It's the kind that validates itself by the gamers it pisses off. Road Rage in a First-Person Shooter. Hey, I'm not playing a video game commissioned by the army to make all this look cool. I'm not killing people. I'm playing a game!

Meanwhile, the Suicide Bomber's video game is coming along. The IED-builder's laboratory is fun! See how far you can get in building a bomb before your lab explodes like a meth lab in Kansas! Look at those Palestinians! How can they do that, dress those kids up like shaheen? We drop our kids off at the America Mall, and they buy these games and disappear in the basement killing people for hours. At least they're out of their hair.

And then this guy comes along and ruins their fun. He is teh gay.

I lived in Montreal for a long time, and yes, there were lists in each neighborhood, of all voters in that neighborhood. And in Nova Scotia, I distinctly recall it. I checked my address, to make sure I wasn't listed because of my being American. I wasn't listed. This last time was about 1988 or '89.

Admittedly, it's been a while, and I don't know if Canada's changed in the time I've been away, but imagine this, Americans. Every election time, the Canada Elections bureaucracy -- it changes names sometimes -- takes "the lists" of every civic address in Canada, pays workers to go door-to-door, and checks your name off against the list. Sometimes, if you've moved, you show I.D to change your listing. (I am American, so I always said, "I can't vote," but I suppose I could have gotten away with it.) Then, and how Canadian is this, they put the neighborhood voting lists and put them on telephone polls every few blocks. You can check to see if your name is there, or challenge a listing, or whatever. The voter's list is PERMANENT. You don't have to register and re-register or anything like that. It's child's play to get rid of fraudulent registrations, and you can really nail someone if they give false information. The list is federal, so it can be cross-checked to track down people who moved.

This got me thinking, what I.D. do I show in California? Well, I went to the DMV and filled out a form, then confirmed my I.D. with my driver's license. Then I get checked off the list when I give my address at the polling place. I'm perfectly willing to show my driver's license, of course -- what's the harm? Except, of course, you can buy a fake I.D. outside the DMV in some places. And then, there's the question of people who can't afford a car -- quite substantial numbers, if we go by the number stranded by Katrina -- which was the most successful mass evacuation of a major city in U.S. history.

Meanwhile, there's a crucial distinction here. I have no doubt that the old big-city bosses paid people to vote, several times, and graveyards also expressed their support for many politicians. But these political, mostly Democratic machines are almost gone. Campaign expenses are tracked closely. It seems to me that without these political machines, there won't be any massive fraud. Back when Loretta Sanchez beat Bob Dornan, he claimed "massive voter fraud," but was unable to demonstrate more than 300 "suspect votes" -- not necessarily fraudulent -- in the entire election, which he lost by a lot more than that. In the old days, they could have found thousands of phony voters in South Philly or Daley's Chicago. If they didn't own the cops.

It is simply necessary for Republicans to invent the "massive fraud" demon -- presumably evil George Soros, or Osama, paying illegal Mexicans to destroy our country -- in order to justify their National I.D. card.

Fraud comes from voting machines without open source software and paper trails, and from finding ways to kick the other guy's voters off the list, and deploying as few polling booths in poor and black areas. It's the new face of voter fraud, and it's mostly Republican.

If the Republicans were showing the slightest degree of compromise, I'd be with Joe. But the fact is, here's a party that has spent no time at all working in a bipartisan fashion. Joe sounds like it's still 2001 -- before September -- and he's eagerly agreed to let bygones be bygones and "compromise" with the Bush administration. He championed the Homeland Security department, and for his trouble, what did the Republicans run on that year? They were forced by public opinion to accept the new agency. They then pretended they had invented it, and ran in 2002 blaming the Democrats for holding up HSD. It was a Democratic idea, which they then took, and stripped labor protections out of it, and then blamed the Dems for not bashing the unions. Not only blamed, but blamed as unpatriotic friends of Osama because they held out for union contracts.

There's no compromise there, Joe. They're just taking Democrats who work the way you do as Useful Fools, and your "centrism" holds nothing for Democrats at this time except certain defeat.

is funny, incisive, and quite correct about the The Great Brainwashed. Poco, you troll, Michael Moore is Homer compared to that P.O.S. last night. If you couldn't spot the myth-making and the partisan slant, then you've been watching too much Limbaugh. In fact, that's the definition of your brain disease, looking back at your letters over time.