Monday, January 31, 2005

Updating "Blogroll"

Okay, I'm fed up with DailyKos. They aren't interested in solutions to problems. They are only interested in being very partisan. They like to pick any bit of news that helps their 'progressive agenda' (what that means, I don't know. They won't tell me. I think it might be doing nothing because they don't seem to want to do anything that the republicans want to do). They find tiny unflattering bits of information about random conservatives and try to pretend that is what all conservatives are like. Granted that isn't completely unlike what I'm doing here but nobody reads this blog, which is fine.

So I'm done reading DailyKos. If I'm interested in whether Lieberman is liberal enough to fit in their new progressive party, I'll go back but until then, there are better blogs to read.

I've added Talking Points Memo which is not related to Bill O'reilly. It is a liberal blog. I haven't read too much of it yet but so far it feels like it was written by an adult. I like the writing style.

I'm also adding two more conservative blogs, Right Wing Duck which is usually pretty funny and the National Debate which is simply a conservative news site. If your worried that I'm reading more conservative blogs than liberal blogs, I'd be surprised. Because I don't think anyone reads this.

mwz

Sunday, January 30, 2005

Like children

Okay, so I wanted to get these thoughts out before the Iraqi election unfolds. I really hope that it goes well there.

But that isn't wasn't what I want to write about. I've been reading DailyKos and I have been struck by how they like to throw out the news that people died in Iraq (examples: here, here and here). Every time there is an attack or an accident they use it to say "See we told you so".

Maybe they are sincerely trying to make sure that we know what the cost of the war really is. But it really comes off like they are little children saying "Ha. Ha. We told you it wouldn't work" or like they are a characature of an old woman who isn't happy until she can complain about something. I mean real people are dieing and they get to throw their hands in the air and say "I knew this would happen if I wasn't running things. Hurumph". Actually, they get to revel in the statistics as in this quote, "The situation is untenable. 1,578 dead. $300 billion in treasure. Another two hellish years for our troops." Maybe they really care about about the troops or maybe they just hope to score political points.

DailyKos has also been quite active in declaring the Iraqi elections to be doomed. They like to point to sources that will say that people will not be participating in the election (examples: here and here). Of course they ignore any sources that would speak the contrary (I'm to lazy to find sources that would say that there will be high voter turn out, maybe they are too). We'll find out what happened when we wake up in the morning.

Part of it is that it's just iritating that they keep neigh saying. They might (rightly) say that someone needs to remind us that everything isn't okee-dokee. Fair enough. But now that I've written about it, it won't bug me so much. When they say "X people were killed trying to vote" , I can just know inside that I was right about them.

mwz

UPDATE:
Aparently, I'm not alone in these thoughts. A post today (Jan 30) on DailyKos says this "I have been accused of gloating by people right HERE because of my focus on the continuing violence."

Michelle Malkin points out "With the exception of Sullivan, the top bloggers on the left side of the blogosphere have decided to mark this historic day by hiding under their bedcovers."

Saturday, January 29, 2005

Drummer Baby

Hot off the heals of Francis pulling down the CDs, she has hit another proud moment milestone. Arial (my wife) is all into the "developmental milestones" like her pulling herself up by herself (which she can do) but I'm more into the fun things.

Anyway, I have a drum set. I got it partially because I wanted to play and partially so that Francis would grow up with a drum set. About once a week or so, I set Francis on my lap, stick the sticks in her little hands and lightly drum with my hands over hers. It usually entertains her for a bit and then she starts chewing on the sticks.

But today, She held onto both sticks on her own and started hitting the snare. She didn't look that coordinated but she did have a good rhythm going. I was so proud.

mwz

Friday, January 28, 2005

Baby blogging

So this post is going to be about my daughter. To keep her anonymous, I'll call her Francis. She's cute as a button... a really cute button with kittens and puppies sitting together wearing hats.

Anyway, Francis is learning to crawl. She's taking lessons at the YMCA. Well no. She's actually just learning to move. Today is the first time that I have seen her propel herself with a destination in mind. It was really cool to see. She only moved like a foot but I dig it.

Of course what is the first thing she goes to? The CD cases. She played with the floppy disks (that I wedge under the fronts of the cases as extra insurance that won't fall over). She can't move them, so there was no danger. But then, (when her mommy left), she started pulling CDs off the botton shelf. I was so proud. That was her first "Make a mess of our stuff " experience. So proud, I thought I would blog about it. As long as she never throws CDs into the toilet, I'll be okay.

An observer might argue that since she only moved a foot, we put her down that close to the CD Cases. Well that's right. I didn't think she could move that far. Plus we were hovering right over her. Even when she was pulling the CDs down, I was right there. She only grabbed three. So there.

mwz

Thursday, January 27, 2005

Food

I miss food. Not just any old food. I miss grahm crackers, chocolate and milk. I miss excesses of food. I miss having a bowl of ice cream every night. I miss walking to the kitchen at 10pm and making myself a snack... a big snack.

Basically, I'm on a diet. Not a specific diet. More of an attempt at life style change.

Last month, my doctor told me that I should get my weight down to 190 lbs. I was 220lbs (although their scale said 230, it was with clothes and shoes on). I'm not obese but I'm not the thin guy that I used to be. The extra fat really iritates me. It bugs me that I have this layer of fat that covers me.

Anyway, so I'm on this diet, which just means that I am trying to eat a sensible breakfast, lunch and supper with no snacking in between. It's a lot harder than I thought. The problem is that I control the food supply. When I was in high school, I only had the food that was around. My parents aren't big snackers, so there were never any chips around. My mom did make desert things but I didn't want to hog it. Ya know? Then in college, I started controlling the food supply but I was still young enough that it all burned away. Plus stress can do a lot for burning calories.

Unfortunately, when my wife got pregnant, my body decided that it needed to store up energy. Maybe it knew that we would be awake the whole first couple weeks and that I would need the energy. In any case, even though my wife's belly got flat after the birth, mine didn't.

So now here I am. Down to 215 lbs. Fat man blogging.

mwz

Wednesday, January 26, 2005

Whatever

I've really been taking this blog way to seriously. It seems like it was more fun to write on my old web page. I think it was because I always referred to myself as plural. You should try it.

Saturday, January 22, 2005

GTA-SA again

There has been much playing of San Andreas since my last post. My worries were for not. I haven't had any problems since the first night. Granted that the machine is never on for more than 3 hours but that really hasn't been that bad. I'm still saving often but I'd be doing that anyway.

The game is still a lot of fun. There was a small stretch where the story was transitioning that was kinda boring. The missions seemed to consist of 'drive for 5 minutes, do something, drive for 5 minutes'. I never thought that I would think a game was too big. When I was first really getting into video games with The Legend of Zelda, I really wanted more places to go. I would have dreams that I unlocked a new continent. I guess you should be careful what you wish for.

I really do like the size of the map. I just wish that there were fewer "Drive to the other side of the continent and back" missions.

On a side note, I've added a counter from site meter. I was curious to see if anyone visits this page. The answer it no which is for the best really. ;)

mwz

Friday, January 21, 2005

Libs vs Cons

So, I've been thinking about liberals and conservatives. Now this is just a thought and it is probably wrong but...

I'm thinking that maybe the whole difference (at least economically) stem from the distrust of people in power. Liberals distrust powerful people in buisiness and those with money. While conservatives distrust the powerful people in unions and government. Both are probably right to some extent to be skeptical of those in powerful positions. It seems to me that where you put your distrust chips determines where you are politically.

So, liberals distrust buisiness. They don't trust buisiness with environmental issues (reasonable), so they try to (over)regulate that. They don't trust buisiness with labor issues (reasonable at one time), so they support unions.

Liberals distrust people with money (ie everyone who isn't "poor"). They don't trust us to give to charities, so they take the money using taxes and distribute it using social programs. They don't trust us with our retirement, so they take our money and sock it into social security. They don't trust us with our children, so they give sweeping powers to child services. They don't trust us with guns*, so they make it harder to get them.

Conservatives distrust unions. We don't trust them to not become power hungry and corrupt. I don't know what we do about this other than create right-to-work states so that the unions don't have a monopoly on labor. We don't trust them to not inhibit a company with combersome demands. We don't trust them not to be linked with organized labor.

Conservatives distrust government. We don't trust the government to be reasonable on a case by case basis. We don't trust it to be efficient with our money and time. We don't trust it to regulate our lives. We don't drust it enough to give it unchallenged control over our lives.

Basically, I side with the conservatives on these issues and here's why. I feel that there are market powers that keep buisinesses (somewhat) in check, as long as we keep the anti-trust laws on the books. But there are none for unions because they have a monopoly and the same for the government. If either of those make a bad (or inefficient) decision, they may not ever be held accountable and if they are, it takes a long time.

Well thats about it. It's late and I'm tired.

Feel free to leave comments if you think this whole post is crap. It might be.

* I don't own a gun but I know that it is my right to buy one if I choose.

Wednesday, January 19, 2005

Crazy

Yesterday, I was catching up on my blog reading. I have this new thing where I have to do excercises to get to read blogs. The plan is working but this weekend I didn't really feel like excercising. Consequently, I had a lot of blogs to read on Tuesday (Monday was MLK day after all).

I was reading through QandO when I saw this, "Having said that, though, I'd note that Passive Paranoia gets this exactly right...". He then goes on to quote one of my posts. I almost spit out my food. I've only had five posts. My friends and family don't even know about it yet. I've been waiting until the archive gets a little more substantial before I mentioned it to them.

It was pretty increadible. It was sort of like writing a post card to your mom and then seeing it sited in the newspaper. I mean you know that anyone can read it but you don't think anyone would care.

Of course this doesn't mean that anyone will care about any of my subsiquent posts (other than maybe people who know me). I'm just going to continue to believe that no one sees these things. The whole perpose of this blog for me is to get my thoughts straight by writing them and maybe be able to point people (that I'm discussing things with) to, to give them my thoughts and arguments.

It's all very weird.

mwz

Sunday, January 16, 2005

Re-thinking Political Blogs

So nearly a week has passed since I wrote that last post about the political blogs I've been reading. I've been thinking about it and I think I was a little to hard on the liberal blogs. I suppose the other blogs I read take a lot for granted with their readership too. The libertarian blog I read (http://www.qando.net/) pretty much takes for granted that a free market system is the best way to go. I happen to agree with that, so it's not surprising that I don't find that as annoying as when the left wingers pretend that the government should be solving all of our problems.

There really is a whole lot of cheerleading going on from both sides, which is something I've really grown to detest but that is for another time.

One thing that is hard to remember is that people on the other side really do think that their way of thinking is the best for society. They are still people.

Recently I read this quote in Michelle Malkin's blog. It is from a wonderful column by Thomas Sowell.

"Too many people today act as if no one can honestly disagree with them. If you have a difference of opinion with them, you are considered to be not merely in error but in sin."

It really has me thinking about how a lot of people I know base their opinions of people on their political beliefs. Particularily, we make judgements about public figures based on this. I like to think of myself as the good guy and the opposite side as the bad guys, when we're just people with differing opinions on topics that we feel strongly about.

I mean the people at Daily Kos and Eschaton aren't all bad. I apparently have things in common with these stars of the liberal blogosphere. I use Firefox as a browser and so does DavidNYC at dailykos. And Atrios has cats. Of course they are much better writers than I and believe that it is the government who should control my money, so there are differences.

mwz

Tuesday, January 11, 2005

Political blogs

So I have been thinking about what to write lately. I was thinking about doing something political but... I don't know, maybe I will.

I read a few blogs, a couple conservatives and a libertarian blog. I decided that I was getting too much from one side. So this weekend I started reading a couple prominent liberal blogs. I chose Kos and Atrios because I hear their names thrown out there every now and again.

Now, I've only been reading these for a couple days but I have noticed something. Maybe it's my own slant but the liberal writing doesn't seem to be talking about any ideas... No that's the wrong word for it... they don't have any substantial arguments for anything that they are saying. They like to say things about being lied to about the war and it being a dismal failure without giveing any reasoning, as if it was common fact. Maybe they are just preaching to the converted and so they don't need to worry about convincing anyone, but it's not convincing me.

I could just be reading the wrong blogs.

Another difference that I've noticed was the difference in events coverage. There have been two major blog stories coming out in the last couple days. There is the Armstrong Williams scandal where he was paid to endorce the No Child Left Behind and the CBS/Rather report came out today. Each story puts one side in a negative light; Williams is bad for Republicans and CBS is bad for the liberal media and Democrats.

Now, you can find both stories on the conservative blogs. Everyone is decrying Williams' decision to take money and not disclose it. But only the conservatives have really attached CBS's bias. Only Atrios even mentioned it and it was to say that is somehow showed that the media isn't liberally biased (by some twisted logic that since "Rathergate" is news then obviously the media isn't liberal).

Whatever.

Good night.

mwz

Wednesday, January 05, 2005

Name Change

So I've changed the name of the blog. This whole name changing thing started because I wanted a small amount of annonymity. Even though I'm sure there are still ways to link my identity to this blog, I decide that I would make it harder than just reading the URL.

Anyway, I kinda wanted to name this 'Downstream', mostly because I liked the sound of it. It might be a good band name. But it was taken.

Arial suggested that I use something with paranoia in the title because I like to wear my little tin hat. A figurative tin hat, that is. I don't actually put on a tin foil hat. Come to think of it, I don't think I'm that paranoid. But whatever... now I have a new name for the blog.

Exciting!!!

mwz

Tuesday, January 04, 2005

GTA-SA

Okay, here goes. It's been a while since I've written in this type of format but we'll see what comes out.

Let's see. What's been going on in my life. I just purchased GTA San Andreas. It is quite fun, a little potty-mouthed but that isn't my problem with it. My problem is that after my PS2 has been on for a couple hours, the game freezes.

Now I know what you might be thinking, when do I have time to play for a couple hours. Well, I don't really. Sometimes, I just like to leave it on when L and I watch tv. That way, when I get back to it, I don't have too reload anything. It is usually quite a fine idea. Unfortunately, GTA-SA is a little to much for my poor old PS2 to deal with when it's tired. I have to let it rest before playing. And I save often.

On a side note, they really decided to go all the way with their mature rating. There is no nudity in GTA-SA (as far as I know) but there is an awful lot of swearing and a quite a little bit of violence. I don't recall there being this much nauty language in GTA3 or GTA-VC. Even so, it is a very pretty game and fun to boot.

Well, that's a pretty good length for a first real post. Have fun.

mwz

Monday, January 03, 2005

First Post

Well, this is my first post. I'm going to try this out a bit before I tell anyone about this blog. We'll see if I like it or if I even have anything interesting to say.

mwz