How bad is it? Try to guess who wrote the following:
[Senators] have to lead, because this president is too weak, too cautious, too beholden to politics over policy to lead. In this budget, in his refusal to do anything concrete to tackle the looming entitlement debt, in his failure to address the generational injustice, in his blithe indifference to the increasing danger of default, he has betrayed those of us who took him to be a serious president prepared to put the good of the country before his short term political interests. Like his State of the Union, this budget is good short term politics but such a massive pile of fiscal bullshit it makes it perfectly clear that Obama is kicking this vital issue down the road.
To all those under 30 who worked so hard to get this man elected, know this: he just screwed you over. He thinks you’re fools. Either the US will go into default because of Obama’s cowardice, or you will be paying far far more for far far less because this president has no courage when it counts. He let you down. On the critical issue of America’s fiscal crisis, he represents no hope and no change. Just the same old Washington politics he once promised to end.
That’s Andrew Sullivan, formerly Obama fan numero uno in the blogosphere, now coping for the second time in eight years with crushing disappointment from a president he ardently supported. Ed’s already written a bunch about the budget today so I won’t belabor it, but have a look at Andrew Stiles’s bullet-point list of the lowlights if you missed it. $26.3 trillion in new debt — repeat, new debt — alone over the next decade. Says Jake Tapper, summing things up in a single harrowing line, “At no point in the president’s 10-year projection would the U.S. government spend less than it’s taking in.”
I’m preaching to the choir but let’s make sure we all understand the magnitude of what we’re seeing here: On the seminal issue of his time, the long-term fiscal sustainability of the United States, this guy has completely abdicated. In fact, I’m tempted to say that this, not ObamaCare, will be the cornerstone of his legacy, but that’s really a false choice. They’re two sides of the same coin: He has a policy agenda but we don’t have the money to pay for it, and so one or the other must yield. Guess which one he thinks it should be. Remember too that O once famously said he’d rather be a good one-term president than a mediocre two-termer. Today’s budget exposes that canard for the total fraud that it is. He could have dealt with Social Security and Medicare here but seniors won’t stand for that, and, well, there’s an election coming up and we all know how high turnout is among seniors…
It is, as Yuval Levin says, “an appalling failure of leadership,” one which forces the GOP to lead on entitlements. Think they have the guts to do it? I don’t, and evidently neither does NRO’s Dan Foster. Read his post in full, please, because I keep seeing conservatives high-fiving over last week’s tea-party insurrection in the House over budget cuts and I can’t understand why. It’s a cosmetic win. It means next to nothing. But here’s the difference between Obama and the GOP: Even though there’s an election next year, congressional Republicans would, I think, be willing to tackle entitlements if Obama went all-in with them, simply because they’ve invested so much of their brand in fiscal responsibility to woo tea partiers that they couldn’t risk walking away. They need some bipartisan cover on it, though; they can’t make enemies of seniors all alone right before a presidential contest. The linchpin, then, is Obama. He could provide that bipartisan cover by making an impassioned push to deal with this issue now, together, and would probably impress a lot of independents in the process. But seniors’ reaction would be unpredictable and his base would despise him for trimming the “social safety net” instead of propping it up with more Monopoly money, so he’s walking away to get elected. Devastating. Thanks to Breitbart for the clip.
App Store Classics: Game Dev Story, a game about making games.
Ever wondered what it’d be like to run your own game development house? Me neither, but don’t let that stop you getting involved with Game Dev Story (iTunes link), a little gem of a game from Japanese developers Kairosoft, currently on sale in the app store for $0.99.
The concept is straightforward – grow your development house from a tiny team of four staff churning out cheap and cheerful PC games to a revered coding powerhouse in swanky offices crafting masterpieces for the latest consoles.
At first you’ll probably be going over budget left right and centre, trying to figure out which game types work best and therefore shift more units, but once you get into the swing of it you can concentrate on hiring and training the best staff and purchasing licences to develop console games, resulting in better made and better selling games with higher profit margins.
It’s not just a question of hiring and firing, coming up with game ideas and watching your staff working their buns off though. Through the use of ‘boosts’ which are periodically made available to purchase as the game progresses (not in-app purchases I hasten to add), you can choose one of your coders to work on enhancing one specific aspect of the game. This pushes up the overall quality of the game you’re making and results in better reviews and sales, adding a further strategic element as you choose the right moment and category in which to use your boosts. At certain points within the development cycle you also get the chance to work on the graphics and sound specifically, either using one of your own staff or hiring in a freelancer, and this too gives you the opportunity to increase the overall quality of your virtual product.
When you make your first million seller it’s a satisfying moment but there’s no time to rest on your laurels. There are always new consoles appearing on the market, contract jobs to take on, new staff to hire and new game types to discover. If you leave too much of a gap between development cycles you start losing fans and therefore a few sales, but think carefully about what kind of games you make – my pirate simulation was a right turkey.
It’s all great fun, but it’s fair to say there are a few things here which need to be addressed by the time Game Dev Story 2 arrives in the app store. I know it’s a tall order on a phone but I couldn’t help thinking how nice it would be if I could play the games my team had made. Even a comedy cut sequence showing some aspects of the latest game would have been good. There are also some hugely expensive advertising options within this game that offer no feedback other than some numbers increasing on a stat page. If I’m sponsoring a racing team I’d like to see my company logo on the side of a formula one car at least!
Finally, the game is perhaps a bit on the easy side. I’m sure if developing a multi million selling game was this straightforward we’d all be at it. Well, maybe not, but it’s easy to make enough money that you don’t have to worry too much about how you spend it, and this negatively impacts the strategy element.
All things considered however, Game Dev Story is great fun. It’s a good natured game and from the cute graphics and retro sound to the amusing titles you can give your creations, it’s a rewarding experience which works perfectly whether in short bursts or longer play sessions. Did I mention that it’s currently only $0.99 on the app store?
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