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I've changed my alias from "Koikaze" (Love's Zephyr)
I would have as well if my alias pulled up these google results for Koi Kaze....
http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/anime.php?id=3595
Plot Summary: Saeki Koushirou works as a wedding planner, but his own love life is a shambles. His background makes it difficult for him to commit himself wholeheartedly to love. The child of a divorced couple, he lives with his father. He has a mother and a sister, but he has not seen them in years. After being dumped by his girlfriend, a chance encounter with a female high school student shakes Koushirou's calm and awakens new feelings in him - but he learns that the girl is in fact his sister, who will now be staying with his father and him. Yet, the feelings in Koushirou's heart...
http://www.jascii.net/newanime/season.php?month=2004.04
(Only in Japan would you get a TV series about a brother and sister falling in love with each other... and until now, you could pretty much only find that story in hentai!)
<g>
The nicest thing that has been said to me today. <g> Now if I could just get my final remaining teenager to buy into that, all would well with the world.
Still trying to catch up on posts eh Troy???
Nah, I decided to read every post on IHub from the beginning and that is as far as I have gotten.
I wonder what Troy would have to say about it all.
You are probably not going to like much of what I have to say about it.
Bad business practices are not criminal just because charges are brought. Just because someone has lost money as a result of someone else's conduct does not mean that a crime has occurred. Business disputes ought not be settled in criminal courts.
Spitzer reads like the classic government bully -- just the risk of an allegation or charges from him brings people to their knees. This kind of power often results in abuse and misuse of the power. Far too often, however, there is so much more to a story than what makes it way into the press and this may be just a situation. The jury apparently thought so.
Obviously, neither of us saw the evidence at trial (at least I did not), but to acquit someone on that many counts, the jury must have thought that there was serious doubt about whether a crime had occurred. I know that the theory is that juries are supposed to acquit even if they think a crime happened just because they have a reasonable doubt. But, in reality, it is rare for jury's to actually do so. Far more often, they follow and vote their guts.
I suspect that over the coming weeks we may get to hear from some of the jurors and then we will know more about what they really thought. For now, however, it is not a good day for Spritzer. It is, however, a good day for America because the system worked -- not because they found him not guilty, but because they heard the evidence and made a decision (at least on all but four counts and it appears they were very close on the remaining four).
Two people in chairs under a sign that says winners and losers? Should we ask anything about which applies to which? <g>
3-4 years ago I got stung for $500 on Ebay -- sent a cashier's check. Since the info the bozo had given EBay was all fraudulent, I got none of my money back. Filed a police complaint here and in California, but it went right where I expected -- nowhere.
Regardless of the feedback score, I refuse to bid in any auction in which I cannot pay with either Paypal or a credit card - unless it is someone local in Hoston where I can pay at the same time I get my stuff. I would rather not buy than take any risk of getting stung again.
I bought a cell phone in an auction a couple months ago where one part of the guy's ad said he accepted Paypal. What he really meant was that he accepted bank draft Paypal and not credit card Paypal. Fortunately, for me, he had already shipped by the time he realized I had paid with Paypal in a way he could not get paid. Once I got the cell phone, which he had shipped, I paid him the same day and we both left good feedback, but I bet he was sweating it.
Election Officials Want to Restructure How People Vote
Vote Centers Would Allow People to Cast Ballots Over Several Weeks
By ROBERT TANNER, AP
(June 7) - The nation's election administrators say it's time to restructure elections to reflect the way Americans live, scrapping neighborhood precincts and Election Day for large, customer-oriented "vote centers" where people could cast ballots over a period of weeks.
In a new, sweeping report, state and local officials focus much of their attention on voters and poll workers rather than voting machines - the subject of so much debate ever since the 2000 presidential stalemate in Florida.
"We are looking forward, we are looking at ways to make elections better," said Dawn Williams, who oversees voting in Marshall County, Iowa. She co-chaired a task force of officials and former officials from 15 states that was set up by the Houston-based Election Center.
So-called "universal vote centers," introduced two years ago on a limited basis in Colorado, could end some of the biggest flaws in the way Americans vote if widely implemented, administrators said.
Such centers eliminate confusion over where to vote, since everyone in a county can vote at any center; reduce lines by allowing for more equipment and staff at fewer locations; and prevent mistakes by better marshaling well-trained election officials along with day workers.
"It addresses what happened in Florida in 2000 better than the (federal) Help America Vote Act" - the law Congress passed to fix elections three years ago, said Larimer County (Colorado) Clerk Scott Doyle, who came up with the idea. "It's the way America lives. Why shouldn't America vote that way?"
Doyle sought and won a change in state law that allowed him to replace 143 precincts with 20 vote centers. Larger facilities - hotel ballrooms and state fairgrounds - allow easier access and parking for voters, and more efficient concentration of resources for administrators.
"There's an opportunity here to better meet our voters' needs and save millions of dollars," Doyle said. With vote centers, the county can save several hundred thousand dollars by buying fewer handicapped-accessible voting machines, since the new federal law requires one at each polling location, he said.
The report, to be officially released Tuesday, also backs a growing trend toward voting over days and weeks, rather than just Election Day.
At least 30 states have already broadened their balloting rules, expanding absentee voting to "no excuse" voting - so anyone who wants to vote absentee is allowed. In some places, residents can also vote early, in person, as much as a month ahead of Election Day.
"We've got to look at how we make this better for voters at all points. Don't try to fix the symptoms but say, `What is causing the problem and how do we fix them?"' said Doug Lewis, executive director of the Election Center, which trains election officials.
"Here are some concepts. They're not revolutionary concepts, they're evolutionary," Lewis said.
The report also urges state legislators to consider an "independently verifiable" record of each voter's ballot from ATM-style touchscreen voting machines that could be electronic, video or some other form - pointedly downplaying a widespread push for paper receipts from touchscreens.
Elections administrators have taken a fair share of blame for the nation's electoral troubles in recent years.
Many critics say local and state officials have been complacent or worse about threats to the electoral system, including worries that people seeking to manipulate elections could hack into computerized machines and rig the results.
The faults in the machines are real and can't be ignored, said Avi Rubin, a Johns Hopkins University computer science professor. Election officials should heed the computer science community's warnings, he said.
The Election Center has come in for criticism after reports that the nonprofit, nonpartisan group accepts contributions from voting machine manufacturers. Two members of the task force are former local election administrators who've formed their own election-related businesses.
The report is one of several continuing efforts to improve elections as disputes continue over 2004 results.
Most prominent among those was the 129-vote victory of Washington Gov. Christine Gregoire, who won office on the third count of the votes. A state judge upheld her victory Monday.
06-07-05 08:34 EDT
Take a look at #board-3946. As a free member, you cannot post there, but it contains some meaningful discussion of Foliofn, and there are some spot references to Fiolfn on other boards, though mostly this AIM Board.
If you have the search function, search public messages for "foliofn."
Prior to formation of the Foliofn Board, the two primary people mentioning or discussing it were Train Guy #user-14560 and AIMster #user-24757
I am in the process of opening a Foliofn account so I have no experience with them yet, but the concept (without reference to the specific sectors) seems to be one of the things that Foliofn will let you accomplish.
You will get no argument from me that the "media" has a responsibility to get it right or not run it. It is also true that far too often what should be "news" and should be reported factually gets spun to make it into a better selling story. The same is true regarding the selection of what gets reported and what does not -- those items or events most likely to affect ratings and profits are the ones most likely to get reported -- sometimes at the expense of truth and regardless of the consequences.
News gets reported by people and their individual biases and prejudices too often get woven into the story -- even though in a perfect world it should not be. Such is the price of most media outlets being profit based entities accountable to shareholders where the ethically lowest common denominator too often becomes the mean, rather than the exception. When they abuse that constitutional trust and there are consequences, they ought to pay just like anyone else -- and in the same way they expect citizens and governments to pay when the media claims to have exposed a wrongdoing done by them.
The media's constitutional limit is truth. They all to often forget that or care more about ratings and profit than accuracy.
There are some good, non-ethically challenged people in the news business whose first goal is what is best for the country that gives them the freedoms through which they ply their trade. The difficult, and increasingly impossible, trick is in telling the difference between these people and those who are just in it to make a buck.
Based on some reading I have done, it is possible (though not certain) that Bibles would not be banned from Christian prisoners in some countries, perhaps UAE, Qatar, and Kuwait. Others, however, like Saudi Arabia and Iran, would clearly not permit it. Some sources for general information about religious freedom in other countries can be found at:
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/anti-semitism/hruae00.html
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/anti-semitism/hrarabtoc.html
We should all be careful about lumping all Arabs or middle easterners into the same generic categories. It is no more appropriate than some in the Arab world blaming all Americans, westerners, or Israelis for the actions of an extreme minority or for isolated, unauthorized, and condemned individual actions. Bigotry does not cease to be bigotry simply because the shoe is on the other foot.
That said, destruction of any religious material by anyone is intolerable. It is one of the core fundamental values our country is based on. Even if all middle eastern countries prohibited prisoners from having Bibles, it would not justify, on moral grounds, any US authority desecrating another's religious symbols -- even if it was justified on national security grounds, and it may very well have been. If it happened, and there is grave doubt that it did, it was wrong. There is also little doubt that had any investigation revealed that it did happen, those responsible would have been punished. But, as wrong as it would have been, it certainly did not justify the extreme reactions and violence exhibited in other countries. Even if it happened, it was certainly not every American who did it and I suspect that the vast majority of Americans would condemn it.
On a personal note, I would not be offended by exclusion of religious material from those detained at Gitmo, and under the latest Supreme Court ruling, exclusion may very well be lawfully justified. But, once we have given them the material, desecration is not tolerable any more than we would sanction the desecration of Bibles. War or not, we are still a nation of laws and are bound to our constitution. If we accept lawlessness, then we have no right to complain about others lawlessness.
There is an interstate compact among all but three to five states. This compact, and I am greatly over simplifying it, provides for each compact state to report all moving violations or reportable convictions (such as DWIs) to a central databank. It also provides for direct reporting to another State if the reporting state has information that the reportee has a license from that State. The compact has been enacted in each of the 45-47 states in substantially the same form, but there are some differences from state-to-state. There are also substantial differences from state-to-state in whether and how actively they search the central database for reportable actions affecting their licensees and how thoroughly reportable incidents get reported -- and lots of reasons for each. Thus, there is never a one-size-fits-all answer to how it happens on either the reporting or the acquiring end in each state.
That said, I know that Florida is one of the worst states (from the driver's perspective) and that they actively obtain and use information from other states.
And, for a person with a lisp or other speech impediment, the person who cages chickens...
And, the person who is more crouped than another, but that may just be crouper, which may also be a fish. With three or more it would be croupiest.
<<My admin tools are down.. :(>>
I think the beaches, bars and clubs in CA require a different sort of Admin tool to be up.
Fo you to contemplate on your return trip:
#msg-6587843
You mean I had the opportunity to take pot shots as he passed by the house on I-10 or SH-99 and missed it? Guess I'll need to put the spike strips back up and save them for the return trip. Maybe I'll skip the spike strips and just mention his passing to some of the more friendly constabulary in east Texas and Louisiana. He ought to just about fit the profile -- at least closely enough. A good strip search should pep him right up and get him ready for his trip through Mississippi and Alabama.
There is a section on their website that explains what they call the 1-3-5-10 rule in far more detail and with some basic examples, though I doubt as thoroughly as it would be in a book.
Thanks for posting the link.
How and whether stuff shows up depends on whether the State is a member of a national compact, how the individual court reports stuff from its court to its home state (some courts won;t report out of state stuff even though they are supposed to do so) and how each state talks to or uses the compact information. Texas used to never use it, but has recently started picking more of them up.
As for the speedometer trick, that is how I got out of my very first speeding ticket when I was 17, (though I won't comment on whether with a friend producing the report of it being off, it was really off). Funny part was when I got to the court, an air traffic controller (who was a local) had just had a trial to the judge and the judge had just explained that if he would take his car to Houston, get the speedometer checked out, and come back with something showing that it was off, the judge would dismiss the case. I felt pretty good at that moment sitting in back of the courtroom with such a paper. The judge was shocked as I don;t think he was really serious and did not actually expect anyone to do it, but it got my ticket dismissed.
Password it. If that fails, just try telling him/her that they must spend 12 continuous hours each and every day on it and install a firewall that restricts them to Disney.com or Nickolodean.com [Edit -- or IHub}. It should only take a few days for him/her to not want anything to do with it for a while.
Come to think of it, the kidnapped person would make for more excitement on his return trip through Texas and Louisiana.
You should have waited for New Mexico. I had one there 25+ years ago that must have just dropped off the radar screen, no pun intended, at some later time. Sometimes ignoring things works.
Whatever you do, do not just pay the ticket. You can probably get deferred and keep it off your driving record. They are really only interested in the money anyway.
Tom:
I echo the appreciation for all you do to help others.
I have a couple questions, in an effort to understand, and in the context of your comment (sentiment) regarding the lack of cash deployment opportunities.
There was a bottom in mid 03 (and a second slightly higher one a couple months later) and another in 05 that do not reflect buys. Why were these not (other than in hindsight) buying opportunities? I understand (I think) that the literal answer to "why not" is that the buy target price was not hit, but it seems like if the SAFE buy level had been narrower that these both would have produced buying opportunities -- especially given the desire to be a bit more fully invested and given that there were two buys in 04, one of which appears to be roughly equal to the bottom in 05, and both of which are greater than the bottom in 03.
Would I be correct (or at least not incorrect) in thinking that when AIMing sector funds or broader market ETFs that the buy side SAFE should/could be smaller (producing more buys on smaller dips) on the assumption that entire sector or market segments are far less likely to significantly decline as substantially as the risk that any individual stock would do so? I understand that such a scenario could also get one deeply underwater in situations such as the NASDAQ 60%+ decline from 5000+ to sub 2000, but think that such events are once in many decade (if not lifetime) occurrences and could at least partially be offset by SAFE adjustment based on macro considerations. Thinking this through, and perhaps even answering my own question, could it be that macro related adjustments to SAFE would insert the kind of non automatic timing decisions that fixed SAFE amounts are designed to already account for? In this same context, it seems that one's subjective willingness to accept risk (and perhaps the availability of excess, additional, or new cash) has to be factored into the SAFE settings with a greater acceptance of risk resulting in smaller buy side SAFE limits and a lesser acceptance of risk resulting in larger SAFE buy side limits.
I also understand (again, I think) that part of the answer may depend on the individual sector, and particularly with respect to traditionally cyclical sectors, but I am just trying to think this through and understand it.
Next, is the cash decline in early 04 around the time of two sells caused by a non portfolio event? If not, then I don't understand how cash could decline at that time especially given the two sells that also occurred around that time.
Finally, and I suspect that you have been asked this a hundred times, and I seem to recall an answer somewhere, but not off the top of my head, what program produces the charts?
An interesting engine....
They also seem to do a pretty good job of describing what they do and how they calculate it.
I had all kinds of things written -- mostly critical -- of the model they use, but the more I looked at it and the more I understood, and when I stopped making mistakes in the way I changed data, the criticisms all went away and the questions all answered themselves. I have left some of what I wrote set out below on the off chance that it might help someone else work through an understanding.
It also has a better -- or at least more thorough -- discussion of beta, which dovetails into the beta discussion I started a week or so ago. It is set out below in their words, but basically it includes debt-to-value as a component of risk and thus beta, which is as it should be. It may also explain why different places report different betas for the same stock.
One caveat to this valuation tool, which applies to all such tools, the ultimate value is only as reliable as the assumptions one uses and some of their default values are unrealistic in most cases (for example, the 10 years excess valuation period). Plus, given that it imports raw data without any consideration of the quality of that data, one needs to be careful about just accepting the financial data at face value. Financial results caused by one-time events are treated as though they are normal.
It is a nice tool so long as one understands how it works and thus, its inherent (though not necessarily bad) limitations.
Troy
____________________________________________________
One thing, however, does not make sense to me -- maybe someone can explain it to me.
The third measure of return versus risk (beta) should be related to the specific stock being purchased-how risky is the type of business the firm does and how risky is the financial structure or leverage of the firm. Beta measures the risk of the company relative to the risk of the stock market in general. With greater risk, as measured by a larger variability of returns (business or operating risk), the company's should have a larger beta. And with greater leverage (higher debt to value ratio) increasing financial risk, the company's stock should also have a larger beta. And with a larger beta, an investor should expect a greater return. The beta of an average risk firm in the stock market is 1.00.
The financial risk model that uses beta as its sole measure of risk (a single factor model) is called the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) and is used by many market analysts in their valuation process. The relationship between risk and return that comes out of that model and the one that is incorporated into our FCFF analysis and spreadsheet software is:
Exp.(Rs) = (Rf) + beta(Rerp)
which in English translates to "The expected return on a stock (e.g. McDonald's) is equal to the risk free rate (e.g. 5%) plus the specific stock's beta (e.g. 0.97) times the equity risk premium (e.g. 3.0%)." In numbers it looks like this: Expected Return on McDonald's Stock = 5% + 0.97(3.0%) = 7.91%
I understand the theory of the CAPM as far as using it to calculate whether a stock is likely to produce the return required by the risk, but how can an expected rate of return on a stock, based on risk, be part of the intrinsic value, at least as far as quantifying the present value?
Conversely, in running some various companies and variable changes through it, I noticed that as the equity risk premium goes up, the intrinsic value goes down. This seems to be as it should be since the current intrinsic value would have to be lower as its expected cash flow returns diverged from the risk required return, but this is inconsistent with a rising beta producing a higher intrinsic value.
After I wrote the stuff above, I ran some more numbers and realized that it actually decreases intrinsic value as beta increases -- just as it should. My confusion stemmed not from the theory of how beta changes should affect price, but from my own poor quality and mistaken assumptions. I have included this because it truly demonstrates the garbage-in (mine) garbage-out reality.
You mean I had the opportunity to take pot shots as he passed by the house on I-10 or SH-99 and missed it? Guess I'll need to put the spike strips back up and save them for the return trip. Maybe I'll skip the spike strips and just mention his passing to some of the more friendly constabulary in east Texas and Louisiana. He ought to just about fit the profile -- at least closely enough. A good strip search should pep him right up and get him ready for his trip through Mississippi and Alabama.
For the "right" price, I am within the bounds of almost any definition, at least of the legal variety, pun intended.
<<How is it you think they communicate??>>
I would hesitate to articulate for fear that I may deviate from the true course of rectitude.
Probably not, I was confused too. It was nothing but a HUGE mass of confusion.
<<It was HUUUGE!!! Saw Barry Manilow too!>>
Hmmmmm, let me see.....what could those two possibly have in common?
I have had one experience with individual bonds -- and it may be atypical. A few years ago, we had to sell one (a large one, so it may have been several smaller ones, I really don't recall) held by a client. (He could not accomplish the sale himself from his new secure government provided residence). It was nearly impossible, as I recall, to find a reliable "market" quote for the bond. We ending up shopping the sale to a variety of brokers and prices were very different from one place to the next.
This may be common knowledge, but it came as a surprise to me (at least with respect to the extent of price markdown) to learn that brokers usually trade bonds with you for their own account. Thus, when you buy, you pay a price set buy the broker based on how much they think they can get you to pony up. The same thing when you are selling: the price you get is not the price they sell it for -- they markdown the price they offer and build in their profit into the bond price rather than just charge a commission and act as a broker.
I understand that brokers sometimes buy and sell from their own accounts, but the price differentials in this instance were several thousand dollars.
Where did you stay? What did you play? Did you have a HUGE time?
I suspect that most would prefer a pound of cash to a pound of flesh.
Yep -- had a great night last night playing a 10-20 hold'um game. In a span of five hours, pulled two straight flushes and two four of a kinds. Tripled up on the bankroll. Sometimes the cards are aligned with the stars.
You might want to take a look at www.mysportsbook.com. No charges for money transferring to the poker room. Service has been great. If anyone choses to look seriously at them, let me know so that I can get a referral bonus.
Got a one year premium membership, which I gave away, half each, to cbfromli and AIMster. See: #msg-6538736
<<Students must have required courses in Preparing To Vote, beginning (at least) in the third year of high school.>>
How about we begin teaching government (and economics for that matter) in a meaningful way in the third grade -- if not earlier? If the basics are not second nature by the time they reach high school, if not junior high, most kids will have already found other things to interest them and many will never get it, much less care.
In addition to the mandatory voting, there ought to be mandatory registration while kids are still in high school. Much like we give them provisional or student licenses to drive, they should have provisional voter's registration, which becomes effective on their 18th birthday.
Eliminating political parties, although theoretically beneficial overall, has a few pretty serious constitutional problems and would require some reworking of the First Amendment -- a slippery slope that may be worse than the problem it is designed to solve.
Yep, swooped in and greedily grabbed da grub -- but gave away the prize.
It might put Tricky Dick and Slick Willey in a whole new light. Carter on the other hand, well, don't think I'll go there. Then again, maybe taking lust out of the heart and adding it to a mop, vacuum cleaner, or dust buster might have some potential.
Isn't the point to think outside the box?
An interesting bug or "feature" I found a little while ago in the speel chucker.
If a post contains "ithout" standing alone, then the spell checker says that the "ithout" portion of the word "without" is misspelled. Once the "ithout" is removed as a stand alone word, then the spell checker recognizes "without" as a properly spelled word.
To see the problem, just cut and past this post into a new message box and run it through the spell checker.
Edit -- the same thing appears to work when any portion of a word shows up as a stand alone misspelled word. For example, I was able to get it to do the same thing by putting "watch" and "atch" in the same post.
Weird.
On a lighter and more humorous note, there is a great lawyer in Topeka Kansas, Joe Johnson, who has an interesting theory on the cause and solution of most of the country's problems.
His premise is that most of the problems are really the result of men and women being in a constant state of pissed-offness towards each other.
Men constantly claim and complain that they "don't get it" enough or often enough.
Women, housewives in particular, constantly claim and complain that they get no help with the housework and thus are too preoccupied with other activities to get involved in man's preferred activity.
Joe's solution, born out of necessity as most solutions are, and simple as most good solutions are, is that men and women just need to do the housework together naked (or neked as we call it) so that both will end up getting what they want and the world will once again be at peace.
If we could mix this solution with candidacy requirements and voter education, we might have a lot less apathy. Occupied and happy elected leaders might just not feel the distractions that lead some of them astray.
<<A contented housewife is a happy housewife.>>
There is a great lawyer in Topeka Kansas, Joe Johnson, who has an interesting theory on the cause and solution of most of the country's problems.
His premise is that most of the problems are really the result of men and women being in a constant state of pissed-offness towards each other.
Men constantly claim and complain that they "don't get it" enough or often enough.
Women, housewives in particular, constantly claim and complain that they get no help with the housework and thus are too preoccupied with other activities to get involved in man's preferred activity.
Joe's solution, born out of necessity as most solutions are, and simple as most good solutions are, is that men and women just need to do the housework together naked (or neked as we call it) so that both will end up getting what they want and the world will once again be at peace.
<<the first person I voted for was Nixon.>>
Hey, now, don't go picking on my political hero -- despite his flaws.
That said, he is a prime example of much of what is still wrong with national politics. Rather than ending the kinds of activities that contributed to his downfall, the enlightenment of them seems to have desensitized them and woken others up to the "hey, it works," mentality, both in terms of engaging in them and in terms of using them against opponents.
It is true, however, that the only difference between Nixon and many others is that he got caught. He also spawned the era where the press began to really believe that there were few limits on what they could report. Formerly "off-limits" topics quickly moved to the mainstream. Once that box opened, it forever changed the way politicians were viewed and reviewed.
Term limits is one of those rules that has both negative and positive benefits. Career politicians is a buzz word that has gained a negative connotation without it necessarily being true.
I would rather have one good, honest, wise, tolerant person for 40 years than 10 people without any one of those qualities for 4 years each. That said, however, I do not think anyone would dispute that having a person without those qualities for 40 years is a bad idea. Merely putting a time limit on how long someone serves ensures that good people don't last even as it ensures that bad ones don't last long. For many offices, the office itself requires changing one's life to pursue it. If we limit the ability of good people to continue, we eliminate the motivation for many good people to choose to even try.
The trick, of course, is in knowing or finding the difference. Once again, the solution is much harder than defining the problem and we end up right back where we began.
<<also a drug test, before, and quarterly while holding office.>>
Of course, some would argue that having most of our politicians a bit more "chillled-out" would be a good thing. They might, at least, not take themselves so seriously and might begin to take others a bit more seriously.
On a slightly more serious note, however, while I am personally opposed to the use of many "drugs," for other than the proverbial medicinal purposes, I certainly have my vices. I enjoy a good drink and a good dose of tobacco. Despite that personal opposition, however, I wonder if part of the problem is that government through our elected leaders has not become too concerned about controlling our personal choices, based on others views, and less concerned about the common good.
In this context, ones views about who is a good person to lead and how to select that person depends in large part on what we expect them to do and not to do. The older I get, the less inclined I am to be receptive to others imposing through law their views about personal responsibility and choice on me.
We ought to have more limits on what our elected leaders can do with their power. There ought to be narrower windows in which they can do it. If we limit the power, we also limit the power that comes from the position and perhaps some of the opportunities to abuse that power or use it for personal gain.
Not all things that people think are problems are really problems. Not all problems need to be solved. Most of the time, although seldom exercised, not acting or reacting is the wisest thing to do.
I would add wisdom and tolerance to the list of primary virtues needed in any elected leader. They fall, in my view, very closely behind integrity.