Enron's Skilling Sentenced to 24 Years in Prison - washingtonpost.com

So, there is a little justice after all. That said, I wonder if the $45 million Skilling will have to pay will even come close to the amount of damage done by Enron.

If you haven't seen it yet, check out 2005's The Smartest Guys in the Room. It's chilling how easily people bought into Enron's accounting scheme to declare profits before they were actually realized.

The real republican strategy behind electronic voting in MD

Ehrlich can point fingers all he wants, but I'd bet money that he secretly want faulty electronic voting. It's easy to say you want paper ballots (anyone who wants democracy wants paper ballots).

The truth is that Diebold, that highly trustworthy donor to the Republican party, is going to be "re-testing" the machines that failed in last week's primary. If they screwed it up once, who's to say that they won't screw it up again? And by screwed, I mean cheating the public of an honest election.

How To Steal an Election With a Diebold Machine - Gizmodo

Like I said, 1984 is here and now.

Democracy in the US is now only a thing of the past. Contact your state senator, delegate, or US congressman/woman or senator to demand just elections. Electronic voting is not safe now, and is not likely to ever be safe.

There are just some things that should still be done with pen and paper.

1984 Is Here

David Reimer over at Watchblog has posted this very good summary of some very scary bills coming up in the Senate. One will essentially allow the President to continue unwarrented wiretaps; one would literally allow Congress to trade campaign contributions for pork spending (earmark spending bills--you know the ones that voters love to hate and hate to love?); the third, which David points out is meeting with opposition, would allow the CIA to torture prisoners.

Check it out.

The Yes Men Strike Again

From CNN, by way of TPM Muckraker, the prankster group The Yes Men have struck again in New Orleans, this time perpetrating a HUD official.

For those of you not familiar with The Yes Men, I highly recommend the 2003 documentary by the same name. Essentially, they go around impersonating officials from various "bad organizations," and say the things that's really on all our minds. For example, the documentary shows them impersonating WTO officials, spouting off the benefits of the slavery that occurs as a result of globalization.

In this particular stunt, the pranksters said what needed to be said--and what we would all like to see happen in New Orleans: Government and private companies actually spending money to fix the city.

iandanger.com

Check out this blog from a college green in MD. I'm also adding Ian to my links.

Ian is a contributor over at WatchBlog, one of my favorite blogs.

Cheers, Ian. I hope to see you at a Baltimore County Greens meeting one of these days.

Time for Reflection

As some of you may know, I've just had a baby (well, my wife and I had her). Since becoming a dad, I've stepped down from all of my responsibilities for the Maryland Green Party. With time away from state party politics, I've had a chance to reflect on my experiences with the MGP over the past two years.

Recently, there's been a few comments on the Village Green, the MGP's main listserve. I've responded to them and am reposting the response here:

After 2 years of working w/in the MGP in various functions, I have to say that people are very quick to say "The MGP should do (insert action)" but very slow to say, "I can do (insert action) for the MGP." For those less involved in the state party, it's sometimes easy to have an inaccurate idea of what is or should be going on at the state level.

Just like some of our locals, the state party is strapped for cash. And, just like some of our locals, the state party is also strapped for human resources. In my 2 years of attending CC meetings almost every month, only a few times did Greens from Frederick or other outlying areas of MD attend (sorry Whitney).

The result is a real dearth of activism at the state level. The MGP has about 10 different committees. Sadly, only a few of them are active and the ones that are active are not fully staffed. Ideally, it'd be great to have at least one person from each local on each committee. Having convened a committee myself, it is next to impossible to get volunteers from locals to assist (for those who don't know me, I convened the Public Relations committee for approximately one year).

Not only are committees understaffed, but it makes it very difficult for the state Coordinating Committee to, well, coordinate. If locals are not reporting back to the CC, the CC cannot help locals grow. It's a symbiotic relationship (or should be IMO).

Another result of being short human resources is being short of fundraising. It takes time and energy to do this. We can spend plenty of time coming up with great fundraising ideas, but if no one takes the lead they are just thoughts going out into the ether of the universe.

So, the next time someone is tempted to say that the MGP should be doing fundraising, that person should instead be thinking, "How can I do fundraising for the MGP?"

This doesn't even touch on the issue of some members' attitudes about money or how the MGP can maintain its ethical beliefs about money and politics and still be a functional political organization. Frankly, it doesn't even matter which side of that debate you fall on. Why? Because there's not enough money coming into the MGP for it to really matter (at least, since my last CC several months ago--Beth, feel free to correct me if I'm wrong).

And on that note, I'd like to encourage everyone to make a donation of either time or money! With another record breaking year of candidates on the ballot and a monstrous amount of petitioning in front of us, the MGP needs YOUR HELP!



So, what are you waiting for? Donate time and/or money!