Yearly Archives: 2003

Soil of the Earth

This entry was posted in Humor Religion on by

While there is a bit of question as to the source of this preacher’s quote The Curmudgeonly Clerk questions his credentials:

“The acceptance of evolution is responsible for the degeneration of morals in society,” said gospel preacher Mac Deaver. “People are shooting at each other on the highway. Kids are being taught that they came from dirt. There is no accountability; they say, ‘I’m just a product of evolutionary theory. Evolution made me what I am, can’t help it.'”

…….
As an earnest Christian, I almost fell out of my chair laughing when I saw Mac Deaver’s statement. Do you suppose Deaver has ever read the Bible that he is thumping?

And the Lord God formed Adam out of the soil of the earth, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.
Genesis 2:7.

Is Your Vote Being Counted?

This entry was posted in Election 2004 on by

The 9th Circuit Court is concerned about punch card voting machines. Perhaps, though, they should be more concerned about the electonic voting machines which in their current incarnation have an even greater risk of disenfranchising voters.
EFF has a lot to say on this issue and is particularly harsh on the normally staid IEEE which has been charged with developing voting machine standards. However, the work they have done to day appears to be design oriented rather then performance oriented. The EFF reports that:

Members of the security community report that the current standard is flawed. P1583 is largely a design standard, describing how to configure current electronic voting machines, instead of a performance standard setting benchmarks and processes for testing the security, reliability, accessibility, and accuracy of these machines.

Of course, if you don’t vote or don’t care about the results matching what the voters wanted then go back to sleep.
Charles Stross lists three minimal requirements for an electronic voting system:

1) It must print a paper record of the vote cast, which the voter must be able to see, and which must be retained, and which can be reconciled with the electronic record of the vote.
2) The software used must be open to third-party auditors, to the extent that it can be verified and if necessarily formally proven to be above suspicion. (Translation: only open source need apply.)
3) The hardware used must be open to third-party auditors, preferably conform verifiably to off-the-shelf standards, and may be challenged and replaced by the election commission with equivalent off-the-shelf equipment (to ensure that no sneaky hardware back doors are installed).

Number 2 needs a little tuning up to say something like 3rd party auditors must verify that the software accurately tallies the vote as entered by the voter. Make sure your local systems adhere to these.

Let’s stay awake all night long…

This entry was posted in Culture on by

Sure to be a campus hit:

Modafinil�better known as Provigil�is fast becoming America’s newest “go pill.” Made by Cephalon, a small publicly traded biotech firm in West Chester, Pa., Provigil is a central-nervous-system drug that promotes hyper-focus and alertness. Patients using Provigil in clinical tests functioned normally�for example, completing tedious computer tasks�after up to 54 hours without sleep.

Hmmmm, will this put a big dent in coffee and Mountain Dew sales?
Via Boing Boing.

campaign fundraising racket

This entry was posted in bush on by

bush is busy gathering funds into his campaign treasury. This WaPO article talks about it and Skimble summarizes one aspect of it like this::

So if you are a supplier or subcontractor of Merrill Lynch’s, you would undoubtedly be “receptive” to Merrill Lynch’s suggestion that you donate to Bush-Cheney 2004 in the same way that any supplier of Tony Soprano’s would be to a request for contributions to his pet political cause. They call it “bundling” – we call it “extortion.”
It’s only 2003, and already Merrill Lynch has loosened $265,000 from its network. Imagine what they’ll come up with next year.

This process is not unique to bush and his cronies. The whole election process seems to have devolved to an issue of who can be bought buy the most votes rather then who is most qualified to serve the citizens. Skimble also wonders why a firm that aided and abetted Enron has not met a fate closer to that of Arthur Anderson:

Merrill Lynch has cut a deal that ensures it will not meet the same fate as the scapegoat firm of Arthur Andersen, which acted not only as Enron’s auditor, but also Halliburton’s while Dick Cheney was CEO. Killing two birds with one stone, as it were. Under the politico-plutocratic logic of the Bush administration, Andersen the auditor was dispensable; Merrill Lynch the wealth manager is not

This is a good question and I wonder just how many other similar cooked deals are waiting to see the light of day.

Riverbend

This entry was posted in Iraq on by

I sense I’m slow getting connected to Riverbend. She’s a 2 month blogger with 4-12,000 uniques a day. But that is not a reason to read her. Words like this are:

No running water all day today. Horrible. Usually there are at least a few hours of running water, today there�s none. E. went out and asked if there was perhaps a pipe broken? The neighbors have no idea. Everyone is annoyed beyond reason.
A word of advice: never take water for granted. Every time you wash your hands in cold, clean, clear water- say a prayer of thanks to whatever deity you revere. Every time you drink fresh, odorless water- say the same prayer. Never throw out the clean water remaining in your glass- water a plant, give it to the cat, throw it out into the garden� whatever. Never take it for granted.

Riverbend tells stories you may not want to hear yet should listen to closely. I recommend starting at the beginning and reading forward. It will be worth your time.
I have not made much of an effort to read the first hand accounts coming out of Iraq but it is clear that we should all spend some of our time doing so be it an Iraqi citizen or a US soldier.
Via Rob Schaap and Cast-Iron Balcony.