Lots of controversy lately from some activists against HR811 and then the big non-profits and some words from Rush Holt for it. So, at long last I've read the whole thing and read over some of the objections again.
Here are my conclusions:
1) HR811 is extremely readable compared with our own SB1311. Much less ambiguous.
2) I wish HR811 applied to all races in CT (with stronger % audit, especially as the district size reduces)
- applies to every federal race
- independent audit board
- must announce precincts to audit within 24 hours of posting results
- must hold certification until after audit
3) I wish HR811 and SB1311 had very strict guidelines on what to do after an audit discrepancy to a) automatically trigger a full recount AND b) allow judgment as an additional means of calling for a recount.
4) It is far better than nothing.
5) It probably does not go far enough to protect our vote and does nothing for non-federal races.
6) I just don’t see the harm in the bill
Monday, July 2, 2007
Wednesday, May 2, 2007
Dodd's HAVA accountability
A couple of days ago Ned went to NH to represent Chris Dodd. I finally got around to reading the MLN blog entry. The 1st question was about HAVA. As much as he is one of the better candidates running on the Democratic side, he should be held as accountable for his HAVA vote as Joe Lieberman should be for Iraq votes. (Because Dodd was a leader in HAVA and Joe was a leader in the original Iraq resolution). Here is my comment.
Dodd's HAVA accountability
Dodd killed paper ballots in CT for one year by intervening in the House after it was passed unanomously in the Senate.
Dodd's HAVA accountability
Dodd killed paper ballots in CT for one year by intervening in the House after it was passed unanomously in the Senate.
The next year I was on a conference call with a dozen concerned CT voters, with Dodd's commitee staffer who wrote the HAVA bill. She suggested votes could be verified and machines audited by calling voters after the election and asking who they voted for (I trust I don't need to explain how rediculous this would be).
I agree with many of Dodd's other strong positions such as Iraq and Habius Corpus, these were also strong positions where he is leading. He is one of the candidates I would be glad to see as president.
However, just as George Bush should be held accountable for starting the Iraq war and its consequences, Chris Dodd must be held accountable for the lack of integrity in the voting systems in Ohio in 2004, Georgia in 2002, Sarosota in 2006. HAVA without paper ballots, strong audits, strong recounts, and enforcement is as big a mistake as his Iraq vote and may have prolonged the war for several years.
Our ancestors died to give us the vote. Our friends and descendents may well have died because it has been given over to Diebold, ES&S, etc., with hardly a wimper from our media and our representatives.Tuesday, April 24, 2007
Run-off Voting demands better voting integrity
MLeftNutmeg has another post on the National Popular Vote. The discussion got into Instant Run-Off Voting, and here is my comment to that post:
I like the idea of IRV, however, it requires a higher level of integrity and accuracy in our voting process. We need to fix the integrity of our voting process as a prerequisite to IRV.
I like the idea of IRV, however, it requires a higher level of integrity and accuracy in our voting process. We need to fix the integrity of our voting process as a prerequisite to IRV.
There are two pressures we need to deal with. One is the pressure for instant results, to have the total and the winner shortly after the polls close on election night - so we count fast, use electronic voting machines and declare a winner as quickly as possible. Then there is pressure on all those involved in the voting process to avoid the work and potential embarrassment of a recount which might show that they did not conduct a perfect election or count accurately.
For instance in Connecticut:
Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz says that Diebold optical scan voting machines "showed no significant problems". However, November election audit data reported discrepancies of over 10 votes in 14 races in just the towns of East Hartford and Wethersfield, with the highest discrepancies being 72, 82, and 105. Each is greater than the margin in Glastonbury for State Representative and near the 91 vote margin in the entire 2nd Congressional race.
(Also note that the recanvass of the 2nd District race for Optical Scan towns was performed by reprocessing ballots thru the machines - no manual recount was performed - no audits were performed, as the 2nd District was exempted from the audits)
Once again, I strongly support IRV, yet we have to have the patience to count accurately in the first place, while having the fortitude to perform accurate audits and recounts after the face. IRV takes more of this and would be more than worth it.
Letter to the Glastonbury Citizen
On April 12th the Citizen ran the following in the editor's column:
Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz says Diebold Accuvote Scan voting machines tested in 25 towns this past November showed no significant problems. With the successful test in the books, Bysiewicz says the machines will be in all 169 Connecticut towns by this fall's election. Voters cast ballots by using a pencil to fill in an oval next to the candidate name on a paper ballot. The paper is then fedd into an optical scanner for a count; the paper ballots are kept as a backup if a recount is needed.
Here is my letter to the editor published April 19th:
“Good news” audits insufficient
I take exception to the good news from Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz in the Citizen, April 12.
To say that Diebold optical scan voting machines “showed no significant problems” may be technically accurate, if substantial discrepancies are ignored or explained away. November election audit data reported discrepancies of over 10 votes in 14 races in just the towns of East Hartford and Wethersfield, with the highest discrepancies being 72, 82, and 105. Each is greater than the margin in Glastonbury for State Representative and near the 91 vote margin in the entire 2nd Congressional race.
It is important that “paper ballots are kept as a backup if a recount is needed”. It is equally important to note that Connecticut statutes do not mandate a paper recount in the case of a close election. In the recanvass ordered in the 2nd District this last November, the paper ballots were not manually recounted.
In February Secretary Bysiewicz issued an encouraging press release proposing an audit of 20% of all polling places for 100% of races saying, “The 20-percent requirement in Connecticut would be among the highest the Nation”. Subsequently she substituted 10% of polling places for a meager three races. Her bill also includes a clause that eliminates auditing of any voting machines in the event of a state wide recount or contest in one race.
Most disappointing, all audit decisions are in the hands of the Secretary of the State, who is responsible for choosing the equipment, training election staff, and conducting elections. The Cleveland State University Center for Election Integrity has stated to the U.S. House of Representatives, that there can be little credibility in “good news” audits as “auditing under the SOS cannot completely avoid conflicts of interest that are incompatible with rigorous objectivity and full public accountability”.
Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz says Diebold Accuvote Scan voting machines tested in 25 towns this past November showed no significant problems. With the successful test in the books, Bysiewicz says the machines will be in all 169 Connecticut towns by this fall's election. Voters cast ballots by using a pencil to fill in an oval next to the candidate name on a paper ballot. The paper is then fedd into an optical scanner for a count; the paper ballots are kept as a backup if a recount is needed.
Here is my letter to the editor published April 19th:
“Good news” audits insufficient
I take exception to the good news from Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz in the Citizen, April 12.
To say that Diebold optical scan voting machines “showed no significant problems” may be technically accurate, if substantial discrepancies are ignored or explained away. November election audit data reported discrepancies of over 10 votes in 14 races in just the towns of East Hartford and Wethersfield, with the highest discrepancies being 72, 82, and 105. Each is greater than the margin in Glastonbury for State Representative and near the 91 vote margin in the entire 2nd Congressional race.
It is important that “paper ballots are kept as a backup if a recount is needed”. It is equally important to note that Connecticut statutes do not mandate a paper recount in the case of a close election. In the recanvass ordered in the 2nd District this last November, the paper ballots were not manually recounted.
In February Secretary Bysiewicz issued an encouraging press release proposing an audit of 20% of all polling places for 100% of races saying, “The 20-percent requirement in Connecticut would be among the highest the Nation”. Subsequently she substituted 10% of polling places for a meager three races. Her bill also includes a clause that eliminates auditing of any voting machines in the event of a state wide recount or contest in one race.
Most disappointing, all audit decisions are in the hands of the Secretary of the State, who is responsible for choosing the equipment, training election staff, and conducting elections. The Cleveland State University Center for Election Integrity has stated to the U.S. House of Representatives, that there can be little credibility in “good news” audits as “auditing under the SOS cannot completely avoid conflicts of interest that are incompatible with rigorous objectivity and full public accountability”.
Monday, April 16, 2007
Over Half of Americans On the Government Dole???
For funzies I keep on the NewsMax.com e-mail list. Today they passed on this gem:
Slightly over half of all Americans – 52.6 percent – now receive significant income from government programs, according to an analysis by Gary Shilling, an economist in Springfield, N.J. That's up from 49.4 percent in 2000 and far above the 28.3 percent of Americans in 1950. If the trend continues, the percentage could rise within ten years to pass 55 percent, where it stood in 1980 on the eve of President's Reagan's move to scale back the size of government.
Sounds pretty bad. Will I hear about this from my Republican friends?
I start to see a little of it to question in the early paragraphs:
Mr. Shilling's analysis found that about 1 in 5 Americans hold a government job or a job reliant on federal spending. A similar number receive Social Security or a government pension. About 19 million others get food stamps, 2 million get subsidized housing, and 5 million get education grants. For all these categories, Mr. Shilling counted dependents as well as the direct recipients of government income.
But its way down at the end I really get the picture:
Lets see 1 in 5 get social security or a Government Pension, I'm not sure I like counting those Social Security people since they, like me, paid for it. So I'll knock out another 15% off that list (less than average dependents), and we are down to 20%
Then we have those with a Government Job or those reliant on federal spending (lets see that is government employees, defense contractors, all those other contractors, religious abstinence programs, teachers, homeland security etc.) Another 20%. so we sound pretty close to zero if we think most government employees and contractors deserve pay!
I presume he accounted for a bit more overlap since the 19 million get food stamps, 2 million subsidized housing, and 5 million education grants which by themselves may total something like 10-15% if you look at dependents.
Yet I still have problems with this. Food stamps do not amount to too much per person yet they help farmers. Come to think of it he did not mention farm subsidies? Or all those under cost Oil leases. And when it comes to Education do these grants help education as much as they help students?
He divided his total by the US population to get a "government beneficiary" ratio for each decade. The ratio has risen, he found, from 28.3 percent in 1950 to a peak of 55.0 percent in 1980. It edged down in 1990 and again in 2000, and now has begun climbing again.
And finally we learn that things actually were worse in 1980 than they are now! And it was at 49.4% in 2000 - How could that happen with all the magical tax cuts? - could it be all those extra outsourcing contracts to Haliburton? Measuring decade by decade we don't know if it was Reagan or Clinton that caused the decline, or for that matter if it was Nixon/Ford or Carter that caused the increase...or is it more dependent on demographics or employment or some other variable?
In conclusion, this whole report may be entirely accurate, yet useless!
Addendum:
CounterPunch has a relevant article on Military Spending as income redistribution:
there is another (less obvious but perhaps more critical) factor behind the recent rise of U.S. military aggressions abroad: war profiteering by the Pentagon contractors. Frequently invoking dubious "threats to our national security and/or interests," these beneficiaries of war dividends, the military-industrial complex and related businesses whose interests are vested in the Pentagon's appropriation of public money, have successfully used war and military spending to justify their lion's share of tax dollars and to disguise their strategy of redistributing national income in their favor.
That's just one example of what I would define as being 'on the Dole'.
And from the Hartford Courant today:
The federal government has taken billions of dollars from the taxes and fees that airline passengers pay every time they fly and awarded it to small airports used mainly by private pilots and globe-trotting corporate executives.
I suggest reading the details when the summary says 'the federal government' , it always has to be some combination of 'the Bush Administration, the Republican Congress, and/or the Clinton Administration, the former Democratic Congress' etc. who did/does things.
Slightly over half of all Americans – 52.6 percent – now receive significant income from government programs, according to an analysis by Gary Shilling, an economist in Springfield, N.J. That's up from 49.4 percent in 2000 and far above the 28.3 percent of Americans in 1950. If the trend continues, the percentage could rise within ten years to pass 55 percent, where it stood in 1980 on the eve of President's Reagan's move to scale back the size of government.
Sounds pretty bad. Will I hear about this from my Republican friends?
I start to see a little of it to question in the early paragraphs:
Mr. Shilling's analysis found that about 1 in 5 Americans hold a government job or a job reliant on federal spending. A similar number receive Social Security or a government pension. About 19 million others get food stamps, 2 million get subsidized housing, and 5 million get education grants. For all these categories, Mr. Shilling counted dependents as well as the direct recipients of government income.
But its way down at the end I really get the picture:
looked at data from 1950 through 2004. His tally was conservative on several fronts – including the care he took to avoid double-counting anyone.
He added up the number of federal, state, and local government workers, plus private sector workers who owe their jobs to government. He then tallied the recipients of transfer payments (like pensions) and a few other substantial programs (like food stamps). And he tacked on the dependents of these direct beneficiaries.
So lets see we have dependents as well as the people getting the money directly, so lets say an average of .5 dependent, not 1.5 for an average family. We are down to 35.0%.Lets see 1 in 5 get social security or a Government Pension, I'm not sure I like counting those Social Security people since they, like me, paid for it. So I'll knock out another 15% off that list (less than average dependents), and we are down to 20%
Then we have those with a Government Job or those reliant on federal spending (lets see that is government employees, defense contractors, all those other contractors, religious abstinence programs, teachers, homeland security etc.) Another 20%. so we sound pretty close to zero if we think most government employees and contractors deserve pay!
I presume he accounted for a bit more overlap since the 19 million get food stamps, 2 million subsidized housing, and 5 million education grants which by themselves may total something like 10-15% if you look at dependents.
Yet I still have problems with this. Food stamps do not amount to too much per person yet they help farmers. Come to think of it he did not mention farm subsidies? Or all those under cost Oil leases. And when it comes to Education do these grants help education as much as they help students?
He divided his total by the US population to get a "government beneficiary" ratio for each decade. The ratio has risen, he found, from 28.3 percent in 1950 to a peak of 55.0 percent in 1980. It edged down in 1990 and again in 2000, and now has begun climbing again.
And finally we learn that things actually were worse in 1980 than they are now! And it was at 49.4% in 2000 - How could that happen with all the magical tax cuts? - could it be all those extra outsourcing contracts to Haliburton? Measuring decade by decade we don't know if it was Reagan or Clinton that caused the decline, or for that matter if it was Nixon/Ford or Carter that caused the increase...or is it more dependent on demographics or employment or some other variable?
In conclusion, this whole report may be entirely accurate, yet useless!
Addendum:
CounterPunch has a relevant article on Military Spending as income redistribution:
there is another (less obvious but perhaps more critical) factor behind the recent rise of U.S. military aggressions abroad: war profiteering by the Pentagon contractors. Frequently invoking dubious "threats to our national security and/or interests," these beneficiaries of war dividends, the military-industrial complex and related businesses whose interests are vested in the Pentagon's appropriation of public money, have successfully used war and military spending to justify their lion's share of tax dollars and to disguise their strategy of redistributing national income in their favor.
That's just one example of what I would define as being 'on the Dole'.
And from the Hartford Courant today:
The federal government has taken billions of dollars from the taxes and fees that airline passengers pay every time they fly and awarded it to small airports used mainly by private pilots and globe-trotting corporate executives.
I suggest reading the details when the summary says 'the federal government' , it always has to be some combination of 'the Bush Administration, the Republican Congress, and/or the Clinton Administration, the former Democratic Congress' etc. who did/does things.
Saturday, March 3, 2007
Democracy in Peril - When Science Is Dismissed
Finally getting around to reading the March/April Skeptical Inquirer. Two articles have relevance to my recent testimony against the Agreement for the National Popular Vote.
The first is a article by Lauren Becker revewing Carl Sagan's postumus book:
"he understood that the issue is a matter of emotion more than a matter of facts. Each side always thinks they have evidence for their claims, but emontions cloud judgement and make it difficult to separate wishes from reality."
The second is the "Declaration In Defense Of Science And Secularism" which reminds us of the importance to our future of accepting Science.
http://www.cfidc.org/declaration.html
NationalPopularVote.org touts surveys of the public in 1978 and 1980 that 70% of the public supports the popular election of the President. While the survey is likely accurate, how many believed Sadam was linked with 9/11? How many believed in rampant voter suppression and worried about electronic voting before 2000? The Declaration above references a Pew poll that 64% are open to teaching intelligent design or creationism in the public schools.
Birch Beyh, the chief proponent of the National Popular Vote states:
"one of the things we can do to limit fraud is to limit the benefits to be gained by fraud. Under a direct popular vote system, one fraudulent vote wins one vote in the return. In the electoral college system, one fraudulent vote could mean 45 electoral votes, 28 electoral votes."
Good Grief, Senator Beyh!!! It would should be obvious to anyone with a rudimentary understanding of arithmetic, that under a popular vote a single vote could take all of the 538 electoral votes!!!
Maybe that explains why a Psychology major was the only person to testify for the Agreement to the GAE in Connecticut. Christopher Pearson is also a legislator from Vermont and is employed by NationalPopularVote.org, earning his living supporting this agreement: http://www.christopherpearson.org/?page=3
The first is a article by Lauren Becker revewing Carl Sagan's postumus book:
"he understood that the issue is a matter of emotion more than a matter of facts. Each side always thinks they have evidence for their claims, but emontions cloud judgement and make it difficult to separate wishes from reality."
The second is the "Declaration In Defense Of Science And Secularism" which reminds us of the importance to our future of accepting Science.
http://www.cfidc.org/declaration.html
NationalPopularVote.org touts surveys of the public in 1978 and 1980 that 70% of the public supports the popular election of the President. While the survey is likely accurate, how many believed Sadam was linked with 9/11? How many believed in rampant voter suppression and worried about electronic voting before 2000? The Declaration above references a Pew poll that 64% are open to teaching intelligent design or creationism in the public schools.
Birch Beyh, the chief proponent of the National Popular Vote states:
"one of the things we can do to limit fraud is to limit the benefits to be gained by fraud. Under a direct popular vote system, one fraudulent vote wins one vote in the return. In the electoral college system, one fraudulent vote could mean 45 electoral votes, 28 electoral votes."
Good Grief, Senator Beyh!!! It would should be obvious to anyone with a rudimentary understanding of arithmetic, that under a popular vote a single vote could take all of the 538 electoral votes!!!
Maybe that explains why a Psychology major was the only person to testify for the Agreement to the GAE in Connecticut. Christopher Pearson is also a legislator from Vermont and is employed by NationalPopularVote.org, earning his living supporting this agreement: http://www.christopherpearson.org/?page=3
Thursday, March 1, 2007
Explanation of National Popular Vote Bill – Rebutted
NationalPopulerVote.org is the organization leading the effort to pass the National Popular Vote Agreement between the States. In addition to a 646 page book, they provide 1-sentence, 3-sentence, and 400-word descriptions of the agreement. Here are equivalent rebuttals. See http://www.nationalpopularvote.com/pages/explanation.php
1-Sentence Description
The National Popular Vote bill would guarantee that the presidential candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states and the District of Columbia will win the Presidency.
1-Sentence Rebuttal
The National Popular Vote bill would magnify the distortion caused by errors, voter suppression, disenfranchisement, fraud, and court challenges to the election leaving the Supreme Court as the only nine votes that would decide presidential elections.
3-Sentence Description
Under the U.S. Constitution, the states have exclusive and plenary (complete) power to allocate their electoral votes, and may change their state laws concerning the awarding of their electoral votes at any time. Under the National Popular Vote bill, all of the state’s electoral votes would be awarded to the presidential candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. The bill would take effect only when enacted, in identical form, by states possessing a majority of the electoral votes—that is, enough electoral votes to elect a President (270 of 538).
3-Sentence Rebuttal
Under the U.S. Constitution, the states have exclusive and plenary (complete) power to allocate their electoral votes, certify election results, monitor the process, and install partisan election officials to block attempts by the public to vote and suppress attempts to determine the actual election winner. These officials can, at any time change (as several have frequently changed), their state laws concerning eligibility to vote, the audit process, the recount process, refuse access to ballots, and destroy ballots. Under the National Popular Vote bill, all of the state’s electoral votes would be awarded to the presidential candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, as certified by a variety of partisan election officials in each state.
(400 Word Description with Annotated Rebuttal in 1st Commnet)
1-Sentence Description
The National Popular Vote bill would guarantee that the presidential candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states and the District of Columbia will win the Presidency.
1-Sentence Rebuttal
The National Popular Vote bill would magnify the distortion caused by errors, voter suppression, disenfranchisement, fraud, and court challenges to the election leaving the Supreme Court as the only nine votes that would decide presidential elections.
3-Sentence Description
Under the U.S. Constitution, the states have exclusive and plenary (complete) power to allocate their electoral votes, and may change their state laws concerning the awarding of their electoral votes at any time. Under the National Popular Vote bill, all of the state’s electoral votes would be awarded to the presidential candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. The bill would take effect only when enacted, in identical form, by states possessing a majority of the electoral votes—that is, enough electoral votes to elect a President (270 of 538).
3-Sentence Rebuttal
Under the U.S. Constitution, the states have exclusive and plenary (complete) power to allocate their electoral votes, certify election results, monitor the process, and install partisan election officials to block attempts by the public to vote and suppress attempts to determine the actual election winner. These officials can, at any time change (as several have frequently changed), their state laws concerning eligibility to vote, the audit process, the recount process, refuse access to ballots, and destroy ballots. Under the National Popular Vote bill, all of the state’s electoral votes would be awarded to the presidential candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, as certified by a variety of partisan election officials in each state.
(400 Word Description with Annotated Rebuttal in 1st Commnet)
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
Not Now National Popular Vote
On 2/1/2007, I sent the following as an attachement to the three CT legislators who are sponsoring the National Popular Vote Agreement. Thus far two of the three have replied, one with a boiler plate response saying he would review my comments when the bill gets to the General Assembly and another whose assistant forwared my comments to my Senator.
My summary and request sent in the e-mail:
SUMMARY OF MY CONCERNS
Today the Electoral College protects “We The People” from our faulty and fragmented voting system. Implementing a national popular vote at this time would put at risk the integrity of the entire election process. If the votes of all states were accumulated toward the national popular vote the impact of errors, voter suppression, disenfranchisement, and fraud would be compounded; incentives for voter suppression, disenfranchisement, fraud and contesting election results would also increase.
MY REQUEST
I would appreciate an opportunity to discuss this bill with you for 10 minutes. I am prepared to talk with you at anytime and can be reached at 860-xxx-xxxx. Please e-mail or voice mail a time that would be convenient for such a call. I am also prepared to meet with you any time after 2/10 as I am currently out of state, on vacation.
My summary and request sent in the e-mail:
SUMMARY OF MY CONCERNS
Today the Electoral College protects “We The People” from our faulty and fragmented voting system. Implementing a national popular vote at this time would put at risk the integrity of the entire election process. If the votes of all states were accumulated toward the national popular vote the impact of errors, voter suppression, disenfranchisement, and fraud would be compounded; incentives for voter suppression, disenfranchisement, fraud and contesting election results would also increase.
MY REQUEST
I would appreciate an opportunity to discuss this bill with you for 10 minutes. I am prepared to talk with you at anytime and can be reached at 860-xxx-xxxx. Please e-mail or voice mail a time that would be convenient for such a call. I am also prepared to meet with you any time after 2/10 as I am currently out of state, on vacation.
*****************************
Attachment in the 1st Comment
*****************************
Monday, January 22, 2007
Bush's Tin Ear, Tin Horn Health Care Plan
If I had time I would dissect the Courant's Sunday article on Bush's health care plan. I would say it does four things:
Perhaps after the State-Of-The-Union I will have more to say.
- Taxes the sick and old
- Rewards companies to drop plans
- Encourages individuals to pay or insure individually
- Will leave less people insured, more paying the full sticker (sucker) price for procedures.
"Gold Plated" is in the eye of the Decider:
I am 60, recently retired. My former employer offers health insurance to retirees at cost - retirees pay the whole thing, about $17,000 a year for two people - not knocking my former employer, they charge based on the age of retirees covered, they must. According to George this is "Gold Plated", although it is the same coverage available for average age employees at several thousand less.
Other stories I read about people with individual policies that later fell into long term conditions pay in the area of $3000 a month.
These are the "Gold Plated" that Bush would tax for having health insurance. Yet the coverage is nothing special at all.
This is simply a scheme to kill health insurance completely. Hopefully it will go the way of his Social Security plan last year.
Perhaps after the State-Of-The-Union I will have more to say.
MIRACLE - I'm getting the Reader's Digest for Free!!!
Do you believe in all the Miracle articles they publish? And those that show the value of Prayer? Its conservative, right wing focus?
I stopped paying for my subscription 1 1/2 to 2 1/2 years ago, yet it keeps coming every month. Of course, when I stopped paying they called and sent many months of letters, offering me just one more last chance. Then about six months ago I got another raft of last chance letters, but here it is today, like every month still coming.
So if you subscribe already, you might as well try this. You will still be paying too much if this causes you or any of your unsuspecting kin to waste time reading it. And perhaps if you are really, really lucky or pray hard enough they will actually cut you off.
For a really needy person, I would offer to change the address on my free subscription, yet I could not bare the guilt -- not for ripping off the magazine -- but the responsibility for someone reading this trash.
I stopped paying for my subscription 1 1/2 to 2 1/2 years ago, yet it keeps coming every month. Of course, when I stopped paying they called and sent many months of letters, offering me just one more last chance. Then about six months ago I got another raft of last chance letters, but here it is today, like every month still coming.
So if you subscribe already, you might as well try this. You will still be paying too much if this causes you or any of your unsuspecting kin to waste time reading it. And perhaps if you are really, really lucky or pray hard enough they will actually cut you off.
For a really needy person, I would offer to change the address on my free subscription, yet I could not bare the guilt -- not for ripping off the magazine -- but the responsibility for someone reading this trash.
Tuesday, January 16, 2007
Media Reform Conference
My diary at MyLeftNutmeg
http://www.myleftnutmeg.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=5327
Also a new proposed State law for Popular Election of the President was timed perfectly for the session on voting integrity in Memphis. It looks like I will have to do a bit more work in tracking this bill and perhaps testifying against it at the Capitol.
http://www.myleftnutmeg.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=5331
http://www.myleftnutmeg.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=5327
Also a new proposed State law for Popular Election of the President was timed perfectly for the session on voting integrity in Memphis. It looks like I will have to do a bit more work in tracking this bill and perhaps testifying against it at the Capitol.
http://www.myleftnutmeg.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=5331
Monday, January 8, 2007
Why do they spend so much tracking activists?
Why do the CIA, FBI, and Connecicut State Police spend so much time tracking activists?
The Ken Krayeske arrest last week has caused quite a bit of good blogging, and finally, so far, some good inquiry by the Governor facing the threat and likely reality of legislative investigations. (For posterity I will remind you that Ken is a well known local political activist, peace activist, and campaign worker. He was arrested on what look like completely trumped up charges, by cuff happy local police, motivated with Kafkaesque fears by the State Police that Ken blogged that he might create a legal protest outside the Governor's inaugural ball)
Often, people seem to ask: "With all the foreign terrorists and suspected domestic terrorists and criminals, why do they spend all those $ and infiltrating and spying on peaceful activists and protesters?"
My answer maybe different than most. I recognize that paranoids and fearful people such as Nixon and Bush may be a huge factor, yet perhaps they are more enablers than causes.
Here is my partial answer:
You are a career spy or investigator. Over time it becomes less glamorous; just a job; a wife; children.
Would you like to learn Arabic? Find a way to look middle eastern? Put on a birka? Go to Iraq/Iran and live like the natives for a few years in infiltrate the country and try to find and link up with some possibly blood thirsty terrorists/revolutionaries?
Or would you rather disguise your self as an average American in the town where you family lives and infiltrate groups there, while you and your family live a normal American life?
Given that, would you like to infiltrate the underworld and start a career with Mafia, proving yourself along the way as you get closer to the blood thirsty leaders?
Or would go rather go down to your local peace group and join their meeting. Occasionally take one of those peace train's to NYC, and overnight bus rides to Washington D. C. etc.
I know which I would choose, and that's why I suspect there are lots of Homeland Security types who gravitate to this work.
Monday, January 1, 2007
War Stories
That picture of me is from a tour in Korea courtesy of the draft. For now I will summarize my military career, as I often do, as “A lot like the movie MASH, without the blood”. The movie came out while I was there. Originally censored by the Army, yet such a stink arose, they said it was just put up to a higher review board, which then approved it because “it was not like the Army and everyone would recognize it as a farce”.
It seems that if you are a veteran you have so much more credibility -- a genuine Patriot, America’s Finest, not eligible to be a Chicken Hawk. Like the cities that used to fight by having just their leader fight and that would determine the victor, one would guess that any argument could be decided by trading war stories and the person most closely resembling a hero would win all the points -- unless, the louder, more militant speaker loses that comparison. -- sort of how Bush and Cheney seem to trump Kerry, McCain, and Gore.
I probably should not have much credibility on either count. Reluctantly drafted and not a volunteer; by luck of the draw went to Korea not Vietnam; served as a company clerk and mail clerk. Yet, perhaps I can trump more than those who had “other priorities” or were lucky enough to be born when there was no war (before my time), won in the draft lottery (just after my time), or were classified 4-F. And even though a company clerk, I did have jungle infantry training – so I could trump those that trained as clerks, or had just simple infantry training, not to speak of those sent to Germany rather than a rustic Korea.
As Bush Sr said “I was a hero because someone shot my plane down” (not exact quote), McCain is only a hero because he managed to survive as a prisoner, made possible because he and his plane did not make it back. I rate John Kerry more of a hero for starting Vietnam Veterans Against the War than anything he has done before or since.
Still, there is a lot I learned in the Army, a lot of fun stories I could share, some knowledge that applies to our defense/foreign policy. Even in Korea, I met some people in the Army I highly respect, perhaps even heroes. As reluctant as I was, I did step forward when called. And let me include those of my generation who left for Canada or elsewhere in those whom I respect, along with those who maintained a semblance of integrity in their own conduct in the war while either for or against it.
It seems that if you are a veteran you have so much more credibility -- a genuine Patriot, America’s Finest, not eligible to be a Chicken Hawk. Like the cities that used to fight by having just their leader fight and that would determine the victor, one would guess that any argument could be decided by trading war stories and the person most closely resembling a hero would win all the points -- unless, the louder, more militant speaker loses that comparison. -- sort of how Bush and Cheney seem to trump Kerry, McCain, and Gore.
I probably should not have much credibility on either count. Reluctantly drafted and not a volunteer; by luck of the draw went to Korea not Vietnam; served as a company clerk and mail clerk. Yet, perhaps I can trump more than those who had “other priorities” or were lucky enough to be born when there was no war (before my time), won in the draft lottery (just after my time), or were classified 4-F. And even though a company clerk, I did have jungle infantry training – so I could trump those that trained as clerks, or had just simple infantry training, not to speak of those sent to Germany rather than a rustic Korea.
As Bush Sr said “I was a hero because someone shot my plane down” (not exact quote), McCain is only a hero because he managed to survive as a prisoner, made possible because he and his plane did not make it back. I rate John Kerry more of a hero for starting Vietnam Veterans Against the War than anything he has done before or since.
Still, there is a lot I learned in the Army, a lot of fun stories I could share, some knowledge that applies to our defense/foreign policy. Even in Korea, I met some people in the Army I highly respect, perhaps even heroes. As reluctant as I was, I did step forward when called. And let me include those of my generation who left for Canada or elsewhere in those whom I respect, along with those who maintained a semblance of integrity in their own conduct in the war while either for or against it.
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