Heart-warming

I must record the fact that I have had a very encouraging response to what I have been writing recently about Iraq (in other blogs and in Soleiman Al Turk's excellent website). Of course there were a few of the usual muddled ramblings from the kind of redneck who hates Europeans and thinks he understands the Middle East because he once met an Ay-rab (these usually proudly flaunt the signature Anonymous), but the great majority were written by Americans with wide knowledge of Iraq based on experience and study. Not all of these agreed with me, but all respected my non-American viewpoint and made useful contributions to the well-informed debate we are having. I have learned much from these responses.This makes me more than ever certain that C and I were right to settle here and we have virtually abandoned the half-formed idea about returning to Europe which we conceived after Dubya was re-elected; after all, nearly half of all Americans despise the present administration as much as we do, and a very high proportion of these seem to live near us; we really feel among like-minded friends here.

The Bush/Kerry thing

It's all getting quite exciting now, isn't it? I can't wait to get at the LA Times every day to see the latest poll results.
Actually I'll be home in Greece visiting my mother on 2nd November. Guess I'll stay there if Bush gets back.

Second thoughts

I don't think I'll keep a journal after all. I wouldn't be able to write it every day and it would worry me when I got behind. So I'll just have a surf around from time to time and leave comments (polite ones of course) in other people's blogs.

Maybe I'll just quote something from yesterday's LA Times which cheered me up:
Most voters who stay undecided until the very end of a presidential campaign traditionally break for the challenger. As a result, challengers often run ahead of their final poll results, while incumbents rarely exceed their last poll numbers.
So Bush's very small lead in today's polls may not mean very much.