Horizon Zero

Storms Gather in the Drizzle

Picked up my copy of The Gathering Storm at lunch time. It sits here on my desk, mocking me.

It's a mere 766 pages long.

UPDATE: Finished book at 1:30AM. Well satisfied, but now I have to wait a year for the next part. Grr.

Quagmire

How can Obama defeat Al Qaeda and the Taliban if he can't even win the War on Fox News?

Levity aside, this has been some disturbing stuff, people. All those old chestnuts and bromides about "chilling effect on free speech" and "slippery slope" that people love to bust out at the drop of a hat? This is what they're about. The Executive Branch of the government doesn't get to decide that the people that are saying not good things are suddenly not "real journalists". That's not their job. And they just might be a little bit biased in their decision making process.

If George Bush had decided in 2005 that Keith Olbermann wasn't a real journalist (and oh, the jokes I could make there...) and that MSNBC wasn't a real news network the hue and cry would have been heard from orbit. And yet the partisan point of view coming from MSNBC land is as undeniable as that of Fox - just from a different direction.

When the Left is out of power, we are continuously told that the only answer to speech is more speech, that dissent is the highest form of patriotism, and that we are but a moment away from fascism cutting off our right to say and think as we will.

So why, when the Left finally gains power, is it the first impulse of so many of those same people to silence anyone that dares have the temerity to dissent?

"Free Speech for Me, But Not for Thee" is not an argument born from strength - either strength of conviction or political strength. It's a reaction born from the realization that things aren't going according to plan, and the panicked idea that if we could just shut those people up that would fix everything.

But it won't. And the bitter precedent you set today can come around to harm you tomorrow.

MSD&D

I have seen the future, and it is glorious.

Windows 7 - The Upgradening

No, it's not a real word.

Newegg would not start shipping Windows 7 until today, so I don't have my copy yet. But they did ship the rest of my upgrade package - 8 shiny new gigabytes of RAM (or 8 gigabytes of new, shiny RAM since I doubt gigabytes actually shine) and a new 500gb hard drive.

I really wanted to try out a Solid State Drive but couldn't justify the price right now. An eighty gig SSD costs as much or more than a 500gb drive at the moment. There will come a time when we'll be using those as default drives in new systems, but that time hasn't quite arrived just yet.

Anyway, assuming that my Win7 disc makes it to me tomorrow - so claims the UPS Tracking dealie - I'll put aside Saturday for the Great Upgradening. While I'm at it, I've got a spare copy of XP 64 that I'm going to install on an older desktop to get it back up and running.

Should be a fun day.

Spoiler Blackout

Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson's The Gathering Storm is due out in bookstores next Tuesday. Spoilers are already beginning to appear from copies that have been sold before the street date. Which means no Wheel of Time sites for me. Just once, I'd like to go into something completely unspoiled.

Twelve Days in January

Ok, by now you've probably seen that President Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. And it wouldn't be outside the realm of probability that your first reaction was something on the order of "bwuh?".

The award committee chair deflected criticism that it was far too soon for that sort of thing saying that it "recognized what he had already done over the past year". Supporters were quick to point to Obama's historic reaching out to the Muslim world and his efforts to 'reset' US relations with Russia and Cuba.

There's just one problem with that.

Obama took office on January 20, 2009. The deadline for nominations for this year's Nobel was February 1st. Are we to believe, then, that this twelve day span saw more done for the furthering of World Peace than all the efforts of any of the other nominees? Seriously?

The Administration was busy settling in during those two weeks - there weren't any bold peace policy measures. The only thing he'd done at that point was get elected, and never before was just being President enough to win a Peace Prize.

Barack Obama may yet do something spectacular to earn the accolades of history. At which point awarding him a Nobel would be a legitimate response. But to give it away on a promise of maybe possibly future results devalues a legacy that has already been tarnished by handing it off to an unrepentant terrorist like Yasser Arafat.

Earn it first.

Do We Need A Bigger House?

Gallup reports that public approval of Congress has fallen to 21%. Not the lowest it's ever been, but a whopping eighteen points lower than it was in March of this year when it was riding high (for Congress) on the good will generated by Hopenchange.

Well, that party's over.

Interestingly, the overall slide in Congress' numbers is a result of Democrats registering their dissatisfaction. Over the last thirty days, Democrat Congressional Approval has plummeted from 54% to 36%. Whereas Republicans and some Independents are angry over the content of the proposed health care bills, presumably the slump in Democrat support is not because of the content of the bills but because the leadership in Congress can't seem to get them passed.

Even in the best of climates Congress' numbers are dismal, though. And there are plenty of popular reasons: corruption, pork, gerrymandered 'safe districts', etc. What there has not been - at least so far - is a solution to the problem.

So imagine my surprise when National Review's Jonah Goldberg offered what would seem to be a counter-intuitive solution to the problem of Congressmen Behaving Badly: Make more Congressmen.

At first glance, it seems crazy. If we can't get anything done with 435 egos manning the legislative branch how on Earth can upping the roster to 1,000, 1,200, or even 5,000 make things better?

For one, it dilutes the amount of power available to any one member. It doesn't completely solve the power problem, since there would still be a limted number of committee chairmanships and other assorted choke points, but it would certainly dilute the ability of any one member - or caucus - to hold up legislation. To really break the Old Guard's hold on power and money (but I repeat myself) we'd have to have significant reform to the committee and seniority system that rules the House, but that's an argument for another time.

Another positive is that it reduces the ratio of representative to represented. Goldberg quotes Madison's concern about overlarge Congressional districts, and points out that the largest districts in Madison's day were around 30,000 people. Districts today are much, much larger - and not all districts are created equal, either. Scaling down the ratio of representation makes blowing off constituents much more dangerous to a Representative's long term career health, which can only be to the good. And those new districts would have to come from somewhere, meaning the nice, impregnable fortress districts that keep sending the likes of Pelosi and Rangel back year after year might get cut down considerably.

Finally, expanding the size of the House could be the key to loosening the grip of the two party system in American politics. The mistake most recent third party attempts have made is going straight for the White House, which has resulted in the White House going to the candidate that the third party guy probably opposed the most. Might an expanded House allow nascent third parties the chance to coalesce naturally? We could have a host of single issue parties that would constantly have to be courted by the two big parties - meaning a real give and take legislative body rather than the entrenched semi-cold war we have now.

Tetris is Good For You

A scientific study has produced evidence that playing Tetris regularly is good for your brain.

So when I'm playing at lunch time, I'm not goofing off. I'm just addressing my long term mental health needs.

Stargate Universe Starts Tonight

Do I think it Doomed?

I don't know. I haven't followed the development of the show very closely, so I'm going in with fairly few expectations. I know there's been grumbling about the "younger, edgier direction" - some people have already started making the "it wants to be Battlestar Galactica so bad you can feel it" comments.

For me, I guess whether it is automatically Doomed or not depends on two factors. First, are the characters people, or are they just talking heads to move the plot? Second, does this new show respect what has come before without allowing itself to be strait-jacketed by that self-same legacy? (Which is a tough trick to pull off, to be sure.)

It would be unfair to make a decision based on the pilot alone, of course. But you can generally tell where a show is going after the first few episodes. The only shows that surprised me with a late first season quality spike semi-recently were Jericho and Dollhouse.

Jericho promptly took that goodwill and wasted it. The jury is still out on Dollhouse.

UPDATE: It's not the worst pilot I've ever watched, although it really does feel like it wants to be Lost + BSG. I thought the pre-airing comparisons were perhaps overstating the case, but it's palpable throughout the show, from the camera angles to the in media res flashbacking to the characters themselves.

I like the lack of an alien threat (so far). Man vs. Alien is played out in Stargate. Man vs. Environment will make for an interesting first season. I'm sure they'll piss off someone before too long.

Anderson didn't seem very engaged. I would like to see the full series of Daniel Jackson Instructional Videos, though.

Also, I don't care how often you try to sell me on the Lucian Alliance, Stargate producers, it's not working. Remnant System Lords, Renegade Jaffa, unreconciled Ori Priors - any of these I might buy as something of a threat. Jumped up nitwit space pirates that deal addictive wheat? No.

Advanced Deuterium Fusion Rocket?

Space Drive capable of reaching 6.3% of light speed by using deuterium based micro-bombs.

Hat tip: Instapundit