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Is Traditional News Better than the Internet
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I was watching Real Time with Bill Maher last night. Dan Rather was on and they were talking about Fox News and it obvious slant toward the Republican Party. Mr. Rather said that people should use the internet as a supplement to TV, Radio and News papers because the tradition news outlets are more reliable. I can see his point, but at the same time, all of these outlets are just as susceptible to opinion.
It is becoming more and more obvious that reports and news organizations are more and more influenced by partisan politics and different special interests. So how are the traditional outlets more reliable than new outlets such as the internet? True you have to be very selective with the information that you base your decisions on when reading something on the internet, but you get more points of view on each topic.
Honestly I have next to no confidence in the information presented by the traditional outlets. Mr. Rather noted that the news business has been moved more toward the entertainment business. TV News shows are more like watching a reality TV show than a show that you should be getting important information from.
News has always been used to shape people’s opinions and to shape this country. I believe that the internet and information presented on the internet will help produce a better informed public. People just have to be very selective about the information that they believe, but hey now days you have to do that with the traditional methods as well.Labels: Politics
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Hacking Democracy
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I just watched a program on HBO called hacking democracy. This was one of the scariest shows I have ever seen. It shows how a particular brand of voting machine can be compromised fairly easily. It also showed the total lack of regard that some of our elections officials have for the system. One man who I am sure committed political suicide by going forward with the test he allowed should be giving an award for patriotism. I can’t remember his name, but will look it up and post it here. He is or at the time of the taping was the head of elections in Tallahassee Florida. He allowed a small group of people to run a somewhat controlled test of the ballot machine. They proved that it could be hacked. This was later backed up by a group at Berkley who found 16 other security flaws in the system. The scariest part is that what I saw them doing was not hard.
The systems maker is called Diebold. They remind me of big tobacco before they feel. On tape claiming time and time again that their systems are safe and that the people running these tests are wrong. Just like when big tobacco said cigarettes don’t kill people; all those crazy doctors are wrong.
What I saw as a computer programmer scared me. Their system is run using Microsoft Access. An extremely simple database and what I saw didn’t look hard to mess with. A simple virus on the tabulating machine and look I am president or at least I could win a county or two. These systems are self contained but still hackable before the fact until you get to the tabulating system. That is run on a basic windows machine that can be on the internet. True there is a paper trail which in the show was proven to be hackable as well. But a small virus and you could change the out come of an election with very little to say “hey there is something wrong here.”
The recount process where a bunch of disinterested humans counted the ballots seemed no better in Ohio. I am so disappointed.
Then there are the people elected by these machines. Most of whom seem to turn a blind eye to it. And why not? If it could be proven that hey you really weren’t elected and we are going to have to redo your election. You might lose and in turn lose your job, I would be disinterested too. Especially as a greedy, special interest politician.
I am not going to accuse either party of fraud at the polls. I am sure they both are doing it. I am going to accuse them of not being really Americans though. FIX WHAT IS WRONG WITH THE SYSTEM.
This is my opinion on how to fix it. First off the system should be entirely stand alone. No easy to remove memory cards. Each system should be like a vault. Can not be messed with from the outside until such a time that each elections data is to be archived and the machine reset.
Each machine at each polling place should be moved by armored car to the final collection location and the results downloaded to another system that is not on a public network which should include power grid. Each machine is local machine is plugged into the main tabulation system and results downloaded to it. Each local machine is still in tact. The download system is read only. No erasing of data at this point. Each system can only be downloaded once. No results can be seen until all the local machines have been downloaded. A final count is then printed and stored on a write once system for later inspection.
After you vote there should be two paper copies of your vote printed. One for you and one for verification that is signed and notarized. It is then slipped into an armored box. This insures that the computer collect the votes properly as the voter intended and that if the machine has any error a hand recount can be preformed and validated.
The fact that our election system is this much of a cluster is amazing to me. One of the most important American rights and it is treated so poorly.
If this country is scared of terrorism, well here is a huge gap for them. Election results are much to easy to manipulate. If a terrorist network with their abilities can pass encrypted data using images as the encryption method then cracking our very unsophisticated election system will be no problem.
I watched this show in true terror. There should not be competition in this market. It should be like building a war plane. You want the gig, show us the best you have. Ok company A is going to build the system and this is what we will use. There is no room for shotty work here. There are some very smart people in this country. This is not that complex a system to build and secure. It is time that it is done and the people taking office are with out a doubt the people elected.
Also stop making it hard for people to vote in certain areas. That is just straight bullshit. It has been true for ever that politicians don’t want you to vote. It is important that each persons vote be counted. Stop with the bullshit games.
It is each person’s right and their duty to vote. Make sure you do it at what ever cost.Labels: Politics
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Bush Guts The Constitution
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So today President Bush signed a piece of legislation that is totally unConstitutional.
These are dangerous times we live in. There are people in this world that want to completely destroy the United States and our way of life. These people will die with the belief that they will go to paradise in the after life if they die and take innocent people with them. They have no second thought about flying a plane into a building and killing thousands of innocent unsuspecting people.
So today with the pretence that he is protecting the American people President Bush signs a piece of legislation that has the effect of taking all liberties away from any person thought to be a terrorist. Not only that, this piece of legislation allows the President to decide which pieces of International Law our operatives and military can break and when, in fact possibly making any President an international criminal and/or war criminal.
But back to my main point. I understand the threat. I am aware that to win this war we must fight dirty and that having our hands tied will lose it for us. But I am not ready to give up my constitutionally guarantied civil liberties to do it and I am not ready to allow my government to do the same. Basically the President has said that these people are less than human and can be treated as so. That is not what made this country great.
I am scared of these terrorists as I am sure most everybody else is. But I am also scared of a government that has the power to say who a terrorist is and to snatch them off the street anywhere, torture them and use those confessions against a that person in a military “court” of law.
The leaders of this country need to get their heads out of their asses and start to think. This is not the USSR under Stalin. What is next for this administration a secret police to decide who is a terrorist and carry out what ever horrible tasks it takes to get the outcome that they seek? This is the exact tyranny that this country has been fighting for the last one hundred plus years.
The effect that these terrorist are trying to have is to change the way we the American people live our lives. They are trying to tear down this country. With the signing of this legislation into law, effectively President Bush has ripped the constitution in half and set it on fire.
President Bush, remember these words?
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
There were some extremely intelligent men who wrote these words and had an idea of what freedom should be. Time changes and threats change, but losing sight of the freedoms and ideals that made this country what it is today will only accomplish the tasks of our enemies and weaken this country.
My hope is that the Supreme Court will strike this legislation down swiftly. If they do not my faith in this government will be severely shaken. These are scary times we live in. The people of this nation shouldn’t fear their own government as well.Labels: Politics
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The Arizona Senatorial Election
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The Arizona Senatorial election is getting stupid. It is all about pointing fingers and negative ads. Great, Jon Kyle did this and Jim Pederson wouldn’t have. You know what tell me what you would do about stuff that is messed up. Public schools, healthcare and things here at home that needs to be addressed. I would love to get out of Iraq, but we are there for the long haul. I want to know how they are going to fix the issues that affect the future of this country.
Stop acting like children and tell me something positive. If these people don’t start doing things that make a difference for the American public this country is in a lot of trouble. The in-fighting between Republicans and Democrats does us absolutely no good. Making the special interests extra money does us no good.
We were all told that we should absorb these high gas prices and let the gas companies make the money because they needed to upgrade their equipment. Funny, they did very little but pay their executives huge bonuses. Then we have pipelines break and pipelines that have been leaking for years, which the gas companies and government have known about. Nothing was done till it was so bad that they had to do something. Where is our leadership there?
Our public schools are a mess. Teachers are paid so little that they can barely afford to live in some areas. Good teachers are leaving the profession in droves because they want to live like a person. If we continues to lose teachers our children’s future and the future of this country will be very bleak.
So don’t spin me a bunch of crap that Kyle did this and Pederson won’t do this. I want answers and I want fixes. As I am sure the majority of this country wants. Making it easier for special interests to make money does a very small percentage of this country any good. Do something for the biggest special interest in this country, the children. Labels: Politics
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