Source(ery) code

DIE HARD III

Herman Tiu Laurel

5/13/2013

Daily Tribune

The Commission on Elections' (Comelec) promised source code finally arrives in Manila less than a week before Election Day. Coming three years after it should have been delivered to the voting public for inspection and put in escrow at the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, it is now too late to subject it to serious scrutiny. This much has been pointed out by Philippine Computer Society president Toti Casiño, a view backed not only by the organization's 3,000 members but also by various groups such as the Automated Election System Watch (AES Watch) and many others. Similarly, the Facebook commentaries of internet activist Adriano Solomon, which point out that the precinct count optical scan (PCOS) machines for today's elections had been sent out by the thousands with their source codes since April, question if there is any similarity between these and the source code now said to have been delivered by Dominion Voting Systems.

Other than a face-saving gesture for the Comelec and Smartmatic, the Dominion Voting Systems' delivery of this source code is totally meaningless and downright insulting to the intelligence of the public. Comelec Chairman Sixto Brillantes had the usual temerity to say, "All those who say that there is no source code should now keep their peace," when it was he who had dilly-dallied on it. The question now is whether the source code (either for 2010 or today) is reliable, trustworthy, and conforms to the automated elections law — something that cannot be as it has yet to undergo public scrutiny.
Dominion Voting Systems, for its part, is also being very dubious for delaying the source code delivery, which, if likened to a basketball game, was made only in the last 10 seconds.
Have Dominion and Smartmatic been playing cat-and-mouse game with the Filipino people all along with their Delaware court suit to cover for a suspected 2010 election fraud, which will continue for as long as we use their PCOS system?

Stranger still was the sum of money that had to be forked out for Dominion's delivery. According to news reports, it was put into effect only after Smartmatic agreed to pay $10 million — an amount first offered by Brillantes, which had to be retracted as Comelec was later claimed to have no budget for it.
Even if it appears that Smartmatic had paid for it, this episode clearly demonstrates that the PCOS election system (under then Chairman Jose Melo in 2010 and now Brillantes) has reduced Philippine elections into a process by which foreign companies can hold the country's democracy hostage and release it only upon payment of ransom. But even more skeptical and technically capable minds go deeper than the scandalous financial aspect of the Dominion-Smartmatic scenario. Information Technology Foundation of the Philippines (ITFP) president Maricor Akol once commented that Dominion may be very coy about the source code as its examination may reveal manipulation for BS Aquino III by the United States.

Questions about conflict-of-interest voting machine companies have come to light in the US where many of these companies are based. As one site, The Landes Report, writes: "Foreigners, convicted criminals, office holders, political candidates, and news media organizations can and do own these companies. It appears that these companies are dominated by members of the Republican Party and foreign investors… Sequoia (UK), Accenture/Election.com (UK-Bermuda), EVS (Japan) and N.V. Nederlandsche Apparatenfabriek (Netherlands). Election.com was formerly owned by Osan Ltd., a Saudi Arabian firm. Many voting machine companies appear to share managers, investors and equipment which raises questions of conflict-of-interest and monopolistic practices." So who are really behind Smartmatic, which has frequently misrepresented itself, and Dominion?

Popular US Establishment critic Alex Jones of Prison Planet wrote an article ("CIA-owned voting machines ensure Bush victory in 2004") where he stated that the "American vote-count is controlled by three major corporate players — Diebold, ES&S and Sequoia (all bought out by Dominion)… These companies… glitch-riddled systems… technology that leaves no paper trail at all… are almost laughably open to manipulation, according to corporate whistle-blowers and computer scientists at Stanford, Johns Hopkins and other universities." The prize for the US in controlling Philippine elections is subversion of the very leadership positions of the country without having to start a costly local invasion such as in Afghanistan or Syria, and getting the success of the BangsaMoro, Moro Islamic Liberation Front, Exxon-Mobil, Mindanao-Sulu Sea oil plot, along with diplomatic coups and tensions against China, etc.

Toti Casiño, in my GNN show, concluded with me that Philippine elections using the PCOS are simply circuses. My other guest who gave his usual "fearful forecast," Linggoy Alcuaz, agreed, saying that the "constitutional circus" starts with the manipulated voter preference surveys (where certain bets are favored with top rankings in early surveys to give them an early boost) and ends with the manipulated PCOS elections.

Although Philippine elections had always been manipulated, particularly from the time of Ramon Magsaysay when the CIA's Edward Landsdale set up the National Citizens' Movement for Free Elections to defeat recalcitrant Elpidio Quirino and for the American Manufacturers Association-funded Diosdado Macapagal to defeat "Filipino First" President Carlos P. Garcia, their manipulation has become infinitely more sophisticated with today's "source(ery) code."

We can take David Niven's advice to "Keep the circus going inside you, keep it going, don't take anything too seriously, it'll all work out in the end." Or we can start wising up by reading Stefan Halper's The Beijing Consensus: How China's Authoritarian Model Will Dominate the Twenty-first Century.

(Tune in to 1098 AM, Tuesday to Friday, 5 p.m. to 6 p.m.; watch GNN Destiny Cable Channel 8, Saturday, 8:00 p.m. and replay Sunday, 8 a.m.; also visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com)

The US and Isra-Hell

DIE HARD III

Herman Tiu Laurel

5/8/2013

Daily Tribune

The latest travesty of International Law is committed by Israel, a country which this space will now always refer to as Isra-Hell, the deputy in the Middle East of the US imperialists. When this space refers to the US, it is about its ruling class and not its people. All people of the world are essentially peace loving and desiring only prosperity. What human being would not want that, for all people are mothers and fathers and want life and liberty for their children. Iran's late leader (and to my mind one of Mankind's great moral-political teachers) Ayatollah Khomeini calls the US the "Iblis" (Diabolis — the primary devil in Islam) or the Great Satan, and when we review the history of the US from the 19th Century down we can see the evolution of the Great Satan to its present, pre-eminent evil and destructive hegemonism. It has half the world doing its evil bidding of promoting wars, death and destruction.

In the past week and without provocation Isra-Hell attacked the Syrian Republic, destroyed defense facilities and reportedly killed 42 Syrian soldiers in the bombing assault using depleted uranium ordnance. US denials of its pre-knowledge of the attack is only laughed at by analysts, and only fools would accept Isra-Hell's claim that their attack is justified by its claim they bombed Syrian anti-aircraft missiles being delivered to Hezbollah in Lebanon. Isra-Hell has never shown proof. Reports leaked from Isra-Hell and the US initially claimed the attack was on transport convoys making the deliveries, but photos and videos from social media and the Syrian government now acknowledged to be indisputable shows Isra-Hell's bombs defense infrastructure of Syria (if in the Philippines, like hitting Camp Aguinaldo) which every country would have to defend itself against threats to the State.

Both Russia and China has protested the violation of the UN Charter by Isra-Hell's unprovoked attack on Syria. Significantly even the Arab League which has been at the forefront of the anti-Assad US-Nato-Isra-Hell crusades against the Assad government has been compelled to make an open and vocal stand against Isra-Hell's attack on Syria and called on the UN to stop the assaults on sovereign Syria. Egypt was especially adamant in condemning the attack and demanding that the UN take action. As expected, the UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-Moon in masterful hypocrisy and sycophancy to the US called "all sides to exercise maximum calm and restraint" when an aggressor has brazenly violated the UN laws and should issue a condemnation posthaste. The Philippines, if it takes it duty to the International Community seriously should also issue a firm condemnation of the attack.

The US and Isra-Hell has cultivated the cultural domination of the Philippines and Filipinos for a very long time. I hear stories of Filipino tourists visiting Isra-Hell being accorded special treatment by the government and its people there. Very few Filipinos know that Apartheid, against Palestinians, in Isra-Hell is often worse than what had prevailed in South Africa before; but Isra-Hell money is very generous to many Christian-Zionist groups in the Philippines and with the US behind it, very little of the truth comes out in Philippine media. Many Filipinos are enamored with the "success" of Isra-Hell, from the myths of its economic miracle to its Merkava and its Israel Defense Force prowess, but the $ 10-B military and economic/business aid it gets from the US and Europe (particularly Germany and its reparations) and the Western Power's military support are the real reasons for its so called "success" and not its genius.

The roots of Isra-Hell's powers go back to money, i.e. the World's most powerful bankers and the Rothschilds which in the 19th Century had spread its power through domination of banking and the British government. It led one British labor leader to say, "This blood-sucking crew has been the cause of untold mischief and misery in Europe during the present century, and has piled up its prodigious wealth chiefly through fomenting wars between States which ought never to have quarreled. Whenever there is trouble in Europe, wherever rumors of war circulate and men's minds are distraught with fear of change and calamity you may be sure that a hook-nosed Rothschild is at his games somewhere near the region of the disturbance."

A chronology of the Rothschilds narrate, "In 1895 Edmond James de Rothschild visited Palestine and supplies the funds to found the first Jewish colonies there… their long term objective of creating a Rothschild formed country." The British create the State of Israel while the Rothschild bankers also create the US Federal Reserve and control of US politics. Today, the bankers behind the Western financial-military-industrial complex desperately need new wars — and the Big War — to save their system and its ruling class. The challenge has come from secular, socialist, independent and nationalist States or those evolving toward that. The US-Nato/Isra-Hell combine has destroyed Yugoslavia in Europe, Iraq, Libya and now it is destroying the secular Syria. They're trying the same against Venezuela, in the Philippines they are completing the destruction with the Bangsa Moro entity. Ultimately, the targets are China and Russia. Filipinos must wake up and end its enslavement to the US and Isra-Hell. 

(Tune to 1098AM, 5 to 6 p.m., Tuesday to Friday; Destiny Cable, Channel 8, Saturday 8 p.m. and Sunday 8 a.m.: this week "Hocus PCOS elections: seeds of revolution"; visit: http//www.newkatipunero.blogspot.com)

Fears beyond 2013

DIE HARD III

Herman Tiu Laurel

5/6/2013

Daily Tribune

My youngest are twins. One is in Philosophy in DLSU who has delayed his graduation this year by taking fewer units, opting to work part-time. The other is a graduate of Journalism from UST and is already job-hunting while helping out in the family business. Deciding on either of their prospects has not been easy as starting pays don't look attractive. Having started driving regularly of late, the latter of my twins went along with me to my grocery trip a few days ago. While I was paying at the check-out counter, he scanned the bill and exclaimed, "How could these few things cost over a thousand?" Perhaps because he's now earning an allowance tending to one of the family's stores, he's beginning to understand the economic angst I've always discussed with the family over meals and how everyone should be ready to cope with harder times.

One recent headline reflects the worsening economic prospects ahead. Coming out on Labor Day, the report entitled, "Joblessness increases," centered on the recent jobs data culled by survey firm Social Weather Stations (SWS), which indicated that "Unemployment has picked up anew after an improvement seen at the end of last year… with one million more Filipinos joining the ranks of the jobless. At 25.4 percent, unemployment among Filipinos at least 18 years old was higher than December's 24.6 percent…" And the joblessness reports, particularly with respect to new labor entrants, just keep piling up.

Still, my journalism graduate son is undeterred. Seeking a job in reporting or writing, he apparently wants to prove that his skills can be of use in the market place. Indeed, after months of searching, he seems confident of landing a job in a transnational headhunting firm. His twin brother, meanwhile, is tending to their eldest brother's bar and is earning an income even if less than the minimum wage. As such, one of the frequent issues in our family's discussions is the electricity bill, particularly the use of air-conditioning units in the twins' separate rooms. With the first billing this summer doubling from the same period last year, awareness of the high power cost has finally seeped into the consciousness of all members of the family.

I am therefore no longer alone in my obsession to keep power cost tamed by turning off the lights whenever leaving any room and the sala; Or quitting the use of the water pressure pump for showers, opting for the tabo instead; Or sharing a single air-conditioner for two instead of going solo in one's room.
Indeed, the power price crisis is not going to go away even if the artificial power shortages created by the ruling powers are halted by everyone's (including the Mindanaoans') capitulation to the blackmail of using coal-fired plants instead of cheap hydroelectric power, under an abusive regime of the 17-percent so-called Performance Based Regulation and the privatization-mad Electric Power Industry Reform Act where power companies of all stripes get to enjoy ridiculously humongous profits.

If labor groups and trade federations were powerless in extracting even paltry concessions from BS Aquino III (as is traditionally expected on Labor Day), what other reason should the ruling capitalist foreign powers and their local partners have in shunning their mercilessness toward Filipinos, whose nation's wealth they have long extracted in support of the West's failing economies?

By the way, the SWS jobs survey also indicated that jobseekers are still hoping for a better future — even if such perennial hope remains unfulfilled. And even after two ballyhooed Philippine ratings upgrades (the last from Standard and Poor's), the usual mainstream media (such as Bloomberg) obligatorily feature shallow headlines such as "Philippines beats Indonesia in gaining S&P investment grade," while deliberately skirting a real economic indicator — foreign direct investment (FDI) — that shows an appalling negative for the Philippines. From Indonesia Investments: "'Domestic and Foreign Direct Investment in Indonesia Grows Strong in Q1-2013' … US $9.58-B;" while for Philippine business news, it was "'FDI drops almost 50 percent to $576 million in January (2013)'… lower than the previous year level of $1.1 billion…"

According to Wikipedia, Indonesian electricity price (in US dollar terms) is $0.0875 per kilowatt-hour (kWh) while the Philippines is at $0.3046/kWh. Despite FDI being a real measure of a country's economic prospects, reflecting the assessment of foreign and local businesses (not the subjective views of governments) and despite the holding of elections in a week's time, the Philippines will still not see any improvement as no candidate of consequence has dared raise this issue of power rate-gouging. Hopefully, though, a few will go out on a limb and start taking up the matter as it is a life-or-death issue for the Philippine economy and for our children's prospects for a good, productive and happy future.

But frankly, I'm not optimistic. As Western powers desperate for war will stop at nothing to recapture their former glory, there is just nowhere to run. Thus, I'm preparing my mountain redoubt farm cum social laboratory, concentrating mainly on coconuts (which, after a long study, are a far superior economic investment to mangoes) cross-cropped with coffee, cacao, macadamia nuts and orange camote. It's a long-term project I can leave my grandchildren as a refuge in the really perilous decades ahead and a teaching laboratory for all to learn how to grow food and stay free and dignified in the looming Dark Age.

(Tune in to 1098 AM, Tuesday to Friday, 5 p.m. to 6 p.m.; watch GNN Destiny Cable Channel 8, Saturday, 8:00 p.m. and replay Sunday, 8 a.m., on "Hopeless elections: Looking for revolution"; also visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com)