The Year in Review: Politics 2005

The year started out well for Bush, then went bust (to say the least). Winners were few this year, mostly because Democrats just failed to catch onto the discontent that has been brewing.

Social Security: Not a secure plan
Bush started out the year by attempting to change one of the biggest programs in the US. The claim: Social Security is about to collapse on itself and thus, changing it so then part of the investments put into it would instead go to private (albiet, low risk) investments instead.
I have no doubt that Bush made the case that Social Security was failing, mostly because that claim was true. However, by introducing a risk-involved change into a program designed to be risk-free, it just didn't go well with people. This was one of the first programs Bush proposed that congressional Republicans just couldn't go with. When a Republican proposal can't be a sure thing in a Rupublican-controlled House, you know something is wrong with the proposal. After a few months of attempted bargaining, the proposal was quietly put to rest, marking Bush's first major failure as President.

Sheehan: Protests on Iraq increase
Cindy Sheehan somehow started something no Democrat could: actually rally people together against the war in Iraq. Sheehan, being a mother of a fallen soldier, was able to garner enough credibility and air-time that rallied more people then ever to the debate.
This would be enhanced by increased deaths in Iraq, including the 2000 soldiers dead mark being exceeded.
A few Democrats, like Hillary Clinton, would come out to say they dislike the policy, but not to retreat from Iraq. Some call for a policy change, which some claim the Bush Administration silently put into effect.
Then there was Mertha. Congressmen Mertha came out against the war, then some stupid Republican called him a traitor (in similar words, I forget who said it, luckily for them). This was quickly retracted (as in after a short break that day), and caused Republican retaliation to be greatly reduced, in quanity and veracity.

Katrina: How confidence was lost
One of Bush Sr's mistakes was a lack of reaction to one hurricane hit. Bush made note not to make the same mistake in 2004, but should have remembered it after his celebration.
Katrina hit New Orleans hard, and the lack of federal aid for several days put one of Bush's claims to serious doubt: that he would protect the nation and react according to any suprises.
Bush made the mistake of not doing anything himself for the few days that Katrina was almost exclusivly in the news. He even went to rallies, and even sung at one.
Then there was Browny. It was not only quickly revealed that Brown was underqualified for leading FEMA, but was later revealed that he wasn't even working before, during or after Katrina hit. He will forever be known as the ultimate screw-off in a time which anyone (well, other then him) would do the opposite.
This would also put to doubt FEMA's placement into the Department of Homeland Security, since one problem was that it created additional hoops for FEMA aid.
Other failures was in organization, including the long-tracked escapades of trucks carrying ice for the Gulf Coast, but was sent all over the country, ultimatly ending up in storage.

NSA: Too secure?
Recently, the New York Times revealed that the NSA was spying on domestic phone calls without getting a warrent. Bush has attempted to claim that congress, even if inadvertantly, authorized the programs, but news organizations and even Republican members of congress are not buying it. Next year, congress will investigate into the matter.
This controversy is new, and will be going into 2006 easily until the spring.

Plamegate: Top Administration officals targeted
The CIA leak was a small issue for Bush in 2004, but would erupt in 2005 when the investigation was comming to a close (and still is). When implications pointed to Carl Rove, the press erupted with bad news. Eventually, "Scooter" Libby would be indicted for purgery. However, the investigation is still going on, and Rove is still said to be a target in the investigation.

Supreme Court: Bush's best and worst
When Sandra Day O'Conner announcer her intention to retire from the Supreme Court, Bush announced his stealth nomination of John Roberts. While Democrats attempted to set the bar in scruteny for any future nominations, most would vote for Roberts when he would replace Renquist when he died this year, also marking the greatest political death this year.
Then Bush nominated Miers, which didn't go well with Republicans. Some Democrats came out in support for the non-judge nominee, but hardcore Republicans called for a obvious conservative to the bench. The nomination was the worst since Bork, and Meirs would retract the nomination (ie: falling on a sword for Bush). Later, Bush would nominate Alito, but confirmation hearings would wait for 2006.

This past year was certainly one which Bush would forget, and hope history does as well. From his failure in Social Security, to Katrina, this year was one which Bush would face the most critism, and one which the press would actually gain a backbone. After Katrina, the press would actually look for differences in Administration comments and reality. Democrats could have rode in for the save, but somehow couldn't get a policy that people could relate to. However, Republicans are now stepping away from almost universal support of Bush.
The only thing that can be predicted of next year is that a new member of the Supreme Court will be confirmed. If that will be Alito or someone else, who can tell? With 2006 being an election year, it will definately be more eventful then this year, if that's possible.

The Year in Review: Videogames in 2005

While this past year started off well, most of the big games were last year's games. Being the year between generations, most companies seemed to start putting their efforts toward future consoles. The PC, after last year's huge hits like Half Life 2 and Doom 3, also hit a slump, but was much less hit then the consoles. This was also a year of controversy, which was started with a game from last year. If you don't know what I'm meaning, you must have literally been sleeping under a rock over the summer.

Gamecube: last trials
This was undoubtably a weak year for the Gamecube. While the PS2 didn't get any blockbusters, there were still plenty of good titles that have come out year after year. Nintendo didn't have that much luck. The only third party title to speak off is this year's Game of the Year, Resident Evil 4. RE4 was the revitalization of Resident Evil, and will hopefully be the bar for future installments.
The Gamecube did get a few ports that weren't initially released along with the other versions (Mortal Kombat: Deception, Lego Star Wars), but I'm doubtful they did too well because of the late porting. Much of the story with third parties was more of the same as 2004, fewer and fewer is supporting the little system, notably Blizzard (with cancelling Starcraft Ghost).
Nintendo also had the only AAA game for the holidays, but Zelda was delayed into next year, leaving the hits to a different realm of gaming.

PS2: average, but still worthy
There weren't any huge releases this year, but still a solid year for Sony's console. The year began with Game of the Year contender God of War, and ended with solid hits. The usual guys are also hear, Jak, Rachet, Sly, they're all here. We (heart) Katamari was the the game with the most accurate name for it's own discription. And Ico successor Shadow of the Collossos was a great game with solid, if unusual, game design.

X-Box: mostly dead
Microsoft's freshman system is running its last course. While regular games like Madden was released, no exclusive hits were put down. Conker was finally released, but wasn't the hit that Halo or even the original N64 game was. While this was the system for multiplatform games, like with Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, it would be the future that developers would work on.

Preview the Future: next-gen consoles are shown and begun
This year's E3 was noted as a preview of 2006, with all three hardware developers showing their next-gen hardware. Microsoft showed their X-Box 360 early on a MTV special. Their stratagy, come out early, with the launch of the system made in November, with limited (*cough* shortages *cough*) results.
Sony showed their heavyweight PS3 at both E3 and TGS, showing unbelievable (more literally then metaphoricly) graphics. Unfortunatly, Sony has yet to show a playable game. The system has also been mocked for it's size (it's width is twice that of a DVD) and poorly designed controller (nicknamed the boomerang controler).
Nintendo was known as the secretive of the bunch, not even showing the controller until TGS. The Revolution was at E3 with the very small main console, but the controller is what marks it as different. Nintendo is not in the spec war, but is using a motion-sensoring TV remote. Unfortunatly, they have yet to show a real game on the Revolution, and has even said there are more features that have yet to be revealed.

Year of the Portible
Not all was lost in gaming, with the DS finding its feet and the PSP launching here in the US.
The PSP was released in Japan last year, but Sony waited until March to release it here in the US. While there was a good launch set of games, not much else other then GTA: Liberty City Stories came out. There were plenty of UMD (often cited as PSP) movies were released, and took almost half of software sales for the fledgeling portible.
Also marking the PSP was the homebrew community. A bevy of hacks came out shortly after the PSP was launched, and Sony waged a war to limit those hacks. Firmware updates would come out, and the hackers would go back to work making hacks for those updates. Along with that, the first portible malware, known as the PSP Brick, was released and would be a setback for the hackers.
The DS was the place for gaming. While it took a while, great games did come out for the system in the last half of the year. Ranging from conventional (Castlevania) to querky (Pheonix Wright), the DS finally had a reason to exist. It also got its system seller in the form of Mario Kart DS, the first game to show Nintendo's WiFi service (which was met with mixed feelings).

The Year of Controversy
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas was only ported over to the X-Box and PC this year, but the PC version would reveal the dark secret that would rock the entire industry. Hot Coffee, as it would be known, would set off a bevy of complaints that not only would cause GTA:SA to be removed from shelves (via an ESRB upgrade in its rating from M to AO), but would cause at least four states, and the federal government, to put up legislation limiting the sales of M-rated games to minors. Currently, one of the state bills was ruled unconstitutional, the federal bill was only introduced, and all other bills are pending in courts.
Jack Thompson took advantage of the situation for his own cause, but was disenvowed by other groups for his antics. Thompson would often be more outspoken (to say the least) then he ever needed to be and would make statements that compares to the likes of O'Reilly. Because of his statements during the so-called GTA Killer criminal trial, he was thrown out (even after trying to quit) of the subsequent civil trial.
Which comes to his controversy of the year, his feud with Penny Arcade. After making a "modest proposal" , saying that he would donate his own money to charity if a ultra-violent game was made of his decription, he took (as Steven Colbert would say) backsies. After his game was made by the mod community, he claimed his statements were "satire". But Penny Arcade came in and donated money in his name to a charity. This sent Thompson fuming and a fued lasted a month or two in which Thompson would threaten legal action, and went as far as to send out letters to the Seattle Police and a federal attorny general. As of yet, Penny Arcade has yet to face any legal action due to this fued.

While the releases weren't as big as last year, gaming this year was just as interesting. With speculation of the next generation and Hot Coffee, there was just as much activity in the gaming community as ever. Podcasts would expand that community, SonyBMG showed that other industries could effect gaming, and World of Warcraft showed that games could even unintentionally simulate life. It may be a year between generations, but the portibles had great success and we still got some great, may be some of the greatest, games this year.

More on the (non)War on Christmas

This "controversy" that Christmas was being somehow phased out and attacked was already rediculous. The entire premise started when someone decided the word "holiday" was responsible for this. This despite that Christmas is celebrated by a large majority of the country, and is simply NOT a minority in the legislative, executive or judicial branches.
Then this got more rediculous. The House of Reps actually went as far as to put up a resolution supporting this "war". Here is the text of the resolution (taken from Roscoe Bartlett's website):

"Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that the symbols and traditions of Christmas should be protected.
Whereas Christmas is a national holiday celebrated on December 25; and
Whereas the Framers intended that the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States would prohibit the establishment of religion, not prohibit any mention of religion or reference to God in civic dialog: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved, That the House of Representatives--
(1) recognizes the importance of the symbols and traditions of Christmas;
(2) strongly disapproves of attempts to ban references to Christmas; and
(3) expresses support for the use of these symbols and traditions."

The four members who are wasting you taxpayer money and time: Jo Ann Davis(R, Virginia), Roscoe Bartlett (R, Maryland), Virgil Goode (R, Virginia) and Walter Jones (R, North Carolina). One member of the House, John Dingell (D, Michigan), made this response to this "controversy":

"Twas a week before Christmas, and all through the House, no bills were passed about which Fox News could grouse. Tax cuts to the wealthy were passed with great cheers, so vacations in Saint Bart‘s soon should be near. Katrina kids were all nestled snug in motel beds, while visions of school and homes danced in their heads. In Iraq, our soldiers need supplies and a plan, and nuclear weapons are being built in Iran. Gas prices shot up, consumer confidence fell. Americans feared we were on a fast track to—well, wait. We need a distraction. Something divisive and wily. A fabrication straight from the mouth of O‘Reilly."

This was something one could easily ignore. After all, it was from the mouth of O'Reilly, someone with a temper equal to that of Jack Thompson. But now that some people in Congress are using taxpayer money, it is now a problem.
Christmas isn't being threatened, no more so then the English language. Things about Chirstmas may be change, but one can hardly say there is any danger of the holiday being dropped from the calender. And what these "Defenders of Christmas" don't realize is that we live in a place that has a freedom of religion. Anyone can choose to hold a more religious form of Christmas, the more secular form of Christmas, or even not celebrate the holiday at all.
This could easily be billed as a sequel to William Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing.

Stealing Cristmas?

You know we are in a different era when a version of the "PC Police" are complaining. When the White House sent out its anual HOLIDAY cards, some religous conservatives were upset (here: http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/Beliefs/story?id=1383107).
The Christian conservatives are just going a bit overboard. They have put up the defensive "we are the ones being persecuted" complaints before, and I at least isn't buying it. As Jon Stewart pointed out, they aren't exactly a minority.
What they also aren't pointing out is the Pagan or even secular customs that have made it into Christmas traditions. If anything, many of those tradition (at least according to a History Channel special I saw) were actually made IN OPPOSITION to religion. Just look at the Wikipedia entry (here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas

) and you will see there's plenty that is in Christmas that isn't Christian or Jesus (or Jebus, if you will) related.
Now, should you say "Happy Holidays" or "Happy Christmans"? Really, you can go by either. While "Holiday" is more universal (since not all religions celebrate Christmas), you should just use the one that the person will get the message. It's the HOLIDAYS, we shouldn't be complaining about semantics anyway.

Only Because We Need a Different WOW Disease

World of Warcraft, I can undoubtably say, is the most successful MMO out there. So it isn't much of a suprise that Joystiq is now running a WoW website, WOWInsider.
Three things are currently on the front page that caught my eye. First, they have a video podcast. I haven't watched it yet, but may do so in the near future.
Then there's a WoW pen and paper RPG being put out by Whitewolf. Unfortunatly, it is one of the millions of RPGs that run the D20 system (I am a fan of 3/3.5 Edition D&D, but I want a little variety in playing other RPGs).
Then there's a problem that seemed to have plagued (no pun intended) WoW since its inception. It seems like there are too many people with too many characters, and it is flooding the servers. They request that Blizzard do something to stem the amount of characters that are in the WoW world.

On other, related news, Yahoo (here: http://videogames.yahoo.com/ongoingfeature?eid=423726&page=0) put up an article on why Sony is changing Star Wars Galaxies. From what I have heard of, most of the changes aren't for the best, and the hardcore players are not happy. If it wasn't for the refund offer for those who bought the recent expansion pack (here: http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/starwarsgalaxiesstarterkit/news.html?sid=6139705

), I would have given them the Worst Persons award. However, they are still left with alot of angery fans who are still irate over the direction that the game is going.

Celeberty Presidents? Umm...No, Please

Name recognition is an important thing for any candidate for president. But should we start looking at those who already have a high amount of name recognition, rather then those who have to build it?
Celeberties actually going into politics just sounds like a bad idea. Even some that don't have any negative publicity or known political afiliation, like Bono of U2, I can't really see as good presidents. They also do a much better job in the entertainment industry for their respective causes then they probably would as a political figure.
But then again, most celeberties that would run would likely be already deep in politics as it is. Warren Beatty is attempting to run against the "Goven-ator", and only neck and neck to my knowledge (I believe he is behind, but I don't keep track of California politics much).
Then there's some like Tim Robbins who is already steeped into politics, and his politics are well known (see Bob Roberts, the movie).
ABCNews quoted Oprah (here: http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Politics/story?id=1371339) that while many would vote for her, she is declining to run. As much as I don't mind her political activities, I just wouldn't trust her to run the country.
The only celeberty that I can think of that I would actually vote for is Jon Stewart. I wouldn't elect him for his ability to run, but his ability to rise above much of the political hackery that is still about. He's a person who calls it like it is, and points out the rediculous things that politicians say often in anger. I can see his lack of spin and unspinning politicians on both sides to be a very positive thing, one that would last longer then his theoretical political career. The trick is, he would just have to last the four years of the presidency, and not suck doing it.
I do fear that it would become a problem. I already oppose Hillary Clinton running in 2008 just due to the fact that in nearly two decades, we have always seen either a Bush or a Clinton in office; we need new blood in that office. If a celeberty wins a presidential election, the same thing may happen, where one would have to be successful in DC and Hollywood to be president. We just don't need that.

And the Press Is Still Waiting for an Answer...

John McCain appeared on Meet the Press this morning, and not too long after ABCNews reported on his comments then on the torture admendment (story: http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=1371384).
It still puzzles me on why the Bush Administration would still oppose the admendment in any form. After the grilling by the press on the opposing "We don't torture" line and opposition to this admendment, one would think that the Bush Administration would just let this topic die down and quietly sign it. Or better yet, actually change their minds.
On a few shows, there was experts who all said that they and a majority of agents they meet oppose torture under any circimstance, including 11th hour situations. Simply, information would be unreliable since it would often be something along the line of "I'll tell you what you want to hear, so please remove the electrodes from my genitals".
This is a lose-lose situation for the Bush Administration. By opposing this legislation, they already made themselves out to be the bad buy. Now they either have to cave in and look like John Kerry (how's that for reversing one's tactics against itself), or further the terrible opposition to the legislation and lower their popularity, and standing in the party, further.
This could have been a redemption for Abu Gareb. Instead, it has become another embaressment that they probably can't avoid.

You should also see there is now a difference in design. Red text is for political topics, while blue is for videogames.

World's Worst in Videogame: Best Buy Edition

In the launch of the X-Box 360, nobody would actually sell the system alone. Instead, many venders sold it as a bundle with many other games or accessories.
Best Buy not only did that, but some Best Buys decided to increase the amount of items required for purchase with a 360 THAT NIGHT.
The corporate center of Best Buy has acknowledged that there was a problem and has appologized (here: http://blogs.mercurynews.com/aei/2005/11/best_buys_respo.html), but as Joystiq tells (here: http://www.joystiq.com/entry/1234000980070833/), the action they have taken doesn't go far enough.
I do like that they are taking steps to rectify the problem, but have only promised not to do this in the future for the X-Box 360 specificly, no other systems were specified.
Until Best Buy goes as far as Joystiq calls for, they get the the Worst Persons in Videogames award.