From Ohio and California to Scotland and France, the disputes surrounding electronic voting machines have gone truly global.

E-voting machines have already been extensively studied and condemned by a wide range of expert committees, commissions and colleges, including the General Accountability Office, the Carter-Baker Commission, Johns Hopkins University, Princeton University, Stanford University and others. Rigging of a recount in Cleveland has resulted in two felony convictions. The failures of e-voting machines have been the subject of numerous documentary films, including the aptly titled HBO special "Hacking Democracy."

Now the secretaries of state in Ohio and California are subjecting e-voting to still more official review. Ohio's Jennifer Brunner has announced she'll seek bids to conduct independent studies of both touch-screen machines, which record votes electronically, and optical scanners, which tabulate paper ballots electronically.

George Bush is trying to save Paul Wolfowitz' job as President of the World Bank even after the vulpine neo-con was caught slipping a load of World Bank loot to his love interest, Shaha Ali Riza.

Big deal. Yes, Wolfowitz shouldn't have been greasing his cookie sheet with government funds, but there are bigger reasons to toss The Wolf out the door.

Like, say, perjury and homicide? I haven't forgotten, Mr. Wolfowitz, that on March 27, 2003 you testified before the US Congress that the occupation of Iraq wouldn't cost the American taxpayer a penny.

You said, "There's a lot of money to pay for this that doesn't have to be U.S. taxpayer money." Oh, really?

When Wolfowitz laid down that line of jive, he and the Bushes knew that Americans just can't pass up a bargain, and here The Wolf was offering the sale of the century, a "free Iraq." Not "free" as in "self-governing" but "free" as in, we'll get their oil and their allegiance for nothing!

We can bomb Iraq and the Iraqis will pay for the bombs!

CORNUCOPIA, WI: Consumer fraud investigators in the state of Wisconsin released their findings this week after a three-month long investigation into allegations that Wal-Mart stores throughout the state of Wisconsin had misled consumers by misidentifying conventional food items as organic.

In a letter to Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., based in Bentonville, Arkansas, the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection stated they'd found numerous instances of conventional food products improperly labeled as organic by the retail chain. Specifically, Wisconsin authorities told Wal-Mart’s legal counsel that “use of the term ‘Wal- Mart Organics’ in combination with reference to a specific non-organic product may be considered to be a misrepresentation and therefore a violation” of Wisconsin state statutes.

The Cornucopia Institute, a governmental and corporate organic industry watchdog, had filed complaints with Wisconsin regulators and the USDA after finding numerous incidents of fraudulent organic labeling in Wal-Mart stores in five states from Texas to Minnesota.

A New York Times editorial on May 7th is titled "The Soft Bigotry of Iraq," and begins:

"Whether out of blind loyalty or blind denial, most Congressional Republicans are prepared to back up President Bush's veto of the Iraq spending bill."

Whether out of blind loyalty or blind denial or corrupt corporate interests, the New York Times pretends to be writing only about Republicans, while building into its editorial the assumption that the Democrats, too, must retreat in the face of a veto. The Democrats, as we all need to be constantly reminded, are in the majority, yet the Times' editorial arrives at this as its penultimate sentence:

"The final version of the spending bill should include explicit benchmarks and timetables for the Iraqis, even if Mr. Bush won't let Congress back them up with a clear timetable for America's withdrawal."

"Mr. Bush" won't LET Congress pass a bill demanded by the vast majority of Americans? Why, because he might veto it again? If he vetoes enough of these war spending bills, Americans will get what they wanted anyway: he'll have to end the war.

Pelosi Has Started Phone Tally for Impeachment- CALL NOW!!! House Speaker Pelosi's office is taking calls voting for Impeachment of Bush/Cheney at 202-225-0100. Folks, each of you who have been wanting impeachment, need to commit right now to ask at least 10 others to call and ask each person to commit to asking 10 others to call and so on. It needs to happen fast and NOW. Let's BLITZKREIG the Speaker's office with demands for impeachment of Bush AND Cheney. Please make a call, and thanks so very much.