I'm John Blanco and this is my life in blog: Democrat, chess player, Wii Gamer, hubby to Michele and Cedric's daddy. :-)
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Tonight, from 8:30-9:30, whatever time zone you're in, participate in Earth Hour by turning off all your electric lights. It's a great cause...and take a gander outside to see who else is participating!
Earth Hour
Cedric trying to scare me back after I tried doing the same thing to him. :-)
Some details:
Just finished reading the Ender Quarter today. It consists of Ender's Game, which has become an absolute classic in it's own right. Following it were Speaker for the Dead, Xenocide, and Children of the Mind.
I have to say, each book got progressively worse...although, the first two books were indeed great. Nothing, though, can come close to Ender's Game. A must read!
Most upsetting was Children of the Mind. This book was an absolute dud. I found myself even losing attention at parts. The whole book revolved around the meaning of life and a piece of the plot points from the previous two books. Decidedly lame.
My advice is to read the first two books in the series. If you love em both, read Xenocide. But, really, skip the last one. Let's see what it got on Amazon...............
3.5 stars. Blah. Too many.
After the Ender Quartet, Orson Scott Card wrote some others in the same Ender universe. The most interesting of these to me is actually the next one he wrote, Ender's Shadow. This book takes place during the first book, which makes it very appealing.
I think I'll read it at some point, but for now, gonna read some good ole Fantasy!
Incidentally, don't forget my book list. These are all the books I've read in my adult life.
Yesterday, Michele and Cedric and I enjoyed an evening at the Denver Aquarium to celebrate the little guy's 2nd birthday!
We had a blast! We spent 3 hours roaming around, looking at the fish, sharks, jellies...oh man. We also ate at the restaurant where we got to sit near the giant tank. :-)
Here are some pics. As always, I have all of them on my Facebook. You really should Facebook me if you want to see everything. Blogs are just too cumbersome sometimes. ;-)
Not sure what leg they'll have to stand on the issue, what with Glenn Beck and Rush and others supporting the bonuses. One guy, I forget who, on Fox News, said we shouldn't take the bonuses away because it would amount to a tax increase! Seriously. The vocabulary of a Republican frightens me.
Had the Republicans been in charge, they would most likely have made the bonuses mandatory. :-)
Funny how Republicans are all about not rewarding failure, but have no argument with $165 million in bonuses for the biggest corporate failure possibly in history! As long as it doesn't go to a couple welfare queens, huh?
UPDATE: XKCD has a pretty witty cartoon today about the AIG bonuses. I do agree on the number being insignificant, but I still believe that they were inappropriate and should be rolled back.
One of the highlights of the ineptness of the Bush Administration was their determination to frame debates in ways where every situation meant we needed right-wing policy.
Here's a quick example: The Iraq War. When the death count was skyrocketing, it was "proof" we had to stay there to fight those horrible terrorists who were destroying the nation. But, when the death count declined, it was "proof" things were working, so don't mess with a good thing by pulling troops.
Both statements contradict each other. It didn't matter. The point of the game was to win, not to make sense, and it certainly worked for a while. But, we aren't playing a game. So the public turned on them and now, well, Republicans have been wiped.
Obama in.
However, the game isn't changing. In the pre-cursor to the election, the Republicans had so little to go on that they started using the argument that Obama was "too good." We saw the Celebrity ads, calls that he isn't the Messiah, and so on. The argument became, wow, everyone thinks he's so good, so he must be bad.
Even a pair of liberal, city-livin', tree-hugging, and gay friends of mine opposed him. (They'll say they didn't vote for McCain, but it's a lost vote for Obama in a swing state in Colorado.)
Now, the culmination of this lie of an argument takes form. Obama is no messiah. So, when the DOW doesn't skyrocket upon his taking office, he's now being deemed a "failure." Yes, he's being deemed this by idiots who are playing a political game, but that's what we're talking about, the game. Mere weeks into his term, one Republican congressperson is calling for Tim Geithner to resign. Why? The AIG bonuses! Let's ignore the fact that AIG, or whomever, is free to abuse the national trust in any number of ways within the confines of the bailout agreement. Where was Connie Mack during the 7 years of no-bod contracts for Bush's War? Exactly. Nowhere. And let's ignore that Mr. Mack of Florida wouldn't be happy with any of Obama's appointments. The key is to see if these things get remedied. It's not perfect foresight that guides America, but correcting the problem is key.
Obama stepped up big time and now the AIG CEO is voluntarily requesting bonus returns. See? Democracy in action! Not inaction.
Geithner's big problem, though, is that he's a Democrat. And the Republicans repeated refrain of "Obama's Budget" rings as ludicrously as the party itself.
The point of all this is that the Republicans have lost their way because they have no message. They haven't given a Democrat any credit for anything since Bill Clinton Jimmy Carter FDR well I don't know who.
If the Republicans can ever win some power back, they have to gain the trust of the American people. Unfortunately, they think the American people are their base. Well, their base is shrinking every day and their message is so tailored at their batshit-crazy base, it's a complete turnoff to every Independent and Democrat.
Then again, don't confuse me for anyone who feels bad. The country's in a turnaround and we don't them fucking it up anymore. :-)
A.D.D. (American Dream Denial)
No. :-)
But, I've been disturbed by my inability to wake up lately. I believe it's due to extreme burnout at work. I've been on a project for 5 months who's deadline is at least times less than it should. The constant strain is starting to show.
And, now, Michele is up for a good hour before I can crawl out of bed. It's pretty pathetic.
After some crazy DVD drama over the last day, Michele and I finally got to see Religulous, the psuedo-documentary by Bill Maher. I say pseudo- because it's one of these modern-type documentaries where it's not exactly unbiased. Along the lines of Michael Moore and the right-wing whacko jobs...a documentary to make a point. They need a name for these, I don't know if they have one. :-)
ANYWAY.
The documentary, like I said, is by Bill Maher, a well-known agnostic/atheist like myself. He not only doesn't believe in religion, but he goes as far as to say it's dangerous. I usually only go with the former belief, though I can easily see where he's coming from on the danger part.
He visits many sites and talks to many religious leaders, discussing a wide number of religions including Christianity, Judaism. Mormonism, Islam, and Scientology...basically the ones we're most familiar with. The first part of the movie is largely occupied by Christianity and Bill lays on the comedy well. :-)
The pattern through the movie is to set up mini-debates between Bill and the person he interviews. Each interview is thematic and the topic generally revolves around who the person is that he's talking to. The best example is when he talks to the formerly-gay guy who says he never saw gay who's job it is to un-gay gay people. Bill runs rings around these guys, though frankly I think I could defend a religion better than they did.
When was it so bad to simply say, "I don't know." The religious zealots come up with some of the weirdest stuff to defend their beliefs. We commonly see them feel threatened in a way, no doubt because these people don't know how to defend their religion. Though, honestly, they don't really have to. It's a "belief" after all, isn't it?
The movie was enjoyable beyond words. As an agnostic who thinks religion is pretty silly to believe in, I enjoyed seeing someone with the balls to put this movie out, uh, put this movie out. It had to be said.
I highly recommend the movie. Even if you are religious, you might still find it entertaining because you can see the other religions get mocked. Right? You also might learn a little something, too. :-)
Kudos to Maher!
