Political links

[spudtater]

Random stuff I found digging around on the internet. Not at all up-to-date or newsworthy, but I thought I'd share a couple of gems.

First, those Diebold election machines. In November last year, the state of North Carolina asked Diebold to show them the election machine source code (this would prove to the officials that the machine works in the way that Diebold claims it does). Diebold refused to do so, choosing instead to abandon its contract for the entire state — not exactly good for business. Why was the company so desperate to hide the workings of the machines from the government?
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/11/30/diebold_hides_source/

And in December, computer scientists showed that anybody with access to the election machine's memory card, a computer and a little knowhow could rig the vote — by subtracting votes from one candidate and adding them to the other — because the data was held on the card in a completely unencrypted form.
http://www.wired.com/news/evote/0,2645,69893,00.html

And somewhat surprisingly, Fox news got into the action, with their claim that a chimp could hack an election machine. (Insert Bush/chimp joke here):
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,133214,00.html

Now, some anti-Bush videos. These were from the 2004 campaign, but are still floating around on t'Internet. The first two use bits of Bush's own speeches against him:
http://www.moveon.org/bushin30seconds/150/view.html?ad_id=3011
http://www.moveon.org/bushin30seconds/150/view.html?ad_id=1515

The second is funny if you know a little about Bush; specifically, his business track record.
http://www.moveon.org/bushin30seconds/150/view.html?ad_id=1840

Finally, a current story which is rather worrying: CIA is wiretapping ABC news.
Oh, and the reader comments: very scary. Insane-type scary.
http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2006/05/federal_source_.html

Comments

[galaxy-girl00.livejournal.com]

It is very suspicious (voting machine) were they the ones they used for the florida elections?

[spudtater.livejournal.com]

They were used in the elections, but I don't think they were used in Florida specifically. Remember the "hanging chads"?   8^)

[galaxy-girl00.livejournal.com]

hanging Chavs? *Woot* can we do that too?

[gominokouhai]

Scary stuff in the last one. But note this comment:

You do realize people are being paid by the Bush administration to attack the press publically on comment pages like this. I personally was offered a job doing it.

We knew the games industry does it, and it wouldn't surprise me at all if the administration hadn't turned to guerilla marketing in order to legitimise the lunatic fringe.

Don't know about you, but I feel a bit (a bit!) better now. It's not that so many people are cretins, it's that they're being paid to act like cretins. This is insidious and evil, but at least it can be stopped.

I think there's also a certain truth to this comment:

You guys in the press have been sucking up to this president from the very beginning. You reported his lies, you bought the B.S., and you did it all for access and so you could get invited to the right parties, and so he could towel-snap you and give you stupid nicknames.

And where did it get you? Monitored by the NSA.

Maybe if you'd done your job from the beginning, we wouldn't be living in a fascist state run by a madman right now. But no....it was more important that Al Gore was stiff and John Kerry had no charisma. You wanted to drink beer with this guy? Fine. Drink your beer with him. But don't start crying now about your rights being violated.