Category: In the News

This photo amuses me every time I see it. Click it to get the full-size version, suitable for desktop wallpaper.

Almost as stilted as her scenes with Hayden Christensen.

Here in Canada, we vote in our federal elections using a paper ballot that is standardized across the country; aside from the candidate names, the ballot looks the same no matter where you vote (for more details, see this entry). While this requires a manual counting system, it also has the added benefit of it being much harder to tamper with the results.

In the US, balloting systems vary by region: some ballots are on paper, either marked by hand or punched by voting machine, but some votes are purely electronic. The problem with the electronic systems as they are currently implemented is that they don’t leave a paper trail.

Manufacturers of electronic voting machines like Diebold insist that it’s too hard to add a paper trail system to these machines. This is a bit of a curiosity, considering that Diebold also manufactures ATMs, which are capable of provide paper receipts for each transaction and since cash registers have been able to keep a paper log of everything for decades. It’s also troubling, as voting machine manufacturers have meddled with standards organizations and Diebold’s CEO is active in partisan fundraising (he once wrote in a campaign pitch to Republicans that his company was “committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president”).

The blog Black Box Voting covers this issue regularly. Their most recent entry has a great graphic taken from the Washington Post — it compares Las Vegas slot machines with voting machines. Which one’s the bigger gamble?

It reads like a headline from The Onion, but apparently it’s a true story.

Okay, it’s really actor Andreas Katsulas who died on Monday at the age of 59. However, in spite of his other roles, including the recurring character of Romulan Commander Tomalak on Star Trek: The Next Generation, opposite Kurt Russell in Executive Decision, as the One-Armed Man in the movie version of The Fugitive and as Joey Venza in Someone to Watch Over Me, I’ll always remember him as Babylon 5’s Narn Ambassador G’Kar, one of the best characters and actors to appear on the series. He played the role well as the G’Kar character transformed from bitter and revenge-obsessed to enlightened and spiritual, and there was no better on Babylon 5 to administer the Warner Brothers cartoon “Nose in the Book Penalty” in live action than he.

Rest in peace, Mr. Katsulas. May you always get the best lines wherever you may be.

(Non-Canadian readers: the guy in the right panels is incoming Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who will form a minority government.)

Today is February 2nd, which is:

• Groundhog Day
• Candlemas
• The 16th anniversary of the end of Apartheid in South Africa

It’s also a busy day for me, but luckily I’ve got a guest wrtier coming in to fill the void. Eldon Brown attended Tuesday’s reading at the Gladstone featuring Katrina “How Happy to Be” Onstad and Canada’s most notorious non-new columnist, the pretty but oh-so-painfully self-involved Leah “The Continuity Girl” McLaren. I’ll post it shortly.