On October 22, 2008, I recorded a talk I had with Salam Talib, who is a computer engineer and journalist from Iraq and who is now studying in San Francisco. He has worked with US independent journalist, Dahr Jamail, and other independent journalists as an interpreter and fellow reporter on the conditions in Iraq that ordinary people have faced during the US military occupation. Dahr Jamail is the author of "Beyond the Green Zone: Dispatches from an Unembedded Journalist in Occupied Iraq."

When I met a person by the name of Zaineb Alani, I learned that I have been mispronouncing 'Salam Talib'as I made the following audio recordings for the radio program. Saying his name with a long 'a' after the 'l' and a long 'i' after the second 'l' is incorrect, according to Ms. Alani.

The audio for the WCRS 102.1 and 98.3 LP FM program that aired in late October or early November of 2008 is divided into four parts. You can find the audio portals below, after the paragraphs of text.

Here are some questions and some notes I developed as I put together the radio program. Please go to tomover.com and offer your ideas and whatever else you want to express.

While talking heads sway back and forth between bashing progressives for their lack of "realism" and bashing republicans for their lack of reality, the really neat thing that seems to be occurring is the realization of a desperately needed three-party system in America.

It seems like only a decade ago - wait a minute, it was a decade ago - that angling for a viable third party was akin to liberal treason. Voting Green, for example, was throwing your vote away or worse, just handing it over to the Republicans.

In the frightful tug-of-war between Nazi and Nazi-lite, it was all hands on hemp (so to speak) and "lesser of two evils" was the battle-cry pragmatic progressives were reduced to.

Well, screw that now.

The emerging political landscape is the most fertile one yet for a three-party democratic system, and what's most intriguing about it is that it gets to happen within the existing two-party architecture.

My rationale for this lies in math you don't even need a calculator to compute.

Among the names on the apparent short list for Barack Obama's all-important choice as Secretary of Energy is that of John Bryson, former head of Southern California Edison.

As the embodiment of greenwashed corporate piracy and radioactive public bailouts, Bryson's appointment would send a terrible message.

Bryson is now being hyped as "an advocate of hybrid cars." No doubt he is reinventing his image. On a personal basis, he may be the finest of individuals.

But John Bryson will forever epitomize the bailout of the nuke power industry and the horrific catastrophe of electric utility deregulation, including the contrived energy crisis that cost Californians tens of billions of dollars and allowed them to be robbed by the disgraced Enron.

Early in his career, Bryson helped found the Natural Resources Defense Council. Under Jerry Brown he headed the California Public Utilities Commission, where he played a role in the installation of some 17,000 windmills. He also sold his soul---and much of California's---to the nuke power industry.

I know, I know, Bush liberated the Iraqis. But when will we liberate them from Bush's liberation? Well, ideally, the American people will rise up tomorrow and force Congress to cease funding the occupation and to vote an immediate and complete withdrawal with a veto-overriding supermajority, not to mention impeaching Bush and Cheney. I raise that possibility not so much because I've been drinking as because long-term movements for systemic reform require awareness of what we're missing. If we ever replace a Congress dominated by money, media, and parties with one loyal to us the people, it will be because we tragically realize what so very easily could have been.