If there is one thing gamers can agree on it's that Monopoly is awful. In fact, a backlash against the tired roll and move mechanics is a big reason that Eurogames have blossomed. But, what if Monopoly were redesigned with a modern sensibility? I think it might look something like Owner's Choice.

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Now that I've officially Over The Hill and a whole decade past my Logan's Run sell-by date, health and end-of-life issues concern me more. Getting old, in the abstract, doesn't terrify me. However, the prospect of some mental and physical disabilities — dementia and blindness, for example — scare the shit out of me.

That's why the issue of the right to die, and assisted suicide, still interest me. I've had a living will since shortly after I watched oral argument before SCOTUS in the Cruzan case. I do not intend to spend the end of my life in needless suffering. So the plight of popular fantasy author Terry Pratchet — and his recent plea to permit assisted suicide — is quite moving to me.

Life is easy and cheap to make. But the things we add to it, such as pride, self-respect and human dignity, are worthy of preservation, too, and these can be lost in a fetish for life at any cost.

I believe that if the burden gets too great, those who wish to should be allowed to be shown the door.

In an America where provisions for end-of-life planning are spun as a sinister euthanasia plot, nationwide developments on this point seem unlikely. I'll need to look out for myself. If it comes to it, surely some of you out there would be willing — if not eager — to smother me with a pillow.

We are advertising a job. We get a lot of resumes. I am struck by two things: the number of people who foolishly do not highlight non-profit or database work (despite the fact that we are a non-profit looking for a database person) and the staggering level of poor writing and proofreading in cover letters.

I was recently looking for a job. I worked hard on each cover letter I sent out, to ensure it was topical and correct. Never would I have sent out a letter that first lauded my attention to detail, and then (in the very next sentence!) said how much I would like to work at <company that isn't us>. Sigh. I weep for our future.

Eugene Volokh notes this passage from a Delaware court's child custody ruling, discussing a father's choice of what movies his roughly 14-year-old could watch:

This Court also has concern regarding Father's decision-making in allowing [son] to watch certain R-rated movies. While Gladiator may not be such a poor decision, clearly a movie that has sexual content would be. Mother testified that [son] was allowed to see the movie American Pie which has sexual content.

American Pie has a fair amount of nudity, non-graphic sex, f-bombs, and rude sexual humor. Parts of it are funny. Gladiator has no nudity that I recall, and no sex (though it has implied incestuous lust), but has buckets and buckets of gore and is chock-full of fairly graphic violence. It's a great flick.

I'm usually somewhat skeptical of the cliche that American culture is too tolerant of violence and too intolerant of sex. But this seems a fairly stark case of that tendency. I'm not sure why it would be worse to show my kids American Pie than Gladiator.

I have spent more of this afternoon than I care to admit going through old clips of NBA stuff on Youtube. It's easy to forget, given the controlled image of hoops today, how rough and tumble the NBA was even in the 80s. I was looking for old footage of the Celtics, and came across this great clip. Larry Bird & Bill Laimbeer go at it pretty good. The best part is when a pissed off Bird fires the ball off Laimbeer's head after the fight had been broken up. Amazingly, neither player was ejected. Imagine that happening in today's game!

Of course, the Celtics always seemed to have a little something extra for Laimbeer. I'm not ashamed to admit that I really enjoy how he crumples after that shot.

In some ways, the wide open play of the current era is great to watch, but there was something about those 80s teams, clawing and fighting for anything they could that really spoke to me. Also watching those clips you can see how different the game is today. Much more one on one "let me take my man off the dribble" as opposed to the beautiful passing and motion of the great 80s teams. I definitely miss that. Yes, it was a different time…

Is there anyone connected to this "debate" who isn't being an utter choad?

Creepy socialist that I am, I was pretty excited when I learned that the government has seized creationist /new world order conspiracy theorist / serial tax evader / Creation Science Evangelism pastor Kent Hovind's Florida-based Dinosaur Adventure Land. Public ownership of AIG?  Meh.  General Motors?  Gone in two years.

But dinosaurs?  Florida theme parks?  Dinosaurs living at the time of Christ? Rock and roll!

Then I had to read a review of the place.

The guides sweep the crowd of children and their adult escorts to the first part of the tour, called “The Expedition.” It is a collection of playground equipment and learning-center activities dressed up with dinosaur-related names and the occasional dino head or tail. There is a sign next to each activity that explains what to do, the science it purports to illustrate, and the spiritual lesson that one should really take away from the experience. There is a simple lever-and-pulley device that a child can sit in and pull himself up and down on very easily. It is called the “Longneck Liftasaurus,” and after the guides demonstrate the device with a child volunteer, they tell their audience that while the block-and-tackle device can give one a physical lift—that’s the science lesson—it is only God that can give one a spiritual lift—that’s the spiritual lesson.

Then it is on to the “Circle Swivel Springasaurus,” in which a child volunteer is spun around a clearing on a swiveling harness that is suspended under the spreading branches of a huge, live oak tree. The child is instructed in how to hold his legs and arms to control his balance and change the shape of the arc. The science lesson includes some vague statements about centrifugal forces and conservation of energy, but the real point is that a life without God can leave you dizzy and confused and only God’s guidance can show you the way. This is recited while the child stumbles around and nearly falls, indeed dizzy and confused after his Springasaurus experience, eliciting laughter from the crowd. The guides get a bigger laugh when they advise him that if he feels like he’s going to “puke,” he “should puke in the bushes and not on any of the rides.” This, like almost everything said by the tour guides, is scripted. There is a television in the bookstore running a copy of the videotaped tour of the park hosted by Hovind, and his narration, even down to the “puke” joke, is repeated by the guides.

Memo to the Obama administration:  If you're going to run theme parks to promote your socialistic new world order, at least get some good ones.  Like Disney World, which also promotes a cult but has decent rides.  Or Universal Adventures, which has secular dinosaurs with moving parts. Or Stalin World, which better fits your overall message and agenda.

If I wanted vomit and plastic dinosaurs with no moving parts, I could skip Florida and just drive to Wal-Mart.

Via Religion Clause.

You think the DMV is bad? Wait until you have to wait in line at the DCWD.

The problem is that there are 53 cards in the rest of the world's deck.

Now that Tim McVeigh is dead and until Osama Bin Laden is caught, Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme is about as close as we can get to the Joker: a batshit-insane psychopath who's probably still a Manson family adherent, and will probably murder again.  Squeaky not only attempted to murder Gerald Ford, she was probably the most vicious of the Manson monsters.  Think "fork."

She's not just up for parole.  She's getting it. If she's eligible and entitled, I reluctantly support parole for her.  But I hope she'll be set free in a state that has liberal firearms laws, and wouldn't vote to convict the neighbor who shot her for looking sideways at him or her.

The idea of Fromme as a neighbor is a classic case for jury nullification.

Update: Our friend Chris Berez points out that it was probably Katie Krenwinkel who wielded the fork.  Squeaky was probably one of the Manson Family members who killed James Willett after forcing him to dig his own grave.

Rejoice all & sundry as the iPhone finally has a port of Nethack! Without question Nethack is my most played game, and now I can play it on the bus, at the beach, in the bathroom, where ever. I'm not gonna lie, I almost jailbroke my iPhone a few months ago just to have access to Nethack, but now I don't have to. This is excellent news. Maybe I'll finally win a game for the first time.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go quest.. er, I mean the bathroom.

He was frozen so stiff it took them two days to thaw him out for the autopsy.

Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein has warned his employess to avoid making big-ticket, high-profile purchases as the gold-plated Wall Street firm hunkers down amid a firestorm of public and political anger over outsize bonus payments.

"What did I tell you?  You don't buy anything.  Don't buy anything!  You're gonna get us all pinched."

I of course wouldn't compare Goldman Sachs to the mob.  The mafia never had as much influence on government as Goldman has today.

If you want to see what modern independent journalism can accomplish, look no further than this marvelous expose of a pack of sociopaths who call themselves Pranknet. Pranket specializes in phone "pranks" of varying levels of cruelty and sickness. Patrick, in discussing one of Pranknet's past escapades, made an apt comparison to the Milgram Experiment and its lesson that people will do cruel or ridiculous things if told by a putative authority figure. But responsibility is not a zero-sum game; the fact that sensible people ought not fall for the pranks (because sensible people ought not do bizarre things just because a voice on the phone tells them to) does not diminish the fact that the person setting up the prank is a scumbag.

The best part of TSG's expose is that Pranket's members turn out to be exactly what you would imagine if you were making up a rude story about them: arrested adolescent man-children, sex offenders, convicts, and misfit losers of every stripe. For all their big talk online — which typically involves racial epithets and threats — they scuttle like cockroaches when exposed to light. Take, for example, big talker "Dex" — real name Tariq Malik — who, after an online career of scorning law enforcement, calls 911 and hides behind his mommy to protect him from having to talk to TSG reporters:

Cowering in his room with his mother, Malik called 911 to report "suspicious persons" outside his home (it is unclear whether he used Skype to beckon cops). According to Windsor Police Service records, Malik asked not to be contacted by officers when they arrived at the Assumption Street address. Despite that request, Fouzia Malik, 51, eventually allowed a pair of Windsor patrolmen to enter the family's $600-a-month apartment. The officers spent about 30 minutes conferring with Tariq before emerging to report that he did not wish to speak with reporters.

It will likely not be the last time law enforcement finds itself inside Tariq Malik's bedroom.

Awesome.

I present this incredible video of a volcanic eruption filmed from the International Space Station.

Lowering the Bar reports that a plaintiff has sued LucasFilm, asserting claims for racial discrimination, sexual harassment, and wrongful termination, and complaining that LucasFilm employees called her, among other things an Ewok.

That would be Planetary Origin (Endor) discrimination.

As of yet, no lawsuits against LucasFilm for mayhem upon our childhood.

Via South Bend Seven, I see that the Los Angeles City Council is voting on whether to borrow $30 million from HUD to pay Cirque du Soleil to put on a show at the overpriced, overbuild Kodak theatre.

Proponents of the Cirque du Soleil proposal, including the Community Development Department that gave the OK earlier this week, say the show would create more than 900 jobs at the theater and the Hollywood and Highland complex. The report that details a plan for the jobs that will be created is still under wraps, however.

"Bendy Guy in Tights #7" will finally get off the dole.

If Cirque du Soleil is truly constantly sold out, and the market will bear the ticket prices they set, why can't they get private capital? Why are we asking taxpayers to subsidize a preferential government loan to support them? They don't even have tigers.