Ah, November. How the hell did it get this late in the year? It feels like August was just a few days ago.

For those not in the US, you can safely ignore this post; unless you have some interest in our bizarre affairs, if so, enjoy your voyeurism.

In a few short days, millions of US citizens (sadly, probably still only a small fraction of all eligible voters) will wander to their polling place and cast votes using a myriad of different voting systems from the crude to the shoddy to the sophisticated. They'll get little stickers declaring 'I Voted'.

I wish I could feel less cynicism about the whole thing, but the whole system and past experience lead me to feel otherwise. It is all to easy to defraud the system, especially as time goes on and paper trails disappear.

I won't go into ugly detail of what the two possible outcomes may be; others have done it for me.

I'm a liberal sort of person. Don't get me wrong, I don't blindly vote for one of the major parties, I honestly do select on what I consider qualifications. I don't go in for the glorification of ignorance, for racism, for fear of the new and unknown.

All I will say is I feel a bit of dread. Next week could be very uplifting, or incredibly depressing. Regardless of what happens on November 4th, 2008, the world will keep spinning.