"Michael Clayton" was truly one of the best in a long, long time (IMHO). I saw "There Will Be Blood" (isn't Daniel Day Lewis always terrific?) and I walked out of the theater angry and tired. The whole thing was an over-wrought beating of a dead horse to the point of hamburgerhood, or something. Whew!!

I think everybody was in shock after 9/11... And I'm willing to extend understanding for Hillary's many miscast votes - although in retrospect, giving the shrub club "authorization" to attack Iraq and thinking "President Cheney" wasn't going to follow through seems irredeemably naive (do we want leaders like that?).

It is unfortunate that in our culture and apology equals weakness, when in truth it is quite the opposite. And that I fear was Hillary Clinton's calculation of which she will regret.

Drop out? Never! Hillary Clinton still has a lot to offer, and one of those things is that she really does know the ropes.

Poor, poor, poor Zell... Poor Zell.

I'm in basic agreement with Nader and Gonzales on pretty much everything - At least their rhetoric sounds really, really good to me. But have they become prisoners to their own message, masters of beat-a-dead-horse polemics? Um... Well, one does have to be fairly narcissistic to go into politics in the first place, but what would they do if they actually won?

The problems facing the planet now are so huge that it's going to have to take something that can rise above left/right dichotomy.

It gives me a little hope that this time around people are waking up and smelling the coffee.

*double sigh*

I was originally an Ammiano supporter who ultimately voted for Matt Gonzales; I just always go with the one who I think will fight for the little guy. But Gonzales early on did something that I thought was unbelievably tacky: when running for supervisor he switched to the Green party mid-election. Democrat, Green, Blue, whatever, I'll vote for you if you stand by the values I hold, but Gonzales could have waited until after his forgone victory for the 5th district, and he didn't... Tacky, tacky, tacky. Just as tacky as Newsom boinking his campaign managers wife... Actually, maybe worse. Newsom's sex life is his own sorry business. Changing your party affiliation midstream indicates more than narcissism, it indicates overweening hubris - sadly, something too many lawyers suffer from.

I pray whoever becomes our next president, understands this.

Maybe the MSM is finally waking up a little to their horrendous complicity to the last eight years. Maybe.

Even when I'm feeling down I've learned to hold my self straight, chin up and paste a damned smile on my face... Then surprise! Someone will smile back at me and it makes me feel great!! Like the old Jefferson Airplane song, "You're Only Pretty As You Feel".

Throw that kitchen sink!! I'm glad things are as close as they are between The Hil and The Obama-man, because I've decided that this presidential election isn't going to be the slam/dunk many of us are hoping for.

No the Demoncrats aren't necessarily any nicer than the Reptilapublicans, but the Reptilapublican record of dirty tricks, disingenuousness and poisonously inverted polemics is pretty well established. Whoever comes out on top is going to have to be tough, hard and completely centered... Something like political ninjas, or something.

Since the advent of electronic computing, integrated circuitry, the internet and emergent systems (AI) itself, there has always been a freaky inevitability to all of this. Banal indeed - but what can any of us expect from a machine based "life form", morality? Next to THAT! the NSA, CIA, Mossad KGB (or whatever has replaced it)and all the rest of them seem downright cuddly.

One can wax philosophic endlessly on the subject you discuss here (always eloquently IMHO), but there is no doubt in my mind that the world Orwell and Aldous Huxley envisioned is already upon us now.

I think the only answer to this is massive amounts of education and required ethics training for everybody!!! The price of liberty is eternal vigilance and that has only become ever more expensive.

Speaking of the SNL crisis of yore: I just finished listening to a broadcast about reverse mortgages on NPR... Wow!!! The "fun" is only just beginning.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=87994065

This was unbelievably depressing stuff; especially when it involves swindling seniors. America's vortex of plunder is racing towards certain annihilation (IMHO). May there be a very, very hot, dark and terrible place in hell for people like Charles Keating, et al.

This literally makes me want to cry. I count my blessings everyday that I'm a renter without debts.

We are what we pee. We pee what we do.

Or:

IBI

UBU

IBM

IP2

Or:

Damned if we pee.

Damned if we doo.

...I'm sorry, couldn't resist. I'll never do that again.

I saw the George Clooney movie, "Syriana" and walked out shaken and depressed; the movie was telling us the truth. Reading this article has had the same affect. My only hope at this point lies in two places: in the outcome of the upcoming presidential election and in the rise of a strong, and hopefully honest federalized Europe. America seems to have become hopelessly venal, effete and decadent.

then it's even worse than stupid. I'm mean, like, DUH!!

Whenever you're in the public eye - especially today where surveillance is digital if not totally omnipresent - one cannot make any assumption to privacy, period. And if you're a politician who's currency is your ethical standing and fighting the powerful on behalf of the powerless, then you must assume that everything you do and say is being recorded by somebody. How could Spitzer not realize this?

Sheesh! He's let down more than just his wife and his family - sad.