Wow... lots of posts this morning!

To reply to Jambo...

In fact, that WAS the same box! I asked him "Hey, what are you working?" as I tapped him off a HUGE game (the entire bankroll of black and purple OUT, and only one stack of orange left), and he looks at me and says... "Twelve to eight, same as you." How do people like this get jobs?

Oh, and yes, the stacked dice question. It's a no roll here, as is dice on the money, in the rail, off the game, shot by the wrong shooter, or if the fall is interfered with by another player (like caught and dropped). We all double checked, and a short roll is ALWAYS a roll.

To Ryan...

I've thought about this quite a bit, and if I had to name my dream ticket, I think it would be Jindal-Ryan. Bobby Jindal is a proven executive, a minority, comes from humble stock, is Southern (even has a nice accent), solidly conservative and he's Roman Catholic. Paul Ryan is from the Midwest, a lawyer, a Catholic, is just 40 years old, and if he isn't on top of the ticket I think his lack of Executive experience isn't a handicap. In fact, the only thing my dream ticket is missing is ANY military experience... and that is a big minus.

Now, I know Jindal said he wouldn't run... and that's fine. I'm just giving you my "dream" scenario. I'm not a fan of a Palin ticket... I don't like her chances after losing last time. Bachmann is a first-time Representative (GOP) from MN, and she is pretty controversial across the country. I think she's a bigger liability than a benefit... at least now. She'd have to win a bigger election than she has to get my vote for the general Presidential bid.

My fear is that Palin and Bachmann have so aligned themselves with the far right in this country that they are as unelectable as Ron Paul. Speaking of which, there is a new conservative host (from FOX I believe) on the Sirius Patriot channel, and she was on Beck's show last week. They asked her a bunch of questions geared to gauge whether or not she was more or less "libertarian" in her views, and one of the questions was who was a potential candidate in the 2012 election that was most like the Founding Fathers. The Beck crew all said Ron Paul, but all agreed that he had no chance of winning. I agreed with the latter, but had issues with the former.

Ron Paul is a libertarian... might even opitimse the term. However, it is a stretch to say that the first four Presidents were "libertarian" as well. They all seemed to shun active, aggressive foreign policy, and most were hesitant to over-step the perceived limits of their office, but all DID expand the scope and role of government and all took steps outside of what the Constitution specified as their "enumerated powers". All four faced huge deficits, all four raised existing taxes, and three of the four instituted new (and hugely unpopular) taxes as well. One fought a foreign war with no Congressional declaration (Jefferson's Quasi-War), one invaded a foreign country on executive order alone (Jefferson's Barbary War), one marched a standing army against US citizens (Washington's Whiskey Rebellion), and one completely reversed his "founding father" positions while in office during a declared war (Madison's War) by expanding executive authority far beyond the Constitutional boundries that had been recognized previously.

My point is that candidates that promise to return the role of President to a "constitutional" framework are promising the moon. There are engines in place that cannot be removed if the country wants to run... and all that can conceivably be done to fix what is broken is to put into place the means to eliminate the extreaneous over the course of a short decade or so. The bullets that will have to be bitten by BOTH sides of the aisle to fix what is wrong are so many and so big... the tasks seems impossible, but it isn't. The means simply cannot be "instant".

Let me give you an example of what I'm saying...

Implementing a flat tax is possible in the next four years, but its impact on the US economy and the government in supports will be huge and very far reaching. A flat tax would necessitate a budget that could accomodate slumps in the economy like we just experienced, because if the average tax rate is based on income, and the average income per taxpayer falls by even as much as 7% (and it has fallen by 8.1% since 2007, after inflation adjustments), then the government won't even be able to survive the cost of its own growth at the average rate since 1968 (6.9%).

A fair tax (one based on a sales tax-style of revenue) is better, because the years we'd need it the strongest are the ones that the tax base would still be spending money as always. In other words, we'd still not be used to buying things "used" as opposed to "new" in order to save on our tax bill. In fact, there is a strong argument that the implementation of such a tax system NOW would pay off all our debts and deficits in far shorter a length of time than any other means we know... because the US is the largest spending economy on the planet. The first years of the systems implementation would see tons of money rolling into the Federal coffers, and it would taper off as we all learned how best to spend our money and save on our tax bills. The down side is a fair tax would decimate industries like housing, new auto sales, commercial real estate, big-ticket items sales, and petroleum production. A fair tax would drive the cost of a gallon of gas UP at least another 4%... right off the bat. This would be a HUGE adjustment for the American economy to grow into... I'm not saying we couldn't, but it wouldn't be as easy as many make it out to be.

This has to be compared to the "cost" of simply reforming what we already have... and in my example it would mean lowering tax rates, reducing the cost to collect and manage the revenue (meaning the IRS), and slowing the rate at which government grows in scope and cost. Surely, THIS is easier than starting from scratch, right?

Do not think I am saying it all has to STAY in place... the DoE, the ED, the Interior, Agriculture... all these need to be MAJORLY reformed or eliminated entirely, and this is a doable deal if the STATES can pick up the slack where the Fed leaves off, but some "net" must remain in place until ALL the States can accomodate what the Fed is already doing. This is especially true in regards to Education and Agriculture/Interior... nothing more than guidelines and safety regulations should stem from a Federal level, in my opinion, in either of these realms... yet 9% of our Federal budget is taken up with these three departments alone (and most of THAT is probably payroll and operational expenses for Federal employees).

I'll say this for a ticket with Bachmann on it: It will probably be the ticket that gives the clearest, most in-your-face description of what the GOP will try and deliver if they win the White House. She is pretty good about spelling out what she wants to do, and she isn't too bad at getting that massage to the people (when given the opportunity).

Finally, to Baddboy:

I've played Modern Warfare, but don't own it. The maps on COD:BO are small, but they came out with much larger maps in the first expansion module (First Strike) and this has opened up a bit more of the game, in my opinion. Not being an expert gamer, I can't say how the play stacks up against other game names, but it is fast and smooth so far (which is far more than I can say for any PC game I've EVER played online).

I'm hoping that before summer hits, we'll have an opporunity to buy Modern Warfare since it is so much cheaper now that it is out so long... and that will give me a real chance to compare the two. It's a bit sad that the ONLY game we have for XBox is COD:BO, isn't it?