Tuesday, October 31, 2006

Reading The Vote

The ideal and perfect vision of exactly how ballots should be counted came to the world's eyes when television networks in the 2004 election showed, over and over again, the Democratic and Republican volunteers in Florida holding ballots up to the light to check the holes. When the sides agreed on a ballot, that vote was counted. Many ballots were put in the "unsure" box for later review.

Elections are contests between adversaries. Each adversary should be able to verify her vote count from the ballots. For party members, a party representative at each polling place can confirm the count. Independents and write-ins cannot afford representatives at every polling place, nor can they have a presence at every counting.

As my vote is scanned now, the scanner just reads the black spots where I mark the ballot with a grease pencil. Storing this data is cheap. This stream of data - all the votes cast - could easily be sent to any candidate for her own precinct by precinct review. This would let anyone who has doubts about the vote count confirm for themselves, quite inexpensively, how the ballots were evaluated.

All that is missing is a printout telling me, the voter, how my ballot was seen by the system.

In California, a law was passed requiring all voting machines to generate just such a voter-verified paper trail. In early voting in San Diego on touch-screen machines, however, voters are complaining that the paper scoots by so fast that they can't really read it and verify the accuracy. Hmm.

In Florida and Missouri, early voters have discovered that the touch-screen voting machines in use there suffer from what the company calls "slippage". The invisible map of the touch-sensitive spots on the screen slowly slips out from under the image of the buttons. Press the button image for one candidate and you press the zone map hot spot for another.

On his evening news show last night, Lou Dobbs showed video of a candidate visiting a site where these machines are stored to check them out. She pushed her own button on one of the machines and the camera panned to the response from the machine showing that her competitor's name had been selected.

A touch on a Democrat's button image can get counted as a vote for the Republican.

Most will notice. For the small percent who fail to notice this, the totals will be changed.

The Democrats are now onto the scam. Either the machines will get pulled because the creep is a serious bug - a system variable is being overwritten by the program - or they will remain in use and will be checked for creep by aware voters.

The poll workers have been shown how to reset the system variable, although it is unknown whether this resets the counters as well. In a Palm Pilot, it would zero them.

The poll workers say that they often have to reset the machines, and some get so bad they have to be taken out of service. They reset the machines only when people complain. Democrats will complain.

Given that there is a bug that overwrites system memory, it's anyone's guess as to what else that bug may do, given enough time. Bring down a machine, perhaps.

Apparently ISO 9000 compliance was not a part of the specification for these machines. Maybe someday it will be. Flaws discovered become flaws corrected.

Monday, October 30, 2006

Fast And Furiously Incumbents Dissemble

And that 'ole October wind just keeps blowing it back in their faces.

Here's a brief review of the headlines a week before election day:

Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo reports that Republican robo-call machines in Maryland are phoning voters and asking them if they believe medical experiments should be performed on unborn babies.

Also from Josh: The Republican National Committee, which accused Tennessee Demo Candidate of accepting contributions from "porn movie producers", has itself accepted money from one of the largest distributors of gay porn in the country, not to mention contributions from a famous female porn star Mary Carey, who bought her way into a presidential dinner.

Kettle pot, kettle pot...

Diving deeper into the tawdry paint-pot of sexual politics, Lynne Cheney, wife of the Vice President, tried to smear Jim Webb with the sexual references in his book about the military in Vietnam (which is on the USMC Approved Reading List) only to have it remembered that she herself wrote a quite detailed "romance" novel.

In realler news, the Mexican government is trying to crush an uprising which for several months has controlled Oaxaca. They just re-took the center of the city.

Over a hundred thousand sidearms and other guns given to the Iraqi military are missing.

The Iraqi insurgents (we no longer call them terrorists) blew up a major arms dump just south of Bagdhad. We may have under-reported the dead.

There were 277 embedded journalists at the start of the war. There are 9 now.

Bush has given the Iraqi government a set of goals to be accomplished. The goals have no deadlines. If the Iraqis fail to meet them, there will be no negative results. Mr. Malachi, the president of Iraq, still felt a need to tell his citizens that he is not a puppet.

The House Ethics Committee investigation into whether Dennis Hastert's office covered up congressman Foley's sexually explicit messaging of the page boys has been completed; the results will be held until after the election, as Hastert is running for office. The coverup is covered up. Meanwhile, word is seeping into the press that the scandal extends beyond Foley.

A Nicaraguan company has bought Sequoia Voting Systems, and the question of whether company hacks can change the vote has gotten serious. There is general agreement developing that voting machines need to leave a paper trail, even among proponents of electronic voting. The only question is whether the paper record or the digital memory is the true vote. If it is the paper record, a pencil mark might be the cheaper way to go.

October is already the fourth deadliest month for US troops since the beginning of the Iraq war. The day draws closer when Bush will have killed more Americans in his war of adventure than were killed on 9/11. Who will be the enemy, then?

Meanwhile, Congress has given Mr. Bush the power to decide for himself - and to keep it a secret - just what torture techniques we can use without violating the Geneva Conventions. They also gave him the right to detain anyone anywhere, jail them indefinitely, and try them before a military court where they cannot see the evidence against them.

The Air Force has put a hold on building the windmills that will replace the oil wells because they fear that the windmills could block radar at low levels and shield low-flying airplanes. They have said they are studying it. The study has not yet begun, so we'll just have to use oil for now.

Meanwhile, as if the world isn't warming up fast enough, a string of coal-fired electric plants is being built in Texas that will add to the carbon dioxide that's causing our overheating.

Mr. Bush keeps adding signing statements when he signs the laws that Congress sends over, and in the last couple of years, his signing statements have contained his refusals to implement those laws in the manner Congress has specified. The Constitution does not give him this power. A discussion is growing over whether to impeach him now or later.

Republicans seem trapped in their own poop-tossing machine, unable to stop smearing people. Because few of the smears are true, this has given Democrats a chance to say, "See! See how bad the Republicans are!" and to point out how the Republicans' style resembles their substance.

Mr. Bush has decided that he never said "Stay the course". Change the book. He never said it. Except that thousands of people, particularly the news networks, have tapes of hi saying it. The White House press office, when forced to look, found only 9 instances where he said it. On the MSNBC "Countdown" show, Keith Olberman found 21 more instances, and broadcast them.

This of course prevents Mr. Bush from describing Democrats any longer as "Cut And Run".

Tomorrow is the last day in October, and Karl Rove's "October Surprise" is soon going to have to be a November surprise. One pundit noted that even if the Democrats win, Karl has put in a "virtuoso performance". It is getting harder and harder to make us more afraid of an enemy than we are of our own government.

If the dialogue degenerates further, someone is bound to remember 1972, the year Mr. Bush left the military on his own accord to go help a congressman win re-election. The kerfluffle that was engineered to re-direct Dan Rather's smoking gun discovery did not deny the basics - that the president walked. Many troops today must wish they were in his shoes and could just go home, rather than having their terms of service extended over and over again.

Hundreds of thousands of mail-in votes are being held up for one reason or another. Thousands of other voters are being scratched from the rolls because they didn't respond to a junk mail letter. This guarantees screaming on election day.

Donors to the Republican Party are hedging their bets and giving to Democrats who may win.

Early voters in Florida have run into problem machines that "slip out of synch"and "need to be recalibrated on site". Absolute baloney. Someone complains, they recalibrate. Someone complains, they recalibrate. Only when someone complains do they recalibrate.

Does it happen with ATMs? Not in my experience. Palmtop owners will remember that the only times they have ever needed to re-align the touch-screen was when they flushed the memory and restarted from scratch. This "alignment" issue will become big.

Is something flushing the memory of these machines?

Any problems on election day will be blamed on the incumbents. Any suspicious successes will taint the winner and invite damaging scrutiny. Doubtful winners will carry that fact around their neck forever. Who would want this kind of success?

Saturday, October 28, 2006

"Spend And Spend" Becoming "Tax And Tax"

The oil warriors have just about cleaned out the till. Run up a bill. For a cheap thrill.

GAO chief warns economic disaster looms - Yahoo! News

The Comptroller General of the United States thinks we're headed for hard times because of it.

If we can let go of the need to be heroes, we may be able to do with a little less of the Defense Department.

Will A Democratic Congress Raise The Minimum Wage?

Ask them.

Friday, October 27, 2006

Where Is The Body Of Iban Al Libby?

The man who told us - under torture - that Iraq was linked to al Queda is missing.

He was in our secret prison system, but we "emptied" these prisons, according to Bush.

Did he go back into the Egyptian system, where he had been tortured?

It would be a kindness to his family to let them have the body.

Thursday, October 26, 2006

Rudder Is Useless When The Ship's Not Moving

For a rudder to guide a ship, the ship must be moving forward.

Otherwise, the ship will move with the winds that blow.

Wednesday, October 25, 2006

The Screaming

The screaming has started again.

Moderate Republican Christopher Shays, running in Connecticut, tells the Republican party to pull ads that trash his opponent, and they do.

The Republican National Committee then places a smear ad in the Tennessee media so raunchy that again their candidate disavows it, but this time they say that they're powerless to pull it.

Powerless to stop their smut machine.

Usually, the mud-tossing is done by hired guns - Daddy Warbucks swift-boaters - but now the Republican Party itself is doing the trashing.

Proud Republicans may sit this one out.

Monday, October 23, 2006

Are Treaties Broken By The New Military Tribunals?

Can we really grab any person anywhere in the world and jail them secretly forever without breaking a treaty or two?

Don't other countries have to approve of our taking of their citizens? This McClatchy News article implies that our reach may exceed our grasp.

McClatchy Washington Bureau | 10/20/2006 | Opinions vary on constitutionality of tribunal compromise law

We have extradition treaties of long standing with many countries. If we have now decided that we can independently capture, hold, and torture any country's citizens on our whim alone, then are we preparing to violate those treaties?

We have military treaties with the same countries. Does our default on the extradition treaties imperil our military treaties? Will the people of other countries stand for this? Already the governments of Spain and Italy have changed leaders, moving from right to left, and Tony Blair's British government may do it in the spring. If we implement our detention policies, will our bases still be welcome?

Other countries that are democratically ruled may not like to have their citizens snatched willy-nilly.

Sunday, October 22, 2006

"Stay The Course" Is History

First we stay the course. Then we cut and run. It's all so simple.

It's important to stay the course. That way, the enemy won't decide to wait us out. If he knew we were thinking of cutting and running, he'd just rest on his evil haunches until we were out of sight and then he'd wreak havoc on Americans. Such has been the thinking.

Mr. Bush, who has spoken often about how his war of adventure in Iraq will outlive his residency in the presidency, may have a disappointment coming. He had hoped to be able to pin a retreat from Iraq on a Democratic successor. Now it appears that a retreat may need to occur sooner, on his own watch.

The Baker commission has determined that a victory is not possible. Congressmen who were parroting "Stay The Course" in unison last June have been told to change their song. The government is considering 8 options for exit, none very appealing. Sever and Scram. Split and Segue. Retreat to Afghanistan. Stay out of trouble. Stay home.

As one bright light observed in a comment on Josh Marshall's blog,
"Isn't it interesting that now, just before the elections, Bush is choosing to cut and run from his pat phrase "stay the course?"
"Stay The Course" has just been shot down.

Saturday, October 21, 2006

Will Electronic Voting Become Open System?

The computer program that runs Diebold's voting machines can now be assessed by experts. It's about time.

Former delegate gets purported Diebold code - baltimoresun.com

Soon the graduate computer science students of the world will examine it.

When 10,000 techies can't find a hole in something, that is better proof that it's secure than if nobody can see inside. Linux is visible like that. Everyone can read and re-compile Linux system programs. It doesn't need virus protection like the Windows system. It is stable. And now 10,000 people can pick and pry and discover flaws in the Diebold system. It is visible.

If they do find holes, that may be legal cause to suspend the use of these machines until they can be proven secure. If they don't, then Diebold will be a step ahead of their competition in getting the machines certified as accurate and fool-proof.

Implication for today: one less way to secretly tweak the vote.

Implication for tomorrow: 10,000 graduate students will compete to make the most secure program possible for the Diebold box. It will be open-system.

Republican Democrats

Moderates in Kansas Decide They're Not in GOP Anymore - washingtonpost.com

The new Republican wing of the Democratic Party is growing rapidly.

Thursday, October 19, 2006

Lost Rights

Here are the details. We've just lost a lot of rights.

"You're under arrest." For what? "None of your business." - The Smirking Chimp

For a war of adventure to make us so fearful of retaliation by our new enemies that we toss our heritage of English law into the sewer is historic.

Purged Democratic Voters Suing To Keep Their Vote In Ohio

Ohioans sue for their right to vote:

Ohio Lawsuit to Reinstate hundreds of thousands of Purged Democratic Voters to be Filed Fri or Monday

In other Ohio news, Kenneth Blackwell, the Secretary of State who is running for governor, has threatened to disqualify his opponent. The Secretary of State apparently can do this.

He is very far down in the polls.

A Win-Lose President In A Win-Win World

Good deal-makers set up win-win situations. Both sides win.

Mr. Bush is of another ilk. He likes to see the opposition lose. He's not interested in capturing their hearts.

This means that the United States is surrounded by win-win countries with whom it has win-lose relationships. Our gain demands their sacrifice. For the greater good.

So we make non-negotiable demands. We posture and pout. As they make deals and leave us out.

Wednesday, October 18, 2006

The Disappearing Act

At a grave moment full of down faces with even the usually ebullient Attorney General turning grey as perhaps he contemplated the flames reaching toward him from below, Mr. Bush, who presently occupies the office of the President, signed our sacred civil rights off the book.

He signed a law, given him by a curiously pliable Congress, that lets him imprison anyone anywhere in the world without maintaining any public account of it and hold them forever.

He can torture them using any method to be determined later.

If a detainee dies, then what? Who is to know?

Our government can now "disappear" people, just like a South American dictatorship. But not just our own citizens. ANY person we decide is an "enemy combatant" can be disappeared.

We presently detain people we know not to be guilty of anything. We do not release them, because we do not want their stories of our torturing them told. Arresting them was a mistake, but we had to torture them to discover this.

Will we erase our mistakes?

Tuesday, October 17, 2006

Fight War With Peace

For every fierce military action there may be a peaceful action that leads to the same end.

The peaceful road may take a little longer, and so it is disdained, but it reaches its destination more surely and securely.

Bombers can drop bombs or toys. Which is more effective?

Suppose that for every 1000-pound bomb we also drop a thousand pounds of graffiti materials: spray cans of paint and marking pens. Which will have a more desirable effect?

Dropping spray cans, we give freedom. Freedom to tell the truth as someone sees it. Freedom to tell the powers that be that the scope of their control is limited. Freedom to tell other citizens that they are not alone. Freedom to communicate.

Of course, they will first spray-paint "Yankee Go Home". Try an accepted slogan first. As courage develops, less safe slogans, comments about the local power people, will appear. Citizens will focus on the character and quality of their own government.

We should maybe drop walkie-talkies, the cheap $40 kind. They don't need cellphone towers, can run on rechargeable batteries, and can connect neighbors so that an attack by night of the secret police on one home is an attack on all the neighbors. Hey Rube! Grab a pitchfork!

What do we want to build?

Would it be more effective if we omitted the bomb?

Stray The Course

It's nice to have a project plan. Something that breaks the path from beginning to end into smaller steps. Then you can know how far you've gotten. You can define milestones. You can discover dependencies. You can identify hang-ups.

In the Iraq situation, for example, holding an election was a milestone. But you couldn't hold one there today. That milestone passed us going backwards a long time ago.

You can discover dependencies. So long as Saddam is alive, dare we leave Iraq? A friendly judge could release him. Could his former friends put him back in place as a puppet and govern under his name? If so, all we've demonstrated is the futility of war.

We're hung on a hook. Drying in a cloud of flies.

When you don't have a project plan that leads to success, how can you manage?

Monday, October 16, 2006

People Of The Lie Blindsided By The Info Age

Why does the Information Age hate America?

It used to be that so long as lies were consistent, they were truths. If what you said stuck together and was believeable, it was the truth. Now, people find a little fact here and do a little analysis there, and you can't make things up without being made a fool.

Doesn't stop some fools from trying, though.

Back in the days of Hopalong Cassidy comic books, author M. Scott Peck wrote a book called "The Road Less Travelled" about the good side of humanity. Then he wrote "People Of The Lie" about the bad side.

Hoppy wore a white hat, which made it easy to see who the good guy was. It was a visual communication, and it didn't require thought. Now the bad guys wear white hats.

From a review by someone named "A. Gathercoal" in the Amazon listing for "People Of The Lie,"
" "Evil is the exercise of power, the imposing of one's will upon others by overt or covert coercion". "The core of evil is ego-centricity, whereby others are sacrificed rather than the ego of the individual."

These words and the following analysis that Scott Peck gives us into the world of evil are sorely needed now in America. At the heart of our political and moral meltdown is the force of evil. According to Dr. Peck (psychology) ego-centric persons are utterly dedicated to preserving their self-serving image. They cultivate an image of being a good, right, God-fearing citizens. They specialize in self-deceit and thus are People of the Lie.

Scott Peck is best known for his famed book The Road Less Traveled where Peck argues that there is a link between personal growth, spirituality, and basic mental health. In People of the Lie Scott, Peck see evil as the antithesis to the very goodness and life that normal, healthy people seek. He writes this book to raise the awareness that evil exists as an entity and force in the world and calls his readers to take evil far more seriously."
Some people lie just because they can. By not limiting their words to the truth, they become instantly more powerful. Lies score more babes than truths. Scoring matters most for these people.

Some people have no sense for what is, in fact, true. Perhaps they were always lied to and given passed-along gifts. Some people know no happiness more profound than satisfaction because they have lied to themselves about the possibilities and accepted mere satisfaction as their goal in life.

Since you can't fool all the people all the time, a liar is sooner or later kept busy trying to plug all the holes in his story. The liar builds his house on a pile of poop and the rains come tumbling down.

Surround yourself with liars and you won't be well-informed. Do it in the information age, and everyone will know. An addiction to liars is not a state secret.

People who enjoy being evil are missing the point. Lies don't work in the information age.

Time to enjoy being good. Truly.

Thursday, October 12, 2006

What Course?

The phrase "Stay the course" has become the incumbent Republicans' watchword.

What course?

Tells us about the course. Does it have 18 holes? Are we past the 9th?

Does the course have trotters and a betting window? Does it have midterms and a final project, like a college course?

Courses have beginnings and ends.

Tell us about the end.

Friday, October 06, 2006

Alzheimer's May Be History

Grandma stoned or Grandma senile - which would you rather have?

"Marijuana may stave off Alzheimer's: study
By Andy SullivanThu Oct 5, 4:19 PM ET

Good news for aging hippies: smoking pot may stave off Alzheimer's disease.

New research shows that the active ingredient in marijuana may prevent the progression of the disease by preserving levels of an important neurotransmitter that allows the brain to function.

Researchers at the Scripps Research Institute in California found that marijuana's active ingredient, delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, can prevent the neurotransmitter acetylcholine from breaking down more effectively than commercially marketed drugs.

THC is also more effective at blocking clumps of protein that can inhibit memory and cognition in Alzheimer's patients, the researchers reported in the journal Molecular Pharmaceutics.

The researchers said their discovery could lead to more effective drug treatment for Alzheimer's, the leading cause of dementia among the elderly.

Those afflicted with Alzheimer's suffer from memory loss, impaired decision-making, and diminished language and movement skills. The ultimate cause of the disease is unknown, though it is believed to be hereditary."


A friend observes, "Unfortunately, it remains the case that the side effects of marijuana are memory loss, impaired decision-making, and diminished language and movement skills."


Lose some, gain some.

Actually, with Alzheimers the damage is cumulative and fatal. My friend Ted's Alzheimerish mom told him that the little rabbits were eating her all up shortly before she died.

Since marijuana isn't fatal and no one has proved that it's cumulative, I suspect that it will soon be a choice for millions. And it will be their children's and grandchildren's choice for them, as well. Better to have grandma stoned than senile.

Grandma would agree.

Strings On Their Fingers

It's hard to get far in politics without a collar around your neck and a leash that you can hand to someone in the money.

Sure, you can buy your way into Congress. Pay your own election costs. But once you're in, the efficiency of letting others pay your bills is seductive. Once you're a winner, it pays to get the rhinestone collar and go the royal route.

Fortunately for those who arrived in the last several Congresses with weak leashes, the K-Street lobbying organization turned out to be the pet store that could fulfill this need for leather accessories.

Unfortunately, K-Street may also have turned out to be one side of a vise. The Justice Department and its Abramoff investigation,which has captured in its fish net a large school of Congressmen and Senators, is the other side of the vise. As the sides squeeze closer and closer, the pain in the cojones is leading a number of otherwise honorable men to void the Magna Carta.

Commit a sin and the devil owns your soul. He'll let you sit for now on your immediate gains, but he may ask for a strange vote or two down the road.

And what road is that?

Wednesday, October 04, 2006

The Fukovsky-Fukupski Effect

Screw around long enough and you screw up.

Guaranteed.

Once you've accomplished a small success in skating on thin ice, you will automatically strive for a larger success, skating on even thinner ice.

Sooner or later an oopsie occurs.

Monday, October 02, 2006

Know When To Fold

Poker players need to know when to fold. When to throw their cards on the table and admit they lost the hand. Maybe they'll win the next one.

Someone observed the other day that George Bush is playing poker while the Islamists leaders are playing chess. Checkmated, he can only draw another card.

It's hard to know that you've lost when you can't take your mind off your need to win. So the loss just gets worse and worse.

Time to throw 'em down, George.

Sunday, October 01, 2006

Are You Ready To Disappear?

This is unbelievable. It is from a new blog called "Shelter From The Storm".

"BURIED IN THE complex Senate compromise on detainee treatment is a real shocker, reaching far beyond the legal struggles about foreign terrorist suspects in the Guantanamo Bay fortress. The compromise legislation, which is racing toward the White House, authorizes the president to seize American citizens as enemy combatants, even if they have never left the United States. And once thrown into military prison, they cannot expect a trial by their peers or any other of the normal protections of the Bill of Rights."