Can This Machine Be Trusted? more about voting machines!

Now Time magazine has got into the debate TIME.com: Can This Machine Be Trusted? -- Nov. 6, 2006 -- Page 1

More for the conspiracy theorists

Read this about voting machines and just ponder whose paranoia is twitching?

U.S. Investigates Voting Machines’ Venezuela Ties - New York Times

14 days to go

In two weeks time we will be at the polls, unless of course you vote online. One question remains after looking at the process is - how do you have a recount?

But back to the excitement of the campaign (sarcasm of course - ed). Has anybody seen a candidate yet? I have had seen two. But there are 14 days left.

So what did you folks think of the ACM, the format and the candidates? Probably not much if you go by the number of people who left at the first opportunity. As I said earlier I saw a couple of duds and and a couple of standouts and the rest were - the rest. Was it only me or did anyone else feel that some of the incumbents really looked as though they didn't really want to be there. And how long can Lloyd Williams employ the bizarre campaign strategy of conceding the race every time he opens his mouth. He stated that he will spend $8,000 of his own money to be in the race - he should have bought lottery tickets and had some fun instead.

What a bunch!!

If that is the lineup in Hamilton Township God help us! Not an original idea in the place and all they want to do is to fight a non-existent war with Cobourg. This pathetic plethora of parish pumping politicians want to look good to the grey hairs of Hamilton Twp. BTW who lives in Hamilton Twp anymore - how about Cobourg North, that's where the tax base is. And the way to look good to the local chapter of the Lanark Landowners Association is to beat up on Cobourg all the time missing the point that cooperating with Cobourg on local issues would lower operating costs. Water for instance: HT has paid about 5 million dollars for a municipal system to cover Baltimore on a limited way - twice the cost it would have been to bury a water main to cover a much larger area. Don't talk to me about the policing costs versus coverage. When the Town covered the Twp they had a consistent coverage of all the department at all times. Now the OPP is in all they did was to transfer 12 more officers to the County. That's only 3 actual people on each shift - for the County. The election question for this bunch of dimwits should be "Where is the OPP?" not "Oh Cobourg is so bad to us!!"

An amusing question

A friend from Toronto noticed all the signs in Cobourg encouraging us to vote for WILLIAMS X. He wondered if Williams X was related Malcolm X ?

here's the lineup

Here's the lineup from last night's event. A couple of standouts a couple of duds and and the rest, well the rest.

We left after the first session, as did a lot of other people. I guess that most had only come to see their choices confirmed. Not much fire, the format precluded that, and not much new stuff either. We did learn that Mr McCaughey is very proud of the development at the harbour because he has created a "population" that can sustain the downtown. Others didn't think so. Nobody wanted to talk about payraises - cowards, and all wanted to talk about something that they have no control over - jobs! The only new idea came from Rob Harper, he wants the Town to create a special fund that would allow underprivileged kids to tap into to pay for recreational opportunities - well done. As for the school trustees: one grizzly veteran who knew the issues inside out, one woman who appears to be the perpetual PTA person and a slick neo-con who read every single answer from his crib sheets in response to planted questions. I never thought I say this but Gordon you looked good.

Another source code leak for Diebold

This is serious stuff. For those of us who have been dissenting about the use of electronic voting machines, those that cannot be recounted or verified are especially troubling to democracy watchers. Another source code leak for Diebold
If you were watching the conspiracy theories and tales from Ohio and Tennessee in the last Presidential elections, how can anyone have faith in these monsters?

401 widening announced and you wonder why there are cynics around!

Click here to see the latest announcement from the Fiberals. London Free Press - National News - 401 widening announced No wonder people look at government announcements with dismay, just how many times can you milk the same topic?

For the benefit of our out of town readers this project was started months ago and now the complaint is just how long can you tie up the 401 whilst building the extra lanes.

What a bad week for the campaign watchers!

This week has been a bad one for those of us who expect candidates to do something. Read this email from a correspondent who is also pulling out his hair over the lack of action by the candidates:

My kids are asking: Where are the election lawn signs?

Lawn signs - by their very nature - are in fact - a public discussion on issues. So where is the democratic debate? Where is the fertilizer manure for our lawns?

It’s election time and my kids want to start playing our favorite car game - “cast your vote”. Our tradition come election time is this. When we drive around town everyone picks a candidate and we start counting the signs until we get home.The candidate with the highest sign count gets elected!

Best part is there are no spoiled ballots - unless a heavy wind blows a sign half-off its stake.

It’s a daily education of civics and democracy in the car! And you can switch your candidate every day like Belinda crossing the floor.

But my little deputy returning officers have nothing to do in their mobile polling station! This isn’t just a game we are missing out on - we are losing valuable quality family time.

On a 10 minute drive around town there are only a handful of signs to count On this basis -this election is to close call. Two minutes in the car - its game over and they’re starting ask - are we there yet??

With manicured lawns the norm in town -(and only one candidate with a naturalized lawn with a sign that barely peeks out from the weeds - sorry meant wild flowers) - I have an unobstructed sight line from my car. So, I can only assume that candidates have abandoned the sign wars strategy this time around.

Where is the value of local government in action if the candidates don’t make the effort to litter our lawns with coreplast signs and wooden stakes?? Where is the character education building opportunity for my children?

I spent a fortune on Chismbop so they could do long-division with their toes and use their fingers for their 9x‘s table! The current game - with four weeks to go and with no name brand presence by candidates means they can do it in their head without a calculator or a pencil. It takes them fewer than the five fingers on their little hand to come up with a total. On this basis, our daily voter turnout works out to be about 5%.

Where’s the challenge - where’s the math skill - where's the fun?

Maybe the times are a changing. Maybe a clean sweep of the recognizable names in Cobourg is in the making? Maybe voters will only be selecting a name on the ballot they don't recognize as the safest choice for change?? . Will voters want to mark an 'X" against only the candidate(s) they don't know or recognize! If so than - the best election strategy for the new crop of candidates in Cobourg is to fly under the radar. The candidate with the weakest campaign team and fewest signs will have the strategic advantage!

No lawn-sign discourse from our candidates or family values in the car? It's a price I would gladly pay.

The next event that candidates and voters have to watch is the All Candidates meeting at the local High School on Tuesday. This sterile and neutered event is "staged" by the local Chamber of Commerce and hosted by the designated wit of the moment as defined by the C of C. This event is a waste of space for all due to its choreography and slanted questions and the lack of time given to the candidates to express their views. For example the Deputy Mayor candidates get 1 (one) minute to open their remarks. What the heck can you say in one minute?

Still we will all troop down to the meeting expecting to see something and then after being dazzled (!!!) by the candidates we will all dutifly vote. Some of us want more to look at and as another observer has noted this charade is an affront to local democracy and all the local media is to blame. We wanted more than just puff pieces and little coverage from the media. I did hear that "Huff & Puff" has made up his mind but it is a secret just who he will be voting for I can hardly wait for that announcement. I have also heard that another candidate was heard to complain that the local papers will not print letters to the editor from candidates during the election period. Do something and maybe you will get some coverage.

A full weekend for the candidates

This weekend and the next are the only days that count for the candidates. The last two weekends of the campaign. But you say there are four weekends left before voting day. Well on November 2nd online and postal voting begins. Pity the poor candidate who turns up at the door on the dates after that to be told, as a go away line, "I have already voted and I voted for you!" As you can see there will many disappointed candidates on election night, having been told all week that they have had the votes in the bag by savvy voters who voted early, they will now be hit by reality. As the kids say "Reality sucks" and that means only one thing - the voters lied.

Oops congratulations withdrawn

A couple of posts ago I congratulated the company building the new County building for its ecological sense whn laying out the site by having barriers around the driplines of the protected trees, Well forget it - yesterday the company was back putting in a permanent fence and some of it is now inside the dripline, shame!

Forest Pigs Strike Again This Time At Policeman And His Dog (from Daily Echo)

And we thought the pig attacks were over!! Forest Pigs Strike Again This Time At Policeman And His Dog

Dangerous Pig Removed From Forest

So it's over the killer pig has been caged and removed from the New Forest! read it here

The local school trustee race

As you can see, when you visit the campaign opinion page, here, you will notice that I have ignored the school trustees races. It is intentional, they should not exist and by ignoring them I hope that their redundancy and lack of usefulness to the political scene will be noticed. There should be one big school board that takes care of diversity and religious education by means of an expanded and heavy handed curriculum committee.

I did notice that one candidate _Allen McLennan has the most colourful signs and obviously a lot of money to spend on a frivolous position that places people on local positions to rubberstamp the Provincial decisions. If that's what he wants who am I so stop him?

One good reason not to have a trustee is that in the local issues of school closings nobody seems to support the parents at the Board level, so why have them?

When the public sector beats the private sector hands down

Ever wondered why we have such great public buildings, they don't cut corners to maximize profit! Look at the site preparation for the new County Building. Good fences and all the trees protected with barriers right out to the dripline. The last private site that protected some of the trees, most don't, (remember the developer on D'Arcy St./ Rankin Blvd) I observed kept moving the dripline barriers to suit the construction, poor trees!

Some stories are very strange

Try this story on for size Fears Grow As Huge Pig Attacks Four People In A Week (from Daily Echo)
I always thought the strange animal tales came from killer elephants in India, but a giant pig (nicknamed Boardicea) in the New Forest in England!!

A new look out of necessity

I have had to change the template because the previous one will not display in my browser. I am using Firefox as opposed to Internet Explorer (I like to stick it to Bill Gates as much as possible and avoid Microsoft products if I can). So I will slowly get back the features that you have been using, the election poll has been well used.

First edition of the election summary page

After one week of official campaigning this is the impression I'm left with - Delanty has his team going well and not much is being done by anyone else. Don't candidates realise that there are only so many days left and you never get them back.

Here is the page that will get most of my attention in the coming weeks. Please comment freely and often, this will liven up the cyberelection but only if you contribute. I will need pics of the candidates so if you have any send them over, website URLs too.

OK some of the candidates have signs - big deal!

Ok we now see some signs from some of the candidates, I just hope they are pounding the pavement because they appear to have done little else. Where are the press releases, where are the position papers just what do they think? I see that the Northumberland News has a list of candidates here and the Cobourg Daily Star has one here. I am working on a page that will reflect how I think based on what I see so if the candidates want to get ink from me they had better do something to get noticed. A final point it seems that the hardest working campaigners so far are the incumbents, maybe that will change this week when Dean McCaughey runs out of friends lawns and Peter Delanty has run through the local Liberal Party's sign list.

On a completely different vein I see that there will be a "domino run" of cereal boxes to draw attention to the fact some people can't afford to buy food. I don't get it why, is so much energy put into being "Lady Bountifuls" and not enough effort being put into forcing the governments to pay poor people more. Ending the child tax credit clawback and raising the minimum wage would be much more helpful than stacking boxes of cereal.

The list is closed now where the hell are the candidates?

The list closed last Friday and what have we got in the way of coverage or presence? Some green Delanty signs and a few white and red Sherwin signs and very few gothic black signs for Brocanier. I just hope that the candidates are banging on doors other than mine and having their printed leaflets distributed. There is a campaign going on here and I want to see something!!

Now that the deadline to register to run for Council is past, when will you give us a synopsis of all the Cobourg candidates' strengths and weaknesses? And while you're at it, maybe you could set up a poll or something on line and come up with predictions on who the winners will be? You've got lots of time, right?

This was a comment on the last post, Oh yeah I have lots of time that's why you haven't had any comments lately. I have been fighting the good fight with the floor sanders and have had to be out of the house for three days last week, couple that with work and I'll soon find plenty of time to write (sarcasm folks!)

But I will have a synopsis of the candidates and some comments about them in due course. Just a little tale: the day after the Cobourg paper wore out the presses by printing all the candidates in colour (I bet Darren Murphy had a s***fit about the extra costs) the love of my life said to me "What are these Xs and Os on this paper?" They were my picks. "Why are some more crossed out than others?" the answer to that was easy and can never be replicated in a ballot - "The more scratches on a face means just how badly you want them to lose."