Posts from — September 2004

With the US presidential elections drawing closer by the day, here’s a look at the various forms of electronic/computerized voting systems in use across the world.

It looks at the Smartmatic machines used in Venezuela, which uses fingerprint tracking and paper receipts to keep fraud down. Then it checks out the EVMs used in India, which are nothing but electronic counters that simply store a count of the votes polled. The article also evaluates the first steps taken by Australia by introducing eVACS, built with open-source software with a hope of inspiring trust in its voting system.

While foreign voting systems are certainly far from perfect, both supporters and detractors of e-voting agree that the United States can learn some important lessons from parts of the world that have not been historically associated with sophisticated voting technologies.

I agree with that view. Instead of trying to hope for a perfect system, I feel the US should’ve gone ahead with some proven ideas from either the Indian or the Venezuelan polls. With all the cribbing about the security, only 31% of US voters would actually vote electronically (using the controversial Diebold machines, I presume) in the elections later this year.

Imran Khan has apparently blamed Pervez Musharraf for the breakup of his marriage with Jemima Goldsmith…

“Jemima’s spirit was broken by personal attacks on her by the regime of Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, in a bid to sink me,” Imran told Hello magazine.

“I think she gave up. She thought it was a never-ending struggle and she didn’t believe I would make it.”

[source: Indian Express]

Egad!! … that has to be the most pathetic excuse for a marriage breaking up that I’ve ever heard!!

Pakistan’s military dictator (of course he’s a dictator… don’t kid yourselves into thinking otherwise!) Pervez Musharraf gave a speech to expat Pakistanis in Washington. In parts, it was a speech to rival anything that George W. Bush could ever come up with!

Asserting “we speak better English than the Indians,” Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf said that the trend of outsourcing jobs to India from the US was soon going to change.

…

He urged them (Pakistanis) to stand up for Pakistan and counter criticism, “even if it (criticism) is right”

…

Musharraf also promised to build the world’s tallest building in Pakistan.

..

“We have neglected culture in favour of agriculture,” he said.

But then he also mentioned some very sensible things like…

“We must reject terrorism and extremism because we alone will be the losers if we don’t,” he said.

Well… I hope he meant it. Though I wouldn’t bet on it!

Suddenly, there seems to be a proliferation of bad jokes in the Indian blogosphere… more so amongst the cap-wearing, pomegranate-consuming members of an infamous cartel.

Even though I’m not one of the Cartelian sub-ordinates… I have, in my time, come up with some groaners. And so, from my archives, here are a couple of such lame-ass jokes guaranteed to cause indigestion!!

[Read more →]

I get a feeling that this article is almost an apologetic justification by the author for having sent his son abroad for studies…

I am one of those who have sent off one son and am wondering if I may have to send off the other fellow as well. I don’t want to, but I am fearful that I may have no choice.

Many of my friends and colleagues are in the same boat. Inevitably, we exchange notes. And it turns out that most of us send the kids with great reluctance.

Is it only me or does anyone else feel that way too?