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I have this little tradition: whenever I get a week or so of free time, I play through my favorite video game of all time: Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II – The Sith Lords. It is my favorite game because it is one of the very few video games that not only entertains, but also addresses deep philosophical questions with complex characters and well-written, intelligent dialogue.

For example, in the beginning you are trapped on an asteroid mining station that’s being sabotaged. You can just fight your way out, of course; but if you take your time and pay attention, you can gather up lots of clues that allow you to unravel who is sabotaging it and how and why. It’s a great feeling when you piece it all together, because you feel like you really figured something out, rather than having it all explained to you.

If you’ve played it, you know what I mean. If you haven’t, don’t waste time here, go buy it!

UPDATE: I should mention that Obsidian Entertainment, the company who made KotOR II, has also made many other games which people tell me are of similarly high or higher quality, and that many of the people who founded Obsidian worked on Planescape: Torment, which is, I’ve often been told, the ultimate in deep, philosophical gaming. I’ve never played any of these games, so I can’t comment on them. I will say that the reason I gravitated towards KotOR is that I tend to prefer Space settings to Medieval-Fantasy settings.

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Via Drudge Report: A computer glitch caused police to repeatedly raid an innocent couple’s home.

This sort of thing is why people are sometimes a tad suspicious of the government’s ability to properly handle any additional power.

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I was looking at the blogs of people who shared favorite movies and books with me, and I was shocked to see how many blogs people have not updated in years, many since their inaugural posts. As I discovered, blogging is harder than you would think.

Incidentally, the other thing I noticed in my travels across the blogosphere was how many blogs there are about food. Don’t get me wrong, they’re really interesting, but I am amazed that it is such a popular topic.

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…and health care does, in fact, pass, the obvious question is: does it relate in any way to Obama being the most charismatic guy in Washington? (Okay, maybe that’s only obvious to folks who regularly read this blog.)

Frankly, I don’t think the bill’s fate actually relates to Obama’s charisma that much; most of what he’s doing involves persuading other politicians, who I suspect have developed immunity to charisma because of high exposure to it over the course of their careers.

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I don’t think so. The Democrats are disorganized, and the bill is highly controversial, to say the least. I don’t think they’ll be able to convince enough Congressmen that it’s worth the risk.

What do you think?

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Yet more not-so-bad economic news.

As I’ve often said, charisma is the #1 factor in determining elections. In elections where there is not a meaningful “charisma gap” between candidates, however, the economy is often the deciding factor. And, right now, an improving economy benefits the Democrats.

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“Government by Party! Introduce that great and glorious element… and all will be well! No political measures will endure, because one Party will assuredly undo all that the other Party has done; and… the legislative action of the country will be at a standstill. Then there will be sickness in plenty, endless lawsuits, crowded jails, interminable confusion in the Army and Navy, and, in short, general and unexampled prosperity!”–W.S. Gilbert, Utopia, Limited. Act II. 1893.