Monthly Archives: October 2006

At 7:07 am Hawaiian time, 1307 hrs Eastern, Hawaii got the shakey jakes with a string of earthquakes, the first measuring 6.5 or 6.6 in magnitude.  What has happened is the power is out and there has been some minor damage.  There has been no tsunami reported. 

Things are shook up with the power being off, but there are no high-rise collapses, or reports of whole communities falling into the ocean. 

Since the earthquake went off at 7 am, I have to ask the impertinent question:  Of the honeymooning couples on Hawaii at the time, who may or may not have been engaging in honeymoon activities at the time, will they ever be able to live up to it again?  Or, was intimacies during an earthquake the ‘pinnacle’ of their lives together, in a matrimonial sense? 

Like many grownups I have engaged in acts of an intimate nature.  One particular act, many, many, years ago, involved a bed collapsing, breaking actually, in a furnished apartment in a town up in the Ottawa Valley.  The bed was irreparably damaged and I had the dubious pleasure of telling the landlady that her bed was broken.  I did leave out the part about the activities that were going on at the time, as that would be seen as causative and increase my culpability. 

My landlady was an older German woman named Mrs. Schaefer whom I did not wish to offend.  I suspect her activities in the 1938 to 1945 time span involved prison camps, with her as chief jailer.  She certainly seemed formidable enough to control 1100 prisoners of war with little more than a raised eyebrow and a stern expression. 

My question still stands.  How many men in Hawaii leaned over on one elbow at 7:08 am and uttered those magical words "Was it good for you, honey?"

I can only make so much stuff up in any given month.

Nurse ‘savaged’ by enraged giant pig
Last updated at 22:00pm on 13th October 2006 Daily Mail Online

A nurse has spoken of her terror after she was attacked by a giant pig which charged the horse she was riding and then savaged her after she was thrown to the ground. Suffering from broken ribs from the fall, Carolyn Robinson feared for her life as the enraged pig hurtled at her.

The ferocious beast, which she describes as "huge", mauled the 51 year old and snapped at her legs as she tried desperately to fight it off while lying prone in a quiet country lane. The pig was eventually driven off by Mrs Robinson’s worried teenage daughter, with the help of passers-by.

The animal is believed to still be on the loose in Hampshire’s New Forest and police are urging people to be cautious and report any threatening pig incidents. Police are also not encouraging people to go into the forest with lettuce, tomatoes and bread, as pigs know about the BLT sandwich and may attack in self-defense.

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Death-row prisoner gets pregnant in solitary
Thu Oct 12, 2006 8:22am ET

HANOI (Reuters) – A death-row inmate held in solitary confinement in Vietnam for almost a year is pregnant and is seeking a pardon to give birth, a newspaper reported on Thursday.

The Lao Dong (Labour) newspaper quoted a police doctor as saying tests in September confirmed that convicted heroin trafficker Nguyen Thi Oanh, 39, was then 11 weeks pregnant. The report said it was the first time that a death-row prisoner had become pregnant in Vietnam and that police were investigating how it had happened. Oanh’s husband was serving a jail sentence at another prison in another province, the newspaper said.

"Honestly, the Angel of the Lord came unto me on death row." said Oanh. "He said something about his son coming back. I don’t get it though, I’m a Buddhist and this stuff doesn’t track with me."  Through a spokesman God said "Sorry, wrong person.  It won’t happen again.  Ever."

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Bush Is Said to Have No Plan if GOP Loses
By Kenneth T. Walsh Posted 10/13/06 US News & World Report

Some Republican strategists are increasingly upset with what they consider the overconfidence of President Bush and his senior advisers about the midterm elections November 7–a concern aggravated by the president’s news conference this week.

"They aren’t even planning for if they lose," says a GOP insider who informally counsels the West Wing. If Democrats win control of the House, as many analysts expect, Republicans predict that Bush’s final two years in office will be marked by multiple congressional investigations and gridlock, just like the last twitches of the Nixon White House. 

"The Bush White House has had no relationship with Congress," said a Bush ally. "Beyond the Democrats, wait till they see how the Republicans–the ones that survive–treat them if they lose next month." GOP insiders are upset by Bush’s seeming inability to come up with new ideas or fresh approaches. There is even a heightened sensitivity to the way Bush talks about advisers who served his father. 

President Bush, when asked about plans for a Republican defeat in mid-term elections said that "The US won’t cut and run.  I’ll be in Crawford with the First Lady who won’t cut and run either.  None of us will cut and run.  Cut and run…cut and run…cut and run…Axis of Evildoers of the Axis of Evil Axis"  A spokesman for the President said that Bush was suffering from a head cold and the effects of oxygen deprivation from his pretzel choking incident in January 2002.

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Running of the Elephants.
Republican uses animals, mariachi band to critique border security
By SARA INÉS CALDERÓN
The Brownsville Herald

October 11, 2006 — Reports of an elephant crossing the river or people trying to smuggle an elephant across were rampant Tuesday while an elaborate political stunt was taking shape near the mouth of the Rio Grande.  It was a while later that the stunt, which was a photo shoot, was abruptly met by federal agents.

“The elephant never made landfall into Mexico, but I tell you something, he could have made 15 laps back and forth, but no one showed up,” said Raj Peter Bhakta, a former star on the NBC show “The Apprentice,” who also is a Republican candidate for the 13th District U.S. House of Representatives seat in Eastern Pennsylvania.

In Brownsville, he witnessed half a dozen men swim under one of the international bridges “with complete immunity” which in turn prompted him to take the immigration issue to the next level.

"Since I could get an elephant and a six-piece mariachi band across the border, I figured, why not try something bigger.  Next week I’m going to have a concert with George Michael, Boy George, Barbara Streisand, Liza Minelli and Elton John floated across the border on a barge.  The only downside I see is seating for the fans and getting enough porta-potties in place." said Bhakta.

According to his Web site, he is in favor of “sensible immigration reform” and supports a border fence, local law enforcement assistance with immigration laws and the use of the National Guard troops to help the U.S. Border Patrol.  “To my surprise, the band played on, the elephants splashed away, and nobody showed up,” Bhakta said of the stunt. “I’m astounded.”

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Mayor Daley the Lesser has decreed it to be so in a meeting with the Chicago Sun-Times Editorial Board:

"Security and terrorism won’t be an issue if Chicago wins the right to host the 2016 Summer Olympic Games because, by that time, there’ll be a surveillance camera on every corner, Mayor Daley said Wednesday.

"By the time 2016 [rolls around], we’ll have more cameras than Washington, D.C. … Our technology is more advanced than any other city in the world — even compared to London — dealing with our cameras and the sophistication of cameras and retro-fitting all the cameras downtown in new buildings, doing the CTA cameras," Daley said.

"By 2016, I’ll make you a bet. We’ll have [cameras on] almost every block."

Mayor Daley the Greater had a better idea than cameras on every block.  He had the Chicago Police.  I need only remind those of you of the correct vintage about the 1968 Democratic Convention whereby the Chicago Police were told to go out and crack some heads during anti-war demonstrations outside the Convention Center.  The Chicago Police did exactly that, as well as escorting unfriendly reporters out of the hall and standing in front of TV news camera that were trying to film the riots going on.  One of the escortees was Dan Rather of CBS. 

Now the Son of Richard Daley, obviously cut from the same cloth on this subject, wants to see surveillance cameras on every block of the great city of Chicago.  The ostensible reason is to cut down on street crime, which is a good thing. 

Perpetual, unblinking surveillance however, is not a good thing.  Please don’t tell me that "If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear."   That argument is like a Chihuahua dog:  It don’t hunt.  The same argument is used by the Department of Homeland Paranoia, with a slightly different wording. 

The same argument was used by the Stasi in East Germany in the glory days when East Germany was owned and operated by the Soviet Union.  The same argument was used in Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Latvia, Lithuania and the rest of the former-Soviet bloc countries.  Today, North Korea and Mainland China are the two most obvious practitioners of "If you have nothing to hide, then you have nothing to fear" mantra.

The big loophole in the argument is defining "nothing to hide".  Citizens in a reasonably free society do not always agree with everything their government does.  That is a cornerstone of what we call ‘democracy’.  Voters are allowed to complain, sometimes vehemently. 

What pervasive surveillance seeks to do is to preclude even the potential for legal dissent.  It doesn’t take a Master’s in history to know that the lawmakers, as soon as they have the ability to snoop, will snoop.  As soon as they can snoop, the laws will be changed to make even the slightest deviation from the ‘norm’ an offense against the state. 

This is not new.  The Pilgrims would shun or even stone someone for not wearing the correctly modest dress.  The Catholic Church during the Inquisition put people to death on nothing more than the word of one person that they were a witch.  The Soviet era departments of Internal Security would send people for ‘re-education’ from which not many came back. Today, Mayor Daley wants to use cameras and microphones on every street corner.

Nothing much has changed, except the technology.

The deep-pocketed Google brain trust has bought YouTube for 1.6 gazillion dollars and the various media outlets are all excited.  If one were to only read the financial and computer rags, this event marks the Second Coming of the Messiah, the discovery of life on Mars and the Bush Twins doing a spread for Hustler all rolled up into one big puppy pile of glee.  What the purchase truly is, is P.T. Barnum brought to life, again.

Google we all know.  It is a search engine.  More correctly, a search engine that sells search engine ranking positions for money.  Google rankings have a much to do with the size of the wallet as the popularity of the ranked site.  Not to knock Google completely, as for a few years they had the pre-eminent method for finding things on the Word Wide Wait.  Google even became a verb as things evolved.  Google has, at least according to some, indexed everything on the web and now is trying to figure out how to copyright it all as Google property so they can sell it back to you. 

This explains why this blog has a copyright tag on it, as it is almost entirely original writing and by definition, my property.  It is not the property of Google, MSN Search/LiveSearch, Technorati or anyone else except me, unless I very specifically give up the rights to it.  Which I would do for money.  Lots of money.

YouTube is a place to post videos that you can share with others:  Essentially, YouTube is "Earth’s Dumbest Home Videos".  I despair of our planet if alien life is tapping into YouTube as an example of how humans live.  YouTube has rules regarding posting material that is not yours to post, for instance posting clips of the original StarTrek without permission of Paramount.  As best I can determine a lot of the rules regarding copyright are only enforced if someone with a lot of lawyers complains. 

Despite the copyright shenanigans, YouTube gets millions of visitors a week.  Those visitors are what marketing wanks call ‘eyeballs’.  The more eyeballs, the more likely some of the eyeballs will click on links or banner ads on each page.  The more clicks, the more money the website gets. 

This is not new.  Before electronic media, competing newspapers engaged in circulation wars, trying to sell more papers.  More papers sold meant more eyeballs and therefore more people potentially reading the advertisement for McMurchee’s Patent Undergarments or Dr. Saslove’s Medicinal Ointment.  The more eyeballs, the more you could charge for the advertisement.  The same measurement methods moved into radio, then television.  A mutant version moved across to the Web.

What Google purchased is the potential to reach millions of eyeballs a week.  It is nothing more than Viacom buying CBS a few years ago.  There is no paradigm shift, societal redirection or change in the angle of declination from the plane of the ecliptic.

Yes, the two YouTube founders are getting a whack of Google stock and if they sell it tomorrow, will make a mammoth amount of cash.  Google gets potential eyeballs that they can sell to advertisers and make more money from the advertisers. 

As long as the YouTube brand and place keeps attracting viewers, Google will do fine.  As soon as the YouTube brand reaches the end of its’ life, YouTube will be another ghost town on the Web and we can all go back to sleep.  This is the essence of media:  Attract enough attention and you get enough eyeballs.

Phineas Taylor Barnun, circus promoter, knew this in his bones.  Barnum was possibly the best practitioner of advertising, ever.  Barnum knew that people wanted distractions and to see something unique, different, or even a bit frightening.  If the event was a bit naughty, so much the better.  More people would come to see it and in order to see it, they had to buy a seat.  As soon as they bought a seat, you had their money and the game was over. 

Incidentally, P.T. Barnun never said "There’s a sucker born every minute."  It was actually said by a Syracuse, New York banker named David Hannum who was part of a hoax in 1869, called the Cardiff Giant.  Hannum was the one who uttered the timeless phrase.

Even so, regarding Google and YouTube?  There’s a sucker born every minute.

At this moment, live on CNN, the camera is locked down on US Forward Operating Base Falcon.  Something or someone has caused a fire to break out.  FOB’s contain all kinds of bad things, including, but not limited to:  Ammunition of various sizes.  Mortar rounds.  Missiles.  Explosives.  MRE’s and clean sox.

The various bad things are cooking off as we speak, huge black and white explosions lighting up the Baghdad skies like (sweeping away a tear of fond memories) the original Shock and Awe.  Reports as to why things are blowing up are still spotty.  Reports as to what kind of badness is there are also strangely missing.

One thing is known.  Just before the fire started, someone heard a voice say "ﻥﻋ ‘ﻥﺍ ‘ﻩﮔ ‘ﻥﺩﻴﺭ."

I am reliably informed that is the equivalent of, in colloquial English, the expression "Shit!"

Kim Jong-Il has applied for membership in the Nuclear Club.  We have obtained his application and are reprinting it here:

Name: Kim Jong-Il  Celestial President for Life of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea

Address:  1 Presidential Palace, Pyongyang, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea

Phone:  011 850 1

email: kji@northkorea.kp

Sponsoring Country:  "We get by with a little help from our friends" and Pakistan

Reason for Application:

I let one off on Monday.  About 15 kilotons or so.  Same size as the Fat Man did for Hiroshima in 1945.  Big goddam ball of flame.  Loud sonofabitch too.   Measuring hole now.

Supporting Evidence:

US all a twitter. Japan is urinating their kimonos.  Russia is quiet as mouse in empty Pyongyang silo.  China annoyed.  India is making giggling and Pakistan is holding parade of celebration for Celestial President for Life of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea next Tuesday.  Israel strangely quiet for Jews who talk with hands and dance in circles.  Frenchers and UK not happy.  Plus, seismic squiggles making large amplitudes. 

Demands (Rational):

Increased worldwide attention paid to Celestial President for Life of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea Kim Jong-Il.  More episodes of "Three’s Company" written by Kim Jong-Il with original Krissy.  Food for military.  Old McDonalds in Presidential Square please.  Have much requirement for Fillet O Fish as example of decadent western imperialism and tartar sauce.  Need DVD of Paris Hilton video plus night scope camera too from Sony only not Samsung.  New BitTorrent client and downloads for Celestial President for Life of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Kim Jong-Il.

Demands (Irrational)

Feed populace and place for them to be housed that is not South.  Perhaps in Mexico to obtain American citizenship after voting in elections for California Governor Arnold.  Ship of oil for Celestial President for Life of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea Mercedes-Benz.  Ship of Nikees in mixed sizes but mostly 11 EEE.  Hair Club for Men Platinum Membership.  Noble portrait of Celestial President for Life of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Kim Jong-Il on US Five dollar bill for next year.  Box seats Yankee Stadium, Blue level near third base line.  Tennis Lessons from Annika Sorenstram.  Lasik surgery in Austin Texas.  Hat of Cheese Head labeled Go Packers Go!

Signed

KJI

The world is full of lyin’ mud-crawlin’ gravy-suckin’ sonsabitches, who ain’t got the wisdom God gave geese to get in out of the rain.  These stories merely prove it.

Actress Sienna Miller Slights Pittsburgh

Oct 06 4:30 PM US/Eastern (AP) Sienna Miller apologized Friday for disparaging Pittsburgh in a magazine interview, saying her remarks were taken out of context and that she found the city and residents gracious.

The 24-year-old British actress, in town shooting the screen adaptation of Michael Chabon’s novel "The Mysteries of Pittsburgh," called the city a profane name that rhymes Pittsburgh. 

Miller, who starred in "Layer Cake," "Casanova" and the remake of "Alfie," told Rolling Stone, "Can you believe this is my life? Will you pity me when you’re back in your funky New York apartment and I’m still in Pittsburgh? I need to get more glamorous films and stop with my indie year."

In response, Pittsburgh Mayor Luke Ravenstahl said Sienna Miller, "Hasn’t got enough up top to qualify for residency in Titsburg, let alone be a cab slut on the Southside Flats.  Pittsburgh is the City of Champions, the City of Iron and we like our women folk to have some sweater-puffs we can grab ahold of on payday."

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Times Online
October 05, 2006

Jack Straw calls on Muslim women to lift their veils

By Russell Jenkins

Jack Straw, the leader of the House of Commons, has called on Muslim women to lift their veils as a way of breaking down barriers between communities.

In a disclosure that risks upsetting Muslims, he says he now asks women to remove their veils when they attend weekly surgeries in his Blackburn constituency.

Mr Straw, a former Foreign Secretary, says that the veil can be regarded as a visible statement of “separation and difference”. Some Muslim scholars do not believe it is obligatory. 

Mr. Straw, in acknowledging the importance of the veil and modesty in the Muslim faith said that as an alternative, the women visiting his office could consider either raising their blouses to,  "flash some tit or lifting their skirts to flash some clam.  Either one is lots of fun!"

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Analysis: Ashcroft blasts 9-11 Commission

By SHAUN WATERMAN
UPI Homeland and National Security Editor

WASHINGTON, Oct. 5 (UPI) — Former Attorney General John Ashcroft this week became the only Cabinet-level Bush official to attack the Sept. 11 Commission, writing in his memoirs it "seemed obsessed with trying to lay the blame for the terrorist attacks at the feet of the Bush administration, while virtually absolving the previous administration of responsibility."

Ashcroft also writes that the commission’s hearings "were not so much about discovering the truth as they were about assessing blame and grandstanding," adding that they "degenerated into show trials."

GOP Commissioner Slade Gorton, a former senator from Washington State, told United Press International Thursday that he found the charges "extraordinary," recalling that President Bush had personally repudiated Ashcroft’s tactics in his sparring with the commission.

"Most of the criticism (the commission received) was the exact opposite: that we didn’t blame anyone," he said. "Our job was to write a factual account which readers could use to assess blame for themselves."  Ashcroft "may very well have been the worst witness we interviewed," he said, adding he was "very unresponsive and unhelpful." 

Gorton continued, "Ashcroft is dumber than a box of hammers and the only reason he’s angry at us, is we called ‘bullshit’ on just about everything he said.  I wouldn’t trust that dork to tell me the correct time."

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TV spot links Braley to Communist Party

By Ed Tibbetts | Tuesday, October 03, 2006 | Quad-City Times

A new Republican television ad links Democratic congressional candidate Bruce Braley to the Communist Party and says he’s supported by “ultra liberals.”

The ad, which began running Friday, prompted the Braley campaign to label it a “joke.” The ad says Braley was endorsed by the Council for a Livable World and was called a “peace candidate” by the Communist Party.

The council, the new ad says, advocates “huge defense cuts” and has a leader that once proposed negotiating with the Taliban.

It concludes by saying Braley’s support from “ultra liberals” shows he’s “out of touch” with Iowa.
Jeff Giertz, a Braley spokesman, did not dispute the ad’s accuracy but said it is “over the top.”

“It’s absolutely laughable,” he said, adding Braley hasn’t been endorsed by the Communist Party, nor is the ad claiming that.  Giertz said that "Braley never negotiated with the Taliban; he left that up to Vice-President Dick Cheney who was representing Unocal." 

Giertz added  "Bruce Braley assured me was completely shitfaced on some amazing Afghan hash that Hamid Karzi was hot-knifing at the time, so he doesn’t remember much of the meeting with the Taliban."

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Oct 6, 3:49 PM (ET) By Evelyn Leopold

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – The U.N. Security Council on Friday urged North Korea not to carry out a planned nuclear-weapon test and warned Pyongyang of unspecified consequences if it did.

The warning, in a formal statement adopted unanimously, came three days after North Korea’s announced it planned its first underground nuclear test, saying its hand had been forced by a U.S. "threat of nuclear war and sanctions."

U.S. officials have said the reclusive state might detonate a device as early as this weekend, and a Chinese source said Pyongyang planned to carry out the test deep inside an abandoned mine.

A nuclear test would "jeopardize peace, stability and security in the region and beyond" and "bring universal condemnation by the international community," said the Security Council statement, read at a formal meeting by Japan’s U.N. Ambassador Kenzo Oshima, this month’s council president.

It warned North Korea that a nuclear test would lead to further unspecified Security Council action "consistent with its responsibility under the Charter of the United Nations."

Analysts say North Korea probably has enough fissile material to make six to eight nuclear bombs but probably does not have the technology to devise one small enough to mount on a missile.  Analysts also said that they might also be kidding. 

"We truly have no clue whatsoever," said Maynard G Krebs, a UN Nuclear Proliferation Analyst.  "We’re so out of touch here, half the staff think that U Thant is still the Secretary-General and the other half think they’re working on the negotiations for the Treaty of Versailles." 

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Inquiry To Look At House, Not Foley
By Charles Babington,  Washington Post Staff Writer (With file from http://www.cbc.ca)
Friday, October 6, 2006; A01

The House ethics committee launched a wide-ranging investigation into Congress’s handling of information about a Florida lawmaker and teenage pages yesterday, as Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) vowed to keep his job, saying, "I haven’t done anything wrong.  At least nothing you’ve got transcripts of."

The ethics panel approved nearly four dozen subpoenas for documents and testimony from House members, officers and aides. Its leaders said they plan to complete the inquiry in a matter of weeks, but not necessarily before the Nov. 7 congressional elections.

"Our investigation will go wherever the evidence leads us," Chairman Doc Hastings (R-Wash.) told reporters at the Capitol.

The committee is evenly divided between the two parties, and Hastings and Rep. Howard L. Berman (Calif.), the top Democrat, promised to conduct an impartial investigation into the House’s handling of warnings about the conduct of then-Rep. Mark Foley (R-Fla.).  "We believe the committee could use a scanning electron microscope to find what is left of Speaker Hastert’s credibility." said Rep. Berman.

As part of his statement, Speaker Dennis Hastert also announced a toll-free number that Americans could call to suggest ways of making sure young pages are free from harassment or other forms of ill treatment by politicians or government officials.

"Our children need to be protected and we’re going to do everything that we can to protect them," he said."

Several callers to the toll-free line said that they were amazed that grown humans in Congress, the Senate and the Speaker’s Office still do not understand that it is illegal to have sex with anyone underage, regardless of gender and needed a toll-free line to have regular citizens explain it to them.

A typical comment came from Ms. Angela Fleedmocker who recorded her comments on the toll-free advice line,  "At least Clinton was getting some consensual skull lovin’ from an adult.  Foley wanted to holepunch the young stuff and that ain’t right, even for West Virginia.  What part of this do you not understand?"

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I really have to get a new hobby.

I might joke about the Amish but I do have some admiration for any religious group that has declared itself pacifist and wants little to do with the North American frenzy we call a lifestyle.

I also kid about the Mennonites and Hutterites too, as well as poking a sharpened stick at every other organized religion on the planet, including the Presbyterians.  Especially Presbyterians, the bunch of self-righteous pud-pullers.

Which is why the school shootings in Lancaster, Pennsylvania are heartbreaking.  I’ve been to that area of Pennsylvania and it is beautiful.  The Amish farms are prosperous, the people hardworking and the pace of life is gentle but determined to succeed through hard work and helping each other as much as possible.  I might not subscribe to the Amish interpretation of religion, but I do appreciate it. 

I have even spent an enjoyable few dozen minutes talking with some members of the brethren, over a fence, outside Mechanicsburg, PA.  Oddly enough I was looking for directions to Williams Grove Speedway to watch the sprint cars tear up the track.  They knew where it was and gave me directions, but I stayed and chatted for a while about cabbages and kings.

Yesterday a warped person stormed into a one-room Lancaster, PA school, in a predominantly Amish area.  He took a bunch of young girls hostage, shot up the place, then turned the gun on himself.  So far, five of the children are dead.  Charles Carl Roberts IV came ready for action, with 600 rounds, three weapons, a stun gun, two knives, clothing, tape, hardware, and rolls of clear tape.  This wasn’t a spur-of-the-moment freak-out. 

Some reports say that members of the Amish brethren in the area have expressed their regret at the killings.  In the next breath they also express their sincere forgiveness of the the shooter.  

I know I wouldn’t have the courage of my convictions to know that a deeply disturbed person killed my daughter in cold blood, then turn around and forgive him.  Not many people could.  For that sheer courage to not only live the "Christian" life, but to actually act the "Christian" way in a very extreme situation, I can only be impressed and respectful.

This doesn’t mean I won’t crack jokes about the Amish having a coal-fired web server made out of lumber and twine.  At the same time, I’m sad that this group, who have managed to avoid most of the insanity of our modern life, have to go through this sadness.  It isn’t right.  I have no fix for it and no way to make it better.

This is based on a RoadDave from the old website from November 11th, 2004.  Since the US is falling uphill towards e-voting in five weeks time, it might be worthwhile to look at it again.

Mechanical or electromechanical voting machines have been around for quite a while in the US.  Enter the polling place, close the curtain, pull the handle for the droog you want in the office, open the curtain and go home.  When the polls close, the vote counting people open a locked door on the back, read off the numbers, then call the numbers into the central office.  Vote is done, life goes on and a new group of thieves and pimps get to take office.

We’ve used a limited form of Electronic voting in Canada for quite a few years.  Many polls use what is called a Mark-Sense ballot.  Just like those IQ tests you took in high school, you shade in the little oval with a #2 pencil, next to the name of the candidate you want to vote for.  Put the ballot in a paper sleeve to keep your choices away from prying eyes and bring it to the machine. 

The machine, which looks like an old fashioned laser printer, sucks the ballot in and reads it, doing the counting on the fly.  Results are written to a memory card inside the machine.

The machine tells the poll worker and the voter if they have overvoted or undervoted and asks them if they want to confirm their overvote or undervote without disclosing what the particulars are.   I’ve done this; overvoted to spoil a ballot when I couldn’t hold my nose long enough for any of the meat puppets running for the office.  I did vote, even if my vote was to create a deliberately spoiled ballot.

After the vote is counted by the machine, the paper Mark-Sense ballot is kept, in case the machine coughs up a lung, pees its pants, or is hammered to pieces by an unhappy scrutineer.  The ballots are put in a regular, sealed, ballot box.  When the polls close, the memory card is removed from the machine and put in a laptop.  The results are displayed along with any errors the machine has encountered.  If the memory card is truly pooched, it says so. 

The vote numbers are either read off the screen and phoned in, or sent electronically to the central office for tabulation using wireless or a dial up modem.  In any case, a broken machine, a tampered card, a busy signal, or blithering idiot poll worker, the paper ballots are retained and sent to the central office, still sealed in their ballot box.  This is the backup when the technology fails or a judicial recount is ordered. 

Full e-voting dispenses with the paper step altogether.  You go behind the curtain and touch-screen your choices, hoping the technology works as intended.  We’ve found that the technology doesn’t always work as intended.

In one case, the e-voting machine ran out of memory after only a few thousand votes but didn’t shut down, or cry, or beg, or beep.  People kept voting away and the machine kept showing the voters the ballot and accepting their choices.  Then, it would toss their choices in the bit bucket, gone forever.  Those who see black helicopters everywhere are certain that it only tossed out Democrat or Libertarian votes, but the endgame is the same.  No votes were recorded.

The tradition of secret ballot, accurately counted, has a tradition going back to the Ancient Greeks:  Voters marking their choice on the shards of a clay pot and putting their choices in a big basket which were then counted by impartial counters.  If there was a dispute over who got how many votes, a judge could always recount the pot shards.

The issue comes down to three things:  We want a secret ballot.  We want accurate results.  We want the results as fast as possible. 

The secret ballot, we can do.  Accurate results using paper balloting is about as good as it gets, but it isn’t fast.  Paper has the advantage in that it allows for a judicial recount, as you just bundle up the ballots and drive them over to a central warehouse for counting by the judicial folks. 

There have been hiccups with mechanical systems, notably the punch ballot and the hanging chad issues in Florida, but at least someone can go back and look at the paper.  Much of the problems with mechanical voting come back to poor design, untrained poll workers, broken technology and inept voters.  These are all things that can be fixed easily. 

Pure e-voting, without paper, is problematic.  If there is a demand for a judicial recount, what do you do?  Take the touch screen over to the judges and have them eyeball the output?  What happens if a bratty seven year old at the polling place decides to dump his 32 oz. Mister Freezie into the guts of the voting machine?

The concern is that the internal programming of a pure e-voting machine is not subject to scrutiny by an independent third party.  We are trusting the manufacturer to put in programming that doesn’t lie, or juggle the output, or drop zeros, or just round up to the nearest 10,000 for the Republicans. 

Programming code is hard to validate without very specialized knowledge and even harder to test for security.  So much of the internals of an e-voting device are labeled ‘proprietary’ and ‘confidential’ by the manufacturer.  We are not allowed to look, or question.  This is the heart of accuracy and by definition, democracy.  Remember we want a secret ballot, accurately counted.  If we can’t verify the counting, then we don’t have democracy. 

We want a system that is fast, which e-voting is.  We want a system that is secret, which e-voting can be, or at least the steps up to actually touching the screen to indicate my choices.  We want a system that is accurate, so if I do screw up, I can change my selection before it goes into the ‘ballot box’ either virtual or physical.  E-voting is not accurate because the computer code is not subject to impartial third-party scrutiny. 

E-voting is also not secure because you can hack the memory cards.  Go to www.blackboxvoting.org if you want to see how to hack one with four dollars worth of hand tools and ten minutes. 

However, we can make the memory cards more secure by having strict protocols in place for e-voting machines.  The protocols already exist.  Take the same protocols for a physical ballot box and apply them to the memory card and machine.  Even Karl Rove knows you don’t break the seal on a ballot box until the polls are closed and then, only with witnesses present.

At the end of it, we could make e-voting secure, but we’re still missing the audit trail of paper.

The closest we’ve come is Mark-Sense, where the computer side of things is just a counter, based on the paper ballot.  The programming is simple, the technology mature and the results are reasonably reliable.  Second worst-case?  You can re-run the paper ballots into another machine, if the current machine blows a headvalve or starts behaving oddly.

Or, worst-case, you can sit down with a calculator and tabulate off the paper ballots in an entirely manual process.  This works, even in a power failure and is as accurate as humans counting pot shards can make it. 

So far, until the e-voting machine people show us all the inner workings and have the code validated by several impartial, or even aggressively distrustful groups, I’m not prepared to sign on the line.  I want a paper ballot.

Now the kicker:  You cannot demand a paper ballot.  You are required to use the technology set out for you, like it or not.  Your right to vote in a secret ballot, accurately counted, has now been taken away. 

Enjoy your democracy.  Thank you for voting.