Let them eat television!

Screw the poor seems to be the Bush battle-cry.

The difference between contemporary 'conservatives' and 'liberals' is that conservatives say "I, Me, Mine!" while liberals say "Us, We, Ours." So when Massa Jeb sez he "won't allow an independent examination of voting machines because he has "every confidence" in his handpicked election officials," you know he's not thinking of the integrity of the election process as much as he's thinking about how to make sure his side wins.

Just to clarify: that kind of behavior is antithetical to Democracy, and -yeah, I'll say it: un-American.

And in light of all this hoo-hah about the elections, I keep wondering: at what point, under what circumstances, would our elections no longer be considered valid? Serbia recently had to re-do their Presidential elections because the turnout was too low. What if apathy gets so pervasive here that voter turnout dips below 50%? 30%? 15%? Is that still "representative" government? What if a state like Florida or California or New York was somehow eliminated from the vote count? What if it was Kansas? Or a Dakota? Or D.C., Puerto Rico or Guam? These are all legitimate questions, and I think we should be discussing them before they have a chance to happen. I am not in favor of any kind of federal plan B, and that's exactly why I think we should be talking about this personally, locally: before it has a chance to happen and the feds have to step in.

Vote early, vote often!
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Public service announcement, so that you don't make the same mistake some newspaper columnist made *ahem*:
It's "toe the line," not "tow." As in "stand at attention, toes on the line," like "march in step," or as Webster's puts it, "to conform rigorously to a rule or standard." 'Coz why would anyone "tow" a line? Link to original article suppressed out of respect for the author.