Ossified Politics.

A variety of circumstances have lead to the utter, abject failure of the two party system. The major circumstance, in my view, is that positions and views are no longer as "bundleable" as they were in the past (when government intruded less in people's lives). The more complex things become the less binary are the answers.

Even on what should be fairly straight forward things this can become complex. For example, I believe in the rule of law and strict adherence to our constitution. The Republicans appear to believe in the rule of law with draconian penalties for transgressions for everybody except themselves. The Democrats believe in the rule of law but in order to avoid dealing with the problems of really stupid laws, they prefer regulations beyond the reach of the electorate. Both approaches suck in my opinion which explains why I'm an independent who frequently votes for those rare third party/independent candidates who overcome the huge barriers our electoral system places in the way of any candidate who doesn't put a "D" or an "R" after their name.

My solution is very different than yours. Since the Federal Government is sticking its nose into business that really belongs to the states, I propose to treat the Federal Government like a State government. Most, if not all, states have an initiative process (I really don't know how many) which allows citizens to directly control their government. Don't like the war in Iraq? An initiative to direct the removal of American troops by X date will fix that (theoretically). I note that the US isn't the only place that has problems like this. The most recent vote in Europe on the EU constitution passed everywhere that approval was made by the legislature and failed when it went before the voters.

Adam Smith (a pseudonym, I assume) in 1979 was talking about, among other things, the explosion in housing prices in SoCal in the 70's and some of the wacky things that Real Estate agents were saying about buying those hugely expensive (but not huge) houses. One of the great quotes from his book is: ...but this is your home. Your home isn't an investment; it's where you live.

In fact, let's remember that all the people who have been hurt are either (a) people who have bought housing in the last 8 years or so and (b) people who bought housing as an investment. Has the value of my property gone down? I dunno. But I made sure I could afford the payments and this is my home so I don't plan on selling it soon.

So, in addition to dealing with the fraud, deceptive practices, etc coming out of this debacle, I think that it is worth repeating publicly what Adam Smith said 30 years ago...

Your home isn't an investment; it's where you live.

14 billion dollars. I wonder how much the government could take in taxes if it were legal and how much more the crop would be if it were legal....

'Course, I remember all the trials in the '50s for all those mobsters involved in the numbers rackets.... Oh! You may know them as the lottery.....

While I agree with many of the things you've said in your post, you miss the truly vital difference between the two proposals. In Obama's proposal, the government can collect the tax and give it back to people (the definition of who is deserving is something that reasonable people can disagree about). Mr. McCain's proposal would likely never reach anybody but the refiners who are financially hard pressed by rising oil prices and the retail dealers who are equally hard pressed by rising gasoline prices.

No es problemo. Only the most die-hard bigots would be claiming that women aren't as capable as men. The rest of the post I mostly agree with as well. I have one nit. You write:

Clinton made us consider the idea of a female commander in chief

We are electing a President, not a commander-in-chief. The commander-in-chiefie role is in the constitution as an oh-by-the-way, the prezzy is also this but it has not heretofore been emphasized except in times of war. I personally think it would be best if we de-emphasized war and the titles thereunto appertaining especially since we don't have to be in this war.

Goodness, I never would have guessed. I would have assumed that you would applaud any additional regulation and intrusion into people's lives. I, of course, oppose this sort of thing adamantly. The police state we live in has so many laws that many, many people don't agree with (as evinced by the number of people being arrested for victimless "crimes" and "crimes" which no one would report) that the police need to be constantly looking over your shoulder (literally) to catch these people in their "crimes" because nobody is going to report them.

Apparently, Massachusetts thinks that our current position of top police state with a greater percentage of our population behind bars than any other nation state on the planet is inadequate. They want to improve those numbers to ensure we have a hammer lock on the top police state honors on the off chance that the former members of the evil empire decide to resume their evil ways.