Doing it for money

As most freelancers do, I take and pitch all sorts of odd assignments to pay the mortgage. It's one of the neat parts of the lifestyle, that I can ask to write about anything that interests me and sometimes they even let me. And often they come at me with stories I wouldn't ever have gotten to do and they turn out to be really interesting.

To wit, here's two random bits to check out if you care:

* Some University of Chicago business profs did a really intense study of the costs of the U.S. having not invaded Iraq versus the various outcomes of the fact that we did. It's really fascinating -- they seem to think that financially, it's something of a draw, if not a bargain, that we did, even in the worst-case scenario.

* The folks at Brigham Young University, of all places, have loosened up their policy on gays on campus. I wrote about it for Newsweek. They're now allowed to say they're gay so long as they don't ever do anything and as long as they never suggest that it's morally acceptable. And that's progress.

Otherwise, just another busy day writing the plan for tonight's "The Strip," posting the latest episode of "The Petcast" on which Emily and I had quite a fun squabble, writing up my Vegas mag piece on The Killers and putting some finishing touches on the forthcoming gay guidebook.