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ARCHIVE 12/19/04

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SUNDAY 12.19.04 / 12:35 AM / LINK / COMMENT

Phasing, bailing, or throwing out?

Josh Marshall points out here that all the conservative BS about "partially" ending Social Security is another bait and switch manuever by corporate-government revolutionaries. They don't want to partially end Social Security. They want to end it. But they won't say so because it would be imprudent at this juncture. All their ducks are not in a row --yet.

"It seems," Marshall says, "most advocates of phasing out Social Security let out a squeal worthy of Deliverance when you insist they own up to naming their plan for what it does: namely, end Social Security. Yes, I know, many of them only want to 'partially' end the program. But anybody with the fiscal roadmap in front of them and a decent handle on policy geography can see that the 'partial' pretty quickly leads to the total."

As usual, these people are not to be trusted with anything that has to do with your future. Their whole edifice is founded upon mendacity. And a house built upon lies has a tenuous shelf-life. Soon it'll collapse, burying us and our hopes while they're secure in their gated communities or offshore retreats.

With 51% of us having bit the Bush bait, all of us are now being forced to swallow. In fact, in addition to phasing, bailing, and throwing out, we'll be throwing up too.


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THURSDAY 12.16.04 / 7:04 AM / LINK / COMMENT

Some hair-raising and democracy-razing stuff

You won't hear a lot about it on Fox news but the ongoing investigation into voting irregularities and outright fraud is turning up some hair-raising and democracy-razing stuff. The tesimony of Clint Curtis at the Judiciary Committee meetings in Ohio for one.

This is from a transcript at the
Daily Kos:

Q: [Congressman Nadler] And did he ever express why he wanted a code to rig an election?

A: No. I immediately assumed that they were trying to keep you guys from cheating with it... so... [laughter] so... I wrote up the documentation of what you would look for in the source code. How you would make sure the you - CUT - Mrs. Yang, and said, here's your report. Here's your program. And she said, you don't understand, we need to hide the fraud in the source. In the source code.

Q: Hide the fraud, not reveal the fraud?

A: Not reveal the fraud because they needed to control the vote in South Florida, is what she said.

Q: That's what she said?

A: That's what she said.

Q: To your knowledge, to your knowledge, was this used?

A: I have no idea. I was ready to leave, so... (laughter) and and I was tired and left the company.

Q: In your testimony a minute ago I think you said just before you left in answer to Congresswoman Tubbs Jones question, that... would you just repeat what you said in terms of uh the the uh exit polls?

A: The exit polls should not be significantly different from the vote.

Q: And if they were you would conclude what?

A: I would conclude someone's playing with the vote?

Q: Not with the exit polls?

A: That's possible too.

Q: OK and that's why...

A: Something is definitely skewed.

Q: Something is skewed with one of the other above.

A: To select which one you'd have to see where the problem is.

Q: Let me ask you one further question. Assuming for the moment that such software, [UNINTELLIGABLE] such software to rig a vote was used, in one or more machines in Ohio or in Florida, couldn't you today detect that if you looked at the source code?

A: If you could get the machines and they had not been patched yet. I mean, once they get in and touch em', anything could happen. You could also set timers to do that, but then you could see the timer. Then you'd have to take those machines, decompile them, which I couldn't do, but possibly a Microsoft, an MIT something could do, you might... you might be able to.

Q: You might?

A: Depends on how good they are at destroying what they had.

Q: Destroying what they had by tampering the machine afterwards, or by programming them to destroy instructions in the first place?

A: Right. Because then since you...

Q: Either or both?

A: Either or both. You didn't actually seen what's in there, so you don't know if the code is running as a single executable or running in various modules. If it's running in modules you could make the code actually eat itself.

Q: Let me ask you one further question. We've.... I've heard that people who assume that lots of the election results, that a large fraction of the election result within the state may have been effected by deliberate fraud in a computer, are paranoid, because in order to do that you would have to have access to thousands of machines and that would be readily detectable. To what extent is that true?

A: In depends on the technology that used. If you use a central tabulation machine that fed in, all you'd have to do is set a flag. You set a flag; the central tabulation machine would flip your vote.

Q: So if you. So one person putting in bad code in a central tabulation machine could affect thousands and thousands or tens of thousands of votes?

A: Right.

Q: And...

A: And you could activate either automatically, or you could make is so that there's code existing on like an otonic (?) machine which feeds it, where you would punch it in, it would see the flag, the server would see the flag and then...

Q: And if you had a recount and no paper trail, would that be, as soon as that had happened, would that be reversible by seeing the discrepancy between the tabulator, the central tabulator code, and what the individual machines which had not been tampered with code?

A: Not if I wrote it.

Q: Why not? In other words...

A: In other words I could make it match.

Q: You could work back from the tabulator to the individual machines, so that the tabulator could tell the machines to switch their results?

A: Yes. It talks both ways. You could flip it to whatever you need.

Q: And they actually do talk to each other. this the machines and the tabulator?

A: As long as it's hooked up. As long as they are networked together, they can talk to each other.

Q: So in other words, there is absolutely no assurance whatsoever on anything with regards to these machines.

A: Absolutely none, unless you look at the source code and make sure it's safe before it goes in.

Q: Thank you very much. [APPLAUSE]

Chair: Thank you Congressman Nadler. I know that Congresswoman Waters has questions, then Senator Miller, and then Congresswoman Stephanie Tubbs Jones.

Q: [Congresswoman Waters] This will only take a moment, if you would come back to the ...

A: I'm new at this.

Q: As you know, there has been a lot of discussion about that, I think it is Diebold Company. Their relationship to the President and a group within the administration and supposedly comments about helping to insure that the President is reelected. In your world in your environment, have you heard any of these kind of discussion? Do you know people from Diebold... do you have any sense of any actions that may have been taken?

A: I don't know anything about that at all.

Q: Thank You

A: Sorry.

Chair: Senator Miller

Q: [Senator Miller] Thank you Madam Chair.

Chair: Sir.

Q: I suspect that people will attack you in terms of your credibility. Could you restate once again for the record your credentials?

A: I'm a programmer. I worked for NASA. I've worked for Exxon/Mobile. Worked for the Department of Transportation. And, other elements of my story, because this company... well let's get into it, why not? [LAUGHTER] This company also, they have a NASA contract. and they were basically downloading tons of information, I mean gigabytes worth, and handing it off to this little Chinese guy named Henry Ng [Lee or Nee?] and it didn't seem right and he was packing things and I wrote a program for DOT that allowed contractors to send their information into DOT and he was kind of the quality assurance guy for software. He put a wiretapping module in the program that went to the contractors so that it actually sent everything they sent back to Yang. So I reported all this and just last March, I think, he was arrested for attempting to send anti-tank missile chips to the capitol of Communist China. If that's correct, this is such a small thing. [LAUGHTER] Although I think that he only got a hundred dollar fine and no time.

Chair: Thank You.



If this testimony doesn't cause you some anxiety you've got some credulity issues and are probably an anti-historian to boot. Either that or you've stepped over into the dark side yourself. Either way, don't ever call yourself a patriot.

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12.16.04 / 6:48 AM / LINK / COMMENT

Faith-based retirement

Government, at least, has been faithfully paying retirees for almost seventy years. We're not talking retirements that'll pay for yachts and condos in Palm Beach, but something for the common man and woman to rely upon, however humble. Common folks. You know, the ones who, today, worry about their jobs heading off shore and their Social Security funds heading into the accounts of trustworthy corporations like First Command Financial Services. Companies who's first interest is swelling their bottom line.

Here's what First Command's been up to lately, as reported in
today's NY Times.

"First Command Financial Services, one of the best-known companies marketing financial products to military families, agreed yesterday to pay $12 million to settle accusations that it used misleading information to sell mutual funds to thousands of military officers over the last five years."


"...the Securities and Exchange Commission said that First Command exaggerated the track record of its high-cost fund products - with fees that ate up 50 percent of an investor's first-year contributions - and misrepresented the costs and availability of cheaper investment alternatives."

They can't even be trusted to honestly serve "our boys". What do you think their commitment would be to "our elders".

Paul Krugman (and here) and others insist SS is not in dire straits as the Bush administration and neocons everywhere warn. They say it's not in danger of immanent collapse, but that it does need very thoughtful attention.

The privateers, however, would love to get their hands on all that money now heading into the SS trust fund. Privateers like the management of First Command and the management of the Bush administration. Then they too would be in the position to collect fees that eat up "50 percent of an investor's first-year contributions".


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SATURDAY 12.12.04 / 9:14 AM / LINK / COMMENT

Pakistan has us by the short hairs

A story by Kaushik Kapisthalam at Asia Times reports, "The United States is selling the theory that the Pakistan-based nuclear proliferation ring has been broken up and its mastermind, Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan, has been "brought to justice". He is under house arrest in Pakistan. Unfortunately, as much as the Bush administration would like to wish away the Khan issue, it continues to dog two of the biggest foreign-policy crises for the US."

The reason the issue remains alive is that Pakistan is reluctant to be too cooperative in the international need to know more about the operation of the nuclear underground.

Kapisthalam wonders, "..why Pakistan would risk global opprobrium and keep the nuclear networks alive." His answer is that Pakistan obviously needs the black market for the viability of its nuclear-weapons program.

"The second reason," the the reporter goes on, "could be that Musharraf feels he is bulletproof when it comes to this issue because the US is paralyzed by the general's oft-repeated claim that if he goes, all (nuclear) hell could break out." That's the "short hairs" part.

Kapisthalam concludes, "For the US to keep hoping that Pakistan will voluntarily reveal key nuclear network secrets, many of which likely implicate key Pakistani figures and state institutions, is illogical and dangerous.

"Meanwhile, the nuclear underworld is likely morphing rapidly and moving out of the reach of international investigators. And Iran and North Korea are happily thumbing their noses at America, thanks to America's impuissance with Pakistan."

"Inpuissance" by any other name could mean "waffley" ...as in what conservatives called John Kerry.


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12.12.04 / 8:36 AM / LINK / COMMENT

White House blames Kerik

Washington Post headline this morning:

White House Puts Blame on Kerik
Nominee Initially Denied Having Hired an Illegal Immigrant, Officials Say

White house blames Kerik. But, of course --has the White House ever shared blame for anything?


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FRIDAY 12.10.04 / 7:15 AM / LINK / COMMENT

Some jokes are just not funny

Nicholas Kristoff plumbs the idea "coalition of the willing" in his column today and reports some pretty low pipe pressure. In fact, of the nations backing us in Iraq with troop numbers like 45 (Tonga), 12 (Moldova), 105 (Lithuania), 122 (Latvia), 55 (Estonia), and 10 (Norway) none told Kristoff they were willing to send any more. So that's 6 of the 28 coalition partners George Bush likes to tout as proof that we are not alone in Iraq that have a total of 349 troops helping us.

And, of the total of 22 coalition partners remaining, Kristoff continues, only eight have more that 500 soldiers in the war. As Kristoff suggests, "While (their) sacrifice (is) no joke, our coalition is."

Not that it's news to anyone who's actually been looking, but Kristoff also suggests that the same arrogance that would lead an administration to try to con the world that we are not virtually alone in this endeavor when the numbers prove otherwise, is the same variety that led Athens from being the cradle of democracy to it coffin.

Then there's the projection of that arrogance into the international scene. As he notes in his commentary, "Athens became too full of itself. It forgot to apply its humanity beyond its own borders, it bullied its neighbors, and it scoffed at the rising anti-Athenianism. To outsiders, it came to epitomize not democracy, but arrogance. The great humanists of the ancient world could be bafflingly inhumane abroad, as at Melos, the My Lai of its day."

But don't look for self reflection from the Bush team, no matter how huge the historical handwriting on the wall is. These men are too vain and mean spirited to change. Circumstances of their own making will have to topple them...and us as well.


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2.10.04 / 7:15 AM / LINK / COMMENT

Kerik says no

Political-criticism-is-our-enemies'-best-friend Kerik has declined the president's offer to make him Homeland Security chief. The NY Times reports he says he just found out he'd once hired an illegal alien, and didn't pay taxes on her wages.

Whatever the reason, it's good to see him go. Now we'll just have to deal with whomever worse the president puts up.


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FRIDAY 2.10.04 / 6:05 AM / LINK / COMMENT

Hillbilly Armor

"Hillbilly armor" is the term coined by American soldiers in Iraq who must cob together Improvised Protection Assemblies (IPAs) for their humvees in case they run into any Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs).

This armor is the subject of suddenly hot news prompted by a soldier's question to the Secretary of Defense. After speaking to the military crowd the other day Donald Rumsfeld foolishly asked his own question of the hundreds of troops assembled to give him a photo-op with, well, hundreds of troops. His question was, "Any questions?"

We can surmise Rumsfeld felt pretty safe asking it because troops are a captive audience (no pun intended), and because they wouldn't let reporters within a mile of the secretary. This is standard Bush administration practice. Keep knowledge in a "locked box" as Al Gore liked to say. You wouldn't want any of it to get out among the people and spoil the neocon party.

But in the insidious way truth works, it squirmed its way to the light from dark Republican confinement through the mouth of a courageous man, Specialist Thomas Jerry Wilson, an extraordinary ordinary soldier. Wilson asked why troops had to scavenge through dumps to come up with pieces of metal they could bolt to their trucks and humvees to keep them alive. (I wonder, are Rumsfeld's armored vehicles similarly outfitted?)

We can only imagine what Rumsfeld thought at the moment ..."Who let that liberal in here?" But he put a brave face on it and answered in typical fashion. He cobbed together his own BPB (Bush Protective Bullshit) with bits of odd logic and cynical rationales and drove forth in his contraption of Orwellian double talk.

If you look closely at the next photo-op of a Bush administration official in a room full of troops you'll probably see every one of them wearing camoflage muzzles.



Related Story

"The main reason there isn't enough armor is because the military has underestimated its own needs, said Meghan Keck, spokeswoman for Senator Evan Bayh, an Indiana Democrat. Bayh wrote a letter to Rumsfeld in October calling for a more accurate estimate of Humvee needs.

``If the Army would be up front about the number of Humvees needed, the companies would be able to set their production accordingly to meet the need,'' Keck said in a phone interview."


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WEDNESDAY 2.08.04 / 10:05 PM / LINK / COMMENT

Mother died today, or was it yesterday?

This Donald Rumsfeld's a real thinker. Responding to criticism of his troop protection planning as he and his boss were rushing production of their big war (criticism from the troops themselves such as, "How come we have to ride around Iraq detonating bombs with our under-armored humvees?"). Don replys, in effect, "Well, just because."

What the glib war meister literally said was, "As you know, you go to war with the Army you have. They're not the Army you might want or wish to have at a later time."

Or, Don, as you know, you could collect the materials you need before starting your friggin' war...

Rumsfeld (who's getting a second 4-year stab at wild and wooly commandership and thoughtless analysis, thanks to his boss's profound cynicism) gets paid good money for this kind of fresh insight:

"If you think about it," he continued, " you can have all the armor in the world on a tank and a tank can be blown up. And you can have an up-armored Humvee and it can be blown up."


Yeah, Don, we all know the universe is absurd. In fact you could also have ridden miraculously unscathed through the center of Falluja on a skateboard during the recent bullet-whizzing, bomb-blasting conflagration with a sign saying "I am the great Satan!" But you didn't choose to. Then again you have a little more freedom of choice than your average marine.

Don the existentialist.

A few troops died today, or was it yesterday? ...I can't be sure.

We don't need some facile prestidigitator fast-talking his ass off trying to make the obvious disappear. We definitely don't need that. If this guy wants to play magician, maybe he should make himself disappear.


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2.08.04 / 7:16 AM / LINK / COMMENT

Ticking time bomb Kerik

Here's more on Bernard Kerik our new Homeland Security chief. It suggests that George Bush continues his incredible reign of incompetence, bad judgement, and domestic terror into his second term with the delicacy of a WWW meat man on steroids & ecstacy.

From someone who's worked under Kerik:
"He couldn't run the Rikers commissary without getting greedy and making a mess, in a jam," one (NY) correction veteran said. "Now he's gonna be in charge of the Department of Homeland Security? Let's just hope the terrorists don't decide to come back."

I owe my friend Galen for this link.


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2.08.04 / 7:06 AM / LINK / COMMENT

spot on

I couldn't have said this better myself.

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TUESDAY 2.07.04 / 7:31 AM / LINK / COMMENT

Murder on their mind


Paul Krugman says Social Security isn't in danger of collapse, it's in danger of being murdered.


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2.07.04 / 7:31 AM / LINK / COMMENT

New aristocracy

Listen to Bernard Kerik, our new Homeland Security Chief. He says, "Political criticism is our enemies' best friend."

"Political criticism is our enemies' best friend."


Repeat that a few dozen times to yourself as if you're being indoctrinated into the red army of the right and righteous. Go ahead:
Political criticism is our enemies' best friend.
Political criticism is our enemies' best friend.
Political criticism is our enemies' best friend.
Political criticism is our enemies' best friend.

So, if our new Homeland Security Chief's view is that criticism of government policy makes you our enemies' best friend, what does this tell us of his attitude toward the constitution? After all, the constitution is founded upon mistrust of government. Is Kerik saying we must trust government as a matter of patriotism? As a matter of course? But how can we do that be without betraying our laws and tradition? The whole point of the constitution is that you can't trust government or human nature. Or, more precisely, you can't trust government because of human nature. The men who crafted the constitution understood human nature and it's inclination toward the abuse of power.

It seems pretty obvious that if you could trust the powerful to do what's right we wouldn't need three branches of government, one would do just fine, and be very efficient. If trust was sensible we wouldn't need a written code all.

Believing that political criticizism makes us our enemies' best friend is the mark of an anti-democrat... and they talk about the northeastern elite. Compared to the axis of ego, the so-called northeastern elite are punks. They pale in the presence of this new aristocracy. It thrives despite the constituion. And if it's not curtailed it'll replace it.

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