Monday, August 27, 2007

Abu Gonzales Is Gone

Here's the first paragraph of the AP story on Alberto Gonzales' resignation:


WASHINGTON - Alberto Gonzales, the nation's first Hispanic attorney general, announced his resignation Monday, driven from office after a wrenching standoff with congressional critics over his honesty and competence.



Why did they have to mention that he was "the nation's first Hispanic attorney general?" If Abu's entire contribution to history is that he was the first Hispanic attorney general, that's not much to show for all the opportunities he was given.





Unfortunately, history will probably not be that kind to him. Let me suggest several other formulations that would be just as accurate:



  • "the most incompetent attorney general in the nation's history"

  • "the only attorney general to ever put forth a so-called rationale for condoning torture"

  • "whose memory was like a sieve"

  • "as-yet-unindicted for his assault upon then-Attorney General John Ashcroft while Ashcroft was in a near-coma"

  • "after completing losing the respect of the 100,000 Justice Department employees, the Congress, the media and the American people"

Don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out, Al.

Thursday, August 23, 2007

Micheal Deaver and the Presidential Advance Manual

It was interesting to note the juxtaposition last weekend of stories about the passing of former Reagan aide Michael Deaver, who was credited with creating fabulous visuals for the President's public appearances, and the release of a "Presidential Advance Manual" detailing ways to manage, not only the media's, but also the President's experience of a presidential event.

The manual deals with a lot of presidential security and communications issues -- at least, its multiple redacted pages suggest so. But the goodies we do get to read include:
  • VIP seating -- the good seats "behind the podium or in the area between the stage and the main camera platform" -- is to be restricted to "members of the State Party [we need not ask which party], Local Officials, the Host of the Event, or other groups extremely supportive of the Administration." (emphasis in original)
  • "Preventing Demonstrators" -- That's right, demonstrators must be prevented. Preferably, the advance team should work with the Secret Service to get local law enforcement to create a protest area, "preferably not in view of the event site or motorcade route." Is Luckenbach far enough away for you?
  • If by some misfortune demonstrators actually make it into the event, the advance team should have "rally squads" at the ready. "The rally squad's task is to use their signs and banners as shields between the demonstrators and the main press platform." In short, they're to throw themselves on top of the protest 'grenade.' God forbid the media should learn of any opposition to the Great Leader's policies!
Did Michael Deaver create this monster? Maybe not, but he was probably one of its many fathers. The idea that a presidential visit to, say, a factory has anything to do with a) the President actually learning something from the visit, or 2) the citizens (who, after all, pay for all this folderol) actually seeing and interacting with their President is ludicrous to the people who write and execute these procedures. All the world's a stage, said the Bard, and all us Americans merely props.

Tuesday, August 21, 2007

Texas Dodges Hurricane Dean

It looks like Hurricane Dean -- which blew through the Yucatan today -- will completely miss Texas.

Monday, August 20, 2007

Hurricane Dean Swinging Further South

Hurricane Dean seems to be swinging even further southward, aiming itself towards central, not northern, Mexico. Compare yesterday's storm track. That's good news for Texas, although hardly for Mexico.





Sunday, August 19, 2007

Hurricane Dean May Miss Texas?

For several days now, folks have been preparing for Hurricane Dean to barrel through Texas like a drunken cowboy in an F-150 pickup truck. But the latest prognostications from the National Hurricane Center have Dean continuing on a straighter course that takes it over the Yucatan, then across the Gulf into northern Mexico. It looks like we'll be spared its brunt in Texas, unless it slices right after it hits the Mayan Riviera.

It can still do a lot of damage, with plenty parts of South Texas already soaked with this year's much-higher-than-average rains. And, of course, the damage it inflicts on Mexican will also place demands on Texans and Texas, notwithstanding the Nativists' idea that Mexico is another planet.

For your graphical enjoyment:

Friday, August 17, 2007

Friday Night Writes

Paul Burka has two terrific posts tonight on his BurkaBlog. Burka is the Senior Executive Editor of Texas Monthly and one of the best political reports in the state -- or, for my money, the nation.

The first is on Tom Craddick's name ID and favorable/unfavorable ratings. Burka shares some numbers he heard from a Republican political consultant, which I in turn share with you:
1. Craddick's name ID is "higher than any speaker of the modern era," which means starting with Billy Clayton. I'm a little surprised to know that anybody bothered to measure the speaker's name ID before Craddick.
2. Among Republican primary voters, Craddick's favorable/unfavorable is 2 to 1 negative.
3. Among independent voters, Craddick's favorable/unfavorable is 6 to 1 negative.
4. Among Democrats, Craddick's favorable/unfavorable is 10 to 1 negative.

The last number, while not that surprising, may be the most interesting. Among Democratic primary voters, Tom Craddick's name is toxic. I am sure each of the Craddick Ds (there are about 15 of them) has a sane, rational case for having supported Craddick in the past, but they may never get to make it. Any candidate contemplating a run against a Craddick D just has to send around a picture of Craddick and said Craddick D getting all kissy-face, and it may all be over but the crying.

As Harvey Kronberg said last March, "the Craddick Democrats have to come away from this session with something meaningful and it may boil down to a handful of issues. ... It's a fascinating political game. The Craddick Democrats need a significant win or some won't be coming back in two years. As go their fortunes, so go those of Craddick." Will the Craddick Ds be able to make the case that their district is better off for their having supported Craddick?

The second is a well-written, thoughtful analysis of Karl Rove's impact on our politics titled "Requiem for a Heavyweight." It is fascinating reading. Go to the BurkaBlog and scroll down.

In Other News On The Legal Front ...

Go here to read my post about yesterday's ruling in the Texas Democratic Party's lawsuit alleging that the eSlate touch-screen voting machine inaccurately counts certain straight-party ticket votes.

Bad machine!

Thursday, August 16, 2007

Diebold Dissolves, Re-Forms

Diebold Election Systems manufactures voting systems, both optical scan and touch-screen, that have been the subject of much criticism. The North Canton, Ohio-based company is the largest manufacturer of touch-screen voting systems. It has been plagued from the beginning by criticisms of the integrity of both its management and its voting machines.

In 2003, Diebold CEO Walden O'Dell sent out a fundraising letter for Bush/Cheney '04 in which he was "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president." In the resulting kerfuffle, O'Dell was forced to eat generous helpings of crow and Diebold was forced to amend its corporate ethics policy to prohibit senior management from engaging in partisan political activity. Now, I am a big believer in freedom of speech, especially political speech, but one has to be careful about the appearance of impropriety when one makes impolitic statements like that.


More problematic than that was the fact that Diebold's machines are just not very secure. In 2004, the folks at Black Box Voting produced a video of a chimp named Baxter hacking into a Diebold machine and erasing the vote results. To the best of my knowledge, Baxter (above) was never prosecuted for monkeying around with the machines. Sorry, I could not resist.

In 2006, the Huffington Post showed how to hack a Diebold machine with a Phillips head screwdriver and a small flash drive like you have on your keyring -- and leave no trace behind.

This summer, California Secretary of State Debra Bowen exhaustively examined several voting system technologies, including Diebold's, and de-certified Diebold's, subject to the company making multiple changes to its system hardware, software, and handling protocols.

Apparently, enough was finally enough, and today Diebold announced that it is spinning off its election systems division from the rest of the company, and creating a new entity called Premier Elections Solutions. Diebold also manufactures ATM machines and security systems, apparently decided -- aided by a precipitous drop in it stock value over the last month -- to get rid of the voting systems part of the brand.

What does all this mean? Of course, changing the name on the product does not increase the quality or the security of that product. So the burden will still be on Premier to show it can make technologically sound and secure machines that can be used in elections without a loss of public confidence in the integrity of the elected officials who purchased those machines.

In Texas, where Diebold systems are used in seven counties, including El Paso (#6 in size) and Collin (#8), questions remain about the integrity of their systems. Add to those new questions about the quality of service and tech support we can expect during this corporate reorganization -- and how long those issues will last.

Tuesday, August 14, 2007

Ingram Will Never Be The Same

I like Ingram. In fact, I like it a lot. It's a little town, nestled in a beautiful part of the Texas Hill Country just west of Kerrville and about two hours from Austin. It is close to one of my favorite places on earth, and so I visit Ingram and its environs several times a year.

In the old days, you used to be able to store your deer at Bernhard's Ingram Meat Locker (motto: "You Can't Beat Our Meat") or go dam-sliding on Ingram Dam. In recent years, the tourist trade has become more important, and now there's the Old Ingram Loop with it rustic furniture, antiques and tschotchke stores.
Life is bucolic out there. You swim or tube in the Guadalupe River all day. In the evenings, you dress up a little and have dinner at Richard and Lorrie Ferris's Cowboy Steakhouse in Kerrville, which is one of our state's best-kept secrets. After dinner, you drive out to Stonehenge II and look at the stars in the middle of a big field.

Now I hear that Karl Rove is coming home to Texas, and specifically, Ingram, where he used to, and maybe still does, own the River Oaks Lodge, which is on as pretty a stretch of the Guadalupe River as you'll ever see.
I'm not sure I see him in the role of guestmaster, though. He's a little too wound up for that. I don't imagine he'll be spending much time there, at least at first -- he's too much of a cash cow for the Republicans right now. I do hope he gets some time out there, though -- maybe he'll get some perspective on the vicious pettiness of his partisanship.

Welcome back, Karl. Behave yourself.

Saturday, August 11, 2007

Sunset At The Oasis

There's a reason they call the Oasis "The Sunset Capital of Texas." I took these pictures of a lovely Texas sunset the other evening.



Friday, August 10, 2007

WTF Is Going On In China?

I have a MySpace page. It's part of my attempt to be cool and relevant -- like commenting on In The Pink Texas, only not as funny. Or relevant. I really have not paid much attention to MySpace -- the friends I know on there can communicate better with me by picking up the phone than by sending me an email through MySpace -- but I am still down with the whole social networking thing.

Recently, though, I have become aware of a serious problem that has, it seems to me, national security implications. It turns out there are a lot of young, 20-something American girls who may be being held against their will in ... China.

I deduce this from the fact that I constantly receive offers to become "friends" on MySpace from 20-something girls who give their location as "China." These are not Chinese women, mind you -- to all appearances, they are healthy American girls who, for some strange reason, are in China. And by "healthy American girls," I mean "strippers," for that is what they all look like.

Take, for example, Florence, who is pictured on the left. She's 26 years old and, as you can see, lovely. In her profile, Florence tells us that she's "new to the area and want[s] to know where to go and what's fun." She continues, "Its a little overwhelming at first but I love it," which is a wonderful attitude to have about being in a foreign land like China. Apparently, her sole creature comfort in China is a digital camera. She loves to take pictures and, even more, to have her picture taken. In fact, she's so homesick that she's posted some pictures on another site, where could see her in all her glory for the mere price of admission.






Or take Eunice. I assume that Eunice is one of the girls on the left, but I cannot tell which one because Eunice prefers to keep the mystery alive. Eunice, and presumably her friends, are in China, where they may be held against their will. Perhaps that is why Eunice does not wish to say which one she is, for fear of repercussions. Like Florence, though, Eunice has a camera and is eager to share many pictures of herself for a nominal monthly fee.

My question is this: Is the State Department on top of this? Are these people in China against their will? Is there a burgeoning strip club industry in China that is absorbing our surplus strippers? What are the tariffs on tarts?

And most important, why does everyone think that Tom Anderson and Chris DeWolfe, the inventors of MySpace, are the smartest guys since Ben Franklin and Tom Edison? Don't we all have at least eight reasons to hate MySpace?

Steve Earle's "City of Immigrants"

Steve Earle, who is a fantastic and profound songwriter, has a new album coming out on September 25. "Washington Square Serenade" is his first album since moving to New York City from Nashville, and it will be filled with sounds and flavors from his new environment. If "City of Immigrants" is any indication, the album will be thought-provoking and entertaining.

Get a listen to "City of Immigrants" on Steve's MySpace page.

Thursday, August 9, 2007

California SoS De-Certifies Voting Machines

Last week, I wrote about the study ordered by California Secretary of State Debra Bowen, taking the various voting systems in use in California and examining their security. She examined both DRE and optical scan systems manufactured by Diebold, ES&S. Hart Intercivic and Sequoioa, and determined that all had weaknesses in their security which, unless addressed, could allow hackers to alter vote totals, violate the privacy of individual voters and delete audit trails, all without being detected during or afterwards.

On August 3, she dropped the hammer. She kicked one verdor out and gave the others 45 days to improve the security of both their source code and their handling protocols for the technology. Her order affects voting technologies made by Diebold, ED&S and Hart InterCivic which are ubiquitous in Texas.

Let's look at the vendors and their products:

ES&S
ES&S is, as Mont Python would say, "right out." They refused to participate in the Secretary of State's review, and she basically put them out of business in California. She de-certified their InkaVote optical scan system. ES&S also has other voting technology products, including the AutoMARK voter assistance terminal and precinct- and county-level optical scan counting machines which were not reviewed. Many Texas counties use those machines.

Diebold
She de-certified and conditionally re-certified the Diebold AccuVote-TSX DRE system and AccuVote-OS optical scan system. Re-certification is conditioned upon improved software security design as well as protocols for handling the machines and their codes. The AccuVote-TSX DRE system is currently used in Hale, Jackson, Lee, Sherman and Wilson counties; the AccuVote-OS optical scan system is currently used in Collin, El Paso, Guadalupe, Sherman, and Wilson counties.

Hart InterCivic
She de-certified and conditionally re-certified System 6.2.1 of Hart InterCivic's voting technology suite. This includes the eSlate DRE system, the eScan optical scan system and the Ballot Now optical scan system. Re-certification is conditioned upon improved software security design as well as protocols for handling the machines and their codes. Additionally, Hart InterCivic withdrew its System 6.1. Hart InterCivic's systems are ubiquitous in Texas.

Sequoia
She de-certified and conditionally re-certified the Sequoia AVC Edge DRE system and the Sequoia Optech Insight optical scan system. As with the others, re-certification is conditioned upon improved software security design as well as protocols for handling the machines and their codes. Sequoia's products are not used in Texas.

Bowen's actions, of course, cause quite a stir. Kentucky Attorney General Greg Stumbo has called for a review of voting systems in that state. But no word yet from our Secretary of State.

Kinky For Sale, Again


Kinky Friedman has a book about to come out and is promoting a new line of cigars, so of course he's announced for Governor again.

Well, not exactly, since that would be a one-day story and Kinky, if nothing else, is a master of milking as much media out of as little substance as anyone I know. So instead, he's speculating that he might run for Governor in 2010, this time as a Democrat.

"I'm open to running," Friedman said Wednesday before cautioning that he won't settle plans until after the 2008 elections. "Had I run as a Democrat last time, I think (Gov.) Rick Perry would already be (out of office as) a lobbyist for a cigar company," he said.
Kinky memorably ran for Governor in 2006, coming in fourth of five candidates with 12.4 percent of the vote. His campaign started out slow and then flizzled out altogether, plagued by its candidate's inability to disguise that he really didn't want the job. CMT even did a TV series, Go Kinky, which intercut scenes of Kinky schmoozing with the likes of Willie Nelson and Dwight Yoakum with scenes of Kinky, visibly bored, sabotaging his campaign staff's efforts to get him to focus on the issues, man, the issues. It lasted two episodes before CMT lost interest.

At the end, Kinky's campaign devolved into a platform for him to sell an action figure of himself (right). He must have a bunch of them left in the warehouse if he's running for Governor again.






Wednesday, August 8, 2007

BARRY BONDS #756 HOME RUN BREAKS HANK AARON'S RECORD 8/07/07

Clip from the Giants-Nationals game where Barry Bonds hits his 756th career home run.

Tuesday, August 7, 2007

Barry Bonds Hits No. 756!


We still do not know everything about Bonds' use of steroids and how that affected his pursuit of the record, but by any standard it is an astounding achievement.

'Twas nice that Hank Aaron had a videotaped congratulatory message for Bonds. Also nice that Bonds' godfather, Willie Mays, who defined the San Francisco Giants franchise for so long and so well, was there for the moment.

Sunday, August 5, 2007

Texas Sunset


We had a nice family get-together in LaVernia last night. We took my mother out to dinner at the Italian restaurant there. I would not have known LaVernia had an Eye-talian restaurant, but it was actually pretty good. As we took her home, I snapped a picture of this lovely sunset.

Saturday, August 4, 2007

UPDATE: L.A. Reporter Suspended Over Affair


The L. A. Times reports that Telemundo reporter and anchor Mirthala Salinas, who has admitted to have an (ongoing?) affair with Los Angeles Mayor Anthony Villaraigosa, has been suspended for two months without pay by her station. In addition, three of her supervisors were disciplined for their bad judgment in handling her situation.

Salinas began her affair with Villlaraigosa sometime in 2005, while she covered the political beat for Telemundo's Los Angeles affiliate, KVEA-TV Channel 52. Of course, much of what she covered involved the Mayor. Last fall, she told her supervisors at the station about the affair. They took her off the political beat and made her one of the station's anchors.
It was in that role that she announced, in June, that Villaraigosa and his wife Corina were divorcing. That straw broke the camel's back.

Salinas's story was paired with that of Chicago TV reporter Amy Jacobson, who was filmed by the backyard pool of a man suspected of murdering his wife -- a story Jacobson was "covering." The confluence of events prompted Washington Post media critic Howard Kurtz to write about "bikini journalism" earlier this summer.

Friday, August 3, 2007

It's 10:00 P.M. -- Do You Know Where Your Voting Machine Is?

For years, Texas has been embroiled in a controversy over electronic voting systems, with the partisans generally dividing into three camps:

  1. Electronic voting technologies are from the pit of hell and we need to return to hand-counted paper ballots for all elections;
  2. Electronic voting technologies create risks of tampering with elections and invading voters' privacy; and
  3. "What are those other two groups complaining about?"
California Secretary of State Debra Bowen conducted an exhaustive review of voting machine security this summer, including systems used in many Texas counties. As Houston Chronicle political writer Kristen Mack points out in a column today, that makes the review relevant to Texas. Mack summarizes the review, conducted by researchers at the University of California system, well: "[A]bsent tighter [security] procedures, hackers could alter vote totals, violate the privacy of individual voters and delete audit trails" on even the most sophisticated systems.

The key phrase, obviously, is "absent tighter security procedures." The federal Election Assistance Commission and the Elections Division of the Texas Secretary of State's office have issued guidelines for how to improve voting system security. Although many counties -- notably Travis -- have well-established election security protocols, most counties do not.

During the last legislative session, Senator Royce West and Representative Rafael Anchia introduced bills to mandate basic voting system security procedures in each county. Neither bill got anywhere, even with the support of county elections administrators and clean voting advocates. But, as the California study shows, standardized security procedures are necessary to protect the integrity of elections, no matter how well designed the voting systems may be.

Bowen began the "top-to-bottom" review of election systems in May, saying "California voters are entitled to have their votes counted exactly as they were cast." University of California researchers divided into teams to review documents and studies associated with each voting system, examine the computer source code each machine relies on, and even a "penetration attack" to see if the system’s security could be compromised. Their reports are available here, but here's the highlight reel:

Diebold systems, used in two of Texas' largest counties (#6 El Paso and #8 Collin) are plagues by "serious design flaws that have led directly to specific vulnerabilities that attackers could exploit to affect election outcomes. These vulnerabilities include:
Vulnerability to malicious software. The Diebold software contains vulnerabilities that could allow an attacker to install malicious software on voting machines or on the election management system. Malicious software could cause votes to be recorded incorrectly or to be miscounted, possibly altering election results. It could also prevent voting machines from accepting votes, potentially causing long lines or disenfranchising voters.
Susceptibility to viruses. The Diebold system is susceptible to computer viruses that propagate from voting machine to voting machine and between voting machines and the election management system. A virus could allow an attacker who only had access to a few machines or memory cards, or possibly to only one, to spread malicious software to most, if not all, of a county’s voting machines. Thus, large-scale election fraud in the Diebold system does not necessarily require physical access to a large number of voting machines.
Failure to protect ballot secrecy. Both the electronic and paper records of the Diebold AV-TSX contain enough information to compromise the secrecy of the ballot. The AV-TSX records votes in the order in which they are cast, and it records the time that each vote is cast. As a result, it is possible for election workers who have access to the electronic or paper records and who have observed the order in which individuals have cast their ballots to discover how those individuals voted. Moreover, even if this vulnerability is never exploited, the fact that the AV-TSX makes it possible for officials to determine how individuals voted may be detrimental to voter confidence and participation.
Vulnerability to malicious insiders. The Diebold system lacks adequate controls to ensure that county workers with access to the GEMS central election management system do not exceed their authority. Anyone with access to a county’s GEMS server could tamper with ballot definitions or election results and could also introduce malicious software into the GEMS server itself or into the county’s voting machines.

The Hart Intercivic systems, including the eSlate machines used in five of Texas' biggest counties (#1 Harris, #3 Tarrant, #5 Travis, #9 Denton and #10 Fort Bend) are also vulnerable to attack. Their biggest problem is that the machines are all linked together under the assumption that every individual machine is secure. This can cause problems:
Unsecured network interfaces. Network interfaces in the Hart system are not secured against direct attack. Voters can connect to unsecured network links in a polling place to subvert eSlates, as well as to eavesdrop on cast votes and to inject new votes. Poll workers can connect to JBCs or eScans over the management interfaces and perform back-office functions such as modifying the device software. The impact of this is that a malicious voter could potentially take over one or more eSlates in a precinct and a malicious poll worker could potentially take over all the devices in a precinct. The subverted machines could then be used to produce any results of the attacker’s choice, regardless of voter input. We emphasize that these are not bugs in the Hart software, but rather features intentionally designed into the system which can be used in a fashion for which they were never intended.
Vulnerability to malicious inputs. Because networked devices may be connected to other, potentially malicious devices, they must be prepared to accept robustly any input provided by such devices. The Hart software routinely fails to check the correctness of inputs from other components, and then proceeds to use those inputs in unsafe ways. The most damaging example of this is that SERVO, which is used to back up and verify the correctness of polling place devices can itself be compromised from those same devices. This implies that an attacker could subvert a single polling place device, through it subvert SERVO, and then use SERVO to reprogram every polling place device in the county. Although we have tested some individual components of this attack, we did not have time to confirm it in an end-to-end test.
No or insecure use of cryptography. The standard method for securing network communication of the type in use in the Hart system is to use a cryptographic security protocol. However, we found a notable lack of such techniques in Hart’s system. Instead, communications between devices generally happen in the clear, making attack far easier. Cryptography is used for MBBs, but the key management involves a single county-wide symmetric key that, if revealed, would allow an attacker to forge ballot information and election results. This key is stored insecurely in vulnerable polling-place devices, with the result that compromise of a single polling place device enables an attacker to forge election MBBs carrying election results for any device in the county.
Failure to protect ballot secrecy. Hart’s system fails to adequately protect ballot secrecy. A poll worker or election official with access to the raw ballot records can reconstruct the order in which those votes were cast. Combined with information about the order in which voters cast their votes, this can be used to reconstruct how each voter voted. In the case of the DRE, it is also possible to reconstruct, for each vote, the order in which the votes were authorized. Combined with information about the order in which voters were authorized, this can likewise be used to reconstruct how each voter voted. Furthermore, a voter who has temporary access to an eSlate device can extract and reconstruct all the votes cast on that device up to that point in time. He may be able to similarly reconstruct all votes cast on any other eSlate connected to the same JBC.

ES&S, which manufactures the systems used in three of Texas' largest counties (#2 Dallas, #4 Bexar and #7 Hidalgo) refused to participate in the review, denying the Secretary of State access to its source codes. In response, Bowen moved to gather escrowed copies (as required by ES&S's certification) of the source codes for review.

The study also examined the accessibility of each of the voting systems. Such accessibility is required by the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) and by state laws. The study concluded that "[a]lthough each of the tested voting systems included some accessibility accommodations, none met the accessibility requirements of current law and none performed satisfactorily in test voting by persons with a range of disabilities and alternate language needs."

Wednesday, August 1, 2007

John Smithee to Retire?

















Vince Leibowitz at Capitol Annex is reporting that State Representative John Smithee (above) is retiring. The soon-to-be-56-year old lawyer is a 22-year veteran of the House and chaired the House Insurance Committee for several sessions.

Smithee's middle name is True, and that's probably a good indicator of the regard in which he was held by the Capitol crowd. He is a rural conservative but not an ideologue His office door is always open to people and he'll hear you out, even if he is not going to agree with you. And he's a straight shooter, so you know where you stand with him.

Vince goes on the speculate that the Republican Party will hunt for a very conservative candidate to replace him. The district is very Republican and Smithee got 86.5 percent of the vote in cruising to re-election last fall. These electoral dynamics are favorable for extremist candidates. I hope the district chooses someone who has John's openness and sense of balance.

Noriega for Texas :: Service

National Guard Lieutenent Colonel, State Representative, potential U.S. Senate candidate, and all-around good guy Rick Noriega has a new web ad, called "Service." To find out more about Rick and his campaign, go to http://www.ricknoriega.com/.