This is good: The Whitewater Proxy

I recommend reading it. Especially if you support Hillary.

I just upgraded to a new version of WordPress (2.3.3) from a really old one (2.0.x). Mostly because the old one was giving me issues embedding a flash app for Duels Defense. It’s mostly been good. I only have two issues:

• It randomly inserted all over my old posts. What’s up with that? Can anyone tell me how to get rid of this because it makes all my old posts look like crap and it would take forever to go back and edit them.
• The new interface isn’t quite as good as the old one for writing posts. They should check out confluence – it’s awesome. (It’s an enterprise wiki – we use for all our internal stuff at Challenge Games.)

So my apologizes for the weird stuff in the old posts. Although if people are reading them they are probably deep linked or Google search results anyway, so they won’t see this. Ah well.

I am rapidly beginnging to feel like there is no possible good outcome in the upcoming election. I’m also beginning to feel like government bureaucracy and inertia is going to kill our country.

This article about the $53 trillion asteroid is a pretty depressing look at our grand retirment (cough cough entitlement) system and how it’s screwed. I’ve been reading a lot about this recently. I should have linked more of it. One article said we should have turned the social security fund into a sovereign wealth fund – which is a brilliant idea. However, I can’t seem to find the article.

Anyway, on to the other topic. I had been leaning strongly toward voting for Obama. I voted for him in the Texas primaries – the first time I’ve ever voted for a democrat. However, I’ll admit that I was swayed by the whole preacher incident. I’m not a huge fan of religious influence in government to begin with, but Obama calls this guy his “spirtual advisor.” Which, even if the guy wasn’t over the top, is disturbing. Although this is even worse, since from what I have read Jerimiah Wright is just plan nuts. It’s note like you can just ignore this either, Obama has been going to his church for 20 years – he had to know this person’s opinions, especially given the spritual advisor stuff. It’s just a sign of bad judgement and bad people selection. (Which are probably also the root causes of the failure of current administration.)

Anyway, this article (The Audacity of Rhetoric) was pretty interesting. It was written by Thomas Sowell at the Hoover Institute / Stanford. I don’t necessarily agree with everything in this column, but it’s definitely a point of view worth considering.

I haven’t written Obama off yet, but this thing has certainly killed off my enthusiasm. I went to a rally and even met him while he was in Texas – so I definitely put in some effort. The whole situation really disappoints me.

It’s a shame to put this in a negative post, but hey:

I will say Obama certainly has charisma and gravitas.

Duels continues the long tradition of cool tower defense games.  You can check it out Duels Defense at www.duelsdefense.com.  Or you can play the embedded version right here:

Come Suited for Battle at Duels.com

Democrats	Republicans	Me
Socialist Leaning	Free Market Capitalism	R
Big Government	Small Govermnent	R
Big Spending	Fiscal Conservatism	R
Socially Liberal	Socially Conservative	D
Secular	Religious messages	D

The high-level positions are broad and represent the traditional positions. They are changing – for example the Republicans aren’t doing a particularly good job on the small goverment and fiscal conservatism fronts right now. And the democrats are starting to pander to the religious crowd.

Where-oh-where is a good party:

• Understands and supports capitalism and free markets.
• Keeps a leash on government spending.
• Keeps the government small – bureaucracies are never effective.
• Let’s people basically do what they want as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone else.
• Doesn’t push a religious agenda down people’s throats. (Yeah, like an abstinence policy is ever going to accomplish anything.)
• Never mentions religion.

The biggest thing for me is:

PERSONAL RESONSIBILITY

If someone messes it up – it’s their fault. Don’t bail them out, let them take their lumps and grow and move on. And for the love of god get rid of the tons of lawyers out there suing our soceity into oblivion. If someone spills hot coffee on themselves – it’s not McDonald’s fault, it’s the persons fault. This type of crap is just getting out of hand.

That’s probably the biggest reason why I lean toward Obama. He at least acknowledges the personal responsibility issue. And he did it at the one rally I attended. Anyway, I think this is possibly the single biggest issue facing the future of our country. If people don’t take responsibility for their actions then we’re screwed. We will become a soceity afraid to take risks, afraid to go outside, and afraid to interact – all while looking over our shoulders waiting to see if we are about to get sued.

/rant

I think I’ve said this before, but I’m not a big fan of Hillary. This article:

Political Perceptions: Vice President Clinton?

Is interesting. And scary… to me at least.

I’m not a Democrat. I used to be a Republican, but they’ve so sold out to the religious right / evangelicals that they horrify me now. So I’m kind of screwed. See my next post for more info.

Anyway, as one of the undecided this would be a huge mistake for Obama. Right now I’m leaning towards voting for him. (I did vote for him in the Texas primary.) However, I WOULD NOT vote for Obama / Hillary.

Hillary just seems fake and plastic to me. Like she’ll say anything to get elected. I know she’s smart, but she just seems to lack common sense and vision. I read something comparing here to that overachiever in the front row who always raises their hand for every question – that resonated with me. (I’d cite it but I can’t remember where I saw it.) Anyway, she has booksmarts but no passion or vision.

I also think it would be a shame if we elected someone because of their spouse and that seems to be the main reason most people are voting for her. And maybe because Rush Limbaugh told them to.

And if McCain picks Huckabee as his running mate.. I guess then I’ll be screwed because I refuse to vote for them either. The last thing we need is a former preacher as Vice President – that will do wonders for the perception of the country around the world.