Dispassionate Lib ARCHIVES

Wednesday, November 10, 2004

Join Bob

Meeting begins at Noon, January 20, 2005

Posted at 11/10/2004 9:45:55 pm by The Lib Permalink |

A Fool's Foil

The Bush administration and their apologists usually unnerve me when they set up convenient straw men, like the Hollywood or media "elite" as the enemy they must corral and erradicate. This is how they opperate domestically and by doing so win elections based on team identification and exploitation of fear and ignorance.

Internationally, however, they are mere pawns of a greater struggle so many fail to appreciate. Democrats have already been cowed into impotence by the black/white themes of the right-wing mantra that you are either with us or against us. The fiction that "those people" only understand strength and violence plays directly into the plans of Osama and his followers. The idea that we are creating more terorists than killing, and that the actions of the Bush administration are a recruiting tool for extremists, is more than mere speculation.

We are not playing checkers here, where the moves are simple and the path to victory clear and quick.

We are involved in a multi-dimentional chess game, with a variety of players, whose uniquely colored pieces move in unspecified and unpredictable patterns, and where checkmating the enemy king alone does not recognize that another will replace him and the only real winning solution is to convince one side or the other to walk away from the board.

We yearn for a simple solution to the terrorist threat, to peace in the middle east, to just plain getting along. More people voted for the simple, the slogan-like easily digetible pill which provides hope, and hope alone -- not an actual solution -- that it will all just go away if we're tough enough, mean enough, and resolute enough.

Understanding the rules of the game is essential, and it is hardly simple. Like most things in internatioinal policy, or politics in general for that matter, the game is complex and often times our best move is counterintuitive, because their last move was calculated to prod us into a predictable reaction.

If we are to win this War on Terror, we must be willing to embrase the complicated and scrutinize the simplistic with a warry eye. To this end, it is required that we know our enemy and his desires. Thinking that it is as easy as saying "they hate our freedom," borders on the irresponsibly stupid.

We must understand what they want, what they need, and not give it to them.

To this end, I very much recommend taking 5 minutes and reading Pericles' Diary at Daily Kos :: Terrorist Strategy 101: a quiz part of which I have excerted below:

In radicalizing your apathetic sympathizers, you have no better ally than the violent extremists on the other side . Only they can convince your people that compromise is impossible. Only they can raise your countrymen's level of fear and despair to the point that large numbers are willing to take up arms and follow your lead. A few blown up apartment buildings and dead schoolchildren will get you more recruits than the best revolutionary tracts ever written.

Perversely, this means that you are the best ally of the extremists on the other side. That doesn't mean you love or even talk to each other -- they are, after all, vile and despicable demons. But at this stage in the process your interests align. Both of you want to invert the bell curve, to flatten out that big hump in the middle and drive people to the edges. That's why extremists come in pairs: Caesar and Pompey, the Nazis and the Communists, Sharon and Arafat, Bush and Bin Laden. Each side needs a demonic opposite in order to galvanize its supporters.

Naive observers frequently decry the apparent counter-productivity of extremist attacks. Don't the leaders of Hamas understand that every suicide bombing makes the Israelis that much more determined not to give the Palestinians a state? Don't they realize that the Israeli government will strike back even harder, and inflict even more suffering on the Palestinian people? Of course they do; they're not idiots. The Israeli response is exactly what they're counting on. More airstrikes, more repression, more poverty -- fewer opportunities for normal life to get in the way of the Great Struggle.

The cycle of violence may be vicious, but it is not pointless. Each round of strike-and-counterstrike makes the political center less tenable. The surviving radical leaders on each side energize their respective bases and cement their respective holds on power. The first round of the playoffs is always the two extremes against the center. Only after the center is vanquished will you meet your radical counterparts in the championship round.

Hat Tip: Ara

Posted at 11/10/2004 12:55:11 pm by The Lib Permalink |

Tuesday, November 09, 2004

Oh Boy, This'll Just Kill 'em

Oscar Open to Fahrenheit 9/11, Snubs the Passion

In a move that may incite the nation's evangelical core, Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ will not be considered for an Academy Award nomination in the Foreign Language category. According to Variety's Timothy Gray, the Academy concluded that the film does not represent the work of a single country because it was filmed in Aramaic, an ancient language, and therefore cannot be included.

Somebody quick, Hurry! Dean Esmay is going to need a Heimlich from choking on his own bile.

Posted at 11/9/2004 6:59:09 pm by The Lib Permalink |

Go Johnny Go

Political Wire: Kerry May Run Again in 2008

The Los Angeles Times says Kerry "is calling key Democratic donors to lay the groundwork for a political organization that would give him a voice in national politics and position him for another White House run in 2008."

As I stated here , it's a bit premature to talk of a Hillary or Edwards run. . .

But lest we forget. John Kerry, an authentic hero, a great American, an icon for forward thinking men and women throughout the world, is the guy that got more votes than any human being save one. He's my guy, and I will follow his lead until he tells me to follow someone else.

Adn to think, I was thinking about replacing my Kerry Banner with google ads . . .

Posted at 11/9/2004 11:13:59 am by The Lib Permalink |

Cuyahoga County OVERCOUNT?!?

UPDATE: The KOSsacks (bless them) seem to have this figured out.

Not fraud.
This diary has figured out the problem here:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/11/9/15324/8851

In a nutshell, the chart came out wrong. The absentee totals got merged in with the rest of the votes, resulting in the error.

Resume breathless reporting:. . . . .

More than half of Bush's margin of victory can be found in Greater Clevelend where votes in predominantly white precincts showed over 100% turnout -- an impossiblity, right?

This is more than isolated incidents. This is indicitive of a pattern of election fraud.

Cuyahoga County Precincts

Each precinct in Cuyahoga County, Ohio Highlighted areas represent 90% (very VERY unlikely) and higher (up to 1160.78%) voter TURN-OUT! 30 are above 100% Calculated from data on county page - http://boe.cuyahogacounty.us/BOE/results/currentresults1.htm

(Ballots Cast/Registered Voters) * 100 = % turn out. Ballots Cast SHOULD NEVER be more than Registered, thus % should NEVER be higher than 100%

This amounts to 97,489 EXTRA votes beyond 100% in those precincts! This is just for ONE county!

No further evidence needed - a recount MUST be done - and possibly another national election using ONLY paper ballots, hand counts, and observers making sure all counts are valid. I don't trust these computers AT ALL! We should have the UN observe!

So concluded Americans for America.

You can look up the demographic data, and frankly it would be interesting, but after having lived in Cuyahoga County for 15 years of my adult life, and having done direct mail advertising there for my law practice, I know the people of that area extremely well. I can tell you for a fact that except for Warrensville, Warrensville Hts, Highland Hts., and University Hts., the overcounts were in predominantly white precincts.

Here's their highlighted data indicating serious, very serious problems with the Ohio Vote Count:

REGISTERED VOTERS - BAY VILLAGE	13710	BALLOTS CAST BAY VILLAGE	18663	136.126915
REGISTERED VOTERS - BEDFORD	9942	BALLOTS CAST BEDFORD	14465	145.493864
REGISTERED VOTERS - BEACHWOOD	9943	BALLOTS CAST BEACHWOOD	13939	140.189078
REGISTERED VOTERS - BEDFORD HEIGHTS	8142	BALLOTS CAST BEDFORD HEIGHTS	13512	165.954311
REGISTERED VOTERS - BROOKLYN	8016	BALLOTS CAST BROOKLYN	12303	153.480539
REGISTERED VOTERS - BROOKLYN HEIGHTS V	1144	BALLOTS CAST BROOKLYN HEIGHTS VIL	1869	163.374126
REGISTERED VOTERS - BROOK PARK	14491	BALLOTS CAST BROOK PARK	14458	99.7722724
REGISTERED VOTERS - CHAGRIN FALLS VIL	3557	BALLOTS CAST CHAGRIN FALLS VIL	4860	136.631993
REGISTERED VOTERS - CUYAHOGA HEIGHTS V	570	BALLOTS CAST CUYAHOGA HEIGHTS VIL	1382	242.45614
REGISTERED VOTERS - FAIRVIEW PARK	13342	BALLOTS CAST FAIRVIEW PARK	18472	138.450007
REGISTERED VOTERS - HIGHLAND HILLS VIL	760	BALLOTS CAST HIGHLAND HILLS VIL	8822	1160.78947
REGISTERED VOTERS - INDEPENDENCE	5735	BALLOTS CAST INDEPENDENCE	6226	108.561465
REGISTERED VOTERS - MAYFIELD VIL	2764	BALLOTS CAST MAYFIELD VIL	3145	113.78437
REGISTERED VOTERS - MIDDLEBURG HEIGHTS	12173	BALLOTS CAST MIDDLEBURG HEIGHTS	14854	122.024152
REGISTERED VOTERS - MORELAND HILLS VIL	2990	BALLOTS CAST MORELAND HILLS VIL	4616	154.381271
REGISTERED VOTERS - NORTH OLMSTED	25794	BALLOTS CAST NORTH OLMSTED	25887	100.360549
REGISTERED VOTERS - BAY VILLAGE	13710	BALLOTS CAST BAY VILLAGE	18663	136.126915
REGISTERED VOTERS - BEACHWOOD	9943	BALLOTS CAST BEACHWOOD	13939	140.189078
REGISTERED VOTERS - BEDFORD	9942	BALLOTS CAST BEDFORD	14465	145.493864
REGISTERED VOTERS - BEDFORD HEIGHTS	8142	BALLOTS CAST BEDFORD HEIGHTS	13512	165.954311
REGISTERED VOTERS - OAKWOOD VIL	2746	BALLOTS CAST OAKWOOD VIL	7099	258.521486
REGISTERED VOTERS - OLMSTED FALLS	6538	BALLOTS CAST OLMSTED FALLS	7328	112.083206
REGISTERED VOTERS - BROOKLYN	8016	BALLOTS CAST BROOKLYN	12303	153.480539
REGISTERED VOTERS - BROOKLYN HEIGHTS V	1144	BALLOTS CAST BROOKLYN HEIGHTS VIL	1869	163.374126
REGISTERED VOTERS - BROOK PARK	14491	BALLOTS CAST BROOK PARK	14458	99.7722724
REGISTERED VOTERS - PARMA HEIGHTS	14647	BALLOTS CAST PARMA HEIGHTS	13967	95.3574111
REGISTERED VOTERS - PEPPER PIKE	5131	BALLOTS CAST PEPPER PIKE	6479	126.271682
REGISTERED VOTERS - CHAGRIN FALLS VIL	3557	BALLOTS CAST CHAGRIN FALLS VIL	4860	136.631993
REGISTERED VOTERS - ROCKY RIVER	16600	BALLOTS CAST ROCKY RIVER	20070	120.903614
REGISTERED VOTERS - SEVEN HILLS	9077	BALLOTS CAST SEVEN HILLS	8473	93.345819
REGISTERED VOTERS - SOLN WD6	2292	BALLOTS CAST SOLN WD6	4300	187.609075
REGISTERED VOTERS - SOUTH EUCLID	16902	BALLOTS CAST SOUTH EUCLID	16917	100.088747
REGISTERED VOTERS - STRG WD3	7806	BALLOTS CAST STRG WD3		155.111453
REGISTERED VOTERS - CUYAHOGA HEIGHTS V	570	BALLOTS CAST CUYAHOGA HEIGHTS VIL	1382	242.45614
REGISTERED VOTERS - UNIVERSITY HEIGHTS	10072	BALLOTS CAST UNIVERSITY HEIGHTS	11982	118.963463
REGISTERED VOTERS - VALLEY VIEW VIL	1787	BALLOTS CAST VALLEY VIEW VIL	3409	190.766648
REGISTERED VOTERS - WARRENSVILLE HEIGH	10562	BALLOTS CAST WARRENSVILLE HEIGHTS	15039	142.387805
REGISTERED VOTERS - FAIRVIEW PARK	13342	BALLOTS CAST FAIRVIEW PARK	18472	138.450007
REGISTERED VOTERS - WESTLAKE	25627	BALLOTS CAST WESTLAKE	25173	98.228431
REGISTERED VOTERS - WOODMERE VIL	558	BALLOTS CAST WOODMERE VIL	8854	1586.73835
REGISTERED VOTERS - BEDFORD CSD	22777	BALLOTS CAST BEDFORD CSD	27856	122.29881
REGISTERED VOTERS - INDEPENDENCE LSD	5735	BALLOTS CAST INDEPENDENCE LSD	6226	108.561465
REGISTERED VOTERS - ORANGE CSD	11640	BALLOTS CAST ORANGE CSD	22931	197.001718
REGISTERED VOTERS - WARRENSVILLE CSD	12218	BALLOTS CAST WARRENSVILLE HTS CSD	15822	129.497463
REGISTERED VOTERS - HIGHLAND HILLS VIL	760	BALLOTS CAST HIGHLAND HILLS VIL	8822	1160.78947
REGISTERED VOTERS - INDEPENDENCE	5735	BALLOTS CAST INDEPENDENCE	6226	108.561465

From the comments at BOP:

Many precincts show thousands more ballots cast than registered voters. See Bedford Heights, for example. 8142 registered, 13,512 cast. It happens again and again, for a total of about 93,000 more votes than registered voters. The data outright *says* turnout is more than 100% for those precincts.

So maybe they're all provisionals by people who thought they were registered? Fine, but it adds up to 93,000. A different Ohio page says there are some 24,800 provisional ballots for Cuyahoga County, a Kerry stronghold. So either they pumped the number of votes for that county massively or they're sitting on heaps of provisionals and denying they exist. Which is it? Anyone got another explanation?

Posted at 11/9/2004 1:19:37 am by The Lib Permalink |

Monday, November 08, 2004

Recount Ohio Now!

Ohio Tally May Take Weeks

NEW WEBSITE: Recount Ohio Now!

NEW STORY: Wet Ballots Found, Rejected By Voting Machines

SANFORD, Fla. -- Several hundred ballots in Seminole County, Fla., mysteriously got wet and were rejected by voting machines Tuesday, according to Local 6 News.

The wet ballots were apparently discovered unmarked Tuesday at the Community United Methodist Church in Casselberry, Fla.

The Supervisor of Elections, Dennis Joyner, said he does not know how the ballots became wet, Local 6 News reported. He said ballots were dry when the boxes were shipped out of the office, according to the report.

Also, the region has not seen rain this week.

"Some of the ballots were wet when they opened them this morning," witness Beth Anker said. "They were a little wet from something and were not going into the machine correctly."

Joyner told Local 6 News that anyone whose wet ballot was rejected by a voting machine was allowed to fill in a new ballot.

Complaints of voter intimidation were also reported at the same voting precinct, Local 6 News reported.

Posted at 11/8/2004 6:58:16 pm by The Lib Permalink |

"Peter Principle" Writ Large

Travel day for me, but I'll Leave you with this thought to chew on.

The Peter Principle was first introduced by L. Peter in a humoristic book (of the same title) describing the pitfalls of bureaucratic organization. The original principle states that in a hierarchically structured administration, people tend to be promoted up to their "level of incompetence". The principle is based on the observation that in such an organization new employees typically start in the lower ranks, but when they prove to be competent in the task to which they are assigned, they get promoted to a higher rank. This process of climbing up the hierarchical ladder can go on indefinitely, until the employee reaches a position where he or she is no longer competent. At that moment the process typically stops, since the established rules of bureacracies make that it is very difficult to "demote" someone to a lower rank, even if that person would be much better fitted and more happy in that lower position.

The net result is that most of the higher levels of a bureaucracy will be filled by incompetent people, who got there because they were quite good at doing a different (and usually, but not always, easier) task than the one they are expected to do.
[The generalized "Peter Principle"]

The President has already demonstrated that he is incompetent for the task we have already handed him, as are many in his administration. Giving him a second term may offer him a chance to fix many of the messes he created, on the theory that we could do no worse and can only go up from here. And there is a hope that Bush's on-the-job training might have done him some good. Besides, there is no position to promote him to, dammit.

One member of his staff has proved more than competent, Karl Rove, adept at politics if not policy where his portfolio is stunningly empty. Rove, though, knows how to win elections.

The "Peter Principle" will now take over, moving a more than competent bureaucrat into a higher position for which he is consumately ill equipted. Karl Rove is being promoted to policy advisor.

Posted at 11/8/2004 7:05:12 am by The Lib Permalink |

It Was Stolen, Again

I know you don't care, and that says a lot more about you than me.

Sigh. I'll at least give it a look, and there's a lot there, and what I've seen so far certainly is suspicious. It truly makes me irrate that four years after FloriDUH, this many questions could possibly arrise.

NEW LINKS: Recount Ohio Now!

At a Glance

How it was done.

BOP's LIST

The numbers don't add up

CIA-style hacking rigs election for Bush

Black Box Voting calls it Fraud

Surprising Pattern of Florida's Election Results

The Greg Palast classic: An Election Spoiled

Washington Dispatch: Vote Fraud in Ohio?

Presidential votes mis-cast on machines across the country

Reconciling voting machine and exit poll discrepancies

Ohio Whitewash

Institute for Public Accuracy on Ohio Elections

software flaw found in Florida vote machines

Florida numbers analysis (chart)

exit poll chart via BOP reader alyosha (thanks, man)

Stolen Election 2004

Open Voting Consortium

4000 votes missing in Pennsylvania County

Palm Beach county logs 88,000 more votes than voters

outrage in ohio

Broward County Florida voting machines count backwards

Diebold Pres Odell's 2003 promise to "deliver Ohio for Bush"

Greg Palast: Kerry Won

Diebold Machines yield fishy results

Machine Error Gives Bush Extra Votes in Ohio

More evidence of possible fraud in Darke County, Ohio

NC: 11,823 "extra" votes cast for Bush

chart: Florida voter reg vs performance

Something looks very wrong in Florida

Election Theft Bombshell: Major Security Breach

And finally, from the "We told you so" files: A technical look at how they can steal it (from October 9, 2004)

Plus, from the BOP House Crew

Matt Stoller: another stolen election

oldman: speaks for itself

Barry Ritholtz: mapping out election results

Ian Welsh: Okay, it was stolen

Shaula Evans: fight fight fight

Note, these are the kind of URLs that mysteriously wind up scrubbed Would some tech savvy person be kind enough to archive them, quickly?

Updates

International Election Monitors banned in Ohio

Group tallies more than 1,100 e-voting glitches

Slashdot: Avi Rubin & More on Electronic Voting

Slashdot: Evoting problems in Ohio

Posted at 11/8/2004 12:07:59 am by The Lib Permalink |

Sunday, November 07, 2004

I Told You Not To Read That

Oh, what the hell, read this again, then you'll understand why Keith Olbermann had to check on the binding nature of concession speeches

MSNBC -

NEW YORK - Here's an interesting little sidebar of our system of government confirmed recently by the crack Countdown research staff: no Presidential candidate's concession speech is legally binding. The only determinants of the outcome of election are the reports of the state returns boards and the vote of the Electoral College.

I know I am more than curious about why Homeland Security would order a little Southern Ohio hamlet to lock down the vote count. I was wondering if they were using abacuses to tally the punch-cards.

Thus the majority of the media has yet to touch the other stories of Ohio (the amazing Bush Times Ten voting machine in Gahanna) or the sagas of Ohio South: huge margins for Bush in Florida counties in which registered Democrats outnumber registered Republicans 2-1, places where the optical scanning of precinct totals seems to have turned results from perfect matches for the pro-Kerry exit poll data, to Bush sweeps.

This story isn't going away. And it shouldn't. Keith hasn't seen it all either (or at least he's not blogging about it yet). We should be at a stage where the legitimacy of a president is beyond reproach, merely the details of his policy decisions should be subject of debate.

We have not reached that point, and here in Ohio, with the Secretary of State, Ohio's Chief election officer, Ken Blackwell, making a bid to become Governor in '06, it is inexcusable that he spent more time in court dicking around about challengers and provisional ballots, and not making absolutely sure that the vote count was of unquestionable integrity.

This is all the more important considering that Blackwell fully intends to avail himself of Ohio's broken ballot system to sweep him into the Governor's Mansion.

Helli has even more.

And BOP has a Whole Lot More.
And is starting to believe.

Posted at 11/7/2004 10:11:43 pm by The Lib Permalink |

Fallujah Reality

This is what Actor Jack Nicholson, playing a fictional character, Colonel Nathan R. Jessup, said on the witness stand in A Few Good Men:

We live in a world that has walls and those walls have to be guarded by men with guns. Who is gonna do it? You? I have a greater responsibility than you can imagine. You weep for Santiago and you curse the marines. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know. You don't want the truth because, deep down in places you don't talk about at parties, you want me on that wall, and you need me on that wall. We use words like honor, code and loyalty. We use these words as the backbone of a life spent defending something. You use them as a punch line. Otherwise I suggest you pick up a weapon and man the post. [Courtesy Chief Wiggles]

Interesting indeed. This quote, as well as the entire colloquy between Nicholson and Tom Cruise is the stuff of legend.

Either way, I don't give a damn what you think you are entitled to!
Jack Nicholson (Col. Jessup): You want answers?
Tom Cruise (Kaffee): I think I'm entitled.
Jack Nicholson (Col. Jessup): You want answers?
Tom Cruise (Kaffee): I want the truth!
Jack Nicholson (Col. Jessup): You can't handle the truth!

Dear reader, if you can handle the truth read on. Unlike the foregoing dialogue between two fictional characters written on a Hollywood sound stage, the following is a comment by a real marine who fought in Vietnam, was wounded in the Tet Offensive, who has real sons in harms way today, responding to a conservative blowhard who undoubtedly gets a hardon every time he hears Jack threaten to "tear off your head and shit down your neck."

From Terry Kindlon, criminal defense attorney and former U.S. Marine Sergeant who fought in Vietnam, responds to one of TalkLeft's conservative commentators:

Whenever I read one of your comments in support of "the war" I truly wonder what planet you're living on. As a former Marine Sergeant who was seriously wounded during the Tet Offensive in Vietnam, and as the father of one son who's an active duty Marine Captain, and another son who's worked for the UN in both Iraq and Afghanistan over the past two years, it is my opinion that you don't have the slightest idea of what you're saying. If you had ever seen the smashed body of a decapitated little civilian girl, or carried the still warm dead body of an 18 year old Marine in your arms, as have I, you would know better than to stand on the sidelines yakking about statistics and cheering while my Marine Corps, the best military force this country has ever assembled, is consistently misused by a delusional civilian administration for highly questionable purposes of very questionable morality.

It is at times like these that I want to say to guys like you that if you love the small of napalm in the morning (you wouldn't, incidentally, because it stinks) and if you think this war is such a great idea, why don't you go fight in it! If you're too old, or too scared, send your son. They have lots of openings, and I'll be happy to cook you up a nice, warm cassarole. Semper fi, pal...Terry Kindlon

Striking in the similarity of the two challenges laid out and the diametrically opposed viewpoint they challenge, no? Do read the comments to Terry's statement at TalkLeft.

Thank you Terry, and your boys for their service as well. Tell them to keep their heads down. The neo-con's Hollywood version of reality won last Tuesday, but the reality based community will keep watching your back.

Posted at 11/7/2004 8:53:37 am by The Lib Permalink |

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