Your Vote Does Not Count

I believe most programmers can't help but fear that the outcome of elections for many years have been determined largely by incumbent politicians, bureaucrats and the handful of election software companies... all of them highly conservative.

While there is probably still enough restraint to allow a landslide vote the other way to prevail, my own sense is that most single-digit victories probably are fraudulent.

Democratic elections require transparent and verifiable election software at all levels. None is currently allowed in any binding election in this country today.

The reaction to the 2000 presidential election debacle was a masterful use of a crisis to set in motion a campaign to strip away most of the civil rights gains of the last 50 years.

Your vote doesn't count, and neither does mine, until this "electronic ballot-stuffing" is ended.

... life and death in the so-called safety net

Sharing and emailing to everyone, including my doctor, Dr. Jose Rodriguez at the Neighborhood Medical Center (nee Neighborhood Health Services) that is one of only two free clinics in Tallahassee like the one in this article ...

Texas' Other Death Penalty

http://www.texasobserver.org/a-galveston

A Galveston medical student describes life and death in the so-called safety net.

by Rachel Pearson Published on Wednesday, November 13, 2013, at 2:01 CST

Broken Hearted (revised)

Here I sit broken hearted.
Tried to vote, but was only thwarted.

"You're name's not a match." they said to me.
"The computer says so. Look, here see."

"I always vote here!" I cried.
They looked at me as if I lied.

"Computers are never wrong. That's the law."
"Now get out of here. There can be no flaw."

"Perhaps you're a felon, a terrorist or both."
"Or an illegal alien... do you know the oath?"

"We've no time for your sort. Poll closing is near!"
"What do you mean, 'stolen elections'? That Can't Happen Here!"

Is Your Boss A Psychopath?

Is Your Boss a Psychopath?
Psychopathic characteristics have come to dominate business management "success". Business is the model for running all organizations in this country these days including medicine, government, charities, etc. Thus the same values and qualities are used for promotions and elections. If a psychopathic personality is so highly valued, then the most psychopathic individuals would be found at the top. Hmmm....

Maybe we're all nuts
In Bob Lewis' Keep the Joint Running column "Maybe we're all nuts" from 08/08/2005, is more about psychopathic bosses. His column implies that the world has changed and that psychopathy is the norm, even the ideal, in business because everyone else is doing it. Blinders firmly in place, shutting out all distractions to the business of running a business today, I couldn't agree more. However... Is this a sustainable practice?

History would indicate that it is not.

In the past, when employers exceeded large numbers of employees' thresholds of tolerance for abuse, employees resisted, most recently (first half of the 20th century) by forming labor unions. Unions are a shadow of their former selves today but great upheavals are occurring. The breakup of the AFL-CIO could be seen as a further erosion, but the parting unions are saying they're leaving because the AFL-CIO has become complacent and too beholden to the status-quo. They're leaving in order to become more activist in attracting new members and resisting employer abuses. This suggests that the tolerance threshold has been reached.

Psychopathy has long been considered a mental illness that is extremely dangerous to society and possibly to the patient as well. A world of psychopaths does not decrease the danger because everyone is approaching life the same way. Quite the contrary. Without compassion, empathy, remorse and guilt, our daily little differences are amplified and acted on aggressively, escalating to destructive behavior.

For example, psychopathy would seem to be almost a prerequisite for terrorism. To indiscriminately kill large numbers of people in pursuit of one's goals would seem to require an extraordinary lack of concern for others. How many people can hold such a lack of concern up as an ideal in the workplace and shut it off when they walk out the office door?

Perhaps Dr. Hare's recognition of this tragedy will be an important signpost that makes us stop to consider its ramifications.

Will we continue down this self-destructive path until the body count (or the sales of anti-depressants) exceeds our capabilities?

Or will we stop and consider that the world survives, and even flourishes, by constantly seeking balance.

Extremes create progress, but allowed to run unchecked, without resistance, like a short-circuit, are ultimately destructive to society.

Quotes To Ponder

Found these on Data Options Quotes & Notes...

First they came for the Communists,and I didn't speak up, because I wasn't a Communist. Then they came for the Jews,and I didn't speak up, because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the Catholics,and I didn't speak up, because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me,and by that time there was no one left to speak up for me.
German Protestant minister Martin Niemoller, after his release from Dachau at the end of World War II

"The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness."
John Kenneth Galbraith

Integrity and Faith

Are integrity and faith dead?
Replaced with image-making and opportunism?

We trust integrity. We have faith in those with integrity that they are being honest and forthright with us; that they are trying to do what is best for all. Selfishness and taking advantage of the weaknesses of others (most particularly us) for personal gain betrays that trust and causes a loss of faith.

At the core of every American is a fundamental belief in ourselves. A belief that we have the skill, the strength, and the duty to "do the right thing" for the benefit of all humankind. This faith in our "rightness" gives us the courage to act when others vacillate.

With a reputation for integrity, those who question will give us a degree of trust... pending the outcome. Without it, we further alienate others by acting, in their view, recklessly.

Why Am I Here?

"The Purpose Driven Life" is a popular book that purports to answer this question.

Here's a more accurate and useful answer...

Any one of us is here because our biological parents had sex, our mother was fertile, one of our father's sperm beat out a few million other sperm to fertilize an egg, and our mother did not abort us.

It's up to each of us to find our own meaning and purpose.

The choice is ours. Not God's, not The Church's, not anyone else's.

Some choose to serve humanity by adding their voice to that of others working for change.

Some choose to try to destroy humanity.

Much of the time it's hard to tell which is which.

By far the most popular choice though, is to do nothing.

We immerse ourselves in work, sports, exercise, gardening and a host other pastimes in an effort to ignore societal problems that are depressingly troubling, largely because we feel helpless to solve them. We become terminally passive.

We're not going to find answers in a book or in a church or even on Google.

The answers are within ourselves.

Evolution vs. Intelligent Design

Well Said Dr. Fullam...

Debate Over Intelligent Design Of God
and the case for unintelligent design

by Lisa Fullam

As the theory of intelligent design again hits the news with President Bush's encouragement this week that the theory be taught in schools alongside evolution, I have one question: What about unintelligent design?

Take rabbit digestion, for example. As herbivores, rabbits need help from bacteria to break down the cell walls of the plants they eat, so, cleverly enough, they have a large section of intestine where such bacterial fermentation takes place. The catch is, it's at the far end of the small intestine, beyond where efficient absorption of nutrients can happen. A sensible system -- as we see in ruminant animals like cattle and deer -- ferments before the small intestine, maximizing nutrient absorption. Rabbits, having to make do with an unintelligent system, instead eat some of their own feces after one trip through, sending half-digested food back through the small intestine for re-digestion.

Horses are similarly badly put together: They ferment their food in a large, blind-ended cecum after the small intestine. Unlike rabbits, they don't recycle their feces -- they're just inefficient. Moreover, those big sections of hind gut are a frequent location for gut blockages and twists that, absent prompt veterinary intervention, lead to slow and excruciating death for the poor horse. The psalmist writes: "God takes no delight in horses' power." Clearly, if God works in creation according to the simplistic schemes of the intelligent design folks, God not only doesn't delight in horses, but seems positively to have it in for them.

Furthermore, why wouldn't an intelligent designer make it possible for animals to digest their natural food without playing host to huge populations of bacteria in the first place: Couldn't mammals have been equipped with their own enzymes to do the job?

But that's not all: Consider mammalian testicles. In order to function optimally, they need to be slightly cooler than the rest of the body and so are carried outside the body wall in the scrotum. Why would one carry one's whole genetic potential in such a vulnerable position? Clearly it's not a gonad problem in general -- ovaries work just fine at body temperature and are snuggled safely within the pelvic girdle for protection. But for testicles, nope -- the scrotum is jerry-rigged to allow for a warm-blooded animal to keep his testicles cool. Surely an intelligent designer could have figured out a way for testicles to work at body temperature, as ovaries do.

Here's another: Do you know anyone beyond the age of 20 or so who has not had a backache? Let's face it: The human body is that of a quadruped tipped up on end to walk on only two legs. The delicate and beautiful cantilever curve of the human spine
compensates (but not enough) for the odd stresses that result from our unusual posture. Perhaps the God of intelligent design has a special place in his plan for chiropractors? And what about the knee? Between the secure ball-and-socket of the hip and the omnidirectional versatility of the ankle is a simple hinge joint, held together only by ligaments (including the anterior cruciate ligament) whose names are known to athletes and sports fans because they're so easily and frequently injured. Again, unintelligent design.

The real problem with intelligent design is that it fails to account for the obvious anatomical and physiological making-do that is evident of so much of the natural world. Evolutionarily minded folks see this as the result of genetic limitations and adaptations accumulated in specialization for certain environments, while the intelligent design folks are left with a designer who clearly cannot have been paying close attention.

While there are extremely precise and fine-tuned mechanisms in nature, there is also lots of evidence of organisms just cobbled together. For instance, take marsupials, who give birth to what in other animals are analogous to fetuses, then have to carry them around in what amounts to an exterior uterus until the offspring are ready to face the world.

As a theist who sees natural evolution not as a theory but as well-established observation, I take comfort in the catch-as-catch-can of the natural world. I have every confidence that an all-loving creator walks in and with the natural world as it struggles to fruition, cheering on our evolutionary triumphs (let's hear it for the opposable thumb!) and standing in solidarity with the evolutionary misfits and misfires, like rabbit guts and horses generally.

Isn't this how God walks in and with us in our individual lives as well, cheering us on, emboldening us and consoling us in our often misguided attempts to live well and do right, and standing in compassion and solidarity with us when we fail, and loving us into trying again? And isn't this a more compelling vision of God, and truer to the biblical God who comes again and again to offer salvation to erring humankind, than that of a designer who can't quite seem to get things right?

Lisa Fullam, a former veterinarian, is an assistant professor of moral theology at the Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley

Published on Thursday, August 4, 2005 by the San Francisco Chronicle

Firing People Raises Morale ?

In response to Carlton Vogt's post in Enterprise Ethics Weblog about the HP layoff of thousands of employees, this came to mind...

The Gift That Keeps On Giving

What's the incentive for mass firings?

(1) Large short-term reduction in costs which usually increases stock price which attracts more investors and increases net worth of stock holders and makes personal profits if liquidated.

(2) Any negative repercussions of the firings is usually short-lived. Morale plummets initially causing reduction in individual productivity (which is not perceived by management since the massive numerical increase in productivity caused solely by fewer people now responsible for doing more work dwarfs it). However, without more layoffs, the remaining workers lose their fear of "being next" after a few weeks. That's when a trickle of new hiring begins which is hyped extensively, internally and externally, to show the company's new found "strength". Over a year or so, monthly figures are released showing "new job creation". In short, the one-time massive layoff was largely to allow the company to show months of "growth".

(3) Undesirables can be purged without following disciplinary procedures.

(4) The company can call itself "lean and mean" which somehow is considered good nowadays despite the fact that, in nature, "lean and mean" would usually describe an animal that is starving and desperately attacking anything and everything they encounter.

Hmmm...

Absolute Truth?

[Excerpted from comment to Bob Lewis' Advice Line column]

We all have slightly different views on ethics. It seems to me that to expect that it could be any other way is to invite bloody conflict. Tolerance, and making a supreme effort to understand and find some value in other beliefs matures our own morality as well as promotes peaceful coexistence.

Contrary to the assertions of almost every belief system I've encountered, I don't believe there is such a thing as "absolute truth". There are too many variables. "Truth" is a moving target. It's constantly changing in light of new knowledge and greater understanding. It's called a "search for truth" for a reason... It's a process, not a goal. Whether God created Man or Man created God, what greater meaning could there be to our lives than for that search for truth to lead us to exceed our expectations?

If God is the Father of Man, is not a parent's most profound wish that their children grow into better adults than they? If, on the other hand, Man created God to embody and personify the ideals we should strive for in order to better ourselves and our world, then too is not exceeding those expectations not only desirable, but required to fulfill that destiny?

Whether one is atheist, agnostic or devout, is not the struggle the same... to become more than we are?

We in information technology are at the forefront of the latest great leap our society's ability to understand the world. Unfortunately, it's become painfully obvious that those who don't understand these new technologies and how they've changed our perceptions and behaviors are making highly flawed and destructive decisions. Their ignorance prevents their grasping the ramifications that are all too obvious to the rest of us. Despite our discomfort with the chaotic world of ethics, philosophy and theology, who else is there to bring rationality and maybe even a bit of wisdom to this decision-making?

As technologists, we like certainty. We like absolute truth. But have you noticed that the more complex computers and software get, the more elusive certainty becomes? Is certainty (truth) an illusion... an approximation... a convenience used to simply problems? What happens when our margins of error don't cover the inherent uncertainty that we are masking? If we're flying space shuttles, people die. Thankfully, most of us don't have people's lives in our hands... or do we?

REFERENCES
Enterprise Ethics - by Carlton Vogt, former Infoworld columnist