A Running Commentary

Mayor Michael Bloomberg unequivocally declared yesterday that he will not stage the independent Presidential run he has long ‘secretly’ evaluated. The announcement comes as a disappointment to many who’d hoped the business mogul turned effective leader would stage a campaign outside the realm of traditional partisan warfare.
In his New York Times op-ed […]

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In one of the many great episodes of The West Wing, Josh and Donna have a debate about taxes. Donna, the naïve idealist, wants to know why the government takes so much of her income to pay for things on her behalf. Shouldn’t she be able to make those decisions herself? “I […]

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It is ironic that the word “federal” immediately brings to mind the national government, when in fact it indicates a collective of sovereign states. Following the Revolutionary War, Americans were painfully afraid that a powerful national government would repeat the English tyranny they’d just escaped. So the Founding Fathers initially formed The Articles […]

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I have been asked frequently to explain the nature and purpose of the American primary system. Unlike any election in recent memory, the 2008 Presidential has placed a withering spot light on the arcane and often counterintuitive primary systems of both Democrats and Republicans. Assumptions by many voters on the workings of the […]

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Jumper (Regency / FOX)
Directed: Doug Liman
Writers: David S. Goyer, Jim Uhls, Simon Kinberg
Starring: Hayden Christensen, Rachel Bilson, Samuel L. Jackson, Jamie Bell, Diane Lane
Rating: 4 of 5
Based on the 2002 novel by Steven Gould, this film is a slick X-Men-meets-Unbreakable special effects romp. Though very short, the movie is thoroughly enjoyable for it’s ultra […]

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I guess I’m just not a typical NY fan.  Though a New Yorker and lifelong Yankees and Giants devotee, I have never really understood the weird fickleness that seems to typify the New York fan.
Normally this just applies to sports but The New York Times article yesterday made me wonder if it’s more extensive.  How […]

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Is it possible that after decades of predictable pomp the American people could be treated to not just one but two meaningful conventions in 2008?
On the one side, the Clinton camp’s refusal to recognize the writing on the wall guarantees that the Democrats will go into their convention without a clear nominee. If the 90’s […]

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Sports broadcasts are doing these mid-game interviews everywhere now. Interviewing the coach, the manager, the player, the ballboy…. anyone they can get their hands on. Right in the middle of the game. Baseball is the worst because the networks make the managers strap on the awkward headset and talk to them while […]

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(see previous post and RE: The Dougie Watch for background on the continuing thoughts and adventures of Dougie)
Well Dougie, the ‘why’ is simple; what to do about it is the hard part.
The absurd need to fuse all of your political positions into one presidential candidate is due to the grossly concentrated power of the American […]

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(see RE: The Dougie Watch page for background on the continuing thoughts and adventures of Dougie)
Dougie doesn’t understand why he is stuck synthesizing all of his political views into one Presidential candidate.
In 2004, for example, Dougie may not have been thrilled with President Bush’s handling of the war, but John Kerry’s murky position […]

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Whatever his role as ‘leader of the free world’, President Bush has hardly been a protector of individual freedoms at home. Since initial passage of the USA Patriot Act flew unquestioned through Congress in October 2001, Mr. Bush’s administration has used the specter of terrorism to grab huge swaths of unchecked power. Now […]

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This is exactly the kind of petulant and shallow rubbish one expects in a campaign involving Bill and Hillary Clinton. Yet their straight-faced nerve never ceases to amaze. Finding themselves on the wrong side of momentum and facing the mutiny of Democrat bigwigs, the Clinton campaign is leveling an absurdly disingenuous attack on […]

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What can be said about the Republicans?  After all, this is the party that ran Bob Dole in 1996.  Practicality is perhaps expecting too much.  But still, how did this happen?  How did a Bass-playing boob from Arkansas cost the GOP a conservative candidate in November?  The answer is that Republicans failed to rationally balance […]

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You know that scene in Hoosiers? Gene Hackman, as the new basketball coach, faces down the chants of the Hickory faithful lamenting the absence of high school phenom Jimmy Chitwood. Hackman shouts down the disparaging crowd; “I’d hoped you support who we are, not who we are not.”
You need to a flashplayer enabled […]

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Pulitzer Prize winning author Susan Faludi’s latest book, The Terror Dream, cites a “truly disturbing” trend she finds in American gender equality. Namely, the tendency of women to become more “feminine and traditional” post 9/11, allowing men to slip back into the role of protector.
Speaking at the Susan B. Anthony House’s annual birthday event […]

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