There are way too many accusations going on about the Coleman/Franken race. If you watch the vote counts they always fluctuate a little after an election. Saying that all these county officials are trying to defraud the public is politics at it’s worst. I served as an election judge and I can say the system isn’t perfect, but the public officials I met are focused on counting the votes legally and fairly. You aren’t gaining any friends by calling the election officials and the election judges criminals. If your goal is to disenfranchise citizens you have lost my vote permanently.

Which brings me to another item. The Star Tribune ran an op-ed piece last Sunday where a guy railed about the fact that is was easier to register to vote than it was to register his old canoe – all because he had to show id to register his canoe.

Minnesotans Unite!

We have to make it easier to register canoes and now!

Seriously, if my precint is any guide most people who vote were known by the people who found their name on the voting rolls. Serious fraud would require being willing to have a gang of voters disbursed over many, many polling places. People who are capable of that much planning could easily buy fake ids if they wanted to tamper with an election.

I hate the fact that our country is turning into a place where you have to “show your papers” more frequently.

I think the key is that the parties should endorse candidates who are capable of actually getting 51% of the citizens to vote for them.

Here is my guess. Franken voters probably don’t understand about coloring in the lines – that means the recount will favor Franken, but probably not by enough to matter.

I think Sarah Palin is the worst VP pick in my lifetime.

So what don’t I like?

• She is inexperienced. Not the best choice when you are painting the opponent as inexperienced.I known plenty of people in small towns who don’t want their mayor to be president. Want to tout her executive experience as mayor – perhaps you should hire the City Administrator, the person who does the heavy lifting.
• She asked her librarian to censor books.
• She supported the “Bridge to No Where” in writing when running for Governor.
• She brings along an insigificant number of electoral votes.
• Troopergate – even if it’s a tempest in a teapot why pick a VP with a big unknown hanging over her head.

Would you like a list of better candidates?

So they finally indicted the identity theives who stole 41 million credit cards from a number of retailers in the U.S. You can read the Washington Post article if this doesn’t ring a bell.

I think there should be a seperate prosecution for the people who created a wireless cash register system that was so utterly insecure as to defy imagination. Someone didn’t do even a slashdot style due diligence to see if the system would be reasonably secure. I would like to see the exec in court for incompetence.

I work at a large software company and I’ve been in the tech industry for 12+ years – I’ve come to understand that bugs happen.

I was still annoyed to get an email from Bob Meighan at Turbo Tax explaining their “whoops” and not offering to do anything about it. That’s lame especially since there was not even a return email address in the notification, just an 800 number. Thanks for making me amend my taxes. Next year maybe I should go back to paper.

Then let’s talk about spin. The phrase “may not have included functionality …” is totally inaccurate. It said I wasn’t eligilble period. I suppose technically I could have asked Turbo Tax to print the blank forms and filled it in with pencil, but that seems to defeat the purpose of buying tax prep software.

Did I mention the fact that this especially galls me because I was paying for all day kindergarten that year. In Minnesota the legislature funds 1/2 day kindergarten. If the district wants to offer all-day classes someone coughs up the money. In many districts, but not all, parents pay out of pocket for something that everyone should have access to.

If you use google, you’ve probably noticed the new favicon that they use.

The old icon looked like this.

You know a company has you over a barrel when any tiny little change causes mass hysteria. A lot of people think the new icon stinks. I hate it, but I’m trying to let it grow on me. It’s certainly better than the new logo that NetApp gave itself.

Google showed off some of the runner-up icons and asked for user submissions on their blog. Feel free to show off your own idea’s for a better icon. I plan to create a script and just upload the old one repeatedly.

Part three of my tribute to Lore and his seven basic blog posts.

CIMG5826, originally uploaded by timbu.

We recently had some ducks overnight with us. They were hatched at Matthew’s school and will be released later this summer. It’s was so cute watching these three ducks follow the children around the yard. I was relieved that we got them back without any unfortunate mishap!

Part two of my tribute to Lore and his seven basic blog posts.

I just paid too much money for a few sheets of paper with a cheap soft cover. You should buy one too so you can be cool like other bloggers.

Bloggers are known for their ability to find a product and flog it like there is no tomorrow all while avoiding the uncomfortable truth that they are being paid on each and every sale and the item in question was given to them for free. It’s the classic Judas kiss, where you trade your ethics for a bag of gadgets you don’t need. It’s all a part of their desire to be “citizen journalists” only instead of the traditional demarcation between news and commercial speech bloggers blend them seamlessly so you have no idea which is which any more.

Part one of my tribute to Lore and his seven basic blog posts.

I’m upset with Hollywood. It seems like they can’t make an original movie any more. The only thing people are willing to make is prequels, sequels, and re-makequels. Worse than this Hollywood trend is the American public’s willingness to pay good money to see these dreadful pieces of unimaginitive warmed over crapola. I’m all for recycling, but what can you really make from pre-chewed pablum. So what’s next Hollywood, are you going to start showing passing off reality shows as movies?