Bob Morris @ Sep 20th 2003 00:34 - Category: Unfiled ;
ELF strikes again
ELF strikes against urban sprawl in San Diego: four houses burned to the ground in action against “development destruction”
One assumes the FBI will not be dumb enough to repeat their dumb arrest of Josh Connole.
Bob Morris @ Sep 20th 2003 00:20 - Category: Unfiled ;
IEEE members: save electronic voting from a broken standards-committee!
From Smart Mobs, discussion of the EFF campaign to prevent a standards committee on electronic voting from being manipulated and misled by those very companies who make the voting machines. These standards will be used for years to come, and if the fix is in at this level, well, I wouldn’t trust the voting machines much, would you?
The IEEE, normally the sobersided epitome of integrity and accountability, has had one of its standards-committees jump the tracks.
The people who are writing the IEEE standard for voting machines have been doing their best to rig their deliberative process to exclude input from non-vendors who want the standard to include performance metrics that will guard against electoral malfeasance. This is heavy stuff: the standard this committee produces will likely form the basis of the US goverment’s voting-machine purchases (as well as those of governments abroad), and if there are holes in the standard today, they will be biting our democracies on the ass for decades. There’s never been a clearer demonstration that “architecture is politics.”
IEEE is better than this. If you’re a member of the organization, please take a moment to read up on this disaster-in-the-making and then use the form at the EFF’s action-center to write to the IEEE and ask them to investigate this — before it’s too late.
Even more problematic, the standard fails to require or even recommend that voting machines be truly voter verified or verifiable, a security measure that has broad support within the computer security community.
To make matters worse, EFF has received reports of serious procedural problems with the P1538 and SCC 38 Committee processes, including shifting roadblocks placed in front of those who wish to participate and vote, and failure to follow basic procedural requirements.We’ve heard claims that the working group and committee leadership is largely controlled by representatives of the electronic voting machine vendor companies and others with vested interests.
Bob Morris @ Sep 20th 2003 00:11 - Category: Unfiled ;
Hmmm
From reader Bob Goodsell
It looks like the first-and-last letter thing you mentioned a few days ago may have caught Tom Brokaw. Tom Tomorrow says that Brokaw said “Israel” three times when he meant “Isabel.”
Bob Morris @ Sep 20th 2003 00:09 - Category: Unfiled ;
How to win friends
From Bahgdad Burning
Everyone is worried about raids lately. We hear about them from friends and relatives, we watch them on tv, outraged, and try to guess where the next set of raids are going to occur.
Anything can happen. Some raids are no more than seemingly standard weapons checks. Three or four troops knock on the door and march in. One of them keeps an eye of the ‘family’ while the rest take a look around the house. They check bedrooms, kitchens, bathrooms and gardens. They look under beds, behind curtains, inside closets and cupboards. All you have to do is stifle your feelings of humiliation, anger and resentment at having foreign troops from an occupying army search your home.
Some raids are, quite simply, raids. The door is broken down in the middle of the night, troops swarm in by the dozens. Families are marched outside, hands behind their backs and bags upon their heads. Fathers and sons are pushed down on to the ground, a booted foot on their head or back.
Other raids go horribly wrong. We constantly hear about families who are raided in the small hours of the morning. The father, or son, picks up a weapon- thinking they are being attacked by looters- and all hell breaks loose. Family members are shot, others are detained and often women and children are left behind wailing.
US gunship attack on British TV reporter in Iraq exposed
The International Federation of Journalists said today that revelations about how an injured television reporter being rushed to hospital was fired upon by US forces in Iraq raises “grave new concerns” about war crimes and has exposed a culture of “secrecy and deceit” among military chiefs.
The reporter later died.
Bob Morris @ Sep 20th 2003 00:06 - Category: Unfiled ;
UN assembly demands Israel drop threat to Arafat
Circumventing a U.S. veto in the Security Council, the U.N. General Assembly demanded on Friday that Israel drop its threat to deport or harm Palestinian President Yasser Arafat.
The vote in the assembly was a lopsided 133 to 4.
Yet another example of rebellion inside the halls of power! As in the collapse of the WTO talks when the poorer nations walked out or the revolt by the floor traders of NYSE leading to the forced resignation of what will soon be the entire board, the vast majority of U.N. slapped the U.S and Israel hard, refusing to back down or be cowed. Something’s happening here…
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