Discontented Soul

President Bush isn't a conservative. He's a radical - the leader of a coalition that deeply dislikes America as it is. Part of that coalition wants to tear down the legacy of Franklin Roosevelt, eviscerating Social Security and, eventually, Medicare. Another part wants to break down the barriers between church and state. And thanks to a heavy turnout by evangelical Christians, Mr. Bush has four more years to advance that radical agenda...

Missing Miss Kitty Amidst the Gunsmoke
by Rosa Maria Pegueros
Published on November 2, 2004 by CommonDreams.org

Back in the Good Old Days, we watched as television cowboys settled every conflict with a showdown at high noon outside the saloon — the one quickest on the draw was invariably the good guy; problems were settled in a television hour, and America could go to bed with an easy mind.
Cowboys always had a special draw on our hearts and minds. Television and its romance with westerns gave us two of the dominant trends in our country: A short attention span and the use of guns to settle any conflict. Is it any wonder that faced with a presidential candidate who told us that we had to curb our oil gluttony, Jimmy Carter, and a genuine television cowboy, Ronald Reagan, America chose the cowboy? Twenty years later, Al Gore, a brainy vice president who had written a book on the environment lost to another cowboy, George W Bush.
Dubya is a genuine Texas cowboy (albeit a scion of a New England blueblood family with an Andover-Yale-Harvard education) with a fondness for clearing the brush on his property, speaking forthrightly, and publicly practicing his born-again Christianity. To the conservative Americans who were very upset over the “moral decline” of the Clinton years, the tee-totaling, Bible-thumping Texan was a great choice...

Religion's Kidnapping of the Campaign
by John MacArthur
Published on Tuesday, November 2, 2004 by the Providence Journal/(Rhode Island)

It surely sounds quaint, but I've always taken to heart the old social dictum not to mix religion in conversations with people I don't know well.
As even my wise-guy atheist father recognized, few things could offend someone more deeply than a heedless remark, taken the wrong way, that calls into question the wisdom of the Lord God Almighty. Americans hold dear their articles of faith, and no one but the purest Enlightenment liberal truly welcomes having his belief system challenged, even when the sceptic is easily dismissed as a card-carrying infidel...

University of Michigan researchers find that for long-term relationships, women like dads, but for short-term relationships they prefer cads. Dads are men who are kind, compassionate and monogamous, while cads are the classic romantic dark heroes who are dominant, promiscuous and daring. "The dad versus cad distinction is intuitive to women and remains a key element of contemporary mating strategies," says Daniel Kruger, a social psychologist at the University of Michigan. The study, in the journal Human Nature, says although cads don't make good dads, their genes will be passed to their sons, who will increase their mothers' eventual reproductive success by providing numerous grandchildren.

I think those of us who identify as "dads" rather than "cads" should tell women to go and take a running jump - no genes, no nurturing child-support!

One Day Left
by Michael Moore
Published on Monday, November 1, 2004 by michaelmoore.com

Dear Friends,

This is it. ONE DAY LEFT. There are many things I’d like to say. I’ve been on the road getting out the vote for 51 straight days so I haven’t had much time to write. So I’ve put together a bunch of notes to various groups all in this one letter. Please feel free to copy and send whatever portions are appropriate to your friends and family as you spend these last 24 hours trying to convince whomever you can to show up and vote for John Kerry.
Here are my final words…

Bush Win Would Mean Dark Times
World Would Perceive Support For Preemptive War
by Helen Thomas
Published on Saturday, October 30, 2004 by the Hearst Newspapers

The presidential election on Tuesday is one of the most crucial in American history.
There are many reasons — in foreign policy and on the domestic front — why President George W. Bush should not be re-elected.
Among them is the dominance of the radical right in his advisory councils, who are taking the United States down the wrong road at the start of the 21st century.
The road could lead to more mindless wars abroad and a widening gap between the rich and the poor in this country...