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I Voted

So yeah, I got up bright and early and hit the polls at 7:20 am… (bet you’re surprised, eh Mom? Happy Birthday, by the way… ;-)) Overall, the experience was rather positive… In years past, I’ve always just voted absentee rather than visit polls in Kirksville, so this is actually the first time I’ve ever voted on election day.

Regardless, I had the option of using the electronic, touch-screen device, or I could have used the more traditional “scan tron” paper ballots… There were more people using the touch-screens, but still a good number using paper ballots. The touch-screen machines were quite easy to use and also included a roll of paper to print your votes, as well as store them within the machine. I’ve been reading through various articles about how easy it is to have an election stolen (great article, but a long read…) with these electronic voting machines, since many of them (the Diebold AccuVote TSX in particular…) have no sort of secondary printer to, in effect, “back up your vote.” In case of a recount, my vote can still be compared between the electronic copy and the paper copy that was printed and stored within the machine… So yeah, I felt much more comfortable about the whole experience after using that machine…

Note: If you want to watch the HBO documentary “Hacking Democracy,” regarding Diebold’s shenanigans, you can watch it on Google Video (for free)…it’s about 1.5 hrs long, but worth it if you don’t want to watch election coverage tonight…

…however, I did have one complaint, and that was with the actual voting using the machine. In years past, when I’ve done my absentee, I could always not vote on a particular issue or judge I knew nothing about… Unfortunately, each circuit judge on the ballot (and there were many…) had a “yes” or “no” option, not an “abstain”… Perhaps you could have just hit “Next” and skip over them that way…I dunno…and I didn’t try… I figure all those judges are doing alright, so whatever… 😛

For those that voted, what “methods” of voting did you have? Were there voting machines with rolls of paper included, or were the completely electronic with no paper “backup?” Were there lots of people still using paper ballots?

Regardless, I participated in the process of government today…

Tonight’s returns should be pretty interesting….

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An AUDIO ADRENALINE Concert

(not a Mercy Me Concert)

So, last night, we had tickets to Mercy Me, Audio Adrenaline, and Phil Wickham. The concert started at 7:00, so we thought if we got there a little after it was supposed to start, we wouldn’t have to hear a bad opener or wait for a whole bunch of stage changes. However, we got there at about 7:15 and only caught the end of the last Phil Wickham song, then Audio Adrenaline was ready to go on in about 5 minutes. We went to the concert because it was Audio Adrenaline’s last tour stop in St. Louis ever, since their lead singer’s voice is shot. They were pretty good, but the set was only about 35 minutes long and it’s pretty obvious that the singer’s voice is not doing so well. After the reason we went the the concert, we decided to stay to hear Mercy Me do “I Can Only Imagine.” Of course, they sang about a bazillion other songs first and talked and preached and talked. Their show was so polished and timed and had synced videos and way too much preaching. Andy and I were both bored and ready to go, but were waiting for “I Can Only Imagine” and stuck it out, then got out of there before the masses. So, the moral of the story is Audio Adrenaline=Good, Mercy Me=not-much-better-than-average.

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Coolest ever!!!

Slashdot ran a blurb about an article in Science magazine titled “Viral Fossil Brought Back to Life.” So yeah, I just had to read it…

So, in the blurb (very easy to read…don’t be put off by science-i-ness…), the researchers in France essentially took DNA common to humans that they knew to be viral in origin. For those that don’t know, some viruses act by “implanting” themselves in our genome so they can get their proteins produced by our own cells. So, it stands to reason that over the years, we’ve picked up a few fragments in our own genome from a variety of viruses.

Well, this group found a viral section of our genome, “repaired” it by comparing the same sequence amongst many people to compare them and see which parts are most common, and then generated the genome. How cool is that!??! Not only are there ancient viruses in our DNA, but we can re-activate them!!!

For anyone that still had doubts on evolution…I trust they are dashed aside… 😛

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Top 11 signs Dubya thinks he’s president of a college fraternity

From Too Stupid To Be President.com

11. Encourages minions to run three miles in 100 degree heat then taunts them as he rides his bicycle.

10. Greets interns by letting one rip.

9. Refers to everyone only by the nickname he has bestowed.

8. Should have been gone after four years, but he just won’t leave.

7. Amasses enormous institutional debt throwing private parties for his friends.

6. Cheats to secure a second term.

5. Resorts to belligerence rather than admit a mistake.

4. Has summers off.

3. Encourages others to perform community service, but only shows up for the cameras.

2. Smart kid provides him answers using a hidden audio transmitter.

1. May be kicked out of his house before the end of term.

Posted on

Top 11 signs Dubya thinks he's president of a college fraternity

From Too Stupid To Be President.com

11. Encourages minions to run three miles in 100 degree heat then taunts them as he rides his bicycle.

10. Greets interns by letting one rip.

9. Refers to everyone only by the nickname he has bestowed.

8. Should have been gone after four years, but he just won’t leave.

7. Amasses enormous institutional debt throwing private parties for his friends.

6. Cheats to secure a second term.

5. Resorts to belligerence rather than admit a mistake.

4. Has summers off.

3. Encourages others to perform community service, but only shows up for the cameras.

2. Smart kid provides him answers using a hidden audio transmitter.

1. May be kicked out of his house before the end of term.

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Still Here

Yes, I’m still here, I just haven’t had much to say that Andy hasn’t already! Of course, this is from the PHC website:

“John the farmer was in the fertilized egg business. He had several hundred young layers (hens), called “pullets”, and ten roosters, whose job it was to fertilize the eggs (for you city folks). The farmer kept records and any rooster that didn’t perform went into the soup pot and was replaced. That took an awful lot of his time, so he bought a set of tiny bells and attached them to his roosters. Each bell had a different tone so John could tell from a distance, which rooster was performing. Now he could sit on the porch and fill out an efficiency report simply by listening to the bells.

The farmer’s favorite rooster was old Butch, and a very fine specimen he was, too. But on this particular morning John noticed old Butch’s bell hadn’t rung at all! John went to investigate. The other roosters were chasing pullets, bells-a-ringing. The pullets, hearing the roosters coming, would run for cover. But to Farmer John’s amazement, old Butch had his bell in his beak, so it couldn’t ring. He’d sneak up on a pullet, do his job and walk on to the next one. John was so proud of old Butch, he entered him in the Renfrew County Fair and he became an overnight sensation among the judges.

The result… The judges not only awarded old Butch the No Bell Piece Prize but they also awarded him the Pulletsurprise as well. Clearly old Butch was a politician in the making: who else but a politician could figure out how to win two of the most highly coveted awards on our planet by being the best at sneaking up on the populace and screwing them when they weren’t paying attention.”

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Happenings…

Brooke and I went and visited Kristen down in Springfield over the weekend… We hadn’t seen her apartment yet, nor had we really seen much of her since the summer, so it was a good opportunity to get out of town and see how she’s doing. We went out to dinner at her local hangout and then went to a piano bar (while the Cards won the World Series), both of which were quite fun. The piano bar largely involved dueling pianos (and a drummer) playing music mostly off of my parents Adult Contemporary radio station in Columbia, but it was still a good time… Thanks for hosting us, Little Sister!

Otherwise, we got back to St. Louis and had a message waiting on the machine from Lou Fusz Toyota… Our Scion xA arrive late-Friday night, so we can go pick it up on Monday. So, finally, I won’t have to drive Brooke’s Altima anymore and I can have my Elantra back… 😉 Now we just have to figure out how/when to get the Altima back up to Hannibal…

On another note, I had a doctor’s appointment on Friday, which was mostly uneventful…but he did notice my blood pressure is a bit high (145/82). The sad thing is that we’ve been learning about anti-hypertensive drugs in school (and I have a test over it tomorrow…that, and kidney function, which is quite related to blood pressure), so I generally have a good idea what high blood pressure means over the long-term. So yeah, I’ve made yet another resolution to try and work out more… I don’t think my eating habits are particularly terrible, especially compared with the national average, and I come in at or below 2000 calories per day… I just don’t exercise…ever… Therefore, I’m going to try and jog 3-4 times a week and bring that blood pressure down. That, and I’m gonna get some blood work done to check out my cholesterol levels, which I probably ought to do at this age anyway… Regardless, I jogged 20 min straight today, which was better than I thought I’d do after not really exercising much since summer. A good start, mehopes…

Time to get back to studying for tomorrow’s exam. Hopefully it doesn’t raise my blood pressure much more…

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Submitting Sheep vs Doubting Sheep

So, I listened to an On Point podcast from NPR, where Tom Ashbrook was interviewing Andrew Sullivan, author of “The Conservative Soul.” Sullivan, an Englishman, came over to the US years ago and supported Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan-era Conservativism, not the form that has been in politics more recently (i.e. small government, less control over the people vs big government, big spending, more control over liberties). The crazy thing is that he said that Bill Clinton was actually more of a conservative than the people in power now (i.e. balanced budget, smaller government). More specifically, something Sullivan said struck me as interesting:

“The capacity to doubt yourself, to question yourself, is a critical element of Western liberty. My view is that it’s also a critical part of faith. If you’ve never doubted something, you’ve never really believed it. You’ve just submitted to it. You haven’t allowed yourself to question something, and faith for me is a journey between doubt and faith. It’s a dialogue within yourself and with others as to what the truth is. It isn’t this acceptance of the truth and then the imposition of it on the world, and the claim that God justifies everything.”

Most key to that quotation is: “If you’ve never doubted something, you’ve never really believed it. You’ve just submitted to it.” I think this is a really important point that isn’t made very often, or that many people don’t connect with. You can’t simply believe something because you were told to. You can’t simply listen to Pat Robertson and James Dobson and believe that they’re infallible (even though they both think that they are). That goes for both sides of the political spectrum.

I guess I’m just thinking that, in today’s day and age, we tend to go along with things without questioning them. Without questioning ourselves. I think even some of us believe that we must be unquestioning of faith in God (or any other religious belief), in believing that His words are infallible.

But we forget that doubt and faith are completely intertwined. I think Sullivan made a very good, and interesting, point in putting it the way he did. We must always question our beliefs, whether in faith or politics. We must not abide with listening to campaign ads without looking at the evidence ourselves. We must not think that just because my church endorses a political ideology or policy, it’s correct. We must have doubt before we can believe.

There’s a very big difference between being a simple follower, and being an active believer.

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Robbed of childhood…

CNN is carrying a story where an elementary school near Boston has banned “tag” and other “unsupervised chase games,” afraid that students will get hurt and their parents will sue the school. From the article:

“I think that it’s unfortunate that kids’ lives are micromanaged and there are social skills they’ll never develop on their own,” said Debbie Laferriere, who has two children at Willett, about 40 miles south of Boston. “Playing tag is just part of being a kid.”

Another Willett parent, Celeste D’Elia, said her son feels safer because of the rule. “I’ve witnessed enough near collisions,” she said.

It’s kinda sad, methinks, how this seems to be happening across the country. I’ve heard mention of teachers who stopped using red pens to mark mistakes in homework because “it’s too degrading” to the student. Is there research somewhere where people have looked at people my age who grew up with red pens and dodgeball? Is there a significant percentage of us that have become violent psychotics because of red pens and “unsupervised chase games?”

I guess I’m saying that I hope that, when I’m a parent, I’m not that protective of my kids. If I am, I’m afraid that they’ll never learn anything about life and won’t be able to fend for themselves…they won’t be able to leave the house because of fear that they’ll bump into someone on the street, or someone will criticize their work.

On the other hand, I tend to be relatively protective in general…guess I’ll have to work on that…

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Just a thought…

Pumpkin

As I was watching Brooke brutally attack and disembowel a pumpkin yesterday for our jack o’ lantern, I had a thought: can one be a “meat-itarian” (or carnitarian)? As in, one who only eats meat and no plant products. …’cause, logically speaking, if you’re against the eating of defenseless-creatures, aren’t pumpkins and carrots more defenseless than cows and bears? I mean, cows and chickens can run away and fight back…not effectively, but they can do so more than, say, a potato. On the other hand, potatoes and carrots are able to hide underground from predators and try to use root systems to chain themselves to the ground, but that’s even less effective than a deer trying to evade a hunter.

So yeah, I think it makes more sense to be a meat-itarian than a vegetarian…that, and meat tastes better, besides… Just think of the horrible scene played out in my kitchen when Brooke sacrificed an unknowing pumpking and you’ll understand.

Just a thought…