I've been going back and forth between Hillary and McCain for most of this election cycle - both have very definite strong points as well as weaknesses. Obama is an intriguing speaker and has the potential of being a leader as inspiring as Kennedy or Reagan, but that's potential, and the downside risk is not small. One of the reasons I've settled on Hillary as my candidate is my decision, on balance, to support Republican Dino Rossi in the Washington State Governor's race. McCain as a leader of our Military is an improvement over Cheney/Bush. But that is a decision we should've made 8 years ago - and at this point the military establishment in this country is in need of a good whipping. McCain isn't the person to dole out that punishment. McCain's admitted lack of knowledge of economic issues and the tremendous amounts of debt this country has taken on to the profiteering of Haliburton, et al is not something to take lightly. The run for the corporate republicans, including the oil companies, to grab as much as they can in the last months of George W.'s regime is more than insulting. In spite of the 'mainstream corporate media's' dissing of Ms. Clinton's chances the question of Florida and Michigan has not been analyzed nor presented. I'm not enough of a politico to have the desire to look into it myself, but I do believe that she leads in those States. The placing of the party's rule book over the will of the voters of these States is also shameful. I do think that Obama should be selected as her Vice President and given the chance to fullfill, with low risk, the promise this truly remarkable young man holds.

I've decided to add a new law related category - adding just a bit more of a 'law and economics' touch to the blog - albeit a diffuse one. I've never studied the subject formally, but I've picked up a bit of the essence of the subject from folks like State Attorney General Rob McKenna and former UW Econ professor Paul Heyne. The 'law and punishment' title is a play on the popular NBC series, 'Law and Order' - consider this is you will as the same theme, but with a bit of Dostoyevsky's 'Crime and Punishment' thrown in. One more note on Professor Heyne - one of his pet causes was bringing economics education into the social studies curriculums of public high schools. That sounds like a good idea to me, and perhaps a way to get just a touch more math into schools through more than just the standard math class.

Night Moves

Starring Gene Hackman with Melanie Griffiths and James Woods

Directed by Arthur Penn

1975

Gene Hackman's career is close to its 50th Anniversary, starting in 1959. This 1975 Warner Brothers production is a bit of a soap opera, but it is also a self aware one. The fact that it concerns the L.A. art and movie scene makes the self references meaningful and the soap makes this some fun 1970's popcorn. James Woods is very young in this movie, and Melanie Griffiths, even younger.

Moseby plays a straight up guy dealing with some rather nefarious dealings concerning the trust child daughter (Griffiths) of a former minor hollywood actress. His office, I believe, is the same one used by the TV series Starsky and Hutch.