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I'm still here

Bet you thought this blog was defunct. (If indeed there is still a 'you' out there reading this.) Well, so did I. I've been putting most of my blogging efforts into Main Street Danbury for the past year. And even that I don't keep very current. Between work and school and commuting I've been feeling overwhelmed for many months now. But I had something I just had to get out, and this seemed like the place to do it.

This was my response to a recent post on the Annoyed Librarian blog. I'm not giving it a link, because I have very ambivalent feelings about this blog. You can find it easily enough. There's always a grain of truth in what she says--sometimes a very big grain--but the tone in general is that of a Pity Party, and it's hard to feel sorry for someone who by her own admission is making a pretty good living financially. The topic was whether being a librarian is a "calling," just a job, or something in between.

"I was a software engineer for over 30 years before quitting to go to library school. I've been working in public libraries doing tech support for the past two years while going to school, and have few illusions left about the work and the organization. It's a job, and the way I know that is that I leave it behind when I walk out the door at the stroke of 5. I often think that my time and money might have been better spent getting up to speed on web development languages, but that will come in time. For now, I'm not in a cubicle farm and I'm not working for a company that makes weapons. I work one Sunday a month at the Reference Desk of another public library, and the thrill of a successful hunt keeps me pumped for days, as does having all the computer equipment running smoothly. The older I get, the less it takes to make me happy."

History repeats itself?

History may not repeat itself, but it sure does rhyme. Is it possible that another "3rd rate burglary," this time in the form of a low-tech phone jamming scheme on Election Day 2002 in New Hampshire, will finally expose this corrput White House for what it really is?

2002 N.H. Scandal Shadows GOP Anew

Wisconsin, home of a true Patriot

I may not have enough points to emigrate to Canada, but I think interstate travel is still permitted for non-pregnant persons.


U.S. Sen. Feingold: Remarks on Introducing a Resolution to Censure President George W. Bush 3/13/2006

Finally, some cold hard facts about e-voting

The AP has picked up the story of the results of BlackBoxVoting.org's inspection of the internal logs of at least 40 Sequoia touch-screen voting machines used in Palm Beach County in the 2004 presidential election. You can read it here.

This is the part that tells me that the election officials in Palm Beach County still have no clue as to how to deal with electronic voting machines.

"Palm Beach County election officials said the BlackBoxVoting.com findings are flawed, and they blamed most of the errors on voters not following proper procedures."

This sounds an awful lot like the butterfly-ballot fiasco of 2000, blaming the users for the bad design and implementation of the machines. If I'd tried that excuse--"User error"--on my customers or my management when I was a software developer, I would have gotten walked out the door that very day, but not before having my head handed to me on a platter. You're supposed to design the damned machines so that the user CANNOT make an error. This is not rocket science, folks. We've known how to do this for several decades now.

More electronic voting irregularities

Black Box Voting reports more voting irregularities in the 2004 presidential election.

"The internal logs of at least 40 Sequoia touch-screen voting machines reveal that votes were time and date-stamped as cast two weeks before the election, sometimes in the middle of the night. "

Connecting the dots

On The Long War, martial law, detention without trial, suppression of dissent, and Bush’s mysterious “new programs”:

http://www.alternet.org/rights/32647/

And a quote from one of the comments:

…one of the most disturbing aspects of the current regime is that they act as if they will never be held to account, that there will never be a day of reckoning for all their misdeeds. As if the revolution upon which they have embarked will never be undone. Talk of impeachment or a change in control of either or both houses of Congrees does not seem to worry them. They just press ahead with their agenda apparently unconcerned with the political consequences. So much so that one has to wonder whether their plans preclude political consequences.

Does not this feel like a coup d’etat?