From Nancy Pelosi: "Because they could not use sound judgment in the use of taxpayer funds, these AIG executives will pay the Treasury in the form of this tax."

So AIG mishandled the money. I concur. Unless they were somehow legally obligated to pay those bonuses, it seems odd to have been giving them out under these circumstances. But who decided to give them the money, and free discretion on how to spend it? Oh, that's, right, Congress. Doesn't it logically follow that Congress has mishandled the taxpayer money, then? How about hitting our senators and representatives who voted for the bailout with a punitive tax?

If they were taking this money away as part of a pre-existing clause or condition from when they'd given AIG the money, then fine. But it's pretty scary to me that from a legal standpoint, this is a case of Congress saying, "We don't like that these people got this money... we're taking it." A retroactive punitive tax just doesn't sit well with me.

Family fined $50k for cutting down trees to create a firebreak around their house... which turns out to be the thing that saves them when all the other houses in the area burn.

And while we're at it:

Good old AP fact-checking in action

I bought this on DVD for facehead2k a year or two ago, but now everyone can enjoy The Star Wars Holiday Special.

Edit: Actually, now that I think about it, facehead2k might have only gotten the Ewok movies, and not the Christmas special. So now he, too, has something to watch!

Have you guys been following the recount in Minnesota? Check out some of the quality calls that the canvassing board has been making on the challenged ballots. So if I'm understanding it right, if you fill in the oval for Coleman and put an X through Franken, it's a vote for Franken. But if you fill in the oval for another candidate and put an X through Coleman, it's not a vote for Coleman. And if you fill in and X an oval, it's a vote for Franken if you did it for Franken, but it's not a vote for Coleman if you did it for Coleman. I particularly like the one where there's just a big circle directly between the two candidates names. Somehow they discerned that the voter clearly intended to vote for Franken. Way to stay classy, Minnesota!

Edit: Am I reading this correctly? They called that vote for Franken? Or am I misreading what that means?

I don't know why this came up while I was searching for "bailout" images on Google. I'm not sure I want to know.

( Fear the cut )

( Wherein a Wall of Text crits you for 40,000 damage )

TLDR Version: We seem to be dummies when it comes to knowing how our government works, physicians have it pretty rough and that's because we're all dummies when it comes to knowing how their jobs work, and I, a dummy, have some political views, so why I don't I tell you dummies what they are.

Is it just the fact that I haven't played for a year, or is the WotLK expansion kind of boring?

I mean, I'm only 3 hours or so into it, but I seem to remember having a lot more fun with Burning Crusade when it came out. When that one came out though, it had only been about 3 months since I'd played last, so I'm wondering if that's what the difference is.

So far, I've just been pretty "meh" about it, and after playing Warhammer Online where there is a lot less pointless grinding, quicker quest turn over, and damn-near-instant-pvp-when-desired, I'm really feeling the slowness and time sinks of WOW. Oh, the last 13 Wind Spirits or whatever the fuck didn't drop the horn of Orabus, but maybe dude #14 will have it! WAR didn't have any of those "grind until a random drop happens" quests, and after NOT having them for a while, it's kind of painful to go back to them.

But, I expect WOW to come into it's own when I get to the first instance in WotLK, so I'm still looking forward to that. But so far, I've got to say I'm not seeing a lot here to suck me back in.

Edit: Okay, I just played a Death Knight for about 10 minutes before heading to work. That seemed pretty cool so far.

So... I just resubscribed to WOW. I suppose I'll start the 17 hour process of installing and updating the game tonight so I can play it on Thursday.

I had quit for just over a full year. Let's hope I'm right about the addiction phase being over...

I haven't played WOW since October 30th, 2007.

I'm trying to decide if I should pick up Wrath of the Lich King next week. Given my experience with Warhammer Online, a game which I enjoy but do not feel compelled to play on a nightly basis, I'm pretty sure I'm in a place now where addiction to MMOs is not a factor I need to worry about. And I know Daria will want to play WotLK.

But I've gotten a new computer in the meantime, and I'm not sure I'm ready to put up with the 7 hours of installation and patching I have looming ahead of me.

Decisions, decisions.

I showed up right at 6am when the polls opened, and there were already 150-200 people ahead of me in line. Took 2.5 hours to vote. When I left, the line was about equal in length to when I got there.

A coworker of mine who lives a few blocks but has a different polling location showed up at 8am and apparently walked straight to the voting machine, no line.

A few others I've talked to showed up when the polls opened and had about a 1 hour wait, so it sounds like I'm losing so far.

How's it been for you?

Corollary Question: Was there anyone there doing exit polls? Did you participate?

It's good that the DNC is giving Michigan and Florida their full voting rights now that it doesn't matter at all. I mean, it'd be bad for the DNC to send the message that if you break the rules, you'll be punished, particularly at a time like this when it doesn't make a damn bit of difference if your state's delegates get their votes or not.

Why do they insist injecting cream into otherwise tasty donuts?

Got there for surgery at 6am. Spent about an hour waiting around in the oh-so-stylish hospital gown before I headed to surgery. I remember maybe 60 seconds worth of time in the operating room, then suddenly it was 9:30 and I was very, very sleeping.

Not much pain yet... no worse than a sore throat, though that's supposed to be changing soon, and not in the good way.

Solution? Go see The Dark Knight now before the pain kicks in! Yeehaw!

Tomorrow I'm getting my tonsils out. I've been having fun reading horror stories from adults who have had this done. I figure I'll blog out it on a day by day basis because you're all DYING TO HEAR ABOUT IT.

So far, on day -1, there's no pain. My stomach feels a little funny, but that's probably just the nachos I just ate. I'm a little sleepy, but I blame that on the cat.

See y'all tomorrow after the surgery!

Also, andamaroo just paid for a Live subscription. I'm pretty sure that makes him a liar and a jerk.

Michael Bay's rejected Dark Knight script

It's a parody, but you can't even tell!

I wrote this special for eloe's birthday. Whenever the hell that is. Happy Birthday!

Indy 4 review

I'm buying a house.

As far as I know, it doesn't have any secret passages installed, which is a shame, though we suspect there are one or more bodies buried under the cement slab near the front door.

If we're really lucky, we'll find out it's built on top of an old Indian burial ground.

So I'm going to have my tonsils removed in July. This is apparently a painful procedure with a lengthy recovery time for an adult, so that should make graye and assfingers happy.

The reason I bring it up, though, is that my doctor's last name is Biggerstaff.

His first name is Richard.

DICK BIGGERSTAFF will be removing my tonsils.

That just isn't right.