Election. Note to the anonymous European who sent my blog the "stopbushstopbushstopbush" message on election day: I did my best, but to paraphrase H. L. Mencken, every decent person is ashamed of the government he or she lives under. I won't beat a dead horse, I have managed to live through Nixon and Reagun, but here are a couple of more of Mencken's quotes that ring true today:

Each party steals so many articles of faith from the other, and the candidates spend so much time making each other's speeches, that by the time election day is past there is nothing much to do save turn the sitting rascals out and let a new gang in.

Every election is a sort of advance auction sale of stolen goods.

Every normal man [I'd add "women, too"] must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats.

Mostly in the USA, we are tempted, but fall back on our democratic process, with all of its all too human faults, to avoid bloodshed.