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My mother sent me this:

TWO-MINUTE WARNING ON VOTING MACHINES: Welcome to "SPEED VOTING"

Permission to reprint or excerpt granted, with link to blackboxvoting.org

USA - Diebold/Premier says it's too late to fix a new voting machine
2-minute warning and "time-out" feature, which can kick voters off the
machine, forcing them to accept a provisional ballot. At least 15
voters were booted off the machine in Johnson County, Kansas recently,
and Diebold/Premier says this is due to a software upgrade which sets
a timer on voter inactivity. According to the company, the machines
receiving the upgrade are used in 34 states and 1,700 jurisdictions.*

*This seems inflated, though. Unless the optical scan machines are
also outfitted with a 2-minute warning, which doesn't make sense, it
would seem that this should only apply to the DRE states and
locations.

JOINING THIS PROBLEM TO MAKE IT BIGGER:

A study on DRE allocation from Ohio indicates that it takes an average
of four to nine minutes per voter to cast an average-length ballot,
and ballots in many locations will be longer than average this fall.
Each additional ballot question can add 30 seconds to the time a voter
must monopolize the DRE.

Diebold's 2-minute timeout kicks in when the voter does not make a
selection quickly enough. (Welcome to 21st Century literacy tests.)

According to a Sept. 10 Kansas City Star Article, Johnson County
upgraded touchscreen voting machines with a new software release from
Diebold subsidiary Premier Election Solutions Inc. Buried in the
release notes was a mention of a new "time out" feature that makes the
voting machine eject a voter card if there has been no activity for
150 seconds. The machine emits a warning sound at 120 seconds.

You can read the full article here:
http://primebuzz.kcstar.com/?q=node/14307

Oh, and here's a UK journalist's view of Sarah Palin.

In personal news, gira is coming for my birthday despite her own life's upheaval (gods I love her), some of my friends are helping me on my birthday with something I need to do, and my aunts (Aunt Rosemary, Aunt Peggy, and Great-Aunt Alice) are throwing me a birthday dinner next Sunday! I'm surrounded by supportive women, which is such a blessing when we only get to see my mother seldomly--at least we saw her last month. :)

Anyway, car was not well, is part way fixed enough to drive. Thankfully there will be money soon, albeit having to be doled out carefully, and Ana and I are receiving adequate treatment for our injuries after being rear-ended. Things could be a lot worse, which is why I'm grateful everything seems to be slowly improving. And I'm very excited about using the multiple gyms and three swimming pools at the UW once classes start (or at least when I finally get my registration sticker)!

Completely missing Ana. I can't believe she won't be home until tomorrow afternoon. Craig has been so sweet to me about it and about being sick all evening yesterday. I'm just hoping she comes back telling me how everything was totally awesome and I can be glad that she enjoyed it. I may never like it, but I acknowledge that she needs to have these tests of her semi-independence so she can be a whole human adult later on.

La!

You Get to Wear Lots of Shiny Things.

Your result for Reincarnation Placement Exam...

Gypsy Camp

You sing! You dance! You flee from the authorities!

You were a bit difficult to place, because you like civilization and humanity -- but when it comes to work, you don't really fit into the system, the ruts and the rituals, that modern civilization embraces. You like your own ways... your old ways.

We've placed you among a hardy Gypsy family. They'll have you plucking a violin before you can talk, and dancing before you can walk. The road is your home, and your horses are members of your family. You get to wear lots of shiny things.

We expect that you'll have a good life. Even if your people are surrounded by a world where they don't really fit in, they have each other, an oasis of compatibility in an unbalanced world. We know you'll make the most of it!

Take Reincarnation Placement Exam at HelloQuizzy

( 2nd Quiz: The Rain in Spain ... )