When I read Chile privatized their pension system in the 90s, and I believe Bolivia went on to do the same thing, I thought that it was a good idea that should be implemented here. Now that el Presidente Hierba is trying to ram it reform through the system, I'm not so certain. It's hard to believe that there is a crisis if the system can meet its obligations for the next 4 decades or so. But, you can't also argue that it'd be better for people to save on their own, using the market to get a better return on their investment than what one would currently get from the system. On the way home the other day, I saw the question for me framed this way and it's how I think I'll be approaching it: is Social Security solely a system for saving money for retirement or is it more a safety net there to help out if something really bad wipes away a chunk of all your savings?

As it stands, el Presidente Bush ignores Social Security facts as minor inconveniences to push through his reform agenda and the President's administration is going after the AARP for using the word privatization to describe Bush's effort to privatize Social Security. Meanwhile, democrats who oppose reform are proposing alternative Social Security reforms that don't reallly change anything.

Our addiction to World of Warcraft has lead to the inevitable computer upgrade. Remember, gentle reader, that this game was already responsible for a video card upgrade on my own machine. But now that I've gotten Staci hooked on playing - she's an elven hunter with a pet puma, we needed to upgrade the machine she plays on, it was almost four years old. Going through even moderately congested settings, villages mostly, caused her screen to really stutter.

Despite my dormant desire for a macmini, my Dad is luckily in need of a PC upgrade as his 400Mhz PC died last week. He'll be inheritting the 1Ghz Athlon, motherboard, and mini-atx case that we replace.

I'm happily surprised by how much computer you can buy really cheap nowadays, the fact that I wasn't gaming as much meant I'd lost track with the latest and greatest hardware and marketting spin. We bought the following parts from Newegg last Saturday and the parts arrived yesterday. We spent about two hours putting it together:

• CPU \$48, AMD Sempron 2200 (1.5GHZ) - the last intel CPU I bought was a Pentium II 233.
• Motherboard \$41, ECS 741GX - all the basics including onboard LAN, sound, USB 2.0
• Memory \$60, 512 MB PC2700 - should be way more than enough for gaming and web surfing
• CPU Fan \$15 Arctic Cool Copper Silent 2 - I'm very impressed so far by this fan, even on the highest setting its pretty quiet ( rated at 24db ). It makes my linux desktop PC sound like a small turbine engine by comparison. The fan is a little wider than your average CPU fan but that means it doesn't have to spin as fast to move the same amount of air.\
• Video \$70, EVGA Nvidia FX5500 128MB DDR. Nowhere near the leading edge in graphics cards but I can check off all the fancy directx9 options and play with good framerates at 1024x768. Last month, CompUSA had this card for \$120 before \$40 in rebates.\
• Case \$26, CAT 3307 ATX case, 300W power supply. This case is a nice, sturdy mini-tower. The only knock against it is that the advertised blue is actually purple-ey, according to the owner.

Grand Total: \$260. The total is also low since we didn't have to get a CD drive, hard drive, keyboard, mouse, speakers and monitor. But it'll more than suffice for playing some games. In contrast, I think the macmini I'd end up buying would be closer to \$700, not factoring in the Apple Care extended warranty plan.

Well, not exactly but I have been missing the trips to RFK and watching United play, moreso than in previous seasons. Luckily, the MLS preseason is about to gear up.

MLS has the distinction of staging the lengthiest regular season in all of U.S. pro sports -- which also means it bears a mighty brief offseason. So after winning its fourth league championship just over 10 weeks ago, D.C. United has barely had time to catch its breath before regrouping today at disheveled RFK Stadium for the start of training camp.