More States Go For Paper Ballots

Makers of voting machines are whining. All the warnings in this news article come from interested parties, people who stand to make fortunes selling crappy and unreliable voting machines to the states.

Let's do it right in 2008 -- no more electronic votes with no trail. It's very hard to recount vapor.

Benazir Bhutto

Former prime minister of Pakistan, anomaly in a Moslem country, Benazir Bhutto was assassinated today. BBC News reports she was shot twice before a suicide bomber continued the carnage by killing an additional seventeen people. She was taken to a hospital and died there.

The middle east and Moslem nations in the lower part of Asia are barbaric. Terrorists, oppression of women, packs of feral males that roam the streets -- these aren't the hallmarks of civilized countries. Pakistan is especially likely to become a big problem because it has nuclear weapons. A local culture tolerates and breeds packs of terroristic fanatics -- just what the world needs.

Early Christmas Present!

Colorado has decertified electronic voting machines, making it a state where it is possible to have a fair and trackable vote again.

Is it greedy of me to want more of these?

Still Trying

Trying very hard, indeed, not to listen to the squabbling that passes for campaigning this year. Every so often I see a headline, but I have been trying not to go for the text underneath.

I see that impeachment is crawling onto the table despite the efforts of Congress to do for corruption what I am doing for campaigning. I also see that Chris Dodd is being abandoned in his filibuster attempt by all the slugs who are squabbling, as the Senate, once more, bids to forgive the phone companies for participating in illegal spying. This Senate, on the whole, needs to be charged with high crimes, misdemeanors, cronyism, promoting the disintegration of the rule of law, and possibly with being accomplices to war crimes.

Yes, it is that bad.

Huckabee

How could anyone consider voting for a man who, despite letters from victims, chose to let a rapist out of prison -- a rapist who went on to rape and murder two more women before he was put in prison again?

Huckabee -- the man who thinks rapists are not gonna repeat their crimes. Huckabee -- the enemy of law and order.
Huckabee -- more interested in spite at a Clinton far-relation who was a rape victim than in letting justice -- and a prison sentence -- take its course.

Voting for a man like that is asking for special treatment for male violence, for rapists, and for cronyism and petty vengeance of the worst sort. Someone who is that spiteful should not be anywhere near the White House, especially with the current state of the rule of law. If anyone hearts Huckabee, that person can be counted on to aid corruption.

The Crunch Spreads

Skippy has an article about states freezing funds where cities keep their excess cash.

See, this is where I was headed when I pointed out that so many boomers with jobs are invested in 401(k)s. They are rather like the cities -- putting money someplace they think is "safe". Lots of companies only ask employees whether they want high, medium or low risk, and don't give them any say about where the money then goes. Where I used to work, you could pick.

But in either case, the majority of folks cannot remove their money without huge penalties. The tax bill on an income lump like that would also be a shocker. If they do it as loans and fail to make payments, it's penalties and taxes both as well. A lot of folks are going to be very upset. Wonder how those who favored the fish GWB was gonna toss to the market by f***in Social Security feel now. If he opens his mouth on the topic again, someone should have him checked for actual insanity. Right now the market is not the best place for retirement savings.