And here I go again, back on my soapbox. What I am to say, I've said before, and I refuse to budge on my idea, as to date, I've never had anyone hand me better data...

When I voted at 7:10 a.m. this morning in St. Johns County, Florida, my right to vote was challenged because a poll worker decided my signature did not match my driver's license signature. I was given an "Affadavit of Elector When Signature is Different" form to sign and was going to be given a provisional ballot, but I objected to that decision, telling the worker that I've been voting at the same precinct with the same address for a decade and they were "abrogating my right to vote." (When negotiating a government bureaucracy, the most obscure verb wins.)

I've been telling anyone who will listen that once Christmas is over, look out for the avalanche of retail stores closing. Now it seems I was being too optimistic: things are so bad, expectations for the Christmas season are so low, and inventory is actually losing value so quickly that retailers are already starting the closing season.

It's very interesting to hear what political folks say in low pressure situations, where they aren't necessarily as watchful or their words as they might be under the glare of national tv, for example. Take John McCain. Please.

On October 29, Eliabeth Vargas of ABC News asked Sarah Palin "Do you think Senator Obama is as patriotic, as American, as honorable as John McCain? " The answer, according to an excerpt of the interview, was "I am sure that Senator Obama, ... cares as much for this country as McCain does."

Last Thursday, Former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan told a House Committee that he "made a mistake in presuming that the self-interests of organizations, specifically banks and others, were such as that they were best capable of protecting their own shareholders and their equity." Which was pretty damned strange, actually, because he supposedly learned that very lesson way back in 2002 concerning the accounting field.

Former pro football quarterback and eternal anti-tax agitator Jack Kemp had a phone conversation today with the equally ideological and agitating Neil Cavuto on Cavuto's Fox show today. The reason for the call? So Kemp and Cavuto could plant yet another seed of insanity into the presidential election. Kemp's latest is that Obama's tax plan, by giving what amount to rebates to taxpayers who owed no taxes, was "close"--real close--to "buying votes."

I saw the documentary "Boogie Man" the other night. It chronicles the rise and fall into brain cancer of the one and only Lee Atwater, the GOP politico who taught Karl Rove and who left the election of Saint Reagan and the Willie Horton ad as his major accomplishments. But the most interesting thing to me was the flat out statement from Robert (Prince of Darkness) Novak that the Democrats are the only party with principles.

As a liberal, I found myself in an awkward social situation in deeply Republican Jacksonville, Fl., on Friday: Do I get into a political argument with a doctor in the middle of my vasectomy?

Some time ago, I was not a contributor to anything, well, except for work. I came aboard Watchers by being an acidic complainer, and I went on a tear about a piece that had appeared here: There is hope for the south, so to speak, the author said.

I totally disagreed, but then, I've lived here too long to even think otherwise...

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