Populous is coming for the DS, too. For crying out loud. Too much money.
It’s not enough that wacko crusader Jack Thompson has picked fights with the whole big video game industry, and has sued the Florida Bar Association to challenge its constitutionality, but now he’s attacking the Defense Department for using training video games. He thinks there’s some massive conspiracy to spread video game violence, he says with the goal of making America’s youth into murderers, whom he believes would be fit for retraining as soldiers, apparently.
Ash is now level 762, Marona 859. Of course, right now I’m letting Ash use the good axe so he can catch up, heh.
Plot maps completed: 1.
Marona level: 822
Ash level: 648
I’d give their stats, but the stats that matter are of my best weapon, this Level 2789 Combo Dark Axe of HP +14790, ATK +67495, DEF +27855, INT +19083, RES +19150, SPD +4495.
Sim City DS 2 sounds fun. They’re adding a broader historical scope.
Only 48% of Californians think higher taxes are needed to balance the budget, says a Field poll. Last time we had a budget problem like this, the number was 53%.
Time to cut spending, Governor. Give up AB1X now.
Is the Governor’s plan next?
US District Judge Jeffrey White threw out part of a San Francisco law this afternoon, one that required employers to provide or pay for medical insurance for employers. White ruled that the federal Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) preempts and prohibits the states from imposing such requirements on employers.
Ordinarily I wouldn’t care, because San Francisco is such a freaky place, and if a conservative worried about every bad bill passed there, he’d never sleep. But this is important because Governor Schwarzenegger’s plan for all of California includes a similar requirement, and thus could also be illegal under ERISA.
To be honest, I’d never heard of ERISA before today. I have an opinion neither on whether it’s a good law or a bad law, nor whether the law is correctly interpreted here. Judge White was appointed by President Bush in 2002, for what it’s worth. He’s also the judge that put two San Francisco Chronicle reporters in jail for failing to reveal their source of Barry Bonds’ secret grand jury testimony. That all sounds good, so I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he’s right here in interpreting ERISA.
If he’s right, then AB1X, the Schwarzenegger/Democratic HillaryCare-lite bill that passed this month and will be debated in the Senate come January, could also be in trouble. Says the Chronicle:
The requirement that all employers either provide insurance for their workers or pay into a new state purchasing pool on a sliding scale of 1 percent to 6.5 percent of payroll based on company size is a key funding element of the plan and the one that may provide biggest obstacle to passage in light of White’s ruling, which San Francisco intends to appeal.
Not that AB1X is even guaranteed to get out of committee in the Senate:
But there are other issues that could spell trouble for the bill in a hearing set for Jan. 16 before the Senate’s health committee, which is chaired by Sen. Sheila Kuehl, D-Santa Monica, a longtime advocate of a single-payer health system that would eliminate private insurance.
….”There’s a lot to consider here,” Kuehl said. “I think you can assume that we will hold the world’s longest hearing because I want to have every bit of this bill looked at.”
So I’m still not worried about our state economy being trashed. Governor Schwarzenegger may be trying to do his best to link arms with Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez (D-Los Angeles) to block job creation in this state, but Senate Democrats or the courts may yet save us from this monster we nominated and elected.
Which candidate apologized for the death of Benazir Bhutto? Ron Paul, right? He’s a blame America firster, isn’t he? Well, he is, but he’s not the one who did it. It was Mike Huckabee, says CBS News:
With about 150 supporters crowded around a podium set up on the tarmac of Orlando Executive airport (and about 20 Ron Paul supporters waving signs outside) Mike Huckabee strode out to the strains of “Right Now” by Van Halen and immediately addressed the Bhutto situation, expressing “our sincere concern and apologies for what has happened in Pakistan.”
What next? Is he, too, going to say that we need to pull out of south Asia so that the people of Pakistan can “have their country back?”
America didn’t kill Bhutto. Terrorists did. America didn’t cause that. The terror masters did. America has nothing to apologize for over there. America is the leader of those doing right over there.
Ericka Andersen asks what Benazir Bhutto’s death means. I think it means we need to remember the three laws of the War on Terror:
- We will work toward American safety and security from terrorism, and never through inaction allow terrorism to thrive.
- We will work toward world safety and security from terrorism, except when it would come into conflict with the first law.
- We will work to promote freedom worldwide, except when it would come into conflict with the first or second law.
We’ve promoted representative government with freedom in Iraq and Afghanistan because the old regimes were promoting terror. We needed to try something new.
However the old regime in Pakistan is not promoting terror or outright opposing representation; in fact, it’s doing everything it can to get elections going, without turning the country over to the terrorists.
It’s time we just quietly stood by General Musharraf.
When the Congress passed the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act, making it much harder for US poker players and gamblers to deposit money into online cardrooms and casinos abroad, Antigua complained to the WTO. Antigua won, too.
Well, the WTO has now penalized the US and rewarded Antigua by ruling that Antigua may disregard US copyrights to the tune of $21 million annually. I imagine some online services based in Antigua are coming with cheap downloads of US movies, music, and television.