$150,000 per song? 200 songs? Seems a little excessive.

The New Republic thinks Democrats should avoid telling Americans their ideas. TNR thinks the less Democrats talk, the more they will get elected.

This suggests that Americans hate Democrats and their ideas. Americans can only stomach putting Democrats into office if they are so sick of Republicans that they have no choice. What a terrible platform. If this is true, Democrats need to rethink their ideas — come up with something Americans will like.

Murder and Car Accidents kill many, many times more people in the United States every month than has terrorism — ever. This has nothing to do with TSA making people get naked at the airport and abstain from carrying liquids. Millions of people died in World War II, World War I, the Civil War. Terrorism does nothing.

It is disgraceful that we fear a bunch of loser Arabs so much that we alter our very lives to accomodate them.

If anything can get me to vote — vote against anyone who played a part in this home-grown fear mongering — this is it.

So i just downloaded iPhotoToGallery for my new Mac Book Pro. It works great! I have such a great experience using the application — you can even download the source now! — that I decided to give the man a donation!

Thanks Zach!

Koizumi — against the unified voice of Asia — and no one’s surprise — visited the Yasukuni Shrine again this year. His successor will almost certainly continue this travesty.

The Japanese nation’s actions during WWII are abhorrent; they execrate humanity. That Japan continues to remain unaccountable for its atrocities is reprehensible, an abomination.

What an interesting conundrum. A mother, who ran across the border to have a US-born son, was caught with a fraudulent SSID (at least it wasn’t a bottle of water). Now she has taken refuge in a Church, claiming sanctuary of all things! Should the US government separate mother and child — including bursting into a Church of all things! — or let her stay?

For chrissake, she’s a cleaning lady! Oh, I guess I gave away my opinion there… Just as long as she speaks English.

So it seems anyway. Hurray! … ?

In a ballsy move, AOL has released search data that — while absent the user’s login — contains a uniquely identifying id number. You can tell a lot about a person based on what their search habits:

The searches of AOL user No. 672368, for example, morphed over several weeks from “you’re pregnant he doesn’t want the baby” to “foods to eat when pregnant” to “abortion clinics charlotte nc” to “can christians be forgiven for abortion.”

Read about the different classes of internet users at Slate.

I hold no hope that I will ever see a cent of the social security taxes Uncle Sam takes out of my paycheck.  When I retire, I will have to live off of whatever pennies I stash away in my bank accounts.  Hopefully my jar of pennies will be large enough for me to put those pennies to work in CDs and bonds earning me enough pennies to get by without raiding the jar.  That is the goal.  How to get there?

Many people want a tattoo.  Many get them, but others avoid the negative stigma.  As you go up the social ladder, the number of tattoos per person goes down — rapidly.  They also sag; the vivid red flower on your shoulder becomes the distored red blob on your back as you age.  The stigma in Japan is worse.  Tattoos are associated with the Yakuza (mafia) and are forbidden from public places — pools, baths, etc.

The solution: invisible, fluorescent tattoos.  No one will notice them at work.  When you go to the club, you and your body transform into super glow-in-the-dark raver man.  Then when you stop partying, you will never seem them sag.

The first person to invent and patent invisible, blacklit tattoos will strike it incredibly rich.  He will have more than enough pennies saved up in the bank to retire and never worry about spending them all.  Good luck!

The New Yorks Times, fascists that they are, want to arrest people who don’t vote; they don’t like low turnout (or is it just losing?).

Australia has mandatory voting. It sucks; it is wrong; it does not mimic how humans are designed to resolve disputes. Think of this classic example:

You: “Where do you want to go to dinner?”
Friend A: “I’ve been wanting Chinese recently…”
You: “Yeah, sounds pretty good.”
Friend B: “Blech! I hate Chinese! How about Indian?”
Friend A: “Sounds okay to me”
You: “Fine by me”

Where do you go to eat? Indian. Although both you and friend a’s first choice is Chinese, you do not go there because friend b’s strong opinion against Chinese outweighs the two of your mild feelings for Chinese.

In a democratic system, you would eat dinner at Chinese. Chinese makes the most number of people the most happy. But this is the wrong choice; it also makes the most number of people the most unhappy.

Indian is the best choice. It minimizes the unhappiness, which maximizes the group happiness. Everyone will have a better experience if no one is ruining the atmosphere and complaining.

In a healthy social environment, people try to delegate their decision about a choice to the person who feels the most strongly about it — especially if it is a strong negative opinion. This is why decision making generally takes more effort than is necessary. This is probably a close summary of the last time you went out to lunch with others:

“Where do you want to eat?”
“I don’t know, you have any ideas?”
“Well, I don’t really feel like Mexican. I’ve been eating a lot of that recently.”
“Hmm… we could go to that sushi place we went to last time. That was pretty good.”
“Yeah, well what about a burger joint?”
“Sounds a little heavy… What about Italian?”
“OK, sure”

Notice how complicated this interaction is. The conversation is designed to evolve into a consensus, rather than simply gather each person’s opinion. These are some of the tricks:

• Asking the other person’s opinion first is not just asking for their opinion, it is also conveying a lack of conviction on your part (bonus: contrast this with a first date request).
• Stating a negative choices — what you don’t like — limits the domain, and prevents the possibility of a conflict where one person really wants something the other person hates.
• Suggesting previous positive experiences — where you have been before — is a safe bet but also reminds the group of their shared successful history.
• Omitting the rejection; expressing a complication with a suggestion serves to inform the other party why the choice is not desirable, but also gives that person the opportunity to continue advancing the choice by solving the complication (”Oh, this place has great salads too!”) if he/she feels strongly about it.

None of this social etiquette carries over to democratic elections:

“What do you want?”
“I want sushi”
“I want burgers”
“I want sushi”
“Ok, we go to sushi”

This design is barbaric and cruel; no social group acts this way. Were they to do so, the poor guy who hates Chinese must eat Chinese every meal simply because he is out numbered. Sadly, this is exactly how Democratic governments run (although it is far better than pre-Democratic governments: choosing burgers in the above example).

Why should we force this cruelty on people? If 20% of the people desperately want choice X instead of Y, and the other 80% of the people could go either way, then X is the right choice for the group.

Failing to express your opinion and then complaining about the choice others make is certainly a bad thing to do; you should vote if you have a strong opinion. But everyone should not vote on every issue.

People should actively refrain from voting on issues and elections they do not feel strongly about. Other people certainly do and their votes should count most.

Remember this in November: stay home.