Rosencrantz & Guildenstern, Ltd.

Archive for the ‘Site News’ Category

• RT @NCPA: Despite similar histories, demographic makeup, low-tax Texas beats big-gov't California with booming economy http://bit.ly/b1JEim in reply to NCPA #
• RT @alexlindsay: I don't mind wasting time… I just don't like other people wasting that time for me. in reply to alexlindsay #
• If daylight savings time lasts longer than standard, shouldn't it be the new standard? Should standard be Daylight Wasting Time? #

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• @blambot Yay! in reply to blambot #
• Against my better judgment (I HATE) crowds, we're seeing Alice in Wonderland tonight; children are quickly getting on my nerves. #
• @alyankovic 7 in reply to alyankovic #
• About to see Tuna Does Vegas at the City Bank Auditorium, home to some of the worst seeting I've ever seen in a theatre. #

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• Grades, grades, go away. Come again another day. #
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• Today is definitely a Monday: alarm failed to go off + headache as a cold front comes through. Yay. #
• RT @FakeAPStylebook: "Forbear"is something given to a bear."Forebear" is the portion of the bear before the main bear."Fourbear" is a party. in reply to FakeAPStylebook #
• RT @FakeAPStylebook: Describe a spring shower as "light" or "pleasant." If you're in California, use "STORM WATCHAGEDDON 2010." in reply to FakeAPStylebook #
• Not sure why this should be a surprise – NYT: Panel Finds Rangel Broke House Rules With Caribbean Trip: http://s.nyt.com/u/7Y8 #
• @StarShipSofa – May I say, sir, I support your potential move from Mac to PC. in reply to StarShipSofa #
• First OAP practice festival today: no costumes or complete set, plus an actress who just got the script this week. #
• @Veronica That's what Molly Wood has dubbed the "literalnet" for you. in reply to Veronica #

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• So I go into my spam box to check, just in case a legitimate email got caught, and there are a bunch of message to "Mr. starflyer3000." #

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So, after quite a long while, there’s an update over at puddleglummusic.com.  I’ve uploaded another original demo that I recorded about 3 years ago, entitled “Reveal.”  Like everything I’ve done so far its an instrumental (for the moment).  I’m planning on rerecording it this summer and polishing it up a bit more; in particular, I’m going to add real drums (well, real electronic drums instead of a drum machine) and bass guitar.  Let me know what you think (and I’m always open to constructive criticism).

Here I was, thinking that as soon as the summer started I’d have tons of content up on all of the sites, and I have managed to fail entirely on several fronts.  However, I’ve got several things in the works.  First, I’m planning on bringing back “Adventures in Bad Sci-Fi,” starting with the recent Sci-Fi Channel movie premier from Saturday (the title of which has escaped me).  Second, I’m going to move all of my political commentary over to detocqueville.us to give this site more focus on more fun stuff.  Third, I’m going give video a shot, once I figure out what I want to do with it.

Over on puddleglummusic.com I’m going to be uploading some new music as well as starting one of th primary reasons I began the site: to review every album in my collection.  I’m going to especially focus on all of the Christian rock and alternative that I have.  There is a lot of music from the late-80s and 90s that has become fairly obscure, and I want to draw more attention to these acts.

That’s all for now.  I’ll be much more productive once I finish Assassin’s Creed.  (I”m on the last level!  Only a couple years late!)

Quick point about a quote from Senator Olympia Snowe (R-ME) (from Time magazine, May 18, 2008, p. 24)

“We’re excluding the young, minorities, environmentalists, pro-choice – the list goes on. Ideological purity is not the ticket to the promise land.”

Problems with this quote:

1) Snowe commits one of the greatest offenses of the left: group everybody up instead of treating them as individuals. As a writer, I’m personally offended by her grouping of unlike things, but it is also an ideological problem. First, the young and minorities are two “groups” that have things in common that have little to do with beliefs and ideas. There are conservative young people, liberal young people, and moderate young people. There are conservative minorities, liberal minorities, and moderate minorities. Environmentalism and pro-choice are ideological positions, and they lead us to point two:

2) What is the point of having a political party if there isn’t a common ideology? People that believe and think as the majority of Democrats do should be Democrats. Perhaps Senator Snowe could explain why she’s a Republican? You see, a party cannot represent everyone; if it could, there would only be one political party. Certainly there will be disagreements in a party, but in general those disagreements are not over fundamental ideological principals; otherwise, the party should split, just as the Democratic-Republicans did in the early 1800s.

A large part of point number two is that different people have different priorities. For example, I am pro-life, but that is not my number one consideration in voting for a political candidate. The issue may make a difference in choosing between two candidates who are otherwise very similar, but I am not going to vote for a socialist who happens to be pro-life. If the abortion issue is your primary issue, then you have a clear choice: pro-lifers vote Republican, pro-choicers vote Democrat. Let’s say, however, that someone is more concerned with limiting government spending, lower taxes, greater economic freedom, and national security than they are abortion, but they happen to be, if pressed, pro-choice. This person should (and usually does) vote Republican also because their priorities.

None of this requires that the Republican party change its ideology; it simply needs to know how to get its message out there.

http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13579055&fsrc=nwl

So Arlen Specter has finally taken off his elephant suit.  It was probably about time; he could never be reliably counted on to actually stop a lot of President Obama and the Democrat’s measures to transform American society.  On many issues, there was often the possibility that he (and a couple other North Eastern Republicans) could go along with the Democrats.  It is no consolation that sometimes he’ll vote with his former party.

This is the second time that a member of the national legislature has switched parties soon after an election.  The last time, Senator Jefferies became an independent rather than totally joining the Democrats, but Jefferies defection had a more immediate impact, changing the way things were done in the Senate.  This time, at least, the defection doesn’t significantly weaken the Republicans.

The above article from the Economist misses a crucial point in its analysis of Specter’s defection.  In such a defection, and in Republican defeats in the North East (for example, there are no longer any Republicans from New England in the House), all the Economist can see is party.  Such an analysis misses out on the ideological aspects of the issue.  In the Republican defeats, all the Economist can see is the weakening of a party.  What it misses, however, is that the Republicans who lost in the North East were all of Specter’s ilk: what Rush Limbaugh and others often call “Democrat Lite.”  They are Republicans who try to win elections by being more like Democrats, rather than Republicans actually running as Republicans.  From a typical voter’s perspective, why would I vote for a Democrat-Lite Republican when I can vote for the real thing?

In the North East and other parts of the country where Democrats have been dominating, the Republican party needs to actually provide an alternative to the Democratic party line.  They need to explain to the American people why they should be elected over Democrats, what they’re going to do differently, and why their ideas will actually work.

The Economist suggests that it is the Republican party moving right that caused Specter’s separation from his state party and subsequent defection.  This, however, has the cause and effect backwards.  It is the Republican party elite’s insistance on moving the party to the left that has caused the loss of North Eastern states: many Conservatives would rather stay home than vote for a liberal Republican, and Democrats aren’t going to vote for a Republican at all.

It is because of this reality that Specter has to change parties: he will no longer be able to win as a Republican, since he was basically a Democrat anyways.

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2009/04/16/garofalo-tea-partiers-are-all-racists-who-hate-black-president

I became aware of the above story while listening to Mark Levin’s radio show today; I haven’t decided if I like his show (although Liberty and Tyranny is an excellent read), mainly because he yells a little too much for my tastes.  Anyway, he played a clip on his April 17th show from Keith Olberman’s show on MSNBC, in which Olberman was interviewing Janeane Garafalo about the Tax Day Tea Parties.

Exactly why Garafalo was on the show I’m not sure, and it should be evident from the clip and transcript linked to above that she had no idea what she was talking about.  Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve reposted the “What If?” demo that I had up at Puddleglum Music. Give it a listen and let me know what you think!