With thanks to the friend who sent me the link www.fuckthesouth.com:

Fuck the South. Fuck 'em. We should have let them go when they wanted to leave. But no, we had to kill half a million people so they'd stay part of our special Union. Fighting for the right to keep slaves - yeah, those are states we want to keep.

And now what do we get? We're the fucking Arrogant Northeast Liberal Elite? How about this for arrogant: the South is the Real America? The Authentic America. Really?
Cause we fucking founded this country, assholes. Those Founding Fathers you keep going on and on about? All that bullshit about what you think they meant by the Second Amendment giving you the right to keep your assault weapons in the glove compartment because you didn't bother to read the first half of the fucking sentence? Who do you think those wig-wearing lacy-shirt sporting revolutionaries were? They were fucking blue-staters, dickhead. Boston? Philadelphia? New York? Hello? Think there might be a reason all the fucking monuments are up here in our backyard?

No, No. Get the fuck out. We're not letting you visit the Liberty Bell and fucking Plymouth Rock anymore until you get over your real American selves and start respecting those other nine amendments. Who do you think those fucking stripes on the flag are for? Nine are for fucking blue states. And it would be 10 if those Vermonters had gotten their fucking Subarus together and broken off from New York a little earlier. Get it? We started this shit, so don't get all uppity about how real you are you Johnny-come-lately "Oooooh I've been a state for almost a hundred years" dickheads. Fuck off.

Arrogant? You wanna talk about us Northeasterners being fucking arrogant? What's more American than arrogance? Hmmm? Maybe horsies? I don't think so. Arrogance is the fucking cornerstone of what it means to be American. And I wouldn't be so fucking arrogant if I wasn't paying for your fucking bridges, bitch.

All those Federal taxes you love to hate? It all comes from us and goes to you, so shut up and enjoy your fucking Tennessee Valley Authority electricity and your fancy highways that we paid for. And the next time Florida gets hit by a hurricane you can come crying to us if you want to, but you're the ones who built on a fucking swamp. "Let the Spanish keep it, it’s a shithole," we said, but you had to have your fucking orange juice.

The next dickwad who says, "It’s your money, not the government's money" is gonna get their ass kicked. Nine of the ten states that get the most federal fucking dollars and pay the least... can you guess? Go on, guess. That’s right, motherfucker, they're red states. And eight of the ten states that receive the least and pay the most? It’s too easy, asshole, they’re blue states. It’s not your money, assholes, it’s fucking our money. What was that Real American Value you were spouting a minute ago? Self reliance? Try this for self reliance: buy your own fucking stop signs, assholes.

Let’s talk about those values for a fucking minute. You and your Southern values can bite my ass because the blue states got the values over you fucking Real Americans every day of the goddamn week. Which state do you think has the lowest divorce rate you marriage-hyping dickwads? Well? Can you guess? It’s fucking Massachusetts, the fucking center of the gay marriage universe. Yes, that’s right, the state you love to tie around the neck of anyone to the left of Strom Thurmond has the lowest divorce rate in the fucking nation. Think that’s just some aberration? How about this: 9 of the 10 lowest divorce rates are fucking blue states, asshole, and most are in the Northeast, where our values suck so bad. And where are the highest divorce rates? Care to fucking guess? 10 of the top 10 are fucking red-ass we're-so-fucking-moral states. And while Nevada is the worst, the Bible Belt is doing its fucking part.

But two guys making out is going to fucking ruin marriage for you? Yeah? Seems like you're ruining it pretty well on your own, you little bastards. Oh, but that's ok because you go to church, right? I mean you do, right? Cause we fucking get to hear about it every goddamn year at election time. Yes, we're fascinated by how you get up every Sunday morning and sing, and then you're fucking towers of moral superiority. Yeah, that's a workable formula. Maybe us fucking Northerners don't talk about religion as much as you because we're not so busy sinning, hmmm? Ever think of that, you self-righteous assholes? No, you're too busy erecting giant stone tablets of the Ten Commandments in buildings paid for by the fucking Northeast Liberal Elite. And who has the highest murder rates in the nation? It ain't us up here in the North, assholes.

Well this gravy train is fucking over. Take your liberal-bashing, federal-tax-leaching, confederate-flag-waving, holier-than-thou, hypocritical bullshit and shove it up your ass.

And no, you can't have your fucking convention in New York next time. Fuck off.

We are, of course, different from them. The pollsters have found a yawning gap between characteristic British attitudes and those of the middle Americans who returned George Bush to power. There is talk of culture wars, of a sudden realisation that they are far less like us than we thought. They are hot against abortion; we are not. They are church-goers, by massive majorities; we are not. They embrace a culture of armed self-defence, the death penalty and homophobia that feels utterly alien to the modern urban Briton.

When you actually dig down into the statistics, things are not quite as simple. We have to remember that America is divided internally, and that the basic attitudes to gay rights or abortion of Kerry-voting west and east-coasters are very similar to those of liberal Europeans.

All that said, it is hard to ignore the fact of a divide - that, according to the pollsters Populus, for instance, only 2% of British voters go to church more than once a week, whereas 63% of Bush voters do; or that 77% of Bush voters say abortion should always be illegal, while just 4% of British voters do.

For progressive people here, though, the urgent task is to respond coherently to the assertion of these "Bush values" by the American majority. We live in a porous world, and if we suck in US culture in all its guises, and follow US political techniques and ideas, it is idle to suppose we are entirely immune from contagion. The homophobic Italian Buttiglione has already called for a new European Christian movement to turn back the tide of secular and progressive values. We can all see fights ahead.

To succeed, we have first to reclaim morality. Nothing has been more damaging to the left than the smear that everyone who supports, say, redistribution of wealth, is also by definition keen on compulsory adultery, the decriminalisation of all drugs and free access for armed burglars to pensioners' homes. (If you think I exaggerate for comic effect, think again: that is a reasonable precis of what they say about us.) Labour voters, and feminists, are if anything inclined to be angrier about lawlessness and an over-sexualised public culture than Tory voters. It's the poor who are the most vulnerable, not the rich and powerful.

More than that, though, we have to return the idea of morality, or the question of how to live a good life, to the wider context it originally had. The Republicans now offer a very limited view of what a moral person is. The suggestion is that a family man who owns a couple of gas-guzzling cars, several homes, a motor-yacht and a private plane, who avoids taxes by clever siting of his company, and who can't stand "queers" and foreigners, yet goes to church twice a week, is living an ideal moral life. In fact, for many of us, he would be about the least moral example we could think of.

From the outside, it looks as if conservative Americans have made a fetish of a few isolated issues, while ignoring far harder and more painful questions. It isn't simply "religion": it is a convenient form of political denial by the richest, most environmentally rapacious people on the planet.

Another, more traditional view of morality demands instead a sense of proportion, fairness and civic-mindedness. The cheap land and sprawl of middle America may encourage an every-family-for-itself politics; in Europe's compact, crowded cities, other values have been needed and are now, more than ever. Modern Britishness is unthinkable without tolerance and give and take; we are too small, packed and diverse an island to live in any other way.

Demography and geography are on the side of progressive moral ideas. As we live longer, then the good life involves looking after others at both ends of their lives. It is about doing our duty by those around us, which means supporting national systems of welfare and health provision as well as helping family, friends and neighbours.

In a diverse country, tolerance is often hard: nothing scares me as much as religious fundamentalism and the irrationality it brings. In the end, the testing of ideas in open, democratic societies is a safer way of picking our way through ethical issues than turning back to the words of pre-medieval prophets. But as a resolutely secular person, I also understand that others think differently, and have a right to do so.

The good life is also now environmental. As we observe the alarming effects of global warming and environmental degradation, it means showing restraint in our materialism and thinking of the future. Not Puritanism, necessarily, but a material modesty and an avoidance of excess and waste.

This notion of the good life does not stop at the end of the road or the end of the island. One of the few causes generating real excitement and commitment among younger voters are development issues in general, and the plight of Africa in particular. And it isn't the moral-majority Bush administration which is campaigning on debt relief; it is British Labour politicians, both Blair and Brown.

These are "moral values" which generations of socialists and liberals would have instinctively understood. It is the proper meaning of the phrase. Nothing could be more dangerous or degrading for modern politics than a radical narrowing of the meaning of morality to a cluster of issues chosen by religious fundamentalists, and carried into democratic discourse in a mood of angry biblical division.

America is a democracy whose awesome material power makes it a special case - the only country whose election is also, in some sense, ours too. But when we're lectured about the revival of morality, there can be only one response: they've stolen the word from us, and it's time to take it back.

Still, it could be worse, he could have a dreadful brother ready to replace him in 2008. Yes, Tuesday's result was a disaster but hey, it's not the end of the world. Apparently that's pencilled in for early next year.

It's 22:40 here. Another hour and twenty minutes before the first polls close. And I'm nervous.

I've got cigarettes, black coffee, pizza on its way, BBC News 24 in the background and links to the latest electoral results minimised on my laptop.

How on earth am I going to last the night? Or, more importantly, survive tomorrow at school?

Not to worry. It's that important. Quite possibly, the most important election of my, or anyone else's, life.

The result potentially affects us all, wherever we are in the world. A fact which appears to have escaped many Americans, cloaked in their insularity. 

So, if you are of voting age and have yet to make your choice, consider this. Pick wrong and the terrorism, the bloodshed, the fear with which you have all lived for the last three years (or significantly longer in many cases) could be multiplied.

What the world needs now is thoughtfulness, consideration and common sense. One of the candidates has these qualities. Another, quite clearly, has not.

And Nader? Let's just hope he's a footnote.

So, I live in a shared flat with a friend. It's really not my preferred living arrangement, particularly when I found her to be quite messy around the place - she's an "it's got to be a health hazard before I clean" while I'm more of an "obsessive compulsive, clean as I go" type.

And if that wasn't enough, H had a cat when we moved into the flat.

Now, I've never really been around cats before. Growing up, dogs were the pets of choice in our household. You can play ball with a dog. They're loyal. And perhaps, most important of all, apart from the first couple of months, they go outside to evacuate.

Cats, on the other hand, while they seem willing to go and spend the day gadding about the neighbourhood, will invariably wait until they return to the sanctity of their home (because, let's be honest, it is their home) before shitting in the litter tray. What's that about? Is it the feline equivalent of shy bladder syndrome? You know, where people find it awkward to "go" in communal bathrooms.

But, hey, lots of people love cats. There must be something about them, right? So, I thought I'd give H and her cat, Smirnoff, a chance. After all, it is a great flat, the rent is manageable, even on my tightened budget, but I can't afford it on my own.

Toilet practices apart, there wasn't too much to bother me initially. I mean, Smirnoff does appear to be the animal world's answer to "Mango" the SNL character, with her habit of walking towards you, then abruptly turning away, displaying her arse and looking over her shoulder in a "You want me? Ha! Well, you can't have me!" and strolling off to the bathroom to dump in a box.

But then, a few weeks ago, while taking the trash out to the dumpster, I heard the unmistakeable mewling of young kittens coming from within. I opened the dumpster, only to find 5 extremely young kittens left inside. I quickly ran to get H and we took them to the vet. By the time we had got there, 2 had already died. One died on the vet's table with another having to be put down. Which left the tiny, black and white kitten, frail and helpless, looking at us.

"What do you want to do?" asked the vet. "You can get him the jabs he needs and take him home, he can go to the rehoming shelter, or we can put him down as well. He's weak. He might not last. But, it's up to you..."

H and I exchanged glances and knew immediately that this tenacious little bugger was coming home with us. So, we paid the money and returned to the flat to make the formal introductions to our other feline flatmate.

As it turns out, they got on like, well, two cats who get on really well. The newly monikered Jack (after Mr Daniels. You picking up a theme here?) settled in, started to put on weight and make himself at home.

We have noticed that, because we found him at such an early age, he appears to have bonded with H and myself more than is usual for a cat. Independant? Nah, not this one. For the moment, he appears to be very clingy. Following whoever is at home around the flat, trying to join in with whatever we are doing. Cooking? I'll have some of that. Invited a girlfriend over? HELLO! Give me some sugar too, Meester! Which is all very endearing, I'm sure.

However, the one particularly annoying trait is his wanting to help me type when I'm on the laptop. He lies on the table next to where I'm working, watching my fingers tap away. And then a paw will stretch out and all of a sudden IT'S ALL UPPER CASE LETTERS. So, I reset the "Caps Lock" and carry on, when he's moved around and

I'm starting a new paragraph. Or sentences are being deleted before my very ey

After a while, he tires of this. He also seems to decide that he wants more of my attention than I'm giving.

i3u rr5p205

=292i 5u29u95uj[2i}_TOW}Cptjo'j ARJ;LAWK'D[ L#[QPW

p}~l[EDK O'[QJw'[r#q3w

[ or[qjwowrhoqk2

RELPqe

is the general result, after the cute wittle puddy tat has walked across the keyboard. It might be that I'm being overly harsh. After all, he might be a feline savant. The above might represent some fantastic programming code for all I know. Or it might be the chemical compound which finally provides a cure for cancer. I don't really care. Unless it provides the formula for rebuilding cats after they've been launched from a 5th floor window, it's neither use to me nor him.

But do you know what? I wouldn't throw him out of the window. I wouldn't give him away. And I'd be distraught if anything happened to him. It would appear that toilets and typing are not enough to change my mind. I'm a born-again cat person.

So, there are probably still a few of the old timers around here who can remember Hybrid Anglo and his desperately earnest, left-of-centre views and his occasional witty rejoinder.

Well, as you may be able to tell, I'm back in the UK now. Much as I loved my time in the US, there was increasingly little to keep me there. My friends, of a similar political persuasion were all considering escape, so I did the decent thing and repaired to this Sceptred Isle to set up a refuge for disillusioned American exiles in readiness for the upcoming election fall-out.

Or, will America wake up and smell the blood?

I've returned to University. I'm undergoing a two-year Modern Languages degree, with teaching qualification. I attend two days a week, with the other three dedicated to work in an inner-city comprehensive school. I supervise the pupils who are temporarily suspended from mainstream classes for disciplinary reasons, try to re-engage them with their education and offer support for them - many come from broken homes, poor economic backgrounds, families where one or the other parent has drink/drug problems or has been/is in jail. It's tough, but rewarding.

I also volunteer at a local Homeless Shelter which targets the younger end of the problem. In the last few weeks, we have seen a young girl of only 11 years being referred to us. It's scandalous. Which is why I'm helping out.

I've also become involved with the local socialist coalition, working to improve social provisions for those members of our society who have fallen between the cracks. At the same time, we are working hard to combat the worryingly rapid rise of right-wing groups within British politics and provide a counter-balance to their racist/fascist agenda.

So, that's where I am. The point from where I shall post, hopefully a little more frequently.