Death. First, a cool article on how death and dying works in 4th Edition D&D. The problem was with the "negative ten and you're dead" rule in the game. Like many things that got fixed, it didn't scale well in past editions. You were dead at negative ten if you had 10 hit points or 500 hit points, and the tougher you are, the more lethal the game became. It's not uncommon for high level characters to not only die, but to die a lot, to be at such a high negative hit point total that you need a math major to figure out how dead they really are. That's the negative ten effect.
Politics: Just an observation that I'm for Obama, but if I had to chose between Hillary Clinton and John McCain, I'm not sure what I would do. All the McCain positions that make conservative Republicans wince are what draws me to him. Common sense solutions for immigration, campaign finance reform, even the Iraq War. He's pandered to the religious right, true, but nobody's perfect. I've got Clinton fatigue and she isn't even elected yet. That her policies are almost indistinguishable from Obama makes me wonder if supporting Obama is more about personality. Then I remember the cadre of Republicans that would get their way if McCain is elected. Creepy.
