An anonymous reader writes “Stephen Spoonamore, founder of IT security firm Cybrinth and former advisor to John McCain, claims he has new evidence of election tampering by Diebold in the 2002 Georgia gubernatorial and senate races. A whistleblower gave Spoonamore a patch that was applied to Diebold machines in person by the Diebold CEO. Spoonamore confirmed that the patch didn’t correct the clock problem it supposedly addressed, but contained two parallel programs. Without access to the hardware, he could not learn more. He reported his findings to the Justice Department, which has not acted.”

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Filed under: Deals, Management, Industry, Housing, Federal Reserve

Wall Street analysts have said that Freddie Mac (NYSE: FRE) wouldn’t be able to get by without raising money. Its losses from the current mortgage crisis have simply been too great. At one point it looked like the Fed would open its doors to provide the company loans and Treasury would buy stock in the company.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Freddie “is considering raising capital by selling as much as $10 billion in new shares to investors.”

After a sharp sell-off in its stock, Freddie has watched its shares move up over 50% in two days because investors believed the government help would keep the firm from becoming insolvent. Now that the value of the stock is somewhat higher, it might turn out to be a good time to get some cash in the barn.

But, the company’s shareholders are apt to take a brutal beating. Freddie’s market cap is only $6 billion, so the dilution of bringing in $10 billion would be stupendous. The move could certainly push the stock down to the $4 level over time, unless the company can post results well above what analysts anticipate and push the current share price way up.

Of course, the shareholders are not to blame, but they will be left holding the bag. Freddie management bet that it could get better returns on its portfolio by getting into risky investments and were burned like most banks and brokerage houses.

No matter how poor their judgment was, management will probably keep their jobs. Maybe they will even get a fat bonus for raising the new capital.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.

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schliz writes to mention that a team of quantum physicists have demonstrated how to significantly reduce the effects of “stiction”, or the tendency for two very small, very close objects to stick together as a result of Casimir force. “”The Casimir force might be one of the many reasons that very small, movable components in micromechanical devices sometimes stick together,” said Ho Bun Chan, a assistant professor of physics at the University of Florida who is researching the Casimir force. ‘The Casimir effect increases rapidly as the separation between components decreases. It becomes significant when the separation is reduced to below about 400 nm,’ he told iTnews.”

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krygny writes “NASA’s Deep Impact spacecraft (whose extended mission is called EPOXI) has created a video of the moon transiting Earth as seen from 31 million miles away. Scientists are using the video to develop techniques to study alien worlds. ‘Our video shows some specific features that are important for observations of Earth-like planets orbiting other stars,’ said Drake Deming of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center… ‘A “sun glint’” can be seen in the motion picture, caused by light reflected from Earth’s oceans, and similar glints to be observed from extrasolar planets could indicate alien oceans. Also, we used infrared light instead of the normal red light to make the color composite images, and that makes the land masses much more visible.’” Here are links to the two videos, one red-green-blue and the other infrared-green.blue.

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jmcbain tips a fascinating interview in Scientific American with a professor of kinesiology and neuroscience (and a 26-year practitioner of Chito-Ryu karate-do). The question was, how much training would it take for a normal person to become Batman? The professor says: “You could train somebody to be a tremendous athlete and to have a significant martial arts background, and also to use some of the gear that he has, which requires a lot of physical prowess… In terms of the physical skills to be able to defend himself against all these opponents all the time, I would benchmark that at 10 to 12 years.” The problem is, even after that amount of training, no one could remain on top of their game for more than a few years. And “Batman can’t really afford to lose. Losing means death — or at least not being able to be Batman anymore.”

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Robbie writes “The Russian space program once faced bleak prospects, receiving meager government funding. Meanwhile, the United Says and the ESA continued to send automatic probes to the Red Planet. NASA’s Mars Exploration Rovers are now crawling on the planet’s surface, while their Russian prototypes never lifted off and are now on display at the Space Research Institute’s museum. However, the situation seems to be improving today. Under a stage-by-stage national program for studying Mars, the Phobos-Grunt automatic probe will be launched in October 2009. This cutting-edge modular spacecraft costs just 1.5 billion rubles ($64.4 million).”

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Filed under: Products and services, Microsoft (MSFT), Apple Inc (AAPL), Motorola (MOT)

Apple, Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) is a juggernaut that just won’t stop being successful. Although sales of its iPod digital music players have waned a bit in current memory, the company is selling boatloads of its newer iPhone 3G, which are also iPods in case you have forgotten. But one area that just won’t get as much mainstream press is the incredible success Apple is having getting more customers to buy its computers.

Apple moved into the third spot in the U.S. in Personal computer sales recently — overtaking Taiwan’s Acer — and now is the world’s sixth-largest seller of personal in addition to the third place ranking in the U.S. For Apple to make these kinds of strides among the commodity companies that all pretty much sell the same product with Microsoft Corp.’s (NASDAQ: MSFT) Windows Vista operating system is quite the accomplishment. And remember, on all those new Apple machines comes Microsoft’s main consumer nemesis — the Apple Mac operating system (also enjoying leaps in market share).

If Apple CEO Steve Jobs planned on the iPod and iPhone causing so much market stir that it would actually lead to more Mac Personal computer sales, he was right. Apple has never had the market share it has now and it’s done nothing but grow for over a year now. IDC analyst Loren Loverde told CNET, “They’ve got great products and they are executing well … they are benefiting from the excitement and press over their other products.” That quote describes the halo effect Apple continues to have right now which is benefiting more areas of its business than just the iPod/iPhone universe. Jobs:1, Microsoft:0. For now, at least.

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Filed under: Good news, Products and services, Industry, Headline news, Agriculture

Park Falls Wisconsin is just like any of the hundreds of other bustling small towns across America. At least, it was until Monday July 14, 2008. That was the day when it was announced that the Department of Energy had awarded a $30 million allow for the construction and operation of a bio-refinery at the existing Flambeau River Papers, pulp and paper mill. The project shall be a show piece, and the first of it’s kind.

The Park Falls Herald reported that, when in full operation, the bio-refinery is expected to produce a minimum of six million gallons of sulfur-free diesel fuel annually from nonfood-based, timber and agricultural waste materials. Additionally, the bio-refinery is expected to generate at least one trillion BTUs of process heat annually, which will be sold directly to the paper mill. That exchange is expected to make Flambeau River Papers the first integrated pulp and paper mill in North America essentially free of fossil fuel usage.

The project is expected to reach operational status by 2010, and is also expected to garner the close attention of substitute energy investors and governments world wide. The project is, in part, a response to the current presidential administration’s nationwide call for increased energy independence without additional pressure being put upon the food supply. It is widely hoped that these types of refinery operations shall soon be considered for development in other suitable locations across the country.

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Filed under: Products and services, Marketing and advertising, Sprint Nextel Corp (S)

After seeing the above advertisement at the website of Sprint Nextel Corp. (NYSE: S), I have the ability to see why the Samsung Instinct has become Sprint’s hottest-selling phone with 3G ability ever in just over a month on the market. Sprint has sure pulled out all the stops to ensure its would-be customers that this phone is every bit as capable as the vaunted iPhone 3G. In fact, you feel like you are watching a movie by visiting www.sprint.com and seeing the entire Samsung Instinct advertisement — complete with helicopters and a Batman-esque feel.

But, what’s significant about Sprint’s on the web marketing campaign for the Instinct is the integration with Google, Inc.’s (NASDAQ: GOOG) YouTube. Notice the red callout in the above picture. Samsung Instinct owners are being encouraged to shoot a home movie that includes shots of the Instinct handset. If you do that and then notify Sprint, the company will pay you $20.

This is an interesting marketing angle, and it’s one I’ve never seen before. Is this the kind of advertising we’ll see from companies in the future? Sprint will be throwing out $20 bills to anyone who creates a viral video on YouTube with their product prominently featured. I suppose that’s cheaper than national Television airtime and probably will reach the intended audience for the Instinct handset as effectively as possible (the YouTube generation). I have to give Sprint some credit here — this is a great marketing idea and plan and will help it compete with the iPhone 3G.

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Filed under: Before the bell, Major movement, International markets, Earnings reports, Good news, From the boards, Products and services, Competitive strategy, Mattel, Inc (MAT)

Shares of toy maker Mattel (NYSE: MAT) are soaring in premarket trading this day, after the company announced better-than-expected numbers for its second quarter.

At first glance, the numbers don’t look too hot for Mattel. The company announced that profit was off by a pretty hefty 48% in the quarter, down to 3 cents per share on $11.8 million. This is down from $22.8 million, or 6 cents per share, for the same period last year. The company blamed most of the decline in weak demand for its Barbie dolls, and higher costs that it had to last in the quarter.

From the above paragraph, you might be anticipating to see the company being punished in the premarket, but in fact, shares of the stock are trading up a blazing 13.5% as I write this, and were up over 18% as of about 5 minutes ago. Why? Easy, in Wall Street it is all about expectations, and the company was able to outperform analysts estimates for the quarter, which were looking to see only a 2 cent per share report.

The company outperformed in terms of revenues as well. Analysts had been looking to see the company show revenues during the quarter of $1.04 billion, but the actual figures were higher, at $1.11 billion.

Barbie is a big component of the Mattel lineup, and sales of the dolls dropped by 6% in the quarter. This drop was offset partially by solid growth from a couple of other components to the Mattel lineup, with Hot Wheels seeing a sales increase of 5%, while sales for its doll collection American Girl jumping 10%.

Michael Fowlkes has worked as a stock trader for seven years and spent the last four years working as an analyst for the on the web investment advisory service Investor’s Observer.

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