Good news. It's getting a little harder, at least for the moment, for our government to kill our own citizens. From the AP coverage...

No. It's not cruel and unusual. It's very kind and thoughtful. Idiot.

The government in the state of Florida can't seem to get anything right. According to one of the anti-Death Penalty advocates quoted in the story, "Florida has certainly deservedly earned a reputation for being a state that conducts botched executions."

Go ahead and replace "executions" with "elections" (as you probably already have) and the sentence is equally true. Although, as far as we know, nobody's head has caught fire while voting in Florida, as apparently occurred twice during electric-chair executions in the state during the 90's. Lovely.

Meanwhile, good news on the Government Not Murdering Its Own Citizens front in both California, and even Missouri...

During our travels last summer, one of our stops was in St. Paul, Minnesota (lovely city, btw, first time there!), where I had been invited to be a panelist on PBS's Mental Engineering program. The show takes an amusing look at four different TV commercials each week, and then criticizes the hell out of them. It was a nice change of pace. Bill Moyers says the show is "the most interesting weekly half hour of social commentary and criticism on television." On the other hand, New York Times calls it "brilliant". So proceed at your own risk.

When the host/producer John Forde found out who my longtime companion is (actress Desi Doyen, who had actually been featured in one of the commercials they'd critiqued from the Super Bowl), he was thrilled to invite her onto the show as a panelist as well. She's the gorgeous one sitting to my left. Also filling out the panel was gorgeous comedian Tom Rhodes and gorgeous media professor Renee Hobbs. It was a hoot.

The first episode we shot last Summer begins airing this Sunday on PBS (check listings for local air dates and times). The second episode will begin airing next Sunday.

For your dancing pleasure, here's a quick video clip of one of the segments --- in which we tear apart one of Chrysler's bizarre "Doctor Z" spots --- just to give you a taste...

Guest Blogged by Alan Breslauer

Life is good! That is, if you work for Big Oil or had "a bang-up year" like investment banking firm Goldman Sachs. Goldman, which was helmed by Henry Paulson until his May appointment by President Bush to Treasury Secretary, announced year end bonuses for its 26,500 employees averaging $623,418.

Alas, if you don't work in "high finance" you need not be "green with envy" because a good stock market translates to a good economy and, according to Forbes Senior Editor Neil Weinberg, "a trickle down effect where the people who are making this kind of money are also going to be spending a lot of money."

Hopefully someone remembers to tell the 35 million Americans living with "low food security" (hunger), the 37 million Americans living under the poverty line and the 46 million uninsured Americans that the trickle is coming. This might prove a difficult sell to the newly minted 5.4 million who moved into the poverty neighborhood since President Bush took office.

Elderly Americans, 2 in 5 of whom are living on less than $18,000 a year including Social Security benefits, are not likely to do cartwheels upon hearing that the trickle is on its way either. And the low-income Americans with disabilities who experienced 50% cuts in their housing programs, might wonder if they will receive additional trickle. It would be unfair, however, to say that the poor have not made some gains under President Bush. For example, now the IRS makes sure that half of all audits are conducted on Americans making less than $25,000 per year...

No real news here. But now it's official...And damned good to see in print...

Someone pinch me. I think it's for real. Rest of the letter here...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

"Almost any system, including paperless touch-screen voting systems, can be jury-rigged to attach a printer and generate a hard copy of each voter's choices. That is a far more complicated, and potentially troublesome, process than one which generates a real, live, legally valid paper ballot; it does nothing, for example, to mitigate the security risks that so many researchers have exposed in a number of e-voting systems. In addition, I suspect that no matter what type of voting system is involved, paper ballots are likely to carry far more legal weight in a court challenge --- thus allowing a judge to rule on the matter as quickly and confidently as possible and to keep the process moving along."...

Please click here to tell your Congress Members you agree!

More than 35 non-partisan Election Integrity organizations, many of them previously supporters of Rep. Rush Holt's HR550 Election Reform legislation, are launching a campaign today designed to send a clear message to Congress that American Democracy needs nothing less than a paper ballot --- not a "trail" or a "record" --- for every vote cast.

A press release from the groups is now posted here.

VelvetRevolution.us, of which The BRAD BLOG is a co-founder, has worked with a number of other leading national non-partisan Election Integrity organizations --- including VoterAction.org, VotersUnite.org, the National Voting Rights Institute, TrueMajorityAction.org, the Dolores Huerta Foundation --- and many state and local groups to release the following Open Letter this morning...

This is a crucial moment as Congress finally begins to introduce Election Reform legislation that --- we hope --- may go a long way towards correcting so many of the ills plaguing our democracy since the introduction of the horribly flawed Help America Vote Act (HAVA) of 2002.

The BRAD BLOG has reported on, and spoken many times about, the need for a paper ballot for every vote cast. While it won't cure every ill facing our democracy today, it is arguably the most important element needed to ensure eventual reform. The reasons for that need, and the necessity of doing away with all Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) voting systems in the bargain, are plainly summarized in the letter below.

We've also discussed the need here for citizens to rise up and help take their democracy back. Now is the moment for us to make that happen. We ask that all citizens join us by Emailing the following letter to their Congress Members. We've made it simple for you, and ask that you take the matter into your own hands by circulating this address far and wide to help spread the message:

http://www.VelvetRevolut...s/Campaigns/PaperBallots

The time is now...The letter is below...

The Young Turks' Cenk Uygur hits the ball out of the park (and out of the stadium, as far as I'm concerned) railing about the "neutrality fetish" of our failed corporate mainstream media. Make no mistake, the CMSM now have immeasurable buckets of blood on their hands --- and they will for years to come no matter what they do now --- in regard to the situation America (and the rest of the world) now find ourselves in.

I missed Cenk's original must-read rant when it ran back in October, but it deserves to be read in its entirety by all of us today. And after you've read that, don't miss his must-watch, 100% on-the-mark ballistic freakout, captured on video, on this topic from his show back in September.

Here's a sample from the October article, explaining the difference --- for those who still don't get it --- between the objectivity today's CMSM is supposed to deliver, versus the inexcusable and deadly neutrality they offer us instead:

Don't miss that video.

But returning to a bit more from his written article where he (a Republican until just about five years ago, btw) continues his message to the media, holding them accountable (again, dead on the money) for their failure to appropriately highlight how the Military Commissions Act --- signed by Bush just prior to the election --- eviscerated the U.S. Constitution and the natural born rights of every American citizen by killing habeas corpus...

(Hat-tip Bob Geiger.)

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

Poor software design, serious IT management inefficiencies and an untested deployment of a critical application were all major factors in last month's Election Day problems in Denver, according to a scathing report from an IT consultant. The problems led to hours-long delays for voters looking to cast ballots and raised questions about the overall efficacy of e-voting. / The challenge is on in Riverside California and it appears that the county supervisors are back-peddling a bit and distancing themselves from the man who made the challenge, Jeff Stone who may be out $1M if he accepts the challenge and the hack is accomplished....

As usual, we scooped everyone yesterday with our scintillating coverage of noted computer security expert/programmer Harri Hursti's agreement to accept the challenge thrown down by Riverside County, California, Supervisor Jeff Stone to allow someone to come in an attempt to "manipulate" the county's electronic voting equipment made by Sequoia Voting Systems.

The local media in Southern California, however, have now been fairly quick to jump into the game as well with several articles on the matter so far today. Their reports reveal that both the County Board of Supervisors and Sequoia, both as expected, are beginning to try and create some wiggle room to back out from the "thousand to one" bet Stone made publicly last week to local Election Integrity advocates.

Several national Election Integrity individuals and watchdog organization VelvetRevolution.us (VR) have staked $1000 on the bet and have helped to facilitate the participation of Hursti. None of the press coverage dealt with that point. [DISCLOSURE: The BRAD BLOG is a co-founder of VelvetRevolution.us and would be more than willing to discuss that aspect with any such media, if they wish. We can be reached here.]

Stone's video-taped shot-from-the-hip "bet" to local advocate Maxine Ewig, allowing that he would arrange with a programmer to "set up an appointment with one of our machines and...verify that they can manipulate that machine," was issued during a public meeting of the Board of Supervisors last week. (Streaming video of the exchange can be seen here, a text transcript is here.)

Stone also added, "And maybe we should bring the media in and let’s see if your programmer can manipulate that machine. My guess is that it is not gonna happen, but I’m willing to take a chance on that."

Well, the "media" are "in" for the moment. Yet reports in the news today already indicate that the rest of Riverside County's all-Republican 5-person Board of Supervisors and the voting machine company, Sequoia, may be less confident than Stone that their equipment can stand up to any actual independent security analysis such as one that Hursti would be likely bring.

For the record, our call to Stone yesterday for comment has still gone unreturned.

Press reports today reveal that both the board, the company --- and even Stone --- are already laying the groundwork for several "outs" for themselves. Anyone surprised? Let's take a look...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

"At least two commissioners and [Broward County] Supervisor of Elections Brenda Snipes question the reliability and credibility of touch-screen machines without a physical record of each vote. They want county staff to explore the cost of several alternatives, among them buying printers for the controversial system or switching to paper ballots that can be read by scanners." It appears that some are beginning to realize they were wrong in their support of paperless voting all along. / Harri Hursti --- The Lead Programmer Who Hacked Diebold Systems in Both Florida and Utah --- Looking Forward to Testing the Security Vulnerability of Riverside County's Systems! Election Integrity Individuals, Group, Stake $1000 for Charity on Supervisor Jeff Stone's Offer!...

An expert computer security programmer who successfully manipulated the results of a mock election held on a Diebold optical-scan voting machine in Florida, as well as finding major security vulnerabilities on a Diebold touch-screen system in Utah, has agreed to meet a public challenge to "manipulate" a Sequoia voting system in Riverside County, California.

Finnish computer security expert Harri Hursti, who along with Dr. Herbert H. Thompson
of Security Innovation accomplished the landmark Diebold voting machine manipulations, has agreed to meet the open challenge put forward by Riverside County Supervisor Jeff Stone during a video-taped public board meeting last week.

Several national Election Integrity individuals, along with the non-partisan watchdog organization VelvetRevolution.us, have agreed to stake $1000 to meet Stone's "thousand to one" bet that the county's voting machines, made by Sequoia Voting Systems, can indeed be manipulated.

As The BRAD BLOG reported last week, the gauntlet was thrown down at the county's Board of Supervisors meeting when, during the public comment period, Stone issued his challenge to Maxine Ewig, an Election Integrity advocate from the SAVE R VOTE project of Democracy for America (DFA) - Temecula Valley.

(Our original story linked to a video of the exchange as posted on the County's website. A different camera angle on the challenge, revealing an interesting expression or two from the County's Executive Officer, Larry Parrish, is now posted here in Streaming Flash Video, appx. 2 and a half minutes.)

The SAVE R VOTE members were on hand at the meeting to express a series of concerns about the security and accuracy of the county's voting systems in light of problems which plagued the county's 2006 election. The county has decided to create a "Blue Ribbon Commission" to look into reported problems, but announced today that they will not be including any of the Election Integrity advocate citizens from SAVE R VOTE on the panel.

After denials from several Supervisors that there were serious security concerns in their voting systems, DFA's Maxine Ewig had informed the board during the public comment period last week that she had been told by a programmer that they "had not seen any machine or program that could not be manipulated."

In response, Stone interrupted to make his challenge, offering "to set up an appointment with one of our machines" in order to "verify that [a programmer] can manipulate that machine."

"I'm gonna bet a thousand to one that they cannot do it," Stone said, before adding, "we should bring the media in" to witness the attempted manipulation.

It wouldn't be the first time Hursti hacked a voting system in front of the media. Both he and Thompson were seen performing a now-infamous Diebold optical-scan system hack in Leon County, Florida, in the recent HBO documentary film Hacking Democracy.

Hursti, writing to The BRAD BLOG from Shanghai where he is currently working on another project, decried the lack of "hack testing" for electronic voting systems now used across America and welcomed the opportunity to test Riverside's Sequoia system.

"It is important that all vendors' makes and models are tested against obvious attacks," he wrote.

Prior to the final confirmation of Hursti's agreement to participate in the hack test, DFA - Temecula Valley issued a press release this morning lauding Stone for the opportunity being presented for independent experts to test the county's voting system vulnerabilities. (Complete press release posted at end of this article.)

In an email sent to The BRAD BLOG earlier today, Ewig wrote that she was "pleased [to have] Hursti's commitment to come to Riverside County to demonstrate the vulnerability" of the Sequoia systems.

Security Innovation's Thompson --- who worked with Hursti, along with election watchdog group BlackBoxVoting.org, on the hack of the Diebold optical-scan system in Leon County, FL, last December as well as the touch-screen system last March in Emery County, UT --- was also excited at the opportunity to examine Riverside's voting system....

No worries. After the pathetically unfunny Mallard Fillmore is eventually put out of its misery, we're certain that intimidated newspaper publishers will work hard to find another unfunny "conservative" "comic strip" to take its place. Lest they be accused of not being "balanced" in the funny pages and all...

Seriously, are there any Republicans left out there who don't suffer from blatant and utter hypocrisy?

...begins a report today in ComputerWorld. Miller, of course, is the one who allowed a bill calling for paper ballots to die in the Democratic Maryland Senate just prior to the '06 Election even after both MD's Republican Governor Bob Ehrlich and the Democratic House approved the measure (by a 137 to 0 vote!)

Miller seems on course to screw it all up again for the state by calling for paper "trails" (versus ballots) in Maryland, the first state, along with Georgia, where Diebold was allowed their initial mis-adventure in e-voting by blanketing the state with shitty, unreliable, hackable, inaccurate paperless touch-screen voting machines as early as 2002. Then, of course, both Diebold and the state's Democratic Election Director, Linda Lamone, went about lying and covering up the fact that the machines didn't work and were hopelessly vulnerable.

Miller attempted to spin his way beyond his pre-election failure to the voters and towards not being so horribly wrong with this incomprehensible statement as quoted by CW...

Paul Krugman's Friday column about the praise --- and apologies --- now owed to those who warned us before going into Iraq about what we now face needs to be read by all. Since the complete column is behind the New York Times' iron curtain, I'm joining several other websites out there in reposting the column in its entirety below.

Those who not only ignored but attacked the messengers relentlessly and inexcusably (and worse, attacked their patriotism in the bargain!) prior to the ill-conceived assault on Baghdad and just after it's "fall" should be held accountable for their egregious behavior. Yes, we're talking to you, Fox "News", New Republic, Rush Limbaugh, Weekly Standard, NY Post et al! You owe a lot of people a lot of apologies.

Krugman follows in full. Please read it...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

The EAC was established by HAVA to oversee the implementation of HAVA. Their oversight has been minimal and irresponsible. Instead of providing the informed leadership and guidance the states needed as they purchased and deployed new voting systems, the Commissioners have deferred to the wishes of vendors, propagated preconceived notions of election officials, and acceded to popularly-disseminated misinformation. They have failed to accomplish the goals in their mission statement. It would be very unwise to assign them any new important duties until they begin to fulfill those already assigned to them. ...