I've been in San Francisco for a week, and am leaving in a couple of hours. Lots of fun stuff, but for now I will just throw out a quick story. Yesterday we went to one of Yahoo's offices, an R&D lab called the Yahoo Brickhouse, and they started doing Wii Mondays. Playing Wii Sports on a 20 foot screen is kinda cool. What's even cooler is that I absolutely dominated in Wii Boxing. People couldn't even lay a punch on me, and a number of folks started watching my technique. Of course some people in Atlanta tried to learn my technique as well, and have failed so far. When it comes to Wii Boxing, I am the man!

I urge all of you to go to the PBS website and check out the 3 part series "The Commanding Heights," which is an absolutely incredible documentary on the changing world economy. The first two parts deal mostly with the trend moving from socialist-driven or influenced economies to free markets, and the third part deals with globalization. Unfortunately they don't seem to have it set up to watch the actual video, but you can order the set, or keep your eye out for when it might be shown again.

Now that I think about it, go to CBS and watch Jericho. You may or may not know that Jericho was canceled, but after fan uproar, the network changed their minds. It's an excellent show that really picked up in the second half of the season. Every episode is available for free on the CBS website, and the shows needs viewers so that CBS will know they made the right decision and will continue to pay attention to fan campaigns in the future. Networks are starting to come to terms with the fact that people don't watch TV the same way they used to, and traditional measures of viewership are anachronisms. Renewals like this are the proof of the "liberalization" of network programming.

So Greg Easterbrook, a writer for Wired, write an article dissing NASA and listing what their priorities were versus what he thinks they should be. NASA responded by posting an open letter, wiki-style, allowing other scientists to edit it and such. This is awesome because it will become so much more than a response. I suspect this document may end up becoming the roadmap to the future as far space exploration and colonization goes, and I am glad we have the internet to facilitate this dialog.

I gotta say, I'm really liking Fred Thompson. He's trying to be the anti-politician, and coming off very well. But not just that, he's tackling more theoretical subjects that reveal a lot about what's going on in someone's head. I had a post a while back where I said that the answer to the question, "What do you think is the purpose of the U.S. government?" is a far better indicator of the sort of policies a candidate might end up favoring than what political party they are in, and Thompson, more than most, seems like he is answering that question. He had a nice bit on Federalism, and how the states should be relatively free to experiment and innovate, and that right there told me a lot. He's definitely not going to be big government, at least if he sticks to his principles.

It's time for another iteration of the World Series of Poker, and another year I won't attend, but will follow avidly by internet. Unless I win the lottery in the next few weeks, in which case I will immediately fly to Vegas and play a lot of poker. Anyway, if you are interested at all, there are a few places to look.

First off is Dr. Pauly's Tao of Poker. I've been reading Tao of Poker since I first got in to poker around the end of 2004, but somehow over the last year he fell off my reading list. Then earlier I was thinking that I was missing something in WSOP coverage. Suddenly it dawned on me.... Dr. Pauly! Sure enough, he's in Vegas and continuing with great stories and anecdotes, as well his famous list, "The Las Five Poker Pros I Pissed Next To." I don't know why I enjoy reading that list so much, but apparently everyone requests it all the time and tells him they love it, so I'm not the only one.

Unfortunately Pauly isn't doing his usual live updates on Tao of Poker this year because Pokernews bought the exclusive rights to that sort of thing. Fortunately for Pauly fans, he has been hired to write live updates for Pokernews, so I just have to check one extra site.

Beyond that there are numerous others providing their own brand of coverage. Pokerwire, which seems to be owned by Full Tilt Poker, my favorite poker site, has several blogs written by well known players, as well as a great podcast with Joe Stapleton, and poker pros Gavin Smith and JoeSebok. The latter two used to do a podcast for Cardplayer along with a different host, Scott Huff, but he moved on to bigger, better things. I find Stapleton funnier anyway.

Pocketfives has their usual tournament reporters spinning wheels so far since they can't do the live updates. They did come up with a nifty new innovation in coverage, however. Members of the popular forum can text in updates of their own which will be shown on the site.

There are numerous other sites providing coverage in varying ways, some of them very creative. Just follow some links from the places I already named, or do some googling. Next year I'm hopefully going to go to one of the smaller buy in tourneys, and you'll be able to follow my progress.

I've decided to throw my "considerable" influence behind the 18 year old drinking. I'm not sure that it would make the world a better place, but certainly a more just one. I was imagining some 18 year old kid joining the Marines, fighting in Iraq, and getting discharged at 19 for some injury which isn't really debilitating. He comes home after having killed people, having seen friends killed, etc., and he can't go to a bar and have a beer? Nothing excuses that.

Wow..... I watched a video of the Wall Street Journal editorial staff discussing the immigration bill, and saying the right wing is irrational, blah blah blah. These people are so clueless. They say, the right wing just wants to bitch and complain, but has no ideas for what to do.... Here's the thing. Bullshit. You know what the "right," at least my kind of right wants? We want to stop the influx of illegal immigration FIRST. Stop the new people from coming in, then we can deal with the ones already here. But as far as I am concerned, our immigration laws as they stand today are just fine, excepting for the unrealistic idea of deporting all current illegal aliens. We just need to enforce the laws that are there. Stop illegal immigration, then work on assimilating current illegal aliens.

Edit: I was reading some comments on this video, and someone made a very interesting point. In the video the journalists were saying that the right's hostility to this new immigration bills from from racism and culturalism. Bu in that very room where the video was shot.... Every person talking at the main table was a white male. There was a woman sitting in a chair in the corner not talking, and a black man sitting in a chair away from the table not talking. It's sort of like when the Kerry campaign implied that Bush a racist, but Kerry's staff was almost all white males with no blacks or females in his inner circle, whereas Bush had promoted minorities tot he highest offices ever held by such. First Colin Powell, a black man, as SecState. Then Rice, a black woman, in the same spot. An Asian on the Supreme Court, a Hispanic as Attorney General. Objectively, this is the most inclusive, least "racist" administration in the history of the United States.

I'm reading a big ass book on the history of the libertarian movement, and it has raised a lot of questions in my mind. The biggest has probably been discussed a million billion times since the 1860's, but where exactly in the Constitution did the Union find the right to war upon the South for seceding? Forget about slavery and such, and just think about the fact that a large portion of the country decided they wanted to do their own thing. If they voted on it and were in favor of seceding, the Union shouldn't have done anything about it. Where in the Constitution does it say that the southern states have to do what the northern states want?

Second thing that got me thinking is this idea of allegiance to our country. Allegiance and loyalty, in all other contexts, are given voluntarily. But if you are born in the U.S., you have no choice, you have to be loyal to the U.S. or be branded a traitor. So that John Walker Lindh guy finally got the chance to choose his allegiance, and he chose another group. So when he was captured, he should certainly have been branded an enemy of the state and punished appropriately, but why is he considered a traitor? He never voluntarily said he was for the U.S., the only time he was given a choice he chose another side. Seems to me like the guy was completely loyal to his allegiances, certainly not a traitor. Don't let this make you think I am defending him, I am merely pointing out some inconsistencies in our assumptions. Personally I'm going to go ahead and pledge my loyalty to the United States of America, as is. I reserve the right to change this if my government changes beyond recognition. For instance the day I am told I cannot own a gun is the day I start looking to buy a gun and perhaps move to another country, though I sometimes feel like I am running out of countries on Earth where a person can be truly free.

This is a really cool book I am reading, and I look forward to sharing more thoughts in the days to come.

A new book came out about The Great Depression, and I thought it would be a good time to share my thoughts. As many of you know, The Great Depression started with the stock market crash in 1929 and ended with the US buildup and eventual entry into WWII. Many of the histories of this decade or so put the blame on market speculators, but that is only a small portion of the story. Yes, speculation run rampant may have led to the market correction that is now called a crash, and this crash may have signaled the beginning of The Great Depression, but a lot of questions remain about how severe everything should have been. The US had another major crash in 1989, but it did not lead to a recession so bad we had to give it an adjective like "Great." The difference was in the reaction. FDR was the man back in the day, and after the 1929 crash, he couldn't institute socialist policies fast enough. Had the man taken a more free market, lesseiz faire (probably spelled wrong, it's French, give me a break) attitude, and not tried to control the economy from D.C., the Great Depression might now be known as just another couple of down years in the continuous economic cycle our economy follows. That's the problem with people who have never run a successful business trying to make decisions for all businesses.

Here's a great article that says the same thing, but much better.