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Virginia Heinlein passed away yesterday; thanks to Kevin Drum for the news. I'm saddened.

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Apparently Robin Laws will soon be writing Iron Man. Yes, as in the Marvel Comics Iron Man. Tony Stark. Buh!

For those of us not versed in roleplaying games, Robin Laws has been an influential figure in the industry for the last decade or so. He contributed to the classic RPG Over the Edge, which found its inspiration in William S. Burroughs and David Lynch, an entirely new source of ideas for the roleplaying community. He went on to write GURPS Fantasy II, which kicked the normal fantasy RPG tropes in the balls and then went off to get drunk by itself on cheap tequila. With Feng Shui, he abruptly shed the "weird non-commercial designer" tag and demonstrated his ability to write sound mechanics that actively support a game's genre. Since then he's worked on Star Trek, various White Wolf games, and whatever else caught his interest.

I look forward to his foray into the world of comics.

Edit: minor correction. Apparently he's a five issue fill-in writer, and no permanent writer has been announced. Still!

Terseness

If you find my entries to be overly long, have a paid account, and would prefer to just see the first chunk of each entry with a link to the rest, I've set up a LJ for my RSS feed. Check out popone to see what it looks like, and replace me with that on your friends list if you like that style better.

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It occurs to me that one of the large obstacles in the way of invading Iraq is the Security Council veto. It further occurs to me that the rationale behind the veto, that being the great power status of the Allied nations after World War II, is somewhat antiquated.

I don't think any pro-war pundit can deny that the veto is tremendously frustrating. As so many have pointed out, it seems ridiculous that France can effectively stand in the way of UN action. That ability -- the ability of one nation to unfairly stop debate in its tracks -- prevents the UN from being effective. Again, many argue that the UN's inability to press the issue of Iraq is ruining the UN as we watch.

OK. Let's get rid of the veto. I won't go so far as to recommend that the permanent members of the Security Council lose that status, but let's get rid of the vetos and enable the UN to respond in a timely fashion without fear of being blackmailed by any single nation.

Nota bene: Russia has vetoed over 60% more resolutions than the next most frequent vetoer. Someone on NPR tonight was claiming that the US held the record. Incorrect; the link above has the real numbers.