MGx - Musings, Essays & Ballads

Stephen Spoonamore discusses serious voting irregularities with voting machines in a video interview. More here at AlterNet

In an interview from October, 2006, that has only now seen the light of day, Stephen Spoonamore, one of the world’s leading experts in cyber crime and a self-described “life-long Republican” destroys Diebold’s already non-existent credibility.

Spoonamore lays it out for anyone to see and understand. If you care about America and it’s survival as a democratic republic, you’ll watch this interview.

The interviews are on YouTube and are being carried by a new site created by Velvet Revolution, RoveCyberGate.com.

Here is a snippet of the interview here -

This weekend I had the pleasure of participating in a workshop about digital storytelling. Digital storytelling involves compiling photos, video clips and artwork and combining them with a script or voice over and converting it all into a movie like a documentary.
My fellow participants all represented different groups or organizations. Rural Organizing Project asked me to attend to produce a digital story that they could use to further their work in social reforms and peace. Other participants represented renters’ rights organizations, children’s advocacy groups, immigration reform and cultural policies.
We were all asked to keep our pieces below five minutes and forced everyone to learn the value of brevity and to focus on key phrases and allow the images to tell the details. After three days of immersion training in video editing and sound engineering software I am pleased to announce that every story produced was informative moving and powerful.
We had a Palestinian, a self-described ‘rock thrower’ tell his story. His is an interesting perspective because he was crippled at 17 by an Israeli bullet for throwing rocks and despite US support for Israel over Palestine wanted to come to America.
He noted the efforts in America to assist people with disabilities, wheel chair access and educational support. He now holds three degrees and though it took him twelve years during which time he was repeatedly dogged by the FBI he is now a US citizen.
Rural Organizing Project (ROP) is an organization that coordinates with social justice and human dignity groups around Oregon such as our own Concerned Citizens of Coquille and helps track ballot initiatives and monitor efforts by organizations to accomplish goals and rally support from voters. ROP enables rural Oregon to have a larger collective voice in Salem.
My story deals with Iraq, the warrior culture and the trials of homecoming, all in three short minutes. The stories will be published online and broadcast on different stations and networks depending upon their content early in October.

Friend, fellow MFSO member and Gold Star dad Al Zappala died last week… You are with your boy again now.

Rest in peace

RICK GOCHE TO ATTEND CURRY COUNTY DEMOCRATIC OFFICE OPENING
On Saturday August 16, Rick Goche, candidate for State House of Representatives, will attend the grand opening of Port Orford office of the Curry County Democratic Party.
“I look forward to talking with more Port Orford voters while at the grand opening.” Goche says.
So far Rick has knocked on nearly 3000 doors in the communities of Port Orford, Brookings, Gold Beach, Bandon, Coquille, Myrtle Point, Green Acres, Powers and Winston. Goche, a commercial fisherman by trade, says he has hired a skipper to run his boat for the tuna season this year so he can dedicate his time to the campaign. “It is that important to me” he says.

For more info go to Goche For Rep

During my son’s deployment to Iraq the Marines produced a couple of ‘music videos’. They were put together with some help from stateside and many of the images and videos were taken with cell phone cameras so the quality is not always good. It seems that enough time has passed now that I can share these videos with those interested and provide the links below but must warn that some of the content is graphic.

My son is in each of them, both times in a hummer firing so he can’t really be seen. At the end of one of the videos is a picture of a little girl and readers of this blog will know who she is.

Video 1 in .avi format

Video 2 in .wmv

Blog administrators that is. For several reasons I thought it might be prudent to talk about anonymity, comment decorum and common sense. On a blog dealing with local issues as this one does from time to time, I can certainly understand why some posters may wish anonymity. Some people, fearing retribution perhaps, might not otherwise comment or tell stories about their experiences with a local issue if they couldn’t assure their privacy for themselves or their family.

On the other hand, some people take anonymity to extremes. For example, on this blog people have logged in claiming to be FBI agents, cops, former cops, victims and on and on. Blog administrators can choose to ignore these comments and let the community deal with them or edit them or simply not allow them to post depending upon their content.

Most people probably know that it is possible, to a point, to track the origination of a comment to the computer or location that it came from. Blog operators have access to server log files which reveal a variety of information about a poster including location, operating system or even the browser they use. So when a poster claims to be in Mendocino County, California but is actually posting from a computer with a Coquille IP number, it is a safe bet the comments may be untrue.

If a poster claims to be a little old lady living south of Bandon but is using high speed DSL connection it is pretty safe to assume that they are also not being truthful. When a poster uses multiple email addresses and user names and personnas but is sending all of these from the same computer with the same IP address in the same location, it is not hard to determine that we have some less than honest people commenting. Computers leave a footprint - in fact, this is how they catch online pedophiles and presumably track down terrorists….

In general I am not opposed to anonymity unless it is used only to attack me or other posters on this site. It becomes counter productive or certainly doesn’t lead to honest discourse. Recently, a couple of individuals have attempted to post comments claiming to be multiple people and I have chosen not to publish the comments. Yes, they were critical of me or worse, slanderous of other posters here but as you can see from the past, flamelick for example, I do allow people to vent about me here to a point.

After some thought and discussion with people I respect and given that everyone knows who I am, I will allow people to criticize me here as long as they are open and honest about who they are. Otherwise, find another location to rant and I promise I probably will not see it which will be best anyway.

Remember, we blog administrators…. we have your number.

On August 14, 1986, Jeremy Bright, age 14 I believe, disappeared. Our thoughts go out to his family.

McCain is really dangerous, not to mention totally out of it.

Naturally, the officers involved testified under oath that they had acted appropriately and accused the victim of throwing punches, etc…. Luckily, the event was caught on video tape and the undercover officers’ honesty has come into question.

On the video, which was shot outside Coors Field on the home opener of the Colorado Rockies game on April 4, undercover Denver Police detectives hit, kick and choke John Heaney.

“They both unloaded on me and I started seeing stars and the whole thing was just bam, bam, bam after that,” said Heaney. “Someone had a chokehold and they were all on top of me and I couldn’t breathe and I thought I was going to die.”

After three detectives had Heaney facedown on the ground with his hands behind his back, the video shows undercover Det. Michael Cordova pull Heaney’s hair, lift up his head and slam it into the ground, breaking two of his teeth on the cement.

Here is the video, (graphic)