I remember wearing an "I like Ike" button as a kid in junior high school and I have been following the elections ever since. In all those years, I have never seen an election that was so contested, so important and so nasty as this one.

(Yes, that button dates me. I am indeed older than dirt. Even my formal electronics schooling involved vacuum tubes and the circuit design calculations were made using a K&E sliderule.)

The internet has come of age for this election. By coming of age, I mean it's apparently old enough to drink, get drunk, and make an ass of itself.

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Democratic candidate Dean led the troops in the use of the internet by tapping it and the geeks that frequent it for campaign dollars. Others picked up on the tactic, so the polling for dollars joined the Nigerian spam in my [e-mail] In basket.

I am known far and wide for my sense of humor. I edited two daily humor email newsletters for nearly five years. I love to laugh and joke and play practical jokes. But if I get one more picture of Kerry doctored by Photoshop, I'll puke. I should make copies of all of the anti-Kerry bumper stickers that have flooded my In basket to paste on Bush/Cheney campaign posters at my polling place. Non-internet voters should be made aware of the intellect of the Bush followers.

What I'm trying to say is that I love humor of all types, except mean-spirited slams.

The content of my In basket is very telling of the intelligence (or lack thereof) of some of my email "friends". ?Out of the literally hundreds of Bush -over emails that I've had to wade through, there has only been ONE that contained a clip from an article that had some reasoning in it. All of the rest has been so-called humor or chainletter hoaxes.

Whenever I have sent political emails to those friends, I've included links to websites that had political articles listing facts rather some emotional blather. I've forwarded several of the Interesting People items to them. In return I get insulting email calling me a "commie Liberal." (While I am not proud of it today, I am a registered Republican. When I did that many years ago, it made sense. It allowed me more of a voice in our elections due to my vote having more weight in our primary elections here in Florida.)

I took great pleasure at sending to all of those "friends" the link to Bush's hometown newspaper when it endorsed Kerry for president. I doubt if any of them clicked and read it. Oh well, those that do not read are no better than those that cannot read.

The web has been a treasure trove of information, but one has to seek it out and then read it.

I am a programmer by trade. In order to fix a problem, one has to investigate and separate cause from effect. Thanks to the web my investigation of our problems wasn't limited to just the news shows and sound bites. ?I could see what the British were saying on the BBC, what Canada was thinking, what the French were doing.

I didn't have to rely on just the local paper, I could read the articals and editorials in the New York Times, Washington Post, International Herald Tribune, and, yes, Bush's hometown newspaper.

From my investigation the cause of our malaise is simple: Bush.

(And the humorist in me, while stretched a bit thin, can't help but note that "Bush" is a four-letter word.)

With our technology, we should know the outcome of this important election within minutes of the polls closing. I doubt if that will happen unless there is an unexpected landslide. Both sides are lawyered-up to prolong the agony as long as they can.

The new electronic voting machines have serious problems with security. The potential for fraud is great. For the first time ever, I am concerned that my vote will not be counted. There has been many partisan decisions made by election officials. In early voting in Virginia, just today, an election official placed the two voting booths directly under photographs of Bush and Cheney. Illegal? Yes. The official even admitted in a telephone interview that he did it on purpose ... Thanks to the speed of the internet, a post on an influential mail list resulted in the voting machines being moved within hours.

We [in the United States] have, for the first time, an international election committee monitoring our elections.

International monitoring of our elections? Leader's pictures over the voting booth? Isn't that the type of elections we read about in countries with dictators? Hmmmmm.

Now you know why former president Jimmy Carter, who has overseen elections in many parts of the world, said that the U.S. elections are worse than in many third world countries. He's also said that he could not certify an election in my home state of Florida.

G21 is read worldwide. To our non-U.S. readers, I want you to know that I am ashamed of my country and the acts of our President and his administration. ?I will do what I can to get the U.S. back on track and to regain your trust. I will be voting for Kerry.