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Judge Says U.S. Money Violates Rights of the Blind
An anonymous reader writes, "The United States is one of the few countries in the world whose currency isn't distinguishable by blind people. Most other nations use raised text, different-sized bills, or other methods to assist blind people in spending their money. If a recent decision by a federal court in D.C. survives appeal, however, that will soon change. Under Sec. 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, federal programs cannot deny 'meaningful access' to people with disabilities. Because blind people are unable to distinguish U.S. currency without assistance, the court held that they are denied meaningful access to their own money. U.S. District Judge James Robertson ordered the Treasury Department to come up with ways for the blind to tell bills apart. He said he wouldn't tell officials how to fix the problem, but he ordered them to begin working on it." How Appealing notes that Judge Robertson opened the door to a speedy appeal of his ruling.
are the readers free?
The bills in the US are difficult to distinguish under conditions other than blindness, it's about time we caught up with the rest of the world. We make coins different shapes, sizes and textures, why not bills.
I can see quite well with glasses, and this very thing has annoyed me plenty of times. Why the hell are all our bills the same size, shape, and color? :)
Make them more distinct, and you'll speed up all cash transactions.
If nothing else the fast food industry will thank you
I respond to your sigs
You don't need a complex solution to this problem. All that needs to be done is perhaps that you add raised bumps to the next generation of bills.
And you should note that accessibility to the blind also means that a blind person can act as a cashier. I used to go to a shop with a blind cashier where all of the customers told the man what their purchases were and how much money they gave him. Being able to quickly sort through different bill sizes (and verify the correct values) would have been extremely valuable to him.
Why is the Treasury Department appealing this ruling? They should embrace it and start solving the problem.
Who exactly is harmed with this decision? I don't even see why it went to court in the first place.
Doesn't it make sense to have easily distinguishable notes anyway, blind or not? Finding the correct note in your wallet is much slower with dollars than Euros or pounds.
Accessibility of the physical dollar to the blind is the least of the Treasury's problems. How about addressing it's declining value?
Also, speaking as a business owner, changing the bill's size would cost me time and money. No thanks!
Or some easily distinguishable raised section?
this has the added benefit of adding an extra anti-forgery mechnaism.
are the readers free?
Are wheelchairs?
- In a taxi
- to pay for a newspaper costing less than a dollar
- For that round of drinks in a bar (well, OK, maybe that one)
- To give a minor donation to a charity you approve of
I run nearly cashless, but I still can't do without it. And, as an example of the problems with US currency, I once, on a business trip to the states, tipped a waiter $100. Fortunately he took pity on this rather tipsy foriegner and pointed out my mistake.Oh, and by the way, if you come to my home poker game, bring cash!
init 11 - for when you need that edge.
and turn it into a coin. Not this half-assed production of a few coins and predominantly bills. Get it over with and make it purely coins. It'll make vending machines more convenient. Coins are easily distinguishable.
On mony, just have an imprinted (raised) mark whereever the denomination number is printed. It doesn't have to be elaborate - just dots like braile.
I'm surprised this didn't come sooner with the Americans with disabilities act, or some such.
no but the wheelchair ramps that do the actual allowing access are.
get it?
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Why sure, make all your money electronic, where the only proof of your hard earned money is just digits on a computer somewhere, every single little transaction you make logged and tracked, where the bank can freeze it for little reason, soon a profile of ALL your spending habits is out in the open for all agencies to see. What a great idea!
ridiculous.
anyone who has ever been anywhere outside of the U.S knows and understands that the U.S currency is the worst to handle in the entire world.
Even if you can see, its all the same size and colour. its the only currency i'm aware of that you actually have to look at the front face of each note to determine its denomination.
determining a notes denomination based on the thickness of the ink used to print it seems far fetched to me.
but the £5 note is their only note that will comfortably fit in my standard-sized wallet.
Wallets are designed to hold money. Not the other way round. Mine holds a wad of £50 notes quite easily.
Yeah, that's always annoyed me. ... time passes...
Treasury Accountant: Hey! If we use 1$ coins instead of 1$ bills, we'll save X million dollars a day!
Treasury President: Brilliant idea, let's get on making some new 1$ coins right away.
Treasury Accountant: Well, no one is using the 1$ coins.
Treasury President: But we spent X billion dollars on marketing them! Damn, I guess 1$ coins just won't work.
Repeat every decade or so.
If you want people to stop using 1$ bills, STOP PRINTING THEM.
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For the last three months, I have had even less access to my money than a blind person (who knows his PIN) would have. I've been using my bank card on all purchases, something a blind person is just as capable of doing.
How does a blind person know that the amount they are being told they are paying actually matches what they are paying? The terminals don't have a display a blind person can "read" or a voiced amount, so they could still be ripped of by unscrupulous people.
----------------------------------- My Other Sig Is Hilarious -----------------------------------
This is why sometimes countries get behind in technology. Instead of embracing the idea and seeing it as a challenge, they say, "nope no can do, too expensive, [insert excuse here]."
The Euro was introduced relatively quickly, and many other countries switched currencies without problems. In fact many countries regularly switch currencies without problems.
When you are required to change the change can be painful, but often it is for the better.
Or how about a conspiracy theory twist. MAYBE the Treasury does not want to switch the bills because it would cause financial chaos. http://www.fas.org/irp/gao/ggd96082.htm
Completely replacing a currency will mean accounting for all of the monies in circulation and that might prove problematic.
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
That's funny - the EU countries had no problem changing their vending machines around once the Euro came. They didn't even change the machines, the money accepting mechanism is modular (woah!).
Keeping the $1 is costing money for taxpayers. If it becomes standard, vending machines will start accepting it fast. The government has the power in this case of the chicken or the egg.
This is modded 'funny', but instead I would mod it 'horrifying'. This is EXACTLY how the system would be exploited. The only use for this system is to make it so blind people don't need to ask for help to verify the money is legit. This con would then make it so they still need to ask for help. How did anything improve?
Okay, I suppose if they want to count the money in their wallet, and they KNOW it's all legit, this would help. But they each probably already have a system for that, anyhow. Different folds, dog-ears, etc. At the expense of the whole of the United States, we can help them NOT ONE BIT.
Sounds great, let's do it.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
I agree with you on changing money would be expensive. But on the other hand, the US waisted all of this money on making quarters with random pictures on the back and invested in machinery to make a whole new dollar coin that never even became popular. THIS money should have gone into development of making US money better for the blind. It's not like we couldn't slowly change the money over time.
Once you start despising the jerks, you become one.
To make any changes to currency would not only require completely recirculating the billions of papers out there, but it would probably require drastic changes to the printing process. Different shapes, sizes, or including braille print sound like expensive alterations.
I doubt the courts would require all currency to be recalled, especially since much currency has only an 18-month lifespan. And since we're redesigning the larger bills (5 through 100) every 7 years or so, we've already committed to spending a certain amount of money on redesign. Incorporating some raised devices (as on Canada's currency) would be a trivial addition to the next round of redesigns.
Changing the size of currency would obviously cost a lot more, but the Treasury is constantly looking at new printing technology, and so that could also be spread out as they replace equipment. Nobody said this had to happen overnight. And, oh, we've done this before -- in the 1920's we changed from a large format currency to the current small-sized notes. And before anyone brings up vending machine and ATM manufacturers' complaints, differing note sizes hasn't hurt anyone in Europe (where ATMs regularly dispense bills in four or more denominations, each a different size).
And this might finally be what lets Congress stand up to lobbyists and kill the dollar bill. Not only are we out of step with the rest of the world on blind access to currency, we're just about the only major country stubborn enough to still use currency for our primary currency measure -- everyone else, Pounds, Euro, Canadian Dollar, Australian Dollar, have coins for 1 and 2 unit, and sometimes even 5 unit, denominations. I read recently that eliminating the dollar bill would save half a billion (BILLION) dollars a year, and that was a 1995 study, so it's probably even higher. But lobbyists (primarily for the unions that produce the paper) have consistently stopped cold any attempt to switch to coins only.
Anyway, I think the Judge is right and, though this wouldn't be free, it wouldn't be an undue burden.
And now we hit upon the Great Slashdot Self-Absorption.
Because you don't use cash any longer, no one does.
This premise can be expanded by stating that if anyone still does do the thing you don't do (or, conversely, doesn't do the thing you do) they are morons.
To ward off the sample size critics you could state that no one you know uses cash either.
Hm, I have yet to see a free money or debit card reader anywhere. For bills, money identifiers are quite expensive and a bit bulky. As far as debit card readers, those are not free either. Sometimes state agencies for the blind may be willing to pay for one, on an individual basis, but that certainly does not apply to the majority of blind people.
Also, note that you can't just use debit cards for everything. There are quite a few things in life that you do need cash for, and blind people should not be excluded from being able to use regular money.
Finally, making bills accessible isn't really rocket science. Looking around at other countries around the world, the US is really far behind in this. Unfortunately for the blind, the US treasury has a very large loophole (although it could make for an interesting legal battle): all US currency ever printed remains legal tender, so even if new bills are made accessible, there will remain a large amount of inaccessible bills in circulation for a *long* time. Other countries have been able to replace bills. On the other hand, that also means that it is even more important for the US to act on this immediately, because the problem only gets bigger (and they already missed the boat on the last bill redesign (using colour) that went through recently).
The OP suggested that holes could be punched in current (i.e. holeless) bills, so your suggestion doesn't help unless all the new bills are a different shape from the current ones - in which case, you might as well make them different shapes from each other, as done so successfully in other countries.
The US Mint is kind of traditionalist, and value stability and trust very highly. That and people are just comfortable with the good old fashioned greenback. It's probably mostly aesthetic and irrational, but there is something about american currency that feels reassuring compared to foriegn currency, regardless of how many security features and hideous color schemes they have. You heard all the controversy about the new $10 and $20 bills when they were introduced right? The color scheme on those is mild compared to much of the world's currency.
Put simply, people like their money to look like money, and when americans think of money they think green ink intaglio printed on cloth paper 6.14 inches by 2.61 inches.
Shit adds up at the bottom...
Changing paper money does nothing to resolve this.
What are you talking about? Ofcourse it does. With paper money a blind person knows exactly how much he's paying, and if the bills had raised text (like the rest of the world) he'd know exactly how much change he's getting back. He might be charged more then the price on the tag but at least he knows how much it is so he can refuse if he knows it's wrong. With a debit reader he has now idea how much he's being charged; the clerk can say $10 but type in $100.
Aw crap, ninjas!
That's why you use Crane's Crest Fluorescent White paper as your stock. It's made by the same people that make the paper used by the US Mint using a similar process. It doesn't contain the security strip, watermark, colored threads, etc of a real bill but it will pass the feel and iodine pen tests used by most cashiers =)
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
How about just using a wacky scheme like other countries; have each note in a different colour (helps partially sighted "blind" people who can distinguish colour, not to mention helping everyone else distinguish quickly), have each note a different size (helps everyone even if not the only measure to be taken), have tactile surfaces (helps blind and is another non-trivial mechanism that counterfeiters have to copy), have the numbers written large and clearly (again, helps everyone, and helps a lot of partially sighted, incl. even just longsighted).
Seriously, this stuff is not rocket science. I sincerely hope that this judgement means the US govt. will stop living in past centuries, at least when it comes to banknotes. The US is so *old* when it comes to so many things - I was astonished when I visited there! "Old Europe" is nothing like old, so much upheaval in the last century.
-- *~()____) This message will self-destruct in 5 seconds...
Not at all - he's simply saying that because one can get by pretty easily these days without using cash at all, then changing our entire system of money seems a bit extreme. I admit I find this a pretty compelling argument.
...following the principles of Heisenburger's Uncertain Cat...
Unfortunately, sales of tape would go through the roof as people tape over holes to turn their $1 bills into $100s...
There are still a whole host of low value transactions where cash is the most appropriate way to pay. Perhaps you have changed your lifestyle to fit your no cash utopia, but to suggest that others do likewise because they had the misfortune to be born blind or to have lost their eyesight is plain wrong.
The US is the onlycountry on earth with notes that are indistinguishable from one another for the blind. Here's a hint, it's not because the rest of the world is waiting to catch up to the United States...
Tell that to the working class poor who don't make enough money to bother with banks, or to the inner city poor who have to pay rent with cash or those living out of week-stay live-in motels.
Want to see something sad? Next time gas prices are near $3/gallon, go inside a convenience store. Don't pick a nice one... pick one that you normally wouldn't go to. Now watch the stream of people file in and pull a single $5 out of their wallet and pre-pay for their gasoline. None of those people have a debit card.
Blind people come in all walks of life.
Want to see something sad? Next time gas prices are near $3/gallon, go inside a convenience store. Don't pick a nice one.
When I visit just such a convenience store once a week to buy gas, and have to pay cash about every other time because the damn pump card reader is out-of-order, I see just such people walking in and cashing government checks - and then buying 2 cartons of cigarettes and $100 of lottery tickets. My sympathy meter is pretty much broken.
Changing vending machines isn't that difficult. In the UK, we've changed the size of 5, 10 and 50 pence pieces in the last 20 years (the 10s and 5s were changed at the same time), and the vending machines adapted. The benefit from making forgery harder might well make it worth the effort.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
I never said that I never use cash; I said (actually, OP said) that it was possible to use no (or very little) cash. All the examples you gave are quite easy to pay for with a debit card. (The newspaper is the most problematic one, although bookstores and convenience stores sell them and take debit cards. And I should note that you aren't buying newspapers from street corners if you're blind.)
So here's the deal. On one hand, we can spend huge amounts of money to change our money system. This means changing money readers in vending machines, retraining sales clerks, changing our printing systems, dealing with fraud during the changeover, etc., etc. It's simply a huge project. On the other hand, we could ask the blind, who have been dealing with this without the benefit of ubiquitous debit cards ever since paper money has been around, to keep dealing with it in an environment more convenient for them than ever before. Maybe I'm hardhearted, but this seems like a really simple choice. We shouldn't have to make huge changes to accommodate every handicap people have.
...following the principles of Heisenburger's Uncertain Cat...
There's a difference between making money accessible and mandating a store carry a robust big and tall selection. The money is created, distributed, and managed by the federal government. As such, it carries certain restrictions and regulations that must apply to the entire nation or to anyone outside of this nation who converts it between currencies. Wal-Mart is a corporation and, as such, chooses its product selection to best result in profitability. The government does not directly regulate product selection.
/ 1_1.php). The ADA is meant to set standards that make life a little easier for those folks. It also helps the likely 70 million other people that provide care for those people. Because of the ADA, my wife and I are able to wheel my son into stores, restaurants, libraries, and recreation areas so that we may enjoy time together in the same environments as everyone else. Certainly, there are many areas still off limits to us with a wheelchair, but we wish there weren't.
Does it set rules for how the building is constructed, how the employees are treated, how Wal-Mart's practices impact the citizenry? Sure, but that's far different than telling Wal-Mart whether or not to carry large pants. The two are not comparable.
Before I continue, let me go ahead an proclaim my bias. I have a nearly 5 year old son with cerebral palsy who requires the use of a wheelchair.
I find interesting the statement that we're in a situation where the "rights of the few outweigh the rights of the many". I rather think of it as "the rights of the few supplement the rights of the many". What rights have been denied people so that those with handicaps might better interact with our society and contribute to the economy? Buildings with ramps and elevators still have stairs. Money printed to be accessible will still be visually discernible. Electric outlets placed slightly higher on a wall do not make them any less useful for others. Lowered curbs can still be traversed by those able to walk.
The only right denied is, possibly, the right to deny. In the case of this possible alteration to currency, you are stating that it absolutely should be the case that the US government should shun some millions of its citizens to avoid easing their spending and decrease their independence. But why should it do that? What sense does that make?
According to numbers from 1995, 37.7 million people in the US have a disability that impedes them from engaging in normal activity (http://www.infouse.com/disabilitydata/disability
I should say, however, that when we run into that situation, we choose simply to not patronize such businesses. I wouldn't feel quite as laissez faire about running into the same restrictions in a government building, though. We understand that not all of society should bend to the benefit of our son, but we're very thankful when society enables us to participate. THAT is what the ADA is all about - participation. It does so in a heavy-handed way by legislating standards of access, but if it did not exist, those 37.7 million people would just be SOL.
Suppose we did go back to those old Republic roots. The nation's disabled citizens would either be institutionalized or kept at home. Considering the fun I've had with my son going camping, hiking accessible trails, flying to DisneyWorld, browsing for books, shopping for Halloween costumes, standing at the base of a towering Lincoln, et cetera, I'm glad that there is something in place to lessen our obstacles as we experience our neighborhood, our state, and our nation.
I would like for my son to one day be able to hold a job, be able to vote, be able to travel, and be able to have a home with his family. The ADA aids in all those things.
Somewhere along the line our nation went from a Republic to an odd politically correct hybrid of socialism where the rights of the few outweigh the rights of the many. 1% of the population can now dictate and control 99% of the population. That simply isn't right. [...] I'll tell you one thing; this kind of stuff sure as hell isn't what the founding fathers had in mind when they founded the nation, that's for sure.
Strange. Where in reading the Constitution and the early works of the founding fathers do you get the impression that majority will was always more sacred that minority liberty? Have you never heard the phrase "tyranny of the majority" as popularized by John Stuart Mill and Alexis de Toqueville? What do you think Madison was talking about in Federalist Paper no 10 when he said the following?
Why do you think that we have amendments specifically protecting freedom of speech, press, and religion from the popular will of the people if minority interests weren't intended to be preserved? Why has the minority party in the Senate always enjoyed the right of filibuster to preserve their interests? Why does the Senate itself even exist except to protect the interest of the smaller states against the larger? Why did we pass the 14th Amendment to protect the rights of all people at a time when people of one skin color and creed were by far the dominant majority?
Plurality and respect for the needs of the few over the wants of the many has been a central principle to the American democracy since its inception. If anything, it's the insistence on majoritarian dominance that is the greatest betrayal of our nations founding principles in our times as with it goes away all the rights and liberties that distinguish us from a totalitarian government.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
But hopefully the increase in GDP from tape manufacturers would offset the loss due to fraud...
I'm all for equal opportunity and everything. But this exact debate has come up time and time again. How much should the general population be subjected to via gov't mandates to accommodate disabilities?
I'm sure when we began mandating wheel-chair access there was an outcry because the cost of an average building was going to increase by a factor of X. And in all likelihood X would be larger than the returns provided the building owner due to increase sales of to people using the wheel-chair access. So, in that sense we are forcing inefficiencies on businesses (this is just one of the many ways gov't forces itself upon us and we wonder why its hard for businesses to succeed). But now wheel-chair access is an accepted stipulation for all new construction and its costs aren't even directly noticed/tracked. Does that mean that accommodating disabilities is a bad thing? No. Would it be better if it were up to the individual business owner? Maybe, but who would willingly spend money they know would never be recouped...probably no one (except nursing homes, hospitals, etc...because they would actually benefit from that). For a quick tech side-note the same ideas apply to web design (screen-reader friendly design, etc)
So to wrap up a post that could/should go on for a while. Accommodating disabilities does create inefficiencies (don't think there is an argument to that). However, the real question should be whether or not those inefficiencies are acceptable to mandate on society (some are, some aren't). Anyone that thinks we should accommodate ALL, should just go ahead and be deported. Everything would have to be colored black and white (to accommodate color blindness). All visible notices would have to be combined with as audible counterpart (for the blind) because braille would still not accommodate the braille illiterate. You see the point...its hard to determine where the line should be drawn.
I personally don't think the economic impact would be justified due to the fact that we are becoming less and less dependent on physical access to paper money. A better solution would be to either make all ATMs blind accessible (although audible interfaces would be bad for privacy) or provide free braille friendly debit card interfaces (not even sure how that would work). Again, a difficult situation.
When I have a kid, I want to put him in one of those strollers for twins and then run around the mall looking frantic.
Look, nobody is asking you to "make huge changes to accomodate every handicap people have". What is suggested is something that will benefit everyone. If a blind man can't feel the difference between different coins and bills in his wallet, neither can you. And if a blind man can feel the difference, so can you. No longer will you have to fiddle in bad light, trying to determine which is which. All you have to do is put your hand in your wallet, and you will immediately feel which coins/bills you have there.
Basically, this is a common sense thing, that everybody else in the world does already. But I guess, America, Gods chosen country, the land of the free, etcetera, etcetera, really want to discriminate against as many disabled groups as possible, and in the process make life more cumbersome for all.
I've just got back from two months in the USA, and it was a huge pain trying to find the correct note in my wallet
People adjust to what they're used to. I'm quite used to looking at the numbers, you're used to looking at the colors. Different colored currency wouldn't be too big an adjustment, thought for most people in the U.S. it's just as easy to look at the numbers. Varying the size of the currency would be a major pain, I'd hate to have to jumble different sized bills. Yet for many people around the world it's not a problem at all. They've gotten used to it. We could get used to it too if faced with it long enough. They could get used to our system if faced with it long enough.
I love my sig.
Two words....Credit Union. Their goal is to serve the underserved. The exact people that you are referncing and the banks don't want.
Huh?
What the fuck do you mean? Where did you get the idea that every single european was a rabid privacy-nut trying to out-nut even EFF?
There are plenty of people I know that use this card-only lifestyle. It's convenient to not have to carry a wallet. On the other hand, you have to balance it against the convenience of using small coins for buying a coke at a vending machine. This has nothing to do with being european or not. The things most people care about when deciding whether to use cash, or credit/debit card is:
And that's about it. Privacy doesn't enter most peoples minds. Except perhaps to avoid having "unnecesarry" purchases show up on the bank transcript so their significant other can see how they waste their money.
I think there's a difference between mandating all public buildings to have wheelchair ramps and changing the money so blind people can use it. In the first case, you're making a regulation that affects a private business. If I own a business and don't want to have wheelchair ramps, that may make me a jackass, but it shouldn't be illegal. And disabled people can choose not to do business with me. However, the government owns the monopoly on money. If people are forced to live under our government and use the money that they says is the legal tender, then by all means it should be such that it's usable by as many people as possible with whatever disability. There's no excuse for the government to be issuing money that blind people can't use. Any interaction with a private business should be under the terms of the business and you, any interaction with the government needs to be lowest common denominator so that everyone who has to live under the rule of the government can also get the benefit that their taxes are supposedly paying for.
The gov gave the $1 coin a very crappy introduction. They SHOULD have said that all $1 bills will be pulled from circulation in 5 or 10 years. I have only seen the modern $1 coin in circulation ONCE - and it was because some individual gave one to me. I have never been to a business or used a machine gave them out in change.
You don't think there's any economic benefit to helping blind (and other disabled) people participate productively in the economy? Do you think it's cheaper for taxpayers to have them all be totally dependent and helpless? Or what do you suggest? You look and you only see costs. It's not as black and white as you suggest.
I traveled throughout Europe this summer, and Australia and New Zealand in '99. I'm sure I am just too accustomed to my American money, but while the Monopoly money was entertaining, I also found it annoying. Way too many coins in the Euro-zone and England. The pound coin in England is cool. The multiple colors weren't bad for notes, but the varying sizes were irritating. Not due to any problem innate with the bills, but due to habit.
I'm accustomed to just flipping through bills, lined up neatly, and knowing the denomination from the corner, which is in the exact same place on each bill. Of course you need to be a bit anal about putting the bills in the wallet in the same orientation. But with bills of various sizes, unless you order them in your wallet from small to large or vice versa (granted, something which also anal people overseas probably do), there are issues.
First, as you flip through, you can miss some of the tiny bills. Second, the corners are all in different places, making it far less easy to identify the bills quickly -- also granted that if you grew up with that system, you likely can very quickly identify the bills by some other characteristic. The point being, though, that a change to a European style of currency here would meet great popular resistance, making it HIGHLY unlikely to being implemented.
Oh, and a funny story. At dinner one night in Sydney we were debating just this subject. This Australian girl talked about how advanced their new plastic money is, and said you can't rip it -- then she proceeded to demonstrate and ripped a bill right in half.
Regarding doing things the old way, I believe that one factor in that is that Americans are less open to making wholesale changes by fiat. As a people, we don't mind change when it happens due to market forces, but change by legislative design doesn't go over well, unless there is very broad consent. So while in Europe lots of things appear to change because of legal mandate without terribly much fuss, similar attempts here get hung up by political or legal challenges. Our political system is largely like what you Europeans consider "unstable" coalition governments, like what Germany apparently has right now. In such a government, difficult/controversial agendas are quite difficult to advance. While apparently in Europe having such a government is considered undesirable, in the US we tend to like our government institutionally divided and thus restrained. I see the recent election not just as a repudition of Bush due to dismay over Iraq, but as a reaction to a unified federal government under one party and the excesses that accompany that, regardless of party.
Larry
Unless, of course, they're blind.