Anyone who knows me knows that I'm convinced most of the misery in the developed world is cultural in origin, not political. But since 2008 is an election year in the US, I'm not letting the politicians off the hook either.

The problems with American politics are constantly discussed, usually by people who write whole books -- often multiple books -- outlining complex political and economic theories on how to solve these problems. Politicians endeavor to solve them with long and complex new laws, or by adding changes to a tax code so complicated it even confuses tax professionals. They're wasting their time. The biggest problem with government in America is that the people who govern America almost always compromise by passing more legislation, and never by passing less.

Really, it's that ****ing simple.

I had a really cool idea for a post about inner-city disfunction with an explanation other than race or economics, with parallels between gang activity and normative middle-class behavior. Then I decided I better think it out a bit more before I post something like that...if I'm going to offend anyone who is or has ever been poor, black, or middle-class and currently has too much time to kill, I might as well be sure I'm right when I do it.

If anyone noticed, I was gone for two days. My computer fell asleep in Windows 95 compatibility mode(I like old EA Sports games; sue me), then woke up forgetting it was running Vista on a 1440 x 900 monitor with the aid of a video card. Yesterday, I had stuff. Today, I fixed it after half an hour with the tech support guy, while I was holding for more information.

Fun stuff.