to cut down the tree in both nations, ergo the cost in human labor should be the same.

As it turns out, from reading a basic treatise online on the subject, the answer is "No, actually it does not take the same amount of effort." If I understand the concept correctly, worker productivity is actually far more complicated an issue, the US logger is actually able to produce more cut lumber per worker then a worker in India. Worker productivity is linked to almost every aspect of the production cycle, from the higher quality US roads that help move lumber back and forth, to the highly automated tools for cutting the tree down, to the machines capable of pulling the lumber out for shipment. Basically due to tools, techniques, and surrounding infastructure, even down to better health and physical fitness, allow a US worker to cut down more trees per hour and per worker then an Indian worker. Which, in turn, means you can produce the same amount of timber with fewer US workers then Indian workers, however this in turn presents a reverse challenge. A lumber mill still needs a certain amount of human labor to actually cut down the trees so in the US it needs to offer a higher wage to tempt human labor into cutting down trees, meaning that although the percentage of total value of the timber devoted to labor costs might be the same in the US as in India, that percentage is spread over a smaller number of workers, meaning they get higher wages.

Although also factored into that is infastructure costs as well, because the US has a more developed infastructure (power grid, water delivery and cleaning system, transportation grid, as well as a more developed human infastructure with laws to provide basic standards of safety and wage) more of these costs need to be added to the cost of producing any item, also increasing the cost of production.

As well it was interesting reading about how differences in productive efficency can be handled to maximize trade and productivity. Fascinating and this simply means I need to sit down and spend a few months reading books of economic theory. I won't say I've suddenly become a huge fan of globalization but I think I slightly better understand its potential. However...and this is a big however, expanding the human material experience across the planet is going to have a huge impact on our environment and potentially consume an absolute crapload of resources. Resources, according to Gabe who is very well trained on this subject, our planet simply does not have available to meet the needs of the human population.

*chuckles* Which means we need to get down to the massive robot labor revolution, the massive robot revolt, and those magical means of making nearly unlimited energy that sci-fi movies seem to focus on all the time.

( Enough of these idle thoughts, now for some completely different idle thoughts! )