Soviet Arcade

Last month, the four officially opened the Museum of Soviet Arcade Machines in a Stalin-era bomb shelter under a university dormitory. Packed into two rooms are dozens of Soviet-made video game carcasses in various states of repair. Some work perfectly; others last for a few minutes, then fade. One common feature among them all is a lack of a high-score list.

"That kind of competition wasn't encouraged," explains Alexander Stakhanov, one of the museum's founders and engineers. "If you got enough points you won a free game, but there was no 'high score' culture as in the West."
[from Wired]

Bob Dylan - Like A Rolling Stone 1966

Amazing.

September

Pure Horserace: Gingrich Gets Going

CBS News - 1 hour ago
(CBS) While former House Speaker Newt Gingrich remains steadfast in putting off a decision on running for president until late September, he appears to be working to insure a continued presence in political circles until he does so.

Everyone seems to want to wait until September. Iraqi's government wanted to take a two month summer vacation, and the American politicians give themselves an Iraqi policy vacation with the SURGE. Can't think about pulling out in the middle of a surge. Hey, it could work, but we won't know until September.

Of course, the success of any normal thing which surges can be determined early on. In other words, what's so different about in August? Well, the only thing which changes is politics. Situations stay the same, but just a little time can be politically seismic. So Gore and Gingrich will wait to sweep their parties until late. And both with a message of moral certitude against the evils of the media circus which the rest of their parties had brutalized themselves to impress.

To brutal to enter, to brutal to leave.

And so Edwards unfurled a zinger that navigated around the fact that senators Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., and Barack Obama, D-Ill., shared his position by both voting against Iraq war funding 10 days ago: "There is a difference between leadership and legislating."
...
But where does Edwards go with this campaign message? On his left stands Obama, who shut down Edwards' attack with an icy response that reminded viewers that both Edwards and Clinton voted for the Iraq war: "You're about 4 1/2 years late on leadership on this issue."
[The Note]

"I am not a warmonger!"

Thompson is just one more republican candidate who won't be able to convince Americans that he isn't a part of the Imperial Evil. No republican will be able to shake Bush off; not Thompson, not Gingrich, and not Thompson/Gingrich.

For posterity, here is what David Brooks is saying as Thompson takes his first steps towards the White House:

Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company
The New York Times
June 1, 2007 Friday
Late Edition - Final
SECTION: Section A; Column 6; Editorial Desk; Pg. 25

LENGTH: 760 words

HEADLINE: Back To Basics

BYLINE: By DAVID BROOKS

BODY:


This week Fred Thompson gave a speech in Connecticut during which two words did not cross his lips: George Bush. But that's all right. Thompson recently gave speeches in Virginia and California during which he scarcely mentioned Bush either. In the world Thompson described, the current Washington players are most notable for being trapped in that undifferentiated swamp we call Washington politics.

That's because the divide that engages Thompson most is not the ideological one between liberals and conservatives or between this or that brand of conservatism. It's the divide between concentrated power and decentralized power.

Thompson's core theme is that there is a disconnect between the American people and their rulers. He campaigns against concentrated Republican power almost as much as he does against concentrated Democratic power. Though a Republican, he's able to launch a reasonably nonpartisan attack on the way government has worked over the last 19 years.

This suspicion of concentrated power in general and Washington in particular is not some election-year conversion for Thompson. It stretches back his whole life. He began his career, remember, investigating the Nixon White House. As Stephen Hayes reminded us in The Weekly Standard, as a young staffer on the Senate Watergate committee, Thompson asked the question that revealed the existence of the White House tapes.

He went home to Tennessee and became a protege of Howard Baker, whose party apparatus has always had a folksy, country vs. capital ethos.

As a senator, Thompson investigated the Clinton campaign finance scandals (poorly), and established a reputation on one issue above all others: federalism. He was the only senator who voted against something called the Good Samaritan law because he thought it centralized power in the national government. He was that rarest of creatures -- someone who not only preached federalism to get to Washington, but practiced it after he arrived.

Today on the stump he talks about discovering Barry Goldwater's ''Conscience of a Conservative'' while in law school. He campaigns against the immigration bill because he doesn't think Washington can be counted on to keep its promises. His main complaint with the war on terror is that Al Qaeda has a 100-year plan while most Washington politicians ''have a plan until the next election.''

He tells party strategists that there is a tide in the country against the way Washington does business, which he is best positioned to ride. He says the 2006 election was not primarily about Iraq, it was about corruption and pork-barrel spending.

What Thompson's campaign represents, then, is a return to basics. It's not primarily engaged in the issues that have dominated recent G.O.P. politics. Thompson is campaigning to restore America's constitutional soul. He's going back to Madison and Jefferson and the decentralized federalism of the founders, at least as channeled through Goldwater. As Thompson himself said while running for Senate, ''America's government is bringing America down, and the only thing that can change that is a return to the basics.''

Thompson thus becomes one pole in the debate now roiling the G.O.P. Nobody is running as the continuation of Bush. The big question now is: should the party go back to the basics or should it jump forward and transform itself into something new? Thompson articulates the back-to-basics view in its purest form. Newt Gingrich articulates the transformational view in its purest form. The other candidates are a mishmash in between.

If I were a political consultant I would tell my candidate to play up Thompson's back-to-basics theme. This is a traumatized party, not in the mood for anything risky and new. But over the long run, back to basics is no solution because it doesn't produce a positive agenda for today's problems.

Fred Thompson's political skills are as good as anybody now running, but his challenge is going to be building a concrete agenda on his anti-Washington message. It will be translating his Goldwater risorgimento philosophy into policies on energy, health care reform, Islamic extremism and education. For if there is one thing the last 30 years have taught us, it is that campaigns that are strictly anti-Washington do not command 50 percent of the vote because they don't address the decentralized global challenges that now face us.

Perhaps, as my friend Daniel Casse notes, what the G.O.P. needs is Newt Gingrich's brain lodged in Fred Thompson's temperament. Paul Krugman is on vacation.

URL: http://www.nytimes.com

LOAD-DATE: June 1, 2007

tip of the hat

vader helmet gallery

On Seat Belts

Google News is abuzz with local news reports about the states actively involved in a Click It Or Ticket campaign, to increase the use of seat belts. Sorry safety belts.

There are two types of safety belt laws: primary and secondary. A primary law allows a law enforcement officer to write a ticket if he or she simply observes an unbelted driver or passenger. Under a secondary law, an officer cannot ticket anyone for a safety belt violation unless the motorist is stopped for another infraction. Primary laws are very effective in increasing safety belt use. In 2002, belt use in States with primary laws was 80 percent, compared with 69 percent in States without primary laws. [NHTSA, National Occupant Protection Use Survey, June 2002]

As of April 2003, only 18 States, Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia had primary safety belt laws. The primary-law States are Alabama, California, Connecticut, Georgia, Hawaii, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, Texas and Washington. New Hampshire is the only State that has no adult safety belt law.

And here are a bunch of lousy facts about all the lives seat belts can save. I can't find much other than blog comments on the one fact which makes primary seat belt laws a really bad idea. One fact. Can't trust the cops. They will use primary seat belt laws to harass anyone they feel like.

And let's close on enotes' Encyclopedia of Law explain why people don't wear seat belts:

According to the MVOSS study, the primary reason occasional seat belt users fail to buckle up is that they are only driving short distances (56 percent). More than half said that they simply forget on occasion. For those who never wear a seat belt, the most commonly cited reason (65 percent) is that seat belts are uncomfortable. Other reasons people gave for not wearing their seat belts include the following:

Being in a hurry and not having time to buckle up
Light traffic on the roads when respondent drives
Not wanting to get clothing wrinkled
Resentment at being told what to do
Knowing someone who died in a crash while wearing a seat belt
Resentment at government interference in personal behavior
Never having gotten used to seat belts
The belief that with air bags, seat belts are redundant

Safety experts point out that many of these reasons are based on faulty logic.

Imagine a Power User President

Here's a photo from Time Magazine's recent article on Al Gore. Looks like a lot of windows are open on those three 30" Apple Cinema Displays. I bet he has scripts and plugins worthy of the sharpest power-user. And a Big G5 to run all those displays. Imagine a president who not only read the paper, but read it online. And Google News. And that days top blog posts.

Imagine a president who left his position at Google, Apple, and his startup, not Haliburton.

In his interview with Diane Sawyer, she paraphrases his views that TV is anesticizing and the Internet will be more interactive. Before she begins to refute the Internet, he gives her the patronizing look of a patient web-zealot. "Go ahead and explain to me why your industry isn't doomed." I much prefer his brand of historical determinism.

His main point on Good Morning America seems to be, "Hey America, think something is wrong with the processes of politics, and media that allowed THIS to happen? Go with that feeling."