If a Clinton administration is going to be some sort of a faith based administration pandering to the religious right then there is no way I could vote for her or any other candidate doing so. Those people have already caused enough damage to this country and to the world and I for one could not tolerate another four or eight years of such bull----. If such a person were elected then I would have to consider seeking sanctuary in another country, perhaps Australia, where they finally got their head on straight and got rid of John Howard. The most dangerous candidate now running however, is Mitt Romney, whom a good friend in Massachusetts sometimes referred to as a fascist and given the hard line stance of the LDS Church, I am not surprised.

My candidate at this time is Rudolph Guliani. He has his detractors to be sure but folks, remember, we are electing a president, not a saint.

QUESTION: What do you call people who decorate Christmas trees?
ANSWER: Branch managers.

[clunk]

Very good piece here by David Aldridge of the Philadelphia Inquirer concerning the homicide rate in the black community.

Just finished reading "American Theocracy" by Kevin Phillips concerning the peril and politics of radical religion, oil, and borrowed money in the 21st Century. It is an interesting read and one I think that every concerned American should take up. Now I am starting Madeleine Albright's "The Mighty and the Almighty", Reflections on America, God, and World Affairs. This too promises to be very informative. "This is a must-read for anyone who cares about the future of American foreign policy. (Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, author of "What's Right with Islam is What's Right with America").

Strange experiences tonight on at least two occasions when I felt like I was outside my body but not far away. Just sort of "beside myself" but still observing for a brief period what was going on. I wonder what WAS going on? Am I losing it or is something else going on?

Riots like these in the Paris region of France anger and sadden me. Paris is such a nice city as is most of the country and while this particular suburb is not one tourists would go to, these riots could spread as they did last year when some rioting occurred at Place d'Italie which is only a short distance from the hotel where I have stayed. It angers me that outsiders could be involved so I hope the local authorities are successful in containing the angry mobs and weeding out the agitators.

I would say that President Sarkozy has got to go. There is too much turmoil under his proposed economic reforms. Rail strikes lasting longer than one or two days are unheard of in modern France and now the country is grinding to a halt with the open ended transport strike and other job actions around the country. Will France survive? I certainly hope so but right now things appear rather bleak from this side of the Atlantic.

"Out damn spot". In this case the spot is Comcast with their less than stellar Internet service and their nearly non-existent customer service. The last time I called them about a problem they all but blamed me for the problem. Also, I have not received any replies to two letters to them regarding messages which foreign correspondents have tried to send to me but which were subsequently bounced back to the respective senders. My correspondents sent me the error codes which I forwarded to Comcast but to no avail. These bounced messages involve the fact that my IP address is blacklisted by some mail servers for suspected spam. Nothing could be further from the truth as I am not a purveyor of spam.So now I am ready to pull the plug on their Internet service here once I can get DSL from another vendor up and operating.

So buyers beware. COMCAST sucks! :-(

This is certainly a case of the the pot calling the kettle black. Hugo Chavez is a complete idiot.

If merchants have less than hoped for sales this Christmas they deserve what they get. Here it is only nine days into November and every other ad on radio and TV is a Christmas commercial. The greed of those people knows no bounds. Whatever happened to the days when the Christmas shopping season started the day after Thanksgiving. Of course you can do Christmas shopping any day any month but the B.S. of all the Christmas advertising is too much. Then here in San Francisco "light rock" KOIT-FM plays Christmas schmaltz round-the-clock day after day, week after week. It makes me puke.

What's with this weather this week? It has been so foggy and cold. In fact, it was so foggy yesterday that a container ship ran into the Bay Bridge. Now we ALL know how hard it is to see that bridge. Ha! Was the pilot on a cell phone? Was the radar not working? Did the pilot fail sewing 101A (the threading the needle part)?

Well, my stock in Rudolph Giuliani just went from 100 to zero with the announcement that Pat Robertson is backing him. As the Republican front runner, why the hell should he agree to link up with that right wing nut case? If the party nominates them as a ticket they wouldn't get my vote. I was prepared to support Giuliani but teamed with a more reasonable running mate, not a religious Darth Vader.

Today is election day in the City and Country of San Francisco. Well, that is a typo (country) but sometimes I think it fits but in a good way however today's municipal election is a joke with Mayor Newsom running unopposed by any serious candidate and a bunch of poorly written ballot propositions that won't do what they are supposed to and even if passed, stand a good chance of being challenged in court. If my polling place were not just around the corner I wouldn't even bother to vote as it is really an exercise in futility.

I love this letter to the editor from Bob Sills of Castro Valley: Theodore Roosevelt gave us the Square Deal, Franklin Roosevelt the New Deal, and Harry Truman the Fair Deal. George W. Bush's presidency should be remembered in history as the Ordeal.