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What you're talking about is often erroneously referred to as a "paper trail". That term is harmful because it is too vague. Diebold sells a DRE (direct recording equipment; the computer records and tabulates the votes it collects) which produces a "paper trail": a long receipt-like strip of paper which ostensibly lists all the voters who used that machine since the last session. The problem with this is it is not voter-verified. Only the election judges get to see it and therefore it is entirely useless, truly nothing but a waste of paper.

What voters need is better described as a voter-verified paper ballot. A piece of paper clearly listing their vote(s) which will be, as you said, manually counted by human beings (never computer counted).

Nobody needs election returns faster than humans can count them. Retention enables recounts. We should retain these voter-verified paper ballots at least until the next election, if not as long as possible.

We also need the software the machines run to be completely free software because free software voting machines allow counties to make the changes they need to handle changes in their electorate. If some district wants an election that isn't counted as first-past-the-post, they will need the freedom to change their voting machines to accommodate this. Nobody should have to beg the proprietor for improvements to their voting systems. Counties should be able to get expertise wherever that expertise exists and only a free software voting system enables this.

A few years ago I served on the appointed committee to help the Champaign County board select a voting machine. We saw some voting machines demonstrated for us, tried them out, and decided what to recommend to the elected county board. The entire affair was picking the best of the worst. The allowable range of debate had been narrowed for us before we began when we were informed that we were only allowed to consider equipment approved by the state of Illinois. Toward the end of our tenure we learned that one of the machines we had been allowed to choose (and ultimately did choose, an ES&S optical scan reader/printer machine for preparing ballots) was not yet so approved. That machine has been deployed in at least two elections since we made our recommendation. Voters can optionally use it to fill out the voter-verified paper ballot before depositing their paper ballot into another ES&S machine which counts and stores the ballots.

The concept of income redistribution is never a moral basis for a tax.

And if the majority of voters in a democracy disagree with this categorical assertion, as they have in the United States and around the world, what then? Secession?

And if the majority of editors on a Wikipedia article do not uphold your politically conservative viewpoint, what then? Secession?

CNN trended left in the early 90's

...Yet remains right wing to those outside the US. Like all of your popular media, CNN falls far short, in questioning government and policy, of what ordinary attention to public interest, and common ethics, would require.

FOX, as we all know, is Murdoch, who murdered mainstream journalistic discourse in Australia and the UK long before he started attacking it in the USA.

None of this is new. Real journalism doesn't get air time in the conglomerates. You still have NPR... for now.

"MONOPOLY IS a terrible thing--until you have it." Those were the words of right-wing media tycoon Rupert Murdoch, owner of Fox TV, Fox News, Century Fox studios and the New York Post, among many others media outlets.

... Murdoch sounded as innocent as a lamb when he told the Senate Commerce Committee that relaxing regulations would be a great thing for consumers--and swore that he wasn't about to add to his empire. "I have no plans for anything other than the what I have before you today," said Murdoch--prompting several senators to burst out laughing.

... FCC Chair Reed Hundt warned that the Telecommunications Act of 1996 would allow "a few companies to buy all the radio licenses in the country."

Hundt was right. Since the law passed, Clear Channel Communications has expanded from owning about 40 radio stations in 1995 to approximately 1,200 outlets today--almost 1,000 more than its closest competitor. All told, Clear Channel controls the audience share in 100 of 112 radio markets in the U.S.

Yeah because republicans always get reamed by the media when they say stupid and offensive things. Why don't we stop pretending that Republicans get all the flak while Democrats get off without even a warning?

Do things slip through the cracks with regards to mainstream media reporting things? Of course, nobody is going to argue that. But to pretend one party has been issued a pass while the other is being heckled at every step is just ridiculous. Hell, it wasn't even too long ago that the media couldn't shut up about that Reverend everyone kept hearing so much of, and that supposed tape of Michelle Obama yelling about "whitey".

Funny, I'm sick of third-party supporters telling me that the democrats are the republicans are "the same," which is an utter lie

Not every democrat and republican are the same, however the leadership of both parties are almost always controlled by the same interests. That's why the "Republican Revolution" in the 90's did nothing and why the Democratic Congress has done nothing thus far.

Here is a good article explaining Obama's money cartel.

These seven Wall Street firms are (in order of money given): Goldman Sachs, UBS AG, Lehman Brothers, JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse.

I won't bother looking up McCain's top donors because it'll be close to the same. Remember that McCain was also one of the Keating 5 (same type of scandal we see unfolding now except with a lot more money).

Neither are against pre-emptive war or leave anything off the table when dealing with Iran (including a nuclear first strike). Just listen to Obama's speech to AIPAC, which he gave the day after Hillary conceded defeat in the primaries.

They both want to "get out" of Iraq, which means keeping 50k+ troops in the permanent bases and the biggest embassy in the world. They both will add troops into Afghanistan.

Both support the NATO puppet Saakashvili (the guy who eats ties on TV and attacked S. Ossetia). Why is there a need to surround Russia with NATO and be belligerant towards them? Maybe you should read Obama's mentor and one time advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski's book The Grand Chessboard to find out.

I'm sick and tired of hearing people say that McCain is running for Bush's 3rd term (not because it isn't true), but because no one talks about Biden running for Dick Cheney's 3rd term.

"German prosecutors only pursue larger-scale file sharers. Bush attacks Paraguay."

It wouldn't be too smart to attack a country where you buy 100,000 acres in, but then again....

"makes it hard for me to take anything else you said seriously. If the US attorneys served at the pleasure of the President, there is no such thing as an "improper" firing."

The U.S. attorneys do serve at the pleasure of the President, but as soon as the White House started selectively firing them to obstruct criminal cases against Republicans, or to threaten Attorneys if they didn't bring cases against Democrats they certainly stepped over a traditional line of non interference in the cases in the U.S. Attorney's offices, and were potentially obstructing justice which might be a crime. Worse than the cases where attorneys were fired for refusing political influence in their cases may be some where they were doing what they were directed to do by Karl Rove and may have brought politically motivated cases against Democrats, putting potentially innocent people in jail, and where the cases may have been fabricated by the U.S. attorney. Its kind ofbad arrangement where we rely on political appointees to bring federal cases which often involve politicians. The system mostly worked until we got to the Bush administration though. Clinton firing all the attorneys at once is way less bad than Bush and Rove selectively firing them to pressure them to bring politically motivated cases.

You might want to read the case of Don Siegelman, a better though somewhat biased write up here. Counterpunch is pretty left wing but a lot of interesting people write some really interesting stuff there, though there is garbage too.

Siegelman was a popular Alabama Democratic and governor apparently targeted by Karl Rove in 2002. Rove may have used the Alabama U.S. Attorney to bring a case against Siegelman to neutralize him as a factor in Alabama politics. If true, though that remains to be seen, it is the most disturbing example of Karl Rove using the U.S. attorneys as political tools to destroy Democrats and elect Republicans. Rove and Bush teethed their political teeth in Alabama, its where Bush went when he ducked his National Guard service in Texas, they have a long history there, and politics isn't bean bag so I imagine the knew Siegelman from way back.

Siegelman won a very close reelection as Governor in 2002 before it was declared a voting machine had malfunctioned and he was stripped of 3000 votes which cost him the election. There is a chance the election was rigged by the Republicans which is in with a string of election regularities we had in 2000 through 2004, like in Georgia, all of which went in favor of Republicans. Siegelman supposedly agreed to stop challenging the 2002 election result in a deal with Alabama Republican's where the U.S. attorney would drop the investigation against him in return.

The U.S. attorney didn't drop the case though, he was indicted in 2004. The [rosecutor abandoned the first trial when the judge threw out all of the U.S. attorney's evidence because it was so bad. The U.S. attorney wouldn't stop though and tried again in 2006. In 2006 they got the case heard by a Bush appointed judge who happened to have a nasty grudge against Seigelmen which he didn't recuse himself for. The case hinged on testimony of one Siegelman's aides who was a crook and who may have lied to convict Siegelman in exchange for favorable treatment in his case. Two jurors were also caught emailing each and colluding to sway the jury to convict. It was probably jury tampering and should have lead to a mistrial but biased Judge Fuller refused to even investigate the issue.

From Wikipedia, "In June 2007, a Republican lawyer, Dana Jill Simpson of Rainsville, Alabama, signed a sworn statement that, five years earlier, she had heard that Karl Rove was preparing to neutralize Siegelman politically with an investigation headed by the U.S. Department of Justice"

A new judge threw out Seiglemen's conviction this year when the possibility arose the case was politically

Would you please point me towards an army whose SOP is "rather 1 of us then N of them" then, and specify the relevant N.

This is the point:

http://www.counterpunch.org/lindorff07072008.html

I'm not sure that I understand your complaint. Auditing elections takes time, whether you do it alone or with others. I don't see a reasonable objection to putting in the effort to get the job done.

The advantage to auditing from voter-verified paper ballots is that such audits are possible. DRE (direct recording equipment) make such auditing impossible because you can't compare what some voter-verified component said versus what was counted.

Computers are great for preparing voter-verified paper ballots. They have many advantages to address real needs for illiterate and blind voters, polling places that handle ballots in diverse districts (where ballots aren't the same), and they can be programmed by free software hackers so counties can leverage competition among programmers (doing this will prove to be mostly a matter of getting the money to clear state certification examinations which are largely black box tests).

I don't have to trust the voting machine if all it does is prepare a voter-verified paper ballot which I manually spoil (return to the election judges) or register as my vote (usually deposit in a big box to be collected and counted later). Human counting doesn't have to be infallible, the ballots need to be voter-verified and recorded on something that can be recounted for any reason.

Yeah, we really need an accomplished fraud who's good at lying to the world to be in charge of the most powerful military in the world or its PR department.

You seem to be under the impression I am advocating coal

No, I don't have the impression you're pro coal. I do think you're pro nuclear power, wanting to build more power plants "with only a few thousand nuclear plants, eventually, powering the US" .

Environmental impact of energy production comes from the waste emissions

Environmental impacts also come from mining as well as pre and post processing solid waste.

That's where nuclear becomes a very attractive option.

Uranium mining can be very dirty and destructive. "Uranium mining left a legacy of death". The Navajo have had to live with it. "Navajos won't allow uranium mining"[pdf]. Throughout the world it's mostly Indigenous peoples who carry the burden of uranium mining. "Indigeneous Peoples Call for Global Ban on Uranium Mining".

when we're redirecting enough solar energy to electricity that we start losing vegetation?

Any vegetation effected by solar power, PVs or concentrated, will only be where the concentrators or PVs are.

Nuclear, on the other hand, won't still the tides, it won't slow the winds, it doesn't soak up the sun's radiation, and it won't release the CO2 that we now know from experience warms the earth.

Forgetting mining, the construction of nuclear power plants releases a lot of CO2. Construction of plants require prodigious amounts of concrete and steel, both of which require massive amounts of heat energy to manufacture, and more than likely it come from coal. Then there's the need to transport them.

...the wind potential off the Mid Atlantic comes to 330 [gigawatts] Look at that another way - that's 330GW (but really a lot more, since windmills aren't 100% efficient) of energy getting taken out of the global airmass every year and put into our air conditioners and refrigerators. Nuclear takes that 330GW (again, more in reality) out of a fairly small amount of uranium or thorium.

Like there are air conditioners and refrigerators of the coast. There are more than likely houses with them near mining and manufacturing though. Then there's the need for water for the mining yet water isn't readily available where the uranium is. In Colorado "Gov. Ritter Signs Uranium Mining Water Protection Bill".

The Univ. of Delaware study you linked to (see, I click! I read! Feel the love, Falcon.) plans to generate 330GW of power annually - from 166,720 turbines floating on top of fifty thousand square miles of ocean.

That area is still capable of being used as it is now. Ships and sail boats can still sail. Fishermen can still fish, actually because of the platforms needed for wind ginnies more fish could live there. Then with more fish more people could be encouraged to swim or snorkel and dive, which could boost the economy of the area. This is being done in Florida, artificial reefs are made by sinking cleaned objects which then encourages coral to grow. The coral offers shelters and food to fish.

That's a wind farm roughly one-fifth the area of Texas

Texas, specifically west Texas has wind farms that prod

As an engineer I am appealed at the desperation of the Israeli engineers who now make and modify weapons that serve no purpose other than to inflict massive civilian causalities and create psychological terror. Those engineers need to be held to account same as those who make the bomb vests for suicide bombers.

If you don't see the difference between his platform and mccain, you need some serious readjustment of perspective.

National Intelligence Estimate: Iran does not have a functioning nuclear weapons program.

Bush: Iran is developing nuclear weapons, we must bomb them!

McCain: What he said.

Obama: Iran is developing nuclear weapons, so let's try some sanctions first and if that fails, bomb them!

People of Iran: WTF? Is there any candidate that doesn't want kill us and justify it with another lie?

The differences between Obama and McCain are more about style than substance. They both support using the US's military unilaterally as they see fit. Obama has said this many times. If you believe that Obama isn't going to do whatever he can to maintain and extend the US's hegemony then you are the one who needs some serious readjustment.

If you don't see the difference between his platform and mccain, you need some serious readjustment of perspective.

National Intelligence Estimate: Iran does not have a functioning nuclear weapons program.

Bush: Iran is developing nuclear weapons, we must bomb them!

McCain: What he said.

Obama: Iran is developing nuclear weapons, so let's try some sanctions first and if that fails, bomb them!

People of Iran: WTF? Is there any candidate that doesn't want kill us and justify it with another lie?

The differences between Obama and McCain are more about style than substance. They both support using the US's military unilaterally as they see fit. Obama has said this many times. If you believe that Obama isn't going to do whatever he can to maintain and extend the US's hegemony then you are the one who needs some serious readjustment.

How Bush Was Offered Bin Laden and Blew It - By Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair details how the Bush madmenistration totally dropped the ball before and after 9/11 when they were offered bin Laden on a silver platter.

So much for "... were harbored by those in charge in Afghanistan".

Sure we voted for the wrong guy, but his administration's gross mismanagement of this country showed very clearly that the two parties are not by any means identical, and that your vote for a president can have a very real impact on the policies that are put into place.

Regardless of which party is in power, the goal of dominating the Middle East is the same.

"Let our position be absolutely clear: An attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States of America, and such an assault will be repelled by any means necessary, including military force."

That might sound like Bush but those words were uttered by alleged humanitarian Jimmy Carter. The history of both corporate parties shows they have enthusiastically pursued the nation's imperial ambitions abroad.

Conventional liberal wisdom dictates that Al Gore wouldn't have invaded Iraq, but we'll never know for sure what might have been. We do know that Gore didn't oppose the crippling sanctions the Clinton administration enforced on Iraq, resulting in over one million innocent Iraqi deaths. To them the price was worth it. We know that Gore also supported the "Iraq Liberation Act" and accused Saddam Hussein of supporting terrorism.

Currently Barack Obama is pulling the wool over everyone's eyes with his talk of withdrawal. But examining his policy proposals shows a much different picture. He wants to increase the size of the military. He wants to keep a number of troops in Iraq and has no plans to withdraw any of the so-called contractors. He wants more troops in Afghanistan and he is arguing the same discredited lies about Iran as Bush. He's not anti-war, he's anti-losing-Iraq and he's trying to find a way to salvage the US empire.

Voting Democrat is not necessarily going to lead to a hastier exit from the occupations. They promised that in 2006 when they took over Congress and they have abrogated that promise. They won't even impeach Bush. Why would they do anything different after Obama is elected? Besides, it was under the Republican Dick Nixon that the Vietnam war was ended (this time started with lies by a Democrat).

The Vietnam war was finally ended when large sections of the military refused to fight the war. Mutiny, killing of officers and widespread breakdown of command meant that the US government could no longer count on the military to fight the war. They had no choice but to end the war. The GI resistance was made possible by a large, vibrant and supportive civilian antiwar movement at home.

In Vietnam the stakes were "credibility" in the face of the US's chief imperial competitor, the USSR. Today the stakes are far higher for the US ruling class. They need to control the flow of oil in the Middle East for leverage over their emerging competitors around the globe. They are not going to just walk away from what the US State Department once called "one of the greatest material prizes in world history." We're going to have to force them to leave.

Would things have turned out differently had Gore become President? I concede the point: had things been different then they would be different. But would the US still be attempting to dominate the Middle East and use every means at its disposal to do so? It would be naive to believe that Gore is somehow different in this respect.

Sure we voted for the wrong guy, but his administration's gross mismanagement of this country showed very clearly that the two parties are not by any means identical, and that your vote for a president can have a very real impact on the policies that are put into place.

Regardless of which party is in power, the goal of dominating the Middle East is the same.

"Let our position be absolutely clear: An attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States of America, and such an assault will be repelled by any means necessary, including military force."

That might sound like Bush but those words were uttered by alleged humanitarian Jimmy Carter. The history of both corporate parties shows they have enthusiastically pursued the nation's imperial ambitions abroad.

Conventional liberal wisdom dictates that Al Gore wouldn't have invaded Iraq, but we'll never know for sure what might have been. We do know that Gore didn't oppose the crippling sanctions the Clinton administration enforced on Iraq, resulting in over one million innocent Iraqi deaths. To them the price was worth it. We know that Gore also supported the "Iraq Liberation Act" and accused Saddam Hussein of supporting terrorism.

Currently Barack Obama is pulling the wool over everyone's eyes with his talk of withdrawal. But examining his policy proposals shows a much different picture. He wants to increase the size of the military. He wants to keep a number of troops in Iraq and has no plans to withdraw any of the so-called contractors. He wants more troops in Afghanistan and he is arguing the same discredited lies about Iran as Bush. He's not anti-war, he's anti-losing-Iraq and he's trying to find a way to salvage the US empire.

Voting Democrat is not necessarily going to lead to a hastier exit from the occupations. They promised that in 2006 when they took over Congress and they have abrogated that promise. They won't even impeach Bush. Why would they do anything different after Obama is elected? Besides, it was under the Republican Dick Nixon that the Vietnam war was ended (this time started with lies by a Democrat).

The Vietnam war was finally ended when large sections of the military refused to fight the war. Mutiny, killing of officers and widespread breakdown of command meant that the US government could no longer count on the military to fight the war. They had no choice but to end the war. The GI resistance was made possible by a large, vibrant and supportive civilian antiwar movement at home.

In Vietnam the stakes were "credibility" in the face of the US's chief imperial competitor, the USSR. Today the stakes are far higher for the US ruling class. They need to control the flow of oil in the Middle East for leverage over their emerging competitors around the globe. They are not going to just walk away from what the US State Department once called "one of the greatest material prizes in world history." We're going to have to force them to leave.

Would things have turned out differently had Gore become President? I concede the point: had things been different then they would be different. But would the US still be attempting to dominate the Middle East and use every means at its disposal to do so? It would be naive to believe that Gore is somehow different in this respect.

The best predictor of who will win the election is to see where the corporate money is going.

Traditionally the Republicans have been corporate America's favorite party—they unabashedly push right-wing policies favorable to corporations and the wealthy. However, when the Republicans overreach and become discredited (as now) then they're all too happy to switch to the "B" team, the Democrats. They know that the Democrats can be counted on to push the same pro-corporate agenda, only they're better at packaging it in a way that workers are willing to swallow it (eg: NAFTA).

Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have raised nearly half a billion dollars combined, while poor li'l McCain hasn't even raised $100 million. Oh sure, Obama has received lots of little contributions, but he's swimming in money from Wall Street, lobbyists and other fat cats.

The US ruling class recognizes that the Republican party has blown it and they're switching to the Democrats (for now), which is the safe bet. The money doesn't lie. Another indicator is that nearly one in seven Republican incumbents are retiring.

The larger point is that all three major candidates have taken in over half a billion dollars, and while Obama may tout his plethora of tiny donations, it still only amounts to a fraction of the total he has received. Campaign finance is nothing more than open, legal bribery. There is a reason why corporations and the wealthy have far more influence in the government than workers, and why corporate interests trump public interests.

Setting aside the vast sums of money spent on campaigns and lobbyists, there's the fact that elected officials (who don't rock the boat) can look forward to lucrative jobs when they leave office—on the boards of top corporations, law and lobbying firms. Simply casting a ballot for a politician does not equal change. Change requires struggle—and as long as people are content to sit at home and do nothing (but vote on occasion and send in the occasional $100 check) the public will continue to lose out.

Obama is a case in point. One of his top contributors is Exelon, one of the US's largest nuclear power corporations. In exchange for hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions, Obama successfully watered down legislation that would hold nuclear power plant operators accountable to local governments in the case of leaks or other accidents. Quid pro quo, pure and simple. Look at the $4 million he's raked in from the health care industry and you begin to understand why he opposes single-payer healthcare, an issue supported by over 60% of Americans. Obama's no different from other politicians—he just talks a better game.

I don't blame people for getting excited about Obama. After living through seven years of Bush some genuine change is long overdue. However, if you read the fine print, you'll see that Obama isn't offering much to be hopeful about—and it's going to take a mass movement of people to hold his feet to the fire and win real progress. And no, a campaign is not a movement. After the election is over he is free to ignore this "movement." The time to make demands and exact promises is now, before your vote has been cast. Simply settling for the least the two parties are willing to offer is not a recipe for progress.

The larger point is that all three major candidates have taken in over half a billion dollars, and while Obama may tout his plethora of tiny donations, it still only amounts to a fraction of the total he has received. Campaign finance is nothing more than open, legal bribery. There is a reason why corporations and the wealthy have far more influence in the government than workers, and why corporate interests trump public interests.

Setting aside the vast sums of money spent on campaigns and lobbyists, there's the fact that elected officials (who don't rock the boat) can look forward to lucrative jobs when they leave office—on the boards of top corporations, law and lobbying firms. Simply casting a ballot for a politician does not equal change. Change requires struggle—and as long as people are content to sit at home and do nothing (but vote on occasion and send in the occasional $100 check) the public will continue to lose out.

Obama is a case in point. One of his top contributors is Exelon, one of the US's largest nuclear power corporations. In exchange for hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions, Obama successfully watered down legislation that would hold nuclear power plant operators accountable to local governments in the case of leaks or other accidents. Quid pro quo, pure and simple. Look at the $4 million he's raked in from the health care industry and you begin to understand why he opposes single-payer healthcare, an issue supported by over 60% of Americans. Obama's no different from other politicians—he just talks a better game.

I don't blame people for getting excited about Obama. After living through seven years of Bush some genuine change is long overdue. However, if you read the fine print, you'll see that Obama isn't offering much to be hopeful about—and it's going to take a mass movement of people to hold his feet to the fire and win real progress. And no, a campaign is not a movement. After the election is over he is free to ignore this "movement." The time to make demands and exact promises is now, before your vote has been cast. Simply settling for the least the two parties are willing to offer is not a recipe for progress.

Just the opposite. I want to know if they believe like I do that the 2nd amendment must apply to everybody. I have a feeling all they are going to come up with crap like they're "cop killers". And I want to know how we are to deal with killer cops.

Let's not forget

he doesn't really have a choice, and we have always known that he would first go left to get popular, and then right to get the money. http://counterpunch.org/kafoury05272008.html

And Sen. Obama is offering exactly what as an alternative to more war? Certainly not immediate withdrawal from Iraq, despite how many Americans want that (it'll be a bloodbath if we leave now, we're told, as if Iraqi are so busy laying roses at our soldiers and mercenaries' feet). His Iran threat to the Chicago Tribune ("[T]he big question is going to be, if Iran is resistant to these pressures [to stop its nuclear program], including economic sanctions, which I hope will be imposed if they do not cooperate, at what point ... if any, are we going to take military action? ... [L]aunching some missile strikes into Iran is not the optimal position for us to be in" given the ongoing war in Iraq. "On the other hand, having a radical Muslim theocracy in possession of nuclear weapons is worse.") and his recent vote for allocating $165 billion for the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan (including $51 billion dollars for veterans' education) tell me that he, like any other corporate-funded Democrat, have no principled objection to war or to these wars in particular.

As Cindy Sheehan recently reminded us, the Democrats have a strong history of war making and a lot to apologize for:

Democrats are responsible for every war in the last 108 years, excluding the two Bush wars and the Reagan Grenada farce. Democrats are responsible for dropping, not one, but two atomic bombs on the innocent citizens of Japan. Democrats deserve no slack, and should be given none.

Obama is *not* in favor of ending the war in Iraq. In the debates he refused to pledge to have all troops withdrawn from Iraq by the end of his first term in 2013. Read the fine print. His "withdrawal" plan would redeploy troops around the Middle East so they could be sent back in to Iraq at any time. He would leave the world's largest embassy in Baghdad and the dozen or so military bases the US has constructed there. He would leave 100,000 lawless and unaccountable mercenaries operating in Iraq. Seriously, read his manifesto for a kinder, gentler empire which he published in Foreign Affairs. It should sicken any genuine progressive or antiwar person.

The vast majority of money Obama has taken in is from corporate sources. He may have received lots of tiny donations, but they represent a small fraction of the overall money he has received. He has raked in more money from Wall Street than any other candidate in the race. In addition, he routinely lies about not taking money from lobbyists, which is a demonstrably false statement. In fact, both he and Clinton have taken in far more money from corporations than McCain has--which shows where corporate America is placing their bets.

Take off the rose-colored glasses. He's not a different kind of politician, he's only better at playing the game.

This really has nothing to do with a voting machine's software being "closed source".

From the voter's perspective, there's no real solution to this problem but hand-counting of voter verified paper ballots. For me the ultimate solution to this problem is this: Voters walk up to a machine they had no part in preparing and (optionally) use it to prepare a voter-verified paper ballot. That ballot is then stored and counted by hand. This process makes the trustworthiness of the machine completely irrelevant. If any voter doesn't trust the machine to do this job, they should be given the freedom to fill out the ballot by hand (also handy when the computer breaks down or the power runs out). There are substantial benefits to using computers to prepare voter-verified paper ballots and there are substantial benefits to using exclusively free software voting machines but trustworthiness is not one of those benefits. Nobody can trust any computer they don't control and no voter is given the freedom to completely control their voting machine. Even if trusted voting machine software existed nobody would be able to know that their voting machine was running it.

Contrary to another poster's view on this, no audit trail would be sufficient to engender trust in any code because the preparation of the audit trail would always be in question.

The benefits of a free software voting machine lie in the government and public avoidance of monopoly (thus reducing maintenance cost and possibly increasing machine flexibility), and supporting business opportunities (politicians love it when they can say some project "creates jobs" in their district), and in turn leaving the body that paid for the machines in a position where they can make the machines meet their needs. All proprietary software distributors are monopolists. It is this monopoly that each proprietary software voting machine manufacturer works to protect; this is what's really at stake for those businesses. If any one of them were more user-focused than they are (ES&S is in a great place to be this user-focused since they don't depend on other software for their machines), they would see free software voting machines as a point of sale. They could be the best situated to compete in the maintenance market for their brand of machines because they've known their machines the longest, so ostensibly they know those machines best. Governments will think this way when it comes to purchasing support contracts whether long-term or ad-hoc.

Alas, competing monopolies is the way of things right now in the US. The voting machine makers have the country carved up like the mafia in The Godfather movies and they exploit county after county in every sale. I ought to know, I helped Champaign County, Illinois recommend a pair of voting machines to the county board. We saw demos from a few vendors (ES&S, Hart Intercivic, and Diebold via their local distributor) and picked the least worst pair of machines (ES&S).

6) The fact that Donald Rumsfeld even created his own intelligence unit because the CIA was still unable to uncover anything supporting, what the administration was believing to be true.

Just another Team B, complete with agenda intact and the same rhetoric. Are we having fun yet? And of course, Team B is famous for gerabbing the credit for any percieved 'victories'. Nothing to see here, move along, and leave your tax money in the plate...

• partisan : a firm adherent to a party, faction, cause, or person; especially : one exhibiting blind, prejudiced, and unreasoning allegiance.
  
• bipartisan : of, relating to, or involving members of two parties ; specifically : marked by or involving cooperation, agreement, and compromise between two major political parties.
  
• nonpartisan : : not partisan; especially : free from party affiliation, bias, or designation.
  

Then how do you explain the huge failure (failure from the public's perspective not the business perspective) of the mainstream media coverage on the invasion and occupation of Iraq (failures which persist to this day) and the continued narrowing of debate on health care, both of which are incredibly important issues of the day? The failure to adequately report on the war is all too evident (particularly today as the mainstream media ignores an important weekend war panel where soldiers were speaking out); Jeff Greenfield's "analysis" is an example of the failure to convey what Americans want in health care. The McNeil-Lehrer News Hour tried a similar scam years ago with Dr. Steffi Woolhandler when she spoke about single-payer universal health care (if you have access to Lexis-Nexis you can probably get a complete transcript of the charade). There aren't that many news sources, the media ownership is shrinking and they're all multinational corporations with largely compatible ends. Not that you accused anyone of saying so, but one apparently doesn't need any smoke-filled room conspiracy to get them to behave in such a way that they all profoundly misreport. Chomsky's analysis of this (quoted elsewhere in this /. discussion) seems far more accurate to me.

...a baby killing, tax and spend, socialized medicine advocating, way out on the left wing commie liberal democrat

Don't worry, abortion is a nice wedge issue they can use to distract you from discussing the money issues that affect far more people far more profoundly (including distracting away from corporate crime). It's a good thing that the Republicans are so intent on keeping government small. Imagine how much egg they'd have on their face if they were responsible for creating the Department of Homeland Defense with almost $45B/year budget.

But two issues that really affect Americans in their everyday lives are war and health care. And when it comes to health care the Democrats are just as in favor of the corporatized health care delivery system the US has as the Republicans are. The Democrats of today are running as fast as they can from the universal health care Truman proposed 60 years ago, Americans just can't be allowed to have what Ralph Nader calls "a program with quality and cost controls and an emphasis on prevention". HMOs give to candidates in both parties and that's the way those candidates like it despite that a majority of Americans in CBS and CNN polls say they'd prefer universal health care even if it means higher taxes to pay for it (an oddly supportive notion given that the US spends "twice as much as other industrialized nations on health care, $7,129 per capita."). Kucinich/Conyers' health care plan (HR676) hasn't garnered a lot of cosponsors. I guess it will take a few more million Americans doing without health insurance (and thus making health care significantly more costly as well as making chronic care virtually unavailable until disaster strikes) to change that; over 45 million so far and this figure is going up.

When it comes to the continued occupation of Iraq the Democrats won't stop funding it out of a shared desire to "control [...] our major economic competitors in the world -- Europe and northeast Asia (China and Japan).". Sabre-rattling with Iran is also fodder for both major political parties. War crimes a plenty, according to AWARE (an Illinois-based anti-war group). All this for trillions Americans could have spent on domestic issues, chiefly those of the poor.

Really, the Democrats and Republicans aren't very far apart on these two major issues of the day (both money issues).

...a baby killing, tax and spend, socialized medicine advocating, way out on the left wing commie liberal democrat

Don't worry, abortion is a nice wedge issue they can use to distract you from discussing the money issues that affect far more people far more profoundly (including distracting away from corporate crime). It's a good thing that the Republicans are so intent on keeping government small. Imagine how much egg they'd have on their face if they were responsible for creating the Department of Homeland Defense with almost $45B/year budget.

But two issues that really affect Americans in their everyday lives are war and health care. And when it comes to health care the Democrats are just as in favor of the corporatized health care delivery system the US has as the Republicans are. The Democrats of today are running as fast as they can from the universal health care Truman proposed 60 years ago, Americans just can't be allowed to have what Ralph Nader calls "a program with quality and cost controls and an emphasis on prevention". HMOs give to candidates in both parties and that's the way those candidates like it despite that a majority of Americans in CBS and CNN polls say they'd prefer universal health care even if it means higher taxes to pay for it (an oddly supportive notion given that the US spends "twice as much as other industrialized nations on health care, $7,129 per capita."). Kucinich/Conyers' health care plan (HR676) hasn't garnered a lot of cosponsors. I guess it will take a few more million Americans doing without health insurance (and thus making health care significantly more costly as well as making chronic care virtually unavailable until disaster strikes) to change that; over 45 million so far and this figure is going up.

When it comes to the continued occupation of Iraq the Democrats won't stop funding it out of a shared desire to "control [...] our major economic competitors in the world -- Europe and northeast Asia (China and Japan).". Sabre-rattling with Iran is also fodder for both major political parties. War crimes a plenty, according to AWARE (an Illinois-based anti-war group). All this for trillions Americans could have spent on domestic issues, chiefly those of the poor.

Really, the Democrats and Republicans aren't very far apart on these two major issues of the day (both money issues).

Hard to believe, but they were taken offline by court order in the United States. A corrupt Swiss Bank, Julius Baer, objected to wikileaks posting documents showing malfeasance on the part of the bank, so this crazy judge, Jeffrey White, who really doesn't understand the First Amendment (and was nominated to the Federal bench by Bush of course), ordered the site to be taken offline. Here's a BBC link describing what happened. And another one from Counterpunch.

Some basic background here, and with slightly more detail (although without citations and somewhat more inflammatory) here.

I concur. I also like unemployment pay from the government. It's critical to establish a safety net, a floor so people never fall below that floor and enter poverty. I'd gladly pay a high tax rate to establish and maintain these things for flesh and blood people (in other words, not corporations, real people). I don't want people to be homeless, hungry, or go without health care when they need it. Most people in the US agree on health care -- according to Jeff Cohen and Norman Solomon citing CBS and CNN national surveys:

CBS's own poll of Americans had found 64 percent supporting the view that the federal government should "guarantee health insurance for all" -- with 60 percent approving of higher taxes to pay for it. A CNN poll found 64 percent American support for the idea that "government should provide a national health insurance program for all Americans, even if this would require higher taxes."

Part of the reason the issue [exit poll discrepancies] went away for the media and simultaneously raised suspicion on the web is secrecy and confusion about the data and what exactly is being characterized as the exit poll. If you go to the CNN website or any other website on which 2004 exit poll data are available, you'll see numbers very different from those released on election day. This is because the survey results originally collected and presented to subscribers were subsequently corrected to conform to official tallies.

Jonathan Simon, an attorney and co-founder of the group Election Defense Alliance, says that the vote discrepancies between machine and hand counts in New Hampshire's Democratic primary are troubling, and defy easy explanation.

"The trouble is, whenever you have a surprise result in an election, and it runs counter to the polls, the media always say the problem is the polling, not the counting." But he adds, "The thing is, these things always work in one direction-in favor of the more conservative candidate, and that defies the law of quantum mechanics."

The only candidate who has a grasp of economics....

No, He's not the only one, by a long shot. And as for your other points, Kucinich has him beat, also. He was the ONLY candidate there to vote against the patriot act both times. Paul abstained from one. Obama voted for the other. And the rest? There they were, voting for almost everything the president wanted. Not to worry. Neither Paul nor Kucinich have a snowball's chance. The well oiled machine shall thunder on, and we'll get four more years of Nixon/Agnew.

The problem however is that no matter what system, we are voting for politicians.

Even if you weren't voting for a politician you would still be voting for someone that you have to trust to implement their promised platform. There is virtually no means by which an ineffective (or down right duplicitous) office holder (I guess that's nearly a definition of a politician!) can be removed from office under any of the available systems. Looking at your country's description of the voting system certainly doesn't seem to indicate it, and the only instances which I can think of in N.America was a brief movement by the left-wing CCF in Canada in the 1930s and then by the right-wing Reform Party in the 1990s.

Really, the idea that we have to trust some professional sleazebag to do what they promise even when we know they won't -- so much so that it's almost a cliche -- makes me wonder how anyone can rationalize voting to themselves. Still, I guess MTV told us to "rock the vote" or something.

Anyone want to bet that in a cringeworthy display of how we just don't get it that Barrack Obama becomes the next president and keeps on implementing the agenda of the wealthy coterie that runs politics?

Libertarian is the only vote that makes sense.

You say my "facts are not exactly unbiased" but you don't refute anything I said. Talking about facts being biased makes no sense. That corporate news kept shilling for war while the US public was in favor of war can't be explained by your entertainment/sensationalism rationale.

The news media has an obligation to question power and the government's most serious act is to go to war. So it is part of the media's job to challenge the government to justify going to war. They didn't do that in the run up to the invasion of Iraq. Millions of people in the streets before the war began had a hard time getting serious coverage in most corporate news outlets.

What would be sensational is for major corporate media to report on what Iraqis want (do they want the US in or out of their country?), to report on what American people said they want in their own polls—according to Jeff Cohen and Normon Solomon, most Americans want a national health insurance program run by the government and are willing to pay higher taxes for it but CBS' Jeff Greenfield says the opposite in a news piece responding to Michael Moore's "SiCKO" (which advocates for universal health care, particularly HR676, a single-payer universal health care bill):

Reflecting what became mainstream media's conventional wisdom in the wake of Michael Moore's "SiCKO" documentary, CBS correspondent Greenfield explained that the U.S. lacks a universal healthcare system not because of the powerful insurance lobby -- but because "Americans are just different." He quoted an academic who said Americans, unlike Canadians and Europeans, don't want government involvement in healthcare: "It's a cultural difference."

Actually, CBS's own poll of Americans had found 64 percent supporting the view that the federal government should "guarantee health insurance for all" -- with 60 percent approving of higher taxes to pay for it. A CNN poll found 64 percent American support for the idea that "government should provide a national health insurance program for all Americans, even if this would require higher taxes."

We know the corporate media can do better. During hurricane Katrina mainstream media covered ordinary people on-air talking about what their families went through including criticism of government inaction. It's no coincidence that the media had no managers from the government controlling the message; the soldiers who would fill that role were all shipped off to Iraq.

So if I cannot make copies for personal use but paid for a license to listen to music represented by a certain pattern of bits, I will have an unalienable right to listen to that music, represented by that *exact* pattern of bits

You have right to remain silent, everything you say or hum WILL be used against you

It's not that difficult. But people in positions of political power are disincentivized from doing the right thing. This includes talking to technical people who advocate for free software voting machines so that we can end up with machines that produce voter-verifiable paper ballots which are stored for manual counting and are built on a free software system so that the county/state can get programmers they can trust when things don't work correctly. Having a choice of proprietors is just picking your monopolist and then hoping they'll do what you want when the contract is signed.

Instead of spending millions on a new proprietary system that will not adequately address local needs issues (and thus cause great embarrassment for the clerks who chose them), they could spend money (even with other states and counties) developing voting machines they can maintain and inspect as much as they like. Counties and states can purchase the required black box testing themselves, they don't need ES&S, Diebold, etc. to do this for them.

In this particular case, the ACLU's fear—voters not being immediately notified that their ballots are invalid—can be dealt with by a computer which scans (but doesn't count) their paper voter-verified ballot. Not only can most voters have an opportunity to read their paper ballot, they could plug in a pair of headphones into the computer and have the computer read them their ballot back and then determine if that comports with their intended vote. Then after this proofing (human and/or computer) each voter has a reasonable expectation that their ballot is valid and accurately reflects their intention.

I was part of the appointed group that recommended a set of voting machines for Champaign County, Illinois' elected County Board. Due to some not-completely-honest measures about only hearing from "approved" vendors, and a bunch of poor choices, I was pushed into picking the least-worst which happened to be a set of ES&S machines (one scanned and/or produced a paper voter-verifiable ballot, the other counted that paper ballot and physically retained it in a locked cabinet). Champaign County ended up with ES&S machines, only one of which had been approved for use by the state (in the state's bound-to-be-bullshit testing regime). The hurdles to overcome aren't ridiculously difficult. It will be hard to get some people to understand that it's beneficial to have local control over the voting machine so the machines can be reprogrammed to meet local needs (including changing the software to accommodate non-first-past-the-post voting, and generally fixing bugs or adding enhancements a county decides they want after the voting hardware contract is signed).

One thing that would really help (nothing like the power of a good example) is a free software voting machine that works just like the ES&S paper ballot scanning machines. These machines have a remarkably simple interface, good and adjustable voice, clear display, and headphone jacks. But these machines run on proprietary software which ES&S isn't willing to relicense (despite being their customer). So you're stuck with them for "support" and that means hoping they'll share your county's idea of what your voting system should do.

For hundreds of millions of poor Indians, the brave new world of the 90s meant globalization of prices, Indianization of incomes. "As we moved to fortify our welfare state for the wealthy, the state turned its back on the poor, investment in agriculture collapsed, and with it, countless millions of lives. As banks wound down rural credit while granting loans for buying Mercedes Benzes in the cities at the lowest imaginable interest rates, rural indebtedness soared. In the 90s, for the first time in independent India the Supreme Court pulled up several state governments over increasing hunger deaths. Welcome to the world so loved by the Friedmans - Thomas and Milton". From the mid-90s on, thousands of Indian farmers committed suicide, including over 5,000 in the single southern state of Andhra Pradesh. As employment crashed in the countryside to its lowest ever, distress migrations from the villages - to just about anywhere - increased in tens of millions. Foodgrains available per Indian fell almost every year in the 90s and by 2002-03 was less than it had been at the time of the great Bengal famine of 1942-43. Even as the world hailed the Indian Tiger Economy, the country slipped to rank 127 (from 124) in the United Nations Human Development Index of 2003. It is better to be a poor person in Botswana, or even the occupied territories of Palestine, than one in India.

Clinton and her team exude a divine right to the Oval Office, a sense of entitlement, and that damn youngster Obama didn't "wait his turn." These latest foibles follow last summer's string of Clintonian hits against Obama's supposed "naïve" and "inexperienced" qualities, and her top staffers' condescending complaint in November about Obama's young supporters, that, "They look like Facebook."

But the money point is how the Clinton hostility toward younger generations has now reached the extreme of corrupting her policy positions, with Clinton and her staff openly seeking to suppress and demonize young voter turnout in Iowa. (That's also strategically stupid: the best way to get young people to do something is to tell them they shouldn't or can't do it. And Obama responded by touring five major Iowa universities on December 4 and 5, reminding the standing-room-only crowds that Clinton seeks to discourage them from participating in the caucuses.) -- Hillary Clinton and the Politics of Character Assassination By AL GIORDANO

More from Clinton:

Hillary Rodham Clinton recently gave a speech about how "a lot of kids don't know what work is" and young people "think work is a four-letter word." These were not renegade words, but rather an expression of the prevailing attitude among her fellow baby boomers. The boomers mistake a rejection of their American dream as a rejection of reality. But here's some news: Young people know that work is a reality for everyone. It's just that everyone needs to work toward something, so young people have a new American dream. -- Boston Globe: Crafting the new American dream

From Nixon Girl to Watergate: The Making of Hillary Clinton

The Seeds of Corruption: Hillary Clinton in Arkansas

Secrecy, Intransigence and War: The Vices of Hillary Clinton

Basically, she's a pro-war, corporate, conservative Democrat who has managed to hijack her party's nomination. It looks like another voting day is coming out where I can just sit home and relax.

After all, it's hard to vote for the lesser of two evils when you have two equally evil candidates.

From Nixon Girl to Watergate: The Making of Hillary Clinton

The Seeds of Corruption: Hillary Clinton in Arkansas

Secrecy, Intransigence and War: The Vices of Hillary Clinton

Basically, she's a pro-war, corporate, conservative Democrat who has managed to hijack her party's nomination. It looks like another voting day is coming out where I can just sit home and relax.

After all, it's hard to vote for the lesser of two evils when you have two equally evil candidates.

From Nixon Girl to Watergate: The Making of Hillary Clinton

The Seeds of Corruption: Hillary Clinton in Arkansas

Secrecy, Intransigence and War: The Vices of Hillary Clinton

Basically, she's a pro-war, corporate, conservative Democrat who has managed to hijack her party's nomination. It looks like another voting day is coming out where I can just sit home and relax.

After all, it's hard to vote for the lesser of two evils when you have two equally evil candidates.

Ok, what am I missing? The states want different (stricter) regulations regarding the greenhouse gas producers (autos and power plants). Why does the EPA have an issue with that

It's not hard to get right, it's hard to get past vested interests which are intent on selling crap. I wrote an article for CounterPunch dealing with free software voting machines and served on an appointed committee which recommended election hardware and software to the elected county board (the county board made the real decision, taking our input as just a recommendation). I was able to explain the fatal flaws in all the options before us and they're not hard to understand or see how to do a better job.

But our choices were very restricted; we were hamstrung early. From the first day on the committee we were informed that the state only let us look at "approved hardware" (it turned out this was a lie, and one of the machines we ended up picking had not yet been approved at the state level), vendors opted out (some because they didn't like our request for proposal which included a clause—at my insistence— that we have free software voting software, some because they weren't willing to sell in our state, some just ignored our request to see their system), and some on the panel genuinely didn't foresee what should be obvious to anyone even mildly interested in democracy: when you pick a proprietor you're picking a monopolist. Our end recommendation was merely the best of the worst, not something I'd genuinely endorse given more reasonable options.

I'm under no illusion about voting system security and free software; the issue about free software voting machines does not revolve around security. I wanted (and still do want) free software voting machines because I know that localities want control over their towns, counties, and states. They want to be able to correct bugs in their voting machines and improve the software so it can handle elections other than first-past-the-post. We're talking about machines that have to last decades here, not a cheap personal computer you can afford to replace after 5-7 years. But when the software is a monopoly, voters are at the mercy of the proprietor. If the proprietor says "no", you have nowhere else to go but to buy another system (which is simply not an option for many counties starved for money, such as my county which can't afford to repurchase a whole new set of machines and software licenses). You wouldn't tolerate this lack of control over your life for your car, your house, your plumbing, your electrical system, and you'd never hesitate to hire experts to do work for you in any of those things (because you're probably not a programmer, electrician, mechanic, architect, roofer, etc. yourself). But people have a lot of work ahead of them to teach others to value software freedom for its own sake.

What needs to be done is remarkably well understood. For the most part the technical issues involved are rather plain and easy to explicate to the uninitiated. What's lacking is largely political will to make better systems a reality. I don't have the time to make a new voting system myself, but in the interest of making better systems happen I am willing to work with those who are building a better system. I'll contribute my expertise and experience working on this voting machine recommendation committee.

There's also the flip side, that US soldiers get to see how effective terrorist tactics are against an better trained and equipped force, and bring that knowledge and experience back home with them: http://www.counterpunch.org/lind12062006.html

Because Democrats would never do that, amirite?

I thought AT&T disabled some functions of different phones for the favor of China or Canada or France or whatever country we should blame.

Criminalizing the Classroom: The Over-Policing of New York City Schools

Experimenting on Someone Else's Children