All Your Base Are Belong To Us — The Kip Lange Homepage

Well, after a little bit of waiting, I got my hands on a Dualshock 3, the one with “rumble” (force-feedback) in it. Yeah, I know, it’s not released in the US for another couple of months; I shelled out an extra $20 or so to get one from Japan — it’s the exact same model the US one will be.

Quick impressions:

– The controller is now a good deal heavier, and I like it like that, personally. It feels much less like the previous Sixaxis — which pretty much feels like a cheap plastic toy. Feels good in your hands.

– The triggers have been modified slightly and I think the analog sticks may be a touch more accurate.

– As reported, there is now a sort of “directional” rumble; a bullet flies by to the left, you feel it on the left.

– The rumble is back, it’s great, but it’s not nearly as strong as it used to be.

– Charging time and battery life seem to mimic the original Sixaxis — that’s a good thing.

Now, some games are going to be releasing patches to update to rumble, some already have rumble built in (Kane & Lynch, Turok…), but some will never have rumble at all.

Now…here is a list of games that Sony says will support rumble in one fashion or another…

I like the thing. I really do.

And even though the Giants deserved the win, the Patriots *still* almost had them — that one play where they chased Eli all over the place and he hurled up that desperation pass that was caught in a circus catch…

One play, season down the drain.

Congratulations to the New York Giants fans, you folks outplayed us today. Not by much, New York was far from stellar, but they made the plays when they needed to and the Patriots did not.

Now, that being said:

The last 19 games did not happen. This season did not happen. I will not talk about it. We will, henceforth, refer to this as The Game That Shall Not Be Named. And we will NOT NAME IT.

That’s it. That’s all. I don’t want to talk about it. I won’t talk about it.

Okay, I know I said in one of my last posts that I was leaning Romney, but I’ve settled down since my beloved Rudy dropped out (perhaps for the best, given his wife’s personality) and now…it’s McCain. And I know I have said McCain ain’t the guy, but that was before the field narrowed.

My overriding issue is national defense and holding a firm line in the war on terror; not letting it descend into a “war on drugs” lip-service affair, which is what I think Romney would help do to the effort. McCain will hold the line on defense and Islamic extremism — and Iraq. His record is clear on that. Crystal.

Jeff Jacoby of the Boston Globe makes a compelling case for conservatives to rally behind McCain right here; I know Rush is foaming at the mouth about this stuff, but Rush ain’t always right (I think some of my fellow VRWC conspirators just fainted from me saying that).

There you go. For what it’s worth, Kip Lange now officially endorses John McCain for President. I’m not ecstatic about it, but he’s the best choice. I think if I even tried to vote Romney my central nervous system might completely melt down.

Okay. As John McCain would say, “My friends –” (everybody seems to be McCain’s friend to McCain)…we of the conservative ilk don’t have a viable candidate this time around.

It’s not the end of the world for the conservatives in the Republican party. We initially rallied around Rudy, I think, minus the hardcore Thompson fans or Huckabee’s siren song to evangelical conservatives. And really, we all know Mike Huckabee is not going to win the primary. And really, we all know, if he did, he’d get his ass round-house kicked (you brought the joke on yourself, Mike) with a force measuring 10.0 on the Norris Scale.

Right. So we had, as Peggy Noonan recently called in, a “bubbling stew” with candidates, those of us on the right.

Now there seem to be only a couple of chunks of meat left.

You’ve got Romney and McCain. All Huckabee will do is siphon delegates *off* of those two, especially in states where Independents can vote in any party’s primary.

A lot of conservatives are rallying around Romney. Okay, so I’ve mocked Romney my whole life — I have a Mormon problem, I guess. But given what the press calls McCain’s “maverick” status (which is code for “he’s liberal”) and his age and…well, people are worried about McCain being able to beat down a young and virile Barack Obama or a battle-tested woman with balls bigger than her ex-President husband.

I guess what I’m trying to say is — pass me the air sick bag, but I might have to vomit up a Romney ballot. I don’t like it, but it may well be the best shot the Republicans have got, I think.

This is not really the conventional wisdom, it seems; it seems McCain has “earned” the nomination, and it really feels like 1996. Sure, Rudy endorsed McCain when he dropped out, and he’s got other endorsements (although from some with shaky conservative streed cred like the Governator of California). And yeah, the press loves McCain, but the second he wins the primary — the press will jump all over him, just watch. Honeymoon over, gloves off.

Doesn’t he remind you of Bob Dole?

Not in manner, maybe. But remember, Dole ran as a “compromiser” — which he was — and that is exactly what McCain is running as (and he’s not hiding the bad connotation of the word, either, i.e. repeatedly settling for what’s not the best option). Both are old, as well, very old.

We chose Dole in this manner. Don’t my fellow VRWC folks remember this? We chose Dole, and it was a disaster. And we all felt about Dole the way we feel about McCain.

Which is why I think — ugh — I think — I might go Romney. It’s still up in the air, though, I need a little more time to think.

Ow. Ugly thing to have to type. “Go for Romney”. Ick. Did I actually say that? No…can’t be…

It’s too bad Jeb Bush can’t really run. 🙂 (I actually partially mean that, believe it or not)

Look, you don’t have to read McCain’s liberal history to understand why conservatives are wary of him; just listen to some recent comments regarding how he wouldn’t elect conservative judges like Alito to the courts. Guys, that’s a big issue. A BIG issue — who appoints those justices.

From John Fund:

More recently, Mr. McCain has told conservatives he would be happy to appoint the likes of Chief Justice John Roberts to the Supreme Court. But he indicated he might draw the line on a Samuel Alito, because “he wore his conservatism on his sleeve.”

And that is something a conservative really doesn’t want to hear. Besides, give me a break about Alito wearing his conservatism “on his sleeve”. Okay, he’s a strict constructionist, but…the guy is a good justice and we should be glad to have him in there.

So let’s see how things break. All I know is that McCain ain’t gonna get much of a reception at CPAC, the annual conservative pow-wow (after all, I believe last year they were handing out “No Rudy McRomney” buttons) — this will be one of his few chances to reach out to the conservatives en masse and McCain better watch out and be ready to defend his liberal record on taxes, global warming, and campaign finance “reform” (or rather, the throttling of political free speech).

I know CPAC cats. I don’t see them buying McCain’s rhetoric. I see them seething because there is no conservative to vote for. I mean, another thing about Huckabee — he’s a Big Government fan, period.

Where does this leave us? I dunno. Right now McCain has The Big Mo, as they say, and we’ll have to see if Romney can derail it by throwing fistfuls of money at him.

Ah well. At the end of the day, members of the choir, remember that it’s still better to have McCain or Romney in there than it is to have Obama or Clinton…

Great article on Bill’s recent (and not-so-recent) antics, written by Jeff Jacoby (columnist for the Globe). Reprinting his article, received from his email list (a list you can join, look at the bottom of the column for info), verbatim, here:

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THE DOMINANT CLINTON
By Jeff Jacoby
The Boston Globe

Sunday, January 27, 2008

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2008/01/27/the_dominant_clinton/

     On the day a new president is inaugurated, the outgoing president traditionally keeps a low profile, slipping away quietly after the swearing-in and leaving the spotlight to his successor. Not Bill Clinton. His first order of post-presidential business on Jan. 20, 2001, was a 90-minute rally at Andrews Air Force Base, complete with honor guard and a 21-gun salute.

     “I left the White House, but I’m still here!” Clinton exultantly told the crowd. “We’re not going anywhere!”

     Like most Americans, I was ready for the tawdry and tiring psychodrama that was the Clinton administration to finally be over. But something told me he wasn’t being rhetorical.

     “He means it,” I wrote at the time. “He *isn’t* going anywhere. Yes, he packed his bags, zipped his pants, and turned the White House keys over to the new tenants — but he’s still here. There are more grotesqueries to come from our ex-president. There will be more truth-twisting, more money-grubbing, more scandal. Even out of office, he will find seamy new ways to degrade the presidency. Just wait.”

     So here we are, seven years and one week later, and what do you know — Clinton is back in the news, his angry rants and political attacks casting a shadow over the presidential campaign. Once again the only elected president to face an impeachment trial is generating waves of outrage and dismay. A Rip Van Winkle newly awakened from 10 years of slumber wouldn’t be surprised to find Clinton under fire for spreading falsehoods and behaving disreputably. But he might do a double-take upon discovering that Clinton‘s critics now aren’t Republicans. They are fellow Democrats and liberals recoiling from his attacks on Senator Barack Obama, who has had the effrontery to challenge Hillary Clinton for the presidential nomination.

     Last week, Clinton was blasted by Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont, an Obama supporter, for taking “glib cheap shots” that are “beneath the dignity of a former president.” He was excoriated by Ed Schultz, the nation’s top liberal radio talk host, for “lying about Barack Obama’s record” and “embarrassing” the Democratic Party. Tom Daschle, the former Senate Democratic leader who has endorsed Obama, warned that Clinton‘s “overt distortions” were “not presidential” and could “destroy the party” if not checked.

     A past chairman of the South Carolina Democratic Party charged the Clintons with practicing the “politics of deception” and likened the former president to Lee Atwater, a Republican operative who became infamous for his ruthless political warfare.

     “The Clintons play dirty when they feel threatened,” wrote William Greider in a scathing piece for The Nation, a leading journal of the left. “The recent roughing-up of Barack Obama was in the trademark style of the Clinton years in the White House. High-minded and self-important on the surface, smarmily duplicitous underneath, meanwhile jabbing hard to the groin area. They are a slippery pair and come as a package. The nation is at fair risk of getting them back in the White House for four more years. The thought makes me queasy.”

     What a pity that liberals and Democrats weren’t as plainspoken about the Clintons‘ shamelessness and dishonesty back in the 1990s. In fairness, a few were: Former senator Bob Kerrey famously characterized Bill Clinton as “an unusually good liar — unusually good,” and Jesse Jackson once described him as “immune to shame,” someone who at the core consisted of “absolutely nothing . . . nothing but an appetite.” But far too often the Clintons‘ habits of mendacity, anger, and self-pity, their constant blame-shifting, their stop-at-nothing pursuit of power were excused or minimized by the left.

     America‘s political culture might never have grown so embittered if Democrats then had been a little more outraged by the Clintons‘ lack of ethics and a little less zealous about demonizing those who criticized them.

     If recent weeks have made one thing clear, it is that the current Clinton campaign is as much about returning Bill to the White House as about making Hillary president.

     Bill Clinton’s angry outbursts, his lack of self-control, his overpowering presence in the public arena are surely a preview of what a Clinton Restoration would be like. Hillary might be the president, but Bill would still be, as he has always been, the dominant Clinton. To whom would he be answerable in a second Clinton administration? Not to the woman whose political career is a derivative of his, that’s for sure.

     Hillary likes to claim she is “running to break the highest and hardest glass ceiling,” but with Bill back in the White House, would it ever be clear just where the lines of authority really ran? What could possibly check and balance the extraconstitutional power of a presidential spouse who was also a former president? Anytime he wants it, Bill Clinton can have the spotlight. In a revived Clinton presidency, would he be content to remain in his wife’s shadow? Or would she continue — as she continues even now — to be in his?

(Jeff Jacoby is a columnist for the Boston Globe.)

— ## —

To subscribe to (or unsubscribe from) Jeff Jacoby’s mailing list, please visit http://www.JeffJacoby.com. To see a month’s worth of his recent columns, go to http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/jeff_jacoby.

Jeff Jacoby welcomes comments and reads all his mail. Unfortunately, he receives so many letters that he cannot answer each one personally.

Yuck. As much as I hate to say this, Mitt Romney is now a viable candidate for the presidency. Why? The economy. Romney has a good managerial record, and the American people are stupid enough to let the economy dominate the political discussion currently — over the war.

If the economy was thrummin‘ and hummin‘ perfectly, Romney would be further back. But he’s seen as a guy who has governed in a fiscally wise manner. I mean, let’s face it, folks, money is in Mitt Romney’s blood. You cut him, the guy is gonna bleed greenbacks.

Of course, this is idiotic on the part of the voters, because a president simply doesn’t have that much power over the economy. Yes, there are a few things a president can do. But not much. There’s not much politicians can do, period, or we wouldn’t have recessions.

It’s a tremendous mistake to nominate Romney because you somehow think ol‘ Mitt is going to pull us out of fiscal problems with the same ease he handled the mess at the Olympics. A tremendous mistake.

One of the greatest powers a president has — which we’ve seen — is the ability to declare and wage war (and no, he doesn’t need Congressional approval to do it, although many times a president will seek the stamp of approval before any military action). That — now that, I think Romney is not the best candidate for, nor even ready for — coming up with a comprehensive global policy to maintain some sort of stability in the highly volatile regions of the world.

It’s not that Romney couldn’t handle it; maybe he could. But the guy who’s proven himself in desperate situations is Rudy Giuliani.

Maybe with the economy off the table, Giuliani would be doing better. Right now, he’s at about 16% in Florida while McCain and Romney are tied for first at around 31%.

That’s disturbing news for the Giuliani campaign and for anyone who supports Rudy. If you haven’t been following things on the Republican side that closely — Rudy made a calculated gamble. He was sure he couldn’t win in New Hampshire and Iowa (which I believe is true) and spent most of his time campaigning in Florida. The idea was to win Florida and go on and win on Super Tuesday (February 5th) and pick up the nomination that way — Giuliani simply didn’t have the money to waste on the early primaries, when it was pretty clear he didn’t stand a chance, anyway.

Still, though, Rudy screwed up. He let himself drop out of the limelight. Once the almost-crowned forerunner, he’s dropped way back, and I haven’t heard much from him in general. Now, mind you, I’m not in Florida, where he’s doing his campaigning, but still — he should have tried to keep himself on the radar screen somehow. People have short memories when it comes to elections, and Rudy has been out of the spotlight just long enough to let McCain and Romney move to the forefront.

I never thought I’d say anything like this, but if Romney gets that damn nomination, I may vote Obama. Well, probably not, as likable as Obama is, he’s still a super-lib. Maybe I’d go back to Libertarian. I’m not sure. I am sure that if I see Romney’s name on the ballot during the general election and I do vote for him, I will be doing so with my teeth grinding and with only the thought, “Well, he’ll be a hair better than a Democrat.”

And for the love of God, would the Republicans please stop going on and on about the next Reagan? We don’t have anybody resembling Reagan in the race. Besides, Reagan was a great president for the time he governed. He was perhaps the greatest Cold War president we had.

There are no Reagans in the GOP primary, just as there are no Kennedys (although I know a lot of you think Obama is JFK reincarnated) in the Democrat primaries.

Frankly, we have a terrible selection of candidates. The best, I still firmly believe, is Rudy Giuliani, and I’m not backing down from that.

As for McCain — I suppose I could live with him, but his campaign finance reform (read: suppression of political free speech) work, and his refusal to support the early Bush tax cuts — well, that doesn’t give me a whole lot of confidence in him. Then again, I’m voting on one issue — international terrorism — and if you have to make me choose between Romney and McCain on that issue, McCain is clearly the superior candidate, and that’s where my vote will go.

But let’s not give up on Rudy just yet…yes, he looks like he may be down for the count, but those states on Super Tuesday…he could still win the nomination.

The most interesting scenario, and one the nation hasn’t seen in a long time, is if the Republicans go into the convention without a clear leader. In other words, we enter the convention without anyone having enough delegates to get elected. Then the candidates have to fight it out on the floor all night, wheeling and dealing, trying to get as many delegates as they can.

Could be interesting. 🙂

One more game.

One.

Game.

Superbowl.

BAHAHAHAHAHAH!

There, I said it. I like Barack Obama. Sue me. Not his politics — whatever they are, because he doesn’t really stand for anything except “hope” and uh…”hope” — but because he’s an engaging speaker willing to say certain things (in a calculated gamble) that you don’t always hear from a Democrat. And he speaks well. He ain’t no John Edwards.

Of course, if you look at this story right here about some of Obama’s recent remarks, you can understand why I might like the guy on a personal level.

Mind you, the only situation where I might end up voting for Obama is if we of the GOP are so monumentally stupid that we go ahead and nominate Mitty Romney. I hate Mitt Romney with a passion that is only shared by my hatred for Mitt Romney, the Stepford Candidate.

Are we really down to nominating people to positions of power because they have attractive hair?

Just passing this along, it’s a little newsletter I get from UC Berkeley as an alum showcasing some of the neat-o stuff they’re doing in the field of science. I really love Berkeley, I really do. Miss it a lot, sometimes. Whoops, off on a tangent. Anyway, the following contains links to some interesting articles on cutting-edge science issues…

———-

ScienceMatters@BerkeleyVolume 5, Issue 34
January 2008

Dear College of Letters & Science Alumni:

Happy New Year! 2008 promises to be a year of exciting new research and discoveries. Find out how Berkeley professors and researchers are in the forefront in ScienceMatters@Berkeley. We showcase scientific research taking place in the College of Letters & Science and the College of Chemistry.

This issue includes: • Souping Up Superconductors • Truth in Data • The Copy Machine of the Cell

Souping Up Superconductors Imagine a world where electricity was virtually free and the means to store it limitless. Alessandra Lanzara, a Berkeley professor of physics, sees a way to reach this goal: by restringing the power grid with high temperature superconductors.

Truth in Data When it comes to scientific studies, results can be deceiving, with claims that are more likely to be false than true. The problem, says Berkeley professor of biostatistics and statistics Mark van der Laan, lies neither with science nor data. He is researching methods to make studies more accurate and reliable, in particular those involving clinical trials that enroll hundreds or even thousands of subjects and can cost hundreds of millions of dollars.

The Copy Machine of the Cell When Berkeley professor of biochemistry and molecular biology Mike Botchan first began studying chromosome copying, basic questions about the process remained unknown. Over the past three decades, Botchan has been instrumental in piecing together the story of what he calls “the elaborate dance of DNA replication.”

ScienceMatters@Berkeley is published online by the College of Letters & Science at the University of California, Berkeley. The mission of ScienceMatters@Berkeley is to showcase the exciting scientific research underway in the College of Letters & Science and the College of Chemistry.
Visit us to learn more about the College of Letters & Science.

…but Wellesley is actually becoming more gentrified.

I loathe what they’ve done to Linden Street. For those of you who have no clue about Wellesley, the center of town runs parallel to Linden Street. Washington Street is the main drag for Wellesley.

Linden Street was sort of the back alley, and a little more of a place for townies. I used to take a walk all the way down to the end of Linden and back every day — it was peaceful.

Now, with two extra stoplights thrown in, a huge mega-complex strip-mall type thing installed on one side, and apartments being built on the other side…it’s turning into Washington Street. And I hate it.

I especially hate it because the yuppies who are moving here and fueling this are my age. They are every snot-nosed little over-privileged jerk I had to suffer through high school with. And I’m a snot-nosed over-privileged jerk myself, so you know these guys are bad.

On top of this, they’ve closed one of the last two diners in town (“Vidalia’s“, once known as “Popovers”, back in the day) which is driving me batshit; that was possibly the only place to get a decent lunch around here, except for the Maugus.

Instead, people want more restaurants like The Blue Ginger. You know, I once stood outside The Blue Ginger reading the menu, and the only thing I found that I could possibly stomach was a glass of water. I hate that faux–nouveaux cuisine crap.

As the title of the post says, I didn’t think it was possible, but Wellesley is becoming more gentrified, to repeat myself.

One notable holdout: Nino’s, otherwise known as “The Linden Store”, otherwise known as the best place on Earth to get a good sub, has not closed, moved, or changed. Oh, and just for the heck of it, I have to point out that the folks who run Nino’s, the LeBruns (“Nino’s” comes from Nino LeBrun, although the “official” name of the joint is “The Linden Store”), are truly great folks. The patriarch of the family is a great guy who has one of his son’s kidneys in him now (and is doing very well, last I heard). Hell of a thing for both him and tells you a little about his sons, too.

Then again, if any place was going to survive the “makeover” on Linden Street, it was Nino’s. The place is a license to print cash. But thank God it’s not gone, like Professional Pharmacy (ah, my youth flashes before me, I worked at Professional while I was in high school) — actually, Professional is even worse, because it didn’t go away, it just changed into a gigantic CVS.

Alright, alright, I’ll shut up, but you know, if you folks had kept Roy Switzler as a selectman, some of this development might not be happening; Roy always held the line against development while he was in there. Mind you, some development is fine, yes, but the current state of things…annoys the hell out of me.

Give me back the old Wellesley. Hell, go further back than my birth, back to when Wellesley was a Republican enclave, and give me that. Now it’s a giant sucking hole of white suburban guilt. The kind of people who support immigrants — until they hire one to clean their house, at which point they start worrying how much the person is going to steal from them.

But I guess this is all in vain. It would have happened eventually. Diehl’s lumber yard was taking up way too much incredibly valuable land, they were bound to sell out sometime (that’s what started the whole Linden makeover).

Doesn’t mean I have to like it, though.