Tuesday, November 02, 2004

ZOGBY, BALLS ON THE LINE. Zogby calls it. Though this may mean, pardon the technical language, dick. It's the Electoral College that actually elects the president. [Gibson Blog] The link sez: Electoral Votes: Bush 213 Kerry 311 8:37:24 PM    comment []

Is it going to be a long night? A short night? A long few weeks (AGAIN!)? Washington Post: On Politics has lots of stuff http://www.evote.com/ has exit-poll based info Salon's War Room has consistently been a great source all through the campaign NYT campaign page CNN All Politics Your guide to when to worry and when to celebrate: Here's a state-by-state list of what to look for as the polls begin to close. By Andrew Leonard, in Salon The Green Papers Media Matters for America Election Tracker 2004 will show media outlets calls of states My Due Diligence St. Louis County Election Results November 2004 Electoral Vote Predictor 2004 has been dreamy for some time now and promises live updating (and way cool research into flash crowds and DDos) 4:35:26 PM    comment []

A brief respite . . . The World Clock - Time Zones: Current local times around the world 4:35:22 PM    comment []

New Civilisation Editorial A conflict between Islam and the west is threatening to engulf the world in a cycle of violence; the walls between peoples are being raised and fortified, yet the world is shrinking with the growing pace of communication, transport and trade. While the old barriers of distance and ignorance were once enough to keep people apart and prevent comfortable national certainties from being challenged, the new barriers of ideological stubbornness enable us not to see the humanity of perceived enemies we think we know so much about. What is presented in the first edition of “New Civilisation” magazine is a unique attempt to break down these unreasonable barriers, which are the tragic irony of modernity post 9/11. Others have tried, but this new magazine stands completely alone in the manner of its approach: the facilitation of debate between the opposing poles. However, the current articles, perhaps inevitably for a first edition, are written from the same perspective; the writers are Muslims, who have, hitherto, been engaged in renewing Islamic political thought within their own Muslim communities and they do not sit on the fence in the pretence of moderation and dialogue between Islam and the west. Rather, they have a view; the product of extensive thought, upon which they present criticisms of current assumptions and offer alternative solutions. This is only the beginning: something is lacking. It is not that the contributors to this first edition are opinionated: if they were not, what would there be to discuss? The inevitable deficiency is that the contributors are all from only one side of the fence, and a world in which people break down artificial barriers cannot take shape without hearing the opposing views. It is for this very reason that New Civilisation was established: to break the seemingly inevitable cycle of intellectual entrenchment. New Civilisation, therefore, is offering a wide platform for those who have understood the increasing polarisation of the world we live in and want an opportunity to contribute and debate. Consider this an open invitation to present an opposing view in its best light. 4:35:17 PM    comment []

Iran's judiciary orders conservative-run news website to close (AFP) Baztab was ordered to shut by the judiciary prosecution's inspector over complaints that the site was publishing false news contradicting the Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) guidelines and contrary to the country's internal and external interests, ISNA said Monday, quoting a judiciary official. The report added that the head of Baztab claimed that the SNSC had ordered his site to be filtered, because of it publishing material regarding Iran's nuclear case ... adding that he had only published material found in the rest of the Iranian media. A check by AFP showed that Baztab was still functioning on Monday. The former head of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards, Mohsen Rezaie, is believed to run the website. Iranian authorities have in recent weeks clamped down on what they call illegal websites, detaining a number of reformist journalists. These measures have caused us problems in foreign affairs and in diplomatic attitudes towards us, government spokesman, Abdollah Ramezanzadeh told reporters on Monday. The European Parliament expressed alarm on Thursday at the deterioration in human rights in Iran, in particular over press freedom and the death penalty. A motion passed by the parliament drew attention to the cases of eight journalists working for the electronic media, imprisoned for unknown reasons at an undisclosed location. 4:35:12 PM    comment []

Animated Electoral Vote Map http://www.electoral-vote.com/ early afternoon (CST): Kerry 262   Bush 261 BUT with some questionable polls most recent. Version 2.0. This page is preliminary. Check back later. . . . There was another attack this morning and that took some time to deal with. Remember that if the site is unreachable, try the backup sites: www.electoral-vote3.com through www.electoral-vote8.com. I will also update the site tonight as the actual results come in. Furthermore I will also do a post-mortem on the election in the coming days, so check back later in the week. My special interest is how well the pollsters did. To see the current predictions broken down by pollster, see the Pollsters page and the pages for the battleground states, many of which have separate graphs per pollster. Now let's start with the pre-mortem. Another bumper crop of polls, 47 in all. Five states changed since yesterday. A University of New Hampshire poll breaks the tie there and gives Kerry a 1% edge in New Hampshire 49% to 48%. According to Zogby, Kerry is also edging ahead in New Mexico, 51% to 48%. Now come some controversial polls. Yesterday we had Kerry ahead in Ohio on the strength of a Gallup poll showing him 7% ahead there. Today we have a new Fox News/Opinion Dynamics poll showing Kerry 3% ahead there Please don't send e-mail telling me what you think of Fox news. I'm pretty good at guessing, but I am trying very hard to be impartial. Tomorrow we'll know. Similarly, in Wisconsin a Fox News/Opinion Dynamics poll shows Kerry's 7% lead has vanished overnight and been replaced by Bush's 3% lead. Again, PLEASE no e-mail about this. Instead, come back tomorrow for the post-mortem. If you don't buy these numbers, add 30 to Kerry and subtract 30 from Bush to get Kerry 292, Bush 231. Finally, Strategic Visionn (R) says New Jersey is a tie. Yesterday I had an Eagleton-Rutgers poll showing Kerry up by 8% and today there was a Quinnipiac University poll showing Kerry ahead by 5% in New Jersey. But the rule still holds: most recent poll wins, and that is Strategic Vision. If you don't like this result, award Kerry another 15 electoral. Zogby has polled Bush's job approval/disapproval rating in several states. This is often a key indicator of how an incumbent will do in his reelection campaign. An approval score substantially below 50% is indicates trouble ahead. Here are the approval/disapproval scores in some key states. Colorado 46%/54%, Florida 46%/53%, Iowa 45%/55%, Minnesota 43%/56%, New Mexico 47%/53%, Nevada 49%/51%, Ohio 43%/49%, Pennsylvania 445/55% and Wisconsin 45%/55%. . . . . . . . Do your part and vote. The site was subjected to another massive attack yesterday. I would like to take this opportunity to thank the attackers. We hit the jackpot yesterday. On Sunday, 675,000 people visited the site, and typically traffic on Mondays is much higher than Sundays. Unfortunately, the site doing the real-time monitoring couldn't handle the load and gave up. On top of this, electoral-vote.com was mentioned on the main page of slashdot.com, a hugely popular tech news site. The last time I was slashdotted, I got 700,000 hits. That incident was caused by the publication of a book emitted by a Microsoft-funded think tank in D.C. claiming that Linus Torvalds stole Linux from my earlier MINIX system. I posted a vigorous and caustic rebuttal saying that the book was utter and complete nonsense. My role was that of Linus' teacher, not his coauthor. Either the impending election or the slashdotting would have driven most servers into the ground. Now throw in a massive distributed denial of service attack on the main server and the backups and you can see why the site was a tad slow yesterday. I must have called the technical staff at my hosting company, HostRocket.com 10 times yesterday. At one point I was tempted to say: "How many 2-GB Pentium 4's do you have left and can I have them all?" Ultimately I took only one more, but with help from some kind-hearted colleagues, I got mirrors up and running from Boston to San Diego. So why am I a happy camper? We survived an unprecedented triple flash crowd and logged it all. As it turns out, two of the faculty members in my Dept., Maarten van Steen and Guillaume Pierre, are doing research on coping with flash crowds. The research issues include how many replicas to set up, where to place them, how fast to deploy them, and how to do it automatically, in real time, and at minimum cost. To simulate proposed algorithms, you need data about real flash crowds and real attacks, preferably at the same time. And boy oh boy do we have data now. Students interested in this and other areas of computer systems might want to check out the English-language Masters program I am running at the Vrije Universiteit. Check back later for more info, tonight for real-time updates, and tomorrow for a post-mortem. 3:35:08 PM    comment []

Google plugs hole exposing Gmail mailboxes, By Joris Evers, IDG News Service. Google Inc. has fixed a security flaw in its Gmail Web-based e-mail service that allowed attackers to hijack users' e-mail accounts. Google was recently alerted to a potential security vulnerability affecting the Gmail service. We have since fixed this vulnerability, and all current and future Gmail users are protected, Google spokesman Nathan Tyler said. Tyler declined to discuss the nature of the problem, but a source close to Google confirmed that the flaw allowed an attacker to gain complete control over a user's account. The problem was in the way Gmail authenticated users. An attacker could steal a so-called cookie file identifying the user by making use of a seemingly innocent link to Google's own Web site, according to a report on the Web site of the Israeli publication Nana NetLife Magazine. (See also yesterday's coverage here at A blog doesn't need a clever name.) 6:33:36 AM    comment []

Students suspended for hacking Oxford network. Duo admits using tools found through Google to access information about students' computer use and see their e-mail passwords. [CNET News.com] 6:04:23 AM    comment []

FYI Here is a handy list of voting disputes currently under way, arranged by state... [Global Suburb] 6:03:03 AM    comment []

On eve of election, Kerry camp content. As John Kerry heads to Cleveland tonight for a rally with John Edwards and Bruce Springsteen, his campaign staff is keeping a close watch on polling, get-out-the-vote efforts and early voting. So far, they like what they're seeing "I feel as good as I've felt at any point in the campaign," a Kerry aide told us as the candidate spoke in Detroit tonight. Democrats scarred by the 2000 race may have a hard time getting their minds around the idea that Kerry can take Florida from Bush, and the aide said that she, too, feels that "mental block." But the polls suggest that Florida may fall for Kerry, and the campaign staff is now believing it. [Salon.com] 6:02:44 AM    comment []

Nov 1, 2004: Ohio poll access. A follow-up to the post on voter challenges in Ohio: Republicans seeking to limit the franchise were again stymied in their efforts. Two federal judges handed down separate rulings that poll workers, not party-appointed challengers, should be the ones... [Kicking Ass] 5:59:46 AM    comment []

iPod Download can work again if you fix what Apple broke [bOing bOing] 5:56:32 AM    comment []

New Blog about Teaching Philosophy.... ...here, and featuring, so far, some graduate students and faculty connected to the University of Connecticut and Baylor University. [Leiter Reports: Editorials, News, Updates] 5:56:05 AM    comment []

Calling the Election: A Primer. In 2000, the news networks showed how easy it is to make the wrong call on an election. Stung by that failure, they've revamped the system. Here's how it works. By Adam L. Penenberg. Download Movies Before You Vote. Hoping to influence voters before the election, partisans on both sides are making political documentaries like Fahrenheit 9/11 and Stolen Honor available for download, despite possible copyright risks. By Daniel Terdiman. [Wired News] 5:55:59 AM    comment []

Monday Nov 1: Kerry 298, Bush 231. Today's map Curious about who the Votemaster is and why he created this site? Meet the Votemaster. I will stay up all night election night and update the site in real time. I am NOT promising to stay up until we know who the president is. I would definitely like to go to bed sometime during the month of October. We have another bumper crop of polls today, 50 in all. Since Sept. 1, the total number of polls in the Polling data file is 937. Toss in another 252 polls from May 24 to Aug. 31 and we have the most studied election in the history of the world. And what's the conclusion? Nobody knows. If we just look at the most recent poll in every state, John Kerry will be elected the 44th President of the United States tomorrow with 298 votes in the electoral college vs. 231 for George Bush, with New Mexico and New Hampshire exact ties. However, even in Bush carries both of these states, Kerry still wins 298 to 240. But again, a caution is in order, Kerry's margin is razor thin in Pennsylvania, Florida, and Ohio. Pennsylvania will probably go to Kerry. Ohio is more iffy. Bush won it in 2000 and stands a decent chance of winning it in 2004 although he trails by 2% using the average of the Zogby and Gallup polls taken Oct. 28-31. Thus after 4 years of campaigning, more money spent on attack ads than the gross national product of small countries, and an exhausted electorate, what do we have? In the immortal words of Yogi Berra: "It's deja vu all over again." The whole thing comes down to Florida. where Kerry currently holds a tenuous 48% to 47% lead according to the most recent poll, from Zogby. The reality is that everything depends on turnout, how many voting machines fail, and how much monkey business happens. Oh, yeah. And there are those 10,000 lawyers ready to do what lawyers are trained to do--file lawsuits. If Bush picks up Florida and the two states that are tied (NH and NV), then Kerry wins 271 to 267, the same margin Gore should have lost by last time. Actually, he lost 271 to 266 because one Gore elector from D.C., Barbara Lett-Simmons cast a blank ballot in protest of D.C.'s not having representation in Congress. It could be to be a long night, especially if Bush picks up either Florida or Ohio and a couple of small Kerry states in the East or Midwest, so everything depends on New Mexico. As I have discussed repeatedly, normally people with a cell phone but no landline are not polled. Most of these are in the 18-29 year old group. Up until now, no one has known how their absence from the polling data might affect the results. Zogby has now conducted a very large (N = 6039) poll exclusively on cell phones using SMS messaging to get a feeling of how they will vote. The results are that they go strongly for Kerry, 55% to 40%, with a margin of error of only 1.2%. If they all vote tomorrow, the pollsters are going to spend the rest of the week wiping egg from their faces. But historically, younger voters have a miserable turnout record, so the pollsters need not yet stock up on paper towels. Here are some things to remember about voting. Read carefully. Your vote could decide this election. Find out today where your polling place is by calling your county clerk or checking www.mypollingplace.com Alternatively, call 1-866-MYVOTE1 to find your polling place. Check the hours the polls are open with your city or county clerk. Print the League of Women Voters' card in English or Spanish and put it in your wallet or purse. Bring a government-issued picture ID like a driver's license or passport when you vote. Some states require it but if there are problems, you will certainly need it. If you have a cell phone, take it to call for help if need be. As you enter the polls, note if there is an Election Protection person outside the polling place. If you are not on listed as a registered voter, try to register on the spot. Some states allow that. Otherwise, talk to the Election Protection person if there is one or call 1-866-OUR-VOTE for instructions. If neither of these helps, ask for a provisional ballot, but you will need a picture ID to get one. For other election resources, see the League of Women Voters website. Your vote counts. Don't let anyone take it away from you.A For the longer term, we need voting machines we can trust. One group working on this is the Open voting consortium. If you want to help ensure fair voting in 2006, check out their website.  . . . In the event of another attack on the Website, please try www.electoral-vote3.com, www.electoral-vote4.com, www.electoral-vote4.com, etc. But stick with the main site if it works. After an update, half a dozen 60-MB files get shipped all over the country and it takes a while to get there, so the main site is always more up to date. I just upgraded each of the main servers to 2 GB each. They should be able to handle 500-1000 requests/sec each now. [Electoral Vote Predictor 2004] 5:51:51 AM    comment []

Electoral geek supreme. Electoral-vote.com's anonymous tallier outs himself as a pioneer of open-source operating systems. [Salon.com] 5:48:21 AM    comment []

PENTULTIMATE. "Where Evil Meets Stupid" "Which is exactly why this was no necessary." "It is clear from what we saw in the Appalachians that the populism of the US right no longer feeds mainly on racism...or on xenophobia. On the contrary it draws on resentment fuelled by the upper classes’ undisguised contempt for those not in the know. This particular kind of populism almost exclusively targets the cultural elite; it does not target business. This con trick is only possible because the smugness of those in the know is even more insufferable than the insolence of the rich." "Serge Halimi", Le Monde Diplomatique I distrust the translation of this article, and find the idea that racism and xenophobia no longer serve as major drivers (and he forgets homophobia entirely) but there's nonetheless something very interesting here. I think we might even be seeing it in some of the response to that poll of academics. Could there be such things as entirely postmodern fulcra of resentment? [Gibson Blog] 5:48:15 AM    comment []

FCW: NSA plans security "Manhattan Project". [Hack the Planet] 5:45:02 AM    comment []

Al Franken is having a blast. On CNN [NewsIsFree: Popular Items] 5:44:56 AM    comment []