I Want to Believe

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Rah-Rah-Rah–BOOM–de-ay

An advance word: I welcome intelligent comments on any of my posts, and I try to keep an open mind, but play nice or your comments get booted out the sandbox, okay? Politics is something I'm passionate about, so I'm including the subject here on occasion. If you disagree that's your right, but don't get snarky about it here. I make no apologies for my politics, but you're always welcome to roll your eyes at my musings and depart this page. Cool, we're good then. On with the show.

The third anniversary of the Iraq adventure has arrived. I think if the current administration put as much forethought into planning the invasion as effort toward selling it to the American people, we'd be out of there already. Instead, the administration rumbles on, unaffected by reality. Our troops deserve more.

I don't have the space here to fully list the many errors made in this war, but they are legion—from "Mission Accomplished" to the latest flare-up of "sectarian violence" (Bush-speak for low-grade civil war). This past weekend Cheney (whose poll numbers have now dropped lower than Nixon's during the height of Watergate) stated on Face the Nation that his earlier statements about "the Resistance being in its last throes" and our being "greeted as liberators" were accurate. Huh?

General Casey meanwhile made the rounds, looking noticeably nervous under Russert's blanket of questions on Meet the Press. He looked like a man terrified of being quoted saying anything negative. It seems the prediction he made a year ago about there being a "fairly substantial reductions in the size of our forces" in the Spring or Summer of 2006 if the training of Iraqis proceeded according to plan will fall flat. When questioned on this, he said that troops were already being drawn down, and cited his not accepting additional troops offered in December. Sorry buster, not accepting new troops isn't what I'd call a draw-down. Tommy Franks had also predicted drawing down to 30,000 troops before the end of 2003. Oops.
I know war is an unpredictable business, but if we had been right maybe once, I'd have more confidence in these guys.

I don't vote for a hasty pull-out—we've created enough chaos as it is—but it's time for the drumbeat of reality to reach additional ears in Washington. It's time for a few people to get sacked, as the British say, beginning with Rummy. It's time to bring in new ideas. The neocon agenda, while it may have our nation's best interests at heart, has been a disaster. Forcing democracy at the point of a gun doesn't work, especially if your intelligence gathering and pre-war planning stink. Encouraging nations to democratically elect leaders also doesn't always go according to plan—just ask the folks in Israel about recent elections in neighboring states. Political history has demonstrated that organized groups tend to win elections and fanatical groups can often be surprisingly (if unfortunately) organized.

During dinner tonight A mentioned that she feels that the criticism of the Press is correct, in that they don't run much good news. It's true, there are good things happening over there, but we rarely hear about them; watching the troops rebuilding a village well isn't as exciting or ratings-worthy as blood on the street I suppose. Worse yet, at this point the White House Press Corps and the White House are playing a distressing game of tag. This Administration is more secretive than most, and their reluctance to give straight answers (or even take unscripted questions at times) is at least partially responsible for the reporters acting like a pack of hungry wolves. David Gregory, perhaps realizing that viewers expected to find him rolling on the carpet with Scott McClellan soon and losing credibility by the day, has since dialed it back a notch and even speaks more moderately on the talk shows. Good.

I'm not letting the Democrats off the hook either—their ranks haven't exactly swelled with good Iraq ideas, beyond sitting back and eating popcorn while the President stumbles. The best way for them to earn some respect (for a change) is to come up with a valid plan, rally behind it together (another foreign concept that), and sell it just as hard as the President sells his "stay the course" strategy. That would be a start.

Like it or not, we're over there, and our security is still important. We are dumping 150 million dollars a day into Iraq, and folks are dying. We need to face reality, admit where mistakes have been made, and come up with a better game plan as one united nation.

Board Game Night Recap: A Pharaoh Rises!

This past Friday we played Age of Mythology. We were looking forward to this, especially after much Willie-bragging about future victories via e-mail. It would be our first gaming night after losing Nick (see A Time Too Short below) but I felt the return to some normalcy would be welcome; when the pizza came I dealt out an extra paper plate for Nick so he knows he’s with us in spirit in this and future contests.

Initial set-up: Dom and Mark pulled the Norse culture, whereas Willie and I drew the Egyptian. We considered swapping someone out for Greek, but decided to let fate rule, after shifting table positions so duplicate cultures were not back-to-back.

The game started fast, with early recruitment. Mark quickly played to type and beefed up his army, with the clear strategy of taking the Largest Army victory cubes at the end of each turn. He also built the first Tower to guard against attack on his fields. Willie meanwhile spent his money on buildings, favoring that route. Dom and I concentrated on acquiring land and made small additions to our armies.

Mark lead with an early attack on yours truly, but my chariots and war elephants held off the Norse hordes. The Egyptian spearmen easily held off larger units and after several units dropped with no losses on my side, Mark’s forces retreated. This gave me the opening I needed, and I quickly recruited mortal forces to my ranks, bolstered by a phoenix or two, to assume role as owner of the largest army. Dom meantime leaped ahead into the Classical Age, catching everyone by surprise.

Following turns saw Mark recruit and attempt to rebuild his weakened forces, Willie continuing to build, and everyone else jumping ahead into the Classical or Heroic Ages. I attacked Dom in an attempt to net a few victory cubes (Willie had grabbed an early lead in cubes and had no intention of losing his edge) and butchered his mortals with my chariots and scorpion men, taking a field. Willie soon attacked Dom, destroying his storehouse. Dom had never really gotten a foothold army-wise and this reduced his forces further, eliminating any real threat from my Norse neighbor to the left (a good thing, since Mark loves combat in AoM and similar games).

Latter turns saw Willie jump into the Mythical Age first, still leading in victory cubes. I managed to tie his amount of buildings and deny his latest Most Buildings victory grab. Willie attacked Mark and ended up in a war of tit-for-tat attrition, taking the worst of it. Mark later responded by inexplicably attacking me (I was doing well, but Willie was clearly leading and approaching the point of buying the Wonder). I eliminated a few of Mark’s large units, including a Troll, and my only loss, a single phoenix, was restored by my priest during the combat; Mark soon retreated.

The endgame saw me buying more spearmen to bulk up my army to 15 units, and then using a special card to change 3 of them into mummies (here’s to mummification!). I tried to keep pace with Willie’s Trump style building progress. By this point folks were quite savvy about using the Gather action at the right time to deny others resources. Dom in particular came out on the losing end so many times that throwing Dom a single cube almost became a running joke. Dom responded with a last, well-placed Gather action that gained him most every cube available. Willie played a special card that gained him his Mythical Hero—yikes!! I pleaded with the others to mount an attack on Willie and reduce his number of buildings, as I could not battle him directly (AoM limits attacks to those sitting next to you).

Alas, it was for naught. Willie reduced his building costs and succeeded in building the Wonder. The final victory cubes were assigned and Willie won at 11 cubes, just ahead of my 10.

It was an awesome game, enjoyed by all. We’ll have to give Willie his bragging rights this time, but I want a rematch (perhaps with Schizohedron joining us)! After all, losing by a mere cube is a lot to take…

Side Note:
An AoM fan named Michael Doyle has designed some beautiful alternate pieces and cards for the game. His ultra-cool site can be found here!

Sweet Geek Relief

Yesterday I finally took got a break after many days of toiling on my latest project for a RPG publisher. This project was a collaborative effort, and I'm pretty excited about it. That being said, I've spent days buried in books and stats and Excel sheets, getting the numbers right. Writing RPG stuff is harder than it looks, and sending my files off to my project editor (via e-mail of course) carried that same sense of relief mixed with excitement that probably every novelist dropping their latest boxed manuscript on her publisher's door feels.

Now I'll sit back and enjoy an imaginary cigarette ... at least until my editor's comments arrive or I remember that novel I half-finished a year (or two or three) ago that still needs finishing.

Ahh, it was good while it lasted.