Paper Trails

This is just a short take on what some see as a very complex problem: how to get a paper receipt for an e-Vote.

Diebold and the other manufacturers of electronic voting machines tell us it's way too complicated to produce a computer that can tally and record all votes cast on that particular machine; keep track of a voter's choices, print out a receipt (paper trail) for the voter; and at the end of the evening print out the sum total of votes for every candidate.

Maybe they should check with National Cash Register Corporation (NCR) or any of the other manufacturers of point-of-sale devices. NCR has been recording transactions for over 100 years. Every day in this country, millions consumers trust the folks that build cash registers to accurately record their billions of dollars worth of purchases, tally their expenditures, charge them to their credit or debit cards, report how much change is due back if the transaction is handled by cash, generate a subtotal, calculate how much tax should be added, generate a total, print out a receipt with every item and its unit price for the customer, and at the end of a shift or the end of the business day, generate a complete accounting of the transactions for that register. Millions of consumers, billions of transactions, 365 days a year. (And that's just in the USA.)

Get charged the wrong amount? Get the wrong change? Get the wrong sandwich at the drive-thru? Show them your receipt.

Too bad you can't do that with your electronic ballot.

Diebold and the rest of the voting machine industry can do much better. Or maybe we should let NCR do it. I think they know how.

Sex, Lies and Waterboarding

I wonder why Lynne Cheney is being so coy about writing a racy lesbian love scene (or scenes) in her book, Sisters. Scooter Libby, former chief of staff to the Lynne's hubby Vice President Dick Cheney, had us enthralled -- no, more like grossed out -- with his tepid novel The Apprentice, featuring young Japanese maidens being "seduced" by bears in cages.

Ms. Cheney and other Republicans are tattling on Jim Webb (D) running for US Senate in Virginia against incumbent George "Hey Macaca!" Allen (R). Mr. Webb, a former Secretary of Navy during the Reagan administration, and author of 10 books including the acclaimed Lost Soldiers and Fields of Fire.

According to the tattlers, Mr. Webb writes porno. He is insensitive to women they claim. He wrote a really super-duper nasty scene in one book involving a father and son. Ewwwwwwwww! Meanwhile the Vice President says he thinks waterboarding is good clean fun.

I'll be honest: Haven't read any of their books and don't intend to. This scrum is intended to distract Virginia voters -- and yes, those of us in other parts of the country from the real issues at stake in this election. I find it coincidental that the VP's remarks about how waterboarding really isn't torture and is okay with him seemed to bubble up to the surface during the same news cycle. (Let's see: you say something shocking and controversial regarding torture and whether or not you condone it, and your wife deflects some of the attention which should be focused on your sorry excuse for a behind by claiming that a Democratic senate candidate writes porno. Things that make you go "hmmmmmmmmm.")

The torture in specific question is waterboarding where a prisoner is tied to an inclined board, feet above the head. Water is then poured over the prisoner's head which, according to various descriptions, may be bare, covered with cloth or cellophane. The object of the exercise is to induce a severe gag reflex -- the choking, drowning response -- which causes the prisoner to (under "ideal" circumstances) to believe he or she is in imminent danger of death to quickly give in so that the torture will stop. If it is not performed correctly the prisoner may suffer oxygen deprivation and brain and lung damage, and for the very unlucky, real, not simulated, death.

Mr. Webb writes fiction. Some of it is about sex. Mr. Cheney's issues are factual: Waterboarding has been defined by persons far more expert than the VP or the President as torture. He and the President either support using torture on detainees or they don't. All evidence, including Mr. Cheney's own words demonstrate that they do.

The Republicans' Big Tent

The Tennessee Senate race made big news this week because of controversial -- some say racist -- attack ads supporting candidate Robert "Bob" Corker (R) over Rep. Harold Ford, Jr. (D). In the interest of full disclosure, I'll tell you that I think the ads are outrageous, inflammatory, inaccurate, and yes, play the race card. But more appalling are two things: first, the hear-no-evil, see-no-evil game played by the Republican National Committee and its chairman Ken Mehlman. Second, the failure of ANY black Republican to take his or her party to task for using this despicable tactic.

Okay, briefly for any of you not quite up to speed on the goings-on down in Volunteer state. Harold Ford, Jr. is running for the Senate seat being vacated by Bill Frist. Mr. Ford is black, single, from a prominent black family in Tennessee (his father is a former congressman) and if elected would be the first black senator from a southern state since Reconstruction. His opponent is a former mayor of Chattanooga, white, wealthy. Now here is where it starts to get good: The Republican National Committee paid "an independent entity" to produce some ads in support of Mr. Corker. According to campaign finance laws, there can be no coordination between the candidate (Corker), the RNC (represented here by Chairman Ken Mehlman) and the mystery mischief-maker (a shadowy 527 political action committee). The ads in question purportedly link Mr. Ford to a variety of -- at best "un-Republican" -- values and at worst to porn money, the gun control lobby, peddling "abortion pills" to children, and a blonde bimbo who "met Harold at the Playboy mansion" and wants him to call her. While the other items in the list are inaccurate, misleading, distorted and more, it is the bimbo that is the bombshell.

I'll grant that if you are not already sensitive to it, you may not get what all the fuss is about. Simply put, the GOP is playing to its east Tennessee base. Not just the NASCAR dads, but a particularly race-sensitive white male voter who is in the hills of Bristol, who allows the N-word to fall trippingly off his tongue just as casually as he'd call his dog in for dinner. This is the guy who'd tolerate standing in line at Burger King or KFC with "one," but "for dang sure I ain't allowin' my daughter to date one." The image of that blonde cooing "Harold, call me," at the end of the ad seals the deal.

Now if you're not sensitive to the hidden, coded messages, you just won't get it. It looks like any other attack ad. Back in the late 80's, early 90's there were these posters that you had to look at a certain way to see the image. Head-on, it was just a hodge-podge of colorful tiny dots. You had to stand a certain distance away, focus or unfocus your eyes on a certain point in front of or behind the image, go cross-eyed, stand on one foot and hop around. You'd see people straining and straining trying to make the dots converge into the image of whatever it was supposed to be. When they finally got it, you'd hear them whoop and exclaim "I can see it!" Those that got it, could do it again and again. Hence, the popularity. And there were some of us (I was one) who never saw what the others were raving about. No matter how hard I tried, I could never pull that image into focus to see the rockets or plants or flowers or clowns that the other ones saw.
Much like the folks who are having a hard time seeing the coded racist message of the ads supporting Mr. Corker. Which brings us to Mr. Corker, who at first feigned ignorance of the ad for days before requesting that the RNC yank it from circulation -- apparently so nicely that the RNC just laughed in his face. And that brings us to Mr. Mehlman.

Ken Mehlman, too, feigned ignorance of the ad. Then denied that the content could be considered racist. Then claimed to be "extraordinarily sensitive" to racism and in his eyes, this wasn't it. Then claimed that he did not know who put up the ad, although he authorized the payment to this person or persons. Then claimed that even if he did know who was responsible, he was powerless -- the chairman of the Republican Party, Mr. Head Honcho -- to have the ad removed because of campaign finance laws. After this explosion into the national spotlight, what was meant to be a local -- regional -- issue was disrupting everything, knocking everyone off message. Finally Mehlman told somebody to tell the mystery adman to pull the ad. It's still running and story is still big news, simmering away if not at a rolling boil.

And that brings us (at last) to the second issue: where are the black Republicans speaking out against this lowball crap? No where to be seen. Not Colin or Condi, not Alan Keyes or J. C. Watts, or um, who else is there? All notably silent. (Okay, I'll give poor Condi a pass on this one; she's got her hands full with Iraq, Iran, North Korea and shopping.) But here is my point (finally): For years the Republicans have been belittling black voters for continuing to vote for Democrats in election after election. They say black voters get the short end of the Democratic stick. They poke fun at the Democrats' rainbow colored tent that has room for everyone.

The GOP would like to court blacks and other minorities to show their so-called "diversity." However, every time there is an opportunity to expand their tent, to be inclusive rather than exclusive, the Republicans return to their old tactics and tricks. Just how does an intelligent, politically savvy black voter overlook the application of "Tactic No. 14: Using Coded Racial Messages in Campaign Ads"? How do you convince that voter that he or she is welcome in your tent? ("But you need to use the back door." And that door is zipped up tight.) And frankly, racial minorities are not the only ones who get invited to the back door. Ask the Log Cabin Republicans how they feel.

The outrage at the pro-Corker ads -- the coded symbolism in the ads specifically -- should have no color line. And indeed, both white and black people decried it. And should have no gender gap. Both men and women were angry. The cynical will say it was liberal Democrats who made the most noise. But I am still disappointed by those we didn't hear from: black Republicans. I guess you can't change what's going on inside the tent if you can't get inside.

I hear the Democrats have a big tent and everyone's welcome.

Rush Limbaugh Will Say Anything

I have to say that this week we all had a chance to witness Rush Limbaugh and his dittoheads sink to an all-time new low. To accuse someone -- in this case actor Michael J. Fox -- of purposefully exaggerating his Parkinson's Disease symptoms by either faking the spasms and tremors, or by not taking his medication allow them to go untreated while he filmed a political ad in support of stem cell research, is reprehensible.

Now, although we all knew in our heart of hearts that Rush (and Ann Coulter and Sean Hannity and the rest of that gaggle) would find something stupid to say, I didn't see that one coming. I should have, given Coulter's shrill complaints regarding the 9/11 widows. The new whine from these folks is that Democrats use these "victims" of death and disease as human shields because they are supposedly immune from criticism by those dwelling in the far corners of the right wing. And when the likes of Rush or Ann or Sean merely try to make their point, those liberal Democrats attack them and bite their pointy little heads off. (Okay, I'm exaggerating: only Ann has a pointy head. Rush and Sean have Charlie Brown blockheads.)

The fact is when it comes to stem cell research of all kinds (adult-cell or embryonic) the potential to cure common diseases or disabilities is vast and unknown. We don't know exactly or completely what can be treated with stem cell therapy, when we will see results of this research, who will benefit most, or the myriad of other questions which concern us and scientists, doctors and patients. But it is valuable and viable research that must be pursued agressively.

You might not like Mr. Fox as an actor. You may not like him as a spokesperson for stem cell research. But he has the right to express his opinion, support like-minded political candidates, share his talents with or without his medications, tremor-free or shaking uncontrollably.

I admire Mr. Fox's courage to show us his illness, but more importantly, his willingness to speak for those whose bodies will not allow them to speak for themselves.

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Welcome to The Rational Inquirer, where intelligent discourse and commentary on a variety of subjects is always savored.

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