Front page, above the fold, big picture of Ariel Sharon--the Knesset approved the plan to pull settlers out of Gaza!  Yay!

Disclosure--I am Jewish, I have a vested interest in Israel and its survival, and I wholeheartedly support the withdrawal from Gaza, and I hope there will be at least some redistribution on the West Bank.  It's the right thing to do.

I know there are people who will think that this is bowing to terrorism and showing the 'evildoers' that terrorism works.  You go ahead and think that.  You're wrong.  And this should have happened long ago.  It might have if some extremist settler nutjob hadn't murdered Rabin in '95.

I think this move is going to help Israel in the eyes of the world, and perhaps generate some moral authority as well.  We'll see.

In the meantime, Dubya and his crew somehow lost 380 tons of explosives in Iraq.  The excuses are pathetic--"we were ahead of schedule," "it might not even have been there."  I notice that these excuses they're tossing around are rather similar to the reasons the anti-war/pro-diplomacy gave--and continue to give--for holding off on the war in the first place.

Convenient.

Have you noticed that Dick Cheney looks like Lex Luthor?  Dubya is kind of like that creepy dumb scarecrow thing--LeGree?  Was that his name in the cartoons?  I think it might have been.  Of course, that's so perfect because Simon LeGree was the horrible slave owner in 'Uncle Tom's Cabin.'  Thpppt on Dubya.  That's what.

So, basically, this election boils down to this:

Do you want the Legion of Doom running the joint or would you prefer the Justice League?

I'm going for the Justice League. 

5 days to go!

On the bad news side, there are huuuuuuuge problems with the voting in Florida.  Surprise!  Yeah, that's a shocker.  Not.

Anyway, the Chicago Tribune had a great article about it today, noting the following disturbing facts:

1.  Lines are so slow at these new touch-screen machines that "only six votes per hour are being cast in parts of South Florida."
2.  Perhaps as many as 60,000 absentee ballots in Broward County, Fla. are unaccounted for.
3.  Reporters from the Miami Herald monitored the pace of the lines at 14 of these touch screen voiting machines in 3 separate South Florida counties.  According to their calculations, the things are so slow that in 12 hours, only 71 votes could be cast.

**All of the above AND MORE appear in Jeff Zelany's article "Early Voting in Florida Gives Cause for Concern," Chicago Tribune, Oct. 27, 2004.  You can find the entire article at the Tribune's website by clicking here--> http://www.chicagotribune.com" title="http://www.chicagotribune.com" target="_blank"http://www.chicagotribune.com....  It's free, but you have to register.

The absolute BEST, BEST part of the article--and this is a direct quote:

"Gov. Jeb Bush ordered election supervisors to "preserve order at the polls" after episodes of voter harassment arose and some workers threatened to abandon their posts when an aide was nearly choked by an angry partisan who grabbed the identification badge around her neck." Id., emphasis, mine.

Holy crap!  That is so awesome!  I think that's just awesome.  I wanna VOTE goddammit, and you, poll worker, are screwing this all up!  C'mere!  I'll give you a hanging chad you &^#$(@**#&$^& !!!

Right on.

Like I said--5 days to go.

Then the litigation begins!  Whee!