Happy Hour Discurso

Today’s opining on the public discourse.

The fat lady hasn’t launched into an aria yet, but I hear some definite throat-clearing here:

The new CBS/New York Times poll has nothing but bad news for John McCain. Barack Obama is ahead 52%-39% among likely voters in the horse-race, but the internals are perhaps even worse.

The poll shows the extent to which McCain’s negativecampaign has backfired. Obama’s favorability rating stands at 52% favorable to 31% unfavorable, way ahead of John McCain’s 39%-46% rating. In terms of the candidates’ personalities, 62% of registered voters said they felt comfortable with Obama, while only 34% said they feel uneasy about him. The numbers for McCain: 47% comfortable, 49% uneasy.

Obama also has an edge on who is more trusted to handle a crisis, with 49% of registered feeling confident and 47% feeling uneasy about him. McCain is at 46% confident to 51% uneasy.


How bold is the writing on the wall? Let’s just say it’s in large enough letters even the RNC seems to have no trouble reading it:

The underlying premise of this new ad from the National Republican Senatorial Committee: Obama’s going to win.

The ad, on behalf of Senator Elizabeth Dole, urges a vote against challenger Kay Hagan as the last bulwark against complete Democratic control:

“These liberals want complete control of government in a time of crisis,” says the narrator. “All branches of Government. No checks and balances, no debate, no independence.”

“If [Hagan] wins, they get a blank check.”


Could that be the sound of a mezzo-soprano running through her scales?

There’s been quite a bit of speculation over the last couple of days about John McCain’s avenues to 270 electoral votes, and just how many of them seem to have roadblocks. CNN reported Monday that Colorado is the next “red” state Republicans are likely to give up on, prompting fierce denials from the McCain campaign.

Today, it appears the reports were true.

Republicans are slashing their television advertising at Colorado’s three biggest television stations, a troubling sign for presidential nominee John McCain.

McCain is headed to Colorado Friday, but public records provided by three Denver stations show the GOP this week cut their ad spending for McCain by 46 percent.


And the sweet sound of the orchestra warming up:

In another sign that John McCain is on the defensive as time runs out, the McCain campaign is shifting its ad money out of blue tossup states and into red tossups and even traditionally red states, according to ad maven Evan Tracey.

McCain has dramatically slashed his ad spending in Wisconsin and New Hampshire and reduced it in Pennsylvania, suggesting that he’s either losing hope or giving up hope in winning in three states that went for John Kerry in 2004, or that he doesn’t have ample enough resources for them.

[snip]

By contrast, McCain has increased his ad spending in Virginia, long a reliably red state, and in Florida, where Bush won and McCain was long expected to prevail without too much trouble. “They are definitely shifting some resources here for the endgame,” Tracey says.


Alleluia.

I think I shall indulge in the fine old tradition of hitting ’em while they’re down. Let’s start with Sarah Palin’s $150,000 wardrobe. There’s some, shall we say, irregularities here:

Up until now, the question has been, “Why did the RNC spend so much money on clothing and accessories?” This afternoon, a report from the New York Times generated a new question: “Why don’t the numbers add up?”

Some of the fashion experts consulted Wednesday, for instance, about the $150,000 in purchases that appeared on Federal Election Commission records were puzzled by where all of that money had gone, given what they had seen of Ms. Palin’s wardrobe.

Consider also the $4,902.45 charge at Atelier New York, a high-end men’s store, presumably for Ms. Palin’s husband, Todd, the famous First Dude.

Karlo Steel, an owner there, said he had gone through the store’s receipts for September, twice, and found no sales that
matched that amount, nor any combination of sales that added up to the total. Because the store carries aggressively directional men’s wear, he caters to a small clientele and knows most of his customers by name, as well as the history
of their purchases…. “We have no recollection of that sale and no idea what they are talking about,” Mr. Steel said.


Similarly, the RNC records show a charge of $98 at a high-end children’s boutique in Minneapolis, but after going through their receipts, the store owners found no record of the sale.


Interesting. The McCain/Palin campaign can’t even go on a shopping spree without lying, it would seem. This could become highly entertaining.

Almost as entertaining as how they’re going to wriggle out of this dilemma:

Barack Obama chatted with Time’s Joe Klein this week, and indicated that U.S. negotiations with the Taliban may be worth pursuing. This, under normal circumstances, would send Republicans and conservative activists into an unbridled frenzy.

The problem, though, is that Gen. David Petraeus has expressed support for U.S. negotiations with the Taliban, too. Obama told Klein:

“This is one useful lesson that is applicable from Iraq. The Sunni awakening changed the dynamic in Iraq fundamentally. It could not have occurred unless there were some contacts and intermediaries to peel off those who are tribal leaders, regional leaders, Sunni nationalists, from a more radical, messianic brand of insurgency. Whether there are those same opportunities in Afghanistan I think should be explored.”

It’s an uncomfortable reality that often goes unmentioned, but as part of his strategy in Iraq, Petraeus reached out to Iraqis who were responsible for killing Americans. For all of McCain’s demagoguery about talking to Iran or North Korea, Petraeus negotiated with those who had American blood on their hands, precisely because Petraeus kept the bigger picture in mind.

[snip]

So, here’s the challenge for the right: how does one attack Obama for his willingness to talk to the Taliban without also attacking David Petraeus for agreeing with Obama’s approach? For that matter, how does one make John McCain look credible on foreign policy and national security, when his approach is so far from the mainstream?

And if McCain does agree with Petraeus/Obama, how does he justify talking to the Taliban while condemning talking with Iran?


Their talent for painting themselves into corners is truly awe-inspiring. I don’t think I’ve ever seen another campaign so adept at fucking themselves over.

In light of that, it’s not surprising I see an opera singer striding towards center stage…

Happy Hour Discurso
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Paradise!

Could it be real? Could there truly be such a perfect escape route?

Imagine the unimaginable: Todd Palin picking out curtain patterns for the vice-presidential mansion. In such an eventuality, whither shall we flee?

Four years ago, Democrats made a lot of noise about Canada, but as political statements go, there’s not much sting to “I’m so mad at America I’m going to move a few degrees of latitude northward.” Tina Fey has suggested we leave Earth altogether, but at the risk of reviving a discredited rubric, I’d like to propose a “third way.” Actually, I’ll let sociologist Phil Zuckerman propose it. In “Society Without God: What the Least Religious Nations Can Tell Us About Contentment,”

he tells of a magical land where life expectancy is high and infant mortality low, where wealth is spread and genders live in equity, where happy, fish-fed citizens score high in every quality-of-life index: economic competitiveness, healthcare, environmental protection, lack of corruption, educational investment, technological literacy … well, you get the idea.

To a certain jaded sensibility, what makes Scandinavia particularly magical is what it lacks. “There is no national anti-gay rights movement,” writes Zuckerman, “there are no ‘Jesus fish’ imprinted on advertisements in the yellow pages, there are no school boards or school administrators who publicly doubt the evidence for human evolution … there are no religiously inspired ‘abstinence only’ sex education curricula … there are no parental groups lobbying schools and city councils to remove Harry Potter books from school and public libraries … there are no restaurants that include Bible verses on their menus and placemats, there are no ‘Faith Nights’ at national sporting events …”

It’s… it’s utopia. It sounds too good to be true! It sounds like… paradise.

If McCain somehow steals this election, I am so there!

Paradise!

Holy. Fucking. Shit.

Indiana. Fucking Indiana. Seriously:

This election is going to be a landslide for Obama. There is a huge tidal wave coming. A stunning new poll today from Indiana shows: Obama ahead in Indiana by 10 points.
Yes, you read it correctly. It is not a typo: +10 Obama in Indiana! A totally republican state where the democrats have not won for decades.

Bloody fucking Indiana, where I once spent a two-week vacation bawling half my family out for their blatant racism. Blood Republicon fucking red Indiana. +10 for Obama.

Hot damn, Hoosiers! Go, you! Woot!

Holy. Fucking. Shit.

Sanity Returns to California

I was going to go on a tirade against Prop 08 in California this weekend. Polls were showing that a majority supported that piece of bigoted shit. I could not believe that Californians were going to allow the Mormon Church to snow them into voting to destroy equal marriage rights.

Looks like I can breathe a provisional sigh of relief:

The LA Times just posted a story that the Public Policy Institute of California released a poll showing that Prop. 8 polls have switched and the polling is now 52% against and 44% in favor. The poll had a 3% margin of error.

The LA Times writes:

While California voters remain closely divided on the question of gay marriage, a majority oppose a measure to ban it, according to a poll released Wednesday by the Public Policy Institute of California.

But the poll also found that support for Proposition 8, which would amend the state Constitution to disallow same-sex marriage, has gained somewhat since a similar survey was taken in late August.

We’re not out of the woods yet, but at least we’re seeing some rays of light.

Sanity Returns to California

Woozle's Glorious Open Letter to a Crazy Christian Lady

Our own Woozle wrote an open letter to that Jesus freak who believes gay-friendly schools should be bombed. It has only one weakness: it’s not getting the audience it should.

Dear crazy Christian lady,

I’m writing because you seem like a nice person except for certain things you have said which frighten me a great deal. I want you to understand that those things are not true, and that you believe them only because you and your family are being used by people who want you to be afraid of reality so that they can control you.

There are certainly plenty of things to be afraid of in this world, but non-heterosexuals are the least of your worries. Most non-heterosexuals have been teased and abused all their lives; they know how it feels to be hated, they know what it feels like to be hurt, and consequently they are much less likely to hate or harm you, your family, or your friends than someone who has not had these experiences.

Do homosexuals and transsexuals routinely vandalize the property of heterosexuals, threaten their families, assault them in the street, rape and murder them? No, but the reverse is certainly true; there are entire web sites dedicated to the ever-growing roster of innocents murdered by the sort of hate you are nurturing…

Woozle goes on to take her down on her own turf. This letter might even make a few God-blind buggers think about their faith, using the Bible to shake them out of their culture war complacency. If you ever get into a debate with people like Crazy Christian Lady, this letter will be an essential resource.

Go make good use of it.

Woozle's Glorious Open Letter to a Crazy Christian Lady

Is the Revolution Coming to America?

For those who didn’t see this in comments, Last Hussar linked to his fascinating post comparing the Labour Landslide in Great Britain to the Republicon party’s U.S. implosion, and believes we could be looking at a similar moment:

Current affairs and politics geeks in the UK will remember the question that was on all their lips on the 2nd of May 1997. “Were you still up for Portillo?”. I am beginning to wonder if the same sort of thing may happen on 6th November 2008 in the USA. For those too young, too foreign (in a nice way- I don’t expect you to follow every nuance of British politics), or just too disinterested at the time, allow me explain. The Conservative (aka ‘Tory’) Government of the mid/late 90’s was deeply unpopular, and deeply divided with the Europhobes threatening rebellion, and Tony Blair’s successful rebranding the Labour Party into ‘New Labour’, basically standing, in an ideological sense, as close as they could to the Tories to pick up their voters promised a landslide. What no one forsaw was the complete massacre of Tory Top Brass that happened.

Through out the night (Counting starts shortly after the polls shut at 10pm, with the first constituencies declaring at about 11pm) more and more Tory ‘heavyweights’ lost their seats. Political parties in the UK tend to try and get their most important MPs to stand in ’safe seats’, ones they would never lose. But in ‘97 deep unpopularity morphed into tactical voting, with voters for a party that would normally finish distant third throwing their votes behind the best placed non-Tory.

Then at 4am (and I stayed up to watch it) came the shock news. Micheal Portillo, a man touted as a future Tory Leader, had lost his ’safe’ Enfield seat to the unknown Stephen Twigg (Labour). Portillo had been expected to be a leading player, possibly even a leader, in the wake of the defeat every one predicted. Could this happen to the Republicans, facing not only defeat for President, but both Congress and Senate.

What follows gives me hope. Last Hussar has an intimate understanding of both British and U.S. politics, and as such is able to provide a panoramic perspective. It’s good to see this election through other eyes.

Is the Revolution Coming to America?

How Republicons Pick a VP Candidate

From the NY Times Magazine, via Digby, comes an inside look at the “thinking” involved when Republicons choose a vice president:

A friend had said to [McCain campaign manager Rick] Davis: “The way you pick a vice president is, you get a frame of Time magazine, and you put the pictures of the people in that frame. You look at who fits that frame best — that’s your V. P.”

This, my darlings, is the lavish care and attention Republicons pay to good government and doing right by America. This is how they put “country first.”

Go. Vote. Destroy.

How Republicons Pick a VP Candidate

Press Start to Play: Risk and Reward

Press Start to Play is a series of articles cross-posted between En Tequila and Modern Magic. A series about video games as an industry, an art form, and an experience.

(Please comment on the Modern Magic blog if possible)

From a gamer’s perspective, greater risk almost always leads to greater rewards.

From a developer’s perspective, however, apparently hand-holding is the way to sales, no doubt due to the softness of games these days (See “Game Over” below) but I still don’t understand some of the design choices developers make.

When a game takes away a big risk, such as penalties for dying, they also take away a big part of the rewarding gameplay. BioShock was the worst example of this, since whenever you die in BioShock, you almost immediately respawn in a nearby chamber, with all the regular enemies at the health you left them at, and you have all your gear. While, generally, you have a limited amount of health and power after doing this, there is no long-term punishment for dying. So once I realized that I could run up to a Big Daddy, beat him a few times with my wrench, get killed, and do it all over again until the rusty bastard is dead, it completely took away the fear of running into them. Seriously, when you come up against something that big your first instinct should be to piss your pants and run, but when you know there is no significant reason to, throwing caution to the wind is as simple as shooting at a Little Sister.

Image courtesy of Google Images
Image courtesy of Google Images

Now, its not just the player’s life that should be at risk. Another big mistake that developers make regarding AI partners (Killzone, pay attention here) is that friendly units should not be immortal. Why should I run in and risk my life, when I can just order my teammates to run in there and do all the shooting for me? Sure, it’s not as fun but if I’m really worried about dying, I can just step back and take a small breather while my AI buddies fall over, get back up, and enthusiastically throw themselves into the onslaught of bullets once more.

This is why I have worries about the upcoming Prince of Persia game. It’s a game where, essentially, you can’t die. IF you jump off a cliff, your AI teammate pulls you to safety, as well as healing you when you are “knocked out” (a state which is quickly overtaking the concept of dying in games) and even though the enemies also get a healing breather, it’s not enough of a setback to balance that you’re basically unbeatable.

There are certain instances in which I will concede that the lack of big-setback risks is a good thing. In some platformers, such as Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, it’s nice that if I mistake some background hanging ivy art as a climbable surface and plummet to a painful, dismembered death, I can start from very close by, usually the last ledge my feet were thankful to rest upon, without having to go through a menu screen to slow down the flow of gameplay.

However, for the most part, the more risky an action, the more reward you are likely to feel for accomplishing it. In big ways, like making you immortal, and even just partway, like regenerating health bars. If you have a set amount of health at a given time, you’re not likely to want to throw that health away, so you’ll be careful, you’ll take your time, and you’ll ration any items you have. However, when you can take a few dozen bullets to the chest, hide behind a corner and wait five seconds for your health to regenerate, there’s no reason not to jump back out of cover. Yes, it does speed up gameplay and that is about the only reason why I would agree that it’s a good feature. However, I feel much more proud of myself when I make it through a dangerous situation with a mere sliver of health, surviving only on my wit and skill, then when I know I could have taken a few more grenades and died a few times before getting to this point.

Not only does this effect gameplay, but it can alter the feel, mood, and atmosphere of a game depending on what the consequences of your actions are. The Survival Horror genre, actually, best emulates this idea, especially when you examine its effect on the gameplay and how other games are different, but I’ll discuss that further in a separate post.

Meanwhile, let’s look at racing games. Again, if I can crash headlong into a semi-truck and explode in a fiery maelstrom of destruction, I should suffer more than a few seconds off my lap time. I notice that the sooner the game will let me get back on the track and race, the more reckless I am willing to be. Games that set me back, have long respawn times, or other consequences make me more careful, less willing to take a dangerous shortcut or attempt to weave heavy traffic, if I know that I’ll have to make up a lot of time if I fail.

Oddly, this concept of succeed-or-fail gameplay used to see its best use in old Role-Playing Games. Some RPGs have segments where, if you fail, the story goes on but with a different outcome, while in other games (Threads of Fate being one example) there are certain plot points where, in fact, you must lose, as there is no way to defeat the enemy. In these cases, the act of failing, even if inevitable, comes with a consequence that actually carries through with the story, and RPGs have made the best use of this mechanic.

In any kind of mission-based game, there should always be risk, the possibility of failure, and an ongoing consequence for it. It deepens the experience, and ultimately provides even more rewards.

Games are about succeeding over trials and tribulations; and everyone knows that the harder you work for something, the sweeter victory tastes. It’s a simple concept, if only developers would pay more attention to the act of playing games.

That’s my two cents on the topic. Check back soon for more updates.

“Think Deeper

Press Start to Play: Risk and Reward

Happy Hour Discurso

Today’s opining on the public discourse.

I expected the last few weeks of the election to be tough. I expected them to be harsh. I expected a lot of negative attacks.

I drastically underestimated the rampant stupidity.

McCain’s campaign gets overwhelmingly stupid responding to news that al Qaeda’s rooting for him:

The smart move for the McCain campaign would have been to ignore the al Qaeda message. Obama was unlikely to push it, and media attention on the story this morning was sporadic. But perhaps concerned that voters might take this seriously, and realize that McCain’s policies complement al Qaeda’s agenda, the McCain campaign scrambled this afternoon and hosted a “panicked” conference call.

McCain’s senior foreign policy adviser, Randy Scheunemann made two predictable points. First, al Qaeda’s message shouldn’t be taken at face value. Second, quotes from Hamas and Iran that seem sympathetic to Obama must be taken at face value.

A reporter noted the contradiction.

One especially fun moment on the call came when McCain adviser Jim Woolsey badly undercut the campaign call’s message. Woolsey said that Al Qaeda supporters who praise McCain are actually doing it to hurt him, because praise from al Qaeda is the “kiss of death.”

At that point, a reporter quite naturally asked whether the same could be said of Hamas advisers who praise Obama,
prompting Woolsey to pull a homina homina homina and dodge the question.


Look, this isn’t complicated. It isn’t even new — Richard Clarke, Ron Suskind, and others have written quite a bit on the fact al Qaeda prefers Bush’s foreign policy — it helps with terrorist recruiting and fundraising, undermines America’s global stature, and costs us a fortune — so it stands to reason that the terrorist network would support McCain, since his foreign policy is largely indistinguishable. The smart move for the McCain campaign is drawing attention away from this fact, not towards it.

Full marks for stupidly drawing attention to a subject that could cripple the remote chance McCain has to win.

Michele Bachmann stupidly digs herself an ever-deeper hole attempting to explain away her tirade on Hardball:

On the defensive over her controversial Hardball appearance last Friday, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) told the St. Cloud Times yesterday that she regretted suggesting that Barack Obama held “anti-American” views. But at the same time Bachmann was apologizing for her remarks to traditional media outlets, Bachmann continued to cast aspersions on Obama’s patriotism in a series of appearances on right-wing radio shows.

On Hugh Hewitt’s radio show yesterday, Bachmann declared that “Barack Obama’s views are against America”…

[snip]

On Mike Gallagher’s radio show this morning, Bachmann attacked Obama’s policy proposals, asking rhetorically, “Are they for America or
will they be against traditional American ideals and values?”…


[snip]

During her appearance on Gallagher’s show, Bachmann claimed that media scrutiny of her “anti-American” comments was a coordinated effort “to get my scalp on a platter.”

The intelligent response would have been to stop fucking talking. At least El Tinklenberg can count on riding this wave all the way to the election – Bachmann’s a virtual tsunami of supreme dumbassitude.

Not that that’s news.

For additional stupidity, check out Rep. Hayes’s as he “denies denying” what he said about liberals hating America.

We turn now to our favorite Queen of Stupid, Sarah Palin. If stupid were a renewable energy resource, we could keep America running into the 22nd century.

First, she has no fucking clue what a “precondition” is:

Gov. Sarah Palin has attacked Sen. Barack Obama for being “so off base in his proclamation that he would meet with some of these leaders around our world who would seek to destroy America and that, and without preconditions being met.” When asked by NBC’s Brian Williams what are some of those preconditions she envisions, Palin was stumped:

WILLIAMS: Governor Palin, yesterday you tied this notion of an early test to the new president. Would this notion of precondition –

PALIN: Right.

WILLIAMS: — that you both have been hammering the Obama campaign on. What — first of all, what in your mind is a precondition?

PALIN: You have to have some diplomatic strategy going into a meeting with someone like Ahmadinejad or Kim Jong-il, one of these dictators that would seek to destroy America or her allies. It is so naive and so dangerous for a presidential candidate to just proclaim that they would be willing to sit down with a– a leader like Ahmadinejad and just talk about the problems, the issues that are facing them. So that — that’s — that’s some ill-preparedness right there.

If she can’t tell the difference between preconditions and preparedness, I don’t think she’s quite equipped to negotiate with dictators.

And she sure as fuck isn’t ready to deal with the global warming crisis. She’s not even ready for a quiz:

Shortly after Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) chose Gov. Sarah Palin (R-AK) as his running mate, Palin said she is not one to attribute global warming to being man-made. Since then, she has walked that statement back slightly, saying that indeed, man’s activities have contributed to climate change but adding the caveat that “weather patterns are cyclical.”

When asked to name some specific man-made causes of global warming yesterday during an interview with a local NBC affiliate in Las Vegas, Palin couldn’t name one, and instead reverted back to her new talking point that it doesn’t really matter:

Q: I’ve also heard you hint that you do think there might be some man-made causes that are contributing to this. Can you describe what those are?

PALIN: Right, well what I have said about this is really the debate at some point, had better shift to, no matter the cause, whether it all be attributed to man’s activities or just
the natural cycle of climate changes in our earth’s history. We have seen this before.

It’s truly pathetic when a candidate for vice president can’t name even one cause. Any fifth-grader in the country should be able to do this, and so, sadly, the verdict is: Sarah Palin is most certainly not smarter than a fifth-grader. And she still can’t speak coherently. Did the above make any sense to you? It didn’t make any to me.

This could be why she has a hard time stating whether or not she’s an intellectual:

In an interview with Gov. Sarah Palin (R-AK), People magazine commented that “you don’t get to be governor without being smart” and asked, “Do you think you’re intellectual?” Palin responded, “Yehhh-sss”:

PALIN: Yehhh-sss. And you have to be up on not only current events, but you have to understand the foundation of the issues that you’re working on. … You can’t just go on what is presented you.

The correct answer, Sarah, was “Fuck no.”

Thank you for playing.

Happy Hour Discurso