...I couldn't agree more! People over here in Europe and in most sane parts of the rest of the world are absolutely disgusted that those Bible-thumping 52% of Americans chose to re-elect that fucking moron Bush ... if—and that's a capital IF—they really re-elected him of which I'm not so sure anymore.

As far as I can tell by watching from the outside, many of the exit polls showed Kerry as the winner in those critical states only to be magically overturned later by the "real" tallied votes. I just finished reading an analysis of these (as yet unexplained) differences between exit polls and tallied votes. It was done by a professor for research methodology and statistics from the University of Pennsylvania. He sums up that the likelihood of all of these statistical anomalies occurring together in all three battleground states by chance or random error are 250,000,000:1 ... or in other words: somebody tampered with those critical votes. Then there is also that UC Berkeley team of students who found that President Bush received tens of thousands more votes in electronic-voting Democratic counties than past voting patterns would have suggested. No such pattern turned up in counties using optical scanning machines. Surely that's also just coincidence! Yet, the media by and large seem not to be worried about these events; I just see some half-assed pieces about the faulty methods of exit-polling ... HELLO?! I wouldn't even be surprised anymore if the powers that be choose to ban exit polls for coming elections (together with optical-scan voting machines as well as paper-ballot voting) ... this should then be called the "2004 No Trace Left Behind" Voting Act.

...the best piece of evidence regarding the effectiveness of the GOP-owned media in brainwashing Americans IMHO comes from a recent PIPA study on voters. They found that even after the final report of Charles Duelfer to Congress saying that Iraq did not have a significant WMD program, 72% of Bush supporters continue to believe that Iraq had actual WMD (47%) or a major program for developing them (25%). 56% assume that most experts believe Iraq had actual WMD and 57% also assume, incorrectly, that Duelfer concluded Iraq had at least a major WMD program. Kerry supporters hold opposite beliefs on all these points.

Cognitive Dissonance at its best! Why are these complete idiots still allowed to vote?! My deepest condolences to the 48% of Americans who still have a brain of their own ... and to the rest of the world.

Someone really needs to write a "real" article on Nader. No reporter ever, ever questions the electoral vote. NADER HAS NO ELECTORAL VOTES, HE HAS NO PARTY WHICH CAN GIVE HIM ELECTORAL VOTES. Enough already of "Citizen" Nader, he is really evil scum. He is not stupid, yet he is duping his supporters, (many which I have talked to), into somehow believing the scum has a chance of winning. [The] problem is that they really have no clue as to what the electoral college is, they are ignorant. Only Kerry or Dubya will win, this is the sad fact of political law. You must win a majority of votes in the electoral college, or you are not President. Have you ever seen or heard of anyone bringing the fact up to Nader or his stupid legion?

I wish to say that the World Cultural Center proposal for the LMDC is magnificent! This impeccable design clearly shows progress and defiance to any threat. I wish to propose a supplemental idea I developed in order to assist in making this ingenious design more likely a reality.

In regards to the memorial, I think that the base of the memorial should be pentagon-shaped in commemoration of the victims of the Pentagon. I also think that names of all victims of not only the World Trade Center, but those at the Pentagon, and all who perished in all four commercial airliner flights, be engraved into a granite wall (pentagon-shaped) similar to the Vietnam Veterans' Memorial in Washington, D.C.

Another idea I think would be beneficial is for the centerpiece of the memorial to permanently emit a laser into the sky as a [sign of the] religious significance of all victims ascending up into heaven, and a [sign of the] secular splendor of each victim's perpetual dignity. The most significant role for the two towers of the World Cultural Center would not only be reminiscent of the original World Trade towers, but both towers should be an "extension" of the memorial itself. Not only would the Cultural Center be the tallest towers on earth, but they would be part of the largest and most graceful memorial in the world!

These ideas, I think, would honor all the victims of 9/11 and enable New York, the United States and all of humanity to overcome our darkest moment in history. I hope my ideas would be beneficial and if anyone has any questions or comments please contact me at my e-mail address. Thank you very much for your consideration.

I read my first New Yorker today, a good read. I think I shall frame the front cover, "Prickly Heat."! [July 22, 2002 cover by Peter de Sève]

Nagasaki has another side to it. While one's hell is beginning, another's is ending. My father was there—at the time, his hell was drawing to a close, as he was a POW in Fukuoka Camp #2, after being starved, beaten and tortured regularly, and worked to near death in [the] Nagasaki docks. He was suffering from a broken arm, humerus and ribs [sustained] while falling in the docks during a U.S. air raid.

The Japanese did not attend his arm, etc., and he had it for 2 years. His arm set behind his back and if not for the efforts of the POW medics, who tried to do a little for him, he probably would not have survived.

My father died in 1972, age just 51, of cancer. He did not have a happy life, and gave up working in 1963 as he was not fit enough to work.

My sister, who is 48, and my brother, who is now 33, have both had growths removed. It is only a matter of time before I expect to develop something similar. Or will it strike my only daughter of 3 years old?

It is almost certainly due to that bomb. But we do not complain as, if not for that bomb, none of us would be here, as my Dad would not have survived beyond Aug '45. Our story is never heard or even thought of—all of us families of these men. Do you know what it is like to live with? No? I'll tell you—it is HELL. Just like Fukuoka Camp #2 was.

During all the anniversary TV programmes 1945-1995, I was fed up with the Japanese point of view. It is always Japan, Japan.

I am fully aware of the thousands of innocent victims of the bomb but please tell it from all sides, as our story is never told—even the Japanese do not want to know.