From George Grant’s blog, King’s Meadow:

That is not to say that the upcoming election is not important. It most assuredly is. Indeed, it may well be one of the most important elections in the last half century or more. It is sure to have enormous implications for our families and our future. I want folks to take this election seriously. I want folks to vote.
But this election is, after all, just an election. The doings and undoings of a government need not be the doings and undoings of a culture.
That is the great lesson of history. It is simply that ordinary people doing ordinary things are ultimately who and what determine the outcome of human events–not princes or populists issuing decrees. It is that laborers and workmen, cousins and acquaintances can upend the expectations of the brilliant and the glamorous, the expert and the meticulous. It is that simple folks doing mundane chores can literally change the course of history–because they are the stuff of which providential history is made.

Yes. Take a deep breath (preaching to self), and remember that post-election life goes on. Whatever God ordains in respect to this election, I am still called to serve Him daily where I am. And God is good–very, very good.

I found this letter at Dave Barry’s site:

Dave,

Please help with this year’s presidential election by encouraging Florida residents to not vote. All these groups that are attempting to increase voter participation are trying to undermine the election. If more people vote in Florida than did in the last election, it will take even longer for the votes to be counted and recounted. Perhaps you could match individual Kerry voters with Bush voters, and get them to agree not to vote. Each matchup would mean two fewer votes to have to recount.

Mike Hesik
Oxford, CT

One of the comments on this entry shared this joke:

“A Democrat was talking to a Republican friend, and both were upset with each other’s vote, so he told the Republican, “I’ll make you a deal — I won’t vote for the Democrat as long as you don’t vote, either.” He accepts the deal. Then the sly Democrat smirks and says, “Thanks. You’re the fifth person I’ve talked to today.”

You gotta watch those Democrats–and those Republicans, too. It could all be a big plot to steal the election–by someone.

The Duelfer Report has been summarized in the major media largely in terms of the conclusion that Saddam had no stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction—as of the invasion. However, another conclusion from that same report has not been emphasized. According to a news report, the Iraq Survey Report

named hundreds of entities who allegedly benefited from contracts to sell Iraqi oil. Among them was “one UK citizen”. Although the list included many legitimate oil traders, it also contained the names of politicians, political parties and other groups with little obvious connection to the oil industry.
Among those named were Benon Sevan, the former head of the UN’s humanitarian programme; President Megawati Sukarnoputri of Indonesia; the former French interior minister Charles Pasqua; and Vladimir Zhirinovsk, the founder of Russia’s Liberal Democratic Party.

The French are upset that that the report named names. The Russians haven’t chimed in yet as far as I know.

My congressman has been called “shrewd,” “ruthless,” “heavy-handed,” “cynical,” and, well, you can probably already guess who he is.

And like a Texas rattlesnake, he slithers across the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives pushing a GOP Biblical worldview upon the United States and pounding colleagues and opponents into voting against their constituents better interests. . . . an uber-hypocrite because he works hard to ensure a reign of evil will fall over the U.S. for years to come, but, like Bush, he does this by using God’s name in vain. It’s the old bait and switch: you know, the stern, sanctimonious minister who embezzles from the church funds and runs off with the choirmaster’s wife.

And I have a yard sign with this fiend’s name on it in my front yard, and I plan to vote for him. Thanks to redistricting I have the opportunity to do so instead of simply voting against Democrat Nick Lampson as I had to do two years ago. Why am I voting for Tom DeLay?
1) The DeLays have been foster parents and have dedicated themselves to improving the plight of abused children. The DeLays are currently developing a residential community called Oaks at Rio Bend, which will provide a permanent, safe home for abused and neglected children. Tom DeLay has also written, sponsored, and co-sponsored several bills in congress designed to imrove the adoption and foster process for children and for parents.
2) DeLay believes the United States must strongly support democratic allies like Israel and Taiwan that share our commitment to liberty while aggressively promoting the expansion of freedom to closed societies. He also believes that tyrants and rogue regimes must be confronted before they harm American interests.
3) Tom DeLay is pro-life, against so-called gay marriage, and supportive of home-schoolers.
4) Even Democrats and the media agree that he was instrumental in getting Texas redistricting set up in such a way that the map reflected the fact that Texas is mostly Republican. And he got me into his district so that I don’t have to choose between Lampson and some RINO (Republican in Name Only).
5) The liberals HATE him and are out to get him, so he must be doing something right. They’re also afraid of him, which is funny. I met him once, and he didn’t seem so scary to me.

I didn’t catch the first presidential debate, but I did watch most of the vice-presidential debate last night–while also reading Corduroy and other various and sundry picture books to Z-baby. I thought both men came off fairly well; Cheney seemed a little more self-controlled and well, presidential. However, I’m willing to admit that I’m biased. One minor note: John Edwards made a big deal of the idea that we could train Iraqi troops and police in a neighboring country if Iraq is too insecure—as if this idea were a new one that no one in the military or the Bush administration had conceived of. (I guess Edwards’ experience as a defense attorney explains his accusatory tone in presenting this little idea.) However, it reminded me of a blog I was reading a couple of days ago in which the blogger, Cindy Swan, wrote about her brother who is training Iraqi policemen in markmanship–in Jordan. Gee, I guess someone is already implementing this brilliant idea.

The State Department designated Saudi Arabia as a “country of particular concern for religious freedom.” This is a country where:

No religion other than Islam may be practiced publicly, and all citizens must be Muslims. Churches and synagogues are illegal, though substantial numbers of foreign Christians live and work in the country. Muslims who convert to other religions can be put to death. Shiite Muslims are discriminated against; their clerics are detained and their testimony can be excluded in court proceedings.

However, in the past, our State Department has given Saudi Arabia a pass because of its strategic importance in the region. I doubt change in foreign poslicy will result from this designation, but at least it’s a start.

I’m trying to wrap my brain around the ideas of copyright and intellectual property and the internet. Obviously, if I take someone else’s words and imply that that they are my thoughts and my words (plagiarism), I am at least lying, if not stealing. But what if I take your whole editorial or news article that is available on the internet, and I post it on my blog or website, attributing authorship to you? Is this plagiarism? No, I’m not claiming to have written what someone else wrote. Is it a violation of copyright? It would be if I posted a chapter of your (print) book, wouldn’t it? I don’t actually know how the copyright laws stand right now in this area. Then, there’s the matter of images. If an image is sitting on your site and I link to it in my post, I understand that I’m doing something rude having to do with “using up bandwidth”–whatever that means. But is it wrong to take your picture? How does anyone know what images are fair game and which are not? In the post below, I linked to a photograph of Billy Joel from the website of a major music company? Is this a problem? Is this huge company really worried about bandwidth? Or is that like stealing pencils from work–they’ll never miss it is no justification. Are photographs and paragraphs posted on the internet really private property anymore? When you put it on the internet, aren’t you saying, “Here, guys, I want to share this with the world?”
Then, again, if I posted a photo of myself or one of my family members, and someone took it and messed with it and sold it for profit somehow, I would feel definitely violated. I assume there are laws against this sort of thing. Are the laws enforceable? What if someone takes my words, messes with them a bit, and sells them? (Not that I’ve ever said anything profound enough to be stolen) What about lesson plans I find on the internet? I figure that if they’re on the net, again someone must have wanted someone else to get some benefit from them. Hoqwever, I may get ideas from lots of places–websites, books, other people–then put it all together and write my own book or curriculum. What if I post this conglomeration of ideas on the internet? Am I plagiarizing if I don’t even know where most of the ideas came from? I think the internet has made this whole area quite complicated, and I’m not sure where to draw the lines. And I haven’t even discussed “file-swapping”–mostly because I don’t really understand what the heck it is. Anybody out there got any ideas on this subject?

Three years later, and I think it’s more real to me, more tragic, more sad, than it was when it first happened. Then, I couldn’t believe it, couldn’t really take it in. Now I know that over 3000 people died on September 11, 2001 so that Islamic terrorists could make some sort of statement about how much they hate the West and all it stands for. Now I know that the evil people who did this thing aren’t through, that they are still killing people in Iraq, in Spain, in Bali, in the Philippines, in Russia. Now I know that they are willing to kill children, even babies, just to instill terror in anyone who opposes them. May the Lord of all things deliver us from evil now and forever. Amen.