HBO recently aired a documentary entitled Hacking Democracy which looks at the secrecy surrounding electronic voting machines in use within the US, particularly those manufactured by Diebold; how do the machines work, how are votes counted, how are they audited and why is the whole process so secret?

It follows a group of concerned citizens as they try to break through the veils of secrecy and figure out exactly what is going on with these machines, and uncovers some ugly incidents: Gore being counted a total of -16,000 votes (yes, minus votes) in 2000, differences between official ‘on-the-night’ audit trails from Ohio 2004 and those published later, and those official trails ending up in the garbage; the official record of the public’s vote being deliberately thrown out?? It closes with a demonstration of how easy it is to fix an election by pre-loading votes onto the memory card before the election starts. The voting machine doesn’t pick up any tampering and duly certifies a rigged election.

Although it’s 1h20m long, this doco is well worth a look as a testament to what basically the death of democracy in the very nation which proclaims itself the greatest democracy on the planet.

See it on Google Video

Myself, Marc, Kevin and Billy had signed up for The Gong Ride on Sunday morning, so I had to cut the Budgie 100 celebrations short and get to bed early to try and avoid a hangover. Sunday was another day of shit weather, though pulling out of the race wasn’t an option as I knew Marc would ride regardless and it was also the 25th Anniversary ride.

This didn’t deter Billy, who phoned in from his warm bed to say he wouldn’t be getting up. We found out later that day that he’d just got engaged (and Lisa pregnant – not that morning obviously) so while people might construe that as an excuse, his prior form would indicate that he’d have stayed in bed regardless.

Out the door at 5.30am, drive to Centennial Park to meet Marc, get the bike out of the boot and ride to the start of the event. Kev showed up a little later and we were ready to start around 7am. The target was to ride the 90km in under four hours, so we needed an average pace of 22.5km/h. With the numbers of people doing the event estimated at up to 10,000 there was always going to be some congestion en route, and it turned into a pretty slow start until we got out past Cronulla and things thinned out a bit.

It was raining on and off, and the wind was in our face the whole way, so the four hour target didn’t look feasible. I was tempted by the muffin stop at Loftus Oval, but Marc was determined to break four hours and didn’t want to stop. The event held personal significance for him as his Dad has MS, so I was more than happy to have him set the pace. Shortly after Loftus Oval we were joined by those who had signed up for the 56km option and the pace dropped off again as we tried weaving through the crowds.

We entered the National Park at Waterfall and had to wait for a motorcycle escort down the steep hill into the park. There’d been accidents on this stretch in previous years, so everyone was forced to slow down. Once at the bottom we had plenty of climbing ahead of us until we exited the park at Otford. Despite having done the ride with Kev last year, I was suprised when we arrived at Otford without too much climbing at all. My memory had obviously exaggerated the severity of the climbs!

We were now out on the exposed coast road and the wind & rain were still present. We got held up again waiting for a police motorcycle to escort us down Bald Hill to Stanwell Park, but once that was over it was a realtively flat run to Woollongong. By the 15km marker I was getting pretty fed up with the day as the weather was starting to piss me off, so I decided to leave Marc and Kev behind and get the final 15km over with as quickly as possible.

By this time we were riding on a bike path instead of the road, so our speeds were down a bit, but I found a big mountain biker to draft off for a few kilometres and then was on my own for the remainder. The finish seemed to take an age to reach and once it was finally in sight I rounded a corner only to find one final hill to climb and after that it was all over!

A quick massage later and we were off to find a pub and reward ourselves with beer and food. The total time for me was 4h12m, but once stoppages had been removed it was 3h50. Both Kev and Marc also made it under four hours, coming in at 3h57 and 3h58 respectively.

Marc’s Photos

Well it was an active & eventful weekend!

Saturday saw the running of the inaugural Budgie 100 down at Iceberg’s Pool. It all started a few months ago…

A whole gang of us were around in Mikey’s place having a poker night, we were hammered and Goz turned to me and challenged me to a swimming race, specifically a 100m Free. I agreed and thought no more of it, partially because I just assumed it was drunk talk and partially because I really didn’t want to race as that would mean I’d have to do some swim training and I couldn’t be arsed.

All was well for a month or two until Graeme, who had overheard the challenge, resurrected it, christened it the Budgie 100 and started organising. The race was on, and there was only one rule: you had to wear budgie smugglers, or Speedos to you non-Aussies. We had about six weeks to get organised, which is why I started doing some lunch-time swim squads a few weeks ago.

Anyway, Saturday comes around, it’s cold and raining and the pool is outdoors and not heated. Not very appealing, but there’s no going back now. Graeme had hired two lanes at Icebergs, organised a trophy and got some sponsorship prizes! I wandered down to the pool with my support crew (Jacqui, Denise, Mark & Alannah), arriving just as the first heat got going. Bit of a panic as I thought I’d have 20 minutes to get organised. A quick stretch and it was my turn, with the fastest time so far being a 1:07. I dived in, my goggles came off and I couldn’t really see where I was going, as I was trying to keep my contacts from falling out. Not an auspicious start, but I finished in 1:06 to be fastest qualifier for the final.

I borrowed Graeme’s goggles for the final as I was taking no chances. Thankfully this time they stayed on and it made a huge difference. Managed a 1:03 in the final to win the inaugural Budgie 100 and walk away with $50 in prize money, a trophy which will have my name engraved on it, and a Nike laptop bag! Not bad at all. Goz finished in second and John came third.

The ladies followed up with a 50m Breastroke which was won by Helen, a fact that disturbed the Aussies no end, as it meant that “northern monkeys” had won both races. The men’s race finished Ireland, South Africa, South Africa with Jason as best Aussie in 4th ;-)

So, an excellent day despite the weather. The first year was a resounding success and it looks like I’ll have to phone in a result from Canada next November! Better start training.

PS: Great organising effort Reidy!

Stuart’s Flickr Set

I’m taking it a bit easier this week in the run up to the Budgie 100 and the Gong Ride this weekend. Did nothing on Monday as I had to bring the car in for a service, so no sysling commute. Ty was up from Canberra on Tuesday so I skipped my swim session and went for lunch with him instead. Cycled in and out yesterday and today, then went for a short run on the way to today’s swim session.

400 FS WU
5 * 100 FS on 1:40 (1:22)
3 * 200 FS Pull + Paddles on 3:30 (2:53)
6 * 50 IM Order on 60 (47)
Cramps
Total: 1800m

Got cramps about 40mins into the session, which always seems to happen to me. Obviously not hydrated enough before starting, and the extremely salty water doesn’t help either.

S: 1.8km – B: 33.3km – R: 4km

Here we go again. The Miami Herald and KFDM-TV are reporting ‘glitches’ in electronic voting machines. Funnily enough, those glitches all seem to be in favour of Republicans!

Early voting runs through Friday, November 3rd. KFDM continues to get complaints from Jefferson County voters who say the electronic voting machines are not registering their votes correctly.

Friday night, KFDM reported about people who had cast straight Democratic ticket ballots, but the touch-screen machines indicated they had voted a straight Republican ticket.

Ars Technica has a round-up of the problems surrounding voting machines, including step-by-step instructions for casting multiple votes on a particular brand of machine, without hacking it!!

What a farce!

Travelocity is now allowing travellers to offset their flight’s CO₂ emissions when they purchase a plan ticket. It’s a great idea, and making it easy to do is another bonus.

My guess is that most people will check out how much it costs, and even if they balk at the price, it will at least alery them to just how much pollution the average flight causes.

Run for the hills, the terrorists are trying to attack our freedom… well not quite, it’s not terrorists, it’s just George W. Bush. He has signed a bill which will allow him to declare martial law and deploy US troops on US soil to supress public disorder.

President Bush seized this unprecedented power on the very same day that he signed the equally odious Military Commissions Act of 2006. In a sense, the two laws complement one another. One allows for torture and detention abroad, while the other seeks to enforce acquiescence at home, preparing to order the military onto the streets of America. Remember, the term for putting an area under military law enforcement control is precise; the term is “martial law.”

I bet Osama’s laughing his ass off. We seem to be doing all his work for him.

The Oslo Natural History Museum has an exhibition on gay animals which is quite interesting. Homosexuality in the animal kingdom has been noted since Aristotle’s time (~300BC), but was usually dismissed as part of male fighting rituals. However, it has now been been documented in over 1500 species. Predictably, Christians aren’t too happy about it…

While the images displayed at the Natural History Museum wash over passing school children, the exhibition has sparked consternation in conservative Christians.

A Lutheran priest said he hoped the organisers would “burn in hell,” and a Pentecostal priest lashed out at the exhibition saying tax payers’ money used for it would have been better spent helping the animals correct “their perversions and deviances.”

I can’t stop laughing at that stupid priest trying to counsel animals! Father Doolittle ;-)

Carl Zimmer has a post entitled To Bee in which he covers the fact that the genome of the honeybee has been sequenced and 18 papers have just been published based on the results.

Just as striking is the low number of genes honeybees have for tasting. Insects have receptors on their tongues, known as gustatory genes. Honeybees have only 10 gustatory genes, compared to 68 in the fly. Again, the flower-grazing life of bees may account for this difference. Fruit flies and many other insects have an antagonistic relationship with plants. They devour the leaves and steams and seeds of the plants, depriving the plants of reproductive success. The plants have evolved lots of toxins in their tissues to repel the insects, driving the evolution of sophisticated taste in the insects so that they can avoid poisonous food. Bees, on the other hand, are in a friendly relationship with flowers, which depend on them to spread their pollen. Nectar lacks toxins altogether. Once a bee has settled on the right flower, it has little reason to fear the food it finds. And while many other insects must find food as larvae (think caterpillars munching tomato leaves), bees grow up in hives, delivered safe nectar by their aunts.

A good effort this week. Forgot to write as I went along, so here’s a summary.

Bike: Mon AM around the park with Marc, Wed. AM around the park solo, Fri AM to work via La Perouse, again solo. Marc was supposed to come along but baby troubles intervened.

Swim: Tuesday lunch, Mark was in Tasmania and backup coach was a no-show, so did my own thing. Skipped Thurs lunch as was pretty tired.

Run: One run on the way to Tuesday’s swim. Uphill bits buggered my calves. Will have to avoid, or walk them next week.

400 Various WU
2 * 100 FS on 1:40 (1:23)
2 * 200 FS on 3:10 (2:52)
2 * 300 FS on 4:50 (4:34)
2 * 200 FS on 3:10 (2:55)
2 * 100 FS on 1:40 (1:25)
100 Easy
8 * 50 FS Pull w/ Paddles on 50 (42)
Total: 2700m

S: 2.7km – B: 157.6km – R: 4.5km