Friday, 1 February 2008

Out of the jungle

The Times-Picayune reminds us that voting in the primaries for Bobby Jindal’s replacement in Congress will take place on March 8, with the voter registration deadline being next Wednesday. The special elections in the 1st and 6th districts will be the first held in Louisiana since the legislature abolished the nonpartisan “jungle primary” system for elections to federal office introduced in the 1970s—given the Republican leanings of the 1st district, this is a race that is likely to be decided either in the March GOP primary or the potential April runoff (if no candidate receives a majority), both of which are only open to registered Republicans.

Replacing the FUBAR CD/tape deck

I finally had it with the messed up factory tape deck in the car and ordered the Sony MEX-BT2500 to replace it. In the end, for the money I decided that the built-in Bluetooth connectivity would be more useful than competing units with either HD Radio (which is going nowhere fast and only seems to be available built into a half-dozen head units) or iPod control (which is apparently clunky on most units, and which probably isn’t any safer to use while driving than just fiddling with the click-wheel), and there wasn’t any point to migrating to an integrated XM or Sirius receiver from my still-serviceable SkyFi2. I may, however, pick up one of these dealios to get my iPod to integrate wirelessly with the Bluetooth stuff in the receiver. Allegedly even a technical incompetent like me can install it myself; I guess if I can build PCs from components putting a radio in a car shouldn’t be too hard.

Now watch my car completely self-destruct the day after I install it.

How liberal is Obama, really?

I look at Barack Obama’s voting record today at Outside The Beltway, on the heels of the declaration by National Journal that he was the most liberal senator in 2007.