I have taken time of off writing anything to actually gain a sense of perspective and sanity. Between work, kids and everything (still can't get my checkbook to balance) I needed a little space.

But here are two issues worth looking at. The first is the television show that showed the run-up to the Iraq war. The war that shows we have no moral high ground and can be fat and happy as occupiers, not just as consumers. It is Bill Moyers Journal and the link will show you the reporting that was not done, except by Knight-Ridder (now McLatchey) news service. God, it is good to have Bill Moyers back again. He is what a Texas Christian should be. Watch the show and be amazed. Digby, as usual, had a marvelous comment.

One other item is tracking the vote in Ohio in 2004. Altnet had a very wonderful article that took a couple of days to sink into my feeble brain. During the 2004 election, the Secretary of State Blackwell, he who certified the election before the recount was even started, let alone completed--he who threw out tens of thousands of voter registrations because they were on the incorrect bond paper, he who provided so few voting machines in black neighborhoods (predominantly democratic voters) so that hundreds of thousands inner city voters could not vote even though they waited in line over 8 hours, he who lost over 50,000 thousand provisional votes, and he who certified election results in counties with 587 voters as giving over 1300 votes to Bush!, yes that man who is now facing possible felony charges for voter fraud. Well, it has been traced that the computer address that ran the election count after 10 pm election night (Kerry had a fine lead then) was not the Secretary of State's computer. He ceded control of the count from his computer to the same IP address as the IP address as the Republican National Committee computer. The same server that has lost 5,000,000 Karl Rove emails. Avedon Carol has condensed two links on her excellent website, showing this story.

How hard is it to win (or fix) an election when you control the count from party headquarters? We need paper trails on all votes! Otherwise businesses like Diebold can fix elections. By the way, does it seem strange to you that one week after the Democrats won the House and the Senate and the oversight was going to begin--JUST ONE WEEK--Diebold put their election machine division up for sale. All of a sudden after 6 years it is no longer profitable.

rojo