RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!
Aieeeee......

(via Jens Scholz) posted by Thomas Nephew at 10:55:00 PM -- |    

 
"True Paper Trail Bills" in Maryland
Earlier this week, the Washington Post ran an excellent editorial, "Up for the Count," on the need for voter-verified paper ballots for electronic voting systems in Maryland. From that editorial:

MARYLAND VOTERS will never know for sure whether their election choices last year were recorded correctly -- and the same uncertainty could haunt them next year if lawmakers again fail to address a serious defect in the touch-screen voting machines used throughout the state. When functioning properly -- and the state elections administrator, Linda H. Lamone, insists that nearly all the machines did work last time -- they are said to be as accurate as they are efficient. But without a paper trail showing each vote cast, who's to know? And what about the machines that did freeze or had mechanical problems? Voters should not have to take it on faith; yet as it stands, there is no way to conduct a solid recount or audit.

In a March 8 news release, TrueVoteMD, the "campaign for verifiable voting in Maryland," revealed a bombshell:

According to county election officials and other sources, all Maryland voting machines have been on "lockdown" since November 2, 2004 due to statewide machine failures including 12% of machines in Montgomery County, some of which appear to have lost votes in significant numbers. [...]

If the gubernatorial race in 2006 is as close as 2002 it would only take four errors per precinct to change the outcome of the election. Maryland cannot risk the election disaster that is impending. Maryland was lucky the presidential election in Maryland was not close; otherwise we would be embroiled in scandal to this day. It is time to put in place a system that is reliable and that voters can trust," concluded [TrueVoteMD chair Linda] Schade.

As the statewide lockdown suggests, problems were by no means confined to Montgomery County. A map prepared by TrueVoteMD shows the distribution of 531 electronic voting irregularities around the state -- in the 6% of precincts TrueVoteMD was able to monitor..

Now the organization is calling for Marylanders to let their representatives in Annapolis know they support the "True Paper Trail Bills" House Bill 107 & Senate Bill 9, which require paper trail receipts and a 2% random audit of electronic voting returns. You can read and send an online petition, or make a few phone calls to Senators and Delegates in the two committees involved in the issue. A few key phone numbers are:

Senate Education, Health, and Environment Affairs Committee
Chairman: Paula C. Hollinger (D), 410-841-3131
Vice Chairman: Joan Carter Conway (D), 410-841-3145

House of Delegates Ways & Means Committee
Chairman: Sheila E. Hixson (D), 301-858-3469
Vice Chairman: Anne Healey (D), 301-858-3528
Jean B. Cryor (R), 301-858-3090

Selected prior posts on this blog about the issue:

• You should have complained before you pressed the button
• "Circuits" begins electronic voting series
• Trust, don't verify

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UPDATE, 3/25: Natalie Davis and Avedon Carol spread the word as well. Thanks very much! posted by Thomas Nephew at 1:30:00 AM -- |    

 
Kyrgyzstan
Trying to figure out what's up in Kyrgyzstan? Visit Stygius, who's been following that situation for a while now. He links to a group blog called Registan, which follows the "stans" of the former Soviet Union in general, and Kyrgyzstan in particular, as well to reports from across the Uzbekh border by Wanderlustress. Registan has a lovely quote from a Russian general at an airbase in country:

We hope the doped riotous mob* will not fully destabilize our neighbor country and member of the Collective Security Treaty Organization,” said the general.

But so far, it looks like this is shaping up among other things as another Ukraine-like debacle for Putin. Stygius:

The big deal would be Russia's response, but events are evolving so quickly that it seems impossible for Putin to come up with even a pine needle fig leaf to make any "peacekeeping" intervention at all tenable.

If so, so much the better; I've looked into Putin's eyes for his soul -- on video footage, to be sure, but I figured if Dr. Frist could, why not me. And as far as I could tell, there's nothing there.


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* Hmm...; link to photos added. posted by Thomas Nephew at 5:40:00 PM -- |    

 
Action items: Arctic Refuge, Darfur, Wal-Mart
Arctic Refuge --- The Wilderness Society sent me an e-mail with this request:

We need your help to spread the word about the next phase of our campaign by posting news about our Green Ribbon campaign and www.arcticribbon.org on Newsrack Blog.

We’re asking Americans to paint the town green to show their support for the Arctic Refuge. By tying green ribbons in their yard, hanging them in their homes, pinning them to their clothes or wearing them around their wrists environmental supporters around the country can help us show Congress that Americans are against drilling in the Arctic Refuge.

The "Arctic Ribbon" site suggests adding a message to your e-mail auto-reply, e.g., "Tie a green ribbon for our Arctic Refuge – ArcticRibbon.org. Pass it on." A small thing, obviously, but it keeps the issue alive in people's minds.

Darfur --- Better late than never: I learned via eRobin ("fact-esque") that there was a "Hundred Hours to Save Darfur" campaign from March 17 to 20. You can still read and sign a petition urging President Bush to support meaningful action in the Security Council. Please also consider donating to Save The Children, which is working in Darfur:

Working in some 40 camps and temporary settlements of Sudanese villagers who have been violently uprooted from their homes and are in dangerous limbo, Save the Children is the only international relief organization in the West Darfur State simultaneously addressing the food, water, shelter, health, nutrition and protection needs of over 200,000 children and families each month. Many among them have suffered or witnessed unspeakable atrocities; all continue to depend on international relief for their survival and well-being.

Ninety (90) percent of donations to Save the Children went to program services in 2003-2004. You can also follow Darfur-related news at the Coalition for Darfur blog.

Wal-Mart, ABC News --- The United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) is collecting signatures for a petition to pressure ABC News to drop Wal-Mart as a sponsor of its "Only in America" series, which "shares unique stories from across the country." The UFCW:

With this sponsorship, ABC News provides Wal-Mart both a format and visual framing to perpetuate a long-term myth—that Wal-Mart possesses a unique American patriotism manifested in practices that promote American values, respect workers, and privilege American-made products. There could be no greater distance between “Only in America” and the reality behind Wal-Mart’s image machinery.

The UFCW points out that more than 80% of Wal-Mart's supplier factories are in China. Remarkably, if Wal-Mart were an individual economy, "it would rank as China’s eighth largest trading partner."* I have little against globalization per se, but I have a lot against globalization that strips jobs from America and hands them to Communist-oppressed wage slaves.


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* "80%": Washington Post, 2/8/2004; "8th largest trading partner": China Business Daily, 11/29/2004
EDITS, 3/25: "shares unique stories from across the country" completes prior incomplete sentence "which honors Americans who've ." (Thanks, Gary!) Link to ABC News site added. posted by Thomas Nephew at 6:00:00 PM -- |    

 
Bill Fristian, the grandstanding Christian
While we're on the topic of disgusting simulated concern for helpless victims, who can forget Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist's visit to tsunami-ravaged Sri Lanka earlier this year:

Just before his helicopter lifted off, Frist and aides took snapshots of each other near a pile of tsunami debris.

'Get some devastation in the back,' Frist told a photographer.

(CBS News, via Andrew Sullivan; previously posted on January 9, 2005.) posted by Thomas Nephew at 5:45:00 PM -- |    

 
A culture of lies
Congress is in special session tonight; it is likely to decide to butt in on the death of Terry Schiavo, a private matter adequately adjudicated by the state of Florida.

This is all put forward under the heading "a culture of life" by hypocrites and political hacks like Tom DeLay and George W. Bush. Duncan Black ("Atrios") points out that "In 1999 then governor Bush signed a law which allowed hospitals to withdraw life support from patients, over the objections of the family, if they consider the treatment to be nonbeneficial." That means no dramatic, late night actions on behalf of Spiro Nikolouzos, whose family's inability to pay means he'll be unplugged whether his mouth is frozen in a vegetative smile or not. Meanwhile,

ABC News has obtained talking points circulated among Republican senators explaining why they should vote to intervene in the Schiavo case. Among them: "This is an important moral issue and the pro-life base will be excited..." and "This is a great political issue... this is a tough issue for Democrats." (via No More Mister Nice Blog, via numerous others)

Let's not forget Bill Frist's drive-by diagnosis yesterday that Schiavo is not in a persistent vegetative state.* Or Tom DeLay eagerly hopping on board to throw around charges of murder and homicide.

Lindsay Beyerstein ("Majikthise") reports that a "blogswarm" is forming asking people to register their disgust with making a political football out of (1) a person's personal decision how to end her life, and (2) this country's constitution, all for the sake of a so-called "culture of life." That ABC News item makes ours look more like a culture of lies.

This is the perfect Republican news item and ploy: use an emotional story that is no one's business as a crowbar to undermine personal autonomy, and to undermine the authority of any other governmental entity than the majority Congressional party. "Saving" Terry Schiavo's life via the Fox/CNN-to-Congress-to-White House double play today will lead to more "unprecedented" (the ubiquitous description on the 11 o'clock news tonight) shenanigans like this down the road.

For a crash course in the details and implications of the case, see Lindsay Beyerstein's richly linked and well written Schiavo Reprise I, broadly organized under "what's at stake" (a patient's right to refuse medical treatment) and "what's not at stake" headings. One wee little thing that's not at stake is Schiavo's prognosis:

Nor is there any doubt that her condition is permanent. Her higher brain centers have been destroyed and replaced by fluid.

This is a nauseating spectacle. The Republican leadership should be ashamed of itself, as should its supporters. But they are apparently lost to that particular feeling, requiring as it does a sense of humility, also known as recognition of the limits of one's own wisdom and authority.


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* EDIT, 3/23: removed the incorrect assertion that it was Schiavo's "smile" that convinced Frist she is not in a permanent vegetative state. Rather, it was her response to visual stimuli -- something that PVS victims often display, according to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. (NINDS item via an excellent post on the medical background by Rivka ("Respectful of Otters"). posted by Thomas Nephew at 11:40:00 PM -- |    

 
Bankruptcy bill hackery: the sequel
An evidently nettled Ms. Gail Heriot responded to "Bankruptcy Bill Hackery" last week with a lengthy post defending her National Review Online article ("Misdiagnosed") against my description of it as a "spectacularly stupid" analysis.

I had pointed out that the authors' claim was not quite what Heriot or news coverage implied: medical causes -- including but not limited to bills -- led to around half of all bankruptcies. In particular, the number of people having any one of four sometimes overlapping problems --

1. Bankruptcy attributed to specific illness or injury (28.3% of all respondents), and/or
   
2. Loss of two or more weeks of work due to illness or injury (21.3%), and/or
   
3. Unrecovered medical bills exceeding $1000 in the two years before filing for bankruptcy (27.0%), and/or
   
4. Mortgaged home to pay medical bills (2.0%)...

... amounted to 46.2% of bankruptcies. Cases lacking these features, but attributed to gambling, drug addiction, and/or births or deaths in the family accounted for another 8.3% of all bankruptcies, for a total of 54.5% of all bankruptcies.

My main criticism was that Ms. Heriot ignored the contribution of the second reason (loss of two or more weeks of work due to illness or injury) to medical causes of bankruptcy. In her response, Ms. Heriot doggedly repeats the mistake:

Nephew, however, thinks that I should have also pointed out that in 21.3% of bankruptcies, the debtor or the debtor’s spouse had lost at least two weeks of work-related income because of illness or injury." Gosh, I thought I was being nice by using the larger 28.3% figure. In writing the National Review Online piece, I was willing to assume for the sake of brevity that the 28.3% was a fair one. In fact, I believe that even that figure is probably substantially overstated. But if Nephew would prefer that I use the lesser figure of 21.3%, then fine. The point is that it is misleading to claim that 54.5% of all bankruptcies have a "medical cause." It simply isn’t so.

Barring egregious errors in the conduct or tabulation of the survey: yes, it simply is so. The 21.3% and 28.3% figures aren't numbers to choose between to describe the prevalence of medical-related bankruptcies, they describe partly overlapping groups to combine.

Ms. Heriot herself seems to recognize this in her next and penultimate paragraph, when she describes the groups as "overlapping substantially." Exactly so -- but, crucially, they do not overlap perfectly. Thus, the report indicates that these two figures, together with the 27.0% (large medical bills) and 2.0% (mortaged home to pay medical bills) -- fail to overlap enough that 46.2% of bankruptcies are undeniably medically related in one or more of these four ways. The balance of the 54.5% figure (gambling, drugs, births, etc.) can be nitpicked if you're so inclined, which I'm not. But either way, you've got about half of bankruptcies being medically related.

The early part of Ms. Heriot's rebuttal is devoted to demonstrating that the authors and their publicists made points about the national health care system based on these findings. But why not? Even if you examine the 27.0% figure by itself, that's a lot of people bankrupted -- the authors estimate well over one million -- who can unambiguously point to lack of adequate health care coverage as a major reason. But we all draw the line somewhere; Ms. Heriot's concerns are apparently only activated by causes bankrupting twice or so that number of Americans -- hence, perhaps, her rhetorical struggle to push the medical-related bankruptcy figure below the magic 50% mark.

In "Misdiagnosed", Heriot makes a revealing statement: "Nobody likes to pay $1,000 in medical expenses even when they get two years to do it in, but for most Americans (particularly those with enough at stake to seek the protection of bankruptcy) it is not catastrophic." Spoken like a tenured law professor! To one person, $1,000 is chump change; to another, it's the final straw. Debates about bankruptcy aren't about "most Americans," they're about the ones at the end of their financial ropes. Let's be sure to scoff from our armchairs while they dangle.

It was ungentlemanly to use the word "stupid" in my earlier criticism, but in my defense, I used it instead of "mean spirited." Readers may judge whether either or both descriptions apply.


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EDIT, 10/17/2006: "you've got half of bankruptcies being medically related," not "you've got half of medical bankruptcies." posted by Thomas Nephew at 10:19:00 PM -- |