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Wednesday, April 18, 2007

In France, voting has traditionally been a low-tech experience: voters isolate themselves in a booth, put a pre-printed sheet of paper indicating their candidate of choice into an envelope. After officials verify the voter’s identity, the voter drops the envelope into the ballot box and signs the voting roll. French electoral law rather strictly codifies the proceedings. Since 1988, ballot boxes must be transparent so that voters and observers can witness that no envelopes are present at the start of the vote and that no envelopes are added except those of the duly counted and authorized voters. Candidates can send representatives to witness every part of the process. In the evening, votes are counted by volunteers under heavy supervision, following specific procedures.

In the past, voting machines, though authorized by law, were scarce. But this year, during presidential elections (the first round was April 22, the second is on May 6), the country is shaken by controversy about the machines intended to count about 1.5 million votes.

As in the United States, there is a group of academic computer scientists that oppose voting machines. They argue that voting machines replace a public, easily understandable counting process, where large-scale fraud would entail large-scale corruption, by an opaque process where votes are counted by machines that voters have to blindly trust. Voting machines have to be approved by the Ministry of the Interior, but this approval is based on confidential reports by private companies. Opponents to the machines point out that the Ministry was long held by Nicolas Sarkozy, who happens to be the leading candidate. Opponents also list a number of weaknesses and discrepancies that have occurred in other countries using voting machines.

All main political parties except UMP, Mr Sarkozy’s ruling party, oppose the voting machines. Some citizens have filed for court injunctions against the voting machines. Opponents have given detailed instructions that voting witnesses should check whether the machines correspond exactly to an approved type, including software versions, and fulfill all legal conditions. In a sign of the frenzy over the issue, on April 12 the Ministry of the Interior issued a last-minute authorization for a specific model (hardware, firmware). The stakes are high: votes on unapproved machines should be canceled by the Constitutional Council for the official count.

The opposition has crystallized on the Paris suburb of Issy-les-Moulineaux. Issy’s mayor, André Santini is a well-known technophile; his city organizes a “World E-Gov Forum”. Here too, last minute fixes are at work. The machines delivered to the city are of a yet-to-be-approved type. The manufacturer, the American company ES&S voting systems, is now delivering older 2005 machines. Le Monde reports that other municipalities have already replaced their recent machines by an older, approved, model.

Proponents of the machines, such as the French company France Élection, claim they are being defamed and dispute the competence of their critics. Elected officials supporting the machines claim the machines save on paper, time, and the need to find volunteers to count votes.

Tuesday, August 29, 2006

Last night the top four of Canadian Idol performed. Tyler Lewis, Chad Doucette, Craig Sharpe, and Eva Avila sang songs that were picked by the judges. They each performed twice in one hour. They are now awaiting Canadas vote for who should be eliminated.

When the show started the host had a quick chat with the judges:

Ben Mulroney: “What did you keep in mind when you made these selections?”

Jake Gold: “We thought let’s make them look good and at the same time challenge them.”

Ben Mulroney: “How hard was it to pick the songs for tonight?”

Sass Jordan: “We were fighting, we were yelling, we were screaming, we were singing…at the end

Ben Mulroney: “What do you think of this Top Four?”

Farley Flex: “We’ve got four distinct talents, four distinct styles and four really cool names that everybody is going to hear about next year in the music industry.”

Ben Mulroney: “Is this the time where range and versatility come into play?”

Zack Werner: “It’s all fantastic material…tonight is the night where you either put up or you Ben Mulroney.”

“When we made the selections, we thought let’s make them look good and at the same time challenge them,” said Idol judge Jake Gold at the beginning of the show.

“I was all ready to go ‘he shoots, he scores,’ but you came out really flat in the third period,” said Idol judge Zack Werner when he was judging Tyler Lewis’ first performance of the night.

The results show will be featuring a special guest performance from last year’s Top 2 competitor, Rex Goudie of Burlington, Newfoundland.

Monday, August 27, 2012

London, England — As Paralympians ready for the Games which are set to open later this week, they have access to a world class fitness center inside the Paralympic Village which is designed to maximise their pre-Game preparations.

According to volunteers staffing the center, instead of being a single large room, as in Beijing, the building has numerous rooms. It, along with the adjacent Village Services Centre, is designed to be converted into a school after the games conclude. Rooms have been structured as a gym, an auditorium, and science laboratories.

Gym equipment is supplied by Technogym, an Italian firm that has supplied gym equipment for the Olympics since 2000. Equipment has been provided not just for for the Fitness Centre, but for gyms at all the Olympic venues. The newest equipment is oriented toward maximum flexibility, allowing athletes to exercise the particular muscles that they most require for their sport.

In addition to the equipment, the Fitness Centre also provides instructors trained in the use of the equipment, the likes of which athletes from many countries have never seen before. There are also a number of instructors available to provide motivational training.

Sunday, January 27, 2008

Viktor Schreckengost, the father of industrial design and creator of the Jazz Bowl, an iconic piece of Jazz Age art designed for Eleanor Roosevelt during his association with Cowan Pottery died yesterday. He was 101.

Schreckengost was born on June 26, 1906 in Sebring, Ohio, United States.

Schreckengost’s peers included the far more famous designers Raymond Loewy and Norman Bel Geddes.

In 2000, the Cleveland Museum of Art curated the first ever retrospective of Schreckengost’s work. Stunning in scope, the exhibition included sculpture, pottery, dinnerware, drawings, and paintings.

Sunday, April 1, 2007

A magnitude 8.1 undersea earthquake triggered a tsunami that has killed at least fifteen people, including six children, in the Solomon Islands. Tsunami warnings have been issued for parts of Australia as well.

According to the US Geological Survey, the magnitude 8.0 quake struck Sunday, April 1, 2007 at 20:39:56 (UTC) about 45 km (25 mi) south-southeast of Gizo, New Georgia Islands, Solomon Islands, at a depth of 10 km.

Saturday, June 20, 2009

For the past ten years, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has been overseeing the asbestos clean-up in the small town of Libby, Montana, which has been on the EPA’s Superfund National Priorities List since 2002.

On Wednesday, the Obama administration declared Libby and the immediate area a “public health emergency”. Under this state of emergency the EPA is increasing clean-up assistance and medical care. According to federal prosecutors, asbestos has taken 200 lives and is the root cause of at least 1,000 illnesses in the surrounding area.

“This is a tragic public health situation that has not received the recognition it deserves by the federal government for far too long,” according to EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson.

In the 1920’s The Zonolite Company began producing vermiculite, a mineral that is often used in insulation. Between 1963 and 1990, W.R. Grace & Company took over the mine operations. Tremolite asbestos was discovered in the vermiculite product. A study conducted by the Agency for Toxic Substance and Disease Registry discovered that the incidence of asbestosis in the population of the mine site area is far higher than the national average.

Airborne asbestos exposure can lead to mesothelioma, a cancer which develops in the sac surrounding the lungs and chest cavity, the abdominal cavity, or the sac surrounding the heart. Prolonged exposure can lead to lung scarring, asbestosis, and lung cancer. Patients diagnosed with malignant mesothelioma generally are left with six months to a year before death.

The tremolite dust from the mine began leaking into the air from the plant in 1919. This resulted in a hazy asbestos dust cloud covering lawns, cars, clothing, and school athletic fields, creating an issue that citizens of Libby had to deal with on an everyday basis. The large amount of dust gave the impression of the aftereffects of a light sandstorm.

W. R. Grace and Company did not deny that asbestos was found contaminating the vermiculite in the old mine. They said they proceeded in a responsible manner to clean up contamination following the mine closure. Grace will reimburse the EPA for US$250 million of the US$333 million that the EPA and the Department of Health and Human Services has set aside for medical expenses and asbestos clean-up. This money will be invested over the next five years, and does not include the millions in medical costs already footed by the company for residents of Libby and the nearby town of Troy.

“Today is the day that after years of work we were able to succeed in getting this [emergency declaration] done,” Senator from Montana Max Baucus said, speaking at the EPA press conference. “We will continue to push until Libby has a clean bill of health.”

Thursday, March 15, 2007

Kids will have to look elsewhere for educational entertainment, after the European Commission received complaints that the British Broadcasting Corporation’s website was “unfair competition” to the commercial online games market.

The site, called BBC jam, will be suspended on March 20, 2007, pending review, per the BBC Trust.

BBC jam offers educationally-oriented games aimed at 5 to 16-year-olds, created with an operating budget of £150 million (US$290 million) over five years, US$85 million of which allocated to independent content producers. The government funded service is formally requesting proposals on how it should promote education and learning digitally, without being “non-compliant”.

NUT Cymru, a Welsh teachers’ union, is worried about the closure.

Both NUT Cymru and the Welsh Assembly Goverment have questioned the extent to which commercial firms would step in and fulfill the terms of the Welsh Language Act 1993.

Thursday, September 15, 2005

Among its many ongoing research studies, the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) National Plant Materials Center (NPMC), in Beltsville, Maryland, is researching native, ornamental, perennial plants which are tolerant of hot, droughty conditions. The end result of this research is to promote city gardening in the Washington/Baltimore metro area and to eventually expand to the entire mid-Atlantic region.

“The use of native plants are beneficial to the region in that they are already adapted to the cultural conditions present in city environments and are unlikely to displace other native-plant communities,” said Shawn Belt, Horticulturalist at the NPMC. “And, not only do these native plants add to the diversity of inner-city plant materials they encourage wildlife as well.”

Working with NRCS conservationists for Washington, DC, the NPMC has recently installed a “butterfly garden” a native-plant garden at the Myrtilla Miner Elementary School in NE Washington DC. According to Belt, Washington, DC typically has poor soils so this site will be a good evaluation for hot, dry conditions.

“Since there are no farms in DC to award contracts for the various NRCS cost share programs, NRCS does award cost share for schools in order to educate students to the benefits of using native plants in city landscapes,” said Belt.

NRCS conservationists have been encouraging teachers to install butterfly gardens with cost-share money from the Environmental Quality Incentives Programs (EQIP) to help with the costs of installing these gardens.

While working with the school to install the native-plant garden, NRCS employees will evaluate the performance of the plants over the next 3 years. Additionally, evaluations will be continued in other areas of Washington, DC in order to replicate the “experiment” in differing locations.

Tuesday, May 15, 2007

According to the Christian Post, Don Levine, the creator of the G.I. Joe, will be creating a line of action figures based on characters from the Old Testament. Released this month are action figures of Samson, David, Noah, Moses, and dolls of Queen Esther and Deborah the Warrior. The toys come with their own Bible storybook. By the fall, the line will expand to 35 products. Levine has began developing a DVD series and television show.

While certainly not the first action figures, dolls, or animated programs based on Biblical characters, it is perhaps the first to launch with a full-fledged licensing program. Already a comic book, narrated CDs, wallet, flashing pins, dog tags, and necklaces have been released.

Levine created G.I. Joe for Mattel in 1963, after a licensing agent suggested soldier figures might have the same success as their Barbie line.

Monday, February 20, 2006

The New Zealand government has announced that it will be reviewing funding for medical and dentistry students at Otago and Auckland Universities to certify the institutions’ standards and help staff retention.

The dean of Auckland University’s Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences, Professor Iain Martin says the review “can’t come soon enough”.

The Medical Students Association welcomes the review. It says that it has been worried about student debt for years “High debt encourages too many graduates overseas, or into high paying areas of practice at the expense of areas like general practice”