I'm watching from another country, so forgive me if I've missed something. Is it really true that the only people with any chance of getting the Republican nomination are Giuliani, Romney, Huckabee, Thompson, McCain, and maybe Paul???

Really, is that it? I suppose Ron Paul doesn't seem so bad so far - in this group he seems to be a giant, but no one really expects him to win.

So surely there must be someone who is not so desperately embarrassing ready to make a late run. No? No one at all?

So, if say, the Republican campaign really stays on message with good negative ads (racism/misogyny/9-11/Clintons=satan), then there is actually a chance that the next POTUS might be worse than the current one.

Wow! Who would have thought that was possible?

....for anyone interested in starting an online store in Canada.

I think that clip goes some to explaining why Scientologists are so opposed to the psychiatric profession, in much the same way that a bacterium might be opposed to penicillin.

... you've done a great job. This is a column I seek out every day and it it's a shame you that you're leaving it. Good luck with the new job.

In the last seven years, we've seen the American government throw out habeas corpus; tear up the Geneva Convention; bring torture back into the mainstream; institute widespread spying on its own citizens; lie about its unprovoked attach on another country; stack public institutions with unqualified partisan flunkies.... and that's just off the top of my head.

If the last seven years have been so much apart the march of freedom around the world, why is his government so determinedly sprinting in the other direction.

Heckuva job Bushie.

I have not not seen There Will Be Blood, so my comments are not about Daniel Day-Lewis, but about the general argument expressed in the article. So, with that rider, I have to say that I agree with Stephanie's proposition.

For a long time I could not not bear to watch Meryl Streep, so distracted was I by the neon sign above her head that flashed "I AM ACTING BRILLIANTLY". The precision of her performances was too precise, too calculated. You got the feeling that if the director called for 20 takes then Streep would have been identical in each. Her representation of the character was a perfect response to the script and the story, but did not seem to truly live in each scene as it was shot.

Fortunately, I feel that she moved through that phase and I think much of her work in recent years has been the best of her career - even if some of the roles did not scream out for so much attention.

I think also to the most breathtaking and wonderful performance I've seen in ages: Hugo Weaving in Little Fish. The actor did not master the character - the character took over the actor and lived in real time in each moment as it was shot.

It's a fine line though, and a matter of taste to some degree.

So at the risk of rambling more, I'd just suggest to other letter writers that even if you disagree with Stephanie's assessment of Day-Lewis's performance in this film, at least take a moment to think about her point.

The more I learn about this system, the less I understand.

Memo to CP: Don't mess with the lapdance brigade - they seem very angry, not to mention litigious.

I thought it was feminists who weren't supposed to have a sense of humour.

A strength of this column is that Cary generally refuses to over-simplify situations. He encourages people to see the nuances...

But it is possible to fall into the trap of over-thinking things too.

Curses are not real.

A curse can only work if you act it out.

Don't act it out. Ignore it.

This won't cure the dysfunctional relationship with your mother in law - maybe nothing ever will. But it will let you get on with your own life.

Where the hell was campus security when this loose canon started such a clownish disruption of a democratic event?

To ej00807, this was not even a "bit rude". This was a commendable, intelligent, critical question about a cynical process. If only a tenth of the community (or a quarter of the media) were as mature and responsible as this schoolgirl.

my dog is hearing a lot of whistles lately...

The first time i saw an episode of Grey's Anatomy, I mentioned to my wife something like: "that guy's the boring, conservative woman's Sean Penn". Neither of us have seen anything to make us doubt that since.

on behalf of my people, i'm sorry.

please remember though, there is a reason we keep places like mt isa so far away from where everyone else lives ;-)

@Jacques DELAGUERRE - I agree with your reasoning, but spare a thought for the satirists. Their job relies on being able to take events and issues from modern life and recasting them in an absurdist light to expose the flaws and foibles of the actors. But just look at how absurd the actors, policies, events, statements, and attitudes are *on their face* these days.

For god's sake, Fox was became hysterical last week, shrieking that Newsweek was a liberal disgrace for not applying the same airbrush techniques to the cover shot of Sarah Palin that they would use for supermodels. How can anyone lampoon that?

There's almost no room left to work for the satirists. Of course they're getting angry.

It's interesting that the writer mentioned Sasha Baron Cohen. One of the world's leading Aspergers researchers is his cousin, Simon Baron Cohen.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Baron-Cohen

Anyway, here's a link to an excellent interview with the mother of an adult Aspie. Unfortunately the podcast seems to have been removed, but the transcript is still there:

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/inconversation/stories/2008/2362181.htm