I overcame sever apathy this morning and stopped by the good old firehouse to do my civic duty (really seems more like civic masturbation) and cast my ballot – which promptly caused a paper jam. I hope that’s not a sign of things to come.
It actually took me longer to vote this year than it normally does, because of the 16 offices up for grabs, more than half (nine, to be exact) had no opposition. As I refuse to vote for anybody running unopposed, I had to spend time writing people in (mostly my wife, though I did put myself in for Highway Superintendent, ‘cuz I think it’d be cool to be able to borrow a plow to do my driveway – not to mention being able to stop by and fill up my diesel cans anytime I want).
I have to profess ignorance even when it comes to the people I actually did wind up voting for. I knew nothing about them, so I voted for anybody that wasn’t an incumbent. Fuck ’em – what have they ever done for me, anyway? The fact that they’re all Republicans only made voting against them that much more satisfying.
Of course, they’re all gonna win anyway.
I hate to complain about our Russian-style elections (Candidate A or Candidate A – choose either one, Comrade) when I’m not exactly out there running myself, so who am I to talk? I really have no idea why people run for these things anyway. I suppose there’s the odd duck who actually wants to server the public, but my guess is that the vast majority are in it for themselves.
No necessarily for graft or to get personal use of DPW equipment. Maybe they wanted a stop sign on their corner or they want me to pay for a field turf football stadium or something. I don’t know – I’m just guessing what with people being humans and all, their intentions aren’t entirely pure or altruistic.
And if they are, I’m confident all that will be purged from them fairly quickly.
But, whatever. I’ve done both my duties this week – cast my ballot and returned my juror questionnaire. Now I await my reward.
Assuming they ever un-jam my ballot from the machine.
Well, I voted after I got out of work & wrote you in for town clerk (twice, I think, — I was very tired — so the auto-reader rejected it) and for Tax Collector. I wrote your sister in for Highway Superintendent and brother-in-law in for comptroller. There’s no democracy when there is only one candidate and I am convinced in this point in my life that the fix is in and elections are a sham. It’s just the Soma to make us think we have a “choice” and that we have “rights”.
The illusion of choice is the bullshit I have to spout to people every day when they bring their demented 80-90-something old parents in for “placement” in a “higher level of care” which means Nursing Home which no one wants to put their relatives in. There’s a huge can of worms that opens up if Mom/Dad is really squirrely, ripping lines out & whacking the nurses so that no Nursing Home will take them and if they don’t have a shitload of money or Medicaid because Medicare ain’t gonna pay for no Long Term Care. What this country has turned into is a pretty Revolting Develpment .
I feel a little removed today. No elections today in Vallejo. In California, land of the petition, initiative, and propositions ?! Unheard of! The other bad thing is having some important issue and office elections in my old town I would have loved to have weighed in on. đ
I think this is the first time that absolutely nobody that I voted for won. I mean, I know the nine write-ins were a longshot, but you’d think one of the other seven could have pulled it out.
This is pretty good.
Every paper ballot that I witnessed being fed into the machine was rejected at least once. This. I guess, is the an improvement over the old lever machines. On Shelter Island, where the total number of votes is around 300, there were waiting lines.
The only problem with the lever machines was there was no way to tell if votes actually registered (all the mechanical cams and switches and all that were supposedly pretty unreliable) and no way to recount. About the only thing you could check was the total number of people that went in and out vs. what the register said.
I still liked them better, though. Felt like you were really doing something when you pulled that big red handle and the curtains snapped open. Now it’s kinda like, you put the answer sheet in and it goes away and you’re like, “OK, I think I just voted.” Except this year I got a message that said – paper jam, result saved. Clear the jam and put the ballot in the box.”
So I went and told the do-gooder people and they guy’s like, “ok, thank you.” And I’m standing there thinking, “ok, like, I should leave then?”
It was terribly unsatisfying. Plus I was thinking, well, shit, if they peek at my ballot they’ll see I wrote either me or my wife in for over have the offices.
I do like the idea that there is a paper record of votes. But, I think that when every ballot is rejected at least once that there must be a better machine to record those votes.
The best machine would be a group of humans. Circle who you want on a paper ballot, and then get a bunch of volunteers from all sides to hang out and count the votes with anybody who cares to watch as witnesses. Have the local BOE buy a bunch of pizzas and everybody can sit around and watch the process – open, and public.
And you know what? If it takes a day or a week or even a month to certify the results, so what? I think iwe can wait a few days to know who won.
Instilling a strong sense of religious faith in your children probably wonât turn them into saints. If anything, it might make them less altruistic than kids who grow up in a nonreligious home.
Thatâs the perhaps counterintuitive conclusion reached by a new study published Thursday in Current Biology. Testing over 1,000 kids from a diverse variety of countries and religious backgrounds on a sharing task, the study authors found a noticeable generosity gap between those religious and nonreligious, a gap that only increased the more religious their households were. They also found that religious kids were more likely to be judgemental and to advocate harsher punishments for being wronged by others.
We got the Google cardboard from the NYT this morning and watched their virtual reality stories. It’s unbelievable!! Really is crazy. I had to be careful that I wasn’t walking in to walls or on doggies until I got accustomed to the the cardboard viewer. It is really awesome. You look up and see an airplane, turn your body around and see people behind you…you are in the middle of the story.
Yeah, it’s pretty nifty. Like a GAF View-Master only better.
Speaking of stories, I guess this is a story of better later than never, but it appears that the DC District Court has ruled that the NSA violated our Constitutional Rights with its Kalyman v. Obama ruling today.
That’s more in line with my theory of the Fourth Amendment. I still can’t believe we have FISA courts, but that’s just me I guess.
Glad you have power, Sp. We’re expecting extremely high winds here today and hope the lines hold. I have declared war on 2 pigeons roosting high on our rafters right over our back door. Our newest doggie has caught every young pigeon they’ve tried to bring forth and I thought they’d get the idea that this is a hostile environment. Four dogs are not good neighbors for pigeons. Nope. So now I’m using a “Water cannon” via a hose nozzle. I can’t find anyone to go up that high and put bird spikes in…yet.
Kat – 1
The power came on about 15 minutes ago. It was out all night. Every time this happens I am reminded that I need a coffee maker that does not need electricity.
Yeah, you need a camp stove and then you can make some good old fashioned cowboy coffee. Make sure you drink it with your teeth closed to strain out the grounds. Though those little coffee tea bag things come in mighty handy and make a passable cup.
As I recall, if you add ground-up egg shells, it helps keept the grounds at the bottom.
Never tried that. I guess I never brought eggs when I went camping.
I’ve heard that crushed egg shells are good for lowering the acidity of the coffee; not so much for blocking the grounds from contaminating the coffee.
Carol Doda passed Monday.
I’ll never forget her blinking
in North Beach. I knew you wouldn’t miss honoring her, Vern, thanks! (That emo IS Ms. Doda!)
LOVE owels!
HOOT HOOT
owelsowlsHoot Mon!
Governor Cuomo has a bill waiting for his signature, that will stop the killing of NY’s mute swans. If you would like to email him and tell him to sign it, that would help.
https://www.governor.ny.gov/contact
Done. Though he vetoed the last one, so I don’t have high hopes.
Seems like a legitimate emergency to me.
Thanks for emailing Cuomo PJ. I never have high hopes for him. IMHO the only thing he has going for him is Mario./
Golly, it’s a regular winter wonderland out there at the moment.
Picts?
Oh, it didn’t last. The ground isn’t cold enough for it ti stick yet (unless we get something major). Then it got warmish again. Hopefully it’ll stay that way for a while – I don’t even have the chains or the cab on yet.
If our storms are headed your way, I’d get the tractor ready pretty darn quick.
Tornados near Sacramento (too close) the other day.
I’m starting to hate living in Seattle. Like, if people keep holding their noses at me and making fun of me when I’m in the grocery or walking around, I just might fucking blow someone’s head off.
On the political front, I think the Democrats are idiots. Good luck to everyone if any of those candidates gets elected. Bernie Sanders sounds like a moron trying to correlate global climate change to terrorism. And, from what I’ve read by Bruce Fein, Hillary is part of a government in violation of Article 1 Section 8 Clause 11 in the US constitution (I have to admit, I had to look up the clause number because it was a little difficult for me to remember).
Steve Jobs was the son of a Syrian refugee
http://www.dailynewsbin.com/news/steve-jobs-was-the-son-of-a-syrian-refugee/23033/
I always wondered what nationality he was. Interesting!
In somwe discussion of the movie about Steve Jobs, I heard he was Syrian but I just looked him up in Wiki and it says his father was a Syrian Muslim, political activist and PhD in Economics. Mom was German Catholic and adoptive parents were Calvinists. Chris Christi would have barred that baby at the border of New Jersey.
Finally, LEGO has realized there’s a market for slippers that protect against foot damage from their pesky products. Now, if they would have allowed Ai Weiwei to use LEGOs in his latest art project, they could have avoided all the bad press.
I’m thinking I might run my neighbor over if he keeps shining his high-powered flashlight into my bedroom.
I’m almost tempted to call Bruce Fein and be like, ‘Hey bro, what’s up? I hear you read a lot. Wanna hangout sometime?’