I just couldn't resist adding one final entry about the upcoming election. If you're still undecided, read this excellent commentary from the New Yorker: "The Choice." Big thanks to Heather for linking to this over in her journal. I have a feeling many, many people will be reading this article online via links like this.

This article has the best argument for who to vote for in Tuesday's election. Looks like I made the right choice when I voted last night!

As if there was any doubt in my mind.

Here's a quote from Dick Cheney in the article, from right after the hellish election debacle of 2000: “'From the very day we walked in the building, a notion of sort of a restrained presidency because it was such a close election, that lasted maybe thirty seconds. It was not contemplated for any length of time. We had an agenda, we ran on that agenda, we won the election—full speed ahead.'”

Well, so much for being a uniter, Mr. Bush. I guess all those promises made during the campaign were just so much hot air. Sort of like in his current campaign to get elected (note how I did not say "re-elected").

Another quote, which expresses far better than I ever could how dangerous and foolish our current president is:

"September 11, 2001, brought with it one positive gift: a surge of solidarity, global and national—solidarity with and solidarity within the United States. This extraordinary outpouring provided Bush with a second opportunity to create something like a government of national unity. Again, he brushed the opportunity aside."

He had a chance to do something good for the world, and he did the exact opposite. And he even had the idiocy (or was it really intentional) to use the word "crusade" (holy war) to describe the brand-new war on terror.

How about those tax cuts to help out us po' folks?

"Citizens for Tax Justice, a Washington research group whose findings have proved highly dependable, notes that, this year, a typical person in the lowest fifth of the income distribution will get a tax cut of ninety-one dollars, a typical person in the middle fifth will pocket eight hundred and sixty-three dollars, and a typical person in the top one per cent will collect a windfall of fifty-nine thousand two hundred and ninety-two dollars."

Thanks, Dub! I know my wife and I enjoyed the six hundred bucks you sent me. It went right into paying for our 5-digit credit card and student loan bills! Ooh, my economy got stimulated!

The article goes on to blast Bush further for his foolishly planned tax cuts (rewarding his base of supporters for helping him get "elected") which has led our country into accumulating a huge deficit -– a 7 trillion dollar turnaround from the previous presidency. Then there's his ignorance of the environment (enjoying that extra mercury in your water and fish, folks???), the extreme measures of the Patriot Act, his lack of support for extending stem cell research, and the unfinished business in Afghanistan.

And I haven't even touched on Bush's biggest fiasco. Iraq.

"According to the former counter-terrorism adviser Richard Clarke, in a Situation Room crisis meeting on September 12, 2001, Donald Rumsfeld suggested launching retaliatory strikes against Iraq. When Clarke and others pointed out to him that Al Qaeda—the presumed culprit—was based in Afghanistan, not Iraq, Rumsfeld is said to have remarked that there were better targets in Iraq. The bottom line, as Bush’s former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill has said, was that the Bush-Cheney team had been planning to carry out regime change in Baghdad well before September 11th—one way or another, come what may."

This is my favorite line of the article (and I swear I'll stop quoting after this one): "Nowhere has his solipsism been more damaging than in the case of Iraq."

Look up solipsism if you don't know what it is. It's the perfect word to describe our president.

There's also some excellent, honest information given in the article on John Kerry's skills and focus on the issues, including some of his shortcomings, but most of all why he deserves your vote.