On December 9, 1968, before a packed Brooks Hall auditorium in San Francisco, Douglas Engelbart, the director of Stanford Research Institute’s Augmentation Research Center, took the stage and changed computing forever.

During a 100-minute presentation, Engelbart demonstrated to 1,000 people the work that he and SRI’s chief engineer, Bill English, had been doing, work that is still recognizable in the way that everyone uses computers today.

It’s possible, some have said, that there never had been, nor never would be, another presentation that unveiled as many new paradigm-shifting technologies. They included the world’s first publicly seen mouse, as well as the introduction of hyperlinks and navigable windows. The presentation drew a standing ovation.

And it moved John Markoff, reporter at The New York Times and author of What the Dormouse Said: How the 60s Counterculture Shaped the Personal Computer Industry, to write: “There were two things that particularly dazzled the audience on that rainy Monday morning.”

First, computing had made the leap from number crunching to become a communications and information-retrieval tool. Second, the machine was being used interactively with all its resources appearing to be devoted to a single individual. It was the first time that truly personal computing had been seen.

On Tuesday, SRI will present “Engelbart and the Dawn of Interactive Computing: SRI’s Revolutionary 1968 Demo,” a 40th anniversary celebration of what technology writer Steven Levy once called “the mother of all demos.”

Photo by Stanford Research Institute

What’s New:

• Pictures – Naughty Nature
• Technology – Blu-Spec CD
• Videos – Charice Pempengco

Code-named “Morro,” this streamlined solution will be available in the second half of 2009 and will provide comprehensive protection from malware including viruses, spyware, rootkits and trojans. This new solution, to be offered at no charge to consumers, will be architected for a smaller footprint that will use fewer computing resources, making it ideal for low-bandwidth scenarios or less powerful PCs. As part of Microsoft’s move to focus on this simplified offering, the company also announced today that it will discontinue retail sales of its Windows Live OneCare subscription service effective June 30, 2009.

“Customers around the world have told us that they need comprehensive, ongoing protection from new and existing threats, and we take that concern seriously,” said Amy Barzdukas, senior director of product management for the Online Services and Windows Division at Microsoft. “This new, no-cost offering will give us the ability to protect an even greater number of consumers, especially in markets where the growth of new PC purchases is outpaced only by the growth of malware.”

Built on Microsoft’s award-winning malware protection engine, “Morro” will take advantage of the same core anti-malware technology that fuels the company’s current line of security products, which have received the VB100 award from Virus Bulletin, Checkmark Certification from West Coast Labs and certification from the International Computer Security Association Labs. The new solution will deliver the same core protection against malware as that offered through Microsoft’s enterprise solutions, but will not include many of the additional non-security features found in many consumer security suites.

Windows Live OneCare, one of the first all-in-one suites to be launched in the consumer market, includes a number of non-security features, such as printer sharing and automated PC tune-up. By shifting to focus on the core anti-malware features that most consumers still don’t keep up to date, “Morro” will be able to provide the essential protections that consumers need without overusing system resources, and will help more consumers have better protection against online threats.

“Because uptake of standard anti-malware is low around the world, particularly in developing nations, the availability of basic protection for anyone who wants it is all the more important,” said Roger Kay, founder and president of Endpoint Technologies Associates. “By offering such basic protection at no charge to the consumer, Microsoft is promoting a safer environment for PCs, service providers and e-commerce itself, since it is through unprotected PCs that the worst threats are introduced to the system as a whole.”

“Morro” will be available as a stand-alone download and offer malware protection for the Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7 operating systems. When used in conjunction with the ongoing security and privacy enhancements of Windows and Internet Explorer, this new solution will offer consumers a robust, no-cost security solution to help protect against the majority of online threats.

Windows Live OneCare will continue to be sold for Windows XP and Windows Vista at retail through June 30, 2009. Direct sales of OneCare will be gradually phased out when “Morro” becomes available. Regardless of their method of purchase, Microsoft will ensure that all current customers remain protected through the life of their subscriptions.

More information is available on the Windows Live OneCare Team Blog at http://windowsonecare.spaces.live.com.

Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT”) is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.

Note to editors: If you are interested in viewing additional information on Microsoft, please visit the Microsoft Web page at http://www.microsoft.com/presspass on Microsoft’s corporate information pages. Web links, telephone numbers and titles were correct at time of publication, but may since have changed. For additional assistance, journalists and analysts may contact Microsoft’s Rapid Response Team or other appropriate contacts listed at http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/contactpr.mspx.

Here’s something you don’t see every day: a town built in the middle of a lake. Not on an island, but actually below water level. It’s the ancient city of Seuthopolis, in Bulgaria, which was discovered in 1948. Six years later, a dam was destroyed and it was covered in water, ending up at the bottom of a huge lake. Now, the city is being unearthed via the most insane architectural project ever.
This is going to be done via the construction of a huge circular dike that’ll be a whopping 1,377 feet in diameter and 65 feet high. People will be able to access the recessed city by boat, heading down into it to see the city. And the focus isn’t on archeology here, but rather on tourism, with Bulgaria looking to create a striking image that draws people in. And really, there are few things that make a town more striking than have it sit on the bottom of a lake. Cool stuff.

OBAMA WINS!

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Frequent updates to be posted.

Rock the Vote!

Be part of history!

TOP TEN REASONS TRICK-0R-TREATING IS BETTER THAN SEX

10. Guaranteed to get at least a little something in the sack.

9. If you get tired, wait ten minutes and go at it again.

8. The uglier you look, the easier it is to get some.

7. You don’t have to compliment the person who gave you some.

6. Person giving you some, doesn’t fantasize you’re someone else.

5. If you get a stomach ache, it won’t last for nine months.

4. If you wear your Batman mask, no one will think you’re weird. (This one is especially funny to some people we know)

3. Doesn’t matter if kids hear you moaning and groaning.

2. No guilt the next morning.

And, the #1 reason trick or treating is better than sex….

1. If you don’t get what you want, you can always go next door.

What does an Obama presidency offer America? First and foremost: his face. Think of it as the most effective re-branding of the United States. America’s world standing has been tarnished badly by the Bush administration. A McCain presidency, in the eyes of the world will just be a continuation of the Bush administration. Obama brings a new image and such a “re-branding”, a new image of America will be potentially effective in winning the hearts and minds of America’s enemies. The war on Islamist terror, after all, is being waged in two fronts: hard power and soft power. Military and diplomacy if you will. We have seen the potential of hard power in removing the Taliban and Saddam Hussein. We have also seen its weaknesses in Iraq, and its limitations in winning a long war against radical Islam. The next president has to create a sophisticated mixture of soft and hard power to isolate the enemy, to fight where necessary, but also to create an ideological template that works to the West’s advantage over the long haul. There is simply no other candidate with the potential of Obama to do this. Which is where his face comes in.

 Consider this. Tuesday night Obama is declared the winner. A young Muslim, a potential radical islamist’s recruit is watching television and sees that this man—Barack Hussein Obama—is the new face of America. In one simple image, America’s soft power has been pushed up-front on day one. A brown-skinned man whose father was an African, who grew up in Indonesia and Hawaii, who attended a majority-Muslim school as a boy, is now the alleged enemy. Obama’s persona proves them wrong about what America is in ways no words can. Obama brings an image of America that is inclusive, and an America where freedom lets anybody, even a “colored” man soar to his potential.

“I can see Russia from Alaska” – Sarah Palin.
We’ve come to know this from Governor Palin’s interview with Kathie Couric when she was asked about her foreign policy credentials. Contrast this with the latest interview Senator Obama had with Joe Klein. Who’s inexperienced? You decide.

The following is the full text of Obama’s interview with Joe Klein of time magazine:

Question: I want to ask you some questions about the way you make decisions and then some questions about issues. To me the signal decision of this election was the way you chose your vice-president and the way he chose his. You are known for deliberation and being a rational decision-maker. But sometimes you have to make decisions another way. I just wanted to ask you whether you have made gut decisions during the course of this and whether you can tell me about any of those.

Barack Obama: Sure. I think that, in some ways deciding to run in the first place was a gut decision. If you looked at the pros and cons of running now versus later, there was a lot of potential downside. I was in a very good place—[inaudible] Michelle and the girls were very happy and it was [inaudible] with some risks if the campaign wasn’t successful then I would be seen as presumptuous—probably lose some potential leverage in the senate. My gut told me that the country was looking for something different and that if we were able to build an organization that harnesses that.

[Q] You had plenty of time to make that decision, I am talking about…

[BO] A spot, instinctual

Q] Yeah, instinctual

[BO] Well, during the course of this campaign probably our response to those Reverend Wright videos had to be a spot decision, because frankly it was unanticipated and I hadn’t seen those
incendiary videos before. The decision to make it big as opposed to make it small.

[Q] To make the [Philadelphia] speech.

[BO] To write a speech in two days and deliver it at a time when there was a singular focus on the topic I think is an example of having to make decision based on what in my gut would make sense.

[Q] What was your gut telling you?

[BO] My gut was telling me that this was a teachable moment and that if I tried to do the usual political damage control instead of talking to the American people like an adult—like they were adults and could understand the complexities of race that I would be not only doing damage to the campaign but missing an important opportunity for leadership.

[Q] Let me give you one. I’ve talked to people about the day that McCain suspended.

[BO] That is another one where we had to make a decision quickly.

[Q] You were getting phone calls from people in Washington.

[BO] We were getting phone calls from people in Washington and I think there were some on our staff that were thinking that maybe we should interject and respond in some way. My strong feeling was that this situation was of such seriousness that it was important not to chase the cameras. One of the advantages that we had was that I think we had been steady from the start. I had already called my economic advisors together. I had already put forward a clear set of principles that were in the process of being adopted. I had been talking to Paulson and Bernanke and the congressional leadership on a regular basis so it wasn’t like I felt in any way that I was out of the loop. I felt like I was helping to shape the direction of this. And one of the things that I have become more and more convinced of during the course of this campaign is that in an environment like this one where people are really paying attention because they are worried and they are scared good policy will end up being good politics—more than I think might have been true during boom times in the nineties when people were just feeling like it was sport, it was a game.

[Q] It has been my experience from [covering] far too many of these that when people are paying attention, negative ads are less effective.

[BO] That is exactly right, because people are thinking to themselves I want to see how this guy operates in solving problems not how entertaining he or she is, or what the latest gossip on the cable news is.

[Q] When people were saying to you that day that McCain suspending, he’s going to seem above the fray and I know that some people felt that way, you didn’t go with that.

[BO] I didn’t believe it. I have to tell you, one of the benefit s of running this 22 month gauntlet is that you have been through some ups and you have been through some downs. And you start realizing that what seems important or clever or in need of some dramatic moment a lot of times just needs reflection and care. And I think that was an example of where my style at least worked. There are going to be some times where I think I won’t have that luxury of thinking through all the angles. Obviously I wasn’t President at the time which influenced my decision. I did not control all the levers of power. And I think that the one thing I have become pretty confident about is being able to tap into the smartest people on any subject and to draw together a lot of contrary or contradictory perspectives. And push people’s arguments against each other, ask the right questions and figure out at a least a framework for solving problems.

[Q] Let me ask you about a situation like that. I have been collecting accounts of your meeting with David Petraeus in Baghdad. And you had [inaudible] after he had made a really strong pitch [inaudible] for maximum flexibility. A lot of politicians at that moment would have said [inaudible] but from what I hear, you pushed back.

[BO] I did. I remember the conversation, pretty precisely. He made the case for maximum flexibility and I said you know what if I were in your shoes I would be making the exact same argument because your job right now is to succeed in Iraq on as favorable terms as we can get. My job as a potential commander in chief is to view your counsel and your interests through the prism of our overall national security which includes what is happening in Afghanistan, which includes the costs to our image in the middle east, to the continued occupation, which includes the financial costs of our occupation, which includes what it is doing to our military. So I said look, I described in my mind at list an analogous situation where I am sure he has to deal with situations where the commanding officer in [inaudible] says I need more troops here now because I really think I can make progress doing x y and z. That commanding officer is doing his job in Ramadi, but Petraeus’s job is to step back and see how does it impact Iraq as a whole. My argument was I have got to do the same thing here. And based on my strong assessment particularly having just come from Afghanistan were going to have to make a different decision. But the point is that hopefully I communicated to the press my complete respect and gratitude to him and Proder who was in the meeting for their outstanding work. Our differences don’t necessarily derive from differences in sort of, or my differences with him don’t derive from tactical objections to his approach. But rather from a strategic framework that is trying to take into account the challenges to our national security and the fact that we’ve got finite resources.
[Q] But you didn’t have to make that point.
[BO] No well I think that I did, I felt it necessary to make that point even though I tried not to talk about it publicly, not knowing sort of what the terms of our discussion were. Precisely because I respect the Petraeus and [inaudible], precisely because they’ve done a good job and because my job as a candidate is preparing myself to be commander in chief. And I want to make sure that I’m taking their arguments seriously, they understand I’m taking their argument seriously. I want our military brass and our mid level officers to all feel that I am going to be listening to them. This notion that I’m not paying attention to them is nonsense. I’m listening to them very carefully and I take their advice with great seriousness. I just want them to know that I’ve got a, I potentially will have a broader task at hand.
[Q] Right.
[BO] And I want to make sure that we establish a relationship of respect early on. Again not just with the joint chiefs but also with folks who align responsibly on the ground.
[Q] Now I’ve heard that conversation characterized as everything from angry to spirited to agreeable. And I kind of took it as
[BO] I would say it was between spirited and agreeable. That’s how I would characterize it.
[Q] And after you made that point, [Petraeus] said I understand now.
[BO]He did. I mean I think we came away sort of thinking that, let me put it this way, I’m glad Patreus is in Centcom. He now has to, has these broader response abilities of seeing what’s happening in Afghanistan and Pakistan. I think he’s a very, he’s not just an astute soldier, but I think he’s somebody who cares about facts and cares about the reality on the ground. I don’t think he comes at this with an ideological pre-disposition. That’s one of the reasons I think he’s been successful in moving the ball forward in Iraq. And I hope that he’s applying that same perspective to what’s happening in Afghanistan.
[Q] Lets go back to we’re now moving to the issue portion. When you questioned him [in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee] the last time. You asked him about what [conditions on the ground] would be ‘good enough’ for us to leave Iraq.

[BO] Right.
[Q] As you sit here today, and you look at what’s happening in Iraq, is it good enough?
[BO] I don’t think it’s quite good enough yet because I think we have to do a little more training. We’ve got to build up the logistical capacity. I think the possibilities of ethnic strife breaking out again are still present, precisely because the political system has not stabilized itself yet. But I do believe that we are at a point now where we can start drawing down troops. I think we can time a process where the drawing down of troops parallel to building up the capacity in Iraq and the Sofa agreement that just, the Sofa that was just put forward I think reflects that reality.
[Q] On Afghanistan, couple questions. I was at Walter Reed and some of the kids there were casualties of the firebase that was overrun–16 wounded, 9 killed.
[BO] We were very, it was a week or 2 weeks after those kids [were overrun], when we made our trip [to Afghanistan]
[Q] And then some of those kids at Walter Reed, they said [the Taliban attackers came] across the border from Pakistan, only 30 km away. Should we, is it right what we’ve started doing to chase them back across the border?…How do you deal with that?
[BO] Here’s my attitude. Number 1 we can’t have our troops remain sitting ducks. We should, under our coalition mandate we are in Afghanistan at the invitation of the afghan government. We’re there legally, under international watch. When those troops are attacked, they have a right to defend themselves. Period. Now I think that the most critical task that we have in Afghanistan is to not only strengthen the Afghan government, it’s military capacity, it’s ability to deliver services to its people, its capacity to work with the agricultural sector there to replace the poppy crop. But it’s to also work through a viable strategy for Pakistan. My sense is that Zedari has already been willing to step out and commit himself in a pretty difficult situation to work with the United States to root out militant terrorists.
So, building a different relationship with the Pakistani government, the Pakistani military, the ISI. Working with Pakistan, this government to deliver for its people so it gains legitimacy, in all regions of the country. Working with Pakistan and India to try to resolve, and Kashmir, crisis in a serious way. Those are all critical tasks for the next administration. Kashmir in particular is an interesting situation where that is obviously a potential tar pit diplomatically. But, for us to devote serious diplomatic resources to get a special envoy in there, to figure out a plausible approach, and essentially make the argument to the Indians, you guys are on the brink of being an economic superpower, why do you want to keep on messing with this? To make the argument to the Pakistanis, look at India and what they are doing, why do you want to keep n being bogged down with this particularly at a time where the biggest threat now is coming from the Afghan boarder? I think there is a moment where potentially we could get their attention. It won’t be easy, but it’s important.

[Q] Sounds like a job for Bill Clinton.

[BO] Might not be bad. I actually talked to Bill, I talked to President Clinton about this when we had lunch in Harlem.

[Q] …Should we be talking to the Taliban? I don’t mean you.

[BO] You know, I think that this is one useful lesson that is applicable from Iraq. The Great Awakening, the Sunni Awakening changed the dynamic in Iraq fundamentally. It could not have occurred unless there were some contacts and intermediaries to peel off those who are tribal leaders, regional leaders, Sunni nationalists, from a more radical Messianic brand of insurgency. Well whether there are those same opportunities in Afghanistan I think should be explored. I can’t guarantee that they are and one of the problems that we had and we’ve historically had, the Russians historically had it, the British historically had it, is our intelligence there is poor and our understanding of the culture is poor. And our understanding of the tribal and clan ties that exist there are complicated. But the Afghans don’t see things in the same black and white terms on many of these issues that we legitimately do because we’re concerned about our safety and our security. But what we’re going to have to do is to have folks on the ground who do develop that understanding, I was very impressed with McKernan, very impressed with a lot of the folks who are there. My impression is that those who have a chance to stay there a little bit longer and develop clear understanding of the formidable complexities are going to achieve a lot more than simply us rotating in folks on a rapid rotation and I think that people on the ground tend to agree with me on that.

[Q] You talk about the need for an Apollo project and it just seems to me that if there is a unified big bang I theory in this election, it’s a program that involved national security, jobs growth, environmental…

[BO] Absolutely.

[Q] So why haven’t you given the big speech about it?

[BO] We actually gave a very big speech of it in New Hampshire very early on. And I recommend pulling that speech back up because it was pretty comprehensive and it gave the blueprint for our energy approach. I think that the immediate economic crisis and the consequent decline in oil prices has led us to a dangerous point where maybe we start thinking in terms of business as usual again.

The biggest problem with our energy policy has been to lurch from crisis to trance. And what we need is a sustained, serious effort. Now, I actually think the biggest opportunity right now is not just gas prices at the pump but the fact that the engine for economic growth for the last 20 years is not going to be there for the next 20, and that was consumer spending. I mean, basically, we turbo-charged this economy based on cheap credit. Whatever else we think is going to happen over the next certainly 5 years, one thing we know, the days of easy credit are going to be over because there is just too much de-leveraging taking place, too much debt both at the government level, corporate level and consumer level. And what that means is that just from a purely economic perspective, finding the new driver of our economy is going to be critical. There is no better potential driver that pervades all aspects of our economy than a new energy economy.
I was just reading an article in the New York Times by Michael Pollen about food and the fact that our entire agricultural system is built on cheap oil. As a consequence, our agriculture sector actually is contributing more greenhouse gases than our transportation sector. And in the mean time, it’s creating monocultures that are vulnerable to national security threats, are now vulnerable to sky-high food prices or crashes in food prices, huge swings in commodity prices, and are partly responsible for the explosion in our healthcare costs because they’re contributing to type 2 diabetes, stroke and heart disease, obesity, all the things that are driving our huge explosion in healthcare costs. That’s just one sector of the economy. You think about the same thing is true on transportation. The same thing is true on how we construct our buildings. The same is true across the board.
For us to say we are just going to completely revamp how we use energy in a way that deals with climate change, deals with national security and drives our economy, that’s going to be my number one priority when I get into office, assuming, obviously, that we have done enough to just stabilize the immediate economic situation. In conversations with folks like Warren Buffet, Larry Summers, and the other people that I’ve been spending time with on this, I described it as we’ve got a boat with a lot of leaks and we need to get it into port. That’s what the financial rescue package is about. But once we get it into port, once the credit markets are functioning effectively, then it’s time for us to go back to the fundamentals of this economy. Now, the one other point I want to make about this, though, we can’t divorce the energy issue from what I believe has to be the dominant political theme underlying everything — the economy, healthcare, you name it. And that is restoring a sense that we’re growing the economy from the bottom up and not the top down. That’s the overarching philosophical change that we’ve got to have. It’s the attitude that Henry Ford had when he paid his workers a decent wage. That means they’re going to be able to buy their cars. The irony of McCain trying to make this whole Joe the Plumber thing as his sort of mantra over the last few days, if you look at the transcript of my conversation with him, the point I was making was two-fold. Number one, I want to give you a tax cut sooner so you can save sooner to start your business sooner because the average plumber starting off sure isn’t making $250,000 a year.

[Q] Neither is Joe.

[BO] Of course. And the second thing is plumbers, like everybody else, you need customers. And if everybody’s broke, you’re not going to be able to build your business. That’s why I tell that little pie story in speeches. It’s a simple principle that we’ve lost, which is when everybody’s sharing in our prosperity, everybody wins. The entire economy grows. Fighting for the middle class, whether it’s on tax cuts, on healthcare, on college affordability, those are things not designed to simply penalize rich people, those are designed to create this broad middle class that creates our rich people. That’s what I’m going to be fighting for. Last question, gentlemen.

[Q] Last question is, the logic seems to me, on the environmental side, that you’re going to have to slow walk cap-and-trade, you’re going to have to slow walk because that would naturally raise prices. Electricity prices, as you said in the past — the series of priorities –

[BO] The only way to do it effectively is if you are building effective consumer rebates into the plan. The bulk, the lion’s share of any revenue generated from cap-and-trade has to go right back to the consumer.

[Q] So the payroll tax swap?

[BO] The payroll tax swap is one way of doing it. Just sending a pure energy rebate to folks is another way of doing it. We’ve got to figure out a simple way to do it but the point is, is that we’ve got to cushion consumers from those price hikes and then allow technology to catch up in such a way that whatever retrofitting has to be done pays for itself. I mean, essentially what we should be doing is setting the rules, setting the incentives, pricing pollution accurately, and then letting technology catch up the same way it did with acid rain. And the one thing that we probably will have to do, and this is where the federal government expenditure side comes in, we’ve got to pump a lot of separate players to make the initial investment. We went to this company in Seattle, McKinstry, great little company. Not so little anymore. It started off as a mom-and-pop plumbing and HVAC operation. Somebody at some point in the family figured out you know what, we could really just specialize in making businesses more energy-efficient. They ended up working this niche. They now have several thousand employees. They’ve got welders on-site who are making $80-90,000 union wages with full benefits. They’ve got engineers, all computerized designing completely remaking school buildings, hospitals, etc. This has been voted like one of the best companies to work for in Seattle. They’ve got a full-court basketball and weight room where everybody goes out during lunch and plays. Great cafeteria. I mean, it’s an ideal model, but here’s the point. I asked them, I said what are your average customers saving. And their customers are saving 20-30% on their energy bills so they’re recouping their cost potentially in 5 years time but in the current economic environment, a lot of great potential customers of McKinstry aren’t going to do it unless they get some strong incentives from the federal government. That’s where the federal government comes in. We’ve got to do [inaudible] but we’ve also got to help folks who knows this is the right thing to do, do it. It’s the same thing with — there are tons of people right now who want to buy hybrids. There’s a huge market for it. But good luck getting a car loan to trade in your SUV for a hybrid. We’ve got to give some folks some incentive so they can start making the right decisions.

Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., center, addresses supporters at a rally at the American Legion Mall in Indianapolis, Ind., Thursday, Oct. 23, 2008

Indiana, which has 11 electoral votes, hasn’t backed a Democrat for president since 1964. But polls show a tight race between McCain and Obama.

Looking out at a sea of 35,000 people who crammed a downtown park on a chilly day, the Democratic presidential candidate noted blue-collar and manufacturing workers in the audience who waited hours to see him. They face disappearing jobs in this traditionally Republican state which has both a Rust Belt economy and rural areas.

“That’s whose president I want to be,” he yelled, getting rousing cheers in response.

With stock markets diving, unemployment rising and Indiana alone losing 4,500 jobs in September, Obama argued that the country cannot afford a President McCain who “thinks the economic policies of George W. Bush are just right for America.”

“He made kind of a strange argument that the best way to stop companies from shipping jobs overseas is to give more tax cuts to companies that are shipping jobs overseas,” Obama said of his opponent. “More tax cuts for job outsourcers. That’s what Sen. McCain proposed as his answer to outsourcing.”

Over recent days, McCain has kept up a drumbeat of criticisms of Obama’s tax plans. He’s said the Democrat would hand out “welfare” because even people who pay no taxes would receive a $500 tax credit. He also has said Obama’s entire plan amounts to socialistic tax redistribution policies.
In response, Obama has been devoting more and more of his campaign stump speech to point-by-point rebuttals of McCain’s criticisms. He notes his tax proposals would reverse cuts passed during the Bush administration for the wealthiest taxpayers and use the revenue to cut taxes for workers earning less than $250,000 a year. Obama says that means a tax cut for 95 percent of taxpayers. McCain wants to extend all the Bush-era tax cuts, including those for wealthier Americans, and says allowing any to expire would amount to a tax increase.

On Thursday, keeping up a schedule that has had him exclusively in states that voted Republican in 2004, Obama continued defending his plans — but also unleashed a sharp counterattack against McCain over corporate taxes.

McCain proposes cutting the corporate tax rate to 25 percent from 35 percent, while Obama would raise corporate taxes to help pay for tax cuts for everyone earning under $250,000 a year.

Obama referred to comments by McCain in a CNN interview on Wednesday that `it’s simple fundamental economics” that American companies would shift operations to other countries with lower tax rates.

“Well, Indiana, my opponent may call that `fundamental economics,’” Obama said, “but we know that’s just another name for Wall Street first, Main Street last. That’s the kind of economic philosophy we’ve had for the past eight years and that’s just fundamentally wrong.”

He went on to say that McCain is wrong on free-trade policies that would “protect the profits of multinational corporations” and on a tax code influenced by corporate lobbyists. “That’s the system he wants to preserve,” Obama said. “He wants to keep on putting corporations ahead of workers.”

         It seems voter registration fraud is on the news again lately. ACORN? Not this time. The culprit is on the other team, the head of a group hired by the California Republican Party (CRP). The guy was arrested and sure enough, the knee-jerk reaction of the CRP is that this is ‘politically motivated’. Take note that the CRP did not contest the charges. Charges against ACORN is now part of the McCain/Palin campaign. ACORN, for their part, is saying they themselves reported this anomaly to the authorities.  They say by law they have to turn over all forms but have marked the suspicious ones. Charges and counter charges of fraud are not new. Remember not too long ago, the Democrats were complaining about being cheated in Florida during the Bush vs. Gore elections and in Ohio during the Bush vs. Kerry face-off.

UPDATE:

in at least three West Virginia counties, voters have complained that when they tried to vote for Barack Obama, the touchscreen voting machine cast their vote for John McCain. One voter reported that all of their Democratic votes, for every level of government, were magically transformed into Republican ones.

http://www.gizmodo.com/5066652/voting-machine-no-you-really-meant-to-vote-for-mccain/

So, folks, who, REALLY is cheating here?

FOXNews.com

Monday, October 20, 2008

The head of a voter registration group hired by the California Republican Party was arrested over the weekend for allegedly lying about his address in the state in order to vote illegally, the office of California’s secretary of state announced Sunday.

Mark Anthony Jacoby, the owner of a signature-gathering firm called Young Political Majors, was taken into custody by Ontario police just after midnight Saturday and booked with a felony punishable by up to three years in prison.

Jacoby allegedly registered himself at his childhood home in Los Angeles, even though he no longer lives there. It is voter fraud to register if ineligible and perjury to provide false information on a voter registration card. Jacoby was charged with two counts of each relating to his 2006 and 2007 registration.

“Voter registration fraud is a serious issue, which is why I vigorously investigate all allegations of elections fraud,” said Bowen, California’s chief elections officer. “Where there’s a case to be made, I will forward it to law enforcement for criminal prosecution.” 

An arraignment date has not been scheduled yet. Bail was set at $50,000.

According to The Los Angeles Times, Jacoby’s firm was paid $7 to $12 by the CRP for each GOP voter registration signature, but dozens of voters who signed on said they were duped into registering as Republicans and thought they were signing a petition to toughen penalties against child molesters. 

The CRP called the arrest “politically motivated.”

“The fact that these charges are being leveled against an individual operating in a highly-contested area of California, and the significant gap between recent allegations and the charges we’ve seen today suggests that this is politically motivated,” reads a statement by the party. 

It also claims Bowen, a recipient of donations from the embattled ACORN voter registration group, is trying to “achieve maximum political benefit and deflect attention from the Democratic presidential nominee’s high-profiled problems and associations with the radical community activist group ACORN. 

“While we condemn voter fraud in all forms, it is evident that Debra Bowen is using her office to play politics with the public’s perception of political parties. This is inappropriate at least, and an abuse of her office and a willing suspension of her duties at worst,” the statement reads.