My concerns over the “Occupy Wall Street” movement.

If you have been paying attention to the news, you may have heard of this “Occupy Wall Street” thing going on in New York. Basically, a bunch of young Liberals are protesting the greed and corruption of Wall Street and want more accountability within the financial sector. At least I think that’s what they are complaining about. Their rough draft of their manifesto is kind of weak.

But I see promise in this. I think we finally have a counter to the Tea Party movement. For far too long I felt that no one on the left was doing anything anymore and we were just handing over the country to the far right. But I have a few concerns for this movement that I would like to address.

Can we turn this into real political Influence?

When Liberals and Democrats stayed away from the polls in 2010, it gave Republicans the House. They bitched during the campaign season, they bitched after the election, but they didn’t vote. I’m afraid that Liberals will do everything BUT vote to get their message across and this is one of them. When November 2012 comes along, how many of these people will actually go to the polls and vote? Obama won in 2008 with the help of the youth vote and he’ll need it again in 2012 to win. However, I’m afraid who they might vote for.

Splitting the vote.

Will this movement empower Democrats, like the Tea Party has done for Republicans? Or will it become a separate Third-Party movement? I hope that it doesn’t become a third-party movement because it will destroy any chance of Democrats ever winning again.

One Hundred years ago next year, Woodrow Wilson won the presidency. Why? Because the Republican Party split. After failing to win the nomination, Theodore Roosevelt bolted the Republican Party and took the progressive wing with him, forming the Progressive or “Bull Moose” Party. Republicans went with incumbent William Howard Taft and a three way Wilson-Taft-Roosevelt campaign was on. At first glance it doesn’t look like the Republican split hurt them too much.

Wilson’s 435 Electoral Votes to a combined 96 for Taft and Roosevelt is pretty sad; one of the biggest landslides in history. However, looking at the popular vote is another story. The national combined popular vote would give Republicans 7 million to Wilson’s 6 million. Of course popular vote means squat at the national level, but if you look at the popular vote at the state level, you find something very interesting.

In 24 states that Woodrow Wilson won, he would have lost them if he were faced with a united Republican opposition*. That would have given Republicans 351 Electoral Votes to Wilson’s 180. (Of course that is assuming that every Roosevelt Progressive would have voted for Taft. Progressive Republicans could have bolted the party and voted for Wilson, giving him a greater edge had Roosevelt not run. This is, of course, just a “what if” scenario.) Wilson got lucky in 1912, because four years later, the Republicans would be united and they would give the nation one of the closest elections in history.

 Alternative 1912 Scenario:

 Red = Republicans, Blue = Democrats

(California Split its Electoral Votes. 11 for Roosevelt, 2 for Wilson. I included this for the Alternative Scenario)

 

This alternative Republican victory is roughly the equivalent of Obama’s victory in 2008. It would have been a replay of  last three elections. Why do I bring this up? Simple: DON’T SPLIT THE PARTY! I have some hope as I saw this article talk about a Liberal PAC trying to get more progressives to win Democratic primaries and challenge Tea Party Republicans in the general election. That strategy did work overall for the Tea Party in 2010 (even if it did cost them the Senate). As long as these people don’t vote Nader, I’m fine.

Organization.

This movement isn’t very organized. It’s just a bunch of young people camping out in a park, complaining of the system. To get the momentum going and make political progress, they need to organize like the Tea Party. They need someone on top to define their goals because…

What are they trying to accomplish?

Like I said earlier, the rough draft of their list of demands is just that, rough. Very very rough. It quotes from Wikipedia and Documentaries heavily. They say there is a coherent list of what was done by Wall Street and how it was bad, but they have to actually look it up and put it in later. They misspelled “award”. They praise Matt Damon for being brave in narrating the “awared winning Documentary”. It’s just a mess.

Within the turd, though, are some nuggets of gold, and I understand what they want; more regulation and oversight of Wall Street. They are upset over the growing gap between the rich and poor and the shrinking middle class. They really need some people to come in and convey this more clearly. Unfortunately…

Michael Moore is involved.

I hate Michael Moore. With a passion. His films, while entertaining, are far from accurate. He maliciously edits his films to make his opponents look silly and he starts with the ending and works backwards, getting information that suits his views and ignores those that contradict them. He is basically preaching to the choir at this point because only Liberals will listen to him and believe everything he says without question. So when I see him involved, I see these protestors as people who just blindly hate corporations because of his and a few other “documentaries”. I agree that we need more regulations, but I don’t “hate” corporations.

If “Occupy Wall Street” and its supporters can vote, support Democrats, organize, articulate what they stand for, and back away from Michael Moore, I’ll give my blessing and support it. Even if they get 4/5, I’ll be happy.

*(http://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/  Select 1912 on the left side of the page. For some reason, there isn't a separate URL for each election)

Obama scandal? Yawn!

The Daily Show brought to my attention a little known Obama scandal. Solyndra was a solar power company that Obama had used as his poster boy for investment into green energy.

It failed.

What makes it worse was the fact that he was told that the company was not solvent and did not have a sound business strategy, but he continued to invest large sums of money into it.

This story should be HUGE.

We are trusting this man to fix our economy but yet he ignored the advice of his economic advisors and continued to bet on a lame horse? This should be dogging the President everywhere he goes. The right should be using this successfully to show that he does not understand the economy and should not be trusted with another term.

But the first sentence shows that it is not getting the right attention. I had to first hear about it from a satirical left-wing news show and that it is not well known. Why?

Because we are fed up with criticism of Obama. We see a party devoted to destroying Obama’s chances at a second term over fixing the economy. We see Republicans refusing to do anything to compromise with the President. We see a group of people who were obsessed with the President’s Birth Certificate and were convinced that he was born in Kenya and a party unwilling to correct its own people. We have people who believe Obama has a deep seated hatred of America because of his “anti-colonial roots”.

Any criticism of the president is now just background noise. It is the “party that cried wolf”. We don’t hear it anymore. Any attack on the president is now just right-wing blather. It’s just stuff blindly lobbed at a man a group hates for no reason. It took Conservatives two years to do to Obama as it took Liberals six years to do to Bush.

Of course conservatives will blame the “lamestream media” of covering it up and not reporting it because they LOVE Obama (I do wonder why the same Liberal Media is ignoring the Occupation of Wall Street and the police brutality/entrapment.).

I believed that this excessive criticism would help Obama in the long run. Historians would look back and see all of the crap he had to put up with and agree that he did all he could do with the given situation. I didn’t  think that this criticism would actually help him during his own Presidency.

Why I hate, nay, FEAR Michelle Bachmann.

Michelle Bachmann was once the front runner in the race to the Republican nomination for President. She and Mitt Romney battled for the hearts of the far-right for a while and she won the Iowa Straw poll, a meaningless indicator of how well a candidate will fare in the actual primaries. Now she seems to be fading since Rick Perry has joined the race and has taken the lead.

I couldn’t be happier.

I am not a Rick Perry fan, although I like that his candidacy could help re-elect President Obama. Also, I don’t see him as great as a threat that Michelle Bachmann is to this nation.

For awhile, I felt this strange feeling towards the Congresswoman. It was an unexplainable hatred and dislike for her. If asked if I could describe why I didn’t like her, I couldn’t. At least not in a coherent manner. I disagreed with her on many issues, but of course I would, I am a Liberal and she, a Conservative. But my disagreement was not at the same level as I had for George W. Bush, Mitt Romney, Sarah Palin, or Rick Perry. It was a burning hatred within my soul that only her creepy eyes could light.

Then I realized it; fear breeds hate.

I was afraid.

But what should I be afraid of, besides just those eyes?

I fear the Christian Right in this country. I find their beliefs to be un-American, or at least the America I know. Bachmann is clearly a member of that group. How could she not, with her “curative therapy” of homosexuals her and her unlicensed husband perform at their clinic?

What scares me the most about Michelle Bachmann is that I do not know where her beliefs come from. She claims her religious awakening came when she was 16 years old and entered a church. She began “weeping before the Lord” because she was a “sinner” with a heart that “needed to be cleaned”. She then, in her own words, “radically abandoned” herself to God.

Where did this come from? How do you wake up on Sunday without a care in the world and then wake up the next day at 5 AM religiously reading the Bible? Yes, my beliefs have evolved since I was 13 and I can look back and wonder what the Hell I was thinking. But here is the key difference, my thoughts evolved, meaning it was a process that took years of self reflection before I arrived to where I am at, and they are still evolving. I didn’t wake up one morning, pull a 180, and become an ardent believer for life. I feel like her conversion is like some of these homegrown terrorists. A person with no strong political or religious stances views a few websites and 24 hours later, they’re talking about blowing up a car in the name of Allah.

That is why I am terrified of Michelle Bachmann, I don’t know why she believes what she believes. But holds those beliefs, she does. Strongly. I feel like she has completely sacrificed her free will and thought to something so quickly without understanding why she did so in the first place. Because of her mindless devotion to God, she can’t separate politics and religion. To be a good American, you must be a Republican. To be a good Republican, you must be a Christian. Therefore, a good American must be a Christian, her kind of Christian. She cannot view an opponent as someone who disagrees with her. In her eyes, those creepy creepy eyes, they are the enemy of America and God. Capitalism is Christian. Jesus is a Republican. Communism is a tool of the Devil. Liberalism is conspiring to rob you of God and Country. You might as well be supporting Satan if you support the Health Care Reform.

When I am choosing a leader of the Free World, I want a Leader, someone who thinks for themselves and comes to complicated decisions through thought and logic, not a mindless drone of God. Michelle Bachmann is still a 16 year old, she thinks she knows everything.

Tropico 4 Review

I finally bought Tropico 4, the game in which you rule a Caribbean Island nation. I have to say, it is really fun to play.

 Obligatory Pre-Released Image for Reviews #1

It is exactly the same as the previous game. Rule a Banana Republic using any means necessary. If you are upset that the graphics and music are the same as the last game, boo hoo. They were good in the last one, do you need to improve it? Unfortunately, my computer can only handle the game on low graphics, which is a shame, in between when my computer freezes because of a bad motherboard or bad fan causing it to overheat. The latter problem is not the games fault but the former problem is (maybe). My computer is only two years old and it can’t run this game with medium graphics without slowing down? Anyway, to the game…

For some reason, I have to register online and login to play the game. Actually, that reason is for stopping piracy, but I think it is stupid to make you have to go online to play a single player game. Now really, on to the game…

There are some improvements to the game. You have a cabinet in which you can appoint ministers, mostly to issue edicts (laws like “Social Security” or “Building Permits”). Throughout the game you get certain challenges. Challenges can come from a foreign power to export more resources or the leader of a faction at home demanding something like a new church or a landfill. However, read the challenge carefully before selecting, because you cannot cancel it if you accept. I accidentally agreed to export more Tobacco to the US. The only problem was that my Island Nation does not have the right climate to grow tobacco easily. Now I have a challenge that I cannot easily complete or delete. Sometimes the challenges are unreasonable, like “remove the lumber industry from your island”. Gee, I’m sorry the environmentalists love trees, but my people need jobs and the nation needs money!

You have factions in the game like communists, capitalists, environmentalists, loyalists, religious, militarists, intellectuals, and nationalists. The most overused phrase to describe this is “It’s a juggling act to keep them all happy!”. Low wage discrepancy will make communists happy, but make capitalists fume. Loyalists hate free elections but Intellectuals love them. And so on and so forth. I noticed a glitch in the game that causes the Loyalists to hate you forever. One of the edicts is “Ideology Book” (like Mao’s Little Red Book) where you publish a book on your ideology (duh) to create fanatically loyal people out of the stupidest people in the nation. 

It stays in effect for three years, but after that time is up, the Loyalists act as if you canceled it 50+ times. Nothing you can do will ever make them happy as the three things that they do like are vastly outweighed by the supposed 50 times you canceled your book. Fortunately, a patch was released and it was fixed. It is a bit odd that Loyalists can turn on you so easily. You know, “Loyal”-ists?

You have to appease the world powers. There are two main powers, the US and the USSR, and three new powers added in this game, Europe, China, and the Middle East. If you piss off Uncle Sam or the Great Bear, you could be invaded and then it’s game over. Make the other three powers mad, and they will place an embargo on your nation. To make them mad, go into debt or side against someone during the random events like “Mideast Revolutions” or “Who does Taiwan Belong to?”.

Going into debt is very easy with the small sum of money they give you to start out with. I’ll admit it; I do use a money cheat code. One Million dollars of starting funds is enough to slowly build up an economy so when you spend it all, you are finally exporting enough goods to make a profit. I finally understand why third world nations hate the US. They’re trying to build up a nation but some nation has to come in and make things harder for you. If you try to go without the money cheat, it would probably be 1980 before you get any industries, 2000 before your nation gets electricity, and 2020 before you get your first tourists. Time flies when you have no money. Maybe I just suck at the game.

Of course there are disasters which are fun and inconvenient. A Tsunami early in one game killed half my people and set me back over a decade. Of course “Llama Flu” had spread on my island which prohibited me from getting immigrants. I didn’t see that message at first and thought the game had glitched or that I had accidentally selected “No Immigrants” on the game menu.

 Obligatory Pre-Released Image for Reviews # 2

Housing is always a problem for me. I can never meet the needs of the people. At first, I have enough, but then I focus on meeting the other needs (religion, entertainment, healthcare, etc.), then I’m trying to get a food surplus, then it’s building up my industry, and after 25 years, 75% of the people are homeless and those with a home live in crappy tenements. Getting your builders to build is hard enough. After placing a building you can decide how important it is to build: low, medium, high, or don’t build. If you leave everything at “medium”, they take their sweet ass time getting around to it and usually leave half-way through construction without a replacement and I have a half-built home for 15 years sitting there. “High” priority gets them there pretty quick, but I obviously can’t do that for all the buildings because the builders then become confused as to which one they should work on first. I mind as well just leave it at “medium”. Why would I ever need “Low” priority? Either build it now or wait. Getting the people in a house can be pretty hard. I have a lovely set of middle class homes on the east side, completely empty, and the homeless on the west side won’t move their lazy asses in, even though they can afford it! Of course, if you have too many buildings under construction at one time, your top advisor “loses” the blueprints for every building on the island. He even loses blueprints for roads.

 When can we start?

I have a few problems with the game.

The biggest problem I had with the game was the limit on how many roads you could build. In game, they tell you it has become too expensive to maintain the current amount of roads, although I don’t see that anywhere in the budget. It’s a city building game and you limit the amount of roads I can build? Try that with SimCity and see how much fun you’ll have. The game is about twice as big as the last so I need MORE roads than before! Fortunately, the same patch that solved the “Ideology Book” Edict bug increased the road limit. There is still a limit, but I haven’t reached it yet.

Another problem I have is that if you are invaded, overthrown, or voted out of office, it is an instant game over. I would like to continue the game with a new avatar as a foreign puppet, a military dictator, or a democratic reformer who tears down all the statues of the old El Presidente. Instead you can play as a leader with multiple personalities who goes from being all of those things in 50 years. Could I die a natural death (or from assassination) and have my son or daughter become next in line? Nope. El Presidente can have a 500 year reign if you are dedicated enough to play that long.

If you aren’t going to let me die, then make the game timeless. Have it so we are always stuck in the 1950s like a sitcom with a moving timeline. It bothers me that the USSR still exists after 1992 and China doesn’t replace them as the rival Super Power after 2020 or something. In Tropico 3 with a patch, the radio announcer does mention the Soviet Union Collapsing around 1992, but the game still lists “USSR”. In the game “Victoria”, the nation’s flag would change in-game if they became Communist, or a Monarchy, etc. Why can’t Tropico 4?

I know I had a lot to complain about, but they were small things, some of which were fixed. Most of it probably stems from the fact that I’m not good at multitasking or I’m very slow. For some reason, my country progresses much slower each time I start a new game. It is an enjoyable game and the reviews and ratings given out to it are very accurate and fair. I would like it much more if my computer didn’t crash so frequently while playing, but that isn’t the fault of the game. It crashes during every game and when I watch videos.

2012 Update.

I have been wanting to do an update to my Presidential Election Prediction for awhile, but things change so quickly that by the time I feel ready to write, something changes. But seeing as how it is past Labor Day, the unofficial start to the campaign (seriously, why is Labor Day the freakin’ cutoff date for so many things?), I guess I should add my two cents. It won’t be as analytical as the last and more of my opinion.

I would like to apologize in advanced for not having as many cited references. Feel free to disregard my opinion as I do not have actual “evidence” of my claims. If you really care, try Googling it.

First, I shat my pants after reading this article. Maybe I am just overreacting. Maybe it’s like the Republicans saying horrible things will happen to the country if Democrats win in 2006. Of course Democrats were not, and are not as crazy as Republicans now. Who knows? I should take a chill pill.

Bachmann seems to have slipped from first (thank God), and the race is between Perry and Romney. I still think Mitt Romney has the best chance of winning because he is not as crazy as the rest of them. I think Jon Huntsman is even better, going after the people blasting evolution and globalwarming. Unfortunately, Huntsman does not have much of a chance in the circus sideshow that is the Republican Primaries.

The Republican candidates are giving the Democrats plenty of fodder to work with, but the Democrats aren’t working with it. The Republican Party took the nation’s and world’s fiscal stability hostage to create an artificial crises to get huge budget cuts because the Government spending is “Out of Control”, ie, the nation is in a Recession, therefore welfare spending has gone up. They made up a problem and then made up a crisis to address the made up problem. If you cannot get people to hate that party and vote them out then you have some serious problems. The Tea Party is less popular than Atheists! My father who once told “I share a lot of beliefs with the Tea Party” now hates them with a passion. The Democrats need to start defending their programs and aggressively attacking the Republicans. Polls show that the public backs the Democrats. Even thought Democrats lost to special elections, the issues that won were “Israel” and being a “Washington Insider”. In other words “non-issues” or issues the public does not care about. Democrats won in a very conservative NY district (my old district!) in the spring of this year. What was the issue? Medicare, an issue people DO care about now. Even though the Republicans won on non-issues, they were able to win on non-issues. They are very good at that.

President Obama has responded to people who ask him why he isn’t fighting hard enough, by stating that “he is doing everything he can”. I’m sorry sir, but we are getting a perception that you are not fighting hard enough. The debate always starts to the right and Democrats are only fighting to prevent it from going further to the right. Factcheck.org should not be the only place where I can find people debunking Republican claims; it should be coming from the Democrats. Issues are not enough to win elections. You need to win over the people.

For the Liberals, you need to stick by the President. I’m sooooooo sorry that the president can’t be more Liberal. But who would you rather have; a moderately Liberal President or a Far-Right President? It’s the same reason why Hillary supporters didn’t vote for McCain; they cared more about Ideology.

And for the love of God, Liberal, VOTE! For a group that is synonymous with “activism”, you sure are lazy. They complained throughout the 2010 election, but stayed away from the polls. If you were really that worried about Republicans, WHY DIDN’T YOU F*CKING VOTE?!?

Remember these people could be president if you don’t vote:

If Democrats can start defending their position and attacking Republicans, they can win the election. The House could change back, but the Senate will be an uphill battle. Most Senators up for re-election will be Democrats. As long as Bachmann and Perry open their mouths and Obama exploits it, he can win. Polls support the Democrats, now they just need to get the public to vote for them.

I don’t have a map like last time, because I frankly don’t know and I don't want to get another long winded essay on how bad the electoral college is. Thanks, random commentor, but did you read my post or do you just spend all of your time looking for blog posts that might be vaguely about the electoral college and post your essay?

POOL PARTY!!! Oh Wait, It's After Labor Day...

Well, another Labor Day has come and gone. I have burned all of my white clothes to conform to a nonsensical fashion rule and my swim trunks are in winter storage. Why are my swim trunks in winter storage? (and who under the age of 70 calls them "swim trunks"). Because of that other nonsensical rule governing Labor Day; close the pools.

I shouldn’t complain as this is the second year in a row at my Apartment Complex in which I have not gone in the pool. But I still wonder, why should the pools close on Labor Day? I know Labor Day is the unofficial end to summer and pools are a “summer-only” activity, but summer is NOT officially over. That would be the 21^st of September.

Also, down here in Virginia, it is still pretty warm in September. The average high for September is 79 degrees. That’s almost 80! That is pretty nice swimming weather! And 79 is only the average temperature, which means it can and will get hotter.

I know temperature is not an issue as Memorial Day is the unofficial start of summer and when pools open. The average temperature for Virginia in May is 76, three degrees colder than September. Oh, and thanks to the rapid urbanization of the area I am in, the temperature is actually hotter. Why do we have to wait until the end of May to open the pools? It can get hot at the beginning of May!

Is the Memorial Day to Labor Day pool opening/closing etiquette only in slightly northern states (Virginia and Up)? Does El Paso, a city with 109 days (30% of the year) at or above 90 degrees, really going to open their pools so late and close them so early? They should be open from April to October.

Can we please stop conforming to this unwritten rule about pools? My poor grandfather was a SLAVE to this. He would mindlessly open and close his pool because of the calendar, not the temperature. At least it makes sense when you look at Rochester's average temperatures. Let’s take into consideration the local climate and create a no-nonsense schedule around common sense.

No Wonder My Professor Hated Alternate History

I really hate this notion that if there was no Christianity, there would have been no Dark Ages, and humans would be much more advanced than we are today.

Well, if you don’t count non-Europeans, it could be true. That image above represents a huge problem in Western thinking; only the West exists and has ever influenced anything.

There was a world outside of Europe after 476 CE. I was fortunate enough to learn in High School that western learning was preserved in the Eastern Roman Empire (The Byzantine Empire). Then around 670 CE, Islam appeared and spread across the Arab Peninsula, North Africa, Spain, and Asia Minor. They preserved and expanded upon western ideas and gave us our modern numbers, the knowledge of blood circulation, and too much stuff to write.

Oh and let us not forget China. The Tang, Yuan, and Ming Dynasties gave us A LOT when Europe was trying to not die.

It didn’t matter to science that Europe was in the Dark Ages. It was flourishing around the world. To think that science is behind because Europe didn’t progress for a thousand years is highly insulting to Non-European Cultures. I think we as humans are on track.

Were the Dark Ages really the fault of Christianity? Rome was in decline long before Christianity became the state religion. Various "Barbarian" invasions? No strong Central Authority (besides the Church)? Lack of education? De-urbanization?

The problem is that some people just really hate Christianity and religion in general, but mostly Christianity. They just want to find any reason to bash it and so, they make these horrible overgeneralizations. I’m not surprised that this belief was in a Family Guy episode.

Anti-Religion assholes are just as bad as the Religious assholes. They are just as intolerant and arrogant as any Fundamentalist Christian. They need the same passion and devotion to a belief as any other Religious Zealot.

If being religious makes you an idiot, than being anti-religion makes you just as big of an idiot.

There was a poster in response to the first one from above, but I can’t see it. The page doesn’t exist and it is only available in a small size, so I can’t read the caption. I think it makes the same point that I do, but shorter.