Blown PSU

If you noticed any downtime today, we had a PSU in our database server die on us. I had a replacement on hand, and everything worked fine when I got into fix it (midnight!) - but it was down until I did that.

Compaq Proliant 3000 parts are becoming hard to come by. Time to start whining for nicer servers again!
Mood: tired
Music: Iron Maiden - Sanctuary

Electoral Fraud

I'm not really one to cry wolf, these days. I tend(ed) to believe that Bush had actually won the election, and was fully prepared to move on, deal with it for four years, and hope for a better result in 2008.

However, there is definitely something rotten in Denmark - or more precisely, Wyoming. Check this out; if you look down the registered voters column for general elections you will notice that Wyoming's citizens are amazingly enthusiastic about voting - in fact 106% of eligible voters had a vote recorded. That's 231,876 more voters than were registered - spooky!

If you check out BlackBoxVoting.com, one of the major advocates of a transparent voting machine system prior to the election (and affiliated with Bruce Schneir and other luminaries of the security community), one can find a number of interesting strories. A Join-Select-Committee has been appointed to investigate voting machines. The General Accounting Office of Congress is auditing them. The New York Times are running a story on buggy machines. It seems that the world is finally starting to notice!

Noticing not a moment too soon, to be honest. In the past, late exit polls have consistently (for 100 years!) been an accurate barometer of voting trends - accurate to an average of 0.5%. This time, however, they are way off - and more off in the states that mattered. Ohio (a Diebold state), for example, shows around a 6% discrepency between exit polls and the final result. This could be indicative of a fundamental change in exit polling success rates, but that would be without historical precedent. The UC Berkley Quantitative Research Team (supported by MIT) agree, finding a significant likelihood that election machines helped Bush win the Sunshine State. (Unfortunately, statistical evidence isn't perfect - but in a secret ballot, it's the best evidence we have for now).

One reason that this is the best evidence that we have can be found in the outright obstruction of justice coming from several election official's offices. Combining several sources of data already cited, you can come up with the following list:

• The Supervisor of Elections has unreasonably delayed providing information.
  
• The certification was based on inadequate and incomplete information regarding the election results.
  
• Some or all of the information requested on Nov. 2, 2004 by Black Box Voting is still missing from 59 of the 179 voting precincts, including portions of or all of the voting machine tapes for those 59 precincts, which are a vital part of official paper record of the election results from those precincts.
  
• Complete information on problems with the voting machines prior to and during the election has not been provided.
  
• Complete information relating to memory card failures during the election has not yet been provided.
  
• Only a partial list of the transmission logs from the Accu-Vote optical scan server has been provided. Despite repeated requests, the Elections office has refused to provide to the Volusia County Democratic party the official election results, now stating that those results will not be available until December 1, 2004.
  
• The Elections office has provided incomplete data regarding Early Voting and Absentee ballots. The Supervisor of Elections, for example, reported that the total number of absentee ballots and Early voting ballots, combined equaled 89,999 votes, yet the published figures for those totals is 84,100 votes, leaving over 5,800 votes unaccounted for.
  
• In addition to the pattern of delay in providing the requested information, the true election results are in doubt because of numerous violations of election law procedure and unanswered questions concerning the results.
  
• Many public records, including one signed results tape from a voting machine were found in the trash. Many of the requested records not furnished by the Elections office have been found in the trash. Results from the tapes found in the trash do not match the results of the copies of tapes furnished.
  
• An email from Mark Earley, of Diebold Elections Systems, Inc., to the Elections office was provided which asked the recipient for an explanation of why Volusia County had more memory card failures than all of their other Florida customers combined, and then asked why the 17 memory card failures which the Elections office reported on November 3, increased to 25 before November 12, 2004.
  
• The reported memory card failures were significant and troubling and included reporting zero votes after one week of voting, requesting permission to upload votes before the voting began, and messaging whether the card should be reformatted.
  
• According to a statement by the Supervisor of Elections on November 17, 2004, the GEMS computer is not networked, and is "stand alone." The furnished computer logs show evidence of at least two attempts to remotely access the GEMS central tabulator, which is claimed to be secure. A computer screen shot printout on November 17, 2004 (found in the trash) shows that the GEMS computer at that time had two networked hard drives.
  
• Franklin County, Indiana, have actually reversed an election result. Voting machines gave a Republican victory by switching Democratic votes to the Libertarians - a manual recount showed that the Democrats had won the County Commissioner seat.
  
• Carteret County, NC, has admitted that users were allowed to keep voting after voting machines had run out of storage space - and none of the later votes were counted. North Carolina is considering a state-wide re-election as a result.
  

I could go on, but that's enough grist for the mill for now. Bear in mind that the media aren't reporting it particularly well at all, but there are recount requests pending in New Hampshire, Florida, Ohio and New Mexico - all voting machine states. Now that the New York Times has noticed the problems with machines, I think the rest of the media will catch on to the story that's brewing: the election is not provably won, yet. Both major parties need to wake up, and support investigations (Kerry/Edwards' campaign has been quietly supporting recount efforts, but hasn't peeped publically).
Mood: relaxed
Music: Iron Maiden - Run to the Hills

Snow!

The more it snows

(Tiddely pom),

The more it goes

(Tiddely pom),

The more it goes

(Tiddely pom),

On snowing.

And nobody knows

(Tiddely pom),

How cold my toes

(Tiddely pom),

How cold my toes

(Tiddely pom),

Are growing.
Mood: tired
Music:

I used to run this!

Which OS are You?

Mood: sick
Music:

YES!

I'm not awake, but have to post this Guantanamo decision. It's not SCOTUS, but finally the judicial system gets its teeth into the matter...
Mood: tired
Music:

Heh - oops

Anyone else see what's wrong with this bit of code from a recent build of our Horizons issue tracker?

"Your report has been recorded in the TSG Issue Tracking System [TITS]. Thank you..."

Unfortunately, updating it to the new company isn't much better, since it'd now be ZITS.
Mood: happy
Music: None

My seafood lasagne recipe

I promised this to a couple of people, and can't entirely remember to whom it was promised. I'm 99% sure that everyone interested reads my blog, so here it is!

3/4 fill a big pot of water, with a dash (about a tablespoon) of extra-virgin olive oil, and a sprinkling of Oregano. Start it boiling (assuming your stove is slow like mine, and it takes a while to get to the boil!). Preheat the oven to 350 F.

Heat a frying pan, with enough extra-virgin olive oil to keep things from sticking (amount varies by state of pan!). Add in half a chopped onion, cook until onion is soft but not brown. Add in a sliced green pepper, chopped fresh garlic, a big pinch of oregano, sage, rosemary, thyme, a little lemon pepper. Mix vigorously. Throw in a small piece of butter (you can use something healthy, but butter really helps with the consistency), and then add in a can of tuna, a can of shrimp, and a can of crab-meat - making sure to drain off the brine from each of these first. Mix thoroughly, and cook on a low-medium heat, turning regularly (it's done when it starts to resemble a fish-mince).

In a second saucepan, boil two cups of milk, and a stick of butter. Stir a lot, until you have a seething, yellow liquid. Add cheese in until you have a thick - slightly lumpy - cheese sauce that either won't hold more cheese or tastes great. Add in a teaspoon of yellow mustard.

Add lasagne noodles to the boiling pot, cook for about 10 minutes until they are soft. Meanwhile, simmer the fishmeat, and stir the cheesy sauce. Prepare the lasagne pan (grease it, optionally line with foil).

Lay out a layer of soft noodles on the pan base. Smother with ricotta cheese, enough to hold it together. Cover with a base of the fish-mince, and then pour enough cheese sauce to cover it. Add another layer of noodles, more ricotta, more cheese sauce - repeat until the pan is full, being careful to have enough noodles to cover the top of the lasagne. The top layer needs a thick coating of ricotta, and all the remaining cheese sauce. Sprinkle with oregano, and add parsley to the top.

Then its decision time. For a really soft lasagne, cover it in foil (I recommend this) - some prefer slightly tougher noodles, and a 'brown baked' top appearance, for which you omit the cover.

Bake at 350F for about 30 minutes. Check on it a couple of times while it cooks to make sure it isn't boiling cheese over the top.

It's ready to eat. :-)
Mood: tired
Music: None

One other thought

Kerry was a really poor choice of candidate. His thoughtful wafflings often came across as indecisive, he wasn't very good at staying on-message, and his charisma really didn't appeal to many outside of the Democratic base. Sad to say, the US seems to vote for decisiveness over thoughtfulness, conviction over fact, and a folksy attitude over a polite, academic/patriochial visage. (In recent memory, this was true for Reagan, Clinton, Bush Jnr. - Bush Snr. really only ever won because of Reagan's coat-tails). Kerry had near perfect-storm conditions: an unpopular war (although it's not as unpopular as one might think), a floundering economy, healthcare crisis, mass job losses - and he still couldn't appeal to people. Polls were pretty clear - Not Bush would have won a huge margin, but simply not being Bush isn't enough when the public don't like you. :-(

Sorry Kerry. That's why I could never stand and win, either.
Mood: thirsty
Music: None

So, it's all over

Kerry just conceded, and Bush is returned to the whitehouse - this time having actually won an election. The popular vote ended up favour Bush by a large margin, and while Ohio was close, it wasn't close enough to really merit a long battle over provisional votes.

I have a few concerns about the election, particularly in Ohio. Diebold voting machines were used, and lacked a paper-trail - so we can't really trust the results. Voters were stuck in line for hours (they were still voting 5 hours after the polls closed!), and judicial orders to offer paper ballots to those waiting in line were ignored. Florida also used Diebold machines, although I suspect that the margin was great enough in the sunshine state that it didn't make a great deal of difference.

So why did the polls (including my math) get it wrong? There are a number of factors. The first is young-person turnout. Turnout was really low in young-person dominated areas; Boone County, for example, barely topped 55% turnout. Overall (nationwide), only 17% of the share of the vote was comprised of younger voters - despite a huge increase in registrations and turnout. Thousands of youngsters will apparently turnout to support Kerry at a rally (with Springsteen playing), and then not vote. Disgraceful, in my opinion. Exit polls are showing that a lot of the increase in voter turnout was comprised of Republicans bussing in evangelical groups. They are also indicating that the undecided camp didn't really swing one way or the other - they didn't vote at all! That threw out conventional wisdom on 2/3 undecideds favouring the challenger, at which point the polls were actually about right - and the favoured interpretation of the polls was wrong. There was also the very late October surprise, Usama Bin Laden's videotape intervention. Despite the fact that this really should have served to remind Americans that Bin Laden is not only on the loose, but stronger than ever - it didn't. Instead, it reminded them that Bush is "going after terrorists" - and gave him a decent last minute poll boost. I wonder if this would be the case if the tape had gone out unedited, with the criticism of Kerry intact.

Anyway, Bush won and we're stuck with it. I'm pretty bummed about it, to be honest, since this means an enlivened attack on our civil liberties, religious freedoms, more absurd foreign policies (look out Iran!), more deficits, more poverty, even worse healthcare, and is likely to be seen as an endorsement of the neo-cons in the Pentagon. That said, there isn't much question about Bush's victory, and it's hard to say that he isn't legitimately President, this time. So, much as I did when Thatcher was in power, I'll accept the verdict, and remain a vocal opponent of whatever perceived wrongdoing I may find.

A plea to everyone as depressed about this as I am: don't give up on politics. We have the chance to make Bush a lame duck when Senate/House elections come along next time. Bush doesn't have the 60 votes required to beat a Senate philibuster; make concerns known to your Senators, make noise about the issues, and let the checks and balances keep a curb on things. Use the judicial system to continue challenging injustice. It's really easy to cry, become truly apathetic/alienated, and just give up - but that just ensures that things get worse.

I do wonder about the Democrats, now. Dean transformed the party, and the grass-roots mobilized as never before - and turned out to be irrelevant, because the grass-roots who shout so loudly don't get off their butts to vote. Daschle is gone, so the Senate Democrats are probably going to change a lot. The Democrats were very badly defeated outside of urban areas across the country. Something is going to have to change, and I suspect that there will be much soul-searching. My suggestion is to find a charismatic candidate who talks about important issues. Bill Clinton was a great candidate - we need to clone him!
Mood: sad
Music: None

Ugh, and a pat on the back for me

I'm typing this one handed, my right hand firmly braced as a result of a sprain. I'll blog about that when I can type above 5 wpm. Anyway, I just wanted to say that after my incredible poll binge, it makes me happy to (a) discover that John Zogby shares the same hunches as I do (with my third method), and (b) the person behind electoral-vote.com is none other than Professor Andrew Tennenbaum, legendary computer science professor! His statistics are much better than mine, but it makes me feel better that I came close to his...

Now, here's hoping for a high turnout and good weather tomorrow.
Mood: tired
Music: None