Cory Doctorow is a brilliant author. He’s also one of the editors at bOINGbOING, and works for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an organization that I value greatly, and encourage you all to join.
I guess I sort of know Cory, because we’re both Disney weenies and privacy advocates. He also “called” my boxing match with Barney last year at DNA lounge. Cory e-mailed me this a call to action earlier today. To be honest, I was *stunned* when I saw the other people he’d sent it to . . . I’m in some very good company!
I figure that I spent enough time this summer pimpin’ my book. Now I can try to raise awareness about a very important issue. Nothing less than the future of electronic voting (and all that implies for the democratic process) is at stake.
Read on . . .
IEEE members: save democracy from a broken standards-committee!
The IEEE, normally the sobersided epitome of integrity and accountability, has had one of its standards-committees jump the tracks. The people who are writing the IEEE standard for voting machines have been doing their best to rig their deliberative process to exclude input from non-vendors who want the standard to include performance metrics that will guard against electoral malfeasance. This is heavy stuff: the standard this committee produces will likely form the basis of the US goverment’s voting-machine purchases (as well as those of governments abroad), and if there are holes in the standard today, they will be biting our democracies on the ass for decades. There’s never been a clearer demonstration that “architecture is politics.”

IEEE is better than this. If you’re a member of the organization, please take a moment to read up on this disaster-in-the-making and then use the form at the EFF’s action-center to write to the IEEE and ask them to investigate this — before it’s too late.

…instead of using this opportunity to create a performance standard, setting benchmarks for e-voting machines to meet with regards to testing the security, reliability, accessibility and accuracy of these machines, P1583 created a design standard, describing how electronic voting machines should be configured (and following the basic plans of most current electronic voting machines). Even more problematic, the standard fails to require or even recommend that voting machines be truly voter verified or verifiable, a security measure that has broad support within the computer security community.

To make matters worse, EFF has received reports of serious procedural problems with the P1538 and SCC 38 Committee processes, including shifting roadblocks placed in front of those who wish to participate and vote, and failure to follow basic procedural requirements. We’ve heard claims that the working group and committee leadership is largely controlled by representatives of the electronic voting machine vendor companies and others with vested interests.

More info from the EFF here.
If you’ve made it this far, and you’re scratching your head a bit, read this. The Accordion Guy puts this into layman’s terms MUCH better than I could.

UPDATE: Avast! I be a day early! Some scurvy bilgerat scutterd off w’me sextant! Tomorrow be t’day, but t’entry be in port a day early, ya dawgs. YARR!
Ahoy there, me WWdN mateys! Today be talk like a pirate day! In honoro’this grand occasion, I be writin’ today in PIRATE! Yarr!
Since I was 14, I’ve had an annual passt’Disneyland. me best bucko Darin and I got our passes t’at t’same time, as Xmas gifts from his mom.
Throughout our teenage years, we wentt’Disneyland (or “t’kin’dom” as we called it in a desperate attemptt’sound cool) hundredso’times. In winter, we’d head downt’Anaheim late on Sunday afternoons, and stay until t’park closed at midnight. There’s somethin’ wonderful about Disneyland late at night when it’s mostly empty. For me, that’s when Disneyland feels t’most “magical.” Shiver me timbers!
When I was about 18 or 19, I let me pass lapse, and didn’t renew it until a coupleo’years ago. These days, Anne and I sneak down thar once or twice a month — usually while t’sprogs be in school — and I still get down thar with Darin from timet’time.
T’last time I was thar, while I was walkin’ under what usedt’be t’People Mover, I looked at t’abandoned Submarine Lagoon, and noticed for t’first time that t’waterfalls were turned off . . . and realized that Tomorrowland sucks. Yarrr!
As I pondered t’change in Tomorrowland, and lamented t’losso’T’People Mover, Misisont’Mars, t’huge Arcade, and t’movin’o’t’rocket ships downt’t’ground, I felt sad . . . because Disneyland should be a place where time stands still, aye.
It should be a place that’s more or less timeless, where an adult can reconnect to his childhood in a tactile way. I’m not suggestin’ that Disneyland shouldn’t take advantageo’new technologies and let t’park evolve in certain ways . . . look at how great t’Indiana Jones ride be . . . but by takin’ just about everythin’ I loved about Tomorrowland, and replacin’ it with t’likeso’t’Rocket Rods and Innoventions, Disney has effectively removed a childhood touchstone from me life! Yaaarr!!
T’one areao’t’park that’s almost exactly t’same way it was when I was a kid be New Orleans Square, so it’s no surprise that me favorite rideso’all time be thar: T’Pirateso’t’Caribbean, and T’Haunted Mansion.
I love Pirates so much, I be willin’t’overlook Disney’s stupid political-correct-izin’o’t’ride a few years ago. And I’m such a Nightmare before Christmas geek, t’Haunted Holiday just makes t’mansion that much better for me, ya swabbies.
I think it’s importantt’have some childhood touchstones, even if they be at amusement parks . . . when grown-up life gets me down, I can escape for a few hours down at T’Kin’dom. I can ride t’Mansion and recall t’three or four times I got t’couraget’ask a lasst’ride t'”make out” ride with me, even though I was always too nerdy and shyt’actually make out. I can ride Pirates and remember all t’times Darin and I rode it in a row, when we were tryin’t’learn all t’dialogue. (“Shift your cargo,Ahoy!ie. Show ’em your larboard side . . . “)
I think that Disney could do somethin’ really coolt’Tomorrowland, if they closed it down and revamped it, t’way they did with Fantasyland aft in t’80s. Can you imagine how cool it would be if they rebuilt itt’more-or-less resemble t’Tomorrowlando’t’60s? A Tomorrowland that was flush with optimism and excitement? When t’Adventure into Innerspace terrified me, because I was certain that it wouldn’t be ablet’restore met’me original size? When t’Missiont’Mars was so hokey . . . but that just made it more fun?
Hey, let me have me dreams, ya scurvy bilgerats!
There’s a great big beautiful tomorrow, shinin’ at t’endo’every day . . . a pirate’s life for meeeee!”

I mentioned before I left for the Dodger game that I’d hosed my audioblog . . . turns out my cell phone just wasn’t sending the right DTMF tones.
Stupid cell phone. Anyone know where to get one of those cool Verizon camera phones on the cheap? I gotta replace mine.
Anyhow, I sort of fulfilled a childhood dream at the game . . . I called half of an inning! It’s the top of the 5th, and the Dodgers are trailing 2-0. The first ten seconds or so of this are all garbled (thank you busted cell phone) but the rest it entertaining. To me, at least.
There’s a stupid post, and a post-game post here.

I mowed the lawn yesterday afternoon for the first time in since June.
Now, you have to understand something about my lawn: I love my lawn. I’m talking sing-songs-to-it-at-night love. I’ve invested a few thousand dollars in it, and about fifteen tons of heart and soul. There’s a lot of sweat, too, but thinking about all that sweat pooled around on the grass is just gross, so I’m not going to talk about the sweat.
It’s not easy for me to let just anybody care for it, but this summer, since we were going to be gone so much, we hired this “gardener,” guy that some of our neighbors use to mow it and make sure the lawn was taken care of. A really nice guy, but more of a “mow and blow” guy than anything else.
Well.
The gardener mowed my lawn . . . and the results blow. Over summer, my lawn got cut way too short, caught a fungus, got sunburned in the middle, and ugly spots of St. Augustine are currently popping up through the formerly pristine Marathon II.
So the gardener has been demoted to just the back yard, which has been in various stages of death and weed infestation since we moved in, anyway, and I’m currently nursing my beloved front lawn back to health.
It was surprisingly soothing and satisfying to take care of the lawn myself. In the past, I’ve always felt like it was a major chore . . . but yesterday, it was different. I put on my iPod, and listened to The Smiths while I cut it in a cool diagonal, pseudo-outfield pattern. The smell of freshly-cut grass always reminds me of growing up, and the iPod provided me with some much-needed isolation while I worked.
About halfway through the job, “Big Mouth Strikes Again” came on, and it reminded me of my awesome Route 66 road trip to Tulsa with Anne. I remember listening to Fred and singing that song with her in Texas or New Mexico or something.
That trip . . . it really was the best trip ever. When I organize all the pictures we took (look for them to be added to the gallery in a few days), I hope I can dramatize the whole trip and make it a story. Something for Dancing Barefoot II: Electric Boogaloo.
Heh.
When I came inside, I went to listen to the audio blog, so I could jog my memory . . . and I discovered that it’s gone, and I can’t login to my blogger account or my audblog account! I wasn’t 100% thrilled with the stuff I produced . . . but I miss it, now.
Dammit.
Ferris wants to eat. Ha! Not for another 25 minutes, baby! I’m MAD with Aplha Male power!!
*cackle*
I get to go to the Dodger game with my mom and dad tonight. Not only that, but I get to sit just two rows above the Dodger Dugout! So if you’re watching the game on TV, you may catch a glimpse of my smilin’ mug (or crying, if the Dodgers stay true to form).
UPDATE: Alert WWdN reader Mugsy just pointed out that the audioblog is still there. It must have been a network error when I tried to access it. Now if I can just get into my audioblog . . . 🙂

This is one of the funniest blogs I’ve ever read.
Por Ejemplo:

Thursday, September 11, 2003

Lullabuy
by Jessica Delfino
This is the lullabuy my mother used to sing to me when I was a little girl.
Slow tempo in C
You should go to sleep right now
You should go to sleep right now
Close your eyes and rest your head
I’ll tuck your body into bed
Be glad that you are young right now
because It just gets worse from here

Take some time and read this site. She’s a brilliant writer.