That’s what those who committed these crimes are. Thanks for helping to show the Arab world that we mean to do good instead of evil.

It was hard trying to find a simple grid to the results of yesterday’s vote. Congrats to the winners.

While there is lots of drama on the Republican side of things, even if you are a Democrat, voting always counts for something. The Committee of Seventy has some useful links for you if you need help. Vote. Make yourself heard.

The Washington Post is doing a terrific series on on just how far apart liberal and conservative America are:

In or a Conservative, Life Is Sweet in Sugar Land, Tex., you can read about life as it is from the perspective of the Stein family.

In A Liberal Life In the City By the Bay you can read about the Harrisons.

To most out here, both seem caricatures. Oliver Willis thinks The Onion couldn’t produce better satire. But ya know what – I know people just like both families.

They exist. Listen to what both families have say.

As Dave Rogers says: “there is no “them,” there’s only “us.””.

Soldier comes home. She has a baby to take care of. She goes homeless. NYTimes posts a story about it. It’s missing plenty of details. Nevertheless, the folks at Metafilter go to war with each other over it.

The Net maybe one of the causes of our current political self-segregation. Maybe it is. But it is also a great tool to observe it from 20,000 feet. Try it sometime. Listen. You may hear yourself. And you may wonder, what the hell am I doing about what’s going on, other then arguing about it.

BTW, MoveOn’s 50 Ways to Love Your Country is a pretty good book.

That quote says it all. Here is an observation of mine you can take to the bank: “If two candidates are using entirely negative campaigning, the more entrenched candidate will win.” Remember Clinton? Remember how hard the Republicans tried to bring him down? Even with far better reasons, the same tactics will bring the same results against Bush.

A message for Kerry: The way to win is by appealing to all Americans that we are better then this. That we can beat the terrorists. That there are no good reasons for America to have lost the trust of the rest of the world. That fear does not need to rule the day. That together we will win. Divided we will fall. The politics of division serve only those currently power. It is a message that deep down inside, all of us know. Bush used this message against Gore. He will attempt to claim this ground against you. Have your supporters tear down the other candidate (watch the Bush support team and Bush himself and note the differences in their tactics) while you rise above the fray and show optimism and faith in our people (as Bush attempts to do – however poorly – I know you can do better). Explain how you know things are bad, that things can get better, and show us the way.

The politics of division end up supporting the most powerful existing entities. That’s just the way it is. Have faith in the people and we will express our faith in you at the ballot box.

BTW – the quote comes from Arianna Huffington’s weblog.

Another quote I’d like to pass along, from a President who led during another time of war:

If the fires of freedom and civil liberties burn low in other lands, they must be made brighter in our own. If in other lands the press and books and literature of all kinds are censored, we must redouble our efforts here to keep them free. If in other lands the eternal truths of the past are threatened by intolerance we must provide a safe place for their perpetuation.

– President Franklin D. Roosevelt

…When people say, “What are you so angry about?” Well, that’s a terrible oversimplification because I don’t live an angry life as people who know me for five minutes or five years will say. They rarely see me in an angry mood. I get irritated like anyone else, in traffic or in a long line that’s not moving. But I don’t carry anger around. What I feel is a sense of betrayal by my species and by my culture — that they lost their way and misled me, too, to a degree.

I’m a disappointed idealist. I think of myself as a skeptic, a realist. I think the cynics are the people who left the gas tank on the Ford Pinto, companies that kill people and just cross them out because they can’t afford to retool. That’s a cynical position. But the saying goes, if you scratch a cynic, you find a disappointed idealist, and that’s what’s going on with me. Down deep and underneath, the flame still flickers. I wish for an idealist, utopic world but the realist in me says it’s never gonna happen because of the way they’ve structured power and money and control and the hierarchies they’ve established.

Read the rest of George Carlin’s interview in Salon.

Why isn’t this story (Independent.co.uk) getting more coverage in the mainstream media?