A Resolution to Congress

[DISCLAIMER: I am not affiliated with any political party or organization. I am an American.]

[December 14, 2020]

Whereas, it is the constitutional and legal obligation of the Legislature of the State of Arizona to ensure that the state's presidential electors truly represent the will of the voters of Arizona; and

Whereas, pursuant to the direction of Congress as set forth in United States Code, title 3, section 1 as authorized by Article II, section 1, clause 4 of the Constitution of the United States, and state law adopted pursuant thereto, Arizona conducted an election for presidential electors on the Tuesday next after the first Monday in November of 2020-that is, on November 3, 2020; and

Whereas, that election was marred by irregularities so significant as to render it highly doubtful whether the certified results accurately represent the will of the voters; and

Whereas, Congress has further directed in U.S. Code, title 3, section 2 that when a state ``has held an election for the purpose of choosing electors, and has failed to make a choice on the day prescribed by law, the electors may be appointed on a subsequent day in such manner as the legislature of such State may direct''; and

Whereas, that provision implicitly recognizes that Article II, Section 1, Clause 2 of the U.S. Constitution grants to each state legislature, with stated limitations, the sole authority to prescribe the manner of appointing electors for that state; and

Whereas, the United States Supreme Court and other courts have explained that when a state legislature directs the manner of appointing electors, it does so pursuant to a grant of authority from the U.S. Constitution rather than by reason of any state constitutional or other legal provision; that this authority may be exercised by the legislature alone without other aspects of the normal lawmaking process; and that the state legislature's authority over the appointment of presidential electors is plenary and may be resumed at any time; and

Whereas, because U.S. Code, title 3, section 7 mandates that all presidential electors vote for President and Vice President of the United States on December 14, 2020, it is impossible to pursue the Legislature's preferred course of action, which would be for Arizona's voters to participate in a new and fair and free presidential election before that date; and

Whereas, in view of the facts heretofore recited, the Legislature is required to exercise its best judgment as to which slate of electors the voters prefer; and

Whereas, legal precedent exists where in 1960 the State of Hawaii sent an alternate slate of electors while the Presidential election was still in question in order to meet the deadline of selecting electors, and upon recount the alternate slate of electors' ballots were ultimately counted; and

Whereas, the undersigned have an obligation to find the truth. For this reason, on several occasions since November 3, we state lawmakers have requested fact-finding hearings to include a comprehensive and independent forensic audit. At this time, no such audit has been authorized. This leaves the uncertainty of the election results in a state that requires further investigation and resolution; and

Whereas, ongoing election irregularity litigation is currently active, and there are unresolved disputes by both the Legislature and at least one Presidential campaign, rendering the election inconclusive as of date of signing of this letter,

Therefore, be it:

Resolved by the undersigned Legislators, members of the Arizona House and Senate, request that the alternate 11 electoral votes be accepted for to Donald J. Trump or to have all electoral votes nullified completely until a full forensic audit can be conducted. Be it further resolved that the United States Congress is not to consider a slate of electors from the State of Arizona until the Legislature deems the election to be final and all irregularities resolved.

Signed this day, 14 December, 2020.

Senator Elect Kelly Townsend, Legislative District 16; Representative Kevin Payne, Legislative District 21; Representative Mark Finchem, Legislative District 11; Senator Sonny Borrelli, Legislative District 5; Representative Bret Roberts, Legislative District 11; Representative Bob Thorpe, Legislative District 6; Senator David Farnsworth, Legislative District 16; Representative Leo Biasiucci, Legislative District 5; Representative Anthony Kern, Legislative District 20; Senator Sylvia Allen, Legislative District 15; Senator Elect Nancy Barto, Legislative District 15; Majority Leader Warren Petersen, Legislative District 12; Representative Steve Pierce, Legislative District 1; Representative Tony Rivero, Legislative District 21; Senator David Gowan, Legislative District 14; Representative David Cook, Legislative District 8; Representative John Fillmore, Legislative District 16; Representative Travis Grantham, Legislative District 12; Representative Walter Blackman, Legislative District 6; Representative Shawnna Bolick, Legislative District 20; Representative Noel Campbell, Legislative District 1; Representative Elect Jacqueline Parker, Legislative District 16; Representative Elect Beverly Pingerelli, Legislative District 21; Representative Elect Jake Hoffman, Legislative District 12; Senator Elect Wendy Rogers, Lt Col, USAF (ret), Legislative District 6; Representative Elect Steve Kaiser, Legislative District 15; Representative Elect Brenda Barton, Legislative District 6; Representative Elect Joseph Chaplik, Legislative District 23; Representative Elect Judy Burges, Legislative District 1; Representative Elect Quang Nguyen, Legislative District 1.

[From the Congressional Record for 1/6/2021]

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Leap of Faith

As Jerry maneuvered the element scanner across the surface of the asteroid, he was rewarded with several spikes. He stopped and ran it back again just to make sure. Grinning at the display, he called out to his partner over his suit-to-suit link, "Hey, Sam! Come check this out!" When Sam didn't reply, Jerry looked back over his shoulder just in time to see his buddy's body crumple to the ground. "What the drek!" He took in the three black-clad interlopers with weapons cradled in their arms and belatedly realized that they were being attacked by pirates.

He didn't know if Sam was dead or not, but he had to get off a call for help. He was already working in a slight depression and he dropped down into a crouch, hoping that he hadn't been seen. He used his suit-to-ship link to activate the emergency beacon, but no confirmation occurred. Great. They're jamming our signals. He assumed the worst and counted backwards from ten to relax himself. They never leave witnesses! echoed in his head from the countless news alerts. Jerry quickly determined that he only had two choices. Stay on this asteroid and die, or leave it to go somewhere else. Leaving was easy. Getting somewhere useful before his air ran out was a separate problem.

Jerry brought up the map on his HUD. Ah-ha! He smiled. There was a first-aid station only 535 kilometers behind them in orbit. If he had any chance at all, he was going to have to make the journey using only his suit thrusters. A number of documented stories of stranded miners had proven that it was possible. I've got my suit with four hours of air. He convinced himself that it could be done.

Jerry ran the calculations through his suit computer. He needed the air for breathing but also for propulsion. He settled on 350 kilometers per hour which would get him there in an hour-and-a-half while still leaving him twenty minutes of extra air for maneuvering. There were two bodies in the way that would have to be navigated around.

He carefully crabbed away from the pirates until he was well below the horizon and knew they couldn't possibly see him. The map in his HUD guided him to a point where the station was directly overhead. He squatted down with his legs bent and then jumped straight upwards as hard as he could. He left the feeble gravity of the asteroid at a pretty good clip, headed nearly dead-on for the outpost.

Jerry waited a full ten minutes before engaging the thrusters on his suit. He wanted to make sure that he was clear of the asteroid without attracting attention. He watched as the velocity indicator climbed toward 350 as his air supply dwindled slowly to just under two hours. It was going to be close, but it looked like he was going to make it.

An hour-and-a-half later, he was nearly within hailing range of the first-aid station when he was pinged from behind. He groaned as he saw that the pirates were coming after him. "FAS 42, this is Jerry Thorne requesting immediate sanctuary from attacking pirates." He glanced at the HUD. "I have two missiles closing in about a minute behind me."

He gave a big sigh of relief when a reply came back. "I have you on radar and will intercept you in thirty seconds." As he watched the missiles drawing nearer, he felt the tractor beam latch onto him and saw the force bubble appear around the station. Several seconds later, the missiles detonated harmlessly about thirty meters behind him. By the time the tractor beam dragged him inside, the pirate ship had shown up and was proceeding to blast a continuous stream of green fire at the force field.

Once inside, Jerry unlatched his helmet and removed it. He pushed back the hood part of the thermal hoodie he wore underneath his suit and was greeted by a young woman in uniform. "Welcome aboard, Mister Thorne. My name is Ensign Klover." She looked over his shoulder. "You seemed to have really pissed off your friends."

Jerry laughed. "Not my friends. They killed my partner and now they want to kill me." He shook his head. "You too, I'm afraid."

"Don't worry. We're perfectly safe in here. As soon as I turned on the force field, I alerted Enforcement." She pointed to a small screen on the wall. "They'll be here in thirty-one minutes."

Jerry studied the pirate ship as it continued to blast the force field. "I wonder what they hope to achieve with that? They know that nothing can penetrate it."

As if in answer to his question, a robotic voice intoned over the speaker system. "Fifteen minutes to shield failure."

"Correction! Nothing can penetrate it while it has power." He started laughing somewhat hysterically. "Fifteen minutes to being atomized. Thirty minutes until help arrives." He looked at the ensign. "I'm really sorry I got you involved."

They stood in silence and watched the assault.

"The suits!" Klover suddenly exclaimed. "We swap out one of your empties and I put on my own suit."

"What good does that do? The suits won't protect us from that cannon they've got."

"No, but I can turn off power to everything but the force field."

"Including life support," Jerry nodded. "Great idea!"

After Klover shut down the station, the estimated time of failure went from ten-minutes to thirty-five. They sat in the darkened room that was lit by the flickering emerald light and waited to be rescued.

"Once we get this all sorted, how about I buy you a drink somewhere?" asked Jerry.

"I think I'd like that," replied Ensign Klover.

Jerry knew it was a bit soon to be thinking of another partner, but Sam would've understood. It takes two miners to work a claim and he would be needing another one. He asked Klover, "Have you ever thought about becoming a miner?"

Ignorance of the Law isn't the same as Fraud

[DISCLAIMER: I am not affiliated with any political party or organization. I am an American.]

[DISCLAIMER: This blog post is not alleging that any fraud in the 2020 U.S. election has occurred.]

Hypothetically, imagine for a moment that you are the Secretary of State conducting an election. In trying to make things more flexible for the voters, you tell them to vote here or there between these hours on these days. Maybe you add additional collection boxes or extend the hours of collection. In doing so, you inadvertently change something that can only be changed by statute passed by the legislature.

After the election, when it's pointed out that you accidentally told a million people to technically vote in an illegal fashion, how would you tell your voters? Just say: "Oops. Sorry. Your votes don't count. They weren't legally cast. My bad. I take full responsibility!" and get on with your life?

Herein lies the rub. If you don't count the ballots, millions of people will be disenfranchised through no fault of their own. If you do count the ballots, however, you are now doing so in violation of the law. Note that this is not an example of "election fraud" but an example of "counting illegal ballots."

How can this happen? If the law says "Must be postmarked by MM/DD/YYYY," then any mail-in ballots postmarked later than that date are illegal. If it says "Must be received by MM/DD/YYYY," then any late ballots, regardless of how slow the mail might have been, cannot be counted. Every state does it their own way. Whatever you do to vote where you live is not necessarily the same as someone living one county over. Not to mention several states away. In some states, the changes made by the Secretary of State are okay, but in others the changes are not okay.

Conducting the election all over again would be the right thing to do, but that's impractical. Getting the rules straight before the next election, whatever city, county, or state you inhabit, should be a priority for everyone. We all want every vote to be counted, but shouldn't we want to make sure that every vote is legally cast?

You can win by cheating, but true champions follow the rules.

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I Have a Dream

"I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today."

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (Aug. 28, 1963)

None of us had a choice in what we look like.

Our character is what defines us.

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On the Nature of Dark Matter

The Universe as we understand it, appears to be comprised of several distinct forces that act upon all of the matter contained within. Interestingly enough, they can all be represented by the same general equation:

F = k(q₁q₂)/r²

Classically known as "Coulomb's Law," it holds true for all forces. Whatever the force (F) might be, it can be determined by multiplying some quantifiable values (q) together, dividing the result by the distance between them (r) squared, and throwing in a constant (k) to ensure that the answer comes out in the right form.

One example of this is the electrical attraction between two charged masses. Electrically speaking, positively charged particles (cations) attract negatively charged particles (anions) while each repels like charges. If the force between two ions is positive, it is repulsive. If it is negative, then it is attractive.

This "attract" and "repel" effect is also exhibited in magnetism where "North" attracts "South" and repels "North." Again, the same equation is used to calculate the force, but with a different constant (μ/4π).

 F = μ(q_m1q_m2)/4πr²

However, while the same equation applies to gravitational forces, there is only attraction between masses.

F = G(m₁m₂)/r²

There is no "like signs repel and unlike signs attract" when it comes to gravity. But what if there was? What if there was matter that repelled what we know as matter? And, if it existed, what would we call it? Anti-matter?

When I took Physics, we were taught that the Universe was expanding, but at a steadily decreasing rate. This was widely understood because of the gravitational attraction between all matter pulling everything back toward the Origin of the Universe. However, as happens to many scientific theories, this was later shown to be false and the Universe is actually expanding at an ever-increasing rate. This begs the question: What is it that's pushing it apart?

It's easy to imagine this anti-matter clumping together in their own galaxies, but it's not so easy to determine what we would sense in looking for them. Would they produce visible light? Radio waves? Radiation of a sort that we can't detect?

At the moment before The Big Bang, some theorize that everything in the Universe was contained in a single locus of no dimensions. When it suddenly went SPROING!, whatever anti-matter that existed would have repelled the "normal" matter and be somewhere far, far away by now, but still providing the expansive force to accelerate everything outwards. No one knows for sure, especially me, but the presence of other-matter that repels our normal-matter brings a bit of symmetry to my view of the Universe. It's definitely food for thought.

Read "Raising Miss Ellie" for an alternative explanation of the Universe!

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Second Verse (A Five-Minute Short Story)

 

"WAKE UP!"

Harold was jolted out of his sleep and rolled off of the couch and onto the floor. He looked around and realized that he had been dreaming. Even as he tried to recall the dream, it had almost immediately faded away. He got up and made his way to the bathroom where he relieved his nearly-full bladder before washing his hands. He splashed some cold water on his face, the icy sting shocking him fully awake. He smiled at himself in the mirror and the face in the mirror smiled back. He had stayed up late studying for his Physics exam and he was as ready as he would ever be.

---

Four days later, he was rudely awakened again. This time it was his sister calling.

"Hi, Sis! What's up?"

"Turn on your TV! Now!" she said, the excitement clearly showing in her voice.

"Do you know what time it is?" He fumbled around for the remote and turned on the television. "What am I looking for?"

"It's on every channel, Harold. We're under attack!"

He stared dumbfounded at the World Trade Center as the two towers burned. The chyron said something about the Pentagon. "What's happening?"

"No one knows, but Mom and Dad are at work today." Her voice caught in her throat, "I can't get hold of either of them!"

He watched blindly as the first tower collapsed into a heap of billowing rubble. He was dimly aware that it was the one in which his parents had their offices.

His sister was still on the phone. "Harold are you there?" she asked.

"Oh my God, Sis! They're gone!"

---

Harold, like many others, spent the next few weeks in a daze. Classes were cancelled, but he was unable to fly to New York to be with his sister since all air travel had been suspended. The deaths of their parents had not been officially confirmed, but there wasn't much doubt as to their fate. During a phone call, his sister triggered a thought in his head that suddenly pushed itself to the forefront.

"It's really too bad someone can't go back in time and warn everyone," said his sister, somewhat wistfully. "We know who to look for and when and where to find them. Prevent them from getting on the planes and it would prevent the whole tragedy."

"That'll never happen, Sis." However, even as he said it, he asked himself, Why not?

Harold quit going to classes, although he met several times with a number of the professors in the Math and Physics departments. None of them took his idea of time travel seriously. Even if it was possible, they pointed out, there was no known way to make it happen.

For the next few months, Harold read everything that he could about time travel and was finally ready to concede that the professors had been right. It was at that moment when it dawned on him that he had been there. His brain and its particular waveforms at the moment had experienced everything. They were still part of his organic being and, he theorized, they could be linked to his present self. All he had to do was reproduce the brainwaves he experienced at some point prior to that day.

Over the next year, he developed a hairnet of sorts that contained 1,024 powerful electro-magnetic coils that were wired to his computer. By donning the hairnet and running through combinations of power and frequencies, he discovered that he could induce a dream-state in which he had control over what happened. What some would call lucid dreaming.

He created a program that would cycle through billions of combinations of settings within this narrow range of power and frequency and spent twenty hours each day, seeking a match to a pattern in the past. For the next year, he dreamed his way through many of his past lives, but never stumbled across one that was suitable.

Then came the day when he finally made contact. It was firm and solid and rooted in the studying he had done for the Physics exam. He could feel himself lying on the couch, with a light REM state going on. He took over the dream and detailed to himself what needed to be done. As the contact weakened, he finished up by yelling as loud as he could:

"WAKE UP!"

Harold was jolted out of his sleep and rolled off of the couch and onto the floor. He looked around and realized that he had been dreaming. Even as he tried to recall the dream, it had almost immediately faded away. He got up and made his way to the bathroom where he relieved his nearly-full bladder before washing his hands. He splashed some cold water on his face, the icy sting shocking him fully awake. He smiled at himself in the mirror and the face in the mirror smiled back. He had stayed up late studying for his Physics exam and he was as ready as he would ever be.

---

Doctor Williams led the procession of four interns to a room at the end of the hallway. Standing before the door to 622, he gave them a quick summary.

"You're in for a rare treat today," he said. "In here, we have a patient that has been with us for twenty years now. He's technically in a coma, but we have no idea what's causing it. As you will see, the lights are on and someone's home, but they're not answering the phone."

He opened the door and stepped into the room where the patient lay on the bed. Above him was an array of monitors displaying real-time vitals. Williams waited until they were all gathered around the bed before continuing.

"In a moment, you'll see something that only occurs every two years, twelve days, seven hours, and thirty-seven minutes. For this, we have temporarily removed the feeding tube which has kept his body alive all these years." He glanced at his watch. "Keep your eye on the EEGs. Notice how they're beginning to fluctuate. If this was an electro-cardiogram, we might say that they were going into fibrillation."

"What's happening?" asked one of the interns.

"It's like two separate waves running as echoes, or something," commented another.

All of the interns jumped when the patient's eyes opened and he yelled, "WAKE UP!" His eyes fluttered shut as the encephalograms returned back to normal.

Doctor Williams smiled, "That's it for another couple of years."

"What do you suppose is going through his mind?" asked the first intern.

"Maybe one day he'll come out of his coma and tell us," answered Williams. "However, I suspect that we will never know." He held the door for the interns as they left the room and closed it behind him.

 

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Dear Diary

(originally published in 1997 as Aqualung)

Dear Diary,

I know that it's been nearly a year since I last talked to you, but it's not my fault. Remember when I told you that I thought I might be pregnant? Well, I was right. I had taken the crosstown to the Institute and they had checked me in right away to be tested. Once they had confirmed that I was pregnant, they took me to a small, dark room where they had me watch an orientation video. Most of it was stuff I already knew, but some of the scenes were more graphic than anything they had shown us in school. I knew that it had been bad back then, but the narration and the video was chilling. Did you know that nearly 20,000 people were murdered each year? Murdered, Dear Diary! Just because someone was upset with someone else. And the babies! People were having them in bathroom stalls and leaving them behind. Or throwing them in dumpsters or tossing them down the stairs. What horrible, horrible, people, Dear Diary! There were so many, in fact, that they built massive prisons holding millions of them! Can you imagine that? And even then, there were still millions more roaming the streets, preying on others at every chance that they could. It sounds so terrible, Dear Diary. You know how I enjoy walking in the park at two in the morning. Everything is so quiet and the stars are so bright. I've never ever dreamed that someone might jump me and knock me out. Or worse. The video said people did it because of how they had been raised. Some of them could be helped, but others were hopeless. Every child is the most precious thing that we have in our society and raising a child properly needs care by trained specialists. We all know this now. The task is simply too important to be left to neophytes. When the video had finished, I was taken to another wing of the Institute where I was assigned a room. There were other girls there, too, and we played games and told stories to occupy the time. The food was nutritious, if a bit bland, but we all understood that it was important to make sure our babies had the proper diet. When I finally gave birth, it was a boy, and I named him Billy, after his dad. For the next three months, I nursed him and held him regularly. They said that the biological mother was needed for the initial imprinting. Once that was done, however, they would take over and simulate my voice and my heartbeats. They would look after him until he was sixteen and ready to join society. Last night, they came and took him away for the last time. If I had known then that I would never see him again, I would have held onto him just a little bit longer. Please don't tell anyone, Dear Diary, but when I think about my little Billy, it makes me cry. I know that's wrong, but I can't help myself. Oh, well. Gotta go. Talk to you later!

J.

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Trying to Predict the Future

Since the beginning of the pandemic, we've tried to follow the science, but the science seems to flip-flop every so often. We hear about this model or that model, but most people have no idea what that really means. Some at least understand that it is a computer simulation that seemingly predicts the future. Like the climate models. I came across an article on using a SEIR model (Susceptible | Exposed | Infectious | Recovered) to predict herd immunity. This led me to a Wikipedia entry about "Compartmental Models in Epidemiology" in which SEIR is but one of the models in use. If you're up on your ordinary differential equations, you'll find this fairly straightforward. Each person is in one compartment or another and the diff-e's for each are taken with respect to time (i.e., ~ / dt). You'll also find three assigned constants, "β", "γ" and "N", where "β" is the average number of contacts per person per time, "γ" is the infectious time period, and "N" is the total population being analyzed. "N" is easy to figure out, but the value of "β" is essentially a best guess based on the data at any given time.

The accuracy of the selection of a value for "β" affects the accuracy of the outcome of the model. E.g., if the time unit is a day, then "β" is the number of contacts each person has with someone else on a given day. How many is that? Five? Ten? One? It's only a guess and it may explain why so many models are at odds with each other.

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Aqualung's Paradox

Consider a hypothetical dart and target. The target is defined as a circle that encloses an infinite number of points. The dart is a line segment that pierces the circle at right angles at point P.

You pick point P to aim at and throw the dart at the target. What are your odds of hitting point P?

Point P exists as the intersection of a plane with no thickness and a line of no width. P is a single point out of an infinite number of points so the odds are:

1/∞ = 0

Surprisingly, you have no chance of ever hitting point P. This appears to be contradicted by the fact that the dart does, indeed, hit the target. This is what I call Aqualung's Paradox for historical reasons.

If we can add one to something, it makes it bigger. If we subtract one from something, it makes it smaller. A more flexible calculation of the odds might be:

1/(∞ - 1) > 0

Thus, we end up with a result that is technically equal to zero, but not exactly equal to zero. Since the odds are not exactly zero, you might hit P on the very first try.

But I wouldn't bet on it.😉

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Forensic Audit

[DISCLAIMER: I am not affiliated with any political party or organization. I am an American.]

DISCLAIMER: I wrote a earlier post about the potential for election fraud. I did not then, nor am I now, suggesting that any fraud actually occurred. In that post, I noted that the most secure voting system requires in-person voting with photo ID and the retention of the original ballots as marked by the voter. Anything else introduces the possibility for fraud to occur.

It's simply amazing how much misinformation about our election system has become common knowledge, thanks to social media and the Internet. Many of the misconceptions arise from the fact that we are not a single country, but a Union of independent states. Within the framework of the US Constitution, every state has the right to do their own thing as they see fit. Each has a Governor and State Legislature that write the laws for the state, including the laws governing how to conduct an election.

Article I, Section 4:

The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof;

Each state can conduct elections in whatever manner their legislature deems appropriate. Note that this clause does not apply to presidential or vice-presidential elections. That's covered in another article and section.

Article II, Section 1:

The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America. He shall hold his Office during the Term of four Years, and, together with the Vice President, chosen for the same Term, be elected, as follows

Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector.

Like Article I, Section 4, it specifies that only the legislative assembly of each state may make changes to their voting laws. No other entity, including any Secretary of Elections, can make those changes.

Therein lies the rub, as they say.

If the person in charge of your elections says that you can cast your vote within some specific time-frame, and you follow the rules and properly do so, it seems unfair that your vote may be disallowed under state law. The person in charge of your elections misled you and gave you bad information, so why should you have to pay by being disenfranchised?

Every state has different methods of collecting the will of the People. In Maricopa County in Arizona, for example, the voters mark bubbles on a sheet that is then fed into a tabulating machine. When the tabulations are complete, the totals are physically removed and transferred to another facility where they are totted up together. The original ballots are retained for 22 months. Mail-in ballots must bear a proper signature and be sealed properly and received by a certain deadline.

Since the 2020 election, these ballots have been recounted several times, with each recount confirming the totals. However, they have never been forensically audited. The difference in an audit and a recount has been blurred and a substantial number of people seem to think they are the same thing.

They are not.

Your check register may show that you have $100 in your checking account. You've added up the numbers three separate times and you've got $100. You write a check for $75 and it bounces because you forgot to enter a check you wrote for $50. Your recount produced a fraudulent result, while an audit of your check register, accounting for every check, would have told you that you only have $50 in your account. [Most people reading this probably have no clue what a check register is and leave all of that tedious arithmetic to an app or their bank. My apologies.]

A proper forensic audit of an election would involve checking every ballot. This was done before in 2000 when punch-cards in Florida were examined to try and ascertain the intent of the voter. Maybe they meant to vote for someone else; or maybe not. It took a ruling from the US Supreme Court to overturn the ruling of the Florida Supreme Court which had approved a recount that was not authorized by the state legislature's election law. (See Article II, Section 1).

Twenty years later, the ballots in Maricopa County, some 2.1 million of them, are being examined for possible fraudulent activity. Again, the possibility of fraud does not prove that fraud existed. However, if it did, the forensic audit is being conducted to look for the different means by which that might have been accomplished. It is likely that some anomalies will turn up, but not in any significant amount. With 2.1 million ballots, statistically speaking, there should be some outliers. On the other hand, if massive fraud did in fact occur, the audit may prove that as well.

This was my 13th Presidential Election. Sometimes I vote for the winner, and sometimes I vote for the loser. But I accept the results of the elections until proven otherwise.

Hillary said it best, I think. We are stronger together!

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The Animals in our Midst

 

Forty-five years ago, I had a friend that I viewed as the consummate liberal. She was twenty-something at the time and never had a mean thought for anyone. However, due to her trusting nature, people from all walks of life took advantage of her. She wasn't stupid, but even when she discovered their true nature, she would still extend her hand to help them up again when they needed it. What made her a liberal to me, was that she believed everyone was a good person, no matter what. All that a "bad person" needed was for someone to understand them and then they would magically become a "good person."

She graduated college with a B.A. degree in Literature and a minor in Sociology. Unable to find a job at the time, she lived at home with her parents and spent most of her time filling out job applications. She hated it and in order to feel better about herself, she started volunteering out at the prison and began teaching some of the inmates how to read. She had been doing this for about three weeks when one of the prisoners grabbed her, putting one hand over her mouth while ripping her clothes off with the other. He was working his pants down when the guards pulled him off of her. The event traumatized her (of course) and I tried to explain to her that some people are just broken. That they've got a short-circuit somewhere in their head that can't be fixed by teaching them how to read or by being nice to them. She disagreed with this and insisted that everyone was naturally good inside. You just had to find it.

Two weeks later she went back and met with the same prisoner again. She wasn't going to give up on him. This time the guards stood closely by while she sat and talked with him. She had known that he had a long history of raping women, but she wanted to know why he had tried to rape her. After all, she had been kind to him, had listened to him as he learned to read, and had talked about all manner of things. Why did he jump her?

I wasn't there, but she told me what he said. "Sex is always more exciting when you can't have it and you have to fight for it." And then he jumped her again, this time knocking her out with a backhand before the guards could stop him. Oddly enough, she was less traumatized by this than the first time and she wanted to go back to talk to him again. She said that she felt responsible for provoking him, somehow. That maybe the dress she wore reminded him of someone. Or whatever. She still believed in her heart that this man was fixable, somehow. As I tried to convince her not to go back to the prison again, I began to realize that something had short-circuited in my friend's mind as well. It had been there all along, I just hadn't seen it as such.

I don't know what happened to her after that because I moved to a faraway land and never heard from her again. However, if everyone on the planet was like my friend, we would all get along and have no locks on any of our doors or cars. Unfortunately, there are people living and working among us that actively prey on other people. Some of these do so because of their particular situation and circumstance, but others are vicious psychopaths that will do anything to protect themselves. Even murder, if that's what's required to get their way. There are broken people and we need jails and prisons to house them. Some are more broken than others. All claim to have been rehabilitated when they come before the parole board (although I suspect that some of them may be lying).

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Presidential Impeachment

[DISCLAIMER: I am not associated or affiliated with any political party (I am an American)]

Donald J. Trump will always be remembered as the first President to be impeached twice. Although his last impeachment was only a year ago, there still seems to be a lot of confusion about the process. While it is similar to the legal process of a court trial, it is not the same. To have been impeached means that you have been charged with a crime, but this does not necessarily mean that you have actually committed one. Under U.S. law, you are innocent until proven guilty, and the same holds true for impeachment. Unlike other trials, the U.S. Senate sits as the jury and hears the evidence (if any). In the case of impeaching a sitting President, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court has the role of the judge in the process. It takes the votes of sixty-seven senators in order to convict someone and remove them from office.

This is spelled out in Article I. Section 3. of the Constitution:

The Senate shall have the sole Power to try all Impeachments. When sitting for that Purpose, they shall be on Oath or Affirmation. When the President of the United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside: And no Person shall be convicted without the Concurrence of two thirds of the Members present.

Judgment in Cases of Impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from Office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of honor, Trust or Profit under the United States: but the Party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgment and Punishment, according to Law.

At the time of this writing, the Articles of Impeachment have been delivered to the Senate. However, unlike the last impeachment and trial, the Articles were passed while Trump was President, but they weren't delivered until after he had left office. Also, unlike the last impeachment trial, the Chief Justice has rightfully declined to sit as the judge since the accused is no longer the President, but a private citizen.

In 1776, British Parliament had the legal authority to try and convict private citizens. This was something that the Founders specifically wanted to prevent and so they limited the ability of Congress to only trying government employees. Private citizens, even former Presidents, are tried in the regular court system, not by Congress.

Article II. Section 4.:

The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.

It's fascinating, at least to me, how we now find ourselves trying a private citizen in the Senate. If the Chief Justice has declined to rule, then it must be presumed that Trump is not being impeached as President. If he's not being tried as President, then he is being brought to trial by a Senate that has no authority to try him.

I understand that the political goal is to prevent Trump from ever being elected again. This is the so-called "Dracula Clause" which would prevent him from running for any public office. This would make sense if a sitting President was convicted by the Senate and removed from office, but once the impeached party has already been replaced by the will of the people, I don't see how the Constitution supports that process. Congress should focus on the problems of We the People and let the court systems take care of Trump.

The Senate has scheduled the impeachment trial for the week of February 8th, so we'll eventually see how it all plays out. Regardless of the outcome, this will almost certainly be followed by numerous court challenges which will drag out for months (although it should be noted that Impeachments are final and cannot be appealed). It's like peeling off a band-aid or picking at a scab. We should just rip it off and move on with our lives.

Meanwhile, pass me the popcorn. 😊

 

Ethical Dilemma

A friend of mine is a very successful trial lawyer. Occasionally, we'll meet for lunch and get caught up on things. Yesterday, we began discussing professional ethics and how it related to our different fields. Eventually, we drifted into the nature of ethical dilemmas and I asked her if she had ever been faced with one.

She took a sip of her wine and thought for a moment before speaking. "I think the worst one I ever had was about five years after I went into business with Maynard." She smiled at the memory. "I was doing wills and trusts back then and one of my regular customers, a rich widow, had requested a minor change to her will. This was only a moment's work and, in deference to her history, I only charged her a hundred dollars." She took another sip of her wine. "When she came to pick it up, she fumbled around in her purse and came out with a crisp one hundred dollar bill, folded in half. I took it from her and put it in my pocket as I stood and then escorted her to the front door. When I returned to my office, I removed the bill from my pocket and discovered that there was a second bill stuck to the first. She had accidentally given me two hundred dollars instead of one." She shook her head. "This was the first time that I had found myself in an ethical dilemma. I had to make a choice and I wasn't sure what to do." She paused again for another sip. "Should I say nothing about it and keep the extra hundred for myself? Or should I share it with my partner, Maynard?"

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January 6, 2021

 

A little over a week ago, a peaceful protest at the Capitol Building crossed over the line and became a non-peaceful riot. Whether or not President Trump** egged them on is secondary to the fact that there are people who do not respect the rule of law. It is this disregard for the Constitution that has brought grievous harm to this country. Whether it be the burning and looting of the Summer of Love or a physical assault on our Congress, lawless activity is un-Constitutional by definition. It is the Law of the Land and all other laws descend from it. If you don't like the laws, pass new ones. If you don't like the Constitution, then change it. It's been amended 27 times already and it can be amended again.

If we don't obey the laws, then we are no longer a Nation of Laws, but a Nation of Outlaws.

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President-Elect and Vice-President-Elect

[DISCLAIMER: I am not associated or affiliated with any political party (I am an American)]

Yesterday was a day that will live long in infamy. The moment a peaceful protest pushed passed barriers and broke windows of the Capitol Building, it was no longer a peaceful protest. The only fortunate thing that can be said was that there was no burning involved and, several hours later, Congress reconvened and carried out their Constitutional duties.

Up until the final declaration last night, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris had been falsely labelled as President-Elect and Vice-President-Elect, respectively. Late last night, however, the final tally of the election of 2020 was recorded and Biden and Harris were officially declared the victors. While there is still no actual Office of the President-Elect, President-Elect Biden and his transition team can finally move forward toward the Inauguration.

If you think that I'm being picky about the phrases, that's okay. I'm being picky because words have meaning and saying that they mean something else is positively Orwellian. Until last night, I wasn't comfortable referring to Joe Biden as President-Elect, because he wasn't any such thing. However, by the laws vested in the Constitution of the United States, he is now President-Elect and, as President, I will support him (and Vice-President Kamala Harris) as all Americans should.

There is no "we" in Left or Right, Democrat or Republican ... it's We the People of America!

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The Chaos Series

I write about Chaos in my novels and in my non-fictional musings as well. But what do I mean by Chaos? Merriam-Webster has this to say about it:

Definition of chaos

1a: a state of utter confusion

the blackout caused chaos throughout the city

b: a confused mass or mixture

a chaos of television antennas

2a (often capitalized): a state of things in which chance is supreme

especially : the confused unorganized state of primordial matter before the creation of distinct forms — compare COSMOS

b: the inherent unpredictability in the behavior of a complex natural system (such as the atmosphere, boiling water, or the beating heart)

3 (obsolete): CHASM, ABYSS

In my first novel, The Chaos Machine, the CEO of the fictional Brookstone Heuristics Corporation clarifies my definition:

Hazeltine laughed, "Not exactly. What do you know about Chaos Theory?"

Allen looked bemused, "Which Chaos Theory? Do you mean the pretty little fractals? Or the so-called Butterfly Effect? Or water rolling off the back of Jeff Goldblum's hand?"

"None of the above. I want to hear what you know about Chaos Theory."

Allen replied, "I think that the name itself is a misnomer. In my opinion, what we label as Chaos is actually a very orderly interaction of particles that has progressed throughout the universe since the Big Bang. We can't work with so much detail so we try to analyze and categorize the outcomes with broad strokes." Allen furrowed his brow in thought, "Personally, I think that if you could take a snapshot of every particle in the universe along with its physical and dynamic attributes and store them in a computer, you could then 'roll forward' the interactions of the particles and predict their behavior. In theory, you could predict the future. In practice, no computer is capable of storing or processing so much data as to make this feasible. As a result, in lieu of detail, gross approximations are substituted with the resultant gross outcomes. Our current climate models are a good example of this. It has become a Holy Grail, of sorts."

If such a device could be built, it would be able to predict the future just as surely as these billiards balls follow a future trajectory. And, if you go back in time, the same exact shot will give the same exact result again.

This would suggest that the future is just as immutable as the past. That there is no time travel paradox because neither the future nor the past can be altered. "But!" you say, "I have free will! I may not be able to change the past, but I can choose my future!" We all believe this because to do otherwise would lead to madness. However, it doesn't preclude that it might just be a very convincing illusion. Additionally, nothing prevents an outside force, such as a supernatural entity of some sort, from being able to alter the outcome. A determinant model with a caveat, if you will.

My 13th Presidential Election

[DISCLAIMER: I am not associated or affiliated with any political party (I am an American)]

Here it is, the first day of a New Year! Last night, I mentally reviewed everything that had happened since last January 1st. It was a year unlike any other in my brief sojourn in life on this planet. Primarily, it was the first year that I've spent on Twitter. I've had a private account since March of 2009, but I had never interacted with the rest of the Twitterverse until this past year. It's been an interesting experience, to say the least. Inasmuch as I tried to avoid being sucked into a social media quagmire, I spent a good portion last year Twittering about mostly nonsensical things. It was enjoyable! It was entertaining! It was amazing! It was fun! It also cut into my productivity more than I want to think about 😐

On the bright side, in spite of this soulless black hole of attention sucking, I managed to publish another novel and a humorous short story. As a homebody, the lock-down didn't affect me much, other than I missed having lunch with a couple of friends. Also on the bright side, we had the most fascinating Presidential election in which I have voted. As a former programmer, I am more interested in the process than I am in the outcome. Oh, sure, I voted in 2000 and 2004, where recounts and contested electoral votes were part of the process, but none with the dynamics of the 2020 election. It's like a Super Bowl smeared out over two months with the minute-by-minute plays yelled out by thousands of self-appointed experts. The question is, will the game play out according to the rules? Or will people want to change the rules to alter the outcome?

A process with no rules is not a process at all, but an opinion.

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