In the basement of the Alameda County courthouse, where I’ve been working, there’s a sign announcing that it’s a felony to bring in weapons including knives longer than four inches. Must be an old sign; nowadays I imagine they’d seize the one-inch souvenir penknife that I bought as a child in Toledo. Can I be alone in wondering how a foot-long bread-knife got into the kitchen of the Registrar of Voters?

Saturday morning I was informally admitted to the building before the screeners showed up. “Dang, I coulda brought my guns!”

For my sins I’m doing data entry at, of all places, the Registrar of Voters for Alameda County — and missing Knuth’s talk on Friday! The software, by the way, is from a subsidiary of Diebold.

I thought you might get a chuckle out of the long list of wannabe parties hoping to sign up enough voters to get provisional ballot status. The list also includes the big seven parties which retain their ballot status by having won at least 2% of the vote for one of their statewide candidates in the last general election.

American Christian; American Independent; American National Socialist; Anarchist; Aztlan; Birthday; Black Panther; Boston Tea; California; California Green; Central; Christian Heritage; Citizens; Community for New Politics; Communist; Conscious American African; Conservative; Constitution; Democratic; Environmentalist; Equal Justice; Equalitarian; Free; Green; Green Future; Human Principles; Humanist; Independent; Independent Progressive; Justice; La Raza Unida; Liberal; Libertarian; Middle Class; National; National Unity; Natural Law; New Alliance; New Economy; Parliament Party; Patriot; Patriotic; Patriotic Veterans; Peace and Freedom; Poor People’s; Populist; Pot; Pragmatic; Prohibition; Puritan; Real American; Reform; Republican; Rock and Roll; Socialist; Socialist Labor; Socialist Worker; Technocracy; US Taxpayers; Unlimitism; United Conscious Builders of the Dream; Vernita Baldwin; Vision; Whig; White Panther; Youth International (Yippie)

Next time my dearest friend asks me to deliver something to a Feral office, I must remember to say no.

I had my state-issued annotated portrait in my pocket, and was resolved not to bother the Marshal at the gate this time with silly questions about the purpose, if any, of asking me to show it.

Halfway there I noticed a knife in my pocket, but no sweat; last time I went to the Federal Building in San Francisco, they simply put my knife aside and gave it back when I left.

But this was Oakland. “You have to leave that in your car.” “My car is twenty miles away!” “You can’t bring a knife onto Federal property.” . . .

I should explain that the Ronald V. Dellums Federal Building in Oakland consists of two towers with a semi-open rotunda between. My objective was in the south tower; the “security” gate is at the entrance to that tower from the rotunda.

Two men were loitering in the rotunda, apparently setting up some Halloween thing. I asked one, “Will you be here for a few minutes?” He consented to hold my knife; but that wasn’t good enough for the security-bot, because the helpful man was still standing on Federal property.

So I went home, mission abandoned.

I wonder why the badge-bot didn’t arrest me for my willful failure to comply. At least then I might have eventually encountered someone human enough to deliver the envelope for me.

Maybe I’d be more comfortable under a more openly corrupt state, where evasion is a way of life.

J. Neil Schulman: Why This Libertarian Is Voting to Re-elect George W. Bush

When I became a voter I gave up casting my ballot symbolically in any race in which I believed my ballot stood any chance whatsoever in effecting a preferable outcome. Purists have told me for years that “the lesser of two evils is still evil.” I have learned to counter that argument with one taught to me by libertarian author Brad Linaweaver: “the lesser of two evils is less evil.”

You’d think a guy who has written sf novels would surprise us once in a while. Every cycle it’s the same song: sure, it would be nice to elect a libertarian, but this time it’s vitally important to support the second-worst candidate, so as to defeat the worst. (To his slight credit, he changed his tune late in the campaign of 1996, when Bob Dole went too far in supporting victim disarmament.)
( . . more . . )

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Cannabis study encouraging for MS

The biggest UK study of cannabis-based drugs has shown evidence for a long-term benefit in easing the symptoms of multiple sclerosis.

(cited by Vicki Rosenzweig)

2012: This post keeps getting comments from bots. I’ve deleted them, and closed that door. If you disagree with that decision, there is a way to let me know.

Timothy Roloff / Razormouth: Drinking Royal Crown this November

The Outer Space Treaty of 1967 forbids declarations of national sovereignty off Earth (according to something quoted by Travis). But can that be a serious barrier to imperialism?

Suppose you have political debts to more people than can plausibly be appointed ambassadors to Paris and the like. The rest of them declare themselves kings of whatever asteroids you’d like to exploit. You give them diplomatic recognition, foreign aid, and military advisors.