Tuesday

The last few days have been rough, internetwise. I don't know if it is all of the neighborhood construction work or the tropical storms in every direction, but it has been a real pain getting online. The cable service we use works fine on the TV, but in here on the laptop it is coming and going rapidly, sometimes fading several times a minute. I can tell when it is "working" using the broadband phone: if there is a dial tone, I try to load a webpage. Seconds later the dial tone will be gone, and ten minutes later maybe the page has loaded, and maybe it hasn't. Aye-yi-yi, it's playing hell with my ability to keep in touch, read news, and do the little things I like to daily do. In Sunshine's office, she can sometimes receive a faint unencrypted signal from another source. I dowsed around and found some places in the house where that source seems a little stronger. I think it is coming from the ugly church across the road. My cable is mostly broken but god can still surf web. I don't care: I'll gladly steal what I can get, even from a church. Right now this little civil disobedience is working pretty well, and I am reporting from the stairwell. For the first time in days, I am able to check out the news: flying in the face of public preference for a twist-ending today, the Mexican federal electoral judiciary voted to overturn any contention of voter fraud during the July election, and certify the official count that has Felipe Calderón winning the presidency by a six percent lead over Andrés Manuel Lopéz Obrador. This officially and legally names Calderon president-elect to be sworn into office on December first of this year.* [Cavin]