Juxtaposition

This is so rich. A group is trying an argument from absurdity tactic to show how ridiculous the claim that Washington State's Andersen v. King County decision is that declared a "legitimate state interest" for the state to restrict same-sex couples from legal marriage.

Washington Defense of Marriage Alliance

If passed by Washington voters, the Defense of Marriage Initiative would:

* add the phrase, “who are capable of having children with one another” to the legal definition of marriage;
* require that couples married in Washington file proof of procreation within three years of the date of marriage or have their marriage automatically annulled;
* require that couples married out of state file proof of procreation within three years of the date of marriage or have their marriage classed as “unrecognized;”
* establish a process for filing proof of procreation; and
* make it a criminal act for people in an unrecognized marriage to receive marriage benefits.

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The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) recently published a paper condemning paperless electronic voting machines as insecurable.  I'll have to read the paper in-depth to see how they came to that strong of a conclusion, but I do know that there is no research showing that a purely electronic system can be completely trustworthy.

It's amazing how far this subject has come in just a few years, yet how far it still needs to go as evidenced by the irregularities in the recent 2006 midterm election.

Slashdot | NIST Condemns Paperless Electronic Voting

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Get this:  The list of top terrorist targets from the Department of Homeland Security is seriously braindead.  It includes 1,305 casinos, 234 restaurants, an ice cream parlor, a tackle shop, a flea market, and an Amish popcorn factory  3,650 sites total.  What's going on?  Pork-barrel politics is what's going on.  We're never going to get security right if we continue to make it a parody of itself.

The worst part is that DHS didn't even try to hide the pork-barreling by making the inclusions and omissions clear and blatant.  Oy.  I reluctantly file this in the security category...

The Seattle Times: Local News: Dept. of Homeland Lunacy

When it comes to homeland security, I give up.

I've tried to highlight the absurdity of trying to protect every cranny of our country from al-Qaida attack. I've critiqued everything from the waste of buying anti-terrorist locks for Sammamish City Hall to the illogic of not having security cameras outside our airport. And yes, I've resorted to that columnist stock-in-trade: mocking and satirizing.

But it turns out nothing I can make up is as ludicrous as what the Department of Homeland Security is actually doing.

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This was the most troubling one:

Airport Security Oversights | The Onion - America's Finest News Source

Sept. 3, London to New York: A few Muslim people may have slipped through with their dignity

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It's still a shitty law though.  Something else I will happily ignore to avoid my fair use rights being infringed.  Again, how could I watch DVDs (legally rented/owned) on my Linux box without doing so?

Boing Boing: Copyright Office creates 6 DMCA exemptions

the office refused to grant exemptions that would benefit the general public -- space- and format-shifting, backing up your DVDs -- and they took back an earlier exemption that let people reverse-engineer the blacklists maintained by censorware companies to bring some transparency to their process.

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It is hard to believe that such a blatant undervote error could be attributable solely to the DRE itself not properly recording them.  But user interface designs can certainly be abused maliciously, or likely unintentionally, to create these situations.  How ironic is it that the DREs that were touted to Help America Vote are actually helping them to undervote, due to poor design/implementation of the ballots?

Proper UI is just as important as sound underlying technology in ensuring proper understanding and usability of a system.  Recall Why Can't Johnny Encrypt?  A Usability Evaluation of PGP 5.0 and the more recent Why Johnny Still Can't Encrypt:  Evaluating the Usability of Email Encryption Software for how even known secure software can result in insecure  and unintended actions by the user.  The infamous Butterfly ballots were not DRE-based but certainly were flawed UI that caused voting errors in previous elections so this is not a new issue to software or to voting by far.

This is a perfect example though of how using DREs to generate human-and-machine-readable reciepts (voter verifiable) could allow for voters to detect their undervotes before they drop them into the ballot box.  There could even be very blatant warnings to the user on the receipt and on the screen that they didn't vote in X of the races to help prevent unintentional undervotes.  Did these companies do any focus group testing of DREs?

FL-13: More Evidence of Ballot Design Issues - TalkLeft: The Politics Of Crime

...Bev Harris and the Jennings campaign want you to think otherwise. They want to point away from their mistakes. But the real problem was the design...

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Ugh.

TPMmuckraker November 17, 2006 01:35 PM

"You know," McCain said a few moments later, "you are really one of the more astonishing witnesses that I have [faced] -- in the 19 years I've been a member of this [Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation] Committee."

Lautenberger explained that his staff was working on "pieces" of the report, and conceded the November 2004 deadline had been a "difficult requirement to meet."

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Eschaton

In the early 1990s I built a workable time machine. All it lacked was the flux capacitor and 1.21 gigawatts of electricity.

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The Royal Fingerer Can Dish it Out But Can't Take it"

Bus driver allegedly flips off Bush so Bush and Reichert complain and the bus driver gets fired. Where is the compassion in that conservative again?

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The Insignificance of Lieberman - TalkLeft: The Politics Of Crime

What Big Tent Democrat says.

powered by performancing firefox

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Boing Boing: Bush legalizes martial law -- what Constitution?

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Something tells me that the government has too much power...

Boing Boing: Congressman on Boarding Pass Generator guy: Uh... oops?

Last Friday, Rep. Edward Markey (D-MA) called for the arrest of Christopher Soghoian, and the takedown of his "Boarding Pass Generator" website which illustrated an airline security hole documented on the web for several years. Hours after the congressman's statement, Soghoian says FBI agents visited his home, then returned a second time after he'd left -- in the middle of the night -- with a search warrant signed at 2AM, and seized Soghoian's computer(s) and other belongings.

Now, several days too late, Markey issues another pronouncement which backtracks on his earlier statement. It's 250 words, but they boil down to one: "oops."

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MotherJones.com | MoJo Blog - Social Issues and Political Commentary: Repeat After Me: "Gay" and "Pedophile" Are Not Remotely Related

I just heard Limbaugh today repeating the crap talking point about the Foley issue being about the existence of a "gay" republican. That is bullshit. This is about exploitation and preying on innocent children. Wanker.

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Crooks and Liars: Olbermann’s Special Comment: It is not the Democrats whose inaction in the face of the enemy you fear

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Think Progress: Bush Asserts Constitutional Right To Hire Incompetent People At FEMA

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Crooks and Liars: Jon Stewart’s Hilarious Look at the Use of the Question Mark

Note to news media: Report the FACTS on the NEWS and lose the question mark.

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scootmandubious: GOP's Revealing Response To Foley Scandal

Step right up! Join your fellow Right-wingers and go on record as a child predator apologist! Downplay the crime of statutory rape! Justify the coverup as necessary for political reasons!

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Crooks and Liars: White House Bars Hurricane Report

More in the front on the War on Science. Ugh.

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Fox and the Clinton Interview: Hanlon’s Razor

This was a long-overdue smackdown by Clinton after being sandbagged on Fox. They forced YouTube to take down the video clip--trying to rewrite history. Stephanie Miller played the audio this morning--are they going to go after her too? Oh no, people will know that Fox is slanted to the right and giving people on the right a pass!

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Media Matters - Bill O'Reilly's enemies list, available in hardback for $26

Media Matters got an advance copy of O'Reilly's new book and dissects the "errors, unsubstantiated claims, and baseless attacks that run through Culture Warrior".

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Atheist Ethicist: Defending the Constitution

take some time, come up with a couple of sharp arguments, and spread those arguments among the people. We can complain about how well or how poorly legislators defend the Constitution. However, ultimately, it is our job to defend the Constitution, and this is one of the greatest assaults the Constitution has ever been subjected to.

Do you care enough to help defend it?

It sickens me to hear people like Pat Robertson on McLaughlin group making these claims as if we know that the captured people are 100% guilty. We often don't really know that, as evidenced by the many, many people we have captured, held, then let go free. We are considered innocent until proven guilty in this country to protect the innocent -- and that is you and me -- from unfounded abuse. Give that up and you or your family could be next. All it would take is for one of those in custody we are "coercively interrogating" (read: Jack Bauer tactics) to name you or your family. Then you could be sitting right next to them.

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The struggle to find the downside ended in failure at Pandagon

There are laws that prevent some businesses from being open on Sundays??? I thought it was "christian" pandering by businesses. It is really annoying that so many businesses are closed Sundays and if the government is the reason why, then that is appalling.

I like the quote about "God doesn't do well in the free market."

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Crooks and Liars: IAEA calls US Report on Iran—a lie

Cooking the books to lead us into war with Iran now? Where have we seen this before...

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Boing Boing: Flu, hernia, or police more to kill you than Al Qaeda

This is great. People tend to make decisions using the emotional, fear-driven parts of their brain. Even in the face of raw data about risks it is very hard for people to feel comfortable turning away from those hard-wired instincts for self-preservation and making decisions that conflict with those feelings. A look at this chart shows how irrational spending and decisions are in this country. And how trading security for a little perceived freedom is a bad tradeoff--especially when you are far more at risk from plenty of other factors. The incidence of government taking advantage of its citizenry is likely to be higher than terrorist attacks against America.

Unfortunately, politicians rely on the masses making poor choices on inaccurate or flawed data to keep them in power. Think about that when you vote this November. Those who want you to stay afraid are themselves afraid.

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The BRAD BLOG : HACKED: VIRUS IMPLANTED, SPREAD ON DIEBOLD TOUCH-SCREEN VOTING MACHINE!

Researchers at Princeton, including Ed Felton, have been able to implant malicious code on Diebold touch screen voting machines that was demonstrated to be able to flip election results. They have a video of them doing this as well.

The company response is typically clueless (as is their security). I wonder if the nice Diebold ATMs in use at banks such as USBank are anywhere near as vulnerable?

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Think Progress: Bush Now Says What He Wouldn’t Say Before War: Iraq Had ‘Nothing’ To Do With 9/11

I saw this first on The Daily Show. I can't believe this hasn't gotten more press despite the large percentage of the country who have been made to accept the opposite as true because of the lapdog press and liars in this administration.

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Legal Fiction: THE TWO 9/11s

the second 9/11 is the political prop — a mangled, grotesque doppelganger of the first one that has been whored out on the political street for over four years now. The second 9/11 is the source of policies that have made the world far worse, and have killed many times the number of people who died in the Towers. And so, what’s truly tragic about the second 9/11 is that it threatens to forever stain the legacy of the first 9/11

Indeed. How hard was it to find a radio/TV station that wasn't pushing 9/11 in your face? Who wants to hear another fearmongering speech by W? Not I.

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The Open Voting Foundation

“This may be the worst security flaw we have seen in touch screen voting machines,” says Open Voting Foundation president, Alan Dechert. Upon examining the inner workings of one of the most popular paperless touch screen voting machines used in public elections in the United States, it has been determined that with the flip of a single switch inside, the machine can behave in a completely different manner compared to the tested and certified version.

Makes you wonder how secure those ATMs made by Diebold are (USBank uses them I know).

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The Carpetbagger Report : Blog Archive : Moving forward with McCain-Feingold — without McCain

You know, there was a time when I thought McCain was a straight-shooter. Now, he's no different than any other politician it seems. Will someone in politics ever be able to maintain rational, principled stands on something?? They are few and far between.

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Think Progress: Sen. Inhofe: ‘Gore Is Full of Crap,’ ‘All Recent Science…Confirms This Thing Is A Hoax’

Wanker.

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Scott Rosenberg's Links & Comment

Here is why Bush's position is a joke: Thousands and thousands of embryos are destroyed every year in fertility clinics. They are created in petri dishes as part of fertility treatments like IVF; then they are discarded.

Exactly. It's half-assed ridiculous pandering to anti-science, life-regardless-of-the-quality-of-life religious zealots.

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WorkingForChange-This Modern World: The revised revised story

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http://www.liveammo.com Security News Blog

legal or not, this sort of spying program probably isn't worth infringing our civil liberties for — because it's very unlikely that the type of information one can glean from it will help us win the war on terrorism.

Interesting mathematical analysis of how effective the NSA domestic call-tracking spy program could possibly be.

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Several articles on the topic of the government pushing religion.

Drum-beating about the 9th circuit decision about "Under God" in the pledge:

AMERICAN ATHEISTS LEGAL UPDATE

Public prayer fanatics borrow page from enemy's script

The Bush administration has been dealt a setback in its campaign to allow prayer in our public schools. The full 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals has voted 15-9 to back the 2-1 vote by its earlier panel finding the Pledge of Allegiance unconstitutional because of the words ''under God.''

How did your senator vote on the pledge legislation (" S. Res. 71 As Amended; A resolution expressing the support for the Pledge of Allegiance.")?
U.S. Senate: Legislation & Records Home > Votes > Roll Call Vote

The Sacramento Bee -- sacbee.com -- Diana Griego Erwin: Pledge debate recalls another tradition, another controversy The best quote is, "the Constitution wasn't written to uphold majority opinion." It was written to protect the minority from the tyranny of the majority.

The 9th Circuit seems to agree. Our Constitution protects the freedom of us all, Jew, Christian, atheist, Muslim, Buddhist or agnostic to pray or keep silent, worship or not, believe or disbelieve. Standing outside the classroom door to avoid participating is exclusionary, especially for children.

At my school in the 1960s, one student couldn't pledge allegiance to the flag because her family was Jehovah's Witness. Being children, we thought she was weird. She even seemed less American. She was just a little girl.

And finally, an article debunking the religious nut talking point that we are a "Christian nation". The Nation | Article | Our Godless Constitution | Brooke Allen

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A Dangerous Loophole in Airport Security - If Slate could discover it, the terrorists will too. By Andy Bowers

More security window-dressing... More reason that ID checks and the watch list are BS security.

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Marketplace 4-Mar-2003, interview with Michael Dell

It's the current fashion for companies to blame the threat of war in Iraq for business being bad. But one company that's not using the war to explain its performance is Dell Computer. Marketplace host David Brancaccio talks with founder Michael Dell about how a company can succeed even in times of economic insecurity.

Michael talks about companies who are blaming poor results on the Iraq situation, etc. He says "Sadaam ate my homework" is not a good excuse. There will always be uncertainty in world events. Companies need to learn to succeed when times are good, but also when times are bad. Very sage advice indeed.

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Seattle Post-Intelligencer: Judge won't let woman divorce while she's pregnant

In comments submitted to Bastine, Hughes said: "If this court vacates my divorce and requires me to stay married to a man I have no desire ever to have a relationship with and who has brought significant physical harm to me over the years, I would be emotionally devastated. If the court vacates my divorce and stays it until the birth of my child, it will prevent me from marrying the father of my child prior to her birth."

That link is no longer accessible, but The Stranger had an article which is accessible: A Difficult Pregnancy

Just sick. But the issue may not necessariily be one of an "activist judge" but Spokane law:

Spokane County has a policy against children being born "in limbo." A child's paternity must be determined before a divorce can be granted. While one state law allows women to divorce at will, there is another law that prohibits the courts from leaving a child without a source of financial support.

However, there is other information claiming that the judge was really trying to prevent the child from being born "in limbo" or out of wedlock. So who knows.

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Wired News: Worst Tech Moments 2005

Not sure I entirely agree with all of these. Looks like Bush will make the 2006 list several more times given the additional illegal spying uncovered so far. A summary of the list:

• TiVo boxes betray their owners
• Commerce Department blocks .xxx domain
• PayPal blocks Katrina aid
• Space shuttle Discovery
• Bush corrupts the NSA

Here are some items that I predict for the 2006 list:

• Senator Ted Stevens': The Internet is a series of tubes
• Senator Inhofe, Charman of the Environment and Public Works committee, global warming is the greatest hoax ever
• Rewriting The Science, Scientist Says Politicians Edit Global Warming Research - CBS News
• Bush Administration: Generally anti-science (ideology trumps science/facts)

I'm sure there are many others. These were off the top of my head.

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Think Progress: President Bush’s Job Record Since August 2003: Nothing To Brag About

What Judd says. Even on the economy Bush can't claim any victory.

I believe it was Randi Rhodes who suggested that Bush should have been asked on Larry King something about how he was the first president to push for tax cuts during a "time of war". How's that working for ya?

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Jesus' General: Insulting Mr. Coulter

This is hilarious. Adam Corolla is a god.

And I particularly love the graphic of the Psycho Sally stabbing doll to represent Coultergeist.

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