DShomshak

Oh, and it's official: Washington state governor Jay Inslee is running for President, to the surprise of no one who had already heard of him. Okay, so he's the first governor to declare. But CNN says he's polling at 0%. And he said he's making combating climate change the centerpiece of his campaign. Wow, this is sure to go nowhere fast. Dean Shomshak

For another bit of semi-silliness: On today's "Week in Review" program on KUOW-FM, host Bill Radke said Michael Cohen's "don't become me" warning to Republicans reminded him of Jacob Marley to Scrooge: "These are the chains I forged in life!" Which led to a bit more "A Christmas Carol" riffing. Dean Shomshak

As it happens, I just started reading a book that sort of deals with some of the topics mentioned: Why Nations Fail, by Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson. It's clearly twice as long as it should be due to authors' ponderous writing style, but their thesis is briefly stated: Economists have asked many times why some societies (notably western Europe and its offshoots) get rich. Maybe the real question is why most societies through history, and still today, stay poor. Their answer is that most societies have political and economic institutions designed to concentrate wealth and power in the hands of a few. Most people have no incentive to try bettering their lives because even if they suceeded in generating greater wealth, it would just be stolen. It's nearly impossible to break such a system, because the elites that benefit from it (feudal lords, bishops and abbots, emperor and high bureaucrats, dictator and cronies, Communist Party, etc. ad nauseum) will fight tooth and nail to protect it (and of course nobody else has much wealth and power to fight back). And if any revolution or invasion succeeds, the new masters inherit a system where every incentive is to just become the new boss, same as the old boss. Only a few societies have ever broken out of this vicious circle, switching from an extractive mode -- harvest what wealth is available, for the benefit of a few -- to an inclusive mode, in which wealth and political power are both spread so people have an incentive to make the entire society wealthier because they will benefit from it themselves. This can create a "virtuous circle" in which larger numbers of people have the resources to demand a political voice, and a larger number of people have the political influence to demand a share of the goodies. There can be mixed cases -- political autocracy/oligarchy but a semi-free economy (as in China), or extreme concentration of wealth with a nominally pluralist government -- but such situations are obviously unstable. It sounds like in this country, Church and State are both trying to induce a phase change from extractive to inclusive, even if they don't have the language to enunciate their intent or full understanding of what this means for them. On the state side, it may be that the monarchy has encountered serious challenge (perhaps powerful barons threaten usurpation?) and is looking for alternate bases of support -- create new centers of power in hopes they can be coopted, instead of the usual despotic practice of trying to crush any rival center of power, no matter the harm to society as a whole. This sounds like there's been a genius -- a political/economic analog to Isaac Newton, who has broken through to a new way of thinking. Or maybe the comparison should be the Buddha, since the religion of Moderation feels kind of Buddhist to me. Or at least a second-generation religion like Buddhism, Confucianism or Christianity, that has developed a philosophy instead of just being about bribing gods with sacrifice and prayer, or treating worship as a ritual of social cohesion. Speaking of which: Is this a world where actual and active gods determine religious practice, or a world in which mortals are chiefly responsible for the forms of religion? (The latter is not inconsistent with their being actual gods -- Lois McMaster Bujold's "World of the Five Gods" is an example of such a setting.) But that's probably a long enough chain of tangents. Dean Shomshak

Possibly relevant and of interest: Today, the radio program Marketplace began a three-part series about the Great Recession. Specifically, why did no one go to jail for massive and blatant fraud and other financial malfeasance? You can hear all three parts on the show's website, marketplace.org. Dean Shomshak

The history of money and banking goes in all sorts of weird and wonderful directions, from grain banking in ancient Egypt (centered on temples, as a matter of fact) to the unique time-nonetizing shell money of Rossel Island, but I'll leave that aside for now. I'm more interested in how a religion of Moderation appears. A few years ago I read a book on comparative religion (IIRC the title was God Is Not One.) Not a great book, but the author has an interesting conceit of distilling each religion examined into a statement of what the essential problem of human existence is, and what the religion proposes as the solution. In Christianity, the problem is sin; the solution is salvation through Jesus Christ. In Buddhism, the problem is karmic attachment to a world of illusion; the solution is enlightenment. Even atheism follows the pattern: The problem is superstition; the solution is reason. Here, the solution is Moderation. How does the religion define the problem? "Fanaticism" or "Dualism" both seem plausible, and might explain how the religion started in the first place. (Assuming it isn't ordained by an actual god, which in a fantasy world is possible.) And it will play a big role in what immediate, social activities the church treats as worth its attention. Dean Shomshak

My internet connection is slow and unstable, so I haven't followed the links Pattern Ghost posted; maybe these points are already made, and likely made better. But here goes. Warren's, ah, malleable approach to her ethnicity unfortunately plays into a narrative that sociologist Arlene Hochschild found among the white conservatives of a Louisiana parish, which she believes are the key to understanding Tea Party and Trumist rage and zeal. Her subjects thought that they weren't getting the economic advancement and social respect that they were due because liberals and minorities were cheating -- "cutting in line" was the phrase Hochschild proposed, and which her subjects affirmed as an apt summary. For instance, they don't see affirmative action as redress for an ongoing unfairness, but as a kind of scam to help minorities (and their liberal elite sponsors). Now, you can't get much more liberal-elite than a Harvard law professor. And wow, it sure looks like Warren used a claim of Native American status as a scam. Maybe it was just liberal desire to identify with an oppressed minority to alleviate a sense of guilt at her white privilege; maybe it was something else; I don't know. But a reasonable person could hypothesize it was a scam. It's hard enough convincing white folks that other people can rise without them falling. I suspect Senator Warren has made it just a little bit harder. Dean Shomshak

Speaking of gerrymandering... That's why I suspect that Badger's notion of giving each Congressional district one electoral vote would likely create as many problems as it solves. The parties have already become too skilled at picking their voters. The extreme case I heard about some months back is the major city in Texas -- Houston, maybe? -- that has a Democratic mayor and city government, but is represented in Congress by five Republicans. The city's been divided among five districts, combined with other areas so Dems can never have a majority. At least with state-by-state voting, the parties are stuck with boundaries they have no way to change. Dean Shomshak

The Economist article notes the atmosphere difficulty. OTOH the felloow proposing this -- Hang Shuang, at the Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics -- has built a prototype x-ray transciever for "a particular, specialized purpose": Communication with spacecraft during the early stage of re-entry when a sheath of plasma around the vehicle blocks radio communication. The air is still thin enough for x-rays to penetrate. It's a two-step process: the spacecraft uses x-rays to communicate with a satellite in orbit, which relays messages to the ground by radio. I'm not sure how big a problem the radio blackout period is in practice, and I'm not sure I'd want to be on a spaceship with x-rays beamed at it, but it's an innovative proposal. As for missile defense... heh. The article notes: "America does not skimp on shooting missiles out of the sky. Its 2018 budget allocates #19.3bn to the task -- roughly equivalent to the entire defense budget of Canada or Turkey. Since 2001 it has splashed out over $130bn." For ground-based midcourse defense against as-yet hypothetical ICBMs from North Korea or Iran, it has spend $67bn (and rising), making it "the Pentagon's fourth-most expensive weapons system." Four interceptors supposedly have a 97% chance of stopping a single missile. Against 12 missiles, it is still 30% likely that one missile gets through. "The average revolver offers better odds for a game of Russian roulette." Still better than all 12 definitely landing on American cities, but still not great. Dean Shomshak

Also: What kind of fantasy is this? At one extreme, a setting could be soaked in gods, spirits and magic, like (say) the setting of White Wolf's game Exalted. Or at the other extreme it could be very naturalistic, with magic quite rare, as in Middle-Earth. Knowing more about the world will help us make suggestions you can use. Dean Shomshak

A few days ago on on one of the public radio programs I listen to (I forget whether it was All Things Considered or The Daily), someone from the Brennan Center think tank discussed some of the laws that presidents can suspend by declaring a National Emergency. Apparently, there's quite a lot of them. One mention: Bank accounts can be seized without due process. Another: Laws forbidding tests of chemical and biological weapons on unsuspecting civilian populations can be suspended. (Um. I would have thought there were plenty of other laws that would forbid this without any need to specify it, but whatever.} Now, my sieve-like memory makes me not the best third-hand reporter, so perhaps someone else can find and post a better source. But declaring a National Emergency where none exists suggests unsavory possibilities and unsavory intent. Dean Shomshak

Plus I just find her voice really annoying. She always sounds so earnest , like whatever she says is so important for you to understand. Vocal mannerisms are not at all a rational ground for favoring or disfavoring a candidate, but well, there it is. Dean Shomshak

That's a point. Fantasy races do tend to be a bit, ah, "one note." Helps make them distinctive from each other, but... As others have mentioned, ranged weapons are particularly good for deserts. Dunes won't change this, because you can't quickly duck behind a hundred-foot dune to evade attack the way you'd duck behind a tree. (Unless you can move really fast.) Slings and bows are the two classic ranged weapons that just about every culture develops. If you want to get a little more exotic, combine them as the sling bow -- a real weapon, though not as common as either slings or bows. It's like a bow, but instead of firing an arrow the bowstring has a cup for firing a bullet. The staff sling is another variation/elaboration. A little harder to make and use, perhaps, but the staff that extends the user's arm (and consequent force) could also be a goad for driving animals, a walking-staff, a rod of office, or anything else for which people have used sticks. Dean Shomshak

Aaand I was right. Dean Shomshak

Hey, I can post again! (No idea why this comes and goes.) I thought of another reason the SCOTUS conservatives might back Alabama: To support the death penalty. I get the impression that opposition to the death penalty mostly comes from the left (though I haven't seen any statistics on this) -- notably on the grounds that it is applied preferentially to minorities and the poor, and even when there is strong evidence of bungled defense or active malfeasance by the prosecution and the state. So, enabling an execution in a deep red state, in the face of state misconduct, might just be a way of sticking a finger in the eye of liberals. It's not so much to privilege Christianity as to privilege states that still hold executions. But this is speculation on my part. And even if I'm right, it's possible the justices are not consciously aware of their motivations. Dean Shomshak

Oh, it's an excellent look from the POV of Evangelical conservatives. Dean Shomshak

The Feb. 2, 2019 issue of The Economist has three space-related articles: * A proposal that x-rays might be better than radio for interstellar communications. They spread out more slowly, don't scatter as much, and there's a whole lot less natural x-ray sources to mask messages. * A bit of rock brought back from the Moon by Apollo astronauts may originally have been a bit of the Earth. The two-gram grain from the Fra Mauro highlands is a bit of the slashed debris from the Late Heavy Bombardment impact that created the Mare Crisium. The zircon and quartz grains in the rock, however, are of a sort unlikely to have formed in Lunar conditions; they more plausibly formed on Earth. (The brief article doesn't say what features lead to this conclusion.) So, one LHB impact could have splashed the rock from Earth to the Moon (which at the time was only a third its current distance); then another impact put it on the Fra Mauro highlands; and now it's back to its planet of origin. This interests geologists, because the Earth has very little rock that is relatively unchanged from that long ago. (You can judge the rarity by geologists considering being through two massive impacts still "relatively unchanged.") * And an article on Pentagon proposals for laser-armed satellites to shoot down missiles, in the latest iteration of "Star Wars" missile defense. The article notes the vast expense of existing missile defense, the likelihood that it would fail against relatively small numbers of missiles, and a "detailed and scathing" analysis of boost-phase interception that the National Research Council produced in 2012. I simply remember a Scientific American article from the 1980s that concluded the laws of physics make any space-based missile defense system, well, considerably harder than advocates make it sound. Dean Shomshak

Oh, I think you're doing pretty well. Dean Shomshak

Mea culpa; I tossed off a factoid I'd heard or read (and might have misunderstood at that) and did not check the numbers. I apologize for passing along... <gasp> Fake News! I don't say that it's right that Pugetopolis can so completely dominate state politics, but it's a fact that will not change any time soon. Washington state initiatives are a whole other rant. Suffice to say they've given me a fervent belief that the Founders were right in avoiding direct democracy. But they do sometimes give clues where voters' minds are at. In this case, even Pugetopolis won't back a carbon tax enough to ram it through. @Pattern Ghost: Yes, reasonably competent and intelligent, in that he seems able to speak in coherent sentences. Sometimes. And he seems to have some notion how government works. Sometimes. It's a low bar.? Dean Shomshak

I look forward to seeing this. Dean Shomshak

Well, actually that's true. But King, Pierce and Snohomish Counties hold enough population that they now overbalance the rest of the state. Dems hold every statewide office but one, IIRC, and both legislative houses. So if Washington can't pass a carbon tax, the odds don't look great for anywhere else. Oddly, the state's latest gun control initiative passed in every county, even in conservative Eastern Washington. So it's easier to pass gun control than a carbon tax. Dean Shomshak

So, considering villain teams instead of solo villains... Some super-teams work for larger organizations. If the sponsor is villainous, so is the team. The classic form is the team of super-soldiers working for an evil government (or one of those shadowy, malign government agencies that were de rigeur in Iron Age comics). Evil corporations are another classic, such as the Serpent Squad teams assembled by Marvel's favorite corporate nasty, Roxxon. Or in the CU, VIPER sponsors a number of villain teams as super-powered backup for its regular agents. Your campaign's international criminal/subversive/terrorist agency can do the same. You can also make a villain team distinctive based on why its members stick together. This usually connects to their goals, but not always. For instance, a team of villains might stay together because they were all part of the same origin event. For a further variation, the villains might be related. I recently heard of a study that a very small percentage of American families account for a surprisingly large percentage of American crime. And no, this isn't Mafia-style organized crime: just families where everybody is a criminal -- mostly petty crime, from shoplifting to burglary or the convenience-store level of armed robbery. Some of these criminal families go back generations. Let them be mutants, or all be exposed to the same radiation accident, and you've got a supervillain team. Dean Shomshak

Many years ago, the radio program A Prairie Home Companion did a "Red Scare" spoof about Creeping International Canadianism! "A Canadian takeover of the United States: Could it happen? What would it look like?" Dean Shomshak

Washington State governor Jay Inslee is still playing it coy (or maybe dithering). As a Washingtonian, it would be nice to see our governor in the White House. But Inslee can't possibly win. See, he's earnest, experienced, reasonalby competent and intelligent... but not charismatic. A Democrat in the mold of Walter Mondale, Michael Dukakis, Al Gore, John Kerry and other election-losers. The old saying is that Republicans fall in line, but Democrats need to fall in love. And the party apparatus keeps producing dull policy wonks. (It doesn't help that Inslee's signature issue is climate change, on which he has consistently failed to achieve anything even in a deep blue state. Two of his carbon tax proposals have now failed at the ballot box. And polls establish pretty clearly that while a majority of Americans say climate change is a problem, they will not tolerate even the slightest possibility of economic hardship in order to do anything about it.) Dean Shomshak

Okay, one wacko. But if I'm not letting conservatives screech about "violence pervading the Left" because of that one guy who shot at the Republican congressmen, I'm not willing to accuse the Party of Trump of systematic, Fascist-level political violence because of that guy either. I try to be better than that. (Don't always succeed, but I try.) (The far right does seem to attract a lot more such wackos, though. Link to study available on request.) Dean Shomshak

In revising the home dimension of Tyrannon the Conqueror, for the CU, I built it around toroidal stars and planets within a smoke-ring galaxy. Of course the artist completely screwed up the illustration. DEean Shomshak