From the international desk...

Well I do like to trawl through papers far and wide and leave no stone unturned in my quest to... ok my mate sent me this (the second letter). Well I'm not sure how long these things stay on websites but here's the text of a letter to the "Herald Review", a local Illinois paper, which I must admit is not usually the first thing I pick up off the mat in the morning:

"Use of God shows morality

I have never written a letter to the editor, but after reading the letter "Bush is using Christianity, God as a way to get votes" in the Sept. 4 newspaper, I felt I had to.

I think this is a great way to get votes. A born-again Christian is one who stands for moral values, such as marriage between man and woman and any abortion is murder. Both of these are sins, and God cannot stand sin.

Our nation was founded by our fathers, who were God-fearing men. Did you ever stop and think about 9/11? This could be a way to wake us up, as this country is getting more immoral each day. If we get too evil, we could end up having a dictator like Saddam.

Praise God for freedom of speech. I don't know what to think of John Kerry, but because I believe in God, I will not ever vote for someone who is for gay marriage or abortion.

I pray that God will have mercy on our great nation. I beg for everyone to remember that someday we will all stand before God, whether we believe it or not.

John W. Moon

Shelbyville"

This is pretty scary. This guy seems to have the impression that Saddam Hussein is pro-choice and pro-gay marriage. This is news to me. If anything though the most frightenng part of the letter is the opening where he points out that he's never written a letter to a newspaper editor before because it hints at just how many hundreds of thousands of similarly-minded people there might be out there.

The other tricky issue is that there isn't a great deal of detail in my copy of the bible about the legality of civil partnerships and the rights (or otherwise) of a woman over her foetus. You really have to look hard to find that stuff. I did notice quite early on though there was a big section where God (whoever she is), quite clearly said "Thou shallt not kill". Etched it on some big stone tablets, thought it was obvious...

Not that it makes much odds to Dubya, I'm sure he will just rig the results anyway if he doesn't get enough votes.