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Special Post-Debate Release....10-1, 2004 Style vs. Substance Round 1 Written by JB Williams ©2004-09-30 Before even I become confused by the pundit’s efforts to tell me what I saw and heard last night, I’m writing round one of the 2004 Presidential debates in to my own history book. The answer to who won the first round will depend on who you ask. If you’re asking me, both candidates lost… John Kerry looked good, was articulate, on message, calm, forceful, yet uncharacteristically respectful. Bush looked tired, verbally stumbling at times, a bit too on message, forceful as expected, but almost agitated,...

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's frequently repeated mantra, "Action, action, action," should be changed to, "Blather, blather, blather."The governator has been a big improvement from Gov.-reject Gray Davis, especially as he vetoes some of the worst anti-business legislation ever to reach a governor's desk, including a minimum-wage hike, but many of the deals he has hammered out with interest groups and legislators to "solve" ongoing state crises are now unraveling within months of the signing.That's because they lack "substance, substance, substance." In his zeal to get something done and project an action-oriented image that conforms to his action-figure status, the governor repeatedly...

History tells us you need more of a rationale than that to win the White House. The best candidates offer the electorate not just something, but someone, to believe in. Describing the aftermath of Harry Truman's remarkable triumph over Thomas E. Dewey in 1948, the biographer David McCullough wrote: "To such staunch Truman loyalists as Sam Rayburn and George Marshall, to the weary White House staff workers who had been with him all the way, there was never any question as to why Truman won. He had done it by being himself, never forgetting who he was, and by getting...

Age 80--What's it like? Let me help you with that one. Maybe other old guys can learn something from this octogenarian. Maybe as they ache and repeat themselves and tilt when they walk and wonder how others cope, they will see they are not alone. That should encourage them to head more confidently toward the finish line. First of all, there are a lot of changes when you get to be 80. In my case, I still feel like charging ahead and living life to the hilt, but my body lags behind. My mind is out there on the playing...

What's Love Got to Do With It? The contest that counts is not between the Patriots and the Panthers. As always, the Super Bowl's commercials will very likely prove the main event, and today's show features a high-stakes ad-agency bout: for the first time, two prescription drugs for erectile dysfunction, Levitra and Cialis, are squaring off in the quest to grab a piece of the Viagra action. Who doesn't want to Monday-morning quarterback their double entendres? We've come a long way from Bob Dole, baby. Total sales for the three drugs approached $1.3 billion last year — a market...

You expected something more dramatic at the end. A vote going deep into the night, a sudden twist from early results, maybe Indiana Jones swinging in on a rope. But instead, this singular, Hollywood-colored election ended Tuesday night at the opening credits with a blowout, and you could almost see the disappointment on the faces of some reporters who were hoping for an all-night thriller. Instead, at 8:01 p.m. California time, everybody, I mean everybody, all the way to Comedy Central's "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart," called it for Arnold Schwarzenegger. And while the easy win may have been...

Something got released in the Fleet center moments ago - some sort of substance. Security on top of it.

Scientists develop darkest substance on earth British scientists have invented the darkest material on Earth. The super-black coating was developed by researchers at the National Physical Laboratory in London. It could revolutionise optical instruments because it reflects 10 to 20 times less light than the black paint currently used to reduce unwanted reflections. The key to the nickel and phosphorous coating's blackness is that its surface is pitted with microscopic craters. "Super-black" is especially effective at absorbing light which hits it at an angle. With the light source at right angles, the coating reflects less than 0.35%. Black paint reflects...