Warmed to 40s today but there is more cold on the way ...

Chris Anderson's wonderful article on the power of net businesses to serve the The Long Tail, has become a blog and has a book contract. Great essay and should be a must read for any CEO or VC in a net based business. Laura and I shifted most of our Christmas shopping this year to online places because, as she put it; "The mall never has anything I want." Which is exactly what the Long Tail is about. Anderson's blog is at (where else? :) ) TheLongTail.com.

I have been following a really good discussion at RPG.net about how Games Workshop disparages the Role-Playing hobby in the pages of its magazine White Dwarf. This is on the eve of Warhammer Fantasy RolePlay being redone by Green Ronin and about to be republished by its own Black Library. What a way to promote your own products, guys. Bad mouthing RPGs in your company magazine might not be a good idea. For GW its par for the course though...

Excellent commentary at The New Libertarian about the Intel Bill. I never thought I would see something as downright fascist as "Identity Papers" in this country. But here is the groundwork being laid in federalizing driver's licenses. I disagree with Tim's idea that the DoD does not need an in house intelligence service. John Keegan's Intelligence In War is a must read for anyone who thinks that battlefield and strategic intelligence (that is free from political control) is not important to the military's success. Of course, 32 Billion for the Intelligence budget is certainly debatable with the Cold War over. I would love to see more emphasis on human agents and less emphasis on technology. Human Int would always be more valuable against an opponent using the cell system as effectively as Al-Queda is.