The “Rangel Rule” — I don’t know if this is true, but it’s definitely funny:

Carter, a former longtime Texas judge, today introduced the Rangel Rule Act of 2009, HR 735, which would prohibit the Internal Revenue Service from charging penalties and interest on back taxes against U.S. citizens. Under the proposed law, any taxpayer who wrote “Rangel Rule” on their return when paying back taxes would be immune from penalties and interest.

To quote Glenn Reynolds, “Heh.”

For all the fondness I have for online news sources, there is one thing that old media like newspapers do better than websites — packing materials.

In other shocking news, I find that I actually agree with Robert Byrd for once. Kudos to Senator Byrd for sticking by his principles in voting against Treasury Secretary Geithner’s confirmation.

I finished Founding Brothers and have started Bellwether by Connie Willis. Founding Brothers was a good read, but a more detailed summary will have to wait, as I’m unfortunately tied up with packing for our move next weekend.

Via Kotaku, according to a survey from the University of Oregon, Madden football games make players smarter about football:

What does it mean to bring an 8th man into the box? If you’re looking for the correct answer, you’re more likely to receive it from an EA SPORTS Madden NFL player than from someone who doesn’t play Madden. EA SPORTS, a label of Electronic Arts Inc., (NASDAQ: ERTS), announced today the results of a new survey by the University of Oregon’s Warsaw Sports Marketing Center, that determined fans who play the Madden NFL video game series are more knowledgeable about the game of football than people who don’t play the game. The survey found that Madden NFL players’ football IQ was 60 percent higher than people that don’t play Madden.

Emphasis mine.

Fans who play Madden football know more about football in general than fans who don’t play Madden football. The obvious conclusion is that Madden made them smarter, right? Wrong. The correlation here could just as easily be that people who are bigger fans of football are more likely to play Madden than those who aren’t fans. Similarly, the bigger your enthusiasm for football in general is, the more video game football you are likely to play.

Is it possible that Madden somehow educates players in football facts? Yes. Does this study actually lead us to that conclusion? Not from what I read.

I mentioned in my previous post that I appreciated Senator Ted Kennedy’s service to the country. Even if I disagreed with most of his political stances, I understand he’s doing what he believes is right for the country^[a], and I appreciate that.

By the same token, I’d like to extend my thanks to our now-former President, George W. Bush. Many of his decisions were not those that I would’ve made, but I honestly believe that his intention was always to do what he felt was best for the country. In response, he had to deal with eight years of not just opposition (any President can expect at least four years of that, honestly), but downright hateful, childish opposition that often opposed him not for any ideological reason, but simply out of pure spite^[b].

I hope former President Bush enjoys his newfound freedom from the constant pressures of the Presidency, and that those who couldn’t find the maturity to treat him with respect during his Presidency^[c] can find the maturity to leave him alone (I’d hate to think that he can’t just enjoy the time off because of people harassing him), now that their guy is in charge.

That said, I also want to extend my congratulations to President Obama. Nothing in his record (what little of it there is) or in his campaign led me to believe that his policies will match my political beliefs at all, but I respect that he is the legally elected President. I’ll be vocal in my opposition to his policies, but will do my best to refrain from engaging in the sort of disgusting rhetoric that the far left (and even some on the near left) have used for the last eight years.

1. Most of the time, that is — if he’s not too caught up in partisanship, in the idea of preserving the view from his front porch, or protecting himself from the political fallout of abandoning an innocent woman to die in a car he’s just wrecked [↩]
2. Don’t believe me? President Obama has already decided that not only was shutting Guantanamo down immediately not a good idea, but that the trials for the prisoners there should be delayed (Remember, when Mr. Bush was still President, that the fact that they were being held without trial was a travesty. Now, it’s a good thing, apparently.). [↩]
3. Not even at the end of it, given reports of taunts being thrown at him as he was leaving the ceremony yesterday. [↩]