VirusHead

Great B Movie stuff, for sure.

But don’t let the bumbling appeal fool you.

Whether Bush’s “problem” is real or artificial, it functions to encourage disbelief about the nature of his presidency and his administration. He seems like just a regular guy, a little dim, maybe a puppet, but not a “bad guy.” Right? Wrong.

What is he really for? Power, control, greed, war, death.
What is he really against? Democracy, education, truth, science, privacy, equality, justice for all, our system of checks and balances – even the laws of our country.

Revoke the “free pass” American keeps giving the Bush Administration.

Take back the Congress. Vote Democrat in November.

And Democrats – step up to the plate. Now.

You Should Be A Poet

You craft words well, in creative and unexpected ways. And you have a great talent for evoking beautiful imagery…or describing the most intense heartbreak ever. You’re already naturally a poet, even if you’ve never written a poem. What Type of Writer Should You Be?

You Belong in Fall

Intelligent, introspective, and quite expressive at times… You appreciate the changes in color, climate, and mood that fall brings. Whether you’re carving wacky pumpkins or taking long drives, autumn is a favorite time of year for you. What Season Are You?

You Are 55% American

Most times you are proud to be an American. Though sometimes the good ole US of A makes you cringe. Still, you know there’s no place better suited to be your home. You love your freedom and no one’s going to take it away from you! How American Are You?

Would You Have Been a Nazi? The Expatriate Achtung! You are 30% brainwashworthy, 22% antitolerant, 28% blindly patriotic

Congratulations! You are not susceptible to brainwashing, your values and cares extend beyond the borders of your own country, and your Blind Patriotism does not reach unhealthy levels. If you had been German in the 30s, you would’ve left the country. One bad scenario — as I hypothetically project you back in time — is that you just wouldn’t have cared one way or the other about Nazism. Maybe politics don’t interest you enough. But the fact that you took this test means they probably do. I’m gonna give you the benefit of the doubt. Did you know that many of the smartest Germans departed prior to the beginning of World War II, because they knew some evil sh*t was brewing? Brain Drain. Many of them were scientists. It is very possible you could have been one of them. Conclusion: Born and raised in Germany in the early 1930’s, you would not have been a Nazi. The Would You Have Been A Nazi? Test written by jason_bateman on OkCupid

You Belong in the UK

Blimey! A little proper, a little saucy. You’re so witty and charming… No one notices your curry breath What English Speaking Country Are You?

Your French Name is:

Odette Aigremont What’s Your French Name?

You Should Wear Moschino

Classic European glamour with a girlish flair What Fun Fashion Designer Should You Wear?

What Classic Dame Are You? Katharine Hepburn You scored 14% grit, 33% wit, 42% flair, and 19% class!

You are the fabulously quirky and independent woman of character. You go your own way, follow your own drummer, take your own lead. You stand head and shoulders next to your partner, but you are perfectly willing and able to stand alone. Others might be more classically beautiful or conventionally woman-like, but you possess a more fundamental common sense and off-kilter charm, making interesting men fall at your feet. You can pick them up or leave them there as you see fit. You share the screen with the likes of Spencer Tracy and Cary Grant, thinking men who like strong women. The Classic Dames Test written by gidgetgoes on OkCupid. Find out what kind of classic leading man you’d make by taking the Classic Leading Man Test.

Ok, just for fun, I took the Classic Leading Man Quiz too!

Cary Grant You scored 7% Tough, 19% Roguish, 33% Friendly, and 42% Charming!

You are the epitome of charm and style, the smooth operator who steals the show with your sophisticated wit, quiet confidence and flirty sense of humor. You are able to catch any woman you want just by flashing that disarming smile, even if you’re flashing it at a kindly aunt or engaging child at the time. When you walk into a room, women are instantly intrigued and even the men are impressed, but you’re too nice a guy to steal anyone else’s girl…unless the guy deserves it. You’re stylish, yes, but you can also be a little bit nutty. However, you’re primarily seen as dashing, suave and romantic. Your co-stars include Katharine Hepburn, Audrey Hepburn, and Grace Kelly, stylish women with a sense of fun. Find out what kind of classic dame you’d make by taking the Classic Dames Test. The Classic Leading Man Test written by gidgetgoes on OkCupid.

I don’t always agree with Bill Clinton, but he sure cheered me up today. I was starting to think he’d completely lost his mind, hanging about with the Bushes.

CLINTON: Now, I will answer all those things on the merits, but first I want to talk about the context in which this arises. I’m being asked this on the FOX network. ABC just had a right- wing conservative run in their little “Pathway to 9/11,” falsely claiming it was based on the 9/11 Commission report, with three things asserted against me directly contradicted by the 9/11 Commission report.

And I think it’s very interesting that all the conservative Republicans, who now say I didn’t do enough, claimed that I was too obsessed with bin Laden. All of President Bush’s neo-cons thought I was too obsessed with bin Laden. They had no meetings on bin Laden for nine months after I left office. All the right-wingers who now say I didn’t do enough said I did too much — same people.

They were all trying to get me to withdraw from Somalia in 1993 the next day after we were involved in “Black Hawk down,” and I refused to do it and stayed six months and had an orderly transfer to the United Nations.

OK, now let’s look at all the criticisms: Black Hawk down, Somalia. There is not a living soul in the world who thought that Usama bin Laden had anything to do with Black Hawk down or was paying any attention to it or even knew Al Qaeda was a growing concern in October of ‘93. …

Now, if you want to criticize me for one thing, you can criticize me for this: After the Cole, I had battle plans drawn to go into Afghanistan, overthrow the Taliban, and launch a full-scale attack search for bin Laden. But we needed basing rights in Uzbekistan, which we got after 9/11. The CIA and the FBI refused to certify that bin Laden was responsible while I was there. They refused to certify. So that meant I would’ve had to send a few hundred Special Forces in helicopters and refuel at night. Even the 9/11 Commission didn’t do that. Now, the 9/11 Commission was a political document, too. All I’m asking is, anybody who wants to say I didn’t do enough, you read Richard Clarke’s book.

That’s the difference in me and some, including all the right-wingers who are attacking me now. They ridiculed me for trying. They had eight months to try. They did not try. I tried. So I tried and failed. When I failed, I left a comprehensive anti-terror strategy and the best guy in the country, Dick Clarke, who got demoted. So you did Fox’s bidding on this show. You did your nice little conservative hit job on me. What I want to know is … how many people in the Bush administration you asked this question of. I want to know how many people in the Bush administration you asked, “Why didn’t you do anything about the Cole?” I want to know how many you asked, “Why did you fire Dick Clarke?”

I had responsibility for trying to protect this country. I tried and I failed to get Bin Laden. I regret it but I did try. And I did everything I thought I responsibly could. The entire military was against sending special forces into Afghanistan and refueling by helicopter and no one thought we could do it otherwise…We could not get the CIA and the FBI to certify that Al Qaeda was responsible while I was President. Until I left office. And yet I get asked about this all the time and they had three times as much time to get him as I did and no one ever asks them about this. I think that’s strange.

The whole transcript is here.

‘Bout time, Bill.

Kudos, thanks, and a kiss anytime. You’re the man. Just seeing you argue again lit up my world today.

Where on earth can we find another like him? Who has what it will take to turn this country around?

With the mid-term elections coming up, we must keep our eyes and ears open for election fraud. No matter what your political leaning, this affects everyone.

Princeton researchers have produced a video to demonstrate security flaws in a Diebold electronic voting machine. These flaws allow electronic voting machines to be rigged to steal votes. (Thanks for sending, Corinne!)

That’s what can be done from the outside.

But what it’s already programmed on the inside? The video reminded me of an interview I heard a few years ago with a programmer who claimed he had written vote fraud software for the Republicans. A little digging, and I found the general bits of the story.

Programmer Clint Curtis claims Rep. Tom Feeney (R-FL) asked for creation of e-vote fraud software at an October 2000 meeting

Curtis says that Feeney “was very specific in the design and specifications required for this program.”

“He detailed, in his own words, that; (a) the program needed to be touch-screen capable (b) the user should be able to trigger the program without any additional equipment (c) the programming to accomplish this needed to stay hidden even if the source code was inspected.”

At Just a Fly on the Wall, he notes:

What I did not anticipate was that this country would allow the placement of voting machines where the source code was not provided. The programs were pre-compiled (you have no idea what is in them or what hidden triggers exist), and where no paper trail would be required to check their accuracy. Any moron could build a voting program that could flip the vote under those circumstances and no amount of testing could discover the deception.

• Interview at The Anteater Interviews
• The Code

Video of Clint Curtis’ sworn testimony before the US House Judiciary Members in Ohio

He passed a lie detector test on all of this, but it doesn’t seem to have gone anywhere.

Wow! I see that Clint Curtis ran – and won by a landslide! – in the Democratic Florida Congressional Primary. He’s running against Tom Feeney! Good for him!

By the way, Feeney isn’t just a regular Republican interested in the workings of machines. He is one of those who played golf in Scotland on Jack Abramoff’s money (remember? DeLay? Ney?). He was been named the third most corrupt member of Congress by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. Connect the dots, please.

I’ve been feeling a certain amount of (self-imposed) pressure to keep up with every action and every political development here. Obviously, I can’t do that. There are people who actually receive a salary to do so, and you can find them all over the web. Anyone who has read this blog knows that I would be disappointed in McCain and others for caving on the torture provisions, that I would probably rant on the strategy of seeming to attack the Geneva Conventions directly (knowing it wouldn’t fly) only to “settle” on grandfathered pardons for CIA torturers and the introduction of “alternative procedures” and the ability to label anyone they want to as a terrorist – which is what they wanted in the first place. America the beautiful, torturer in chief. So on and so on. A lot has been happening.

And of course, I have a number of backlogged announcements in my email. Attorney General Gonzales actually stood up to defend the actions of the US in the false imprisonment, rendition to Syria, and torture of an innocent Canadian. Baghdad’s Camp Cropper, which started out as a bunch of tents, is now a $60 million “state-of-the-art” prison, paid for by us. Another industry anti-regulation ideologue (Susan Dudley) has been nominated by the White House for a position that requires the opposite concerns of the person nominated. This time it’s at the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, an office that makes decisions about the safety of the air we breathe, the cars we drive, the medicines we take and the water we drink. Top housing official (Alphonso Jackson) has been instructing staff to cut out Democrats when awarding HUD contracts – in violation of the law, of course. Rep. Bob Ney (R-OH) gets to keep his congressional pension after he serves his prison time for selling his votes for money. Government auditors responsible for monitoring leases for oil and gas on federal property say the Interior Department suppressed their efforts to recover more than $30 million from energy companies that were cheating the government. The National Black Republican Association is running an ad accusing Democrats of starting the Ku Klux Klan. They also say Martin Luther King Jr. was a Republican. Sigh. Medicare physician payment rates are set to be cut by more than 5 percent starting Jan. 1, 2007, and by nearly 40 percent over the next nine years, just as Baby Boomers are starting to retire. The FCC destroyed their own study when it proved media consolidation reduces local news coverage. Yada yada.

I can’t keep up with the landslide of these kinds of stories, and even if I could, I’m not sure that it really makes much difference. So you may notice some changes in the blog. I’m not going to try to cover the whole range. I’m just going to address what I’m thinking about that day. It might be political, or cultural, or religious, or creative, or just silly. We’ll see.

I’m still looking for a full-time job, and increasingly disappointed that my Ph.D. hasn’t allowed me to net a job here. I’ve not limited my search to the fields of my training. I’ve not limited my search even to academia. I’ve always worked part-time, even while I was in graduate school, but I don’t have a “last salary” to enter on an internet form. I would be an asset in many ways, except perhaps in accounting or sales (it’s a little too much like “witnessing” for me). I’ve been applying for several jobs a week over the last two years. Bupkis! – a big nothing.

I’m just a bit discouraged. However, I have a lot to be happy about, too. One great thing about getting older is that you get better at dealing with life’s oddities.

Here’s the thing, though. Just when you might be feeling that you’re doing pretty well (all things considering), the big black boot in the sky appears to smash into your head. “Wake up and pay attention! Time to grow again! It’s GOOD for your CHARACTER!” It’s been a while since I really felt existentially shaken, and I guess it was time for me to take some kind of next step. It’s strange the way some things can affect you more than others. Sometimes, I’m calm and collected in the middle of chaos and disaster. Other times, something that doesn’t look like such a catastrophe can knock me down on my butt.

I’ve been knocked down in a way that has been affecting the way I respond to everything for the last couple of days. I’ve got to find a better way through it. It’s a challenge, something much more difficult even than I would have thought it would be (if I had thought about it). A family member has acquired some mistaken and surprisingly negative ideas about me. I spent much of yesterday trying to respond to an email that made me burst into sobs whenever I looked at it. I’m not normally much of a weeper – I’m more of a stoic, or maybe – in extreme situations – a cocoonist. The assumptions and views that were expressed – and what they implied – deeply, deeply hurt me in a way that I haven’t felt in a long time. I don’t know whether or not we will be able to work out the problems and misunderstandings, and the repercussions of not doing so would be very sad for both our families. I’ve responded as best I can, but I suspect that it won’t make much difference. It feels like a fundamental loss, a kind of death. It might even be just mourning for something that was never really there in the first place. Right now, I couldn’t say for sure.

I’m blown back, yes, but there are other aspects of my life now that can’t be ignored or abandoned just because I got a big electric shock. That’s a funny image, but that’s what it felt like – one of those cartoons where a character gets hold of a wire or something, and big lightening-bolt images fly from their contact. I could almost hear the sound effect. ZAP-zappp-booOOOm.

So I’m just taking it a bit slower for the next little bit, taking those walks and baths and meditations that I often recommend to others. I’ve done what I can for now, and how it all turns out will be what it will be.