Stromata Blog

Dissonance in Trumpistan

Last week Donald Trump enthusiastically endorsed “his” coronavirus vaccines, which he can rightly claim in the sense that he committed billions of dollars of government funds to purchasing them before they had been developed, much less approved for widespread use. If that effort had failed, there’s no doubt that Mr. Trump would be widely blamed for wasting the taxpayers’ money, but his gamble paid off, and it’s quite understandable that he – especially he – would want the credit, albeit he was until recently pretty reluctant to do so.

Many of his most fervent followers don’t agree with his pro-vaccination stance. Today the “Daily Trump Report”, whose masthead proclaims, “WE [heart] TRUMP”, tried to answer the question, “Why Is President Trump Pushing The Poison Vaxx?” Spoiler: You won’t learn the answer by reading the article. Instead, you must watch a YouTube video by a guy who “wrote his own computer software that basically analyzed the entire internet and looked for patterns in linguistics that would amazingly start to predict future events”. Hari Sheldon smiles.

Well, I didn’t watch the YouTube, having better things to occupy my time on Boxing Day (such as a quick game of the excellent but sadly orphaned Title Bout Championship Boxing). I shall have to remain in ignorance of the evidence allegedly supporting the writer’s conclusions:

President Trump is not dumb, and he is the master at using his audiences to “take their temperature” on certain topics.

He doesn’t always heed to the masses, but he always has his finger on the pulse of the nation.

So I find it impossible to believe he’s just so randomly out of touch on this one major issue. I highly doubt it.

What I said recently was my hunch is there is much more to this story that we don’t know about and one day (soon I think) it will start to come out.
As always, I believe President Trump is playing 4D chess and playing against multiple parties all at the same time.

While it’s easy for us to Monday-Morning Quarterback and say “vaccines bad!”, President Trump is juggling multiple things all at once and sometimes you have to sacrifice a pawn or even a bishop or a rook to win the game of chess.

If I believed that Donald Trump plays 4D chess in a simultaneous exhibition, I’d say that he deliberately lost in 2020, so that the world would see first hand how incompetent Joe Biden is and how malicious his handlers are. That would be the gambit of a grandmaster.

Peter Campbell Sleight (1945–2010), R.I.P.

Just over 45 years ago, through the odd medium of cassette recordings exchanged between New Haven and Hawaii, I met Pete Sleight, who would be one of my closest friends until he died Sunday morning of a cancer so aggressive that the first symptoms had appeared only a month before.

Pete made one contribution to popular culture: A Yale Daily News article about his erratic academic career (he took ten years to get his Yale B.A.) reportedly inspired a portion of Gary Trudeau’s character Zonker. Aside from that, he did nothing that will go into the history books: served in the Navy during the Vietnam War, worked as an investigator for the General Services Administration, and wound up his government career in the personnel function of the Department of Agriculture, where he once scotched a phony scandal ginned up by Democratic Congressmen against a Republican Secretary.

No, on second thought, if the Yale Political Union ever becomes an historians’ pastime, he will be famous. During his prolonged undergraduate career, he chaired the Conservative Party, was a major figure in The Party of the Right, founded the short-lived but briefly important Federalist Party, and co-founded the Tory Party. He was one of the two or three best Union orators of his generation, among the few who could draw whisperers-in-the-anteroom back to a debate. He was also, I’m pretty sure, the only speaker ever to say something actually funny during the annual Humorous Debate.

He will also earn at least a few paragraphs if there are ever any histories of modern wargaming. He was an inveterate game player and a very skillful one. He won the Kingmaker tournament at the first Origins convention and had no trouble defeating me in most of our many contests. Memorably, we played a long series of Imperium games in the 1970’s for a wager of a fifth of bourbon per game. His liquor cabinet ended up well stocked. Back in our undergraduate days, we devised an election game, covering both the Presidency and Congress. We started the election cycles in 1492, pitting his New World Party against my Flat Earth Party, and eventually reached, if I recall correctly, the late 1500’s, with the New Worlders as dominant as he hoped the GOP will be after next Tuesday.

He died, as I said, with very little warning. One week, his appetite faded and he suffered severe insomnia. When I visited him earlier this month, he was able to force himself to eat but felt too tired to join a group of college buddies for our annual visit to the Maryland Renaissance Fair. The next week, he went to the hospital for tests. A week later, he was dead. I will miss him terribly, and am not the only one.

If You Want to Look Beyond Next Tuesday

A week from this instant, I’m probably going to be feeling pretty grim about the 110th Congress. But politics – in the U.S. anyway – shares a characteristic with baseball: No matter how bad the last season was, the next one is always full of hope. Just in time to take advantage of the political equivalent of the Hot Stove League, 80Soft.com has released a new, much augmented edition of President Forever, a first rate (and amazingly inexpensive, just $19.95) computer simulation of American Presidential elections. Added are not only the 2008 scenario but also the races for the party nominations, which no game, manual or electronic, has made a serious effort to cover before.

I ordered my copy just a few minutes ago, so this isn’t a review. I will note, though, that the steady improvement in the company’s other products has been impressive. The last before President Forever was Prime Minister Forever – Canada 2006. (I’m happy to say that Stephen Harper got better results than I did.) Others deal with parliamentary elections in Britain, Australia, Germany and British Columbia. So far, however, Israeli politics remain impossible to reproduce using a device as logical as a computer.

Afterthought: How about a cross between two genres – a Palestinian election game in which the opposing parties deploy both ballots and bullets?

Wargame Rambles

One of the great things about wargames is the reminder that our current era, despite the worst efforts of the Leftist-Islamofascist alliance, is a lot safer and more comfortable than most of the rest of human history. (Perhaps that’s one reason why it’s so hard to rouse Westerners to take the enemy seriously.) Here are a few notes on what I’ve been playing or looking at lately:

Your Own Canadian Election

80Soft.com is the only company, so far as I know, that produces computer games about parliamentary elections. Now that Canada is in the midst of another campaign, Prime Minister Forever – Canada 2006 has appeared, the latest in the oddly named series that has also covered recent elections in Australia, Britain, British Columbia and Germany. Comparing it to its predecessor of 2½ years ago, one sees a lot of worthwhile augmentations: minor parties (12 parties in all, with minors ranging from the Greens to the Christian Heritage), a long list of potential endorsers (major newspapers, business and labor groups, grass roots advocates of narrow causes) offering differing benefits (momentum, money, foot soldiers), a variety of forms of advertising, more detailed geographical differentiation (Ontario, for instance, is split into four regions, Quebec into three) and sundry lesser features. With just a little effort, one can customize game elements (e. g., by adding new endorsers, advertising options, key issues or special events) or create entirely new scenarios. The 2006 version comes with recreations of the 1993, 1997, 2000 and 2004 Canadian contests, as well as the current one, giving masochistic Conservatives a variety of frustrations to endure. All of this costs only $18.95 in Canadian money, which is very nearly the equivalent of free.

I haven’t yet had time to play a complete game, though I’ll certainly try to get in a couple before January 23rd. Regarding the outcome of the real life version, I have little optimism. As was readily predictable, Paul Martin’s Liberal Party has adopted Gerhard Schröder’s anti-American hysteria, reinforced by appeals to the most scoundrelly form of patriotism. As David Warren observes,

To be fair, Mr Martin and cronies have more reasons to cling, than the enjoyment of power itself. For if even a minority Conservative government can be formed, there may be three-party agreement to launch corruption inquiries that go far beyond the scope of the Gomery Commission. Billions upon billions are spent annually in other unaudited programmes, crying out for review. Remember this each time the Liberals sound desperate.

The OpinionJournal Political Diary (have I mentioned that it’s a mere $3.95 a month?) has more on Liberal anti-Americanism and the winding tendrils of the party’s corruption:

America-bashing helped to re-elect Jacques Chirac and Gerhard Schroeder when they were in tight re-election contests in France and Germany a few years back, and it now appears Canada’s Liberal Party prime minister, Paul Martin, is taking a page out of their playbook. He took advantage of the recent Montreal climate conference to lecture the United States to heed a “global conscience” and adopt strict standards in fighting global warming. This despite the fact Canada has a proportionally worse record than the U.S. on controlling greenhouse gas emissions [nearly twice as rapid a rise since 1990 – ETV].

His swipes at the U.S. in the run-up to Canada’s January 23 election elicited a sharp response from U.S. Ambassador David Wilkins, who told an Ottawa audience that incessant criticism of the U.S. could eventually damage the close relationship between the two countries. “Canada never has to tear the United States down to build itself up,” he said. “It may be smart election politics to thump your chest and constantly criticize your friend and your No. 1 trading partner. But it’s a slippery slope and all of us should hope it doesn’t have a long-term impact on our relationship.”

Mr. Martin seized on the remarks by the U.S. diplomat to retort: “That our friends do not like what we say – well, c’est la vie. I’m going to defend Canada and I’m right on softwood lumber and I’m right on climate change and I won’t let anybody tell me that I should not defend my country.”

It’s worth noting, however, that Mr. Martin has not been that eager to defend all Canadians. Chief among them is Maurice Strong, his former patron and until recently a top United Nations official who has been implicated in the oil-for-food scandal. Mr. Strong was also a key architect of the unworkable Kyoto treaty on global warming.

Canadian journalist Judi McLeod reports that Mr. Strong “has been missing in action” in this election campaign “and you can safely bet” that will continue to be the case until the actual vote. You can also safely bet that if Mr. Martin continues to bash the U.S. over Kyoto, he can expect return fire over his ties to Mr. Strong.

I doubt that the last bet is all that safe. The prime minister and his media megaphones will doubtless denounce criticism of Mr. Strong’s ties to Saddam Hussein as another instance of un-Canadian activities.

Despite hopeful polls showing, for instance, that the Conservatives actually lead the Liberals, however narrowly, outside Quebec (which the separatist Bloc Québécois will sweep) and that 58 percent of the voters think that it’s “time for a change”, I doubt that it will occur to enough to them that the way to get change is not to vote for the status quo. The Schröder strategy worked once in Germany and almost repeated its success. Hence, I am psychologically prepared for another victory of the kleptocrats, whether or not they can be vanquished on my computer screen.

Addenda: 1. A free demo version of the game is available from CBC.

2. The deadline for nominating candidates is January 2, 2006, and the confirmed list will be released on January 5th. As I understand it, 80Soft will then produce a patch with the final candidate list and (probably) other updates and modifications.

Clobbering Schröder on Your Computer

Illness having opportunely forced Jacques “Le Ver” Chirac to the sidelines, Gerhard Schröder has the EU division of the Race to the Bottom all to himself. The strident anti-Americanism that he displayed in his debate with CDU leader Angel Merkel last Sunday was, of course, the product of desperation. Barring an anti-miracle, his party will suffer a massive defeat “after seven years of economic bumbling and unfulfilled promises”. Schadenfreude is uncharitable, but it will be hard to resist on September 18th.

For those who would like to indulge the feeling in advance, Eighty Dimensional Software has just added Chancellor Forever to its burgeoning line of computer simulations of parliamentary elections. Previous games have been set in Canada, Australia, Britain and British Columbia. (There is also one based on U.S. Presidential elections, though I find it less entrancing than its siblings.) The German edition uses the same basic engine with several interesting additions. One is unique to Germany: the preposterous voting system that tries to meld proportional representation with first-past-the-post constituencies and succeeds in aggravating the weaknesses of both. Others are new features that can be retrofitted to the rest of the series, including multiple types of advertising and free television time.

The Deutsches Institut für Public Affairs is credited with assisting in the game’s development. It is presumably responsible for the large quantity of local information built into the scenarios. Disappointing, however, is the absence of real life media endorsements like those included in the British version. Trying to lure Axel Springer or Der Stern to one’s side would make for more flavor and better gameplay than is provided by random, and potentially unbalancing, generic “endorsers”.

In line with conventional wisdom, there seems to be little chance that a coalition of the CDU/CSU and the Free Democrats can avoid winning a majority in the Bundestag, though reaching the voting percentages needed for a high victory point total isn’t easy at all. For more competitive play (and for those who think that it’s bad luck to set one’s hopes too high), there is also a 2002 scenario, in which Herr Schröder can repeat his anti-U.S., pro-Saddam campaign. (This year he’s moved on to defending the Iranian mullarchy’s nuclear ambitions, which doesn’t seem to be playing as well.)

Eighty Dimensional Software’s prices are startlingly low for products of this quality. Chancellor Forever costs only $12.00 (in English) or €10.00 (in German), with discounts for owners of other games in the series.

Eleutheria and Bavarokratia

I don’t believe that it is celebrated in Greece, where March 25th, the anniversary of the outbreak of the anti-Ottoman revolt of 1821, is regarded as Independence Day, but today marks the 173rd anniversary of formal Greek independence. On May 7, 1832, the Ottoman Empire agreed, at the Conference of London, to recognize Greece as a separate nation and give up efforts to reconquer its lost province. The Battle of Navarino (October 20, 1827) had made that outcome inevitable, but the Turks took their time about acceding to it.

The next year, a 17-year-old Bavarian prince, Otto of Wittelsbach, became King of Greece, inaugurating what is remembered as the “Bavarokratia”. It would not be far-fetched to say that his 29-year reign, ended by a coup in 1862, laid the foundations for all that is wrong with the Greek polity today: parliamentary manipulation, nationalistic designs beyond the country’s resources, cynical appeals to religion by irreligious politicians and military intervention in civil affairs, among other evils. Someone (I’d look it up but have a plane to catch) once penned a fantasia in which Lord Byron survived his wounds at Missolonghi and eventually became King instead of Otto. It’s hard to imagine Byron as a ruler, yet Greece might have been better served by some such eccentric choice.

Addendum: Joseph T. Major saves me the trouble of searching with the information that “If Byron Had Become King of Greece” was written by Harold Nicholson and first published in J. C. Squire’s anthology If It Had Happened Otherwise: Lapses Into Imaginary History (1931). Having lamented the lack of wargames on Latin American topics, let me also call attention to another gem from the same collection, H. A. L. Fisher’s “If Napoleon Had Escaped to America”, which, had it really happened, would have ensured a steady stream of games on the Emperor’s South American campaigns.

The Big Blank on the Wargaming Map

Today brings not only the dismal U.K. election (yes, the Tories are doing well as I write, but they don’t deserve – and won’t achieve – victory, while an unexpectedly close result will lead only to the faster accession of the unspeakable Gordon Brown) but also Cinco de Mayo, the great Mexican holiday. Technically it celebrates the victory of Mexican Republican forces over invading French troops at the Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862, an event of very little intrinsic significance. The French resumed their advance later in the year, captured Mexico City in June 1863, and installed the Austrian Archduke Maximilian as Emperor of Mexico. After that followed a four year civil war, which Maximilian lost only after U.S. pressure compelled Napoleon III to withdraw from the conflict.

That Cinco de Mayo eclipses the actual Mexican Independence Day (September 15, 1810) is rather as if the United States celebrated the Battle of Bunker Hill instead of the Fourth of July. Well, that is as it may be. What I want to note here is that Cinco de Mayo was just one incident in the tumultuous, fascinating military history of Latin America, almost all of which has been ignored by Anglophone wargamers. I am aware of only four games in English dealing with any battle or campaign south of the border the didn’t involve gringos: Caseros 1852: The Fate of Argentina (Simulations Workshop, 1998, on the battle the ousted the Argentinian dictator Ortiz de Rosas), the forthcoming Cactus Throne (slated for publication in Against the Odds #15, the war of Emperor Maximilian) and two games on the Chaco War between Bolivia and Paraguay, 1932-35, one from Game Designers Workshop (1973), the other published in Command #12 (1991).

Perhaps the thriving Spanish wargame industry has been more attentive, but I have seen only a magazine game, Libertadores (Soldados y Estrategia #10 (2003)), which recreates eight battles from the Wars of Liberation (1810-1824) using elementary rules and oddly designed counters.

The wargaming map has been filled in over the years with coverage of many an obscure conflict, yet here is a gigantic blank: We cannot refight the continent-wide struggle for Latin American independence or the heroically stupid War of the Triple Alliance or any of the numerous other military landmarks in the history of the southern half of our hemisphere. Were it not for the oft-proven axiom that norteamericanos will do anything for Latin America except pay attention to it, one would be astonished.

Another Reason to Regret That Britain Has Elections

With less than two weeks to go until May 5th, the Conservative Party’s leader has decided, reports the Daily Telegrah, to make an issue out of whether it was “illegal” to depose Saddam Hussein. Michael Howard either does or doesn't think that national security should be subordinated to lawyers’ opinions. If he does, he is grossly unfit to lead a serious government. If he doesn’t, he is what he accuses Tony Blair of being: a man telling “lies” for the sake of winning an election. Regardless of which alternative is correct, his tactic reinforces a dangerous tendency in British public opinion.

For reasons that I’ve outlined before, there is no realistic chance that Mr. Howard will wind up at Number 10 Downing Street. (The latest YouGov poll puts the party standings at 37% Labour, 33% Conservative, 24% Liberal Democrat, which Electoral Calculus estimates would yield 373 seats for Labour, a hundred more than all other parties combined.) He knows that as well as I do. Since he claims to be the successor to Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher, could he not at least run an honorable race, saying what the voters need to hear about the Islamofascist threat rather than joining, by clear implication, the “Everything is America’s Fault” chorus? The attack on Mr. Blair for “illegality” is, of course, an attack on George W. Bush for having dared to bring freedom and democracy to Iraq. So much for the Special Relationship between the U.K. and the U.S. that once meant a great deal to Conservative statesmen.

Incidentally, though it means nothing at all, my first complete game of Prime Minister Forever’s U.K. 2005 scenario, in which my version of Mr. Howard adamantly supported the liberation of Iraq, resulted in a dead heat: 232 seats for Labour, 230 for the Conservatives, 120 for the LibDems. If the real-world Tories could look forward to an outcome like that, they would be ecstatic.

Must We Wait for May 5th?

To begin with the unavoidable truth that earnest political analysts will try to ignore for the next 23 days: The Labour Party will win the U.K. election. Manifestos, party political broadcasts, candidate deselections, the Blair vs. Brown undertow and the Archbishop of Canterbury’s emergence as the voice of British small-c conservatism (no, really, per Iain Murray) are just song-and-dance routines to keep the crowd interested until the inevitable denouement – inevitable because the United Kingdom’s gerrymander would make a California Democrat or a Texas Republican blush. A few minutes toying with Electoral Calculus will demonstrate that the Conservatives can win the most seats in Parliament by finishing about six percentage points ahead of Labour. A minimal Tory majority requires about a nine point lead. To look at it another way, if the 2001 vote counts were exactly reversed, with the Tories getting 42 percent and Labour 33 percent (with the same 19 percent for the Liberal Democrats), the Conservatives would get an estimated 325 seats, a four-seat majority. Labour’s 42 percent last time won 403 seats.

What’s more, just in case Messrs. Blair and Brown feel like fixing a sure thing, Britain’s liberalization of postal voting has already led to one local election scandal. The government’s reaction was to tut-tut, and do nothing to prevent its recurrence on a nationwide scale.

The moral is that Michael Howard will not be the next Prime Minister. Therefore, it doesn’t matter whether he is, as John O’Sullivan insists, at heart a supporter of the War on Terror or whether his hypothetical administration would be friendlier toward civil liberties and citizens’ pocketbooks than Tony Blair’s. For completeness, I’ll add that Charles Kennedy won’t emerge as PM either; the electoral map is stacked worse against the LibDems than against the Tories.

There is, nonetheless, a degree of uncertainty: Will Labour win by a large enough margin to enable Mr. Blair to continue his domination of the party apparatus? Or will he be a lame duck, to be succeeded within a year or two by Gordon Brown, the hope of the Old Labourites? Iain Murray, whose ear is much closer to the turf than mine, forecasts a narrow Conservative lead in the popular vote and a much reduced Labour majority in the House of Commons, which will lead to –

one heck of a legitimacy problem for the new Labour government. The last time anything like this happened was in 1974, when Labour formed a government despite having received fewer votes than the Conservatives. Yet it was a minority government, unable to survive more than a few months. That will not be the case this time, barring major defections from Labour post-election (which will be unlikely). Blair will almost certainly fall as a result, Brown will replace him and politics will return to normal following the Blairite interregnum. The Tories will smell blood and be an effective opposition again at last.

Since a parliamentary minority is powerless, an “effective opposition” means one that can dream of winning an election four or five years from now and then trying to undo Gordon Brown’s follies. I wonder whether there will be enough of an England left by then to make the attempt worthwhile.

But enough of this manic optimism. The election does have entertainment value, highlighted from day to day by Guido Fawkes. It has also led to the release of an expanded version of that great computer parliamentary election game, Prime Minister Forever, a bargain at only $14.95. Included are scenarios for last year’s Canadian and Australian elections. It’s a lavishly detailed game, complete with ratings for the candidates in every constituency, and well worth the modest price. In fact, if you take the time that you were planning to devote to watching election coverage and spend it playing PMF instead, you will finish knowing more about U.K. politics and will have a more enjoyable time.

Further reading: David Frum, “Conservatives”:

“Why can’t British voters re-elect Blair now and then reject the [European Union] Constitution later?”

“It doesn’t work like that. A victory for Blair will be interpreted as a victory for EU integration.”

“And a defeat for Blair will be interpreted as a defeat for the pro-war coalition.”

“So, hmmm, as the British say.”

“Yes. Hmmm.”

Briefly Noted: Charlock, Simonsen, Social Security

■ The way that blogs come and go, I feared the worst when The Charlock’s Shade, a delightful blend of book notes and curmudgeonly observations on the state of culture, came to an abrupt halt last December 6th, while “Enoch Soames” was “out as well as about in Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A.” An ominous place to disappear! Happily, Enoch has reappeared just as abruptly. I take his harrowing account of his hiatus cum grano salis.

■ Redmond Simonsen, whose maps, counters and cover art for SPI have influenced wargame graphics ever since, died of heart failure on March 8, 2005, at the sadly young age of 62. He hadn’t worked in the wargaming industry for 20 years, but we old-timers remember him well. Operational Studies Group has posted reminiscences (page 1, page 2) from inter aliis Greg Costykian, David Isby, Jim Dunnigan, Jack Greene, Rodger MacGowan, Brad Hessel, John Prados, Eric Lee Smith and Kevin Zucker.

Update (4/24/05): The Charles S. Roberts Awards site has posted a detailed appreciation, Alan Emrich & Rodger B. MacGowan, “Our View is Better Because We Stood on the Shoulders of a Giant: Redmond A. Simonsen”.

■ Brendan Miniter’s description of the Democrats’ inchoate Social Security pseudo-reforms, which I noted when it appeared in the subscription-only OpinionJournal Political Diary, is now publicly available, with additional commentary, under the fitting heading, “Worse Than No Reform”. At least a few clever Dems have come up with ways to “save” Social Security that ignore its demographic imbalances while “improving” it in ways that would expand both the scope of the welfare state and the power of the federal government to influence the private economy. Not surprisingly, their ideas are Bill Clinton retreads.

Games in Ancient Iran

Not all the news coming out of the mullarchy involves nuclear weapons programs. The current cynosure of archeological interest is the southeastern Iranian city of Jiroft, whose previously unknown civilization, dating to the 3rd Millennium B.C., came to light only four years ago, when looted artifacts started showing up on the art market. An effort is under weigh to locate and assemble the scattered relics and to conduct professional excavations. There is evidence that the culture extended over a wide area and was in touch with Elam. Some archeologists are convinced that Jiroft is the legendary city of Aratta, which plays a prominent role in three surviving Sumerian narrative poems.

What caught my eye was a Cronaca link to a report of the discovery of five objects that have been tentatively identified as game boards. According to Persian Journal,

Three of these game boards look like eagles, one looks like a scorpion with human head, and the other is a flat board, and all have 12 or 18 holes with similar sizes. . . .

According to head of the archeology team of Jiroft, Yusef Majidzadeh, the holes in the boards, which count to 12 or 18, and their similarity in size indicating that they were most probably used as games by the ancient residents of the area.

It is not yet sure how the boards were exactly used, Majidzadeh told CHN, however, the equal numbers of the holes and the holes all being in one size show that they were games most probably played with some sort of beads.

Jean Perrot, a world-known archeologist and a retired expert of Louvre Museum who has also studied the boards told CHN that boards similar to these, plus some beads, have previously been discovered in the historical sites of Mesopotamia, and their form and structure shows that ancient people used them as games to entertain themselves.

The reference to “beads” suggests a relative of Mancala, but, judging by the accompanying the photographs (which unfortunately have no indication of scale), the holes are too shallow for that type of game. My guess, FWIW, is that, if these really are game boards, they were used for a race game akin to those known to have been played in ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt. The playing pieces would be pegs, each side perhaps having four (suggested by the four holes positioned in each of the “eagle’s” wings. Movement would be governed by chance (sticks or dice), with the object being to move down the central row of holes and bear off at the eagle’s tail.

Barring an incredible stroke of luck, we will never know the rules to these ancient pastimes, making my guesses as good as anybody’s.

Ahead of the Pundit

It’s not the kind of thing that happens often, but I should like to note that my post about the privately manufactured armored vehicles for sale on Amazon beat Instapundit’s by ten full days. Still, I was a week behind ConsimWorld.

A Private Enterprise AFV

When I first saw the Amazon page for the JL421 Badonkadonk Land Cruiser/Tank, I hastily concluded that it was a very clever hack that had been integrated seamlessly into the Amazon Web site. Maybe it is, but the giveway that I thought that I detected (a phony URL) turned out to be a figment of deteriorating eyesight. If the item is a joke, it is one that the Amazon staff is helping along.

So, for those of you who have $20,000 (plus shipping) to spare, here is what you can get:

The JL421 Badonkadonk is a completely unique, extremely rare land vehicle and battle tank. Designed with versatility in mind, the Donk can transport cargo or a crew of five internally or on the roof, and can be piloted from within the armored shell or from an exposed standing position through the hatch, thanks to special one-way steel mesh armor windows and a control stick that pivots up and down to allow piloting from the standing or seated positions.

There is, however, no mention of armament. Can main guns and missile launchers be found elsewhere on Amazon?

Frank Merriwell’s Fast-Rotating Grave

A very busy week ended with a trip to Albany to join various fellow Yalies in an excursion to Cambridge for The Game. It was not, alas, the finest hour in Yale football history: our fourth consecutive loss to Harvard (the first such streak since 1919-1922) in perhaps the worst-played Bulldog game that I’ve ever been unlucky enough to witness in person. All that one needs to know can be gleaned from the fact that Yale suffered two delay of game penalties in the first five minutes of the first quarter! Has that ever before happened in college football?

The final score was 35-3, but the game wasn’t actually that close. Last year’s defeat was frustrating, because the Yale offense was spectacular (30 first downs, 575 yards of total offense) at everything except scoring (17 points). This year was just dismal, a sad end to what had begun as a promising season. Oh, well, in sports there is always hope for next year, and at least we beat Princeton.

The consolation was plenty of time with people whom I don’t see nearly often enough, including my old friends George and Libby Pataki. George endures the frustration of being the center-right governor of a state whose Republican Party has revived the spirit of Nelson Rockefeller and now devotes most of its limited energy to trying to outbid the Democrats for left-wing backing. A sign of that strategy’s “success” is that the mushy GOP Senate candidate didn’t do even as well as Alan Keyes.

At the moment, the Republican-in-name-only State Senate majority is preparing to override the governor’s veto of a bill increasing the state’s minimum wage by two dollars an hour, a hike of almost 40 percent that constitutes economic masochism. The notion that the government can command employers to pay above-market wages to low-skill workers is a charming delusion. The Left nurtures it out of confidence in the power of planning and distrust of liberty, but what kind of Republican shares those sentiments? One whose ideological forebear was a billionaire shielded by wealth from the facts of economic existence, of course.

Libby meanwhile has undertaken a nonpolitical venture, a fictionalized tour of New York City for young readers. I picked up an inscribed copy for a just-turning-four great-niece and recommend it heartily.

During the traditional after-the-game poker marathon, the players devised what I think is a new concept in betting: a “middle” bet to supplement “high” and “low”. As implemented Saturday night, it was far too convoluted for social play, but I offer a simplified version here:

Middle Bet: Instead of, or in addition to, betting “high” or “low”, a player may bet “middle”. If only one player chooses that bet, he wins one-third of the pot. If two or more players go “middle”, the winner is the one whose best high hand is most nearly equidistant between the best and worst high hands on the table. For example, if five players are in after all betting is completed, the one with the third best high hand (compared to all players, including those who bet “low” or “middle”) is sure to win “middle” if he bet it. If two middle bettors are equally equidistant (e. g., second and fourth with five players in), they split one-third of the pot.

Whether this idea will catch on I don’t know, but it is certainly innovative and forms a nice contrast to, say, the Yale play calling this weekend.

Cheers for Curt Schilling

After frequently deriding Democrats’ obsession with celebrity endorsements, the folks at the NRO Corner are upset with Red Sox star Curt Schilling for making a lame (literally) excuse for backing out of a campaign appearance with President Bush. At which I roll my eyes. Maybe the Red Sox management pressured him (the team is, after all, partly owned by the New York Times), or maybe he didn’t feel comfortable leaping into the political arena and perhaps being hounded with detailed questions about current events (did he keep up with the news from al-QaQaa during the World Series?), or maybe his doctor really did warn him that he needs to rest his injured ankle. He was already scheduled for a parade at Disney World; adding another day on his feet doesn’t intuitively seem like a great idea for a guy whose career would be ruined by a permanent leg problem.

Whatever the reasons, this doesn’t even qualify as a kerfuffle, and I mention it only as an excuse to cheer Mr. Schilling for a reason unrelated to politics. Several years ago, toymaker Hasbro acquired the venerable Avalon Hill Gaming Company. Hasbro had no interest in AH’s hard core wargames, such as Advanced Squad Leader and the Great Campaigns of the American Civil War series, and their demise seemed imminent. Curt Schilling, an ASL grognard, saved them by putting up most of the money for Multi-Man Publishing, which licensed the lines from Hasbro and has since expanded them considerably. As a further service to the hobby, MMP later bought The Gamers, enabling its principals to concentrate on designing wargames instead of struggling to run a small business.

To the serious wargamer, whatever he thinks of the Boston Red Sox or George W. Bush, Curt Schilling is a hero. Let him soak his ankle in peace.

Not Unhappy, John: The Portent from Downunder

The conjunction of Ditto 17 and the new tax bill (which includes drastic reform of the rules governing deferred compensation and therefore falls within my area of professional interest) has cut my time for politics and blogging to near zero. As usually happens when political developments are only glimpsed in my peripheral vision (i. e., when I have to rely on glances at what the elite media are peddling), I was feeling pessimistic yesterday. The headlines made Paul Bremer’s revisiting of May 2003, the Duelfer Report and the latest economic numbers all sound like bad news for the President. Of course, even limited reading and reflection showed that the substance of each story was the opposite of the media line, but how can ordinary voters, who will never see Ambassador Bremer’s own interpretation of his views or sane commentary on what the Iraq Study Group actually found or the Heritage Foundation summation of the state of the economy, become aware that the headlines are blatant propaganda?

This morning brings, admittedly from the other side of the world, an encouraging sign that the Big Left Journalists may not be able to fool enough of the people enough of the time. In Australia, where the press is an order of magnitude more biased, parochial and leftist than in this country, and where public support for the Iraqi campaign has always been tepid at best, the “BUSH LIED! HOWARD LIED!!” theme blared throughout the final few days before the federal elections, seemingly giving the Labour Party unstoppable momentum. (And don’t forget that John Kerry’s sister, who heads his campaign’s expatriate effort, endorsed the anti-war Labourites during a recent trip downunder.) Yet this morning brings the news that the government has not just won reelection but probably increased its Parliamentary majority. As I write, the Australian Electoral Commission reports that, with three-quarters of the vote counted, the Liberal/National coalition has taken 76 of the 126 decided seats. Twenty-four remain too close to call. The coalition needs to win only five of them to equal its current total in Parliament.

Quite a spectacular result: Better than the polls forecast and directly contrary to what appeared to be the trend. In Australia, one should note, polling is easier and generally more accurate than the U.S. Voting is compulsory, so pollsters don’t have to sift likely voters from the total adult population. Nonetheless, no one, save a handful of optimistic bloggers, foresaw the swing to the Right. If this is a straw in the wind for America, John Kerry will look like George McGovern on November 3rd.

On its own terms, the Australian result is a defeat for the terrorists, who tried to influence it by bombing the Australian embassy in Jakarta. Diana Kerry added her opinion that the country endangered itself by allying with the U.S. But Aussies are made of sterner stuff than Spaniards and weren’t intimidated.

Addendum: For those who would like to try their own hands at keeping Australia on the side of freedom and civilization, Prime Minister Forever is an inexpensive, first rate computer game recreating the election, down to the individual candidates in each district. It costs only $14.99 in Australian dollars and includes the recent (less fortunate) Canadian election as a bonus.

Update (10/10/04, 10:50 p.m. CDT): With four divisions still too close to call, the government has 84 seats. Three of the undecideds are currently held by Labour. It also appears that the Liberal-National coalition has accomplished the very difficult feat of winning control of the Senate, which is selected by proportional representation and has therefore tends to be splintered by minor parties. (The last time that the Lib-Nats had a majority was in 1976.) While the Senate has less power than the lower house of Parliament, it can block some government measures. Winning it will make it possible to John Howard to be much more of a reformer in this fourth term than during his first three. Inter alia there is a possibility of abolishing the anti-democratic practice of compulsory voting.

Further Reading: Arthur Chrenkoff assesses the extent to which the Australian election was “about” the War in Terror and the significance of the Senate outcome.

Update (10/29/04): Finishing the vote count takes a long time in Oz. It was not until this morning that the Electoral Commission called three of the last four doubtful seats in the House of Represenatives. The Liberal-National Coalition now has 86, an gain of five over the last Parliament. The Senate tally, completed yesterday, gives it 39 of 76 seats.

Microgame Design Group Musters Out

After eight years and 40 games, Microgame Design Group will close its doors, i. e., its Web site, on November 1, 2004. Co-founder and business manager Kerry Anderson has decided to pursue a Ph.D. and won’t have time to run the company on the side. The final MDG game is the just published Byzantium Reborn, covering the Greek-Turkish War of 1920-22.

MDG deserves much of the credit for the current vigorous state of the desktop publishing segment of wargaming. It demonstrated from the start that inexpensive games (all titles are priced between nine and 15 dollars) can be as attractive and innovative as the $40 products of more conventional publishers, though they do require a bit of assembly.

Here is a complete list (if I haven’t carelessly overlooked something) of the company’s games, in historical sequence:

A Wargame Lacuna: Artillery FO Procedures in WWII

From Jonathan M. House, Combined Arms Warfare in the Twentieth Century, pp. 99-100:

During World War I, massed fires were usually the result of carefully planned artillery concentration, in which known targets were predesignated well ahead of time, their positions plotted on maps or overlays. If the infantry needed artillery fire on an unexpected target of opportunity, however, it was difficult to bring more than one battery to bear on it. Each artillery battery had its own forward observer, who had to be able both to see the target and to communicate with his battery. . . . Even if the forward observer could adjust his own battery’s fire to strike the target, he had no accurate way of guiding other batteries, unless the target’s map location was known precisely. Thus concentrating or massing the fires of different batteries usually meant that each battery had to have its own forward observer in a position to see the target.

Between 1929 and 1941, a series of instructors at the [United States] Field Artillery School . . . . developed forward observer procedures and a firing chart that together would allow an artillery headquarters to record adjustments to the impact of artillery shells as viewed from the observer’s location instead of from the battery’s location. Graphical firing tables compensated for differences in the locations of different batteries. Ultimately, the precise location of one artillery piece in each battalion was surveyed in relation to a common reference point for all artillery units in that division area. The resulting fire-direction centers (FDCs) could provide infantry units with an entire battalion, or even multiple battalions, of guns firing on a target that only one observer could see. The different batteries could fire together even when they were dispersed over a wide area, reducing the target they presented to enemy counterbattery fire.

By contrast, throughout World War II German artillerymen had to use well-known terrain features to adjust on a target of opportunity; massed fires of multiple batteries remained extremely difficult and time-consuming.

A few World War II tactical games pay attention to forward observation, but I cannot recall any that reflects this important American advantage in ability to concentrate and shift artillery fire. Reasonably accurate outcomes are probably obtained by sub silentio reduction of the effects of German guns, but it would be interesting to see a direct representation of the difficulties of getting separated batteries to fire at a single point.

Book Review Index

The right hand column of this page has brief notes on books that I've read recently — not all of them but those that I've liked enough to want to recommend to other people (and maybe an occasional clinker that I want to warn them against). I also occasionally post longer reviews on the main Stromata site. In case anyone is interested, here are links to them, sorted more or less topically:

Religion
The Reality of Ancient Israel: William G. Dever, What Did the Biblical Writers Know & When Did They Know It?
First Steps in Christian Beginnings: Bart D. Ehrman (ed.), After the New Testament: A Reader in Early Christianity
A "Vast Right Wing Conspiracy", Restoration Style: J. P. Kenyon, The Popish Plot
The First Great Bishop: William Painter, Just James: The Brother of Jesus in History and Tradition; Luke Timothy Johnson, The Letter of James: A New Translation With Introduction and Commentary
How Early Is Early? : J. A. T. Robinson, Redating the New Testament
Less Than the Whole Laud: Hugh Trevor-Roper, Archbishop Laud
The Subtlety of Scripture: Joseph W. Trigg, Origen

History
Fascinating Particulars About Nondescript Generals: Bruce S. Allardice, More Generals in Gray
Lifestyles of the Rich and Imperial: Fenton Bresler, Napoleon III: A Life
The Land of a Thousand Gods: Trevor Bryce, The Kingdom of the Hittites; Trevor Bryce, Life and Society in the Hittite World
For Armchair Kitcheners: C. E. Callwell, Small Wars: Their Principles and Practice
Imperial Shadows: P. J. Casey, Carausius and Allectus: The British Usurpers
Sun Tzu in Practice: David A. Graff, Medieval Chinese Warfare, 300-900
Vivid Colors, Fuzzy Shapes: Lawrence James, Raj: The Making and Unmaking of British India
Rome's First Great War: J. F. Lazenby, The First Punic War: A Military History
Father Turk's Story: Andrew Mango, Ataturk: The Biography of the Founder of Modern Turkey
His Red Eminence at War: David Parrott, Richelieu’s Army: War, Government and Society in France, 1624-1642
A Discarded Victory: Lewis Sorley, A Better War
The Right Man in the Wrong Times: C. V. Wedgwood, Thomas Wentworth, First Earl of Strafford, 1593-1641: A Revaluation
A Tangle of Kings: Ian N. Wood, The Merovingian Kingdoms, 450-751

Shakespeare and the Shakespearean Pretenders
VERitable Lunacy: Michael Brame & Galina Popova, Shakespeare's Fingerprints
A New Stratfordian Champion: Scott McCrea, The Case for Shakespeare: The End of the Authorship Controversy
A Malcontent of High Degree: Alan H. Nelson, Monstrous Adversary: The Life of Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford
Deconstructing the Stratford Man: Diana Price, Shakespeare's Unorthodox Biography: New Evidence of an Authorship Problem
A Test of Sobran's Method: Joseph Sobran, Alias Shakespeare
The Player's the Thing: John Southworth, Shakespeare the Player: A Life in the Theatre
Strange Hobbies of a Supreme Court Justice: Paul Streitz, Oxford: Son of Queen Elizabeth I
Roger A. Stritmatter, The Marginalia of Edward De Vere’s Geneva Bible: Providential Discovery, Literary Reasoning, and Historical Consequence. Multi-part review (still in progress): Part 1: Overview; Part 2: Handwriting Evidence; Part 3: Mastery of Latin; Part 4: Literary Analysis; Part 5: Statistical Analysis

C. S. Lewis
What the Inklings Did: Diana Pavlac Glyer, The Company They Keep: C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien as Writers in Community
Encyclopedia(s) Lewisiana: Walter Hooper, C. S. Lewis: A Companion and Guide; Jeffrey D. Schultz & John G. West, Jr. (eds.), The C. S. Lewis Readers' Encyclopedia
Lewis' Cinderellas: C. S. Lewis (Walter Hooper, ed.), The Dark Tower and Other Stories
Lewis on Storytelling: C. S. Lewis (Walter Hooper, ed.), Of Other Worlds
The Earliest Lewis: C. S. Lewis, Spirits in Bondage: A Cycle of Lyrics
Kay Lindskoog, Detective: Not Sherlock Holmes After All?: Kathryn Lindskoog, Sleuthing C. S. Lewis: More Light in the Shadowlands
Not Even Good Irony: A. N. Wilson, C. S. Lewis: A Life

Literature
Through Drab to Gold: C. S. Lewis, Poetry and Prose in the Sixteenth Century
Poets of the Queen: Steven W. May, The Elizabethan Courtier Poets: Their Poems and Their Contexts
Remnants of a Genre: B. P. Reardon (ed.), Collected Ancient Greek Novels
Life (5 Stars) and Lit Crit (Zero): David Riggs, Ben Jonson: A Life
The Lesser Life: Alan Stewart, Philip Sidney: A Double Life
Trollope Abroad: Anthony Trollope, Nina Balatka (1867); Linda Tressel (1867); Lady Anna (1874); Harry Heathcote of Gangoil (1874)
No Bottom to This Barrel: P. G. Wodehouse (David Jasen, ed.), The Uncollected Wodehouse

Science Fiction
As Others See Us: Camille Bacon-Smith, Science Fiction Culture
Indispensable to the Science Fiction Bibliophile: Jack L. Chalker & Mark Owings, The Science-Fantasy Publishers: A Critical and Bibliographic History
Mystical Lore and a "Perfect" Murder: Clyde B. Clason, The Man from Tibet
Our Kind of Fen: Marcy Lyn-Waitsman, 6 in 60
Fannish Facts and Fancies: Dick & Leah Smith, The Old Fan's Almanac
Nightmares and Hope: J. N. Stroyar, The Children's War
Shakespeare the Patriot: Harry Turtledove, Ruled Britannia
Odin, Tenure and Christ: Lars Walker, Wolf Time
The White Stuff: James White (Mark L. Olson & Bruce Pelz, eds.), The White Papers

Games & Sports
Not a Nightmare, But a Really Odd Dream: Michael Laver, Playing Politics: The Nightmare Continues
Baseball's Elder Brother: Tom Melville, Cricket for Americans: Playing and Understanding the Game; Tom Melville, The Tented Field: A History of Cricket in America

Toys of Peace

The idea of bringing an end to war and violence by keeping impressionable minds away from toy guns, wargames and other simulacra of conflict is a perennial bit of goo-goo left silliness, most famously punctured by Saki's story "The Toys of Peace". But absurdity springs eternal. My friend Bill Hawkins looks at a recent manifestation in "Why GI Joe Riles the Left":

The campaign against "war toys" is another example of American leftists emulating the decadence of socialist Europe. The European Parliament has recommended that its member states ban advertising of war toys and reduce their sale. Sweden, Norway, Greece and Malta have already taken various steps to restrict their sale or import. And it can happen here. The Federal Trade Commission held a workshop last October to deal with issues relating to the marketing of violent entertainment to children, focusing on movies, music and video games. When Jocelyn Elders was Surgeon-General in the Clinton administration, she proposed a national ban on toy guns. The Coalition for Peace Action claims war toys "teach children to accept a militarized world. They teach children that people who look or think differently should be defeated."

When I was growing up, toy guns and toy soldiers were the favorite playthings of my circle of friends. I remember having a plastic Hopalong Cassidy six-shooter, which was superseded by a double-holster Roy Rogers set of chrome-plated cap pistols. Later came spring-action replicas of Thompson sub-machine guns. Our neighborhood gang would spend hours chasing each other around the empty lots down the street. We also fought major battles with toy soldiers on the living room rug and on the back porch. Later, we graduated to wargames recreating history's great campaigns on a table top. Today I join my son in playing video games like "Counterstrike," which depicts American special operations troops hunting down terrorists.

None of my old gang turned out to be public enemies. Instead they became lawyers, engineers, and bankers. My best friend in these childhood "wars" grew up to be an Episcopal priest. This is because we lived in an era with strong values. Television was more violent then, but less morally ambiguous than now. Westerns like "Gunsmoke" "The Wild, Wild West" and "The Rifleman" dominated my viewing. Our idols were the "good guys" who always triumphed in the end. The villains ended up in jail (usually awaiting the hangman) or had already been sent directly to Boot Hill by the hero. And we cheered because we knew that's where the "bad guys" belonged.

It is this very idea of moral clarity that has liberals upset. Physicians for Global Survival claims that war toys like "G.I. Joe" tell children that "the world is divided into 'goodies' and 'baddies' where the bad guys are devoid of human qualities and their destruction is desirable. The story-line repetitively casts bad people (as aliens or robots) seeking power to control the world (or city or universe). The 'good people' vanquish them with violence. The child learns that justice, reason and effective communication do not achieve success. The weapon is a tool of power over others and necessary to deal with evil. . . . acceptance of war toys by adults socializing children is likely to interfere with inducing values and skills of nonviolent conflict resolution, empathy, compassion and a complex view of the equality and diversity of humankind and the worth of all living things."

One wonders how the Physicians for Global Survival would have dealt with Hitler. We know how they would have dealt with Saddam — they would have left him in peace and power, free to continue the extreme diversity he practiced in the use justice and reason.

Less Than Worthwhile Canadian Result

Experts like David Frum can divine the True Meaning of today's Canadian elections, which the Conservatives entered with what now appear to have been extravagant hopes. There was talk of a Parliamentary majority for the reunited CPC. Instead, the party won about 95 (out of 308) seats and about exactly 30 percent of the popular vote. The Liberals, despite impressive scandals, held onto a plurality, c. 135 seats and a 37 percent vote share. They'll be able to form a government with the socialist New Democratic Party (22 seats, 15 percent), and we can expect our northern neighbor to move further and faster toward a Third World political stance. It is already the first Western country to grant legal jurisdiction (limited but effective within the Moslem community) to shari'a courts. Likewise, the economic regime will likely tend toward higher taxes, more welfare and fewer incentives for progress. From the narrowly selfish American point of view, we can look forward to an increasing trickle of Canada's best and brightest across our common border.

A tiny company called 80 Dimensional Software brought out a Canadian election computer game, oddly named Prime Minister Forever (as if this poll would be the last), just a couple of weeks ago (only $11.99, with the promise of a free Australian add-on in the near future). Two playings prepared me for disappointment this evening. In the first, my Conservatives got all the breaks: bad economic news and almost continual Liberal scandals − which yielded a plurality of 116 seats but brought me nowhere near the 155 needed to govern. In the second, I was confident of my chances, having deciphered a few of the secrets of successful campaigning, and strategized astutely enough to gain the coveted "Big Mo" in the final week. But the economy was strong, the scandals were weak, and I got only 88 seats to the Liberals' 130. A good game; I wish that it had proven less accurate as a prognosticator.

Update: The final results: Liberals 135 (36.7%), Conservatives 99 (29.6%), Bloc Québécois 54 (12.4% [contested seats only in Quebec, where they won 48.8% of the popular vote]), New Democrats 19 (15.7%), unaffiliated 1. The combined Liberals and NDP thus fall one vote short of a majority, which will roil Paul Martin's life. David Frum is philosophical: "Canadian conservatives have become so used to heartbreak that mere disappointment can feel almost like good news."

Quote of the Day

From the first issue of Simulacrum, John Kula's delightful "Journal of Board Wargame Collecting and Accumulating" (April 1998):

Admittedly, you must sell a small part of your soul when you buy a computer, a modem, a communications package and time on an Internet Service Provider [but] . . . you are not so much selling a part of your soul as mechanizing it. Computers have soul. In fact, all inanimate objects have soul, which is why it's important never to let them know when you're in a hurry.