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Friday, Feb 14, 2003

harvard squared

notes on winer at harvard blogs

licensed to quill

the vote is in (trouble)

"The question is not whether electronic balloting is a good thing or a bad thing. It is what kinds of electronic balloting have built in safeguards and checks against electronic fraud, and what kinds don�t. The recently passed Help America Vote Act (HAVA), includes $3.9 billion to help state and local goverments install hi-tech upgrades to their voting technology. What is being overlooked is that not all electronic voting systems are created equal. Some of the ones on the market, perhaps even most, have serious flaws that enable unscrupulous people to alter vote counts and commit massive electoral fraud. Some also are designed to leave no electronic backup or paper trail that would enable state officials to discover vote tampering or conduct recounts."

"This, my friends, is a disaster waiting to happen."

french kicks

well, at least they won the '98 world cup.

Thursday, Feb 13, 2003

so much to answer for

"ANSWER's nyet doesn't irk Lerner as much as the fact that Not In Our Name and United for Peace & Justice didn't oppose it. Before Lerner had been suggested as a speaker, the coalitions engineering the San Francisco event had agreed that any individual who had publicly disparaged one of the organizing groups could be vetoed as a speaker by that group. ANSWER used this right to banish Lerner. (The rabbi maintains he had no intention of using his podium time to slam ANSWER: "Why waste my three minutes on ANSWER?") Other organizers of the San Francisco event argued against ANSWER's thumbs-down but ended up abiding by the agreement. (ANSWER has not been involved in the organizing of the coming New York City protest.)"

your history

"In a recent article on HNN Professors Eric Foner and Glenda Gilmore worry that academic freedom is being eroded. While they address the McCarthyite tactics of the right, I think there may also be another interesting story here."

Wednesday, Feb 12, 2003

moving company

"Boyd and Blade's company, Berkeley Systems, was famous for its flying toaster screensavers. When the couple sold the company in 1997, they had 120 employees and $30 million in annual revenue. Boyd and Blades were catapulted into national prominence when they became disgusted with the Clinton impeachment process and created a website that tapped into a huge groundswell of opinion that wanted the country and particularly the Republicans to, as the name suggests, move on."

Tuesday, Feb 11, 2003

democracy when

"Even those suffering from justification fatigue ought to pay special attention to this one, because it goes beyond the category of reasons offered in support of a course of action that has already been decided upon and set in motion. Unlike the other justifications, it is both a reason for war and a plan for the future. It also cries out for elaboration. Democracy is a wonderful idea, but none of the countries in the Middle East, except Israel and Turkey, resemble anything that would look like a democracy to Americans. Some Middle Eastern countries are now and have always been ruled by monarchs. Some are under the control of an ethnic or religious group that represents a minority of the population. Saudi Arabia and the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan are the world's only major nations named after a single family, and in Saudi Arabia the royal family functions as, in effect, the country's owner. Most Middle Eastern countries don't even make the pretense of having freely elected parliaments; in Iran, for example, candidates have to be approved by the mullahs. And the very problem that democracy in the Middle East is meant to solve�rising Islamic radicalism, encouraged or tolerated by governments that see it as a way to propitiate their increasingly poorer and younger populations�makes the prospect of elections dangerous, because anti-American Islamists might win."

what now

eric alterman interview at cal pundit

Monday, Feb 10, 2003

write or wrong

ahh, a spiteful mentally unstable poet has inscribed me in his book of strife. he shall be richly rewarded with frankinsights and mirth in the after-laugh, although both are in short supply here.

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