Climate Change, Farewell Fawell, Gaming News

[tcpip]

Unitarian Extension Movement's forum on climate change, species deaths and alternative technology last Sunday was excellent. Most appropriately the following day had a wonderful opportunity to slap-down some serious idiocy courtesy of the von Mises Institute. It really was like shooting fish in a barrel. Climate change was also a media feature this week with recognition that extremes will affect Australia, and especially Victoria.

A couple of days ago my flist seemed to in celebration over the demise of Jerry Fawell. His apocalyptic beliefs, and hatred of secular liberalism and abhorrent theology certainly generates little sympathy from this corner of livejournal. Rather appropriately, nom_de_grr plays Godwin's and challenges us to find the differences (in speech) between Fawell and Hitler. The key point: both are people who sought not to keep their theological beliefs to their own lives, but rather to impose them on others. Appropriately angel80 links to North Korea's Juche as a religion.

Monte Cook makes some very good comments about Dragon and the state of D&D. On Sunday ran the first session of Stormbringer's Rogue Mistress which is just great. Also have completed a further two scenes for the HeroQuest Glorantha epic.

Best title goes to reddragdiva. Science proves that trolls really are a bunch of dicks. Mightily impressed by beagl linking the free LP for a compilation of New Zealand undergound music (yes, I've been looking at properties in Dunedin again). Do you have ten favourite movies? List them on slipjig's survey.

Comments

Falwell

[callistra.livejournal.com]

Did you see Fred Phelps is planning to picket the funeral?

Re: Falwell

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'd heard that but haven't read the news report. What's his beef? I thought those two would have been great bedfellows (pardon the pun and apologies for the mental image)..

Re: Falwell

[cluebyfour.livejournal.com]

Nah. Falwell wasn't nearly enough fire-and-brimstone for Phelps. From their press release:

There is little doubt that Falwell split Hell wide open the instant he died. The evidence is compelling, overwhelming, and irrefragable. To wit:

1 Falwell was a true Calvinistic Baptist when he was a young preacher in Springfield, Missouri; and sold his soul to Free-Willism (Arminianism) for lucre.

2. Falwell bitterly and viciously attacked WBC because of WBC9s faithful Bible preaching - thereby committing the unpardonable sin - otherwise known as the sin gainst the Holy Ghost.

3. Falwell warmly praised Christ-rejecting Jews, pedophile-condoning Catholics, money-grubbing compromisers, practicing fags like Mel White, and backsliders like Billy Graham and Robert Schuler, Etc. All for lucre - making him guilty of their sins.

Burn, Jerry, Burn! One of these shirts should make quite a splash at Sunday service.

How about this one?

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Re: How about this one?

[cluebyfour.livejournal.com]

Excellent. However, this one may be pushing it a bit. The ultimate onanism!

(I was told this was designed by the younger brother of one my close friends; knowing him I'm not surprised!)

Re: How about this one?

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Being more than slightly irreverent means I find purile humour in the following...

http://www.divine-interventions.com/baby.php

Re: How about this one?

[imajica-lj.livejournal.com]

Brilliant.

Re: Falwell

[lederhosen.livejournal.com]

Phelps' explanation here.

Re: Falwell

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Wow... Just when you think you've read the craziest shit, someone comes along and beats it.

I'm almost tempted to do a parody site which attacks Phelps...

Re: Falwell

[lederhosen.livejournal.com]

Been done...

Re: Falwell

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Oh no, I was thinking something along the line of Phelps is a liberal fag-lover type site. You know, accuse him of pandering to limp-wristed democratic processes like protests and so forth, when truly righteous person would do the stonings themselves! (Especially for those who work on the Sabbath)

Re: Falwell

[mr-figgy.livejournal.com]

I love this icon

Re: Falwell

[callistra.livejournal.com]

Here's my christmas version
:-)

Re: Falwell

[mr-figgy.livejournal.com]

*applauds*

[mr-figgy.livejournal.com]

I didn't bake a cake and throw a party on news of Falwell's passing, but there are some people I'm just not going to miss and he is one of them. I'm also wondering if the void left in his movement by his death will simply cause someone equally abhorrent yet younger and more vigorous to take his place...

[ser-pounce.livejournal.com]

On a similar theme.....Hong Kong has got the right idea:

http://community.livejournal.com/nolongerxian/10576.html?style=mine

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

*laughs* Aahh, I've often wondered when that would happen.

I'll repost this to convert_me. They should have fun with it...

[autobeast.livejournal.com]

Why does the Von Mises institute continue to be at war with reality on SO MANY issues? Von Mises himself as not that kind of fool.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

I think any organisation which dedicates itself to the theories of one person will inevitably end up being a bit cultic and weird. I certainly encountered that with the Henry George crowd and prior to that in teenaged years with the Marxists. Informed political theory must come from the facts, rather than trying to beat reality to accord with an ideology.

It's not entirely accurate for they can be equally to blame but I certainly understand the intent behind the wry remark: "The facts are well known for their liberal bias".

[autobeast.livejournal.com]

The facts are well known for their liberal bias, except in general economics, which makes both liberals, conservatives, and libertarians feel stumped most the time.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Well, the libertarians think that if you treat the world as if it was a perfectly competitive market, it will become one... The liberals tend not to see that an opportunity to engage in anti-social action can be an incentive to do so, and conservatives cannot fathom why national and religious loyalty does not accord first place in the minds of thinking people...

[autobeast.livejournal.com]

To liberals credit (even though I am probably not one by many definitions) there misunderstanding does seem to be the most understandable. The fact that an openness implies an incentive isn't necessarily obvious or intuitively logical (which doesn't mean, of course, it is not true. Hence my continuing obsession with model agnosticism and complexity theory).

[madame-mage.livejournal.com]

*scratches head and looks puzzled!~*..

but but but..seems people like to see MY reaction when they bait me..I must have some real ZINGERS for facial expressions when I get cranky...., I never fail to amuse Im sure of it! *wry grin*..I don't think this last part of your post regarding men's reactions to getting mightily twreaked..is fair to some of us females..but hell then again there are always exceptions!..

meh to Fawell..Jackass! the world is a little brighter thanks to his passing..

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Hmmm... I don't think it's humour that said people are seeking but rather gratification that they've upset someone else.

[madame-mage.livejournal.com]

ah make no mistake, I do get somewhat upset...and I realise it is someone's sick idea that they can get a rise out of an individual if they push hard enough. I try to defuse with humour because if I didn't...I would be no better than they who poke at me in the first place.

I used to have a terrible temper, logic and time mellowed me out considerably..you strike me as a fairly mellow guy that most things/people/situations do not bother you because you see the entire picture at a first glance..just a passing thought I had..

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

In my day-to-day life I'm very concilatory. One of my friends nick-namesd me "a spirit level" on that basis..

Internally however over the "big issues" I have a furnace burning away...

Still waters run deep and all that...

[madame-mage.livejournal.com]

the "still waters run deep" is a strong part of your appeal. I like your observations about your corner of the world, altho I don't always have a frame of reference to access from, your entries are still fun to read!

[tempusfrangit.livejournal.com]

I was wondering if Phelps was going to do something.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

No matter what he does, we can always be sure it won't be good.

[tempusfrangit.livejournal.com]

No kidding. :\ Jerryboy wasn't a saint.. but Phelps is enough to make Jesus probably wanna come down and slap him around a bit.

Move to Dunedin!

[kimeros.livejournal.com]

We're looking at properties in Dunedin as well.

Possibly looking to move there in October.

Re: Move to Dunedin!

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Ahh brilliant. Now we have even more incentive.

Re: Move to Dunedin!

[kimeros.livejournal.com]

Same.

We should encourage as many interesting people as possible. Possibly once we are there and have purchased our cheap houses :)

Re: Move to Dunedin!

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Well Dunedin is the sort of place where you can end up with a 5 bedroom mansion for 350K...

[cinematic.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure that Monte's comments say anything much about D&D. I think it says more about him - he sounds jaded - and the past will always be better than today

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

I read exactly the opposite from his comments; that attempting to recapture a sense of nostalgia isn't possible because well, the excitement of first-time play is over.

Something that I did catch however is the suggestion that current first-time gamers are going to have a great sense of nostalgia looking back at gaming today because the games are better.

[cinematic.livejournal.com]

I think the 'excitement of the first time' argument could be used for many things in life. You could say the same thing about sex, or your favourite meal, or whatever. But when those things become boring you change them or spice them up. Same thing with D&D. I don't see how role playing is really any different or some kind of special case. And if you didn't experience some kind of fun or nostalgia, I think you would have stopped playing RPGs a long time ago.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

And if you didn't experience some kind of fun or nostalgia, I think you would have stopped playing RPGs a long time ago.

True enough; his point however that game systems are better these days should imply (all other things being equal) that rpg nostalgia should be better in the future.

Of course, one of the problems is despite some rather archiac design and so forth from a contemporary perspective, RPGs in the late 70s and early 80s still had a great deal of 'newness' about them. For this reason alone I am very appreciative of the work that White Wolf did in the 90s and The Forge people are doing today; they are regeneration a sense of "this is new and interesting".

[strangedave.livejournal.com]

Arguing with the von Mises people will get you nowhere. They have long ago decided that ideology trumps inconvenient facts. Far better to needle and annoy them when they step out of their own little blog.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Praxeology's methodological individualism is almost a perfect example of "don't trouble me with the facts, I have a perfect theory".

[reddragdiva]

Is that the best of the von Mises mob? Good God.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

He wasn't that great to begin with and with a small army of US libertarian fans his status has diminished further.