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To all the Republican apologists here on /. telling us Dems and liberals to "just get over it," why don't you put yourselves in our shoes for just one second, and ask yourselves how YOU would react--given the VERY same exit-poll contradictions and other voting discrepancies throughout the country--if a President Hillary Clinton were now sitting in the White House.

If Hillary had run, and had bigwig friends at Diebold and ES&S bankrolling her campaign, you'd bet YOU'D put a stink up about it, too--and believe it or not, so would I. Election tampering is very wrong on BOTH sides of the aisle, and should NOT be tolerated in what we purport to be the "freest" country in the world.

In addition, I am sick to death of hearing the meme from the Faux "News" viewers that Dems have no plan and no ideas. If you'd actually *listened* for 30 minutes to a Democrat's point of view--or even gone to the party's Web site and read its platform, you'd learn that the Democrats DO have positive ideas for change AND for national security. Thing is, you'd never know that by the way Republicans have infiltrated mainstream media and stolen the collective megaphone all for their own narrow "ideas," like banning same-sex marriage, torturing unconvicted prisoners, and violating other human rights.

OTOH, Democrats right at this moment are working their asses off for universal healthcare, a fair minimum wage, workers' protections, empowerment of the working classes, and equal rights for not only all Americans, but for all people.

Re: terrorist threats and the best way to handle them: law enforcement--along with special intelligence and border/port security--is and always will be the BEST way to imprison and punish these terrorist CRIMINALS, as evidenced with the most recent British terrorist attacks and threats. Democrats realize that terrorist thugs will always threaten us, and military solutions are not the answer. If the British can use law enforcement and a sane foreign policy to stop not only the IRA terrorism that has been plaguing their nation for decades--but now also al-Qaeda attacks--why can't we? Democrats realize, like the British, that TRUE homeland security begins AT HOME.

The mass media--and by virtue of it, American collective thought--has been hijacked by the Heritage Foundation and other right-wing organizations who aim to influence American opinion and poison minds (like yours) with conservative drivel. If you're intelligent enough to be posting at /., which I'm assuming you are, then turn off Sean Hannity for just a second and see what the opposition has to offer--you'll find it really isn't all that frightening, but instead empowering.

gop.org
democrats.org

I wonder what their webmasters think of the bill?

Okay, here's the list:

    (1) www.timessquarechurch.org (well, no... but listen to this enough, and you'll find that that's more important. It's more like opting through rather than opting out, though.) I prefer this one, myself.

    (2) www.escapeartist.com (really. Their book is helpful and useful, especially if you have enough money, or your own mini-business that is relocatable, and are young enough).

    (3) here or here. I'm of the mind that it doesn't matter which, and both is better.

Again, you misrepresent Democrats. Show me where in the Democratic platform they are calling for the end of private firearm ownership or thought crimes?

Just because people who call themselves Democrats call for such silliness does not mean that it is the Party position.

A cite for your Koresh claims would be appreciated.

The classic opportunity for our American farmers and entrepreneurs and small businesses to understand is there is a 300 million-person market of middle class citizens here in India

How many of you are making more money because of all the people in China, India, and other cheap-labor locales, who buy stuff that you produce? To vote, Click here

Now, how many of you know somebody who lost their job because of overseas competition? To vote, Click here

Based on that unscientific survey, I'd say that George Bush is talking smack. The only people who really benefit from offshoring are the business owners who can costs by firing American workers and replacing them with cheap overseas labor. There may be more wealth, but it's all concentrated in a few hands.

Bush can't understand what's it's like for an ordinary family to suffer the devastation of unemployment because he's never lived through it.

If not them, who, and how? I just watched the state of the union crap, then the alleged democratic party "response". That was PATHETIC, I couldn't believe it. Well, I can actually, I expected it, but I had 1% hope they might actually DO SOMETHING. Instead of using the great opportunity to do something with GUTS, say announce some serious impeachment moves, they had some gomer on who droned his way to lecture hall sleepytime and said...nothing. Not believing this incredible display of ineptitude, I go over to the democratic official webpage. They are having a blog circle jerk call in to each other while they have "watch parties". WOW, THAT'LL WORK!!!1!1 MAN,, I IZ IMPRESSED!!

I checked the Libertarian party home page, NOTHING, NO RESPONSE. Constitution party, NOTHING, NO RESPONSE. Only the Greens had anything, they have 5 videos up as a response (says there available feb 1).

If the major so called opposition party FAILS to address wars based on lies, illegal and clearly unconstitional actions domestically, expansion of the heinous police state, destruction of the economy, with the only thing they do is get on the phone and talk at each other, then who the hell is left? Only places like the EFF and others like that who are trying the only peaceful remedy we have left, in the courts. Sure as hell VOTING ain't doing it, because they hack the damn vote now and get away with it! So even play acting at VOTING is a big fat waste of time.

If only it were true. He seems to be able to lie us into a war, shred the constitution, hand out important government jobs like stocking stuffers to incompetent nitwits, give aid and comfort to our enemies in time of war, suppress political descent, and run up enormous debt in our name to enrich his backers, and there doesn't seem to be anything the hand wringing "opposition" party can do to stop him.

If only he sucked , he's be out of there so fast his head would spin.

--MarkusQ

Strange, that you think the Democrats would support it.

Here you have a bill that would create an exception in the laws that would allow common people (i.e. internet users) to post whatever political opinion they want on the internet while receiving payments for creating said content.

The Republican party has long triumphed free speech with respect to political positions, where "free speech" is synonymous with money spent to advertise their platforms. The current campaign finance laws "restrict free speech" by restricting the amount of money (and where, and when) a political party can spend on their campaigns.

The Democratic party, which has long proclaimed themselves a "party of the little man" and "enemy of the corporations" have a very hard time raising money from said corporations. So, it is in their best interest to restrict the amounts of spending by their competators, to make it "fair".

Adding this exception would allow their chief competator (Republicans) to use their (larger) campaign funds in a media that is fast outstripping traditional forms of media (TV / newspapers) among voting audiences, increasingly so among younger voters (who statistically are more Democrat). So, is it really that strange that the Democrats would oppose it?

The American idea of dividing the powers up and setting them at each other's throats was really clever. Unfortunately, no one knows the future, and things have evolved in a way where the powers are bigger and more concentrated than any English king's powers ever were.

Power tends to concentrate unless there are working checks and balances. The US political system has IMO ignored many of these in the wake of September 11th, in favor of giving the executive branch the freedom to do whatever it wants. The opposition's role should be to prevent this from happening by complaining loudly in public, but they've failed to do so.

"GOP.com, of course."

Note how it's a .com (as in "profit-making enterprise"), rather than a non-profit .org. Note that http://www.democrats.com/ is a progressive advocacy group whereas http://www.democrats.org/ is the national Democratic Party's website. I do like how the official Democratic Party website's current (as of this posting) home page headline is "Arrest Warrant Issued for GOP Leader."

here you go. all the misinformation you can handle.

The worm has a home page...

http://www.democrats.org/

We live in a capitalist society, and in that kind of society products and services and provided by companies based on the greatest demand.

The analogy between demand and votes, often called voting with one's dollar, is a common rhetorical device. Besides, apathetic American voters elected the Republican and Democratic legislators who enacted the anticircumvention provisions of the DMCA by voice vote, putting us into this mess in the first place.

When your right to vote gets taken away because your black, or your right to drive gets taken away because you're a woman, then you can start complaining.

My right to vote, and the right of everybody else who doesn't agree with the platform of the GOP or the ASS to vote, is already taken away under the equilibrium of Duverger's Law, which applies to all first-past-the-post election systems.

Why would I pay for any NY Times news story when I can get the same story direct from the source for free.

Was that falling for a troll, or a counter-troll? Perhaps you might have noticed that this was titled "The Libertarian Response"? Libertarians are neither Republicans nor Democrats. They're a different political party entirely, generally agreeing with liberals on issues pertaining to the individual (such as drugs, abortion, and so on), and agreeing with the conservatives on economic issues (such as fiscal responsibility (Bush aside), corporate regulation, and the minimum wage).

Commonly, libertarians make a distinction between the personal and economic aspects of liberal thought; the popular Nolan Chart makes the political spectrum a plane, rather than a line.

Or, as I usually put it: in legislative sessions, the Conservatives sit to the right, the Liberals sit on the left, and the Libertarians are the baboons swinging from the chandeliers. (And it's suprising how many Libertarians will cheerfully agree with that description when asked....)

The libertarian position stated was a trifle extreme... but does thus highlight the problems with the libertarian's more extreme free-market faction.

You are correct that many of Hitler's social policies were leftist or left-leaning. For instance, Hitler enforced anti-smoking and anti-pollution legislation.

However, although I still contend that Hitler was not a strict vegetarian (and I'm a vegan, so I know this means never consuming any animals or animal products, such as cow's milk or chicken's eggs), it doesn't matter unless he was a vegetarian for leftist moral reasons. As a leftist vegan, I object to the consumption of animals because of the violence required to sustain a non-vegetarian diet. Hitler obviously did not object to violence.

(A good number of right-wing moral vegetarians exist in the Matthew Scully mold.)

I don't see "politicalcompass.org" as a valid source.

Fair enough.

anything that limits free speech is censorship

What would you like to say that political correctness prevents you from saying?

Perhaps just socialism

The Democrats are not socialists. Compare and contrast the Democratic Party platform with the Socialist Party platform. (Well, who isn't against police brutality?)

Kerry was a TERRIBLE candidate. He took both sides of every issue.

Republicans level that charge against anyone who doesn't see things in black and white. They said it about Clinton and Gore too. Meanwhile, Bush flip-flops.

Here you go:

Flyer distributed in African American neighborhoods in Milwaukee

Repubs challenge 37,180 registrations in Milwaukee (this is a new challenge, on top of the 5600 cases you cited)

Repub attempt to disenfranchise over 20,000 Ohioans thrown out of court (mentioned as similar strategy to Wisconsin item)

photo of fraudulent letter sent to Ohio democrats

West Virginia fraudulent phone calls

College republicans distribute false voting flyers at UW Madison

Voters get phone call claiming Kerry supports gay marriage (before you get on me about Schwarzkopf, that story's already been discredited. Apparently "someone" took a legitimate endorsement message from General McPeak, and spliced it to sound like Schwarzkopf made the endorsement)

Scan of flyer distributed in Jefferson Co., Alabama

Here's a bonus fraudulent letter sent to African American voters in South Carolina

God bless America, eh buddy?

Well.. Blue and death are associated correctly.

Well, if you read my comments elsewhere, it's pretty plain that I'm no Kerry cheerleader, but I think the concern here is that the "War Room" might really be just a tool for astroturfing the blogs, and that seems like a reasonable suspicion to me.

Of course it's a tool for astroturfing blogs. Compare to the Democrats efforts to get people to take online polls (a recent email from the Democrats urges party members to "Look for online polls at these national news websites, and make sure to vote in every one of them"), phone radio call-in shows, and write letters to the editor. The Republicans seem to do much better in the blog world. Apparently, the Democrats (as a party, and Kerry's folks in particular) didn't learn all that much from Dean.

These debates aren't about debating anything at all, they're an equal opportunity platform for the two major political parties (and no other parties) and their sponsors to try to spin things to the public.

Well, if you read my comments elsewhere, it's pretty plain that I'm no Kerry cheerleader, but I think the concern here is that the "War Room" might really be just a tool for astroturfing the blogs, and that seems like a reasonable suspicion to me.

Of course it's a tool for astroturfing blogs. Compare to the Democrats efforts to get people to take online polls (a recent email from the Democrats urges party members to "Look for online polls at these national news websites, and make sure to vote in every one of them"), phone radio call-in shows, and write letters to the editor. The Republicans seem to do much better in the blog world. Apparently, the Democrats (as a party, and Kerry's folks in particular) didn't learn all that much from Dean.

These debates aren't about debating anything at all, they're an equal opportunity platform for the two major political parties (and no other parties) and their sponsors to try to spin things to the public.

Kerry don't need Bush at the debate because he can debate against himself for 90 minutes front of the audience.

Yeah those were the two I found. This is a witch hunt if I've ever seen one. Someone appearing in a commercial as a veteran, volunteers for the Bush Cheney campaign. This guy is a low ranking nobody, which is why he was disposed of so quickly. He wanted to help Bush because he doesn't like Kerry, obviously. This is not coordination. They don't hire retired air force generals to run their campaign, although it sounds pretty nasty if you word it well.

Now, if you want to take a closer look at the ILLEGAL COORDINATION going on between the Kerry campaign and the 527s, read this.

I especially liked this photo that shows DNC Chief Operating Officer Josh Wachs, Senator Pat Leahy, and Zack Exley, the acting organizing director from Moveon.org. This was taken in November 2003, and in April 2004 Zach Exley jumped on with the Kerry campaign...

In April the Kerry for President Web site proudly announced: "Zach Exley joins the [Kerry] Internet team as Director of Online Communications and Online Organizing. He was previously the director of special projects for the MoveOn.org."

Exley claims he won't communicate with MoveOn until after the election, but when he teamed up with Kerry, MoveOn's executive director, Eli Pariser, acknowledged that Exley will be able to make use of "what he's got in his head."

And a statement issued by MoveOn when Exley signed on with team Kerry insisted that "federal election rules permit some forms of communication" between Exley and the liberal 527.

[http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2004/8/22/83 651.shtml]

How much is it gonna take for you guys to get a clue? Your news outlets don't say this stuff! Call the Fox News channel biased, they aren't even reporting this stuff! Mary Beth Cahill, swarms of lawyers and volunteers that the article doesn't even bother with. The sources are credible, the DNC website itself!!! That forged CBS document appeared in John Kerry for president commercials, and now there is a massive cover-up going on at CBS (ahem, failed cover-up). You want to go beyond illegal 527 coordination, lets talk about illegally coordinating forged "documents" between a somewhat trusted news outlet and a presidential campaign. Now we're getting into some serious charges. Do you think this is too much to believe?

The thing that really pisses me off is that SBVT has raised a pittance in comparison to moveon.org. It all comes from one guy, George Soros. If you guys are all so afraid of corporations, why don't you take a second look at George Soros? He's buying everybody out!

Stupid witch hunt. You know this does reflect the character of George Bush. The fact that his campaign will preserve its integrity by dismissing these guys after democrat finger pointing. It all plays out for the democrats and the biased broadcast news organizations who can say "Look! Look! Their ranks are breaking!" Mindless trolls.

I know why peole hate George bush so much. It's because he's a Christian with real Christian values, and there is a growing anti-Christian sentiment, a surge of religious intolerance brewing in this country. It's happened all through history, and people are blind to it. I'm not a Christian, but I'll side with them and fight against the mindless pawns of a so called "progressive" billionaire immigrant, George Soros.

> You seriously think *John Kerry* is going to be against outsourcing? Hahahaha.

Yes, at least ostensibly. Straight from the donkey's mouth:

# John Kerry has a plan to jumpstart job growth right now. This includes a New Jobs Tax Credit which would provide a payroll tax holiday for new hires in manufacturing, other businesses affected by outsourcing, and small businesses.
# His plan would end tax breaks for companies that move jobs overseas and use the savings to cut the corporate rate by 5 percent, providing a tax cut for 99 percent of taxpaying corporations.

Clicky - DNC jobs "plan" outline.

> No offense, but you're pretty ignorant.
No offense, but you're pretty unjustifiably smug for someone who also just said something ignorant.

At least when we talk to George W Bush, we know where he stands, and we know he'll do his level best to keep his promises.

I can't even tell what John Kerry is promising, it seems to change every other day.

Who's the flip-flopper?

Um. No. Sen. Kerry is opposed to tax reform. He wants to raise taxes. Maybe that's where you got mixed up.

In case you didn't notice the USA now has the single biggest deficit it has ever had in its entire history. *Someone* has to pay for that, or do you think (as Bush seems to) that the magic money fairy is going to just make the debt vanish? Deficit spending is like using a credit card, you get instant gratification, then pay through the nose later on. Someone's got to pay, and the elite have more money than I do, so let them pay for Bush's war.

Sen. Kerry wants to keep Social Security as it is; President Bush wants to introduce privatization initiatives.

Sen. Kerry wants to make health insurance a federal entitlement; President Bush wants to cut health care and health insurance costs instead.

Less sarcastically, are you aware of the fact that here in the US we spend around $4,500 per capita on health care. In Canada they spend around $2,500 per capita. In Japan (where they also have socialized medicine) its only around $2,000 per capita. The USA has the absolute highest per capita health care expenditures on the planet, and yet has the third lowest average life expectancy of any first world nation (only Ireland and Portugal rank lower). My point here is that the fabeled "efficiency" of corporatized medicine doesn't seem to be apparent in the real world. We spend more money, and have shorter lives, and you want me to think that that's a good thing?

There are important differences. These are just a few. Read the platforms.

You'll notice, as you read the Democratic platform that eating Christian babies, raising taxes on everyone, forcing streights to become gay, and surrendering to Osama are not actually part of the Democratic platform. Funny how reality doesn't really match what Rush says, isn't it?

1. Throwing a knife = harm.
2. 
   Throwing a napkin = no harm.
   Spewing sarin = harm.
   Spewing asbestos = ???
   Spewing carbon monoxide = ???
   Spewing peanut oil = ???
   Spewing hydrogen dioxide = no harm

Goddamn liberal freak

are you talking American democrat liberal or european liberal democrat?

I'm confused!

Or, the Democratic National Comittee

facing global competition much like agricultural

You want to know a little known secret about ag competition? The destruction of the family farmer has to do with Federal social policy, not agriculture competitiveness.

We farm east of Corning Iowa, which was the one-time home of an emerging national farmers union (before the government got it stopped). (see the USDA website for a timeline of some farmers movements). The problem the government's always had with farmers is that they're darn near impossible to control. Look at the John Birch society's prevelance, as well as election returns from "Red" (which should be Blue, FYI) states vs. "Blue" more liberal areas.

Why are farmers so difficult to control?

o They're independent workers and are raised to be independent. Their whole ethic system, though processes, motivation, etc. is intrinsically defined (meaning THEY are the law that gets their butts out of bed at 5AM, not some external authority).

o They deal with reality first-hand, every day, and subsequently grow up being the most aware of the truth of Reason. Sluff off and plant the crop two months late? You have no crop. Skip maintenance on the tractor? It breaks. Get sloppy on fence mending, your cattle disappears. Do this a few too many times? You die. (You haven't seen work ethic until you've met a modern farmer) Live in a city for a big company, you get further and further separated from first-hand consequence of reason. Sluff off on that report due? Oh well, do it tomorrow. Boss won't yell till next week. Implement a less safe or innovative product? Market won't notice for maybe a year. Give crappy service at the DMV counter? What are they gonna do? Fire you? Action and consequence are distanced. Belief in Reason leads to very strong and dangerous thinking - dangerous if you're a government parasite.

o Bottom of the model independence. How do you control someone who doesn't need you every day, and you can't starve them? You screw with the government in the city and they'll have you screaming uncle soon enough (whether it's from a cell or not is your choice). But there's little you can do to that family farmer, and did you notice, if you have to go get him, you're on HIS turf, not yours? Might get shot.

o The worst thing, is if you piss off the farmer, YOU starve. He'll just let his crop rot. He's got enough for his family to eat. This isn't a good thing for government bureaucrats.

So the government, starting with FDR and significantly extended under Johnson, Nixon and Carter, introduced massive controls of production, regulation, consolidation/centralization of purchasing, application of all sorts of environmental regulatoins, etc. By adding substantial costs (ala barriers to entry) to the process, it forced farmers to grow to several thousand acre farms to be able to bear these costs (while the market price was capped through centralization of purchasing). Not only was this effective, but the government was right in line to "help you buy those few more thousand acres", created programs that get you hooked, and once you're in, you'll never get out.

Now they've got a foot on the farmer's neck. So no, per the previous poster, this isn't a function of global competition decimating the farm as it is the intentional restructuring of an American class by bureaucrats who felt they were getting too big for their britches.

But then again, how is the outsourcing issue any different? Didn't you all get too big for your britches, buying all those stupid dot-com stocks, fleeing to the burbs (leaving the government to clean up the mess), putting your kids in private schools, and buying all those damn SUVs?

Don't worry. Both the marxists and the country club elite will set things straight, just like they both did for the farmers.

Look, I'ma War President [smirk]. Since 9/11, we realized we can't sit around waiting for things to happen. We need to act now. Al Queda operatives are trying to destroy America. Saddam was a dangerous evil dictator. By hurting big business, the terrorists will win. Democrats want to let the terrorists win, tax corporations and put "Queer Eye" reruns on C-Span. These are things we know.

Now, I don't know about you, but that last election? Where people say I didn't win [lip curl], even though the U.S. Supreme Court had run out the clock to make sure I did [grin]? Well, I felt bad when I heard those poor old, octogenarian Jews in Palm Beach County get all confused over the Butterfly ballots.

Now, with those electric voting machines? We can just flip a switch and turn those confused votes into the proper votes. We don't have time to wait around for the machines to be modified to keep paper records. At least not until after the re-election [smirk].

I have been assured by all the electric voting systems companies, all great supporters of the Republican Party, that their machines are in perfect working order and don't need audits or a paper trail to mess things up. Don't let the terrorists win!

Is he talking about sites like this one?

> E3 is not the most potentially dangerous convention ever.

No, perhaps THIS is the most dangerous convention ever.

Or, depending on your point of view one of these may be the most dangerous convention ever.

There's no proof, of course.

Neither was there proof in the recent "Tony Blair's administration cooked the books on Iraqi intelligence" BBC creative writing assignment. The fallout over the BBC's fictional journalism led to several top BBC officials resigning (one before he was canned).

The BBC, NPR in the US, NYTimes and many other forth estate entities have long given up on objective journalism, instead being acquired by leftist politicians (just as numerous political offices such as this one, this one and that one are nothing more than hired hands for wealthy elites).

Progressive/left-leaning slashdotters are going to have to open their eyes a bit on the back-stabbing of their peers in the media. It's ok when they're stabbing other victims, but when they're selling the Linux world out through their relativist journalism, it gets personal.

Opposed to intellectual property theft? Don't support the Trial Attorney Racket Protection Association of America
Disagree with patent giveways? Don't support the Country Club Empowerment Association of America
Support your own liberty!

So how much have you given to a Democratic candidate this year, then? To the DNC? Hopefully it's a lot :-)

The bigger issue is that this sort of fundraising goes on in Washington all the time. The only difference is that it isn't being done by ordinary people -- it's being done by interest groups and lobbies, who bundle contributions together for candidates who support their positions, regardless of their party label.

How do I know that? That's what I used to do for a living. I helped manage one of those political action committees; my job was to maintain a giant spreadsheet tracking every member of Congress, and how they voted on the issues we cared about. If the votes lined up the right way, the PAC contribution for that cycle flowed. If they didn't, it didn't. You would probably be surprised at how much more effective that approach is at getting policies you like adopted than just going by party label. And the fact that the pols knew we were watching those votes meant we got access, and our voices got heard, all through the process -- which I presume is something we would have liked to have on things like this PATRIOT extension.

The big revolution that services like PayDemocracy has enabled is that citizens can now self-organize the same kind of campaigns that special interest groups -- like the one that used to pay my salary -- have used to push their agenda for decades. If enough citizens can show enough commitment, it gets us a seat at the table. Right now we don't have that. I encourage you to give to the DNC, or to one or more of the Democratic candidates of your choice -- like I said in my original post, I'm a Democrat -- but that's not incompatible with helping the occasional Republican who's willing to cross the aisle.

If you're looking at the "Bush vs. ____" polls before the Democrats have selected a nominee, then I'll give you 8:1.

I love a sucker.

"Yes, but all those countries governments have changed over time."

Oh, I didn't realize the last name of the president was Washington. Silly me thinking it was Bush. Ok it isn't fair to take your words out of context.

But seriously, even in terms of political parties, the US government did change too. For example, the democratic party was founded in 1972, and the history of the republican party doesn't go back before 1854. And the birth of those parties constituted quite a large change in the US government, wouldn't you say? Btw, what happened to the Whigs?

While I could be convinced that the US is the oldest democracy, it does go a bit far to claim that the US government is the oldest unchanged government. And that's a good thing too, because times change and societies change, hence governments must change with society. That is the whole point of democracy, that the government is a reflection of the people that vote.

(which is why I am happy (but sceptic) about the new campaign contribution limits, but that is a different subject)

In the United States, the infrastructure is already in place to do that.

...would be that this makes it easy for rednecks and CEOs to hand over their PINs to the GOP, then blacks and union members can give theirs to the DNC, while the pock-faced greenpeacer at the health food store sends it to the Green party. Weeks before the election we will already know who wins based on who has the largest collection of proxy votes in hand.

That's the way proxy votes come out in business, there is rarely any suspense about how it will come out because everyone knows before hand who has the blocks of proxy votes needed. Also, you would expect a new PIN for each election, but if you signed up for the right program, each of your PINs could be delivered straight to the party headquarters of your choice.

Many states with lotteries already do something like this. Sign up and have your same favorite numbers played every week and charged against your credit card. Voluntary taxation made easy.

Any technology distinguishable from magic is not suficiently advanced.

As we swing into the thick of the 2004 electoral playoffs, it's interesting to see what kinds of platforms are running under the candidates' official campaign Web sites. Netcraft has a handy feature called "What's that site running?" that lets us see combinations of Web servers and OS platforms. So here's a quick rundown, in alphabetical order:

• George W. Bush: Microsoft IIS on Windows 2000

• Wesley Clark: Apache on Linux

• Howard Dean: Apache on FreeBSD

• John Edwards: Microsoft IIS "behind a computer running NetWare"

• Richard Gephardt: Microsoft IIS on Windows 2000

• John Kerry: Apache on Linux

• Dennis Kucinich Apache on Linux

• Carol Mosely-Braun: Apache on FreeBSD

• Al Sharpton: Apache on Solaris 8

• Joe Lieberman: Apache on FreeBSD

For what it's worth, the Republican National Committee is running Microsoft IIS on Windows 2000, while the Democratic National Committee is running Apache on Linux.

As of this writing, November 5, 2003, the RNC has an uptime of 4.26 days (maximum of 39.04) and a 90-day moving average of 16.91. The DNC has an uptime of 445.02 days (also the maximum) and a 90-day moving average of 395.38 days.

Draw your own conclusions.

Doc Searls is Senior Editor of Linux Journal.

Conyers and Berman have really gone overboard with this bill for their rabid protection of the copyright industry (for $$$?). It makes them look bad, and it makes the Democratic party look bad. When you start writing your letters to your Congressional Rep. (you are going to, right?), also consider visiting the Democratic National Committee and voice your displeasure with these two representatives and their anticonsumer activity. Then when you're finished with that, you can write yet another letter to the House Minority Leader, Rep. Nancy Pelosi and tell her the same thing. Be sure to emphasize that these two Representatives make all of the Democrats look bad.

Maybe with enough complaints the Democratic leadership will lean on these fools and make them shut up.

Why bother? By the time any such impeachment process would come to any fruition, you could already be filling out your ballot in November, 2004. Instead of circulating completely pointless petitions for impeachment, circulate the agenda of some other candidate for president.

You clearly haven't tried reading one of the platforms chosen by the Democrats, the Republicans, the Reform Party, the Greens, the Libertarians, or any of the dozen other groups that run national candidates.

These are not trivial documents, and they're chosen at the same time as the party's official candidate (at the national convention). The candidates themselves also publish volumes of press releases and opinion papers. These papers might not be quite as pleasant the DPL platforms, but they cover more material on more difficult issues, and they're influenced by many more people. But then, given the development model of any national organization, could you really expect them to be as nice?

For that matter, send it to the Dem ocrat National Committee as well.</a>

Death to America! Death to the West! Allah Akbar!

Support Jihad. Contribute here.

- Osama bin Laden, Holy Prophet of Almighty Allah

Here you go.

Nahh, I think they already have a domain name of their own.

Send a letter telling of your lifelong support of the Democratic Party and why you do not like this bill together with a copy of your check made out the the Green Party of South Carolina. Send a copy of this letter and the copied check to the Democratic National Comittee. Fritz and his folks will get a clue really fast this way.

I'm one of the developers on a GPL'ed, perl-based XML web-app framework. It's called XML::Comma, and the basic idea is to provide an abstraction that make it easy to deal with very large collections of structured information -- particularly in a web-development context.

XML::Comma is the platform for allAfrica.com and for www.democrats.org. Both of those sites have "document collections" numbering in the hundreds of thousands. (For AllAfrica the most complex part of the job is managing a news-feed that pushes 500 stories a day through the system into an archive of 300,000 articles. For democrats.org the problems revolve more around user-customization and credit-card transaction processing. Very different systems, but the Comma API tries to expose a unified set of tools for dealing with both, and more besides.)

Zope is great, AxKit is great. Cocoon is great too, although my personal opinion is that there's a lot more "friction" when developing in Java than in Perl and Python. Sometimes certain kinds of friction are helpful: for large teams of only-moderately-experienced programmers, for example, Java's static typing can help you hold the chaos at bay. But in lots of web-systems-development contexts the emphasis is on getting new sets of features built as quickly as possible, and there's a strong pressure to be in "permanent protyping" mode. You can prototype a lot faster in Perl or Python than in Java, and experienced programmers can write clean, self-documenting stable code without static typing and a Beans API.

The XML::Comma website is xml-comma.org. There's an in-depth user's guide there. Check it out and let us know what you think.

You can't really win if the election is never allowed to proceed.

From what I have heard, every possible Democrat group went down to Florida and did their own recount and guess what..... GWB really won.

That's funny. From what I heard, the exact opposite is true.