Bennigan's, Jin Wicked & Crap, fortune, Sorry Everybody, & Black Box Voting

Mmm, Bennigan's for dinner again. Crabcake/grilled salmon/grilled shrimp combo, this time.

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I can't for the life of me figure out where I recognize Jin Wicked's handle from--probably an old comic forum, or possibly the 'tron--but I'm quite pleased by her comic, Crap I Drew On My Lunch Break. :)

My fortune today: "You may attend a party where strange customs prevail." Rock!

On behalf of half of the country, to the rest of the world, Sorry, Everybody.

BlackBoxVoting.org: consumer protection for elections. They've uncovered some rather disconcerting information already, with more on the way..

What do I believe?

I'd been thinking about making a post like this, but a friend's list of beliefs with which I agree almost 100% goaded me on. Copied or paraphrased from said friend, plus several additional items:

I firmly believe in the separation of church and state.

I firmly believe in a woman's right to make decisions about her own body.

I firmly believe that the "Patriot Act" infringes on our rights

I firmly believe that Bush's policies are having an extremely negative effect on our environment.

I firmly believe there should be no government interference in marriage. Either everybody or nobody.

I firmly believe that homosexuals are just as "normal" as heterosexuals.

I firmly believe that you can be moral and non-Christian. (Or more generally, that religion is not the only source of positive morals.)

I believe in stem cell research.

I believe we need to clean up our own backyard before we force our way of life on others. I'm not purely isolationist, but I think we should be less interventionist.

I think we went to war for misrepresented, misguided reasons. I think our troops are good people, but I don't think they should still be in Iraq. I don't think Hussein had anything to do with 9/11.

I believe in the intentions of "No Child Left Behind," though I think more creative, more individualized teaching would be best, and that "enforced teaching to a test creates substandard students." However, any good plan need significant funding, particularly creative individualization, and education is still underfunded--leaving many schools without resources to implement any effective programs.

I believe that liberal doesn't equal bleeding heart or pansy. Just because I think we need to chose our battles wisely doesn't mean I won't fight for what I believe in (where is all this hate coming from anyway?)

I believe a flat tax would be far more equitable than the current system.

I believe in limited gun control.

I believe in a patient's right to die.

I am not opposed to the death penalty.

Those are the issues that come to mind at the moment. As for health care, social security, welfare, and other primarily-fiscal issues, I haven't done enough research to have a solid opinion.

Another long day of class to finish the week; plans!

Another long day of class, but pretty interesting. Much of the day was hands-on--logging, firmware, deinstallation/reinstallation, & troubleshooting. However, by the time 6pm rolled around, one library was up, one was flaky, and one still had undetermined issues, and those who hadn't left already were more than ready to go home. (Mine and Sonny's was the undetermined one, but he'd left. I wanted to fix it up, out of curiosity and pride, but I wanted to go home more. Jim, the instructor, didn't to leave a machine down, but was also wanted to go home, so go we all did.) I did get to fix one problem by beating on it with a wrench, though. :D

The problem, see, was one of good intention. In previous iterations of this three-day class, the six students would work on one machine for the FRU-replacement and troubleshooting--which resulted in complaints about lack of hands-on time per person. So, Jim tried three machines (two people per) this round. However, that takes a lot more time; more, in fact, than we really had available. And he didn't even have to place any bugs to troubleshoot; two people tearing down and rebuilding both the front and backside of the library, once each, resulted in more bugs than he would have placed manually!)

Lunch was China Village Asian Grill again. Tasty! After work, I partook of the open bar, and left messages for Rainie and Sarah. Might call Rachel, too. This weekend, I plan to check out one or more of Loveland, Arapahoe Basin, and Copper (just opened today) for snowboarding. :)

Calls & BBQ & voting fraud & extremist debate

So two of the people I called chose to call me back within five minutes of each other, right around 10pm. Silly people! Anyhow, plans to hang out with Rainie tomorrow evening up in Boulder; playing phone tag with Rachel, who's out at a bar in Denver.

Prior to these calls, I walked next door to Brothers BBQ, which was rather underwhelming. The food was decent but not great, the place was empty--at 2030-2100, to be fair; the entertainment was a basketball game. (I've decided that baseball is more entertaining to watch on TV than basketball, and that says a lot given my opinion of watching baseball on TV.)

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jwz points out some more disturbing post-election information--county vote counts in favor of Bush thousands higher than actual total turnout, Bush on the confirmation screen for Kerry votes, exit polls at strong odds with tallied results, Diebold's CEO promising to deliver Ohio to Bush, and strong correlations between voting machine type and party increase.

O_o. Death is result of debate about God