Transactions (such as withdrawing money from an ATM) are based on four fundamental priciples that are known as the ACID properties:

- Atomicity: either all of the tasks of the transaction are performed, or none of them. For example, when you're withdrawing money from an ATM, your bank needs to validate the request, verify that there's sufficient money in your account, debit your account, and dispense the money from the machine. If it can't do any one of these things, it must cancel the transaction.

- Consistency: only valid data is written to the database. If the information sent for your ATM withdrawal is somehow invalid, the transaction won't be performed and the record of your balance in the bank's database will be returned to its original value.

- Isolation: all transactions are independent of each other. This means tht your ATM transaction isn't affected by any other transactions that you or others might perform.

- Durability: once the transaction is finished, its results endure. The record of your ATM transaction can't be wiped out if the bank's database server subsequently goes down.

While the requirements for recording a vote are different than those of a typical database transaction, the underlying ideas are similar. A good voting system should implement the ACID properties in a way that's appropriate for the task. All of the tasks required to vote must be completed for the vote to count, the vote must contain a valid ballot, it must be done in isolation from other votes, and it must leave an enduring record.

Where the current voting systems fall short is in isolation and durability. Shaky voting machine security raises the specter of deliberate tampering with ballot data, a violation of the isolation property. Lack of a voter-verified paper trail and the less-than-industrial strength methods for recording votes violates the durability property.

Commercial software has successfully performed transactions for decades so it's not as if voting software has to blaze a new trail to implement these principles. It boggles the mind that none of the electronic voting machine manufacturers have implemented voting systems with the level of reliability and safety enjoyed by other, arguably less important transactions.

My school was not big -- we were in Division III, President's conference (probably the most laid back conference in collegiate sports) -- and at that time, we didn't have enough female swimmers for a full team. So we trained with the men's team. During meets, we'd swim against either women's teams or men's teams, depending on what the coaches had agreed upon ahead of time. At the conference championship meet, we competed aginst other women. Overall, it went pretty well. I have no idea why other schools can't work out this kind of sensible arrangement, especially in individual sports like swimming, gymnastics, tennis, etc.

As for the athletic abilities of men vs. women, I now compete in long distance open water swimming races. Women do very well against men in these events, especially in the older age groups. Endurance and technique are crucial in long distance swimming, which levels the playing field quite a bit. Because women have more body fat than men, we tend to be naturally buoyant and tolerate cold water well, which helps to counteract men's advantage of superior upper-body strength.

If you're not a liberal when you're 25, you have no heart. If you're not a conservative by the time you're 35, you have no brain.

According to the Churchill center (http://www.winstonchurchill.org), there's no record that Winston Churchill actually said this.

Rocky's big comeback in the movie would represent the triumph of the spirit over the unwilling flesh and his spritual redemption through sport -- key concepts of muscular Christianity. All that's needed to complete the picture is Rocky coming back to the Church and reuniting with his family.

To me, though, it sounds like yet another limp attempt to cash in on a movie franchise. And watching an over-the-hill Rocky being violently pummeled by a younger guy strikes me as an odd way to honor the man who urged his followers to turn the other cheek.

Rescinding Secret Service protection after 10 years was probably a symbolic jab at the Clintons and Carters. Since Bush has always acted in his own self-interest, I suspect that he will reinstate lifetime Secret Service protection for ex-Presidents and their families before he leaves office.

Unless he's not planning to leave office, that is.

I don't understand why CR dieters view amenorrhea as a good thing. When you lose too much body fat, your estrogen levels drop, your reproductive system shuts down, and you lose bone density. Perhaps they view premature osteoporosis as an acceptable trade-off for those extra few years of life. But after witnessing the declines and deaths of several beloved elderly aunts, a frail, bedridden old age doesn't seem particularly desirable to me.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I inherited my grandmother's genes. She lived to 92 and was active and mentally sound until the day she died. One of her favorite foods was spreadable braunschweiger, the main ingredient of which is whipped lard.

But since his election is a done deal, the party issue seems moot.

I like Pynchon's novels and find them intriguing and thought-provoking. But most of them would be twice as good if they were half as long. There's a fine line between sprawling and self-indulgent, and Pynchon frequently crosses it.