Racism is dead.... well, not quite.

Out of Miami, another election-eve embarassment for Republicans -- and a reminder that, however much progress we have made, racism remains.

State Rep. Ralph Arza, facing arrest today for participating in expletive-laced threatening phone calls to a Miami Beach lawmaker, resigned his office Wednesday on the steps of Hialeah City Hall and said he would not seek reelection.

Arza made his announcement as prosecutors filed criminal charges of witness interference against both him and his cousin for their calls to Republican Rep. Gus Barreiro on Oct. 21 and 22, just days after Barreiro filed a Florida House rules complaint against Arza for his use of racially disparaging language.

"We had something that usually we find with street criminals, thugs, drug dealers: trying to intimidate a witness," Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernández Rundle said when she announced the charges Wednesday....

At his news conference hours before, Arza surrounded himself with family and friends, and asked for forgiveness for calling Barreiro a racial slur and "bitch."

How can we measure progress? Well, in the following ways: Arza was widely repudiated and forced to apologize and resign his seat. 50 years ago, that wouldn't have been the case.

But such behavior by an elected official also points up how old attitudes die hard. We'll never eradicate racism, merely ameliorate its effects; but such venom from a position of power suggests we still have a long way to go.

racism, Arza, Florida, politics, midtopia

Compare and contrast

Herewith I provide, without comment, two links.

President Bush on Rumsfeld and Cheney:

President Bush said Wednesday he wants Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Vice President Dick Cheney to remain with him until the end of his presidency, extending a job guarantee to two of the most-vilified members of his administration.

"Both those men are doing fantastic jobs and I strongly support them," Bush said in an interview with The Associated Press and others.

Meanwhile, in Iraq:

U.S. military commanders assessed two weeks ago that
Iraq was edging toward chaos, according to a classified military chart published in the New York Times on Wednesday.

The chart titled "Index of Civil Conflict" shows a color-coded bar with "peace" marked on the left and "chaos" on the right. An arrow puts the current situation inside the red area on the far right, much closer to chaos than peace.

Draw your own conclusions.

Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Iraq, politics, midtopia

Coulter case goes to prosecutors

A new development in the Ann Coulter voting fraud case!

Coulter has refused to cooperate with an election board investigation, so the board will turn the matter over to the state attorney's office this week.

Way to go, Ann. Stonewalling the cops always works so well.

Previous posts are here, here, and here.

For new readers: No, I don't think this is important. But it's always enjoyable to see unpleasant people get their comeuppance.

Coulter, politics, midtopia

Who I'm voting for

In case my opinion carries any weight, here's who I will be voting for next week:

Governor: Peter Hutchinson (I)
House: Jim Ramstad (R, incumbent)
Senate: Amy Klobuchar (D)
State Senate: Terri Bonoff (D, incumbent)
State House: John Benson (D)

Hutchinson stands out as the most thoughtful gubernatorial candidate. Pawlenty's performance has not earned him a second term, and Hatch is long on rhetoric but short on substance.

Ramstad is a moderate Republican who has served the district well. His opponent, Wendy Wilde, has impeccable liberal credentials but little practical experience.

Klobuchar is moderate, smart, and talented. Her opponent, Mark Kennedy, is a deeply conservative Bush lapdog who's about as appealing as Mr. Grumpy himself, Rod Grams.

Bonoff has done a good job in her brief stint in the statehouse. She faces the same opponent -- Judy Johnson -- she did the first time around, and Johnson hasn't provided any reason for voters to think they made a mistake.

Benson has the edge in experience, ideas and education over his affable but green opponent, Dave Johnson.

politics, Minnesota, politics, midtopia

Democratic condescension

This particular trope isn't limited to Democrats, but they happen to be the perpetrators in this instance.

In today's Star Tribune, Lynnell Mickelsen calls on supporters of independent Peter Hutchinson to stop deluding themselves and vote for the Democratic candidate for governor, Mike Hatch. Her closing line:

So, my dear friends, on Nov. 7, buck up and get over yourselves. It's not about you this time. It's about all of us.

Mickelsen has a point: independent candidates, if they don't win, tend to ensure that the candidate most despised by the independent voter will get elected.

But in this case, tough. Pawlenty, while not exactly deserving of a second term, has not been a complete disaster. And Hatch is simply not that impressive. I think he'd do fine as governor, but the gap between him and Pawlenty isn't alarmingly large. The risk of seeing Pawlenty re-elected is worth the chance of putting Hutchinson into office.

But my personal strategy is twofold, because Hatch would, indeed, be my second choice. So if he wins, I'm going to write him and say "This race was far closer than it had to be thanks to Hutchinson siphoning off votes. That's why you need to pass a law legalizing instant-runoff voting. Because in this state, it will almost always be the GOP that benefits from a three-way race. Unless you want to keep seeing GOP candidates win with pluralities, you need to allow voters to prioritize their choices."

Logic would suggest that a Democratic state administration would pursue IRV out of self-interest. I intend to put that logic to the test.

If Pawlenty wins, I'll send the same note. But I won't expect any results, because the GOP knows that the current situation benefits them more than the Democrats. It's not perfect, but it's a risk I'm willing to take.

instant-runoff voting, Pawlenty, Hatch, Hutchinson, Minnesota, politics, midtopia

Sleaze roundup

As we head into the final days before the election, out come the worst sort of attack ads: the ones that won't stand up to scrutiny, so they are released right before the election so they cannot be rebutted in time.

In Colorado: A GOP mailer accuses Democrat Ed Perlmutter of opposing sex-offender notification laws. The bill in question was killed at the request of law enforcement, and Perlmutter helped pass a more comprehensive notification bill the following year.

In Arizona: In a House race, Republican Randy Graf has accused his opponent, Gabrielle Giffords, of engineering a sweetheart land deal with the city of Tuscon -- a charge that appears to be clearly false.

In Virginia: While Democrats fan rumors that Sen. George Allen is a racist domestic abuser who is hiding a criminal record, Allen's campaign has tried to paint challenger James Webb as a sexual deviant based on passages in Webb's bestselling novels.

In Ohio: Republicans accuse Democratic House candidate John Cranley of wanting to use tasers on 7-year-olds.

There's more. FactCheck.org estimates that 90 percent of Republican ads and 80 percent of Democratic ads are negative.

Separately, we have simple political embarassment:

In Washington: John Kerry finally got around to apologizing for his remarks of a couple of days ago. It seems obvious that he simply screwed up an anti-Bush joke, and shame on the Republicans for cynically pushing the issue. But the gaffe -- and his ridiculous response to having it pointed out -- again highlight why he managed to lose to Bush two years ago, and why no Democrats are eager to see him run again. Most, in fact, just wish he would shut up.

In Nevada: A waitress has accused GOP Rep. Jim Gibbons, who is running for governor, of assaulting her. He says he merely helped her when she tripped.

In New York: The Daily News has released details of a 911 call from 2005, in which the wife of GOP Rep John Sweeney said he was "knocking her around the house."

Only six days until it's over.

attack ads, politics, midtopia

Hubble repair mission is a go!

Woo hoo!!

It's scheduled for May 2008. As discussed previously, the repairs will keep it operating until the James Webb telescope comes on line in 2013.

space shuttle, NASA, Hubble, politics, midtopia

The real battle is in the statehouses

While much attention is focused on the federal elections, a more profound change might be underway in state legislatures across the country.

Controlling the statehouses is important for two reasons. One, that's where the future leaders of both parties cut their teeth. Being in control means being able to point to a track record of legislative achievement. It's better practice for governing on a national level than being a perennial opposition party.

More directly, it's the state legislatures that draw Congressional districts after each census. Whichever party controls the statehouses in 2010-11 will be able to draw those districts to their advantage, cementing a decade-long advantage at the national level.

Right now the parties are almost evenly divided. Republicans control both chambers in 20 states; Democrats have that advantage in 19. They are virtually tied in the number of statehouse seats they hold.

If the Democratic wave at the national level is mirrored in local results, Democrats could be poised to take over a solid majority of statehouses. If they retain that control in 2010, it could redraw the political map in their favor.

To be clear, I think gerrymandering is terrible. I've written before about the need to come up with objective formula for drawing districts, and even discussed some proposals for doing exactly that.

So I'm not celebrating the idea of Democrats being able to gerrymander in 2010. But it's hard to overestimate the long-term significance of the local races.

gerrymander, politics, midtopia

Is luck genetic?

I've always thought of myself as a pretty lucky person.

Not lucky in the sense of "being born into a middle-class, well-educated American family", although frankly that's like hitting the jackpot right there. But actually, you know, lucky. I've always seemed to beat the odds more often than most -- winning a raffle, avoiding speeding tickets, winning luck-based games, avoiding random trouble, that sort of thing. Computer errors tend to work in my favor. And despite being a registered voter my entire adult life, I've never once been called for jury duty.

Now I'm beginning to wonder if luck is genetic.

My oldest daughter is 6 years old, and takes after me in most ways (our youngest takes after their mother). A couple of days ago we went to a Halloween party at school. They had the usual array of Halloween activities -- face-painting, trick-or-treating, cookie-decorating, and so on.

But they also had a Bingo table, where five kids played at a time, and you needed to get three numbers in a row to win.

My oldest daughter sat down and won. First time. In three numbers.

Down the hall was a prize room, with a twist: Kids had to stand on squares numbered 1 to 10. If they drew your number, you were allowed to go in and pick a prize. Every time a child went in, their place was taken by a waiting child.

My oldest daughter walked up, stepped on a square, and won. First time.

So in rapid succession, she beat odds of 10 percent and roughly 20 percent. Combined, she beat odds of 2 percent. Less, really, because she won the Bingo game in three draws, an unlikely event in itself.

That's not lottery-winning luck, but it's not bad.

The science-fiction writer Larry Niven wrote several stories set in his Known Space universe that explored the implications of breeding humans for luck. His novel "Ringworld" included one such human, Teela Brown; the short story "Safe at Any Speed" takes the idea into the far future, where generations of breeding have produced extraordinarily lucky people. It's kind of boring.

It was always a neat idea, if not one to be taken seriously. But now I'm beginning to wonder if Niven was right.

Larry Niven, science fiction, genetics, luck, midtopia

Shoe on the other foot?

Speaking of electronic voting machines, Republicans haven't seemed overly concerned at the prospect of them being hackable.

But boy, this seems to have them in a tizzy:

The federal government is investigating the takeover last year of Sequoia Voting Systems of Oakland, a leading American manufacturer of electronic voting systems, by Smartmatic Corp., a small software company that has been linked to the leftist government of President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela.

The federal inquiry is focusing on the Venezuelan owners of the software company, the Smartmatic Corp., and is trying to determine whether the government in Caracas has any control or influence over the firm's operations, government officials and others familiar with the investigation said.

Smartmatic denies any influence, and they may well be telling the truth -- although their connections to the Venezuelan government are more tangled than those of Citgo.

So to recap: A Republican-run company says its machines are secure despite mounds of evidence to the contrary? No problem. A leftist government may have access to our voting machines? Call out the dogs!

Okay, to be fair, the Diebold flap is an issue for state and local election boards, not the federal government, while a Venezuela connection is a federal responsibility. And frankly, I don't care how it happens; any attention or investigation that leads to actually doing something about the integrity of our voting process is a good thing.

But it's still pretty funny.

Venezuela, Smartmatic, politics, midtopia

Will voting machines trip up the GOP in Texas?

The race to replace Rep. Tom DeLay has tightened, with GOP write-in candidate Shelley Sekula-Gibbs polling well against Democrat Nick Lampson.

My money's still on Lampson; telling a pollster you don't mind the write-in candidate, and actually writing her name on the ballot, are two different things.

Especially because of this:

The third option on that ballot is "write-in." Voters who make that selection on the electronic voting machines that most will use are directed to an alphabet screen, where they use a wheel to spell out their choice's name a letter at a time.

I think this is terrible; writing in a candidate's name should be a lot easier than that. As it is, I suspect only the most ardent write-in supporters will go to the trouble.

But it's also rather ironic that an electronic-voting machine glitch may end up costing the GOP one of their safest seats.

Sekula-Gibbs, Tom Delay, Lampson, politics, midtopia

To the sun (and Hubble)

A couple of days ago, NASA launched a major new scientific mission: the Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory.

No, it's not a diplomatic effort, though as an aside that is part of the plot of the science fiction novel Cusp, by Robert Metzger. It's a mission to observe the sun and study solar flares.

Scientists hope the $550 million, two-year mission will help them understand why these eruptions occur, how they form and what path they take.

The eruptions _ called solar flares _ typically blow a billion tons of the sun's atmosphere into space at a speed of 1 million mph. The phenomenon is responsible for the Northern Lights, or aurora borealis, the luminous display of lights seen in the upper latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere.

Besides being just plain cool -- the twin spacecraft will send back 3-D images of the sun -- and likely to provide a torrent of scientific data, this mission demonstrates why exploring our solar system is important. Besides causing the Northern Lights, solar flares damage satellites and disrupt communications networks. Learning how and why they develop will have a practical payoff back here on Earth.

With STEREO launched and on its way, NASA is now turning its attention to a more problematic issue: whether to mount one last repair mission to the Hubble telescope. A decision is expected to be announced on Tuesday.

If Griffin says "go," the mission could launch as early as 2008, providing 7,000 astronomers worldwide with five more years of access to the famous telescope — along with better instruments to explore the depths of the universe and its evolution.

But a Hubble mission would also be the only flight before the shuttle's retirement in 2010 that could not reach the International Space Station in case of emergency. That scenario has worried NASA since 2003, when the shuttle Columbia was damaged by debris on liftoff and burned up during reentry. All seven crew members died.

If NASA decides not to save Hubble, astronomers would be without an orbiting telescope until its successor, the James Webb telescope, is launched in 2013.

James Webb, solar observatory, Hubble, NASA, politics, midtopia

Gay marriage in New Jersey?

Not quite marriage, no. But New Jersey's Supreme Court has ruled that gay couples have the same legal rights as heterosexual couples.

In a ruling that fell short of what either side wanted or feared, the state Supreme Court declared 4-3 that homosexual couples are entitled to the same rights as heterosexual ones. The justices gave lawmakers 180 days to rewrite the laws.

Here's a nice Q&A on the case.

The justices stopped short of recognizing a right to same-sex marriage, but they concluded -- logically enough -- that benefits made available to straight couples have to be made available to gay couples, too.

And that 4-3 vote? Not what you might think. The three dissenters argued that the court didn't go far enough. They wanted the court to recognize gay marriage as a right.

So now the state Legislature has 180 days to legalize either gay marriage or civil unions. Meanwhile, state Republicans said they would try to pass a constitutional amendment banning same-sex unions. And one, Assemblyman Richard Merkt, said he would try to have all seven justices impeached. What a charmer.

The score so far? Massachusetts allows gay marriage; Vermont and Connecticut allow civil unions. 16 states have amended their constitutions to ban gay marriage, and eight more are considering doing so.

This patchwork will create some interesting situations going forward. The continued existence of same-sex union states will belie the "sky is falling" rhetoric used to oppose it. A growing number of marriages recognized in one state but not another -- and the injustices caused by that -- will put pressure on states to adopt a uniform treatment.

Most promising, civil unions likely will spread as a reasonable compromise, hindered a bit by overly broad constitutional amendments passed too quickly and carelessly. And that may help nudge the nation toward the one solution that could be acceptable to all: getting the government out of the marriage business. The law would then become civil unions for everyone, marriage for those who want it.

Which, by the way, is a near-perfect example of how keeping the government out of religion ends up being the best guarantor of religious liberty. The government can provide legal and tax benefits based on objective criteria, serving its secular purpose. And marriage, its direct connection to those benefits severed, can be freely bestowed or withheld by each church as it sees fit.

I truly believe that in 20 years, people will wonder what all the fuss was about.

civil unions, gay marriage, New Jersey, politics, midtopia

Let the mudslinging begin

We take you first to Ohio, where Ken Blackwell has gone completely off the deep end.

With polls showing him so far behind that he could drag the entire Republican ticket down to defeat, Secretary of State Ken Blackwell launched an attack last week that took political discourse in Ohio to unplumbed depths.

In the last of four debates, Blackwell accused his Democratic rival for governor, Rep. Ted Strickland, of covering up for a campaign staff member who exposed himself to children and supporting the platform of NAMBLA, the North American Man/Boy Love Association.

By the week's end, the allegations had become more bizarre and outlandish.

More bizarre and outlandish? Well, yes. Not from Blackwell himself, but from two of his prominent supporters, who for some reason feel it's important to imply (or, indeed, openly speculate) that the married Strickland is gay.

The "coverup" allegation involves a staffer convicted of public indecency -- a misdemeanor -- in 1994 for exposing himself near an elementary school.

Strickland says he received an anonymous letter in 1998 during a heated campaign, asked the man about it and dropped the matter after the staffer denied it. After the campaign, the staffer accompanied Strickland on a trip to Italy. He left Strickland's staff in 1999.

Coverup? Of an incident that occurred four years previously and had nothing to do with Strickland? Criticize him for being incurious, perhaps. But then one might ask how relevant a four-year-old misdemeanor conviction is.

The NAMBLA allegation revolves around this:

But LoParo said Blackwell also questions Strickland's judgment for agreeing with NAMBLA by not supporting a congressional resolution in 1999 that condemned an article about child sexual abuse.

Strickland, a psychologist, said he disagreed with the resolution's assertion that an abused child cannot have healthy relationships as an adult.

Way to go, Blackwell. You've proven that there are still unplumbed depths of political mudslinging.

Strickland, Blackwell, Ohio, politics, midtopia

What if the Democrats win?

In what strikes me as a sign of desperation, Republicans have been trying to scare people with the prospect of what the Democrats might do if they take over Congress. Socialized medicine! Tax hikes! Impeachment! The destruction of the country! You just know that a bunch of people are going to go trick-or-treating as Speaker Nancy Pelosi this year, claiming it's the scariest thing they can think of.

I won't get into the silliness of such claims, like the National Review claiming Charlie Rangel would eliminate 529 savings plans or abolish the child tax credit -- all because he said he couldn't think of a single Bush tax cut he liked.

Then there's the little matter of Pelosi specifically ruling out impeachment proceedings.

And I'll content myself with briefly noting that Democrats have been in charge for much of this century and the country is still standing, still a superpower, still the biggest economy on earth, and best I can recall we haven't been invaded and conquered during that time.

Set all that aside. Let's assume the Democrats are in fact Communists in Donkey dress, and if elected they will shed their disguises and put a bust of Lenin in the House chamber.

So what?

Even if the Democrats take both the House and the Senate, they will not command veto-proof majorities. Bush may have to exercise his veto pen for once, but his vetoes will stick unless his own party revolts against him. And the Republican minority will use all the procedural tricks they've decried for the past decade -- filibusters, Senatorial holds, what have you -- to derail Democratic bills they don't like.

The most significant threat, in fact, doesn't involve Pelosi at all; it involves Harry Reid. Because if the Democrats manage to take the Senate, they can block a lot of Bush's judicial appointments. But even that power is limited; they can block, but they can't nominate. And Bush can make recess appointments, or simply make hay out of all the judicial vacancies the Dems are letting pile up.

So the plain fact is that all the nation risks by letting the Democrats take over is a two-year standoff with the White House. That may actually be a good thing; but in any event I'd rather risk that than let the GOP remain in charge after the hash they've made of things in the past six years.

It's time for a change. Republicans had their chance; let's see what the Democrats can come up with.

Bush, Congress, Reid, Pelosi, politics, midtopia

The moving target of Nov. 7

Predicting who is going to win the upcoming election is a bit of a fool's game. But here are two interesting and slightly contradictory factors.

On the Democrat side of the ledger, the GOP's effort to lure minority voters appears to be in jeopardy.

A major effort to draw Latinos and blacks into the Republican Party, a central element of the GOP plan to build a long-lasting majority, is in danger of collapse amid anger over the immigration debate and claims that Republican leaders have not delivered on promises to direct more money to church-based social services.

President Bush, strategist Karl Rove and other top Republicans have wooed Latino and black leaders, many of them evangelical clergy who lead large congregations, in hopes of peeling away the traditional Democratic base. But now some of the leaders who helped Bush win in 2004 are revisiting their loyalty to the Republican Party and, in some cases, abandoning it.

This has been a major and, I believe, sincere push by Ken Mehlman at the RNC, with some help from the White House. But he's been frustrated by members of his own party, particularly by the border-fence bill.

Separately, Dick Morris is claiming that recent polls show GOP candidates closing the gap on their Democratic rivals. Take that with a grain of salt, because it's Dick Morris and he's relying in part on what he says are internal candidate polls.

More tangible is the GOP advantage in cash and get-out-the-vote organization. As the link explains, the effect of the last is hard to gauge. But it's worth noting that Howard Dean's "50 state" project is in part an emulation of the GOP, trying to build effective grass-roots organizations all across the country both to improve Democratic turnout and force the GOP to spend money defending seats they currently take for granted.

A lot of moving parts. It'll be interesting to see how it turns out.

politics, midtopia

Bombast and bloviating

With Ann Coulter apparently keeping a low profile (for her), let's check in on Rush Limbaugh. Sure, it's like shooting fish in a barrel, but that's why we have celebrity loudmouths. So lessee. What is Rush up to?

Oh, my.

A political ad in which a Parkinson's-afflicted Michael J. Fox talks about stem cell research was criticized Monday by conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh, who asserted that Fox was "either off his medication or acting" while filming the commercial.

"Michael J. Fox is allowing his illness to be exploited and in the process is shilling for a Democrat politician," Limbaugh said of the ad for Senate candidate Claire McCaskill of Missouri.

Setting aside the condescension oozing from that last remark, let's check out the rest of his claims.

Here's the ad in question. Fox similarly slammed Michael Steele of Maryland, for similarly opposing stem-cell research.

Yup, Michael sure is weaving around a lot. Does Rush know something we don't?

No. He's just ignorant.

SIDE EFFECTS: Most patients receiving levodopa-carbidopa experience side effects, but these are usually reversible. Occasional involuntary movements are the most common of the serious side effects of levodopa-carbidopa therapy. These may include chewing, gnawing, twisting, tongue or mouth movements, head bobbing, or movements of the feet, hands, or shoulder.

So apparently Fox wasn't "off his medication;" his medication was causing the problem. Having established that Rush is more than willing to pontificate about things he knows nothing about, let's move on to the more substantive issue of slamming Fox for doing the commercial.

Here's how Rush defended his statements about Fox and Amendment 2.

The ad is misleading in countless ways, primarily in the most fundamental of ways. Remember that the Amendment 2 in Missouri is simply a cloning amendment that would legalize cloning in the state of Missouri. It is called the stem cell research and cures initiative and has nothing to do with stem cell research. The Michael J. Fox ad says that Jim Talent and Michael Steele want to criminalize stem cell research. They don't. Stem cell research is legal in both states, and it is ongoing at universities in both states.

Here's the full text of the proposed Amendment, which Jim Talent opposes.

So, Rush is (big suprise) dead wrong when he says Amendment 2 has nothing to do with stem cells. It would specifically legalize stem-cell research, with certain restrictions. And it would specifically outlaw cloning. Rush needs to get new researchers.

Talent opposes Amendment 2. Because Amendment 2 would explicitly legalize and protect stem-cell research, Fox says Talent opposes stem-cell research.

One may be able to split hairs by claiming "well, Talent supports such research if no blastocysts are harmed" or the like. But such fine and impractical distinctions aside, Rush is off base. Talent, quite clearly, opposes an amendment that would legalize stem-cell research.

Meanwhile, Steele opposes stem-cell research in even stronger terms.

Rush says any claim that Talent and Steele want to criminalize such research is off base because stem-cell research is already legal. That's a bit of sophistry, however; the legal status of such research is far from clear. The whole point of Amendment 2 is to provide clarity by crafting a specific and narrow protection.

Another reason why listening to Rush kills brain cells.

stem cells, Fox, Limbaugh, politics, midtopia

God and the Founding Fathers?

You often hear the claim that the United States is a "Judeo-Christian" nation, founded on "Judeo-Christian" values. This is usually used as a preface to argue that the government should be heavily involved in religious speech.

But it's bunk. And it has never been so eloquently pointed out as it was this weekend by George Will, in a review of "Moral Minority: Our Skeptical Founding Fathers" by Brooke Allen.

I'll let Will do the talking on this one:

Eighteenth-century deists believed there was a God but, tellingly, they frequently preferred synonyms for him — “Almighty Being” or “Divine Author” (Washington) or “a Superior Agent” (Jefferson). Having set the universe in motion like a clockmaker, Providence might reward and punish, perhaps in the hereafter, but does not intervene promiscuously in human affairs. (Washington did see “the hand of Providence” in the result of the Revolutionary War.) Deists rejected the Incarnation, hence the divinity of Jesus. “Christian deist” is an oxymoron.

Allen’s challenge is to square the six founders’ often pious public words and behavior with her conviction that their real beliefs placed all six far from Christianity. Her conviction is well documented, exuberantly argued and quite persuasive.

When Franklin was given some books written to refute deism, the deists’ arguments “appeared to me much stronger than the refutations; in short, I soon became a thorough deist.” Revelation “had indeed no weight with me.” He believed in a creator and the immortality of the soul, but considered these “the essentials of every religion.”

What Allen calls Washington’s “famous gift of silence” was particularly employed regarding religion. But his behavior spoke. He would not kneel to pray, and when his pastor rebuked him for setting a bad example by leaving services before communion, Washington mended his ways in his austere manner: he stayed away from church on communion Sundays. He acknowledged Christianity’s “benign influence” on society, but no ministers were present and no prayers were uttered as he died a Stoic’s death.

Adams declared that “phylosophy looks with an impartial Eye on all terrestrial religions,” and told a correspondent that if they had been on Mount Sinai with Moses and had been told the doctrine of the Trinity, “We might not have had courage to deny it, but We could not have believed it.” It is true that the longer he lived, the shorter grew his creed, and in the end his creed was Unitarianism.

Jefferson, writing as a laconic utilitarian, urged his nephew to inquire into the truthfulness of Christianity without fear of consequences: “If it ends in a belief that there is no god, you will find incitements to virtue in the comforts and pleasantness you feel in its exercise, and the love of others which it will procure you.”

Madison, always common-sensical, briskly explained — essentially, explained away — religion as an innate appetite: “The mind prefers at once the idea of a self-existing cause to that of an infinite series of cause & effect.” When Congress hired a chaplain, he said “it was not with my approbation.”

There's more. It's a good read for anybody interested in the religious underpinnings (or lack thereof) of our nation.

George Will, Brooke Allen, Founding Fathers, religion, politics, midtopia

Use. Paper.

Yet another report out about how vulnerable electronic voting machines are to hackers.

But ABC News has obtained an independent report commissioned by the state of Maryland and conducted by Science Applications International Corporation revealing that the original Diebold factory passwords are still being used on many voting machines.

The SAIC study also shows myriad other security flaws, including administrative over-ride passwords that cannot be changed by local officials but can be used by hackers or those who have seen the discs.

The report further states that one of the high risks to the system comes if operating code discs are lost, stolen or seen by unauthorized parties — precisely what seems to have occurred with the discs sent to Kagan, who worries that the incident indicates the secret source code is not that difficult to obtain.

"Certainly, just tweaking a few votes in a couple of states could radically change the outcome of our policies for the coming year," she said.

Gee, ya think?

This has been a known problem for at least two years now. The fact that Diebold is still denying that a problem exists does little to enhance their credibility.

The solution is simple: a verifiable paper ballot that can be counted as a backup system. It's a step Diebold has fought tooth and nail.

I'm at the point where I think any vote conducted by electronic voting with no paper trail should be presumed to be fraudulent if the outcome is even remotely close -- say, within 10 or 15 percentage points.

Republicans rail about voter fraud and push through photo ID requirements for voting -- not coincidentally, a move expected to depress Democratic turnout. But they seem to be resistant to doing something about potential hacking of the voting machines themselves, a more equal-opportunity vulnerability.

Both are flaws that need fixing. This is not about partisan politics; it's about ensuring the integrity of the voting process.

If the security of the new machines cannot be established in time, they should not be used for the Nov. 7 vote.

Diebold, politics, midtopia

How much lockstep?

No commentary here, just a great resource: A list of how faithfully every Representative voted with Bush over the last two years.

Give it a look when deciding whether to send an incumbent back to Washington on Nov. 7. Principled agreement I respect; slavish obeyance I don't.

politics, midtopia