Stump Lane
in the dirt since history began

Critics say Diebold has developed the most insecure elections system possible with their electronic voting machines. What does Diebold Election Systems spokesperson David Bear have to say about his company’s indiscretions?

“[Our critics are] throwing out a ‘what if’ that’s premised on a basis of an evil, nefarious person breaking the law,” says Bear.

And I thought it was just the bleeding-heart liberals that were laboring under a naive belief that all people are good, and there is no evil in the world. You know, peace, love, harmony… all that shit.

Power seekers are often evil, nefarious people who don’t mind breaking a law or two when it suits them. I’m thinking the Constitution says something about that. Which is what security is all about.

Those who keep a gun for protection don’t necessarily expect evil, nefarious people to break into their home; but, they don’t leave the gun loaded on the front steps with the door open, either.

The Diebold security gap is only the most vivid example of the reality that no electronic voting system can be 100 percent safe or reliable.

Which is why we need a human verifiable paper record of each vote. Which the cockasses in DC haven’t legislated yet; therefore…

…it’s unlikely that every voter using an electronic voting device in 2006 will know for sure that his or her vote will be reflected in the actual totals.

That’s a remarkable statement that deserves to be dwelled upon for a moment.

This will be four elections with results reasonably questionable to a segment of the population in a row! That’s special!

Psssst, our democracy is broken.

Newsweek: Will Your Vote Count in 2006?

High Alert

Visit: Kommandos Project

The Associated Press
says the President and British Prime Minister have “acknowledged difficult times in the Iraq war,” and quotes the President referring to “setbacks and missteps.”

This is what OFFAL said yesterday:

The decision to remove Saddam Hussein from power was controversial. We did not find the weapons of mass destruction that we all believed were there — and that’s raised questions about whether the sacrifice in Iraq has been worth it. Despite setbacks and missteps, I strongly believe we did and are doing the right thing. Saddam Hussein was a menace to his people; he was a state sponsor of terror; he invaded his neighbors. Investigations proved he was systematically gaming the oil-for-food program in an effort to undermine sanctions, with the intent of restarting his weapons programs once the sanctions collapsed and the world looked away.

1. We did not find the weapons of mass destruction that we all believed were there. — This just boils down to what your definition of “we all” is. I think I’ve heard something about some folks in the intelligence area who had their doubts. Even Colin Powell said, prior to the invasion, that Iraq had “not been terribly successful” in the pursuit of WMD. Of course, if “we all” means “the general population,” the reason “we all” believed such a thing was because our leaders in congress and the executive were fucking dreaming out loud about unmanned aerial vehicles dropping biological and/or nuclear weapons on US cities! Can you believe we bought that shit?
2. Saddam Hussein was a menace to his people. — Yes he was. What would it be like if we pursued a policy of regime change and preemptive military action against all menaces to peoples? All’s I’m saying is, we can’t take this one all by itself.
3. He was a state sponsor of terror. — I’m not familiar with all of the evidence. I know he publicly offered to pay families of Palestinian suicide bombers, which you could say was sponsoring the use of terrorist tactics. “Terror,” however, is a subjective term that could mean anything. I suspect a more objective look at the evidence would prove less compelling vis-à-vis the direct threat of Saddam-sponsored ‘terror’ to US citizens inside the United States. [Pure conjecture on my part. Maybe he was sponsoring terrorists to undergo state training in the remote operation of Iraq's still hidden unmanned aerial vehicles capable of dropping biological and/or nuclear weapons on US cities.]
4. He invaded his neighbors. — Yeah. That was fifteen years ago now. Besides, we already gave him a fucking war for this!
5. Investigations proved he was systematically gaming the oil-for-food program in an effort to undermine sanctions… — The GAO investigation of the program was after the invasion. Which means— unless the CIA has Minority-Report-style precogs floating in a pool of water in a high-tech darkened room with high ceilings who dreamed about the GAO’s findings back in ’02 —this doesn’t count as a reason for the invasion!
6. …with the intent of restarting his weapons programs once the sanctions collapsed and the world looked away. — Not sure what the name of the fallacy at work here is off the top of my head. But there are two faulty assumptions here: 1. That the sanctions would collapse because of the oil-for-food scandal (and that Saddam’s intent was to foster corruption in order to undermine the sanctions?); and 2. That when the sanctions did collapse, the world would ‘look away’ from potential weapons related program activity . . . I don’t think so.

All too easy. The United States President should be able to do better than this.

White House: President Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair of the United Kingdom Participate in Joint Press Availability

I am sorry. The last thing I wanted to do was to add hurdles in the commenting process. I’d like to see more comments here, so it feels counterintuitive to add a step to the process. But the math questions are so easy that it’s more of a speed bump than a hurdle.

Please pardon the inconvenience.

Continue reading if you want to know why. (more…)

[BEGIN TRANSMISSION]

Mind if I pimp this other project I’ve found myself drawn to? There is a major deployment going down this Friday. Enlist now.

Kommandos Project

[END TRANSMISSION]

Fuck Barbaro!

I don’t give a fuck about Barbaro, or his “catastrophic” injury, or his weeping exploitive owner.

“Gang” activity.

Yes! Bazooka is available again. Was it ever not? It seemed like it wasn’t around anywhere for a while there. I love that rock-hard, short-lived flavored, sticky-as-hell if you pop one on your face bubblegum. But that’s just nostalgia fuckin’ with me, I guess.

Activity: reformulate the joke in your own way. Your Montag will of course take the snarky political commentary route…

“I’ll toss this coin — Heads we enrich our corporate overlords… Tails we pander to our social-conservative base. If it stands on edge, we raise the minimum wage, provide universal primary healthcare, and enforce safety and environmental regulations.”

Dear Reader, I hope you aren’t too inconvenienced if blogging here at the Stump is sparse for a few days, as Your Montag works to get caught up with work, and life out in meatspace. There is, as there always seems to be, lot’s to do — and not enough time to do it. I’ll do what I can to keep up with my commenting duties elsewhere around the internets, but they too may falter in the short run.

Amongst all the other stuff, I hope to have a chance to organize a deployment of Montag’s Minutemenpersons* in time for the 26th. Check out Blognonymous for the really clever/cool idea: Kvatch’s Kommandos – A Big Day of Protest

* Tentative name for my protest forces. Would 'Militiamen,' or 'Musketeers,' or 'Mercenaries' be better? [UPDATE: They will be called Montag's Minutepersons thanks to JR's stroke of genius, which can be found the comments.]

From The Blotter at ABC News: FBI Acknowledges: Journalists Phone Records are Fair Game

[It] was wrong to suggest that ABC News phone calls were being “tracked.”

“Think of it more as backtracking,” said a senior federal official.

To paraphrase Rachel Maddow, (host of the most— if not only —listenable show on Air America,) from this morning: This goes against what the official story has been— that they’re doing this to fight terrorism —what you’re told to make you feel good about domestic spying. They’re using this kind of information to crack down on investigative reporting. [Maddow said it differently, and my impression is, much better... Do transcripts, Rachel!]

The more one thinks about all of this— and by “this” I mean leaks to journalists revealing the existence of “anti-terrorism” domestic spying programs which in turn are being used to spy on journalists covering, among other things, domestic spying programs —the more it’s like crawling into a conch shell, following the walls as it turns in on itself, and reaching the middle where things get narrow, and one gets all cramped and curled up, and it starts getting stuffy and hard to breathe.

Disregarding the weird blood-related medical definition, plethora (pleth·o·ra) is a pretty cool word.

Mrs. Jordan rocked 12th grade English— and everyday conversation —enunciating words like ‘plethora’ with a gleam in her eye.

Square Spaghetti?