Crap I Drew on My Lunch Break

A sort-of biographical comic about my life, the people I know, the politics, celebrities and pop culture that make me want to yank my hair out, and other assorted things and subjects that annoy or amuse me enough to draw about them. It’s quite delightfully uncomplicated, and simply funny. So sayeth Jin… so read it, already!

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Another great article by Bruce, carefully thought out and presented in a nice clear manner.

Schneier on Security: The Problem with Electronic Voting Machines

The Problem with Electronic Voting Machines

In the aftermath of the U.S.’s 2004 election, electronic voting machines are again in the news. Computerized machines lost votes, subtracted votes instead of adding them, and doubled votes. Because many of these machines have no paper audit trails, a large number of votes will never be counted. And while it is unlikely that deliberate voting-machine fraud changed the result of the presidential election, the Internet is buzzing with rumors and allegations of fraud in a number of different jurisdictions and races. It is still too early to tell if any of these problems affected any individual elections. Over the next several weeks we’ll see whether any of the information crystallizes into something significant.

The U.S has been here before. After 2000, voting machine problems made international headlines. The government appropriated money to fix the problems nationwide. Unfortunately, electronic voting machines — although presented as the solution — have largely made the problem worse. This doesn’t mean that these machines should be abandoned, but they need to be designed to increase both their accuracy, and peoples’ trust in their accuracy. This is difficult, but not impossible.

Before I can discuss electronic voting machines, I need to explain why voting is so difficult. Basically, a voting system has four required characteristics:

1. Accuracy. The goal of any voting system is to establish the intent of each individual voter, and translate those intents into a final tally. To the extent that a voting system fails to do this, it is undesirable. This characteristic also includes security: It should be impossible to change someone else’s vote, ballot stuff, destroy votes, or otherwise affect the accuracy of the final tally.

2. Anonymity. Secret ballots are fundamental to democracy, and voting systems must be designed to facilitate voter anonymity.

3. Scalability. Voting systems need to be able to handle very large elections. One hundred million people vote for president in the United States. About 372 million people voted in India’s June elections, and over 115 million in Brazil’s October elections. The complexity of an election is another issue. Unlike many countries where the national election is a single vote for a person or a party, a United States voter is faced with dozens of individual election: national, local, and everything in between.

4. Speed. Voting systems should produce results quickly. This is particularly important in the United States, where people expect to learn the results of the day’s election before bedtime. It’s less important in other countries, where people don’t mind waiting days — or even weeks — before the winner is announced.

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Why?

U.S. drives into heart of Fallujah / Army, Marines face rockets and bombs in battle to take insurgents’ stronghold / ADVANCING: 70% of city reported under American control

The Jolan and Askali neighborhoods seemed particularly hard hit, with more than half of the houses destroyed. Dead bodies were scattered on the streets and narrow alleys of Jolan, one of Fallujah’s oldest neighborhoods. Blood and flesh were splattered on the walls of some of the houses, witnesses said, and the streets were full of holes.

Some of the heaviest damage apparently was incurred Monday night by air and artillery attacks that coincided with the entry of ground troops into the city. U.S. warplanes dropped eight 2,000-pound bombs on the city overnight, and artillery boomed throughout the night and into the morning.

“Usually we keep the gloves on,” said Army Capt. Erik Krivda, of Gaithersburg, Md., the senior officer in charge of the 1st Infantry Division’s Task Force 2-2 tactical operations command center. “For this operation, we took the gloves off.”

Some artillery guns fired white phosphorous rounds that create a screen of fire that cannot be extinguished with water. Insurgents reported being attacked with a substance that melted their skin, a reaction consistent with white phosphorous burns.

Kamal Hadeethi, a physician at a regional hospital, said, “The corpses of the mujahedeen which we received were burned, and some corpses were melted.”

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Subvert the dominant paradigm.

ALL CITY COUNCIL

Via BoingBoing.

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War is Peace. We have always been at war with Eurasia.

So, now with the election behind us (well, maybe we would want to recount and audit the results to document whether or not Bush really did win or not, but that is neither here nor there) the time for War has come again.

War as entertainment

Listening to NPR the past couple of days it became very apparent that there is no question about it. War is entertainment. The announcer was describing the situation in Falluja, describing the layout of the city, describing the Marines waiting to attack, describing the bombing that we were doing to destroy much of the city, the hundreds of thousands of people who have left, the one hundred thousand or so that remained, including women and children. Describing how basically, everyone left in the city was pretty much an insurgent.

We are going to kill thousands of people. Many of our soldiers will probably die. And for what? So we can drive our SUVs, slap a yellow magnetic “I support our troops by driving this big ass SUV which guzzles gas and justifies invading an oil-rich nation to ‘liberate‘ the inhabitants from their soverign possession of all that oil” ribbon and feel good about ourselves.

This is not just. The results of the election were not a mandate. The time for healing will be when we stop killing our neighbors. If I were in a country where another country invaded me, killed members of my family perhaps, made me leave my city or face tanks bombs and machine guns, would I try to stand up and fight? I think I probably would, and probably so would most Americans. So why is it any surprise that “insurgents” are “resisting” our attemts to “liberate” them? I wouldn’t want to be liberated. We all know what that means. Liberated from life maybe.

So to all those people who vote Pro-Life™: Think about Iraqi life. What did they do to you? <cough>What would Jesus do?</cough>

To the question “Is there ever justifiable war?,” I say, sure. I believe there are cases for justifiable war. I think our War of agression and death and destruction waged on the Iraqi people does not qualify, and I truly believe we are making more enemies than we will be able to handle in the future.

Impeach Bush.

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I know that there is a pretty decent chance that the majority of Americans do want another four years of Bush. BUT. Many of those Americans buy into his message of delivering Freedom and Democracy to the rest of the world. We need to make SURE that the Freedom and Democracy that we practice in this country is being conducted fairly. Ask yourself: Is it important to you that your vote counted fairly, that you participated in a fair and open system? If your canidate hadn’t won, wouldn’t you want to make sure that the machines responsible for tallying the results were operating correctly and were, in fact, being properly certified?

As Freedom of Information Act requests are filtering back, Black Box Voting is publishing the results. See for yourself — the organization responsible for testing the security of the voting machines… DIDN’T. Test. Them.

SUNDAY Nov. 7 2004: We’re awaiting independent analysis on some pretty crooked-looking elections. In the mean time, here’s something to chew on.

Your local elections officials trusted a group called NASED — the National Association of State Election Directors — to certify that your voting system is safe.

This trust was breached.

NASED certified the systems based on the recommendation of an “Independent Testing Authority” (ITA).

What no one told local officials was that the ITA did not test for security (and NASED didn’t seem to mind).

Read the rest at Black Box Voting.

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The Internets are fun. Thanks Chris.

milk and cereal: asian version

milk and cereal: asian version

who are we? just two freshman guys at uc berkeley.

ehrman3 (props to vt’s finest and g love)

kindly hosted by the good people at buzzmoo and jengajam.

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Alrighty then! Today is my lucky day!!! Thanks, MUSA!

FROM: MUSA WILLIAM
11,Greenville Street
Sandton South Africa
TEL: +27-83349-3003

ATTN: McVey,

I am Musa William the son of late PRINCE Dan William who was murdered as a
result of the land dispute/reform in ZIMBABWE. I got your contact during my
search for reliable and compitent foreigner to assist us in a confidential
financial transaction, then I decided to write you. My late father was among
the few black Zimbabwean rich farmers murdered in cold blood by the agent of
the ruling government of PRESIDENT ROBERT MUGABE for his alleged Financial
support and sympathy for Zimbabwean Opposition Party,Movement for Democratic
Change(MDC). Before the death of my father, he took me to South Africa to
deposit the sum of TWELVE MILLION UNITED STATE DOLLARS ($12M. USD) with a
security and financial company, as if he for saw thelooming dangers in
Zimbabwe. The money was depositedas a his personal belongings to avoid much
dumourage
from the security firm. The money was earmarked for the purchase of new
machinery and the establishment of new farms in Lesotho and Swaziland.’

This land problems arose when president ROBERT MUGABE introduced a new land
Act,Which wholly affected the white rich farmers and some few opposition
blacks vehemently condemned the new land reform Act adopted by the
government.This resulted to rampant killing and mob actions. I and my family
who are currently staying in South Africa as refugees or asylum seekers have
decided to contact your person for assistance to transfer the money to your
country or the account you may wish to provide for us where we can invest
it. I am faced with the dilemma of claiming/investing this amount of money
in South Africa for fear of encountering the same experience in future since
both countries have the same political history. Moreover,the South African
monetary policy/law does not allow such investment hence I am seeking for an
asylum. I must let you know that this business is 100% risk free and the
nature of your business does not necessary matter.

So, if you are willing to assist my family move out this fund as well as
invest it wisely in your country
his money, I and my family have agreed to go into partnership with you after
the successful transfer of
this fund to your account or country or you take 25% of the total money, 70%
will be for our family while the remaining 5% will be mapped out for all
expenses we may incure during the transaction.
Therefore, if you are capable and interested to render the needed
assistance, endeavour to reply through my e-mail address or the above
number. I also need your private phone and fax number for easy and better
communication.

Remember that this Transaction is highly confidential mostly for the safety
of our lives here in south Africa. Expecting your reply soonest.

Best Regards,

MUSA WILLIAM

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Is this like British Nigerian spam?

British Lottery Headquarters:
Customer Service
28 TANFIELD ROAD,
CROYDON.LONDON
Ref: BTL/491OXI/04
Batch: 12/25/0304

WINNING NOTIFICATION
We happily announce to you the draw of the British
Lottery International programs held on the 31st of
July 2004 in London.Your e-mail address attached to
ticket number: 694 75600545 721 with Serial number
886/04 drew the lucky numbers: 31-6-26-13-35-7,which
subsequently won you the lottery in the 2nd
category.You are therefore, been approved to claim a
total sum of US$2,500,000.00(Two million, five hundred
thousand, United StatesDollars) in cash credited to
file RPC/9080118308/04.This is from a total cash prize
of US $125 Million dollars, shared amongst the first
Fifty (50) lucky winners in this category.
This year Lottery Program Jackpot is the largest ever
for British Lottery .The estimated $125 million
jackpot would be the sixth-biggest in U.K. history.The
biggest was the $363 million jackpot that went to two
winners in a May 2000 drawing of The Big Game, Mega
Millions’ predecessor.
Please note that your lucky winning number falls
within our European booklet representative office in
Europe as indicated in our play coupon. In view of
this, your US$2,500,000.00 (Two million, five hundred
thousand,United States Dollars) would be released to
you by our affiliate bank in London.
Our agent will immediately commence the process to
facilitate the release of your funds to you as soon as
you make contact with him .
All participants were selected randomly from World
Wide Web site through computer draw system and
extracted from over 100,000 companies.This
promotiontakes place annually. For security reasons,
you are advised to keep your winning information
confidential till your claims is processed a nd your
money remitted to you in whatever manner you deem fit
to claim your prize. This is a part of our
precautionary measure to avoid double claiming and
unwarranted abuse of this program by some unscrupulous
elements. Please be warned.To file for your claim,
please contact our fiduciary agent with the below
details for processing of your claims.
AGENT: Mrs Mary Pebbles
Email: mary_pebbles1977@excite.com

To avoid unnecessary delays and complications, please
quote your reference/batchnumbers in any
correspondences with us or our designated
agent.Congratulations once more from all members and
staffs of this program.Thank you for being part of our
promotional lottery
program.
Sincerely,
Maxwell Coker.
Zonal Coordinator.

UPDATE:
This is so clearly a scam. They do have a great website though: http://www.btlintl.com/ - you should check it out for how ridiculous it is. DO NOT FILL OUT ANY FORMS OR RESPOND WITH ANY PERSONAL INFORMATION.

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I went to school with Blake, the project leader for this… Pretty cool. My sister Rachel pointed me to this site.

The World Through My Eyes - Introduction

A photography project for young Mozambicans, with the hope of bringing them brighter tomorrows . . .

The World Through My Eyes helps Mozambican children learn about and experiment with photography, improving their chances of receiving scholarships at a university either in Mozambique or abroad.

Do you remember your first camera . . . taking your first pictures and seeing the results? Photographs record moments in everyday life: from a five-year-old child’s birthday, to national leaders signing a peace accord. A photograph can change the world or at least one’s perspective of it. The captured image is a powerful tool that influences the way we think and look at life.

Mozambique’s culture and many of its traditions in music, entertainment and food are being lost or changed by hip-hop, DVDs and Coca-Cola. Photography can be used to preserve culture and traditions by recording the present for future generations. Photography in Mozambique is underdeveloped and underutilized and similarly is an important skill capable of opening doors to one’s future.

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