Unofficial Tallies in NYC Understated Obama Vote

According to The New York Times, "[b]lack voters are heavily represented in the 94th Election District in Harlem’s 70th Assembly District. Yet according to the unofficial results from the New York Democratic primary last week, not a single vote in the district was cast for Senator Barack Obama.

"That anomaly was not unique. In fact, a review by The New York Times of the unofficial results reported on primary night found about 80 election districts among the city’s 6,106 where Mr. Obama supposedly did not receive even one vote, including cases where he ran a respectable race in a nearby district." More here.

During the last several years, there have been more than one election reform bill pending in Congress, most of which were "bandaids" that would have failed to assure meaningful transparency and auditability. To understand the merits and status of any particular bill, I recommend verifiedvoting.org (you might want to bookmark that for the next time you get e-mail urging you to support particular legislation -- I had serious problems with one bill moveon was pushing).

Ending the Iraq war and health care reform are urgent issues. But for me, the top two priorities are election reform and media reform, because our ability to respond effectively regarding everything else depends on those two.

Last I checked, none of the leading Presidential candidates' official websites addresses either election reform or media reform, presumably because the corporate media and others aren't asking about them. To ask the candidates about those issues, for Huckabee go here, for McCain go here, for Clinton go here, and for Obama go here.

Clinton & Obama Supporters: Pls Refute This if You Can

I happen to believe there can be no bigger, better art work/ game/ life purpose than trying to help make a "better" universe, however you might prefer to define that. If you agree, you might rhyme with this.

Naomi Klein on Disaster Capitalism:

. . . how conservatives have used "shock" as a political tool. Some years ago, researchers posited that one psychological effect of torture is that it makes people regress; they become disoriented and less able to protect their own interests. Klein says conservatives seem to have taken the lesson and have created or exploited various "shocks" or crises to advance an agenda of privatization and unfettered capitalism.

Lots of interesting ideas. Don't forget to go rate it up on YouTube.