Just, wow.

Amazingly touching little YTMND, I was blown away by this simple story:

Animal Crossing

If you have never played the game, it is important to note that the game Is a continuous world, when you are gone, the game world keeps going (not literally, but it does record how much time has passed since you played last, and makes the world act accordingly when you boot that game again). Multiple users can all exist in the same little town, and interact with each other asynchronously.

I literally had to will myself to not cry here at work when I saw this.

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More Social Dissent

So when (not if) Bush's new Iraq spending bill goes through congress, the total cost of the Iraq war to taxpayers will be at about $611 Billion.

A lot of people have been displaying what that much money can buy. Among the more noteworthy statistics is one from Boston.com, stating:

"According to World Bank estimates, $54 billion a year would eliminate starvation and malnutrition globally by 2015, while $30 billion would provide a year of primary education for every child on earth.

At the upper range of those estimates, the $611 billion cost of the war could have fed and educated the world's poor for seven years."

Startling.

But I am after a different prey, namely alternative energy.

Time and time again, the energy industry and their fronts in legislature state that alternative energy is all well and good, but it is simply too expensive on anything but a very small scale. Electric cars and hydrogen power are too much of a leap, and it would cost too much to start converting the infrastructure to such a system.

How far would $611 Billion go, I wonder?

I am so disgusted with the state of affairs, it takes a real effort of will to write anything but snarling, rabid, explosive accusations here. The fact that we are evidently willing to write a blank check to bomb a relatively small patch of ground, yet unwilling to invest in our own education, healthcare, and wellbeing is truly maddening. Is there anything that I'm leaving out?

Now see this, it will cheer you up:


I'm serious about moving, by the way, if things get too far out of hand, if they haven't already.

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The Whole Country is Going Down!

Seriously, though, how long can we keep it up? How much lower can the value of the dollar go?

Pat Buchanan writes a somewhat alarmist and pessimistic, but nonetheless insightful article about the US economy.

Essentially it boils down to the position that the rest of the world is snickering and waiting for the USA to implode like Russia did, so that they can get on with their own economies. Sure, a lot of people are going to be hurt if the US goes belly-up economically, but in the long run, all of the more mature countries will probably be better off without our shenanigans. Europe, Japan, and to a lesser extent, China, are all poised to be the at the forefront of a new world economy, while the USA is trying as best it can to hold on to the Pyramid-Scheme-style economic policy that skyrocketed us to stardom in the last century.

Of course, this places all of us in the USA in something of a dilemma. If we are able to rein in our massive over-spending, we could possibly step back from the edge and walk calmly down the side of the mountain. The USA could become one of the most sustainable economies out there, and undoubtedly the largest, if only we could focus on what matters and leave the rest alone. Alas, our leaders have complicated everything terribly. DeathandTaxes is a great place to start to see just how convoluted the national budget is.

In the end, I really just feel betrayed, over and over again. I am told to be responsible, to keep my credit score up, to spend wisely so that someday I might emerge from the debt-ridden depths to bathe in the warm sunlight of a positive net-worth. I am told all of this while my government goes out and spends money like a little child in a room full of candy with no parents to be found. It is aggravating. It seems that were we funding our nation responsibly, we would have more than enough for a good national education system, a good national health care system, and a good national defense, with enough left over for things like NASA and infrastructure.

Instead our leaders are playing the part of the family in debt up to their eyeballs, unwilling to change their lifestyle, and deciding to go on a pleasure-cruise to the middle-east. We could be slowly turning the economy around (we almost did, right around the turn of the millennium), instead the government has succumbed to its own propaganda, and is trying to spend and consume its way out of debt.

The Canadian dollar has for the first time surpassed the value of the American dollar, so perhaps the solution lies directly at our northern door. I hear Toronto is pretty in the Fall.

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Halloween Photos

ALRIGHT, I don't have the time to fix the photo displays here, so I will just provide a link to the gallery in which they reside:

LeviticusMky at Picasa.com

As promised, click on them for a larger size version:


The pumpkins. The center one is supposed to be Sweet Tooth from Twisted Metal.


My other pumpkin, out on the ledge, to entice little ones into our trap.


I really like the way the scarecrow turned out.


This is just a great photo. No Photoshop at all.


The ambiance was great.

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More genius.

First: A new ZeroPunctuation review:



It actually has some delightfully cynical political rhetoric in there, hilarious as usual.

In other news: I had a dream last night that my battery was running out, and once it was dead, so was I. Literally, I could see that my old fashioned electric battery was almost spent, and I knew that once it was gone, I would undoubtedly die. It was weird, and sad, I was going around telling people that I only had a few hours left, all while feeling really tired (in the dream). Perhaps I should go get a physical or something.

Lastly: Halloween was a lot of fun, even though we only had about 5 groups of trick or treaters come through our neighborhood. Our house is -PERFECT- for spooky Halloween decorations, and although there wasn't too much that we did for it this year, it still turned out quite well. I hope to post pictures tomorrow, I shall inform you once this has been accomplished.

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