Checksum Arcanius

The Seattle Times reported yesterday (once again) on the number of voters that the King County Republican Party incorrectly challenged this last election. The article was titled “Voter-challenge errors mount.”

Inside the article we read “Most of the challenges appear to be valid.” Yet the emphasis is put on to hear-tearing quotes like

Harvey Hart said that when he received Logan’s letter informing him of the challenge, his first reaction was, “Why vote anymore?”

Well, I say, if thats all it takes to stop you from voting, I’m surprised you go to the trouble to leave your house to do it.

Again, the article:

Vance said Sotelo and other King County GOP officials now are reviewing each challenge “with a fine-tooth comb,” and expect to withdraw more. There won’t be many, he added — 40 tops. “The vast majority of our research has proven to be accurate,” Vance said.

But county Democratic Chairwoman Susan Sheary said the GOP had threatened the civil rights of the voters it challenged mistakenly. “Why didn’t they go through it with a fine-tooth comb before the fact?” she said.

Maybe they didn’t have time to use the fine-toothed comb before, because, um, there was an election coming up? And why does the King County Republican Party have to do this? Doesn’t it seem that maybe the elections department should be policing the elections roles? Where’s the article titled “Illegal Registrations at Elections Office Mount,” hmmm? And once again, isn’t the Democrat Chair missing the point — every valid voter’s civil rights are threatened for every illegal voter out there. On the other hand, the voting process of a few people got a little more complicated because of this challenege. Doesn’t the good that will come from this process far, far outweigh the hinderence? Or is the integrity of the system not important to you and your party? Well, we know its not the former…

An attorney for county Democrats sent a letter to Logan on Monday arguing that all remaining challenges should be thrown out because Republicans hadn’t provided all the information or used the forms that state law requires. But Logan has decided the challenges will proceed, elections spokeswoman Bobbie Egan said.

I think Logan may be technically incorrect here, but he probably made the right decision, because, after all, most of the challeneged voter registrations probably are illegal and something should be done. After all, the voters didn’t follow the procedures when signing up, so why should someone else have to follow a procedure when un-signing them up? Besides, dragging this out creates more bad publicity (like the Seattle Times article) about the Republican Party, and certainly that fits Logan’s operating instructions.

Once again, “The office doesn’t know how many of the challenged voters voted, [elections spokeswoman Bobbie] Egan added.” Well, thats reassuring. If they don’t know that number, doesn’t that imply that the elections office didn’t remove their votes? Has nothing been fixed from the last go-around?

A few days ago, I was reading my daily news and I saw a couple of strange headlines on the Seattle Times RSS feed. When I attempted to view the articles associated with them, I was greeted with a nice but firm “page not found” error. However, by backtracking to the directory above, I found an interesting blank page that still seems to be active. You can check it out yourself.

By Johann N. Neem
Special to The Times

SINCE the fall of the Soviet Union, nations around the world have been undergoing a long and halting transition to democratic self-government. Under President Bush, moreover, the United States has undertaken the ambitious mission of spreading democracy around the world. In Iraq, this effort has been made more difficult by the mutual distrust among Kurds, Sunnis and Shiites, a distrust due in large part to atrocities committed under Saddam Hussein.

Emerging from totalitarianism, Iraqis must learn to work together as democratic citizens. A range of thinkers, from commentators to policymakers, have tried to distill what this transition will take. After all, democracies do not happen overnight. They require citizens to share certain core ideas. Among the most important is the ability to lose.
Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve talked about Factcheck.org before, and thanks to the new “Blasts from the past” section on the left, I went and checked it out again today. There I found this detailed event-by-event log of the unfolding of the disaster in New Orleans.

What I get from reading it is the gross incompetence of government in general: State Officials blocking Red Cross, Federal Officials “just finding out” about the 40,000 people in the convention center, Local Officials ordering the evacuation well after it would have been effective and the failure to follow disaster plans at all levels – if that would have even helped.

Take from it what you will, but here is what I take from it: Government generally does not work very well. I an no anarchist, but I believe as Thomas Paine said, “Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one.” In the Wake of Katrina, we see again and again government at its intolerable best, wallowing gloriously in its own incompetence.

Those that rely on government to protect them will never be safe.
Those that trust government to save them will be left alone in their time of need.
Those that believe that government is the answer will only end up with more questions.

My cousin Kevin, who is in the Navy, wrote this insightful email about the communications breakdown that hampered early rescue efforts in New Orleans:
Read the rest of this entry »

A recent secuirty hole in Firefox allows a malicious website to run arbitrary code on your computer. I recommend immediately visiting this site and installing a very small patch.

Security updates in hours. Just another reason we love Firefox.

The combined intelligence of media and government is astounding

From the article:

Families displaced by Hurricane Katrina will receive debit cards good for $2,000 to spend on clothing and other immediate needs, the Bush administration said yesterday.

and then the kicker:

The administration estimated the cost of the program for 320,000 households at $640 million.

Holy crap! How did they come up with that number?

…

In other sad news (and also from the article):

President Bush sent to Congress a request for $51.8 billion in additional hurricane relief, raising Katrina’s cost to the federal government to $62.3 billion so far, a record for domestic disaster relief. Congress is likely to approve the White House request today.

White House budget director Joshua Bolten made it clear: “We will in fact need substantially more,” estimating the current sum would cover expenses for “a few weeks.”

Last week, FEMA was spending about $500 million a day, an unprecedented rate, House Appropriations Committee aides said. But over the weekend, Bolten said, that “burn rate” soared to more than $2 billion a day as FEMA began signing contracts for the construction of temporary housing.

$2 billion a day! Holieeee…