The headline in today's edition of the Guardian reads:  "Bush orders clampdown on flights to US"

Well that's a bit dramatic perhaps, not to mention distressing. But what does it mean?
The Bush Administration has been pressing the EU for various visa tightenings and air traveler dossiers and some form of showdown seems to be on the horizon. The rumored details have been chatted up for months, but to review them now in full is to witness yet another slimy arm of paranoia squeezing at our heart.

There are four main elements:

The US administration is pressing the 27 governments of the European Union to sign up for a range of new security measures for transatlantic travel, including allowing armed guards on all flights from Europe to America by US airlines.

The armed guard requirement is perhaps at least arguable, although the EU is strongly resisting. Anyway 'armed' doesn't have to imply a gun and air marshals are nothing new so let's move on.

Before the YK07 / YKSL memoir meme burns out I thought I'd offer my observations, some commentary and suggestions for future telepresence at YK.

Since I was not an organizer of YKSL whatever facts and figures offered are just what I saw and learned from chats and IMs. As always, caveat emptor and YMMV.

YKSL was the Biggest political event in SL so far. Total paid attendance was said to be 129, although like the real world (RL) equivalent not all the attendees showed up at any single in-world session.

Memorable events, apart from the first-generation buzz of YKSL itself, included the avatar discussion during the Presidential Forum, the high level of excitement and quality of discourse among the participants and of course the parties. And as to that, let me just quickly say that Gen. JC Christian, Patriot kept us laughing with his roller skating avatar, "Mighty Falafel of Terrible Vengeance" and other antics.

So I just got back from voting here in Las Vegas. There are early voting sites setup at various points around the city. I cast my vote at a local shopping mall, a first for me. I was surprised to learn that quite a few (about 30) states offer early voting. Anyway, there were over a dozen staff members and business was brisk.
There were at least a couple of dozen touch screen voting machines in operation. I believe that all were Sequoia machines. Much has been written about touchscreen voting machines (!) But I must say that these were very easy to use.
Having spent way too much time (in my day job) working with focus groups of computer-skittish users to refine game interfaces I have to give credit to the designers for creating a very simple and intuitive interface. And there were plenty of staff hovering around just in case.

Here in Nevada, as you may have heard, we have a printed paper confirmation. This is visible behind a glass panel on the left of the display. Once you have entered and confirmed your vote via the touchscreen interface you can see the paper receipt printing. You also are provided with an early voting receipt. I remain concerned about vote fraud in the age of electronic vote gathering, but this system was more reassuring than I expected. Actually, I'd have to say that it was the best I've ever used.

The Democratic Party, ACT, MoveOn, DrivingVotes and others are in a full-court GOTV press here in Nevada, and these efforts appear to be paying off. Seeing over a hundred people milling around, voting at a shopping mall on a Sunday afternoon is a beautiful thing.

One outstanding question I have is whether the daily vote tallies from early voting are kept absolutely secret until poll closing on Nov 2.  Anyone?

Ah, there are rumors going 'round that the meatspace identity of The Blogger Known as Atrios will soon be revealed. Whether or not this is all just gibberish, I'm really surprised that he has not been "outed" before now.

From a practical standpoint it certainly must be difficult to maintain general anonymity while engaging in the sort of networking and collaboration that is commensurate with his position in the blogosphere. It seems that the mainstream media have seized upon blogging as their plaything of the moment. For better or worse, if Atrios is indeed "coming out" at the DNC, blogs and bloggers will certainly attract even more attention.

Whenever your blog is getting ~100K hits per day and you are raising big $$$ for candidates it seems that being anonymous will become more of a hindrance than benefit. I think Markos is a wonderful example of someone who is able to leverage the power of a blog community, and work to induce real change in the political system. Once Mr. Atrios climbs away from that big blue dot of anonymity, I think we will have another powerful advocate for progressive interests. We need all the help we can get.