I watched the entirety of Clinton's speech on C-span last night. He never said that politics should be more character-driven, and less about issues, or that we should all be centrists. What he did do was go to great pains to make the distinction between people with political philosophies and ideologues. A political philosophy is a general approach to accomplishing your goals for the country, but which is contrained by facts (you don't ignore facts inconvenient to your philosophy) and always open to debate. You set goals for the country, and debate the best way to reach those goals. The policies that come out of these debates may or may not be ideologically pure.

Idealogues, on the other hand, think they already know all the answers. There is no point in arguing with an idealogue, because their mind is made up prior to evaluating the evidence (e.g. tax cuts are always good). Clinton was very critical of the current administration on the grounds that they have been overly ideological in their approach from the beginning, without regard for the practical consequences of their actions.

A couple of people have mentioned Peter Parker's humorous emo transformation. For example, one person complained that audience members were laughing. You were supposed to laugh! When PP started acting like something he wasn't, he was a jerk and also became ridiculous. I have a similar take on the comment about this movie being war propaganda. The bit where Spiderman swings in front of an American flag is just the movie's way of making sure we don't think it's taking itself too seriously. Because a film about superheroes that DID take itself seriously would be really funny.

All that being said, I thought the movie had one too many villains. Sandman is boring.

Some possibilities:

Restore Sanity. Vote Democrat.

Vote for America. Vote Democrat.

Your Constitution Needs You. Vote Democrat.

Feel Proud Again. Vote Democrat.

Vote Smart. Vote Democrat.

End the War. Vote Democrat. (optimistic)

Tiebreaker:

Orange Alert!

"Zero-Sum"

That twit uses this term only because people around him say it. He does not know what it means, but he is impressed with people who say it.

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My thoughts exactly. And even if you explained it, would he understand how hypocritical it was to say that?

It's a valid question. The main differences to me are:

1) As everyone else already said, the stuff about Hillary is all rumors

2) The Craig case gets extra attention because the law got involved--soliciting sex in a public bathroom

3) Hillary doesn't support gay marriage, but that in and of itself doesn't necessarily make her a hypocrite. It's a little strange to me, but you could be gay while not caring about or supporting gay marriage.

You don't to bite Elephantman's head off. Just explain why you disagree.

thresholds getting lower?

Could the general outrage threshold be getting any lower in this primary contest? I'm usually with Krugman on most economic matters, but allowing adults a chance to opt out, and controlling costs, are perfectly legitimate policy choices, not a moral failure.

Seriously. Pretty interesting from a sociological perspective. Hillary or Obama would make fine presidents.

I liked this essay. As a native southerner who recently moved to the midwest, I'm dealing with real cold for almost the first time this winter. It's bracing, but I prefer the snowy surroundings to the dead brown/yellow colors you get during winters in warmer climates.

One nitpick: MRI scanners and cyclotrons are very different things!

And perhaps 10-15000 wolves. You tell me which is the more adaptive and successful species.

The tone of your comment suggests you don't think wolves deserve protection, because if they can't survive without special intervention they aren't fit. If you take that reasoning to its logical conclusion we should just scrap endangered species protection altogether. But obviously a lot of people, myself included, think the world is a better place with these animals, in addition to the more tangible benefits to the ecosystem as a whole that Ms. Mieszkowski did such a good job describing.

Maybe you were just pointing out that people are part of the environment too, and that our presence drives evolution too. That's true, but doesn't really speak to issues of moral responsibility/environmental stewardship.

You can surmise whatever you like. You don't ask, you scold.

Ok. What point were you making with your original comment then?