A follow-up: a while back I mentioned that the South Carolina Republican party had been criticized for not opening polling booths for its primary in black areas. I don't know if that situation is changed, but the D's realized that if they were going to criticize the R's, they'd better not do the same. Then they realized how expensive it would be, and cancelled the primary.

Speaking of primaries, it's time for the Californians on this list to make up their minds who they're going to vote for for president. Remember, the vote doesn't count in any meaningful way unless it's in the party in which you are registered. So you can technically vote for Alan Keyes to make mischief for the R's, but under the compromise by which the parties decided to ignore the express will of the voters, they would get to ignore you. This only applies to the presidential race. If you want to change your party registration, the deadline is Feb. 7.

Speaking of circuses, one of the first things his caring relatives did for Elian Gonzales after he came to this country after watching his mother drown, was take him to Disneyworld and stick him on a boat in a ride. He was heard to ask whether it would sink. Worse, it was It's a Small World. No fit guardian would subject a child to It's a Small World at the best of times.

The EU, en masse, told the Austrians not to let fascists into government. Finally, the EU is good for something.

And the governor of Illinois is planning to actually pay attention to executions and maybe stop them altogether, because they keep convicting innocent people. Put that way, it's entirely reasonable, but I don't see any other state doing it. I understand that Michael Moore sent a brass band to join one of those little Fry the Guy parties they hold outside the prison during executions in Texas, and some cheerleaders--George George, he's our man, if he can't kill him, no one can!

The Times & Post are downplaying it for some reason, but Britain just convicted a doctor of 15 murders. He killed old patients, some of whom he got to leave him him money. And he didn't kill just 15, he killed as many as ten times that number. Don't know if they were National Health patients. They also have a doctor over there who is defending, nay proud, of having cut the perfectly healthy legs off a couple of people with strange ideas of what is sexually arousing. And a doctor last week took out a patient's good kidney, leaving the ailing one. There's a simple solution when such things happen--at least, depending on how many kidneys the doctor still has left.

So those are the stories I've been reading for the last week in preparation for my doctor's visit today. Which turned out ok.

T-shirt seen on sale in Berkeley: “Fuck your Valentine.” Who buys these things?