So much for comedy... A friend wanted to see the movie "The Pianist" yesterday. Not funny at all, but many aspects reminded me of things which are happening in America right now. Or should that be Amerika? Yes, there are lots of differences, too, but history never repeats itself exactly. I'm quite certain that if you asked the German people of the '30s, at the time period that seems to correspond to where America is today, they certainly wouldn't have foreseen that they were headed to the outcome the movie shows... Even the Nazis themselves couldn't have seen where it was all heading.

This morning I came across a rather good explanation of how computerized voting can be used for fraud and to violate the electoral process. Most of the evidence was rather circumstantial, unfortunately, but the fundamental problem is that the power exists, and any power that exists tends to be used--and abused. There is NO good reason not to create a paper trail of the election process. There is NO good reason to eliminate independent information about how the voters actually voted. But there is a very clear and very BAD reason to do so, if the goal is to control the elections and ignore the voters' will.