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I've lived in Alabama all my life, and over the decades, I've covered countless local, state and federal elections. I've learned that yes, true to predictions, residents in my state do turn out in droves to vote in presidential elections. And yes, I can say with some confidence that voters here will most likely vote for Mitt Romney. This is a solidly red state, after all.

I can tell you that the lines in my hometown of Tuscaloosa, Alabama, were extremely long, even during the so-called mid-afternoon "down time." Pollsters told me that they've never seen this kind of turnout before, at least on a local level. We have a major Probate Judge's race going on here that's been rather nasty, so perhaps that also contributed to the turnout. Whatever the case, Alabamians are casting ballots in record numbers today.As a journalist, I am conditioned not to ever inject my own personal opinions into anything. This, of course, includes (especially) anything political-related. Even when I'm not officially covering elections, I find that I often hesitate whenever someone asks my opinion about something. It makes me uncomfortable, as if I'm doing something somehow forbidden -- even if it's just a casual conversation over coffee with a longtime friend.

That being said, I think I'm long overdue to give my opinion, so here goes: I am extremely hopeful that President Barack Obama will be re-elected. I'm nervous right now, because polls have indicated this will be a close one. Will it be Bush/Gore 2000? Please God, I hope not. I think I stayed at work for two straight days trying to cover that mess. I do think it might be a while before we know a final result from this election, though.

There, I did it! I gave my personal opinion and yes, it made me uncomfortable, but it also felt a bit...liberating. For others who regularly cover political matters, is it hard for you to keep your own feelings and opinions in check? Or do you try *so* hard to bury your own beliefs that you can't always remember what you actually think?

I got my "I Voted" sticker, and I'm proud of it, no matter what the outcome of this election.

2008: Capital Hill, Seattle, WA

I danced in the street arm in arm with an old black man after President Barack Obama won the election.

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2012: King County Elections Office, Seattle, WA

I was an official elections monitor last night in King County. I asked questions and I watched.

         When I was just a kid, someone said that I was a cynic. I got a dictionary and looked up the word. Turns out that it comes from an ancient Greek school of philosophy. These Cynics felt that human institutions were perfectible but they had not been perfected yet and they offered constructive criticism. Over the centuries, institutions who do not like to be criticized even when it is justified, distorted the meaning until the present day when the word has overtones of bitterness and harsh criticism.

         The reason that I bring up this personal story is that it reflects how I feel about the global nuclear industry. The institutions that design, build, own, manage and regulate the global network of commercial nuclear reactors may be perfectible but they certainly have not achieved perfection yet. As with all institutions, they are prone to become self-centered and self-serving. Corruption is an ever present danger in any industry that is regulated by government. Owners who feel that they are immune to the human and environmental damage that may be caused by their industries are tempted to cut corners, bribe officials, ignore regulation, etc. in the pursuit of profits. Here are a few examples from this year.

          In April, South Korean prosecutors charged four executives of the Korean Hydro and Nuclear Power with bribery. The charges were related to a lobbyist who collected six hundred thousand dollars from various suppliers to the Korean nuclear industry. The lobbyist guaranteed the suppliers that he could obtain contracts for them from friends in the industry. Although the whole idea of lobbying government officials is questionable, this clearly crossed the line from lobbying to bribery.

         Taiwan impeached four senior executives at the state-owned Taiwan Nuclear Power Company and the former Bureau of Energy director-general in June. The charges were related to procurement corruption that inflated the cost of orders by six billion dollars over what was actually required. Other officials are expected to face impeachment over similar charges.

         In June, Data Systems & Solutions, a company that provides reactor integrity solutions and reactor support services in the US and Europe, agreed to pay a eight million eight hundred thousand dollar fine for bribing officials at a Lithuanian nuclear power plant. The bribes were paid in order to obtain contracts for design, installation and support of instrumentation at the Lithuanian plant. The U.S. Department of Justice objected to a clear pattern of illegal activity that extended over years.

          Some of these cases are excused by the industry on the grounds that they are rare and did not endanger the public. Unfortunately, they are not all that rare and it is difficult if not impossible to know how much they may have endangered the operational integrity of commercial reactors. I remember hearing a lecture by Robert McChesney in which he said that it was common knowledge in the media industry that it was not safe to write about corporate corruption. The unspoken rule was that if you had to write about it then you always said that the problems were related to “a few bad apples” and were not fundamental to the system.

From Nuclear-News.net:

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In civic honor of our nation’s Election Day, Attorney Report re-posts this valuable information from FindLaw on employee-protected rights by state for voting time off. Use the information wisely, but above all, get out and vote!

Digital Estate Planning for All Your Digital Assets

An emerging practice area has estate and will planning attorneys incorporating their clients’ digital assets for transfer to beneficiaries upon their demise.

What kinds of digital assets? Actually, there’s a growing list. Many have some form of digital asset that can be considered of value either by monetary measures or by virtue of their perpetuity. Consider the following list for starters:

• Email account(s)
• Social network account(s)
• Website URLs/domains
• Digital libraries
• Internet profiles

For example, you may have an iTunes or Amazon account with a ‘digital library’ of content in it that you amassed over the years which includes paid-for assets like songs, movies, ebooks and other content.

But before you start thinking about passing these valuable libraries along to a beneficiary, know your licensing rights to that content first. Content sites like Amazon and Apple’s iTunes Store don’t actually transfer ownership of downloadable content to their paid subscribers in most cases.

Rather, they transfer a limited-use license to you in exchange for your payments. This is in contra-distinction to buying a DVD after which you own the material outright.

Content licensing is a multi-million dollar industry for sites like the Apple Store, and Amazon’s Prime. Users can spend a sizable sum to gain access to digital content over time, so wanting to pass that value along is not surprising.

Rumors of actor Bruce Willis taking objection to not being able to do so were rampant over the summer via weblines that read “Actor Bruce Willis May Sue Apple Over iTunes Library Rights.”

Creative legal minds in the field of estate planning have come up with a feasible solution: Create a Living Trust.

Not only might you be able to provide access to your digital assets like your music and movie collections, but you could also keep other assets in the family like your domain, Facebook account, e-mail and gravatar accounts.

If for no other reason, estate planning for the legal transfer and protection of your digital assets after you’re gone lessens the likelihood they’ll be hijacked, stolen or used for undesirable purposes.