A Riddle for the Democrats! ^o^

Quoth Greyhawk from the Mudville Gazette: "For those who claim they were deceived into supporting the war because "Bush lied": Are you frequently so deceived? Do you consider yourself a generally gullible person? Are you certain? How can you be sure someone's not misleading you now? In short, why should I trust your current position, if you demonstrably lack good judgment?"

Mind you, it is also worth remembering that anyone who held that the Democrats were gulled by Bush into a position they themselves didn't believe must also answer yet another simple riddle first posed by Bryon Preston - How was it that you Democrats yourselves were saying this back in 1998 as clearly demonstrated on Google in the links to many sources from searches such as here and here and here? o_O

Are those who claim that President Bush "lied" really trying to get the rest of us to believe that Mr. Bush traveled into the year 1998 in order to mind control weak-willed Libs and Europeans into saying things they themselves didn't believe? O_o

Just asking! But I wonder how many liberals or leftists would be brave enough to answer such a riddle? ^_~

Game Systems, Eh? @_@

Shamus over at Twenty Sided asks the following questions:

"What gaming system did you start with when you were learning the game?
What’s your preferred gaming system when you’re running a game?
What system do you prefer as a player? (For some people this is different from #2.)
And because we live in an imperfect world: What system do you actually end up using?"

My answers for those who care would be as follow:

1.D&D boxed set. In the days before it became AD&D. (I think I may have just dated myself on this one. ^_^;).

2. I've a soft preference for GURPS, particularly when I'm running fantasy in worlds of my own devising. "Champions", "Justice Inc.", and "Danger International" as published by Hero Games would all come a close second. In general I prefer to DM games where you design your own characters to those where the characters are done by random generation.

3. As a player I can operate quite happily with just about any consistent and reasonably coherent rule system. I've reached the point where I feel a DM who knows what he's doing is actually more important than the particular system in play.

4. The game group I'm with is a "Meat and Potatoes" bunch so it's basically AD&D, AD&D and AD&D with occasional bouts of AD&D for variety. That's OK. By the sacrifice of a few sanity points I did get them to go along with GURPS when I'm DMing so I consider it fair. ^_~

For a bonus I will also answer a question that I don't recall Shamus asking but wish that he had: Which game world settings interest you the most?

These would be, in not particular order:
1. Glorantha. (RuneQuest, HeroQuest)
2. Tekumal(Empire of the Petal Throne)
3. Krynn.(AD&D)
4. The Champions Universe. (Champions)
5. Palladia (Palladium)

Ask me again at any other time and you might get a different set of published universes. I actually prefer homebrewed universes both for DMing and playing in, but do admire the literary quality that went into these published universes. ^-^

And of course, I will happily cannibalize any published universe for the building materials of my own! ^_~

A Legitimate Question! >_>

Quoth Glenn Reynolds over at Instapundit: "So while asking for McCain supporters to chill a bit, can we also ask the press to start doing its job rather than openly shilling for a Democratic victory?"

It's a good and legitimate question but, given the fact that Old Media has been nothing but a collection of PR flacks and occasional private gumshoes on behalf of the Democrats since the 1990s, I wonder how many of them would even know how? o_O

The fact that they didn't care enough about their own reputations and what it was doing to their profession to abuse the public trust sort of argues against it, doesn't it? O_o

Mind you, I wouldn't mind being surprised on this one! I don't think I would mind it at all! ^_~

Mr. Obama and Corvee Labor.

Let us start with a word from Karl A. Wittfogel from Chapter 2, Section F, Part 2, "The Power Of The Hydraulic State Over Labor Greater Than That Of Capitalist Enterprises" of "Oriental Despotism; A Comparative Study of Total Power":

"In both spheres the hydraulic state levied and controlled the needed labor forces by coercive methods...They compelled able-bodied commoners to work on them through the agency of the corvee.

Corvee Labor is forced labor. But unlike slave labor, which is demanded permanently, corvee labor is conscripted on a temporary, although recurring, basis. After the corvee labor is completed, the worker is expected to go home and continue his own business.

Thus the corvee laborer is freer than the slave. But he is less free than a wage laborer. He does not enjoy the bargaining advantages of the labor market, and this is the case even if the state gives him food...or some cash. In areas with a highly developed money economy the hydraulic government may levy a corvee tax and hire rather than conscript the needed labor. This was done largely in China at the close of the Ming dynasty and during the greater part of Ch'ing rule.

But there as elsewhere the government arbitrarily fixed the wage. And it always kept the workers under quasimilitary discipline." - pp. 47-48 of "Oriental Despotism; A Comparative Study of Total Power by Kurt A. Wittfogel, (New Haven and London:Yale University Press, 1957). (Emphasis mine!)

Now, having taken the time to read and digest that, let us look at the "National Volunteer Act" that Mr. Obama and his fellow Democrats have espoused since the mid-1990s when in some locales they passed what they themselves at the time so charmingly named "Compulsory Volunteering"...

"Specifically, Obama’s national service plan addresses foreign and domestic issues....Under the plan, all middle and high school students would be required to do 50 hours of community service...".


Because, of course, Democrats and other leftists just know the world would come to an end if blameless students leading blameless lives were allowed to decide to do homework or play video games instead of working on a corvee labor gang to the whims of a leftist Chicago wardheeler, no doubt! :P

Isn't it interesting that Mr. Obama and his toadies would wish to remake America in the image of feudal China? o_O

Mind you, those beyond high school age would do well not to be too smug about this: When the modern income tax was first instituted it was limited only to those who made more than $50,000 a year. The modern taxpayer will doubtless note that such limits have fallen by the wayside. Who can doubt that such gradualist measures were the way corvee labor was first imposed in the various hydrualic states as well? And yet, the end of this was that those who consented to such things, whether for others or for themselves, ended by finding that they had become the property of the state. ^_^;

With this in mind, it deserves to be be remembered that a vote for Mr. Obama or any other Democrat is a vote to make yourself property. Property of the state but property all the same. I would suggest voting the other way instead! But then you knew that already, didn't you? ^_~


Mood Music: Chain Gang by Sam Cooke and Charles Cooke, as sung by Sam Cooke.

Ein Reich, Ein Volk, Ein Obama? o_O

Just as Hitler had the Hitler Youth it would seem that Obama is having his own minions engage in similar activities. ^_^;

Any bets as to how long it will be before the children in this nutziland camp are taught to goosestep and to chant "Heil Obama!" right in Obama's face? :P

Oh well, from the time of Karl Marx unto the present day the Left always did deem itself the Master Race so why should liberals be any different? Now we know why it is that Democrats always stress "leadership" as their primary virtue! ^O^

...Or in honor of this new development should we rather call what the quality the Left now prizes in Mr. Obama fuehrership instead? ^_~

Mood Music: Der Feuhrer's Face by Spike Jones. ^_^

Words to Contemplate as Autumn Comes Gently...

Quoth Wretchard at the Belmont Club: "The vast majority of true believers are not, as some would suppose, the soccer moms attending their Sunday church and leading their ordinary lives the rest of the week. The real compulsive joiners are those must attend the church of the co-op, pray at the shrine of the Global Warming, join political Action Wires and feel the “need to connect” without which their lives have no meaning. In the service of the new secular faiths all the old forms have been given new names. The medieval procession, sans the candles but with the molotov cocktail, has become the modern protest rally. Indulgences are back as carbon credits. Instead of a bishop on a distant cathedral altar, there is an orator before Greek columns at Invesco Field."

And it's true, all true! G.K. Chesterton once wrote in his Father Brown stories that atheists make the worst religious fanatics of all. It's strange to realize that as more than 100 years of Progress has gone by the Left has remained more frozen in time than the Amish. @_@

But then again, perhaps not so strange when we remember that many of the Left are such raging technophobes as to still bemoan the invention of agriculture...

Isn't it interesting that those who call themselves "Progressive" have such a xenophobic fear of Technology? Isn't it interesting that those who call themselves "Progressive" are themselves so afraid of Progress? Makes one thankful that we are those who embrace the Future instead of mere "Progressives", doesn't it? ^_~