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A quick google search for Diebold Bush will return more than 3,200 results.

Among the most noteworthy ones are:
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2003-12-05-diebo ld-money-to-bush_x.htm.

As such, it's no suprise that Microsoft is one of the top "contributors" to the Bush war machine.

It makes sense then, that Bush's mandate for electronic voting machines (based on Microsoft technology) would follow shortly thereafter.

But I digress, a quick google search will provide much more research data than I could ever provide here.

On the bright side, Sen. Edwards (my candidate of choice) is now openly supported by Howard Dean (which is a very good thing). However, I can't help but think that it's a little too late for integrity and values.

They've been bought and sold out right out from under us. Our responsibility to our democracy is to make sure the same thing doesn't happen in November 2004.

The questions are:
Are we done discussing it?
Are we willing to do something about it?

2000 was cakewalk compared to what's going to happen this year. We've had 4 years to bitch and moan about our rights.

Talk is cheap.

Are you guys ready to defend our rights?

"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
Benjamin Franklin

Er, it was Eisenhower who sent the first advisors to Vietnam. Nixon could have ended the war in 1969/70 on just about the same terms he got 4 years later. Lots of American soldiers died during that time, far more than Jane Fonda killed.

While there were atrocities committed by certain parts of the government (such as the national guard at Kent), it was not some sort of conspiracy to end free speech, as you can plainly see with all the huge, relatively peaceful anti-war protests that were carried out in America by free Americans.

Killing college kids who disagree with your policies seems like killing free speech to me. Any idea how many of those peaceful anti-war demonstrators still have FBI files?

I have often wondered why people always talk about how dangerous a job the police have, but nobody seems to pay too much attention to how dangerous the police are to innocent civilians.

Yes, Egypt is on the list. It receives more US military aid than any country on Earth except Israel.

"Military dictatorship with a ruthless secret police. Routinely tortures and murders opponents. Many thousands in political prisons. Censored press. Sham parliament. As in the case of Iran under the late Shah Reza Pahlavi, FBI, CIA, and NSA all assist Egypt's secret police in repressing opposition and keeping the military regime in power." - Eric Margolis

Don't forget Uzbekistan; one of the worst.

"...the US government has tripled its aid to Karimov. Last year, he received $500m (300m), of which $79m went to the police and intelligence services, who are responsible for most of the torture." - George Monbiot

There are places where the US government makes a token effort to support human rights. The Middle East and central Eurasia are not among those places.

Take a 5 pound rod of steel. Get it going about 20000 mph. It will do the same damage as a small rocket. The strenght of this weapon isn't its explosive power, it is its ability to be deployed anywhere worldwide at the drop of a hat. Yo will be able to watch with your spy sattelite until the enemy comes outside, then you can drop the rod from orbit in only a few seconds. It will be a weapon that will always be on standby.

This brings up a second point, this could start an arms race. Countries like China and Russia won't like this. So they will build nukes to launch into orbit to take out our sattelites. The will build hunter killer mini sattelites to kill our sattelites. They may also build weapons similar to ours, able to strike us at any time. They may build jamming technology and put it on the world market to counter our threat.

The weaponization of space is a huge deal. Perhaps you missed it in the news, but just the other day Russia committed to building nukes which can get through our missile defense. They are already testing this system.

So all the bombings of hospitals, schools and other "soft" targets was no mistakes then, but done "consistently"?

Is this perhaps part of the "Shock and Awe" intended to win the hears and minds of Iraqies? I guess the US officers really know how to show helpfullness

"With a heavy dose of fear and violence, and a lot of money for projects, I think we can convince these people that we are here to help them," Colonel Sassaman said.

"[F]or a long time I bought into a common schema for the Bush administration: dim-bulb president surrounded and propped up by bright, ruthless neocons... I'm chagrined to admit now that I have, at least in part, bought into a lie... The neocons surrounding Bush are not all that bright." - Jon Carroll

what is keeping America afloat?

is a good question

The 8.2% third quarter growth was purchased on credit-the $374 billion budget deficit that was the largest in the country's history. All indications are that next year's deficit will be even larger, exceeding half a trillion dollars.

Any idiot with a hand full of credit cards charged to the next generation's children can gin up the short term illusion of prosperity. Until, that is, the bills come due.

George W. Bush inherited a $127 billion fiscal surplus but ran through all of that and more in his first year. He has turned a $5.6 trillion 10 year forecast surplus into a $3+ trillion forecast loss-an almost unimaginable reversal of $9 trillion in only three years.

The result of this almost psychotic profligacy, according to the Congressional Budget Office, will be a national debt of $14 trillion in 10 years. Interest payments alone will approach a trillion dollars a year and will exceed spending for all discretionary federal programs combined.

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0105-08.htm

please stop spreading misinformation. it is bad enough when big media does it, but there is no ecxuse on the internet. here is the truth

This seems to be a very confusing issue. It IS a copyright violation to list the full article without permission. But I see people doing it. For instance, the popular left-wing site, Common Dreams, does it under fair-use. People on message boards do it too. And of course, some anarchists* do it. So I don't know what the deal is. I think it is a violation but the laws aren't enforced it seems...

(* Some (or maybe many) anarchists don't recognize copyrights. They claim it is a government instituted control).

Sivaram Velauthapillai

MATRIX is the product of the drug-running covert actors who brought us the Iran-Contra connection. Seisint is the data warehouse in Florida for these Matrix apps, started by Hank Asher. He also founded DataBase Technologies, which purged the 2000 Presidential election rolls of 57,000 voters, 95% in error, the majority of them Democrats. Prior to that, Asher flew drugs off Florida through the Bahamas for Iran-Contra. His boss was John Poindexter, director of the "doomed" federal TIA, the mother of all Matrices. A French webpage has the Seisint/DBT (translated to English) connection: Hank Asher. For extra points, Diebold's eVoting division has been run by another convicted Iran-Contra cocaine dealer.

Now the Matrix, after being rejected by Georgia for its unwarranted invasions of privacy, is making the rounds of the rest of the states which owe Bush Jr favors. Idaho governor Leavitt succeeds Governor Kempthorne, just named the previous Idaho governor, to head the EPA, as it abandons the penalty financing of SuperFund. Check your own state government for the favors it owes Bush Corp., before they sell you to the Bush cronies. Drug dealers, vote fixers, Big Brothers: these are the people we have given the power of the US government. Take a stand now, before you have nothing left to defend.

Nope, that is the stated reason. The real reason is the yanks just love their cluster munitions. They feel they really have the edge on the world with them.

( props to commondreams.org, for inspiration)

<grrr>

....Not to mention forcing their customers to listen to Fox News Lies in their stores and censoring music (but not movies or violent video games.

I'm in agreement with you on this.

But successful growing media businesses, eg, Rupert Murdoch's empire, are based on increasing the audience, which is what brings in ad revenue.

That's the bottom line.

We may wish for our journalists to be noble pursuers of truth, but if cockeyed slanted rumour gets larger audiences than dispassionate careful rational analysis and exhaustive research, then it's a foregone conclusion as to what kinds of "news" sources the market will drive towards.

These depressing trends have been noted previously.

ok here are some links... I didn't spend much time so there isn't much... but it should give you an idea. As I mentioned earlier, it is harder to find stuff fore the present day (90's and 2000's), not because they are less corrupt, but because the information only comes out after a while. Some of these stories may be duplicates--I didn't spend time weeding them out...

DISCLAIMER: I have not checked the sources. I am hoping that none of this is fabricated information. Questionable sources are marked with (Q)

Hoover's F.B.I. and the Mafia: Case of Bad Bedfellows Grows
J Edgar Hoover (Q)
Black Mass: The Irish Mob, The FBI and A Devil's Deal
Deadly Alliance: The FBI's Secret Partnership With the Mob
FBI Protection Of Informants Condemned In Mob Ruling
FBI Corruption & The Justice Department ....05.04.00
Round Up The Usual Suspects (Q)
The Government-Criminal Connection - Part Three (Q)
Armed Conflict in America (Q) (blatantly biased against the left-wing... just read the quoted article in the middle of the page)
Ruling due on FBI link to mob: Immunity offer claim at center of decision.

Funny story, Bush blocks mob investigation (read the 2nd story): Bush Invokes Executive Privilege in Mob-FBI Case
Anyway I hope that provides A LITTLE BIT of the FBI corruption.

BTW, what the hell is a dot head? Does this mean that you work for the FBI? Did I just blow your cover? ;)

Sivaram Velauthapillai

Further arguments on why abolishing limited liability is the Right Answer

In a nutshell: companies are taking too many risks in areas like biotech, handling of toxic chemicals, and consumer safely. They're using the unlimited protection afforded them by the government in ways which harm us all.

Abraham Lincoln on Corporations

"As a result of the war, corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed. I feel at this moment more anxiety than ever before, even in the midst of war. God grant that my suspicions may prove groundless."

Now, does this sound familiar to you? It is modern America. Yes, we've got very used to the economic benefits of limited liability. However, the policital cost - individual voters losing control of the political process to big money is simply unacceptable.

It's time to rein in corporate power and put people back in the driver's seat.

Here are some great sources for news online:

Financial Times - FT a good example of actual "news reporting" (as opposed to "news creating" exhibited by most companies). As a result of the commercial influence in all aspects of society nowadays, it makes perfect sense that some of the financial news sources may now be the most objective source of information. Check out this wonderful site and newspaper.

PR Watch - This site is run by the Center for Media & Democracy is a nonprofit, public interest organization funded by individuals and nonprofit foundations and dedicated to investigative reporting on the public relations industry. The Center serves citizens, journalists and researchers seeking to recognize and combat manipulative and misleading PR practices. There is an excellent weekly newsletter you can subscribe to from this site which summarizes news stories and special issues where media coverage was manipulated.

Disinfopedia - a collaborative project to produce a directory of public relations firms, think tanks, industry-funded organizations and industry-friendly experts that work to influence public opinion and public policy on behalf of corporations, governments and special interests. More than 2500 articles outlining information and credentials on key individuals and entities involved with public policy and other areas. This is a great resource to look up the history of people in the news.

Link TV - The first national network offering a global perspective on news, current events and culture, presenting viewpoints seldom covered in the U.S. media. We present first-run documentaries on global issues, current affairs series, international news, classic foreign feature films, and the best of world music. Link TV's programming, combined with innovative use of two-way digital link-ups and our participatory web site, deepens audience engagement and encourages active participation. If you have DirecTV, this network is channel 375 - ask your cable provider if they do not make this network available - it's worth it!

Democratic Underground - What has turned out to be a polarized web site has become a watchdog for the mainstream media, the Democratic Underground exposes the hypocrisy and sleaziness in the media. Check this site out folks -- with references (something you do not find on conservative sites)

CorpWatch - A great site for information on the nefarious activities of multinational corporations. Want to find out who's paid off whom? Which governments are under the influence of which corporations? Little-known corporate relationships that explain unusual social or political events? This is the site to check.

Adbusters - In our society it has become increasingly difficult to separate editorial from advertising and many argue there is no longer a distinction. This site addresses the social changes in how people are educated by addressing the impact of news and the advertising media and exposes the propaganda campaigns. Very good reading, and in many cases, shockingly thought-provoking!

Common Dreams News Center - Billed as "Breaking news & views for the Progressive community",
this site endeavors to carry stories that the mainstream media may either not be reporting, or not telling all sides.

Canadian Broadcast Corporation - Canada's state-owned news service is widely regarded as one of the most objective sources of information.

Independent Media Center - A good source for news stories that the mainstream doesn't pick up. This site is particularly sensitive to the influence corporate America has over what is and is

Prediction: journalists critical of Bush will be put on the list.

Well then they can join the peace activists already stuck in the airport waiting lounge. TSA's No-Fly Blacklist

the USians had better start learning that one for when the national debt gets that high.

So a trillion is what I used to call a billion.

At least I now I can put the US $374 billion budget deficit into numbers.

$374,000,000,000

George W. Bush inherited a $127 billion fiscal surplus but ran through all of that and more in his first year. He has turned a $5.6 trillion 10 year forecast surplus into a $3+ trillion forecast loss-an almost unimaginable reversal of $9 trillion in only three years. And this, in an economy that has grown for ten of the last twelve quarters.

USA #1

• Obviously you have never lived in a country that kills its OWN citizens. For something closer to your home (assuming USA), check out the Waco atrocities committed by the government, as well as Ruby Ridge. Here is some If you are into films, you can also check out the controversial documentary on it.
• Obviously you haven't heard of the totalitarian regimes in Germany, USSR, and USA's close friends Saudi Arabia and Egypt. A couple of stories on the state of Egypt (USA's 2nd large recipient of military aid)
• Obviously you haven't heard of the damage done to civil rights activists in the 60's by the FBI and the CIA. Laws were actually changed to prevent this sort of thing.
• Obviously you have never been targetted by the police. (I have no proof of this but if you let me track you, I can find out :) )
• Obviously you are not a minority man (particularly black) living in some parts of USA. (Don't know this either. But I can easily verify this if you send your driver's license to me)
• Obviously you haven't heard of the infiltration of the FBI by organized criminals (particularly the Italian mafia in the 60's and 70's).
• Obviously you haven't heard of police fabricating information and jailing people.
• Obviously you haven't heard of the government cooking up bogus charges and jailing people. (Refer to the previous link and do your research)
• Obviously McCarthyism is not part of your collective mind.
• Obviously you haven't heard of John Ashcroft's recent decree to spy on antiwar activists.
• Obviously you believe the legal system represent justice. (I can't prove this to anyone. It is something that you will realize as you grow up and leave the cave that you have been living in--if you actually manage to do that!)
• Obviously you underestimate the power of the goverment.

The whole Rambus debacle has a lot of layers to it. It includes Enron, the Bush's, Micron, et al. Take a good look, this is big business being true to form. As a company, Micron is one of the better behaved, but when billions of dollars start flying around unfettered or watched, bad things happen.

Remember when every technologist under the sun was poo-pooing Rambus, that every stock analyst was pumping them up. Rambus was one of the darling stocks for the longest time despite a lack of positive cash flow or any real manufacturing capacity. Enron was responsible for a pump up in the DRAM markets before, during and after the plant fire in Japan. From one perspective, this seems like good business, but from another perspective it looks like collusionary and wrong. My spin is that it was an unethical but perfectly legal business practice. Enron got a little greedy and, well, the rest is history. They did a lot of very bad things. The Bush's get in there through Enron's energy division and their buddy Tom White, now secretary of the Army (OBTW, only two people were directly responsible for the day to day ops of the energy division at Enron and the other guy was exonerated from wrong doing over the energy crisis in California...that leaves guess who).

Like I said, lots of layers (and a good consipracy theory). It is also business as usual for the people with power and money every where in the world in all moments in history.

Just thinking out loud...cheers.

Ever wonder what all those uppity protesters were up in arms about in Seattle a few years back? They're protesting against NAFTA, FTAA, GATT, WTO, and MAI because these groups and agreements allow investors to override laws.

To quote from a recent article "NAFTA: North American Deal Dismal After a Decade"

NAFTA rules also limit each country's domestic policies to deal with issues ranging from environmental health and food safety to banking and truck safety regulation.

Under the unprecedented investor rights sewn into the deal, investors are allowed to demand compensation for "indirect expropriation", which has been interpreted to mean any government act -- including those directed at public health and the environment -- that diminishes the value of a foreign investment.

Following one such suit, the Mexican government was ordered in August 2000 to pay nearly 17 million dollars to a California firm that was denied a permit from a Mexican municipality to operate a hazardous waste treatment facility in an environmentally sensitive location.

Yeah, that's what everyone was so up in arms about it. Too bad the media only told you about some dumb kids who threw some bricks at a Starbucks. If you want to understand the sort of societal structures that underly this situation, I recommend the book Understanding Power.

The chances of the OSS community getting any kind of a favorable law passed are zero. Period.

Assuming the submitter is talking about the USA, face it: corporations rule. Money talks. Does the OSS community have the money to hire lobbyists and spread some "cheer" around in time for the elections? No. But companies do: and thats why they win.

On top of this, you're wishing for a mandatory "tax" on for-profit organizations?? Dream on!

What is possible is some sort of a tax-writeoff for corporations that donate source to the OSS community. But this won't fly anyways. Why? Because corporations don't pay much taxes, thats why! Most of them register offshore, and on paper their profits are zero. Checkout the writings of Nader and others (here's such an article from a little Googling).

The US could have taken it in 1991, they didn't.

Not committing a crime in the past doesn't absolve you from committing one now. You say that the oil will be sold at market value. Oil was a NATIONAL ASSET for the Iraqi people. It has been PRIVITISED, just like all other NATIONAL ASSETS. And all this is happening before the Iraqi people are being allowed to democratically elect a government to rubber-stamp the 'deals'. All Iraqi's assets that were not bombed are now on the chopping block, and available for a song to any foreign investors with a US security clearance. What utter bullshit! I'll tell you something: if anyone tries that in MY country, they've have some fucking terrorists to deal with, that's for sure.

But that doesn't mean that we just throw up our arms and let that kind of behavior run rampant

What kind of behaviour? He let UN weapons inspectors in. They found nothing. According to international law, the US has no business interfering in the internal affairs of another country. And don't try to bring the 'War on Terrorism' into it. Every intelligence expert I've seen quoted on TV and in the newspaper and on the net have stated that Saddam would be the least likely to have anything to do with Bin Laden and his gang. There is no terrorist link, and there are no weapons of mass destruction.

And yes I was against the Kosovo intervention. I saw a documentary about the revolution there and people were saying that UN ( US ) involvement did not help, and victory was claimed by the local oppressed people. One student was quoted as saying: "If we are ever in a similar situation again, I beg the US and others NOT to try to save us with their bombs. We will do it ourselves".

As for evidence that the US sold WOMD to Iraq, try google, or these:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A52241-20 02Dec29?language=printer
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/1213-02.ht m
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2003/apr2003/sanc-a21 .shtml

What's it cost to fly a cargo plane full of flour halfway around the world[?]

Far more than the food is worth in a nutritional sense: Global Trade == Global Warming

You want sources for the draining of the southern Iraqi marshes? Googling on 'marsh', 'arab', 'drain and 'iraq' gets me 1130 hits. Number 1 is a Voice of America site and number 2 is an American University site, so I guess they fail your GWB/Rummy filter. Number 3 is an article by Robert Fisk however:

"The first time I saw the Marshes, just east of the Baghdad-Basra highway, the tourist guide was true to its words. For miles, thousands of reed huts stood on earth and papyrus islands, each inhabited by the descendants of the ancient Sumerians, a time warp of simplicity which, according to old Arabic scripts, may have begun with a devastating flood around AD620. The last time I went there, the women from one Marsh Arab village were prostituting themselves to lorry driversto make money for their impoverished families."

Its hosted on a website called Common Dreams which looks to be fairly left-leaning as far as I can see.

Link number 4 which is an article hosted on the South Wales Worker's Education Association website (not a notable hotbed of neo-con thinking) which cites UN studies and includes some comparitive Landsat images:

"This section marshals the latest evidence of a tragedy developing in Iraq since the 1970s. The drainage of the wetlands that have been home to the Ma'dan or Marsh Arabs for 5,000 years."

Link 5 is an article on the US Institute of Peace website, but this is a congressionally funded federal agency so probably fails your GWB filter.

Link 6 is a page on a personal webpage of some bloke called Mike. I don't think he's a sock-puppet for GWB, indeed looking at the site index he seems to be fairly right-on sort of chap (albeit with unfortunate goth-ey tendencies back in the 80s). Here's the first sentence:

"These satellite photos reveal exactly how Saddam Hussein is systematically draining the marshes of southern Iraq, transforming a unique eco-system into a man-made desert and destroying the ancient home of the Ma'dan or Marsh Arabs."

Link 7 is a BBC website for children. Here's the text:

"There are about 250,000 of this Shia Muslim group, also called Madan, living in Iraq. They originally lived in the marshes around the southern end of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.

After the first Gulf War, they tried to overthrow Saddam. The Iraqi government stopped them.

Saddam's government decided to drain the marshes, which split up all the Madan. This removed their ability to threaten the old regime."

Link 8 is another personal webpage, this time for a Dutch doctoral student in mathematics. It has photos of a trip he took to Iraq as part of a delegation trying to overturn the sanctions that existed post-GW1, so I think its reasonable to conclude that he doesn't much care for GWB.

Link 9 is a State dept website, so probably fails your GWB-filter.

Link 10 is a Kuwaiti website, so they probably count as GWB's sock-puppets for you.

There you go. Five out of the 10 are probably tainted for you (although I note that only 1 is an overt propaganda site). If that ratio holds good for the rest of the links then you've got 560 more webpages you can read.

Regards Luke

PS Dunno why the l

Sanctions have ended and Saddam will not return. That is wonderful. But for the record:

Saddam pocketed a bunch of the money

Of course the Iraqi government was creating cash revenue for itself. The oil-for-food (O.F.F.) program only provided commodities in exchange for oil; it didn't allow the government any access to cash. How well would the US government function without cash? Oil smuggling was the only thing that gave a salary to Iraqi teachers, public healthcare workers, and civil servants. Physicians in particular began receiving salary increases that were proportional to the crumbling of sanctions in 2000. Sure, the regime invested in social services partly to reduce popular discontent; it was self-serving. But that doesn't change the fact that sanctions, not just Saddam, violated Iraqi human rights and were in fact designed to. Bush Sr. thought of this as "Making life uncomfortable for the Iraqi people."

The UN sanctions were suppose to let food and medicine get to the people of Iraq

Actually no, they were supposed to appear to allow this on paper, but not in practice. For six years Iraq could sell no oil, which cut off 90 per cent of its foreign revenue at a time when Iraq imported two-thirds of its food. As the UN predicted (Bush Sr. ignored it), this led to massive malnutrition. In 1996 the O.F.F. program began, with a pointless cap on oil exports. Two years later the cap was removed, but the US and Britain tied up $5 billion of humanitarian supplies including many spare parts for the oil industry. The point wasn't to kill Iraqis; that was just an "acceptable" consequence of wrecking Iraqi oil production and undermining its global market influence. This should come as no surprise. Donald Rumsfeld certainly wasn't preaching human rights when he shook hands with Saddam, as Reagan was launching his campaign to support Iraq's unconventional weapons development.

No wonder UN humanitarian coordinator Denis Halliday said the O.F.F. program was "designed to fail". I heard this with my own ears when Halliday spoke in New York; similar things from his successor Hans von Sponeck when he spoke in Milwaukee; and more diplomatically from Sponeck's successor Tun Myat when he spoke in Baghdad.

the facts are pretty simple.

Not really, as I have shown. I'm glad this is behind us, but if the history books are honest, they will slaughter the leaders on both sides.

He's got nothing on Dick Cheney.

Normally a company with this kind of reputation would be declacring bankrupcy about right now, but its deep connections with the GOP means they'll be around for a while and your state will probably be buying Diebold machines.

Soon we'll be hearing, "No one ever got fired for buying Diebold." When the opposite should be true.

Corruption, cronyism, quid pro quo, etc we've have it all here. The market should be eliminating reckless companies like these, instead we've got the GOP doing their best to keep them afloat. That's wrong, Americans of every political stripe should be demanding their state to divest from Diebold ASAP.

Forty-eight countries are publicly committed to the Coalition

countries? yes
public no.
most of the world does not approve of what the US is doing in the war against terror.

Read these news items. These are countries from the coalition. None had a public opinion that supported starting the war in Iraq.

Japan: 65% opposed
Britain: two-thirds opposed
Spain: 91% opposed
Hungary: 82% opposed
Poland: 63% opposed
Czech republic: 12% supports it
britain spain Japan Eastern Europe

Nobel Winners Arrested at White House War Protest

Police arrested two Nobel Peace prize winners along with more than 60 other people protesting on Wednesday near the White House against the U.S.-led war in Iraq.

How does it feel to be so hypocritical and blind? Do you feel like an idiot now?

That's what I thought.

Never formally charged! That's outrageous! When will those Chicoms desist from such tyrannical and autocratic practices and embrace democracy, a proper Bill of Rights and the rule of law like we have here in the good ol' US of A.

And enjoy the rights offered, like those to the people suspected of terrorism? one example of many!

Like that stops anyone

Newsflash, you're confusing Gore Vidal with Al Gore.

Your comments are partially insightful and partially misguided.

Yes, you are correct, open source is not going to automatically make the software more reliable. The article poster was wrong to make that implication.

And no, open-source (alone) is not the silver bullet. For example, it's entirely possible (open source/closed source - it doesn't matter) for the actual assembler of the machines to inject a back door into the software (just before compiling to the machines). Such a back door wouldn't appear in the source code repositories, but it would still break the election. There has to be other security checks (physical security, monitoring) and balances in place.

However, you're wrong to assume that software with a deadline must mean the software has to be closed source. Just make a contract for deliverable software with the requirement that the software be released to public domain. Pay the contractors incentives to be on time. Pretty simple, isn't it? This is what's done with public constructions like bridges, so it's not anything new (the contractors don't get to "own" the bridge).

Furthermore, a deadline for election software cannot be immutable -- for the same reason that you cannot have software for a medical machine have immutable deadlines: it's too important to screw up. If the software isn't working just about damn perfectly by the election time, then don't use it. Period.

But the primary reason for open sourced election software is not to create more solid software - that's where you (and the poster) are completely missing the point.

The fact is that no single closed-source company can provide trustworthy election software. There's too many incentives ($$$) to release buggy software and try to cover your ass afterward. With open-source election software, that's not possible, because any party can check to see if you messed up.

This is not even mentioning companies that have a political bias. The potential for confict of interest is just to great for any one closed-source company.

Sure, you could try and create a system of multiple closed-source companies (one to create the election system, one to create software to verify the election results), but in the end, the best (and simplest) system is to demand that the election software be in the public domain for everyone's view.

Does open source automatically mean better software? No it doesn't. Is open-source mandatory for a public election system? Yes, absolutely.

Just go here:

CommonDreams
CounterPunch
Bad News: Noam Chomksy Archive
AlterNet

Or read a book.

Any good and honest right-wing folk (if you want to set up such a arbitrary left/right binary) should reply with their favorite truth-speaking resources.

When Al Gore sued over voting irregularities, these same GOP groups were some of the most vocal in opposing it.

When Greg Palast revealed that 64,000 Floridian voters were denied the ability to vote in the 2000 US Presidential election, what did the Democrats do to restore their voting rights? What did the Democrats do to verify Palast's story and expose Jeb Bush and Katherine Harris' fraud?

I hate hypocrites.

I don't trust the Democratic or Republican national parties. So I won't vote for parties that hurt me, assuming my vote will be counted accurately at all.

Don't kid yourself: open source is nice, but it doesn't guarantee a fault-proof or secure voting system (suppose somebody installs wrong or malicious software on one of the machines?).

I don't see how this Australian system is any more trustworthy than Diebold, ES&S, or Sequoia's systems (the latter three are all based on proprietary software). There's no voter verifiable audit trail (which is a showstopper) and yet, to read the review in the article, Software Improvements has apparently bamboozled people into trusting their work.

It looks like this Wired article gives an unjustified glowing review to a system whose accuracy can never be tested after the election. It looks to me like the reviewer (like so many programmers) gets caught up in the software being available for inspection.

If someone wanted to rig an election, they'd be wise to do what this Australian firm is doing: go through the motions to gain people's trust and then make sure there's no accountability in the system so nobody can second-guess your results (the firm even talks about how there's no voter verifiable audit trail because it is unneeded and not required by the 1992 voting law). We are fortunate Diebold has been so brazen about propping up President Bush and so hamfisted about stopping the leaked memos from propagating. Their actions give opponents a chance to be heard and say what a good voting system needs in order to be worthy of our trust.

How did this article overlook these glaring faults and conclude these "Aussies [are] do[ing] it right"? Is there some kind of financial relationship between Wired's owners (Conde Nast publications) and the Australian voting company?

Maybe not. But, I have an idea of how good it should be, and we're not there. Don't take offense if it seems to me that you have no idea how bad we have it from just a few short years ago.

Until you've seen the face of a person terrified at the idea of meeting any police, or a person shaking after getting a ticket, or a person afraid to talk to anyone in government, then you should talk.

I can guess by your lack of experience that you're without a permanent tan and haven't been pulled out of line by airport security for having one. Not through any fault of yours, as we are all birthed in our skin by chance. I would submit that freedom isn't a state of being, but a continuous struggle against those who hypocritically only value their own rights while disregarding yours. Freedom isn't very anything. It simply is or isn't happening. It can start or it can stop. The freedom to access a lawyer when your arrest has been categorized as a "terrorist action" has stopped.

We are free. We are very free. You can walk up to the White House and picket it. You can drive your truck with a rifle in the back. You can say what you want on the Internet. You can read the books you want.

Anyone can do any of the things you've mentioned and more. It is simply a matter of the consequences that becomes the deterence to those activities. Even expressing yourself on the internet can be a dangerous proposition. To keep this reply short and educational, I'll simply point you to a source you can learn from.

Even if another terrorist attack occurs, do you think they're going to take these liberties away? No. The government won't. In fact, they can't. Because people like myself speak up and let people like you know what is going on.

You're statement has a naivete that is almost charming. On the other hand, it is also a sad indictment of our public schools' failure to teach history in any meaningful manner. This failure is one the reasons why historical events repeat themselves in such tight, short cycles in the U.S., which is reflected so heavily in our foreign policies.

Our founding fathers knew what they were doing a hell of a lot better than you give them credit for.

I give them all the credit. Many of them are my heroes. Unfortunately, they are dead. The dead cannot defend their dreams. Its up to you and me to defend them at home, so that bad things don't happen to other people.

= 9J =

You are correct, it is their fault. But remember, if a congressperson would have denounced the Patriot Act (the name alone worked for it, and "they" knew it...) it would have been bad politically. In fact, Russ Feingold was the lone Senator to vote against it.

Here, here, and here.

Who knows. I doubt it but I sure hope they try...

1. Afghanistan, 1998, 2001, 2002, 2003
2. Bosnia, 1994, 1995
3. Cambodia, 1969-70
4. China, 1945-46
5. Congo (now Zaire), 1964
6. Cuba, 1959-1961 ("Bay of Pigs" invasion)
7. El Salvador, 1980s
8. Grenada, 1983
9. Guatemala, 1954, 1960, 1967-69
10. Indonesia, 1958
11. Iran, 1987
12. Iraq, 1991-2000, 2003 (The U.S. government used radioactive bombs in the first war against Iraq. See United States War Crimes Against Iraq for what appears to be an accurate history.)
13. Korea and China, 1950-53 (Korean War)
14. Kuwait, 1991
15. Laos, 1964-73
16. Lebanon, 1983, 1984 (both Lebanese and Syrian targets)
17. Libya, 1986
18. Nicaragua, 1980s
19. Panama, 1989. The U.S. government called it "Operation Just Cause". The link is to a U.S. military web site.
20. Peru, 1965
21. Somalia, 1993
22. Sudan 1998. There are doubts

Ficus in 2004!

Well, you at least contest my examples here, although I'm still waiting for some counterexamples. Quickly:

The people of California watch the news, some of them even watch Fox.. Command came down from on high because the people on high at Fox wanted Arnold to win.

Regarding the press secretary request, I concede your point. It was Ari who suggested it first, I forgot. But Fox pushed it enthusiastically. Everyone else kinda said "WTF?" for the reasons I outlined in an earlier post. Your point is true, but the distinction is not really important.

The fact that you believe the Plame affair to be a minor issue is telling. It's a felony. I'm sure you've seen the Bush Sr. quote about revealing sources by now. But what bothers me is not so much that it happened, but that no one really seems to care if the felon is caught. If I were a true partisan this would please me; the Democrats can prove logically that there's a guaranteed felon in the White House and the only way to get rid of her is to elect a new administration. I mean, at least Poindexter had been pardoned.

Murdoch vs. Turner: Turner is no liberal. Nor is he married to Jane Fonda any longer. Besides, CNN has taken a giant step to the right to try to keep up with Fox's ratings. There was a FAIR study documenting this rightward shift on reliable sources; viewers can see it for themselves. I seek documentation to the contrary, that CNN, or NPR for that matter, is a liberal news outlet. You assert but do not prove this.

Which only proves the blindness of the left. While those of on the Right will concede you guys exist (but are hopelessly misguided, delusional, borderline anti-american, but you DO exist) you guys think the political spectrum goes from Joe Stalin to Joe Lieberman and anything to the right of there is only howling madness.

This is what I mean by calling names. You're not making an argument, you're calling me insane. This is not reasonable discourse, it's ad hominem attack. Besides, I, like you, have mostly libertarian leanings- I'm concerned foremost with an empirical basis for policy making. Clinton was quite good at this, the Bush Administration is famously afraid of it. I live in Pennsylvania, I've voted for Arlen Specter (but Rick Santorum scares the living daylights out of me). But you seem to think I'm some wacko because I don't see a communist conspiracy in the media.

See here: http://www.commondreams.org/views01/0701-07.htm

*cough*
*cough* *cough*

Twit.

*cough*
*cough* *cough*

Twit.

*cough*
*cough* *cough*

Twit.

By introducing a small but steadily rising tax on petrol, America would do far more to encourage innovation and improve energy security than all the drilling in Alaska's wilderness. Crucially, this need not be, and should not be, a matter of raising taxes in the aggregate. The proceeds from a gasoline tax ought to be used to finance cuts in other taxes--this, surely, is the way to present them to a sceptical electorate.

You really are far, far, off base. [snip] Iraq is far better now than it was before the war. Better yet, this time next year they will be far, far better off than they are now. Additionally, they can more than likely expect the same trend to continue for years to come.

OK, where do I begin? First off - I'm amazed and somewhat scared at your current image of what life in Iraq is like. Secondly, I'd like to mention that all linked sites are googled for, none are my favourites or anything like that. I'm personally getting most of my news coverage from the BBC, FYI, but I'm having trouble with their website, so I can't reference anything there. However, I figured you'd want proof, so google was used to get me relevant links. Some of the articles/issues were new to me.

Imagine a place where basic social order has broken down. This is Iraq. No government to pay wages, no workers to do essential tasks in a human society. Complete turmoil. There are still problems with drinking water in many places; due to equiptment that has been poorly maintained, as you yourself point point out. The war and lack of engineers working (who'll pay them and give them replacement parts?) has pushed the system to breaking point, a system we weakened ourselves (I'm a bit skeptical on this one, i.e. delibarate targeting).

Coming out the other end, sewage is also a massive problem. Not only do the above issues affect drinking water, they also have a big problem with rivers of raw sewage around in cramped living conditions. Disease is the last thing you want when you have a completely destroyed health system. Having no refuse facitlities also causes many problems, not least of all disease carrying vermin.

The lack of maintence is not Saddams fault, it never was, it is due to the international sanctions, which has been commonly acknowledged for a long time. They could not import the parts to fix the systems. They couldn't manufacture them, as the equiptment to make piping etc is the same stuff you use to make weaponry, and the sanctions have denied them that as well. It's now down to charities to help rebuild this system, as well as collaliton forces. Sure, you can pat yourself on the back that water and sewage will soon be superiour to pre-war levels, but remember why the system was poor in the first place. I'm sure all the dead children and vurnerable people who have died as a result of your glory will be lining up to thank you if there was an afterlife.

Police are scare and crime is at extraodinary levels. Car jacking, kidnapping, rapes, murders and theft plauge every city. Citizens are scared to roam the streets, travel at night is a dangerous proposal. Cars are only used in emergency, unless you want armed gangs taking them from you.

Most peoples savings have been rendered useless. The most popular large denomination note, the 10,000 dinar, is not accepted anywhere, due to mass forgery on stolen printing machines. Coinage is the only acceptible payment for anything. However, this is fortunatly changing, as a new currency has been introduced a week or so ago. This will take a while (til January they reckon) to become universal, but it leaves serious issues with folk who have literally become pennyless. People have to eat, feed children, pay bills and live. With so many workers not getting paid