L. KING: You seem to look back, and look at both of these parties with askance look. VENTURA: To me, Larry -- and I have said it before, and I know I'll get a laugh out of this. But I wish they would pass a law where all Democrats and Republicans had to wear Nascar racing suits, because if you look at the Nascar drivers, it tells who their sponsors are. And if they do that, we could then become informed voters, because we would know who owns them.

"When the final presidential debate is held on Long Island on Wednesday night, little attention will be paid to who exactly is sponsoring the event: the beer giant Anheuser-Busch; the International Bottled Water Association, a trade group; and EDS, a subsidiary of the technology company Hewlett-Packard. ... The Commission on Presidential Debates, the nonprofit group that operates the debates, says it is grateful for this corporate help, which allows it to defray some of the costs of producing the four events. Campaign finance watchdog groups, however, have raised questions about whether this mingling of corporate money with the presidential debates is yet another avenue to gain political access."

Amid a widening crackdown in the remote Himalayan province, human-rights organizations have renewed demands that Coca-Cola, Visa, General Electric and other international companies explain their dealings with the Communist government as it prepares to host the Summer Games.