From merope@Radix.Net Mon May 7 12:57:20 2001 Date: Mon, 7 May 2001 12:57:19 -0400 (EDT) From: merope Reply-To: merope To: Daily Board Show Subject: Daily Board Show, 5/7/2001 Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Status: O X-Status: Is that your final answer?...its Your Daily Board Show! *warning* contains editorial content. Read at your own risk! Sunday 6 May 2001: Tim Stowell calls for the vote on Motions 01-12, 01-13, and 01-14, to appoint George Waller, John Smallwood and Dick Marston to the vacant Board seats. Thus far, 10 Board members have voted yes to each of the three motions. Dick Marston asks if he is eligible to vote and notes that if so, he will abstain [looks like one of our new Board members is perhaps not the sharpest tool in the shed]. He also asks if Board-L is where he is supposed to send his votes. Holly Timm tells him he is not eligible to vote until he is seated and that Board-L is the place to send his votes when he is eligible to vote. Holly says that although not all the "new board members" were her choices, she does "approve the consensus of the board as a whole and have thus voted yes on seating them." === On My Honor As A Scout Corner: Our Esteemed National Commander has apparently decided that perhaps a more substantive response to Chip Brown's allegations of election fraud is warranted. This is what he now says about it: "For the record, I had no knowledge how the voting was going during the process of the election, nor do I know how any member voted other than myself, or those who wrote and said for whom they voted. The Alabama SC's server was used, by last year's election committee. What security issues there may or may not have been were out of my league of understanding and/or exploiting even had I had such a desire...What I did do with the help of several people was gather the addresses of most of the Project members by reviewing state/county/town pages and then state by state sending email to each CC, volunteer listed except for the ones that I knew were in opposition to my candidacy. Now as far as I know there is nothing wrong with that as the other candidates could have done the very same thing...As the election neared it's end and before the results were announced all the candidates were sent a note a few minutes ahead of the general announcement. Up to that time, I had no idea how the results were going to play out." Although he claims he has evidence to the contrary, Chip now says he will defer further action to the Board, which has told him that there is not enough time to remove Tim from the NC position prior to his term running out. [Not to mention prying Tim's fingers from the grip of power would be a fight they'd have no stomach for.] So it looks like this issue will remain a mystery for the forseeable future. === "We do not believe any group of men adequate enough or wise enough to operate without scrutiny or without criticism. We know that the only way to avoid error is to detect it, that the only way to detect it is to be free to inquire. We know that in secrecy error undetected will flourish and subvert." ---Robert Oppenheimer This has been your Daily Board Show. -Teresa Lindquist merope@radix.net ------- Daily Board Show, (c) 2001 by Teresa Lindquist, all rights reserved. From merope@Radix.Net Tue May 8 13:44:17 2001 Date: Tue, 8 May 2001 13:44:16 -0400 (EDT) From: merope To: Daily Board Show Subject: Daily Board Show, 5/8/2001 Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Status: RO X-Status: There's no place like home...its Your Daily Board Show! *warning* contains editorial content. Read at your own risk! Monday 7 May 2001: Voting proceeds on Motions 01-12, 01-13, and 01-14. Tim Stowell declares Motions 01-12, 01-13 and 01-14 passed with 12 yes votes each. George Waller, John Smallwood and Dick Marston are welcomed to the Board. === Curiosity Corner: Does anyone else wonder why NO Board members will answer this simple question: "Did Tim call for a vote on these nominees and did the Board then vote on them?" I first asked this question of Teri Pettit several days ago and then shortly thereafter asked it of Tim. On May 5 I threw the question to the entire Board and not one of them has answered it. Now you don't suppose that this question puts them in a bit of a bind do you? We do know after all that Tim's first call for a vote on one of these vacant was made publicly. And that he announced _three times_ that the Board had selected a candidate for each seat by majority vote. Yet, if they admit they voted they have to come up with a reason why they are in violation of the bylaws for not posting their voting records publicly. [And a Big Thanks to the reader that reminded me that our own bylaws state that they take precedence over parliamentary procedure if there is a conflict.] So I don't imagine any one of them will 'fess up to the fact that they did in fact carry out formal votes for these seats in secret, and only later decided to publicly "appoint" the winners. Which Way Did He Go Corner: It appears that the USGW-CC-L list is temporarily offline. We've sent mail to the listowner and hopefully it will soon be available. === "There is not a crime, there is not a dodge, there is not a trick, there is not a swindle, there is not a vice which does not live by secrecy." ---Joseph Pulitzer This has been your Daily Board Show. -Teresa Lindquist merope@radix.net ------- Daily Board Show, (c) 2001 by Teresa Lindquist, all rights reserved. From merope@Radix.Net Tue May 8 16:31:32 2001 Date: Tue, 8 May 2001 16:31:32 -0400 (EDT) From: merope To: Daily Board Show Subject: News Flash! Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Status: O X-Status: In possibly the shortest Board term on record, Dick Marston has resigned less than 24 hours after being seated. Tim Stowell has been teasing us with this news all afternoon. We had so hoped it would his resignation that would be announced, but--better luck next time. -Teresa merope@radix.net From merope@Radix.Net Wed May 9 15:09:53 2001 Date: Wed, 9 May 2001 15:09:52 -0400 (EDT) From: merope Reply-To: merope To: Daily Board Show Subject: Daily Board Show, 5/9/2001 Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Status: O X-Status: Will wonders never cease...its Your Daily Board Show! *warning* contains editorial content. Read at your own risk! Tuesday 8 May 2001: Dick Marston resigns from the Advisory Board. Tim Stowell notes that he verified it. [This is the shortest Board term on record. Dick was appointed less than 24 hours before he resigned. No reason was given publicly.] Holly Timm moves to accept "Dick Marsten's" [sic] resignation. Tina Vickery seconds the motion. Tim asks Holly to amend her motion to spell Dick's name correctly and Holly does so. Tim then asks Tina if she concurs with the amendment. John Smallwood, also appointed recently, resigns from the Board "for reasons of conscience." In a later note appended by Tim, John notes that he has discovered he does not have the time to devote to the Board that he thought he would. Wednesday 9 May 2001: Richard Harrison moves to accept the resignation of John Smallwood. [Yeesh. If George resigns too, it would be a hat trick. You gotta wonder what the other two got a gander at that made 'em run off like scared bunnies.] === "You do not become a "dissident" just because you decide one day to take up this most unusual career. You are thrown into it by your personal sense of responsibility, combined with a complex set of external circumstances. You are cast out of the existing structures and placed in a position of conflict with them. It begins as an attempt to do your work well, and ends with being branded an enemy of society." ---Vaclav Havel This has been your Daily Board Show. -Teresa Lindquist merope@radix.net ------- Daily Board Show, (c) 2001 by Teresa Lindquist, all rights reserved. From merope@Radix.Net Thu May 10 14:33:55 2001 Date: Thu, 10 May 2001 14:33:54 -0400 (EDT) From: merope Reply-To: merope To: Daily Board Show Subject: Daily Board Show, 5/10/2001 Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Status: RO X-Status: Easy come, easy go...its Your Daily Board Show! *warning* contains editorial content. Read at your own risk! Wednesday 9 May 2001: Tina Vickery concurs with Holly Timm's amendment to accept Dick Marston's resignation. Tim Stowell gives the motion to accept Dick Marston's resignation number 01-15 and, noting there is no need for discussion, opens the floor for a vote. Thus far 10 Board members have voted yes. Tim asks for a second on the motion to accept the resignation of John Smallwood. Tina seconds this motion as well. Tim gives the motion to accept John Smallwood's resignation number 01-16 and calls for the vote. Thus far, 9 Board members have voted yes. === Oy Vey Corner: On behalf of Chip Brown, Board member Joy Fisher has publicly posted his explanation of recent allegations that our Esteemed National Commander Tim Stowell used insider information to win last year's election: "The information I personally gave to Tim was not from the Election Committee...but from SC's I am close to, as well as states Tim told me to contact. I have no knowledge how these SC's thought they knew their state's votes. But Tim did seem to know what states he was behind in, he certainly won didn't he? May have just been polling for all I can prove. Sorry, I wish I could prove more. Myself and others were given states that Tim said he was behind in and others he said he had already...One AB member has remarked they didn't get this spam, this points out to me there was an awareness on somedody's part of how others voted or intended to vote. If he had polled those states he wouldn't have needed us to get him e-mail addresses. The only connection he had to the EC (I know for sure) was one of the people that originally started out helping Tim in his campaign was on the EC. When she saw what Tim was doing, she told him she could not help him do that in a letter BCC'd to all of us. This person did nothing wrong and leaked no information to Tim. In fact when she quit the voting hadn't gotten underway. As for those who asked for Linda's last name, I will not give it...I will only incriminate myself. It was not the "Archive Linda." The Linda knows who she was and if, as Tim stated, nothing happened unethically, I'm sure she won't care to step forward and admit it. I can not, by myself prove Tim did anything fraudulent, but what he did was certainly not very ethical, what do you think? I can only say what my role is in it, why I did it and let others make their choices. For what Tim has admitted, spam is spam and that's all there is to it. He has admitted on the list he spammed those states...If my motives were out of anger, I would have said something back in December when he stabbed me in the back in Tennessee. I know I did wrong, and stand here today and admit it. My conscience is clear, Tim can say or do or call me anything he wants." [The "Linda" referred to above is Linda Haas Davenport. She is a BIG fan of Tim's, convinced him to run last year and, big surprise, is the Chair of the Election Committee this year. Can you say "slam dunk?"] So, it appears that there is no credible evidence at this time that Tim had access to the vote results prior to the end of the election or that he used them to target undecided voters or those who had already voted against him. [A note on the "spam" mentioned above: Tim, and Fred Smoot before him in a previous election, obtained the lists of voters and sent mass emails prior to the end of the election soliciting votes. I did not personally receive Tim's message, but I know a boat-load of people who did and most wrote me to tell me how outraged they were to have received it. I also recall similar howls of outrage from the other side of the divide when Fred Smoot's mailing went out. But, honestly, its hard to get worked up over this sort of thing. This is after all an election and the candidates are in a position where it is extremely difficult to address the voters. They cannot rely on the SCs to forward messages to the state lists, most voters wisely avoid the general project lists or are unaware of them, and there is no central communication mechanism that is guaranteed to reach more than a handful of members. So if they need to resort to a one-time mass mailing using addresses gleaned from web pages, its really not that big a deal. It actually might behoove the Election Committee, which has the most complete lists, to send ONE message per candidate to every eligible voter at some point during the voting period. That way, one could be assured that each voter receives the same information and no one candidate has access to more voters than any other. And since both sides would be doing it, neither side could puff itself up and cry "spam". It could be a nonpartisan way of allowing the candidates to reach the voters through an official mechanism and it might get more people to vote. *shrug*] === "Truth would quickly cease to become stranger than fiction, once we got as used to it." ---H.L. Mencken This has been your Daily Board Show. -Teresa Lindquist merope@radix.net ------- Daily Board Show, (c) 2001 by Teresa Lindquist, all rights reserved. From merope@Radix.Net Sat May 12 18:07:41 2001 Date: Sat, 12 May 2001 18:07:40 -0400 (EDT) From: merope To: Daily Board Show Subject: Daily Board Show, 5/12/2001 Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Status: O X-Status: Listen up!...its Your Daily Board Show! *warning* contains editorial content. Read at your own risk! Thursday 10 May 2001: Voting proceeds on Motions 01-15 and 01-16, with new Board member George Waller casting his first votes. Thus far the counts are at 13 yes votes each. Friday 11 May 2001: Tim Stowell announces the passage of Motions 01-15 and 01-16, to accept the resignation of Dick Marston and John Smallwood, respectively. Each motion received 13 yes votes. === The Little Bird Sings Corner: Word on the street is that the Board is currently working up a bylaws revision amendment that will include a new Bylaws Committee. I've been approached about being on the committee, but the offer will probably be rescinded once this goes to press. For some reason, they seem to want to keep it all hush-hush. *shrug* Rebuttal Corner: Election Committee member Kathy Heidel writes to take exception to an article in a previous DBS regarding the happy coincidence of Tim Stowell's former "campaign manager" now being the Chair of the EC. Kathy says: "I am happy to relate to you and the others on this list, we are busy preparing our lists of voters according to the Regions and making way for the best election year ever. Do you believe that Holly would allow any wrong-doing with this Committee? It is an extention of her group, of which you participated in Teresa, and she is a member of our EC now. I believe this group parallels the earlier one, Holly's, in integrity and dedication to uphold the Bylaws and Trust of the USGWP. Do you think that I would sit here typing for hours and researching for the "correct" CC of county XYZ, if I thought for one minute this group was not honest, above-board and responsible? You can bet your sweet bippy I would be gone in a hyperflash, if that were not the case. The EC of last year was a hastily put together group, who had no precidient to follow and learn the "errs" of. They made mistakes as is normal for we are "human", but I doubt the outcome would have been different, Tim was highly thought of and well known. I truely hope our current EC efforts will not be compromised before we are given a chance." For the record, we did not mean to impugn the EC, which we are sure is working very hard to do things right. We just pointed out the interesting fact that a person who has been very partisan in the past now finds herself in a most powerful position vis a vis the upcoming election. Although we will note that the silence from the EC has been deafening. They have no web page up, there's been no word about the "third party" voting system, there's been no "quarterly reports", and nominations are opening in two weeks. March of History Corner: Our favorite SC, Sharon "the Axe" Williamson, of the NCGenWeb has proposed that the State Coordinators start keeping a blacklist of problem CCs. The suggestion arose after another SC asked what to do about a CC that left the project and stripped their pages and our Esteemed National Commander asked for their name to privately be shared among the SCs so they could be made aware of potential problems in their own states. Sharon came up with the brilliant idea of keeping a secret list of troublemakers: "I think it is a good idea to have a means for sharing information about who has been serious problems in one state or another. However, it seems to me that it could also get us in some real hot water if we were not careful about how we carry it off. Rather than being really public about exposing the names, maybe we could have one person who would be the "keeper of the list". As SCs we could simply send that "keeper" the name of anyone who causes serious problems, especially that of destroying site information. Then, when a SC is about to accept a new CC for their state, they could simply run the proposed name by the "keeper of the list". The "keeper" would respond with a simple "yes, on the list" or "no, not on the list". No details would be exchanged about "why". That would make it hard for anyone to claim slander." So, a secret blacklist under the control of one person, containing the names of whatever CCs are in hot water with their SCs or _any_ SC for whatever reason... what an excellent idea! Not. Thank the stars this discussion has apparently gone nowhwere since The Axe proposed it. End of An Era Corner: We are sad to learn that Ancestry.com is no longer offering its new databases for free for 10 days. This was announced April 26, but went into effect May 8. The announcement is posted here: http://www.ancestry.com/library/view/news/articles/3800.asp. === "The natural tendency of every government is to grow steadily worse - that is, to grow more satisfactory to those who constitute it and less satisfactory to those who support it." ---H.L. Mencken This has been your Daily Board Show. -Teresa Lindquist merope@radix.net ------- Daily Board Show, (c) 2001 by Teresa Lindquist, all rights reserved.