Here's a little morsel to either squelch or refuel the "Nader as Spoiler" debate: "The assertion that Nader's marginal vote hurt Gore is not borne out by polling data. When exit pollers asked voters how they would have voted in a two-way race, Bush actually won by a point. That was better than he did with Nader in the race. "

Translated from Wonkese: without Nader in the election, Gore would've lost the popular vote by 1 percent, instead of winning it by a half million.

The quote is from Al From, founder and CEO of the Democratic Leadership Council--hardly a left-wing, Nader-apologist institution- in a report from January 2001 on New Democrats Online.

(http://www.ndol.org/ndol_ci.cfm?contentid=2919&kaid=86&subid=84) Unfortunately, he also argues that Gore lost was because he appeared to be too "liberal" and "radical".

His statement brings about the question: if a free market economic system based on competition increase economic growth, could it be also that a multi-party political system, with real competition, would increase voter turnout?

Let's start making those "A vote for Nader is a vote for Kerry" bumperstickers!--Chris LaRoche

Twice a year, like clockwork, I get really, really pissed off and fume for about a week: why aren't we up in arms against an uncovered global conspiracy known as Daylight Savings Time? Why do we do this? Two excuses I've always been served seem at least archaic, vague, and weak: "for the farmers" and "for school kids." That doesn't seem to make sense, especially since the radical enclaves of Arizona, Alaska and Indiana have forgone the switch all together.

To me the change over (and I never know when we're "saving" daylight, in the winter or in the summer?) is nothing but a grand conspiracy, but I can't think of any corporation or entity that actually benefits from this ritual (except in the fall, when I like that extra hour of sleep). To further this pointless arrogance, the US imposed this practice on Mexico in the mid-90s, where the differences in daylight between the winter and summer are significantly less. Can somebody help me with this? Can we start a movement, "Americans Against Daylight Savings," and take up arms? Maybe that will trigger the revolution this country's been needing --CR

Chris, sign me up for your revolution. I despise daylight savings time as well. It is a plot. Daylight Savings Time is part of the multifaceted effort to cut us off from the natural rhythms of life. You say that you don't know which part of the year we're saving daylight in. That's the idea. You're supposed to get all of your temporal information from the time clock and the TV schedule.

Daylight savings time was imposed on Mexico by former President Ernesto Zedillo apparently as some kind of tribute offering in honor of NAFTA. Maybe he thought Mexicans were too connected to the natural rhythms of life to fully benefit from Free Trade. He and his cohorts certainly are in a hurry to get all the farmers off the land and into maquiladoras where they'll be safe from nature and nature's time. They will of course then get their time information from the time clock and the TV like the rest of us. DST used to be popularly referred to as "Zedillo time," but is now called "Fox Time."

There is resistance to "Fox Time," many rural communities, especially the anti-neoliberal globalization ones, refuse to recognize it. And the radical (anti-privatization) wing of the Mexican teachers' union, which is the teachers' union in a few states, campaigns against Fox time and refuses to recognize it either, saying it is bad for the children. In some circles, when making an appointment it pays to ask, "Fox time or regular time?" Of course other people think all the fuss is silly and are impatient to get on with the grand opening of the new Wal Mart. It's all connected.

The first stop for any anti-DST uprising would probably be the folks at NIST, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, with their atomic clocks and schemes to regulate every facet of what would otherwise be our natural lives. --Troy Skeels

John Kerry, Mr. Anybody but Bush himself is hoping to show the right wing Cubans in Florida how much like Bush he can actually.

Doing an about face from 2000, when he said that the decades old sanctions against Cuba were "long overdue" for review, Kerry now says he endorses a get tough on Castro policy, including continuing the sanctions. He has also recently claimed to have voted for the Helms-Burton act which applies tough sanctions to people and companies having dealings with Cuba. Turns out Kerry voted against the act because of its punishing sanctions against corporations doing business in Cuba.

Kerry's right turn on Cuba is only going to encourage, or provoke the Bush administration to increase their hostility to the Cuban people in the name of being tougher on Castro than Kerry. Castro, who has outlasted nine hostile US presidents will of course will someday no longer be the leader of Cuba. The criminal (as voted by the UN) US embargo will have had nothing whatsoever to do with that. Remind me again, anybody but who?--TS

Not satisfied with misrepresenting both his record and reality on Cuba, Kerry's official statement on Venezuela, posted on his website, matches the Bush administration lie for lie, and then some. Apparently, faulty intelligence, when it comes to the unwelcome leader of an oil rich nation, is a bipartisan issue.

Kerry accuses Chavez of having "undermined democratic institutions by using extra-legal means, including politically motivated incarcerations, to consolidate power." and says that " President Chavez's policies have been detrimental to our interests and those of his neighbors. He has compromised efforts to eradicate drug cultivation by allowing Venezuela to become a haven for narco-terrorists, and sowed instability in the region by supporting anti-government insurgents in Colombia."

It's all very inflammatory and it is all lies. In the context of the Bush administration's ongoing "covert" and illegal destabilization effort against the twice democratically elected Chavez, Kerry's call for Chavez to "demonstrate his true commitment to Latin American democracy" is a sick joke.

Kerry did at least tack on a mild chastisement of the Bush administration for sending "signals of support" to anti-democratic forces in Latin America. Since Kerry's statement contains the same signals to those same anti-democratic forces, there is little difference but the name, and the fact that, at the moment, the Bush people are in a position to back up their anti-democratic rhetoric with anti-democratic covert action. What is Kerry going to do if he gets a turn? And doesn't Kerry's position, as in the case of Cuba, encourage or incite the Bush regime to step up their destabilization efforts?

Al Giordano of the recently resurrected http://www.narconews.com presents a plausible sounding account of Kerry's recent Venezuela statement as a manifestation of a civil war underway in the Kerry camp. He credits the "Kennedy team", Kerry's family and people "with a conscience" in the Kerry organization for winning round one, Kerry's condemnation of Bush's Haiti coup. But with those folks "too busy running an election to pay attention to Latin American policy," the Clintonistas on the Kerry team counterattacked and with this Bush quality Venezuela policy. Chavez, unfortunately, had said nice things about Kerry and expressed his hope for future cooperation between the US and Venezuelan governments. According to Giordano, Sandy Berger and Richard Holbrooke convinced Kerry he had to strongly distance himself from Chavez. With the addition of former Bush National Security Council member Rand Beers, added to the Kerry team to bolster its foreign policy malignancy ratio, they hired an anti-Castro Cuban to write the statement. If there is indeed a civil war going on in the Kerry camp over Latin American policy, and by extension, foreign policy in general, now is the time for all the ex-Naderite, former Green, and anybody but Bush leftists and to make their voices heard in the Kerry camp. Kerry is going to need help to be the not-Bush the whole world's hopes are apparently pinned on.--TS