http://blogcritics.org/ A sinister cabal of superior bloggers on music, books, film, popular culture, politics, and technology - updated continuously. en Copyright 2005-2007 by the authors Mon, 6 Dec 2004 09:10:35 EST http://backend.userland.com/rss Blogcritics.org custom software http://blogcritics.org/ Phillip WinnSunday, August 26, 2007, marks the switch of all Blogcritics.org article feeds from full-content to short-content. This is the result of several converging factors, and is unfortunately a permanent decision (as permanent as any decision can be on the web, that is). We are aware of all of the reasons that this is a Bad Idea, and we are aware that some of you will be quite upset about having to click on something to read the free content, and we're sorry. Unfortunately, despite great effort, full-content feeds are not currently economically viable. 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Administration0@blogcritics.org Sun, 26 Aug 2007 12:00:00 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2004/12/06/091035.php loidA few days ago, Netaloid pointed out the irony of President Bush chiding the powers that be in Ukraine over apparent voting irregularities while he had essentially zilch to say about just-as-apparent voting irregularities during the recent elections in the United States.Predictably, Netaloid was derided by knee-jerk Bush supporters who suggested his criticism of the election process was akin to believing aliens have landed in Roswell and amounted to sour grapes over Kerry's loss. That derision has been sparked in part by a cadre of Democrats who appear to be pursuing an Ohio recount with the idea that the presidential election results somehow could be reversed. For the record, Netaloid believes Bush's election was legitimate and that recounts won't change his win. But that's not the point. Sufficient irregularities have surfaced to suggest the process of relying on computerized voting machines is seriously flawed. Voter disenfranchisement already was apparent last time around, especially among blacks in states such as Florida. It's getting worse. And it's time for an official investigation into voting machines, because what's at stake is the public's confidence that the election system is on the up-and-up.David Allen of Black Box Voting sums it up pretty well:Short of a signed confession, how do you tell the difference between tampering with the software to change the results and a failure of the software to record properly? Also, in the case of a truly skilled criminal, there will be no evidence of alterations to the machine. This is, of course, what we have been worrying about from the start and why we have demanded additional safeguards, such as paper ballots.A corollary to this question would be "Did voting machine malfunctions cause inaccurate results to be reported?" The answer is, in my opinion, ABSOLUTELY! Why is this question not being asked? Because questions of fraud are sexier and appeal to people's partisan nature. For some reason it is hard for people to accept that elections could be wrong just because the machines screwed up. Instead, they want to believe that any problem or inaccuracy is the result of skullduggery. In this highly divisive era no action is accidental, it is a coldly planned "enemy" action.This way of looking at problems is completely counter-prodcutive because it leads to neither side being interested in the truth.While one side is convinced that the election results were inaccurate (which I am), they are convinced that any error was deliberately perpetrated (which I am NOT). Thus, the opposing side does not hear folks wanting to rationally explore what mechanisms of our electoral systems failed. They hear people screaming for their blood, threatening civil and criminal prosecution. Since no one wants to be on the recieving end of a witch hunt, they are going to dig their heels in and refuse to cooperate. And who can blame them?How did the atmosphere get so poisonous? Most of the answer to that question is WAY beyond the scope of this discussion and certainly the subject of even more vitriol. The basic answer is, however, that WE LET IT HAPPEN BECAUSE WE CAN"T BE BOTHERED TO PERFORM OUR CIVIC DUTIES.Now, before folks fill my mailbox with traditional Anglo-Saxon expressions of my character, let me clarify that by "we" I mean ALL of us as American citizens, INCLUDING the 80+ million of people who couldn't be bothered to go to the polls. We seem proud of the almost 60% turnout we managed this year (the highest since 1968), but it is pretty damn pathetic compared to Australia which averages about 95%. Of course, some people argue that our "broken" election system is what leads to apathy, and they may be right. This is all the more reason for us to fix the existing system, but that is going to be hard to do when one side is determined to fix it by taking it out of the opposition's hide and the opposition is equally determined to decline the honor. Netaloid would point out that Australians are required by law to vote and thus their voter turnout is always going to be high. But otherwise, Allen is right on the money.There were plenty of serious voting irregularities in Ohio alone in November, and they all deserve an investigation to assure citizens that their election process is honest. But it's just as important to assure the citizenry in states using touch-screen and other computerized machines that their votes count. The problem continues to be that there is no mechanism to prove that even a recount is accurate. A recount merely amounts to having the machine regurgitate the numbers stored in memory. What if those numbers were wrong in the first place? There's no verifyable receipt to prove or disprove results.And that's not acceptable. It's a case of technology providing a worse problem than the one it set out to solve. Politics22950@blogcritics.org Mon, 6 Dec 2004 09:10:35 EST http://blogcritics.org/archives/2004/11/26/192502.php loidIrony, anyone?CRAWFORD, Texas Nov 26, 2004 -- President Bush warned Friday that the world "is watching very closely" as Ukraine tries to sort through charges of vote fraud following a disputed presidential election in the former Soviet republic.The United States and other Western nations contend that massive fraud marked the presidential runoff election in the Ukraine, and its highest court has ordered election officials not to publish the results until an appeal is heard next week.Bush, speaking to reporters covering his vacation visit here, said he hopes a clear and credible winner would emerge."There's just a lot of allegations of vote fraud that placed the result of the election in doubt," he said as he entered a restaurant near his ranch.And yet, somewhere on the same planet... → A group of high-ranking congressional Democrats who had called for a federal probe of the November election announced Tuesday that the Government Accountability Office would investigate irregularities with voting machines and provisional ballots nationwide.→ Eighteen days following the initial request, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) has agreed this week to investigate several incidents of election problems from the recent November election to satisfy the concerns brought forth by U.S. Reps. John Conyers (D-MI), Barbara Lee (D-CA), and 12 other congressmembers. → Irregularities associated with electronic voting machines may have awarded 130,000 excess votes or more to President George W. Bush in Florida.→ Memory shortages in electronic voting machines have been blamed in the loss of more than 4,000 votes in Carteret County on Election Day, possibly altering the outcome of two Council of State races.→ A recently found computer glitch in the voting machines in Franklin County, Indiana has given a democrat enough votes to bump a republican from victory in a County Commissioner's race. The company who made the voting machine is also checking into programming of it's equipment in nine other Indiana counties.→ Computer experts are questioning the security of the all-electronic voting machines being used in this year's presidential election, but the problems posed by this new approach to recording the vote run much deeper than vote tampering or lost data.→On Nov. 19, Dr. Charles Gessert along with Progressive Action announced their support for Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., and other organizations around the country who are trying to launch a full investigation into possible voting irregularities in Ohio, Florida, Nebraska, North Carolina and elsewhere.→ After almost eight hours of questioning of three witnesses by attorneys on both sides of the suit challenging the outcome of the city of Bastrop's Nov. 2 sales tax election, a question at the end of the day by 4th District Court Judge Wilson Rambo - just before he recessed the hearing until next week - may have summed up what was learned about alleged irregularities in voting on the proposal.→ The Rev. Jesse Jackson and his Rainbow/PUSH Coalition civil rights group want to call attention to the fact that votes in Ohio are still undergoing the official count, he said Thursday. Jackson also is questioning whether enough voting machines were provided in inner-city precincts and whether fraud could have occurred in counties that use electronic machines without paper records of ballots.Catch my drift yet? Politics22650@blogcritics.org Fri, 26 Nov 2004 19:25:02 EST http://blogcritics.org/archives/2004/11/18/082302.php loidWhat are you supposed to do after reading something like this? Laugh? Cry? Puke? It would be funny parody coming from the likes of The Onion. Unfortunately, it's a serious news story in today's Washington Post.Colin Powell, the lone voice of semi-reason amongst the cracked pots in Bush's cabinet, the guy the president is dumping because his correct advice was to zig when the neoconservatives really wanted to zag, the secretary of state whose disdain for the flawed Weapons of Mass Destruction intelligence that got the U.S. into the Iraq mess was leaked publicly - but who, under orders, then humiliated himself anyway by trying to sell the bag of shit to the United Nations, who knew as well as Powell did that it was a big lie - That Colin Powell, the one being replaced by Condo "yessir, Mr. B." Rice - now is singing the Weapons of Mass Destruction song again, with Iran in the chorus this time. Here's the first couple of verses:"I have seen some information that would suggest that they have been actively working on delivery systems. . . . You don't have a weapon until you put it in something that can deliver a weapon," Powell told reporters traveling with him to Chile for an Asia-Pacific economic summit. "I'm not talking about uranium or fissile material or the warhead; I'm talking about what one does with a warhead." ..."I'm talking about information that says they not only have these missiles, but I am aware of information that suggests that they were working hard as to how to put the two together," Powell said, referring to the process of matching warheads to missiles. ..."There is no doubt in my mind -- and it's fairly straightforward from what we've been saying for years -- that they have been interested in a nuclear weapon that has utility, meaning that it is something they would be able to deliver, not just something that sits there." ...Powell said the United States would monitor verification efforts "with necessary and deserved caution because for 20 years the Iranians have been trying to hide things from the international community."Holy shit, sports fans! What does this really mean? Among the many and unnatractive possiblities:1. Powell is speaking the truth as it has recently been revealed to him, perhaps because he's alarmed that the International Atomic Energy Agency just opined that all nuclear material in Iran has been accounted for and does not appear to be in use in a weapons program, and the heads of European states just received non-proliferation promises from Iran. But Powell has evidence it's all a WMD smokescreen.2. BushCo has asked the good little soldier to carry its stinky water one last time, knowing that he cannot refuse to follow orders from his ranking superior no matter how vile they may be. They intend to take the war to Iran and forced Powell to telegraph the first move to take the pressure off of Rice, who surely would be booed off stage if this were to be her first major pronouncement.It would be nice - real nice - to see just what this "information" is Powell mentions. Was it something Dick Cheney scribbled on his office blotter? Something the new, slimmed-down CIA discovered for the new boss? Or something of true substance? Whatever the truth, it's not good. First off, after Powell, on behalf of BushCo, was caught in the big Iraqi Weapons of Mass Bullshit lie, who in the world is going to believe him this time? Yet if Iran really is pursuing a weapons program, who else within BushCo has any standing or credibility in the world's eyes? It's not easy being Chicken Little when the sky truly is falling.Is there any reason to think the neocons have learned lessons from the current quagmire and now are ready to turn to the international community instead of forcing working-class American sons and daughters to run full-out, swords drawn, into another quicksand pit? Netaloid doesn't think so. After all, the rumdum behind the curtain directing the current military disaster appears to possess a secure cabinet seat for the second go-round.Therefore, if this is a prelude to Quagmire II, Netaloid wonders where the additional soldiers will come from, since almost the whole American military already is busy bringing freedom and democracy to Fallujah and other cities across Iraq.Look, the election's over. Isn't it time to heat up The Draft? Or maybe Donald Rumsfeld can shock and awe Iran into complete submission.Meanwhile, it's instructive to remember that Osama bin Laden still is wandering around the mountains somewhere, free to plot murder and stir the pot. Then there's North Korea.All in all just another happy day at World Police Headquarters.Netaloid advises you to keep your head down, and hide your teenagers from the Selective Service. Politics22353@blogcritics.org Thu, 18 Nov 2004 08:23:02 EST http://blogcritics.org/archives/2004/11/17/095537.php loidApparently members of Congress believe their hallowed institution has been a bit more ethical than necessary. Thus, constituents everywhere will be happy to hear, things are about to change.Top congressional brass will be holding a secret meeting soon to rewrite the rules so, in the purely coincidental event that one of their members is indicted by a state grand jury, that member still can hold a leadership position.Used to be, a criminal indictment or even lesser impropriety was grounds for dismissal as a congressional leader. The stodgy old thinking was that even that much of an appearance of impropriety would be an intolerable embarassment to Congress and, of course, the member's own political party. Tom DeLay has changed all that. First off, he is the federal govmint. Or at least he appears to control at least one branch of it. Second of all, he's his political party's top fund raiser (and the tactics he uses to twist arms raise funds account for the probability of a grand jury indictment in Texas). When your party controls Congress, and you control your party's purse strings, then you can buy your own damn ethical regulations, can't you? Otherwise, what good's having money, eh?Seen from another angle, the annointed few following the Narrow Path of the Religious Right should not be denied the benefit of their own personal enforcers in the event Evil tries to moderate the Word of God as it relates to political policy, do you think? And if one is forced to take on Evil, what better enforcer than one who has familiarized himself with the enemy? OK, maybe he's been forced to roll around in the dirt a bit himself, but if his goals are basically the same as those of The Chosen, what's the harm, really?I mean, it's not like he's homosexual or anything, is it? Politics22316@blogcritics.org Wed, 17 Nov 2004 09:55:37 EST http://blogcritics.org/archives/2004/11/10/104836.php loidSo now the American Democrats and literati have mostly finished licking their little wounds and apparently have decided not to migrate up here after all due to a little cold and snow in Ottowa, one supposes. Eventually, the question surfaces: What now?Netaloid will tell you what now. Now, you live up close to Bush II. He's reached out to you and, if you are good little 'Mericans, you'll observe the behavior of his Mandate and follow suit. Learn to tremble when he says it's a good time to be afraid, turn your TV on and keep it tuned to Faux News for the correct version of truth, quit wasting your time reading claptrap by so-called respected news reporters. Sit down, in other words, and shut up.Here, in a nutshell, is the Mighty Bush Mandate: It's OK to be ignorant and illiterate; in fact, it's encouraged. Proof?A large majority of Bush supporters believe that before the war Iraq had weapons of mass destruction or a major program for building them. A substantial majority of Bush supporters assume that most experts believe Iraq had WMD, and that this was the conclusion of the recently released report by Charles Duelfer. A large majority of Bush supporters believes that Iraq was providing substantial support to al Qaeda and that clear evidence of this support has been found. A large majority believes that most experts also have this view, and a substantial majority believe that this was the conclusion of the 9/11 Commission. Large majorities of Kerry supporters believe the opposite on all these points.In recent months, the American public has been presented reports by the Senate Intelligence Committee, and the heads of the Iraq Survey Group David Kay and Charles Duelfer (chosen by the president), concluding that before the war Iraq had neither weapons of mass destruction, nor even a significant program for developing them. Nonetheless, 72% of Bush supporters continued to hold to the view that Iraq had actual WMD (47%) or a major program for developing them (25%). Only 26% of Kerry supporters hold such beliefs. Furthermore, 56% of Bush supporters (as compared to 18% of Kerry supporters) believe that most experts say that Iraq did have actual WMD, and another 18% say that the experts' views are evenly divided on the subject. Only 23% think that most experts believe Iraq did not have WMD.Though this poll was taken immediately after chief weapons inspector Charles Duelfer delivered his report to Congress on whether Iraq had WMD, a majority of Bush supporters misperceived the conclusions of his report. Fifty-seven percent believed that he concluded that Iraq did have either WMD (19%) or a major program for developing them (38%).Go back and read the above four paragraphs one more time, then ask yourself: If I'm so smart and they're so stupid, why do they have a president representing their stupidity, while my candidate is home counting his Heinz Ketchup allowance?Karl Rove, Dick Cheney and the rest of the Darth Vader Strategy Club got where they are today simply by taking PT Barnum to heart and refusing to underestimate the stupidty of the American public. For the past four years, they groomed stupidity, nurtured it, and it grew. American stupidity now is bigger and of much higher quality than ever before. Leave No Child Behind? My ass. Preach the program, but whatever you do, don't fund it, or there goes your stupid political base for the coming generation. Meanwhile, the best those Democrats have going is the fact that Terry McAuliffe's term is almost up as chairman of the Democratic National Committee.So what's next, my little 'Mericans? Well, of course there's the aforementioned four years of mind-numbing stupidity and ignorance, global warming and pollution, thousands of war dead in Iraq, $60-per-barrel oil, sharply rising interest rates and a new constitutional amendment against cognizant thought. And then, on the political scene, Rove and the Body Snatchers toy with the idea of supersizing the Stupid Base by grooming Brother Jeb Bush for the trifecta, although even the cynical Netaloid doubts that dog's ability to hunt. Eventually, John McCain will hold a little meeting with R & the BS and emerge as the next GOP Champion. After all, he's spent years masterfully grabbing the role of peace-maker between conservative Democrats and moderate Republicans. Some of the former actually like him. Obviously, they've never lived in Arizona. If they had, they'd know that he's as capable of pursuing a blindingly stupid right-wing agenda as was Barry Goldwater before he grew up and came to his senses. So on the right we'll have John McCain, in the role of healer of America's great divide. And on the left we'll have the inevitable Hillary Clinton, armed only with the experience, intelligence, and perception necessary to make clear judgments based on what's best for the majority of Americans and the country in general. Not to mention the ability to make reasoned world policy decisions without the testosterone-induced hypnosis that tends to drive the USA into quagmires every few years.Naturally, the corporations hate her because she doesn't appear to know a good bribe when she sees one. Yet that hatred is more visceral, eminating from way down deep inside of some DNA strand. Because, shitfire, Hillary Clinton is a woman! And what, my friends, would become of the Balls of Baptist 'Merica if the greatest nation in the galaxy were to be represented by a woman? Exactly.Once that tidbit of fear is drilled into the consciousness of the Stupid Base, McCain is a shoe-in.So that's it for the next eight years.Any questions? Politics22069@blogcritics.org Wed, 10 Nov 2004 10:48:36 EST