Obama's Nobel Prize

Obviously, this was the item of the day and we'll probably still be talking about it a week from now. It's going to spawn a debate about Obama's international stance versus Bush's, and its going to get partisan and very, very ugly. The Democrats have already said something insane in response to a cookie-cutter Republican statement, so before it gets any worse (hard to imagine already), just a couple of quick thoughts.

Obama's international stance, diplomacy-wise, is obviously very different from Bush's, and its easy to take the Nobel award as a European referendum on Bush's way of doing things. It's interesting to note here that its unlikely that just any Democrat taking office would have gotten the award. Hillary Clinton has, as Secretary of State and even in her campaign, been more hawkish than Obama and to an extent, more of a unilateralist. Certainly McCain was as well. So Obama's foreign tone is different in important ways from what is normal, even among Democrats.

That said, the Nobel committee made no pretense of saying that Obama had received the award because of concrete things that he managed to do - things that the American Left is angry at him for not doing when he said he would. His tone hasn't gotten Europe significantly more on board with Iraq or Afghanistan, nor has he gotten the US out of either. Then there's Guantanamo, and the rest of the SNL skit.

There's some speculation as to whether his reception of the Nobel will - or is supposed to - influence his decision on Afghanistan. I think there's some slight risk, but the more important factor in that decision is Obama's information bias; on issues that he is less knowledgeable about, he hasn't done much because he favors more information all the time, even when the information he has is sufficient but not perfect. He used to be a law professor, its fair to say he's got a case of this. It's going to be all about content, no matter what decision he makes.

The Nobel is a very public award, and the committee knows it. To a very significant extent, this is directed at the American Public more than it is directed at anyone else. Its a chance for Europe to basically say "more like this" to the American public, with decent odds of being heard very clearly. I don't think there's much question as to why.

Bailout Afterthoughts

So we bailed out GM, and now we're doing it again. This time I guess we've added a jazz beat or something. I didn't have much opinion on the car companies being bailed out before, and only a slight one on the banks, but looking back, I think I have my position: we should have let them burn.

It's ok, I know you're thinking it. "What about the thousands upon thousands of employees that would be out of work you capitalist fatcat?" Well, think about this for a minute.

If a company is so immensely big that our government - that is supposed to be a sovereign entity - has to step in and save them repeatedly, that firm is too big to be safe for us. Its so big that we have no choice but to save it, or so the idea goes. Too big to fail and all that. If it's too big to fail, it's too big.

Having a monoculture of anything, whether its exports or imports or Thai ladyboys - or firms that provide employment and revenue - is very hazardous. Ask any third world country that has one big primary export to sustain itself, and nothing else. You're much more vulnerable to market fluctuations, crashes, and just plain old rule-making. It can wreak havoc on your economy when something falls through, as was illustrated at precisely this time last year.

First Audio Post!

This is my first recording of anything ever, so hopefully it works! It's a brief, basic overview of a deeply boring economic policy called Import Substitution Industrialization. Quick, dirty, and hopefully coherent but I make no guarantees. It might need context, which it lacks pretty severely.

Here's the raw link if you'd rather listen that way.

Tech Update

I just picked up a microphone that attaches to my ipod and my headphones, so now I can leave myself voice notes. It's really very useful because now I can just shout at myself, then play it back later when I feel like being shouted at. The audio quality is really very nice too. I actually sound like me, instead of sounding like I'm on the telephone. That gave me an idea.

I'm going to start intermittently posting audio logs along with whatever else I post here. When I study, I draw things on my whiteboard and talk to myself which, while unnerving to my neighbors, really helps me put ideas together. I figure I'll just record that and post it occasionally, just in case it turns out to be interesting. That might be rare because I'm in some very dull, pretty esoteric classes for now, but I may post them anyway just to waste your time and convince you that I'm really quite boring.

Just that much more content for an otherwise content-free blog.

NPR Debate on Iran

NPR's Intelligence Squared debates recently featured a debate called "Is diplomacy with Iran nowhere?" I found it very interesting, and the most persuasive speaker is without a doubt Nick Burns, a former Undersecretary of State.

Here's where you can hear the debate.

Burns is the one who is impossibly calm during the entirety of the exchange. I found the whole thing to be very heartening, and quite educational.

New Computer

So my old laptop finally hit the 3-year mark and, true to that series' form, the motherboard died. It would cost as much to replace the motherboard as it would for me to get a new, teeny-tiny netbook, which I assumed would be less powerful but still do everything I need.

I was more than slightly wrong. What I ended up with was a 11.6" Acer Aspire One. It cost me $319, all told. It has 2gb of RAM and 160GB of hard drive space, which matches the stats on my old, $700 15.4" laptop.



Except this weighs in under 3lbs, has a three hour battery life, a comfy keyboard, and is quite literally the equal of my old laptop in any realm where it is not much better already. I can play all my old games, and I don't get any new ones so I'm set.

I'm pretty happy with it. My old laptop had turned into a desktop and I stopped taking it anywhere unless I was going to be there for a few days. I couldn't count on the battery for more than an hour and a half in any power setting, it didn't fit in a normal backpack, so it was pointless in lecture halls. This is much more mobile, without being so compact that it's painful to use or impossible to see.

Let's hear it for student aid money, making my life easier one more time.

Provoked Musings: Conservatism in Science

I ran into an interesting argument yesterday in my public opinion class. Our professor stated that "social conservatism is an elite construct built to manipulate the lower class". The argument was that prior to the Reagan administration, your place on the liberal/conservative spectrum was based almost solely on your economic stance. Reagan "invented" social conservatism to win the votes of people who would have no economic interest in voting for him, which is an assumption.

This is not science, and I have a hard time believing it as a result. Social conservatism is much maligned for being based in protestant christian moral precepts, which predate Reagan by something to the tune of 300 years. The US was well established as a largely protestant nation fairly early on, even to the point where immigrating Catholics were discriminated against. It's not valid in any way to suggest that people did not use these values to determine how they would vote prior to Reagan, or that they were manipulated into suddenly and against all reason obeying their moral compass. Which brings up an interesting question.

Why are political scientists so comfortable judging conservatism so harshly? This is not scientific neutrality. Conservatism is in very many ways like a sort of tribalism. Religion features heavily in both day-to-day activity and large decisions; kinship bonds (read: family values) are regarded as of critical importance, social roles are very important, they have a separate economic system they believe strongly in, and a great deal more value is often placed on working hard than obtaining education. Explained this way, American conservatism reminds me of a wide variety of stateless and indigenous societies all over the world, every one of which gets far more respect from both liberals and political scientists practicing neutrality.

In all honesty, it appears to me that all the old complaints that indigenous peoples had about colonialism are many of the same complaints now harbored by conservative cultures against the left. In turn, the left appears very much to harbor the same culturally damaging imperialist impulses that it condemns so harshly throughout history.

Scientific neutrality would mean speaking about conservatism too as a different culture and respecting it as such, but that's not what we did.

I tried to point out this blind spot, and it didn't go well. It turned into an argument about left versus right and who was morally correct, which - if you're familiar with scientific detachment - was completely pointless and absolutely not my intent. The point was to explain that we were not being scientific and we were letting our biases creep into our work. That I was the only one who saw this bothers me quite a bit.

I'd really hate for all that talk about the liberal elitist professors biasing our education to be true.

Seriously?

Yesterday, the new professor claimed that the US has killed more civilians in Iraq than in any other war. "They've never seen it this high, and it's because of how we're fighting - more guerilla-style".

She failed to substantiate this statement, and when she said it I got really angry. I didn't say anything, and I couldn't even identify the source of the anger. The statement was so blatantly false that it blasted through my crap detector like a shot from a rail gun.

Unless I'm sorely mistaken, terms like "firebombing" and "nuclear bombing" and "strategic bombing" did not come about as a result of the Iraq war. They came about as a result of the Allied air war in World War II, which makes a lot of sense because that's when these things were used. They were used there because World War II was an inter-state war and there was a need to break states as a whole. I don't really need to elaborate because anyone with a 10th grade education knows the rest.

I'm going to say something with no qualifiers, that is an absolute truth and short of a nuclear bombing campaign in Iraq, will always be true:

More civilians were killed by the US in World War II than in Iraq.

The idea that this surprises anyone or runs counter to their conclusions is baffling, given the difference in scale, strategy, and purpose of the two wars.

This professor is not tenured. I can see why.

Be A Good American: Issue 1

"Be A Good American" is going to be a collection of items that I... Collect that I think every American should know, or learn, or at the very least be acquainted with. You should be able to get some honest self-improvement value out of these things if you give them a whack, but at the very least they'll be interesting and fun. If they're not, you're probably not cut out for this whole "land of the free" thing. I hear Russia needs voters that Politburo can intimidate; you might find a home there.

Learn Middle Eastern Geography!
Everybody has seen those statistics about how whatever percent of Americans can't find whatever country on a map. Firstly, I'd like to say that there are a great many countries out there that are so small and pointless that they deserve to be forgotten until they come up with a new umbrella drink. However, there's not much excuse to not be familiar with Middle Eastern and Central European geography, so the above game is here to teach you.

Get Familiar with the NATO Phonetic Alphabet!
Sure, you could use names or common objects to spell out words that phones can't seem to pick up correctly. But everyone uses different names and objects, and some people clearly don't get the point of it at all. I had a bilingual operator tell a caller that a letter was "C like 'cat'", but she was speaking spanish so it came out "C de 'gato'". As you may have noticed, there is no "C" in "gato". If nothing useful ever comes out of NATO again, this will. This is what you learn in flight school and in the military. It's used there because it works so well, and everyone's playing from the same sheet of ridiculous words.

Understand The Russian Public: Learned Helplessness!
Yes, you're going to have to read some psychology. Learned Helplessness is a relatively new psychological principle that has some serious predictive value. Understand learned despair, and you'll have some real insight into the Central European condition.

Help The Third World: Private Micro Loans!
A Micro Loan might be anywhere from $50 USD to $1000 USD, and while that amount might not do much to start a business in the US, it can do some serious economy-stimulating in a third-world country. Kiva grants these loans to individual third-world entrepreneurs so they can build a business on their own. It's a charity effort that promotes self-reliance and ingenuity, which is really quite a thing. The Cracked.com forum, of all places, has already embraced the hell out of this.

If none of these things make you a better American, you may be hopeless. I'll leave you with this music video of Joe Satriani. He's an American, it's cool.

Satch Boogie - Joe Satriani

CIA Outsourcing: Time's Response

Time Magazine ran this editorial yesterday by Robert Baer, their intelligence columnist. It alleges that the real reason behind the outsourcing to Blackwater was a combination of political connectivity with former CIA officials and an attempt to get some old friends a sweetheart contract.

It's plausible to a point, certainly. Several CIA officials have gone to work for Blackwater and probably do keep in touch with current officials at the agency. It'd be a very odd bureaucracy in which that didn't happen. And there's little doubt as to the wastefulness of a number of contracts written between the US government and PMCs; this also isn't news and contract wastefulness has happened any time the US has gone to war since World War Two. It's not out of bounds to think this might have happened again.

However, I think this explanation ignores the context of the CIA's work at the time the contract was dreamed up, which I explained in the last post. Baer seems much more preoccupied with what a bunch of bad dudes Blackwater is, and the state of private contracts in the prosecution of war, rather than getting to the heart of why they're doing it. Undoubtedly, Blackwater is not comprised of nice men and family-friendly entertainment. I wouldn't want them anywhere near a counterinsurgency I was running for an array of reasons. But the fact that they're not the good guys doesn't solve the rest of the equation automatically.

I will say though, this comment makes me interested to know what Baer seems to know:

Even more troubling, I think we will find out that in the unraveling of the Bush years, Blackwater was not the worst of the contractors, some of which did reportedly end up carrying out their assigned hits.

Not that I have a problem that a PMC contractor was successful in the role for which it was hired. But it would be interesting to know the details of what Baer is suggesting to see when and where it was, to see what the state of CIA thought was at the time. It may help us get to a more certain answer as to why they were used, and how often.

CIA Operations Outsourcing

Yesterday the NYT ran this story on the CIA trying to get Blackwater PMCs to work counterterrorism around 2002 or so.

What's interesting to me is that they attempted it in earnest but still had significant doubts about the wisdom of the program, which eventually won out. What that probably means is that the Directorate of Operations needed more personnel and didn't know of a way to get them any faster than hiring them, even with the amount of risk involved in bringing private contractors into a clandestine environment.

I've read two books on this particular period; one by Ron Suskind called "The One Percent Doctrine" and the other by Bob Woodward called "Bush at War". Both are very credible journalists, so I'm willing to trust what they wrote on the subject.

After 9/11, the intelligence services spent a lot of time hunting shadows in an attempt to stop a "second wave", another attack or set of attacks that was supposed to follow on the heels of the 9/11 attacks. For a time, analysts didn't know what to regard as a credible threat and what could be ignored, so a lot of items that were unrealistic still made their way up the chain, which forced the people in charge to react to them. Intelligence services were jumpy, didn't have a realistic threat assessment, and the combination probably convinced DCI George Tenet that he had two options: start ignoring things that the Directorate of Intelligence told him shouldn't be ignored, or beef up the Directorate of Operations to try to augment the CIA's ability to prosecute those threats.

With concerns over Pakistan dealing in nuclear secrets with al-Qaeda mounting - a concern that served as a trump card in "second wave" discussions - the decision probably looked painful but obvious.

Blog Reset!

Ok, I doped off for a while but I'm back. School will be starting again soon and there might be interesting things to talk about. I'll try to post regularly even if it's short. If I get a really good grade on a term paper, I'll put it here to show off. I may put old term papers here to show off and provide content when I'm feeling lazy. That's what you get for reading independent media, you dirty hippies.

For now, I'll offer only these interesting points:

- The apartment across from mine has been vacated but was not locked. I looked around; it's much smaller than mine, smells like dog, and the bathroom has clearly been built into what used to be a walk-in closet.

- Speed Reading courses work better when you actually do them. I will finish before school, I swear.

- The Special Alt homebrew is still sitting in my cabinet. I figure I'll age it until I'm out of everything else and see how it is. Shouldn't be long now.

- I am reading a book on suicide terrorism. I will probably talk about this a lot because I find it fascinating as all hell and the theory proposed by it is very powerful, and puts some serious hurt on a lot of earlier theories of what drives suicide terrorism. Economic status and mental stability theories are right out.

- If anyone, anyone at all, happens to find a faceplate for a JVC KD-AR560 car stereo, they should leave a comment.

I'll come up with something worth looking at soon.

Decision-making In a Changing System

This is what was billed repeatedly to me by my professor as a lecture on counterterrorism in foreign policy. That's not what it turned out to be, which isn't my fault I swear. But it's still interesting, so I'm posting it anyway, operating under the assumption that you're intelligent and will want to see interesting things.

The guest lecturer was Terrell E. Arnold, a retired Minister Counselor for Foreign Affairs. In simple terms, he was a Senior Diplomat with the US State Department serving in Brazil and Cairo before being made Deputy Director of a Counterterrorism committee. His work is widely available on the internet, and he's quite opinionated so it may be worth a look; a google search nets lots of results. His discussion was on the changing nature of the international system, and what he sees as necessary in the future given those changes. Here are my notes. I'll probably have my own discussion of it later.

-------------------------------------Go--------------------------------------------
-For the US, historically the focus has been freedom while at the same time expanding and improving a power base to enter the imperial game with Western European powers. This was before WWII.

-Since WWII, world population has doubled and the international system has seen 140 new countries. US was the only developed economy left standing, undertook work of rebuilding Europe and Japan until 1970s, at which point competition began limiting US options. At the end of the 20th Century, globalization is the major question to answer, and the US is in the process of reimagining its role in the world.

-Rules of the game are changing. President Lula of Brazil speaks for many: G-7 not big enough, G-20 not big enough. The old core powers will not be able to move the smaller powers for much longer, and the system needs to be opened to them because of the rise in interdependence.

-Military has been an important part of US economy historically, but the role needs to be reconsidered in light of a many-power system emerging.

-UN is the new face of the international system but US dominance has prevented a transfer of powerful institutions to the UN. Forming powers also didn't fully grasp the post-colonial reality of the post-war system, leading to less concentrated power in UN. System is US-centric, and the US military abroad is there to serve the US interest. UN should be the new dominant power center, nation-state system is beginning to expire in utility.

-Current trend: regional groups beginning to cluster together for defense, creating a low-intensity arms race. System is in transition. It matters how the dominant powers deal with aggregates of smaller powers like ASEAN, OAU, WHO, OAS. G-7 is staring these groups in the face.

-Financial crisis is a demonstration of the level of interdependence and illustrate that decisions aren't always our own due to the potential for global impact. International system to regulate the international economy is necessary and may be coming.

-Critical issues will include currency utilization. Dollar dominant for 70 years and currency is a sign of dominance. Others are emerging, including possibility of the IMF using SDRs (special drawing rights) as a replacement standard.

-Management of world resources may need to be internationally organized. Current system of few-power dominance of global resources can't be expected to last forever, and those powers don't have an answer to "then what?" Same goes for energy resources.

-Global commons needs to open up because the US won't dominate it forever; US power here is a shrinking prospect.

-Political & economic power is redistributing, and needs to be addressed. Some developing countries have not yet come to their full measure of power.

-Unassimilated populations matter; groups that don't believe the nation-state system should be dominant abound, and the Muslim Brotherhood serves as an example. Not clear how the system should handle these groups.

-Going into debt creates a double-bind; us power will suffer as a result, but debt-holders lose their shirts if US power fails.

-US is the only actor capable of being a global police force, but this power needs to be handed on. The UN isn't capable of taking it on, but that's what needs to happen.

-Foreign policy has changed due to the sheer number of actors involved; agencies put their own players in to represent their own interests, and that's what sets US policy in many places. It's not all State Department work; there are lots of other interests involved now.

-Exceptionalism needs to end: no longer acceptable to go anywhere we want anymore. Long-lived double standard about US interests and pursuit of them versus everyone else's interests won't stand for much longer. Arguably, terrorism is part of a backlash involving that at least partially.

-US has to realize that exceptionalism can be provocative, and that's dangerous with a shifting balance of power in the global system. US needs to read the situation carefully through the lens of increasing restriction on US policy options and capabilities. "The old game won't last much longer".

-Re North Korea's missile - good example of small powers willing to push great powers. DPRK is going to launch despite international tension, and it won't profit to get over-aggressive about it. Gates knows that.

-------------------------------------Stop-------------------------------------------

I'll have my own thoughts on this at some point.

Such Language

Wanna hear Obama swearing like a South-Side drug dealer? Don't lie to me with your hand on the mouse, I can feel your anxious heartbeat. Of course you do, no matter how you feel about him. Actual adults don't care what adult words he uses, and if you've arrived at this blog you're probably an adult or at the very least, someone not completely frightened by words.

I stumbled across this blog post, wherein the story of Obama swearing is explained. And at the same location are five downloadable soundbytes of straight-up Chicago cussing like only a great orator can deliver.

What should you take away from this?

"You ain't my bitch, nigga, buy your own damn fries."
Barack Obama, 44th President of the United States

I'm going to find some way of mixing this stuff into some music. They're just too good to not play with.

Last Nicaragua Post

Post Correction: There are to kids at Hogar Belen with the name Jose, Jose Manuel and Jose Miguel. The previous post was refering to Jose Miguel, not Jose Manuel.

Today was the tourist day. Volcano, shopping, food, zip-line, food; A good day by most standards.

I leave Nicaragua tomorrow morning at 8:30 am. I will miss this place until I can come back. I´m definitely relearning spanish. Hablo bien, pero mis vocabulário esta muy piqueño ahora.

Nate

La Chureca

Well, La Chureca was today. It was about what I expected. I had mentally prepared myself for what I was going to see, but it makes no difference until you´re actually there. No photograph, video, or description really does a place like that justice. It always seems distant, and strange. It´s easy to see the people who live there as something else, not quite people almost, just distant ideas of people. Once you´re there, however, they become people. Real people with real hopes and real dreams. The people in the dump were just like any other person I´ve ever met. There was a real sense of community, these were not isolated people in a dump, but a group of people who came together and were happy. Astonishingly happy. After it was all said and done, I felt bad about the conditions, but that feeling was attenuated by their happiness. How people with so little, surrounded by trash, near starvation, are happy, while Americans with big TV´s, cars, floors made of something other than dirt, are miserable, is beyond my ability to comprehend.

That being said, something hit me like a truck today. I spend a good portion of the afternoon in a daze, lost in my own head trying to find an answer to a question I´d never considered before. Jose Manuel is a child here at Hogar Belen who is profoundly disabled both mentally and physically. His legs are permanently crossed due to malformation of his hip and knees, almost like a pretzel, but his knees touch and he appears as an unpsite down ¨T¨ with his feet at the ends, he is incapable of speech or any other communication other than moans and grunts. He sits in his crib all day every day. It hit me, that if I bust my butt for the next 10 years and become an excellent surgeon, what can I do for a child like this? Maybe I could let his legs move more, he´d be easier to clean the workers tell me, maybe I could free the arms that are stuck immobile at his sides, but then what? He´ll still just sit all day, we can do nothing more. Modern medicine with all it´s might, cannot cure Jose Manuel. What´s the point? Then, while reading my book, Clear and Present Danger, by Tom Clancy, I came across a passage. Jack Ryan is thinking about his dying friend and says:

¨Where do they get the courage? It was one thing to fight against people. Ryan had done that. But to fight against death itself, knowing that you must ultimately lose, but still fighting. Such was the nature of the medical profession.¨

Then it was clear. It didn´t matter. So what if I can´t cure Jose Manuel. If I can, after my ten years of hard work, change his life just a little, then it will be worth it. In the end, death wins, in the mean-time, we will fight as hard as we can not only to delay his inevitable arrival, but to make the time as good as it can be. Even if that just means Jose Manuel can be more easily cleaned and maybe lay on his side for a change. That´s medicine.

Nate

Wednesday in Nicaragua

Here´s today´s update:

We started today at Diriamba, the new orphanage location, a little of this a little of that. We only worked until lunch, then went south to the Pacific. It was pretty cool. The was was nice and salty, and really nice to cool off in after the 90 degree heat. After the swim, we ate a a restaurant on the beach. Really good food, very affordable. My full meal was $8 American. Nicaragua seems like a good place for an inexpensive tropical vacation spot. Just pay for a guide like Fernando. He´s the only one I´d trust to drive on these roads, let alone find where to go. Anyway, while at the restaurant, Fernando ordered Red Snapper, as it turns out it´s customary to eat the eyes and brain. The rest of the table was a little grossed out, naturally, but Fernando offered me an eye, so I tried it. It was interesting, the lens was rock hard, but the vitrious fluid was like a warm gross flavored jelly. Not as appealing as it sounds. They half a brain I was offered was actually quite good though. Very soft, almost like butter, but with a pleasant salty flavor. I´d recommend eating the brain, not so much the eyes.

Tomorrow (Thursday) is a big day though. We visit La Chureca, the ¨town¨within the Managua garbage dump. I´ve been mentally preparing myself for it, but I´m sure I´ll still be shocked by it. I hear it also smells pretty bad.

Today's note from the factbook: only 3.3% of the Nicaraguan population is 65 or older. The median age there is 21.7 years. In the US, 12.7% of the population is 65 or older, and the median age is 36.7.

Nicaragua Continued

Today we were at the new location again. More hard work, but different. We started by mixing concrete in a hole in the ground shaped like a bowl. It worked pretty well. I´d expected to mix in a wheel barrow, there were a few there, but this idea was pretty good. Then we carried cinder blocks.

After work we went around trying to find a cabinet for the orphanage. Some of the things they make here are really nice, but there finish quality is a little poorer than we´re used to in the states. The prices are lower too. A cabinet that would have likely cost $1000+ in the states was only $275 here.

I got some stuff in my eyes today, this play is rediculously dry and dusty. Not what you think of when you think about a Central American country. I used to think rain and monkeys and jungle. Now I´ll just think of dirt, wind and banana trees. Banana trees are like weeds here; almost as bad a dandilions.

Interesting bit you added about the differences between the states and Nicaragua. The paid workers here make $5 per day, and a medical doctor makes $350 per month. I spend $5 today on a box of cookies and a gatoraid at the gas station. It´d be very hard to live on that much per day.

Nicaragua Update

Here's another update from Nicaragua.

So, today was another day. We went to the new orphanage location about an hour away from where we´ve been staying. It´s a huge area compared to where they are now. They´ll have space for a farm, plants and animals, so they can teach the kids life skills to survive away from Hogar Belen (O-gar bel-EN). We spent the enitre day digging a ditch for the sewer. Something that would be done in 3 hours with a backhoe has taken over a month manually. Labor´s cheap here.

Then we went out and about a little bit after working. We stopped at a couple road-side shops and got some fruit, stopped at a shack and got some fresh coconuts and drank the milk. Not at all what I expected. It didn´t taste like the coconut I´m used to, and it wasn´t even white, it was clear and colorless. The stuff you buy in the store is an imposter.

Interesting note, it´s legal to drink in a car as long as your aren´t driving.

We also stopped to see a volcanic lake; pretty cool, insanely windy at the overlook. After the exploration led by the very helpful Fernando, a local who owns a transportation company he started after moving back from Miami just before he was deported, we drove back. This route was a little different though, and took us through the upper class areas. Some of the houses were amazing, and those were only the ones you could see behind the ever-present walls that line the city. People talk about a class difference in the states. I´ve seen a brand new 2009 Mercedes, and a family living in a corrigated aluminum hut in the same day, in the same city. That´s a class difference.

Nate

P.S. Go ahead and post this too.

It's interesting to note that while the US has a higher level of income inequality by about 2 points on the GINI index, the US also has a much higher baseline for that inequality - the low end starts much higher, and the high end goes way, way higher. Here the per-capita GDP is $45,800. In Nicaragua, it's $2,800.

There's inequality, and then there's inequality as applied to abject poverty.

From Nicaragua

I had this conversation with my brother on Facebook today. He's in Nicaragua for a week for volunteer work, and I thought you might like to see this. He gave his permission at the end, just so there's no confusion. He arrived yesterday.

Nate
dude

8:31pmSteve
Hey man

8:31pmNate
nicaragua is shockingly different from anything i´ve ever seen before

8:31pmSteve
Hows that?

8:32pmNate
you need to see the pictures and videos i´ve taken

this is a city of 3 million people

and it´s the dirtiest place

there are no majors roads or road signs

and the housing is just shacks

you should see the bar we go to

8:33pmSteve
Wow. Have you got pictures up yet?

8:33pmNate
no, i don´t have a cable and the internet here is barely internet

just 1/4 step above dial-up

8:34pmSteve
Right on. I guess that's not much of a surprise, given. It sounds much worse than I thought.

8:35pmNate
it´s bad

makes me damn glad i´m an american

8:35pmSteve
I believe it. Life can suck an awful lot in a lot of places.

8:36pmNate
yea

makes me mad about all the whiners in the states

the middle class here lives in hovels

we´re in a decent neighborhood, and it´s all dirt and dirty people, most don´t have plumbing

8:37pmSteve
Makes you scared to think what the really poor have to deal with.

8:37pmNate
yea

we see that on thursday

it´s a place called La Chureca

it´s a little "town" literally in a garbage dump

the people there survive on the trash in the dump

90%+ can´t read

i need to get going though, there´s a line for the comp.

i´ll get back to you another time

8:40pmSteve
Cool. mind if I put this on my blog so the parents can see?


8:40pmNate
not at all

good idea

8:40pmSteve
Fair enough. Be safe, dude. Good luck.

8:41pmNate
thanks, i´ll catch up with you more later

adios

I'll continue to post anything that he gives me permission for here.

Cracked Photoshop Contest Entry

I made this for the new photoshop contest. Not because I expect to win but I've found that I have far too much free time on my hands, and I've been paying far too much attention to my studies as well.

Mental Accuracy, Part 1

The more one looks at psychology, the easier it is to see just how shockingly inaccurate the human mind is. It doesn't do a good job of anything all by itself; unless you're actively using it, it botches things so readily it makes you question the whole "sentient life" idea to begin with. Without your intentional intervention and effort, your brain is only slightly north of plant life that manages to follow the sun across the sky. But knowing that gives you power over it, and helps you control it as you need to. Which is why I think the best thing to know about your brain - and everyone's brain - is something cognitivists call "snap judgment".

You've probably heard of research done by neuroscientists that explains how before you make a conscious decision, your brain has already prepared an electrochemical response to the stimulus. Determinists, depressing bastards that they are, are quick to latch onto this to explain that humans don't really have free will, because all of our decisions are really just those electrochemical signals going off. You may think that's interesting, but I'd prefer to go with the term "unhelpful in the extreme". It tells us nothing useful about ourselves, nothing that we can turn to our advantage. It's more useful to say that those chemical signals only make the decision final if the conscious processes say so, which brings us to how a snap judgment works, and what it is.

It starts with your brain being primed for a judgment somehow; perhaps you're intentionally doing it by forcing ideas upon yourself. The above chemical reaction happens, and then you consciously make a judgment about whatever it is, in an instant - literally a fraction of a second. You don't really need a lot of impetus to make judgments; we make them constantly, about almost everything, usually without giving it a second thought. To your brain, it's like switching on a light. And once we make those judgments, the easiest thing to do is defend them. When we make them, they seem self-evident. That's a snap judgment, in the psychological world.

There's nothing wrong with these judgments by nature; we all do it constantly. They're a phenomena of a brain that is in many respects as primitive as a horseshoe crab. They're a good thing to have; they help us make decisions in a pinch, they are fantastic at helping defend against a threat. Sometimes shooting from the hip really is the best course of action (the modern term "firing from retention" is preferred now, despite how badly it confuses HR personnel).

The downside to them is that when we make a snap judgment without questioning, biology wins, and biology isn't that comfortable with the world of informed thought. It'd much rather be put back where it could save you from a charging mammoth or particularly threatening insect than deal with all of this "reason" and "wisdom" nonsense. It makes it uneasy, like Yosemite Sam at a petting zoo.

So what happens when this biology wins in modernity? People make immediate and shallow judgments on very complicated issues, don't stop to question them, and end up defending them because the truth, they think, is self-evident. It appeared immediately to them, how could it not be right?

"Of course all drugs are bad, they just are."
"Religion is bad, just look at it."

There's a reason that the Founding Fathers only called three things "self-evident". It's because they were wise men, and knew damn well that everything else was going to take some noodle time. Despite what our brain likes to tell us, most things are not simple, and most things won't benefit from "puttin' a beatdown on it".

So here's how you beat the snap judgment, and rise above the rest of the animal kingdom with the exception of our jellyfish overlords. When you're in the realm of ideas, if you suddenly feel offended, or angry, or psyched up, or soothed, look carefully at what did that to you. Look at the context, the substance, the entire assembly. Think about why those had the effect on you that they did, and then intentionally ponder the alternatives. Think deep, think slow, and let those neurons volley to each other for a while. If you come to the realization that you don't know enough then you're already ahead of the game, and there's plenty more to learn no matter what you're thinking about. Go find it.

Repeat that process until you're comfortable with the idea of telling the civilized people that you respect (not just agree with) what you've thought about. If you can't say it in respectable company, around people who can make you feel honest shame, odds are good that you need to play with the ideas some more. If you don't, the reptile portion of your brain will turn your reasoning into a velociraptor's war cry - probably something embarrassing about tax hikes or genetically modified food.

I should note here that this process is vastly easier with a velvety armchair and a pipe. You should procure both before attempting any of this. They do not need to be brand new, I checked with Alistair Cooke's estate.

This is part one. Part two will be about observation error, which nobody should remain unaware of.

Z-Day: February 24, 2009

The Dow dropped 250 points today, bringing it to 7,114. Could it drop that much again tomorrow? Probably. But it doesn't need to.

It only needs to lose another 115.

And then...


But let's keep our heads here, panic is what the Zombies want.

It's hard to say where the epicenter of the outbreak is going to be. There's been some amateur speculation among leading experts (my sock monkey and myself) that it will begin in Chicago, where people already have a sort of lifeless shamble to them. I blame Blagojevich for stealing their hope. Anyway.

Monkey, however, suggests that the more likely ground zero is actually going to be in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe. If this is the case, then Z-day will occur totally unnoticed, with only slightly more exposed viscera than is usual. Let's all hope Monkey is right, but I'm afraid that there's only a distant chance of a sock filled with cotton batting being right about something this complicated.

But that's all that really needs to be said. You all know the score by now. Remove the head, destroy the brain, don't get bled on,use the buddy system. And hey, remember to keep score. There's no reason this can't be fun.

The Curmudgeon Factor

From Appropriations Committee Chairman Dave Obey, in 50 minutes, I landed fully five pages of notes on the stimulus bill. This is significant, bear with me.

I have a grading system for my professors; a bad lecture nets about .5 to 1 page; an average lecture gets 1 to 1.5 pages. A very good lecture, one that I learn a lot from, typically runs 2-3 pages. Obey gave me five, and they're not all talking points, which is pretty cool. I'm not going to summarize. I'm just going to give you all my notes, all at once, exactly as they appear in my 30% post-consumer materials notebook. Deal with it, sissies.

--------------------------------And GO --------------------------------------------

1 year ago, major business leaders had concerns re: world economy & wanted to start working on an anti-recession package to address next 2 years. Package started at 60 billion, size limited by presidential disapproval and was eventually dropped.

Came to White House attention in Sept. that there was a worldwide credit emergency, congress needed to organize a response. Initial bank bailout did prevent a collapse, even with mistakes in transparency and accountability.

Second response began in November with election of BO; congressional response to president's requests.

How it works: when consumer spending drops, the economy shrinks prompting layoffs, which feeds back into decreased consumer spending. Positive Feedback Loop.

In next 3 years, 3-3.5 trillion dollar hole is expected in purchase power. Package is an attempt to stop up that hole.

Most economists expected a recession and increased unemployment over the next 2 years. W/o intervention, unemployment expected to reach or breach 11%. Some of this will happen even with the package, and it will get worse before better. 2-3 year schedule before improvements should be expected.

Obey agrees w/ Paul Krugman in that package isn't big enough. It's 800 billion to patch a 3.5 trillion hole. Even with economic multipliers, it's only expected to help out as much as 1.5 trillion if all goes well. Was passed too small as a compromise to republicans.

35% of package as tax cuts directed toward middle class, nerfed due to compromise.

Monetary infusion to "create or save" 4 million jobs through infrastructure investment and allocation.

State budget stabilization provided to prevent state cutbacks on services, same w/ medicare. Will still happen, but not as badly as if nothing had been done.

Increased unemployment comp, food stamps, baby-kissing, etc.

the Problem: from WWII to 1973, economy grew but growth was more evenly distributed. Began tipping toward upper class in 1980-1981, that trend hasn't reversed as yet. Result is that purchase power is too heavily concentrated to be valuable; needs to be redirected to people whose purchasing supports more diverse industries.

Funding education is funding an economic equalizer, other investments made in growth industries like healthcare.

Fed reserve cutting interest rates won't help with a collapsed housing and auto market. Real necessity is reinvesting to help US auto makers regain competitive tech edge; if they don't do it, they're done.

Complaints about deficit spending: deficits will be higher if we don't address the problem.

This bill, all by itself, is not enough to fix the problem or brace the country. More is coming, but it's being done in other sectors because appropriations doesn't have the subject-matter expertise.

We need to have an eye towards a more equitable distribution of societal benefits when economy has been rebuilt; can't allow the current trends to continue.

This isn't perfect, it may not even look good but it's the best available under ugly circumstances.

QUESTIONS

What is driving the partisanship over this?

-finds repub reaction distressing, but not a new problem. In the House, rep caucus decided to follow Henserling (R-TX), and Old Guard Reaganite, and "drive them crazy". Idea is to make Obama take all the heat, make the dems own every scrap of the bill.

How has the political atmosphere changed over time?

-Used to not be TV cameras in the House, which means speeches used to be persuasive and directed at someone else. Now they're rhetorical, directed at the audience. Pollsters are new too; used to be that only the big guns had them. Increases confrontational nature. Newt Gingrich showing up in 1978 did damage to bipartisanship with training tactics; used to be Vietnam era democrats that were the nasty ones, but now you're seeing that on the republican side. Rush limbaugh isn't helping. Economic establishment puts much more money into public policy now than it ever used to.

-How does House feel about fairness doctrine?

Not a "snowball's chance in hell" of passing senate. He may support it, "But I'm used to losing arguments."

-Auto bailout?

Makes him crazy that they have to help them, but can't agree that it's not necessary. Been trying to push auto makers to be competitive for 30 years. Hates it, but sees auto bailout as necessary.

------------------------------------Stop --------------------------------------------

I hope you got something out of that. I'll pull something out of it later, when I'm not trying to eat Macaroni.

Dorkish Coolness

U.S. House Representative Dave Obey will be visiting us tomorrow. And when I say "us", I mean just my Presidency class. I may spend a lot of time disagreeing with him, but he's an influential character and a very successful politician. This will be interesting, and I promise to put all my notes here when it's over.

Cracked.com: Potty-mouthed Prophets.

Dan O'Brien wrote this back before the election. It's pretty alarming how accurate it is.

OBAMA: The Hope-osphere, located in the heart of Chicago-
DOB: Oh shit you’re gonna build it.
OBAMA: -will be constructed of several thousand tons of solid, reinforced titanium, cooled and bent into the shape of a perfect-
DOB: How much is this going to cost?
OBAMA: -sphere. In between those bars, 400,000 sheets of sound-proof, bullet-proof, hatred-proof glass will be brought in from-
DOB: How much is this going to cost?
OBAMA:… and at the center Hope-osphere, the source of power will be the Truth-Core, where inspiring Hope-Lava will flow, like a river, through-
DOB:How much is this going to cost?
OBAMA: I think if you take a look at these hope-figures and my hopeulations, you’ll-
DOB: But how much…
OBAMA: You can’t really put a price on hope.
DOB: Give it a shot.
OBAMA: $850 billion.
DOB: Wow.
OBAMA: But, once you convert that price to Hope Dollars, I think you’ll agree that-
DOB: Wow.
I got up to leave.

It's even more alarming when you read the rest of the article. How much more of this is going to come true before 2012?

Bwah ha ha!

Just as I thought, the Democrats really are dumb enough to give me an additional $8 per paycheck! Now nothing can stop me from bringing this horror to the world:



Now granted, I'll have to save up for my Incredible Hulk Abomination Blaster for about two months, but it's actually possible now, thanks to my additional allowance.

Or maybe I should save it. If I'm in a position where $8 is considered "help", I may not be in a good position to go around spending that "help" on infrastructure-destroying Abomination Blasters.

Another box of Nutty Bars couldn't hurt though.

Two God-Awful Essays and My Own Opinion, Volume 1: Israel

Patricia Berlyn arguing against a Palestinian state.

Rosemary Shinko arguing for a Palestinian state. The clumsy formatting isn't my fault here.

Both of these essays appear in a book that I was required to buy for my International Relations class. Both essays come across as simplistic, heavyhanded and ignorant of the reality of the situation. It's unfortunate that professors regard this sort of thing as a starting point. Why can't we start with the complex reality, and work our way toward understanding from there rather than a position of inherent, provoked bias? A quick opinion on a conflict this old isn't helpful in any way.

All that said, my provoked, biased opinion is that a two-state solution would be just fine provided that there is a groundswell of sudden and unprecedented civility between Palestinians and Israelis. Getting good leaders won't do it because a democratic public won't vote for a leader who's out of step with them. One of the limitations of a democratic nation is that policy can only move as fast as public majority feeling allows, which isn't very fast when there are ancient grudges involved. This change really does have to happen at the grass-roots level before it can happen in the policy arena.

That means a cease-fire that actually gets obeyed to give the people enough time to cool the hell off. Islamic extremists are dedicated to not allowing that to happen, and that is always to the detriment of Palestine, not Israel. Without crackdowns on terrorist activity and arms smuggling, a cease-fire in the policy realm won't matter. That's why Israel occasionally bombs smuggling tunnels and assaults the West Bank, but without the cooperation of the PA it isn't enough to hold the situation in place. And, with the repeated international condemnation of these security maneuvers, it's impossible for Israeli security forces to maintain a preventative presence in the area, counterinsurgency style.

The result of that is the constant flux between buildup, attack, counterassault, withdrawal, buildup ad nauseum. It would help Israel to have international support for their security measures, but that would be easier to get if they favored a more proportional response than they do now, and while they haven't been given much reason to change, a solid strategy in this sort of situation is really based on the least amount of force necessary, not overwhelming force. It's very hard to get to that understanding when you have towns that are being attacked by smuggled or home-made rockets every day.

As for the Palestinians, they need to cut political and real ties with jihadis, who they may feel are fighting for them but are really genuinely hurting their cause. It may feel good to sling rockets at people you hate, but it isn't always constructive and that's certainly the case here, because violence only matters if it can actually change the situation wether by magnitude or direction, and that has not been demonstrated in this context. Mutual non-aggression here has to start with the PA becoming very tough about halting terrorist activity. And as stated, without a miraculous swell of mutual good-will and understanding at the ground level, that won't happen.

So the answer isn't an absolute, til-death-do-us-part position, and it shouldn't be. It's a categorical "no" for the Palestinian state as the situation stands now, with the understanding that if and when the situation changes, that "no" can be re-evaluated.

Oh come on.

That's it, shut it down. What a joke.

I've never been so happy to have Republicans around so that somebody is pushing back against this porkfest.

Obama is going to need to learn how this "Chief Executive" thing works a whole lot faster than he currently is. Stop telling me how the country voted as if it's an excuse, stop denigrating people's doubts about your pet project, stop handing important things off to a cluster of old guard democrats who are dumber than soap .

Tell the democrats what you want in the bill, and not to put in anything else. Then you can lean on your electoral win with some credibility, and it'll be okay that you do.

Don't resort to scare tactics, explain how the bill will fix the problem and then, somehow, explain away the research of the Congressional Budget Office. Then you can play off doubt as "nameless, unreasoning fear" instead of having press conferences that can be summed up by phrase "run for your lives!"

Even a Telegraph staff writer says his inexperience is showing.

I don't actually like this. Get it together dude, you're my president now.

Eesh

$3.2 million is a lot of money if you're from Africa. It's even more when you're from Somalia, where running across a dead cow is considered an economic boon of Hollywood proportions.

The owners of a Ukranian freighter paid that sum for the release of the freighter, crew, and contents. Now given that the contents include a number of military assets like tanks and grenade launchers and guns, the Ukranians probably paid much less than the ship alone was worth, let alone all the stuff inside it. Which is good, because that means pirating jackasses won't be rolling around Somalia in stolen armored cavalry vehicles. I'd call that part a win.

What I'm more ambivalent about is just where that $3.2 million is going to go. I can assure you, it won't go anywhere that will make civilization very happy. It's been speculated that these pirates might be loosely associated with Islamic terrorist groups, and that seems pretty likely. But it wouldn't be necessary for there to be a problem, because they're pirates. They're not really savory people, even if they aren't befriending jihadis.

But that's damage done in Africa, and not the Ukraine, and the Ukraine will never have to cope with whatever hell gets unleashed, and that's why they made the payment.

Let's hope they start arming the crews. For Africa.

Culture Matters

I'ts a common target, so I won't labor the first point. Saying that a european country has "free" healthcare is a lie, because that healthcare is funded through the tax structure, which citizens are paying for. It's a distributed cost plan, not a "no cost" plan. That's the first level that you're all familiar with.

But there's another level where this term is misleading and unhelpful, and indicates that the term has no place in a valid Political Science field. By calling it "free" you deny the fact that it's a distributed cost. By doing that, you deny people the opportunity to consider the nature of the culture and citizenry tolerating those costs. That culture (Sweden, if you're wondering) is willing to tolerate an income tax rate twice that of the United States to fund their social programs. That's not free, and people in Sweden don't wander around all day oblivious to that fact. So what elements of the Swedish nation allow for that degree of support for socialized programs and the correlating distributed costs?

If you call it "free", those questions never get asked. That's not science, it's just offensive.

I'm going to go right ahead and say that uniting 9 million people who are 87% Lutheran is a much easier task in both values and scale than uniting 303 million who exist in a baffling array of religions and value systems. They have a much higher innate ability toward cultural unity, because there is less significant variance. Sweden also has no transnational issues to speak of, which means a smaller degree of political polarization than we frequently see in the United States, where foreign policy is always a touchy issue.

But all of these things are cultural issues, which are pretty likely to be glossed over by the preposterous Liberal notion that "we're all just people". We're all people, raised and conditioned in widely varying environments and in very different value systems and support structures. I'm afraid that the similarity stops at physiology, and does not continue on through the human psyche. This isn't good or bad; it just is. It's a reality to be operated within, not an "indoctrination" to decry or an "enlightenment" to foster.

Odd Management Realization

I've been trying maybe too hard to figure out just where my position falls in the office hierarchy; I'm not really sure whether I was a "coworker" or a "supervisor" as far as the people around me are concerned. Now that this has happened, I feel sort of stupid for not recognizing it earlier.

tonight, someone resigned their position, and in doing so felt the need to make me aware of it; that is, at the end of their shift, they got my attention to explain that it would be their last, apologize for the short notice, and turn in their access card. People resign all the time (especially the bilingual people here) but nobody has ever reported to me to do it. And this one did, because she saw me as her supervisor. She's almost 40 years old, but I was still her supervisor; the person she needed to talk to in order to square away her separation from the company.

I'm a supervisor, despite my lack of expertise, because they think I have some sort of authority. What real authority I actually have is minute; it's barely there. I don't even think I have it most of the time. It's like being a meter maid. Sure, I'm not a cop, but I still wrote you a ticket that you have to pay. It's not the sort of authority I really like, and it has a very different, much less comfortable feel than the authority I had at TASC, where people listened because I was honestly good at what I was doing.And the only thing for that is to again get good at what I'm doing now.

So it's a good thing that the management thinks I'm doing a good enough job for me to report to my boss's boss directly; they're going to start rotating my loyalty between the four managers so I can pick up their areas of expertise and their styles. I'm training with supervisors now, not phone operators. Now, if nothing else, I know what camp I'm supposed to be in, which has not previously been clear.

Game Review: "Black" on Xbox

I really mean it this time. There's no possible excuse for this sort of behavior on part of game designers. They broke every rule in the book and while some may call that "innovative" and "revolutionary", gamers call it "goddammit why the fuck can't I kill anything?" I'm going to do this point-by-point, or it will turn into a rant.

Overall Look: Beautiful. But the lighting frequently (and this is very clearly intentional) makes it impossible to see your targets, which makes for more frustration rather than more challenge. The guns are rendered beautifully and their actions are faithful, which is great. 8/10.

Plot: Stupid and impossible to follow. Why are russian terrorists following an American leader? What did the protagonist have to do with all this? Why didn't I kill the bad guy in the last level and why are you telling me to start all over? Are you calling me fat? 2/10.

Weapon function: Beautiful as stated, but I've done more damage to people by stepping on their toes. 12 counted shots to the torso per kill, 1 shot to the head works but it's not the sort of thing that works out most of the time. The only good way to kill people is with the most powerful and most rare weapons in the game. Hint for developers: if you have to give me twice as much ammo per magazine as the gun is supposed to have, you're too stupid to breathe. Go back and try again. 3/10.

Suppressors: Totally and in all ways useless. If they take 12 shots to kill unless I hit them in the head, and that's damn near impossible,and they notice me anyway whether I hit them or not, you're pretty much promising me that I'll never have to take the weapon out of Fully Automatic mode. Fuck your suppressors, Criterion Games. 0/10.

Enemies: Robots wearing tank armor. Russian with helmet (12 shots to kill), Russian without helmet (12 shots to kill), Russian with everything-proof hockey mask (empty the magazine), Russian with everything-proof SWAT shield (empty it twice). Apparently in the video game world, bad guys only come in two flavors: Caramel Communist and Neopolitan Nazi. At this stage of my gaming career, I have cut down more Russians than Stalin and more Nazis than the entire Allied Forces. Digital Commies and Brownshirts pee themselves in their sleep if their bunkmate whispers my name. Why can't I ever shoot someone who's threatening me in ENGLISH? Especially if they're supposed to have been led by an American. Then I might have more motivation to wade into yet another ridiculous, obviously position-triggered firefight. 1/10.

Allies: AI is never good, and when you couple it with candy-ass weapons, lazy team programming and crappy marksmanship, you go beyond wishing they weren't there. The only thing more frustrating than your allies' inability is that you can't cut them down from behind with your shitty little Uzi to take their suppressed G36 that they haven't fired once in 20 minutes of fighting. Their only saving grace is that they are usually nowhere to be found. 1/10.

Mission Structure: You know who likes to play entire, 20-minute to half-hour missions and all the while risk losing every shred of progress if they die? Fucking nobody. I have things to do, and there's no excuse for me not being able to save mid-mission in this day and age. I fought my way through 15-minutes of testicle-grinding levels with dipshit teammates against lumps of gun-wielding iron, the least you can do is let me SAVE MY GODDAMNED PROGRESS. It's frustrating to know that you can't start a mission unless you plan to play for a solid hour. I've never actually sat in my chair sighing with impatience and boredom while murdering foreigers before. But I turned it into an art form with this game. 0/10.

Incentives: You can pick up different weapons in each mission, but A) you can't keep them, B) you start the mission with whatever weapons the designers choose, C) you can't pick new weapons to start any mission, even after you beat the game, and D) once you do beat the game, they turn all your weapons silver as if it's some kind of prize ("cool you won, now do it again with sissy-ass nickel-plated guns"). There's no point to completing any objectives that they don't require, because you get nothing for it. There's no point in killing extra enemies, because you get nothing for it. 2/10.

Replay Value: There are eight missions. Beat the game, and it's the same 8 missions just harder. There's no multiplayer. There's no weapon selection. There's no challenge mode. Just eight linear missions and when you're done, roll credits. This game hit the market costing $49.99. With Wisconsin sales tax, that's $52.74. These assholes charged some poor bastards $6.59 per mission, or a mind-boggling $4.35per weapon. I got it for $.87 per weapon and $1.31 per mission. I'm pretty sure that even I got screwed on this one. 0/10.

Final Analysis: 1.78/10
Three-word Summary: Bored to tears.
Unforgivability Factor: 9.4/10

Another game like this, and I'll start studying again.

RE: The revolution not being televised

Maybe not, but it will be all over the damn internet, which is going to be about the same soon.

And I have the internet now. All of it, stockpiled here in my apartment like a cache of ex-soviet weaponry.

I'm sorry if you were expecting my Disney drinking buddies article, but I've had to postpone that for a while on account of not having written it yet. But "sorry" is the wrong word; what I was going for was really "unmoved in every way". Sort of like Mary Poppins but with apathy.

Now I, like so many others, can instantly flop out my god-awful opinions about wardrobe malfunctions, president malfunctions, and the ongoing corndog/zombie crisis.

Life is, as they say, a bowl of cherries. A bowl of cherries called "the internet", which as I have said, I am now storing in my house in big crates.

Patriotism

If I had the gumption to write a piece about how I feel about America, I really hope that I would do it right, and write something as good as this.

It's a hard subject for someone in college, because declaring yourself a patriot carries the inherent implication that you somehow approve or disprove of some current event, or that said event is the basis for your patriotism. I don't think anything could be further from the truth. Love of country is like love of anything else; if it's based on the short-term, what-has-it-done-for-me considerations, it's not really love. But since love is a concept that humanity has as yet failed to really articulate, I'm going to leave it there.

Where that article talks about the pursuit of happiness, I'm right there with it. There's a certain degree of outright insanity that has to be tolerated for people to chase their dreams, and in this country, that insanity is accepted as a matter of course. To chase after hard things to grab, like pants-wettingly satisfying jobs or mountains of money or astronomical achievements, a certain degree of reason-defying megalomania is required. And here, that's okay. And we only call it insanity among the people who didn't pull it off; the people who do are called "visionaries".

I'm in love with this country because it offers me a very wide latitude of pursuit; wider than most other places, and I have used that extra width on a number of occasions. And then, still had the wherewithal to come back and try something else. That's a big deal, and it doesn't happen in most places. When people talk about how unforgiving of error that the US system of government and economics is, they generally forget that much of the world knows cruelty in ways that even hard-done Americans can't really relate to.

But for the most part, I take it on faith that we're awesome. I don't think about it a lot because I don't feel like I need to. It's obvious, it's there for everyone to see. It's one of my more solid basic assumptions. It doesn't say anything else about anyone else, because it's not "America is awesome and everyplace else blows". Just that America is awesome, and I love it. I don't need to do any introspection to know that we ought to defend our ideals and the principles that we've built the nation on. Of course we should.

And, to be completely honest, having that whole idea figured out frees up a lot of time for me to think about other things. Like which five Disney movie characters would make the best drinking buddies. But that's my next post.