Do Something!

Here's the thing Democrats: The Republicans have shown that they don't have the organization or the plan to fix the economy. This is your chance to propose your own plan. You can't sit back and wait for them to propose something else.

I don't know if you noticed, but the fed went and put $630 bn into the economy despite the failure of the bill. I wonder if the Bush Administration would have gone into Iraq even if that bill had failed.

Justice Prevails!

The 700bn failed in the house! Whooo!

Now we just need to find who voted "aye" and try them for treason.

700 bn

The thing that really enrages me is the way that once the $700 bn dollar "Plan" was suggested, it became Fait Accompli. Are Democrats really so devoid of the courage of their convictions, and so completely without ideas, that they can only tack a couple modifications to the largest increase in Executive Power since the last Bush Administration bill? Guys! You hold a majority in the House and Senate! Don't let the Republicans screw you over politically and legislatively! Don't you know that most Republicans plan on voting against the plan?

You can't win on this plan. If it goes well, then the President saved the day. If it doesn't save anyone, (much more likely, if you ask me,) then the Democrats who voted for it will take the heat. I've said it before and I'll say it again: The Democrats are idiots, and the Republicans are villains.

PS. I know I've been doing a lot of political posts lately, but I find it absolutely enraging that the least popular President in history is being obeyed like he was a king.

Approaching Disaster

This bailout deal is treated like something that has to be done, and something that will be done. Only the details are a valid point of contention. I'll say this: If you vote for any form of a bill that gives 700 billion dollars to a single person to dispose of at his whim without any form of review, then you lose my vote. Forever. Haven't we learned by now that the Bush Administration grasps at as much power as possible, then abuses it in ways that we couldn't even imagine? There's also the fact that the plan isn't a 700 billion dollar donation, it's the creation of a 700 billion dollar slush fund that gets refilled when it makes a bad investment, and the function of the fund is to lose money.

The Congress has shown its true colours during this entire affair. They've been "working" on a solution to the housing crisis for months now, and they haven't even produced an idea for a bill. The way I see it, homeowners' inability to pay for their loans with impossibly high rates are the driving force of this downturn. Well, they can solve both problems today, if they wanted to. If you really want to lose 700 billion dollars or more, why don't you consolidate the loans of people who can't afford their current payment structure, and write a bill that creates a maximum interest/payment scheme for mortgages in general? The housing problem would be greatly ameliorated, the junk loans that are dragging down the economy would see renewed value, and not all the money would be lost, just most of it.

This approach is actually pretty similar to the Bush Administration plan, (at least the way they've described it. If they were going to execute the plan honestly, they wouldn't have written all the clauses that indicate they don't have to,) except the money goes through the people, not through the businesses. Also, mine makes it so that the Government doesn't have to become the biggest holder of mortgages in the world, thereby creating an absurd conflict of interests in the foreseeable future.

Resistance II

Have you seen Resistance II? Before you answer, if you've seen Call of Duty 4's XP system, TF2's class system, and Halo 3, then the answer is "yes".

Posturing

All of McCain's back-and-forth lately shows that his decisions are not motivated by any particular political beliefs or ethical positions, but are the result of political calculations.

Federal Funds

One Trillion dollars is the price of buying out the latest incarnation of the Great Depression, according to the Bush Administration. The reason that solar panels are as expensive as they are is because they can not use economies of scale. If there was a large order for solar panels, we would see a reduction in price. We could spend 10 billion dollars on solar panels to make every federal building more self-sufficient. It'd be an investment for the future, and it'd give the industry a huge kickstart.

Civilization II: Everyone Hates Me.

I've been playing some Civilization II. It is a fun game. Unfortunately, diplomacy seems to be an impossible option, at least for the long term. You can bribe someone with all the money and technology you want, only to find that they hate you five turns later.

There's a mode where you can re-enact historical scenarios. There are only two in the game at start, but I assume that there are more on Internet somewhere. I've played WWII a bunch of times. Hint: Play as Germany. They win.

Another hint: Do not play as the "Misc. Countries" team. They have only 4 cities, and one of them is conquered by the Nazis on turn one. Before you even get to go. I tried to stick it out, relying on the fact that the other teams had bigger fish to fry. Then I received this message:



Apparently, they had heard about my plan to colonize the uninhabited Middle East, and thought they had to set aside their differences to stop me.

The Second Worst Economic Collapse In American History

So the Bush Administration wants to spend a trillion dollars on shoring up the economic crash. Doesn't that suck? At least we have the party of "small Government" in the White House.

Imagine if there had been some regulation on the mortgage market. It would have slowed the world market! It would have reduced profits and the growth of wealth!

It would have prevented the worst economic collapse since the great depression! (I might be speaking too soon. The market has not bottomed out yet.)

Update # 4

I have several things lined up to blog about that aren't TF2, but screw you.

It looks like the Spy is going to be the next update, what with the TF2 blog having an update with no actual information, but with the rather obvious title of "Gentlemen," and the Heavy Achievements include "Spyalectical Materialism", which features an image of the spy wielding a silenced pistol. There's also my theory that each update "cancels out" the previous update, (Medic -> Pyro -> Heavy -> Spy could be a "Rock Paper Scissors" style classification of those classes.

Also, they have always updated the classes that see little play, and Spy is currently #2 least played character. Personally, I have no idea why this is, as Spies are simpy ridiculously awesome on Badwater Basin. Whenever I'm playing without one, I feel the need to immediately switch.

Anyway, my backup, "wacky" theory is that they update the Sniper and Scout simultaneously. A valve person has pointed out that they definitely don't want to do the Sniper update all by itself, as playing a team of 90% Snipers would be absurd. (Unless it's 2Fort, where it's all too common.) Scouts are the least played class, and I'd really like to see them made more viable in a world where Engineers are the most played class and Sentries are all over the place.

My backup less wacky theory is that they do Sniper and Spy simultaneously.

Mushihimesama Futari Black Label GOD MODE

And I thought I Wanna Be The Guy was hard...

Sarah Palin

Isn't it funny that the arch-conservative Sarah Palin comes from America's closest approach to a socialist state? Taxes on the oil industry in Alaska are distributed to each human being in the state annually (a status oddly similar to Venezula's economy), and Alaska receives far more money from the federal government than any other state, on a per-capita basis.

People say that Sarah Palin wasn't vetted before her nomination. This is absolutely not true. They asked both of the questions that mattered:

1. Are you female?
   
2. Will you sign off on the basic Religious Right list of issues?

She said "yes" to both questions, and they're off to the races!

PS.
John McCain, in a similar attempt to appease the Hyper-Right, has announced that human rights begin at conception. In this view, two conjoined cells are a person, including issues regarding the 14th amendment, and so on. This leads to some absurdly difficult problems, if considered even momentarily. The Right likes bills where a murderer who kills a foetus is tried for two cases of murder, since the foetus is also a person. One in three pregnancies ends in stillbirth. Should each of these stillbirths be investigated as a murder? Justice would demand it, since the McCain United States would have abortion criminalized, thereby forcing it underground. Similar problems emerge when it comes to taxes, property rights, etc. etc.

PPS.
There's no biblical support for the idea that a foetus is a person. There are two passages that people use in support of the idea, and neither of them are relevant when looked at seriously.

PPPS.
There's no point to this entire argument anyway. The Republicans have no intention of making abortion illegal. They know that it would absolutely kill their chances at being re-elected, and that abortions would continue regardless. The issue is simply a means of drumming up votes, and has been since the Religious Right made it a centerpiece of their political platform. It has always been a cynical attempt to deliver a bloc vote to the Republican Party.

PPPPS.
Oops! I did another political post!

The Large Hadron Collider

The Large Hadron Collider is firing up soon. If you like to talk about it, then you are a stupid, bad person, and you should not be allowed to talk to people, go in public places, or be on the internet.

The entire thing is a fad anyway; you weren't talking about particle physics last week, and you won't be talking about it next week.

Spore Release

Spore comes out tomorrow! Glee!

BG&E: Just in Time

Beyond Good and Evil. I beat it. It's a good game.

Do you like Zelda games? BG&E takes the Zelda formula and makes it a lot better. There's a real story. The stealth sequences are a lot better, and I never got stuck.

It seems that Ubisoft was willing to admit their debt, since the town is called Hyllis, making the citizens into Hyllians. If you recall, Link is a Hylian. I don't know if it's a coincidence, but it seems awfully close.

There's a trailer for BG&E II on the dang ol' internet. Of course, like any good teaser, it teases you by not showing you the protagonist, who the company clearly thinks has a pretty face, since BG&E is designed to show you it again and again, both in game, and in cutscenes.

McCain: Alternate Vice President

Why, oh why, couldn't McCain have gone with Lieberman? That would have been great!

Google Chrome

I got Google Chrome, and I'm using it now. So far, it's only exploded my computer once, and I think that probably has more to do with my computer having some bad memory or something, which leads to periodic crashing.