Basically, even though the law says they must allow it, Diebold is refusing to permit the code in their voting machines to be examined by North Carolina.

Frankly, I figure they're aware that North Carolina is going to find the same things that other people have found... That Diebold "accidentally" left "debugging" functions in place that allow anyone to change how all the votes on a particular machine are reported. (Just a note, there's no way in hell any such debugging functions would have been allowed into production ATM equipment--so it shouldn't be acceptable for voting terminals, either.)

CAN WE FINALLY START CONTEMPLATING THAT POSSIBLY THE LAST ELECTIONS WERE RIGGED OR DO WE STILL HAVE TO WAIT UNTIL INCUMBENTS ARE DONE SKULLFUCKING THE NATION TO AVOID THE EMBARRASSMENT OF ADMITTING EVERYONE WAS DUPED?

DIebold Continues To Refuse Examination of Compromised Voting Systems

Apparently the administrators of Oak Ridge Hich School would rather their students be barefoot and pregnant, rather than be able to make informed choices about birth control.

About a week ago the Oak Ridge High School student paper printed an article informing students about the various failure rates for various forms of birth control. Administrators for the school apparently found the article offensive and rounded up all 1,800 copies. Now they're having the school mouthpiece reprint the paper without the "inappropriate" article.

Attention Oak Ridge: You are in the middle of nowhere. Teens are going to do their damnedest to have sex, no matter what you do. Stop living in denial and at least give them a chance to make their mistakes without them becoming parents in the process.

...you ignorant redneck bastards.

Oak Ridge High School administrators find contraceptives offensive

Dover recently voted to have intelligent design removed from their area's school curriculum, to which Mr. Robertson responded by threatening disaster and pain in the form of the "Wrath of God" upon the entire area.

Considering that in 1988 he made the same types of threats against Florida, specifically threatening hurricanes in fact, I think it's time to arrest the bastard and begin looking into his terrorist network.

Pat Robertson, religious zealot, makes terrorist threats against Dover, PA

This is some beautiful stuff someone captured. Apparently someone at CNN trying to put together a map of the areas of France not currently in flames and bursting with rioters managed to really screw up using Google Maps.

Check it out, it's almost like a public school student's attempt at making their own map of a country they know nothing about.

The World According to CNN

I thought that after the beta ended I'd seen enough of this game to merely be satisfied that it exists.

...and now they've gone and decided to add high elves. Elves with proper fair skin and upright pointy ears.

I am dewmed.

Oh god no, not high elves!

For those (ahem few) of you who are wondering why it seems this year's fashions in PC cases only run in five styles, Cubic, HTPC, Black, Beige, and Impractical-excess-of-bits-that-stick-out, there's a little hope... Unfortunately the company only seems to be interested in doing runs of cases for resellers, of which I am not.

Thankfully, some of their models are available from http://www.directron.com (who appear to be the only cool Yahoo store in existance) and I just nabbed a burlwood model, which I shall eventually get around to adding extra enamel to if it's not as shiny as the red poplar case on the CaseArts site.

I am really fond of the Purple Comet case, tho. (If you guys at CaseArts see this, Christmas is coming up. :) )

Geek porn (Painted ATX FTW!)

Well, the Hellfish Team (site currently demolished by simultaneous linkage from Penny Arcade and Slashdot--*shudder*) took Jack Thompson up on his little offer, and created a mod for GTA:SA for the PC that turns it into a game about hunting down and murdering violent video-game developers.

For those who don't follow game news, Jack Thompson offered to donate $10,000 to charity if someone would do this. It was done, and then Thompson promptly shows his true colors by saying on his website (where he regularly rails against "violent video games") that his offer and indeed the whole game idea was just satire.

To make things more amusing, Penny Arcade took note of this amazing display of "takesees-backsees" and donated $10,000 to the Entertainment Software Association Foundation in Jack's name.

Thompson, of course, responded to this display of generosity by attempting to pursue harrassment charges against Penny Arcade.

Go figure.

(Can we go ahead give Thompson the Internet Kook of the Year Award now or must we wait until the end of the calendar year? I don't think anyone's going to be able to top this one for sheer stupidity.)

Jack Thompson welshes!

I think the title pretty much summarizes the situation. The final toxicology has come back, and Levy has released his results. There was indeed more than just drugs involved, and it wasn't just the Taser.

Of course, since this affair has been covered distastefully by the media up to now, I see no reason why it shouldn't continue, so in the upper portion of the article you may notice a paragraph which looks like it was more or less made up to fit circumstances, and I somehow doubt this detail came from Levy.

Someone *died* and now people are trying to capitalize on the situation, apparently in hopes that they can sue for some money. The people responsible for continuing the stink and refusing to face reality should truly be ashamed of themselves.

Patrick Aaron Lee autopsy final details in: Taser did not directly affect the outcome

Words can not express how just *stunned* I am at this.

This woman has NO JUDICIAL EXPERIENCE. NONE. NADA. NEVER BEEN A JUDGE.

Apparently her major qualification is that she was helping Bush pick the *other* judicial appointees. At least she wasn't previously presiding over Cat Fancier judges or something.

I am just stunned. The Senate are going to tear her into little bloody chunks.

Bush attempts to appoint Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court.

Finally, FINALLY, someone is standing up to the RIAA and taking them to task over their racketeering.

The woman is countersuing the RIAA on pretty much every little illegal thing they've been doing (hiring a company that installs spyware, claiming debts are owed that do not exist, filing lawsuits that they have no intention of seeing through, making threats and falsely representing facts, etc).

GO BABY GO!

It's one thing to protect one's interested from criminal activity. It's entirely another to repeatedly break a whole raft of laws while doing so.

Tanya Andersen files countersuit against the RIAA!