Well, new words from me at any rate. I just looked at my front page and it has been 3 months since I posted anything. It certainly doesn’t feel as though I have been silent so long. And it certainly is not because I have been so busy with real life, quite the opposite in fact.

I did mess my back up Memorial Day weekend, and the drugs I was on made the next two weeks disappear even more quickly then normal. The rest of the time, I have no excuse for. Not that there was a huge audience to disappoint here anyway.

I did re-read all of the Vorkosigan books during that period. While not horribly productive, it was certainly a great deal of fun. Well, actually, I am still in the process of reading Mirror Dance. It is the most difficult for me to read for some reason.

There is certainly enough in the political sphere to warrant attention here. From the lies being spread about the healthcare plans, to the idiocy of the Birthers, to the voting on Judge Sotomayor, there is plenty that I could comment on. But I have found that just reading the stories and seeing the clips from the news shows just wears me out. I see the politicians and talking heads spreading misinformation and outright lies, and I get angry at them. And I get angry at the supposed journalists that don’t challenge them on the lies. By the time I am done, I am too disgusted to write anything myself.

Then there is gaming. I have not been able to visit my friends to play board games recently, I have been saving the money. I have been playing City of Heroes and EVE Online. Thank goodness for annual subscriptions, or I would have had to let both of them go also.

The Mission Architect for City of Heroes has been a great deal of fun. While there are a lot of really bad stories, and a lot of farms, overall it is a very nice addition to the game. There are some outstanding stories already created, and I am certain more will be added as more features and abilities are added to the system.

And of course, the big news for COH fans is the coming of two of the most requested things in the history of the game. Power customization and switching sides. I was not really too excited about the power customization in Issue 16 at first. But as I have played more of my alts, I keep finding things that I would like to change, to better fit the character concept and look. And the animation changes coming for Martial Arts and Super Strength are very welcome, giving each player with those powersets the ability to differentiate their character from others.

I started out excited about Going Rogue and being able to switch sides. I have characters on both blue and red sides that can easily fit moving into the grey, or even out right switching. I created them with that idea in mind, some over 5 years ago when I started playing the game. It has taken a long time to get here, but I have had a lot of fun waiting.

Well, I will try to be a bit more proactive about posting here.

I have been following the Minnesota Senate race for the last few weeks. Well, I guess it is actually months now. It has certainly been a long process, but it is really hard to complain too much about that, since they have been following procedures that need to take into account millions of votes.

There has not really been much on the court procedures the last few weeks, with most media having moved on from the election after Obama’s inauguration. But the one place I have been seeing some very good coverage is at Talking Points Memo.

Their coverage has been very thorough, covering court proceedings, and getting outside opinions on what those proceedings may mean. And they have followed the happenings outside of Minnesota as well.

To be fair, other new sites have articles on Minnesota as well. Both Politico and Huffington Post have articles on occasion. But only when something very distinctive happens. The day to day coverage at TPM helps keep the other articles in perspective. It is too bad that other places do not provide that kind of coverage for more stories.

No, I am not talking about the seating of the 111th session of the US Senate that convenes on January 6. Everybody knows about that, and it is much too mundane to compete with the rest of the news about Senators that is out there.  Or possible Senators anyway.

The Choice is Made? #1

First off, it looks like Caroline Kennedy will be getting the nod from New York Governor Patterson. It is still not official, with the official word from the Governor that he is still open for others. On the other hand, he has also said he will not appoint an caretaker senator until the required 2010 election. This really limits him, since if the appointee wins that election, they will have to run again in 2012 for the full term. 2 races for senate in less than 4 years will be realy hard to handle, both financially and physically.

Yes, members of the House have to run every 2 years. But they only have to run and win in their particular districts. Senators have to cover the entire state, trying to cover as much of it as possible, which takes its toll. The strain is eased somewhat in New York, since so much of the population is in New York City. But ignoring the upstate area is dangerous, at least some token attempt must be made to listen to their views and needs.

The Choice is made? #2

So the indicted Governor of Illinois made a decision about who will take Obama’s remaining term in the Senate. But nobody seems to be very happy about it. Especially the Democrats in the Senate.

Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight.com has been writing about it, with uneven success. His latest post dealing with the seating of Burris is much better, with links to consitutional scholars on both sides of the arguement about seating Burris. I am not a constitutional scholar, nor a lawyer in any way. But of course I have an opinion.

Blagojevich does have the authority to name someone to fill Obama’s term. He hasn’t been impeached or removed from office, and the Illinois legislature has not changed the law that gives him that power. So from my layman’s point of view, legally, Burris’ appointment seems aboveboard and he should be seated.

The big problem I see is that Blagojevich named Burris just to poke the Democratic leadership in the eye. He knows that with him under a cloud at present, any appointment he makes will be sharing that storm. The actual amounts that Burris and his firm have donated to various Blagojevich campaigns is miniscule in comparison to what Blagojevich was purportedly trying to sell the seat for. And the fact that Burris donated is not remarkable at all.

Blagojevich has shown that he does not really care for the future of the Democratic Party, the people of Illinois, or the country as a whole. He knew when he named Burris that it would create problems both in his state and in the US Senate. With the current problems facing the world, creating more when it could be avoided is something reveals either a lack of intelligence or morality. And Blagojevich is not someone that appears unintelligent.

Burris has also come across as much less honorable then he should be. He knew before he accepted the appointment that the Governor is under a cloud. And that both the President-elect and the Democrats in the Senate had asked Blagojevich to step down and not name a replacement. So Burris is going against the leadership of the party, knowingly doing something that will cause them problems. Apparently just because he finally sees a way of reaching a goal that has always been out of his reach, high power in an elected office.

I suppose the real reason I oppose seating Burris is that if he does become a Senator this way, it will be rewarding both him and Blagojevich for making choices that are, at best, of dubious morality.

Still Waiting

Meanwhile, in Minnesota, they still don’t know who will be showing up for work in the Senate. There was a proposal that whoever was in the lead at the end of counting should be seated provisionally until the court cases were finished. But it looks like the Republicans do not like that option, since Al Franken is up by 49. Which is kind of odd, since Republicans did allow Democrat Mary Landrieu to be seated in 1996 while an investigation into fraud was ongoing. I guess possible fraud is better than losing by 49 votes.

What is interesting is how Coleman’s lawyers are saying there will be a court battle after the recount is done. I guess he doesn’t feel that he should take his own advice about letting the healing process begin.

Update: And the Minnesota Supreme Court now wants more information from Franken concerning Coleman’s latest filing. But they won’t have new instructions for the Canvasing Board before the board starts counting Saturday morning. If the Court has done their job in the first place and set standards for which ballots to count, rather than telling the campaigns to agree on standards, this could have been avoided.

This is how to do it

Now in Colorado, they are doing it the right way. The governor has made a decision and it is not full of drama. Governor Bill Ritter will probably be naming Michael Bennet to fill Ken Salazar’s senate seat, assuming that Salazar is confirmed as Obama’s Secretary of the Interior. This is apparently somewhat surprising, since Bennet does not have extensive experience in legislature.

On the other hand, he managed to convince the teachers in the state to agree to merit pay, and filled his promises about improving the eduation system in Denver. That by itself makes him a good candidate for higher office. As long as he avoids making too many promises.

It looks like they might finally be slowly getting close to a decision in the Minnesota Senate race between Al Franken and Norm Coleman. (Yes, there are a lot of modifiers in there.) The canvasing board there has almost finished certifying the challenged ballots, which have put Franken in the lead for now.

This doesn’t mean that Franken will definitely win, although Nate Silver does think that the odds are looking up for that outcome. As he points out, Coleman’s challenge of the possible duplicate ballots, which are complete toss ups with regard to who they voted for, does show a certain amount of desperation on Coleman’s part. Especially since both campaigns and the Minnesota Secretary of State agreed on the method of handling them before the recount started.

But while Franked is in the lead now, by around 250 votes according to the Star-Tribune, that may not last. There are thousands of ballots that both campaigns challenged, then withdrew their challenges after the canvasing board asked them nicely. Those ballots have not been put back in the totals yet. And no one knows who will get how many of those votes.

I have to say, while I have seen many complaints about the process, especially from Republicans since Coleman’s lead has shrank and vanished, the entire process seems to be very well done.  There have been representatives from both sides present everywhere, the canvasing board has been very focused on making sure every vote gets counted that should (Not sure I agree with them on the Lizard People ballot, but they are the bosses.) and everything has been extremely transparent.

Not only can you watch the board on live streaming video, but all the ballots have been online, along with exactly how the board has decided each of them. The Star-Tribune has done a wonderful job keeping all the information available to the public. This is nothing like the fiasco in Florida in 2000.