Sun Tzu teaches that we should only expand when we have an excess of resources. Yet, expansion can be addicting. A good example is Donald Trump, one of the promotional geniuses of our era, but a man who should have stuck to real estate investment where value derives largely from image. His mistake was using the type of debt that works in real estate to finance the purchase of casinos when he clearly doesn't know how to make money in the casino business.

Sun Tzu teaches the persistence is a critical part of competitive success. Already, as we can see in this report, Kerry is doing a much better job than Gore in not surrendering his position in the party. He never developed a winning position for the presidency, but he realizes that as the nominee, he has a position in the party that he can build on.

I received this mail from someone who firmly believes that the US government in responsible for every problem in the world because it is a tool of the "corporate state." One of the chief claims is that our government created every homicidal dictator in the world. I wrote a long response but the email that the person used doesn't work, so I post my response here.