Politics as chess

Obama knows he will raise more funds than McCain, and he's allowed to spend much more -- multiples more.

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So Obama's strategy is not to destroy McCain in liberal states, or try to beat him in states Obama cannot win, but to drain McCain's bank account through an "arms race" of TV-ad spending in states that McCain has to win and should win, but could possibly lose.

Awesome. And yet, totally unrelated to democracy!

G8 comes to good 'ol Huntsville

This is hard to believe. World leaders cruising down Highway 60 in a train of black suburbans ... past my uncle's Macintosh shop, past grandpa's retirement home, past where that restaurant burned down a few years ago.

Good 'ol Claude Doughty -- he's doing a hell of a job!

But still, until the mid-80's, Huntsville was pretty much a backwoods. A pretty plastics factory and two marinas with a fine selection of outboard motor oils. Blackburns landing -- which is now the gentrified centre of the downtown waterfront -- used to be the third marina! Locals still drink at a place called The Moose, because that's what you call a place that serves beer in Canada.

Sure, Huntsville is evolving. There's a great new theatre, a thriving art scene, great golf, and the plastics plant is even prettier. But it's just astounding that the leaders of the seven largest economies on Earth, plus a guy who speaks Russian, are com'n to "Touch the past ... embrace the future."

I wonder if Obama waterskiis?

Close, but no cigar.

Finally, Clinton appears set to let Obama begin running for President.