I'll Stop Calling This Crew "Orwellian" When They Stop Using "1984" as an Operations Manual. Scott McLemee watches David Horowitz in action: Inside Higher Ed :: Piled Higher and Deeper : David Horowitz makes clear that he is not a liar just because he told a national television audience something that he knew was not true.... In February, while the Ward Churchill debate was heating up, Horowitz appeared on Bill O'Reilly's program. It came up that Horowitz, like Churchill, had been invited to lecture at Hamilton College at some point. But he was not, he said, "a speaker paid by and invited by the faculty." As we all know, university faculties are hotbeds of left-wing... [Brad DeLong's Semi-Daily Journal]

Orwellian is exactly what this crew is. Virtually every bill is the opposite of what its name is. Lies are Truth. Peace is War. He was just off by 20 years.  11:32:02 PM    

The Faint Quiver

ìI canít believe Iím faced with this decision,î the young woman said softly. There was a faint quiver in her lower lip. She cupped her hand over her mouth as if to hide the trembling. Perhaps the words forthcoming were too ugly to be spoken nakedly and needed proper cover: ìDo you think I should have them taken off?î



I caught myself reflexively looking down at her chest. Concealed beneath her soft pink cashmere sweater were two normal-appearing breasts ? objects of aesthetic beauty celebrated on the summer beach, fonts of nourishment for her newborn son, and the most evident signs of her gender identity.



But all those joys had been stripped away from her by genetic testing. She had learned that her motherís breast cancer was no fluke. Rather it was caused by a severe mutation in the BRCA gene, one that was also sequestered in every single cell of her own 30 year-old breasts. A genetic counselor had recommended a prophylactic mastectomy because of the high probability that she would soon develop cancer.



ìI almost wish they had never told me,î she said.



It can be an ugly thing to glimpse the future. The gypsy doctors and bewitched scientists lean over their crystal balls of data. With often cold indifference they speak in terrible probabilities. Your LDL cholesterol combined with your strong family history of heart disease puts you at high risk of dying from a heart attack. If your blood sugars arenít better controlled youíll surely develop complications of diabetes such as blindness and the need for amputations.



Your breasts are rotten. Beneath their lovely contours and their graceful bounce lies a monster. You should have them taken from you.



I didnít know how to tell her. In my mind it was clear that she should have them removed before the monster crept out from under her bed. ìItís truly a horrible decision, and Iím sorry that weíve presented you with it. Think it over for a while, but I think you should do what you can to protect yourself. They can reconstruct the breastsÖî



She shook her head and choked back sobs, partly for herself and partly for her mother who had been consumed before her. I picked up the crystal ball and threw it against the cheap sheetrock wall. It refused to shatter. With a thud it hit the ground. I took the patientís hand, palm side down, and shook it. ìIím sorry. Please call me if you'd like to talk some more.î



The faint quiver, the softness, the sickening knowledge. I closed the door behind me and picked up the next charted scroll.



How can such delicate sorcery be safely practiced in twenty minute visits?





Photo taken by Ruben Joye. More information on BRCA testing here .

- Dr. Charles [The Examining Room of Dr. Charles]

New technology does not yet provide the answers that this young woman needs. Our understanding is still too primitive.   11:26:26 PM    

My Experience With Abusive Interrogation Tactics.

[AmericanProgress recently launched TortureIsNotUS.org, a campaign to support the McCain anti-torture legislation now being held up by conservatives in Congress. Our guest blogger, Peter Bauer, is a former U.S. Army military intelligence interrogator who served during the Gulf War with the 3rd Armored Division.]

During the latter days of the Cold War and the quite warm days of the first Gulf War, I served in the United States Army as an Interrogator (MOS 97E). As a graduate of the Interrogation program at the U.S. Army Intelligence Center and School, Ft. Huachuca, Arizona, I received comprehensive training on acceptable interrogation techniques, as well as training in adherence to the Geneva Conventions.

But it’s not that training that produced my firm conviction that torture and “coercive interrogation techniques” are ineffective intelligence gathering techniques. It is my experience using such techniques myself, as an instructor in resistance to interrogation.

Working with US and NATO troops as part of a program called “Survival Evasion Resistance Escape” (SERE), I used these techniques on our own and allied troops. SERE training prepares soldiers, airmen, and commandos most likely to be captured for a worst-case scenario. It helps them learn how to avoid jeopardizing missions (and the lives of their brothers in arms) by resisting abusive treatment and harsh interrogations.

As a quid pro quo for providing this training, the interrogators involved were also allowed to hone their own skills, using doctrinally-approved interrogation techniques as well. Even when working with such elite troops as the US Special Forces and the British SAS, we found that the standard interrogation techniques found in the US Army Field Manual 34-52 were far more effective than such abusive behavior as stress positions, sensory deprivation, and humiliation. We obtained more information [base ']Äì and more reliable information [base ']Äì with our basic skills than we did with even days of harsh treatment.

As an interrogator, it was also critical to keep in mind the reliability of the information being obtained from a source. When the subject was convinced (or even tricked) into cooperating, the intelligence gathered proved to be reliable. On the other hand, it quickly became evident, even in my early days of resistance training, that when subjected to harsh treatment, the tendency is indeed to say whatever the subject believes will make the abuse stop. And that, I learned, is generally not the truth.

– Peter Bauer

[Think Progress]

Anyone who says that torture gives useful information is an idiot. It gives them what they want to hear, and it makes monsters of the torturers, if they are not monsters beforehand. You wonder why we have people who feel the Geneva Conventions are quaint?  11:18:50 PM    

African users' innovative use of mobile phones.

(Thank you, Anthony!)

Jonathan Donner in the excellent new issue of the Receiver, writes about the ways people in Africa are innovating around the use of mobile phones in their lives

One such regional innovation is the public mobile phone. We might consider mobiles as belonging to individuals, but in Africa, as elsewhere in the developing world, handsets often pull double-duty, used by multiple family members, shared among friends (perhaps by swapping SIM cards in and out), or perhaps by a whole set of users in a village or neighborhood. Across the region, many people make their living by selling individual calls on handsets. These micro-entrepreneurs play an important function in extending connectivity to people who can not afford their own handset, or who might only require an occasional call.

The most famous example of this model is Grameen Village Phone, formed originally in Bangladesh. Grameen Village Phone has recently introduced its programs in Uganda and Rwanda. A similar franchise model is found in the phone shops of South Africa, where tens of thousands of locations provide GSM-based telecommunications services. Developed originally to fulfill some of South Africa's universal access provisions, these franchises have proved extremely important to the townships and rural areas in the nation.

The Village Phone

But these mobile-based payphone businesses need not have the backing of major telecommunications companies or NGOs. In West Africa, for example, "Umbrella Ladies" simply set up at the side of the road with a lawn chair, a mobile, and some shade from the sun; informal resale of individual calls are common throughout the continent. This is the local user innovation I wish to highlight in this article: the impromptu phone booth!

[Smart Mobs]

A wonderful example of the entrepeneurial spirit finding a service using new technology.  11:11:38 PM    

Republicans cheated in the 2004 election Republicans in Washington State like to accuse us Democrats of having cheated and stuffed ballot boxes in order to secure the election for Governor Christine Gregoire. Of course, there's no shred of credibility or truth to a single one of their allegations, and their claims were dismissed with prejudice by a court of law.

However, it's becoming increasingly apparent that while no fraud or cheating happened in Washington State, it certainly did happen elsewhere last year:

As a legal noose appears to be tightening around the Bush/Cheney/Rove inner circle, a shocking government report shows the floor under the legitimacy of their alleged election to the White House is crumbling.

The latest critical confirmation of key indicators that the election of 2004 was stolen comes in an extremely powerful, penetrating report from the Government Accountability Office that has gotten virtually no mainstream media coverage.

The government's lead investigative agency is known for its general incorruptibility and its thorough, in-depth analyses. Its concurrence with assertions widely dismissed as "conspiracy theories" adds crucial new weight to the case that Team Bush has no legitimate business being in the White House.

According to CNN, the U.S. House Judiciary Committee received "more than 57,000 complaints" following Bush's alleged re-election. Many such concerns were memorialized under oath in a series of sworn statements and affidavits in public hearings and investigations conducted in Ohio by the Free Press and other election protection organizations.

The non-partisan GAO report has now found that, "some of [the] concerns about electronic voting machines have been realized and have caused problems with recent elections, resulting in the loss and miscount of votes."

The United States is the only major democracy that allows private partisan corporations to secretly count and tabulate the votes with proprietary non-transparent software.

[...]

The CEO of one of the most crucial suppliers of electronic voting machines, Warren O'Dell of Diebold, pledged before the 2004 campaign to deliver Ohio and thus the presidency to George W. Bush.

Bush's official margin of victory in Ohio was just 118,775 votes out of more than 5.6 million cast. Election protection advocates argue that O'Dell's statement still stands as a clear sign of an effort, apparently successful, to steal the White House.

Among other things, the GAO confirms that:

1. Some electronic voting machines "did not encrypt cast ballots or system audit logs, and it was possible to alter both without being detected." In other words, the GAO now confirms that electronic voting machines provided an open door to flip an entire vote count. More than 800,000 votes were cast in Ohio on electronic voting machines, some seven times Bush's official margin of victory.
2. "It was possible to alter the files that define how a ballot looks and works so that the votes for one candidate could be recorded for a different candidate." Numerous sworn statements and affidavits assert that this did happen in Ohio 2004.
3. "Vendors installed uncertified versions of voting system software at the local level." 3. Falsifying election results without leaving any evidence of such an action by using altered memory cards can easily be done, according to the GAO.
4. The GAO also confirms that access to the voting network was easily compromised because not all digital recording electronic voting systems (DREs) had supervisory functions password-protected, so access to one machine provided access to the whole network. This critical finding confirms that rigging the 2004 vote did not require a "widespread conspiracy" but rather the cooperation of a very small number of operatives with the power to tap into the networked machines and thus change large numbers of votes at will. With 800,000 votes cast on electronic machines in Ohio, flipping the number needed to give Bush 118,775 could be easily done by just one programmer.
5. Access to the voting network was also compromised by repeated use of the same user IDs combined with easily guessed passwords. So even relatively amateur hackers could have gained access to and altered the Ohio vote tallies.
6. The locks protecting access to the system were easily picked and keys were simple to copy, meaning, again, getting into the system was an easy matter.
7. One DRE model was shown to have been networked in such a rudimentary fashion that a power failure on one machine would cause the entire network to fail, re-emphasizing the fragility of the system on which the Presidency of the United States was decided.
8. GAO identified further problems with the security protocols and background screening practices for vendor personnel, confirming still more easy access to the system.

In essence, the GAO study makes it clear that no bank, grocery store or mom & pop chop shop would dare operate its business on a computer system as flimsy, fragile and easily manipulated as the one on which the 2004 election turned.

The GAO findings are particularly damning when set in the context of an election run in Ohio by a Secretary of State simultaneously working as co-chair of the Bush-Cheney campaign. Far from what election theft skeptics have long asserted, the GAO findings confirm that the electronic network on which 800,000 Ohio votes were cast was vulnerable enough to allow a a tiny handful of operatives -- or less -- to turn the whole vote count using personal computers operating on relatively simple software.

The GAO documentation flows alongside other crucial realities surrounding the 2004 vote count. For example:

The exit polls showed Kerry winning in Ohio, until an unexplained last minute shift gave the election to Bush. Similar definitive shifts also occurred in Iowa, Nevada and New Mexico, a virtual statistical impossibility.

A few weeks prior to the election, an unauthorized former ES&S voting machine company employee, was caught on the ballot-making machine in Auglaize County

Election officials in Mahoning County now concede that at least 18 machines visibly transferred votes for Kerry to Bush. Voters who pushed Kerry's name saw Bush's name light up, again and again, all day long. Officials claim the problems were quickly solved, but sworn statements and affidavits say otherwise. They confirm similar problems in Franklin County (Columbus). Kerry's margins in both counties were suspiciously low.

A voting machine in Mahoning County recorded a negative 25 million votes for Kerry. The problem was allegedly fixed.

In Gahanna Ward 1B, at a fundamentalist church, a so-called "electronic transfer glitch" gave Bush nearly 4000 extra votes when only 638 people voted at that polling place. The tally was allegedly corrected, but remains infamous as the "loaves and fishes" vote count.

In Franklin County, dozens of voters swore under oath that their vote for Kerry faded away on the DRE without a paper trail.

In Miami County, at 1:43am after Election Day, with the county's central tabulator reporting 100% of the vote - 19,000 more votes mysteriously arrived; 13,000 were for Bush at the same percentage as prior to the additional votes, a virtual statistical impossibility.

In Cleveland, large, entirely implausible vote totals turned up for obscure third party candidates in traditional Democratic African-American wards. Vote counts in neighboring wards showed virtually no votes for those candidates, with 90% going instead for Kerry.

Prior to one of Blackwell's illegitimate "show recounts," technicians from Triad voting machine company showed up unannounced at the Hocking County Board of Elections and removed the computer hard drive.

In response to official information requests, Shelby and other counties admit to having discarded key records and equipment before any recount could take place.

In a conference call with Rev. Jackson, Attorney Cliff Arnebeck, Attorney Bob Fitrakis and others, John Kerry confirmed that he lost every precinct in New Mexico that had a touchscreen voting machine. The losses had no correlation with ethnicity, social class or traditional party affiliation---only with the fact that touchscreen machines were used.

In a public letter, Rep. Conyers has stated that "by and large, when it comes to a voting machine, the average voter is getting a lemon - the Ford Pinto of voting technology. We must demand better."

But the GAO report now confirms that electronic voting machines as deployed in 2004 were in fact perfectly engineered to allow a very small number of partisans with minimal computer skills and equipment to shift enough votes to put George W. Bush back in the White House.

Given the growing body of evidence, it appears increasingly clear
that's exactly what happened.

It's stunning, but it seems that the result of both the 2000 and the 2004 presidential elections were illegitimate. George Bush should never have made it into the White House. - Andrew [Northwest Progressive Institute]

11:07:52 PM