What makes a good candiate? Groups like Emily's List and Working Families Party have a tendency to look to the candidates who have money, whose skills are in fundraising. Some people seem to think only lawyers can be effective politicians. And some simply think all candidates are pretty much the same and despair of finding excitement in supporting a candidate.

I don't buy any of those. I do get excited about candidates. They do not tend to be the ones who are supported by big money interests, and they are not always lawyers, but they are the candidates who are smart, articulate, and good on the issues. But there is one thing more that really makes a candidate kick ass. Dedication to the community. In some ways this may be the thing that can break through racial, cultural and political divides, because a candidate who proves him or herself to the community can get broad support: black and white, rich and poor, liberal and moderate. I want to discuss just such candidates.

While the media was focused on the story of Goldstein's, er... Zarqawi's latest death, there was another story that got very little play.  This was from the most important "central front" of this global war -- the home front.  I'm talking about a recent case where secret evidence was used to charge people with  crimes the jury didn't think they committed, yet they were still convicted and sentenced to terms the judge felt were unjustified.

As someone on Dkos so eloquently put it:

"Going after people based upon 'what they are thinking'
should set off alarm bells in any thinking person's head."

You read that right.  The department of pre-crime is handing out warrants to the thought police, and they're forcing courts to hand out life sentences.

The diary below was originally posted in my blog the Intrepid Liberal Journal on April 23rd.

Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (FMRI) otherwise known, as brain fingerprinting will revolutionize how governments worldwide administer security and criminal justice. The potential repercussions for privacy rights are devastating. In years to come governments as well as corporations will possess the tools to examine an individual's brain waves and attempt to determine if they're lying.

In effect, FMRIs are neural imaging of one's brain waves. The technology allows researchers to map the brain's neurons as they process thoughts, sensations, memories, and motor commands. Since debuting a decade ago, brain fingerprinting has facilitated transparency with the cognitive operations behind behavior such as feeling stimulated by music or recognizing a familiar face in a crowd.