Happy Thanksgiving!

Reality's a bitch

Obama is picking moderates and center-rightists for his cabinet. That sound you hear? It's the sound of a million hopes and dreams thudding to the earth like balloons suddenly alchemized into lead.

We can only hope things will get better under Obama. I'd say they can't get worse, but that's not true. Evil has built up quite a momentum under Bush. The decisions he made (or his fellow cabalists made for him) over the last 8 years will continue to reverberate through the nation for the foreseeable future. Bush's legacy of wickedness and the destruction he wrought on our nation's principles and people will not be easily forgotten. Or forgiven.

But Obama seems very much of the same mind as Bush when it comes to the economy and the dire imperative of taking care of the ultra-rich at the expense of everyone else. Citigroup should've been allowed to fail. Instead we've given the supposed pillars of capitalism 7.76 trillion in taxpayer money:

The pledges, amounting to half the value of everything produced in the nation last year, are intended to rescue the financial system after the credit markets seized up 15 months ago.

If one of the pillars of American capitalism is made of butter, which Citigroup seems to be, then they must crumble (melt?). New ones will rise, if you believe in the free-market.

Neither Bush nor Obama does.

And with those two messing around with the economy I don't either; there never was and never will be a true free market because somebody's always got an agenda and if they have influence in government they will use that power to affect change to their benefit, principles be damned. People who talk lovingly about free markets are full of shit. They want open markets, the same way horny guys want loose women: They don't really love them (captains of industry prefer monopolies over competition), but they sure will take advantage of it while it's there. A "free" market is just one that hasn't been spoiled yet... but it will be. It will be.

The only way to fix this is to reconfigure the fundamentals of our economy so the super-rich don't control everything. But how are we gonna do that if they already do? Are they going to just let us? Fuck no. They have to have a reason first, and we haven't given them one.

Until we do, nothing will change. Reality's a bitch, ain't it?

Cutting costs

The Big Three automakers are in trouble. So naturally, they do what all captains of industry and hard-nosed capitalists do when the chips are down.

They fly to Washington in splendor to ask for a hand-out from the taxpayers.

ABC News has more:

The CEOs of GM, Ford and Chrysler may have told Congress that they will likely go out of business without a bailout yet that has not stopped them from traveling in style, not even First Class is good enough.

All three CEOs - Rick Wagoner of GM, Alan Mulally of Ford, and Robert Nardelli of Chrysler - exercised their perks Tuesday by flying in corporate jets to DC. Wagoner flew in GM's $36 million luxury aircraft to tell members of Congress that the company is burning through cash, asking for $10-12 billion for GM alone.

I wonder if the idea of curbing executive bonuses, perks, jets, options and salaries has even been seriously discussed in any of the corporate boardrooms from whence this plan to get taxpayers to pay for their failures came. Here's how I imagine it would go down:

SVP: "Hey guys, I have an idea: How about we curtail our perks, slash our salaries, eliminate our massive bonuses and quit giving the executive team stock options until we get the company back in the black!"

Rest of board: " .... HAHAHAHAAA!!!!"

EVP: "Good one, Chuck!"

SVP: "Thanks. I also know jokes about Mexicans."

All the people who scream about socialism being some intrinsic evil never seem to mind corporate welfare or socialism for the rich. The supposed-capitalists who run the American economy don't blink an eye before bailing out an incompetently-run company for billions of dollars. But if you suggest we spend money on infrastructure, schools or the poor they will scream "SOCIALIST!!!" at the top of their lungs. They're all about privatizing profits and socializing losses, which I think is the calling card of Evil 2.0 -- they get you on both ends, coming and going.

The rich play by their own set of rules and we are merely spectators. We just voted in a new Congress but we sure and hell didn't give them the okay to go around bailing out private enterprise. But in Washington money talks and the populace is told to shut the fuck up and go buy a TV. Nevermind the fact you can't afford it! You've got to do your part, just like all those CEOs who rode on their private jets to complain about how poor they are!

Just play your role, America: that of a lamb being led to the slaughter.

A new era? Meet the new boss...

So Obama's president-elect. Whoopee.

A lot of people are saying that either Obama will be way, way better than Bush or that Obama will be significantly worse.

I think it will be neither.

I simply can't imagine anybody being worse than Bush II. I mean, the guy didn't do a single thing in 8 years that I 100% agreed with. And committing treason, launching an illegal war on false premises and doing everything he could to destroy the environment and the middle class will be tough to top.

On the other hand, will Obama be that much better? Well, he will be hard-pressed to even get us back to where we were in 2000, before W took over. Simply put: there is no way Obama will be as good as we hope. For one, he's a moderate when we are in need of a radical. He's good at compromise and bringing people together, but I don't want to be brought together with the neocons who destroyed our country; I want to see them rot in jail for their crimes.

Secondly, he's surrounded by advisors and colleagues who got us into this trouble in the first place. There were economic advisors on both sides of the election (Phil Gramm for McCain and Robert Rubin for Obama) who helped create the current crisis and who continually denied that there even was a crisis. This is extremely bad news for those of us hoping for a quick turnaround (and for "change" in general) and it puts Obama's judgment and independence into question.

Let's say, as a wonderful thought experiment, that Obama does intend to bring big change to Washington, and is largely successful based on his penchant for bipartisanship and his crew of old-hands who know how the game works. Then what? Then he gets shot! Simple as that; the system will not allow massive, systemic change without a fight.

For instance, the only way to solve the current financial crisis is to rid ourselves of the pestilence known as the Federal Reserve. This private bank has impoverished America and robbed her of her economic liberty. But the last president who attempted to get rid of it was shot in broad daylight in Dallas by multiple gunmen and there was never so much as a trial.

Until we get back on the gold standard our economic problems will persist. If you have the time, watch a movie called Zeitgeist: Addendum, which lays out all the problems with our current (fiat and fractional reserve) monetary system in great detail, and how it's basically a pyramid-scheme and a scam to enslave us via money.

Will Obama make the painful changes necessary to rescue our nation from the inhuman greed of the international bankers and their cabal of cronies? Only time will tell, but it certainly doesn't look good. Add to this the fact that he's reinforcing Bush's laughable al-Qaeda myth and encouraging attacks on both Afghanistan and Pakistan and you've got a continuance of the U.S.'s crypto-imperialist policies and the War on Terror scam, which is actually a war on civil liberties. These are the tools the Bush admin used to manipulate people, spread fear and crush dissent. If Obama uses them as the neocons did, we will know that he is a threat to liberty too.

I'm willing to give him some time and a short honeymoon, but we must continue to be critical and relentless in our pursuit of justice, liberty and freedom. I don't care which party he's in, what he professes to believe, what color his skin is, or what he says he's going to do -- it's what he actually does that counts. And that's what I will judge him by.

Darkfold at the Dinkytowner this Wednesday

Hey kids, my band Darkfold is playing the Dinkytowner Cafe this coming Wednesday. It'd be great to see you there, but I totally understand if you can't make it on a weeknight -- plus we don't go on until 11 pm. But we'd love to see you if you can make it! We're gonna bring the rock and there's no cover!!

And so it shall be done...

Haunted and evil

Take a listen to this hauntingly beautiful rendition of Vader's Theme:

Destroying the village in order to save it

I had to laugh when I saw this quote:

Community banking executives around the country responded with anger yesterday to the Bush administration's strategy of investing $250 billion in financial firms, saying they don't need the money, resent the intrusion and feel it's unfair to rescue companies from their own mistakes.

[snip]

"These measures are not intended to take over the free market but to preserve it," Bush said.

This sounds so much like Vietnam-psychosis it's sick. Destroying the village in order to save it didn't make sense then and it doesn't make sense now. Once you've started down that path you never find a reason to stop interfering -- something, somewhere always needs to be saved. Somehow I suspect that Bush will "save" the economy in the same way he saved Iraq!

Peter Fitzgerald, chairman of Chain Bridge Bank in McLean, said he was "much chagrined that we will be punished for behaving prudently by now having to face reckless competitors who all of a sudden are subsidized by the federal government."

At Evergreen Federal Bank in Grants Pass, Ore., chief executive Brady Adams said he has more than 2,000 loans outstanding and only three borrowers behind on payments. "We don't need a bailout, and if other banks had run their banks like we ran our bank, they wouldn't have needed a bailout, either," Adams said.

Hahahaa! The biggest socialist in Washington these days sits in the White House. Comrade Bush has decided that we need a planned economy, managed by the Executive Branch for the good of the rich.

Comrade Bush has managed to combine the worst parts of both socialism and fascism in his flailing "efforts" to save the economy, which, upon closer inspection, actually seem to be more about re-making the economy in his own image. Let the little guys die, save the big guys with massive amounts of free (taxpayer) cash and then claim you were trying to save the economy as a whole.

Others banks judged too sick to save will be allowed to fail.

Guess who gets to judge? Bush, Bernanke and Paulson, of course.

We're in deep shit.

Darkfold shows -- Are you ready to Rocktober?

I've got two Darkfold shows coming up in October (plus two more in November). Sorry for the short notice on the first one, but it's on Thursday October 16th at the legendary 400 Bar in Minneapolis!

Then the next gig is on Friday October 24th at Station-4 in St. Paul at 10pm. Both shows are with Foresight for Sore Eyes and Human Bean.

Check out a quick review on PerfectPorridge and find our tunes on MySpace or Last.fm. Be sure to check out PerfectPorridge for a chance to win the album just by saying you deserve it!

We're all gonna die: Why we need a soft landing

Things look grim. I'm sure we're not out of the woods yet -- there's a long way to go before we hit rock bottom.

You can probably guess my reaction to the bailout: SCAM!!

So, our plan is to give the people who fucked the economy billions of dollars with no real plan to get it back? Brilliant! How could that not work?

The assholes basically just got us to pay them for ripping us off. Quite the smooth move on their part. 

But you know, it's basically rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic at this point. I don't think $700 billion (actually, with all the pork it's closer to $850 billion) will make a lick of difference. The problem is much deeper than that; it has to do with the way we create and regulate money, at the fundamental level. Basically, we need to return to the gold standard, eliminate fractional reserve lending and dissolve the Federal Reserve.

This will make for some bumpy transitions, as a nation used to 5% growth every year realizes that maybe 0.2% is more appropriate. Of course, the 5% growth stat is illusionary. You have to grow by 5% every year just to stay ahead of inflation. If you want to actually make money you need an even higher rate -- which leads to risky investments. Wall Street wants ever-better numbers and the strain of achieving them has led many an executive to make risky, negligent or downright stupid investments. We need fiscal sanity! It may be boring, and less people will be able to make a living moving electronic numbers around, but it will bring stable beneficence to the majority of the world.

Problem: How to get there from here. 

Step one: Reach rock bottom.

We're well on our way there. I'm afraid nothing will change without suffering because there's no motivation otherwise. It's a sad truth. The problem is that we're speeding too fast towards rock bottom. We may hit it with the impact of a dinosaur falling off a thousand-foot cliff. That would basically end our civilization as we know it.


We need a soft landing. But how to get it? The fat-ass rich people stole the golden parachutes, but in a world where money is worthless paper what help will those parachutes be?

There's no way out of this one, folks. We're all gonna die unless somebody has been planning ahead with an altruistic and audacious plan to save us from our high-velocity trajectory straight into the ground.

We can't look to the people in charge to save us -- they're the ones who got us into this mess. So I guess we don't have many options. Who has a plan? Who has the resources to make it work? Who among us is bold enough to listen?

We are fast approaching the Rubicon.

Look out for falling banks

Holy cow -- lookout! There's banks falling like boulders all around us!

Luckily for them, when big, important institutions such as investment banks fail, they fall right into the loving arms of the Bush administration.

AIG, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch this week alone. Am I forgetting one? Probably. Now regulators are calling other banks looking for buyers in case Washington Mutual fails too.

Wall Street couldn't be in worse shape if it was literally on fire.

But, the GOP is there to bail these irresponsible banks out of trouble with -- you guessed it -- taxpayer money.

That's what the Establishment truly believes in: Socializing losses and privatizing profits.

God bless America, Comrade.

RNC 2008: Thoughts on the mass arrests and the role of police

I don't hate the police for arresting me without probable cause or any concern for my civil liberties. The problem is institutional and systemic. The police merely carry out orders. The leaders in government and business are the ones who have erected this steel-barricaded oligarchy, and they are ultimately to blame for the sad state of civil liberties in this country, which in turn has lead to a serious downturn in the quality of our political system. Politicians are merely corporate whores; they spend 90% of their time schmoozing for cash in order to afford re-election, which incumbents manage to do over 90% of the time.

People are pissed about this. I am one of them. The cops are no different than barbed wire and steel barricades. They're just an obstacle to freedom set up by the ruling class in order to protect them from us, no matter how peacefully we approach them with our greivances. They don't want to hear about it because it's a zero sum game -- their power depends on the abdication of our liberties. They are not inclined to hear or obey the people because they are not of the people. They are the Oligarchs; the Ruling Elite. They rule by force and manipulation. They are not a government by and for the people, they are a fascist oligarchy run by megalomaniacs for their own twisted gain.

Never take your eye off the ball. The cops are pawns in this just like the rest of us. To see who's playing the game, look to the Superclass.

RNC 2008: I was arrested after filming this video. The cops fired flash grenades, herded us onto Marion bridge and arrested us

I went downtown to St. Paul in order to get some pictures and observe the situation (I already protested on Monday), but John Ireland Bridge was blocked by the police with dump trucks when I got there. The cops said there was a bomb threat to the Minnesota Historical Society, but that was quite clearly a lie since they were standing so close to it and they'd already closed the other bridges as I found out later.



So I went over to the capitol on foot using the Marion Street Bridge instead. I saw more cops than protesters.



The cops had the city in a headlock. All the other bridges were closed by the police; cops, BCA agents and national guardsman were everywhere. St. Paul was on fucking lockdown.



By the time I found out how totally heavy-handed the police presence was I was getting tired and decided to split. I was trying to get back to my car on the other side of the Marion street bridge when I saw a group about 200 protesters approaching the bridge. That's why I'm walking against the flow at the beginning of the video. Unfortunately I was too busy trying to get good footage and didn't notice the cops had surrounded us on all sides.

Soon the police started firing flash grenades, smoke bombs and generally scaring the shit out of me and all these peaceful protesters. We were corraled onto the bridge where they told us we were all under arrest, but not before all of us were shellshocked by the overwhelming police response. Watch the video, but beware that it's intense, chaotic and there's swearing and explosions.



Notice how none of the protesters resisted or attacked the cops in any way. This is ironic because we were charged with "resisting a lawful order" along with the 1st amendment-killing crime of "presence at an unlawful assembly." Whatever happened to the right of people to peaceably assemble?

We are not free; The Bill of Rights is no longer operative.

If you aren't reading this from jail that simply means the cops haven't bothered to arrest you on trumped up charges yet. They can clearly do exactly that whenever they want, with no repercussions. I wasn't even part of the protest and I was charged with being part of an "unlawful assembly."

The whole arrest process took hours. We were told to sit and put our hands on our heads, which many people had to do for several hours (your arms get sore). I was cuffed after an hour or so and stood around for another hour waiting to get my mug shot (on the bridge; this was all very ad hoc). Since we were on the bridge for so long they eventually hauled at least 3 porta-potties onto the bridge itself, for both police and protester usage (under heavy guard, of course).

Eventually I was led onto a city bus with 40 other arrestees and brought to the Ramsey County jail for booking. They searched me about 5 times, confiscated all my stuff, and gave me a paper bag with a peanutbutter and jelly sandwitch and two apples. See, even oppressive police tactics have a Minnesota Nice aspect. Of course we didn't get knives so we had to spread the jelly and PB with our fingers.

Hours dragged by as we waded our way through the bureaucracy and were eventually cited and loaded onto a paddywagon and driven out of the jail. They let us out just outside the fences and we were free -- and on our own far from where we were arrested, but at least the incredibly awesome Coldsnap Legal Collective were there to offer us hugs and access to free legal advice.



People without rides or places to go were able to sleep on the grass outside the jailhouse thanks to sleeping bags the Coldsnap folks brought. Somebody sent the angels last night; they're doing great work and need your support!

The problem with good things is that the police like to infiltrate and ruin them from the inside. That might've been the case with the protest last night. I heard several people talking about police plants -- agent provocateurs pretending to be protesters, inciting violence and keeping their superiors informed about where they are headed.

Unfortunately, this is standard practice for police departments these days, including Denver during the DNC. How many acts of vandalism and violence that you read about in the mainstream media were actually committed by undercover cops in order to incite and defame activists?

Imagine the embarrassment of the police and governments if they held a convention with massive protests and no one was arrested! They'd have spent millions upon millions of dollars for nothing! They've got to earn their outrageous security budgets, which is why they were so keen to arrest anybody who happened to be near Marion St. Bridge last night, including media folks and medics (at least 5 were arrested, along with a dozen credentialed photographers).

Of course they also wanted to show who's boss. Clearly they are, and clearly they are not going to allow us to change the system peacefully or otherwise. We are not free. We are only permitted to do what they let us; truly free expression is verboten. Believe it or not, America used to be a pretty anything-goes society as long as it wasn't overtly violent (think of the Old West). Nowadays we cling to our police state as if that makes us safer. But what have we lost in the process?

RNC 2008: Rage Against the Machine tried to play a free show but the cops refused to let them -- then shit got ugly

This is the BEST video I've found of the Rage Against The Machine free show that didn't really happen. The cops refused to let Rage take the stage. After arguing with the police for awhile Rage decided to bust out an a capella version of a few of their songs. This video captures that moment (props to PP for finding):

Then the band urged the crowd to join the Poor Peoples' March. The police didn't like that much and things started to get a little tense. Here's an account from Matt Snyders on what happened next:

There is currently a buffer zone between the corner of Wabasha and 7th and the corner of St. Peter and 7th St. near Mickey's Diner. In that buffer zone, there are two ambulances, an SUV and a white van. Police are also blocking 10th St. in both directions.

At about 7:55, advancing police began creating the buffer zone. Police told demonstrators, media and onlookers to move back. At 8:15, they started blocking off the way south. At 8:25, there were a few small explosions, and plumes of smoke began to rise. Some bombs went off, and we got the hint of tear gas on the air.

Demonstrators were chanting "We want peace, we want peace," before the gas went off.

I was on Wabasha and 7th Street when this happened.


The cops received orders to begin advancing at us in order to close off the intersection.

I started capturing video of this and it's some scary shit. About 80 seconds into the video a series of explosions go off. I can only assume these were the smoke bombs and/or tear gas cannisters being launched. The cops were chanting as they marched towards us in lockstep. It was some freaky shit:



At the end of the video the teargas starts blowing our way so we got the heck out of there.

I wasn't even with the main protest group. There was a much larger group (the Poor Peoples March and the Rage Against the Machine crowd) that was being broken by the cops. I met up with fragments of this larger protest after they had been tear-gassed and pepper-sprayed.


This guy was getting some assistance from a friend after being doused in the face with pepper spray. It looked more than a little bit painful.

The cops continued clamping down and pushing the protesters back across the Cedar bridge. They didn't seem to be encountering any resistance, but they were intent on smashing the protest. They set up perimeters and used the barricades to corral the marchers back across the Wabasha bridge:



The protesters made a last stand of sorts at the (heheheh) Peace Officers Memorial.



They used cops on bikes to quickly block off streets and other avenues of escape and then sent in the baton-weilding foot soldiers to disperse us completely.



I can say with 100% accuracy that the police stormed the Peace Officers Memorial. Apparently the irony was lost on them.

Check out my earlier post about the more peaceful Anti-War protest the previous day. And there are more photos to view in my photostream.

RNC 2008 Resources -- One-stop Shop baby!

There are so many different people and organizations covering the RNC, but they're scattered all over the place. I'm trying to get a handle on who's there and what they're doing. Here's my attempt at a list:

IndyMedia.org

Coldsnap Legal Collective

The Uptake

Firedoglake

YouTube

Flickr

Twitter

March on RNC

RNC Welcoming Committee

Protest the RNC

City Pages -- Elephants in the Room

What am I forgetting? Let me know in the comments!!

RNC 2008: Photos from the "March on RNC" Anti-war Protest

The Republicans are coming to town!!

No more running away. It's time to stand up and fight back the only way we know how -- peaceful protest. So that's what we did.

The protest drew over 40,000 people to St. Paul according to organizers. Being one of the 40,000 that's a very believable number -- in fact it could be much higher. I've rarely seen so many people all in one place, but everybody was really peaceful in our march. There were so many good vibes and peaceful cops that I was almost bored! It's great that the cops were restrained for our march. Many anarchist groups were not so lucky. Here's a story told in photos:


Police form a line against the anarchist group trying to take an authorized route.



Fred Phelps thinks god hates fags...and you and me and everyone else. What an asshole. He sent his family out to protest...everybody. They managed to piss people off pretty rapidly. In fact there may have been some sort of confrontation...



This guy may have been injured after a confrontation with Fred Phelps' family. He was being helped away by his friends.



Luckily Bush, Cheney, Condi and Rumsfeld were captured before they could do any more damage. ... Wait, are those puppets? Dammit, they've eluded us again!



Hopefully Bush will be in jail before this kid grows up.



These guys were pretty cool. Apparently they are called The Rude Mechanical Orchestra.



The crowd masses before the march begins.



The crowd begins marching away from the capitol.



Meanwhile the river of people flowing towards the Xcel Center appeared endless. I think the first people reached the Xcel before the end of the march managed to leave the Capitol. That's how many people there were.



Lobbyists For McCain! These guys have a message for Obama supporters -- "No You Can't!" These guys were hilarious. Yes, they were kidding.



These guys weren't kidding. They were part of a small group of counter-protesters who were there to support the war while implying the troops would rather achieve victory than come home now. Umm... maybe you should ask them why they donate so much money to Obama and Ron Paul then, dudes.

There were approximately 30 to 40 of these hardcore pro-war Republicans there to greet the 40,000 of us who respectfully disagree. The 1,000 to 1 ratio makes me wonder if the few war supporters left are able to openly support the war only because of the Media's cheerleading. If they knew they were so outnumbered they might start to question some of their assumptions.



The police mostly stayed out of the way. Many of them were just there to block off roads and keep the marchers on track. By staying out of the way they made sure tensions stayed low and nobody felt threatened.



Some of them looked at bit concerned at times. The crowd could've easily torn these guys limb from limb if we were so inclined. We weren't.



The biggest worry the cops had was keeping cool. This guy looks like he'd rather not be wearing his dark, hot, heavy uniform. Can't say I blame him.



Every now and then the cops would interrupt the protesters so they could march through and do.... what? I dunno. Seemed like they just liked making sure they were still in charge.



They herded us into the Freedom Cage, as we called it. It was a corridor of steel fences designed to give us the impression we were near the Xcel Center when were in fact a long distance away, especially considering how many obstacles you'd have to scale in order to get there.



This is as close as we ever got to the Xcel Center. Close enough to shake our fists but not much else. Not like they give a damn what we think anyway.



The Freedom Cage steered us back towards the state capitol. Boy did we ever feel safe and secure inside that Freedom Cage.



This guy was his own personal free speech zone. He was the safest guy at the whole protest. The wires protect him from excessive liberty and independent thought.



Here Bush and Cheney have tied up, Lady Liberty, ripped her shirt off while strangling her and then proceeded to drag her through the street. I'd say this protest was pretty sick except that it's a dead-on metaphor for what Bush/Cheney has done to our country and our civil liberties. This last 8 years has been like a slow-motion snuff film.



Puppy abuse? Maybe, but he seemed pretty happy to be there. This red, white and blue pup was one of many patriotic ensembles. The protesters were not ready to cede patriotism to the Republicans; that's for sure.



The Constitution of the United States of America: Rememeber this thing? We need to bring it back online.



There were a lot of people there! I was never able to get the majority in one shot. I guess we'll never know how many people were there, but I bet there could've been more. I'm guessing only 1 person showed up for every 10 people who hate the Bush regime and the idea of 4 more years of this crap. What can we do to change things?



"Peace Begins with a Smile". Man, I hope she's right.

Well, that's it!. Have any other good pictures? Post them in the comments below. I have a couple more; you can check them out on my photostream on Flickr. Peace!

Police welcome protestors to St. Paul for the RNC

The St. Paul Police Department has unveiled a new poster designed to make protestors of the upcoming Republican National Convention here in the Twin Cities feel welcome as Republicans start coming to town en masse.


I feel safer already, don't you?

Diebold: Our vote tabulation software doesn't work!

Diebold to America: "Hey, thanks for all the tax dollars. Our vote counting software doesn't work. Have a nice election!"

Bradblog is doing an excellent job, as usual, of covering the insanity that is our election system, especially when it comes to black box electronic voting.

Diebold has admitted that their tabulator software, known as GEMS, and used all across the country, in at least 34 states, does not count votes correctly.

In fact, it actually loses votes, by not counting them at all, yet gives the system administrator no indication that the votes were not counted. Instead, it tells them that all votes have been counted correctly. This bug has been in Diebold's software --- where it remains to this day-- for years. Diebold has only admitted it now that it's been found by someone else (a number of counties in Ohio, of all places) and with the 2008 Presidential election less than 80 days away.

On that note, have a great election, America!

I'll be packing for someplace with a functioning democracy... like Pakistan!!