Thursday, November 30, 2000

Saving the planet

Sunday, the U.N. climate summit at The Hague collapsed, with much finger-pointing at the United States and the European Union for failing to reach some consensus. Enivronmentalists have bemoaned the likely victory of George W. Bush in the U.S. presidential race; and there is hope that the climate summit will be revived sometime next year, particularly after the election dust settles in this country. Meantime, environmental issues were shoved to the back burner during the U.S. presidential campaign, with attention largely focused on Medicare and Social Security.

Fred Branfman: Earth in the balance, indeed -- "Al Gore should concede, to save the planet -- and himself." This is not a cutesy piece; it is one of the most uplifting, thoughtful things I have read during the 2000 election.

Branfman mourns, "I hoped you would win this time. Although your lack of courage on the environment was deeply disappointing, you would clearly be a far better president than Bush, a man who diminishes everything he touches, who could not read let alone understand your book [Earth in the Balance] and whose first act was to appoint Andrew Card as his chief of staff -- a leader of the fight against the Kyoto climate change treaty as chief lobbyist for the automotive industry."

Branfman urges Gore to use the next four years to get his act together, so to speak, and to campaign for the White House in 2004 "with a poular mandate for the environmentalism you once espoused, but abandoned in this election."

Tuesday, November 28, 2000

Reuters: Gore wants fast recounts; Bush sends in new lawyers -- "Gore accused his rival of trying to 'run out the clock' with legal delays that would spin out the process until a Dec. 12 deadline for picking Florida's representatives to the Electoral College."

In a case discussed in early October, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled drug roadblocks unconstitutional, "ruling they violate privacy rights of innocent motorists." [Reuters]

A new study suggests that men listen with only half of their brains. Uh-oh...

CNN: Sentate panel presses FBI for 'Carnivore' data -- The Senate Judiciary Committee is still trying to ferret out what the FBI's e-mail surveillance system really entails. The FBI has repeatedly stated that 'Carnivore' only can only read "To" and "From" information contained in e-mail involving a suspect under investigation. However, in a November 21 letter to FBI director Louis Freeh, Orrin Hatch and Patrick Leahy "cited records of a test showing Carnivore 'could reliably capture and archive all unfiltered traffic' transmitted through an ISP and store the communications on a hard drive or removable disks." Translation: It can read any and all e-mail passing through an internet service provider.

Sunday, November 26, 2000

7:30 P.M. EST -- Florida Secretary of State Katharine Harris has certified Bush the winner in Florida by 537 votes. (That represents approximately .00895 percent of the votes cast in Florida.)

Davenet: Wag the Dog II? -- "Thinking about all this, in all seriousness, I wonder if the election is a cover for some deeper trauma that we don't know much about. Is it Seven Days in May? Or Wag the Dog, part II?"

Saturday, November 25, 2000

AP: Colorado prison inmates train horses -- "Learning to tame wild horses - gently, not by 'breaking' the animals as in a Wild West movie - is helping some prison inmates prepare for life after incarceration."

CNN: Scientists discover possible microbe from space -- "The living bacteria, plucked from an altitude of 10 miles (16 km) or higher by a scientific balloon, could have been deposited in terrestrial airspace by a passing comet...."

David Talbot: Disenfranchise Florida -- "We would like to offer another solution: Throw out the Florida count altogether, along with the state's 25 thoroughly tainted electoral votes. After weeks of reports, rumors and allegations about butterfly ballots, dimpled chad, lost and discarded ballots in African-American precincts, uncounted military votes and all the rest, the Florida election has been completely and irrevocably delegitimized."

Friday, November 24, 2000

Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words.

Washington Post: Rage Sharpens Conservative Rhetoric -- "Conservative anger over the Florida recount has gained such intensity and momentum that leaders of the American right are now accusing Vice President Gore of trying to destroy democracy and mounting an illegal coup to take over the White House."

Al Gore has signaled he will not concede, regardless of the results expected to be certified Sunday.

ABC notes: "...A strenuous, seemingly spontaneous public demonstration against the recount Wednesday in Miami-Dade -- which contributed to one canvassing board memberís vote in the 3-0 decision to quit recounting -- was actually organized by the Republican Party, which bused supporters in from out of town."

Sunday, November 19, 2000

In today's Washington Post, David S. Broder writes: "A welter of legal possibilities combined with hardening political lines could throw the presidential contest into the new year, experts in both parties warned yesterday. Some observers said they feared a chaotic situation that could deprive the eventual winner of the legitimacy needed to govern."

ABC: Bush-Endorsed Manual Recount Law May Decide Local Election -- "As Texas Gov. George W. Bushís campaign lambasted the hand recount in Florida, a Texas Republican is hoping a manual recount could help win him a seat in the State House of Representatives. And theyíll be checking chads."

In the background of all the election noise, Defense Secretary William Cohen warned on Saturday that "the cycle of violence between Israelis and Palestinians could spread to other countries in the region." [Reuters]

Russia's cabinet announced that the aging and malfunctioning Mir space station will be ditched into the Pacific Ocean in late February in a controlled descent. "In calling for careful preparation for de-orbiting the Mir, [Russian space agency chief] Koptev on Wednesday recalled a Soviet satellite that crashed into northern Canada in 1978...." [CNN]

Saturday, November 18, 2000

Out of control

I've taken several days off, having hoped that the election results would be settled by now. Obviously, that isn't the case.

The Bush camp has today descended to new lows in the war of words, accusing Gore of a conspiracy involving disqualified overseas absentee ballots which lacked postage. Montana Gov. Mark Racicot has also joined the hue and cry, labeling manual recount efforts in Florida as "completely untrustworthy."

AP: Congress may have role in election -- "Republican and Democratic leaders prepared Thursday for the possibility that Congress might elect the next president, though members of both parties said they considered that unlikely."

Washington Post: Florida legislature could pick slate of electors -- "Republicans in charge of the Florida legislature are preparing a legal strategy to appoint the state's 25 electors themselves if the Florida Supreme Court fails to rule on the matter promptly."

Monday, November 13, 2000

Reuters: Federal judge in Miami refuses to halt vote recount -- "U.S. District Judge Donald Middlebrooks said Florida's vote-counting process appeared to be neutral and that he saw no reason for a federal court to intervene."

Lawrence Weschler: A fluke? A crisis? No, the future -- "The close presidential contest illustrates the triumph of the test-marketed candidacy."

Florida Secretary of State, Katherine Harris, announced that she would enforce a Tuesday deadline to certify last week's election results, thereby putting an end to manual recounts which might favor Gore. The Gore campaign "protested the decision as politically motivated and said either local election boards or the Gore campaign will challenge it in state court." Harris is a Republican. [Reuters]

Bruce Shapiro: "Candidate George W. Bush repeatedly declared that he opposes 'activist' federal judges 'legislating from the bench.' But that is exactly what Bush has now asked U.S. District Judge Donald M. Middlebrooks to do: arbitrarily overrule the manual recount of presidential ballots in Palm Beach and at least two other Florida counties, a recount unquestionably permitted under Florida law and requested by the county's own election commissioners. So much for states' rights."

ABC: Bush lawsuit long shot -- "Legal scholars say the federal court injunction sought by the Bush campaign against any further manual recounting of votes in Florida has little chance of prevailing."

Sunday, November 12, 2000

Reuters: Secret chat room found in CIA computer system -- "The CIA is investigating a secret chat room created within its classified computer system by some employees at the spy agency to trade off-color jokes, musings and observations that went undetected for more than five years, an intelligence official said on Sunday." A more detailed account is in Sunday's online Washington Post.

Following a review of several hundred ballots, officials of Palm Beach County, Florida, voted early this morning for a complete manual recount. Republicans offered to drop their suit to block manual recounts if the Democrats will accept the current results, subject to tabulation of overseas ballots.

Saturday, November 11, 2000

CNN reports that the results of hand recounts in four Palm Beach County precincts will be announced shortly after midnight EST.

AP: "An error rate of 2 percent to 5 percent, believe it or not, is considered acceptable by most election officials ... if the error is evenly distributed across all of the candidates." So much for the infallibility of machine-counted ballots.

Another interesting legal wrinkle via CNN: Electoral College may not need Florida electors to choose president -- Although unlikely, it is theoretically possible that Florida might not appoint its 25 electors by December 18, the magic date upon which the Electoral College chooses the next president. In this scenario, the remaining 513 members of the EC would still be able to decide whether Bush or Gore sits in the White House in January.

Breaking morning news from CNN -- "The Republican Party will go to federal court to seek an injunction to prevent a recount of presidential election ballots by hand in certain Florida counties."

Former White House Chief of Staff Leon Panetta last night expressed an emerging view, that both Gore and Bush are flunking their first test of leadership. Panetta noted "I think the Bush campaign -- by declaring victory and by going through the transition by asking Gore to basically back off without any kind of final vote here -- is doing the wrong thing. And the Gore campaign, by raising the issue of continued litigation into the future, is also doing the wrong thing. Both sides, quite frankly, have to stand back, cool it."

Friday, November 10, 2000

A new evening wrinkle from CNN: New Mexico Republicans request ballots be impounded -- "In Dona Ana and Valencia counties, Republican state representatives filed an emergency request with county judges Friday evening to impound the votes in those counties to preserve the integrity of the votes, citing possible problems with the vote counting." Earlier this afternoon, 257 missing ballots turned up in Bernalillo County (home of Albuquerque), the snafu attributed by officials to incompetence rather than conspiracy. Finally, Oregon law may trigger a recount in that state if the winning margin is less than one-fifth of one percent. Regardless, New Mexico's five electoral votes and Oregon's seven are not enough to be a deciding factor in the national results.

Governor Bush and Vice President Gore need to do two things: Call off the big dogs (particularly Jim Baker, in my opinion), who are spinning this situation to an unbelievable extent; and come to some agreement that November 17 (the deadline for absentee Florida ballots) is "D-Day," without resorting to recounts in other states, or litigation. This is the first big test of leadership for these two individuals, as has been pointed out elsewhere this evening. In that short interim, the threats and counter-threats need to stop, as do the shrill cries of self-proclaimed victory by the governor of Texas. Likewise, the Gore contingent needs to cease threatening a protracted court battle. The good of the country must ultimately outweigh the petulant foot-stamping, acrimony and six-year history of partisan rancor.

AP: Electoral college may become battleground -- "As few as three 'faithless electors' defecting to Gore from Bush could give the election to the Democrat, when all 538 electors meet in state capitals Dec. 18. That's if Bush is awarded Florida despite legal challenges and if Gore pulls out a win in both Oregon and New Mexico, where he holds slim, unofficial leads." About half of U.S. states have no legal requirement for electors to vote as they are pledged.

"As questionable and desperate as the complaints about unfair voting practices and the threats of lawsuits from the campaign of Vice President Al Gore may seem, the Bush campaign meets the Gore camp's desperation and raises it." [Salon]

Sacramento Bee: Get it right: Country has time for a fair ballot count -- "...The Florida election isn't even over. By law, absentee ballots cast overseas have until next Friday to arrive. In a race where the margin is now numbered in hundreds of votes, nobody can even consider naming a victor without waiting to count all those votes."

Washington Post: Looming fight could take a painful toll -- "War has been declared over the disputed results of Tuesday's presidential election, but it may not be a war that either side can decisively win. Respected voices in both parties agree that this election is increasingly likely to end not in a clear triumph, but in a reluctant surrender." The WP piece raises some interesting points about human fallibility and the pitfalls of recounting votes. We're accustomed to hearing the phrase "margin of error" when opinion polls are discussed; yet we never hear the same phrase applied to elections. It isn't a 1000-percent perfect process.

The Bush campaign declares victory (again!) based on an unofficial margin of 327 votes (out of 6 million) in Florida. The official results will not likely be released until next week; and Florida's overseas absentee ballots have yet to be factored into the equation.

Thursday, November 09, 2000

"You haven't seen flocks of lawyers drop out of the sky like this since Bhopal." [Salon]

Are we seeing the ghost of Rutherford B. Hayes?

AP: Bush leads Gore by 229 in Florida -- "Recount results from 66 of the state's 67 counties gave Republican Bush a lead of 229 votes out of nearly 6 million cast, according to an unofficial tally by The Associated Press. The original 'final' margin had been reported at 1,784." Assuming my calculator works, 229 out of 6 million is .0000381. This still does not take into account approximately 20,000 ballots invalidated for double-punching, or those which may reflect unintended votes for Pat Buchanan. Buchanan himself acknowledged that most of the approximately 3,000 votes he received in Palm Beach County were certainly intended for either Gore or Bush.

Reuters: New Mexico undecided as 67,000 ballots recounted -- "New Mexico election officials said computer problems had prevented an accurate count of between 65,000 and 67,000 absentee and early-voting ballots in Bernalillo County, the state's most-populous district and site of the city of Albuquerque." However, this glitch will have no impact on the national outcome of the presidential election, due to our state's modest five electoral votes (versus Florida's key 25 votes).

Dave Winer takes a look at how the web played a pivotal role in this election.

This afternoon, the crud starts to hit the fan: Gore campaign to fight election result in Florida [Reuters]

Inside: Neither Bush nor Gore Ends the Night a Loser. But the Networks Are Another Story

Salon: President without a mandate -- "Can George W. Bush govern effectively if he wins the White House without taking the popular vote?"

CNN: Bush lead narrows in Florida -- Around 7:00 a.m. (MST), the first hints of legal challenges as the gap narrows. Here's a great graphical explanation of the Palm Beach County funky ballot.

Wednesday, November 08, 2000

The Onion: Bush or Gore: 'A New Era Dawns' -- "AUSTIN, TX, OR NASHVILLE, TN--In one of the narrowest presidential votes in U.S. history, either George W. Bush or Al Gore was elected the 43rd president of the United States Tuesday, proclaiming the win 'a victory for the American people and the dawn of a bold new era in this great nation.'"

Tuesday, November 07, 2000

Reuters: Court: Prosecutors can't invoke God for death penalty -- "A federal appeals court panel overturned a death sentence passed against a convicted murderer on Monday, saying prosecutors should not have argued that God sanctioned capital punishment."

Last week's asteroid scare has been downgraded to zero threat after scientists examined additional data. Although we're off the hook for the year 2038, the recently discovered object has a 1-in-1000 chance of colliding with Earth in 2071.

Monday, November 06, 2000

AP: Study links pesticides, Parkinson's -- "New research using rats suggests that long-term exposure to a widely used pesticide kills brain cells and triggers debilitating physical symptoms associated with Parkinson's disease." Parkinson's disease is the most common neurological disorder after Alzheimer's.

Sunday, November 05, 2000

Supreme Court to consider air pollution rules -- "The U.S. Supreme Court this week will consider one of the most important environmental and business cases in decades, reviewing the federal government's tough air pollution standards to reduce smog and soot." [Reuters] Business groups argue that the current law goes too far beyond benefits to public health and does not address economic costs [translation: "our profits"]. The other issue at hand is whether the current law amounts to an unconstitutional delegation to a regulatory agency by Congress of its law making power.

Changing of the Guard: New President's Choices At Regulatory Agencies Will Set the Course -- "...The decisions made at the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Department of Energy, the Federal Trade Commission, the Department of Labor, and other agencies and Cabinet departments will be as important to American consumers, investors and businesses as many of the issues that provoked louder debate during the campaigns." [Washington Post]

Saturday, November 04, 2000

New image-enhancement technology developed by NASA will be used by the FBI. (I'm still trying to find out if they can really read auto license plate numbers from an orbiting satellite. ;-))

CNN: FDA to seek removal of several cold, diet drugs from stores -- Following a recent Yale University study, which focused attention on increased risk of stroke in some patients taking cold medications containing phenylpropanalomine, the FDA "will seek removal of several over-the-counter cough, cold and diet drugs from stores."

Reuters: Clinton vetoes bill to tighten secrecy -- "Clinton said it was his obligation as president to protect the government's vital information from improper disclosure but also to protect the rights of citizens to receive the information necessary for democracy to work."

The death of outrage -- Gary Kamiya wonders why the self-righteous moral standard-bearers who wanted to crucify Bill Clinton are not equally indignant at Dubya's lying and evasion. "...The people who were braying for Clinton's head then are silent now. It's a world-class demonstration of hypocrisy." [Salon]

Washington Post: Bush seeks to minimize DUI fallout -- "...If the long-hidden arrest [raises] new questions about Bush's candor, credibility or trustworthiness--all traits he has stressed this fall--the political fallout could be damaging."

Reuters: Two heart radiation devices approved by FDA -- "Two novel devices that use radiation delivered inside the heart to help keep surgically opened arteries from clogging again won U.S. approval on Friday, the makers said."

CNN: Asteroid spotted in space has a slim chance of hitting Earth -- The object, which may be an asteroid or a large piece of space junk (U.S. rocket hardware), has a 1-in-500 chance of hitting the earth in 30 years' time. If it is an asteroid, the impact would be equivalent to "a fairly sizable nuclear blast." If it is an old rocket stage or other hardware, its mass would be so small that it would burn up in the atmosphere upon entry.

Friday, November 03, 2000

Reuters: Clinton to get split recommendation on secrecy act -- The Clinton administration remains divided over the proposed bill which would make it a crime to leak classified information.

As previously noted, the language of the bill is broad enough to cause concern not only with news agencies, but within the Pentagon and other branches of the government. An example cited Wednesday would be the discussion of foreign troop movements during a conflict such as the Gulf War; comments made by Pentagon spokespersons to the press might indeed be based upon classified information, even if the specifics were shrouded.

Under current U.S. law, it is illegal to reveal classified information "if it helps a foreign power, exposes intelligence agents or relates to national defense." The new bill is expanded to cover all classified information. President Clinton's deadline to sign the bill is Saturday.

Salon: Life under the hole in the sky -- "The citizens of Punta Arenas, Chile, are the subjects of a potentially deadly experiment: What happens to people who live under the widening ozone hole?" On bad days, people can become badly sunburned in a matter of minutes. Newspapers and radio broadcasts report the daily radiation forecasts, which some heed; many don't.

CNN: Hands-free phone kits boost radiation exposure, according to a recent U.K. study. Consumers are becoming confused, having been told that this was a non-issue following an earlier scare. Although the exact effects of cell-phone radiation on humans are not known, it does cause the brain to "heat up."

AP: Perot endorses Bush for president -- In one of the campaign's pithier moments, Perot said, "We don't want to have to house break another president." Meantime, Pat Buchanan, the Reform Party's presidential nominee, alleges "collusion" between Perot, his supporters, and the Republican party. Go away, Pat. ;-)

Wednesday, November 01, 2000

Reuters: White House examines bill to tighten government secrecy -- "The White House said on Tuesday it was closely examining legislation that could impose prison terms on officials who leak classified information, a measure that has drawn fire from news organizations." The legislation is part of a spending bill related to intelligence agencies. However, its language is reportedly broad enough to create serious legal pitfalls. Pentagon spokesman Kenneth Bacon criticized the bill, noting: "It's disastrous for journalists. It's disastrous for any official who deals with the press in national security, whether at State, the NSC (National Security Council) or the Pentagon."