HeidiAllen.com

This simple tip should also work in Jaguar & Panther, but I haven’t tested it.

It’s all too easy to accidentally delete an icon from the Sidebar (left side) of Finder. If you’ve deleted the icon for a hard drive, iDisk, Computer, Network, removable media (like a CD/DVD or USB drive), Connected Servers, Desktop, Home (your user directory) or Applications, simply go to the Finder menu at the top of your screen, select Preferences, then click on Sidebar and check the icon you want to restore.

If you’ve deleted your Documents icon, click on Home (the house icon), find the Documents folder, and drag that folder icon to a spot between other icons in the Sidebar. Go to the same place to restore your Music icon using the Music folder.

You can use this same method to add icons for items not already shown in the Sidebar, like the Movies or Pictures folder.

It was my goal to see a resolution similar to this pass at both Republican and Democratic conventions nationwide. I have yet to speak to anyone of any party affiliation who thinks it would be a good thing to allow government to take private property on the weakest of pretexts, particularly when the goal is to benefit one private party at the expense of another. Yet this is exactly what the Supreme Court recently agreed to allow.

Unfortunately, I don’t believe this resolution ever made it to the floor at our state convention, although it passed with overwhelming support at my precinct and county conventions. My resolution is largely based on House Resolution 340, offered by Representative Phil Gingrey (R-GA 11th) a week after the Supreme Court’s decision. Unfortunately, his resolution died in committee.

EMINENT DOMAIN RESOLUTION

Whereas the takings clause of the Fifth Amendment states, “nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation;”

Whereas upon adoption, the Fourteenth Amendment extended the application of the Fifth Amendment to each and every state and local government;

Whereas the takings clause of the Fifth Amendment has historically been interpreted and applied by the Supreme Court to be conditioned upon the necessity that Government assumption of private property through eminent domain must be for the public use and requires just compensation;

Whereas the opinion of the Supreme Court majority in Kelo et al. v. City of New London, et al. renders the public use provision in the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment without meaning;

Whereas the opinion of the Supreme Court majority in Kelo et al. v. city of New London et. al. justifies the forfeiture of a person’s private property through eminent domain for the sole benefit of another private person;

Now, therefore be it resolved that:

(1) The Texas Democratic Party will press for and support legislation that stipulates that:

A. State and local governments should only execute the power of eminent domain for those purposes that serve the public good in accordance with the Fifth Amendment;

B. State and local governments must always justly compensate those individuals whose property is assumed through eminent domain in accordance with the Fifth Amendment;

C. Any execution of eminent domain by state and local government that does not serve the public good and justly compensate individuals according to the Fifth Amendment is an usurpation of the individual property rights as defined in the Fifth Amendment;

D. Eminent domain should never be used to give advantage to one private party over another;

E. No state or local government should construe the holdings of Kelo et al. v. City of New London et al., as justification to abuse the power of eminent domain; and

F. Congress maintains the perogative ad reserves the right to address through legislation any abuses of eminent domain by state and local government in light of the ruling in Kelo et al. v. City of New London et al.

Seeing what free trade, as opposed to fair trade, is doing to my truck driver brother, my mother in Central America and so many others, fair trade has become an issue close to my heart.

This is another resolution I wrote and offered this year. It passed the precinct and county conventions, but I don’t think it ever made it to the floor at the state covention. Again, feel free to use it if you like:

FAIR TRADE RESOLUTION

WHEREAS: Free Trade agreements have not included adequate protections for workers or the environment; and

WHEREAS: This has created an uneven playing field on which US producers and workers are increasingly unable to compete;

THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED THAT the Texas Democratic Party will press for and support legislation that

A. Requires all future trade agreements to be based upon Fair Trade principles;

B. Stipulates enforcement and penalties at a level that will ensure their success;

C. Requires Free Trade legislation already in place to be renegotiated and revised to meet these requirements.

It occurred to me that even if we fix our currently broken election system, we won’t be better off until the voters are truly informed on the issues. This is another resolution that I wrote and my county brought to the 2006 Texas Democratic State Convention.

This one also came to the floor and was passed, but with changes that I feel weakened it. I’m not even clear on its final form, since the convention chair mumbled through it in a high speed monotone. I suppose it doesn’t matter, since the county chairs already had the completed platform in their hands before the vote on this resolution was taken.

REINSTATEMENT OF FAIRNESS DOCTRINE RESOLUTION

WHEREAS: The public owns the airwaves; and

WHEREAS: From 1949 until 1987, the Federal Communications Commission enforced the Fairness Doctrine, which required broadcast licensees to present controversial issues of public importance, and to present such issues in an honest, equal and balanced manner; and

WHEREAS: During the deregulation sweep of the Reagan Administration, the FCC dissolved the Fairness Doctrine; and

WHEREAS: The FCC initially left in place two corollary rules: The Personal Attack rule, which required persons or groups subject to character attack on the air to be notified by the broadcaster; and the Political Editorial rule, which required broadcasters endorsing or opposing political candidates to notify the candidates not endorsed; and with both rules, required the broadcaster to offer the person, group or candidate the opportunity to respond; and

WHEREAS: In 2000, the Court of Appeals for Washington D.C. ordered the FCC to justify these corollary rules, and upon not receiving a timely response, ordered their repeal; and

WHEREAS: Many radio, television, wire, satellite and cable
broadcast licensees now routinely air content that includes character attacks and the misrepresentation of issues without providing reasonable time for meaningful rebuttal; and

WHEREAS: This situation has contributed strongly to expensive and ugly political campaigns, to a nation deeply divided, and to an increasingly uninformed and misled public;

THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED THAT the Texas Democratic Party will press for and support legislation stipulating an updated version of the Fairness Doctrine and its corollary rules.

I was a delegate to both the 2004 and 2006 Texas Democratic Conventions. I offered the resolution below in 2006. It passed, but because the convention chair refused to read the resolution in full, I have no idea whether or not it was altered in committee. In addition, in both 2004 and 2006, county chairs were given a completed Texas Democratic Party platform to read while resolutions were still being brought to the floor.

This leads me to assume that this resolution never made it into the platform in any form, even though an overwhelming number of delegates in attendance voted for it. After speaking to some Republican friends, as well as Democratic friends in other states, I’ve come to believe that this maltreatment of the wishes of delegates is rampant in both parties nationwide.

Feel free to use the text of any of my resolutions at your own precinct, county or state conventions, regardless of your party. Fight for passed resolutions to be included in party platforms:

PUBLIC ELECTION SYSTEM RESOLUTION

WHEREAS: A democracy is only as strong as the stability, trustworthiness and transparency of its election system; and

WHEREAS: The nature of private, for-profit companies is
antithetical to the public good, placing profit motive above the public good and leading to increased costs; and

WHEREAS: The unreasonably high prices demanded by private election system providers to upgrade hardware and software leads to a situation in which poor counties have less stable voting systems than rich counties; and

WHEREAS: Using private companies to provide our nation’s election hardware and software results in an uneven patchwork of many different system combinations; and

WHEREAS: This complex patchwork leaves county election officials completely dependent upon employees of these private companies should there be hardware and/or software problems; and

WHEREAS: This situation can and has led to employees of private companies tallying election results and performing other duties that are the domain of public officials; and

WHEREAS: Privately created election software uses proprietary code that is not available for public review and has been proven to contain bugs and backdoors that could easily be exploited to change election results without public knowledge; and

WHEREAS: The managers of private companies can and have taken an active role in campaigning for individuals whose success depends upon the results provided by these same managers’ election systems;

THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED THAT the Texas Democratic Party will press for and support legislation that stipulates that:

A. The components of our nation’s election system will be developed by employees of the federal government;

B. The software will use open source code and be available for public review;

C. The hardware will be non-propietary;

D. The system will provide a voter verifiable paper trail, including paper ballots;

E. A single hardware/software package will be used nationwide; and

F. Public employees will be trained to resolve hardware and software issues.

I wrote this as a press release in November, 2004, but my county party decided against using it. Note that a voting machine vendor’s technician was controlling the CTU (Central Tabulation Unit) while voting results were being tabulated. I’d appreciate if someone could tell me whether or not this was legal. (UPDATE: Election code does make it legal for techs employed by voting machine vendors to be at the CTU controls if an elections official approves it.)

COMAL COUNTY ELECTION PROBLEMS HAVE NO EASY ANSWSERS

On election night November 2nd, the system that tallies the vote for Comal County, Texas refused to work. Even though a technician from voting systems vendor ES&S (Election Systems & Software) was at the controls, the problem persisted until at least midnight of that night.

It turns out that the system, Unity Election System Version 2.2, is long out of date, and that ES&S has known about bugs in the system’s software for some time.

The National Association of State Election Directors (NASED) maintains an approved voting systems list. Unity 2.2 was approved on July 30th, 2002. The most recent version to receive approval is Unity 2.5, which was approved on October 19, 2004.

Among other counties that used Unity 2.2 on November 2nd were Broward, Collier and Miami-Dade counties in Florida and Craven and Guilford counties in North Carolina. All encountered serious problems.

When Guilford County complained, the company admitted that the problem encountered “was previously documented and known to ES&S”. When Miami-Dade complained, ES&S suggested that they fix their multiple problems by re configuring their software or redoing the programming code, among other workarounds. Miami-Dade County has already spent over $24 million with the company.

ES&S charges hefty fees for each incremental update of their voting system. Comal is not a wealthy county. Yet, a democracy is only as strong as the faith its people place in their elections. Long before the elections of 2006, some serious thought must be put into how we can balance the requirements of our democracy with the limits of our pocketbooks.

As you can see by the time gap between posts, I’m perpetually busy. I don’t have the time to pen new missives as I’d like to. If I did, I’d be posting multiple times a day! However, I have plenty of things I’ve written in the past for other purposes that may be of interest to internet users. I’ll start posting these, just so they’re available online.