The Bacterial Frontrunner

Sometimes it is very difficult to understand how the front runner is chosen prior to November.

So, I sought out some general expertise:

By the rude bridge that arched the flood,
Their flag to April’s breeze unfurled,
Here once the embattled farmers stood
And fired the shot heard round the world.

The foe long since in silence slept;
Alike the conqueror silent sleeps;
And Time the ruined bridge has swept
Down the dark stream which seaward creeps.

On this green bank, by this soft stream,
We set today a votive stone;
That memory may their deed redeem,
When, like our sires, our sons are gone.

Spirit, that made those heroes dare
To die, and leave their children free,
Bid Time and Nature gently spare
The shaft we raise to them and thee.

(Ralph Waldo Emerson). Olde Waldo also said:

“The end of the human race will be that it will eventually die of civilization.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Which to some of us would give rise to the question: "Where in the world is Waldo"?

And so it goes.

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I also consulted some deep down truth experts. Hope the TED talk from this brilliant professor helps us to say "now we know":

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LieGate

Welcome to It Can Happen Here

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From the Stargate ...

"... Sinclair Lewis's It Can't Happen Here ... [ultimately] conceives of fascism and totalitarianism in terms of traditional U.S. political models ... [President] Windrip is less a Nazi than a con-man-plus-Rotarian, a manipulator who knows how to appeal to people's desperation, but neither he nor his followers are in the grip of the kind of world-transforming ideology like Hitler's National Socialism.

Following the results of the 2016 United States presidential election, sales of It Can't Happen Here surged significantly ..."

(Wikipedia, emphasis added).

In the Dredd Blog post "The Cuckoo's Egg Hatched Again" the book "The Cuckoo's Egg" (download free there) is discussed.

The Cuckoo's Egg is a true story about a hippie astronomer who discovered a hacker who had infiltrated many U.S. Government computer systems.

He tracked down the foreign hacker.

He eventually convinced government agents (who had the "it can't happen here" mindset) of the reality they were unaware of:

For forty years the military has been hackable. If you want a book that documented the current reality 40 years ago, read The Cuckoo's Egg, by Cliff Stoll. He had a difficult time convincing the military that it was being hacked as if it was an open book:

The meeting was top secret, so I couldn't listen—someone fetched me when my turn came. In a small room, lit only by the viewgraph machine, there were around thirty people, most of them in uniforms. Generals and admirals, like you see in the movies.

Well, I talked for half an hour, describing how the hacker was breaking into military computers and skipping through our networks.
...
I know as little about the military world as the next person. "I guess I'm impressed, though I'm not sure why," I said. "You ought to be," Bob said. "These are all flag officers. General John Paul Hyde works at the Joint Chiefs of Staff. And that guy in the front row -- he's a big shot from the FBI. It's a good thing he heard you."

(ibid, The Cuckoo's Egg, p. 200). This took place 40 years ago when a long hair from Berkeley informed the military they were being had, so they gave the long haired hippy astronomer the National Medal of Honor.

(Ye Olde Drone Hackers Ride Again). The following video, among other things, is a discussion of the book "It Can't Happen Here."

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The next post in this series is here.

Dress Codes: Language As A Clothing Metaphor

Fig. 1 "Your mother wears combat boots clothing."

Is "talk" cheap because it is a luxury, or is it costly ("words matter") because it is a necessity?

At least one observer indicates that luxury is cheaper than necessity in some scenarios:

Sociologist Joseph Cohen of Queens University is fond of saying that “America is a place where luxuries are cheap and necessities costly.”

A recent chart from economist Mark Perry of the American Enterprise Institute, using data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, illustrates this well. Since 1996, the prices of food and housing have increased by close to 60 percent, faster than the pace of inflation. Costs of health care and child care have more than doubled. The prices of textbooks and higher education nearly tripled.
...
In the case of higher education, the nation’s massive student loan industry bears much of the upfront burden of rising prices. To the typical 18-year-old, a $120,000 tuition bill may seem like an abstraction when you don’t have to start paying it off until your mid-20s or later. As a result, the nation’s college students and graduates now collectively owe upward of $1.3 trillion in student loan debt.

(The stuff we need ... and the other stuff). Down through time clothing and even fruit have been metaphors for behavior (e.g. "wolf in sheep's clothing" and "by their fruits shall ye know them").

Clothing still is metaphorical, in the sense and to the extent that behavior defines us:

Today, we design and define ourselves through clothing more than through any other device. Clothing originally evolved to provide protection and warmth. For centuries, it has also reflected gender, age, cultural identity, and class differences—visually distinguishing the ruling, powerful, and wealthy from everyone else. In the contemporary world of customization, mass production, and globalization—with information disseminated at a rate never before experienced— we can choose from myriad styles and types of clothing to alter how we are perceived and identified.

Since the 1990s, a growing number of international artists have been using apparel as a metaphor for shared, as well as personal, concerns.

(Dress Codes: Clothing as Metaphor, PDF; in other words: Dress Codes: Clothing as Metaphor). On another hand, "clothes don't make the man" and "you can't tell a book by its cover" allege that there are holes in our ability to discern the depths when we merely observing the shallows.

Moving along, one can ask or wonder: "if all of this applies to groups, nations, organizations, or cultures, what would that look like?"

The graphic in Fig. 1 indicates that some clothing is sufficiently revealing to in fact "tell the book by its cover," or "know the man by his clothing," at least in the sense of groups within a society (e.g. "hawks" vs. "doves").

So, you may be wondering what this has to do with "language" being as much of a revelatory indicator as "clothing" can be.

Can language reveal aspects of "the book" or of "the man" who is "wearing" that language?

Ok, fair enough ... as a simple exercise let's investigate cultures that use the word "slay".

But first let's investigate the word's traditional meaning:

slay [sley];  verb (used with object), slew, slain, slaying.

1. to kill by violence.
2. to destroy; extinguish.

(Dictionary). Synonyms usually help with the investigation into the meaning of a word:

Synonyms for slay: kill, assassinate, butcher, destroy, dispatch, execute, exterminate, massacre, murder, slaughter, annihilate, do, down, eliminate, erase, finish, hit, liquidate, neutralize, snuff, waste, cut off, do away with, do in, knock off, put away, rub out ...

(Thesaurus). So, what do we make of it when this word, which describes the most heinous of activity, is used casually by groups within a culture, or even when it is used by whole cultures?

First notice this:

Did you watch the Billboard Music Awards last night and follow along on Twitter or Facebook? Or maybe you skipped it and are just catching up on all of the headlines…

One thing is for sure, there were a lot of females “slaying” last night.

I am over it with this word, especially since it’s now used to describe outfits or performances that are only moderately good. It’s completely lost it’s meaning because it’s been so over used!

Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t “slay” supposed to be reserved for something that is out of this world, over the top, spectacular, cream of the crop, best of the best, most amazing ever, killed it, nailed it, WOW, and holy sh*t that was amazing? Because if you followed Twitter last night, just about every performance was the best thing ever of all time.. Even the ones that were just OK.

(CBS Local News, emphasis added). The commentator was not complaining that the use of the word "slay" in that context represents a watering down of the worst of human behavior (which is human crime).

Instead, the commentator was complaining that "slay" was being used to describe only mediocre performances (the commentator's argument was that "slay" should be reserved for the best human performances).

Perhaps that commentator was a graduate of some astute institutions within our slaying culture (Is War An Art or Is War A Disease?, 2) ?

Or, perhaps just a commentator who wakes up to the lyrics of a "killer" song:

And you killed it, you killed it
You killed it with I love you
And you killed it, you killed it
You killed it with I love you
And you killed with I love you
What am I supposed to say back to you?
You killed it with I love you
(U Killed It). The message subtly broadcast by those who create travesties of art, subversions of language, who extinguish reason, and/or who disable socially mature cultures, is the message that barbaric linguistic behavior is nothing more than fancy clothing.

And this is being done against the backdrop of our culture.

A culture which has been counseled from the beginning to avoid this state of mind, or maybe better said as this mind of state:

Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few. In war, too, the discretionary power of the Executive is extended; its influence in dealing out offices, honors, and emoluments is multiplied: and all the means of seducing the minds, are added to those of subduing the force, of the people. The same malignant aspect in republicanism may be traced in the inequality of fortunes, and the opportunities of fraud, growing out of a state of war, and in the degeneracy of manners and of morals, engendered by both. No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare. Those truths are well established.

(The Greatest Source Of Power Toxins?). The warmonger depicted in Fig. 1 was telling the truth when it said to the president: "it's us or them."

It is getting to be all "US" without "THEM," because "US" is slaying, "US" is killing "THEM" softly with those "US" words.

Anyway, getting back to the words that work, listen to a former Secretary of the Treasury talk with sober words about work clothing:

On the basis of these factors, I expect that more than one-third of all men between 25 and 54 will be out work at mid-century. Very likely more than half of men will experience a year of non-work at least one year out of every five. This would be in the range of the rate of non-work for high school drop-outs and exceeds the rate of non-work for African Americans today.

Will we be able to support these people and a growing retired share of the population? What will this mean for the American family? For prevailing ethics of self-reliance? For alienation and support for toxic populism? These are vital questions. Even more vital is the question of what is to be done.

These questions should preoccupy social science researchers. They are vital to our future.

(A disaster is looming for American men). The bill for wising "US" up will slay "THEM" who are "killing it" :

The Fed asked respondents how they would pay for a $400 emergency. The answer: 47 percent of respondents said that either they would cover the expense by borrowing or selling something, or they would not be able to come up with the $400 at all. Four hundred dollars! Who knew?

(The Atlantic). What the cavalier attitude about barbarianism subconsciously encourages is the spread of a social barbarianism which will slay our society by killing its middle class.

Resist.

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Really Roberta, softly?

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Waiting For The World To Change

Victim City

"You lay down your money and you play your part ..." - Springsteen (Glory Daze).

You cast your vote then wait for change that does not happen (The Elections of Pontius Pilots).

And this is happening even as lots of blame-the-victim-ism is getting rampant around the globe, where it is a sort of bully religion that is happening in far too many scenarios, in far too many nations, and it is happening even in "the land of the free" (Bully Worship: The Universal Religion).

In the U.S.A. this plays out in one scenario when voters are blamed for what politicians do, once they get into office.

That blame-the-victim happens even if those politicians campaigned on a different foreign and domestic policy than what they implemented and promoted once in office:

Only one in ten Americans thinks Congress is doing a good job.

With numbers like these ... it's hard to imagine how any of our lawmakers will get re-elected in November. But sadly many of them will.

According to a new Gallup poll, Congress gets a 10% approval rating, which ties its all-time low for the past 4 decades.

83% disapprove of Congress.

What's more, Congress' approval rating is down among all political groups ... at 9% for Democrats, 11% for independents and 10% for Republicans.

While experts say it's hard to pinpoint exactly why Americans are so negative about Congress, the answer is probably "everything."
...
The country is on the road to ruin, and Congress bears much of the responsibility.

Yet chances are if you check back in after the election, many of these same lawmakers will be right back in Washington.

Why do we keep doing this to ourselves? The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome.

Here's my question to you: Why won't Americans vote Congress out of office?

(Cafferty, emphasis added). The implication is that the voters, not the government official, is to blame because people voted in error.

Yesterday, Dredd Blog began a series about aspects of the nature of our political stage being a duopoly.

That post also answered Cafferty's question:

One of the leaders in this duopolistic system recently commented that the system is currently morphing into a battle of the billionaires from each of the two parties, the two "sides" (Raw Story, Harry Reid).

He is saying that this system has morphed from a public election system, where voters decide the direction of foreign and domestic policy, into a moneyed system where only the billionaires have the main "say" in elections and national policy.

How is that the case, since the voters still get to vote?

Our Supreme Five on the Supreme Court have imagined that "money is speech," thus $1 is a word, $100 is a sentence, $1,000 is a paragraph, and $1,000,000 is a book.

So, how is the book on elections written now compared to before if there has in fact been a morph, a change?

Those who decide what candidate will run write the book with their money doing the talking, as evidenced by the Republican candidates all flocking or being herded to a gathering.

A gathering at a gambling casino where the billionaire for their side decided who he would bet on, what horse he would back, yes, who would be the party's candidate (Candidates Court Mega Donor).

(Moral Words In The Struggles Of A Duopoly, emphasis added). The power brokers decide who we can vote for or against, but that is of little to no moment when they have a unified position on issues that are not part of the debate.

For example, the previous presidential-election candidates did not mention climate change during the debates, for the first time in a generation:

But as noted by several debate watchers, climate change was never mentioned -- not by the candidates, and not by the debate moderator, Bob Schieffer of CBS News. Given the absence of the topic at the two preceding meetings between Obama and Romney, the close of Monday night's event marked the first time in roughly a generation that climate change has failed to receive an airing at any of the presidential debates.

Nearly 25 years after NASA scientist James Hansen famously told Congress that the science behind the greenhouse effect was clear -- and after similarly long-lived efforts to raise awareness of global warming and to force the topic into the national dialog -- the meaning behind Monday's milestone is likely to be hotly debated. To some, it is a sign that climate change has become a niche issue -- and is now being treated like any other special interest. To others, the candidates are merely playing the political odds in an election in which Americans are highly focused on jobs and other more immediate concerns.

But in the hours immediately following the debate, activists and climate scientists simply expressed a mixture of anger and disillusionment.

(New Climate Catastrophe Policy: Triage - 9). These failings are not the fault of the victims, the men, women, and children who are citizens.

No, the fault falls squarely on the heads of the men and women who engineer the demise of civilization (Oil-Qaeda: The Indictment).

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A song about the victims ...

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V: The Evolution of The Vaccime

Or perhaps the subtitle: "a good leek or broccoli vaccime can cure what ails your political system."

The word "vaccime" originated within "Memetics", a struggling discipline within the halls of research at the edge of science.

As an emerging discipline, originally designed to equate thought evolution with genetic evolution, Memetics did not do so well, at least in terms of broad-based popularity.

But there is still hope that it could do better if it changed direction by focusing its application toward the future thereby changing its original focus away from an exercise of merely cloning ancient biological evolution by using "new words" but little else.

The hypothesis is that it would do better if it became a vehicle for talking about the future, beginning from a perspective of the here and now.

The purpose of this post is to talk about elections in the context of the evolution of democracy, within the framework of Memetics, but specifically in the context of the evolution of the vaccime and its application as a cure for political diseases.

So first, before we discuss the notion of the vaccime in more detail, lets take a look at the Lexicon of Memetics for a definition of the word vaccime:

vaccime

(pron. vak-seem) Any meta-meme which confers resistance or immunity to one or more memes, allowing that person to be exposed without acquiring an active infection ... Common [vaccimes] are "Faith", "Loyalty", "Skepticism", and "tolerance" ... Every [meme complex] includes a vaccime to protect against rival memes.

(Memetic Lexicon). To tie this to democratic elections, remember that Dredd Blog has always argued that accountability is the vaccime (the antidote)

Ye olde 'middle finger'

to politicians who do not do what they told the voters they were going to do when they campaigned for the votes of those voters.

The voters therefore hold them accountable by voting them out of office at the first opportunity.

Long time readers know that not only does Dredd Blog consider the primary method of applying accountability to be elections, but that Dredd Blog also knows that accountability vanishes when the political system is infected with the toxins of power.

The recent election evolution in the middle east was described as "revolution", which is nothing more than the morph of the application of a vaccime into a progressively stronger dosage, because the political disease has become acute.

For example, in Egypt elections had degenerated into a hollow mockery because those elections were as phony as an election in Russia under Stalin.

Or as phony as an election in Kentucky before the vaccime had been generously applied there to stop the election judges from the peddling of election results to the highest bidder.

In Egypt the people were forced to vote with their feet, i.e. street protests, because the useless paper ballot became a symbol of Mubarak's oppression.

In Libya the people are said to have voted with their guns because when they peacefully assembled to vote with their feet they were shot down.

So, historically the election vaccime is the vote, the protest, or the armed revolution, depending on the type of election disease that must be dealt with.

The bottom line for the future is that one type of therapy or vaccime sometimes fails, mandating a switch to another therapy in order to avoid insanity.

The Cuckoo's Egg Hatched Again - 2

We have been doing a series about the weakness in election systems brought on by the means and methods used to develop software / hardware systems empowering those election systems.

We associate election systems to a notion of freedom through our secular belief system.

When you come right down to it, "freedom" is a feeling, a powerful essence that was captured in an old Creme song:

Pom pom pom pom pom pom, I Feel Free

Feel when I dance with you,
We move like the sea.
You, you're all I want to know.
I feel free, I feel free, I feel free.

I can walk down the street, there's no one there
Though the pavements are one huge crowd.
I can drive down the road; my eyes don't see,
Though my mind wants to cry out loud.

I feel free, I feel free, I feel free.

I can walk down the street, there's no one there
Though the pavements are one huge crowd.
I can drive down the road; my eyes don't see,
Though my mind wants to cry out loud,
Though my mind wants to cry out loud.

Dance floor is like the sea,
Ceiling is the sky.
You're the sun and as you shine on me,
I feel free, I feel free, I feel free.

(I Feel, Creme). Governments are very, very, very well aware of this, so they use that knowledge to their advantage, not primarily for wee the people (a.k.a. "the public").

Joseph Stalin was one of the government players who was well aware of the reality. He touched upon it with a saying attributed to him: "The voters decide nothing, those who count the votes decide everything".

This nuanced revelation into the inner workings of his despotic mind means that as long as the voters feel everything is fine with their election system, you can make elections come out any way you want to so long as "you are counting" the votes. If the voters feel free, that is all that matters.

Over the past decade the U.S. government, after suffering a coup by neoCons of the right, has hammered the little people with feelings about security.

The "I feel fine" sentiment has been challenged incessantly with "I feel fear", the purpose being to direct tax dollars in the direction the neoCon government wanted to take the nation, wars and more wars.

They did all that initially through "winning elections" (The Supreme Court Five in Bush v Gore cast the deciding 5 votes).

Each and every time election officials feel all mavericky then want to go rogue by challenging anyone who doubts the security of their election system, that system gets its ass kicked pronto.

A recent episode under the skin, under the gaze, yes, under the feel good daze of the Washington D.C. crowd makes this abundantly clear:

The District of Columbia is conducting a pilot project to allow overseas and military voters to download and return absentee ballots over the Internet. Before opening the system to real voters, D.C. has been holding a test period in which they've invited the public to evaluate the system's security and usability.

This is exactly the kind of open, public testing that many of us in the e-voting security community — including me — have been encouraging vendors and municipalities to conduct. So I was glad to participate, even though the test was launched with only three days' notice. I assembled a team from the University of Michigan, including my PhD students, Eric Wustrow and Scott Wolchok, and Dawn Isabel, a member of the University of Michigan technical staff.

Within 36 hours of the system going live, our team had found and exploited a vulnerability that gave us almost total control of the server software, including the ability to change votes and reveal voters’ secret ballots. In this post, I’ll describe what we did, how we did it, and what it means for Internet voting.

(Hacked Egg Heads, emphasis added). The import of this is tremendous because easily hackable election systems like this are the most widely used systems across the land.

Just because election officials' being lax about voting machine integrity is an election crime, which is a State Crime Against Democracy (SCAD), that does not prevent SCAD after SCAD from happening, but neither does our addiction to feeling good no matter what is really happening.

Dr. David Jefferson of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories, one who is scientifically aware of the vulnerability of electronic voting machines, praised the team who showed how easy it is for hackers to throw an election.

When the hacker team testified before the District of Columbia government officials at a public meeting last Friday, they also pointed out a shocker:

Halderman also reported that while he and his students had control of the system, they witnessed hackers from China and Iran prodding those routers and switches.

(Washington Post). The feeling I have about this is that we have foreign governments spending vast amounts on our elections, while at the same time they hack into our election computers.

The next post in this series is here, the previous post in this series is here.

The Cuckoo's Egg Hatched Again

A while back in the post Ye Olde Drone Hackers Ride Again Dredd Blog pointed out that military and corporate computer systems have been successfully hacked from their beginning.

Dredd Blog provided a link to the free book The Cuckoo's Egg, a story about how a young hippie was given a national medal of honor for proving that many military and defense contractor sites were actively being compromised at that time.

A new era in hacking is emerging as hackers become even more sophisticated, to the point of being able to bring down nuclear and other power plants:

Cyber security experts say they have identified the world's first known cyber super weapon designed specifically to destroy a real-world target – a factory, a refinery, or just maybe a nuclear power plant.

The cyber worm, called Stuxnet, has been the object of intense study since its detection in June. As more has become known about it, alarm about its capabilities and purpose have grown. Some top cyber security experts now say Stuxnet's arrival heralds something blindingly new: a cyber weapon created to cross from the digital realm to the physical world – to destroy something.

(Christian Science Monitor). The media and government generally disregard the threat this has posed for decades to U.S. elections.

Dredd Blog pointed out the reality of this threat in the post "Election Conspiracy Theory Confirmed?".

With all the wackos winning elections these days, perhaps it is time to revisit this subject with a sober analysis instead of the tired old "it can't happen here" naive bias.

The next post in this series is here.

Election Conspiracy Theory Confirmed?

The government projects more conspiracy theories than any other single entity.

Of course their conspiracy theories are the "good conspiracy theories" not the bad conspiracy theories the media talks about when citizens of the United States suspect a criminal conspiracy.

In federal courts, one of the most popular charges is a conspiracy theory, that is, a charge that the conspirators did thus and such.

About one anniversary ago the Department of Justice advanced a conspiracy theory that voting machines had been rigged by conspirators to throw an election:

[The conspirators] together with other persons known and unknown, being persons employed by and associated with the Clay County Board of Elections, an enterprise, which engaged in, and the activities of which affected interstate commerce, knowingly willfully, and unlawfully agreed and conspired to violate [various federal criminal laws] It was part of the conspiracy that each defendant agreed that a conspirator would commit at least two acts of racketeering activity in the conduct of the affairs of the enterprise.
...

The Defendant ... instructed other election officers on how to ... change votes at the voting machines in furtherance of the scheme to elect their “slate” of candidates.

(The Indictment, PDF, emphasis added). Voting machine conspiracy theories are said to be the worst kind of paranoia the conspiracy theorists ever think up.

That is what the main stream media says anyway.

Well, the jury must be conspiracy nutters too, because they convicted 8 of the election officials:

A jury convicted a former judge and seven others on Thursday of scheming to buy votes for several local offices in an eastern Kentucky county.

The jury in U.S. District Court in Frankfort deliberated for nine hours over two days before convicting all eight people in a federal racketeering conspiracy. Those convicted on Thursday included former Circuit Judge R. Cletus Maricle and former school Superintendent Douglas C. Adams.

(Lexington Kentucky Herald Leader, emphasis added [the 'news' paper removed the article, the FBI hasn't yet: link]). Wow, what is this nation coming to when conspiracy theories are a part of our legal system?

What is next, Alice In Wonderland becoming a judge?

There is a long history of electronic voting machine fraud allegations in the United States, but since we all know these are conspiracy theories, no one ever pays attention to the allegations of computer experts and others the main stream media call nut jobs.

They even allege that gerrymandering is a conspiracy to commit election wrongs just because some election districts snake their way across some states, going through as many as 25 counties in some cases.

Did you hear the one where a neoCon far right winger won hands down in Teddy Kennedy's district he had held for many decades, even with all the sympathy for his efforts on health care and his death?

Health care won but in effect he didn't because a liberal ran against the conservative?

I guess that the DOJ lawyers just have too much time on their hands now that war crimes are no longer against the law?

Octomom of Election Fraud Gives Birth

Or, how the election integrity movement within the U.S. military gets jiggy wid it. Invade a sovereign nation, then ship them a thousand electronic voting machines and printing presses to print paper ballots. Next, paint the fingers purple of those who stand in line at the barbed wire lined polling places and actually vote; finally, ignore the sour grapes of those who yell election fraud. Voila, have you thereby perpetuated the spread of democracy; or have you become lonely in the midst of your vast weapons cache and committed a rape that will impregnate electomom and spread election fraud further around the globe? The recent Afghanistan elections sound like another STD moment stimulated by the shadow movement:

Hamid Karzai's main political rival today accused the Afghan president of "stealing" last week's presidential vote by orchestrating a campaign of massive electoral fraud.

(The Guardian). Has Norm Coleman moved to Kabul to do election counselling, or is he still in Minnesota fighting the last electowar?

Specter of Pop Cornyn Saving America

Senator Arlen Specter, by becoming a changeling and a shape shifter, has endangered America.

At least he has according to his former right wing party leader, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.

Even before Senator Specter became a danger to America, John "Pop" Cornyn was threatening WW III if the democratic majority in the US Senate tried to seat Al Franken.

At least before the Federal Supremes had a chance to do the Bush v Gore thingy once again.

Never mind the Minnesota Supremes because that could be over in months; the Federal Supremes could take until next year. Yummy Pop Cornyn.

So, perhaps we should get ready to add fireworks to our popcorn plans for this highly recommended election technique documentary movie.

It is Shakespearean baby, and Bigga Badda Boom John Cornyn of the Republic of The Secession State, Texas, is gonna light up your life.

Franken, in the interim, perhaps you could do a Saturday Night Live with Sarah Palin and Ted "Bridge To Nowhere" Stephens.

That would be good for the popcorn industry.

UPDATE: Buy popcorn stock. Arlen Specter, the newest democrat in the Senate, says that Norm Coleman should win in Minnesota and be seated before the Bush v Gore thingy happens.

Popcorn Wins In Minnesota

For those who remember the old election that should have been over last year, last night a court said some more words about "the election that should have been over last year". A certain news source said this about that court decision:

A Minnesota court ruled Monday night that Democrat Al Franken has defeated Republican Norm Coleman and should be granted the election certificate that will allow him to take his seat in the U.S. Senate.

The Coleman camp immediately vowed to appeal.

"More than 4,400 Minnesotans remain wrongly disenfranchised by this court's order," Coleman attorney Ben Ginsberg said in a statement. "By its own terms, the court has included votes it has found to be 'illegal' in the contest to remain included in the final counts from Election Day, and equal protection and due process concerns have been ignored. For these reasons, we must appeal to the Minnesota Supreme Court so that no voter is left behind."

The three-judge panel rejected Coleman's equal-protection arguments, saying that "errors or irregularities identified by contestants in the general election do not violate the mandates of equal protection."

(Politico). We said a month or so ago about "election integrity" blogs who fan the flames with abstract and ill advised rhetoric:

Instead of seeing it as the disaster it really is. The Brad Blog has unabashedly said:

Franken Declared 'Winner,' But Final Certification Will Likely (and Appropriately) be Delayed ... Excellent provision in MN law ... A very good provision in MN's law --- not found in most other states --- may delay Franken's seating, meaning he will not be sworn in with rest of Congress at the beginning of the new session slated to start tomorrow. Ultimately, however, the provisions should ensure that whoever is eventually sworn in to serve as the state's Senator will not be forced to serve under a cloud ... Would that all of the other states in the union had such a provision ... The voters of MN deserve that much, no matter how long it takes ...

(January 5 Thread, emphasis added). When the blogsters there were out getting their popcorn they had no concern about time or anything else except their own juvenile joy.

(Dredd Blog Article). Now the Brad Blog is complaining about the "very serious charge" that newspapers only declared who got the most votes, not who won.

They still do not care how long it takes.

Popcorn sales are going up over the top, and Brad Blog is asking for donations! All at the same time!

The Minnesota election for senator is not over! wooo hooo!

But, this is not very exciting to the common sense folk who still see it as the disaster it is.

The Brad Blog kiddies should have stuck to their max headroom last last last story.

Brad Blog Abandons Big Bad John

In our article "Cornyn on Bad Blog" we pointed out that the neoCon right likes the Brad Blog idea that "elections should take as long as it takes". In fact, if you think about it, that is the very essence of Bush v Gore which Cornyn and Coleman now cite with ritualistic fervour.

It is as if Cornyn wants Coleman v Franken to be Bush v Gore II, the sequel.

The Brad Blog movie about the Minnesota election almost brought the popcorn industry out of the recession all by itself; and it is not done yet, king popcorn will live again!

It is the Brad Blog form of planned obsolescence. Once an election is "over" (perish the thought), an EI bard blog must talk about stuff that is boring, which is non-election stuff, all over again.

Yech! says the Brad Blog. Who can eat popcorn and not talk about elections that should have been over last year at the same time?

So the bardology is to perpetuate an election for "as long as it takes" so that everybody will be excited and happy all the time!

UPDATE: Evidently the Brad Blog idea did not work out so well. Is it because some people just give up too easily when it comes to perpetuating old elections that should have been over last year?

Do they not have the hardened heart of a soldier when it comes to new and exciting words and ways to describe an old election that should have been over last year?

Who knows, but it is for sure that the bard is now revising his history and revising his policy. Enough is Enough! is the new bardolator's mantra.

We never meant what we said exclaims the bard! We meant that Coleman should not take it to the Minnesota Supreme Court! Should not take it to the US Supreme Court! It should not take as long as it takes!

Well, we do remember what you actually said and advocated Brad Blog. We said you were wrong then, said you should apologize, said you should change your teachings on that, and we saw this coming.

Now you have to play pretend like Corny Cornyn and those whose ideology you have either spawned or followed.

Shame on you for misleading the EI community just to save Big Popcornyn.

UPDATE II: If this movie goes to the Brad Blog endorsed ultimate, "good", "take as long as it takes" Minnesota Supreme Court on appeal, one of the justices there (of the remaining 5 who have not already recused themselves) will be mini-me-Scalia, a.k.a Justice Dietzen.

Evidently that justice was a lawyer for, and contributor to, republican causes and, oh goodie, including Norm Coleman.

Get out the popcorn because now Justice Dietzen has a chance to show he can be unbiased by saying so (like Scalia did), but not by recusing himself. Oh, the bardolatry of it all.

If you like popcorn and election movies about elections that should have been over last year, get on the bardolator's set right now.

UPDATE III: Brad Blog contacted me to say that it still fully supports the Minnesota law, it is just that Coleman is "abusing" that law. Weak argument Brad Blog, very weak.

A clue for Brad Blog: those laws are not "abused". They are either obeyed or broken. Current Minnesota law allows everything Coleman is doing.

Coleman is not "abusing" Minnesota law by obeying what it allows; appeal, appeal, and appeal. The law is what is broken and needs to be fixed. If we did it your way and fixed Coleman, the law would still be flawed.

As I said, Minnesota needs to change its law.

In close elections after one normal recount, the law needs to be changed to say, among other things: a) that all costs of a challenge shall be borne by a challenger unless there is clear and convincing evidence that the challenge was brought in good faith; b) good faith means a clear chance of overturning the recount; c) the burden of proof is upon the challenger; and d) a 90 day limit must be imposed within which the challenger has to make the case after the one recount; e) after that 90 day period the candidate with the most votes shall be certified.

Brad Blog also challenges my use of the Bush v Gore case as an example of delay. They should read some of the statements of Cornyn and Coleman lawyers who are citing that case because they want it repeated in the US Supreme Court where they think deja vu could happen. They are not using that appeal to speed things up by the way.

If Bush v Gore had not been filed in the US Supreme Court the Florida count in 2000 would have been over sooner than Bush v Gore was decided by his majesty Scalia and the Supremes. With different results too I should add. Bush v Gore perpetuated uncertainty which is still with us to this very day.

We would not have had the Bush II regime, wars that are still with us, economic catastrophe, hurricane shame, the utter loss of our world reputation, the loss of civil rights, torture, and the pathetic, ad nauseum, and psychotic ramblings of the bushies telling us that history will eventually glorify him.

One more Bush v Gore thing Brad Blog is perpetuating ... we still have those who cannot admit when they are wrong ... like Brad Blog.

The Minnesota state government has been reading this blog, so I urge them not to drink the Brad Blog kool aid nor eat the Brad Blog popcornyn.

Fix what is wrong with your election law instead, so that you may avoid a next time, like Florida did.

And Brad Blog, while you are at it, stop carping about Oregon's election law that works just fine thank you.

Bobblehead For EI Bobbleheaders

The St. Paul Saints independent league baseball team is giving fans a symbol of the Franken / Coleman political contest for senator from Minnesota.

They are offering a bobble head doll, one with a constantly spinning / wobbling head:

“The Saints have really outdone themselves with this one,” said Independent Senate candidate Dean Barkley. “I am glad, however, they decided not to make this a talking doll. Norm-Al will look great on someone’s shelf—silently.”

(The Saints). That is how the local baseball team in Minnesota sees it, but of course they are not experts.

The experts have a different take on it. Instead of seeing it as the disaster it really is, the Brad Blog has unabashedly said:

Franken Declared 'Winner,' But Final Certification Will Likely (and Appropriately) be Delayed ... Excellent provision in MN law ... A very good provision in MN's law --- not found in most other states --- may delay Franken's seating, meaning he will not be sworn in with rest of Congress at the beginning of the new session slated to start tomorrow. Ultimately, however, the provisions should ensure that whoever is eventually sworn in to serve as the state's Senator will not be forced to serve under a cloud ... Would that all of the other states in the union had such a provision ... The voters of MN deserve that much, no matter how long it takes ...

(January 5 Thread, emphasis added). If that is how elections are supposed to be everywhere, about half the baseball games would still be in overtime.

Popcorn Time Again For Minnesota

Minnesota says the Franken Coleman show must go on.

Like Hannity & Colmes one could surmise.

Brad Blog must be happy to have this movie going on and on and on.

Does that "election integrity blog" still think Minnesota election law is a model for the other states?

We talked about this a while back, but the senate seat is still empty and the Brad Blog theatre seats are still full.

Pass the popcorn to T.O.

Brad Blog's Popcorn Machine Emptied

Removed for new posts ...

Election Integrity Lack of Integrity

We recently criticized the EI ('election integrity') movement of the moment, at least some of them, for not having a positive effect and instead for having a negative effect.

What they can't be criticized for is providing soap opera quality entertainment.

Their daily delight lately is the Franken v Colman debacle in Minnesota. And we thought that Brad Blog was so Shakespearean didn't we?

The people of Minnesota are without their full compliment of senators, but that does not matter to this cadre of EI self assessed experts.

"This is the way it should be" they have opined. "Take as long as it takes" to count the votes is their empty mantra that means nothing. Like deja vu all over again.

Months after the dust has settled on all other elections, including electronic voting machine based elections, they are as happy as pigs in slop to have this one senate election lingering on and on and on and on.

While Minnesota suffers a lack of senators.

Put some popcorn in the microwave and listen to a blather of voters dredged up from the bottom of electiondom's darkest corners, deep down dregs of implausibility, and then parade them before the world so they can see the glory of paper ballot elections? That is simply pathetic.

But the cruel joke is on Minnesota and our sympathies go out to them. Minnesota has the right to two senators but are being deprived of that. That is not good ... EI dogma notwithstanding.

Will it eventually become a curse to say "May the EI movement enjoy your election"?

Gerrymandering - Geological Deceit?

The way congressional districts are drawn (link to your district map here [somehow .gov seems to have "lost" that page, so use the Wayback Machine copy]) raises the very serious specter that gerrymandering may thwart the will of the people.

The way districts are drawn can change everything, and even the courts have struggled with how to deal with gerrymandering [it got lost, so Wayback Machine copy].

The reason that gerrymandering is wrong is because it is anti-voter, to the point that even when the voters overwhelmingly favor a particular outcome, they can be thwarted by gerrymandering.

In other words, the geographical design of the districts is such that it thwarts, and is contrary to, the will of the people at large. It is designed to preserve incumbency and thwart the political notion of accountability.

Furthermore, districts are carved out in strange shapes that result in districts passing through many counties, instead of being defined and bounded by one or more counties.

Thus, malfunctioning electronic voting machines in one county may actually mean malfunctioning in several congressional districts even though only one county is involved. Congressional districts can pass through multiple counties, and each of those counties can theoretically and legally have a different way of doing an election. That is, different voting machines and balloting methods.

Multiple lawsuits or election challenges may be required to challenge bad election results. This intimidates fair elections, because only big money can hire an army of lawyers to fight that kind of unfairness.

We have a dictatorial situation any time the will of the people is thwarted by their government. There is no other name for it.

Some dictatorships are less vile than others, but calling a spade a spade is what I am talking about.

We have a dictatorship if the people cannot express their will by their vote, because the other side of that coin is that they are being dictated too, i.e., told who will be elected and when.

If the government allows us to vote but that vote is meaningless, the fact is that it is a dictatorship masking as democracy, because the people cannot change the government to suit their will.

One of the unique aspects of American government is that there is a part of that governmental process which is not intended to change easily, but instead is intended to remain stable or static.

That unchanging aspect of American government is in stark contrast with the part that is intended to change regularly.

It may be easier to distinguish the characteristics by recalling that the regular changes are intended to apply to people in office, but what is not intended to change are the inalienable rights of the people in the US Constitution as amended.

For example, we don't vote on whether or not freedom of speech or religion stay as our law from election to election. We decided that a long time ago and need not revisit those issues.

In fact the "americanness" or lack thereof of an idea, position, policy, or platform can quickly be discerned by asking if that idea, position, or policy tends to keep certain people in government, i.e. incumbent for a long time, or whether instead that idea, position, or policy keeps long held inalienable rights of the people written in the Constitution incumbent and long lasting.

The American way is that the people come first and that politicians come second. This is not an anti-politician sentiment, it is a wisdom of the ages that our forefathers gave us.

They understood that power tends to corrupt politicians because they become immersed in power. Thus, the people must regularly decide how long a politician stays in office by discerning how power has effected that politician.

Some politicians learn how to neutralize the corrupting influence of power and some do not. We vote the latter out and thereby cleanse our government as needed. Regularly.

For instance gerrymandering (designed to perpetuate incumbency) is contrary to the people's inalienable right to vote office holders out of office, and is contrary, therefore, to the American sentiment.

The next post in this series is here.

Carpet Baggage

Some of the leaders of the Election Integrity movement ("EI") currently in vogue are struggling to make it appear that they are in it for the money.

They make movies about themselves, appear on talk shows about themselves, promote themselves, fight with other EI movement leaders, fight legislation that would improve things, and above all seek to generate a following. A following to support them. "Follow me to truth" is their mantra.

Since that style is not bottom up, it has gone "bottoms up" in its effectiveness and impact on the problems they whine about. If you get my drift, they give new meaning to grass roots or bottom up movement.

Like the infamous "Decider" they have generated a top down mechanism and the results have yet to trickle down to electronic voting machines.

They likewise have failed to explain why their demands for paper ballots is the way to election heaven. After all, the people of the United States and the whole world in general are happy with the November election results.

And the only election still mired up in recounts and lawsuits in the style of Bush v Gore is a paper ballot election in Minnesota. That state uses paper ballots by law. But that election is the only undecided election in the happiest election in decades.

The origins of the movement began with more integrity. In 1985, for instance, they were getting the attention of the New York Times through meaningful articles, and they had a type of influence that would get things done more for the voters than for themselves.

Even the evil empire's DRE machines were eschewed long before the current crop was born (1989 Electronic DRE Hoodwinks).

The electronic voting machine (EVM) watchdogs twenty and more years ago were saying what was said before congressional committees in the past few years:

He pointed a thumb at the floor. "When we first started looking at this issue, back in the middle seventies, we found there were a lot of these systems that were vulnerable to fraud and out-and-out error," he said.

(1988 Article by Dugger, emphasis added). You can shock the hell out of the EI audience (who think they started the movement yesterday) with these quotes from a 1988 official report:

4.13 Summary Of Problem Types

4.13.1 Insufficient Pre-election Testing
4.13.2 Failure to Implement an Adequate Audit Trail
4.13.3 Failure to Provide for a Partial Manual Recount
4.13.4 Inadequate Ballots or Ballot-Reader Operation
4.13.5 Inadequate Security and Management Control
4.13.6 Inadequate Contingency Planning
4.13.7 Inadequate System Acceptance Procedures

Concern had been heightened by a series of articles published in the summer of 1985 in the New York Times. The articles cited statements by two computer experts reporting that a computer program widely used for vote-tallying was vulnerable to tampering. Several elections were identified in which losing candidates claimed that it would be possible to fraudulently alter the computer programs that were used in their contests.

(NIST Report 1988, emphasis added). No one mentioned that twenty years is enough to have more than "suggested rules" which are admittedly inadequate ... which election war lords are ignoring anyway.

It seems that no matter what company one goes to to have an EVM certified, one person does the certification. How large of a "conspiracy" is that anyway:

There are currently three certified laboratories that collectively constitute the “Independent Testing Authority” or ITA: Ciber, Wyle Labs, and Systest. Arguably this designation is a triple oxymoron. Their “independence” is compromised by the fact that the testing that takes place is paid for by the vendors, in effect making them the ITA’s “clients”.

The testing process that does take place and the standards to which voting machines are tested are considerably weaker than other accepted standards for the security of computer-based products. The testing is done in secret and detailed results of the testing are not released for public scrutiny. As for the ITA being “authoritative” there’s little to support such a designation.

While the testing of voting system software has been done by several different companies over the past decade the one consistent element is that the testing has always been done by an individual named Shawn Southworth … operating out of Huntsville, Alabama and currently employed by Wyle Labs. Who is Shawn Southworth and what are his qualifications? We are not allowed to know. Like the rest of the process, Mr. Southworth’s credentials are shrouded in secrecy.

(The Lone Tester, bold added). Doesn't it appear that the movement related to the EVM world has failed to help congress?

All federal bills designed to improve the situation failed because of factions within the movement which have been engendered by these so called leaders.

Even though some of their websites are prospering (Velvet Revolution, Black Box Voting), their election integrity results are not. It seems so less than yesterday.

The grass roots folks in the EI movement deserve better, because the movement is still valid. Throw the bums out.