Maybe I shouldn't have complained about the carbon-hating SimCity Societies game. I indeed received it for Christmas, and after about half an hour of waiting for it to install, and then more time to receive an update for it, I got a non-apologetic grey pop-up telling me my graphics card was too old and sorry to trifle with.
*sigh* At least my new iPod works. I'll take solace in its sleek brushed silver design.
Why is there no clear front-runner in the Republican race for president? The Washington Post analyzes the situation and does a good job summing it all up.
Is the GOP grounded in the social issues embodied by Baptist preacher Mike Huckabee or the foreign policy experience of former POW John McCain? Do Republicans see their futures in a former CEO such as Mitt Romney, who promises to tackle Washington incompetence, or in a leader such as Rudolph W. Giuliani, who talks tough on terrorism and crime? Should the party embrace anger about immigration or optimism about America's potential?
Giuliani tends to win them on economic issues, but they cannot get by his stand on social issues. They like Huckabee on the social agenda, but do not trust his economic stands. They like the Romney they see now, but they cannot forget the positions he once embraced in Massachusetts. And they dislike McCain's opposition to Bush's first-term tax cuts and his crusade to overhaul campaign finance laws.
Here are a few interesting clips I've come across today:
Utah has implemented a flat income tax of 5%. Interestingly, despite cutting taxes for most people, the new tax is actually more progressive based on the elimination of some deductions. More states should experiment with major changes to the tax code. Let's see what works best.
The US dropped its carbon dioxide emissions 1.8% in 2006. Didn't hear about that one on the news? Total greenhouse gas emissions dropped 1.5%. The economy grew 2.9%. So, to be clear, the economy grew while naturally occurring innovation and lifestyle changes brought about through the free market achieved something that Europe has not been successful at doing over the past few years despite their mandatory rules to cut carbon. Isn't that the darnedest thing?
Anti-immigration madman - and erstwhile presidential contender - Tom Tancredo is said to be dropping out of the race. Good riddance.
The Old Executive Office Building is on fire.
This is my wife's favorite building in DC, and aside from that a lovely and historic building in its own right, so hopefully they will get it contained soon.
A man from Montreal found out that good parenting pays off. When he came home to discover his son smoking pot in the backyard, he sold the prize video game - Guitar Hero III - he had bought for his son.
He bought the hard-to-find game for $90. He sold it to a guy in Australia for $9,100. Not a bad trade.
The naughty son, however, will not go without a present on Christmas.
"I am still considering getting him a game for his Nintendo. Maybe something like Barbie as the Island Princess or Dancing with the Stars ... I know he will just love them," the father said.
British Petroleum really wants you to believe that it is a "good" energy company bent on saving the planet. They have taken corporate greenwashing to new heights, though, through their collaboration with EA Games and one of my very favorite gaming franchises, SimCity.
The new SimCity Societies hinges on the question of what kind of carbon footprint will your city leave. You have a choice, of course, as one review on Yahoo explained:
Bernstein is specific about how the developers wanted to implement choice. "We didn't want to impose a direction a city should go. We wanted to put out enough power alternatives to make a very green city or a heavily polluted one or something in between."
New, updated visuals help create not only a wide range of new cities, but do a much better job of modeling the effects of energy reliance. Put a series of smog-belching plants on the ground and the city will soon be literally draped in darkness. The warming effects of massive CO2 output can lead to natural disasters which, if exaggerated, are pretty obviously related to the way the city lives. By way of massive contrast, green-leaning societies look clean and livable, and we haven't yet seen a wind turbine fall over to crush a swath of Sims.
It is being unofficially reported that my Atlanta Braves will face off against my wife's Washington Nationals here in DC on March 30, 2008, as the first official game of the baseball season. I feel like this game traditionally is played by the World Series champions, but apparently the new Nationals' stadium is going to be SO COOL that it necessitates being game numero uno for the season.
It should be a very exciting game - Atlanta will contend for the World Series in '08, and the Nationals will not go quietly this year and may even compete for the number 2 or 3 slot in the East. All this in a very exciting new park.
So....if anyone has a spare couple of tickets they need to unload, say because you are called away on business or whatever, I'd be more than happy to go and provide a full report of the game to you afterwards.
(And did I mention that's the day before my wife's and my one-year wedding anniversary? What a great gift!!)
Club for Growth reports on some actual GOOD amendments offered to the massive Farm Bill Congress.
They were, of course, all defeated. Thank goodness we elected those reform-minded Democrats, ready to change the way things operated in Washington.
Jim Wooten of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution has a nice post today on AJC.com decrying Georgia's Republicans in the state House to lead like Republicans. The Speaker and the Governor are both playing with taxes, and not necessarily in beneficial ways. He very nicely sums up how me and many others are feeling:
The great frustration with the new majority under the Gold Dome is that, with rare exception — tort reform and special education vouchers, for example — they are largely indistinguishable from the Democrats who preceded them. The semantics game on taxes is right out of the Democratic playbook.
What this majority really needs to do is develop an agenda based on the state’s transportation, education, medical and water objectives — and then determine priorities and funding requirements. If a tax increase is warranted — and it may be — Perdue, Richardson and Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle should make the case, and explain to Georgians what we’re getting and why the additional money is needed.
Instead, we get tax shifts and new tax targets and tax semantics.
Barack Obama has come out with a plan to expand the Peace Corp and AmeriCorp by using tax breaks as an incentive to join.
Obama said he would expand the size of the AmeriCorps public service program from its current 75,000 positions to 250,000 slots; double the Peace Corps program that Kennedy founded from its current 7,800 volunteer positions to 16,000 positions by 2011; and create a national online network, modeled on Craigslist, to connect volunteers to service opportunities. ... He proposed a tax credit to pay up to $4,000 of college expenses for students willing to commit to 100 hours of community service a year.
"Tonight on Fox News at 10, rising divorce rates may be contributing to global warming."
No lie, that was the promo for the local Fox affiliate's news last night. I didn't bother to watch - I'm sure staying up late would have contributed to global warming as well.
As Congress prepares to vote out of committee a massive global warming bill that will regulate our economy to new degrees, stifle innovation, and lead to significant declines in the economic output of our country, here's a list of all the things that legitimate news outlets and research publications have blamed on global warming. This is not just droughts and extinctions, it's important things like hibernation ending too soon (and also too late), the Earth spinning out of control, and the severe threat to outdoor hockey.
UPDATE: Right after I posted, I found this.
Do you find yourself complaining a lot? Our society embraces complaining, sometimes even requires it. It may relieve some steam, but is it improving anything? Or is your complaining just a gateway drug to gossip, mockery, and, eventually, people complaining about you?
I stumbled on an article by Martha Beck on CNN (yes, it was originally published for an Oprah magazine, but I'll let that slide) called, simply, "Why you should stop your complaining." The article advocates going on a "venting fast," but more than just suggesting you give up complaining, it analyzes why we complain, and where it gets us (which is generally nowhere).
If you think that a venting fast requires willpower, you're half right. After a few whine-free days, you'll find that it also requires courage -- possibly more than you've ever used. To understand why anyone would put themselves through a venting fast, it helps to know a little about the psychological dynamics of complaint.
Democracy faced off against further slides towards socialism on Sunday. The score was split, but perhaps the more important victory was the one where democracy won.
In Venezuela, Hugo Chavez appears to have lost his bid to dramatically alter the constitution that he wrote only a few years ago. The changes would have solidified the socialist state Chavez has methodically developed, allowing him to, "to run for re-election indefinitely, control foreign-currency reserves, appoint loyalists over regional elected officials and censor the media if he declares an emergency," as the Washington Times reports. I leave nothing to chance when Chavez is in charge, so I'll be uneasy until there are some official announcements, but the indications as of now are that the pro-democracy opposition has won in Venezuela.
On the other side of the world, Russia's slide back to oligarchy continued as Vladamir Putin's United Russia picked up a significant majority in the Duma, which should leave Putin as the Russian prime minister. Putin is limited by the constitution from serving another term as president, but is not ready to relinquish power. All expectations are that he will work to elect a puppet president while he continues to run the show from the historically less powerful chambers of the Duma. Although questions of irregularities in the vote, of which United Russia appears to have received more than 60%, my guess is those investigations won't go very far.
Politicians in America will probably have to tread lightly around both decisions, given the fickleness of both regimes and the significant amount of oil we import from both, but we should be very excited about what happened in Venezuela and we should be very worried about what's happening in Russia. Venezuela, though, is more significant in my mind given the impact the defeat will (hopefully) have on Evo Morales and other socialist-trending Southern American leaders.
UPDATE: I just heard as I write this that Chavez is conceding the election. That's an amazing step forward. But as a co-worker just reminded me, he's still in office until 2012, plenty of time to try again - and break a few arms along the way to make sure he doesn't lose again.
Is the Washington Post - the paper of record for Washington, mind you - only interested in catering to Democrats? Let's look at today's political articles:
Front page:
"Democrats Gear Up for Final Appeal to Undecided Voters" -- because the Republicans aren't?
Page A6:
"DNC Punishes Michigan for Early Primary Date"
"Abundance of Warmth at Democratic Forum"
"Wintry Storm Curbs Campaigning in Iowa" (talks about Clinton campaign mostly, a little about Obama. The extent of GOP mentions: "Mitt Romney (R), the former Massachusetts governor, cancelled events in the Southern part of the state." That's all that is noteworthy from the GOP campaigns.
The Sunday Fix:
Three items in this political roundup. One is on how YouGoGirl.com, an Emily's List affiliate, is getting out the caucus vote for Hillary. One item is about the wishful-thinking opportunity for a Democrat to win a Senate seat in Mississippi. The lead item is about Mike Huckabee, who I'm sure the Dems would love to have as the nominee because half the Republican base (the economic part) can't stand him.
AdWatch on A5:
A review of a Rudy Giuliani ad that hits Democrats for wanting to raise taxes. The "Analysis" piece is an apology for Democrats, saying they're not really going to raise taxes on everyone, or if they're going to then, well, it isn't certain yet. That mean ol' Rudy.
And just in case you want to get to all these tilted headlines without getting ink on your hands, they're all (except the AdWatch) linked at the very top of the WP website as well.
For further amusement, go to the About the Post section and read what it says about its news and editorial staff: "At The Post, the News and the Editorial departments are separate and operate independently." Or this from its Principles page: "The newspaper shall not be the ally of any special interest, but shall be fair and free and wholesome in its outlook on public affairs and public men."
Right.
I stopped by the Virginia Republican Advance, a sort of mini-convention the party holds every year. It's just like a convention, and brings together all the same types of folks you'd expect at a convention. I only went to drop in on an acquaintance who's considering a bid for Congress, and as it was being held only a few blocks from my house, I figured I didn't have much of an excuse to not drop by.
The meat of my political experience is in Georgia, and so I know the Georgia political hacks and players, but I know very very few of the ones in Virginia, and none of the ones I knew were there last night. Without anyone to seek out except the candidate, I got stuck in a conversation with a Ron Paul supporter. He supports him because of the war, and I think that's about it. I tried to engage on government spending, but that didn't go very far. He told me as a second choice, he'd go with Fred Thompson.
"Yeah, Fred Thompson's nice," I said, "in that way that sitting by a pond is nice - it looks pretty but it's too shallow to swim in."
We didn't talk much after that.
Except for not knowing anyone, it's interesting to see that the politicos of Virginia are really just like the politicos of Georgia when they get together. There are the overzealous but personally insecure young campaign workers, the College Republicans who think they're the coolest for being there, even when they're just crowding the elevator and sending it to the wrong floor. There are the Republican women with fancy elephant brooches, and the old man in the funny outfit that always gets noticed and is as pleased as punch to be there. There are the candidates, with charm oozing from their pores, and stray county party leaders, forcing out some synthetic variation of charm.
Yet despite all that, there's an energy in the air that brings back memories of excitement tinged with exhaustion and hope. The energy of politics, of The Campaign, of winning.
I came home and reported to the wife that it was just awful. Yet I know that my eye-rolling exasperation with the event wasn't fair. I would have eaten it up if I were in Georgia - even though I'd probably still do the same amount of exasperated eye rolling. Same idiosyncratic people. Same energy. Shared party. Shared goals.
If you pull down the Hershey's Special Dark cocoa mix but have trouble finding how many scoops you should put in for hot chocolate, there's a reason for it. It's not meant to be hot chocolate.
And even when you put in milk and a few helpings of sugar, and even when you tell yourself it isn't so bad, it is, because it's not meant to be hot chocolate.
