It is a good day in California for voting. Our new Secretary of State, Debra Bowen, has de-certified nearly all of the electronic voting machines and re-certified them with conditions -- in most cases, only one per polling station for use only by disabled voters. Without a linked network of voting machines, vote-flipping computer viruses cannot spread. She expects that the primary elections coming up in February will not be adversely affected, and sufficient paper ballots will be provided. The ES&S Inka-Vote scanners, used in Los Angeles County, have been de-certified without re-certification because the company ignored her request for source code. For a bit of joy, go read the whole article.

Many kudos to the folks at Brad Blog, who stayed up late to transcribe this press conference and who have been absolute heroes for democracy.

Synthesizing several recommended diaries, it dawned on me that the GOP strategy may be to force the Democrats into impeachment and then launch a false flag or domestic terrorist attack and then blame the Democrats for interfering with the Commander-in-Chief, in an attempt to blunt our electoral hopes for '08 or even to perhaps institute martial law.

Keith Olbermann has already tried to inoculate the public against the possibility of a domestic terrorist attack in his special comment about Chertoff's gut when he said that the fault for any such attack would laid at the feet of the administration. We need to loudly inoculate the public against this possibility in order to ward it off. If such a cynical maneuver would redound to the GOP's detriment, they would think twice about it and perhaps even work to avoid it. The battle is in the media and thence in the minds of the people, and we must wage it there. Vigorously.

Perhaps, polling that asks questions such as whether people think Bush would benefit from a new terrorist attack could be employed. Or if the crippling of the DOJ by Gonzo's politicization has weakened us enough to predispose us to an attack, or if Bush's being bogged down in Iraq has disabled his -- and our -- ability to defend the US home turf. Any other suggestions?

Take a look at this and tell me what you think. Here is a news item I saw yesterday that I found interesting. Apparently, al-Zarqawi's wife claims that al-Qaida made a deal with the US government to give up al-Zarqawi's location in Iraq in exchange for the US letting up on the search for bin Laden. Well, then, imagine my surprise when, just a day later, it is announced that the CIA is suspending its search for bin Laden and disbanding the unit performing that task.

On October 31, 2005, Canadian officials announced that viral subtype H5 was found in wild ducks in Quebec, Manitoba and then on November 1, in British Columbia as well.  They attempt to assuage fear by pointing out that the birds in question were healthy, so the bird flu most likely isn't H5N1, neglecting to mention that ducks can be asymptomatic and thus have become the migrating carriers spreading the disease worldwide.

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Below are some suggestions for preparing for a bird flu pandemic.  If you are a naysayer, be aware that the consequences of the experts warning about this coming being wrong are enhanced preparedness, excess consumables on hand for a while, and dancing in the streets, while the consequences of you being wrong are millions of unnecessary deaths.  Guess which advice any sane person chooses.

If you have any constructive suggestions to improve this draft, please offer them in the comments; they will be gratefully accepted and incorporated.

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We are in a rather odd moment of irony, where we are more highly interconnected than ever and yet seem to fail to acknowledge or appreciate that very interconnectedness and its consequences.  This will be exacerbated by a global pandemic that will doubtlessly bring out the best and the worst in human nature.

I've discovered that attempting to plan on a community or neighborhood level is particularly challenging, as the need for collective action is not obvious to many; in fact, the need for isolation would seem to be more immediate.  While true on one level, there are things we can and must do as communities.  For a social animal with the highest population densities in history, attempting to mitigate a pandemic in the absence of sufficient vaccine, medicines, or medical treatment is a monumental task.  Feedback and ideas gratefully accepted.

I will post my personal preparedness guide tomorrow.
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I have noticed an unnecessary rift between theists and nontheists here at dkos and in the progressive community at large that needs addressing.  I here use the term "nontheist", because it includes, among others, agnostics, atheists, Buddhists, Taoists and deists. [Oxford American Dictionary: "THEISM: belief in the existence of a god or gods, especially belief in one god as creator of the universe, intervening in it and sustaining a personal relation to his creatures.  Compare with DEISM."  "DEISM: An intellectual movement of the 17th and 18th Centuries that accepted the existence of a creator on the basis of reason but rejected belief in a supernatural deity who interacts with humankind.  Compare with THEISM." ]  I will be writing from the perspective of a nontheist who has studied and appreciated many religions.  Although I was raised by atheists, there are also Quakers, Buddhists, and Catholics in my family;  I respect them all.  

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Friends, this is an urgent call to action.  Finally, after a frighteningly long period of inaction and idiotic statements from Mike Leavitt of the HHS, our good Democratic senators got an amendment to a military funding measure passed to fund avian flu preparedness to the tune of $3.9 Bln.  However, I just learned that Ted Stevens in going to attempt to kill this desperately needed funding in conference.  

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Several days ago, friday durdikova asked I write a diary on this subject.

The slow, inadequate, and downright obstructionist response of FEMA to Hurricane Katrina's devastation must be taken as a warning that the federal government cannot be relied upon to help during a crisis.  We're on our own.  Thus, we need to prepare for possible upcoming emergencies ourselves, on a household or neighborhood level.  A major disaster that is on the horizon now is H5N1 bird flu.

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So, the terrorist-safe red states have handed us a time-bomb.  No terrorist has ever threatened Nebraska, Idaho, Utah, Missouri, etc.  We who live in the extremely vulnerable cities that have already been in the terrorists' crosshairs -- New York, Washington, DC, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Chicago --  voted overwhelmingly for Kerry.

So we have swaggering cowboys and girls in the red states eager to "kick some Arab butt" who, like the chickenhawks, will not be on the receiving end of inevitable retaliation -- we will be.   Why didn't they listen to us?  We big city blue staters are the ones who have to deal with the threat of terrorism.  We overwhelmingly chose John Kerry.  That should have told them something vitally important that they needed to understand and respect.  I feel utterly betrayed.

The last sort of person you want to be with in a dangerous situation is a bully.

I am enraged and grieved that they are so willing to throw us to the lions for their gladiatorial spectacle.  

It's confirmed.  A French reporter witnessed Iraqi insurgents looting al Qaqaa 6 months after the invasion.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2004/10/29/news/explode.html

This is a very damning article.  It just wasn't a priority.  It sat as a reservoir of munitions for the insurgents for months.

This year's flu vaccine shortage story is emblematic of the disaster that our health care system has become.  Big Pharma would rather make their own patented drugs than vaccines that save lives because patent monopolies make for outrageous profits.  Public health imperatives are not not well served by the current market system, and we are unprepared for a potential nightmare scenario that some fear we could face this as soon as this winter.

Yearly death tolls from human flu are about 30,000, or ten times 9/11.  This could become an even more dire issue, as the A (H5N1) strain of bird flu, which kills about 75% of those infected, has recently been transmitted from person to person in Thailand.  This is the development scientists were dreading, as the virus had previously only been transmissible from bird to human.  If the virus mutates or picks up genes from a human flu virus in a person simultaneously infected with both, it has the potential to become the sort of virus that killed about 50 million people in the 1918 global pandemic.  That virus was also a bird flu.  

A lack of human flu vaccine in Asia due to insufficient production and contracts providing wealthy countries with vaccine first has jeopardized us all.  More cases of simultaneous human flu and bird flu in Asia gives more opportunities for creation of more virulent strains capable of rapid and easy human-to-human transmission.  Air travel makes this a particularly dangerous global problem.  

I just read Matt Bai's New York times article, Kerry's Undeclared War.  It is definitely well worth the read.  It is a long interview with John Kerry about his approach to terrorism.  It talks about his BCCI work and puts it into context.  But there is much more.

Here it is:

http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/101104J.shtml

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Arguing for embryonic stem cell research often places one opposite a person of fervent theocratic convictions who will wrap their ideology up in swaddling clothes and haloes while real people suffer and die from disorders that may someday be cured.  We need to deal with the flaws in their thinking.  And, although I may think of them as dangerously ignorant, cold-hearted, fringe fanatics, John Kerry demonstrated that we need to treat them with respect while still arguing full force.

First of all, those opposed to embryonic stem cell research funding are a small minority.  This link shows that, on July 30, an ABC poll showed 63% of the public in support of stem cell research including that into embryonic stem cells  (I've heard even higher numbers in support, like 78%).

 http://abcnews.go.com/sections/politics/DailyNews/poll010803.html

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Tort reform rears its ugly head yet again, as the Republicans attempt to tar John Edwards with their standard trial lawyer smear: that those terrible attorneys are filing business-killing frivolous lawsuits just to get money (they never mention how that's the only way we can get information about corporate misdeeds).  But, right on time, a new analysis by Public Citizen shows that businesses file 4 times as many harrassment lawsuits against individuals than do individuals against businesses.  Indeed, this is what we've experienced (along with a smashed windshield and phone threats).

Here are the links:
http://www.commondreams.org/news2004/1004-02.htm

http://www.citizen.org/congress/civjus/tort/myths/articles.cfm?ID=12369

When one tries to swim against the river of truth, one is certain to drown. I understand that theocrats, flat-earthers, and republicans don't believe in facts, but facts are stubborn things.

There are so many arguments against this insane invasion beyond the sheer immorality of bloodshed not in self-defense.  There is no higher purpose to such killing, as every faith has pointed out.

As Bush's reasons for invading Iraq morph from nukes and other WMDs to taking out Saddam because he helped al Qaida to taking out Saddam because he was a nasty character (especially when we were supporting him) to liberating Iraq to bringing democracy to Iraq to bringing democracy to the larger Middle East, etc, etc, the question must be asked: "Whose president does he think he is, anyway?"  

Is he the president of the United States? Or is he the president of Iraq? Or does he think he's the president (ahem) of the world?  

By now it is obvious that Iraq posed no threat to us. Yet his loyalty seems firmly with his idealized Iraqis, certainly not with his own people.