You try to pay people with a 4 year degree less than fast food ass't managers get paid, surprise, surprise, you don't get anyone worth a damn applying for the teaching jobs.
If it were up to the GOP, teachers would be paid minimum wage. Why? Because it's in the interest of the GOP for people to be as ignorant and superstitious as possible.
Both Paul Preece from Casual Collective and Daniel James from Three Rings shared some interesting stats from their own games on conversion rates associated with paid players (players who purchase levels, virtual goods, etc through micro-transactions). Paul said that for their single player games, they see that 2% of their active players have converted to paid players. Keep in mind this stat is for âoeactive playersâ who come back to the site regularly, not overall unique visitors. What was interesting was that for his multi-player games, 3% of active players converted to paid players, suggesting their may be some additional conversion lift from multi-player games. Daniel James echoed Paul Preeceâ(TM)s numbers, suggesting 3-4% of Three Rings users pay as well.
The key thing they stressed was that only a very small percentage of your users end up converting, because first they need to become active users that come back and are retained by your game as well as be eager enough to pay through one of a variety of ways...."
I think the rush to virtual item trading is going to crash with a big audible THUD.
People will think virtual item trading is cute for a little while most are under the impresssion they are cute little free things. The moment the vast majority of people find out in an economy like this, people are going to expect lots of money in return for those cute virtual items, there will be a wave of wide spread revulsion toward the concept that is usually reserved for the worst "crimes" of nerddom... like a full high school cheerleading squad walking in on a guy from their marching band in full Klingon battle garb (with batlif).
After that, only young children will dare be caught "trafficked" in virtual items.
The GOP's advocacy of an extremist form of corporate capitalism has finally caught up with what is now all that's left of the GOP, right wing extremists.
The "socialism" those right wing extremists keep screaming about is defined by the rest of the world as a MIXED economy. A form of capitalism in which the appetite of corporations to prey on and swallow up small businesses is controlled by social controls established in the form anti-trust legislation, and the worst abuses of employees is controlled by government regulation.
As we have found out the hard way, the only people actually freed by freeing the markets of government intervention/regulation are the thieves who prey on idiots like you, Brian, to let them steal away their money. Con artists will always find marks like you, Brian. Suckers always allow their greed to get them in places con men like ENRON, WorldCom, and Bernie Madoff feed on.
There are no reasonable solutions to be found anywhere in dogmatic extremism.
Bush/Cheney and the GOP are the only ones to install taps on the communication networks inside the United States.
ECHELON is a foreign intelligence gathering system. It was not built in the United States. They can't intercept communications inside the United States even if they want to. The dishes aren't built in the right place to intercept communications signals inside the US.
"Inside Echelon
Duncan Campbell 25.07.2000 The history, structure und function of the global surveillance system known as Echelon
Since 1998, much has been written and spoken about the so-called Echelon system of international communications surveillance. Most of what has been written has been denied or ignored by US and European authorities. But much of what has been written has also been exaggerated or wrong. Amongst a sea of denials, obfuscations and errors, confusion has reigned. This review by Duncan Campbell, author of the European Parliament's 1999 "Interception Capabilities 2000" report[1] , is intended to help clear up the confusion, to say what Echelon is (and isn't), where it came from and what it does. Echelon, or systems like it, will be with us a long time to come.
Echelon is a system used by the United States National Security Agency (NSA) to intercept and process international communications passing via communications satellites. It is one part of a global surveillance systems that is now over 50 years old. Other parts of the same system intercept messages from the Internet, from undersea cables, from radio transmissions, from secret equipment installed inside embassies, or use orbiting satellites to monitor signals anywhere on the earth's surface. The system includes stations run by Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, in addition to those operated by the United States. Although some Australian and British stations do the same job as America's Echelon sites, they are not necessarily called "Echelon" stations. But they all form part of the same integrated global network using the same equipment and methods to extract information and intelligence illicitly from millions of messages every day, all over the world.
The first reports about Echelon in Europe[2] credited it with the capacity to intercept "within Europe, all e-mail, telephone, and fax communications". This has proven to be erroneous; neither Echelon nor the signals intelligence ("sigint") system of which it is part can do this. Nor is equipment available with the capacity to process and recognise the content of every speech message or telephone call. But the American and British-run network can, with sister stations, access and process most of the worlds satellite communications, automatically analysing and relaying it to customers who may be continents away.
The world's most secret electronic surveillance system has its main origin in the conflicts of the Second World War. In a deeper sense, it results from the invention of radio and the fundamental nature of telecommunications. The creation of radio permitted governments and other communicators to pass messages to receivers over transcontinental distances. But there was a penalty - anyone else could listen in. Previously, written messages were physically secure (unless the courier carrying them was ambushed, or a spy compromised communications). The invention of radio thus created a new importance for cryptography, the art and science of making secret codes. It also led to the business of signals intelligence, now an industrial scale activity. Although the largest surveillance network is run by the US NSA, it is far from alone. Russia, China, France and other nations operate worldwide networks. Dozens of advanced nations use sigint as a key source of intelligence. Even smaller European nations such as Denmark, the Netherlands or Switzerland have recently constructed small, Echelon-like stations to obtain and process intelligence by eavesdropping on civil satellite communications...."
Brad Friedman is voting rights advocate, part-time radio air personality,and political blogger. He's never lifted a hand in anger toward anyone in his life.
So that means you are either one of those far right extremist from either freerepublic.com or littlegreenfootballs.com......who call anyone they disagree on ANYTHING either a "terrorist" or insane......or you are projecting your own history of mental illness on others.
You obviously neither work in elections or know anything about voting rights issues if you don't recognize the award winning work Brad Friedman has done in regards to bringing attention to voting rights problems all over the country.
I'm quite certain Freedman can answer in detail any question you might have about all the problems LA County has had regarding election problems. He lives in LA County. I don't. You'll have to discuss the specific issues with him.
Fanny Mae was Bush certified. So was Washington Mutual. So was Lehman Brothers, and Merrell Lynch, and Bear Sterns....
Everyone of these failed banks was Bush-certified...
County Bank, Merced, CA February 6, 2009 February 6, 2009 Alliance Bank, Culver City, CA February 6, 2009 February 6, 2009 FirstBank Financial Services, McDonough, GA February 6, 2009 February 6, 2009 Ocala National Bank, Ocala, FL January 30, 2009 January 30, 2009 Suburban Federal Savings Bank, Crofton, MD January 30, 2009 January 30, 2009 MagnetBank, Salt Lake City, UT January 30, 2009 January 30, 2009 1st Centennial Bank, Redlands, CA January 23, 2009 January 23, 2009 Bank of Clark County, Vancouver, WA January 16, 2009 February 5, 2009 National Bank of Commerce, Berkeley, IL January 16, 2009 February 5, 2009 Sanderson State Bank, Sanderson, TX En Español December 12, 2008 February 5, 2009 Haven Trust Bank, Duluth, GA December 12, 2008 February 5, 2009 First Georgia Community Bank, Jackson, GA December 5, 2008 February 2, 2009 PFF Bank and Trust, Pomona, CA November 21, 2008 February 2, 2009 Downey Savings and Loan, Newport Beach, CA November 21, 2008 February 2, 2009 The Community Bank, Loganville, GA November 21, 2008 February 5, 2009 Security Pacific Bank, Los Angeles, CA November 7, 2008 February 2, 2009 Franklin Bank, SSB, Houston, TX November 7, 2008 February 2, 2009 Freedom Bank, Bradenton, FL October 31, 2008 February 2, 2009 Alpha Bank & Trust, Alpharetta, GA October 24, 2008 February 2, 2009 Meridian Bank, Eldred, IL October 10, 2008 February 2, 2009 Main Street Bank, Northville, MI October 10, 2008 February 2, 2009 Washington Mutual Bank, Henderson, NV and Washington Mutual Bank FSB, Park City, UT September 25, 2008 February 2, 2009 Ameribank, Northfork, WV September 19, 2008 February 5, 2009 Silver State Bank, Henderson, NV En Español September 5, 2008 February 5, 2009 Integrity Bank, Alpharetta, GA August 29, 2008 February 5, 2009 The Columbian Bank and Trust, Topeka, KS August 22, 2008 February 2, 2009 First Priority Bank, Bradenton, FL August 1, 2008 February 5, 2009 First Heritage Bank, NA, Newport Beach, CA July 25, 2008 February 5, 2009 First National Bank of Nevada, Reno, NV July 25, 2008 February 5, 2009 IndyMac Bank, Pasadena, CA July 11, 2008 February 5, 2009 First Integrity Bank, NA, Staples, MN May 30, 2008 February 2, 2009 ANB Financial, NA, Bentonville, AR May 9, 2008 February 5, 2009 Hume Bank, Hume, MO March 7, 2008 February 5, 2009 Douglass National Bank, Kansas City, MO...
"L.A. County 'Double Bubble' Disenfranchisement Happened Before, Registrar Conny McCormack Did Nothing About It
44% of Non-Partisan Cross-Over Ballots Went Uncounted in March '04, 42% Uncounted in June '06, Before Same Ballot Design Used Again for the February 2008 Super Tuesday Primary As LA Times Gets Religion on Election Integrity Issues, But Doesn't Bother Apologizing For Their Failures to do so up to Now.
Given the potential disenfranchisement of tens of thousands of voters, and maybe even hundreds of thousands of voters, from Super Tuesday's Los Angeles County Democratic Primary election, which the county's current acting Registrar incorrectly claims to be "impossible" to count accurately, we believe it's time to place some blame squarely where it belongs for the entire mess.
A Los Angeles Times editorial this week, where, it seems, the paper may have finally found religion on the issue of Election Integrity, serves up a great starting point...
" "And to think we made fun of Florida.
As of today, we take back the jeers about hanging chads and the unkind comments about inept voters befuddled by butterfly ballots. Somehow it doesn't seem as funny when it happens at home --- voting irregularities in Los Angeles County will disqualify the ballots of thousands of people who went to the polls on Super Tuesday.
In 2000, Florida voters flubbed their choices for president because they were confronted with a ballot whose design was new to them. But that's not the case here. L.A. County officials have long used a ballot whose design was known to consistently disenfranchise unaffiliated voters. They simply did nothing about it.... Election officials are calling this a glitch, but the outcome was entirely foreseeable. In fact, it has happened before. In the March 2004 election, 44% of crossover ballots were unusable, and in June 2006, it was 42%. With numbers this high, the county registrar should have investigated this matter long before now.""
So it happened before. 44% of Non-Partisan cross-over ballots went uncounted in March '04 and 42% in June '06. And yet, the county went into '08's primary with no plans to change a thing.
The woman who dreamt up the ridiculous scheme, former Los Angeles County Registrar and Diebold cover girl Conny McCormack, quit just over a month before the election, and knew about the problem from years past, but did nothing about it. Or, she didn't know about, and was thus criminally negligent in her job as chief voting official for the nation's most populous county...
We'll have more on the latest Los Angeles County "Double Bubble" mess over the weekend, but for the moment, speaking of "criminally negligent", we're glad to see that the LA Times has finally begun to come to terms with these sorts of issues --- at least if their editorial is any indication --- as sad as it is that they had to wait until it "happen[ed] at home."
As they write, "Election officials are calling this a glitch, but the outcome was entirely foreseeable." Indeed it was forseeable. Yet, the Times, arguably the state's paper of record, has done next to nothing to cover these issues for years, as The BRAD BLOG has pointed out over many of them. (Yes, we live in LA County, and the Times is our local hometown paper.)
Even after last week's Super Tuesday --- and even as it appeared that hundreds of thousands might be disenfranchised by McCormack's idiotic Non-Partisan cross-over voting scheme --- the Times played down the problems in an article headlined "Few election glitches, except for independents."
The sub-header of their editorial this week is: "Super Tuesday presented a unique choice. Too bad that a flawed ballot disenfranchised thousands in L.A."
To which we'd add: "Too bad the LA Times didn't give a damn about such issues until now."
We've come to expect irresponsible public officials like McCormack, and her inept compatriot in Sacramento, the thankfully-former Sec. of State Bruce McP
When was the last time you went to your local library to look up some information in a set of encyclopedias or looked up an newspaper article on microfilm?
And not in a work of fiction. In a technical paper he wrote during his "day-job" as a math professor at San Diego State.
"The Coming Technological Singularity: How to Survive in the Post-Human Era
Vernor Vinge Department of Mathematical Sciences San Diego State University
(c) 1993 by Vernor Vinge
Abstract
Within thirty years, we will have the technological means to create superhuman intelligence. Shortly after, the human era will be ended.
Is such progress avoidable? If not to be avoided, can events be guided so that we may survive? These questions are investigated. Some possible answers (and some further dangers) are presented...."
There's a whole lot of rural areas that are too far from phone company offices to maintain internet connections that are stuck with a choice of paying insane satellite connection fees, or going without.
Internet access has become necessary to function in society on an equal basis with others.
Sooo... you've never shit in chamber pot, and tossed your sewage out into the street then?
That whole Government flush toilet system is working pretty well, huh?
When was the last time you fixed the potholes in the streets you drive on. Ahhh.... never. And the last time you built a freeway? Again never.
You need me to continue making you look like an idiot while you are forced to admit over and over and over again the things government provides for you on a daily basis that are there right when you need to used them?
Slashdot Mirror
You try to pay people with a 4 year degree less than fast food ass't managers get paid, surprise, surprise, you don't get anyone worth a damn applying for the teaching jobs.
If it were up to the GOP, teachers would be paid minimum wage. Why? Because it's in the interest of the GOP for people to be as ignorant and superstitious as possible.
"Conversion Rate of Active to Paid Players
Both Paul Preece from Casual Collective and Daniel James from Three Rings shared some interesting stats from their own games on conversion rates associated with paid players (players who purchase levels, virtual goods, etc through micro-transactions). Paul said that for their single player games, they see that 2% of their active players have converted to paid players. Keep in mind this stat is for âoeactive playersâ who come back to the site regularly, not overall unique visitors. What was interesting was that for his multi-player games, 3% of active players converted to paid players, suggesting their may be some additional conversion lift from multi-player games. Daniel James echoed Paul Preeceâ(TM)s numbers, suggesting 3-4% of Three Rings users pay as well.
The key thing they stressed was that only a very small percentage of your users end up converting, because first they need to become active users that come back and are retained by your game as well as be eager enough to pay through one of a variety of ways...."
http://is.gd/vhWS
I think the rush to virtual item trading is going to crash with a big audible THUD.
People will think virtual item trading is cute for a little while most are under the impresssion they are cute little free things. The moment the vast majority of people find out in an economy like this, people are going to expect lots of money in return for those cute virtual items, there will be a wave of wide spread revulsion toward the concept that is usually reserved for the worst "crimes" of nerddom... like a full high school cheerleading squad walking in on a guy from their marching band in full Klingon battle garb (with batlif).
After that, only young children will dare be caught "trafficked" in virtual items.
They couldn't give a crap about whether they EVER see another doctor again the rest of their lives.
They only care about their MONEY.
The GOP's advocacy of an extremist form of corporate capitalism has finally caught up with what is now all that's left of the GOP, right wing extremists.
The "socialism" those right wing extremists keep screaming about is defined by the rest of the world as a MIXED economy. A form of capitalism in which the appetite of corporations to prey on and swallow up small businesses is controlled by social controls established in the form anti-trust legislation, and the worst abuses of employees is controlled by government regulation.
As we have found out the hard way, the only people actually freed by freeing the markets of government intervention/regulation are the thieves who prey on idiots like you, Brian, to let them steal away their money. Con artists will always find marks like you, Brian. Suckers always allow their greed to get them in places con men like ENRON, WorldCom, and Bernie Madoff feed on.
There are no reasonable solutions to be found anywhere in dogmatic extremism.
Ohhh... that so cute. You responded just like people listen to NPR and everything.
trivia
???
profit!
The Easter Bunny can deliver that clean nuclear power along with those new ideas the GOP promised.
The balding white guy that works at BuyMore?
The guy shows up with new tiny burgers. Women go gaga hanging their large breasts out over the cute little burgers.
Fail, dumbass.
Bush/Cheney and the GOP are the only ones to install taps on the communication networks inside the United States.
ECHELON is a foreign intelligence gathering system. It was not built in the United States. They can't intercept communications inside the United States even if they want to. The dishes aren't built in the right place to intercept communications signals inside the US.
"Inside Echelon
Duncan Campbell 25.07.2000
The history, structure und function of the global surveillance system known as Echelon
Since 1998, much has been written and spoken about the so-called Echelon system of international communications surveillance. Most of what has been written has been denied or ignored by US and European authorities. But much of what has been written has also been exaggerated or wrong. Amongst a sea of denials, obfuscations and errors, confusion has reigned. This review by Duncan Campbell, author of the European Parliament's 1999 "Interception Capabilities 2000" report[1] , is intended to help clear up the confusion, to say what Echelon is (and isn't), where it came from and what it does. Echelon, or systems like it, will be with us a long time to come.
Echelon is a system used by the United States National Security Agency (NSA) to intercept and process international communications passing via communications satellites. It is one part of a global surveillance systems that is now over 50 years old. Other parts of the same system intercept messages from the Internet, from undersea cables, from radio transmissions, from secret equipment installed inside embassies, or use orbiting satellites to monitor signals anywhere on the earth's surface. The system includes stations run by Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, in addition to those operated by the United States. Although some Australian and British stations do the same job as America's Echelon sites, they are not necessarily called "Echelon" stations. But they all form part of the same integrated global network using the same equipment and methods to extract information and intelligence illicitly from millions of messages every day, all over the world.
The first reports about Echelon in Europe[2] credited it with the capacity to intercept "within Europe, all e-mail, telephone, and fax communications". This has proven to be erroneous; neither Echelon nor the signals intelligence ("sigint") system of which it is part can do this. Nor is equipment available with the capacity to process and recognise the content of every speech message or telephone call. But the American and British-run network can, with sister stations, access and process most of the worlds satellite communications, automatically analysing and relaying it to customers who may be continents away.
The world's most secret electronic surveillance system has its main origin in the conflicts of the Second World War. In a deeper sense, it results from the invention of radio and the fundamental nature of telecommunications. The creation of radio permitted governments and other communicators to pass messages to receivers over transcontinental distances. But there was a penalty - anyone else could listen in. Previously, written messages were physically secure (unless the courier carrying them was ambushed, or a spy compromised communications). The invention of radio thus created a new importance for cryptography, the art and science of making secret codes. It also led to the business of signals intelligence, now an industrial scale activity. Although the largest surveillance network is run by the US NSA, it is far from alone. Russia, China, France and other nations operate worldwide networks. Dozens of advanced nations use sigint as a key source of intelligence. Even smaller European nations such as Denmark, the Netherlands or Switzerland have recently constructed small, Echelon-like stations to obtain and process intelligence by eavesdropping on civil satellite communications...."
http://www.heise.de/tp/r4/artikel/6/6929/1.html
...I'm switching to Qwest."
Qwest isn't going to share my personal info, and didn't allow the Bush/Cheney and the GOP to tap my phone lines.
Geee... A corporation with it's HQ in Santa Monica/West LA taking a position that is pro-copyright/MPAA. I'm just shocked.
http://www.rand.org/about/locations/
The British sure made a bloody mess of Ireland.
You're calling Brad Friedman a "terrorist," huh?
Brad Friedman is voting rights advocate, part-time radio air personality,and political blogger. He's never lifted a hand in anger toward anyone in his life.
So that means you are either one of those far right extremist from either freerepublic.com or littlegreenfootballs.com... ...who call anyone they disagree on ANYTHING either a "terrorist" or insane... ...or you are projecting your own history of mental illness on others.
You obviously neither work in elections or know anything about voting rights issues if you don't recognize the award winning work Brad Friedman has done in regards to bringing attention to voting rights problems all over the country.
I'm quite certain Freedman can answer in detail any question you might have about all the problems LA County has had regarding election problems. He lives in LA County. I don't. You'll have to discuss the specific issues with him.
I seem to recall seeing SuperDentist looking like plant food to Seymore and Audrey II?
"FEED ME SEYMORE!"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGRN39oifsE
See anyone handing their IRAs to Lehman Bros., Bear Steans, or Merrill Lynch anymore?
Fanny Mae was Bush certified. So was Washington Mutual. So was Lehman Brothers, and Merrell Lynch, and Bear Sterns....
Everyone of these failed banks was Bush-certified...
County Bank, Merced, CA February 6, 2009 February 6, 2009
Alliance Bank, Culver City, CA February 6, 2009 February 6, 2009
FirstBank Financial Services, McDonough, GA February 6, 2009 February 6, 2009
Ocala National Bank, Ocala, FL January 30, 2009 January 30, 2009
Suburban Federal Savings Bank, Crofton, MD January 30, 2009 January 30, 2009
MagnetBank, Salt Lake City, UT January 30, 2009 January 30, 2009
1st Centennial Bank, Redlands, CA January 23, 2009 January 23, 2009
Bank of Clark County, Vancouver, WA January 16, 2009 February 5, 2009
National Bank of Commerce, Berkeley, IL January 16, 2009 February 5, 2009
Sanderson State Bank, Sanderson, TX
En Español December 12, 2008 February 5, 2009
Haven Trust Bank, Duluth, GA December 12, 2008 February 5, 2009
First Georgia Community Bank, Jackson, GA December 5, 2008 February 2, 2009
PFF Bank and Trust, Pomona, CA November 21, 2008 February 2, 2009
Downey Savings and Loan, Newport Beach, CA November 21, 2008 February 2, 2009
The Community Bank, Loganville, GA November 21, 2008 February 5, 2009
Security Pacific Bank, Los Angeles, CA November 7, 2008 February 2, 2009
Franklin Bank, SSB, Houston, TX November 7, 2008 February 2, 2009
Freedom Bank, Bradenton, FL October 31, 2008 February 2, 2009
Alpha Bank & Trust, Alpharetta, GA October 24, 2008 February 2, 2009
Meridian Bank, Eldred, IL October 10, 2008 February 2, 2009
Main Street Bank, Northville, MI October 10, 2008 February 2, 2009
Washington Mutual Bank, Henderson, NV and Washington Mutual Bank FSB, Park City, UT September 25, 2008 February 2, 2009
Ameribank, Northfork, WV September 19, 2008 February 5, 2009
Silver State Bank, Henderson, NV
En Español September 5, 2008 February 5, 2009
Integrity Bank, Alpharetta, GA August 29, 2008 February 5, 2009
The Columbian Bank and Trust, Topeka, KS August 22, 2008 February 2, 2009
First Priority Bank, Bradenton, FL August 1, 2008 February 5, 2009
First Heritage Bank, NA, Newport Beach, CA July 25, 2008 February 5, 2009
First National Bank of Nevada, Reno, NV July 25, 2008 February 5, 2009
IndyMac Bank, Pasadena, CA July 11, 2008 February 5, 2009
First Integrity Bank, NA, Staples, MN May 30, 2008 February 2, 2009
ANB Financial, NA, Bentonville, AR May 9, 2008 February 5, 2009
Hume Bank, Hume, MO March 7, 2008 February 5, 2009
Douglass National Bank, Kansas City, MO...
http://www.fdic.gov/bank/individual/failed/banklist.html
Tell me more about these Bush Administration certifications?
From the Brad Blog...
"L.A. County 'Double Bubble' Disenfranchisement Happened Before, Registrar Conny McCormack Did Nothing About It
44% of Non-Partisan Cross-Over Ballots Went Uncounted in March '04, 42% Uncounted in June '06, Before Same Ballot Design Used Again for the February 2008 Super Tuesday Primary
As LA Times Gets Religion on Election Integrity Issues, But Doesn't Bother Apologizing For Their Failures to do so up to Now.
Given the potential disenfranchisement of tens of thousands of voters, and maybe even hundreds of thousands of voters, from Super Tuesday's Los Angeles County Democratic Primary election, which the county's current acting Registrar incorrectly claims to be "impossible" to count accurately, we believe it's time to place some blame squarely where it belongs for the entire mess.
A Los Angeles Times editorial this week, where, it seems, the paper may have finally found religion on the issue of Election Integrity, serves up a great starting point...
" "And to think we made fun of Florida.
As of today, we take back the jeers about hanging chads and the unkind comments about inept voters befuddled by butterfly ballots. Somehow it doesn't seem as funny when it happens at home --- voting irregularities in Los Angeles County will disqualify the ballots of thousands of people who went to the polls on Super Tuesday.
In 2000, Florida voters flubbed their choices for president because they were confronted with a ballot whose design was new to them. But that's not the case here. L.A. County officials have long used a ballot whose design was known to consistently disenfranchise unaffiliated voters. They simply did nothing about it. ...
Election officials are calling this a glitch, but the outcome was entirely foreseeable. In fact, it has happened before. In the March 2004 election, 44% of crossover ballots were unusable, and in June 2006, it was 42%. With numbers this high, the county registrar should have investigated this matter long before now.""
So it happened before. 44% of Non-Partisan cross-over ballots went uncounted in March '04 and 42% in June '06. And yet, the county went into '08's primary with no plans to change a thing.
The woman who dreamt up the ridiculous scheme, former Los Angeles County Registrar and Diebold cover girl Conny McCormack, quit just over a month before the election, and knew about the problem from years past, but did nothing about it. Or, she didn't know about, and was thus criminally negligent in her job as chief voting official for the nation's most populous county...
We'll have more on the latest Los Angeles County "Double Bubble" mess over the weekend, but for the moment, speaking of "criminally negligent", we're glad to see that the LA Times has finally begun to come to terms with these sorts of issues --- at least if their editorial is any indication --- as sad as it is that they had to wait until it "happen[ed] at home."
As they write, "Election officials are calling this a glitch, but the outcome was entirely foreseeable." Indeed it was forseeable. Yet, the Times, arguably the state's paper of record, has done next to nothing to cover these issues for years, as The BRAD BLOG has pointed out over many of them. (Yes, we live in LA County, and the Times is our local hometown paper.)
Even after last week's Super Tuesday --- and even as it appeared that hundreds of thousands might be disenfranchised by McCormack's idiotic Non-Partisan cross-over voting scheme --- the Times played down the problems in an article headlined "Few election glitches, except for independents."
The sub-header of their editorial this week is: "Super Tuesday presented a unique choice. Too bad that a flawed ballot disenfranchised thousands in L.A."
To which we'd add: "Too bad the LA Times didn't give a damn about such issues until now."
We've come to expect irresponsible public officials like McCormack, and her inept compatriot in Sacramento, the thankfully-former Sec. of State Bruce McP
When was the last time you went to your local library to look up some information in a set of encyclopedias or looked up an newspaper article on microfilm?
And not in a work of fiction. In a technical paper he wrote during his "day-job" as a math professor at San Diego State.
"The Coming Technological Singularity:
How to Survive in the Post-Human Era
Vernor Vinge
Department of Mathematical Sciences
San Diego State University
(c) 1993 by Vernor Vinge
Abstract
Within thirty years, we will have the technological means to create superhuman intelligence. Shortly after, the human era will be ended.
Is such progress avoidable? If not to be avoided, can events be guided so that we may survive? These questions are investigated. Some possible answers (and some further dangers) are presented...."
http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/faculty/vinge/misc/singularity.html
There's a whole lot of rural areas that are too far from phone company offices to maintain internet connections that are stuck with a choice of paying insane satellite connection fees, or going without.
Internet access has become necessary to function in society on an equal basis with others.
Sooo... you've never shit in chamber pot, and tossed your sewage out into the street then?
That whole Government flush toilet system is working pretty well, huh?
When was the last time you fixed the potholes in the streets you drive on. Ahhh.... never. And the last time you built a freeway? Again never.
You need me to continue making you look like an idiot while you are forced to admit over and over and over again the things government provides for you on a daily basis that are there right when you need to used them?
You already just lied and said you knew that suicide in this case would be the best way to collect insurance money for one's family.
You're making shit up as you're going along. You don't know shit.
Questions hurt coward sheep head.
Never question authority. Authority always right.