Gaming the System

July 8, 2008 > MAUI TODAY No Comments
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Click for Kahului, Hawaii ForecastVideo Games Day
Day 190 of 2008
176 days left in this year
HAWAIIAN WORD OF THE DAY — Mea pa‘ani: Game
 PIDGIN WORD OF THE DAY — Abus: Game (meat)
 HAWAIIAN PROVERB OF THE DAY — “A slap and a slap; equal to equal.” (A tie)
HAOLE SAYING OF THE DAY — “[Gaming] is the child of Avarice, the brother of Iniquity, and the father of Mischief.” (George Washington)
WEB SURF SPOTS OF THE WEEK — Nude Recreation Week
WEB VIDEO OF THE WEEK — War Crimes on You Tube
NETCAST OF THE WEEK — Apple Phone Show
GOOD DEED SITE OF THE WEEK — Nuremberg War Crimes Trials
VIDEO GAMES - Recent figures show that the video gaming industry is now earning more than three times that of the entire movie industry, and its lead is increasing. No wonder – a movie can easily cost $100 million to produce (sometimes double that). An expensive video game costs only about $10 million to create. The profit on a $10 million game that earns $1 billion is very enticing to investors.
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EVENTS ON THIS DAY — July 8th
1777: Vermont becomes the first state to abolish slavery (adopts male suffrage)
1796: The first American Passport is issued by the U.S. State Department
1797: The first U.S. senator (William Blount of Tennessee) is expelled by impeachment
1981: The Senate confirms Sandra Day O’Conner to the U.S. Supreme Court (99-0)
1986: Kurt Waldheim is inaugurated as president of Austria despite controversy over his alleged ties to Nazi war crimes.
1995: Chinese-American human rights activist Harry Wu is arrested in China, charged with obtaining state secrets (later convicted of espionage and deported)
2004: Adelphia Communications Corp. founder John Rigas and his son Timothy are convicted in New York of looting the cable company and deceiving investors.
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BORN ON THIS DAY — July 8th
1839: John D Rockefeller, U.S. capitalist
1893: Fritz Perls, father of Gestalt therapy
1908: Nelson A Rockefeller, (Gov-R-NY) 41st VP
1913: Walter Kerr, NY drama critic
1914: Billy Eckstine, jazz singer
1918: Nelson Mandela, jailed political activist
1933: Marty Feldman, comedic actor
1944: Jeffrey Tambor, actor
1948: Raffi, children’s singer
1951: Anjelica Huston, actress
1952: Anna Quindlen, writer
1958: Kevin Bacon, actor
1961: Toby Keith, country singer
1968: Billy Crudup, actor
1970: Beck, rock musician
1970: Drew Womack, country singer

U.S. Presidents - John Tyler

July 8, 2008 Maui Curmudgeon, U.S. Presidents No Comments

By the Maui Curmudgeon (10th in a 43-part series)

How do the U.S. Presidents stack up? I thought I’d find out by reading biographies of all 43 presidents, in the order of their administrations. Here are briefly the pros and cons of my discoveries, the interesting bits, and how I’d rank him. For comparison, I give you the 1982 Murrary-Blessing ranking, a survey of hundreds of leading historians who ranked each president by number. This survey is the gold standard of presidential rankings and is most cited when this kind of thing needs bringing up in media.

JOHN  TYLER: 1841-1845 ~ 10th U.S. PresidentJohn Tyler, 10th US president
Imagine, you’ve just found your way around town, arranged your furniture in your temporary lodging (there was no vice-presidential house in 1841), and you’re settling down to four years of “public service” overseeing a Senate that is of your (Whig) party, and so, very little work.

Someone knocks on your door and tells you the president is dead.

When William Henry Harrison died in office after just 31 days, things went sticky. Those “illustrious founding fathers”, the ones we’re told were so bright and wonderful and warm and fuzzy? They failed to deal with some rather large issues when inventing this country. One was slavery, of course. Another was the situation in which Vice-president John Tyler found himself.

Read the rest…