- Really bad news from Chicago: the mother and 29-year-old brother of singer/actress Jennifer Hudson - of 'American Idol' and Dreamgirls fame - were found shot to death in their home on Friday. Police now seem to have found the body of Hudson's missing 7-year-old nephew. The singer had offered a $100,000 for his safe return.
- Barack Obama delivers a major campaign speech today in Canton, Ohio. The Obama campaign is describing it as a "closing argument" that will highlight the differences between the two candidates. I'm wondering how this speech will be different from his 17,000 other campaign speeches.
- Anne Pressly, the 26-year-old TV newsanchor from Little Rock who was found severely beaten and bloodied in her home last Monday, has died from her wounds. Police have yet to identify a suspect, and their work is made harder by the fact that Pressly was left unable to communicate after the attack.
- With Obama holding a steady 8-point lead in the national polls, John McCain is playing it cool, telling Meet The Press yesterday that "we're doing fine" and "we're very happy where we are."
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Hi Everyone! I'm Emily Moulton, and I'm new to Gather's Editorial Team. I've taken over the series of daily "Top Stories" posts, where I'll sum up the hottest stories of the day. Use them as launch pads for writing your own commentary in a new post. Or use them for discussion fodder by leaving a comment below.
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Comments: 28
In 2000 and 2004, the problem was a stolen election.
In an interview from October, 2006, that has only now seen the light of day, Stephen Spoonamore, one of the world's leading experts in cyber crime and a self-described "life-long Republican" destroys Diebold's already non-existent credibility. Spoonamore’s interview can be seen in eight short segments on youtube.com.
"Spoon," as his friends call him, cuts through the lies and dissembling of Diebold and explains in language that anyone can understand how our elections have been stolen and how they are going to be stolen again. Even though this interview is almost two years old, the issues are still, unfortunately, germane to our elections.
Spoon explains that Diebold "refuse[s] to show the architecture [of their voting machines] or allow it to be exposed to any kind of significant expert." He says, "The people who … they claim have certified their machines have no knowledge of architecture whatsoever."
He continues, "The fundamental structures that Diebold has used to set up their voting machines are inherently flawed. They are what I would consider IT junk."
He explains how a Diebold ATM is set up with checks, double checks, triple checks, and even quadruple checks to ensure that the machine works the way it is supposed to. And, adds Spoon, "Those people [the people who check a bank's ATM] are not from Diebold. One of them is from the installation group and one of them is from the bank. Otherwise, the [ATM] machine is not certified for use."
When the interviewer says, "So what you're saying is there's more security regarding the dispensing of a $20 bill and the fact that if you don't get that $20 bill, there is more of an audit system set up [as compared to any audit system for the counting of our votes]," Spoon replies, "Of course."
Regarding the 2000 elections, he says, "There is a very strong argument to be made that the 2000 election was electronically stolen, the hanging chads were just a distraction."
Spoon talks about the Department of Homeland Security's warning via the US-CERT Center (the United States' Cyber Emergency Response Team) "warning that the way Diebold systems are architected in the way the tabulators communicate to the central state tabulation center is subject to foreign national hacking [as well as hacking from within the U.S.]. They put out a warning about it. To the best of my knowledge, this is still the case." He explains how this can happen.
In talking about memory cards, which hold the electronic votes and are fed into tabulation machines and which have extensive security flaws, Spoon explains a serious issue regarding negative vote numbers.
Spoonamore: There has been repeated issues [sic] where people have said they've seen votes backing up in tabulators as cards are put in [meaning votes are being subtracted instead of added]. Okay, well that would indicate that something in that program is not adding cards forward, it may be adding cards backward.
There is no reason in the world a negative number should ever be able to exist on a voting card. And yet, in all the voting card code that I've looked at, Diebold has a negative field that allows a negative number to be entered in a vote total. Why? Why would you want -- to steal votes. That way you can start with a card that has negative a hundred votes for somebody, then it takes them a hundred votes before they're even back to zero.
Interviewer: And yet Diebold does not allow, for proprietary reasons, anyone to review the vote tabulation software?
Spoonamore: They let us work on their cash machines, but no, they won't let anybody see their software.
Interviewer: Any thoughts as to why?
Spoonamore: Because they're stealing elections.
That was hardly an ad hominem attack. Merely a pondering. Hasn't he been highlighting differences in all of his other speeches?
If you think me questioning exactly what makes Obama's speech today different than the others means that I'm trying to sway voters away from Obama, you're just dead wrong. First of all, it's a pretty benign thing to question - it was more an afterthought, really. And second, if I was trying to sway people away from Obama, I would have added something like "Do you think he'll finally tell us the truth about Bill Ayers?" Or about his tax plan, or about a whole host of issues that Obama's opponents keep trying to raise. I happen to enjoy Obama's speeches a lot. But just because I question what makes this speech a special speech does not mean I'm a hater.
McCain is "playing it cool", eh?
McCain is clearly either out-of-thouch with, or, in denial of, reality. "We're not as far behind as all those polls say we are". ReallY? Sorry, old man, but you're going down.
As for Obama's speech--one of the "17,000" that has drawn hundreds of thousands, if not millions of supporters--you shouldn't expect anything new or different, Em, just an intelligent, reasonable explanation of how he intends to CHANGE the disastrous course that the current REPUBLICAN administration has followed to lead this country to the brink of disaster over the past eight years, WHEN he is elected. Enjoy!
The distinction is clear to me, though I know others may see it differently, but at this time and place I could easily listen to Obama's speeches 17,000 times and then some over the divisive ones McCain gives. It comes down to the battle of hope versus fear.
When thinking of a way to explain John McCain's professed optimism in the face poll after poll after poll showing him losing, I think "playing it cool" sounds far less biased than "out-of-touch with, or in denial of, reality.
"I'm wondering how this speech will be different from his 17,000 other campaign speeches."
made me think of what happened when McCain said the same thing awhile back. Then (I think it was John Stewart) showed a clip that said the same thing as many past speeches (a lot of clips!) he did this several times. It was funny, and showed the speech was not original at all. Maybe we'll see that with Obama's speech, but I somehow doubt it.
BTW - I think Bent has a point about that wording. The sentence could have been more neutral sounding. I know that when I read it my antenna went up. It's a subtle difference, but definitely there. However, you are putting your personal touch on this page, maybe part of that is that this is changing into more opinion, and less simply a stating of the news story for discussion. Seems like it is working for you. I look forward to reading more.
One thing McCain is NOT is "cool", and by saying he is "very happy where we are", I guess he is telling us that he will be happy to lose the election.
I'll be happy too.
1) happy to lose
2) knows that somehow the election will be stolen for him, or
3) doesn't really want the job anymore
Well, like I explained to Bent, I'm not here to intentionally play up either side. If you re-read my wording, I didn't call McCain "cool." I said he was "playing it cool," which was my way of describing how he's not visibly freaking out about the polls, but rather is trying his best to project optimism to his supporters. And it's certainly not up to me to declare that he's out of touch with reality. That's your job.
("17,000 other campaign speeches"!?)
Well, Emily, if you really are wondering, you can follow the links at the bottom my article here and either read it for yourself or see a snippet of it. I saw the Pittsburgh version of the "closing argument speech" live and it was kick-*ss.