Sorry about inflicting more US politics on people. So, we have the promise of something better ahead from the next president*; I can hear W's team firing up the shredders in the White House from here. And, yes, that's the main thing. But I'm really sad to see so many bigoted proposals (California Proposition 8 and its companions in other states) getting through. I can only hope that this is the last stand of the morons, and that sexuality will finally get its proper place alongside gender and skin colour as something that people who want to call themselves decent human beings are obliged to recognise as being totally unacceptable as a basis for discrimination.

* although I will confess that I can't help sharing emperor's memory of the disappointment afforded by Tony Blair....

Following on from various coverage of the current American pre-presidential excitement, I was interested to read recently (in Counting Sheep, Paul Martin's excellent book on the 'science and pleasures of sleep') that Republican supporters were three times more likely to experience nightmares than their less conservative Democratic opponents. Even the non-nightmare dreams that Republicans reported were generally more frightening and more aggressive in content.

So do paranoia and aggressive instincts cause Republican voting, or are they its effect?