One thing I do want to make clear: I don't think the United States is an angel by any means. And in fact, I think the United States pursues its self-interest quite vigorously. However, I think that the way the United States has defined its self interest has been done in a way in which other countries happen to benefit. Let me give you an example: During the European imperial age, the belief was that nations needed colonies to supply raw goods. Getting colonies required conquest, subjuga...

We've been working really hard to get Political Machine ready for next week's beta for Drengin.net users. There's a lot of play balancing issues we need to work out. The multiplayer is starting to come along though. Probably the biggest things we need to address right now are: 1) More questions for the TV shows. This is something I have to really work on since it's my area. 2) Look at the effect of ads and such more. I'm getting my butt kicked by the AI but it's not always intuitive w...

Someone on one of the forums said: "I find it embarrassing that anyone would brag about US foreign policy. We should be apologizing for it." Such self-loathing has always been typical of the left. The sort of pessimistic, glass is half empty views on any number of issue has always struck me as strange. In this case, it also strikes me as incredibly lacking of serious perspective on world history. I consider the US foreign policy, as a whole, to have been of great benefit to the world. ...

This month's Stardock TV focuses primarily on IconPackager. But with the new release of Object Desktop 2004 (the yearly snapshot of all of the programs that make up Object Desktop being aligned into a single coherent product) we take a quick look at that too. This is IconPackager 2.5. The world's most popular way (by far) of changing your Windows icons by applying packages (sometimes called sets) of icons.   This is Theme Manager. It's been totally rewritten and is the succe...

This month's Stardock TV focuses primarily on IconPackager. But with the new release of Object Desktop 2004 (the yearly snapshot of all of the programs that make up Object Desktop being aligned into a single coherent product) we take a quick look at that too. This is IconPackager 2.5. The world's most popular way (by far) of changing your Windows icons by applying packages (sometimes called sets) of icons.   This is Theme Manager. It's been totally rewritten and is the succe...

This is floating around emails on the net. I didn't write this. So to whomever wrote it, good job. Father-Daughter Talk A young woman was about to finish her first year of college. Like so many others her age she considered herself to be a very liberal Democrat and was for distribution of all wealth. She felt deeply ashamed that her father was a rather staunch Republican which she expressed openly. One day she was challenging her father on his beliefs and his opposition to higher taxes ...

I recently wrote an article explaining how John Kerry's proposed tax hike on "individuals" making $200,000 or more would cost jobs. In a nutshell, the reason is that most "individuals" filing their tax returns as making $200,000 or more are actually small businesses, not individuals. It didn't take long for people to get confused about that. That's because many people really don't understand the tax system of the United States. Not that it stops them from yelling loudly ...

The economy is a complicated thing. That is, as a general rule, I don't like politicians of either party monkeying around with it.  The average politician has virtually no understanding about economics. Often times, it's worse than no understanding -- often they have no common sense about it. Let's use the minimum wage laws as an example.  To help those who make relatively little money, some people argue that we need to raise minimum wage.  So let's say we raise it to oh...$9. ...

For reasons I can't quite understand, some people argue that we should take into account what Europeans think of Bush and Kerry. Why? I think the reason is cultural lag. A seeming obsession to worry about what the "mother country" thinks of what we're doing. What's worse is that many Europeans seem to think that their opinions should matter to us. The whole thing is very selective too. It's not based on merit. It's not based on population. It's not based on economics. It's particular to Europ...

Hopefully none of you have had this problem but I wasn't able to post or respond today. The new (ahem) logon system is buggy and unfinished apparently. I couldn't even log off to fix the problem. I had to delete my cookies and then close my browsers and then reload and then relogon. Now it works.

So I'm working in my home office and the 3 year old comes up and says "I wove you, daddy." and hugs me. I melt onto the floor.

At the end of the day the American people are going to have to make up their own minds with regards to George W. Bush. They will either conclude that 9/11 was unavoidable and the policy of going after Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and then taking out Saddam in Iraq was a good thing or it wasn't a good thing. Richard Clarke, who has been testifying before congress, decided that Bush and his team didn't do enough before 9/11. Whether you find him credible or not probably depends on whether you believ...

People talk about democracy. But do they really understand it? How about representative democracy? Basically it means that citizens (the people) make the rules that we live by. We do so by way of voting for legislatures who will pass laws that represent our will. This was a major point of the Declaration of Independence. The law of the land would be decided by the voters through laws.  It seems a simple enough concept. And for our nation's history, it has worked pretty well.  When A...

If you're a business operating on-line, who has more power over you? Microsoft...or Google? Increasingly, I think the answer is Google. Google has been a benevolent giant. To my knowledge, they've done nothing menacing or intimidating. But then again, if they had, who would know? For example, what if your company did something that made it competitive with Google in some way or made Google feel you were a threat. What is to stop them from tweaking their algorithms so that your site suddenl...

I don't really like Star Trek. I mean, it's okay. But I don't go out of my way to watch it. Never have. But you wouldn't know that from walking into my house. I have an entire bookshelf full of Star Trek books (that I've never read) and tucked away are various Star Trek ornaments, toys, holograms, and other Star Trek junk. So if I don't like Star Trek, how come I have all this Star Trek stuff? Simple: People give them to me as gifts. Here's how it works - I'm a nerdy guy. I mean, my job i...