McCain Takes SC Primary

John McCain has won in South Carolina.

Sen. John McCain won a hard-fought South Carolina primary Saturday night, avenging a bitter personal defeat in a bastion of conservatism and gaining ground in an unpredictable race for the Republican presidential nomination. Democrats Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama split the spoils in Nevada caucuses marred by late charges of dirty politics.
 
"We've got a long way to go," McCain told The Associated Press in an interview. The man whose campaign was left for dead six months ago quickly predicted that victory in the first southern primary would help him next week when Florida votes, and again on Feb. 5 when more than two dozen states hold primaries and caucuses.

The Republican race is very strange, indeed.

Caught At Last?

But is it worth it? An Australian man, dubbed down under as that nation's "runaway groom" has finally tied the knot. He has married his fiancé on the sixth attempt.

Michael Todd, 38, married his (fiancé?) Dane Hedvig Mollin, 34, on Saturday in a surprise ceremony which he only told her about in the morning, Sydney's Sun-Herald said.

Friend James Kirby said he kept a taxi waiting amid fears right up to the last moment that the marriage might not go ahead.

"Just in case," Kirby told the newspaper. "You never know with Mike."

The ceremony at a yacht club in Sydney's elite Rushcutters Bay went off without a hitch, however, with friends and family from as far away as Denmark there to see it.

The bride, who was once the European face of Coca-Cola, said her husband needed "a little care and understanding".

Best man Charlie Fenton said his friend, who has been compared to Julia Roberts' character in the film 'Runaway Bride', was only scared of two things: marriages and commitments.

The story also says that Todd may have had problems with commitment, but not with getting engaged. He'd asked four women to marry him at some point or another. By the way, there is a typo in the story. 'Hedvig Mollin' appears to be properly spelled 'Hedvig Molin' according to an internet search of both names. This is Hedvig Molin. And she is a knockout.

Frankly, he seems more than a bit shallow. One can only hope for the best in this kind of situation and wish them both luck. Here's a SMH story, complete with wedding picture.

Red Faced And Steaming

Another reference to the fact that the red-faced, fuming, angry Bill Clinton is getting old comes from Newsweek. It appears that senior Democrats are warning Bill Clinton to tone down his red-faced rants at the press and his unrelenting attacks on Barack Obama. In fact, his antics may bring some senior Dems to endorse Hillary's rival for the nomination.

Prominent Democrats are upset with the aggressive role that Bill Clinton is playing in the 2008 campaign, a role they believe is inappropriate for a former president and the titular head of the Democratic Party. In recent weeks, Sen. Edward Kennedy and Rep. Rahm Emanuel, both currently neutral in the Democratic contest, have told their old friend heatedly on the phone that he needs to change his tone and stop attacking Sen. Barack Obama, according to two sources familiar with the conversations who asked for anonymity because of their sensitive nature. Clinton, Kennedy and Emanuel all declined to comment.

On balance, aides to both Bill and Hillary still see Bill as a huge net plus in fund-raising, attracting large crowds and providing a megaphone to raise doubts about Obama—even if some of those doubts are distortions. But there's concern that in hatcheting the Illinois senator and losing his temper with the news media (last week he thrashed a San Francisco TV reporter for asking about a lawsuit filed by Clinton-backing teachers union members to limit the number of Nevada caucuses), Clinton is drawing down his political capital and harming his role as a global statesman. "This is excruciating," says a member of the Clintons' circle, who asked for anonymity. "But the stakes couldn't be higher. It's worth it to tarnish himself a bit now to win the presidency."

Aides admit that Bubba is "going off script" fairly often these days. The Obama camp is asking a simple question right now. If the Hillary campaign can't control Bill now, how will the Clinton White House do it? (The obvious answer is that they will not be able to. If this actually succeeds, Bubba will see it as vindication for his vision. It will actually get worse.)

Again, the ugly, political viciousness of the Clintons is on full display here - but this time it is focused on a fellow Democrat. It is beginning to irritate even the hard core loyalists. It may well, finally, be the end of the Clintons if it continues.

Whoopsie

According to The Nation, there may be a slight surprise coming out of Nevada. No, make that a surprise about the size of Greenland.

Obama may have won more total delegates than Clinton due the arcane weighting rules used in Nevada.

Barack Obama may have won the most delegates in Saturday's Nevada Caucus, even though Hillary Clinton bested his statewide turnout by about six points.

A source with knowledge of the Nevada Democratic Party's projections told The Nation that under the arcane weighting system, Obama would win 13 national convention delegates and Clinton would win 12 delegates. The state party has not released an official count yet.

Barack Obama released an official statement celebrating a delegate victory. "We came from over twenty-five points behind to win more national convention delegates than Hillary Clinton because we performed well all across the state, including rural areas where Democrats have traditionally struggled," he said.

Holy cow. This is like the 2000 election. Expect massive, massive fireworks in a real short time over this one.

UPDATE: MSNBC is reporting that Clinton, in fact, won a single delegate more than Obama. So I have no idea if this is real or massive spin. There does appear to be some confusion, even on the part of the Clinton campaign, however. We'll see.

UPDATE: The Associated Press is now reporting that Obama did, indeed, win a single delegate more than Clinton. That is an exact reversal of the MSNBC report. Hillary may have won the popular vote, but she lost in the (sort of) electoral college. Expect massive red-faced, fuming Bill Clinton histrionics about this. Hey, maybe they can trot out "selected, not elected" and give it another run!

Open Season

It's for the public. It's for the Children. It's for the common good. Er, well, no.

It's for the money.

PHOENIX - Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano says the deployment of new photo radar or other speed enforcement technology on state highways is all about public safety. But her proposed state budget counts on the anticipated speeding fines to help erase a projected revenue shortfall.

The proposal, submitted to the Legislature late Friday, anticipates $120 million in revenue the first year, including $90 million in net income after expenses from the statewide effort. Even bigger dollar amounts are expected in future years.

The state faces a projected revenue shortfall of at least $1.2 billion in the fiscal year that starts July 1.

While some states use photo radar and similar technology on a limited basis in areas such as construction zones, experts said Arizona is in the vanguard of moving toward a widespread deployment of speed technology on highways.

"It wasn't designated primarily for revenue generation but since we have it (and) it works, we want to move statewide," Napolitano said. "We made that decision before the whole budget issue arose. Now we take advantage of it and use it for law enforcement highway safety purposes."

The governor's budget aides said Friday they could not immediately provide details on assumptions used to project the revenue estimate, including the numbers of expected violations.

Expect more of this - and for the offenses that will be heavily fined to become less and less severe. This will be the next cash cow to be bled dry by politicians like Napolitano. She sees every citizen not as a person but as a golden goose waiting to be plucked. It is all about the right of the state to take from the people, not government for the people. It's for the common good.

And all that lovely, lovely money.

An Ugly Win

John Dickerson at Slate is calling the Clinton victory in Nevada very ugly, indeed. At the end of the campaigning, both Clinton and Obama traded nasty accusations about voter suppression and Bill Clinton pitched yet another fit. (The red-faced, fuming Bubba thing is getting old.)

Hillary Clinton has won the Nevada caucus, which means a few things about the Democratic race are now coming into focus. For example, mark on your calendar Jan. 25 for an outburst by Bill Clinton somewhere in South Carolina. He has launched a tirade the day before each of his wife's victories in Nevada and New Hampshire, claiming the process was unfairly stacked against her. If this keeps up, he's going to require a stretcher by the last primary in Oregon come May.

Bill Clinton was so angry because it got ugly at the end in Nevada. Democrats may have cooled down their flash war over race and gender earlier this week, but by the time the vote took place Saturday, each of the two top campaigns was flinging some very ugly charges about the other. Bill Clinton accused the powerful Nevada culinary union of suppressing voters, claiming he'd witnessed it first hand. Obama's campaign manager in turn threw out some very charged coded language about efforts by the Clinton campaign to suppress the vote. "It is a sad day when Democrats start trying to suppress the vote of other Democrats," he said of push polls, robo-calls, and what he called "old-style say anything or do anything to win" Clinton politics.

Commence the hand-wringing. How do you put a party back together when Obama claims that Clinton wins only by winning ugly? Historically, political parties find ways to put themselves back together, but Clinton risks looking like a hope killer if Obama's charges that she's succeeded unfairly start to stick. In addition to charges by Obama aides, the candidate himself was accusing Clinton of distorting his record and saying anything to get elected in the final hours of campaigning. Clinton's negatives are already high enough. This prospect of Clinton commanding a party stitched together like Frankenstein may at some point cause people to resist supporting her even if their doubts about Obama increase.

As I have pointed out many times already, Clinton may win the nomination but at a devastating cost to the Democratic party. The infamous Clinton political viciousness is now directed at a fellow Democrat right out in the open. The party may, indeed, fracture over this. While part of me worries that this may all be a set piece bit of political kabuki, the very, very personal level of the barbs seems to be quite genuine - and almost impossible to get over. And the barbs are getting bigger and nastier with each passing day.  

AP Projects Clinton Win

The Associated Press is reporting that Hillary Clinton has won in Nevada. The early margin shows about a 5% win over Obama. Edwards appears to have gotten very, very little support.

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton won the Nevada caucuses Saturday, powering past Barack Obama in a hard-fought race marred by last-minute charges of dirty politics. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney easily won the Republican contest.
 
The victory marked a second-straight campaign triumph for the former first lady, who gained an upset victory over Obama in last week's New Hampshire primary.

Early returns showed the former first lady gaining roughly half the vote in a three-way Democratic race, with Obama at about 45 percent and former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards placing a distant third.

Not only is Edwards pretty well toast at this point, he may have also squandered a last chance to play kingmaker.

Romney Takes Nevada

Mitt Romney has won the Republican caucuses in Nevada.

Mitt Romney won Republican presidential caucuses in Nevada on Saturday while John McCain and Mike Huckabee dueled in a hard-fought South Carolina primary, a campaign doubleheader likely to winnow the crowded field of White House rivals.

Democrats shared the stage in Nevada, where Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama vied for a caucus victory and the campaign momentum that goes with it.

In a statement released while he flew to Florida, site of the Jan. 29 primary, Romney said Nevada Republicans had cast their votes for change. "With a career spent turning around businesses, creating jobs and imposing fiscal discipline, I am ready to get my hands on Washington and turn it inside out," it said.

Nothing from the Democratic side just yet.

A Mystery And A Dream

A dark unfathomed tide
Of interminable pride -
A mystery, and a dream,
Should my early life seem;
I say that dream was fraught
With a wild and waking thought
Of beings that have been,
Which my spirit hath not seen,
Had I let them pass me by,
With a dreaming eye!
(Edgar Allen Poe, Imitation)

The mysterious person known only as the Poe Toaster again managed to leave a half empty bottle of cognac and three red roses on the grave of Edgar Allen Poe. As in past years, the Poe Toaster managed to slip in and out of the Baltimore graveyard where Poe lies buried without being seen. This has happened every year since 1949 - although at least one person claims the entire thing was made up as a publicity stunt in the 1970s.

The visitor did not leave a note, Jerome said, electing not to respond to questions raised in the past year about the history and authenticity of the tribute.

Sam Porpora, a former church historian who led the fight to preserve the cemetery, claimed last summer that he cooked up the idea of the Poe toaster in the 1970s as a publicity stunt.

"We did it, myself and my tour guides," Porpora, a former advertising executive, said in August. "It was a promotional idea."

Porpora said someone else has since "become" the Poe toaster.

Jerome disputes Porpora's claims and says the tribute began in 1949 at the latest, pointing to a 1950 article in The (Baltimore) Evening Sun that mentions "an anonymous citizen who creeps in annually to place an empty bottle (of excellent label)" against the gravestone.

Jerome invites a handful of Poe enthusiasts to join him inside the church every year but withholds details of the tribute in an effort to help the toaster maintain his anonymity. He said the visitor no longer wears the wide-brimmed hat and scarf he donned in the past.

In 1993, the visitor left a note reading, "The torch will be passed." A later note said the man, who apparently died in 1998, had handed the tradition on to his two sons.

Some mysteries are better left unexplained. If it's a stunt, it's harmless. If it is a real tribute, it's harmless.

Iceberg

Could the byzantine convention rules of the Democratic party actually sink the Democrats? Joshua Spivak, writing in the Los Angeles Times, thinks that is a very real possibility. He worries that the so-called super delegates could sink the party in November.

This year might be different. Because no front-runner has emerged, and the compressed time frame of the election may prevent any candidate from gaining enough momentum, no candidate may have enough delegates by convention time. In that case, the super delegates, the majority of whom currently support Hillary Rodham Clinton — but who could switch sides at any time — could well be the decision-makers at the convention. And this could be a real problem for the Democratic Party.

In general, the last place the public would want the nominee selected is on the convention floor. In the heyday of the conventions, when the presidential candidates were selected in backrooms and on the floor, there were always rumors of vote buying and corrupt bargains for the nomination. Today, such events could fatally weaken the candidate in the public's eyes. The existence of super delegates would compound the problem.

The elected delegates, though virtually unknown, are at least selected by the voters and pledged to the candidate those voters chose. Most of the super delegates aren't chosen by the general populace, and they are not bound by the votes in their respective states. If they end up making the difference in the nomination — especially if the winner came into the convention in second place — there is a strong possibility of disenchanting a good portion of the party's base, potentially costing the party the election.

I have read several articles that quote worried Democratic operatives recently. They lament that no matter how favorable things look, the Democrats always manage to do something to screw themselves up. That is something many people have noted in recent years. The super delegate rules - put in place so that party bosses retained a measure of control on the nominating process, are just such a thing. One hopes.

Personal Data Missing Close To Home As Well

It isn't just the British government that can't seem to hang on to highly personal data. It is happening right here in the US. In Nashville, Tennessee for example:

The theft of a laptop containing Social Security numbers of Nashville, Tennessee, area voters is expected to cost local officials about US$1 million as they roll out identity-theft protection to those affected.

County officials say that thieves broke into Davidson County Election Commission offices on the weekend before Christmas, smashing a window with a rock and then making off with a $3,000 router, a digital camera and a pair of Dell Latitude laptops containing names and Social Security numbers of all 337,000 registered voters in the county.

County election officials began notifying residents of the breach on Jan. 2, and the local government is offering victims one year of free identity theft protection from Debix Identity Protection Network.

Debix says that 25 percent to 35 percent of victims of this type of breach typically request this service. With the city paying Debix just under $10 per account, the price tag for the laptop theft is expected to be in the $1 million range.

Since state data breach disclosure laws went into effect a few years ago, the theft of an unencrypted laptop computer can become a major problem for any organization that stores sensitive data.

"It is a very bad information-handling practice to keep sensitive information about individuals including their Social Security numbers on an unencrypted laptop or any other device that is removable," said Paul Stephens director of policy and advocacy with Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, a privacy advocacy group that has tracked the exposure of 217 million records in the U.S. over the past three years.

For heaven's sake. Why aren't these idiots encrypting data? This is not rocket surgery, people. Lest you think only governments pull this sort of boneheaded maneuver, there is another item this morning regarding GE Money. They have managed to lose an unencrypted backup tape containing the Social Security numbers of a lot of people:

A backup tape containing credit-card information from hundreds of U.S. retailers is missing, forcing the company responsible for the data to warn customers that they may become the targets of data fraud.

GE Money, which manages in-store credit-card programs for the majority of U.S. retailers, first realized that the tape was missing from an Iron Mountain secure storage facility in October, said Richard Jones, a company spokesman. "We were informed that one of the tapes could not be located. But at the same time there was no record of it ever having been checked out," he said.

The tape contained in-store credit-card information on 650,000 retail customers, including those of J.C. Penney, he said. GE Money employees are also affected by the breach.

The missing backup tape was unencrypted.

Although J.C. Penney was the only company that Jones would confirm as affected by the missing tape, that retailer accounts for just a small percentage of all accounts that were compromised. In total, 230 retailers are affected by the breach. "Clearly that number includes many of the national retail organizations," he said.

About 150,000 Social Security numbers were on that tape. This is not going to stop until the people in charge are held accountable for their lax security practices. Smart lawyer money-making opportunity alert! (Today just seems to be a technology-oriented day here at the Crabitat.)

Fact Or Figment?

I have no idea what to make of this front page article from the Washington Post. It is rather long, fairly bizarre and ultimately asks more questions than it answers. I'll simply direct people over to read about what may be a new disease - or a complete figment of a number of people's imagination.

Buh-Bye Analog

Starting on February 18th of this year, the original, analog cellular telephone networks will begin going offline. Communications companies have been trying to let people know that their older cell phones will no longer work. Unfortunately, a number of other services will also cease as the systems fade to black.

The cellular switch-off is the first phase of a larger transition to digital technology that will culminate next year with the end of analog television signals.

Other widely used technologies also rely on analog cellular networks. Older versions of OnStar, the communications system installed in many cars, will stop working next month. General Motors, which owns OnStar, said some cars made as recently as 2005 cannot be upgraded.

About 400,000 security systems use analog networks as back-ups to land lines, according to the Alarm Industry Communications Committee. In homes without land lines, the analog network is the only connection.

Sincavage, for example, recently paid $250 to have the ADT alarm system in his dry-cleaning business upgraded to digital.

AT&T, Verizon Wireless and Alltel say less than 1 percent of their customers use analog services, which the companies plan to phase out over the next year. Sprint Nextel and T-Mobile already use all-digital networks, but their customers may be affected if they roam on other carriers' analog networks.

Over the past year, Verizon Wireless has been contacting thousands of customers using analog phones to offer them digital models. Spokeswoman Debi Lewis said the company hasn't reached some of those people.

"The people most at risk are glove-box users — the people who bought a phone 10 years ago to use in case of an emergency," Lewis said. "Pretty soon, those phones won't work anymore, and we want to let them know."

Analog signals translate voice communications through a series of radio waves that require a lot of airwave capacity. Digital signals convert voice and data — e-mail, text messages, photos — into bits of data that can be compressed, allowing the information to travel more quickly and requiring less capacity.

The downside of all this is that the digital systems have a considerably shorter range. Rural areas that are currently covered by analog systems may not have coverage anymore. At least until new, digital towers are erected close enough. (It's a bit disturbing that GM did not plan ahead for this even as late as 2005.)

Potential Threat

The CIA has taken a very unusual step and issued a warning to American utility and energy companies about the danger of cyber attacks. The warning revealed that there have been successful cyber attacks on a number of foreign utilities.

In a rare public warning to the power and utility industry, a CIA analyst this week said cyber attackers have hacked into the computer systems of utility companies outside the United States and made demands, in at least one case causing a power outage that affected multiple cities.

"We do not know who executed these attacks or why, but all involved intrusions through the Internet," Tom Donahue, the CIA's top cybersecurity analyst, said Wednesday at a trade conference in New Orleans.

Donahue's comments were "designed to highlight to the audience the challenges posed by potential cyber intrusions," CIA spokesman George Little said. The audience was made up of 300 U.S. and international security officials from the government and from electric, water, oil and gas companies, including BP, Chevron and the Southern Co.

"We suspect, but cannot confirm, that some of the attackers had the benefit of inside knowledge," Donahue said. He did not specify where or when the attacks took place, their duration or the amount of money demanded. Little said the agency would not comment further.

The remarks come as cyber attackers have made increasingly sophisticated intrusions into corporate computer systems, costing companies worldwide more than $20 billion each year, according to some estimates.

The article does not identify the utility companies or even the countries where this occurred. But it sounds rather ominous, especially to someone who has worked in this area for many years. The  Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has just issued a set of eight cybersecurity standards for the utility industry. I imagine that there will be a rush to start implementing them. Funny thing about this. I actually had my controls engineers isolate our plant's distributed control system from the internet a number of years ago. I didn't like the risks then. I like them less now.

Palmetto Popsicle State Polling

Weather is expected to be a negative factor in today's South Carolina Republican Primary. Specifically, there is a 100% chance of precipitation in that state. Which wouldn't be all that big a deal except that the precipitation will not just be rain. There are snow and ice predictions. Up to three inches of the stuff is expected in some areas. Let's face it, folks down there don't deal with snow or ice particularly well.  

Months of heated campaigning in South Carolina’s Republican presidential primary simmer down to today’s vote.

Some experts predict fewer voters will cast ballots today than in years past.

And an unexpected X-factor that could contribute to that lower turnout is the weather. Specifically, sleet or SNOW.

Forecasters say there is a 100 percent chance of precipitation across the state today, with up to three inches of snow forecast in in the Republican-leaning, vote-rich Upstate. The bad weather also could affect Columbia, where up to an inch of snow could fall.

The State newspaper also cites a lack of inspiring candidates. I think the snow may have a lot to do with it if the turnout is low.