Last day to think about it before *doing the deed* though my wife has already voted in Palm Beach County under Florida law. So let's see what has unfolded in this last week:
Bin Laden subtly comes out for Bush by implying he is for Kerry but really he is just thumbing his nose at all America and telling us to shove it. Most serious foreign policy analysts don't spin this for the public but figure we (the US) will respond like idiots and finish destabilizing the Mideast as per bin Laden's plans by getting us to do his worst dirty work.
A report is released demonstrating that the invasion and subsequent occupation has cost 100 thousand Iraqi lives.
The Iranians have said they are going ahead with their nuclear fuel enrichment program and a separate report has been issued, I believe by the IAEA and the State Department, that no apparent work is proceeding at the known unclear sites in Iran. Huh? [huh]
In other words the work is going on deeply *underground* and no longer makes a reasonably soft target, or is in fact now going on at *whereabouts unknown.* [glasses]
Oil has reached all time record highs and retreated from this peak price but as T-Boone says:
*We will never see oil below 40 dollars a barrel again".
The deficit has is accelerating at unprecedented levels and growth is flat with a great likelihood of fuel prices driving a serious inflation rate in the near future.
They are still *officially* counting the ballot in Afghanistan and the violence on the ground in Iraq is approaching the same level as *during* the invasion but now is also laying waste to the interim governments' fragile level of confidence among the population and provoking us to escalate our engagement.
The Bush administration may have shot itself in the foot as the IRS has ordered the evaluation of the NAACP's legal status as *tax exempt*. This may be a legitimate claim, but in the quest for the majority of African American vote, it couldn't have been more poorly timed.
Pharmaceutical supply/cost and Stem Cells along with Insurance Reform (what most mistake for Health Care Reform) have become important issues of debate between the two major parties that have become highlighted for *elderly voters* by the combined failure of the markets and government to *secure* the supply of Flu vaccine from both questions of quality control and inadequate production to drive scarcity driven profit.
The Gallop (as well as most other poler's) Poll is showing the closest election in US history with the most divided population since the Civil War and the most new voters since teh Vietnam War era. Both parties have taken the unprecedented preemptive step of sending phalanxes of lawyers with lots of money (and perhaps a few guns (sic)) into every probable *battleground State* and many more with the idea that they must prepare for a post election *legal contest* of voting qualifications, the outcome, and whether or not widespread conspiracies are in effect in numerous states to have prevented tens of thousands of people around the nation from voting.
Hey, these are just some highlights for our historical record and I will come back later and tag some links to my comments but here is one example of how hotly contested the race is becoming.
Have fun, read (watch) it and weep. [tung]
LiberationInteresting times we live in ehh? [wis]
Oh and the biggest surprise in October was that there was none.
Or perhaps so many that everybody is numb and doesn't notice.
drumroll........................................................................
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LongeCity
