Mail In Ballots, Iraq Asking Brits to Leave

This weekend we are going to sit down and fill out our mail-in ballots. According to today's New York Times, about half of Colorado's voters have requested them: "Campaign workers and elections experts say that having so many people voting from home alters the chemistry of the election. So far, 1.4 million of Colorado’s 3.2 million registered voters have requested mail-in ballots; voters can request them until Oct. 28. (In 2004, about 668,000 voters requested the ballots)."

Our local County Clerk has been in the spotlight recently, he is one of the radical right wingers in an office that is supposed to be neutral politically, so we're not sure if using the voting machine is advisable. We want our vote to be counted and this will be part of a paper trail, hopefully more valid than committing ourselves through the ether. Besides, I just voted not to automatically retain 18 judges, and I'm hoping many more folks will do the same...

Iraq's Prime Minister For Life has asked Britain to remove the whopping 4200 troops they have deployed there. He would also like the US to withdraw, but there are current negotiations to have our troops stay after the Dec. 31 deadline, which signals the end of the previous contract. 

After all this time we have been in Iraq, it is still in a shaky shape. There is a recent scandal where local officials bought outdated chlorine from Iran and put it into the water supply south of Bagdad. A major outbreak of cholera happened during the last two weeks. The Egyptian Times reports: "the scandal is a reflection of the the way Iraqi politics works. The ruling parties monopolise jobs and contracts. It is impossible to find work at any level in most ministries without a letter of commendation from one of the parties in the government. The enormous Iraqi government apparatus, employing some two million people, is a patronage machine. There are now more state officials than under Saddam, but it is unable to supply electricity, food rations and clean water, despite Iraq's $80bn in accumulated oil revenues."

So, it looks like it has become a democracy in name only, and has reverted back to the feudalistic patronage system so popular in tribal societies. Add in the Kurds doing a little reverse ethnic cleansing in retaliation, and the government arresting the tribal sheiks who are members of the Anbar awakening as a thank you for turning against Al Qaeda, and you have one fine soup brewing up. There is no way to win this "war," it will never resemble the US type of government, and we will never be heroes outside of comic books.