It's darkly interesting that a growing number of Umeruhcans now trust the war credentials of the bloke who went AWOL over the bloke who went to Vietnam and still carries shrapnel in his leg.

President Bush claims that in the fall of 1972, he fulfilled his Air National Guard duties at a base in Alabama. But Bob Mintz was there - and he is sure Mr. Bush wasn't.

The slaughter of children in Beslan has happened over and over again throughout the history of our damaged species. It happens when nationalism goes berserk.

War, says Chris Hedges, author of War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning, plays to some fundamental urges. "Lurking beneath the surface of every society, including ours, is the passionate yearning for a nationalist cause that exalts us, the kind that war alone is able to deliver." When war psychology takes hold, the public believes, temporarily, in a "mythic reality" in which our nation is purely good, our enemies are purely evil, and anyone who isn't our ally is our enemy.

Taking a cue from our own Philip Ruddock, who claimed Beslan-style attacks could hit Australia if Labor wins, Vice President Dick Cheney has told Umeruhcans that a vote for John Kerry and the Democrats could bring more terrorist attacks on the USA. What he really meant was that the terrorists will hit with renewed force if the Republicans win. But that's what we've come to expect from these hate-filled rednecks in suits.

At the Democrats' convention a few weeks ago, Barack Obama, the keynote speaker, called for civility and restraint in our political discourse. At the just-ended Republican convention, Zell Miller, the GOP keynoter, called for bile, invective, and, well, hate. Political hate. Smear hate.

Two polls out today show the Coalition clawing back Labor's lead; the two parties are now even on two party preferred. And in the States, Dubya has shot to an eleven point lead over Kerry.

My snarling but cheerful humanism is in danger of being remaindered by cynical misanthropy.

Can it be that the majority of Australians are going to be hoodwinked by Machiavelli Jr yet again? Is there no remnant of ethical integrity, let alone perceptive judgement, left in these people? More...

There is a photo on the front page of The Age today showing a teenage girl convulsed by grief as she kneels at the coffin of the 14 year old friend she has probably known all her life. This girl and hundreds others were killed by the terrorists in Beslan.

In some ways this photo is worse than the horrifying images we have seen in the past few days of the bloodied and traumatised children being carried out of the school. Such inhumanity, especially to children, is utterly incomprehensible; I look at those photos but I do not, can not see them. More...