Wild Wild Horses

The federal government has more horses than they can handle.

It has nothing to do with having a self-styled cowboy in the oval office. Rather, it's a result of efforts to protect and feed wild horses and burros under the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act. It seems that the federal government has been more successful than they ever imagined.

TITLE 16 > CHAPTER 30 > Sec. 1331. - Congressional findings and declaration of policy

Congress finds and declares that wild free-roaming horses and burros are living symbols of the historic and pioneer spirit of the West; that they contribute to the diversity of life forms within the Nation and enrich the lives of the American people; and that these horses and burros are fast disappearing from the American scene. It is the policy of Congress that wild free-roaming horses and burros shall be protected from capture, branding, harassment, or death; and to accomplish this they are to be considered in the area where presently found, as an integral part of the natural system of the public lands

It will be interesting to see what we do as Protected wild horses and burros overwhelm federal government.

The Buckeye State Says No E-Votes

Two forces are coming into possible collision in the 2004 elections.

One is the desire to use technology, and roll out a means of using technology to make it easier for people to vote.

The other is to provide a trustworthy method of voting, especially in light of irregularities in the 2000 vote.

The Secretary of State of Ohio has blocked the use of Diebold voting machines for the 2004 elections unless certain deficiencies are addressed. Will we see similar actions in other states?

Delaware has had electronic voting for longer than most other states, and the Delaware Commissioner of Elections has pointed out that Delaware is the only state with a uniform voting system. The benefit of that is:

Delaware is one of a handful of states with a statewide registration system. It is the only state with a uniform voting system. While electronic voting systems vary, they prevent voters from voting more than once and provide mechanisms to allow voters to correct unintentional undervoting. Electronic systems feature other physical and logical security at least as good and generally better than older voting equipment.

. While that statement from the commissioner should make us feel a little more comfortable, a new tidbit of information could erase that ease. According to a Scripps Howard Report from a couple of days ago, there was a significant undervote when it came to talleys of votes for a choice of president in New Castle County's 2000 elections.

Pencil and paper have their charms, too.

Tell us Your Name, and Your Reasons For Not Revealing Your Identity

Some privacy issues in the news that look interesting:

The first is that the Commerce Department has a new Chief Privacy Officer. In typical government fashion, it appears that this is an internal move and the person filling the position will retain his old title, too. Guess that job didn't keep him too busy.

We're being told that the program to screen information about plane passengers, the Computer Assisted Passenger Pre-Screening System II, or CAPPS II is gone. But Wired points to the possibility that it might rise from the grave.

A crime and anti-terrorism database known as the MATRIX will become decentralized, which sounds good. The program combines State Vehicle and Crime information with commercial information. I'm glad that Delaware isn't one of the participating states. We're also told that the company producing the technology is being purchased by LexisNexis, which may have some privacy advocates concerned. It has me worried.

An article on picture phones and corporate security concerns makes some intriguing reading. A camera phone should definitely be in James Bond's arsenal of spy tools.

Blakely and Delaware Sentences

Talkleft has a post about a ruling in the Federal 6th Circuit, where it was decided that Blakely Invalidates Federal Sentencing Guidelines.

The Blakely ruling was in a Washington State case. The conclusion cited by Justice Scalia in the case?

Petitioner was sentenced to prison for more than three years beyond what the law allowed for the crime to which he confessed, on the basis of a disputed finding that he had acted with "deliberate cruelty." The Framers would not have thought it too much to demand that, before depriving a man of three more years of his liberty, the State should suffer the modest inconvenience of submitting its accusation to "the unanimous suffrage of twelve of his equals and neighbours," 4 Blackstone, Commentaries, at 343, rather than a lone employee of the State.

A News Journal article from a couple of weeks back, involved a sentencing in Delaware's Federal Court which was postponed so that they could decide the impact of the Blakely case upon sentencings.

Will the law have an impact upon Delaware State courts? That's a good question, and it may get an answer in court. The Journal notes that

Sentencing guidelines, used in federal courts and, with variations, in state courts, allow judges to adjust an offender's sentence within a specified range based on factors in the case. In Delaware courts, those guidelines are advisory, but in federal court, they are binding.

It's possible that the "advisory" nature of Delaware State sentences will mean that Blakely doesn't apply to them.

Celebrating Delaware City

Fireworks, mummers, games, food, ferry rides, and a tour of an infamous civil war prison. Tomorrow is Delaware City Day, and you can experience all of the above.


The image above was taken for a 1964 survey for the historic building register, and is from the Library of Congress.

The Fort has been fixed up some since then.

I've seen their fireworks show before, and it was definitely worth watching. If you go, have a good time.

More Suspects, as Delaware Blogs

I'm searching for Delaware Bloggers.

If you look at Larry's entry yesterday, so is the Delaware Republican Party.

I don't think that any of the following Delaware weblog owners is the author who elevated the pulses of Delaware General Assembly members a couple of days ago. Frankly, I really didn't expect to uncover the secret identity of the writer of that post.

That post?

You know, the Delatacit article that had a Republican staffer upset enough to call Larry to interrogate him about it. The tie between Larry, and the post? There's a link on the Delaware Law Office blog to the blog where that post appears. That's it. No other relationship.

I'm reminded of one of my favorite articles from the inventor of the World Wide Web, Tim Berners-Lee, who wrote about The Implications of Links:

The intention in the design of the web was that normal links should simply be references, with no implied meaning.

A normal hypertext link does NOT necessarily imply that

• One document endorses the other; or that
• One document is created by the same person as the other, or that
• One document is to be considered part of another.

Typically when the user of a graphical window-oriented Web browser follows a normal link, a new window is created and the linked document is displayed in it, or the old document is deleted from its window and the linked document displayed in its place. The window system has a user interface metaphor that things in different windows are different objects.

We do link to sites here that may express views we don't necessarily agree with.

Neither Larry nor I are the authors of any of the following Delaware blogs. And, I don't think any of them write for the Delatacit site. Just in case you Grand Old Party types aren't convinced, I'm not sure that it will be as easy to get the phone numbers of some of these other bloggers. But if you bookmark their sites, you might get a sense of what Delawareans might think about their lives and communities.

A number of them do express some thoughts on politics, and you just never know. One or all of them could really be Larry in disquise. Or the writer of the post about the attractiveness of Delaware's General Assembly members.

But I don't think so.

I visited Lars Hindley's Another Lousy Day in Paradise a couple of weeks ago, and didn't realize that he was a Delawarean. Certainly a good enough writer. Interested in politics. The Republican party better bookmark that one.

Next in the lineup is Paul Smith Jr.com, who is even more political in his writing than Lars, and who has some great links on his page, like one explaining why we have a Vice-President.

Should a couple of news radio jockeys be blogging? Flyn & Larrimore take on some important issues that the General Assembly considered seriously, such as recycling. These guys actually talk about Delaware legislation on their broadcasts.

A long time favorite Delaware-based blog is Fritz Schranck's Sneaking Suspicions, and I'm wondering if he was looking over my shoulder as I started putting together this post. He just added a new section to his blogroll listing "Blue Hen Bloggers". Thanks for including us there, Fritz.

Ivan's DeLaWho? DeLaWhat? DeLaWhere? just seemed too upbeat for him to be the writer the Delaware Republican party is searching for.

The author of Paul WishenBLOG also writes about politics. Some excellent movie reviews on his site, too.

I'm finding Stephen Donato's PHL-Citizens Aviation Watch fascinating, and it's great to get his perspective upon aviation over Delaware.

I met Daryl Cobranchi of Homeschool & Other Education Stuff a while ago, and should have linked to his site long ago. His pages focus mostly upon homeschooling, but he's as big a watchdog of local government as anyone.

Not every Delaware blog is political, though a post from Tine Norton describes her enthusiasm over the ability to vote. Yep, legislators of Delaware, these people are the ones who decide whether or not you stay in office.

Amongst the mostly music and performance type posts from The Look Machine is one about a band member's serious consideration of joining the Green Party.   Democrats and Republicans alike should take note of his reasons why.

When you read Salvation Amy's garden posts, you might not deduce that she's a practicing attorney. Or you could realize how well written those posts are, and it might not come as a surprise.

I'm not sure that you can call Matt Hearn a usual suspect. Funny site. It's interesting to see Matt's perspective of Delaware. I think this may be the same Matt Hearn who helped me with a visual basic problem a few years back.

Matt Hearn seems to also have a hand in the colloborative blog Free Range Human. Some Delaware issues get addressed in posts there.

Imp, of slowerlower, claims to have three current readers. He deserves more than a few more.

The crew at blogolution have interesting perspectives on political events, and aren't afraid to air them.   They don't seem to mind taking credit for their posts without the use of an alias.

Natalie, at Pomegranate Dreams, doesn't write much about politics. But she's a pretty good writer, like the folks above.

Larry is not the author of any of those blogs. Neither am I. We just link to them.

I know that there are more Delaware bloggers out there, and I'd love to hear from some of them. I think that we'll be adding a Delaware blogs link roll over the next couple of days. If you know of any other Delaware blogs out there that we should look at, please let us know.

who is delatacit?

I received a call from the Delaware Republican Party today. As a Republican, I took the call and tried to assist with their inquiry.

It was rumored that I am the anonymous author behind delatacit.com, a different Delaware blog. I was told that Delatacit had the look and feel of my weblogs, and that my site comes up high when they do an internet search for Delatacit.

There were apparently some political views and criticisms espoused on Delatacit that has the Republican Party curious. I am not sure what they are, particularly. I looked at the site and verified that it wasn't one of mine (perhaps one that I had created one wild night and subsequently forgot). I even did a search on popular web site registration resources to seek the web administrator's name. To no avail. It appears to be solidly anonymous.

My site comes back on a search for Delatacit because there is a link to it on my blog, along with numerous other legal and delaware related blogs. I guess my blog's decent Google rating brings a high placement for the search of Delatacit.

So lets be clear. Delatacit is not my work. I haven't read it. I have skimmed it and it appears to be interesting. But frankly, I haven't the time. To the extent that it is a forum for lawful free speech, I applaud it. But beyond that, I don't particularly care what it says.