Are We, As A People, Really This Dumb?

I really hate the "cry baby" portion of America…I really do.  Case in point: 'Zero' chance lottery tickets stun some players

When Scott Hoover bought a $5 scratch-off ticket in Virginia called "Beginner's Luck" last summer, he carefully studied the odds. Even though he figured his chances of winning were a long shot, he felt the odds were reasonable.

Hoover, a business professor at Washington and Lee University in Virginia, wasn't surprised when his tickets didn't bring him the $75,000 grand prize, but he was shocked to learn the top prize had been awarded before he bought the ticket.

"I felt duped into buying these things," Hoover said.

He discovered the Virginia State Lottery was continuing to sell tickets for games in which the top prizes were no longer available. Public records showed that someone had already won the top prize one month before Hoover played. He is now suing the state of Virginia for breach of contract.

The mind boggles. You really have to be an academic to not understand the concept of "scratch off" lottery games.  All you have to do is think about it for 10 seconds to realize even before the top prize has been awarded you can buy tickets that have "no chance."  For example, you may never visit the town the tickets is randomly shipped to, or you may never visit the particular store selling the top prize.  Therefore, all of the tickets you buy have "no chance" to win the top prize.

Somebody with a PhD in Business needs this explained to them?  Really?  (There goes Washington & Lee off the list of schools I'd willingly send my children.)

Of course I'd feel better if the story also contained a regular person style "voice of sanity" perspective.  No such luck.

In New Jersey, tickets for the "$1,000,000 Explosion" scratch-off game were still on sale last week, even though the million-dollar grand prize was already awarded.

Lottery ticket buyers outside a New Jersey convenience store were stunned to hear the news.

"Oh really? I didn't know that," one shopper told CNN. Another added, "That's just not right."

I forget….how many generations of imbeciles was enough?

Tipping Point

I realize my posting has been very light the past week or so - and really light the last couple of days. I have been fighting - hard - with a number computer problems. First repetitive crashing on my main office computer, then the kid's installation of "fun" little games then a couple of software malfunctions that resulted in uninstall/reinstalls. The ridiculous crashing problem appears to have been resolved by deleting all - and I mean every single speck - of ATI software from my system and letting Windows simply find and install only the drivers for my video card. The kid's computer mess has been a long and ugly process, involving rootkits and registry scrubbing.

Then we get to the tipping point today.

I have a backup computer, if you will. It is a slightly less capable computer than my main one, but is a solid little system I built from an Abit IS7-V2 motherboard. It has an Intel Celeron clocked at 2.9 GHz and 512 Gbytes of (slightly slow) PC 2700 memory. While battling the problems with the main box, I was simultaneously updating the backup with all the latest Windows XP patches (the box hadn't been online in a while). All that went swimmingly.

Then I installed some better PC 3200 memory in the backup. And all hell broke loose.

Windows Genuine Disadvantage® tool decided my box was no longer compliant with the dictates of the mothership and disabled my internet connection and informed me I had to revalidate my legal software. All of a sudden, my wireless card was no longer on the system and I had no way to validate. I had to call, spend 45 minutes or so of my time trying to get the damned Windows software revalidated (which it was - hell, I had just downloaded 41 critical updates not an hour before I installed memory). Then I tried to figure out why I suddenly had no wireless card - I mean it was not even there according to Windows. Then I shut the computer off and on three times and suddenly the card was back and I was connected. (The card stopped working and disappeared from the system exactly when Windows decided I needed to revalidate it and only came back after I had.)

So now, it appears that Microsoft has decided to disable things on my system if I change or add components.

And I'm done with them. I'll keep my legal copies of XP, I'll keep running it on these computers I own until they die of old age. But I will be damned if I will ever buy another Microsoft product of any kind whatsoever.

About That Meme

Whenever I write a post about my support for requiring positive identification to vote, the usual swarm swoops in and loudly and insistently proclaim that there is no evidence of widespread voter registration fraud. They say that is just false, etc., etc. They say there is no need for an ID law. They say that it simply doesn't happen. So how is this possible then?

35,000 Questionable Registration Forms!
Yes, you read that correctly…35,000 questionable registration forms!

Kansas City election officials said this was the most irresponsible and extensive voter registration abuse in Missouri they had seen. They weren't kidding!
KMBC Missouri is reporting this breaking news:

Four people have been indicted on charges of voter fraud in Kansas City, officials said Wednesday.

Investigators said about 35,000 questionable registration forms for new voters were collected by the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, a group that works to improve minority and low-income communities.

The four indicted — Kwaim A. Stenson, Dale D. Franklin, Stephanie L. Davis and Brian Gardner — were employed by ACORN as registration recruiters.

This is not in insignificant thing. This is more than enough fraud to swing an election in a tight race. There is video over there you should watch. The election officials are utterly swamped with this tidal wave of outright fraud. Yahoo News is also carrying the story right now:

Investigators said questionable registration forms for new voters were collected by the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, a group that works to improve minority and low-income communities.

The four indicted — Kwaim A. Stenson, Dale D. Franklin, Stephanie L. Davis and Brian Gardner — were employed by ACORN as registration recruiters. They were each charged with two counts.

Federal indictments allege the four turned in false voter registration applications. Prosecutors said the indictments are part of a national investigation.

ACORN and Project Vote recruit and assign workers to low-income and minority neighborhoods to register people to vote.

The Kansas City Election Board told KMBC they found suspicious forms, such as seven applications from one person and an application for a dead man.

"There is some motive behind it — this is not accidental," said Ray James with the Kansas City Election Board.

Election officials said some of the application cards had false addresses, signatures and phone numbers.

ACORN officials in Kansas City said they turned in the four people who were indicted.

"We're very happy that they were indicted," said Claudie Harris with ACORN.

If we presume ACORN officials are acting in good faith, then they have been subverted at a lower level by people who do not have good intentions. These indictments indicate that all of ACORN's voter registration efforts are now highly suspect until proven otherwise. There are some people intent on stealing election here. It is not the people the left routinely charges with wanting to do so (or having done already), either.

Sometimes A Good Rant

Is good for the soul. Both for the ranter and for those privileged enough to be witness to said exercise. Me, I feel privileged to be able to read someone in full swing at a lot of things who also happens to write beautifully. Isn't the internet grand?

So why are you still here? Go read The Anchoress.

Side Effects

The Anchoress has a post up about some side effects that have occurred in patients who have received embryonic stem cell implants that proponents have failed to mention. It is not pretty. It seems the media forgets to cover little nightmares like these when they are hyping an issue. You might want to keep information like this in mind when you start hearing the distortions.

Hamas Militia Back On The Streets

After a one day withdrawal, the Hamas militia has again taken to the streets in the Palestinian territories. There have been no reports of violence at this time. Hamas has rejected the deadline from President Mahmoud Abbas to accept a referendum on the establishment of a Palestinian state.

Abbas announced Thursday that he was giving Hamas 10 days to accept a proposal calling for a Palestinian state alongside Israel. Otherwise, he said, he will call a national referendum on the plan, which is expected to pass.

Hamas leaders are divided over the proposal, which was drawn up by senior Fatah and Hamas militants who are imprisoned by Israel. Prisoners held by Israel hold great weight in Palestinian society.

Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said the group was not bound by the 10-day deadline. Abbas has given no indication that he would be flexible on the deadline.

That's in interesting detail. The plan for the referendum was drawn up by Hamas and Fatah people held in Israeli jails.

Hilton Hotels Don’t like American Soldiers

So, maybe it's time to stop staying at Hilton Hotels. Via The Real Ugly American and Mudville Gazette comes a real " are you f***ing kidding me" moment. A steakhouse in Washington that has offered free meals to wounded vets from Walter Reed every Friday night is being evicted. Liability issues, don't you know. Go read about this outrage.

I will never, ever stay in a Hilton Hotel if this does not change fast. I would guess no member of the armed forces or any veterans will either. Smooth move, Hilton.

UPDATE: Please spread the word, get any and all bloggers who support out troops to post about this and link. Show the folks at Hilton what a real blogstorm looks like.

Gettysburg Politicians Agree To Sell Themselves!

Gettysburg borough council members cheerfully agreed to sell themselves to any takers on Monday.

Well, that's how I read it. Actually, they voted to accept a $1,000,000 guarantee (read bribe) to allow a casino to be built next to the hallowed ground sanctified by the blood of men at least 1,000 times better than they are. Men who paid with their lives to free Negro slaves they did not even think of as fellow citizens. Men on the other side who fought, not for slavery, but for what they thought of as their states rights.

Are You Kidding Me?

Blue Crab Boulevard's hard working Magic 8-Ball photographer managed to capture the following photo of unidentified borough council members soliciting "guarantees" (*wink, wink*) from prospective clients bidders.

Was that offensive?

GOOD.

Just so you know

I am not really all that familiar with HTML. I kind of learn as I go with it.

I was quite happy to get away from Blogger. Still, Word Press is not a really super user-friendly program for a novice. There is no spell checker, the plug-ins don’t work for this version apparently, the text editor is less than fun and I am getting frustrated.

Still, I am slowly working through the problems.

But I want a damned spell checker. Pasting Word into this editor is a nightmare……

This is a victory?

Ok, this is a subject I have at least some expertise in, having spent a lot of years in the utility industry. Several states, led by leading New York demagogue Elliot (I’ll be Governor if it kills you) Spitzer, have “won” a lawsuit forbidding the EPA from relaxing a certain clause in the Clean Air Act. The new rules would have let aging power plants make improvements without having to upgrade to the latest “best available” pollution control equipment.

"Under the Clean Air Act, operators who do anything more than routine maintenance are required to add more pollution-cutting devices. Under the proposed change, industrial facilities could have avoided paying for expensive emissions-cutting devices if they spent less than 20 percent of the plant's value”.

Elliot is, of course, crowing about the great victory he just won. Here’s why it is no victory at all: The current rules allow the older plants to continue to operate exactly as they have been. They will continue, for now, to emit at the current rates, and emissions will gradually increase as more equipment ages and less is spent on maintenance. The kinds of improvements that are now banned actually are ones that increase the plant’s efficiency, thereby reducing the emissions the plant makes. When I was managing engineering at a large fossil plant, we had to be very, very careful about what we installed. We routinely made decisions not to install things that would have increased the plant’s efficiency, producing more power for the same emission output. We did so in order to avoid running afoul of the (stupid) rule that would have forced us to install “best available” emission controls. But Elliot and company just saved everyone. Aren’t you proud? For Gaius’ primer on power, see here.

Blogger is again eating posts

I just had a post eaten by Blogger. I am kind of tired of this. One of the blogs I read regularly, Betsy’s Page, has been completely erased by Blogger.