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About Me
- GreatGoblin
- Bastrop, Texas, United States
- still in Texas - though that'll likely change soon enough...
Bakemonogatari
Halting StateCharles Stross Seriously twisted mix of high-finance, MMORPGs, and information security all wrapped in a classic spy/crime story. |
GlasshouseCharles Stross I love this guy's ideas. Mindwiped identity bending futurescape with a pointed take on modern times. This one's way up the recommended list. |
Iron SunriseCharles Stross Sequel to Singularity Sky - more great hard-sf from one of the absolute best in the genre. Love it. |
Pattern RecognitionWilliam Gibson Not his strongest work - a modern fiction piece with some interesting ideas but it feels disjointed somehow. |
StarfishPeter Watts Oh look, he's reading more dark hardsf... big surprise. This one brings strong psychotic-biochemistry-fu. Bring your brain |
Little BrotherCory Doctorow A modern 1984 for teens... good layman tech and a great take on the idiocy of the war on terra |
AccelerandoCharles Stross Chunky short-story format that blazes with ideas and pace. Great book. |
Singularity SkyCharles Stross Interesting SF space opera... an ideas book the way old Niven was in that the plot isnt really that important. |
The Sunrise LandsSM Stirling The 4th in a line of Silly post-apocalyptic alternate history with a goofy premise taken too far... but fun to read. |
BlindsightPeter Watts Rough and dark, but it grows on you... like a tumor. Post-gibson cyberpunk noire, the gripping hand in reverse - only really really really creepy. Dont plan on sleeping well after this one. |
The Android's DreamJohn Scalzi Pratchett/Adams as hard SF - with all the humor of both. I loved the concept of the AI - bout time someone decided to attack the Wintermute conundrum backwards. |
ThirteenRichard Morgan Not Kovacs, but interesting all the same. Dystopian take on the American political schism and where it heads - taking some old Dick ideas much further down the road. |
5 comments:
i am totally on the same page with you regarding hillary clinton, but i just can't understand the idea of voting for/supporting/giving money to mccain if she is the nominee. stay home, vote third party, move to canada, whatever. but why would you give money to, or vote for, someone who is basically indistinguishable from hillary clinton? mccain also jumped all over obama's comments about small town america, also called them elitist and condescending and out of touch. isn't there a better way of registering your opposition to hillary?
not trying to pick a fight...i just keep hearing my friends say this, and i honestly don't get it. it will be a cold day in hell before i give mccain any money.
It's strategic.
Lets look at the political landscape either clinton or mccain will be playing in... you're probably looking at a pickup of at least 3 in the senate - and maybe as many as 6... so you're going to have a reasonably solid set of democrats in the senate who can set roadblocks - not to mention the likelyhood that dems at least hold their leadership in the house.
So in that environment - do you want a republican executive pushing evil horrible idiotic ideas and forced to give them up by the opposition's control of the legislature... or do you want a democratic executive who can set the tone in favor of lobbyists and big business - another at the line of 'let me get my bits from the public trough before it's empty'.
The corporatists wanted romney, but lacking that, they wanted clinton. McCain is better for them than Obama, but only inasmuch as he wont hurt them... Obama is the only positive move on the board.
so i've thought this through, and in the end, i just think it's extraordinarily dangerous. we already know that democrats are spineless wimps, i'm not convinced adding a couple more D's to the senate will be a sufficient roadblock against a president mccain...
...and give us a convenient pretext like a new terrorist attack or ahmadinejad saying something belligerent, and congress could go back to republican in two years. or even this year, if it all happens fast enough.
in the end, i just can't vote for someone who sings about bombing iran. i'd rather vote for cynthia mckinney, even though i'm pretty sure she's clinically insane.
yes it's dangerous.... but lets look at what 2 years of a mccain presidency would likely create. There'll be the ugly aftereffects of the economic collapse - people are suggesting 1 in 10 homeowners will lose their homes in this one... the tax-cuts for the wealthy are expiring as we speak - and they'll continue to do so... yes - mccain will keep us in iraq - and that wont make anything better there - but isn't breaking the US military so it can't be used again a good idea? the army will be utterly screwed by this winter - and iran is smart enough to tone it waaay down now that they've gotten the iraqi govt to actually put 10000 iranian revolutionary guard trained troops in iraqi military uniforms - they can play a long waiting game. The US cant win in Iraq... eventually someone is going to realize that.
the only big domestic program he'll get any traction on is the 'space program on global warming' - which could mean massive investments in solar or wind...
a president mccain will hurt the fundies over in publand... he wont even have to give them what they want. oh sure, we probably lose roe v wade - and that sucks... but i didnt say it would be a good thing, just a best of a bad situation one. A Hillary govt healthcare plan will be so pro-insurance lobby and pro-drug company lobby as to be indistinguishable from anything the republicans could want (in fact, my bet is she gets most of the opposition to her plan from dems)... she'll fail on iraq too - and they'll blame her for it... and the dems will lose a LOT more in the midterms than i even want to think about.
If hillary claws a nomination - and then gets her head handed to her - then you're looking at a democratic party that will absolutely devour itself. i'm going to guess that the winner in that equation will be the anti-machine forces - so guys like reid will be fucked. Honestly - the DLC democrats are screwed in any scenario except a hillary total victory... and for me seeing them taken out is a greater plus than seeing 4 years of stalemate.
note: understand that the arguments i'm making will be made by clinton supporters at the DLC who will be backing mccain in a general vs obama - only they're more concerned with reasserting control over the party that's been stolen from them by these grassroots folks.
Hillary's 54% negative rating means she loses... they know she's going to lose the primary, but she needs to do as much damage to obama as she can for the sake of her faction.
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