There have been some changes since my last assessment of the GOP presidential nominees. Milbarge asked me to give an update on my feelings about the candidates. I'm giving it a shot, but I don't know how much my impressions have changed.

Rudy Giuliani
He still bugs me. Some of it's the anti-gun stuff. Part of it I'm sure is my deeply rooted distrust of politicians in general, and northeast politicians especially. If he ends up being the nominee, I will probly grit my teeth and vote for him, but I'm hoping it doesn't come to that.

Mitt Romney
Still strikes me as the Republican Bill Clinton. Too slick to be trusted. See above comments about north east politicians.

John McCain
Watching the Colbert Report the other week, he showed a statement from a McCain fundraiser that almost single-handedly made McCain my candidate. Addressing a group of donors from Smith & Wesson, McCain said, "I will follow Osama bin Laden to the gates of hell, and I will shoot him with your products." Take a moment for the sheer audacity and genius of that statement to sink in. He's pissed off too much of the base to win the primary, which is a shame. If he somehow does manage to pull it off, I will vote for him happily, and sleep well that night.

Mike Huckabee
Has made some waves, but those waves haven't reached where I live yet. Obviously doing something right, but I'm not paying close enough attention to know what it is.

Tommy Thompson
Is he gone yet?

Tom Tancredo
Gone yet?

Ron Paul
Bonus points for appearing on the Colbert Report. Impressed that he's managed to keep the sideshow up for this long, which says a lot about how annoyed many Republicans are with their own party these days.

Fred Thompson
Officially in now. Still my current preference. The case is being made for his laziness, but I have a hard time faulting someone who doesn't kill themselves on the campaign trail. Obama has done that, and then gets skewered for the mistakes he makes because he's tired. To me Thompson has the right attitude, intelligence, and common sense. The fact that he doesn't live to be President (see: Gore, Al) to me is a plus, not a minus.

Coming in the next few days. My take on the least bad Democratic option, as well as predictions on the eventual tickets.

This is pretty cool and pretty scary at the same time: the Global Incident Map. It's a real-time display of "terrorism and other suspicious activity." There tends to be a lot of "other," which I guess is a good thing. But it certainly makes it seem like things are blowing up all over. If the world really is going to hell in a handbasket, this looks like the itinerary.

At what age are you expected to know who you are? I don't mean this in the existential form. At what age should you have assessed your personality as it pertains to other people? I've wondered this off and on for a while now, but it was recently brought back up by one of my wife's co-workers.

Disclaimer: I have never met this guy.

My wife has talked for a while now about a co-worker of hers, let's call him Jack. Jack is constantly demeaning of anyone with kids, and makes a big show about how much he doesn't like kids in front of co-workers that have them. He also talks in a very degrading way about his wife, consistently and to the point it makes other people uncomfortable. Well, Jack and his wife had been arguing about something (or everything, I'm a little unclear on that point). According to Mrs. Haff, Jack went home at lunch because in his words, "I've decided to give in." (very big of him) When Jack got home, he found an empty house and the first draft of the divorce papers. Not to get into how impressed I am with the wife's planning to have an entire house emptied in 4 hours, but those are some serious organizational skills. Anyway, Jack is completely broken up about losing his wife, but he is completely clueless as to why she left or what he could have possible done wrong.

Jack is in his early 40's. Now I am of the opinion that if you reach your early 40's and are an asshole, then you should at the very least be aware of that fact. I'm not saying he has to change who he is, but you have to have some idea. To reach what is essentially middle age and not have a clue as to how your behavior affects the people around you (especially your wife) seems inexcusable.

I've often wondered at what age you stop getting a free pass for being socially ignorant. My completely unscientific and gut level feeling is that it's somewhere in the pretty late 20's. For ease of theory I've rounded it up to 30 even. Once you are thirty, you are required to have a certain fundamental understanding of yourself.

If you are a bad driver, you need to know that and be prepared for the consequences. Extra car insurance might be a good idea. If you are a push-over who gets taken advantage of at every turn, you need to know that and adjust accordingly. Bring along a better negotiator when buying a used car, for instance. If you are a complete dick who is condescending to the woman he married, you need to know that. Not being surprised when she finally gets fed up and leaves you ass, to give a random example.

Anyway, I'm open to be swayed on this. Not on the actual theory, but on the age at when it fully kicks in.