The Return

I has return to this site for the first time in months and will attempt to kept more current in the future.

Just finished a game of Rune Quest (Fantasy role-playing) with an experienced group and managed to kill them all - which was not my goal. This raises an interesting qeustion. As a referee for such a game, should my goal be to make it tough and challenging on the players, or make it fun and fairly easy on the players? I can see arguments for both sides, but have usually taken the "tough and challenging" route.

I would appreciate other opinions.

EU

If you're not paying attention, you may be missing something I think is potentially very big news. The financial crisis in the EU could trigger some interesting times (in the sense of the old Chinese curse). Basically, several EU members - Greece and Portugal seem to be the most critical right now - are in debt over their heads. They are violating EU rules concerning government debt is a big way. If the more financially responsible countries of the EU don't bail them out, they could default, which leads to interesting possibilities for the stability of the EU. And, of course, if the more financially responsible countries of the EU DO bail them out, then the chance of the problem recurring increase greatly, which leads to similar interesting possibilities for the stability of the EU.

Here's a recent blog discussion from the Economist that is a starting point to see the kind of tension that this is giving rise to.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/charlemagne/

I find it interesting that there is so little discussion of this in the US. The Denver Post today had a brief article buried in the business section - NPR has discussed is some - but generally it's not being treated as big news. I think this has the potential to break the EU, which would be huge.

Liberal vs. Conservative

The website Real Clear Politics has two articles that work well to illustrate the condescending nature of liberals. One: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/04/AR2010020403698_2.html?hpid=opinionsbox1&sub=AR&sid=ST2010020403858

analyzes the3 issue quite well, while the 2nd: http://www.slate.com/id/2243797/
demonstrates it.

Neither makes the point that there is a fundamentally different world view involved. Typically, liberals are focused upon individual well-being, while conservatives include - and emphasize - factors which bind a community - or nation - together. So the social issues that liberals often emphasize - gay rights is the prime current example - are viewed by conservatives as dangers to community identify and cohesion - something that the liberal view rarely recognizes. The result is that liberals tend to see conservatives as prejudiced, while conservations tend to see liberals as lacking any common sense.

Missing

Sorry it's been so long, but my daughter was hit be a truck walking home from work on Dec. 14th, and I've been focused on that.

She's doing fine and healing well. Even without any financial resources to speak of, and no insurance, the medical care she received was excellent. The paying part will be figured out over time.

Dark Matters

To assure that our current understanding of the rules of the universe isn't completely broken, and to explain aspects of how fast (or slow) the universe appears to be expanding, science has proposed "dark matter". The only problem is that no one has seen, measured, or detected this dark matter - and it should make up most of the universe's mass. This report:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/18/science/space/18dark.html?_r=1&emc=eta1
is the first I've seen that might indicate a detection of dark matter - but even this article admits there is a 20% chance they could be wrong.

I do enjoy seeing theories struggle to provide solid evidence - that is how they are disproved - or proved. Many people seem to have a problem realizing that the disproof of a theory is just as important to science as a proof. Witness the CO2 based theories of climate change.

Inside the Earth

Now this is neat!

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/12/091214075225.htm

There is so much going on with the planet that we don't really understand yet.

Just a Note

Been busy, and been dealing with a long stretch of below freezing weather here in Denver.