Unlike many colleagues in his field, Michael I. Shamos, a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon University who has worked on election issues for about 20 years, has not generally been seen as a friend of the activists.
In 2004, they assailed Maryland's decision to buy Diebold touch-screen machines and asked a court to stop the state from using them. Shamos testified that with a few additional steps, the machines could be used without problem, and the court agreed.
Now, Shamos wonders. He is confident in his testimony and believes most security holes can be plugged. But he wonders whether Diebold cares enough about security and the sanctity of elections.
"There's a broader philosophical question that's been worrying me more and more lately," Shamos said. "What are these companies really doing? They don't seem to have embraced the seriousness with which people in this country take their elections. It's been kind of an adversarial thing where companies want to make profits, and they just haven't spent enough time and energy designing secure systems."
Bear says that is not true, and he repeats a frequent refrain about why the security concerns are overblown: "It's based on the premise that you have some nefarious or evil election official that's willing to commit a felony and break the law."
To which Shamos responds: "You don't want the success or failure of an election to be based on the individual."
They are talking about the security problems with Diebold machines. Shamos has a point. In addition to the obscure techincal details about things such as executable code on memory cards, there are serious questions about the companies that make these machines. It seems that they are willfully disregarding the concerns about security. They don't seem to care about the fact that a lot of well-informed people are unhappy with their products.
Bush 'planted fake news stories on American TV'I also can't help but notice that the headline states specifically that: Bush 'planted fake news stories on American TV.' That is based upon the report from the Center for Media and Democracy; it has not been confirmed publicly by the FCC. So, it may be premature to take this as a reason to disparage the President and his Administration. Not that we need any additional reason to do so; likewise, we hardly need another reason to disparage and distrust the media.
By Andrew Buncombe in Washington
Published: 29 May 2006
Federal authorities are actively investigating dozens of American television stations for broadcasting items produced by the Bush administration and major corporations, and passing them off as normal news. Some of the fake news segments talked up success in the war in Iraq, or promoted the companies' products.
Investigators from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) are seeking information about stations across the country after a report produced by a campaign group detailed the extraordinary extent of the use of such items.
The report, by the non-profit group Centre for Media and Democracy, found that over a 10-month period at least 77 television stations were making use of the faux news broadcasts, known as Video News Releases (VNRs). Not one told viewers who had produced the items.
"We know we only had partial access to these VNRs and yet we found 77 stations using them," said Diana Farsetta, one of the group's researchers. "I would say it's pretty extraordinary. The picture we found was much worse than we expected going into the investigation in terms of just how widely these get played and how frequently these pre-packaged segments are put on the air." [...]
IT people hate bad management and have even less tolerance for it than most other kinds of employees.
We'd better start paying attention to the signals that reality is sending or we will be living in a very violent, impoverished and demoralized nation. And we have to begin somewhere, which is why I suggest we start by rebuilding the national passenger railroad system. It would have a significant impact on our oil use. It would put a lot of people to work on something meaningful and beneficial to all ranks of American society. The equipment is lying out there rusting in the rain, waiting to be fixed. We don't have to re-invent anything to do it.
The fact that we are not even talking about such solutions shows how unserious we are.
~James Howard Kunstler The Suburban Fantasy
Full Support Needed for Passenger Rail Transportation (Amtrak):
It is very important to the ongoing viability of this country that we support and enhance intercity passenger rail transportation. Now, more than ever, intercity rail (e.g. Amtrak), is critical, considering:
Ø The current energy situation resulting from dependence on
foreign oil/fossil fuels (trains are the most fuel efficient modes of
transport);
Ø Security concerns and possible shutdown of the aviation system
and highways due to terrorism, natural disasters, etc.;
Ø Freedom of mobility, for both citizens and visitors, is jeopardized by a retracting airline industry and diminished highway travel options.
Intercity rail needs to be preserved as a freedom of choice in mode of transportation in the United States. Ironically, this network has gradually been diminished down to a bare-bones skeletal network and it needs to be restored to pre-1980 levels.
Amtrak should not be expected to make a profit; rather it is a basic infrastructure service which the federal government must provide, just as they provide an aviation and highway infrastructure system. First-class and dining services need to continue to be offered so as to attract myriad customers, whose revenues, if properly managed, could help offset some operating losses. Creative financing could be used to support some of these services, possibly involving private sector sponsorship and/or operating franchises (such as the Pullman Company provided). The great long-distance trains of the West could be linked closer with our National Parks system, and preserved for future generations.
In recent years, Amtrak has made great strides in improving services and increasing ridership, despite a lack of support from Washington (They fired David Gunn, the best leader Amtrak ever had and the Amtrak board is composed of people without any experience or vision in rail transportation).
Intercity rail travel, where supported, enhanced and/or restored (such as in Maine, California, Midwest and Northeast corridors), has been proven to attract new customers. It gets them out of fuel guzzling automobiles and out of the crowded skyways. But, without a long term support plan, including funding and a guarantee that services will be there tomorrow, our choices will be left with either driving or flying, neither of which is an attractive or civilized mode of transport.
The best course of action would be:
1) For Congress to fund Amtrak’s FY 2007 budget at or above the level requested by the current Amtrak board:
2) For Congress to review the firing of David Gunn and the make-up of the Amtrak board, and to appoint new members who will be constructive and build a new Amtrak:
3) For a long term strategic plan to be developed and implemented. This plan should include provision for new and improved infrastructure, new equipment including high speed trains, and minimum levels of service in terms of coverage (all major cities should be served), frequency (at least two trains per day) and a customer/passenger bill of rights which would include minimum standards for levels of service, on-time performance, food, sleeping accommodations, etc.
Funding should not be an issue, since we are talking about small amounts compared to what is spent on supporting, rebuilding and defending third-world countries.
Anomalistic Equation is the title of a short bio (link, 350KB PDF file) in the Spring 2006 edition of the University of Michigan's LS&A Magazine. It's an article about an Associate Professor of English Language and Literature, named Eileen Pollack. What is interesting about Pollack is that she stopped attending high school when she was prevented from enrolling in advanced science courses. Apparently, at the time the administration did not think it was appropriate for girls to take those classes. I'm sure there's more to the story than that, but that is all we learn from the article.
Pollack ended up studying science on her own, then got into Yale, where she was the first woman to major in Physics. That was in 1974. After she got off to a slow start in her first class, she ended up doing very well. But there is a twist to the story:
By the time Pollack was a senior, she had a nearly perfect average in her science and math courses and thought that perhaps physics would be her life’s work. She asked a professor for a recommendation for graduate school and he agreed on one condition—that she take a class outside physics.She ended up taking a class in Creative Writing.
Soon she was juggling an intense physics senior thesis and a massive writing project profiling a neonatal doctor. “That was sort of the pivotal moment,” Pollack recalls. “I liked them both, but the fact that there were people involved in one made me realize how isolated I would be for the rest of my life in theoretical physics.”After several more twists in her life narrative, she ended up at the University of Michigan in 1999. That was the year that her first novel, Paradise, New York, was published. From the Temple University Press website:
So after graduating with honors, Pollack walked away from physics. Literally.
We first meet Lucy Appelbaum, the heroine of Paradise, New York, in 1970, as a nine-year-old girl enjoying her family's Catskills hotel, the Garden of Eden. Ten years later, having found nothing else at which she can distinguish herself, Lucy tries to save the Eden by capitalizing on a wave of nostalgia for the Borscht Belt and running the hotel as a sort of living museum of Yiddish culture.
In the course of the season, Lucy battles her grandmother's attempts to sabotage Lucy's success, her parents' superstitious fears of anything that attracts attention to the Jews, and her brother's contention that what Lucy is doing is more a matter of ego than authentic religious feeling.
Paradise, New York explores the comforts and complexities of American ethnic identity with a charming commitment to laughter and love.
Her grandmother should have known better than to try to sabotage her success.
The whole article is an interesting study in successful departure form traditional roles, gender and otherwise.
posted by : Joseph j7uy5 | link | | |A National Mathematics Advisory Panel created by Bush last month is scheduled to issue an initial report on how to improve math teaching by the end of next January and a final report a month later.
FBI Acknowledges: Journalists' Phone Records are Fair Game
May 16, 2006 12:25 PM
Brian Ross and Richard Esposito Report:
The FBI acknowledged late Monday that it is increasingly seeking reporters' phone records in leak investigations.
"It used to be very hard and complicated to do this, but it no longer is in the Bush administration," said a senior federal official.
The acknowledgment followed our blotter item that ABC News reporters had been warned by a federal source that the government knew who we were calling.
The official said our blotter item was wrong to suggest that ABC News phone calls were being "tracked."
"Think of it more as backtracking," said a senior federal official.
...for the first time in a country of over 25 million people, a functioning health service is being built. Seventeen million people have been given access to free healthcare for the first time in their lives. Illiteracy has been eliminated. Fifteen million people have been given access to food, medicines and other essential products at affordable prices. A quarter of a million eye operations have been financed to rescue people from blindness. These are extraordinary practical achievements.posted by Cyndy | link | | |
Little wonder, then, that Chávez and his supporters have won 10 elections in eight years.
...The opponents of democracy are those who orchestrated a coup against Chávez, captured on film in the extraordinary documentary The Revolution Will Not Be Televised. It is a film that literally changes lives. By chance, a TV crew was in the presidential palace when the military coup of April 2002 against Chávez took place. It captured minute by minute the events that unfolded
"As long as corporations continue to push wages down in their race to the bottom, and seek out cheap and undocumented workers, no amount of troops or Border Patrol agents will be able to stop the flow of immigrants to this country,"posted by Cyndy | link | | |
Dennis Kucinich
It is not surprising that Chávez has now won eight elections and referendums in eight years, each time increasing his majority, a world record. He is the most popular head of state in the western hemisphere, probably in the world. That is why he survived, amazingly, a Washington-backed coup in 2002.posted by Cyndy | link | | |
Chávez is, of course, a threat, especially to the United States. Like the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, who based their revolution on the English co-operative moment, and the moderate Allende in Chile, he offers the threat of an alternative way of developing a decent society: in other words, the threat of a good example in a continent where the majority of humanity has long suffered a Washington-designed peonage.
Tony Snow Blinks After First Look at Press CorpsThe Washington Post has this to say:
By REUTERS
Published: May 12, 2006
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - New White House spokesman Tony Snow got his first eyeball-to-eyeball look at the beast known as the White House press corps on Friday -- and it was Snow who blinked.
A herd of reporters forced Snow to abandon plans to hold his morning briefing in his West Wing office, where he had hoped for a more informal gathering, and return it to the press briefing room, where it has been held since the aftermath of the September 11 attacks. [...]
Some 16 reporters were unable to even get into the office, prompting those way in the back to shout for him to speak up.
One problem was the morning session was scheduled for 9 a.m. (1300 GMT), was switched to 9:30 a.m., then apparently started early at 9:15 a.m.
``Well, I apologize,'' a chastened Snow said. ``That's just flat my fault.'' [...]
From the New Kid, Proceedings With CautionHow is it that a former professional journalist is so unprepared? Perhaps the answer is here, in an article at Editor and Publisher:
By Dana Milbank
Saturday, May 13, 2006; Page A02
[...] But if the new press secretary stumbled on the logistics, he offered a refreshing humility.
Has President Bush changed his mind on immigration? "You're asking me a state-of-mind question that predates me," Snow replied. "I'm not even going to try to fake it."
Asked a question by a Russian journalist, he answered: "I will apologize, as the new kid on the block. For today, I'm not going to handle international issues or currency issues. I do not wish to set off global tempests because I frankly just don't know enough on those." [...]
Snow Already Sparring With News Orgs.Tony Snow was busy slamming the mainstream media, instead of learning how to do his job. He was not busy learning the President's position on topics of interest to the press; he was busy reading -- and responding to -- what the press has said about the President.
By E&P Staff
Published: May 11, 2006 11:00 AM ET
NEW YORK In his first week in the job, new White House Press Secretary Tony Snow is already having issues with CBS News, and slamming The New York Times and USA Today.
Snow has fired off several emails to reporters. One rapped the Times for continuing to “ignore America’s economic progress,” while another hit USA Today for a “misleading Medicare story.” He also knocked CBS News on Wednesday for Jim Axelrod’s piece on seniors having problems with the Bush drug plan. Axelrod responded today.
White House sources say that Snow aims to counter criticism of the administration in an aggressive manner. [...]
Dear Mr. President
Come take a walk with me
Let's pretend we're just two people and
You're not better than me
I'd like to ask you some questions if we can speak honestly
What do you feel when you see all the homeless on the street
Who do you pray for at night before you go to sleep
What do you feel when you look in the mirror
Are you proud
How do you sleep while the rest of us cry
How do you dream when a mother has no chance to say goodbye
How do you walk with your head held high
Can you even look me in the eye
And tell me why
Dear Mr. President
Were you a lonely boy
Are you a lonely boy
Are you a lonely boy
How can you say
No child is left behind
We're not dumb and we're not blind
They're all sitting in your cells
While you pave the road to hell
What kind of father would take his own daughter's rights away
And what kind of father might hate his own daughter if she were gay
I can only imagine what the first lady has to say
You've come a long way from whiskey and cocaine
How do you sleep while the rest of us cry
How do you dream when a mother has no chance to say goodbye
How do you walk with your head held high
Can you even look me in the eye
Let me tell you bout hard work
Minimum wage with a baby on the way
Let me tell you bout hard work
Rebuilding your house after the bombs took them away
Let me tell you bout hard work
Building a bed out of a cardboard box
Let me tell you bout hard work
Hard work
Hard work
You don't know nothing bout hard work
Hard work
Hard work
Oh
How do you sleep at night
How do you walk with your head held high
Dear Mr. President
You'd never take a walk with me
Would you ?
Two of the big priorities, of the current Administration, are in direct conflict. Courtesy of Brad DeLong, we find an article comparing the cost of the tax cuts, if made permanent over 75 years, and the projected deficit in social security, also over 75 years. Go read DeLong's post, and follow his link to the original article, WHAT THE NEW TRUSTEES’ REPORT SHOWS ABOUT SOCIAL SECURITY, By Jason Furman and Robert Greenstein, to get the details.
The second Iraq war, like the first, was essentially a project of a faction within the U.S. government completely devoted to the interests of Israel, which they firmly believe cannot be separated from America's most vital strategic objectives. We are being manipulated into war with Iran by the same crowd, and for a similar reason, this time with the active assistance of much of the ostensible "Left," i.e., the liberal wing of the Democratic Party, which is being softened up to roll over and play dead if and when President Bush gives the command to strike. Hillary Clinton is more of a hawk on Iran than most of the Republicans in Congress: she criticizes the administration for not being tough enough on Tehran. The Republicans, she brays, are appeasers: they are letting the mullahs off the hook. She assures us she won't. With a few sterling exceptions, such as Rep. Dennis Kucinich, congressional Democrats, led by the warmongering Nancy Pelosi, take some variant of Hillary's position.posted by Cyndy | link | | |
So, are we doomed?
Unless people begin to wake up – and soon – I'm afraid the answer is yes. The great problem is that much of the antiwar movement shies away from the Mearsheimer-Walt thesis, on account of the preliminary groundwork done by the War Party.