Benedict@Large

The problem, however, is that most state election officials are not demanding this extra security. Instead, many of these officials believe that the machines are secure because they've been "certified" by a private independent testing authority (ITA) that keeps both the tests and the results of the tests secret from the public.

Compounding this of course is the fact that most people selecting these systems operate in highly political environments; environments where it can be fatal to admit one's mistake. This results in a lot of the inertia we are seeing with these systems. Once the purchase is made, it must be defended regardless of any new evidence showing that the decision may have been less than perfect when made.

• So Ralph Nader is running. Good for him! Look, the Democrats really have no right to ask Nader not to. The party, drawn to the right by years of DLC dominance, was literally dead in the water. It was the Progressives (Nader-types) under Dean (and to a lesser extent, Kucinich) that put life back into it. And what did they get for it? They got a DNC that stood by silent when the media decided to go after Dean like a pack of wild dogs. Note that the DNC is now quite vocal as Kerry is being attacked. What's the difference?

  The difference is that to today's Democratic Party leadership, the Progressives are much like the Blacks, groups of voters the party wants but is willing to do little to get. Indeed, the operating prinicple in the party seems to be to expect these votes because "they have no place else to go." Well, sorry, but now they do.

  Some additional points:

  • As Nader pointed out, he was hardly the only third party candidate to run in 2000; he was simply the most successful. To ask him and not others to stay out of the race is to say that third party candidacies are acceptable only when they are marginal. This is avery dangerous way to think.

  • Special interests. All the main candidates are talking about them, hurling accusations back and forth. Nader didn't use that term. He used the term "corporations", and there's a big difference. Yes, corporations form SIGs, but so do environmentalist, gay rights advocates, pro-life proponents, and many more. All of these latter groups however are people coming together to influence legislation, and that's what people are supposed to do in a democracy. Corporate SIGs are different entirely. They are capital coming together to influence legislation, and we need to decide if this is how we want to run our country.

  Finally, VoteNader.org, and no, that's not an endorsement.

• The "Chickenhawk Defense!" I was wondering what Kerry was going to pull out against the "Hanoi Jane" charge, and this is fairly clever: He's simply pointing out that if the Republicans want to question his Vietnam record, they probably shouldn't be sending out chickenhawk front men to do it. The real question is whether the Republicans actually have any front men who are not chickenhawks to do this. I hardly expect John McCain to be volunteering for the job anytime soon.

  Of course, the RNC is already trying to dodge this bullet, claiming that we really shouldn't "revisit old wounds" from 30 years ago, a faint attempt to sideline both the chickenhawk tag and Bush's own service record. But the fact of the matter is that to many in the far right core of the Republican Party, Vietnam is still very much an issue. These are the people who, in spite of the revealed statements of every President invovled in that conflict, in spite of the more recent admissions of Robert MacNamara, and in spite of the personal testimonies of so many who fought in that conflict, still believe that the only reason we "lost" Vietnam was that we stopped "supporting our troops" there. It was these people after all who dusted off the old "Hanoi Jane" label, and it is these very same people to whom that label is as fresh today as it was when it was first minted.

  The RNC then, when it says we should not "revisit old wounds", is actually being quite disengenuous. The fact of the matter in fact is that many of their base are still living there.

Lest any armchair fundamentalists out there get the wrong idea, none of this is stated from a position of areligious "humanism." Each Sunday, in fact, during silent prayer at my church I ask that the anger I feel toward these people be lifted from my heart and that the darkness they have visited upon my land be whisked away in the healing light of truth. And I ask that when George W. Bush and his self-appointed God squad are gone that I never again disturb my gray matter on them. I pray only that they disappear into their inner darkness and leave the rest of us alone.

But, of course, zealots never disappear. Like Dave Koresh, Jim Jones, Osama and Robertson, they're not guided by spiritual generosity but by some deeper pathological condition. There is a sadistic element to their religion, a need to punish and condemn rather than to lift up and inspire.

I consider myself fairly well studied on world religions. As an Atheist (or more formally, a classical pantheist), I find them especially fascinating and often even beautiful. Here are these various groups of people who believe differently than I do. Where are their beliefs different from mine? Where are they the same? Are all of the variations simply "different flavors" of a greater whole? These are the questions that have fascinated me throughout my 30+ years of Atheism and even beyond.

It was about four years back (when I began my "internet life") that I first began conversing with fundamentalists. Now I had ran into evangelicals before (there is overlap between the two groups (fundamentalists and evangelicals), but they are not identical), and mostly I had had no problems with them. So all of this was something new to me. For all of my study of world religion, I realized that I had no idea what it was that drove a person from a more centrist belief in a religion to a fundamentalist belief in that same religion. Certainly this occurred in all regions, but what was it? Was it a single thing across all religions, was it different between religions, or did it vary from individual to individual? I set out to find the answer.

The answer was illusive. I interviewed (via chat rooms and e-mail) many self-professed fundamentalists (mostly Christian, but that was my upbringing), and many of them over long periods of time. I never hid my own Atheism, nor did I hide my goal. Better to be honest up front, I felt, than to be later accused of fraudulent representation. In fact, this proved quite helpful, since none of the fundamentalists I spoke with had ever run into a "real live" Atheist before, and most were as curious about me as I was about them.

But still, my answer was illusive. In my previous studies, I had been concerned about what someone believed, and it is fairly easy to get people to tell you that. Now I was concerned with a quite different question: why did someone believe what they believed?

Try asking someone that question about their religion some time. Here's the answer you'll get: "Because it's true."

But here is what fundamentalists believe. They believe that theirs is the "one true religion". Yet many non-fundamentalists believe the exact same thing. They believe in the primacy of their own religious text (e.g., the Bible, the Koran). Yet many non-fundamentalists believe the exact same thing. They believe that their god will punish those who err and reward those who do not. Yet many non-fundamentalists believe the exact same thing. Where they differ is in their belief that their own religious text is inviolate; that it must be interpreted as the literal truth.

This last item is most curious. Here we have people who will turn on their coffee pots each morning, knowing full well that science says that the flow of electrons through the wires will heat the water that makes their coffee. Here we have people who will drive their cars across a long bridge, knowing full well that it is science that prevents them from falling into the waters below. Here we have people who will board a jet and fly across the country, knowing full well that it is science that even allows that jet to get off the ground. And yet these very same people (Christian fundamentalist, in this case), when presented with scientific evidence that the earth is more than 6,000 years old, invent excuses as to why that very same science is wrong. These very same people, when presented with scientific evidence that human beings evolved from earlier species, invent more excuses as to why that very same science is wrong.

Here is something else fundamentalists believe: They believe that science is a religion. And that as a religion, it competes with their own. To the extent that they can drink their hot coffee, cross rivers, and travel thousands of miles through the air, that "religion" is fine. To the extent that it refutes their sacred texts however, it is nothing less than evil itself.

Of course, they misunderstand entirely what science is (as do most people). Science is not some assembled body of "truths". Science is merely a methodology. It is a methodology that simply asks that those who propose "truths" do so in a fashion that they might be tested as such by independent analysts. It is nothing more. "Scientists" are allowed to propose "truths", but these same "truths" are open to refutation by anyone who choose to try. This is hardly the trappings of a "religion" however. Refutations of religious doctrine by outsiders is simply not allowed by the religious "elders", at least not in Western monotheism. But this leaves us nowhere, because the question is really why fundamentalists, who quite regularly avail themselves of the benefits of science, suddenly abandon it in favor of their contrary religious beliefs.

My search for an answer as to why fundamentalists take such extreme beliefs actually lasted the better part of three years, and it was almost accidental when I fell upon the answer. I was reading an article about Osama bin Laden, and suddenly drew the extremely important parallels between his fundamentalism and the fundamentalism of the many Christians I had interviewed over this time. It was my third point about what fundamentalists believe (above, "(t)hey believe that their god will punish those who err and reward those who do not") that was the operating principle behind what draws people to fundamentalism. Theirs is a god of fear. It is not a god of love.

What drew my conclusion here was my previous work with people suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome (PTSD). If you have never encounter a sufferer of this, here is how they re-act. The PTSD sufferer imagines a threat. They believe this to be threat quite real. We who do not suffer from this disease of course quickly recognize the imagined threat to be exactly that: imagined.

But this is where it gets critical. If you act in any way before the PTSD sufferer that suggests to them that you do not also believe their imagined threat to be real, they will attack you (even physically) as if you are the very embodiment of that fear itself.

Now I'm not suggesting here that all fundamentalists suffer from PTSD. What I have learned instead is that all real fundamentalists suffer from a pathological paranoia; a fear response that causes them to lash out at anyone who does not share their paranoia of an avenging god, in the exact same fashion that PTSD suffers do. No, not all who suffer from pathological paranoia become fundamentalists. But all who suffer from pathological paranoia who also turn to religion as a comfort will also turn to a fundamentalist version of it.

Fundamentalists are fundamentally paranoid. They are control freaks who sense that they cannot actually control. They are just as mad about this as any pathologically paranoid person would be. And they will always respond against those who do not share their own imagined threats as somehow "real". They will respond with exactly as we are seeing today; a vitriolic hatred of everyone who questions their percieved fear. The exact definition of pathological paranoia.

This is what we have leading our nation now. The pathologically paranoid. This is why we pathologically exaggerate our national threats. This is why we cannot spend too much on a military that is already so far in advance of any of our competitior's.

Because we are ruled by the insane.

Indeed, Kerry has vested interests, usually in the millions of dollars, in almost every aspect of U.S. commerce. Finance, media, electronics, food, energy, health care, agriculture -- the list is staggering in its reach. It will be practically impossible for him to take any action as president that will not have a substantial impact on his family assets. These are conservatively estimated at more than $550 million, dwarfing the combined fortunes of Bush and Cheney -- the most bloated pair of plutocrats ever to rule the country. A Bush-Kerry contest will offer about as much democratic authenticity as Crassus and Pompey bribing their way to consulships in the death throes of the Roman Republic.

The southern California supermarket strike and lockout of 70,000 grocery workers by the Safeway, Kroger, and Albertsons chains has entered its fifth month. At stake is a 65% reduction in healthcare coverage for these workers as well as a two-tiered healthcare funding plan that will provide new workers with benefits far below those of existing workers. The significance of this is not lost on these workers; not only are they being asked to transform their middle class jobs into low class jobs, but there will be a constant pressure on store managers to replace long-term employees with new hires.

Safeway, Kroger, and Albertsons of course offer the standard claim for their need to do this: "The devil (Wal-Mart) made me do it." Wal-Mart, they claim, is well-known for its low wages and benefits, and this is placing the three chains under an increasing competitive disadvantage. Not so, says Forbes Magazine:

The real problem the traditional grocery chains face is weak demand and an inability to raise prices in a deflationary environment ? not Wal-Mart pricing pressure. Kroger and Safeway are gaining or maintaining share in about half or more of the top 100 markets where they have a presence. The only two big chains to suffer inroads from Wal-Mart in 2002 were Albertson's and Winn-Dixie ...

Let's make it plain: The problem is not that there is too much competition in the retail food business, even of the cutthroat, Wal-Mart kind. Rather, the chains have loaded themselves down with debt to eliminate the previously existing competition, and there are not enough customers with enough income to buy enough goods to pay off creditors and satisfy the ever more ravenous demands of investors at the same time. So they decided to cut labor costs by forcing a strike and lockout of United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) members throughout southern California. Wal-Mart provided the excuse to do what comes naturally to the corporate class in George Bush?s America. Wal-Mart is leader of the pack, but they are all wolves.

The report also provides a comprehensive review of Wal-Mart?s numerous anti-worker practices, including:

• Low wages
• Off-the-clock work and unpaid overtime
• Unaffordable and unavailable healthcare
• Union-busting activities
• Discrimination against women
• Discrimination against disabled workers
• Violation of child labor laws
• Use of undocumented workers
• Exploitation of foreign labor
• Unsafe workplace policies

• Full Report [25 pages, 309 KB, PDF]
• Contra Costa Times: Miller report hits Wal-Mart 'costs'
• San Francisco Chronicle: Wal-Mart foes detail costs
  to community, Public subsidizes workers, study says

"I'm also not very analytical. You know I don't spend a lot
of time thinking about myself, about why I do things."

~ George W. Bush, June 4, 2003

When President Bush sat down for an interview with Tim Russert on Meet the Press he single-handedly proved that affirmative action is a bad thing. George W. Bush is the poster child for affirmative action. He attended prep school at Andover Academy because his father was an alumnus. He didn’t get good grades at Andover but got into Yale because the Bushes were alumni there as well. His father’s connections got him into a National Guard unit and helped him avoid serving in Vietnam. When he didn’t feel compelled to complete his National Guard duty he just walked away and didn’t suffer because of his decision. He then went to Harvard where he earned his MBA. He was admitted to Harvard despite earning only a C average while at Yale.

George W. Bush has participated in a racial preference program his entire life. But after all those years of entitlement and connections to the best America has to offer, George W. Bush has emerged as a man who can’t put together more than two coherent sentences and stumbles and pauses when attempting to express very simple ideas.

Mayor Daley said Wednesday he would have "no problem" with County Clerk David Orr issuing marriage licenses to gay couples -- and Orr said he's open to a San Francisco-style protest if a consensus can be built.

"They're your doctors, your lawyers, your journalists, your politicians," the mayor said. "They're someone's son or daughter. They're someone's mother or father. . . . I've seen people of the same sex adopt children, have families. [They're] great parents.

It ain't just one state anymore. Now you all have to spend some serious money. Don't worry. You have it. That and nothing else.

Get with it, people. These folks in power are not content to have it. They are insisting on total control. To them, your voice does not matter. They don't pay attention to "focus groups", and that's all you are. Just some slime that does not "understand larger issues". You are nothing to these people.

Well, perhaps not. You will all make very good butlers and maids for them. So long as you are not too uppity.

Knowledge is strength, and this article provides it.

Then what the hell were they being paid for?

But let's say they get off with that excuse. Sounds to me like the basis of a quite solid class action by Enron shareholders. If they really didn't know what was going on, then why should they have ever been compensated?

But if you're like me, someone who has actually had the pleasure of wearing handcuffs, then you'll delight in seeing a few more pics of Skilling in handcuffs. Glad to oblige! [ 1 ] [ 2 ] And you can actually see the cuffs on the second! Too cool!

"The worst president in our lifetime" is how many Americans view George W. Bush. But Bush is not merely the worst president in recent memory. He's the worst in all US history. And he's won the distinction not on a weakness or two, but in at least nine separate categories, giving him a triple trifecta.

It's a record unmatched by any previous president.

• TRIFECTA ONE: Economy, Environment, Education
• TRIFECTA TWO: Corruption, Constitution, Global Contempt
• TRIFECTA THREE: Military madness, Messianic delusion, Macho Matricide

• Scientific Integrity in Policymaking
• A New Ice Age
• Environmental record may hurt Bush

  Or just scroll down.

Science, like any field of endeavor, relies on freedom of inquiry; and one of the hallmarks of that freedom is objectivity. Now more than ever, on issues ranging from climate change to AIDS research to genetic engineering to food additives, government relies on the impartial perspective of science for guidance.

~ PRESIDENT GEORGE H.W. BUSH, 1990

The Bush administration has deliberately and systematically distorted scientific fact in the service of policy goals on the environment, health, biomedical research and nuclear weaponry at home and abroad, a group of about 60 influential scientists, including 20 Nobel laureates, said in a statement issued Wednesday. The group, the Union of Concerned Scientists, has documented its findings and accusations in a 38-page report.

From the report's Executive Summary:

The U.S. government runs on vast amounts of information. Researchers at the National Weather Service gather and analyze meteorological data to know when to issue severe-weather advisories. Specialists at the Federal Reserve Board collect and analyze economic data to determine when to raise or lower interest rates. Experts at the Centers for Disease Control examine bacteria and viral samples to guard against a large-scale outbreak of disease. The American public relies on the accuracy of such governmental data and upon the integrity of the researchers who gather and analyze it.

However, at a time when one might expect the federal government to increasingly rely on impartial researchers for the critical role they play in gathering and analyzing specialized data, there are numerous indications that the opposite is occurring. A growing number of scientists, policy makers, and technical specialists both inside and outside the government allege that the Bush administration has suppressed or distorted the scientific analyses of federal agencies to bring these results in line with administration policy. In addition, these experts contend that irregularities in the appointment of scientific advisors and advisory panels are threatening to upset the legally mandated balance of these bodies.

The quantity and breadth of these charges warrant further examination, especially given the stature of many of the individuals lodging them. Toward this end, the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) undertook an investigation of many of the allegations made in the mainstream media, in scientific journals, and in overview reports issued from within the federal government and by non-governmental organizations. To determine the validity of the allegations, UCS reviewed the public record, obtained internal government documents, and conducted interviews with many of the parties involved (including current and former government officials).

1. There is a well-established pattern of suppression and distortion of scientific findings by high-ranking Bush administration political appointees across numerous federal agencies. These actions have consequences for human health, public safety, and community well-being.

2. There is strong documentation of a wideranging effort to manipulate the government's scientific advisory system to prevent the appearance of advice that might run counter to the administration's political agenda.

3. There is evidence that the administration often imposes restrictions on what government scientists can say or write about "sensitive" topics.

4. There is significant evidence that the scope and scale of the manipulation, suppression, and misrepresentation of science by the Bush administration is unprecedented.

• Press Release
• Restoring Scientific Integrity (useful links)
• Executive Summary [3 pages, 101 KB, PDF]
• Full Report [38 pages, 657 KB, PDF]

  NOTE: Be patient. The UCS server is being flooded with requests for copies of this report.

• New York Times: Scientists Say Administration Distorts Facts (Mirror)
• New York Times: Scientists Accuse White House of Distorting Facts
• Yahoo! News: Bush Administration 'Distorts Science' -Report
• Toronto Globe & Mail: Bush administration fudging data, top scientists warn
• Guardian (UK): Bush 'bending science to his political needs'

I heard Mark today on Thom Hartmann, and it seems that there is a bit of intrigue to this story. It seems that the Global Business Network (GBN) report that started all of this was not only deliberately leaked to Fortune magazine, but that the Fortune magazine report itself was actually vetted before it was published by the same Pentagon staffers who leaked the report in the first place. But here's where it gets interesting. These staffers report directly to Andrew Marshall, a "legendary figure who has done 'big picture' strategic planning for the military for decades and been a trusted associate of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld since the 1970s". While it is not known whether or not Rumsfeld has read this report, it is a virtual certainty that Marshall did and actually approved the leak of the report to Fortune magazine in advance.

This may well become a huge problem for the administation, whose legions of supporters view environmentalists as "tree huggers". What then if the Pentagon itself becomes a "tree hugger"? And right before the election?

The administration simply does not have time to reverse its anti-environmental record before the election. This leak will force them into a spin mode that likely will defy all credibility.

Alas, the fall from grace, once begun, has a momentum all to itself.

Under pressure to win votes, political candidates will often try to blur their records. Confronted with confusing or conflicting charges, voters can sometimes use simple arithmetic to help them sort out the truth. Take the question of whether President George W. Bush is a friend of the Great Lakes.

The president sent Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Mike Leavitt to Michigan in late January to announce a $45 million package to clean up the lakes. Days later, Bush revealed that his proposed 2005 budget would sharply cut federal support for these same lakes.

In spite of the hoopla associated with the EPA chief’s visit, the president called for a deep slash in EPA funding, including a 40 percent cut in grants and loans to support pollution-reduction projects such as upgrades in Michigan’s municipal sewage treatment plants. Add up what Leavitt promised with what the Bush budget takes away and Michigan will end up with a $26 million cut next year in its Great Lakes protection dollars.

If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, then, by George, it's an outrageous affront to public integrity.

I'm referring to this incestuous intersection of politics, the judiciary and big business. It's the first place people ought to look whenever Vice President Dick Cheney turns up missing.

Who knows? They just might run into that right-wing ideologue of a U.S. Supreme Court justice, Antonin Scalia.

This is a story that begs the vexing question: Which is more offensive, the incident or Justice Scalia's reaction?

For democracy, read fantasy. Iraq is getting so nasty for our great leaders these days that anything - and anyone - is going to be thrown to the dogs to save them.

The BBC, the CIA, British intelligence - any journalist that dares to point out the lies that led us to war - get pelted with more lies. The moment we suggest that Iraq never was fertile soil for western democracy, we get accused of being racists. Do we think the Arabs are incapable of producing democracy, we are asked? Do we think they are subhuman?

This kind of tosh comes from the same family of abuse as that which labels all and every criticism of Israel anti-Semitic.