] U.S. service members based in Iraq and across the globe
] can't be confident that their votes will be counted in
] this year's presidential election, analysts and military
] advocates said this week.

Republicans may have some valid complaints about the situation involving the counting of Military votes, which is apparently still in disarray because they didn't get their acts together after an attempt to collect these votes over the internet failed.

Troops Experience Difficulties in Voting

[ Granted this is a partisan source, but it's still a pretty telling sample of the kinds of bullshit going on across the country.

See in particular the flyer from alabama urging voters to get to those poles (sic) on the 4th. Life imitating art (cf The Onion) in the worst way possible. -k]

Daily Kos :: Voter fraud and disenfranchisement

] LWVGA is proud to partner with WSB-TV (Atlanta's
] Channel 2) and their Family2Family program to distribute
] this publication in the Metro Atlanta area.

League of Women Voters of Georgia - Voter Guide

This is so wrong yet funny. Who let their kids be part of this?

2004's Scariest Halloween Costumes

] Collage art pioneers Negativland first brought the idea
] to Creative Commons. With their guidance, and the pro
] bono legal advice of Cooley Godward and Wilson Sonsini
] Goodrich & Rosati, we wrote up the licenses that give you
] the freedom to interact with these tracks.
]
] Note: Return to this site after November 9, and you'll be
] able to download high quality versions of the songs. We
] will also debut our new mashup community site, where you
] can upload the new tunes you build from these tracks.

Wired's November issue comes with free CC licensed tracks.
Beastie Boys, Dan the Automator, Thievery Corporation, Chuck D, Danger Mouse, and others...

The WIRED CD: Rip. Sample. Mash. Share. | Creative Commons

] Why should hackers care especially about civil liberties? Why
] programmers, more than dentists or salesmen or
] landscapers?
]
] Let me put the case in terms a government official would
] appreciate. Civil liberties are not just an ornament, or
] a quaint American tradition. Civil liberties make
] countries rich. If you made a graph of GNP per capita vs.
] civil liberties, you'd notice a definite trend. Could
] civil liberties really be a cause, rather than just an
] effect? I think so. I think a society in which people can
] do and say what they want will also tend to be one in
] which the most efficient solutions win, rather than those
] sponsored by the most influential people. Authoritarian
] countries become corrupt; corrupt countries become poor;
] and poor countries are weak. It seems to me there is a
] Laffer curve for government power, just as for tax
] revenues. At least, it seems likely enough that it would
] be stupid to try the experiment and find out. Unlike high
] tax rates, you can't repeal totalitarianism if it turns
] out to be a mistake.
]
] This is why hackers worry. The government spying on
] people doesn't literally make programmers write worse
] code. It just leads eventually to a world in which bad
] ideas will win. And because this is so important to
] hackers, they're especially sensitive to it. They can
] sense totalitarianism approaching from a distance, as
] animals can sense an approaching thunderstorm.

Good Bad Attitude

] Spanish police have arrested eight suspected Islamic
] militants. Authorities say they were planning to carry
] out a terrorist attack in the center of the capital.
 . . .
] A ministry statement says the suspects belonged to a
] terrorist cell and were in touch with individuals in the
] United States, Europe, and Australia.
]
] Interior Minister Jose Antonio Alonso says the suspects
] were preparing to bomb the headquarters of the Superior
] Court in Madrid.

Spain Arrests Terror Suspects

] "Well," he sighed, "no one's going to take this idea
] seriously, but here's what I would do. I would free
] Saddam and tell him to go form a new government.'
]
] That got my attention. "You'd do what?" Everything he'd
] said up to that point had seemed sensible. if grim.
]
] "Look," he said, "Saddam's been the only bastard mean
] enough to govern Iraq for any length of time. I'd hold
] him to a few conditions - no WMD's, no rewards to the
] families of suicide bombers, right of first refusal on
] Iraqi oil - then I'd tell him to go back to doing what he
] knows how to do. I mean, if you want a stable Iraq, he's
] a lot more likely to produce one than we are."

I'll underline Barlow's proposal (which is not the above lead in text) because it relates to something Stratfor has advised: Figure out how to minimize exposure to problems in Iraq without conceeding anything. I.E. Liberal democracy is impossible because a democratic election would bring Mullahs to power. The place is going to become an extension of Iran, which is a serious problem for us in the long run, but our short term goal is dealing with Al'Q, and in that respect our purpose is merely to show strength, and for that much the job is done, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan are ever so slowly moving to address the issues.

I'm not sure if I agree that a "free and democratic" Kurdistan would be a symbol for the region anymore then a "free and democratic" Israel is. The Islamic world is not going to identify with the Kurds. Then again, if Iraq is going to make such a shining example then why wouldn't Afghanistan?

For that matter, it ought to be underlined that as bad as Saddam was, he was contained, and a contained Saddam is very likely to be better then anything else that we get out of that place regardless of how expedient it was to attack him.

Was it really impossible to convince the Saudis and Pakistan to move without creating this mess in Iraq? This seems amazingly unlikley to me, particularly given the relationship between the Bush administration and the Saudis. You'd think we could have negotiated it without firing a shot. You'd think they would have known Bush well enough not to think he was bluffing.

Is there any serious commentator out there who thinks everything is going to work out fine in Iraq?

Kerry has signed up for a hell of a job, inheritting this nightmare, the soft economy, the coming baby boomer entitlement and savings crunch, the serious economic competition coming out of Asia, and the disaster that our healthcare system has become. No one knows how to solve these problems, and the solutions that are bandied about amount to political pandering. Its going to be a long, cold winter and my generation will be passing on by the time it thaws.

BarlowFriendz: Exit Strategies

This 11 page bush bash was in the NYT on Sunday. I've been avoiding memeing it for 24 hours. Its just too long. And its not news. But its absolutely everywhere. Every blog is discussing it. So I decided that some people up here might enjoy reading it. So here it is.

] In the summer of 2002, after I had written an article in Esquire that
] the White House didn't like about Bush's former communications
] director, Karen Hughes, I had a meeting with a senior adviser to Bush.
] He expressed the White House's displeasure, and then he told me
] something that at the time I didn't fully comprehend -- but which I
] now believe gets to the very heart of the Bush presidency.
]
] The aide said that guys like me were 'in what we call the reality-based
] community,' which he defined as people who 'believe that solutions
] emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.' I nodded and
] murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism.
] He cut me off. 'That's not the way the world really works anymore,' he
] continued. 'We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own
] reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will
] -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too,
] and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all
] of you, will be left to just study what we do.'"

The New York Times - Magazine - Without a Doubt

] 9:13 p.m. Responding to Kerry's thoughts on health care,
] Bush says, "I want to remind the people listening tonight
] that a plan is not a litany of complaints." The president
] plops down the line with the gleeful pause of someone
] dropping the "Draw 4" card in "Uno."

True, its mtv.com...not exactly the website I would turn to for politics (or music for that matter), but I did find this funny recap of the third debate on there that some of you may find humorous, so I figured I would share it:)

MTV.com - Choose or Lose - Headlines