Global
As "Fog of War" won Sunday night for best documentary, we have an AWOL president prancing in a flight suit he did not earn, and a Democratic front-runner who was a hero on both sides an issue that still deeply divides us.
Most recently we've also had "The Quiet American," a stunning portrayal of how the US actually got into that horrible war. Behind them both loom the ghosts of three men: John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson and the centerpiece of "Fog of War, Robert McNamara.
Kennedy is still with us because we don't know what he would have done. Bitter disputes still rage over the meaning of his withdrawal of 1000 (of 16,000) advisors just before his death, and his pledge to be out of Vietnam in 1965. Angry lawsuits have flared up---and could again---over whether Lyndon Johnson was misled, who might have done it, and why he escalated that catastrophic war in an unparalleled act of individual, party and national suicide.
Clare Short, a former member of British Prime Minister Tony Blair's cabinet, told the BBC that British intelligence officials spied on UN Secretary General Kofi Annan during the run-up to war in Iraq so it could learn how Security Council members would vote on the resolution. Short said she read transcripts produced by British spies who allegedly bugged Annan's office before the Iraq war.
A UN spokesman said any such espionage, if true, would be illegal.
This latest revelation is just another example of how the U.S. and Britain tried to undermine UN missions ahead of the United States' invasion of Iraq and calls into question whether intelligence used to show that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction-which the Bush administration cited as the key reason for waging war-was indeed "sexed up" so the U.S. could launch a preemptive strike.
The Nader campaign platform contains many good and attractive points. His focus on improving the conditions of Americans by way of better access to health care, jobs and education is inspirational. His calls for corporate responsibility, government accountability and workers' rights are desperately needed.
However, voters should realize that his entrance into the presidential race is not a bid for the presidency, but a tool to send his message of reform to Washington and to Americans. Therefore, citizens planning to cast their votes for Ralph Nader need to understand the difference, and its impact it may have on America's future.
The new allegations, which have the ring of truth, are now coming from ex-secretary of international development Clare Short. “I have seen transcripts of Kofi Annan’s conversations,” she said in an interview with BBC Radio. “In fact I have had conversations with Kofi in the run-up to war thinking ‘Oh dear, there will be a transcript of this and people will see what he and I are saying.’” Short added that British intelligence had been explicitly directed to spy on Annan and other top U.N. officials.
According to Federal Reserve guru, Alan Greenspan, who is obviously in touch with the man and woman on the street, in the ghetto, in the old-age home, in the nursing home, living hand to mouth, he proclaims the answer to our financial woes of an overly exuberant and financially-bankrupt administration is to cut from those who need it the most.
Just thought I'd say that I worked on ATM systems at a major bank when I was younger. I was there until they changed out the old 910 models for the 911 ATMs. ATMs haven't changed much in the last 15 - 20 years. Remarkably little.
For what it's worth, I wrote a scenario for the bank showing how to remove all the money from an ATM with no record. You see, the ATMs would not print either a journal entry or a receipt without a command to do so, which was independent of the command to dispense bills. Not much happened as a result except some meetings.
So even if you have printed receipts, that isn't anywhere near enough to ensure electronic voting machines are honest. You can only know if they are honest if you can easily count and compare the hardcopy record with the electronic record. There is no reason to believe that the receipt corresponds to the journal or the journal agrees with the vote recorded. They won't agree unless someone makes sure they do.
I'm not sure this is your correct e-mail address, but in case it is, I wanted to briefly give you a few facts related to your portrayal of my company's role with the State of Maryland's voting system.
First, Bill Owens was never the CEO of SAIC and he has not been with the company for quite some time. There have only been two CEOs in the 35-year history of the company: Dr. J. Robert Beyster, our founder, and Kenneth Dahlberg, who took over on November 3, 2003. Neither man had any contact with the SAIC employees who conducted the Maryland study.
Second, our study for the State of Maryland on Diebold's system was relatively critical. That the state chose to proceed with the system was its prerogative. If you check the record, you will find that Professor Rubin of Johns Hopkins praised our report and believed that its findings were cause for the state to come to a different conclusion.