The Top Television Programs of the Decade

I've written in this blog before about the golden age of television and as the decade comes to a close, it's become more than apparent that television has surpassed film in terms of cultural relevance. The tv shows you're watching (or what you're catching up on) has become more of a conversation starter than what films you've seen. It's not that movies don't matter anymore, but it's hard to deny their cultural prestige has declined. With the increased freedom given to creators in television, there's simply far more that can be done with the 10-14 hours a television show may have for a single season than with the 2 to 3 hours you get in a film.

For the record, my top two films of the last two years are Pixar "kids" movies, Wall-E and Up, both of which were far more imaginative and compelling than virtually anything else I've seen in the later half of this decade. But I'll have no top ten film list for the simple reason that I haven't seen enough movies. Part of my problem is that the great films never seem as great as they're supposed to be, but that's a story for another time. For now, here is my top ten list of the television shows of the decade. Now, for television connoisseurs, you'll notice some big names are missing, most notably the Sopranos. It's simply because I haven't sat down and watched the entire series yet and what I haven't watched isn't on the list. That being said, I've seen a fair share of the Sopranos and I'd have trouble believing it's a better show than the Wire or Mad Men, no matter what other critics might say.

So without further ado, here is my top ten list, with some of the tough cuts listed below.

1. The Wire: The Wire isn't just the best show of the decade, it's the best television show ever and a work of fiction that is already a modern American classic. With a vast cast of characters, the Wire was a five year critique of the drug war, but more than that, it was a long form tragedy about the failure of institutions at all levels and the tragic impact of those failures on individuals. Far too many "dark" television programs make the mistake of equating bad behavior with tragedy, but for Wire creator David Simon, the tragedy starts with society. Individuals make plenty of bad choices along the way, but the creative setup leaves the audience's sympathies with the characters, with the drug dealers, the cops, and everyone in between.

2. Mad Men: Perhaps even better then the Wire in terms of pure construction, Mad Men is number two solely because it lacks the sheer scope of our number one. Mad Men is the story of Don Draper, creative director for New York based ad agency Sterling Cooper, but from the start it's been so much more. Don's entire life, from his marriage, to his persona, to his name, was as intricately constructed as any advertisement and for three years, Mad Men has given us the parallel stories of the disintegration of the life Don had created for himself and the disintegration of the 50's era cultural consensus. The tumult of the 60's was supposed to be as inevitable as Don's personal crises. Oh, and ... Mad Men manages to be an incredible tv show without guns, murder, violence, and fist fights.

3. Arrested Development: Arrested completes the "holy trinity" of the television shows of the last decade that were near perfect. The storyline of Arrested's three seasons would be compelling without the humor and other than the early years of the Simpsons, I don't think there's ever been a show quite as layered where joke after joke after joke is revealed through future viewings. As opposed to program's like Family Guy or other sitcoms where many of the jokes are simply throwaway lines, Arrested never wasted a bit of dialogue, always building on either plot or character. Plenty of shows have done selfish, but Arrested took it to a new level: 90% of the conversations between characters were not really conversations but the characters talking past each other, stuck in their own little worlds. This helped maintain the characters likability because when they did connect with one another, it actually seemed real. And maybe most importantly, Arrested gave us chicken dances, Gob's Final Countdown magic performances, the airport staircar, and the most timely treatment of the war in Iraq.

4. Lost: Let me just clarify something. Lost is my favorite show of the decade, perhaps my favorite show of all time, but unlike the top three, it is not flawless. There are some moments where the dialogue leans toward cliche and places (like parts of season 3 and 5) where the storyline is just plain clunky. But taken as a whole, Lost is a tremendous achievement, replete with compelling characters and more imagination than perhaps any other major series on network television. What other show could leave it's fans so in the dark about the direction of the show's final season, yet remain a popular phenomenon? In fact, Lost has managed to do something no other series has ever done: Creatively redefine itself while incorporating new characters at the start of each no season, building upon the characters and plot threads of previous seasons.

5. South Park: I wasn't going to rank South Park this high, if even at all, but then I watched ManBearPig the other night, the 2006 episode which skewered Al Gore and his global warming obsession, and I was reminded of the show's brilliance and timeliness. ManBearPig was first shown in spring of '06, right when an Inconvenient Truth first came out, but before it became a real buzzworthy topic. ManBearPig is symbolic of South Park's timeliness and cleverness, and how sometimes the show was so timely and so clever that it took a few years for the rest of us to catch on. And while South Park has had it's share of misses over the course of the decade, perhaps that's a testament to more of a credit to Trey Parker and Matt Stone than we realize. They don't do safe and they don't do easy and the television landscape is all the better for it.

6. Big Love: I've enjoyed Big Love for three years, since my wife and I first watched it during it's first season when we had a free HBO trial, but prior to last year, I probably wouldn't have placed it in the top ten. Last year however, the numerous plot threads of the first few years collided in a veritable dramatic perfect storm, making me comfortable placing the polygamist drama in the top ten. Like Mad Men, Big Love is just so different from everything else on the air- no cops, no lawyers, no doctors, and unique for HBO, no swearing. Despite the connotations of polygamy, Big Love also boasts the strongest cast of female characters on tv, providing support for the axiom that behind every great man, there's one or maybe several great women.

7. It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia: I've heard Sunny described as Seinfeld for the next generation and that description, while apt, may not really do the show justice. While the Seinfeld characters were notoriously selfish and self-interested, the Sunny cast took these qualities to a new level. But more importantly, each member of the Sunny cast showcased an unprecedented complete lack of self awareness. But as opposed to a show like Curb, where the conflict often seems forced, Sunny stories always tend to evolve organically. The season three episode, "Sweet Dee is Dating a Retarded Person," remains the funniest half hour of the decade.

8. Freaks & Geeks: Technically, half of the show's brief run was in the fall of 1999, but if we're talking about cultural significance, Freaks and Geeks was a fortuitous program, ushering in a new style of humor and storytelling and launching the careers of Judd Apatow and his young stars. So yes, it was a trailblazer, but no, that's not the reason why it's in the top ten. The run was brief, but the show was awesome, perhaps the best depiction of adolescence we've seen on the small screen. It was funny and relatable, with the 1980 setting serving to preserve the show's shelf life rather than date it.

9. Battlestar Galactica: Perhaps no science fiction show has ever been so polarizing, as there are those who loved Battlestar from start to finish and those whose criticisms grew as the show's run continued. But as to why Battlestar belongs in this top ten I have only this to say: For all the haters out there, Battlestar was compelling television, compelling enough that the haters (which included me at times) stuck with it to the end, just to see what was going to happen next.

10. Red Eye with Greg Gutfeld: I know everyone will disagree with this pick, but it's my list and I've decided this number ten spot should go to something different. I've seen several other "best of" lists that feature the Daily Show or the Colbert Report, but Red Eye took that blurry distinction between news and entertainment to a new level. Not only is it on Fox News, but it has all the trappings of the typical news and opinion type programs: The host has a monologue, there's a roundtable discussion, and they actually cover real news events. But unlike the scripted news shows on Comedy Central, Red Eye is mostly off the cuff and it's left to the audience to determine what comments are serious and what comments are jokes. There's justnot another show on tv that can claim to have really given a voice to musicians, comedians, authors, and politicians and can claim to be home to regular appearances to both sitting Congressmen and fully costumed member of the sci-fi metal band Gwar, Oderus Urungus.

The Tough Cuts:

Carnivale: Simply put, the mystical depression-era HBO series was brought to an end before it's time. The set up the first season was compelling, but the ending was rushed, leaving far too many questions unanswered.

Six Feet Under: It'd be difficult to say that HBO's second big hit (after the Sopranos) wasn't well done, but for however well done it was, it was, at times, equally as difficult to watch. Six Feet was ultimately darker than Battlestar Galactica in terms of the self-destructive nature of it's characters and the plotting tended to reflect the characters bad decisions. It was worth watching, but I'm not sure I'd want to do it again.

Pushing Daisies: It only lasted 22 episodes, but it was worthy of consideration. So unique, so charming, so clever, but the first season was shortened by the writers strike and the show never got a real shake.

Malcolm In the Middle: The most underrated show of the decade, perhaps the most underrated comedy ever. If you appreciate comedy without a laugh track, you owe Malcolm a debt of gratitude.

Dexter: I love it, but Dexter has it's flaws. The writers are very manipulative with some of the thematic elements (such as this season when baby Harrison's cries or silence would signify Dexter's alternating frustration or harmony with his new family. And while some of the minor characters (like Deb) are stellar, others remain underdeveloped.

24: If this was a list of the most influential shows of the decade, 24 would make the list, but other than the first season, I'd have trouble calling any other season great. Seasons two and three were pretty good, but from season four on, the plotting has been utterly unbelievable. Sure, the first few seasons had their rough patches (Terri's amnesia season one, everything with Kim season two), but none of the last four seasons has even managed to tell a cohesive story.

Firefly: I'd love to include the cult favorite, but Firefly didn't last long enough to reach it's full potential. Even including the episodes on the DVD set which never actually aired, the characters never had the opportunity to be fully fleshed out.

Curb Your Enthusiasm: There are plenty of critics to whom Curb would be a no-brainer top ten pick, the logical follow-up to the previous decade that had been dominated by all things Seinfeld. But while I've always enjoyed Curb and the episodes tend to be well constructed, but what is this world where everyone else is as much as an argumentative ass as Larry David?

The Office: My wife made quite a case for the Office, based on the high quality of it's first few seasons and it's trailblazing presence in the comedy field. But the decline over the past few seasons has been too noticeable and the characters have seemingly suffered "Simpsons syndrome" in their inability to evolve.

30 Rock: Oh so close, but this past season has begun to make me think that the show still doesn't quite have a handle on it's brilliance. It can be laugh out loud funny, but I fear that it sometimes sacrifices plots and character for jokes.

Terror In The Skies

I'm frightened. Not of incompetent terrorists, but of incompetent and overreaching bureaucrats who have responded to the latest terrorist attack with calls for more restrictions on travel that have seemingly little connection with safety. Is it really any surprise that it wasn't the bold TSA or the even bolder intelligence community that prevented the latest terrorist attack, but the simple courageous acts of individual passengers.

I don't intend for this to be a long post, just a continuation of my questions from last month about terrorism. If the point of terrorism is to cause "terror" then haven't the terrorists won already? We're supposed to treat terrorism as so dire that we'd suspend our usual qualms about the government (in the form of the TSA) getting all up in our business, yet statistically speaking, we're far more likely to die in a car accident on the way to the airport than we are to die in a terrorist attack. There's just got to be a point where we recognize that the piles upon piles of new laws, rules, and regulations that are supposed to protect us from terrorism don't hold a candle to simple concept of common sense. In the wake of 9-11, we've seen two positive developments in air travel: 1) locked cockpit doors, a simple solution to prevent terrorists from crashing a plane and 2) simple passenger awareness of what a barely armed terrorist is capable of. Other than that, have we really made any useful changes in terms of travel? I can't think of any.

That's not to say that we shouldn't continue some forms of safety searches- We don't want a maniac, terrorist or not, bringing weapons on an airplane. But when will Washington learn to use common sense to address a problem?

There's No Such Thing As Equality

The concept of equality gets thrown around quite a bit during the health care debate (amongst other topics) and a thought occurred to me as my wife and I planned on the latest assortment of student loans which have come due. In a complicated world, is there ever really such a thing as equality? Folks on the left will throw around concepts like income inequality, but what does that even mean? The truth is that a $50,000 a year salary for one person is not the same as it for another person. Circumstances matter. Given that health benefits aren't taxed, there's a big difference between someone making $50,000 a year with their health care paid by their employer and someone making $50,000 a year but paying their health care expenses out of their own pocket. Someone making $50,000 a year with no student debt is in a vastly different position than someone making $50,000 a year with $100,000 of student debt. And someone making $50,000 a year in Manhattan is different from someone making $50,000 a year in Mississippi. Truth be told, a renter in the same town or city could technically be up a few thousand dollars over the course of the year on someone else with the same income who didn't find quite as good a deal on their rent.

That's not to say there aren't answers to some of these complications. For instance, eliminating the tax break for employer provided health care would put everyone on a level playing field as far as health care expenses go. But just think about it for a minute. Any system that provides some form of assistance to those who can't afford health care themselves bases that assistance upon income and none of those assessments on income take any of these other life circumstances into account. This is why the idea of a health insurance mandate is so maddening. My wife and I are fortunate to have health insurance, but if we didn't and health reform passes, we would be in the position where we wouldn't be eligible for assistance, but would be required to purchase health insurance out of pocket. The problem is, with so much student loan debt, the added burden of out-of-pocket health insurance would potentially push us to poverty levels.

Let me be clear, I'm not suggesting that we should start taking into account student loan debt in regards to poverty and need determinations. Whether we're talking about student loans, credit card debt, or living circumstances, we're talking about individual choices and we don't want a system where individuals are relieved of the responsibility for their own choices. My point here is two-fold, that 1- herein lies the problem with government mandates, because it's one thing for people to deal with their circumstances, but it's another to burden people with something they can't afford, and 2- more importantly, that equality becomes an impossibility when the multitude of choices we face is factored into the picture.

Too Little, Too Late

If I haven't been blunt in my posting, allow me to be blunt now: The health reform legislation before Congress is bad, bad, bad news.

To my liberal friends out there, let me sketch out what me, the heartless libertarian would be happier with: A single-payer system for those who want one, the only caveat being that folks who make enough money would have to pay for such a system, directly. Give medicare to all for the folks who want it and give everyone the option to buy in. Then, let the rest of us utilize the market- eliminate tax subsidies for employer provided health care and deregulate the insurance market so those of us who want it can have free choice. Yeah, I basically am offering the public option, but I'd rather there be a public option where private markets are still allowed to operate than have the complete evisceration of real private markets, which is what we may see under this legislation.

There is one bright spot to this legislation and that's the fact that if it's passed, it will be purely along party lines. Never before in our nations history has such an expensive piece of legislation been passed without any support from the opposition party. So ultimately, the workings of this legislation will be placed at the feet of Democrats and there may be the political will on the part of the Republicans to scale back a massive entitlement and regulatory boondoggle, something else that's never really been done before in our nation's history. And if we could get to that point, well, that would be a tremendously positive step for the future of limited government. Obviously a lot of speculation, but what more do we have at this point?

Health Care, Here We Come

Unless you've been living in a cave, or some other sort of news-free environment, you should be well aware that the health care bill has the sixty votes needed to begin the process of plowing it's way through the Senate. As the Times notes today, there are still a number of significant hurdles in merging the Senate version with the House version. For the uninitiated or uninformed that means this: Though a health reform bill has passed in the House and is on it's way to passing in the Senate, those bills are different and do not become law until the same version can be approved by both the House and the Senate, at which time it can be submitted to the President.

Megan McArdle has a nice piece covering the many issues of process involved in passing health care reform and the concerning language in the bill which would attempt to make certain provisions unrepealable by future Congresses. Many of the complaints about the passage of this bill, from both right and left, has been the downright icky and open way in which key votes were obtained. It was announced late Sunday that conservative Democratic Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska would support the bill in exchange for Medicare concessions for his home state of Nebraska, meaning that federal tax dollars would help Nebraska pay for a share of Medicare expenses that other states have to shoulder themselves. Some folks have complained that this amounts to outright bribery at the public expense, and they're right, to an extent, but Megan quite correctly points out that this is how politics worked and how it's worked for hundreds of years.

But putting aside the existence of bribes/pork as part of the making of political sausage, there's an interesting side issue here that's all about how we structure government and utilize tax revenues. Nebraska's Medicare concessions are symptomatic of a complaint I've had for a long time, where tax money is siphoned from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. Left or right, it's an inefficient use of tax money, plain and simple. We pay taxes to the federal government, but the federal government winds up sending some percentage of that money to individual states- states which we also pay taxes too. At the state level, a certain percentage of revenues from taxes and federal funds are then redistributed to cities, municipalities, and counties. If there's a logic behind this sort of trickle down taxation I'd love to hear it, but the end result is a redistribution of wealth to jurisdictions where the complex web of money distances individuals from the political process. And I'd raise the same questions about this sort of redistribution as I would about redistribution on the non-governmental level. Why for instance, in Connecticut to the citizens of wealthy towns pay high federal and state income taxes, only to have money siphoned back to their towns in the form of property tax relief?

I know this is a bit of a tangent, but it's yet another patently inefficient and structurally deficient problem with our current system that's been laid bear by the current debate. And to relate this post to my last, there's a question I'd pose to everyone, but primarily to liberals and supporters of "big government." Why don't we simplify things? Why does health care legislation need to be thousands of pages long and why do we siphon money through multiple layers of government? Giving money directly to the people that need it would be a far more effective way of dealing with a problem like the uninsured than the incomprehensible legislation before us. So why not? Why not the simple solution?

Where Libertarians And Liberals Can Agree

Glenn Greenwald, in a post on the progressive divide in the health care debate comments on the similarities of outrage from the right and left:

But the objections over the mandate are largely identical -- it's a coerced gift to the private health insurance industry that underwrites the Democratic Party. The same was true over opposition to the bailout, objections to lobbying influence over Washington, and most of all, the growing anger that Washington serves the interests of financial elites at the expense of the working class.

Whether you call it "a government takeover of the private sector" or a "private sector takeover of government," it's the same thing: a merger of government power and corporate interests which benefits both of the merged entities (the party in power and the corporations) at everyone else's expense. Growing anger over that is rooted far more in an insider/outsider dichotomy over who controls Washington than it is in the standard conservative/liberal ideological splits from the 1990s.

And from earlier in the same piece, Greenwald on corporatism:

The health care bill is one of the most flagrant advancements of this corporatism yet, as it bizarrely forces millions of people to buy extremely inadequate products from the private health insurance industry -- regardless of whether they want it or, worse, whether they can afford it (even with some subsidies). In other words, it uses the power of government, the force of law, to give the greatest gift imaginable to this industry -- tens of millions of coerced customers, many of whom will be truly burdened by having to turn their money over to these corporations -- and is thus a truly extreme advancement of this corporatist model.

Greenwald, the liberal, can sound just positively libertarian at times, can't he? The debate between progressives boils down to those who accept corporate power to further progressive goals and those who who do not. Once again, allow me to present the idea of liberaltarianism. Libertarian and market-based proposals could improve competition and lower prices. Combine this was a voucher program that gives options to the millions who are currently uninsured and you have a market meets social welfare solution that forces the entirety of the health industry to meet the needs of consumers rather the corporate health interests as they exist today.

Of course, one of the biggest problems of health reform, whether you're a free marketer or a single payer supporter, is the general resistance of the public to change. For all our systems problems, millions upon millions of Americans are happy with their health insurance- They're happy that it's provided by their employers at seemingly no cost (or little cost) and they're happy they don't have to worry about medical bills. In a way, you could say that for many Americans the system we have is a form of corporate socialism, where employees are shielded from costs but avoid the specter of government rationing. The idea that individuals should be shielded from health care costs rather than make these financial decisions for ourselves is ingrained in our pysche, cutting across the political spectrum. It's why it's difficult to argue with the notion held by many on the left that it's morally wrong for individuals to be responsible for their own health care costs. Seeing as it's the system we have now, you're got an uphill battle if you're asking people to imagine the world so differently.

But just listen to the unhappiness that's coming from some segments of the left. As Greenwald says, whether you call it a government takeover of the private sector, or a private sector takeover of the government, you're really talking about the same thing.

This Is Just Priceless

From the local WFSB news, apparently Michael Moore has threatened to boycott Connecticut if Senator Joe Lieberman is not recalled.

In his Tweet, Moore said, "People of Connecticut: What have u done 2 this country? We hold u responsible. Start recall of Lieberman 2day or we'll boycott your state."

Does that mean Michael Moore would refuse to come to Connecticut, even for a Ned Lamont rally? Would it mean Michael Moore would give up his Aetna Health Insurance? I'm not really sure what it means, but the even more interesting part of this story involves Connecticut representative Rosa DeLauro:

Politico reported Tuesday that Rep. Rosa DeLauro called for the recall of Lieberman.

DeLauro said, "No one should hold health care hostage, including Joe Lieberman, and I'll say it flat out, I think he ought to be recalled. I know that may not even be an option in Connecticut, but 45,000 people die every year because they don't have health care. We don't have the luxury to hold up a bill that could make a difference in people's lives. This is what we were sent here to do."

The state has no recall law for officials, according to the Secretary of State's Office.

You've just got to love the concise way these news websites can bring you a story. Forget about Michael Moore for a second and we've got a sitting member of the House accusing a sitting Senator of a willingness to let thousands die, calling for that same Senators recall when Connecticut has no mechanism for recall. As I said, just priceless.

Lieberman's been hit hard this week for his health care stances and you've got to wonder how long politicians and policy wonks can get away with such hyperbole. I mean isn't this just what the left accused Bush of doing, time and time again: Calling for drastic action with no time for honest intellectual debate, because, damn it, lives are at stake. You could be the biggest lefty on the planet and that doesn't mean you'd think that Congress needs to pass the hundreds upon hundreds of pages of health legislation right now, with no questions asked. I can even understand the urgency that people feel in regards to the need to cover those without health insurance, but if there are hundreds of different ideas about how to do just that, shouldn't we want the best possible one?

Health Reform Shows The Real Need For Liberaltarianism

I've done plenty in this blog on health care and on the liberaltarian project (the attempted meeting of the minds between liberals and libertarians) and as major health care reform grows seemingly closer and closer, I can't help but think that a real opportunity has been missed to further an ideological relationship or at the very least, further a more open dialog between liberals and libertarians.

I recently read a comment on a libertarian blog that liberals don't understand that libertarians do in fact care about the poor and downtrodden, but simply don't believe in using government as a mechanism for charity. That statement is true to an extent, but in some ways, such a draw-a-line-the-sand type arguments have the negative effect of of leaving free markets and individual choice on the sidelines. Libertarian purists can argue over the outer limits of the role of government, but the fact of the matter is that a majority of Americans accept the social welfare role of government in some form or another. To be influential in a major policy debate like the one on health care you can't be in the business of openly advocating the abolition of the social safety net.

What does this mean for health care? Most importantly, it means coming up with market-based approaches to deal with the litany of complaints about our health care system. Reducing health care costs? That's an easy one for those of us advocating market oriented reforms. The simplest way to reduce costs is cut out the middle men, something none of the reforms on the table actually do. Coverage for the uninsured? Let's cover them, but let's do it in a fair and economical way. Why not health care vouchers, where people are able to make their own choices about costs. This is essentially what we have with the food stamp program, so why not do the same for health care?

Mandates, public options, and buy-ins are all bad ideas, but they're particularly bad in that they don't directly address the real concerns that have been raised. Republicans and prominent members of the conservative opposition haven't addressed this, choosing instead to focus solely on opposition. It's a mistake, because 1- Our health care system is a mess already, in a large part because of government and 2- Even if you can quibble about the numbers of uninsured, it does suck that there are people out there who are priced out of an already bloated health care system.

As refreshing as some aspects of the tea party movement have been, the truth is that it's fallen short in the practical idea department. Saying no to more lousy big government is all well and good, but what can we do about the lousy big government we've already got? That's the tough question and that's where this whole notion of liberaltarianism comes in to play. Make the focus on markets, on individuals, and on lessening regulatory burdens and the shrinking of government will follow.

Your Water Is Not Safe ... If You're An Idiot

We did this once before and now it's time for the second round. Tuesday's New York Times led with this article by Charles Duhigg, claiming 20% of the nation's water treatment systems have violated key provisions of the Safe Drinking Water Act.

I'll stop Mr. Duhigg right there as the term "water treatment system" is extremely misleading. EPA data (and drinking water regulations) refer to public water systems, not water treatment systems. The difference is in the details, as water treatment systems bring to mind large scale operations that provide water to hundreds of thousands of people. The truth is, the vast majority of public water systems are not the large facilities which that language brings to mind. According to the EPA's data, which dates back to the year 2000, there are 154,879 public water systems in the United States. Of those, nearly 90% (89.96% or 139,325) are water systems of varying classifications that serve fewer than 3,300 people. Many of these systems are literally groundwater wells, as any non residential wells serving the public are considered to be public water systems.

The thrust of the rest of the article is how little or nothing is done about public water systems which violate health standards. The evidence for this is the relatively few number of water systems which have been fined or punished by regulators, as if fines or punishment is the primary method of ensuring drinking water safety. I'll take a minute here to step back from my libertarian roots and give some credit to drinking water regulators for not being completely overzealous assholes. When regulators do show concern for health violations, they generally tend to be concerned with helping the affected water system bring it's drinking water into compliance and not with socking it to them. When public systems have health issues that remain unresolved, it's usually because there are no simple solutions. The Times article mentions arsenic and uranium, both of which can be naturally found in groundwater. If the bedrock in a given area with numerous groundwater sources of drinking water contains levels of elements that the EPA considers to be unacceptable, solutions can be costly if not downright impossible. The idea that fines and penalties for these systems would make people safer is just plain asinine.

I mentioned this in my post from a few months ago, but this is just shoddy, irresponsible journalism and the Times ought to be ashamed of itself. Once again there's been absolutely no effort to grasp the real meaning of these numbers, nor is there any effort to really investigate if and where Americans are actually drinking bad water. What we've got is simply data with no context, data that fails to address the causes and the possible solutions of contaminated drinking water. There's no questioning of the health limits set by the EPA and there's no recognition of the fact that these limits are bureaucratic and political, not particularly scientific. It's a scare story, pure and simple, and yet another indication that the passive acceptance of the regulatory state has made us all stupid.

You may tell yourself, this is not my brilliant coach. And you may tell yourself, this is not my Hall of Fame quarterback.

Have we Pats fans been under the illusion that our Super Bowl run in the first half of the decade was really something more than "Once in a lifetime?"

Maybe, maybe not, but I find myself telling myself that these are not my New England Patriots. In the five real road games they have played this season, the Patriots have failed to earn a victory and perhaps more frighteningly, have completely disappeared in the second half of those games. In total, the Pats have been outscored 74-24 in the second half of those games. Worse yet are Tom Brady's numbers: 46 of 87 (a lousy 52.9%) for 523 yards, 2 TD's and 4 Int's. Seemingly everything that once made the Patriots such a force to be reckoned with has disappeared, both the clutch play of Brady and the defense.

I heard Cris Carter on Mike and Mike talk about how it's hurt the Patriots to have lost so many playmakers. But while it's true that no one seems to have stepped forward into that playmaker role, it's also true that not one defensive player not named Asante Samuel was a playmaking, game changing force in crunch time since the last Super Bowl run in 2004. And the lack of playmakers on defense says nothing for the offense, which has just as many healthy playmakers as ever. Hell, in the past few weeks we've even seem special teamer Sam Aiken become more of a weapon, scoring on an amazing play in Miami yesterday. We've got Moss, Welker, Kevin Faulk and of course, Brady, but this team is just plain not getting it done in big spots. It's depressing and I've got no real answers, other than that this may be karma turning to smack us Pats fans square in the face, for the years of luck during our Super Bowl runs and for our running up scores in 2007.