In case you needed to know:
How to network using Blogger.

A great service:
I've been a big fan of the Iraq Coalition Casualty Count and have used it and recommended it to reporters for awhile. Nice mention of the site in Editors Weblog, referring to a NY Review of Books piece....

America the beautiful:
I wish I'd been able to take out my camera this morning to take pictures of the scene at my local city hall where we voted for mayor and commissioners. The City of South Miami has had a lot of recent controversy over its government, and yesterday the incumbent mayor was arrested for taking a large political contribution in his city office.
The parking lot in front of city hall was filled with people holding campaign signs, there were a few video trucks, and you had to run a gauntlet of people pushing their candidate and handing out flowers as you went in to vote.
There was such demand for parking spots I didn't have a chance to get the camera out of the trunk and take pictures. As I pulled out, the police officer directing traffic thanked me for voting: "It's the American Way", he said, in a thick spanish accent.
Leaving the scene, I passed banners for the Saturday farmer's market and the upcoming art festival; also a store selling "rain forest parquet" (pretty blatant) and the Booby Trap (strip club which somehow got approved last year). The good and the bad of our little city of 10,000.....
What a country.