Cool. The final Kerry-Bush debate is today and hopefully it will boost Kerry again. But I'm still concerned about a vague notion people have of being "uncomfortable with the idea of Senator Kerry as a wartime president". I'm rather worried about this, because it's precisely the kind of empty powerful thing that might act the same way as interest rates did in our election.

Please, he has to win.

Anyway, it seems that both candidates have been going after the female vote in this campaign, so maybe Colin Powell's decision not to push the issue of Saudi women being denied the right to vote could be a point of distiniction:

US Secretary of State Colin Powell said Saudi women should eventually have the vote, but stopped short of criticising Riyadh.

Kerry could be all "We have to be able to be tough with our friends on matters of principle", or something. Because, truly, yikes:

Election committee head Prince Mansur bin Muteb bin Abdul Aziz said on Tuesday that he expected women to take part in future polls, after studies were held "to assess whether it is useful or not".

Useful. I see. Wait... no I don't! What the hell does that even mean?

In other ghastly news, murderers suck.

UPDATE: Amy brought my attention to this article, about Israeli soldiers gunning down Palestinian children with lots and lots of bullets, and then pulling that, "it's not our fault. The baddies hide out in populated areas on purpose" thing. But, like, maybe they're not taking shelter there and endangering people on purpose, maybe they just live there.