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I have now read through about half of my textbooks for Financial Management and Management Perspectives and I have to conclude with something that I always suspected; management (at least the theory side) is easy or, more to the point, as a academic discipline it is rather lightweight (to this day, Peter Drucker is the only figure I can think of being worthy of note). Of course, I do come to this with decades of prior experience in the social sciences including a fair serve of economics, so perhaps it's just relatively easy given that background. Within the mindset however, I've also been reading Stephan Covey's popular self-help book Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. I am usually extremely cynical of the entire genre of such texts, but to give Cobey his due, he did a great deal of research on the characteristics of 'great leaders' and came to the conclusion is that it was their constant orientation towards universal moral principles that was their defining quality. A critic of "personality ethics" over "principle ethics", Covey quotes from the Marxist psychoanalyst Erich Fromm, radicals like Thomas Paine and Henry David Thoreau and existentialists like Victor Frankl.

Attended a Labor Party branch meeting on Wednesday; speaker was from the Alternative Technology Association explaining the Federal governments subsidy and loans schemes for those who wish to put in solar hot water, insulation, energy efficient globes etc into their home (whether owned or rented). I consider such plans to good examples of interventionist, socialist economics; directed towards reducing the negative externalities and where the long-term savings far exceed the short-term costs. It strikes me that this has come through a reformist programme, despite the extra-parliamentary advocacy of environmentalist causes; and it makes me wonder how many of the far left have ever taken seriously Trotsky's theory of the united front - and what can be done about this. Of course, the key problem it is a united front of worker's organisations against the bourgeoisie; neglecting, yet again, the important possibility of the proletariat and bourgeoisie united against the landlord monarchs.

Thursday's D&D3.5 game had the party mop-up the remains of the dragon lord's forces; still waiting to go toe-to-toe with the the ancient green dragon - must say in third edition dragons are seriously powerful - the PCs are mainly about 14th level and I think they'll have their work cute out for them. Sunday's RuneQuest game witnessed darknova666 in the guise of Balastor begin the campaign against the Lunar occupation of Pavis.

Went to 2600 on Friday night and spent time with the good company there; afterwards watched El Orfanato, a ghost-story which was very good in terms of suspense and narrative consistency. Following day went to Brendan's place to watch Let The Right One In and The Onion Movie. The latter was quite amusing, the former was serious. As _zombiemonkey has remarked; There's a really good vampire romance story and it's not fucking Twilight.

On Sunday about one hundred people turned up at the Unitarians for a concert to raise money for Médecins Sans Frontières; I gave a brief speech on the current activities of the organisation; congregation collection came to over $1700. Sunday was also redcountess's v2.0 gathering at Polly's. Afterwards dined with _zombiemonkey, severina_242, usekh and caseopaya. Intend to drag some of these people along to Liquid Architecture, an installation art-music event recommended to me by _nightflower_

Submitted a paper for eResearch 2009 on research collaboration tools, comparing the various 'blogging technologies with the various social networking technologies and looking at ways to integrate them. Meeting two others next week, one from University of Melbourne and one from WASP. Went to Chris Samuel's 40th birthday gathering last week (welcome to the club), spent much of the time talking to an even older chap named Earl who was also having with birthday. Earl was an interesting chap, very savvy concerning mechanical and electrical engineering and analogue computers; that was a phrase I had not heard for some years.

Debate concerning revolution and reform continues at Left Focus. Perhaps on topic, Connex has lost the contract to run Melbourne's train systems and, more surprisingly, Yarra Trams for the light rail system. The new contractors have quite a job on their hands especially with the condition of infrastructure; again I refer to Dr. Gavin Putland's comments on financing the system. It is still a long way to go to a free, public and planned system.

Congratulations to Mouseguard for winning the Origins award for best roleplaying game of 2009. Next issue of RPG Review due in the next couple of days. Have submitted a review of Ardiun Adventure to RPG.net which is not particularly positive. Played New World of Darkness on Thurday which went well, and GURPS Krononauts this afternoon; we're in Danzig, February, 1945. Still selling off my surplus games on Ebay with more to come. On a related topic, went to see Star Trek last night at the Astor. Marzipan, one of Melbourne's most well-known cats, is looking a little old and tired. Plenty of Trekkies hawking their wares. Fairly impressed with the film overall.

I have become an MBA student! Specifically at the Chifley Business School, the programme in technological management is very sensibly designed, allowing one to complete a Graduate Certificate, Graduate Diploma and then Masters in succession. One of the matters pointed out at my last workplace performance review was that at some stage I'll have to choose between the management path and technical path. With postgraduate qualifications in technological management, at least I can become a manager and still justify having an interest in technical developments. Speaking of technology, which bank gets confused about some fairly trivial technical and security issues on their own helpdesk system?

Went with caseopaya, Meghan, Erin and Jenny to see AvenueQ at the Comedy Theatre, an adult version of Sesame Street. Not quite on the same scale of purile hilarity as Meet The Feebles, it still is memorable for the classic The Internet's For Porn (youtube). Appropriately we ate at Mrs. Parmas beforehand (amazing how many people don't get that old joke). Also have booked tickets to the performance Servant of the Revolution next month.

Following that tangent (see how my life links together?), have written article on Revolutionary Reformism as an appropriate strategy in liberal democratic states on isocracy.org which will be reprinted later this week on LeftFocus. One thing that should be mentioned here is that said strategy certainly isn't appropriate for countries where the pretence of democratic elections is clearly a sham (read: Iran), rather than supposedly due to "false consciousness", or other dubious claims of leftist elitism.

Have added a few more RPG items to the list for sale on Ebay; more coming soon.

Have written a piece on Leftfocus on Labor's Georgist History. Will circulate to state and federal Labor MPs to see if any of them support this founding principle of the party. Also, the same 'blog is having a debate on the age-old reform vs revolution, vanguard party vs spontaneous masses approach to social change. Writing another item at the moment which combines Lukács and Arendt which argues for "revolutionary reformism" and "vanguard masses".

Last Sunday conducted the service at the Melbourne Unitarian Church, with Baptist Minister Simon Moyle giving the address. A competent speaker, I was very impressed by his practical, here-and-now approach to Christian ethics (I suspect Tolstoy or C.S. Lewis would have liked this). I rather wish than more Christians were of his ilk. With the presence of of the RMIT Choir adding to the mix it was one of the best services I have been to in the seven years I have been a member.

Yesterday gave a presentation on collaborative technologies (pdf) at the Victorian eResearch Strategic Initiative. Annual work review afterwards was very positive with suggestion that I should take up a Graduate Certificate in Management (Technology), which of course can become a Grad Dip, then an MBA. Causing some 'wow' factor is IBM building an 80-core chip, and nanoscale chip to hold trillions of bits for billions of years.

On Sunday night caseopaya and I visited Polly's and met up with patchworkid, damien_wise, frou_frou, drzero, usekh, txxxpxx and Mr. Pxx - it was supposed to be a gathering for redcountess who was visiting from the UK! Last night dined with imajica_lj, drank cognac and watched Nazi propagandahigh art in the form of Triumph of the Will with our projector.

Have put up a a few old roleplaying games up on Ebay with more coming soon. Any requests? Because chances are I have what you're looking for.

Just handed in my last item of assessment for a Cert IV in Workplace Training and Assessment. Filled in an application for a Graduate Diploma in Education (Tertiary and Adult) at Murdoch University to follow on with some credit; the gradual steps for a VPAC University continue. In a non-progressive sense in a different envrionment, I would dearly like it if people who did not know what they were talking about did not respond to helpdesk tickets either to clients or to those actually doing the work. It's too much like The Chronicles of George.

The forum on public transport at the Unitarian church went well. Numbers could have been better, but the quality of the speakers was excellent and the material they covered complementary. Gave a presentation on positive economics on Sunday at the Philosophy Forum; some do not like the facts of the economic calculation problem. Next Sunday's address will be Simon Moyle, a former Baptist Minister who has become a social justice activist under the aegis of the Uniting Church; I'll be taking the service.

Had a great night with recumbenteer, Louise and caseopaya last night at the new home of the former two. Wide-ranging and animated conversation along with a few bottles of wine. Last Saturday dropped in to see imajica_lj who has allocated himself more free time and introduced me to the joy that is Left For Dead. Apropos reached a climatic point in Pathfinder Fantasy Australia on Thursday and a denouement for the RuneQuest "Cradle" scenario on Sunday with "Barran The Monster Killer" (from Strangers in Prax) and "Temple at Feroda" (from Big Rubble). Tomorrow night starting in a NWoD game.

In my youth - about twenty five or so years ago - I found a strong association with that genre of music known as 'punk rock'. I blame, at least in part, people like reddragdiva and his journal "Party Fears" for assisting in this along with venues like The Red Parrot.

My particular tastes in this genre weren't terribly obscure. I was incredibly impressed by the musical diversity and socialist politics of bands like The Clash, especially the Sandinsta! triple-album. But from the other side of the big pond, I really liked The Dead Kennedys; although they weren't as musically diverse (usually sticking to a hard and fast delivery), they were musically very competent and, of course, I found much in common with their left-anarchist politics.

The final song on their second album, Moon Over Marin (youtube) I found particularly striking. A more melodic combination of surf music and punk rock the mental image of the lyrics portrayed environmental dystopia on the scale of science fiction (shades of John Bruner's "Stand on Zanzibar"). 'Marin' of course, is the rather beautiful coastline and peninsula of California that includes the Bay Area.

French punk band Les Thugs do an absolutely superb cover of 'Moon over Marin'. I've been playing it like a heartbroken or angry teenager today. I may as well just admit it; I'm an aging punk who never gave up on its values. No wonder a young shop assistant expressed pleasure at my Clash hoodie a couple of weeks back. I was a little surprised and slightly embarrassed; I guess young people today, like young people then, respect those whose stick to sound principles in politics and taste and don't sell out. I hope that will always be the case.

Pat Robertson has recently asked whether people who have sex with ducks are protected by hate crimes legislation; two young women engage take a satirical take with "sex with ducks". Both at Feminist Law Professors. It does remind me of a South Australian MP several years ago who argued that the decriminalisation of prostitution would lead to sex with ducks. What is it with ducks? Are they thinking of ducks with giant penises?

Recent addition to Casa di Lafayette/Hoehnhauss has been a video projector; a Hitachi XSGA CPSX5500. Several years ago these cost $10,000 and whilst the technology was superior to standard LCD, they were outrageously expensive; even a replacement globe costs over $1,000. So work bought three new projectors for their Access Grid room and I'm borrowing this old one. The resolution is very good, but the colour is a heavy shade of blue; hopeless for colour films, but excellent for our vast collection of black and white classic films (and caseopaya knows her classics) projecting a 'screen' of some 2m by 1.5m.

Other recent entertainment includes an excellent game on Friday eve of Insectes and Companie (PDF, French language, translation coming) run by Fabrice and on the Sunday session of GURPS Krononauts which involved Hernan Cortes capturing of Moctezuma in the middle of his own capital and his subsequent sortie of against the 1,000 Spanish soldiers sent to arrest him (Wikipedia summary available). Whilst I have little friendly to say about his imperialism (although they did put an end to religious human sacrifice) one cannot help but be thoroughly impressed by his strategic and tactical genius mixed with an extraordinary confidence in his own abilities.

As part of our ever-increasing menagerie, caseopaya and I acquired an eastern-long necked turtle (chelodina longicollis) who comes with the name "Issac Yetrle" ("Issac" being the previous owner's name from Issac Newton and "Yertle" being from, of course, the famous Dr. Seuss book).



ARCS took its Melbourne staff out to Ginza Teppanyaki on Tuesday. The food production show itself was impressive, but when they started lobbing food and plates around it started to get a bit boorish. The FAQ I wrote for Access Grid is now part of official documentation. Excellent article distinguishing cloud and grid computing.

I am obsessing slightly over the upcoming public transport forum. With a member of parliament, an economist, the secretary of the PTUA and the secretary of the railway division of the union as key speakers the scope of this gathering is not be under-estimated. Further, it is likely to the launch of a wider alliance of activity, especially given the impending upcoming contract. This is perhaps one of the most important opportunity for individuals to help shape this agenda.

Significant changes recently in S and E Asia; North Korea has ended the fifty-seven year peace-fire on the peninsula; South Korea and U.S. forces move to def con 2. Reihana Mohideen provides a fair summary on why the LTTE lost the civil war in Sri Lanka; overlooks that they used a conventional army system and utilised a terrorist strategy - a recipe for failure.

This weekend booked flights to Indonesia; journey is from the 4th to 18th of August, with planned journeys throughout Bali and into central Java at the very least to visit Yogyakarta, Borobudor, and Prambanan, along with the Indonesian Unitarians (who have a different name for political reasons). Would also like to visit Komodo Island, but caseopaya doesn't like to rough it that much. Appropriately I have put up another Bahasa lesson; now that tickets are booked I should do a lot more of these with regularity. One day I should also do the same for Tetum, seeming that the dictionary I transcribed is still one of the most commonly referenced materials of its sort.

Kudos to crankynick for having a spot on the ABC's program Inside Business last week. It must have been a week for it as a couple days prior to that airing I was helping out their science program, Catalyst, and CSIRO put together some material that will be screened in a couple of months. Most "interesting" task recently at work has been dealing with email archiving issues in an older version of Mailman (which is, I hasten to add, excellent software). The initial bug, required a patch which then led to a new bug in multipart/alternative MIME, specifically, base64 encoded text/plain and text/html. There seems to be no immediate way around this with the version of Mailman we have.

RuneQuest game on Sunday saw the conclusion of the "Cradles" scenario and with that, the end of part II of this three part campaign (it's only taken a year so far). Received feedback for Rolemaster Cyradon; some minimal changes required and then it's off to print (yay!). Last Tuesday ran the regular "Fantasy Australia" D&D/Pathfinder game, for which I've been appropriating a great number of plot ideas from Dark Sun. Giving serious consideration to releasing it as an OGL product in its own right.

Spoke on Wednesday night at the St. Kilda branch of the ALP; primary emphasis of my presentation was on socialisation of land rents and how their private collection contributed significantly to the global financial crisis. Also speaking on the night was Dr. Nicholas Gruen of Lateral Economics who was advocating a state-owned Internet banking service for transactions and for superannuation. On Sunday I gave an address at the Melbourne Unitarian Church entitled "Sympathy for the Devil", where gave an outline of this poor misrepresented spirit, discussed some contemporary organisations that claim some allegiance and concluded that trumping prosaic versions of moral judgment with supernatural versions and excuses ("the devil made me do it"), should be utterly abandoned. Sunday week I'll be giving part II of the "Philosophy of Economics" study with an emphasis on positive economics. A few days beforehand will be the forum on public transport; should it be returned to public management? should it be free?

Last week the Federal budget was announced; ARCS received a massive increase of funding; some $97 million over the four financial years 2009-2013, whereas previously we had $22 million; this is truly awesome especially given the modest number of staff we have (did they read my preceding journal post?). On the other half of my working world, my installation of a CUDA instance of NAMD has seen some excellent results (plus I found a bug). Attempts to install Desmond have been less successful. Have conducted another review of our training course and in my own studies for the Cert IV in Workplace Training and Assesment picked up two more High Distinctions.

On Thursday night finished off our Dragon Warriors campaign with an explosive conclusion; on Sunday ran the first session of GURPS Krononauts which involved an intervention in the time of the fall of the Aztec Empire, a fascinating and tragic period of history. In the HeroQuest pbem, the Crimson Bat has been destroyed by a Rubble Runner with a Dwarven grenade. Now accepting articles for the fourth edition of RPG Review which will include interviews with Dennis Sustare and (apparently) Ken St. Andre!

Have had a great week at work, including writing a firewall document for Access Grid, a FAQ for the same and putting up a proposal to incorporate Livejournal/Dreamwidth technology as a collaboration tool for Australian researchers; I should also mention I have codes for DW if anyone is interested. Also last Tuesday attended Linux Users Victoria; Michael Wahren gave an excellent presentation on where Red Hat is taking virtualisation.

My alternative modernist Middle-Earth article, White Hand Rising, has been reprinted in Other Minds. Final draft (although I am sure there will be tweaks) of Rolemaster Cyradon has been submitted. F2F gaming during the week consisted of D&D3.5 Fantasy Australia on Thursday and RuneQuest on Sunday - both went very well.

Last Sunday gave the service at the Melbourne Unitarian Church. The speaker was Michael Shaik from Australians for Palestine and my opening words, reading and closing words were on-topic with his address. The address is repeated at The Isocracy Network; which is open for comment. Next week I am giving the address entitled "Sympathy for the Devil: The Use and Misuse of Metaphysical Evil", which has greatly amused devilgirly who visited during the week (she has been justifiably shilling a a great film clip.

Meanwhile I'm putting all this together as caseopaya is making her way to Royal Melbourne emergency from home because of abnormal levels of ketones. Yes, it can be fatal.. Update: Have returned from emergency. caseopaya is on an insulin drip. Although she has abnormally high sugar and ketone levels she isn't showing any other symptoms of danger. They are keeping her under observation just the same.

A couple of strange moments of synchronicity and coincidence this week. About a year ago, I started reading Salmun Rushdie's The Moor's Last Sigh at a cafe around the corner for work. I know the date I started because I used my ticket from when John Foxx did a movie presentation. Every few days when buying a bite to eat or a coffee I'd read a few pages. Just as I'm about to finish, I discover that John Foxx did the cover for the book.

The second moment of synchronicity was finishing Rolemaster Cyradon, which is almost due for the final draft. About fifteen years ago I did another book for Iron Crown Enterprises. Just as the final draft of this book was due to be sent to the publishes, my hard disk died. This time around, the USB key which I'd kept about nine days of work decided to go belly-up. Fortunately, I discovered a very handy program to recover such things.

I have a Dreamwidth account under the same moniker. This is good because it doesn't have the poor management decisions of Livejournal, but uses pretty much the same technology, plus one can crosspost (like this one). This is a good list of Livejournal features not in Dreamwidth and likewise a list of changes.

Conducted a Philosophy of Economics (Normative Economics) session at the Unitarian Philosophy Forum on Sunday. Have also put up notes for the session on Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast which looks at metaphysics, theology and philosophy. Both of these have been very well received and well attended. Submitted a proposed distance education programme for VPAC as part of my Cert IV in Workplace Training and Assessment.

Visited darviz on Sunday morning, whom I hadn't spent much time with for years. Talked about his band, Darkness Visible, and then apropos, Freemasonry, various forms of esoterica and the politics of the middle-east (he's has a Jewish heritage and a generally pro-Israeli position; I'm probably best described as a secular zionist in that regard). On a related topic, I have finished an essay for isocracy.org on National Self-Determination and Federal Internationalism; comments invited on this oft-tricky subject.

Spent three days off work last week feeling more than a little under the weather; mostly OK now. Prior to that managed to get an ab-initio simulation package installed on the main cluster; it wasn't easy and there are still MPI bugs to iron out. In my time off I did put up some more Bahasa Indonesian lessons; two, three, and four. Also spent a bit of time playing Solar Wolf; best personal score is now close to that of the designer's. SW is, imo, particularly interesting for developing heuristic solutions to shortest path problems. Or at least that's what I thought whilst dosed up on Demazin, Mersyndol etc etc.

I also took some time to do some more editing on Rolemaster Cyradon; a final draft is due on May 1st and thankfully it is pretty much finished. Managed to squeeze in a game D&D/Pathfinder Fantasy Australia and, on Sunday, ran part two of the famous "Cradle" scenario in the RuneQuest game in which the PCs engaged in some thoroughly heroic actions to protect the giant baby. Took the opportunity to name all the forty or so NPCs siding with the defenders; surprised in both this and the preceding session on how smoothly the RQ combat system operates with such large numbers of participants as well.

Next week will be busy; speaking next Sunday at the Unitarian Philosophy Forum on "The Philosophy of Economics Part I: Normative Economics or, Who Gets What and Why" (will be followed up with Part II: "Positive Economics, or, What Works And What Doesn't"). Preparing another article on LeftFocus on "Labor's Georgist Tradition" for later this week and speaking at the St Kilda branch of the ALP next week on the global financial crisis. Writing a new article for Isocracy on "Nationalism and Internationalism" Express your thoughts on the Melbourne's public transport system and potential solutions here.

The second part of my article of on the global financial crisis has been published on LeftFocus. Will be speaking at the St. Kilda branch of the ALP on the same subject next month. Primarily inspired to address concerns raised by forwrathandruin I have elaborated material regarding a transformation of policing and military forces under the title Arm The People, Abolish The State (this is, of course, just a sketch). Have arranged speakers for a public transport forum in early June; Gavin Putland from Prosper Australia, Tony Morton from the PTUA and Carlo Carli, former parliamentary secretary for infrastructure.

Continuing Bahasa studies; with a fortnight of simply reading through books have started to write-up what I've learned: lesson one, more coming during the week. On a completely unrelated travel matter, on Sunday I was informed that I had been nominated as one of two delegates of the Melbourne Unitarian Church to attend the ANZUUA conference in Sydney in October; so that's New Zealand, Indonesia, Brisbane (Gencon) and Sydney (ANZUAA) I have to get to in the next few months. I think I should plant a few trees to make up for all this.

My review of John Wick's "Houses of the Blooded" is up on RPG.net. Finished the final session (round-trip) of Gulliver's Trading Company on Sunday and playtest; have recommended to author that now the game system has a greater level of stability to work harder on the thematic content. On a related sombre note one of the greatest (in my opinion) psychoanalystic science fiction authors, J.G. Ballard (The Drowned World, Atrocity Exhibition, Vermilion Sands, War Fever) has died.

First of two articles I've written for Left Focus has just been published: Political Economy and the Economic Crisis. Part two will be published in the next few days. On a related note, had a good meeting yesterday with Paul K. of George Finance to discuss the land rent scheme proposed by the Stanhope government in the ACT. As good as this scheme would be for low-income earners and the economy in general (expenditure in land ownership always means expenditure away from productive activity) banks have been loathe to support the idea. On a more personal note, have received initial approval from the ANZ New Zealand for my planned purchases down there.

On the other travelling plan I've spent some time bringing my almost non-existant knowledge of Bahasa Indonesian up to an acceptable level. Working very hard to complete my Cert IV in Training and Assessment this week and have received confirmation that I can use this as a credit towards a Graduate Diploma in Education (Tertiary and Adult) (goodness, I'll be a bona fide Murdoch student again).

Last Sunday attened the poetry and music service at the Unitarians. Music in this case included Johnny Cash's "Man in Black" (Youtube) which I was very pleased with. My role was provide a reading about Unitarianism, to which I chose the activity of the Christchurch fellowship witht their All Heretic's Day forums which I think Melbourne should emulate. For poetry I chose a compilation from a thousand years ago - Al Ma'arri - a person who certainly deserves more recognition.

Have made some headway in the second draft of Rolemaster Cyradon which is due at the end of this month. Played GURPS Bunnies & Burrows on Sunday, as is the longstanding Easter tradition; Michael ran a good scenario entitled "Hart of Darkness" (haha). Visited severina_242 and _zombiemonkey over the weekend for an evening of bad Australian horror films; though that Thirst and Harlequin were OK psycho-thrillers. In contrast The Howling III was one of the worst films I have ever seen.

RPG Review Issue #3 has just been made available. It includes reviews of Mouse Guard and Houses of the Blooded, designer's notes for Fire & Sword, Summerland and Gulliver's Trading Company, an interview with Steve Long, the use of classic AD&D scenarios in a Middle-Earth campaign, a Paranoia scenario and a GURPS Bunnies & Burrows easter special scenario "Return to Druid's Valley" (derived from Different Worlds issue #3), Sexuality in Blue Planet, a rewrite of the core mechanics for Palladium, QAD; a complete roleplaying system, an RPG crossword puzzle and, of course, more friendly advice from Orcus. On a related note (news from allandaros), two classic game designers, Aaron and Allston and Dave Arneson are both seriously ill. Allston is recovering from a heart attack and quadruple bypass surgery and Arneson is losing his battle with cancer. Played another session of Dragon Warriors on Friday night, Hacker with ser_pounce and hathalla on Saturday and Gulliver's Trading Company on Sunday.

Already mentioned heavily on el-jay and elsewhere is the Federal government's decision to establish a public-private company to the tune to provide fibre-to-home service. Contrary to the hyperbolic claims, the $43 billion dollar over eight years price tag is fairly modest; indeed it is somewhat less than the personal income tax-cuts announced in the last (2008-2009) budget which occur over five years. On a much more personal scale, I've finally started adding new content on my IT website, after many months of being a content-free zone - installation steps for scientific software, probably of minimal interest to only the few who use these obscure (but important) programs. Going to the Linux Users Victoria meeting tonight; will be interesting to hear arjen_lentz explain why failure is not an emergency.

Two days ago, in Prague, Obama called for the abolition of nuclear weapons: "So today, I state, clearly and with conviction, America's commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons.". I haven't seen a statement this strongly worded since the times of Gorbachev, and hope that something comes out of it. Of course, ending nuclear weapons isn't necessarily a path to peace and security as the President claims. I tend to think that path is a world without standing armies (I must elaborate that letter into a general article).

It was caseopaya's birthday today. Gave her a "home made" ticket which provides the bearer an all-expenses paid holiday to Yogyakarta, Bali and Komodo Island within the next 90 days. You might think I like her or something. Naturally enough, I'm going as well. In a completely different direction, in the very near future I am heading off to Dunedin for a few days to investigate purchasing some of the fine old buildings they have down there. Will need to set up a ANZ bank account in NZ etc.

Handed in the first draft of a new book for Iron Crown Enterprises. As it has already been announced by the system editor, I'm giving away no secrets by saying it's Rolemaster Cryadon, basically a synthesis of the HARP Cryadon book and Rolemaster Express. RPG Review is late as a result, but will be sent out within the next twenty-four hours.

The Australian Senate is seeking public comment on climate policy. I have made a (too) brief submission. Inspired by angel80's words on the recent spat between the Minister and the Department of Defense, I wrote to the former that he abolish his own department (and why not?). On Sunday attended the Unitarian service; guest speaker was John Stone from the Australasian Centre for the Governance & Management of Urban Transport (GAMUT) at Melbourne University. Now on the organising committe for a public forum on the subject; will be arguing for "free and public" mass transit.

airiefairie has written an excellent post at The Isocracy Network on the perceived need of political pundits (of which I must admit adding a few elaborations and footnotes). Apart from the direct issue of personal involvement in civics, it also raises the question of the core faculties of the thinking process. By this I mean not the passive absorption of information, nor the ability to regurgitate such perceptions, but the conscious ability to criticise and judge, which should be available to any with an adult mind.

Such reflective thinking often seems missing in the minds of many adults and this causes me some concern. For without it a person simply isn't capable of expressing any rational judgment except over the own sensations, and even then not necessarily to their own good, as they are incapable of reflecting in their own tastes; I suspect such people are particularly prone to unconscious drug and alcohol abuse.

More serious pathological behaviour occurs however when moral decisions are made without criticism, and judgment, the former defined as faculty to engage in reflection and the latter to express it. With the example of Adolf Eichmann, confirmed by the famous Milgram psychology experiments and followed up by the Stanford Prison experiments, individuals who don't not engage in criticism and reflection are prone to follow what is socially expected of them - even if it means sending tens of thousands to concentration and extermination camps (Eichmann), or electrocuting people (Milgram experiments), or engaging in a physically abusive misuse of power (Stanford). Even if they claim "oh, I would never do that", the reality is most people would and do. They will follow an authoritative figure representing their church, nation, or state, or ideology to the point of engaging in the worst abuses of human rights and especially is it is socially sanctioned to do so.

Immanual Kant (whom I may not care for his metaphysics, but I often like his rationality - and no, the latter does not require the former) has two great contributions to this matter. One is the third in the philosophical trilogy, Critique of Judgment. But perhaps more important is the pithy essay 'What Is Enlightenment'. In it he quite correctly describes enlightenment as the moment when one overcomes their own mental immaturity; when they have faith in the own ability to learn through criticism and accept the criticism of others. When they no longer fear the social sanction from who become upset from 'uncomfortable comments' (which, of course, Socrates specialised in).

( Exceptions and caveats )

Those who do not engage in criticism are idiots; those who do not engage in judgment are cowards.

Thanks for all the suggestions for cat names. At the end we took greenglowgrrl's suggestion, Mac Lir. As can be suspected at this age he's a complete nutcase. He's made friends with the rabbits, but the rats still aren't too sure which isn't much of a surprise really. Whilst on rodent topics, I have recently picked up a copy of the Mouse Guard roleplaying game; great presentation, good writing and a simplified system based on Burning Wheel. Quite impressed so far and hope to play soon. It will feature in the next edition of RPG Review which should be out within the week. Apart from Mouse Guard, it will also feature GURPS Bunnies & Burrows (special Easter theme), an interview with Steve Long (Star Trek, LoTR, Champions), designer's notes for Summerland and Fire & Sword, a Champions-Spelljammer-Planescape mash-up, classic D&D modules for a Middle-Earth campaign, a review of Watchmen and much more!

I suspect I am not going to see much daylight this coming week; I have to finish the first draft of a book for Iron Crown Enterprises, finish off RPG Review, run two games (D&D Fantasy Australia and RQ Rhythm of the Heat), plus I'm putting together some material for Isocracy on involvement in politics (inspiried by airiefairie's post on talk_politics. Expect a fair dose of Hannah Arendt and Noam Chomsky in the mix.

Queensland had an election, which saw a fourth-term return for the Labor Party against a united opposition and the election of Australia's first female premier (we've had female premiers in the past; they've just lost when it was taken to the polls). Wikileaks strikes a blow by publishing the ACMA list of prohibited content, which included both distateful material but some utterly inoffensive material as well (a dentist?!). Guy Rundle claims that no other issue is more important, and I am certainly sympthethic to that view. The political question is how do we get rid of Conroy?