I tend to be a fiscal conservative, but this notion that we're sitting at 9.8% unemployment because the rich and corporations are somehow overtaxed is absolutely absurd.

US corporations reported their highest profit in 60+ years last quarter. Our largest corporations' effective tax rate for the past three years has been on the order of 2.4%. The ( Read more... )

In a good example of what happens when you keep churning out crap and attaching core numbered titles to it, SquareEnix stock is down 20% since the release of FF14. With a market cap (at last check) of 1.8 trillion yen, that's a loss of approximately US $4 billion ( Read more... )

When did the Internet become such a shithole?

I mean, I'm not suggesting it was ever a magical place of sunshine and good behavior. But I've been struck by how, over the past 5 years or so, the culture of the internet has shifted.

Yes, there has always been the phenomenon of the Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory, and I was dealing with it ( Read more... )

So a friend's family, that I've done a lot for over the years and vice versa, decided to return the favor by gifting me a nice car ( Read more... )

So, Republican House and Democratic Senate. In CA, voters decided to increase spending and lower taxes again.

And people wonder why we're bankrupt and nothing ever gets done. It will be interesting to see where the blame gets apportioned, because nothing of any consequence is getting done for the next two years.

Fallout: New Vegas is fun. It's slightly disappointing that it's basically exactly the same as Fallout 3, with the same engine and mechanics, only with better stuff. (More weapons, better factions, more perks, longer advancement path, etc.) But then again, I liked F3 so that's alright I suppose. There are potentially hundreds of hours of play ( Read more... )

The new Macbook Airs are pretty damn cool. They're just all kinds of sexy, and the general benchmarks for the 13" versions are quite extraordinary -- the same or better than equivalent Macbook Pros, despite lower specs on paper, due to improvements like the flash-based storage. (The 11" is less impressive. Basically just a pricey netbook.) ( Read more... )

It's going to take an awful lot to get me excited enough about XIV to invest much more time in it right now ( Read more... )

Final Fantasy XIV is a beautiful game with a promising foundation, that's crippled by a shocking and downright embarrassing lack of content, unfinished core mechanics, and utter lack of technical polish that threatens to kill the game outright before it ever gets a chance to adequately improve in this market.

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Right Wing Radio Duck!

Worth a watch, before theywe inevitably get it taken down.