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Bonzi, I cherish your posts on this BBS. I have to say, though, judging from the number of your typos and the time offset, that I suspect that you are *way* more drunk than I (me?).

Thank you, Jim!

Actually, I am quite sober now. Discussion on the BBS keeps swirling in my head from the election day, and I am struggling to put some of my side of it in the posted words; there is just so much of it. Also, I seem to be almost dyslexic recently (except when writing code - I guess it is like people not stuttering when they sing :-)

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Have you ever been the the U.S. of A.? It seems that you know about ten times more about the US than most of its citizens. How do you manage that if you have never been here?

I have been there few times, but not for long: a week in LA, two times a week in NY and a month in Argonne National Laboratory (near Chicago). What surprised me was that it was exactly as I imagined it. Very kind people in a weird country.

Politics in general and civil rights in particular interest me quite a lot. USA cought my then childish attention in the days of Vietnam, and still holds it. Despite Vietnam and my very left leaning, I never saw USA as a threat (the same holds for my country: even in days of Tito's Yugoslavia, military maneuvers always assumed attack from Warsaw block countries); it is beginning to look as one now. On top of this, sometimes I am so disgusted with domestic politics that I prefer following yours

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If you have never been here, but would like to opine about US craziness with some increased authority, I would like to extend an offer. Come to Seattle for a week and we will jump in the Subaru and go explore Jesusland. I don't have much more to offer than my Ikea couch, but I have slept there successfully on more than one occasion. Oh, a plane ticket? Award seats on United are hard to come by, but I will work with you to figure out *some* sort of ticket -- maybe from Frankfurt or (shudder) from CDG. On me.

CDG would be the best, as I am now on consulting stint at SNCF, Paris.

Seriously, I might take you on your offer once (not ticket, of course, but couch and company while exploring the strange terra incognita occidentalis). Besides, I have heard from multiple reliable sources that Seattle is a place where we decadent European liberals could survive.

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Let me know. Thanks for your continuing insights.