blog.benschumacher.com

It looks like we're seeing some of the first glitches from the e-voting systems that are now in wide circulation for this year's election cycle. Want to know why some folks want to see paper copies?

At polling places where the problem was most apparent because of turnouts exceeding 100%, an estimated 1,500 voters cast the wrong ballots, according to the Times' analysis of official county election data. Tallies at an additional 55 polling places with turnouts more than double the county average of 37% suggest at least 5,500 voters had their ballots tabulated for the wrong precincts.

from 7,000 Orange County Voters Were Given Bad Ballots

That's shocking. This is an audit in a single county. Aren't you curious what happened in the rest of the state?

Jon and I have decided to take DeanSpeakup.com offline. It has died with the Dean campaign. While I am a little sad how the campaign ended, I'm still energized about the prospect of removing Bush from office.

Either way. The URL is now redirecting traffic to our new project, The Daily Soapbox. We'll be launching soon, so keep your eyes peeled.

In a stunning move, it appears that the Bush administration is attempting to declare this nation's teachers as "enemy combatants" place them all in open ended detention. Check out this story:

Education Secretary Rod Paige called the nation's largest teachers union a "terrorist organization" during a private White House meeting with governors on Monday.

Democratic and Republican governors confirmed Paige's remarks about the National Education Association.

from Rod Paige Criticizes Teachers Union

I can only assume that the administration is concerned that an informed and educated electorate won't reelect Bush, so they're attempting to squash dissent where it starts -- in the schools.

Paige eventually apologize for his attack:

Paige made the remark while discussing the federal "No Child Left Behind" education law with governors at the White House, said Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle of Wisconsin, who attended the meeting.

"In the context of saying that the NEA was not being cooperative with No Child Left Behind, he called them a terrorist organization," Doyle told Reuters.

Doyle said he had not taken Paige's comments literally, "but that level of hostility toward teachers does not help in trying to improve education in the country."

Paige apologized for the comment, White House spokesman Trent Duffy said.

"The secretary realized he made an inappropriate comment and he has quickly apologized," Duffy said. "The president thinks he (Paige) is doing an excellent job educating America's children and that is the most important thing."

from Bush Official Sorry for Calling Union 'Terrorist'

Brilliant, eh? It shouldn't come as a surprise, however, as NEA President Reg Weaver points out, "[T]his is the kind of rhetoric we have come to expect from this administration whenever one challenges its world view."

I've gone grey today in support of Grey Tuesday, to protest against overbearing copyright laws and litigious content providers. Does anybody really believe that DJ Danger Mouse is stealing sales from The Beatles or Jay-Z?

Just read a column on Security Focus that caught my eye. It's an interview of FBI Assistant Special Agent Dave Thomas, of the St. Louis Division. The article spends a lot of time on the various internet scams that illegally seperate folks from their money, but them it drops this little tidbit:

Dave had some surprises up his sleeve as well. You'll remember that I said he was using a ThinkPad (running Windows!). I asked him about that, and he told us that many of the computer security folks back at FBI HQ use Macs running OS X, since those machines can do just about anything: run software for Mac, Unix, or Windows, using either a GUI or the command line. And they're secure out of the box. In the field, however, they don't have as much money to spend, so they have to stretch their dollars by buying WinTel-based hardware. Are you listening, Apple? The FBI wants to buy your stuff. Talk to them!

Dave also had a great quotation for us: "If you're a bad guy and you want to frustrate law enforcement, use a Mac." Basically, police and government agencies know what to do with seized Windows machines. They can recover whatever information they want, with tools that they've used countless times. The same holds true, but to a lesser degree, for Unix-based machines. But Macs evidently stymie most law enforcement personnel. They just don't know how to recover data on them.

from A Visit from the FBI

There you have it... the FBI believes that OS X is more secure, and more versitile than Windows, despite Bill Gates' claims to the contrary. Who are you going to trust? The FBI, or the CEO of the software company that's repeatedly needed to defend itself from charges of poor security.