From the mouth of Dick Armey:

In all my years in politics, I’ve never sensed such anger and frustration from our volunteers — those who do the hard work of door-to-door mobilization that Republican candidates depend on to get elected. Across the nation, wherever I go to speak with them, their refrain is the same: “I can’t tell a dime’s worth of difference between Republicans and Democrats.” Our base rightly expects Republicans to govern by the principles — lower taxes, less government and more freedom — that got them elected. Today, with Republicans controlling both the legislative and executive branches of the federal government, there is a widening credibility gap between their political rhetoric and their public policies.

What will happen to Republicans if these freedom-loving, grassroots activists don’t show up for work next fall? The elections earlier this month may be an indication of the answer.

He ought to yell at GWB and Karl Rove imo.

Read more here.

leave me alone.

I’m amazed that this made the Wall Street Journal:

You are at the edge of a clearing with an impressive view of the mountains. A trail splits off toward some standing stones to the southwest, while the main road emerges from the forest to the east and continues westward down the hill, via a series of switchbacks.

So begins “A New Life,” a computer game created by Alexandre Owen Muñiz, a 31-year-old programmer who lives in Tigard, Ore. Unlike today’s hit videogame titles, Mr. Muniz’s creation doesn’t include splashy graphics or booming sound effects. Instead, “A New Life” consists of nothing more than text on a screen, and a blinking cursor awaiting players’ commands.

Vote: Are today’s videogames more fun than those of 20 years ago?
Mr. Muñiz is part of a cult group of gamers that are going back to basics. Their craft recalls a time before “Grand Theft Auto” or “Doom,” when computer games were about as visually compelling as a Microsoft Word document. The scene was set with a block of text, and the player advanced the action by typing simple commands like “go west” or “read sign.” In the early days of home computing, such games were a hit: A company called Infocom was one of the leaders of the genre, and sold more than one million copies of its flagship game, “Zork,” before being acquired by Activision Inc. in 1986. In that game, the player’s first move was to type the words, “open mailbox.”

They’re apparently holding a sort of Olympic Competition for these games. You can read more here.

On the other hand, there’s always the World CyberGames, which are decidedly NOT text based.

James Bond…

You scored as James Bond, Agent 007. James Bond is MI6′s best agent, a suave, sophisticated super spy with charm, cunning, and a license’s to kill. He doesn’t care about rules or regulations and somewhat amoral. He does care about saving humanity though, as well as the beautiful women who fill his world. Bond has expensive tastes, a wide knowledge of many subjects, and his usually armed with a clever gadget and an appropriate one-liner.

Which Action Hero Would You Be? v. 2.0
created with QuizFarm.com

(via the one who is verbose)

Adam Shostack writes on Mac security, saying that with the move to x86, Apple will become more suceptible to attacks than it urrently is, or is commonly believed to be possible. His article is a must-read.

Read Adam Shostack on Mac Security.

Bush still has a lot of work to do keeping his base together. He can start by disciplining congress:

An Internet search turned up no evidence that Gregg or any of the other dimwits calling for windfall profits taxes on the oil industry have also called for windfall profits taxes on the banking, pharmaceutical, software, hotel or other industries that earned much more per dollar than the oil and gas industry. Nor is there any evidence that windfall profits tax advocates have ever suggested compensation to offset oil industry losses in years when the price of oil fell. It’s heads I win, tails you lose.

Others may be inclined to be more charitable, chalking up ill-informed comments from the Judd Greggs of the world to rhetorical hyperbole by an overeager press secretary. Unfortunately, bad rhetoric sometimes leads to enactment of bad legislation. In 1980, Congress enacted a windfall profits tax on oil companies that even included newly discovered oil, upon which there could be no conceivable windfall. The Wall Street Journal’s lead editorial that day was titled, “Death of Reason.” It was framed in a thick black border to indicate mourning over the loss.

Fortunately, the tax was repealed by Ronald Reagan before it could do too much damage. But given George W. Bush’s proclivity for signing every bill that comes out of Congress, no matter how misguided, I have no confidence that he would veto another windfall profits tax should it reach his desk. Some political aide may explain that it tested really well among focus groups and will add several points to his approval rating.

Frankly, I’m shocked that Gregg has jumped on that bandwagon. He usually has more sense than that. And as usual, Bruce Bartlett is on the money.

Read Bruce Bartlett.

I say underwhelming.