So today was primary voting day in WV, and I am even more disappointed than expected at the electronic voting machines that I had expected. (And my expectations were pretty low.)

I think electronic voting machines are a terrible idea. We had been using optical scanners, which allowed you to fill in a paper ballot with a pencil. Perfect, easy, foolproof.

But no. They had to switch to the computer voting machines.

Here are the problems I noted.

First and foremost, you cannot write in a candidate unless it was already set up in the machine to do so. THIS made me angry. Why? Because Mollohan is unopposed in the primary. And Mollohan deserves to be voted out of office. Now I’m going to be stuck with a choice between a someone with no ethics, and whatever incompetent boob the Republicans are going to put up. (You think I exaggerate? Ha.)

Second, the set-up was such that the ballot was not secret while you were voting. The three machines were set up all in a row so that you had behind other voters either coming or going, and as the font is OMG I’m going BLIND huge, even glancing in the direction of another voter’s screen you’d immediately see everything. Not a huge deal for a primary, when no one is likely to show up, but still completely unacceptable.

Third, the set-up was such that we had to walk over extension cords. Extension cords that were, of course, not taped down. I’m pretty sure that such a set-up is in violation of many safety regulations.

Fourth, I do not see how the set-up could be at all handicapped accessible to someone in a wheelchair or using a walker. Remember the extension cords? Remember the having to walk behind the other voters? Did I mention that this was a fairly narrow path? I find it unlikely that such a set-up would pass the muster for handicapped accessibility.

In summary, I HATE the new voting machines, and want to know why the hell the state has wasted so much money on them. Go ahead. Call me a Luddite. I’m too pissed off to care.

Monday lunchtime is a good time for quizzy goodness.
(more…)

You Passed the US Citizenship Test

Congratulations – you got 10 out of 10 correct!

via Stereo Describes My Scenario

There’s an article in the NY Times on Mine Safety that discusses some issues that may not be familiar to those who don’t live in mining states/areas.

As I mentioned previously, the fines that mine operators in violation pay, are often far less than the costs of fixing the violations. And eve worse, according to the Times article, some mines don’t even bother to pay the small fines that they receive.

Additionally, MSHA inspectors are supposed to be able to close mines that are in serious violation, yet, according to a report I heard on WV Public Radio, MSHA inspectors have been discouraged from closing down mines. According to the NY Times the Sago mine had “16 blatant violations that were considered immediate hazards to miners safety” (The times article lists the Sago violations at 202 for last year. West Virginia public radio lists the violations at 208.) This shift under the Bush administration was also mentioned in several reports on West Virginia Public Radio. (See here. No idea how long the page will last.)

Additionally, the Charleston Gazette talks about MSHA lapses regarding the Mine Rescue system.

Every coal mine in the country is supposed to have at least two teams, either on site or on contract nearby. As of 2004, there was only one team for every four underground coal mines in the country. (Charleston Gazette)

Why is the important?

The explosion was around 6:30 a.m. At 1:30 p.m., the first rescue team was still waiting outside the mine. Safety rules prevent one team from entering until a back-up team is standing by. The second team did not arrive until after 5:30 p.m. (Charleston Gazette)

The thread that runs through most of the reports I’ve heard recently has been that it doesn’t matter that mining is a dangerous occupation, in many areas it’s the only occupation that pays a decent salary. And when you have people who are desperate for decent paying jobs, you are at risk for other sorts of problems.

According to the NY Times, “workers who complain about unsafe conditions are sometimes fired or penalized.”

Think about that for a bit. We’re talking about a job where people put their lives at risk. Where people still die every year extracting coal from the ground.

Safety regulations are there to save lives. Let’s hope that this disaster helps people to realize that regulatory agencies are important for a reason.

…I believe that this nation sits at a crossroads. One direction points to the higher road of the rule of law. Sometimes hard, sometimes unpleasant, this path relies on truth, justice and the rigorous application of the principle that no man is above the law.
Now, the other road is the path of least resistance. This is where we start making exceptions to our laws based on poll numbers and spin control. This is when we pitch the law completely overboard when the mood fits us, when we ignore the facts in order to cover up the truth.
Shall we follow the rule of law and do our constitutional duty no matter unpleasant, or shall we follow the path of least resistance, close our eyes to the potential lawbreaking, forgive and forget, move on and tear an unfixable hole in our legal system? No man is above the law, and no man is below the law. That’s the principle that we all hold very dear in this country.
The president has many responsibilities and many privileges. His chief responsibility is to uphold the laws of this land. He does not have the privilege to break the law…
Rep. Tom DeLay

No greater harm can be done than breaking the covenant of trust between the president and the people, between the three branches of our government and between the country and the world.
Rep Henry Hyde

Our Founding Fathers established this nation on a fundamental yet at the time untested idea that a nation should be governed not by the whims of any man but by the rule of law. Implicit in that idea is the principle that no one is above the law, including the chief executive.
Since it is the rule of law that guides us, we must ask ourselves what happens to our nation if the rule of law is ignored, cheapened or violated, especially at the highest level of government.
REP. ROBERT GOODLATTE

…When serious and credible allegations have been raised against any president, the Constitution obliges us to determine whether such conduct violated that president’s obligation to faithfully execute the law. We must make this determination, or else forever sacrifice our heritage that no person is above the law. This Congress must decide whether we as a nation will turn a blind eye to allegations respecting both the subversion of the courts and the search for truth…
Rep. James E. Rogan

OUR PRESIDENT (is) NOT OUR KING. HE IS NOT ABOVE THE LAW. TO ALLOW OUR CHIEF LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICER TO COMMIT THESE FELONIES WITHOUT FACING SERIOUS CONSEQUENCES, IS TO SEND A DANGEROUS MESSAGE TO ALL AMERICANS THAT THERE ARE AGAIN TWO STANDARDS OF JUSTICE IN AMERICA — ONE FOR THE PRESIDENT AND ONE FOR THE REST OF US.
Honorable Wally Herger

The president is a citizen with the same duty to follow the laws as all other citizens. The world marvels that our president is not above the law, and my vote today helps assure that this rule continues. With a commitment to the principles of the rule of law which makes this country the beacon of hope for political refugees like myself throughout the world, I cast my vote in favor of the resolution to undertake an impeachment inquiry of the conduct of the president of the United States.
Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen

No one is above the law.
Senator Strom Thurmond

I suggest that you click through to see more about what some of our representatives believe should happen to presidents who break the law.

You. Yes you.

Go watch Good Night and Good Luck.

David Strathairn did an excellent job portraying Edward R. Murrow. (And I knew Frank Langella looked familiar, I just couldn’t figure out why.)

But that’s not why you should watch it.

In Morgantown it’s playing downtown at the Warner. Check IMDB for times near you.

The 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month

“It is well that war is so terrible; else we would grow too fond of it”
— Robert E. Lee

“A man’s country is not a certain area of land, of mountains, rivers, and woods, but it is a principle; and patriotism is loyalty to that principle.”
— George William Curtis

It is the common fate of the indolent to see their rights become a prey to the active. The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt.
— John Philpot Curran Speech upon the Right of Election (1790)

The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.
— Martin Luther King, Jr.

The Department of Veterans Affairs Veterans Day Web Page

The Origins of Veterans Day from the VFW

The Great War

WWII Memorial

Korean War Memorial

Vietnam War Memorial

Digital Memorial for those killed in Afghanistan and Iraq

Data on Veterans from the US Census Bureau

I am beginning to fear that my body is leading a secret double life, about which I know nothing.

Last month it was the AARP application–fifteen years early. This week I received in the mail a letter and survey from the Republican Senate Leadership Council.

After I finished boggling over the idea, I was torn as to what to do. Fill out the survey honestly and hope that it will be a voice urging the wing-nut radicals to find a modicum of moderation, or, tape the postage paid envelope to a brick and send it back.

You may be surprised to learn that I chose the first option. Solely to support the Republican moderates.

But I was really tempted to go look for a brick. Preferably a lead one.

“I demand, on behalf of the American people, that we understand why these investigations aren’t being conducted”

Go Harry Reid!

One down…

Yesterday, I was able to attend a lecture at the Law School by Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

I had the privilege of seeing Chief Justice Rehnquist when he was here in 1999, and so was glad I was able to take the time to see Justice Ginsburg.

First of all, she is a very tiny woman, which I found surprising, since in my mind Supreme Court Justices are larger than life. Although the pictures I have seen of her always look severe, so smiled quite often through her lecture, and made multiple funny comments.

Her lecture was on the role of women and the law, and how far women have progressed on the bench and in the bar.

She opened her lecture with a remembrance of Chief Justice Rehnquist, who she seemed to admire very much, and whom, she said, strived to keep debate and discussion civil between the Justices.

Talking about the advances that women have made in the legal profession, she spoke of how the profession of law was felt to be an unfit occupation for a woman, yet Pallas Athena, the Greek Goddess of wisdom and war, as also the goddess of Justice, and was behind the trial of Orestes. She also spoke of Jewish law, and of Debora (I apologize if I have spelled this incorrectly) who was only one of three to hold her legal position, the other two being Moses and Samuel.

The she spoke of women in the legal tradition in the United States. In the 1960s, only 3% of lawyers were women. Today, 23% of tenured law faculty are women, which is an improvement, however from this we can conclude that women have still not reached equity.

Although President Truman considered appointing a woman to the Supreme Court, he decided that the time was not yet right, and it was not until Reagan appointed Sandra Day O’Connor that the first woman sat on the Supreme Court. However, President Carter was the first president to appoint women to the federal bench with any regularity. He appointed 40 women to the federal bench, while previous presidents had appointed only one or two women. Presidents Reagan and George HW Bush each appointed a significant number of women, and President Clinton appointed 108 women. In contrast the current president has appointed less than 40 women so far. (She gave the actual numbers but I didn’t write it down fast enough.)

Despite accounting for more than 50% of the population, women still make up for only 1/4 of the federal judiciary, although 48 out of 50 states have women on the court of last appeal. In contrast, she mentioned that in Canada, the Chief Justice of their Supreme Court is a woman, and 4 of their 8 Justices are women.

This is something that needs to be addressed, because our system of justice is richer when there is a diversity on the court.

The closed her lecture with an appreciation of Justice Sandra Day O’Connor.

She gave a brief question and answer period following the lecture, and the issue she addressed that I found most interesting was the Kelo case. She said that she was very glad the the legislatures were addressing the subject of eminent domain, and that the Court’s ruling was that the Court should have no say in what are essentially state and local matters.

In addressing the issue of religion and religious tolerance in the court, she spoke of how the separation of church and state in the US has benefited both churches and the state.

She closed her remarks discussing how opinion goes back and forth in the United States, as times change, and said that “the symbol of the US isn’t the bald eagle. It is the pendulum.”

I just walked away from a political fight in my on-line class, because the classroom is neither the time, nor the place, for such a discussion.

But it was really difficult. The … people … in question were trying to justify torture as acceptable. And of course the polemics were written with lots of capital letters and in one giant paragraph as they sat down at the keyboard and vomited out their diatribe. Of how “torture is justified” and that “Muslims deserve it” and some other vile nastiness, never mind that the Constitution provides for “innocent until proven guilty.” Nope. According to these Neanderthals if we think we’re under threat then we have the right to go in with guns blazing taking out the innocent and the guilty alike. Guess Civil Rights are only important if you’re a Republican.

It made me feel dirty even reading it.

People like that not only make no sense, they make me feel physically ill.

Shorter Michael Brown
“It’s not my fault! It’s everyone else’s fault! Mommy always liked you better! Wah!”

The FBI is joining the Bush administration’s War on P*rn. And it’s looking for a few good agents.

Early last month, the bureau’s Washington Field Office began recruiting for a new anti-obscenity squad. Attached to the job posting was a July 29 Electronic Communication from FBI headquarters to all 56 field offices, describing the initiative as “one of the top priorities” of Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales and, by extension, of “the Director.” That would be FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III.
…
The new squad will divert eight agents, a supervisor and assorted support staff to gather evidence against “manufacturers and purveyors” of p*rn*graphy — not the kind exploiting children, but the kind that depicts, and is marketed to, consenting adults.

I’m actually at a loss for words here.