Posted on Huffingtonpost. com today:

Not believing in a religion is not a belief.

Everyone is an atheist, by the definition given. Do you believe in Krishna? No? You're an atheist. Thor? Atheist. Ishtar? Souless you are.

The implication here is that God exists, and to not believe is in itself an act of faith, therefore a religion itself.

This shouldn't even be a debate. Atheism is a term loaded with assumptions. The problem is sematic -- most problems with humans are semantic in origin.

Faith is the belief in something without proof. I'll give you that I have faith in the rights of man as stated by Jefferson. I know there is no rational basis for it. But it is a faith necessitated by a need for humane structure for society, not a need to believe that a superhuman told me to believe so.

Faith is not the same as religion. Religion is a belief in beings that by definition are always outside the sphere of reason and evidence. Being or beings. Agents, projections of the id onto the universe. And it always seems to boil down to holy writ and forced impression on children to carry the line forward.

Two racist black men walk into this night club, see, and scream down the comedian with prejudiced epithets, calling him a cracker and a white boy, interrupting his professional work and infuriating the comic.

The comic cuts loose with a Pryoresque tirade, returning their own racism with matching fire. Apparently he was funny. Took them down.

But his career is in ruins, and the racists who should have been tossed from the club become heroes and victims.

Would a black comedian have been disgraced using the same words? No? Racism, in the raw. Soooo. You are a racist has-been only if you're pale? Where is the condemnation of the racists who spewed forth their hatred in the nightclub? Are they unemployable now? Who exactly are the racists in this situation? Why is making fun of the asshats who were doing their reverse-KKK, using the "nigger" word, such a horror?

Tarantino was right. The word "nigger" needs to lose its voltage. I hear the word dozens of times a day -- if blacks want the word to die, they should start thinking about not using it themselves.

And blacks have their own words for whites with the same voltage as "nigger". It's just not talked about, because that would be racist.

Racist, the term, does not mean "disrepectful to blacks". It means to demean or discriminate against another because of their "race", whatever that means, as the term has no meaning in science. Skin color, then.

Why is this a national story while thousands die in our occupation of Iraq? Too easy and fun to cover, I guess. Cheap advertising dollars for your show, no heavy lifting or thinking involved. Gets you brownie points.

Definition of a police state: when the police stop being our protectors, and start being our prison guards.

Ted Rall at the Smirking Chimp is saying in his article today entitled "Our Long National Nightmare Has Just Begun: Like Cornered Rats, GOP Losers More Dangerous Than Ever", what I've been thinking since last January:

In January 2006 HomeSec awarded a $385 million contract to Kellogg, Brown and Root, the subsidiary of Halliburton Co., to build "temporary detention and processing capabilities"--internment camps--"in the event of an emergency influx of immigrants into the U.S., or to support the rapid development of new programs."

Let me add, that quote was from Halliburton's main web page back in January.

Let's say it. The concentration camps are being built, the laws are in place to grab us, and the National Guard has been placed under Bush's control. We've a war coming up, a civil war between the PNACers and the United States of America.

Senate nominally Democratic, but will be a Republican majority in a pinch.

And, the author begins to order his thoughts about "conspiracies" and misunderstood e-voting dangers

Looks like my option (1) from yesterday came true: a Democratic majority Senate only with Lieberman cooperating, or if he turns traitor, Cheney will break the tie votes in Bush's favor. The Democrats really haven't taken control of the Senate: Lieberman has. And he's itching for some payback. Lieberman will decide who sits on any the Supreme Court seat that comes open, for instance.

I'll have some words later on the idea that the voting machine conspiracy theory has been proven wrong. For one, I hate the term "conspiracy theory". The idea that a worldwide communist movement which secretly moved to destroy American freedom existed in the 1900's was the ultimate -- and dead wrong -- conspiracy theory, yet it is accepted as gospel by nearly every person in the U.S. Tweaking a few voter cards or mangling the totals in a Windows server box which counts up voter totals from cards isn't that big a deal. One person could do it, so by definition it wouldn't be a conspiracy.

More later.

For the last quarter century since that grinning moron became president in the Eighties, I've felt like a stranger drifting through the fog-covered grounds of a mental institution. Up was down, right was wrong, and nothing was ever anyone's fault, unless a blue dress was involved.

Not so much now. Even Howard the Duck might think twice about cranking today.

Good night and good luck.

Or, worse case scenario, Lieberman switches parties and the Republicans win all up-and-down votes by the use of Herr Cheney breaking ties.

Worst case scenario, the Repubs somehow change the votes during the recounts and all the other speculation becomes moot.

But, as I thought, they couldn't affect the House races. Too many moving targets. And, hey, Bush can't install any more Supreme Court justices, unless the Democrats still have too many compromising idiots in their ranks.

Looks like Tester for Montana! Virginia still in play. If Virginia stays blue, then they are 49 Democrats, 49 Republicans, 1 Socialist (figure as Democrat), and 1 Lieberman (treat as Republican) in the Senate.

I think Firedoglake has it right, when they predict Lieberman will position himself for some major worship to tip votes the Democrat's way. Else, deadlock, with ties decided by Cheney.

48/49 -- with Montana still in play, but leaning towards a Democrat/Republican tie, 49/49... I think CNN is counting Lieberman as a... Democrat in their breakdown of the Senate?

McCaskill takes the Senate seat for Missouri. She's giving the victory speech. The flying Diebold monkeys have not landed, and I am a very happy man. CNN has not confirmed.

Larry King is predicting the flying lawyer monkeys will land and slow it down for months. So much for the people deciding elections rather than the lawyers, eh?

Virginia, Missouri, Montana. Margins of victory around one percent in each of these Senate races.

This is when the flying monkeys in Diebold and Sequoia may be called. Just a tiny, tiny tweak in three precincts in those three states can give the Senate to the Republicans. One bag man with a laptop can move the totals in three aggregating PCs. And he doesn't even have to leave home to do it, though I think he'd be smart enough to use an unsecured wireless access point.

I'm betting on the cheat. It's too easy.

The Senate seat in Missouri is hanging on for the Democrats by 13,000 votes, with St. Louis county not yet reporting en masse.

Webb DECLARES VICTORY! Demos need TWO more senators to take control of both houses! CNN not declaring for Webb yet, though.

Paul Begala just said on CNN that his sources are begging for lawyers to run to Virginia immediately to monitor the ballot counting. I feel a chill...

Republican on staff immediately said that lawyers shouldn't decide elections. This from the party that lawyered the 2000 race into a Supreme Court intervention to prevent the completion of the recount in Dade County, Florida.

Something is happening in Virginia? Are we hearing the e-votes disappear tonight?

If the sentencing of Saddam to death by hanging at the behest of our proxies was Karl Rove's big surprise, then he's been drinking his own urine for far too long.

The war's a farce, so's the trial, so's your neocon liar's club, Mr. Rove.

Democrats take the House.

For twenty-four of the last twenty-six years, I have endured the growth of the evangelical, authoritarian right. Only two years of my adult life have not been touched by the madness, and those two years the Democrats opposed their own president.

Now, we have an angry sane majority in the House. May I be wrong about the Senate. Please.

No matter what happens in the Senate races, win or lose, the Democrats will have the House, as I predicted. Too many targets, too many places to intervene for the Republicans to change the totals.

Still hoping my negative prediction about concentrating on stealing the essential Senate elections to avoid investigation and prosecution won't pan out.

8:22 PM

CNN's pundrity just giggled about Lieberman getting sweet revenge against the Democratic senators who "threw him out" of the party and campaigned against him!

MY GOD. Lieberman LOST THE PRIMARY. He was not "thrown out" of the party: he LEFT the party and ran as an "independent", received Republican money and support, and apparently has been reelected by Republicans! Who the hell are these mouth breathers on CNN?

Today, November 7, 2006, we Americans will see if we have a democracy or a termite-emptied shell of what used to be a representative system.

My negative prediction: the operative or operatives responsible for manipulating e-voting machines and the tabulation system that forms the more critical part of those e-voting networks will give a pass to trying to manipulate the House races, given the large number of races they would need to undetectably intervene in.

They can, must tip the Senate races, because to lose both House and Senate would lift the rock under which a lot of bugs currently hide in the damp darkness. Too much money stolen, too many people killed, too many laws are being broken to give the Dems total control of the legislative branch -- and the investigative powers they would wield.

So, at 2:25 Central time, I predict either of two events:

1. Lieberman wins. The e-machine totals will be tweaked at the local level in enough places, tightly contested, so that the Senate splits 50-50 at the very most. Lieberman will vote Republican anyway, so no problem for them.

2. Lieberman loses. The cheater(s) will do their damnedest to bring in a 51 member majority no matter what it takes. Kerry's mispoke joke and the values voters meme will be trotted out to explain the disparity by the assembled media millionaires.

Hmp. Have to step up a bit more if I want to keep a real blog here. If anyone wants to see my older, pre-blogspot posts, search Slashdot's posts for a user named "Catbeller". Over 1700 posts so far.

I'm a programmer. The fix is in, and this is why.

1. Exit polls did not fit election results in 2004. This is flat out impossible to believe; those same exit poll operations were in danger of being shut down in the 90's because they were *too* accurate, and the western states were complaining that the preditions were so spot on that voters might be staying home instead of voting in an already decided race. Statistics don't stop working, suddenly, in contested areas only. One side doesn't just start lying to the pollsters. It can't happen.

2. Election results didn't match pre-election telephone polls in 2004. Again, impossible.

3. Documented case of media being shut out of an electronic recount in Ohio because of a "threat received from Homeland Security" that was never issued. Results in that recount swung wildly for the Republicans and Bush.

4. I'm a programmer, and I state categorically that there is no way to secure a computer system against intentional manipulation. And it seems that these machines are set up for manipulation; they weren't even trying to hide.

5. At least two attacks, one sanctioned and one independent with a machine somehow obtained from the field, showed that the machines can be manipulated so many ways, without detection, that my fingers would fall off trying to list them.

6. A very small number of people are needed to change the results. No actual human intervention at the machine or the agregator is needed. They can phone the changes in.

7. Exit polls have been discontinued because they are "inaccurate". Garbage. They are no longer being done because the exit polls will not match the coming election results. This isn't a prediction, this is a flat out statement of fact.

8. I'm guessing that someone in the Republican party is well aware of the fix, even if Bush and others are intentionally left out of the loop, and this explains why Rove is so very, very confident.

9. The Republicans will hold on to both houses, impossibly, by slim margins in the most constested areas. Recounts will be useless, as they simply feed the same doctored tabulations through the aggregators again.

10. The only evidence of the coming theft will be the results of the phone polls conducted prior to the election. Another prediction: the news outlets will discover that telephone polls don't work anymore, either.

Sooooo... as we all expected, Karl Rove was the piece of work that orchestrated the outing of undercover CIA agent, Valerie Plame, to punish Wilson for his damning book about the secret origins of the Iraq invasion.

Amazing that the two sources for this news are talking just before Tennis Sunday on the big networks, so that there will be no Sunday gabfest coverage of the implications of this revelation.

Rove is orchestrating this "leak", it seems to me. Since the Supremes have eliminated journalists' historic protection from revealing their sources, and Time has turned over the notes, Rove might as well let the news out on a slow weekend to control and limit the damage done to his reputation. Let the excuses commence: already his people are saying he never personally leaked the information. Bah. He let someone else do the dirty work, and now he will try to make that loyal bastard swing for his crime.

Keep this in mind, as you munch your hot dogs this weekend:

Rove masterminded the War On Terror meme. He turned a small attack with a huge number of fatalities into a War Against Terror, in reality a war against Islam in the minds of the gullible. He created the WMD scare, He used that terror to boost his boss and gain for him dictatorial powers.

But at the same time, he thought so little of the threat of WMD's in the world that he had no problem whatsoever in destroying the operation of which Valerie Plame was a part - a company covertly engaged in the search for the very weapons that Rove impressed on the American public were the highest national priority, a veritable death sentence about to be imposed at any second.

He is either a liar about his belief in the danger of WMD's to our national security, the danger he ruthlessly flogged to justify the invasion, occupation and pacification of Iraq, and started a war and a national panic to grant his boy a king's rule -- or he did believe in the danger, and didn't care, which in this time of "war" he so ruthlessly proselytized would be treason of the lowest sort.

Liar or traitor. Lied about the causes of his invasion, or doesn't give a fuck about destroying a CIA anti-WMD operation in order to punish Wilson for telling the truth.

Time for him to burn. Pity the Republicans in Washington and the press will wet down all the matches.

Correction:

In my January 25th post, I wrote:

Kerry, though a War Hero, yes, yes, caved in to Bush early on in the Iraq propaganda blitz in '92, even though he could have read easily available analyses that refuted Bush's lie factory.

Arrgghh. Obviously I meant '02/'03. Wrong Bush. Getting the rerun mixed up with the original show. I don't know the exact date that Congress resigned its power and handed it over to Bush, but it wasn't '92.

Sorry!

Kerry Throws Away Another Gun.

Well. I haven't had time to track this down, but it seems Kerry has decided that he doesn't want his supporters using the issue of George's AWOL/desertion from the National Guard in wartime to bash Bush's electoral brains out.

First, Kerry can't use the fact that Bush conned us into a war, because Kerry voted for giving Bush dictatorial powers to wage war. Even so, the biggest attack job that Rove has prepped paints Kerry as a hypocrite even so.

NOW he's throwing away the second biggest hammer he's got? Is he trying to lose? What is he going to run on?

I miss Dean. He didn't have Kerry's vote baggage, and he would never have thrown his biggest attack points away for no freaking reason.

But Dean insulted the wrong people, both in the Democratic party and the news media management itself. Stating categorically that he was going to try to break up the new Supermedia corporations guaranteed that he'd be tried and executed on TV, and it was so.

So now, the crowned one declares he's throwing down his weapons.

Anyone for Canada? How about a new country? What's going on in Antarctica?

NOT NOW, KATO!

Remember the Pink Panther movies? If you don't, then rent them now. Get NetFlix and have the DVD's sent to you. It'll help with the analogy, and my stock portfolio will thank you.

In all of the Pink Panther flicks, Inspector Clouseau, the intrepid master of asian martial arts, used his manservant Kato as an irregularly expected sneak attacker to keep his fighting skills honed.

One fine evening, as the Inspector was entertaining a lovely lass in his bed, Kato crashed into the couple's party as it was just getting interesting. As the three were being catapulted out through the wall, all you could hear was Inspector Clouseau's impassioned scream: "Not NOW, KAAATO!"

As I was driving home tonight, I was half-listening to a debate being held on National Public Radio concerning the right of gay people to marry. All was going well, and I was boredly following the introductions, and then I hear the pro-marriage debater hold forth on this lovely gem.

A few weeks ago, it seems Edwards the Prez candidate was on the spot, being grilled to a nice toasty brown on his position on gay marriage. Apparently Edwards had danced around the subject, refusing to be pinned down. The debater today was triumphantly remembering how he had made the Democratic candidate squirm and falter.

Save me, Monkey Jesus. NOT NOW, KATO!

Right now? After all eternity, this issue has to be forced to the fore, right now, as the Democrats are fighting a game of inches? The next election is going to be microscopically close. As we saw in Florida in 2000, one foolish man, Nader, tipped Bush into the White House. All other issues aside about the Green's right to run, and others to vote for him, in really real life the spoiler did install the most radical president ever to sit on the chair in the Oval office.

Raising the issue of gay marriage, which heretofore has not exactly been a barnburner of an issue, hell, wasn't an issue at all, in the minds of the American public at large, has given Rove and the right-wing southern baptists a solid percentage of the truly intolerant that will vote for the candidate who is dead set against the idea. Hell, Bush insisted on mentioning a constitutional amendment banning non-straight marriage in the last State of the Union speech. That wasn't casual. He lined up several percent of the voting public to vote for him, lies about war notwithstanding. If there is gayness to be fought, they will forgive him the fifteen thousand dead people.

If Democrats are to win this next election, it will be by a percentage point, I strongly believe. Throwing away a few percent of the electorate by insisting on raising this issue RIGHT NOW is bloody stupid, if you are a backer gay rights.

IF Bush wins this next election, he will fundamentally alter the makeup of the federal courts, making them pro-right "Christians", one and all. A constitutional amendment banning gay marriage will be introduced, tho I doubt it will make it into law until Cheney or Rice is president.

IF Bush is elected, the Republicans will start a redistricting crusade that will stonker the historians. They've already run a trial usurping in Colorado and Texas; they've proved to themselves that nobody cares if they take over state representation.

IF Bush is elected, Governors will be recalled left and right. Senators and Representatives on the Democratic side of the Congress will be attacked simultaneously on multiple legal fronts, and will be removed from office.

IF Bush makes it, Diebold and the other voting machine manufacturers will deliver to the Republicans the ability to win any election they choose, if they choose to use the abilities already demonstrated to hack those voting systems. No one will be able to contest a rigged election, because the recount will always match the electronic totals. As a comp sci guy, I am here telling you that there is no way whatsoever to make those systems secure. Anyone who says differently is either too drunk with IT knowledge to make an accurate judgement, a member of a committee who is terrified to admit they bought a hackable voting system, or the bastards who designed and sell the cheat-o-matics.

IF Bush wins, there will never be a gay "right" to anything whatsoever. The court system and the legislatures will be hard-right radical religionists for the rest of this century. I don't see how it could be stopped, if Bush gains the White House again. I don't see how it could ever be undone, for they will also alter the educational system to to foster religious (read right-wing fundamentist) views in young people. They've already waged a twenty+ year campaign to take over school boards, successfully.

It is both the triumph and the tragedy of the Democrats that they are now the big tent. Everyone is in the tent, even those who cannot fathom the damage they do to themselves and their nation if they pursue their goals blind to the results of their campaign. This is not the time. The Right is marshalling its forces to make this issue key for their voters. It does Kerry or Edwards or Dean no good to be force to put up or else on this issue,

Can't it wait a year? Please, not now, Kato.

Please don't throw us into the briar patch, Br'er Democrats!

I've given some noodle time yesterday and today to the Kerry upset in Iowa.

Republicans, according to some articles posted lately, are unhappy that Dean was squished in the first round. They claim that they would have loved to have taken on the insane, unstable, angry Dean. A cakewalk! A damned shame Kerry is moving forward; he'll be so much harder to beat.

On another front, I'm getting admittedly unverifiable impressions from people on the ground that a very large number of Republicans showed up at votin' time, switched party affiliation, cast ballots, and left.

Now, as Molly Ivins said, Kerry can take the excitement out of a soccer riot. Dean has energized his people as no one else has.

And we have what you can say is a armament problem when it comes to Iraq with Dean, Clark, and Kerry.

Dean said Bush lied about the reason for attacking Iraq from the beginning. As a campaign issue, he can flog Bush's lies with impunity. He's fully locked and loaded.

Clark, although suspicious and questioning from the start of the attack, still is vulnerable to a smear campaign from Bush's media which will paint him as hypocrite and a flipper. Even though the basis for such a lie is vulnerable to refutation by analyzing transcripts, as was done recently to Drudge's fabricated story by such people as Marshall on Talking Points Memo, journalists have grown too lazy to check facts when juicy stories are handed to them fully seasoned. Witness Paula Zahn, who apparently reported on the "story" using the RNC/Drudge fabrications as undisputed source material. Large numbers of people already have swallowed the lie; more will follow. Clark is partially disarmed, his Iraq gun jammed.

Kerry, though a War Hero, yes, yes, caved in to Bush early on in the Iraq propaganda blitz in '92, even though he could have read easily available analyses that refuted Bush's lie factory. He cannot use the Bush Lied to Invade Iraq campaign: he was part of the rush to war. He's totally disarmed. He was complicit. People aren't that stupid, and Rove will spend endless cash reminding people that Kerry was jingoing with the best of the Cheney team.

It's the single biggest campaign issue, and only Dean could have used the gun with impunity. The Republicans, all premeditated statements to the press about wanting Dean to the contrary, were afraid of Dean and the anger of the people who understand exactly how they were had. By bouncing Kerry to the front, they have taken the Democrat's single cannon away from them.

They wanted to be thrown into that briar patch.

Why else flood the caucuses with fake Democrats? Why else constantly tear down Dean with pictures of Dean angry, stories about angry Dean, video of Dean yelling at a pep rally? If they wanted to take Dean on, why try to destroy his electabilty?

They really don't want Clark any more than Dean, but he's a tough nut right now to crack. Kerry is the man they can take on. He lacks charisma on TV; his haircut is odd and dated. One or two smear campaigns and he would have dropped the few points he needed to win the election from Bush.

Rove wants to run against Kerry.

gsrg