Cynical? How can I be anything else?? & yes, the president is important in the peversion - or maybe, if we're lucky, enhancement - of the supreme court but I agree that the congress is also important, & cannot find ant reason not to believe that w/the current campaign finance non-system, there is any overweaning theme except utter & absolute corruption. They gotta do it to survice, so it corrupts them. Putrid, rotten to the core..

Do any of you read sci-fi? Get the Jan/2000 issue of Analog (science fiction AND science fact) & read abt how un-elected (but VERY political) officials & congress secretly dismembered part of (and are still dismembering parts of) the constitutional device of the U.S.Patent office & effectivly sold the lot of us down the river. The article is called "Patent Wars" by John D. Trudel. pp 52-61. It has references, URL's.. the whole bit. These efforts will ensure some of us who live long enough - & succeeding genewrations (the common folks, mind you, not the fat cats) will live in a 3rd world nation w/incredibly few, & low-paying jobs.

Cheers, BK