Marek Reavis wrote: > The country does seem to be way too big for efficient and effective > governance. I > hadn't heard about the Nine Nations idea, but it would be interesting to > consider such > a split and have the Nine be part of a federated North American > super-structure that > would allow the basic continental concerns shared by all (defense, interstate/ > internation commerce) to be addressed with some of the infrastructure that's > already > in place now. It would be like an extremely pared down federal government > but with > no power to interfere with internal governance. And the idea of a state, the > West > Coast comprised of California, Oregon and Washington is very attractive to me. > Here's the Wikipeidia entry on it. I read Garreau's book years ago. He came across the concept talking with newspaper journalists who looked at the US that way. The great thing is that we'd get rid of Los Angeles which is like another planet when compared to the Bay Area. :) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nine_Nations_of_North_America > There's very interesting essay about Obama written by Geoffrey Stone, former > dean of > the University of Chicago law school, who set him up as a Visiting Fellow > there (he > later went on to be a Senior Lecturer there and taught Constitutional Law) > after > Obama graduated from Harvard and began doing public interest law in Chicago. > Stone was disappointed that Obama wouldn't stay as an influential law > professor and > considered his entry into politics to be a waste of his potential. > > The article (from the Huffington Post) is at > > http://tinyurl.com/292vcb > Interesting article.
BTW I watched parts of the ABC comedy show last night. Observations: regardless of politics McCain, Paul and Thompson all being experienced legislators made Romney, Huckabee and the joker in the deck Giuliani look like rank amateurs. Can't say that for the Democrats since they've all had that experience. I even liked Thompson nailing Romney to the wall on how he was going to pass certain legislation. In the first 40 minutes when they were discussing foreign issues Paul sounded no different than any progressive talk show host I've been listing to the last few years. That's part of his appeal to many followers. I was a crime however that Kucinich was excluded from the debate. The bickering of the Republicans will pretty much guarantee they won't win the office whereas the Democrats bickering just makes things interesting. But me being a cynic believes that the "king makers" are going to give Americans an illusion of democracy again and get their shill into office. That may well be Obama which will find that when once steps foot into the Oval Office he'll be given the great "come to Jesus" talk.
