George W. Bush is our President now, and you better start getting used to it. He didn't actually steal the White House from Al Gore, he just brutally wrestled it away from him in the darkness of one swampy Florida night. He got mugged, and the local Cops don't give a damn.

Where did Gore think he was -- in some friendly Civics class? Hell no, he was in Florida, arguably the most Vicious & Corrupt state in the Union.

Ahh, there's nothing like a shot of Hunter Thompson to clear your head.

A nice, scientific summary of the mitochondrial Eve story from the last month in the Nerve.

Favorite Pound poem, with notes.

The same is true of emotivism, the currently widespread notion that all value judgments are matters of personal feeling or opinion. If emotivism is true, then anything I want is good, and anything I do not want is bad. But if good and bad are subjective, everybody’s ideas of good will soon conflict with everyone else’s—which is exactly what has happened as this idea has spread. Therefore, to avoid chaos we must assume that human nature is good or at least perfectible. This assumption, however, itself presents a serious problem: How can we recognize a good will, or perfect human nature, if goodness and perfectibility are subjective? Postmodernist thinkers have yet to find an answer to this, and the result is a culture of increasingly narcissistic self-gratification.

I am always half enraptured and half bemused by this sort of argument. I'm with him on emotivism, though. Hard to fling that as an insult in an argument, however--"You whiny emotivists make me sick." But without postmodernism, there would be place in the world for blogs.

Oi. What with Thanksgiving and all tumbling down onto our heads, not sure if I'll be able to get this site updated over the next couple of days. We'll see. Remember, dear readers (if I have any) to send me your links, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore, so I can post it.

Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant: "Face Warp" of Gore and Bush (thanks to scott)

Stephen says....by Pollywog
My friend Stephen is a rather opinionated fellow when it comes to music and has frequently commented about my musical tastes or lack thereof....the following are some of the songs we've mixed it up over.

For the record, I think you have terrific musical taste. Generally.

Genre: Various Theme: Educational
Mood: Lost Length: 6 tracks
1. Biscuit by Portishead
When I first heard Portishead 4 years ago, I revealed to Stephen that I had never heard them before....Stephen said (with horror) "I cannot imagine living the last 3 years without Portishead."

Actually, I think I said, "I cannot imagine the 90s without Portishead." This was in 1996, I think. Which was true.

2. Absolutely Cuckoo by The Magnetic Fields
Stephen banished himself back to Atlanta for various reasons shortly before "69 Love Songs" came out. He called me one Sunday and said "you know that new Stephen Merrit CD? - that is my life."

I am not alone in having spent a small part of my life staying in a gloomy hotel run by Stephin Merrit. It's nice. You stay in bed all day and listen to noises in the other rooms.

3. Oh Comely by Neutral Milk Hotel
Both Stephen and I have a thing for songs like this - that build into an emotional crescendo. Plus, the title reminds me strangely of a "puffy" shirt that Stephen owns.

Used to own. A long time ago.

4. I've Found A New Baby by Squirrel Nut Zippers
Supposedly Stephen knew Catherine, the lead singer in SNZ's - whether he did or not, he confessed he had a bit of a crush on her.

Sort of knew her and sort of had crush on her. Now that I am back in North Carolina, and my compañera sort of knows her, I no longer have a crush on her. But what a voice, eh?.

5. All This Useless Beauty by Elvis Costello/Attractions When I first moved to SF, Stephen would housesit my old cat and my bachelorette pad in the city. Frequently my CD's disappeared a visit of his. I bought this CD, heard it once and then never saw it again.

First of all, thanks for letting me stay in your place. I readily concede that a few things--cookies, for instance--disappeared from your pad never to be seen again. Fair recompense for housesitting. The CD in question, however, was returned. I bought myself a new copy. Look in that big-ass drawer full of CDs in your apartment and you will find it. Unless you lent it to someone else. By the way, I had sex in your bed.

6. Clouds by American Music Club I believe I actually introduced Stephen to AMC and Mark Eitzel. I think I'll take responsibility for that! Anyway, we once saw him at Fort Mason - it was a miserable rainy night and Stephen's ex-girlfriend was there. Gloomy. Perfect for Mark Eitzel. Oh, he took my Engine CD too.

I saw AMC live in Chapel Hill in 1993, but you can still have credit. I got really into that "60 watt silver lining" album while apartment-sitting in the aforementioned pad. However. I most emphatically did NOT take the "Engine" CD, although you did tape it for me for my birthday. Thank you for that. And for going with me to the show on that miserable night. And for listening to all the maudlin stories as I worked my way through my mid-to-late twenties. Whew. Glad that's over. On to my thirties.

E-mail Me.

from Paul Gronke: It gets better. If you are a new user w/ Mercata, you get a 20% discount (up to $100 off). And if you are willing to use Microsoft Passport to make the purchase, you can take another 20% off (actually only 16%, they calculate the second discount as 20% * (price - 20%). I currently said I'd pay $500 for a Nikon 2.1 megapixel digital camera, I will end up paying 500 - 100 - 80 = 320 *at the most*, then Nikon offers me a $75 rebate! I've used Mercata before to get a new VCR for about 30 bucks during last Xmas's deal-o-matic. If you know how to delete cookies on your machine and have multiple email accounts, they don't seem to know how to track you as a "new" user.

Sent: Saturday, November 11, 2000 8:52 PM Subject: Ga. Election, 1967:some details.

Since you were interested, for history, and my records, here's the real story.. Long and bloody with detail..

It was 1967 Governor Lester "Pick Axe" Maddox running against the Calloway fortune. I sweated blood that night. The technical problems were three, naturally.

IBM was running the DeKalb election and Remington or Burroughs (?) was handling the Fulton County one. There was a LOT of media attention. Both companies were firing guns at each other all the time. Both companies were pushing to go national with a universal Federal election system. This was a BIG DEAL!

I spent a week getting all the equipment in 100% condition (best I could do). NOTHING COULD GO WRONG!! NOTHING!!

The testing given that system was ten times that required! Not a glitch. Tens of thousands of test ballots (provided by Harris) ran in many cycles verifying all things were ready. The little reader could pass 1000 cards per minute . . . flawlessly. There was a second reader (not really designed as such) that could pass around 200 cards per minute but they had to be in great condition to pass without jamming. It was an afterthought and never intended to run the ballots.

IBM had really encouraged the media coverage of the event and much was on national TV. It was really a "leading edge" event as far as elections went. Reporters and microphones were everywhere.

I arrived around 3 PM and started my last minute testing. One of the Sr. CEs in the office arrived around 6 or 7 PM.

The Election Supervisory Committee and the reps for the Parties ran the legally required regime of tests at around 7PM, the system was "sealed" and the election count began at 7:45 PM about 15 minutes after the polls closed, with the first returns coming in from the poll at the fire-station across the street.

It all hit the fan in fifteen minutes!

Screech… silence… screech.. silence. screech… knock on the door and get Don! This process repeated MANY times that evening!

Counting virtually stopped and the poll managers lined the halls.. moaning and groaning and wanting to get the hell out of Dodge and go home.. I don't blame them.. No plans for drop-off and exit..no sign-over plans for the ballot boxes. The manager had to be there when the ballots were counted and sign off personally.

The ballot cards were freshly printed! The damn ink was not dry! When the first few boxes came in and passed through the reader, the ink buildup on the rollers that passed the cards through the reader was horrible. That buildup caused the diameter of the rollers to increase and thus the card to moved faster through the machine in that the rollers were turning at a constant speed. At 1000 CPM (the cards were sent through length-wise) they flew over the read photo-sensors damn fast. They got out of sync and read errors started. The chad was flying everywhere.. notice that was a vac cleaner.. not a tiny brush I had..

When we found one of the problems.. the ink.. We would periodically (30 min intervals) stop the count, open the machine and clean the feed rollers with tri-chlor.. removing the ink build-up would restore the correct speed and function. During this cleaning period the other machine would run the ballots and it would jam like crazy with the chad falling in it's close tolerance path. We had to quit using it.

Every single time we did this planned preventative cleaning procedure, a reporter would jam a microphone in my face! I was polite. But nationally, during each of these cleaning steps, it was announced over the CBS (?) network that "The IBM Computer" in Georgia has broken again".

Armonk did NOT like this. My pager didn't stop ringing. I turned it off after the first 20 pages.

The second problem, the flying chad.. was never fixed, obviously. I assure you that it's not fixed today, 33 years later. Every time they run the ballots they will get another count until all the "loose" chad is cleared. Actually, the cards should simply be run through the readers two or three times before they are counted at all. When all the chad falls out, count the ballots.

The earlier jamming and crap caused some damage to a keyway in the feed system of the 2501 and intermittent jamming and intermittent read errors occurred all night. It wasn't until two days later in the post-mortem that Lamar Holbrook (best CE I have ever known) found that bug.

One of the DeKalb County gals mentioned something about the cards being freshly printed and the story got twisted by the press to quoting her as saying that the cards were wet and then it was stated that the IBM Computer had water inside it! She was in tears.. Literally. Reporters got into my office in the back (the CE room) and wanted to know about the water and the fire sprinklers.. I didn't know what they were talking about till the next day. I did not call them "Assholes". I should have.

After the first two national TV reports, IBM sent in two HEAVY DUTY PR guys. They were dispatched from Armonk or White Plains via corp. jet to Peachtree-DeKalb airport. They finally corralled the room full of reporters and photographers and got the press off my back.

One saving grace was the fact that the competitive system unit crashed and the coverage of that outage tempered ours. But ours was a "repeat" event.. They went belly up.. we limped.

When it was over:

I went home I felt like I had been mugged. I slept 18 hours straight.

A two-day meeting followed.. It was a lot of fun, as you can imagine.

MAJOR changes in the way IBM handled elections in the future.

At every election thereafter, IBM had a Corporate Control office wired directly to each site. All plans were reviewed. No requests for "extra" support was rejected, no matter how small.

Cards were printed well in advance and tested at random for quality. Backup readers were at every account and they were alternated as the input device over the night.

Complete "Backup" accounts were set on "hot-standby" with the pre-ballot testing and verification completed by the Election Board and the Parties. The accounts were staffed all-night and ready to roll any time.

A "disaster" plan was in place for redirecting ballots securely and for their storage. Poll managers could pass the boxes to a designated recipient and leave.

Access to the computer room was strictly limited to the operators, IBM technicians, certified observers, and NO press (perhaps one or two.. can't remember), NO radio reporters, NO photographers and NO TV cameras were allowed.

We learned a LOT!

I never remember another "problem" election while I was in Atlanta.

J and I got nice "atta'boys" and some small award for our "professional manner" ..or something like that. (meaning we did not call the reporters "Assholes!") At least I didn't get fired!

--The Lawrence Welk of the Ballot Box.. "a One.. and a Two…""

PS. Were I to set this up, it would be a paper ballot and voters would use big black markers chained inside the booths. Screw the on-line stuff and "real-time" voting. Big printed forms, easy to read for the Palm Beach crowd, and they provide a permanent record. They are cheap, require no special equipment at the poll site, can be scanned fast and reliably and if someone wants to hand count them; they don't look like idiots squinting at cards looking for "pregnant" chad!

Some locales use this paper/marker method.

A simple Go/No Go scanner could be put at every site to "pe-scan" any ballot, at the voter's choice, naturally, to verify duplicate or improperly registered marks. (not a count .. just a validity scan.. a "one pass roller scanner hooked to a "plug-board" chip.

Punch cards and mechanical voting machines suck for various reasons. The card problems are now well known..

Voting machines are expensive, expensive to setup, and difficult to maintain and store. And some do break at every election.

The psychology and the wide open fraud and collapse potential for real-time voting are too clear.

EXPERIMENTER, (Dominant Introverted Abstract Thinker ). Although you're slightly shy (admit it!), you love control. When a problem comes in your way, you stomp on it swiftly and decisively. You are bothered easily by failure in others and failure in yourself. You don't like people that you don't think are intelligent. Rather than arguing with them, however, you would just as soon ignore them altogether.

In relationships, you have a strong heart. And because you're introverted, people take you as someone they can trust. But the fact is that in addition to solving problems, you like to create them. So there's a decent chance that you'll cheat on a loved one. If you do, you'll likely get away with it.

You're a good person at heart, but then again, who isn't?