Wednesday, April 03, 2019

Senators demand to know why election vendors still sell voting machines with ‘known vulnerabilities’


Courtesy of Gabbie who is walking the streets of Berlin this month ... Jessica Wapner writes in the New Yorker about the research into how border walls affect the people living near them.

In the nineteen-sixties, Dietfried Müller-Hegemann wrote as though the physical presence of the Berlin Wall were itself the cause of wall disease. But most psychologists who study borders today see a more abstract relationship between those structures and mental health. Christine Leuenberger, a sociologist at Cornell University who has studied walls around the world, says that barriers are best thought of as part of a “wall system.” That system includes both physical markers, such as no-go areas and checkpoints, and ripple effects, such as job loss and the breakdown of social networks.


Uber drivers demand their data Economist  This could be fun. Users could demand data too…

A Foreign Policy Without War or Corporate Power New Republic

Voluntary tax compliance. Service & culture. Cooperation between ...




'A strong campaigner': the beauty of Wikipedia

  • by Kylar Loussikian and Samantha Hutchinson



Equifax and FICO selling consumer data to banks



Barron’s: “Equifax (ticker: EFX), the credit reporting company, is planning to team up with Fair Isaac (ticker FICO), the creator of the FICO credit score, to sell consumer data to banks, the companies said Wednesday. The goal of the partnership is to take Equifax’s troves of data on millions of Americans and “connecting it and embedding with FICO’s differentiated software,” Equifax CEO Mark Begor told Barron’s in an interview Wednesday. “It really allows companies to more easily absorb data.”…


The Conversation

Pressing ahead with its infrastructure projects poses challenges for the re-elected Berejiklian government.










Victor Hochhauser, 95, Impresario Who Brought Great Performers From Behind The Iron Curtain To London



He was the first in Britain to stage operas for mass audiences in arenas, and his Sunday concerts at the Royal Albert Hall (though they irked critics) drew many newcomers to classical music. But he and his wife, Lilian, were best known for presenting the best musicians and artists from the Soviet Union — Oistrakh, Rostropovich, Richter, the Bolshoi and Kirov Ballets, and many more. – The Guardian









China Allows Cinemas To Screen ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, But Only With The Gay Parts Removed



“Several minutes of footage were edited out of the film, including scenes of two men kissing and the word ‘gay’. There has been significant reaction to the film’s release online. … Though some [social media] users complained of ‘half watching and half guessing’ as a result of the deleted scenes, others were pleased the film had been released at all.” – BBC


Sydney councillors referred to corruption watchdog over China trip

Senators demand to know why election vendors still sell voting machines with ‘known vulnerabilities’ TechCrunch: “Four senior senators have called on the largest U.S. voting machine makers to explain why they continue to sell devices with “known vulnerabilities,” ahead of upcoming critical elections. The letter, sent Wednesday, calls on election equipment makers ES&S, Dominion Voting and Hart InterCivic to explain why they continue to sell decades-old machines, which the senators say contain security flaws that could undermine the results of elections if exploited. “The integrity of our elections is directly tied to the machines we vote on,” said the letter sent by Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Mark Warner (D-VA), Jack Reed (D-RI) and Gary Peters (D-MI), the most senior Democrats on the Rules, Intelligence, Armed Services and Homeland Security committees, respectively. “Despite shouldering such a massive responsibility, there has been a lack of meaningful innovation in the election vendor industry and our democracy is paying the price,” the letter adds. Their primary concern is that the three companies have more than 90 percent of the U.S. election equipment market share but their voting machines lack paper ballots or auditability, making it impossible to know if a vote was accurately counted in the event of a bug. Yet, these are the same devices tens of millions of voters will use in the upcoming 2020 presidential election…”




Who Pays When Polluting Companies Shut Down? Capital & Main

‘I’m really struggling’ — Facing pay cuts, some ride-hailing drivers p

repare to strike LA Times
HOW PUBLIC-PRIVATE PARTNERSHIPS ARE KILLING US Who What Why




Tax refinement, and not a ‘living wage’, would be the most direct and effective ways to fight household poverty, argues John Freebairn.
Department of Prime Minister & Cabinet
The Secretaries Equality and Diversity Council met on 15 March to discuss practical initiatives to build a more inclusive and diverse APS.