Blogroll Me!If you are searching for any of the following names -- Elizabeth Reba, Elizabeth Riba, Elisabeth Reba, Liz Reba, Lis Reba, Liz Riba, Elizabeth Ann Reba, Elizabeth Ann Riba, Elizabeth Anne Reba, Elizabeth Anne Riba, Elisabeth Ann Reba, Elisabeth Ann Riba, or Elisabeth Anne Reba -- welcome to my blog. Here's my homepage.
Your 'Do You Want the Terrorists to Win' Score: 96%
You are a terrorist-loving, Bush-bashing, "blame America first"-crowd traitor. You are in league with evil-doers who hate our freedoms. By all counts you are a liberal, and as such cleary desire the terrorists to succeed and impose their harsh theocratic restrictions on us all. You are fit to be hung for treason! Luckily George Bush is tapping your internet connection and is now aware of your thought-crime. Have a nice day.... in Guantanamo!
Congratulations, you do not drink the Republican Kool-Aid. You haven't been brainwashed and are able to think for yourself rather than get your daily marching orders from the right-wing media. Mindless submission to our leader has no place in America. You, sir or ma'am, are a patriot.
You like to go out and party, go to bars, concerts, etc - but stay more on the sidelines. You and part of the action, but people have to approach you more than you jumping into the middle of the action. You typically don't get 'hammered', just buzzed enough to come out of your shell and talk to a few people, usually other 'lurkers'. Large groups of people talking at once intimidate you and you tend to drift away from the pack often.
Okay so you aren't one for going on a day trip. You're probably more of a night person anyway. So your ideal summer day is spent at home, sleeping in. And why not? you deserve it! We all need to catch up on our sleep now and then after feeling run-down. Then you'll have energy at night when the fun begins!
[T]he show trial of Saddam Hussein is scheduled to end with a guilty verdict and likely death sentence on November 5 -- two days before the election. They are now openly acknowledging that they think this event should and will influence the outcome of our election.
In the very title of his post, Glenn expresses concern: “What are the Democrats doing about the November 5 Saddam verdict?”
While this may force a reschedule of all the Sunday morning talking head shows, possibly bumping news of Democratic candidates, I'm not so sure this will be such unalloyed good news for the administration.
In short, authorities are bracing for a violent backlash from either the Sunni or Shiite communities, depending on the outcome.
Sunnis are expected to be enraged if Saddam is found guilty and sentenced to death.
On the other hand, Shiites will be outraged if Saddam doesn't get the death penalty.
Either way, it's going to be ugly. I'm seeing words like "firestorm" bandied about to describe the expected reaction, whichever way the court rules.
Even if the administration manipulated the timing of this announcement, it may not yield quite the PR bonanza Bush and his handlers were hoping for in those crucial days before the election.
Ian and I have written several posts over the past week expressing concerns about: » Diebold machines, » Secretary of the Commonwealth Galvin introducing them to Massachusetts, and » the qualifications of Professor Shamos, whom Galvin is relying upon.
But these posts have been interspersed with my other rambles, making them more difficult to find for reference.
So I've compiled these entries onto a dedicated page:
If you wish to talk to Secretary Galvin or his aides about any of the issues I've raised, you can refer them to this URL. It's also suitable for printing and mailing.
In the meantime, I've decided to vote for Jill Stein in Tuesday's election.
I'll confess, I didn't even know the Secretary race had a candidate to the left of the Democrat, but I've been extremely dissatisfied by what I've seen from Galvin in the past few months.
He wouldn't even debate with his primary or general election challengers -- until yesterday he conceded to five minutes (which stretched to nearly 15) with Stein and Jon Keller in "an undisclosed location."
Not terribly informative for the "principal public information officer and chief official in charge of ensuring fair elections. [Streaming video on CBS4.]
“The decision to use the insecure, unreliable Diebold TSx touch screen voting machines -- even for optional use -- in several Massachusetts towns on November 7 is misguided. Voters are being offered an untrustworthy voting machine, and already overburdened poll workers are being asked to master a notoriously unfriendly technology at the 11th hour.
Her press release adds that, "Stein pledged to block introduction of touch screen electronic voting machines into the Commonwealth until they have been proven to be reliable, cost effective, verifiable and tamper proof. She called for a system of hand-counted audits to ensure detection of voting machine problems."
What book(s) are you in the middle of? Have you just finished? Are they for pleasure, school, or work? Are you enjoying them? Would you recommend them?
By showing the ways in which editors have offered different readings of specific passages, whether each was thought to represent the author's intent or to fulfill the reader's expectations, Marcus draws attention to the inherent instability of historical interpretations. Printed editions of the authors in question are read to reveal that what has often been viewed as the orthodox meaning has in fact been the result of relatively recent scholarly emendation
In other words, the way editors interpret Shakespeare (or Marlowe or other Renaissance authors) says as much or much more about the times in which the editors were working than about the original work. Furthermore, when watching or reading a play from that period, the sense we get of an authoritative text is often illusory.
After an introduction with a brief example of her approach (deconstructing the "blue eyes" of Sycorax in The Tempest), she goes into a history of trends in lit crit and editing. Then, each chapter delves into the issues surrounding a different work:
Chapter 2: Marlowe's Doctor Faustus,
Chapter 3: The Merry Wives of Windsor,
Chapter 4: The Taming of the Shrew,
Chapter 5: Hamlet,
Chapter 6: Robert Herrick's Hesperides (1648), John Donne's Poems (1633), and John Milton's Poems (1645).
Santa Monica, CA — The recent sharp drop in gasoline prices from this year’s record highs is steeper than the drop in the price of crude oil, indicating that refiners are taking less profit in order to push the retail price lower as the election approaches, said the nonprofit Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights (FTCR). It is a pattern that is also evident, though less sharply, in the autumn of the last two election years, 2002 and 2004.
Someone I know (who can identify hirself or not) was speculating whether the recent drop in gas prices was manipulated, but I didn't entirely believe it.
I owe that person an apology, and Slate ought to run a correction on this article last month claiming current prices are just dumb luck for the GOP.
As Ian pointed out, we're insufficiently paranoid for this administration.
In short, Democrats do not believe in the Global War on Terror. I don't mean that they don't support it, though they don't. What I mean is Democrats don't believe the war actually exists. While Republicans believe the biggest threat to American freedom and security is the evil ideology that planned and executed the murder of 3,000 of our countrymen five years ago, and continues planning today, Democrats think the biggest threat to America is... Republicans.
Over on TAPPED, we can see the flip side of the coin:
WAR ON WHAT NOW?Timothy Garton Ashmakes a good (if familiar) point on the naming of the War on Terror:
Apart from anything else, to use this language dignified the terrorists with the status of belligerents when they should have been treated as criminals. In a backhanded way, the coinage was itself a kind of glorification of terrorism.
Right. Referring to anti-terror operations as "war" fulfilled some emotional needs (and laid the framework for the Bush adminstration's accumulation of executive power) but it hamstrung the actual fight against terrorism. The elimination of terrorism is simply not a plausible foreign policy goal. It's not logically impossible (thinking of terrorism as a social institution somewhat akin to dueling or slavery is helpful in this regard) but it's practically impossible, meaning that any war fought to defeat terrorism will invariably fail to achieve its end. There will be no final moment in which terrorism surrenders upon the deck of a Zumwalt class destroyer, for example. <continued...>
You know, I wanted to come up with a "big finish" kicker conclusion to these quotes, maybe referencing the proverbial stopped clock with regards to Hastert, but all I can do is hope we find a solution to the conflict itself, by whatever name we call it.
In his article Paper v. Electronic Voting Records -- An Assessment, Professor Michael I. Shamos surveys a variety of objections to Direct Recording Electronic ("DRE") voting systems. While acknowledging and validating some of the most pressing, he breezily dismisses many others, often by packaging them as straw men or by impugning objectors' maturity, reasoning ability, or thoughtfulness. In so doing, Prof. Shamos sidesteps not only key technical issues, but also important issues of transparency, accountability, and the nature of the American democratic republic. <snip> Shamos's errors are of two main types: philosophical and implementational.
Of the first class of error, Shamos seems to misconceive the proper role of citizens in a democratic republic. That role is not to accept the proclamations of government officials (or of the vendors they choose) on faith, but instead to treat them with a healthy, sustained skepticism. This role is particularly important on issues concerning the maintenance of the republic itself. And no issue is more central to that maintenance than the honest and accurate administration of elections, since they are citizens' chief means of control over the republic's course. Yet Shamos would make citizens prove that such systems are inaccurate and/or dishonest, rather than requiring their proponents to prove their accuracy and honesty by opening them to total public review and constant verification. This burden of proof inverts the proper role of the citizen from skepticism of government to faith in government, establishes a defective heuristic for evaluating systems or policies whose malfunctions can cause significant harm, and makes it unreasonably difficult to prove election fraud.
Shamos also appears confused about the essential nature of democratic republics themselves, writing
...I believe I and the republic will survive if a president is elected who was not entitled to the office....
It should be unnecessary to state that a "republic" whose Presidency is occupied by one not entitled to the office is, at least for that term of office, no longer a republic. It is a soft dictatorship run by those who maneuvered the illegitimate President into office. How such a "republic" can recover its legitimacy and standing via future elections is best left in the realm of theory; in the real world, an illegitimate Presidency is a disaster.
Of the second class of error -- the implementational error -- Shamos makes many, chiefly, it appears, through lack of imagination and through failure properly to consider motive. He variously underestimates the misdeeds a crooked vendor can accomplish and the importance of vendor error, fails to account for advances in technology that make (or will make) misdeeds easier to perpetrate, overestimates the efficacy of his own security prescriptions, and, in one case, even proposes an "ultimate" solution that actually makes the problem substantially worse.
The article goes on to detail with extensive footnotes the many errors in Shamos' paper.
This appears to be the same essay that Ian read.
Ian quoted this excerpt:
"It has been asserted that adding paper trails to DREs allows prompt detection of all of the possible intrusions discussed above. It is based on the mistaken belief that paper records are in some way more secure or free from tampering than electronic ones, which is not the case. "On March 20, 2004, a presidential election was held in Taiwan. The winner by 29,518 votes (out of over 13 million cast) was the incumbent, Chen Shui-bian. To achieve this result, the Central Election Commission had to declare 337,297 ballots as invalid, more than 11 times the supposed margin of victory. The voting method was by paper ballot, and there weren't even any DRE machines to blame. Surely if the voters could rely on the paper ballots to be counted properly this result could not have occurred."
But the authors of this rebuttal point out an important fact Shamos neglected to mention:
Shamos implicitly blames the invalidity of 337,297 ballots cast in Taiwan's 2004 presidential election upon the use of paper ballots, saying, "Surely if the voters could rely on the paper ballots to be counted properly this result could not have occurred." He provides, however, no breakdown of the reasons behind the declarations of invalidity, and does not address the potential contribution of the "Million Invalid Ballot Alliance," which asked voters to reject both candidates by spoiling their ballots.
So, instead of representing a failure of the system, this was an intended choice of the voters.
Secretary of State Galvin, I do NOT want this man certifying voting machines for our state!
Furthermore, I don't want Diebold touchscreen machines, if this is the best advocate you could find.
Over the weekend, I'll create a specific dedicated page for these entries about Shamos from the last several days, so we can forward the criticisms to Galvin directly.
Days before the election, state officials have learned that California's most widely used electronic voting machines feature a button in back that can allow someone to vote multiple times.
Several computer scientists said Wednesday that the vulnerability found in all touch-screen machines sold by Oakland-based Sequoia Voting Systems was not especially great because using the yellow button for vote fraud would require reaching far behind the voting machine twice and triggering two beeps.
Great, an external unsecured reset override button. Who came up with that bright idea?
Some counties were backing the machines up against walls; others were roping off the rear of the machines, state officials said. "We train our poll workers to keep their eyes peeled, stay on the lookout for stuff like this. We think that will suffice."
And who watches the watchers?
Recognition of a potential new security problem that requires no knowledge of special passwords or access to the inner workings of a voting machine revives questions about the effectiveness of state and national evaluations of voting systems. <snip> Sequoia's yellow button isn't a hack or flaw. The button has been a feature on Sequoia's mainline AVC Edge touch screens for years, designed as a backup for the typical method of voting on the machines.
In most counties, poll workers use a separate machine to activate a card that a voter inserts into the touch screen in order to retrieve the proper ballot. The yellow button is for counties that can't afford the separate machine or for cases when the card activator becomes inoperable, as happened to Diebold systems in March 2004 in Alameda and San Diego counties and last primary in Kern County.
Pressing, then holding the button for several seconds twice and answering a screen prompt sends the machine into a "manual activation" or "poll worker activation" mode. In that mode, someone can call up one ballot after another and vote them.
"You can literally vote continuously until you are physically restrained," said Watt, the former Tehama County poll worker who reported the problem to state elections officials.
Unlike the Diebold vulnerability, he said, using Sequoia's yellow button "takes no tools."
"In 18 seconds I can switch that to manual and start voting. In 30 seconds I can train you to do it," he said.
It sounds damning, but the source is by no means objective, which is why I'd like other eyes to review it.
A few excerpts:
On December 13, 2005 in a test election conducted by Leon County Florida Supervisor of Elections Ion Sancho, Finnish computer programmer Harri Hursti succeeded in altering the election results from a Diebold optical scan system undetectably, in spite of all the normal election security procedures. <snip> Just after the new year an exchange took place involving representatives of the Pennsylvania Department of State, their consultant, Dr. Michael Shamos, Professor of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University, and Diebold Election Systems intended to make it officially "okay" to certify the TSX touchscreen machines and the central count optical scan systems. The statements made in the report by Dr. Shamos display a deep misunderstanding of the Hursti Exploit, a disregard for the requirements of State and Federal law, and a willingness to accept unsubstantiated and disingenuous claims by Diebold with, at best, minimum independent corroboration. <snip> Hursti exploited the fact that Diebold's software employs an "interpreted code" called AccuBasic. Interpreted code is quite appropriately prohibited by Section 4.2.2. of the Federal Election Commission's 2002 Voluntary Voting System Guidelines (2002 VVSG) to which they were certified by the ITA. This Federal certification is required as a prerequisite to state certification in 37 states, including California and Pennsylvania. <snip> So if interpreted code allowed an election to be altered undetectably, it's a good thing it's prohibited, right? After all, it's a good idea to ensure that the software tested and approved during the qualification process can't be modified "on the fly" – as Hursti demonstrated. But wait, Pennsylvania certified Diebold anyway! How could they do that?
Meanwhile, I just found a 2004 article in The Nation with an even more disturbing insight into the man's priorities:
Michael Shamos of Carnegie-Mellon, who once warned that computerized vote-counting is highly vulnerable to fraud, now takes the position that "the issue is not whether voting systems are absolutely secure, but whether they present barriers sufficiently formidable to give us confidence in the integrity of our elections."
In other words, he's given up on trying to ensure security in favor of reassuring the public.
Says it all right there.
Secretary of State Galvin, I do NOT want this man certifying voting machines for our state!
Finally, a few additional links for those interested in further reading:
Voting machines are apparently a major issue in California's election for Secretary of State. It's somewhat below the belt (imo), but get a load of
this sensationalist commercial on the risks of electronic voting machines.
I'm mostly a dabbler in this subject (albeit one with a background in UI design and QA), so if you can recommend further sites/articles, please let me know.
So, I showed Ian my post on Shamos after he got home from bartending.
He pointed out that it looks like the guy is assuming what he's trying to prove.
Shamos seems to be relying upon the good intentions and competence of everybody else involved -- from the software companies to pollworkers.
In my mind, a well-designed voting system -- like a well-designed ATM or POS system -- should be built to operate in a hostile environment, when the most competent operators are crooks.
If you can't get the threat model right, you can't hope to secure the system.
My own observation is that while Shamos may be a professor in computer science, it seems clear that his experience is more academic than corporate.
There's a famous quote:
People who love sausage or respect the law should never watch them being made.
Shortly after I began working as a quality engineer, I realized that computer software belongs in that category as well.
I intend no slur against any company I've worked for, but once you see behind-the-scenes of the development process... Well, if you've never gotten a close look, you'd be shocked to know how much depends on compromises of duct tape, spit and baling wire to hold things together until the next release.
That's just the way things are done in the real world.
And even though I studied computer science in college, even though I worked tech support for four years, I never realized the extent to which this is true until I joined a development group.
In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. But, in practice, there is.
I don't think open source software is a universal panacea, but I do wish that we had open-source voting machines.
With so many knowledgable eyes able to view the code, it would make it that much harder to slip in anything malicious.
In the meantime, hard-copy voter-verified paper audit trails should be a minimum requirement.
For folks with HBO, they're airing a new documentary on electronic voting machines tonight -- called Hacking Democracy.
I want to move to theory. Everything works in theory.
BTW, since people keep comparing voting machines to ATMs, are there any good books on the development and growing social acceptance of ATMs?
I can't believe anybody would be so stupid as to switch to Diebold voting machines this late in the game. But that appears to be what Galvin is doing in Massachusetts.
What do people know about Professor Michael Ian Shamos? I was just talking to Sec. Galvin's office, and they mentioned that Prof. Shamos is involved in their oversight and testing procedure. Looking up his papers, I see that he's got a lot of publications and experience with electronic voting and oversight, but, reading one of his papers, it seems. . . well, his writing doesn't really inspire me with confidence.
That's one of his papers. His arguments are things like, "Well, China manages to steal elections even without electronic voting, so why should we be worried about people stealing elections WITH electronic voting?"
I'd never heard of Shamos before, but this piqued my curiousity. So to whet my appetite for information, I went a-searching...
His CV includes such credentials as:
Professor in the Institute for Software Research of the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University
From 1980-2000 and from 2004-present he has been statutory examiner of computerized voting systems for the Secretary of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. From 1987-2000 he was the Designee of the Attorney General of Texas for electronic voting certification.
So, he's knowledgable, but what are his biases?
Unfortunately for the sanctity of Massachusetts elections (not to mention the states he's already working for), he's generally considered an E-voting advocate, known for pooh-poohing security concerns. Some go so far as to call him a corporate shill.
I don't even have to go to the blogs for this; just look at these excerpts from recent publications:
A distinguished career professor in the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University, Shamos is also among the most vocal defenders of computer balloting's security and accuracy. While allowing for deficiencies in both the technology and the testing process, he dismisses the concerns of many critics. ... Shamos, [Avi Rubin, professor of computer science at Johns Hopkins University and technical director of its Information Security Institute] says, "is a minority of one or two" in having such confidence in the current state of electronic voting.
"Diebold doesn't fully get it about security," [Shamos] says. "Their position every time somebody raises the prospect of insider manipulation of elections is, 'Are you telling me you think that these election officials would commit a felony?' And the answer is, 'Yes, that's what we're saying. They might commit a felony, and what is your system doing to prevent them?'" Even so, Shamos doesn't completely buy the Princeton study. "What Felten found wasn't a bug in the software," he says. "It was a deliberate feature that comes from the need to be able to update the machines quickly."
He doesn't seem to be a total industry puppet. There have been occasions where he's refused to certify machines, but on-the-whole, he seems to have more faith in the companies.
Unlike many colleagues in his field, Michael I. Shamos, a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon University who has worked on election issues for about 20 years, has not generally been seen as a friend of the activists. In 2004, they assailed Maryland's decision to buy Diebold touch-screen machines and asked a court to stop the state from using them. Shamos testified that with a few additional steps, the machines could be used without problem, and the court agreed. Now, Shamos wonders. He is confident in his testimony and believes most security holes can be plugged. But he wonders whether Diebold cares enough about security and the sanctity of elections. "There's a broader philosophical question that's been worrying me more and more lately," Shamos said. "What are these companies really doing? They don't seem to have embraced the seriousness with which people in this country take their elections. It's been kind of an adversarial thing where companies want to make profits, and they just haven't spent enough time and energy designing secure systems."
He spoke even more strongly around that time to The NewStandard:
While this newly exposed security flaw is serious, Shamos said he is not at all surprised because Diebold has "a history of not paying attention to security." "They just don't get it," Shamos told The NewStandard. "We've had many, many, many discussions. In fact, if you look at their public statements they've made in light of this revelation, it shows that they still don't get it."
And, yet despite these caveats, more recent comments still sound like an industry booster, and against further government regulation.
Shamos again threw up the tired red-herring that there's never been a verified instance of voting machine tampering. Correctly Stewart pointed out that the recent Princeton test proved that tampering can be done without anyone ever knowing about it. It's time for Shamos to find another diversion.
Dressed in a colorful orange polka-dot tie and orange and white striped shirt, Shamos strolled about the exam room, posturing frequently in front of a large LCD projection of the screen under scrutiny newly added for those in attendance to observe. At one point he even rendered a mime of a bound Harry Houdini escaping from chains to make his point that locks on a voting machine do not equate with security. The effect was not so much of a thorough scientific examination, but rather that of a polished performance designed to show an audience how thoroughly the testing was being done.
[E]lection integrity activists know very well that experts have been able to demonstrate how to hack into some of the same vote machines that Shamos has approved for PA. Then when these security threats surface based on vulnerabilities that Shamos never tested for, he professes shock and grave concern.
Overall, Shamos seemed confident that there was adequate security to foil tampering with the tabulations of the kind that he tested for last March. Unfortunately, I can't say how he arrived at that conclusion. He went quickly and I may have missed it.
Notwithstanding Shamos' confidence, this observer left with a conflicting feeling that she had just seen a fine performance by a skilled showman, but many questions still remain unanswered about the stability and security of WinEDS and the Sequoia AVC Advantage.
Cost is perhaps the biggest reason why e-voting systems should be left alone, says Carnegie Mellon's Shamos. Since much of the HAVA funds have already been spent, there is little money left to make the systems more secure. And, he says, "the public doesn't want to pay for voting machines. If you ask people if they want a secure election, they say of course. But ask them to give up some of the highway or school budget to pay for it. It's not going to happen." [Attorney Lawrence] Norden disagrees. "There's nothing more fundamental to our democracy than making sure that votes are counted accurately. Choosing between schools and e-voting systems isn't a choice people should have to make," he says. At least 39 states agree with Norden, and they are beginning to scrutinize their e-voting processes, including how to instate audits and create a more thorough chain of custody
For now, I'll conclude with an older quote from a 2004 article in Chronicle of Higher Education, showing his general attitude:
Mr. Shamos dismisses many of the arguments used by critics of electronic and online voting as "purely emotional" and devoid of science. "If I give them a scientific explanation of why they are wrong," he says, "they simply ignore it." He characterizes the debate as "a shrieking match," in which detractors have gained the upper hand through a slick, well-organized public-relations campaign that falsely brands demurring voices as ignorant. "You only hear the people who are yelling," he says. "You don't hear the silent majority."
That may be so, but most of the silent majority doesn't have the technical know-how or hacker mentality to evaluate the systems. Those who understand the issues are speaking out. And many people whose technical expertise I respect are among those expressing concern.
It's been a pretty sorry season for campaign ads, with some really ugly negative commercials coming from the Republicans.
So, how about a good old fashioned catchy jingle, applicable in multiple races or customizable for a particular contest?
"Have You Had Enough?"
Have you had enough...
...of hypocrisy?
Have you had enough...
...of the spending spree?
Have you had enough?
Does it make you want to scream and shout?
Have you had enough...
...of the rubber stamps?
Have you had enough...
...of the wire taps?
If you've had enough,
then throw <incumbent> out!
We've let them take the test too long. They've gotten all the answers wrong. No plan, no shame, no oversight.
Now's the time to put it right!
Have you had enough,
cause they're all corrupt?
Have you had enough...
...of being divvied up?
If you've had enough,
then throw <incumbent> out!
Well, do what's right and spread the word. It's time to make our voices heard. You cast your vote; don't cost a dime.
Sittin' it out will be a crime.
I've had enough.
Then vote <Democratic> this time!
For generic version, • Substitute "the rascals" for <incumbent> • Change final line to: "And it's time to throw the rascals out!"
Well, thank Howie Klein (who blogs at DownWithTyranny) for making the arrangements. He coordinated his efforts with several other bloggers, the former members of the Squirrel Nut Zippers, and singer Rickie Lee Jones.
The result is one toe-tapping tune.
Download the MP3 audio, performed by the Squirrel Nut Zippers and Rickie Lee Jones. [Generic; no campaign specified]
The video would hold its own against highly polished commercials beaming from local television screens these days as the election approaches...
The "had enough" song has been adapted for about 25 congressional races Mr. Klein's blog community has targeted. They started by writing it for a North Carolina race and added the video for a Colorado contest. The Zippers plan to perform the song live in Connecticut against Sen. Joseph Lieberman, the former Democrat vice presidential candidate, facing a tough re-election contest.
The goal on both sides seems to be to depress the voter turnout of the other side ... What a mess.
Which is why I am so proud that we have been able to send a little joy in the form of a great song and a funny YouTube ad around the internet - and, in some cases, to districts via our Blue America PAC. ...
And the best part of the whole thing? How can you not smile and enjoy the thought of voting for a progressive candidate after you hear and see something like this?
Go ahead, play it and sing along. The bouncing ball in the video makes it easy!
"You have a Midland accent" is just another way of saying "you don't have an accent." You probably are from the Midland (Pennsylvania, southern Ohio, southern Indiana, southern Illinois, and Missouri) but then for all we know you could be from Florida or Charleston or one of those big southern cities like Atlanta or Dallas. You have a good voice for TV and radio.
Let's see, first dozen years of life in the midwest (Illinois, Iowa and Wisconsin), followed by about five years in Florida. Then another four years of college split between Florida and Boston, and the rest of my life in Boston. Seems reasonable.
You went trick or treating as Zorro. Lysander gave you AChocolateTruffle. Destruction gave you AUsedBattery. TheSphere gave you ARedRubberBall. Angel gave you APurplePeopleEatermint. You had a laudable time until GrannyWeatherwax stole your Pokemon.
LiveJournal
Zorro.
Lysander gave you AChocolateTruffle. 
Destruction gave you AUsedBattery.
TheSphere gave you ARedRubberBall.
Angel gave you APurplePeopleEatermint.
stole your Pokemon.
