I had no idea that John Cusack hates the movie Better Off Dead.

Well, if your decision on which candidate to vote for in the upcoming presidential election is in any way based on how they vote for accountability… It doesn’t matter which one you vote for.

It seems that, despite vowing to filibuster any bill that had telecom immunity in it, Barack decided that just wasn’t that important.

Now, I’m not saying that is a reason to vote for McCain. But it sure isn’t a reason to vote for Obama, either. After the last 8 years I’m not very happy with the answer “we’ll use it responsibly, just trust me.”

Lately I’ve taken to thinking about what I want out of life.

To be honest, I don’t think about that very often. Usually my goals are more short range and, frankly, rather clearly laid out before me. This isn’t a bad thing, and has worked out rather well so far. But, turning 40 has gotten me thinking. I’m not sure why 40 is such a milestone – after all, it’s only 28 in hexadecimal, and that doesn’t seem very special.

Perhaps it’s the realization that, for the first time, my supervisor is younger than I am. Ok, not by much – a few months at best – but this trend will continue as I get older. There are a lot of things that I’m going to have to get used to that, up until now, have never happened before.

Here is an example: We don’t own our home; we rent. It’s a nice, 4 bedroom home with a 3 car garage, a wonderful view of the hills, a palm tree, a lemon tree and a couple of almond trees. We love this house; it’s in good shape, has modern amenities, and is nicely laid out.

Our property management company called today to ask if we would be interested in purchasing the house should the current owners wish to sell. She made a point to tell us that they were not planning on selling at this time, but if it were to happen in the future… would we be interested?

Well, sure, I guess so. I’m not in any financial position to buy a house right now – and I don’t think I would be in a year, either – but there is some interest. I did the math on a 30 year fixed rate mortgage (and a 40 – yikes!) and came to the quick conclusion that a standard, fixed rate loan was way out of our league for a house that is appraised for what I think this house is worth. But, that isn’t the point; I never thought I could afford this house, and was never planning on buying it anyway.

The point is this: Later during the day I thought to myself “Do I really want a mortgage? Yeah, you can borrow against your house if you need to, but do I really want to be tied to paying for a thing for 30 to 40 years?”

The answer, most certainly, is “no”. I know that my father, wherever he may be, is probably boggling at this thought. It’s what responsible adults do – you get married (check!), have kids (check, check, check!), have a steady job (um, mostly check!) and buy a house. Then, I suppose, you plan for your retirement and a gold watch or some such thing.

Diversion: We took a vacation to New Zealand earlier this year. It was great; everyone had a wonderful time, and I really enjoyed the Kiwis we met. We had entertained the idea of moving to New Zealand for a couple of years – it would be good for the kids to have some exposure to a culture that is not ours, the USA. (Ok, not dramatically different, but certainly different.) No one who knows us will be surprised that our vacation was also a scouting trip.

This is not to say that this is going to happen; I haven’t even seriously looked into it. Most of the literature I’ve seen suggests that the common method is to move there with a lot of money in your pocket and live off of that until you secure a job. Um… no. If I were by myself, or it were only Pam and I, perhaps. But not with a 12 and 7 year old in tow – I can feel Dad nodding his approval right now. So, as you can see, moving overseas is an interest but by no means a done deal. It would be nice if my company would start doing some more work in AsiaPac and I could be their AsiaPac tech guy, based in NZ. Who knows? That could happen, but it isn’t on the horizon right now.

I mention this because it occurred to me that buying a home would almost certainly put any chance of doing that – or anything like it – in the grave. Since I would insist on a normal, regular mortgage that actually pays on the principal – an old-fashioned notion until all of the current foreclosures – there is no way I’d be able to rent the house out to pay the mortgage. I would be tied to the house… until I was 70 years old, or older.

So, as much as I like the idea of owning this house, it’s not likely to happen. While I certainly don’t criticize anyone who chooses to buy – I can understand the long term potential benefits – I don’t think I’m willing to sacrifice all of that for a thing that, while I live in it, isn’t really an investment. It’s an anchor.

Note: This would all change really quickly if I won the lottery. I suppose I should actually play the lottery if I want that to happen.

This could also be called legalized bribery.

Summary: The telcos spread a lot of money around, but almost twice as much for those who vote to give them immunity.

They do whatever the feds tell them, legal or not, and then they will get protected from any consequences of their wrongdoing. AND, their willingness to go along will no doubt reap rewards in the future.

Fascism? No, not really. More like a blend of neo-corporatism (using the rather loosely defined modern usage) and some good-old-American political Quid Pro Quo.

This image seemed appropriate:

Well, Barack Obama had his first real test of leadership as the presumed candidate…

and failed.

Saying “We promise to spy on you more carefully – oh, and those telecom guys get away scot free” isn’t acceptable. And the “it sunsets in 2012” part isn’t making it any more acceptable.

In Barack’s defense, the midwest flood victim bailout (Ha! Small pun there… very small…) is in the same bill, so voting against it would mean the McCain would start crying “Barack Obama hates midwesterners”.

Reality check: I know this guy comes from Chicago politics. I know he’s no angel. The question is: What kind of non-angel is he? I’m still evaluating that one.

(This still doesn’t mean I’m voting for McCain. Sorry, not even if you paid me.)

Bruce Anderson: 1
Andrew Templin: 0

UPDATE 2008-06-21

Ok, here’s how it works:

The Obama campaign says that they do not support retroactive immunity; they are going to attempt to remove that from the Senate bill. Once it goes to committee then the idea is that the immunity portion will be removed from the compromise bill but wiretapping can still occur if there is a warrant from the FISA court. Ok, that certainly isn’t perfect, but it is better.

This tells me “This bill is going to pass; let’s try to lop off the most egregious parts.”

The thing is… we already had FISA. Why do we need another law that enforces the law we already had? More details as I find them.

I was wondering when it would happen.

NetFlix, one of my favorite companies, has lost their mind.

One of the most useful features of NetFlix is the ability to have separate queues. I currently subscribe to 6 DVDs at once. 2 are for me, 2 are for Pam, and the remaining 2 are for my sons.

Now NetFlix has announced that they will be getting rid of separate User Profiles and, when they are removed on September 1st, mixing them all back together again.

In their FAQ (linked above) is this:

Why? While it may be disappointing to see this feature go away, this change will help us to continue to improve the Netflix website for all our customers.

Not much of an answer, that. Exactly in what way is removing one of your most useful features going to help improve the website for their customers? I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

I did write their customer service department to let them know that, while I will remain a customer, I will be downgrading my subscription to 1 or 2 DVDs at a time. If enough people do this then it might – might – get their attention.