Happy Halloween!

Obama Assassination Plot Thwarted

Some unsettling news in the last week of the election:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Law enforcement arrested two men in Tennessee who had plans to rob a gun dealer to shoot Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama and "as many non-Caucasians" as possible, an official said on Monday.

An official from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives said police found the men in the Jackson, Tennessee area with a number of guns, including a sawed-off shotgun, in their car.

"They wanted to go to a place where they could shoot as many non-Caucasian as they could," the official said, noting that the men first planned to rob a gun dealer. "They also had a plot to assassinate Sen. Obama."

Obama, who would be the first black U.S. president, is leading Republican John McCain in opinion polls ahead of the November 4 election.

If McCain has any self-respect, the first thing he'll do if not elected is to attempt to undo the dangerous character attacks that have characterized his campaign. If Obama were to be injured or killed by an assassin, I believe that much responsibility for that would rest squarely upon McCain's shoulders. His reckless disregard for the truth has endangered Obama, his family and the police and Secret Servicemen who are guarding them.

FOLLOWUP: Looks like it was white supremacists. Link

CNN: Palin is 'going rogue'

I don't even know what to say to this:

ALBUQUERQUE, New Mexico (CNN) -- With 10 days until Election Day, long-brewing tensions between GOP vice presidential candidate Gov. Sarah Palin and key aides to Sen. John McCain have become so intense, they are spilling out in public, sources say.

Several McCain advisers have suggested to CNN that they have become increasingly frustrated with what one aide described as Palin "going rogue."

A Palin associate, however, said the candidate is simply trying to "bust free" of what she believes was a damaging and mismanaged roll-out.

McCain sources say Palin has gone off-message several times, and they privately wonder whether the incidents were deliberate. They cited an instance in which she labeled robocalls -- recorded messages often used to attack a candidate's opponent -- "irritating" even as the campaign defended their use. Also, they pointed to her telling reporters she disagreed with the campaign's decision to pull out of Michigan.

A second McCain source says she appears to be looking out for herself more than the McCain campaign.

"She is a diva. She takes no advice from anyone," said this McCain adviser. "She does not have any relationships of trust with any of us, her family or anyone else.

"Also, she is playing for her own future and sees herself as the next leader of the party. Remember: Divas trust only unto themselves, as they see themselves as the beginning and end of all wisdom."

...

With the presidential race in its final days and polls suggesting that McCain's chances of pulling out a win are growing slim, Palin may be looking after her own future.

"She's no longer playing for 2008; she's playing 2012," Democratic pollster Peter Hart said. "And the difficulty is, when she went on 'Saturday Night Live,' she became a reinforcement of her caricature. She never allowed herself to be vetted, and at the end of the day, voters turned against her both in terms of qualifications and personally."

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/10/25/palin.tension/

Awesome Russian "Song for Sarah"

This video, featured on BoingBoing.net, is simply a fantastic parody of Sarah Palin's ridiculous assertions that she had foreign policy experience due to the proximity of her state to Russia.

Definitely check it out.

Palin's Wardrobe Stabs RNC Where It Hurts - The Polls

A quick early-morning political blog round-up:

At a time where Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama seems to finally be hitting his stride with voters, GOP rival John McCain's campaign has seemed to have made a critical misstep: The political blogosphere is buzzing about recent findings by The Politico that the RNC has spent more than $150,000 on designer clothing for Sarah Palin and her family.

Author Jeanne Cummings writes:

According to financial disclosure records, the accessorizing began in early September and included bills from Saks Fifth Avenue in St. Louis and New York for a combined $49,425.74.

The records also document a couple of big-time shopping trips to Neiman Marcus in Minneapolis, including one $75,062.63 spree in early September.

After initially refusing to comment on the issue, the Republican campaign eventually issued a response:

"With all of the important issues facing the country right now, it’s remarkable that we’re spending time talking about pantsuits and blouses," said Republican spokeswoman Tracey Schmitt. "It was always the intent that the clothing go to a charitable purpose after the campaign."

Still, while fashion may not be the most serious of issues facing our candidates, it is something that has appeared to strike home with Americans concerned with an economic recession and a real need for fiscal responsibility.

"Something must be terribly wrong with this story which claims that the RNC has spent $150,000 on clothes for Sarah "Real American" Palin. This can't possibly be true, otherwise she'd be like the worst hypocrite ever," writes one blogger.

And it appears that liberals are not the only ones to have already picked up on it. The Atlantic's Marc Ambinder noted on his blog that he has already been e-mailed by many Republican supporters "to share their utter (and not-for-attribution) disgust at the expenditures."

The Boston Globe's Foon Rhee points out the seriousness of these impact that these allegations may have in the last two weeks of the presidential race:

Meanwhile, in a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll that shows Democrat Barack Obama leading McCain 52 to 42 percent among registered voters nationwide, up from 49 to 43 percent two weeks ago, voters also said that Palin's qualifications to be president was their top concern about McCain -- ahead of even continuing President Bush's policies.

Of respondents, 55 percent said she is not qualified to serve as president, and 47 percent have a negative opinion of her, up from 27 percent when she was first picked two months ago.

I Just Voted!

I just voted in one of the most important American elections in the history of the nation. I'm pretty pumped. As a resident of Oregon I am able to use mail-in voting and get my ballot in weeks before they are counted.

I'm dithering about whether or not to go in-depth about the specific issues that I voted on, but I will proudly say that I voted for Barack Obama to become president of the United States of America!

What is Rotten in the State of the Gaming Industry?

Ubisoft, the developers of the new video game Tom Clancy's Endwar have decided to offer their game only on Xbox 360 and PS3 consoles. They defended their decision to do so by saying that computer piracy has destroyed the PC gaming industry.

"At the moment, if you release the PC version, essentially what you’re doing is letting people have a free version that they rip off instead of a purchased version," said Ubisoft Shanghai creative director Michael de Plater. "Piracy’s basically killing PC."

Other critics have pointed out that it is far easier to pirate video games on a computer than a console. PC software pirating is as simple as finding an image of the game and mounting it on an easy to use virtual drive. Console piracy usually requires cracking open the case to modify the system, though after modding a system the piracy just means burning a cd.

But I disagree. It requires more money and technical skills to ensure your computer can play games than it does to buy or pirate them. Either you drop tons of money to regularly buy new computers, or you order new video cards and RAM to upgrade your existing computer. It takes a great deal of technical knowledge to appraise what you are buying, regardless. The effort in doing so makes piracy pale in comparison.

The problem with the PC gaming industry is that it is out of control - it has little to do with piracy. Poorly QA'd systems seem endemic to the platform, with buggy software and limp-wristed hardware being all too common. And there are no reliable metrics to judge what you are buying. Reviews are almost uniformly meaningless, "hardware requirements" are close to lies, and technical support / consumer protection is laughable.

As a result, consumers are relying entirely upon branding. PC gamers buy from Blizzard, or they buy from Will Wright, or they use a service like Steam to pick up vetted games. Console buyers are able to mostly trust that the games they buy will work on their machines, and are partially backed by Microsoft/Sony/Nintendo.

If developers want their PC games to succeed, they need to start optimizing for a broader range of systems, and that means everything from flexible code to scalable art direction. If a coder can't enjoy a game on their parent's computer, they need to ask themselves what their market is.

And industry leaders need to create a trusted source that can give accurate and reliable advice to consumers worried about buying a lemon. It isn't surprising that people are wary of an industry that so regularly fails to deliver on its promises. Hyped up market failures like Crysis, overly technical hardware options, and terrible driver deficiencies in operating systems (like that dud Vista I'm running on) all contribute to a stagnant industry far more than piracy.

http://blogs.pcworld.com/gameon/archives/006522.html

Diamonds in the Rough

I am currently in the process of going through my 100+ Gig photo archive with the intent separating the wheat from the chaff and featuring them on my blog. It is pretty slow going, but I thought I'd present this gem I found at a church near my old house in Springfield.

Biden / Palin Debate