Awww, geez! Are you f-in' kidding me?

Via Bradblog:

So much for those vaunted claims by California's Sec. of State Bruce McPherson and his partners at Diebold, Inc. about increased security surrounding the physical access to electronic voting machines in light of newly revealed vulnerabilities to easy tampering.

A tip received by The BRAD BLOG on Monday reveals that Temp Workers are currently being sought in San Francisco for California's upcoming primary election to "assist in dropping off election voting machines and picking these machines up when voting is complete," as the says.

A classified ad seeking the workers is currently posted on the Internet at Monster.com by Kelly Services. (A screenshot of the complete ad is posted at the end of this article.) The salary offered to temp workers hired for the job -- who will have private unsupervised access to the state's voting machines before and after election day -- is $11.99/hour according to the posting.

Just go read the whole thing.

This morning….

This morning….

This morning while driving to the train station, I saw a beat up maroon Buick LeSabre. It was all saggy looking, like it just sorta got tired. On the rear bumper it had this sticker:

USH
HENEY ‘04

Like the owner started to peel it off, and it tore, and he was just all – “ahh, fuck it…”

How ya liking that $3 gas, dude? Yeah, having an oil man in the White House really worked out well, didn’t it? Buddies with Prince Bandar, holding hands and kissing even. You know, the Bush and Saud families go waaaay back. Oh yeah, and Iraq, that was gonna pay for itself and guaran-godamn-tee us some cheap oil. Not like those godamn hippie Democrats with their conservation and alternative energy and diplomacy pussy-ass bullshit. Hell no!

Yeah, be proud man! Wear that sticker with pride! You know, a REAL man never, ever admits he made a mistake, and never, ever, apologizes, no matter how big of an asshole he’s been.

But, maroon IS kind of a faggy color for a car, you know.

Woo hoo! Friday!

First, I'd like to thank everybody for their expressions of sympathy regarding my toe. It was doing better, but then I managed to jam it again last night tripping over one of my son's toys. Now he copies me and goes around howling when he grazes his foot on anything. At least I didn't teach him any swear words when I did it.

By my lack of posting this week, you’d think that I type with my toes. Well, actually, I’ve been pretty busy at work.

Anyhoo, the big news today is that Porter Goss, the head of the CIA resigned today, effective immediately. This is huge, considering that he didn’t even cite “personal matters.” Hmmm. Makes ya wonder what he’s been up to. Perhaps some connection with the growing Duke Cunningham hookergate scandal?

What a week! Between Stephen Colbert giving Bush and the press a good smackdown on Saturday, and this resignation today, trouble is a brewing for the Republican criminal class.

Yeah, yeah, I’m too damn lazy right now to embed links into my post. Just Google the news, or go ahead and check out the links to other blogs on the sidebar, they’ve been covering all this stuff.

I've got so many half-written posts, it's ridiculous! I've gotta get on top of this. The news moves too fast.

Arrrgh!!! @#%$&*!!!!!!

Man! I stubbed my toe yesterday looking for my glasses. I did a real number on it, too. Geez, it looks nasty this morning. Found my glasses, though.

She may not look like much..

..but she gets 38 MPG on the highway.

Yep, gas prices just keep going up, and every news station in the country is doing spots showing outraged regular folks at the pumps. The blogosphere is humming with talk about Peak Oil, Big Oil, Iran, Bush's laughable speech about investigatin' to see if there's price gouging going on, etc. etc.


But let's not kid ourselves. We've been setting ourselves up for this for a long time. For the last ten years, the American car buyer seems to have been intent on using as much gasoline as possible to run errands or commute to work. Huge sections of the population have convinced themselves that, since they have 2 kids, they absolutely NEED a 3 ton vehicle with a V8 engine. Back in the 80s, a small sedan like Mazda 626 was considered a family size car, now a frickin' GMC Yukon is. Back in the 80s 23 MPG on the highway was considered shitty mileage, now it's considered pretty good.


When SUVs first hit the streets in the 90s, they were for the dude who went into the mountains or back country on the weekends to go hiking, skiing, or fishing. And, hey, since he was going to be on some dirt roads or snow, he needed 4 wheel drive; and since his buddies were tired of doing rock-paper-scissors to see who had to ride in the way back, it was nice to have something with a full-size back row of seats. It was a type of vehicle that had its niche.


But, people found that they liked the feeling of driving something massive. Everybody started buying them. An arms race of sorts ensued, culminating in monstrosities like the Escalade, and of course, the Hummer. SUVs became bloated, lumbering, ugly behemoths. They would never see a dirt road, never drive into the wilderness. They became nothing more than station wagons on steroids. If the early SUVs were sleek but powerful wildebeests, the recent ones are flabby cattle fattened up in feed lots.


Now that the price of gas is through the roof, people have the nerve to complain about how much it costs to fill up their Chevy Suburban. So, excuse me if I say boo-fucking-hoo! Suckers. Y'all brought it on yourselves. Not that SUVs are the only culprits, there are a lot of suspiciously shiny pickup trucks that I'm sure haven't hauled anything ever, as well as smaller cars with powerful but gas-guzzling engines. Nobody forced people to buy vehicles with shitty mileage, but they did,
and now everybody's paying for it!

That Damn Spam!

Alright, so, everyday I come into work and check my email, and there’s always something like an 8 to 1 spam to real email ratio. I know that that’s just the way it is these days. But, really, someone’s gotta fucking do something about this. Last week I got a spam that, according to the header, I sent to myself! That’s just wrong!

I got another one today offering “Best Financial Market Trader Picks” from a Mr. Rusty Butts. Who the fuck would take financial advice from some one with a name like Rusty Butts, fer crissakes!?!?

Then there’s the people selling Viagra and dick enlargers and all that shit. These have really gone downhill. They used to come on to you all sexy like, “impress your gal with your new stamina, blah blah, etc.” Then, they started getting all weird, saying stuff like “Scare the bitches with your HUUUGE frightening cock!” Ugh. Now, the latest sales pitch seeks to belittle you “Ashamed of your tiny little limp dick?” Now, why the fuck would ANYONE buy something from someone who’s making fun of your problems. Geeze, the old – “Hey big boy, wanna be even bigger?” ones used to bother me, but I’d take them over the current shit they’re sending these days.

I mean, really, put some fucking effort into it, goddamn, it! There was a time when spam was carefully crafted to look like real email: a plausible name, an enticing subject line, a beginning sentence that made it sound like it was from a business associate, a long lost friend, or maybe that chick at the bar the other week whose name you didn’t get. Not now, nope. They just slap ‘em together and send ‘em out. That’s outsourcing for ya. You just know that most of the spam coming in is from overseas cybersweatshops; it shows in the inferior quality. Back when Clinton was president you didn't have this shit happening! Fucking Bush, he fucks up everything. And Wal-Mart. I just know Wal-Mart has something to do with this.

On the other hand, the Nigerian bank scam faxes coming into the office have been getting better. They have a real-looking Bank of Africa logo on ‘em, good spelling, a nice font, professional sounding language. It’s good to see some real craftsmanship out there. It gives me hope for the future.

Random Wednesday

Well, it's a busy day at work today, but I can always find a little bit of time to find some interesting stuff.

I guess the big news is that Scott McClellan is resigning as Bush's Press Secretary. The reason, anyone, anyone? That's right, to spend more time with his family. Must get hard to not play the blame game and not comment on ongoing investigations all the time. Anyhoo...

I found this next link at A Perfectly Cromulent Blog. If anyone out there was a comics nerd back in the 1980s, you probably read the Marvel Universe's Secret Wars miniseries. Well, here's a funny video about it.

Finally, at Pharyngula, there's a post up about a fossil snake with well-developed hind legs.

More ranting coming soon, check back.

Radio Sucks

One reason I don't listen to commercial radio much is, well, the commercials. Now I've got the melody to Achy Breaky Heart running through my brain with lyrics about how great Applebee's is...