New polling results for Iowa are out, Obama has increased his lead even more. He's up 13 points over McCain in this latest poll, yet McCain is still spending money and spending time here. I find it hard to believe that their internal polls are that different from the public ones...
In his answer to the first question last night, John McCain proposed that the United States bail out all the homeowners who are upside-down on their mortgages. I turned to Holly and said "Why the hell should the government bail out people who paid too much for their houses?!?!". While many of my Republican friends would like to dismiss me as some kind of raving Leftist lunatic (though I actually claim many positions, especially on economic issues, that are more libertarian) there's no way I'd ever support that. These people thought the house was worth that price when they agreed to buy it, the fact that the market disagreed with them at some point in the future is irrelevant. Should they have to pay more for their houses if they're in a market where the price exceeds the amount they owe on their mortgage? Of course not. You made a bad decision, and overpaid for your house. Tough. You thought it was a reasonable price at the time you signed the contract. The fact that you could have bought it for less later doesn't mean anyone owes you a damned thing, and I certainly don't owe you a cent of my tax dollars because you thought $500,000 was a reasonable price to pay for a 3 bedroom house. I paid $399 for my Xbox 360 3 years ago, now they sell for $299, where's my bailout? Or am I only entitled to it if I'm still paying interest on it? Only if the interest is tax-deductible maybe?
Matt Cooper (of Plamegate fame) has an article up today, entitled "McCain's Insane Mortgage Proposal". I couldn't agree more...
Why is John McCain still campaigning and advertising here? Pollster shows him behind by over 10 points, he's never polled ahead of Obama here, and his stance against ethanol subsidies (which I personally agree with) certainly makes it an uphill battle. While this is a purple state that went narrowly for Gore in 2000, then narrowly for Bush in 2004, but this year, the independents I know are voting Obama, as are many moderate Republicans I know. So, again, why does McCain continue to spend time & money here? Perhaps if he starts to give up on the states in which he's polling so far behind, eventually it becomes mathematically impossible for him to hit 270 votes...
His interview with the Des Moines Register last week certainly didn't win him any friends while he was here either:
Update: Turns out, the LA Times is asking the same question as me...
I got a tip from the woman who cuts my hair today, she heard that Old Chicago is coming to Cedar Falls. Sure enough, they list the location on their web site, but no news yet as to where it'll be located. I'm excited, for while their pizza is tasty, the best part is they serve hard cider! There's no other bar in town that does, as far as I know...
Last night's episode of the Daily Show featured a great segment of video-taped hypocrisy. Don't these guys realize that when they're talking on TV, they might want to consider the possibility that their words don't instantly evaporate? That they might be used later to point out, shall we say, glaring inconsistencies in their arguments? Welcome to the age of DVRs, voice recognition, Google, and YouTube:
I spent a little time this morning playing with Photosynth, the cool new photo tool released by Microsoft today. I snapped 62 pictures of my cubicle, then uploaded them to see if it would automatically stitch them together, and sure enough, it did. It's not the most exciting one on the site, but if you'd like to see my messing cube in some weird 3D-ish photo-mosaic, here it is. Note: You need to be on a PC, it doesn't work for Macs yet. Maybe this weekend I'll shoot a few hundred pictures of our house and see if I can make a decent one there from that of an outdoor environment.
There are plenty of stories about the insanity of the "No Fly List" that the TSA maintains, but today's from CNN makes me glad that there's only one other Seth Bokelman that exists, at least as far as I know. Though, if it does become a problem, I can just use S. Bokelman or S. Henry Bokelman to bypass the list completely, according to this story.
But although the list is clearly bloated with misidentifications by every official's account, CNN has learned that it may also be ineffective. Numerous people, including all three Robinsons, have figured out that there are ways not to get flagged by the watch list.
Denise Robinson says she tells the skycaps her son is on the list, tips heavily and is given boarding passes. And booking her son as "J. Pierce Robinson" also has let the family bypass the watch list hassle.
Capt. James Robinson said he has learned that "Jim Robinson" and "J.K. Robinson" are not on the list.
Also amusing is that a pilot, who's certified to carry a weapon on board, is on the list.
I've registered to attend NetBackup Forum 2008, which is taking place in Roseville, MN in October. I attended the Forum last year, and found it to be a fantastic venue for learning more about NetBackup, if that happens to be as large a part of your job as it is mine. The forum is free, and meals are provided, though you have to pay for your own room & transportation.
So, Friday night I went to grab myself an ice cream sandwich from the fridge (the Hy-Vee ones with Shawn Johnson's photo on the box) and the box went "squish" when I grabbed it. Unfortunately, everything else in our freezer was also squishy, and everything in our refrigerator was warmer than it should have been. We spent the next few minutes rapidly sorting what could be saved and what couldn't, and cramming as much as we could into the little dorm-fridge I use for pop & beer in the basement, and anything salvageable from the freezer (not much) into our deep freeze. Our refrigerator came with our house, and we've never been thrilled with it, as it sticks out a little too far into our galley kitchen, and it's too short for me to easily see/place things on the top shelf, and it's the wrong color for our appliances, so, we decided to buy a new one. After checking Sears, Lowe's, Home Depot, and Best Buy, we finally decided on this model. It's a bit pricey, and more than I was hoping to spend, but we space constraints due to our kitchen cabinets that ruled out about 95% of the refrigerators in the stores, leaving us with few actual choices. We found a cheaper side-by-side that would fit at Home Depot, but the construction of it was garbage. Holly removed one of the shelves in the door to try moving it up, and couldn't get it to go back in. The Home Depot guy helping us then spent about 3 minutes of grunting and straining to put the shelf back, and as this floor model was the only one they had left, we decided we'd opt for the nicer Kenmore model (though Lowe's has the whirlpool version of this refrigerator for the exact same price).
So, now we get to eat out of my dorm fridge for the next week and a half, until our refrigerator arrives. There's not much room in there, so I see a lot of frozen pizzas and trips to the grocery store in our future. It's a good thing the store is only a mile away.
I finally get my blog updated to WordPress 2.6 (incompatible plugins have been holding me back) and a day later 2.6.1 is released.
