from MSNBC, which I always wanted to hate but which has, too often, far, far too often, taken up the slack that CNN has left as it happily knits itself into a fluffy, news-free straightjacket.
Man 1, Machine 0.
That’s at least one vote that can’t be interfered with; too bad the same cannot be said of the others in the machine. Or, indeed, the rest of the US.
“He came in here very peaceably and showed his ID, then he got on the machine and just snapped,” volunteer Gladys Pezoldt told the Morning Call of Allentown.
Stole this from, obviously, webcameron, whose bizarre insistence on iTunes and other commercial players like Realplayer essentially takes what could be a community-building tool, ie video podcasts, and makes it into something that can only be accessed on an individual basis. I don’t see why they want people to put this on their iPods but not their blogs, so being me I have subverted that. (I note that the current one is embeddable, has something changed? The archives can’t be viewed this way it seems, or am I stoned on cold medicine again?)
Besides, I could use a powerful enemy. Hits are down; need a flamewar. Bring it!
UPDATE: They brung it. YouTube killed the video after the Conservative Party yelped about the fact that their message was being freely distributed across the blogosphere. Can’t have that now, can we?
BTW to all those people who ask me who the hell Boris Johnson is, check it out; he’s the blond one at the end with the bust of Pericles and the housekeeping style incredibly reminiscent of someone you know. Also, he will show you what’s in his drawers. Anything for the party, eh? Those Tories will do anything to get elected, I’m telling you.
It wasn’t just Colin Powell, a voice Cassandrizing itself into marginalization and eventual unemployment; even the military’s own war games predicted the current state of affairs.
More to the point, it showed that only a force nearly three times the size of the current one could have any chance at maintaining stability and preventing sectarian chaos.
George Washington University’s National Security Archive applied through a Freedom of Information Act request, and obtained the documents that prove it. AP has the report.
A series of secret U.S. war games in 1999 showed that an invasion and post-war administration of Iraq would require 400,000 troops, nearly three times the number there now.
And even then, the games showed, the country still had a chance of dissolving into chaos…
“The conventional wisdom is the U.S. mistake in Iraq was not enough troops,” said Thomas Blanton, the archive’s director. “But the Desert Crossing war game in 1999 suggests we would have ended up with a failed state even with 400,000 troops on the ground…”
Some of the conclusions are similar to what actually occurred after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003:
“A change in regimes does not guarantee stability,” the 1999 seminar briefings said. “A number of factors including aggressive neighbors, fragmentation along religious and/or ethnic lines, and chaos created by rival forces bidding for power could adversely affect regional stability.”
“Even when civil order is restored and borders are secured, the replacement regime could be problematic — especially if perceived as weak, a puppet, or out-of-step with prevailing regional governments.”
“Iran’s anti-Americanism could be enflamed by a U.S.-led intervention in Iraq,” the briefings read. “The influx of U.S. and other western forces into Iraq would exacerbate worries in Tehran, as would the installation of a pro-western government in Baghdad.”
“The debate on post-Saddam Iraq also reveals the paucity of information about the potential and capabilities of the external Iraqi opposition groups. The lack of intelligence concerning their roles hampers U.S. policy development.”
“Also, some participants believe that no Arab government will welcome the kind of lengthy U.S. presence that would be required to install and sustain a democratic government.”
“A long-term, large-scale military intervention may be at odds with many coalition partners.”
They really don’t, you know. More Iraqis vote than Americans, as a percentage of the population. Iran has a higher rate of participation in the democratic process. So do 128 other countries. So WTF is up with Americans?
Compare U.S. voting with foreign voting and it’s not a pretty sight. Americans are less apt to vote than are people in other old democracies, in new ones, in dangerous places, dirt poor ones, freezing cold ones, stinking hot ones and highly dysfunctional ones.
Even that theocratic “axis of evil,” Iran, has bragging rights over the United States in this regard. So does chaotic Iraq, where an estimated 70 percent of voters cast ballots in December parliamentary elections.
They invented this process. Have they moved on to something else, discarding representative democracy like an outdated (but still superior to the alternatives) Betamax player? If so, what can it be? Looking at the current model, I’d have to invent a new term; as the British have a Constitutional Monarchy, I’d have to say the Americans have a Constitutional Dictatorship. They also, apparently, have very little faith in the transparency and accuracy of the voting processes, although still more than the facts seem to justify.
They vote but not always. Compared with Americans who regularly cast ballots, they are less engaged in politics. They are more likely to be bored with the political process and admit they often do not know enough about candidates to cast ballots. But they are crucial to Republican and Democratic fortunes in the Nov. 7 midterm elections.
They are the intermittent voters: Americans who are registered to vote but do not always make it to the polls. They differ significantly from those who vote regularly. For one thing, they’re less likely to be married than are regular voters. Intermittent voters also are more mistrustful of people compared with those who vote regularly. They also are less angry with government, though no less dissatisfied with President Bush than are regular voters, according to a survey conducted Sept. 21-Oct. 4 among 1,804 adults by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press in collaboration with the Associated Press.
The survey also finds large differences between Americans who are not registered to vote or vote only rarely, and intermittent or regular voters. The two groups at the bottom of the voting participation scale are much less likely than regular or intermittent voters to believe that voting will make much of a difference. They also are less likely to agree with the statement: “I feel guilty when I don’t get a chance to vote.”
Americans won’t vote if they don’t think it will get counted, and they won’t vote if they don’t like the options, and they won’t vote if the election process itself is typified by negative advertising.
So what will get them out to vote?
Golly gee, that’s a toughie. Probably this rather motivational video from South Park will work. It’s a spiffy initiative to encourage those kiddies to get out, engage proactively with the democratic process and the society in which they thrive, and cast their votes for the candidate they feel best represents their interests in Washington. And it speaks directly to the things that concern kids most nowadays.
Here, with very little effort, we runner-up the world in the protection of individual privacy. Other, less fortunate and more Orwellian countries such as Latvia(#13), Slovenia(#26), Thailand(#30), the United States(#31) and the United Kingdom(#33), could learn from us: appoint a career alcoholic to be in charge of your privacy commission and his staff will ensure that privacy is protected and that he’s passed out long before he can answer government requests to loosen restrictions.
LONDON — Germany and Canada are the best defenders of privacy, and Malaysia and China the worst, an international rights group said in a report released Wednesday (Oct 31). Britain was rated as an endemic surveillance society, at No. 33, just above Russia and Singapore on a ranking of 37 countries’ privacy protections by London-based Privacy International.
The United States did only slightly better, at No. 30, ranked between Israel and Thailand, with few safeguards and widespread surveillance, the group said…
Best Protectors of Civilian Privacy
1. Germany 2. Canada
3. Belgium
3. Austria
5. Greece
6. Argentina
6. Hungary
8. France
8. Poland
8. Portugal
8. Cyprus
12. Finland
13. Italy
13. Luxembourg
13. Latvia
13. Estonia
13. Malta
18. Denmark
18. Czech Republic
18. Ireland
18. Lithuania
18. New Zealand
18. Slovakia
24. Australia
24. Spain
26. Slovenia
26. Netherlands
28. Israel
28. Sweden
30. United States
31. Thailand
31. Philippines
33. Britain
34. Singapore
34. Russia
36. Malaysia
36. China
It wasn’t just 
Americans won’t vote if they don’t think it will get counted, and they won’t vote if they don’t like the options, and they won’t vote if the election process itself is typified by negative advertising.
raincoaster 