[Population: One] <A HREF="http://popone.innocence.com/ar

Den Beste misses the point yet again. "What I think is that they [the nations of the world] already do hate our guts, and that at this point acting unilaterally won't increase that to any significant degree." OK, let's let that be a given for the purposes of argument. Now cast your mind back a year and a half. How did we squander all that good will?

Kevin Drum highlights a different problem with that statement here.

(And yeah, I know the nations of the world don't hate us. Den Beste doesn't, though, and I don't want to argue points I'm not trying to make.)

[Population: One] <A HREF="http://popone.innocence.com/ar

A generation ago, the City fell. The world fell. It is said that a great disaster marked the date, but that none knew of its significance until it was far too late. It is said that once, men did not believe in demons. If that is so, then disbelief was washed away by a torrent of winged creatures who eat memories and leave only shadows where men once walked.

You are brookers, heirs to the tradition of your fathers, who fought the good fight on the Street of the Walls. You bargain with the merchants of the mainland, to ensure that every resident of the City can eat. You battle the demons that live in the tops of the fallen towers with sword and fire, because that is what your fathers did before they died, and you are better trained than your fathers.

You are curry men, who fearlessly ride the metal steeds of a dead era, with the sacred bags slung over one shoulder. You carry dispatches throughout the City, so that the brookers always know what to buy and what to sell. You are in more danger from the demons than anyone, as you dance around the hulks that litter the streets, but you know no fear.

You are barrers, who know the secrets of words and clauses, and the ways in which a sentence shapes those who read it. You bind the demons of the City, weaving webs of pacts and treaties, to create safe places for the curry men to ride and for the brookers to live. You worry, sometimes, that the demons take your soul even as you take their free will, but you know that the world would end without you, so you stay true to your path.

In the southern section of the City, the aged foreign wizard Soros crouches at the top of the Empeer Spire, watching all below him. He is not of the City, and it is well rumored that he treats with demons. None other safely lives above the ground, and one man can not stand against the hordes, so his corruption seems self-evident.

Far to the west, the Children of Buffet keep the spirit of Ampire pure in the great wheat fields of Witah. But that is very far from the City.

[Population: One] <A HREF="http://popone.innocence.com/ar

The Retrosheet folks are more obsessive about a larger quantity of data (not to mention more productive) than you. I can almost guarantee this. They are engaged in the slow process of compiling as much data as possible about every Major League Baseball game ever played. They have the day by day standings for every season since 1900. Here's April 11th, 1912. They have play by plays for most games between 1967 and 1990. They find it disappointing that they don't know which umpires were assigned to all their games. I am in total awe.

I have a very clever idea regarding all this data, which I will debut sometime. Woot!