First off, what the heck is the deal with the Republican flipout over Kerry’s reference to Mary Cheney in the third debate? Sure, I can understand being a little peeved over such a personal reference, but to listen to Lynne and Dick telling it, Kerry may as well have outed Mary for the first time to the entire world in that debate (fact check: he didn’t; it’s common knowledge she’s a lesbian).

Second, the only thing that scares me more than a Bush victory is the possibility of an electoral vote tie. This is pretty unlikely, but it’s still a pretty horrifying scenario.

Third, Ralph Nader is a jerk.

Fourth, I would seriously considering donating money to Michael Badnarik’s campaign, except that this would make me just as bad as the Republicans donating money to Nader’s campaign (hey Ralph: bite me!).

Badnarik certainly doesn’t have the name recognition or appeal of Perot back in 1992, seeing as how he seems to be polling at the 1-2% mark, but considering how divided the electorate is, I don’t know if it really matters. I hope that some Nader voters get cold feet on the morning of November 2, but if a Bush voter pulled away to Badnarik for every potential Kerry voter lost to Nader, Kerry should still ultimately win.

Six, remember that Gore lost the Presidency by 538 votes in Florida back in 2000. Nader pulled in thousands. Every vote counts in every state. The number of remaining swing states right now is truly astonishing compared to the conventional wisdom even a month ago (which, I will admit, I shared).

Seven, as petty as it may sound, I refuse to give money to anyone I believe may spend that money on causes that conflict directly with my own. The authors of two of the recent feed readers for Mac OS X have made it very clear on their weblogs where their political leanings are, and I can assure you that if and when I do buy a feed reader for OS X (I just use Newsgator right now, and I have no idea what Greg Reinacker’s political beliefs are) it will be NetNewsWire.

Eight, I don’t know if I can watch electoral returns on the second. I may just knock myself out with some over-the-counter sleeping pills and find out on the 3rd. It’ll be a little less nervewracking.

Sigh…