Since I did some Bush-bashing earlier, I know you Republicans will love this one.
20 Amazing Facts About Voting in the USA
I’ve seen this forward going around lately, but I managed to find a copy with some cited URLs. And remember: I’m posting this to start debate (I didn’t write this, I don’t know how did), so don’t post comments saying I’m an idiot, as they will be deleted.
1. 80% of all votes in America are counted by only two companies: Diebold and ES&S. Link and Link.
2. There is no federal agency with regulatory authority or oversight of the U.S. voting machine industry. Link and Link
3. The vice-president of Diebold and the president of ES&S are brothers. Link and Link.
4. The chairman and CEO of Diebold is a major Bush campaign organizer and donor who wrote in 2003 that he was “committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year.” Link and Link.
5. Republican Senator Chuck Hagel used to be chairman of ES&S. He became a senator based on votes counted by ES&S machines. Link and Link.
6. Republican Senator Chuck Hagel, long connected with the Bush family, was recently caught lying about his ownership of ES&S by the Senate Ethics Committee. Link, Link and Link.
7. Senator Chuck Hagel was on a short list of George W. Bush’s vice-presidential candidates. Link and Link.
8. ES&S is the largest voting machine manufacturer in the U.S. and counts almost 60% of all U.S. votes. Link and Link.
9. Diebold’s new touch screen voting machines have no paper trail of any votes. In other words, there is no way to verify that the data coming out of the machine is the same as what was legitimately put in by voters. Link and Link.
10. Diebold also makes ATMs, checkout scanners, and ticket machines, all of which log each transaction and can generate a paper trail. Link and Link.
11. Diebold is based in Ohio. Link.
12. Diebold employed 5 convicted felons as senior managers and developers to help write the central compiler computer code that counted 50% of the votes in 30 states. Link and Link.
13. Jeff Dean, Diebold’s senior vice president and senior programmer on Diebold’s central compiler code, was convicted of 23 counts of felony theft in the first degree. Link and Link.
14. Diebold senior vice president Jeff Dean was convicted of planting back doors in his software and using a “high degree of sophistication” to evade detection over a period of 2 years. Link and Link.
15. None of the international election observers were allowed in the polls in Ohio. Link and Link.
16. California banned the use of Diebold machines because the security was so bad. Despite Diebold’s claims that the audit logs could not be hacked, a chimpanzee was able to do it! (See the movie here). Link and Link.
17. 30% of all U.S. votes are carried out on unverifiable touch screen voting machines with no paper trail. Link.
18. All–not some–but all the voting machine errors detected and reported in Florida went in favor of Bush or Republican candidates. Link, Link, Link, Link, and Link.
19. The governor of the state of Florida, Jeb Bush, is the President’s brother. Link and Link.
20. Serious voting anomalies in Florida–again always favoring Bush–have been mathematically demonstrated and experts are recommending further investigation. Link, Link, Link, Link, Link and Link.
Whack Your Boss
A little Friday Flash fun. It’s the Sopranos Meets Office Space. The challenge of this little Flash game? Find all eight ways to kill your boss. Thanks a pile of folks for this disturbing yet mildly entertaining link.
Redmond To Eliminate Soda/Candy Sales
The Redmond School Board approved a recommendation from the District’s Wellness and Nutrition Education Committee on Wednesday night that eliminates the sale of “non-nutritious” foods and beverages in schools. On the planned toss list are products such as “carbonated soft drinks and candy (or other bars containing more than 35 percent total sugar by weight), candies made predominately from sweeteners (e.g., licorice, jelly beans, gum drops, marshmallows), chewing gum and water ices” (whatever water ice is). Full story over here on Bend.com.
My thoughts: Getting rid of them from the machines is not going to stop kids from eating them during the school day. When I was in high-school, I would just keep my food and stash of soda in the fridge in the newsroom. What I would’ve liked to have seen is better alternatives — for example, the news Pepsi Edge sodas are still pretty tasty, and have half the sugar of regular Pepsi. And I’m sure there are candy alternatives that have less sugar and fat. Kids that have diet problems are going to have diet problems, and having a school take away that stuff isn’t really going to help them a whole lot when they go home and get the garbage again. I do know, however, that I needed the caffeinated beverages in high school to keep me awake, as I was up at 5:00am everyday for cross country practice, then early-bird jazz band, school all day, then my afternoon cross country practice and then I’d hit the newsroom to check in on the newspaper (as I was editor-in-chief, but was never actually enrolled in the class). I usually rolled home about 6:30-7:00PM.
“Mommy, look what we found!”
Some toddlers were playing around in their backyard, found something they couldn’t identify. Neither could mommy. The police could were could, and they could identify it, however: It was an un-exploded WWII-era anti-tank rocket.
Another Darwin Nominee
I’m glad idiots like this get removed from the gene pool:
A man has been charged with involuntary manslaughter for fatally shooting his friend through a protective vest on an apparent dare, police said.
Alexander Joseph Swandic, 20, died of a gunshot wound to the heart Monday after donning a protective vest and asking David John Hueth, 30, to shoot him, police said.
Hueth initially told police that Swandic’s wound was self-inflicted, but later admitted to the shooting. The two had apparently tested the vest by propping it against a dirt bank and shooting it twice, police said.
Idiots.
Do Not Read This
A Mexican man killed his lover in a drunken, drugged fight then cooked the man’s body in tomato and onion sauce and ate it over three days.
Police found Gumaro de Dios Arias grilling rotting human flesh for his breakfast, including part of a heart, when they raided a shack he lived in near the Caribbean beach resort of Playa del Carmen, a police chief said on Wednesday.
“He was preparing stews. There was a grill where he was cooking part of the heart and bits he had cut off the body. It was terrible, terrible,” said local police chief Martin Estrada, who was among a dozen police who raided the shack.
Thanks Barn for that disgusting link. I think I’ll be sick now.
U.S. Government to Shut Down GPS
Their reasoning? To “fight terrorists.”
President Bush has ordered plans for temporarily disabling the U.S. network of global positioning satellites during a national crisis to prevent terrorists from using the navigational technology, the White House said Wednesday.
[…]
The GPS system is vital to commercial aviation and marine shipping.
So if you use GPS to get yourself to work, out of a jam when you’re lost, or out of the woods when you’re hunting (and don’t even think about Geocaching), this could really screw you over. And not to mention that if you’re flying on a plane, this could make it so the pilot suddenly has no idea where he’s going or where he is.
Isn’t that nice? Thanks, Bush. Quoting this BB post: “Nice one, George: why not shut down the fire-departments, too, so that ‘terrorists won’t be able to survive fires started by careless smoking?'”
Moron Crook For The Day #2
Maybe if they laid off the dope, they wouldn’t be such idiots.
A Florida Panhandle couple is under arrest after notifying police Thursday that their quarter-pound stash of marijuana was stolen and that they needed the weed back, because they were going to later sell it.
Thanks Cheryl for the link.