The designation "Third World" is increasingly irrelevant

From "Salon.com:"

Voter fraud isn't just for Florida anymore

From KLAS TV in Las Vegas -- and isn't it heartening to see a local TV I-team actually report on something other than exposes of local strip clubs or the latest household item that can kill you?:

"Two former workers say they personally witnessed company supervisors rip up and trash registration forms signed by Democrats."

"'We caught her taking Democrats out of my pile, handed them to her assistant and he ripped them up right in front of us. I grabbed some of them out of the garbage and she tells her assistant to get those from me,' said Eric Russell, former Voters Outreach employee. Eric Russell managed to retrieve a pile of shredded paperwork including signed voter registration forms, all from Democrats. We took them to the Clark County Election Department and confirmed that they had not, in fact, been filed with the county as required by law."

"So the people on those forms who think they will be able to vote on Election Day are sadly mistaken. We attempted to speak to Voters Outreach but found that its office has been rented out to someone else."

Then there's Oregon. State officials are looking into allegations that a paid canvasser might have destroyed voter registration forms there, too. Yet another local TV station doing its job, KGW-TV, interviewed a paid canvasser who said he was instructed to only accept Republican registration forms. Oregon's Secretary of State Bill Bradbury is beside himself over the allegations: "I have never in my five years as secretary of state ever seen an allegation like the one that came up tonight -- ever," Bradbury said. "I mean, frankly, it just totally offends me that someone would take someone else's registration and throw it out."

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Update:

It's happening in my home state of Colorado, too. And this time, it's the liberals who've apparently been up to no good.

Kenya!

Ok, here's what ya do: Go to your victim's office/cubicle/etc. and open this link. Turn their volume waaaaay up, lock their computer, run away. You will be loved.

Eventually.

Dearth

If there are any constant readers left, apologies for no postings for a bit. Been busy, and I have about only two things to write about these days: 1) politics, which I'm avoiding because at this stage in the game I think most people have decided what they're going to do, and I don't know anyone who's really persuasive in changing most adults' political mind - even someone with the talents of Lileks I doubt has turned any hearts, because it really is about the issues (regardless of what the media portrays) and most know how he or she stands; 2) movies, music, and books. I've not seen any movies to rave or rant about lately. Music, to me anyway, is dead until the big corporations finally realize they can't run it like a brand name chain restaurant. I've stared several books, but have abandoned most of them, because I'm now at the age where I don't have the time for a bad book, and I've now read enough that I can pretty much determine within about 33 pages (and a quick glance at the end if it's a literary (read "no real ending") novel) when something is gonna suck out loud.

Thus, I've had nothing to report. Life is funny that way sometimes. About the only thing I was saving in my blog scrapbook for use later was this mui excellent analysis by Bruce Springsteen on the state of the press these days, so here ya go:

RS: What do you think of how the election is being covered and conducted through the press?

Bruce: The press has let the country down. It's taken a very amoral stand, in that essential issues are often portrayed as simply one side says this and the other side says that. I think that Fox News and the Republican right have intimidated the press into an incredible self-consciousness about appearing objective and backed them into a corner of sorts where they have ceded some of their responsibility and righteous power.

The Washington Post and New York Times apologies about their initial reporting about Iraq not being critical enough were very revealing. I am a dedicated Times reader, and I've found enormous sustenance from Paul Krugman and Maureen Dowd on the Op-Ed page. There has been great reporting, but there has also been some self-consciousness in some of the reporting about the policy differences in this election.

This is going to be an issue after the election. I don't know if it began with the Iraq war, but shortly thereafter there was an enormous amount of Fox impersonators among what you previously thought were relatively sane media outlets across the cable channels. It was very disheartening. The job of the press is to tell the truth without fear or favor. We have to get back to that standard.

The free press is supposed to be the lifeline and the blood of democracy. That is the position of responsibility that those institutions have. Those things are distorted by ratings and by money to where you're getting one hour of the political conventions. No matter how staged they are, I think they're a little more important than people eating bugs. I think that for those few nights, the political life of the nation should take priority, and the fact that it so casually does not means something is wrong. If you want to watch people eating bugs, that's fine, I can understand that, too, but let's do it on another night.

Real news is the news we need to protect our freedoms. You get tabloid news, you get blood-and-guts news, you get news shot through with a self-glorifying facade of patriotism, but people have to sift too much for the news that we need to protect our freedoms. It should be gloriously presented to the people on a nightly basis. The loss of some of the soberness and seriousness of those institutions has had a devastating effect upon people's ability to respond to the events of the day.

From: http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/09/28/springsteen_interview/print.html - via Rolling Stone.

Cat Captions



WTF?

Vegas Buys Me Doritos

Had to go to Las Vegas for a conference recently. I don't enjoy gambling, particularly when those you're gambling against can fix the odds. Further, the whole "sin city" thing is more annoying than alluring to me. The big public TV screen on downtown mainstreet that displayed an endless loop of women taking off their tops (their breasts were then covered by words like "Holy Cow!" and the like) just made me sad for the few children around who had been dragged to Vegas rather than Disneyland, or Europe, say. What can a 9-year-old boy or girl think when seeing that? I'll bet it made them feel creepy, or confused.

We saw the obligatory show, but luckily picked a good one. He's billed as "Downtown Gordie Brown" and is hilarious as hell. He primarily does impersonations, but he's unique in that he does singing impersonations. He sounded exactly like whom he was supposed to, like Neil Diamond and, amazingly, Roy Orbison. If you find yourself in Vegas and aren't driven to obsessively dump your money in noisy, blinking machines (and more power to ya if you are), check out his show. His site is here: http://www.gordiebrown.com/index_html.htm

The big canopy TV over mainstreet is also somewhat cool the first couple times you see it (it flashes screen savers and blasts generic disco for about 5 minutes every hour on the hour after sundown). What impressed me more is how they can coordinate 3 blocks of casinos shutting off their massive lighted signs and then turning them back on quickly after the show. Cycling that much power on and off all night is a feat of engineering prowess, friends and neighbors. The device that does that is a show I'd like to see.

The few times I put money into machines, I quickly noted that most of them paid off within about 5 tries, and typically within the first 3. (My compadre in the know called that "the hook.") If, after that initial win, you continue to play, you almost never hit again. Thereafter, I went no higher than 3 or 4 plays, and every time I got a payoff, I cashed out. I came out roughly even and was probably up a buck or two. On the way back to my room the last night, I passed a vending machine that had Doritos, which I only indulge in for special occasions. I used my winnings for a bag. Thanks Vegas.

My quintessential Vegas experience is this: Once, when I dropped a couple quarters into a one-armed bandit while waiting in line for a buffet, it appeared as though it had taken my money without crediting me so I could play. A couple folks around me tried to help, but to no avail. After messing around with the buttons a bit I got it to go. Before that moment, I was annoyed, thinking, "This damn machine took my money!" Afterward, when it fired up and did its thing, even though I didn't win, I was satisfied ... until it dawned on me a couple seconds later that there was no discernable difference between the prior and latter states.

And that pretty much sums up my feelings about Vegas.