Electronic Voting Glitches
A few isolated incidents? Or the beginning of a steady stream of reports? Note that in the third link, it's a county that heavily favored John Kerry. Not counting votes accurately is not counting votes accurately, regardless of who it helps.

There's no evidence of any kind of widespread fraud in the election and therefore no reason to give any credence to loony conspiracy theories. But we still have electronic voting machines that are insecure, unreliable, and wide open to fraud. And we have a number of non-technical problems that we're still failing to address - registration, polling place lines, and ballot design.

This article says it best:

What worries voting reformers more is that Congress, the White House and the states will see the lack of a 2004 election meltdown as vindication of America's voting system and neglect the tools of democracy another four years.

"There's a huge danger," said Ted Selker, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology computer scientist who co-directs the Caltech/MIT Voting Technology Project.

"If you're an election official, it's going to be very hard to go to Congress and say we need more money," said Doug Chapin, executive director of Electionline.org, a nonpartisan clearing house for voting reform information. "What they could say is we need to finish the job we started."

Now that election-year pressure is off, will a sharply divided nation forget about shoring up voting systems poorly suited for sharp divisions?

Voting reformists are crossing their fingers and hoping not.

"Is the testing of voting machines satisfactory?" asked Selker. "No. Are the design standards appropriate? No. Are they all improving? Yes. But do we have good mechanisms for improving them? No."

Beyond those issues, the Elections Assistance Commission needs to find the best way to count provisional ballots, develop reliable registration databases and verify electronic votes.

Not Red, Not Blue. Purple

This is fantastic. Edward Tufte would be proud.

What To Expect

There will be a smokescreen of uniter-not-divider rhetoric for a short time, but I think it will quickly be replaced by a mean-spirited triumphalism. One of the first manifestations will be an all-out attack on the mainstream media. Here's a clue - keep in mind that these guys are sore winners, too.

Now, the mainstream media deserves plenty of criticism for its faux-objectivity, laziness, and status quo elitism. But that's not what will be under attack. Instead, the objective is to neutralize any journalist and any story that departs from the well-established story lines of the Republican mainstream. If they can't be coerced into being Fox-lite, then they'll be battered into submission.

Jay Rosen has a fascinating, and more optimistic, take on this. And I think he's right. There's still 49% of us who want to hear the other side of the story. That means there's a real opportunity for anyone who can speak truth to power and do it well.

This Election, a Coda

Damn. Damn. Damn.

A few observations:

• Gay-bashing and fear-mongering is a winning electoral strategy


• Placing your hopes in voters aged 18-29 is a losing electoral strategy


• This election was a referendum on the Bush administration, and they won.


• 51% is sufficient to declare a mandate, especially if you cement your control of Congress.


• Karl Rove, not GWB or Dick Cheney, is now the most powerful man in America. This is his victory.

The last point, I think, deserves a little more explanation. I think it's safe to say that a lot of Republicans were worried they would lose this election. Lots of folks on the other side, like me, believed that they would. What seems to have put the GOP over the top was the, ahem, values thing. And as far as I know, that was Rove's strategy. So I think everyone who got elected, from Bush down, is feeling both grateful and indebted to Rove.

Four more years, indeed. Welcome to the new intolerance.

The Worst Possible Outcome...

The idea that North American society can exacerbate its drive to economic bimodality without serious fissuring, up to and including a constitutional crisis in the U.S., is not likely...

W.R. Clements, Quantum Jump, 1998

The VoteMaster Revealed
It turns out the guy behind www.electoral-vote.com is Andrew Tanenbaum, who geeks like me know as the author of the Minix operating system (a precursor of Linux). He's currently a Professor of Computer Science at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam, The Netherlands (he's American, his wife is Dutch).

There seems to be a lot of interesting stuff coming out of the Netherlands these days.

Keith Olbermann
I really like that Keith Olbermann now has his own blog and I certainly hope his intuitions in this post turn out to be correct tomorrow.

But doesn't his logo image remind you a little of Thomas Dolby in the Hyperactive video?

Osama's October Surprise
The Medium Lobster says it best:

...only George W. Bush has the pure, hard determination to stand up to terror. And only George W. Bush has the unswerving, unfailing incompetence to allow terror to spread so he can continue to stand up to it.

Listen to the words of the mass murderer, and re-elect the man who let him go. It's your duty.

This Election
I'm ashamed to admit that I was one of those people who, in 2000, said "Bush, Gore - what's the difference?". If I'd lived in a swing state I might have voted for Gore, but since I don't I voted for Nader; not because I really liked him, but more as a protest/attempt to help create a viable third party.

I found the 2000 election brouhaha amusing and appalling in equal parts, right up to the point when the Supreme Court destroyed its integrity by effectively awarding the election to Bush. What I heard about the nomination of someone named John Ashcroft to be Attorney General disturbed me a little, as did what appeared to be a senseless and counterproductive tax cut. But on the whole, I didn't pay too much attention and didn't think Bush 43 would be any worse than, say, Bush 41.

People like me - or like I was, at least - are dangerous to democracy in times like these. All it takes to ensure the triumph of evil, as Edmund Burke once said, is for men of good will to do nothing. And not paying attention is the surest guarantee of inaction.

Until recently I believed that the three strikes of the end of the Vietnam War, Watergate, and the economic malaise of the mid-to-late 70's ("stagflation", as we called it back then) would be the lowest point that I would see my country sink to in my lifetime. I no longer believe that. And I believe that the reelection of George Bush would guarantee that things will continue to go downhill.

Is this shrill? Well, you could say that I have slowly and steadily become radicalized. I still hold essentially the same beliefs I've always held; in fact, I've become a little bit more conservative. But I now also believe that the principles this country were founded on - in fact, the Constitution itself - are in grave danger of being swept aside.

My wakeup call was not 9-11. I was as shocked and stunned as anyone, but I'd read books like Alvin Toffler's Powershift and knew who Osama Bin Laden was, so I had suspected that someday terrorists would stage a successful attack somewhere on American soil. I wasn't prepared for the reality of what actually happened, but neither was anyone else.

The buildup to the invasion of Iraq woke me up. I told a co-worker on 9/11 that we'd find ourselves in a war to destroy terrorism, and that it would be comparable in duration to the Cold War. I supported the invasion of Afghanistan and thought the use of the Northern Alliance as the primary fighting force supported by US airpower and Special Forces was an effective way to fight this kind of war - although I couldn't understand why the 82nd and 101st Airborne hadn't been dropped in Eastern Afghanistan near the Pakistan border in order to cut off the Taliban/Al Qaeda retreat.

I soon figured it out, once the Bush administration started talking about invading Iraq. In retrospect, the passage of the Patriot Act should have been my real wakeup call. Once the drumbeats sounded about invading Iraq, though, I finally started to comprehend what Paul Krugman and others had seen as far back as the run-up to the 2000 election.

What we've witnessed in the past 4 years - if we've paid serious attention - is an attempt by a powerful and ruthless faction of the Republican party to establish what amounts to an oligarchy. The Founders crafted a system of government, with the Constitution as its main instrument, that was designed expressly to prevent this. The purpose of all of those checks and balances is to prevent any group or faction from wielding too much power.

Any group that seeks to guarantee an unencumbered ability to rule this country must, by definition, undercut the Constitution.And so it is with this administration. The Patriot Act is only the first wave of the assault on the Bill of Rights. The creation of a security state that is constantly on alert and at war is another means to upset the balance between the branches of government.So is the promotion and sanctification of an authoritarian strain of religious belief - one that is dedicated to eradicating the barrier between Church and State that the Founding Fathers erected.

We are perversely fortunate, then, that this administration's incompetence exposes its mendacity and malevolence as well as its ineptitude. From the budget deficits to pork-spewing Medicare and corporate tax bills, from failing to capture Osama Bin Laden to Abu Ghraib, from damaging our alliances and strengthening the terrorists to the failure of the occupation, from taking our eyes off Iranian and North Korean nuclear programs to the failure to secure explosives and other war material in Iraq, they have made a mess of everything they have touched.

Their one area of competence is the ability to successfully manipulate all the levers of large-scale public relations and mass media. There are still a large number of people in this country that are either unable or unwilling to recognize that they've been manipulated and deceived by this administration. There is a small group of people dedicated to ensuring that they never come to this realization. This election isn't a horse race; it's a race to see how many people have the scales fall from their eyes before November 2.

And it still appears to be a very close thing. If you give Pennsylvania to Kerry and Florida to Bush, it looks like the election comes down to Ohio, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, and (maybe) Arkansas and Colorado.

All we can hope for is that enough of our fellow citizens wake up to the realization that George Bush's presidency has been an unmitigated disaster because it has both divorced itself from the principles that made this nation great as well as divorcing itself from reality.

Defending America requires defending it from the enemy within - those who would destroy our liberty under the guise of protecting us - as well as defending it from the enemy without.

Brad DeLong puts it best:
There is no excuse for anyone to support George W. Bush. None. None at all..

Let's hope at least 51% of the voters agree.

The Curse
It's over.

Now, what about the Cubs? And does this mean the the Vikings might win a Super Bowl someday?

The Curse, cont.
Three more outs. Admit it - you're still nervous. You're playing out various scenarios of disaster in your mind. Nobody's ever been up 3-0 and then lost the final four games of the World Series. Could the Red Sox be the first? (They just showed the Buckner play).

The Curse
They're up 3 games to none, they're leading 3-0 in the bottom of the 8th. But they had the bases loaded last inning and didn't score.

Admit it. You're just waiting for it go all wrong (again).

Telling It Like It Is (AKA I Wish I'd Said That)
Tony Pierce gets InstaVenom exactly right. Courtesy of Oliver Wills (an honest partisan).

Thank you, Tony, for articulating precisely what I've always thought of as Reynold's basic intellectual dishonesty. Now, I'm basically a moderate progressive (i.e., slightly left of center), but I really want to hear thoughtful, intelligent conservative voices (which is why I read Daniel Drezner and Asymmetrical Information on a regular basis). A year ago, I thought Instapundit was one of those voices. But as I read him over time, I became more and more dismayed. The two things I read that really clued me in to what he believed were ones about how the "fifth column" of liberals would lose the war in Iraq and an obtuse advocacy of genocide in the mideast.

At that point, I realized that what Instapundit was really the respectable, seemingly moderate face of what I think as the right-wing hate brigade. I used to feel the same way about Andrew Sullivan (who originated the "fifth column" meme, BTW). But in the last few months, Sullivan has started thinking hard about the gap between the right's worldview and reality, and that makes for fascinating reading - not because he's criticizing the administration, but because he's choosing his convictions over his ideological biases.

Boycott Kodak, cont.
Groklaw, of course, says it better than I ever could.

Boycott Kodak

I opened up Slashdot this morning and came across this story:

Kodak Wins $1 Billion Java Lawsuit

Kodak claims they hold patents that Java infringes on, and they want $1B in royalties. They haven''t actually won anything yet, Sun will undoubtedly appeal in Federal court, and it's very possible that the whole thing will be tossed out.

Needless to say, Kodak's claims are at best spurious. They're based on some patents they bought from Wang, and those patents are so broad-based and so dependent on prior art that they never should have been awarded in the first place.

This kind of thing is having an increasingly chilling effect on the software industry, and it's not only threatening the livelihood of software developers like me but also the future growth of America's high-tech industry. The need for increasingly sophisticated and innovative software is only going to grow. But if the potential costs of litigation make it cost-ineffective to develop it here, then it will move overseas - especially to places that don't have the incentive or need to conform to our patent laws.

I was so upset I felt compelled to write this letter to Kodak. I have no illusions that anyone there will even read this, and I'm sure that they will pay no attention to those of us who have decided to boycott their products. But I still think it's worth expressing myself.

To whom it may concern -

Several months ago, I bought a Kodak EasyShare CX7430. I was impressed by the fact it offered the same features as cameras costing $25-100 more. I was also impressed by its simplicity and ease of use. And I was glad to buy innovative, high-quality, low-cost consumer technology from an American company.

However, this is the last Kodak product that I will ever purchase.

Why? Because I read with anger and dismay this morning that you had won a lawsuit against Sun over the supposed infringement by their Java language of patents you hold. I am a professional software engineer with 15 years of experience, and currently I do most of my work using Java. Over the last few years, I've also developed an interest in software patent law and intellectual property rights primarily because of the ongoing attempt by large corporations to take advantage of the badly broken legal and patent systems in order to extort royalties from other companies or entities who they claim have infringed their patents.

In other words, I know enough to realize that the basis of your patent claim is ridiculous. The patents you hold should be invalidated because they are based on prior art that dates back to a decade or more prior to the submission of your patent (i.e., Smalltalk, which was invented circa 1976, IBM OS/360, which was created in the mid-60's, and Lisp, which was invented around 1958). Any non-trivial software product is, by its very nature, the expression of a large body of ideas developed over the last 50 years (which, in turn, are based on the ideas of mathematics and logic that date back over 2000 years). None of these ideas should be patentable; in fact, doing so goes against the original intent and spirit of American patent law.

The attempt by Kodak and by other large corporations to "game" the system by taking advantage of the badly broken patent system and the inability of court system to deal effectively with intellectual property rights is not merely unethical, unprincipled, and unconscionable; it is a serious threat to the American economy. If Kodak and other corporations succeed in enforcing their unwarranted claims of patent infringement, it will destroy creativity and innovation in the American software industry because only large corporations with large legal departments will be able to attempt to develop software. Unfortunately, most of the innovation and creativity in the software industry comes from the proverbial "two guys in a garage" (e.g., Google), and two guys in a garage can't afford expensive lawyers, and they can't wait for the months or even years it takes to resolve even the most groundless patent infringement claim.

I realize that nothing will prevent you from going down this path, not even the boycotting of your products by informed consumers like me. The best we can hope for is that your claim will be overturned by a higher court, and that such a decision can be used as a basis for preventing or overturning other equally spurious suits.

Here's hoping you lose. And here's hoping that someday I read in the paper that your business practices have resulted in your collapse because you have been beaten in the marketplace by companies that pursued creativity and innovation instead of stagnation and litigation.

Seen In Santa Cruz
A restored Model-T with a vanity license plate that says "Elect Al Smith" and a bumpersticker that says "Defeat Hoover". A subtle comment on this year's contest, mayhap?

Alternative History
During the convention, I read or heard someone say that Bill Clinton would have easily been elected a third time if we didn't limit presidents to 2 terms. I started thinking about that a little. If we didn't have the 22nd Amendment, and if we didn't have a broad consensus against 3 or more terms, what might have happened?

It's virtually certain Ronald Reagan would have been elected to a third term. I think that this might have changed history very little; the Berlin wall would have fallen, Iraq probably would have invaded Kuwait and we probably would have led a coalition against Iraq. And the Iran-Contra investigation would have continued until 1992. By 1992, it probably would have been difficult to disguise the effect Alzheimer's disease was starting to have on Ronald Reagan, and the country would have been ready for a change - particularly if the economy wasn't doing well.

Enter a revitalized Democratic party led by a rising young star named Bill Clinton. It's unlikely Clinton's policies would have been much different - balanced budget, failed health care plan, etc., etc. - and equally unlikely that he wouldn't have been dogged by scandal. Nevertheless, 8 years of peace and prosperity would have led to his election for a third term.

And there's little doubt that third term would have been interesting, starting with a recession followed by a wave of corporate scandals. But that would have been quickly overshadowed by other events. Richard Clarke's book indicates that the Clinton White House knew who Osama Bin Laden was and what his intentions were. Would they have been as diligent in the summer of 2001 as they were in December 1999? Would Al-Quaeda have reformulated their plans and found some other way to effectively attack the US?

I'm guessing the answer to both is yes, and that we would have found ourselves in a war on terror, and probably would joined with the Northern Alliance to throw the Taliban out of Afghanistan. Beyond that, only wild speculation is possible. But the big picture, I think, would look remarkably similar. I do think Clinton's economic policies would have served the nation better than Bush's, but we'd still be recovering from a recession.

And this election? Would Clinton run a fourth time? Or would he step aside in favor of, say, his Vice President? And after the defeat of John McCain in 2000, who would the Republicans run? Perhaps the brightest hope of the Republican Party, the three-term Governer of Texas, son of Ronald Reagan's Vice President, George W. Bush?

Would it be Bush and Gore in 2004?

Things To Do In Denver When You're Dead
Besides listening to too much Warren Zevon...
1) Check out Gentoo for OS/X
2) Check out TextPattern
3) Write about what Rhapsody and ITunes really lack (compared to Waterloo Records)

The Serendipitous Summer Visitor Departs

An unexpected visitor showed up this summer, right next to the Meyer Lemon I planted in the spring:





People walking by would compliment us on it, and we'd reply that we hadn't planted it, it had just shown up. It got to be about 5 feet tall, and the bloom was at least a foot wide.

I had to cut it down today, because the bloom had faded and the bumble bees and hummingbirds have moved on to the Oleander and other things. I took it down almost to the root, but left a bit of stem where another shoot has started. Will it grow into another huge sunflower? Will another turn up unexpectedly next year?

All your renown is like the summer flower that
blooms and dies; because the sunny glow which
brings it forth, soon slays with parching power.
-   Dante Alighieri

The only reason left to use Windows
Rhapsody. I'm hooked. Why don't they port it to the Mac?

iTunes is great for buying music, but it's terrible for checking out new stuff that you may or may not like. Rhapsody is perfect. It's also perfect for collecting all those stupid songs you like but would never purchase otherwise.

And are you noticing how the prices of CD's are starting to come down as iTunes and Rhapsody get more popular?