VOTE!

Well, I'm far from the US right now -- but I haven't felt more strongly about an election in a long time. My absentee ballot has already been mailed in.

The US has been heading in a dismal, dangerous direction since the 2000 elections -- and if you feel the same and are in the States, you may want to click on the above link to the MoveOn.org website. They are organizing folks across the US to call eligible Democrat voters and encourage them to get out and vote. If you have the time during the next week and a half -- DO IT!

The US government does not run well if only one party has control of the executive and legislative branches -- and has also appointed much of the judicial branch. With no substantial limits to his powers, you can be sure G W B has begun to act and think less like a president and more like a dictator. And a lying, half-witted one at that. If you doubt this is true, check out some of these quotes from him:

"I think -- tide turning -- see, as I remember -- I was raised in the desert, but tides kind of -- it's easy to see a tide turn -- did I say those words?" --George W. Bush, asked if the tide was turning in Iraq, Washington, D.C., June 14, 2006

"I would say the best moment of all was when I caught a 7.5 pound largemouth bass in my lake." --George W. Bush, on his best moment in office, during an interview with the German newspaper Bild am Sonntag, May 7, 2006

"If this were a dictatorship, it'd be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I'm the dictator." -- GWB, December 18, 2000 on CNN

"Wow! Brazil is big." --George W. Bush, after being shown a map of Brazil by Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Brasilia, Brazil, Nov. 6, 2005

"See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda." --George W. Bush, Greece, N.Y., May 24, 2005

"You work three jobs? -- Uniquely American, isn't it? I mean, that is fantastic that you're doing that." --George W. Bush, to a divorced mother of three, Omaha, Nebraska, Feb. 4, 2005

"Too many OB-GYNs aren't able to practice their love with women all across this country." --George W. Bush, Poplar Bluff, Mo., Sept. 6, 2004

"I'm honored to shake the hand of a brave Iraqi citizen who had his hand cut off by Saddam Hussein." --George W. Bush, Washington, D.C., May 25, 2004

"I know how hard it is for you to put food on your family."—Greater Nashua, N.H., Chamber of Commerce, Jan. 27, 2000

"For a century and a half now, America and Japan have formed one of the great and enduring alliances of modern times."—Tokyo, Japan, Feb. 18, 2002

"I hope you leave here and walk out and say, 'What did he say?'" --George W. Bush, Beaverton, Oregon, Aug. 13, 2004

I could go on. I could mention the war in Iraq, the 3000 dead American soldiers, the tens of thousands of dead Iraqis, the lack of WMDs found in that country -- even though they were the basis of his argument to go to war.

Or I could go on about Katrina, the Gulf Coast, the amazing city of New Orleans. Or the millions of Americans without health insurance, or the minimum-wage-earning adults who are under-employed. Or the loss of rights and freedoms.

And I hope you leave my webpage today and say, "How do I get to my polling place? How do I take some of the power AWAY from this deranged man? And just what AM I going to put on my family for dinner tonight?"

- T