books after our dinner last night we wandered into our favorite book store. we love books. i caught her re-reading the first chapter of the time traveler's wife. good read. the book that caught my eye was allegedly by a cia operative that blew his cover to expose other rogue cia operatives that were manipulating presidential elections. the hype on the cover wowed his mountains of evidence. so it must be true. anywho i got to thinking. clearly people have been cheating during elections since the very first one. the question is how much can you cheat in the most important election of them all before folks cry uncle. i'm thinking: a lot. a whole lot. generally the difference between candidates is pretty small. the us economy chugs along just fine regardless of the political affiliation of the shmo currently running the show. they're more like seasoning on the dish. important yes. but sheehs. get rid of em and the food's just as nutritious. suppose we have an election that's somewhere between suspicious and flagrantly fraudulent. we need continuity. we the people have a fundamental need to line up behind whoever is the next guy to take the helm. the question is how far out of whack do things have to be before we reject the election? i think they'd have to be way way far out of line. the next question is how far out of whack before we do something for the next election? again the answer is we'll swallow a whole lot. this assumes the candidates are pretty similar. the whole argument goes out the window if they're very different. like one says he'll start a war of conquest. and the other won't. at least, i hope it does.  ¶ 8:00 AM