S/V Tavarua

Quite frankly, I’m shocked. I’m going to need to re-evaluate my cynicism to come to terms with last night’s election.

The vote also suggests that electronic voting systems did not adversely influence yesterday’s election, which isn’t to say that they worked well. In fact in quite a few precincts they were an unmitigated disaster. However I think it’s now clear that our vote was not compromised by the software in these systems directly. It’s still clear that they don’t work very well and to the extent that they are not universally deployed (and in that they don’t share the same failure modes) that the precincts in which they are deployed are potentially disadvantaged relative to precincts not using e-voting and that that’s a problem.

And while this may seem to be paranoid tin-foil hat territory, as Glenn Greenwald seem to be suggesting, as a software engineer it’s obvious to me that our election software must be secure and it’s not. No real change here, last night’s election notwithstanding. Broke is broke.

One of my life mantras goes something like: “never attribute to malice that which can otherwise be explained by blatant stupidity.” And at this point I’m ready to believe that the whole e-voting issue boils down to nothing more than corporate graft. Big fat rich contracts for electronic voting systems that we didn’t really need and which don’t work very well. After all, getting software right turns out to be a lot harder than most people think, software engineers especially included.

Nonetheless the current systems are woefully insecure and need to be fixed before the next election. And although there are arguments against paper balloting, on the whole we’d be much better off switching back to paper until we can get it together to design an electronic voting system that’s secure. We need to keep the pressure on. Because another of my life mantras is, “just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you.”

This is not a partisan issue. All sides should now unite in support of secure balloting. Let’s leave the politics to district gerrymandering. Ah, but I’m such an optimist today…

So it turns out we still have some remnant of functioning democracy left in the United States. I really wasn’t so sure, but I’m happy to eat my words. Very happy, actually. Thomas Jefferson and James Madison must have had quite a good time last night.

I wrote to my Congress critter today, the Honorable incoming Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi from San Francisco, and I suggested the following priorities:

1. restore Constitutional checks and balances
2. restore civil liberties to pre-9/11 balance + 9/11 Commission recommendations
3. fix electronic voting
4. nuke K-street from orbit

So take a minute and write your Congress critter. Perhaps they’re actually listening today. You can find them here:

• US Senate
• US House of Representatives

And for those of you not living in California, you might not hear much about it, the media still being the pathetic excuse for the media that it is, but the City of San Francisco voted to Impeach Bush and Cheney by 59.4% to 40.6%. Gotta love those San Francisco values…

Google’s hosting the HBO’s electronic voting documentary online.

Anyone in California, please vote for Debra Bowen for Secretary of State. That position overseas our elections and Bruce McPherson certified the highly flawed Diebold machines despite massive evidence that they’re insecure. Debra Bowen knows what’s up and will immediately move to regain control of our elections.

STEPHANOPOULOS: You’ve talked a lot about the consequences of the Democrats taking over congress in the last week. Nancy Pelosi said this: “we win, speaking of the democrat, we get subpoena power.” If you’re subpoenaed by the Democrats, would you go?

CHENEY: I have no idea that i’m going to be subpoenaed. Obviously, we’d sit down and look at it at the time. But probably not in the sense at that Vice President and President and constitutional officers don’t appear before the Congress.

STEPHANOPOULOS: That’s your view of executive power? You’re not going to go up and testify.

CHENEY: I think that’s been the tradition. I can’t remember the last time a President did appear before the Congress. Or a Vice President.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Gerald Ford, I think.

CHENEY: That’s right. But not on a subpoena, he did it on his own.

You really need to watch this to get the full impact. Cheney’s saying he won’t testify and can’t remember the last time that a President did appear before Congress. And then Stephanopoulos injoins, “Gerald Ford, I think” and Cheney immediately retorts with “That’s right.” Of course Cheney knows that because he was Gerald Ford’s Chief of Staff.

Let’s also recall what Cheney said in 1991 when he was Bush’s Secretary of Defense. What a guy.

Best ad: this pro medical-marijuana spot in Colorado (“It’s safer than drinking…”):

Update: Oh no.

A school bus driver in Seattle was fired for giving Bush the finger in front of her students. CBS (via AP):

Niegowski said the firing was not politically motivated.

“The bus driver was not terminated for making an obscene gesture at the president. The bus driver was terminated for making an obscene gesture in view of the students,” Niegowski said. “That’s not the role modeling we need for our students.”

Update: more, here.

At this point another gay outing associated with Bush/Cheney’s GOP shouldn’t come as much of a shock to anyone, except to maybe their core evangelical base. But after today, the jig’s probably up for that demographic now too, despite what Falwell may try spewing to Paula Zahn on CNN. Hypocrisy has a way of cutting to the chase.

It seems that Pastor Ted Haggard, the head of the ultra conservative National Association of Evangelicals and founder of the New Life (mega) Church in Colorado Springs, has been caught having an affair with a gay male prostitute for the last three years. There are also allegations that Haggard used methamphetamine. Haggard abruptly resigned this afternoon shortly after these allegations surfaced.

For those who’ve seen that creepy Jesus Camp movie trailer, this is the guy behind that movie. The New Life Church is also one of the churches that’s preying (praying?) on the US Air Force Academy cadets in Colorado Springs. But he’s far more than that. He’s the single most influential evangelical in the United States. From Harper’s:

Pastor Ted, who talks to President George W. Bush or his advisers every Monday, is a handsome forty-eight-year-old Indianan, most comfortable in denim. He likes to say that his only disagreement with the President is automotive; Bush drives a Ford pickup, whereas Pastor Ted loves his Chevy. In addition to New Life, Pastor Ted presides over the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE), whose 45,000 churches and 30 million believers make up the nation’s most powerful religious lobbying group, and also over a smaller network of his own creation, the Association of Life-Giving Churches, 300 or so congregations modeled on New Life’s “free market” approach to the divine.

As someone who vividly remembers the downfall of myriad southern evangelical hypocrites in the 80s, nothing this group gets caught doing would surprise me. After all, Haggard’s just following the path forged by the cretinous likes of Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, Jim Bakker, James Dobson, and Jimmy Swaggart. Nothing really new here except that this twit held weekly conference calls with the White House and is said to have had direct access to the President. Back in the 80s we put these people in jail. Today, they’re advising the President and setting public policy. Can you say, faith-based abstinence-only eduction?

There was a time when I thought it would sure be interesting to find out why the White House Secret Service logs show repeated overnight visits by Jeff Gannon, the $600/night gay male prostitute who was caught posing as a reporter in the White House press corp., but I think it’s pretty clear now what’s been going on. Of course the press will eat this story, just like they did the Gannon story. Yet somehow I suspect that real evangelicals have had about as much of these clowns as they can take.

Update: hear the voicemails, here.

…with the politician who wrote it…

The US DoD appears to be censoring access to “left-leaning” websites like Talking Points Memo and Wonkette. Their excuse, according to CNN, is “because they want to free up bandwidth for usual day to day operations.” Uh huh. I’m sure this has nothing to do with upcoming elections…

Update: a US Air Force Reservist has more on this.

I’d recommend everyone see Aaron Russo’s new film, “America: From Freedom to Fascism”. Google’s hosting the Director’s Cut for free.

More tales from our shiny new police state, here.

More on our nation’s solvency, here.

And now a word from the other side of the bloggosphere… Have you heard of the NAFTA Superhighway or the North American SuperCorridor? If not, you should; go read this and this. (You know Hell has frozen over when I’m linking to Patrick Buchanan…)

I personally love Myth #1. It can’t be a treaty, you see, because that would be illegal for Bush to sign, and we all know that Bush swore an oath to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, so help me God.

The revolution begins November 7th. Vote, damn it!