My e-mail to Jerry Falwell: "a more evil person than any 'liberal'"

I've noticed that quite a few "Christian leaders" are barely containing their glee in the wake of this past Tuesday's elections. Even the ministers on the local "conservative Christian" AM radio station have sounded more upbea... no, not "upbeat". "Swaggering" is more like it. If - as the Bible says - all the angels of Heaven rejoice when just one human soul cries to God for forgiveness, there's a lot more rejoicing from many professing Christians when just one Republican gets elected to office over an evil Democrat.

You'd think that must be anyway, 'specially after reading the Revrund Jerry Falwell and his article "Christian voters triumph over Hollywood left" that's up at World Net Daily this morning. "Dear Lord, PLEASE have mercy on America if THIS is the kind of pride and arrogance that we have to look forward to for the next four years." Because if God will look kindly on a people that repent and humble themselves, THIS kind of mindset isn't going to score any points toward this nation's longevity. Go read it if you like, but I hope people understand that this kind of attitude is NOT what we're called to engender as Christians.

So I wrote Falwell an e-mail, and called him out on a few things. I'm posting it here for public consumption...

FROM: Christopher Knight
TO: jerry@falwell.com
SUBJECT: Falwell, there's no way you really serve Christ after this piece...

...on World Net Daily. You spent most of the time patting yourself on the back and dropping other people's names who also spend too much time patting themselves on the back.

But that's not the worst of it: you don't even pretend to hide your hatred of people you don't like. To you, being a "conservative Christian" is carte blanche to toss aside Jesus's instructions that we are to love one another, ESPECIALLY our enemies.

And that's STILL not the worst even: you do NOTHING in this piece to introduce Christ to people who are sincerely wanting and needing Him. The problem is, they look at people like you and what you're doing and they CAN'T find Christ in your life... because He's not really there at all.

All you care about is putting Republicans into office, making sure Bush looks like God's anointed on Earth that can do no wrong, and condemning those sinful liberals. Well, I'm going to let you in on something that maybe nobody's ever informed you of: there isn't a hair's breadth of difference between you and any other "Christian
conservative" and those liberals that you relish destroying so much. You *and* they are after the same damnable goal: power in this world over other men. Both of you differ only in your methods. And in *your* case you believe that God has put His stamp of approval on your lust.

That last one makes you a far more evil person on this earth than any "liberal" in my book.

If you want to commit the sin of hatred, don't justify yourself for it by acting like one of the Lord's anointed. Because you're only proving to the entire world that you're not... not to mention that you're making it harder for those that DO love others as they love Christ. Your pride is destroying the testimony of real Christians more than you can imagine. If you even CARED about that at all,
anyway.

There's a word for people like you, Mr. Falwell: "Pharisees". They used their ecclesiastical positions to keep other people in their power also. And when Someone arrived who refused to play their silly games of domination, they conspired to have Him killed.

Jesus Christ - and those who TRULY follow Him - would and will refuse to play YOUR silly game here and now. Considering that I seriously doubt if you have any understanding of that, I can't help but wonder if you and the rest of the "Christian Reconstruction" crowd might someday start nailing those of us who will serve the Lord only to crosses - no doubt planted on the White House lawn outside of Bush's window - for refusing to whore ourselves as you have to the god of this earth.

You do more damage to the cause of Christ than you know by lusting for power as you do. Please, stop this now, repent of this madness and turn your heart back to the Lord... instead of keeping it faced toward that which also comes appearing as an angel of light.

Stop using the name of Jesus Christ as your ticket to power. He's our personal savior, not your personal nightstick.

In Christ,
Christopher Knight

This partly came out of some very troubling discussions I've been having with a number of people during the past few days. Every one of them echoed the same concern that's been growing in my own mind: that we may finally - and in defiance of almost all serious consideration that it could possibly happen - be witnessing the rise of Christian Reconstructionism in America. And if THAT ever comes to hold full sway over this land, you're gonna see things happen that will positively make the camps at Auschwitz look like an excursion to Disney World by comparison.

I'm going to write more on this later. But in the meantime, if the Reconstructionists ARE starting to take over, heed this advice: get a gun. Even if you don't believe in guns, get a gun. Learn how to use that gun. Thank God that your conscience won't let you use the gun to take the life of another human being without justifiable cause. But understand also that you may have to use that gun all the same. The Jews of the Warsaw ghetto held out against the Nazis for a month in 1943 with only a handful of rifles and pistols. There's a lesson to be learned from them.

I'm a Christian and a historian. Man's capability of inflicting on his brother such cruel horrors in the absence of God from his heart is something that I thoroughly understand. Well, there are some people in this country today that really don't have God in their hearts, and they're a lot less honest about that than the Nazis were. And they're going to be inconceivably WORSE than the Nazis ever were, should they someday take control over this country.

When that day comes, love your family. Love yourself. And love the freedom that God gave you and that thousands died to protect for you. Don't let them take control.

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Star Wars Episode III teaser IS ONLINE!!!

Being a subscriber to StarWars.com's Hyperspace service, the Revenge Of The Sith teaser trailer was available for me to see before it's made available for most people later on this evening (if yer a die-hard Star Wars geek, Hyperspace is well worth the twenty bucks per year, I can safely say).

Well, what can be said but... DAAAAAAAAAMMMMMNNNNN!!

The Duel. 'Nuff said.

And surprisingly enough, the trailer has the "reveal" of when Darth Vader is shown in armor for the very first time.

Okay, I gotta run: I still haven't cleaned off the spooge from my keyboard after seeing this. Trust me guys, this thing will make your head explode like that guy in Scanners, it's so mind-blowingly cool!!!!!

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Doesn't this concession by Kerry seem almost half-hearted...

...especially given that his running mate is John Edwards?

Say what you will about trial lawyers, but Edwards has consistently been among the best of them. By all rights he should be frothing at the mouth before the cameras while ranting and raving that "it's not over" until ALL the ballots from Ohio and Florida have been counted. That's what he promised in the wee hours of the morning anyways. Now Kerry is making his concession speech at this very moment and Edwards, who committed his entire future political viability for a chance to be Vice-President of the United States... is doing nothing?

No speculation at all, folks: it's only an observation. It's just that I'm finding this to be more than a little out-of-character for John Edwards. But two possibilities do come to mind, although I'm reluctant to invest lengthy consideration toward either but the first: that being that the decision to concede has been Kerry's alone to make, probably after conferring with Democratic Party leadership and though they may not be happy with it, they're going to abide by Kerry's wishes to the letter, and that goes for Edwards also, as much as this is probably killing him deep down.

The other possibility, and it's a wildly remote one - but one that would be perfectly in-keeping with Edwards' style - is that conceding this quickly was something that Edwards suggested. Why that would be, I've no idea. But trial lawyers are a particularly clever lot and Edwards is already well-known for his adeptness at legally maneuvering out of nowhere to lock up a case when it sometimes seemed a lost cause.

Concession speeches aren't legally binding agreements, by the way.

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Ahh geez... not THIS again!

It's 2:10 AM on November 3rd. And shaking my head at what's coming down all over the place.

Folks, for the longest time I've had a feeling in my gut that this year's election would become a fiasco that would trump the nonsense in Florida four years ago. So many factors figured into that thought: proliferation of electronic voting, the polarisation and animosity between each side, a few other things.

Well boys and girls, here we go fast and furious...

And there's some positively scary things running through my mind about what might come down the pike next. But first, something from earlier tonight and guess what? It's about those bloody Diebold machines.

About 11 PM last night a friend sent me this link to Oliver Willis' blog. This is a screengrab that was made as live election results were coming in earlier this evening from Hamilton County, Ohio. Whoever this David Keith Cobb guy is, he was not only beating George W. Bush but he managed to get tie John Kerry ballot-for-ballot at the same time...


Now, I'm juste a mite curious enough to ask aloud: What the Hell is going on here?! May be worth noting that, apparently, Hamilton County was using Diebold equipment to vote on.

Maybe it's just a minor glitch. Or maybe it indicates data management of a more intentional nature. Hey, Diebold's CEO promised in August 2003 that he and his company were "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year."

Was he being literal about that?

It's definitely something to be investigated, if for no other reason than to make the hardware and software more reliable for future elections... if electronic voting devices are used for future elections at all. And if an investigation yields evidence that the voting tabulation was "massaged", well... heads should roll. Anybody got an axe?

Anyhoo, right now Ohio is looking at an 11-day interim before they can open up what might be as many as 300,000 provisional ballots that could tip this thing in either Bush's direction or Kerry's. We also gotta keep an eye on Florida: 2 million absentee and provisional ballots haven't been counted there yet. That's two hotspots at least that have flared up this election... and no telling how this is going to end.

Meanwhile, somewhere high above the darkened landscape of the American prarie, an airplane loaded with Kerry/Edwards lawyers is hurdling through the night sky toward Ohio...

On the plus side of things, Dan Rather's wit has never been so rapier-sharp as it is this morning :-)

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"Eminem is the WHAT?!?!"

Something occurred to me last night: Eminem is the 21st Century's answer to Thomas Paine!

Think about it: Paine stirred the American people to action with his pamphlet "Common Sense" in the 1770s. Just as Eminem is doing now with his "Mosh" song and video.

Juxtapose that lil' analogy in yer head: "These are the times that try men's souls" has found a worthy heir in "Mr. kisses ass crack, he's a class act Rubber band man, yea he just snaps back".

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I stood up to be counted today...

...And in the end, I voted for John Kerry.

There are three names for President on the North Carolina ballot: Democrat John Kerry, George W. Bush from the Republicans, and Michael Badnarik representing the Libertarian Party. And had Michael Peroutka of the Constitution Party been a choice on the ballot, my pen would have unhesitantly hit the screen next to his name (this was also the first time I've ever used a computerized voting system).

I think that the so-called "third parties" suffer from the system being rigged against them. The two major parties never worry about the hurdles that the third parties must jump... not when it was they who set up the hurdles to begin with. There should be a leveled playing field for all the parties, and any unaffiliated individuals for that matter. As it stands now America is run by a kleptocratic duopoly without an effective counter because (a) the two major parties have conspired with each other to render null any real threat to the status quo, (b) the mainstream press is too lazy to even want there to be anything beyond the two parties because it would complicate their lives as journalists if other parties gave them more news than they could cover and still get into all the cocktail parties, and (c) our present political system is based on the assumption that the American people are too stupid to think for themselves. Unfortunately we don't do ourselves any favors by complying with that demand.

Sometimes I envy the Russians who endured living during the Soviet era. At least their government was honest with its people about their lives being dominated by the state. The Communist Party did have enough confidence about itself that it didn't have to pretend it wasn't one party by putting forth a two-faction farce. For all that our Russian friends went through with severe shortages and less freedoms than we used to have here, their government had a lot more integrity than the one we have comprised by the RepubliCrats.

I'm a firm believer in the third parties: they're the only real source of new ideas and principles that could possibly compare to the two major ones. I'm going to still believe in them... but I'm not naive enough to believe that a third party candidate is going to win this round for President. I've lots of reason to believe that the Constitution Party can be a serious powerhouse by 2012 if not 2008 even, and enough of one to threaten the two-party stranglehold... but not today in 2004.

And like a lot of people are fond of pointing out, "every vote counts." We hope so anyway :-)

There's a lot of things that this pro-life born-again Christian disagrees with about John Kerry. But after studying the man at length these past several weeks on my own, with no one else to define him for me, I couldn't help but come to the conclusion that however it is that he stands on an issue, that Kerry at least considered the notion thoroughly before committing himself to that stand. I may not agree with him on something... but I've got to respect that it was something he came to on his own. We could use a lot more considerate minds like Kerry's in Washington D.C.

There wasn't a Michael Jackson's chance of keeping his hands in his pockets at a Cub Scout convention that I would have ever voted for George W. Bush. And having not voted for him twice now, my conscience is feeling pretty clean and wholesome about rejecting him. Yeah yeah, I've talked about what Bush did to me four years ago but my loathing the thought of him living in OUR White House stems from a lot more than that. For one thing, I'm my own person, the one that God made me to be. And I refuse to be like a lot of other people - including many Christians - who see Bush as the anointed carnal mouthpiece and vengeful fist of the Almighty. You know the kind I'm talking about: they NEVER question whether the things that Bush has done are right or wrong, or even stop and wonder if some of those things haven't been downright evil. These people are under a strong delusion, and I want no part of it. As for me and my house, we shall serve the Lord... and not a spoiled fraternity brat who can't decide if he wants to play the Lone Ranger or Winston Churchill.

Bush has done more to take America into the realm of blatant fascism than any other President in our history. I won't hate the guy - I never want to hate the guy - but he must be stopped and stopped now. And I'm having a very hard time seeing Kerry continue a lot of the fear tactics that Bush has held over the American people. If my vote can possibly, in even the least bit, help take the reins away from Bush, then I've definitely no problem in trusting it with a man if he happens to be John Kerry.

Which is why I voted John Kerry for President of the United States.

It was a pretty mixed ballot for me, with a generous mixture of Democrats and Republicans and Libertarian candidates. Barbara Howe got my vote for governor: I don't know that much about Patrick Ballentine and as for Mike Easley... well, let's just say that when I was a reporter in the western part of the state some years ago that I saw just how dirty Easley can get. I've never met either of those guys but I've met Barbara Howe - a Libertarian - a few times and she's a nice and astute-enough lady that I had no problem choosing her.

It's my personal policy to never vote a straight-ticket, and to never vote in a race where I know very little or nothing at all about its candidates. I also voted against Amendment 1, which would give local governments here in North Carolina the option to issue bonds without approval via public referendum. The thing is being pitched as a fast-track way to create jobs here in the state... how they figure that, I've no idea. But it's not a good idea at all to give local governments unrestrained bond power when a lot of them can't even manage paying off the ones they've issued already.

There was a MASSIVE turnout when I went to the poll, but the workers there told me that it had been far bigger early this morning: they were expecting it to pick up again as the evening approached. My wife's school is a polling location (the voting machines are set up in her classroom!) and they reported having a much higher turnout than usual when I called over there late this morning. Goes prety much hand-in-hand with everyting else I've heard: that this election is shattering records for turnout. Not even the one in 1992 - with the race between George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Ross Perot - generated THIS much voter participation.

Anyhoo, however this tale goes, my small part in it is finished. All that's left is to lay back, relax, and watch what's sure to be a very wild evening unfold. Too bad for us that it can't really be called "entertainment" though, huh?

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Okay, after the Diebold machines, THIS will be today's biggest FUBAR

This just in from Yahoo!

Court OKs Voter Challengers at Ohio Polls

9 minutes ago

BY LISA CORNWELL, Associated Press Writer

CINCINNATI - Giving a pre-dawn Election Day boost to the GOP, a federal appeals court early Tuesday cleared the way for political parties to send in people to challenge voters' eligibility at Ohio polling places. The U.S. Supreme Court declined to step in.

Overturning the orders of two federal judges, a three-judge panel of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 early Tuesday that the presence of Election Day challengers was allowed under state law. It granted emergency stays that will allow Republicans and Democrats one challenger per precinct each.

Plaintiffs' appeals to the U.S. Supreme Court were unsuccessful. Early Tuesday, Justice John Paul Stevens, who handles appeals from Ohio, refused a request to stay the 6th Circuit decision.

Republicans say they wanted challengers in many polling places because of concerns about fraud. Democrats have accused the GOP of trying to suppress Democratic turnout. Hundreds of thousands of voters have been newly registered in a state President Bush and Sen. John Kerry (news - web sites) both say they need to win.

(snip)

Pardon me for asking this if it's already been asked, but... who the hell do the Republican Party think they are to confront average Americans like this?

Come to think of it, who the hell are the Republicans and Democrats to believe that God gave THEM authority over America? 'Cuz that's exactly what the Republicans are assuming right now: that they have sovereignty over the franchise of the ordinary citizen.

Now, this is a "dirty trick", boyz and goylz. There've been riots in places because of things like this happening, and more than once in American history.

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Get your black hoods ready: today we "Mosh"

Click here for Eminem's "Mosh" video (32 MB Quicktime)
Was up 'til 2 A.M. this morning watching the first bits of news trickle in on today's election. Already there's chaos brewing in Ohio and Florida.

And the day is just getting started.

I'm heading to the polls in another hour or so. The only thing I'm really willing to openly predict is that this may be the most mechanically-plagued election in American history, what with electronic voting machines like Diebold and Sequoia all over the place... and if Baxter the chimpanzee could throw a monkeywrench into the works, why not an unscrupulous poll worker. Or those in charge of the system itself (Diebold's president has even admitted that he'll do whatever he can to help elect Bush). No paper trail on these things folks. Nothing to audit at all. I first saw these machines in action four years ago and they scared the hell out of me then. I hope and pray we don't see the full potential for anarchy reached with them today.

As for who I'm voting for President... well, let's put it this way: my vote won't go for anyone who's a hypocrite, a fake Christian, a compulsive liar, a practicing fascist, or anyone who once personally called me an "asshole" or had a meat-headed goon tell me to "get the fuck out of here!" Parse that as you will...

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Halloween 2004: SHE made me do it!

A month ago Lisa suggested that maybe I get this Jango Fett costume she'd seen in a Halloween store at the mall, so that I could wear it with the Jango helmet that I got two years ago (when I wanted to build a good set of Fett armor). I suspect the REAL reason she wanted me to spring for it is so she could wear my Jedi Knight costume, which is practically movie quality. So it was that after church last night we got decked out like this and went out to eat...


Now, I may be prejudiced, but I've had dinner with the ladies that portray Aayla Secura and Mara Jade for Lucasfilm, among others and they were all very fine charming and lovely young ladies... but Lisa makes for the darned HOTTEST lil' Jedi dame that I ever saw!!

Just hope she doesn't get too cocky with that lightsaber: I don't wanna emulate the fate of my on-screen persona :-)

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Karl Rove and Azzam the American: ONE AND THE SAME?!?

This has been bugging me ever since I first saw the pic of "Azzam the American" early yesterday evening. Look at this comparison photo: Bush campaign strategist Karl Rove on the left, and "Azzam the American" on the right:


Azzam seems to share a very similarly proportioned head with Rove. The position of the eyebrows and size of the nose almost seem identical. The right hands of each might be close in size to each other. The mass and angle of the shoulders... sheesh they look a lot alike. Also, note that Azzam is wearing glasses, and they look to be very much of the style that Rove is most seen wearing.

I took the photo of Azzam into Photoshop and played around with curve levels. I'm no photographic expert by any stretch, but I did get this "enhancement" if you want to call it that...

Is "Azzam the American" really Karl Rove? Who knows. But at the rate things are going in this election, with four days left I'll wager and RC Cola and a Moon Pie that this has yet to be the most outrageous thing we'll have seen before the end.

I gotta say this though: the "terrorist tape" doesn't sound authentic at all, no matter what anyone in the government is saying right now. This guy is totally lacking any real passion in his voice: he sounds like a walk-on audition for a dinner theater. His voice makes him sound as threatening as Steve Urkel. THIS is supposed to be scaring the juwillikers out of us? C'mon guys, I don't have the resources that the feds do but even with my meager means of giving this the hairy eyeball, this is either Karl Rove under a headdress, or some college kid who drew the short end of the stick from the fraternity hazing committee.

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Sith happens

StarWars.com unveiled the official "teaser" poster for Episode III: Revenge of the Sith tonight. Dire portent of things to come...

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4-0 and the curse is lifted

For the first time since the Bolshevik Revolution, the Boston Red Sox have won the World Series.

Pray that Bud Selig doesn't get his expansion teams, 'cuz it might take Boston another 86 years to repeat victory :-)

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TheForce.net reviews Star Wars Episode III on November 1st.

For real.

I've NO idea how he pulled it off (and quite frankly I'd be more than a little scared to know, given this guy's connections: Mossad and MI-6 should look into recruiting him) but my friend Josh Griffin has somehow seen a roughcut of Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. He's set to deliver the goods on what he thinks of it so far in his final post as editor of TheForce.net this coming Monday, November 1st. A few tidbits have leaked out on this thread at the TFN message boards (registration required to view) but in a nutshell, Josh thinks that Episode III is going to totally redeem the prequels and George Lucas as an epic storyteller, if anyone had doubted that during the past few years. Want a teaser of what we can expect this coming May? Swipe your mouse over the following "Inviso-text" (a TFN invention by the way) spoiler-boy: HIGHLIGHT TO READ Yoda and Darth Sidious have a lightsaber duel.

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A bird in the Bush

Take a good long look at this picture...

That's a still from a video (Quicktime format) from the mid-1990s, apparently when George W. Bush was running for governor of Texas. He calls it his "one-fingered victory salute." Notice how much he smirks and snickers at making the gesture.

Maybe somebody needs to tell born-again Christian George W. Bush that holding up the middle finger is the indication that someone should go to Hell.

I'd like to report that this might have been something in his "wilder, younger" days that he might stand to be forgiven for. But looks like old habits die hard as this photo reveals, taken after Bush was already President of the United States...

Maybe Texas, or Alabama, or Kennebunkport, or whereever he hails from has a different sense of civility, but growing up I always heard that anyone who sticks up his middle finger like that so much wasn't so much "rude" as he was "heathen". NO ONE deserves being given that kind of gesture and what it stands for, regardless of circumstance.

If any Christian is still going to vote for a guy like this, I more than welcome him or her to write in and tell me why they are and why they're still convinced that this man has anything resembling a Christ-like spirit. 'Course, I was learning all about that four years ago.

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We now return you to our regularly scheduled blog-casting...

The story got around. More than I was expecting. With five days left 'til the election, might as well move on to other things instead of letting this blog go stale from lingering on that one lil' story.

More fun stuff, I promise (okay, *maybe* some more stuff about the election too).

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This guy has the #1 reason why a Christian like me should vote for Kerry...

...and that's to keep the Nazis from REALLY coming to power.

Carl Worden has a really good piece at The Sierra Times about why he's no longer affiliated with the Republican Party: because the fascists have taken over. Lest there be any question of his character...

I've been a registered Republican since I pulled my first lever in a voting booth, and I've voted as a loyal Republican for Republican candidates consistently every year. I am 55 years of age. I am considered a right-wing Christian conservative and strict constitutionist who knows the Framers of the Constitution expected strict adherence to that original document unless and until it is amended.

You don't get much more conservative and constitutionally-minded than I am, and that is why I just cast my Oregon vote-by-mail ballot for Democrat John Kerry as the next president of the United States. So did my wife -- and she's a very independent thinker. I know there are thousands of lifelong Republican/Independent conservatives who are going to do the same thing on November 2nd, because they've written and told me so.

The absolute last straw for me took place at the Bush rally, held in Central Point, Oregon on October 14th. President Bush stayed in Jacksonville, Oregon overnight after the rally, and protesters and police clashed on the streets. I sent out a photo of a Jackson County Sheriff's Deputy, all Nazi'd up in black leather riot control gear and grinning evilly as he shoved a woman holding her 5 year-old daughter. It wasn't the finest hour for local law enforcement, but even that wasn't the last straw for me. No, the last straw for me happened just before the Bush rally itself.

Slam here for the meat of the story.

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GEORGE W. BUSH AND ME: My Anti-Dubya Story A Week Later

Seven days ago I posted The Night George W. Bush Ordered A Thug To Tell Me To "GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE!", my account of what happened at the Republican rally during the Presidential Debate at Wake Forest University in 2000. No need to recap all of that here: everyone is more than welcome to read it for themselves (though I had no idea until later just how long the thing was. My editor at our student newspaper in college was right: "Chris Knight you are a wordy wordy monkey" :-)

See that counter at the bottom of the page? Last Monday it was reading 420 hits since I installed it about four weeks ago. At this moment it's reading 1,703. The only bit of self-promotion that I openly did for it was a post to TheForce.net's message boards that same evening. Thirteen people finding it seemed realistic... but not thirteen-hundred people! In one week my lil' blog saw three times as many people who wound up here than all of the previous month put together.

Anyway, it was a conscious choice on my part to not post anything else for awhile, so that as many people as might find my account could do so. But I'm going to post on other things from here on out, although from now 'til November 2nd there'll also be a link to the original article at the top of each post - serious or otherwise - that I make. And to everyone who has already showed up to look at my blog: thank you! Seeing those counter numbers has really made my day :-)

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