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

The Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason & Science has been launched as a charitable foundation based in both the US and UK, with aim of opposing the spread of irrational thought (astrology, faith healing, religion, etc.) at the expense of science. Definitely one to keep an eye on. It’s also worth watching the introductory video for a more detailed explanation.

Dawkins has also written an article entitled Why There Almost Certainly Is No God in which he looks at a number of the most common arguments for the existence of God and explains why they’re not particularly good arguments at all.

The Chamberlain tactic of snuggling up to ‘sensible’ religion, in order to present a united front against (‘intelligent design’) creationists, is fine if your central concern is the battle for evolution. That is a valid central concern, and I salute those who press it, such as Eugenie Scott in Evolution versus Creationism. But if you are concerned with the stupendous scientific question of whether the universe was created by a supernatural intelligence or not, the lines are drawn completely differently. On this larger issue, fundamentalists are united with ‘moderate’ religion on one side, and I find myself on the other.

Wil Shipley has an excellent post up on the emergency in the US, entitled Thank God For George W. Bush:

In eighteen days we have a chance to elect a majority in both the house and senate who will oppose Bush for the next two years, and stop this insanity. I am urging you to do what you can. Even just showing up and watching for voter fraud would help. Take a laptop to your polling place and blog what you see. We’ve had the last two national elections stolen from us, and if we let it happen again we are to blame.

This is the real national emergency. Compare the number of Americans who have died for no reason in Iraq (2,279), by Bush’s order, to the number who died in the 9/11 attacks (2,973). What are we doing? How is this worth it? Why are our priorities so far out of whack?

Why are we giving up our civil liberties, spending trillions on wars, and sacrificing our kids’ lives at Bush’s behest? Every year more Americans die of cancer (190x), AIDS (4x), heart disease (309x), and car accidents (20x) than died in 9/11. What are we so afraid of? Why are we willing to spend trillions to depose a puffed-up dictator on the other side of the world but not a couple million to educate our kids in music and art?

We have let the fear of violence against us turn us into animals. We’re so frightened by those images of jets crashing into skyscrapers that we’ve forgotten that being the victim of a terrorist attack is, in fact, among the least likely of the bad things that can happen to us. We have to stop.

It’s worth reading the whole post.

The yanks have a No-Fly list which is supposed to stop terrorists getting on an aeroplane. Sounds fair enough, right? Well get this, there’s 44,000 names on the list! Including 14 of the 19 terrorists who died on 9/11, the President of Bolivia, Saddam Hussein (like he’ll be flying anywhere) and some Nazi sympathizer who’s been dead for 10 years.

CBS’s 60 Minutes got a copy of the list and checked it out:

The first surprise was the sheer size of it. In paper form it is more than 540 pages long. Before 9/11, the government’s list of suspected terrorists banned from air travel totaled just 16 names; today there are 44,000. And that doesn’t include people the government thinks should be pulled aside for additional security screening. There are another 75,000 people on that list.

And here’s the best bit: because the list gets circulated to airline desks, the CIA refuses to put actual, suspected terrorists on it because it’s not secure enough! What a fucking farce! You couldn’t make this shit up if you tried.

From: CBS’s 60 Minutes

The yanks have signed into law the Military Commissions Act, allowing the CIA to continue to torture people abroad, and also denying ‘enemy combatants’ the right to a fair trial (habeus corpus).

The provisions of Bush’s new torture law mean that Americans have lost the key, constitutional right on which Anglo-American criminal law (and criminal-law procedures in true democracies in general) is founded; that’s the basic right of an individual to know why he or she is being apprehended and detained. Now, technically, as in Stalin’s Soviet Union, Hitler’s Germany, Mao’s China or Pol Pot’s Cambodia, anyone labeled an “enemy combatant” – again, by whom; by Bush? – can be whisked away and never heard from again. That kind of authority, in the hands of corrupt or untruthful politicians, may or may not be an effective tool in some kind of “war on terror,” but it certainly can be a useful tool when it comes to silencing their opponents.

On the plus side, you can now buy these t-shirts: Habeus Corpus: don’t be taken from home without it ;-)

Also, they have updated their space policy document and decided that they pretty much own space.

“The United States will oppose the development of new legal regimes or other restrictions that seek to prohibit or limit U.S. access to or use of space. Proposed arms control agreements or restrictions must not impair the rights of the United States to conduct research, development, testing and operations or other activities in space for U.S. national interests,” it says.

Got organised today and put last week’s plan in action. Ran to the pool, did the swim and attempted running back. Problem was the pool is so bloody salty that I was on the verge of cramping by the time the session finished, so I only got halfway back to work before having to stop for a stretch and walk the rest of the way! Still, running felt OK so might try and do some more of it.

The session was a good one. No messing about and constantly moving. Racked up a pretty comfortable 3000m with a few minutes to spare. Stroke felt good and 1:25 pace is no trouble, though I still tire rapidly once I pick the pace up beyond that.

500 Free
6 * 50 Free on 55 (40)
3 * 100 FS on 1:50 (1:25)
3 * 100 FS on 1:45 (1:25)
3 * 100 FS on 1:40 (1:25)
100 Fast (1:14)
100 Easy
3 * 100 FS on 1:40 (1:27)
3 * 100 FS on 1:45 (1:28)
3 * 100 FS on 1:50 (1:30)
100 Fast (1:25)
100 Easy
Total: 3000m

S: 3.0km – R: 1.5km

Windows really is a POS!

Called over to a mate’s house on the way home from work to help him set up his new PC. Had tried to get him to buy an iMac but he’d already got a HP by the time my calls got through to him. Had to set him up with Unwired as well and figured it couldn’t be too bad. It took FOUR hours! Yes, FOUR!

OS was already installed, so just had to do some basic configuration (time, dat, langauge, etc). Had a quick look around to see that there was loads of junk installed – about 20 shite games and sign-ups for Telstra, Dodo, IPrimus and some other ISP too. Removed all those.

Installed Office 2003.

Installed Office 2003 SP2.

Got Unwired up and running. It’s crap! Despite good signal strength & quality it started off downloading Firefox at 4KB/s! Dumped the connection & tried again: 17KB/s. On a 512/128 plan!

Setup & configured the HP Printer/Scanner/Fax.

Deleted the demo version of Norton Security which came with the machine.

Installed the Trend Micro Security package he’d paid for.

Set up a schedule to check for updates.

Set up a schedule to scan for viruses.

Set up a schedule to scan for spyware.

Set up the firewall.

Thought I was nearly done, but no, I had yet to meet Windows Update. Fired that up, and it told me it needed to update itself. That done, it told me I needed to download 51 critical & highly recommended patches!!! 51! Took an hour to do that.

I came in towards the end and figured I’d set up a limited user for his day to day use. Fast user switching! Great, I’ll do that. Switched out of admin & did some configuration in his user account. Finished that, logged out and back in to Admin to see that Windows Update had refused to install the updates it had spent the last hour downloading!

You know that adage about the watched kettle never boiling? Turns out this Windows PC is the inverse: it will only do stuff if you sit there and watch it. Told it to do it again and thankfully it realised it had already done the downloads, so I left it installing update 13 of 51 and went home.

My conclusion: using Windows is what I imagine it would be like if you were looking after an ageing relative with mild Alzheimer’s; it’s fully functional, but gives the impression of never really being sure of what’s going on, and is liable to drive you insane.

BTW, XP Pro on a 3.0GHz Pentium D: slow! Lots of pregnant pauses if you tried to do two things at once.

Monique got us tickets for the Australia vs Bahrain Asian Cup Qualifier. Australia had already qualified, so there was nothing riding on the game, but since Bresciano, Cahill, Neill & Schwarzer were home from Europe pride was at stake, especially since it’s the first time they’d played in Sydney since the World Cup.

Photos here.

In preparation for the Budgie 100, a 100m Free challenge race amongst a few friends in a couple of weeks, I figured I should get back in a swimming pool and try and get a feel for things again. Not having swum since January means I’m a bit rusty.

Had a look around and decided to join the lunchtime squad sessions at Boy Charlton Pool since they are coached by Mark Newton who knows his stuff and and usually produces a decent workout. The squads I went to last year were a bit useless as the coach knew less than I did and usually churned out almost the same session, week in, week out.

So, I went along for my first session yesterday and it was great. Spending your lunchtime swimming in a heated outdoor pool, in 30C under a blazing sun, is a great way to train. I arrived a bit late as I’d got sidetracked at work, and there was a bit of a problem finding Mark as I was expecting someone walking up and down the bank, not leading the lane. Once that was sorted out it was a pretty easy session.

300 Free
5 * 200 Free on 3:30 (3:10)
100 Free/100 Back Relax
8 * 50 on 1:00 (37)
4 * 100 Free Paddles on 1:40 (1:20)
Total: 2300m

I took it pretty easy, as while I’m reasonably aerobically fit, my arms aren’t used to doing any work at all, so they were the weakest link. Still, swimming in salt water helps as it makes me about 5s/100m faster than a pool.

I’ve signed up for Tuesday & Thursday lunchtimes and I reckon I’ll run to and from the session next week and not bother having a shower until I get back to work.

S: 2300m

A study done by the John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, published today in the Lancet, claims that, since the US, Britain and Australia invaded Iraq, approximately 655,000 more civilians have died than would have been the case if there was no invasion. To put this in perspective, that’s over twice as many as Saddam killed in his 25 years in power! So, the answer to the usual conservative pro-war justification “Do you really think the Iraqis would have been better off if we left Saddam in power?” would seem to be a resounding “YES!”.

Download the paper.



Jacqui got free accommodation in Kiama through work, so herself, myself, Anna and Nathan headed down last weekend for a relaxing weekend by the beach. The accommodation was right on a beach, which was great. John & Goz came down for the day on Saturday, so we chilled out on the beach, played some frisbee and went for a swim. The water’s not too cold, which was a bonus, as I normally don’t bother going for a swim until December when the water temperature is usually around 20C or so.

The plan for Sunday was to get breakfast in Gerringong and then head down to Seven Mile Beach for the day, but by the time we had breakfast the weather had changed; the wind had picked up and the temperatures were down quite a bit, so it was no longer a beach day. We opted to head to Minimiurra Falls instead and do the rainforest walk which turned out to be quite interesting, though the falls weren’t as spectacular as I’d hoped!

Here’s my photos.