Bob continues to forward entertaining and occasionally insightful articles to the list. From the bluesy side of the fence, Moby wrote:

can someone remind me why secession is not an option at this point?

Meanwhile, on the Commie-colored side of the fence, Mike Thompson of HUMAN EVENTS ONLINE took several weeks to write a "modest proposal" to kick the states that didn't get with the program out of the union. Those of us who remember the Vietnam-era redneck taunt about "America: Love It or Leave It" also remember that if anybody *did* leave, the right wing got immensely offended by it and wanted to hunt them traitors down like dawgs. Then of course there was that unpleasantness of the War Between the States, aka the War of Northern Aggression, in which the Red States left because they didn't like the liberal northerners and their activist judges and politicians disrupting the core of their traditional values, and the Blue States insisted that Nationalism was more important than the right to secede and attacked them. So no, it probably won't fly... Unfortunately, I have to agree with the critics of Kerry who said that he was aloof and out of touch with Middle America; his campaign clearly didn't recognize that Bush had succeeded at telling them that Kerry didn't share their values, and Kerry didn't realize it and demonstrate otherwise, nor did he do an adequate job of talking about Democratic values in a way that would draw them in. And the Republicans and the Democrat establishment had pretty much gotten together to take out Howard Dean, who was building an actual political party inside the hollowed-out shell of the current party. ---- Bill Stewart bill.stewart@pobox.com