Is this really going to help? We had a paper trail with the punch-card voting machines but the inaccuracy of the punched cards prevented a recount. Using a slightly more advanced optical scanning technology may help this process but there are going to be inaccuracies in the re-reading of votes using the optical machines.

If our government really wants to help the voting process, they should begin by establishing electronic standards for voting systems. All voting machines must be able to communicate using a documented API, this can be as simple as a web service call or some other method of RPC invokation. The voting data can be secured using encryption rather than the current levels of limited obfuscation provided by proprietary technology.

After the communication standards are established, it should then be mandatory that every electronic voting system be capable of communicating with a secondary system for the purpose of auditing the results. This mitigates the risk as it relates to tampering and provides a verifable voting record from a secondary system in case the primary system is defective or has otherwise malfunctioned. Since the entire process takes advantage of a documented communication mechanism, it would even be possible to have third level audit systems capable of triple checking voting results.

Certainly an audit trail is a good thing for our electronic voting systems but don’t make this a paper process. We already know the task of digitizing a paper trail is fraught with errors, let’s instead establish electronic voting standards and build redundant systems that can be used to verify the voting records electronically.

The fact is, as a patient you are the only one who knows what is a reasonable expense for any specific procedure. Unfortunately, the patient has no authority to either approve or negotiate the costs incurred rather this is mandated by the insurance company. After visiting a doctor, rather than review a bill the expense is immediately sent to the insurer with the expectation that they will be paid accordingly.

This is the crux of the problem with our health care system: consumers expect insurance companies to cover all expenses without ever knowing what these expenses are.

The solution is to involve the consumer in the cost analysis, and the first step towards this goal is mandating that medical providers must present a full and complete bill for patient approval before it can be submitted to the insurance company. In this system it would then be possible for a patient to immediately dispute one or more expenses, and at that point a billing representative must be designated by the physician to address any grievances on that bill.

A few years ago during a hospital stay my insurance company was billed $50 for a small container of Vasoline. This is an absurd cost, and as a consumer it would have been something that I could have easily disputed. Of course, my insurance company was completely unaware of this specific item and was more than happy to pay the hospital.

Furthermore, the patient requires a champion to defend against these costs. At the moment, the insurance companies are not doing this. If you feel an item has been overbilled or that a procedure was not actually performed, the insurance company will not delay payment and in fact will refuse to intervene with your approval on your behalf.

Recently, my insurance company was billed for a simple repeat procedure that had been unbundled by the doctor. The unbundled version was more than three times the cost of that same procedure at any previous visit. The insurance company did not express any interest in correcting this error, nor did they seem concerned that they were additionally billed for procedures that had been done on previous visits that should have already been billed.

This situation is unacceptable, the insurance company should be defending their customers because it is in their interest. It is easily possible to correct this problem by mandating that insurance companies defend their patients and in fact delay payment until all aspects of a bill can be resolved.

Using our government to write a blank check to medical insurance companies is not going to address the problem. As long as medical consumers are oblivious to the costs the insurance companies will continue to pay the amounts invoiced by the medical establishment. If we can fix this problem, we can get our medical expenses under control and save our country from bankcrupcy in the process.

The fundamental problem is a lack of competition. While there are some excellent public schools, these are only available if you live in the corresponding school district or if you have managed to obtain a coveted school voucher. Thus our public school system is a virtual monopoly, with the only real competition coming from private schools that very few people can afford.

Perhaps the system should provide more selection. What if students could pick the school they want and the $8,996 per-pupil was attached to the student? This is what they do in Belgium and they have some of the best educated kids in the world. Allowing students to select their school would eliminate the public school monopoly, any school that could not attract students would be forced to downsize or go out of business altogether.

There is another facet to this dilemma, the teachers union protects the salaries we pay our educators and prevents schools from eliminating inept employees. The problem with this is that teachers in public schools are working for the taxpayers, so the union is ensuring the public school monopoly can be maintained for as long as these kinds of schools are chartered in the US. There is no reason for a union to protect the jobs of civil servants, the taxpayers have already agreed these jobs are for the public good and will guarantee cost of living increases.

As a result of all of this, our children are at the losing end of an educational bureaucracy. We should continue to experiment with charter schools and in the near future take some of our large urban school districts uniformly to a voucher system where students can pick the schools they want. If we can foster a competitive atmosphere where only the good schools survive then our children will be better educated.

Unfortunately, by focusing on platform issues and defending his military actions, the President failed to demonstrate a clear vision of leadership. It seems evident he is overly concerned that his military engagement in Iraq is unsatisfactory and likely unwarranted, and consequently the crucial domestic issues (civil rights, economic recovery and health care) are ignored.

As a result of the PATRIOT Act, our telephones and electronic communications were made susceptible to roving wiretaps. While there are provisions of the act that help law enforcement, it is unacceptable that our civil liberties and right to privacy can be so violated. President Bush would strongly like to see the PATRIOT Act renewed before it expires in 2005, but Americans should ask themselves how safe they feel with a law that allows us to detain over 600 “unlawful combatants” at Guantanamo Bay without any legal recourse. While President Bush is taking action here, he is ignoring our civil liberties in the process.

It is encouraging that Bush wants to keep taxes low by returning a portion of our taxed money, it is incongruous that we can do this while a 4 percent increase in discretionary spending is allowed. Coming from a year with more than a 12% increase in overall discretionary spending, Bush better be very clear on how he plans to reign in this spending frenzy. Our financial solvency is important, but we can’t do this while we continue to fund pork and make significant increases for domestic programs. His budget will be an important milestone, but since he has been unable to restrain discretionary spending on any of his previous budgets it seems unlikely that it will have any standing significance.

Health care is being ignored almost entirely by the President, he spent his time congratulating Congress for passing legislation in this area and provided no leadership.

Finally, his concern about the sanctity of marriage is not something to consider as an amendment for the constitution. It is not an inalienable right that marriage must be a union between a man and a woman, while it is acceptable that laws can be passed in this regard it is totally unacceptable that this should be proposed for amendment.

The litany of finger pointing at various terror cells and terrorist organizations is almost as pervasive as the number of standing ovations in the President’s State of the Union. It seems like this is an almost insurmountable task, in fact it is so daunting that one might wonder where it begins and where it ends.

In the late 1600′s, medical science was unable to determine the cause for an apparent illness in Elizabeth Parris and Abigail Williams. Since humans are prone to arrive at definitive conclusion, it was determined that these women were under a satanic spell. As a result, Abigail ultimately confessed to practicing witchcraft and was summarily put to death.

It then became commonplace to accuse certain women of witchcraft. The selection pattern is lost in the pantheons of historical social bias, but clearly these women were picked because they were perceived as a threat by certain members of a male-dominated society.

Then we had the McCarthyism of the Cold War, when it was possible to accuse virtually anyone of being Communist. Once you were branded Communist, it was a bad thing and in most cases meant the end of your personal and professional life.

How do we know when picking terrorists has reached the scale of McCarthyism? How do we know we are not re-inventing the Witch Trials?

There are clearly unpleasant factions that exist in pockets all over the world and that are planning to wreck terror on our lives. The events of September 11, 2001 are clear evidence that this loosely-knit organization does in fact exist. However, we need to temper our disdain for terrorism and avoid branding every potential threat with the terrorist moniker. If we retool our military and strategic alliances for the sole purpose of hunting terrorists, then we also risk possibly branding any discord as a terrorist threat.

Other countries should be free to disagree. In fact, they should be free to fight antagonists in their own land. We can’t expect to understand the complex histories of every culture and civilization, as such they also would not expect us to come in and tell them how to resolve their differences. Obviously, if the organization represents a clear and imminent threat to the sovereignty of America then we should plan to prevent them from ever taking such action. Otherwise we should let these countries discover themselves.

We can certainly help with our expertise, provide funds for countries to restructure and present guidance with our incredible leadership capabilities. However, we should not pick fights with every country that we think might have bad guys in it. By the same token, other countries may not approve of the mass-murderers that are housed in American prisons. In fact, what about all the criminals that US police haven’t captured yet?

Other countries could certainly miscontrue the Humbert Humbert’s of the world that happen to reside in the United States to be an immanent threat to their safety. Let’s not give them another excuse to attack us. Does this mean they should declare war on America?

Afghanistan has been principal in these issues. The US media has reported that the Afghan government is responsible for harboring these fugitives of terrorism, and even our President has confirmed these suspicions. Who is the Afghan government? More importantly, what is the relationship with bordering nations like Pakistan and Iraq.

The apparent truth seems to be that the Afghan government is highly decentralized and extremely dependent on terrorist organizations. This is the failure experienced by the Soviet Union when it attempted to control Afghanistan by controlling the Afghan burocracy. A country that lacks centralized government cannot be centrally controlled, and this makes it very difficult to attack.

Even more disconcerting is the question of victory, something that is not always clear at the beginning of any war but that must be considered in order to recognize the onset of a favorable outcome. The defeat of Afghanistan does not immediately appear as a possible outcome because there is no central authority to conquer. Another potential outcome is the elimination of terrorist organizations globally; however, this is equally improbable simple because we can never know the existence of every terrorist cell in every nation.

Meanwhile, Pakistan has a central government that has been tainted by terrorist cells in the country. Even more troubling is the prospect of nuclear assaults that could be enacted if terrorists decided to overpower the Pakistani regime. Of course, Iraq vigorously supports any activities that might jeopardize the American stability and can therefore be considered another valuable ally of terrorists.

The victory against terrorism needs to be willfully executed by the terrorist themselves. Terrorists need to recognize the vicious nature of their acts against humanity, and discontinue the planning and execution of these kinds of exercises.

More importantly, understanding the essence of this evil is the only means to devise appropriate countermeasure. A treachorous approach is one that demands immediate forceful response, especially considering the perpetrators of these crimes are likely anticipating this kind of reaction. These terorists are educated in modern miltary techniques and are connected to our vast array of information technologies.

Every action that we take creates an opposite reaction. In fact, it is these actions that have at least partially places us in this predicament. The terrorist groups that attack us today are the same groups that we provided weapons and military training to.

Is it possible a violent assult of Afghanistan or Iraq can cause the desired immediate affect? More than likely, this kind of attack will provide a sense of relief that there is something Americans can do in the war against terrorism. The truth, however, is that these groups are willing to die in a conflict against the world power of the United States. Any military attack that we make today will result in a faceless attack against American citizens tomorrow.

The Osama bin Laden terrorist group does not believe that any Americans are innocent. We are all equally guilty of any attack executed either by our government or our military. Therefore, by invoking our military we will all be attacking Laden and every American in every place of every country will then be guilty of this assult.

The terrorism continues as a consequence of any response. This is not the kind of world civilized people live in.