telescreen.org

Issue: Manipulation technique found in the Diebold central tabulator -- 1,000 of these systems are in place, and they count up to two million votes at a time.

By entering a 2-digit code in a hidden location, a second set of votes is created. This set of votes can be changed, so that it no longer matches the correct votes. The voting system will then read the totals from the bogus vote set. It takes only seconds to change the votes, and to date not a single location in the U.S. has implemented security measures to fully mitigate the risks.

This program is not "stupidity" or sloppiness. It was designed and tested over a series of a dozen version adjustments.

These systems are used in over 30 states and each counts up to two million votes at once.

(Emphasis in the original.) This is outrageous.

ADDENDUM: Black Box Voting's site appears to be down.

4:30am call times aren't fun.

Muckster took a really scary picture at Sunday's protest.

How to score at the RNC.

My favorite sign so far.

ADDENDUM: This one's pretty good, too.

The Democrats have a "convention response" operation going. They've got a "war room" where they watch as much convention coverage as they can, they've got researchers and guest bookers and press people, all trying to make sure that they can get their spin out there to counter the Republicans' spin. Part of this includes putting "Mission Not Accomplished" signs at strategic locations around Manhattan -- outside delegate hotels, near the convention, various parties, and whatnot.

The hotel where I'm staying is also a delegate hotel (yes, I live in New York, but my company is putting me up in a hotel for the convention, due to possible transportation issues.)...and as I was walking back there last night, I spotted one of these "Mission Not Accomplished" signs on a pole across the street. As I was strolling over to get a closer look, a few Republicans walked up to the sign. One of them, a woman in her late twenties, promptly ripped the sign down, exclaiming "Freedom of speech!" as they crossed the street.

I fell in with them, asking them "Ripping other peoples' signs down? That's freedom of speech?"

The woman who had taken the sign said "What do you mean? They took over our city and destroyed it, we can take their sign!"

Huh?

I asked "Wait a sec...who destroyed what city?"

But they walked away, ignoring me.

(I referred to them above as "Republicans." I'm at least certain of that. They were all wearing royal-blue polo shirts with the RNC logo on them...I don't know if they're GOP staffers, convention volunteers, or exactly what their role is. But it's some kind of quasi-official role at least.)

Welcome BoingBoing readers!

So it's been a slow-ish day in the media compound. (Every time I hear that phrase, I wonder if I should look around for Branch Davidians or something.) The only real excitement was when the big protest march rolled up Seventh Avenue just east of here. From the accounts I've read, it was peaceful, with not too many arrests given the size of the crowd.

I couldn't get too close to the march itself, but I did see bunches of cops all around the security zone's perimeter. The NYPD Mounted Unit's trailer was parked on West 35th Street, and they even brought their own blacksmith for police horses that needed shoeing.

Last night was the big "Media Welcome" party, co-hosted by the NYC Host Committee and TimeWarner. I read about these kinds of parties far more often than I get to go to them. It was pretty swank (for a party held in a mall), with an open bar (with good booze), great restaurants (such as Per Se and Trinity) supplying canapés, and a profusion of somewhat well-known people. I spotted John McLaughlin (this one, not this one), various CNN anchors, Anna Deavere Smith (she was everywhere), Mayor Bloomberg, and Rudy Giuliani. Some colleagues had the coolest sighting, and got their pictures taken with Don King.

Looks like I'll be doing the ungodly-early shift for the rest of the convention; the morning shows are an insatiable maw that must be kept fed with fresh video at all times.

(By the way, in case you didn't deduce it from all the links above, I've got fresh pictures up here.)

I write to you this morning from the middle of an armed camp. The Secret Service did their sweep of the convention area early this morning, and you have to show your credential multiple times to get where you're going. And it'll only get tighter as the convention's beginning, and the arrival of the president, approaches.

Yesterday, before the security sweep, I wandered around Madison Square Garden and took pictures of the convention preparations. They're up here.

ADDENDUM: Hey, some of my pictures made it onto Cryptome the other day.

Well, that's one way of explaining how we got into this mess:

The FBI believes there is an Israeli spy at the very highest level of the Pentagon, CBS News reported on Friday.

The network said federal agents believed the spy may have been in a position to influence Bush administration policy on Iran and Iraq.

(More on that here and here.)

Doesn't this seem like an extreme way of ducking responsibility for failed policy? It's not our fault...the Israelis did it!

Yesterday I had gas mask training. It was optional for me, but I figured it'd be a good idea since I'll be working pretty close to the designated protest area at the convention. (Across the street, essentially.) Our security people showed us some interesting up-close video of the Miami G-8 and other recent protests, briefed us on commonly seen tactics of both the police and different types of protesters, gave us strategies to recognize when a situation is about to turn ugly and how not to be caught in the middle of it. Interesting stuff, and I appreciated that our briefer emphasized that most people at a protest aren't there to cause trouble or to get violent...but that we need to be able to identify the people that are most likely to cause violence, and do what we need to do to keep ourselves safe.

I also picked up my convention credential. I'm going to try to get down there and take a look around before access to the arena is locked down. (The Secret Service does a security sweep a day or two before the convention starts, after which security checks and access restrictions are much tighter.)

Forlorn Teddy, Astoria, August 25, 2004

I just edited some video of anarchists. They were holding an organizational meeting.

On the flipside of the personal-hell post, here are the philosophers I apparently agree with:
1. John Stuart Mill (100%)
2. Kant (92%)
3. Prescriptivism (92%)
4. Jeremy Bentham (91%)
5. Ayn Rand (85%)
6. Epicureans (78%)
7. Jean-Paul Sartre (69%)
8. Aristotle (64%)
9. Aquinas (54%)
10. Ockham (53%)
11. St. Augustine (48%)
12. Spinoza (45%)
13. Stoics (45%)
14. Plato (42%)
15. Nietzsche (41%)
16. Cynics (39%)
17. David Hume (39%)
18. Nel Noddings (37%)
19. Thomas Hobbes (32%)

I really don't know a thing about philosophy, but given the thumbnails on the quiz's description page, I think I most agree with Plato.

(Try it out for yourself.)

From the "If You Can't Beat 'Em..." Department:

The White House travel office signed a contract last week with an airline called Primaris to fly the press corps to Bush events. The two-month-old company has only one airplane. True, media representatives gave their blessing to the deal. But that was before they learned that the company's president twice had his pilot's license revoked related to his flying of an "unairworthy" aircraft, that the chief executive flopped in his last attempt to start an airline and that the 15-year-old plane itself was damaged in a hailstorm a decade ago and spent most of the past two years mothballed in France.

"[We] had hooked up with some Iraqi and Algerian photographers from AP, AFP and Reuters, and they seemed to know what they were doing -- until the Reuters guy almost started crying in one intersection. It's understandable. It's an incredibly stressful thing to do, to walk out into the middle of a free-fire zone with a bullet-proof vest, "TV" or "Press" taped to it, and hands raised in the air. Throughout this 2 hour long ordeal, we were constantly surrounded by the sharp bang-bang of small arms fire and the colossal booms of Bradleys and M1-A1 tanks firing. Oh, and mortars being launched and landing about two blocks over. That was fun."

Christopher Allbritton (previously mentioned here) is a former AP and NY Daily News reporter who is now a freelance journalist in Iraq. He's also the first reader-funded journalist blogger, as his blog's readers collectively raised about $15,000 to send him to Iraq and pay for equipment.

One of the cool things he's doing is that people who donate money get access to advance versions of his reports. Some of these show up on his blog a day or two later, some show up in Time or other press sources, and sometimes you get interview outtakes and extra notes.

Anyway, his latest entry is a vivid and well-written look inside the Imam Ali shrine in Najaf, complete with pictures. Worth a read, especially if you like good war journalism and gripping personal narratives.

I'm not one of the official RNC convention bloggers, but I'm pleased to announce that this blog will have some coverage of the Republican National Convention. I'll be working on the media coverage of the convention, and will post my descriptions (and pictures) of what I see.

I'm especially interested in seeing how it compares to the 2000 Democratic convention in LA, which I also helped cover. That one was interesting; I learned a lot about how a political convention operates, and it was fascinating just seeing what went on and who was there.

To start it off, here are some pictures from yesterday, when I was in the neighborhood of Madison Square Garden. The trailers for TV broadcasters line Eighth Avenue and 33rd Street. Print, online, and radio media will (I believe) be in the Farley Post Office across the street from the Garden.

That link again:

RNC 2004 Pictures

Plus, it's in the "Some Links" sidebar at left. I'll be updating that link with pictures throughout the convention, and I'll be posting my impressions here.

Remember how Swift Boat Veterans for Truth has no connection to the Bush/Cheney campaign or the White House? At least, that's what SBVT, the White House, and the campaign say.

Except for this guy, who got busted.

And except for the fact that the campaign was handing out flyers to a SBVT rally.

And except for the fact that the administration was implying that they can control them.

And (this is the new part here) except for this:

A top lawyer in President Bush's reelection campaign acknowledged Tuesday that he has been advising the veterans group seeking to discredit Democratic presidential nominee John F. Kerry's military record, an admission the Kerry campaign said is evidence the president's campaign is orchestrating a "smear" by the private group.

To be fair, the article notes that the lawyer said he's not alone in this:

He said two prominent Democratic lawyers are doing the same thing. He said Robert Bauer, the top legal counsel for the Kerry campaign, also is the attorney for an independent group, America Coming Together, that has been mobilizing voters in support of Kerry. In addition, Ginsberg said, Joseph Sandler is a lawyer for both the Democratic National Committee and for the independent group MoveOn.org, which has run advertisements attacking Bush.

But isn't it Bush who is denouncing 527s? (And, as I observed before, Bush made 527s possible...shouldn't he know what's in a bill before he signs it?)

And, as Political Animal guestblogger Amy Sullivan points out,

Ginsberg himself has attacked what he characterizes as the impropriety of individuals holding dual roles with campaigns and 527s.

An article that appeared in the Philadelphia Inquirer just two weeks ago included this bit about Ginsberg: "Ben Ginsberg, a legal adviser to the Bush campaign, specifically condemned the dual roles played by Democrats Harold Ickes and Bill Richardson, who had official roles at the convention and also within prominent friendly 527s. 'They're over the coordination line,' Ginsberg said of Ickes and Richardson. 'The whole notion of cutting off links between public officeholders and soft-money groups just got exploded.'"

To make things even better, Ginsberg doesn't just advise the Swift Boat Guys -- a role he will no doubt seriously downplay over the next few days. He serves as the official chief counsel to Progress for America, another 527 that, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, exists to "form 'issue truth squads' that respond to Democratic attacks on President Bush."

I know these guys are shameless, but still.

Indeed. Can you say dis-en-gen-u-ous?

I knew you could.

Transcripts of OnStar Service Conversations Not Selected for Commercials.

Just great:

HUNTSVILLE, Alabama (AP) -- The three companies that certify the nation's voting technologies operate in secrecy, and refuse to discuss flaws in the ATM-like machines to be used by nearly one in three voters in November.

Despite concerns over whether the so-called touchscreen machines can be trusted, the testing companies won't say publicly if they have encountered shoddy workmanship.

They say they are committed to secrecy in their contracts with the voting machines' makers -- even though tax money ultimately buys or leases the machines.

This is the biggest threat to our democracy that I can think of...and I'm not exaggerating when I say that. The potential for massive vote fraud puts the 2000 Florida recount to shame. Except this time, it won't be messy. It'll be quiet and clean, without the protesters or dangling chads to draw the press's eye.

Nor is there any way, absent a paper trail à la Verified Voting, to even conduct a recount. The fraud will be neither quickly nor easily detected.

The prospect is unconscionable.

WaPo humor columnist Gene Weingarten wrote a brilliant article in yesterday's paper about the psychology of terrorism, and what living under its constant threat does to us.

Here's a question: Would you ride a bus in Jerusalem? Right now? Here's your 5 1/2 shekels, go take a bus to market, buy some figs. Pick a bad day, after the Israelis have assassinated some terrorist leaders and everyone is waiting for the second sandal to drop. There are lots of buses in Jerusalem -- the odds are still long in your favor. Do you take that dare?

A few weeks ago, I did just that: boarded a bus on just such a day, and rode for nearly an hour. I did it because I wanted to better understand the psychology of terror. Not the psychology of the terrorist -- the psychology of the terrorized.

Weingarten took a bus in Jerusalem, took the same commuter train in Madrid that blew up on 3/11, and took BA Flight 223, which was the target of many terror threats.

His writing is sad and human and thought-provoking, to say nothing of very, very nicely-honed. Read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest.

(via MeFi.)

Bob Dole in 2004:

Maybe he should apologize to all the other 2.5 million veterans who served. He wasn't the only one in Vietnam.

And here's, you know, a good guy, good friend. I respect his record. But three Purple Hearts and never bled that I know of. I mean, they're all superficial wounds. Three Purple Hearts and you're out.

Bob Dole in 1988:

As we approached the enemy, there was a brief exchange of gunfire. I took a grenade in hand, pulled the pin, and tossed it in the direction of the farmhouse. It wasn't a very good pitch (remember, I was used to catching passes, not throwing them). In the darkness, the grenade must have struck a tree and bounced off. It exploded nearby, sending a sliver of metal into my leg--the sort of injury the Army patched up with Mercurochrome and a Purple Heart.

(My emphasis. As reported by Talking Points Memo.)

ATHENS, Greece (AP) -- Russia's Irina Korzhanenko was stripped of her shot put gold medal Monday, the first athlete of the Athens Games to lose an Olympic title because of doping.

Doping? Whatever in the world would give them that idea?

Tele-Snaps. What a great story, and a real loss. (via MeFi.)

Dairy Queen has a new frozen drink that they've unfortunately dubbed the "MooLatte."

The Houston Press, thinking this sounded an awful lot like "mulatto", called up DQ and quizzed a spokesman about it. The Ali G-esque result is here.

Oh, dear.

This is just wrong.

(via MeFi.)