Which is more credible, exit polls or Diebold?
Voting arrangements in Florida do not meet “basic international requirements” and could undermine the US election, former US President Jimmy Carter says.

Gamma has changed her career plans. She no longer wants to run a disco.

“It will be like a disco, only the lights will be subdued and there will be sofas and there will be lounge music, for people to relax.” Gamma likes lounge music lately.

“You mean a chill-out club.”

“Sure.”

Gamma had a friend over for Halloween. They dressed as witches and I took them trick-or-treating. The next day, while Gamma was at her grandparents’, my wife and I did a little housecleaning. First of all, these being seven-year-old girls, there was a ring around the bathtub, like any bathtub ring, except this one glittered. In Gamma’s room, we found a mattress completely covered with toys, hair accessories, bags and other booty. Hundreds of little shiny objects, every single one of them a Hello Kitty product. I guess she was showing them to her friend.

In the playroom… Ah, the playroom. A large plastic bag full of the horse chestnuts Gamma likes to collect, all covered with a wicked fur of mold. Countless containers full of various poisonous-looking potions and stinking mixtures bad enough to make a health-department inspector wince. A soup made of stones and corn. Many unrelated things tied together with string, yarn and/or leather straps. A toy stuffed tiger rendered glittery. Container after container full of smallish objects ordered according to a principle obvious only to Gamma, and perhaps some ancient Lovecraftian being. My personal favorite: inside a baby doll’s crocheted underpants, a plastic scorpion.

Listen, my personal belief is that tiresome parents who brag about their children deserve a special corner in hell, but this girl bears watching.