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Vol.4. NO.10 ....................................................Pages 12and 13 WEIRD NEWS
The Iceman Exitieth It
is a common practice in Wisconsin, as in most places with
high alcohol consumption levels, to place an old car on
the surface of a frozen lake and take bets on when the
wreck will finally fall through the melting ice. With the
warm weather this year, the betting season had mostly
come and gone by the time Clinton, 75, decided to test
the ice for himself with an 861 International Tractor. Clinton,
of Lake Flambeau, had been a farmer for 58 years and had
recently retired from the business. Perhaps he had
intended to die as he had lived, or maybe the emissions
from the tractor had given him delusions of grandeur; the
world will never know. All
was going Clinton's way that day. He had managed to drive
his tractor onto the ice of Lake Flambeau next to his
boathouse, stand up in the bucket of his vehicle, and
begin painting the boathouse. Then the ice, which
happened to be covering 30 feet of water, gave way. Man
and tractor plunged in, and Clinton didn't come out until
the next morning, with the assistance of a dive team. The headline read "Lake
Flambeau claims first victim," which in itself is
amusing considering the relatively passive role that the
lake played in the drama. This is an example of natural
selection based on a change of habitat. Mr. Darwin would
have agreed that Clinton was a member of a species more
suited to a field of corn than a thawing lake.
Do It Yourself, Do Yourself In Summertime
activity–do it yourself stupidity–kicks into
high gear. Meet Charles, 34, a Denver masonry
contractor who created brick and mortar edifices. Charles
was in construction. He had worked on houses, he had
watched electricians install wiring. He believed this
qualified him as a member of the Junior Electrician
Society. He figured he could handle any electrical issue
that came up around his own home. One
day on the job, Charles was apparently bonked in the head
by his bricks. He had the great idea! He would build an
electric fence in his own backyard. "An electric
fence will keep the dogs in." Charles connected a
wire to an extension cord, and managed to encircle his
backyard with a 120-V strand of wire without mishap. His
dogs will not be sued for puppy support with this
security system in place!
The household became accustomed to the fence, and things
settled down to normal, until Charles picked up a passion
for gardening. Charles had a real nice set of tomatoes,
and I'm not referring to his wife. One day he reached for
a tomato, put his hand on the electrified wire, and
there's really no need to explain what happened next. Why
did this man die? Like other inexperienced people, he
thought he knew what he was doing. But his design had two
major flaws. Fences constructed for dogs use one-tenth
the voltage of cattle fences (which do use 120 volts.)
And he needed to install a repeater, which transmits
150-microsecond pulses, to hit a cow with a jolt of juice
that cuts off in time to avoid creating a pile of rare
steaks by the fence. The moral of this story is, as always, one of the guiding principles of common sense: if you don't know how to do something, don't do it!
HOW BUSH WON THE 2004 ELECTION (cont. from September issue-sunnews-sept.port5.com Helping America Vote Right “The Christian worldview is the answer. We
need Christian statesmen who press for the Crown Rights
of Jesus Christ in all areas of life. This isn’t
political salvation or an overnight fix. It will take
decades of mobilization and confrontation to undo a
century of godless socialism. It must be a grassroots
movement that starts in individual families and churches
and then moves outward to take dominion. It must
encompass every area of life and not just the political
arena. Finally, it must start soon, for there isn’t
much time left. The Florida elections have taught us that
the Democrats with their liberal/socialistic worldview
will stop at nothing to seize control of the
government.” — Dr. Val Finnell, published by the
Chalcedon Institute If the connections between Hagel and ES&S
seem suspect, the origins of America’s largest
electronic voting machine companies may be just as
distressing, especially for those who venerate the
separation of church and state. The convoluted system of renaming and buyouts of
America’s voting system companies is a complicated
story. However, once the various corporate trails have
been followed, a disturbing picture comes into focus. Brothers Bob and Todd Urosevich founded American
Information Systems. Bob is currently president of
Diebold and Todd Urosevich is Vice President, Aftermarket
Sales of ES&S. (In 1999, American Information
Systems, purchased Business Records Corp to become
ES&S.) American Information Systems (AIS) was primarily
funded with money from Ahmanson brothers, William and
Robert, of the Howard F. Ahmanson Co. The majority stake in ES&S is still owned by
Howard F. Ahmanson and the Ahmanson Foundation. Howard Ahmanson belongs to the Council for
National Policy, a hard right wing organization and also
helps finance The Chalcedon Institute. As the
institute’s own site reports, Chalcedon is a
“Christian educational organization devoted to
research, publishing, and promoting Christian
reconstruction in all areas of life... Our emphasis on
the Cultural or Dominion Mandate (Genesis 1:28) and the
necessity of a return to Biblical Law has been a crucial
factor in the challenge to Humanism by Christians in this
country and elsewhere...” Chalcedon promotes Christian Reconstructionism,
which mandates Christ’s dominion over the entire
world. The organization’s purpose is to establish
Old Testament Biblical law as the standard for society. Solutions and Alternatives Few individuals who are trying to alert citizens
to the dangers of electronic voting are against computer
voting unequivocally. Rather, the complaints focus on the
lack of a verifiable paper trail and the inability of the
public to examine the code that runs the machines. Professor Mercuri’s October 2002 article,
“A Better Ballot Box?” provides a solution to
these concerns. She also poses a series of questions that
she believes must be answered in order to allay security
concerns. Mercuri’s work is partly an attempt to
design a machine in line with minimum standards set by
the U.S. federal government, unlike the voting machines
currently being installed across America. The New York State Assembly recently passed
legislation that specifically requires that machines
“produce and retain a voter verified permanent paper
record with a manual audit capacity” (but fails to
mention the code that runs the machines). Rep. Rush Holt has introduced federal
legislation, The Voter Confidence and Increased
Accessibility Act of 2003 with similar aims. The measure
would require all voting machines to produce an actual
paper record by 2004 that voters can view to check the
accuracy of their votes and that election officials can
use to verify votes in the event of a computer
malfunction, hacking, or other irregularity. Other solutions exist to ensure the integrity of
voting machines and address the concerns of people like
Professor Mercuri. Jason Kitcat is the author of the Free
e-democracy project, an open source project that builds
Internet voting software. Likewise, Australia makes the code for their
machines available online whereas American companies
jealously guard the code that runs their machines. It seems a fair question, considering the list
of problems that currently plague voting equipment: why
are none of these alternatives being investigated? The 2004 election will be the first to use
nation-wide electronic voting. With the purging of voter lists, secrecy
surrounding voting machines, the lack of a verifiable
paper trail combined with voting machine companies with
strong Republican ties and funding from the radical
right, a Bush victory is all but inevitable. Welcome to
the machines. www.infernalpress.com/Columns/election.html [ Published: 06.25.03/9:24 p.m. ] Copyright 2001-2003 by InfernalPress.
MIKE'S GARAGE Service and Repair Subaru Specialists 1501 Fifth Street Sante Fe, NM 87505 Mike Grego (505) 983-6577 Weather Warning by Thomas (of ZiaNet) Please be aware that lightning and rain can affect your computer and the quality of your Internet connection. Rain can sometimes wet phone lines or terminal connections between you and the phone company. If you find that your connect rate or even your ability to get connected falls off after a good soaking rain, don't feel like the Lone Ranger. It's a pretty common problem. Some phone systems are much more susceptible to this problem than others. Every year when the thunderstorms begin internet service providers get calls from people with dead modems. Especially if you live up in the mountains, where these storms deliver more lightning, and phone lines are hanging on poles rather than buried, a couple of cautions are in order. When lightning strikes nearby it sends huge electrical pulses through wiring. Phone lines and electrical lines will carry these pulses to your home, and to your computer. You should have a high quality surge protector between your computer and these lines. Good surge protectors are inexpensive. They include four or six power plug connections and a pair of phone jacks. This is good protection, but not great protection. Great protection costs a bit more, or nothing, and is a matter of convenience versus cost. If you are willing to spend between $75 and $250, you can invest in an UPS (Uninteruptable Power Source) system. These units charge internal batteries, fully filter the power and phone connection, and should the power go out, supply power to your computer long enough for you to shut it down safely. If you go shopping for one of these, look for a unit that offers a dollar guarantee. They guarantee that if your equipment is damaged they will replace it. In most cases a $500 to $1500 guarantee will do just fine. The more you spend, that larger the guarantee. Then again, you could just disconnect the phone line and unplug the computer when weather threatens. This only costs you the effort of bending over, and is the very best insurance against those deadly surges.
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Inside This Issue Americanos: Latino Life in the United States…........……1 Another Mistake…....……..10 Book Review……..………15 Call Girl…………...……….7 Cat-Astroph…...….12 Follow Up to Open Letter...................4 How Bush Won the 20044 Election………....…11 Loose Labeling……...……..6 Mommy’s Little Angel…..............15 Naked Lunch………....…...12 New Film Instructors.......……6 North Central NM Events..................3 Objective Science Does NOT Exist Here……….............5 Resolution Opposing Modern Pit Facility........……7 Roosevelt vs. Bush……................9 Solar Fiesta 2003……...........…..1 “Smart Bomb” Technology Moving to China……..........….5 Translations……….12 Unclassifieds….…….7 Use It & Pay For It…….................…7 Volcanic Activity in Espaņola Valley?…….........…3 Who Was It?……..........………10 |
