Regardless of what happens going forward, Barack Obama has made history. Obama became the first black person to win the Iowa Caucuses. It was a clear victory with Obama taking 38% of the vote, John Edwards taking 30% and Hillary Clinton with 29%.

The night also apparently saw the end of the presidential bids for Joe Biden and Chris Dodd, who won 1% and 0% of the vote, respectively.

But tonight was clearly the night of Obama, who Clinton has criticized as too inexperienced and whose candidacy Bill Clinton claimed was a “roll of the dice.” Tonight, it looked like Iowa caucus-goers were willing to roll the dice tonight.

Congrats to Obama, tonight. But, remember, there are 10 more months to go.

Popularity: 16% [?]

At age 47, Charles Chatman has spent more than half of his life behind bars. At age 21, Chatman was convicted of the rape of a 20-year-old woman who picked him out of a lineup.

She might have recognized him because he lived down the street from her in their Dallas neighborhood. Mix that in with an overzealous prosecution and you get a sentence of 99 years.

However, there was a big problem: Chatman didn’t do it and spent the next 26 years behind bars, knowing this fact.

As you can surmise, this is yet another case of a wrongfully-convicted black man exonerated by DNA evidence.

Dallas County has developed quite an infamous reputation as the town with the highest number of inmates exonerated by DNA testing nationwide. Since 2001, there have been 15. Furthermore, the state of Texas leads all states in exonerated prisoner. There have been 30 freed since 2001.

And that number is only expected to increase:

One of the biggest reasons for the large number of exonerations in Texas is the crime lab used by Dallas County, which accounts for about half the state’s DNA cases. Unlike many jurisdictions, the lab used by police and prosecutors retains biological evidence, meaning DNA testing is a viable option for decades-old crimes.

District Attorney Craig Watkins also attributes the exonerations to a past culture of overly aggressive prosecutors seeking convictions at any cost. Watkins has started a program in which law students, supervised by the Innocence Project of Texas, are reviewing about 450 cases in which convicts have requested DNA testing.

Thankfully, these men can leave prison but, what happens when you’ve taken away what could be the most productive parts of a person’s life? I only hope that Chatman, as well as others, receives adequate compensation. It can’t buy back the lost years but it can, at least, provide him with something to help cover what he has lost over the years.

However, there is a bigger question - when is America going to deal with the realities of racism that clearly enabled convictions like these to happen in the first place?

Popularity: 22% [?]

Oh, well. It was fun while it lasted.

As you might be aware, I had been contemplating a change since Radio One fired Matsimela Mapfumo from its “The Power” channel on XM radio and replaced his show with a sports show. When I heard that he got a show with Sirius, I gave it even more thought but, there were still a few shows on the Power that were keeping me there.

Well, it looks like I am being nudged, again. I read, today, that XM Radio is ending its relationship with Radio One and will be bringing programming for the Power in-house. From what I can surmise, XM will continue carrying the shows of Joe Madison, Warren Ballentine and Al Sharpton but, effective Jan 8, all other on-air talent will be dumped.

According to Radio One, the advertising dollars just weren’t coming in. Truthfully, the quality of the programming on the Power had gone down significantly in my eyes and I really only listened to three shows: the Joe Madison Show in the morning; Digital Spin, at night; and On With Leon on the weekends.

The only reason I chose XM over Sirius was the availability of a black talk channel. However, when Radio One began “dumbing down” their programming (this was how I saw it), I had to question whether or not I would stick with XM. So, we’ll see what the next few weeks bring. If it’s not good, I’m off to Sirius.

Popularity: 29% [?]

The big question, of late, has been whether or not Americans will go to the polls and vote for a black man. I have heard people everywhere claiming that they would and, for a second, I’ll dismiss my cynicism and take them at their word. However, there is another notion that I am glad to see someone addressing. I believe many would think that America’s problem with racism would go away if Barack Obama were to be elected president. I don’t believe that for a second and neither does Earl Ofari Hutchinson.

He breaks it down lovely when he writes the following:

An Obama presidency would be a racial step forward in the sense that it shows that enough whites can and will look past race to make a black, especially an exceptional black, their leader. It would not show that they are willing to do the same for the millions of blacks that cram America’s jails and prisons, suffer housing and job discrimination, are trapped in failing public schools in America’s poor, crime ridden inner cities.

Their plight and how they are viewed and treated will remain the same after Obama takes office as it did before. A President Obama won’t change that.

Yes, I also agree…it is a step forward but, the solution to this issue is much deeper than just giving one guy a job. It’s about consitently creating the opportunity for any similarly-situated person of any color, gender, orientation, religious belief, etc. to take advantage of this same opportunity and not have any of the above be what determines whether or not they can get the job.

Popularity: 17% [?]

If that was a product slogan, would you buy the product? Most likely, not. But, this is what’s happening with electronic voter registration databases across the country.

Allow me to explain. There’s an old adage and, it’s particularly appropriate in the computer world. It goes, “garbage in, garbage out”. In other words, if you feed bad data to a computer, you can’t expect good data to come out. So, to get you what you want, you have to consider other possibilities.

In this case, it’s clear that no one thought that the names or numbers on a person’s voter registration form might not match exactly with their records with Social Security or their state’s department of motor vehicles. As a result, thousands of legal voters are being purged from voter rolls.

Now, I know what some will say. You should always use the same name and contact information on every official document you fill out. Well, yes, but what happens if you hand that document over to someone else and they enter it in with typos and “Michele” gets entered as “Michelle” or “Joseph” gets entered as “Joesph”? Or what if you move to another part of your city and the address on your driver’s license no longer matches your home address?

If you go by these systems, you get purged.

Before anyone says that these aren’t big issues, check out the following:

The databases are only as good as the information fed into them by applicants and election officials. That can lead to human errors as well as variations from state to state. Colorado, for instance, knocked nearly 20% of its voters off the rolls between the 2004 and 2006 elections. Arkansas purged 3%, according to Election Assistance Commission data.

So, it at least one instance, this affected 1 in 5 voters.

With this being a presidential election year, a few thousand votes can matter. To have voters purged, in such great numbers is a recipe for electoral disaster.

Popularity: 25% [?]