I don't know what to make of this issue. On the one hand, it's another example (in a long list) of conservative hypocrisy. So? We already know that conservatives don't think that hypocrisy is a bad thing. I even read one conervative person's spin that the fact that we (liberals) think that hypocrisy is a bad thing is proof that we have no other moral values. Apparently, the only reason we criticize people for hypocrisy is that we can't criticize them for any other moral failings. Conservative hypocrisy has ceased to suprise me.

This is also a tragic example of how the right wing fundamentalist obsession about homosexuality and lack of tolerance is destroying lives. This man made his career telling people how to behave while not following his own rules, and he earned his downfall - but he has family and friends who did nothing to earn the betrayal they are now going to experience. Does he deserve to fall? Well, he certainly broke rules, but he didn't hurt anybody but his family in the process. On the right, that may be unforgiveable.

Perhaps this is simply an example of the reality that if you set unrealistic standards for human behaviour, you will invariably be disappointed when people close to you can't live by those standards. Perhaps this is yet more proof that homosexuality isn't a lifestyle choice, it is an inherent part of what some people are, and it will not be denied - no matter how powerful the incentive.

The most interesting question, for me, is how this man's fellow Christians will respond to his admission of indiscretions. Will he be rejected, as so many "sinners" have been? I am certain he will repent - but how much are these people going to tolerate? Will any of them learn lessons of tolerance from this? Or will he simply be relegated to a quiet life in a mansion bought with the money sent in by people who no longer respect him?

This is a complex story of a man who had and preached very clear rules, but apparently couldn't live by those rules. It is not a simple "Gotcha" story about a preacher gone wrong. It is, I suspect, a story about an entire religious movement that has gone wrong.

Okay... I'm cynical. But I've watched Republicans inventing dirty tricks to win elections for years. They have been astonishingly creative about not only getting out their vote, but also supressing Democratic votes. I would really like to believe that no political party would openly cheat on an election by "stuffing" digital ballot boxes, but I can't. There is just way too much circumstantial evidence that elections are being manipulated. Besides, it is widely accepted that both political parties have cheated in the past. It really isn't that much of a stretch to think it could happen again, however much we want to believe it isn't so. The Republican Party has motive to cheat, opportunity (through their connections at the leading ballot counting companies), and presence at the scene of the crime (through their control of many local election offices).

My prediction - the seats that are close will end up in Republican hands. The Democrats will see gains in seats, but will not hold the Senate and will either not hold the house or will gain it by a slim margin.

2004 is still fresh in my mind. We went out to dinner to celebrate, because *everybody* was saying that Kerry had taken the election. In 2000, it was the same. All of the exit polls were clear - Gore had won. I won't let myself get fooled again. I'm going to assume the worst until the final results are in. I'm proudly wearing my "I voted" sticker. When I watched the man scan my ballot into the machine all I could think about was watching "Hacking Democracy", where they scanned ballots in and hacked the result with nothing more than a few lines of code on a card. At least with the mark and scan system there is a reconrd, so that the count could be checked against the results. A lot of people are voting on touch systems with no paper trail. How valid is the democratic process when people have to wonder if their votes are really being counted?

I didn't think we'd take the Senate, either. I'm still not positive we will. A lot can happen during recounts when Republicans are in charge. I predicted that we would lose the Senate and gain the House, but by a small margin. Never have I been so happy to be proven wrong.

The real question when we invaded should have been: Can we improve this situation by invading? There are a lot of countries where women are treated badly. We don't invade these countries because they are politically stable and if we interfere we will very likely end up making things even worse for women (and men, and children). The Balkans was a different kind of situation. It was so politically unstable that anything we did was bound to improve the situation. Iraq was a stable country composed of 3 religious factions who hated each other being held together by a dictator who ruthlessly forced them to get along. I could have justified invading when Hussein decided to gas the Kurds, because that was a crisis that we could have prevented. But we didn't help the Kurds - we ignored their deaths. We waited until Iraq's illegal weapons were destroyed or rotted in warehouses and then invaded. Now, the country is devolving into a civil war, women are being forced to live under extremist rule, and people are being tortured by "militants" instead of the government. I don't have a problem in intervening when we can prevent a crisis - like the establishment of "rape camps". I do have a problem intervening in a stable government we don't like when we are only likely to bring about chaos and pain for the citizens of the government.