Chip Collis’ essay was insightful–an elegant saut right out of our country’s insipid left-right dichotomy. The American public needs to learn to recognize when they are dealing with leaders that are considerate, thoughtful, open-minded, as opposed to idealogues who will do anything to get their way. The problem is, they ALL claim they can reach across the aisles, but you really have to look at their record to see if they do. Kennedy surrounded himself with brilliant people and then listened to them. Bill Clinton was a good president because he knew how to do this, and he knew how to reach across the aisle when he needed to. Reagan, too. Republican members of the Illinois state-house regularly praise Obama for his knack for finding common ground. But as Collis’ assessment rightly points out, Hillary and Bush are alike in at least the respect that they wall themselves off from differing opinions and attend to their agenda blindly. Why else would have taken Hillary all this time to fire Mike Penn? Simple: loyalty before sanity.

Despite how much you agree or disagree with a candidates’ stances, the more important question is: “Will they surround themselves with advisors or parrots, and if it’s the latter, will they listen?”

I’ve been killing Octorocks (along with at least 50 other Hyrulean species) for nigh on twenty years now and too long to consider that it made me a violent person. Of course, I have to take into consideration that I killed these beasts as a matter of defense and there was some art to it because I had to do it with a sword and/or bow and arrows. Kids today have all kinds of RPGs and automatic weapons. That wouldn’t be a fair assessment either since when I run into those same kids in Halo II they’re usually dead before they realize I was hiding in the elevator shaft with a sniper rifle. At rate, my only question is when I give all of this nonsense up in a neo-luddite huff, will that make me a digital refugee? And can I get government support for that?