After 72 years in the U.S. Senate and three marraiges to Elizabeth Taylor, John Warner, R-VA is finally retiring. Two former governors, Democrat Mark Warner (no relation), and Republican Jim Gilmore are running to fill his seat (in the Senate, not next to Elizabeth Taylor).

Mark Warner is a sleazy, no-good, lying son-of-a-bitch, pro-tax Democrat who ran a Bill Clinton style campaign for Governor. On his gubernatorial campaign trail Warner promised not to pass a tax increase. He even stated three times, "I will not raise taxes, I will not raise taxes, I will not raise taxes." Once elected, he pushed for and passed the largest tax increase in the commonwealth of Virginia. He passed a massive tax increase even though Virginia was already running a huge budget surplus.

Gilmore is a tax-cutting Republican. Gilmore pushed for and passed Virginia's car-tax relief plan that attempted to phase out our dreaded personal property tax on non-commercial vehicles. Virginia's car-tax is a bit like paying sales tax on your car, every single year. Gilmore phased it out in stages. To this day car-tax bills still show what it would have been originally, and the amount of car-tax relief (thanks to Gilmore).

Warner, pushed for and passed a halt to car-tax relief (which is effectively a tax increase). You would think that a lying, conniving, weasel like Mark Warner who passed large tax increases on every voter in Virginia wouldn't stand much of a chance. So why then is he leading Gov. Gilmore by large margins in the polls?

My guess is that he's trading on the name Warner and effectively running as an incumbent.

While I love my Playstation, I generally steer clear of Sony brands. Their TVs have long been junk. (Go into any Sony store and ask them about the specs and they'll say something snarky like "specs don't mean anything")

Recently I purchased a new camera. My old Sony camera was just too big and clunky to carry around. I was also burned by the memory stick format. While the camera takes great photos, I'm stuck with memory sticks that max out at 128 MB. This time around a I settled on a point and shoot Nikon. It has it's own faults, but it was inexensive, small, and takes cheap hi-cap SD cards. All other camera features aside, if it costs too much to own and operate and can't fit in my pocket, I don't want it.

But there is a lesson to be learned here for Sony. When shopping, I saw a few Sony models that would have fit the bill. But I'll be damned if I'm going to be stuck with memory sticks again. And Sony continues to release different formats of memory sticks, with no concern for backward compatibility.

Sony has so many other foray's into proprietary formats that it borders on obsession (ie: memory stick, betamax, minidisc, ATRAC, etc.). When will they learn?