Magpie

Saturday, June 4, 2005

A very disturbing ballot security story.

It comes from Leon County, Florida, where the election supervisor wanted to make sure that the county's optical-scan balloting system was secure. The Diebold system used in the county is used in over 800 other jurisdictions across the country, including some of the counties where there were allegations of fraud during the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections.

[Elections Supervisor Ion] Sancho figured Leon County's security could withstand just about any sort of probing and wanted to prove it.

He went to one of the most skeptical - and vocal - watchdogs of election procedures. Bev Harris, founder of Black Box Voting, had experience with voting machines across the country.

She recruited two computer-security experts and made the trip to Tallahassee from her home in Washington state three times between February and late May.

Leon County is one of 30 counties in Florida that use Diebold optical scanners. Voters darken bubbles on a sheet of paper, sort of like filling in the answers on the SAT, and the scanners read them and add up the numbers.

So the task was simple. Get in, tamper with vote numbers, and get out clean.

They made their first attempts from outside the building. No success.

Then, they sat down at the vote-counting computers, the sort of access to the machines an employee might have. For the crackers, security protocols were no problem, passwords unnecessary.

They simply went around them.

After that, the security experts accomplished two things that should not have been possible.

They made 65,000 votes disappear simply by changing the real memory card - which stores the numbers - for one that had been altered.

And, while the software is supposed to create a record whenever someone makes changes to data stored in the system, it showed no evidence they'd managed to access and change information.

When they were done, they printed the poll tapes. Those are paper records, like cash register tape, that show the official numbers on the memory cards.

Two tapes, with different results. And the only way to tell the fake one?

At the bottom, it read, "Is this real? Or is it Memorex?"

"That was troubling," Sancho said.

Black Box Voting goes further, saying that the fact that the Diebold machines are subject to tampering is clear evidence of an elections system that is vulnerable to corruption. The group has put a report of its findings onto the web; it can be viewed here.

Predictably, the Florida officials in charge of overseeing elections see things somewhat differently:

"Information on a blog site is not viable or credible," said Jenny Nash, a spokeswoman for the Department of State.

That comment pretty much speaks for itself.

Via Tallahassee Democrat.

| | Posted by Magpie at 1:20 PM | Get permalink

White House fires back at abuse critics.

From a Reuters report:

The White House sought on Saturday to minimize damage from new revelations about U.S. personnel mishandling the Koran at the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, prison, accusing a few people of violating policy and the media of blowing "isolated incidents" out of proportion.

In a Magpie exclusive, we have these comments from the prez:

Dubya speaks!

'I don't know what all the fuss is about. Our military assures me that no Koran went any farther into the toilet than this.

I really don't understand why these self-appointed critics hate America so much.'

Thanks to Corrente for the photo.

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:58 PM | Get permalink

Ooooooh, shiny!

Slot canyons in the US Southwest!

Water Holes Canyon, Arizona

Water Holes Canyon, near Page, Arizona

Few places on Earth have such beauty and mystique on an intimate scale as the delicately scupltured and coloured slot canyons of the American Southwest. There are thousands of scenic canyons in this region but most are relatively wide and often descend in steps through rock layers of differing hardness; in contrast, slot canyons have vertical walls and may be hundreds of feet deep but only a few feet wide.

The general rock is sandstone, in various shades of red and orange; it is sunlight, shining down and reflecting along the canyon walls that gives the canyons their special beauty; the shadows and colours change constantly as the sun moves overhead.

Most slot canyons are remote, hidden and difficult to reach and explore, but this only adds to their appeal; one can get a good idea from a photograph, but this is no substitute for visiting in person. The canyons tend to be dry for most of the year but receive occasional flash floods of great force, most frequently during the late summer months. It is these sudden torrents of water, carrying logs, stones and other debris that have been cutting through the relatively soft rock for millions of years, resulting in a great variety of colourful rock shapes and forms.

A much larger version of the Water Holes Canyon photo is here. More photos of the same canyon are here.

The slot canyons photos are part of a larger site of photos and information about natural areas in the US Southwest. The main page for the site is here. If you liked the slot canyons, you'll find plenty more of interest elsewhere in the site.

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:07 AM | Get permalink

Friday, June 3, 2005

CNN then and CNN now.

At CJR Daily, Thomas Lang compares CNN's coverage of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda with its current coverage of the genocide in Sudan. Guess which one wins?

While it might not have been perfect, CNN's performance in 1994, in particular the use of images, far exceeds its skimpy coverage of the current conflict in Sudan. Simply put, if you watched CNN in the summer of 1994, you were made aware of a genocide taking place on a nationwide scale — and you were given a working understanding of what triggered it.

The same cannot be said for the network's coverage of Sudan this year. These days there's a lot of talk from anchors and guests about the pictures they see, but the network doesn't actually have any footage. By CJR Daily's count, the last time CNN showed pictures from Sudan was March 15. At the time, Wolf Blitzer told viewers, "The images in the piece we're about to show you may be disturbing to some viewers." Disturbing? Yes, but necessary to get across the fact that brutal slaughter occurs on a daily basis in Sudan.

There's lots more to Lang's analysis. Read it all here.

| | Posted by Magpie at 3:52 PM | Get permalink

A queer gene?

Maybe so.

"We have shown that a single gene in the fruit fly is sufficient to determine all aspects of the flies' sexual orientation and behavior," said the paper's lead author, Dr. Barry Dickson, senior scientist at the Institute of Molecular Biotechnology at the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna. "It's very surprising.

"What it tells us is that instinctive behaviors can be specified by genetic programs, just like the morphologic development of an organ or a nose."

The results are certain to prove influential in debates about whether genes or environment determine who we are, how we act and, especially, our sexual orientation, although it is not clear now if there is a similar master sexual gene for humans.

Still, experts said they were both awed and shocked by the findings. "The results are so clean and compelling, the whole field of the genetic roots of behavior is moved forward tremendously by this work," said Dr. Michael Weiss, chairman of the department of biochemistry at Case Western Reserve University. "Hopefully this will take the discussion about sexual preferences out of the realm of morality and put it in the realm of science."

We're having big fun thinking about how 'intelligent design' advocates are going to explain this gene.

Via NY Times.

| | Posted by Magpie at 2:18 PM | Get permalink

Barefoot surprises.

We don't know about you, but we've had far too many of them in this five-cat househould. It's good to see that someone else feels our pain:

Cuidado! Vomito de gato!

The other side is in Spanish: Cuidado: Vomito de Gato. You can buy them here.

Our only quibble with the sign is that we'd like to see some exclamation points.

Via Everlasting Blort.

| | Posted by Magpie at 1:49 PM | Get permalink

Flunking a breath-alcohol test.

You'd think that would be pretty conclusive evidence that someone was drunk, wouldn't you? Well, maybe not.

Over the past five months, judges in a Florida county have tossed out hundreds of breath-alcohol tests. This isn't because the police did anything wrong when making arrests; it's because the state can't provide the source code used by the breath analyzers.

The only breath analyzer used in Florida is the Intoxilyzer 5000 made by CMI Inc. The machine was approved for use in Florida in 1993, but has undergone several software and hardware changes since then. Defense attorneys claim that there's no way to know whether the machines are still as accurate after the changes as they were when the state approved the device.

Prosecutors claim that drunk drivers are getting off because of the judges' actions. The judges say that defendants are have the right to know how the machines work.

What's going on in Seminole is unusual. Nowhere else are judges throwing out virtually every breath test that comes before them.

That's because all four Seminole County criminal judges now use the same standard: If a DUI defendant asks for a key piece of information about how the machine works -- its software source code -- and the state can't provide it, the breath test is rejected.

Prosecutors say they don't know how many drunken drivers have been acquitted as a result. But Gino Feliciani, the misdemeanor division chief in Seminole's State Attorney's Office, said the conviction rate has dropped to 50 percent or less.

Seminole judges are all following the lead of Seminole County Judge Donald Marblestone, who in January ruled, though the information may be a trade secret and controlled by a private contractor, defendants are entitled to it.

"Florida cannot contract away the statutory rights of its citizens," the judge wrote.

This is definitely a case where open-source software could have prevented a huge legal headache.

Via Orlando Sentinel.

| | Posted by Magpie at 1:24 PM | Get permalink

We never expected such honesty.

From the White House transcript of Dubya's May 24 'town hall' meeting in Greece, NY:

See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda. [Emphasis ours]

Thanks to LabKat for calling this one to our attention.

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:38 PM | Get permalink

Evading the messiness of class in the US.

We've already had our criticisms of the New York Times' recent series of articles on social class in the U.S.. But our criticisms of one article in the series pale against the gleeful take-no-prisoners attack on the whole series that Chris Lehmann delivers in the current issue of the Boston Phoenix.

At the center of Lehmann's critique is the inherent problems involved when an institution as class-conscious as the NYT tries to explain what class is all about. As he points out: 'Getting the New York Times to explain the real operation of social class in America is, at the end of the day, a lot like granting your parents exclusive license to explain sex to you.' And it gets better from there.

For example, here's how Lehmann deals with the first article in the series, an overview of class by Janny Scott and David Leonhardt:

Scott and Leonhardt marshal their readers through a leisurely tour of hoary American social mythology. America, they purr, "has gone a long way toward the appearance of classlessness" — meaning, one supposes, that the downwardly mobile middle classes are actually thriving on the appearance of being in possession of wealth and disposable income, as though, by analogy, it would have been perfectly acceptable to report design upgrades in segregated Southern drinking fountains as a meaningful advance for black civil rights. "Social diversity," they explain, "has erased many of the markers" separating the country?s haves from the have-nots. Yet they fail to recognize that a more socially diverse ruling class remains a ruling class, after all — an uncomfortable truth easily overlooked when one is writing for an influential organ of said ruling class.

Not surprisingly, then, the closer Scott and Leonhardt circle toward the heart of the matter — how some Americans leverage social advantage into greater wealth and privilege, and how many, many more have seen wealth, educational opportunity, disposable income, and job security stagnate or decline while household debt and health-care costs soar — the more ungainly and vague everything becomes. Still, Scott and Leonhardt are forced to concede a stubborn social fact: "Americans are arguably more likely than they were 30 years ago to end up in the same class into which they were born."

Here the dogged reader is at last primed to reckon with a sharp point of analytical departure: the storied American Dream of social mobility across generations appears to be stalled. Instead, however, the authors lurch into more bootless mythmaking: "Merit has replaced the old system of inherited privilege.... But merit, it turns out, is at least partly class-based. Parents with money, education, and connections cultivate in their children the habits the meritocracy rewards."

Well, no. Parents with connections, education, and money place their considerable resources directly at their offspring's disposal. What results has everything to do with openly legible lines of power, and very nearly nothing to do with the cultivation of meritocracy-pleasing behavioral "habits" — as any cursory glance at the Oval Office's present occupant or the cast of The Simple Life will instantly confirm.

The rest of Lehmann's dissection of the Times series is just as unflinching and right on target. It's an article that we wish we'd written.

| | Posted by Magpie at 8:40 AM | Get permalink

Keeping the world safe from Saddam's WMDs.

According to UN experts, material that could be used to make biological or chemical weapons and banned long-range missiles continues to disappear from sites in Iraq. Satellite images show removals from 109 sites, which is up from the 90 sites reported to the UN in March. The UN is having to rely on satellite images, rather than ground inspections, since the UN weapon inspectors have not been allowed into Iraq since the US-led invasion in 2003.

Demetrius Perricos, the world body's acting chief weapons inspector, said he had reached no conclusions about who had removed the items or where they went.

He said the material could have been moved to elsewhere in Iraq, sold as scrap, melted down or purchased....

Perricos said analysts had found, for example, that 53 of the 98 vessels that could be used for a wide range of chemical reactions had disappeared.

"Due to its characteristics, this equipment can be used for the production of both commercial chemicals and chemical warfare agents," he said.

The largest percentage of missing items belonged to 58 missile facilities, which include some of the key production sites for solid and liquid propellant missiles, the report says.

If Dubya's 'Saddam has WMDs' argument for the Iraq war hadn't already been discredited in so many other ways, the lack of concern for theft of equipment that could be used to produce WMDs would certainly confirm the lie.

Via AP.

More: The LA Times has a longer version of the AP report that contains considerably more details on what's missing.

| | Posted by Magpie at 7:36 AM | Get permalink

Thursday, June 2, 2005

Has the US created a 21st-century gulag?

The Medium Lobster at fafblog explains why the answer is a resounding 'No!

Q: Help! I'm being tortured to death in an American military prison! What should I do?

A: First of all, you should get your facts straight. You're not being tortured to death in an American military prison; you're being interrogated to death in an American detainment facility. America does not tolerate torture....

Q: I seem to be losing all feeling in my lower body. Is there a doctor in the gulag?

A: Please: we find the term "gulag" absurd and offensive. A "gulag" is Russian. You are not being interrogated to death by Russians. You are being interrogated to death by the greatest country in the world.

Rather than being a creative work of political satire, we suspect that the Medium Lobster merely plagiarized some Dubya administration talking points.

| | Posted by Magpie at 1:45 PM | Get permalink

What's the matter with the EU constitution?

If you're like us, you're finding that the stories in the US press about the French (and now the Dutch) rejection of the European Union constitution are pretty thin in their explanation of why anyone would vote 'No.' They do a great job of telling who voted no, but other than providing some quotes from voters, US press coverage doesn't give any sense of what was so wrong about the constitution.

Luckily, we found this LA Weekly article by Doug Ireland that makes it very clear what the constitution's problems are:

The new European Constitution was not a step toward a stronger Europe, and would have actually lessened European influence on the world stage. In it, subordination of European security and military policy (and thus foreign policy) to NATO was set in concrete. And, as the former socialist defense minister of France, Jean-Pierre Chevenement (who resigned in protest over France's support for the first Gulf War), repeatedly pointed out during the referendum campaign, under the Constitution the crucial role France played at the United Nations in opposing the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq would no longer have been possible. The Constitution would have restricted the ability of any member of the U.N. Security Council that is also an EU country (like France — or, as in proposals for Security Council enlargement now being considered, Germany) to take a position contrary to that adopted by the European Commission. And any single EU country could veto a position contrary to Washington's. Thus, one would only need to buy a corrupt little country — like, say, Bulgaria — to block any EU action that would counter the American imperium.

Moreover, the Constitution was anti-democratic, for it kept real power in the hands of the unelected European Commission (whose members are appointed by their national governments) rather than giving it to the elected Europarliament in Strasbourg. The EU's presidency, currently a rotating one, was given a longer term — but the president, too, would have been appointed by the commission. The 300-page Constitution — the longest ever in the world's history, and written in obscure legalese incomprehensible to the average voter — would have irremovably enshrined matters of policy, including conservative economic policies, that would normally be decided by democratically elected governments. And it could only have been amended by a unanimous vote of all 25 EU countries — another boon to the multinationals, which also easily could have purchased a veto from a small country's government-for-sale.

Given all that, this magpie would have voted 'No', too.

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:32 PM | Get permalink

Who is this Cox guy, anyway?

Dubya has nominated Chris Cox to head the US Securities and Exchange Commission, the federal agency that regulates the securities industry (stock markets, stock brokers, and the like). Dubya says Cox is 1a champion of the free enterprise system in Congress' who will be 'an outstanding leader of the SEC.'

Dubya's praise should send up warning signs and, sure enough, they're so plain that even the AP caught one of them:

He ... is a longtime advocate of repealing taxes on capital gains as well as on dividends.

What that means is that Cox thinks it's great that all of us wage earners have to pay taxes on what we earn, but that people and corporations who make big bucks from holding and trading stocks and securities shouldn't have to worry about such mundane responsibilities as paying taxes.

The AP, of course, qualifies this item by sticking this just ahead of it:

Cox supported the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, Congress' response to financial scandals at Enron Corp., WorldCom Inc. and other large companies. The law ordered the most far-reaching changes in corporate accountability since the Depression, imposing stiff new rules on companies and their top executives.

So Cox will be tough on corporations, right? Well, maybe not. When he was in Congress, Cox was a primary sponsor of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1975 which ... well, let's let a LA Times op-ed piece from 2002 explain it:

The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act might more accurately be labeled the ?Corporate License to Steal Act.? Approved by just two votes over a presidential veto, the law was written largely by and for powerful corporate interests. It gutted historic safeguards against fraud and weakened those protecting investors. It set up legal obstacles that may have enabled Enron to hide its questionable accounting practices. Under the law, victims must prove a fraud in detail without access to evidentiary documents. Damages are limited. Those collaterally responsible for a fraud like, perhaps, an accounting firm, are protected from liability.

That's right. Cox was the guy that was so enamored of the notion of freeing corporations from restrictive government rules that he helped create the regulatory environment that led to the biggest corporate frauds in recent US history. We know it's a cliché, but isn't appointing Cox to head the SEC just a wee bit like appointing the fox to run the henhouse?

But then that's undoubtedly the reason why Dubya made the appointment in the first place.

Via Think Progress.

| | Posted by Magpie at 8:42 AM | Get permalink

Where in the world ...

... is Carmen Sandiego?

Google knows.

[What the *#@#! are we talking about? Check out here and here.

Via MetaFilter.

| | Posted by Magpie at 8:29 AM | Get permalink

Wednesday, June 1, 2005

Semi-hiatus?

Nope. We just haven't found much that we wanted to comment on this week.

But we're looking.

| | Posted by Magpie at 1:36 PM | Get permalink

Tuesday, May 31, 2005

The Washington Post confirms ...

... that ex-FBI official W. Mark Felt is 'Deep Throat'. That identification was made in this upcoming article [PDF file] in the US magazine Vanity Fair.

| | Posted by Magpie at 2:30 PM | Get permalink

Doing the human-rights sidestep.

At today's press conference, Dubya was asked about the recent Amnesty International report that strongly critized the human rights record of the US. His answer is going to play real well with human rights activists and, especially, in the Muslim world.

Q Mr. President, recently, Amnesty International said you have established "a new gulag" of prisons around the world, beyond the reach of the law and decency. I'd like your reaction to that, and also your assessment of how it came to this, that that is a view not just held by extremists and anti-Americans, but by groups that have allied themselves with the United States government in the past -- and what the strategic impact is that in many places of the world, the United States these days, under your leadership, is no longer seen as the good guy.

THE PRESIDENT: I'm aware of the Amnesty International report, and it's absurd. It's an absurd allegation. The United States is a country that is -- promotes freedom around the world. When there's accusations made about certain actions by our people, they're fully investigated in a transparent way. It's just an absurd allegation.

In terms of the detainees, we've had thousands of people detained. We've investigated every single complaint against the detainees. It seemed like to me they based some of their decisions on the word of -- and the allegations -- by people who were held in detention, people who hate America, people that had been trained in some instances to disassemble -- that means not tell the truth. And so it was an absurd report. It just is. And, you know -- yes, sir.

So here's the prez's logic, as best as we can decipher it: The only reliable sources on the treatment of prisoners by the US are offical US sources. Anyone else might tell lies. Since the Amnesty report used reports from prisoners as some of its sources, that report is obviously 'absurd' and not to be trusted — especially since US sources say that there has been no mistreatment of prisoners.

Our brain hurts so much.

| | Posted by Magpie at 2:07 PM | Get permalink

Does the name 'W. Mark Felt' ring any bells?

If you're a real politics or US history geek, you might recall that he was second in command at the FBI during the early 1970s.

But what almost nobody knew until now is that Felt was also 'Deep Throat' — the mysterious source of tips and information about the Watergate break-ins and cover-up. Deep Throat's leaks to Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein were critical to those reporters' series of stories for the Washington Post, which helped bring down the presidency of Richard Nixon.

An upcoming article in Vanity Fair explains why Felt made his decision to leak important information to the press during the Watergate investigation. After all these years of secrecy, we found it to be really worth the read.

A PDF file containing the article is here.

| | Posted by Magpie at 1:02 PM | Get permalink

Monday, May 30, 2005

Consider the source.

US VP Dick Cheney commenting on the recent Amnesty International report that criticized the US, especially for its treatment of prisioners being held at Guantanomo.

"Frankly, I was offended by it," Cheney said in the videotaped interview. "For Amnesty International to suggest that somehow the United States is a violator of human rights, I frankly just don't take them seriously."

We'd suggest to Cheney that indefinite imprisonment without trial is pretty damn offensive. And that while Dubya's administration doesn't take Amnesty's report seriously, a lot of the rest of the world does. And that the US ignores world opinion at its peril.

Via AP.

| | Posted by Magpie at 9:36 PM | Get permalink

Another great idea from the Age of Dubya.

We can hardly wait until our local police float the same idea.

| | Posted by Magpie at 10:27 AM | Get permalink

Sunday, May 29, 2005

Farewell to all that.

Jeff Gillenkirk tells us why he's leaving the left and becoming a Republican:

The reasons are many, not the least of which is age. I turned 55 recently and, having lived more than half my life, I can't afford to worry anymore about the other guy. It's time for me.

As a Republican, I can now proudly -- indeed, defiantly -- pledge to never again vote for anyone who raises taxes for any reason. To hell with roads, bridges, schools, police and fire protection, Medicare, Social Security and regulation of the airwaves.

President Bush has promised to give me more tax cuts even though our federal government owes trillions of dollars to its creditors. But that's someone else's problem, not mine. Republicans are about the here and now, and I'm here now.

Via SFGate.

| | Posted by Magpie at 1:21 PM | Get permalink

Dather Vader reads your mind.

It's basically a version of 20 Questions with really good visuals and silly Vaderesque comments. You'll find it here.

As this magpie suspected, Vader wasn't able to read our mind. No, we won't tell you what we used to stump him. But we'll give you a hint: Think red.

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:58 PM | Get permalink

'Just stupid.'

One of this magpie's least favorite NY Times columnists is Thomas Friedman. We can't even read him most of the time because he pisses us off so much. Luckily, Riverbend at Baghdad Burning has a stronger stomach than we do. In her latest post, she does some some Friedman bashing of the take-no-prisoners variety, giving Friedmand a well-deserved bashing for a May 18 column he wrote about Muslim anger over Koran desecration. [The Times version is now behind a payment-only firewall, but we found the column still available for free at the International Herald Tribune].

In her post, Riverbend methodically shows that Friedmand pulls most of his 'facts' about Iraq and the Muslim world out of his butt:

"Religiously, if you want to know how the Sunni Arab world views a Shiite's being elected leader of Iraq, for the first time ever, think about how whites in Alabama would have felt about a black governor's being installed there in 1920. Some Sunnis do not think Shiites are authentic Muslims, and they are indifferent to their brutalization."

Now, it is always amusing to see a Jewish American journalist speak in the name of Sunni Arabs. When Sunni Arabs, at this point, hesitate to speak in a representative way about other Sunni Arabs, it is nice to know Thomas L. Friedman feels he can sum up the feelings of the "Sunni Arab world" in so many words. His arrogance is exceptional.

It is outrageous because for many people, this isn't about Sunnis and Shia or Arabs and Kurds. It's about an occupation and about people feeling that they do not have real representation. We have a government that needs to hide behind kilometers of barbed wire and meters and meters of concrete- and it's not because they are Shia or Kurdish or Sunni Arab- it's because they blatantly supported, and continue to support, an occupation that has led to death and chaos.

The paragraph is contemptible because the idea of a "Shia leader" is not an utterly foreign one to Iraqis or other Arabs, no matter how novel Friedman tries to make it seem. How dare he compare it to having a black governor in Alabama in the 1920s? In 1958, after the July 14 Revolution which ended the Iraqi monarchy, the head of the Iraqi Sovereignty Council (which was equivalent to the position of president) was Mohammed Najib Al-Rubayi- a Shia from Kut. From 1958 - 1963, Abdul Karim Qassim, a Shia also from Kut in the south, was the Prime Minister of Iraq (i.e. the same position Jaffari is filling now). After Abdul Karim Qassim, in 1963, came yet another Shia by the namministerji Talib as prime minster. Even during the last regime, there were two Shia prime ministers filling the position for several years- Sadoun Humadi and Mohammed Al-Zubaidi.

In other words, Sunni Arabs are not horrified at having a Shia leader (though we are very worried about the current Puppets' pro-Iran tendencies).

In a just world, the Times would be letting Riverbend rebut Friedman on its op-ed pages. But given the world as it is, we'll have to just hope that her roasting of Friedman gets wide notice in the blogosphere.

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:35 PM | Get permalink