Although I think Cary had some good advice for the letter writer, I have a different take on the matter. Although the truth is harsh, animals kill and eat other living things because they must.

Without meat a carnivore will sicken and die. Although we are not carnivores, scientific evidence suggests that humans do need meat to survive. It is extremely difficult for humans to get the proper nutrition by following a vegan diet.

Malnourishment wreaks havoc with the body, and that includes the brain. Unless the letter writer has been extremely careful, he or she may be suffering from poor nutrition and protein deficiency. This, in turn, could cause emotional instability, anger and irritability of the kind that the writer is attributing to their passion for the cause. Truth to tell, they would probably benefit enormously from including some animal products in their diet.

The fact that animals must consume other life in order to survive is not about morality; it is simply the way animals are made. I do not approve of the way we often mistreat the animals that we eat. As many people do, I try not to think about it too much and I do feel guilty about that. There are two thoughts that assuage my guilt somewhat. First, most of the animals humans eat were raised for that purpose and would never have existed otherwise. Second, there are many animals that would not hesitate to eat me if given the chance. It would be nice if the world were moral and kind and there were no killing, but that simply is not the case.

Dissecting the data regarding the 2004 election in Ohio is a laborious and difficult task. It is easy to get mired in statistics and counter arguments and lose sight of the most important point: whether or not fraud was committed, massive irregularities were reported and thousands of people were disenfranchised.

Whether or not these irregularities were deliberate, they must be investigated and measures instituted such that these problems are less likeley to occur in the future. It is essential to the fabric of our democracy that everyone eligible citizen who wishes to vote is able to do so without hindrance and that their vote is counted accurately.

Without an eyewitness or a smoking gun, it is not possible to prove that the election was stolen. Every article Manjoo has written on that subject seems to demand a non-existent smoking gun. He misses the point that there needs to be an investigation into these election irregularities. The sooner the better. And, intentional or not, the nightmare of Ohio 2004 must never be repeated.

Meanwhile, even as Manjoo discounts the evidence presented in Kennedy's article his own conclusions are less than airtight. For example, Manjoo claims that:

Scrubbing the voting rolls of people who hadn't voted in prior elections isn't an arbitrary move. It's the law. Here's the relevant section of the Ohio code, 3503.19, which states that a person who "fails to vote in any election during the period of two federal elections" shall have his registration "canceled."

Following the link that Manjoo provided, here is the complete section from the Ohio code (emphasis added):

The registration of any elector identified as having changed his voting residence to a location outside his current county of registration shall not be canceled unless the registrant is sent a confirmation notice on a form prescribed by the secretary of state and the registrant fails to respond to the confirmation notice or otherwise update his registration and fails to vote in any election during the period of two federal elections subsequent to the mailing of the confirmation notice.

In the section that Manjoo left out of his article it is quite clear that not voting in two prior elections is not sufficient to remove a voter from the rolls. A confirmation notice must also be sent. If voters were purged in Ohio simply for failing to vote in two prior elections, that would indeed be in violation of the law, just as Kennedy indicated.

Manjoo has written extensively on this subject for Salon, always reiterating his arguments and coming to the same conclusion. I implore Salon to assign another journalist to this topic to take a fresh look.

And I want to remind everyone that the 2004 debacle indicates that all is not well with our election process. Regardless of whether the cause was fraud or incompetence, we must change the process so that these irregularities are less likely to occur in the future.

Somewhere in the cosmos I can hear George Orwell screaming, "It was supposed to be a cautionary tale. Not a manual on how to run a government!"

Will this nightmare ever end?

(I am posting this again because on my first try the body did not appear for some reason)

The story of those who were lost and the people who loved them, that is what this date should mean. It is not about exploiting our fears for political gains or using the horror to start an unnecessary war. It is not about taking away our civil rights.

I am so angry at what the Bush administration has done with this tragedy. Their bullying and jingoism has almost obscured my memory of what really happened that day. The personal story of the Yaskulka family brought it back in all its raw sense of sorrow, anger and horror.

Thank you, Salon. These are the stories that need to be told on this anniversary.