Ed Felten responds to Diebold

Diebold has published a response to Ed Felten's paper pointing out security flaws in their voting machines. Felten responds, point by point.

Rick Renzi, J.D. Hayworth make list of most corrupt Congressmen

Rep. Rick Renzi (Republican, Arizona District 1) has made the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington's list of the 20 most corrupt members of Congress. Renzi has engaged in self-dealing, sponsoring legislation that has funneled hundreds of millions of dollars to his father's business, ManTech International of Fairfax, VA. His father is an executive vice president at ManTech, which also has offices in Sierra Vista, AZ. A more detailed report on Renzi's ethical lapses may be found here (PDF).

The other Congressmen on the list, with links to more information:

• Sen. Conrad Burns (R-MT)
• Sen. Bill Frist (R-TN)
• Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA)
• Rep. Roy Blunt (R-MO)
• Rep. Ken Calvert (R-CA)
• Rep. John Doolittle (R-CA)
• Rep. Tom Feeney (R-FL)
• Rep. Katherine Harris (R-FL)
• Rep. William Jefferson (D-LA)
• Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-CA)
• Rep. Gary Miller (R-CA)
• Rep. Alan Mollohan (D-WV)
• Rep. Marilyn Musgrave (R-CO)
• Rep. Richard Pombo (R-CA)
• Rep. Rick Renzi (R-AZ)
• Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX)
• Rep. John Sweeney (R-NY)
• Rep. Charles Taylor (R-NC)
• Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA)
• Rep. Curt Weldon (R-PA)

Rep. J.D. Hayworth (Republican, Arizona District 5) makes a "dishonorable mention" for his Jack Abramoff connections and payment of $145,212 to his wife through his PAC. Hayworth's report may be found here (PDF).

• Rep. Chris Cannon (R-UT)
• Rep. Dennis Hastert (R-IL)
• Rep. J.D. Hayworth (R-AZ)
• Rep. John Murtha (D-PA)
• Rep. Don Sherwood (R-PA)

Hat tip to Dispatches from the Culture Wars.

ASU student in immigration nightmare

Former Arizona State University student president Yaser Alamoodi, still a student at ASU, was arrested at 6 a.m. on September 6 by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers. They took him to Eloy (about halfway between Phoenix and Tucson), where he sits in a detention center.

The 29-year-old Tempe resident came to the U.S. from Saudi Arabia in 1996 under a student visa. He describes himself as "extremely secular. I was the president of my university. I have a commitment to everything America stands for, women's rights to civil rights." But because he married a U.S. citizen and they agreed to divorce in August, the divorce process invalidated his pending green card application.

And because his passport and citizenship are from Yemen, the country where his father was born but which he's never been in, that's where he will be deported to. His attorney says he can stay in detention in Eloy and fight the deportation for six months to "years," he can allow himself to be deported to Yemen and try to get a student visa to return to finish his degree, or if his wife stops the divorce process he would be allowed to stay.

Key characteristics of denialism

Pharyngula summarizes and augments a list of characteristics from the Give Up Blog common to those who deny the existence of various things, whether that be the Holocaust, global warming, HIV causing AIDS, the actions of Islamic terrorists on September 11, 2001, or other well-established phenomena.

Key features:
1. Conspiracy
2. Selectivity
3. The fake expert
4. Impossible expectations
5. The metaphor
6. The quote mine
7. Appeal to consequences

I recommend reading both the Give Up Blog's original list and descriptions and Pharyngula's extended list.

Greetings from another part of the United States!

Can you identify our approximate location from this sign (extra points for identifying the actual municipality)? It's not San Francisco (which has a Lippard Ave. in the Glen Park neighborhood). The answer will come after we return to Phoenix in a couple days. (And if anyone in SF has a photo of a Lippard Ave. sign, I'd like to have one of those...)

Hotel minibar keys open Diebold voting machines

Ed Felten points out that Diebold voting machines use a standard, commonly used key that is used for things like hotel minibars, office furniture, jukeboxes, and electronic equipment.

UPDATE (January 23, 2007): Diebold helpfully displays a photograph of the key on their website--which is sufficient to make a duplicate that works.

More on Diebold voting machine insecurity

Ed Felten announces the release of his paper and an accompanying video about major security issues with Diebold AccuVote-TS voting machines.

Significant new information in the Cory Maye case

The Covington & Burling defense team has tracked down (via private investigator) the anonymous informant who caused the police raid on the duplex Cory Maye lived in. The account he gave the PI is significantly different than the account he gave officer Ron Jones which prompted the raid, and the informant appears to be an angry bigot.

Cory Maye is a black man in Missouri whose door was kicked in in the middle of the night in a no-knock raid, who killed Officer Jones in the raid. Maye was found guilty of murder and sentenced to death even though the prosecution's account contained inconsistencies, there was no legitimate reason for Maye's apartment in the duplex to be raided, and Maye says he did not know the person breaking into his apartment was a police officer--he thought he was defending himself and his young daughter. There have been many posts on this blog, mostly referring to the excellent work by Radley Balko, who first brought this case to public attention. Wikipedia now has a pretty good entry on Cory Maye, and there is a website, www.mayeisinnocent.com.

Robert Newman's History of Oil

British comic Robert Newman presents a very entertaining and interesting 45-minute performance about oil in the Middle East (at Google Video), including an interpretation of World War I as an invasion of Iraq and a discussion of peak oil.

The Flying Spaghetti Monster appears in smoke

The caption on this U.S. Air Force photo: "The United States Air Force C-17 Globemaster III Military Transport with the 14th Airlift Squadron located at Charleston Air Force Base in
South Carolina has flown away after releasing flares over the Atlantic Ocean. Smoke from the flare salvo reveals a crisp, dramatic, startling, and
beautiful visual of the turbulent air – including two vortices each with an "eye" – created by the C-17 Globemaster III as it flies through the air.
May 16, 2006, Over the Atlantic Ocean Near Charleston, State of South Carolina, USA."

(Hat tip: Jerry Goodenough on the SKEPTIC mailing list.)