I can count the issues I see with Electronic Voting on the fingers of one hand:

1) Entrusting public information that drives public policy to private, proprietary systems is counterintuitive and disingenuous.
2) When votes are electronically countable, they are also electronically transformable. Electronic ballot stuffing seems like it would be easier than large-scale paper forgery.
3) Voting machine glitches are more common the more complex the machinery is. The simpler the process, the less likely you’ll be faced with long lines at 7am because some poll worker can’t program a VCR, either.

That pretty much sums up the issues. And I still have one finger left, not to mention a thumb.

The benefits:

1) It looked cool and modern. Nothing says “progress in government” like shiny new election machines. Yes, I’m easily impressed (this may be “issue #4 — expense,” but I believe these terminals will eventually cut election-day expenses, because I’m a forward-thinking optimist.)
2) I was in and out in five minutes. No glitches, no lines, and the machine was FAST — even when I was insisting that it let me double-check how it recorded my selections.
3) Big, easy-to-read text on a nice touch-screen. No more itsy-bitsy fine-print in dark little booths. When I looked at the proposition for a school leeway, I was able to read the whole whing without squinting or bending over. (I voted yes on that one. No new tax — the vote was for a re-allocation of existing tax monies, which is one of the few bits of true democracy you’ll find in this representative republic of ours)
4) It scrolled a little piece of paper inside, which I could read, review, and approve or even reject. Apparently there is a hard-copy being made in case the election is contested. While this does not completely address issue #2 above, it goes a long way towards making electronic manipulation of votes more difficult.

So there’s my experience with electronic voting. Summary: I like it. I’m not denying that there are issues (I would love to see the software, encryptions, and everything related to the process open-sourced, or at least open to peer review) but they were transparent for me.

–Howard “I probably just elected Adolph von Hussein-Amin as the Tyrant Principio of the Secessionary Territory of Utah” Tayler

Blank Label Comics’ Dave Kellett needs your help. He’s moving his daily strip, Sheldon, to www.sheldoncomics.com tomorrow.

He is leaving United Media to go completely independent… which means he needs help spreading the word to as many people as possible. The majority of Sheldon readers currently get the strip via “comics.com/comics/sheldon”, or via United Media’s e-mail delivery. When the strip moves, these readers won’t have any way to know where the strip went. (Dave tried putting a notice in the strip…it got edited out, and United Media won’t send a “Sheldon is moving” message either.)

(If anybody from United Media is reading this… it may be too late to save the syndication business model, but it’s not too late for you to go out of business with a clean conscience.)

Here’s how you can help not just Dave, but also the thousands of Sheldon fans that United Media is trying to put the screws to. Right now, while you’re thinking about it, take two minutes and post this infomation on your Web site, in a forum you visit, or on your personal blog:

Dave Kellett’s Sheldon is moving to http://www.sheldoncomics.com .

Why are you still reading? Go Do That Right Now. When you come back you can read about the cool new site features like:
– Free access to 5+ years of Sheldon strip archives
– Larger-sized Sunday and daily comics
– Faster loading times
– Free daily delivery of Sheldon by e-mail
– Free RSS feed
– Free “Send This Strip to a Friend” feature
– “Jump to a Random Strip” feature
– No pop-up/pop-under ads
– Daily blog
– Direct links to the forum, store, and more
– … basically, everything the strip didn’t have at comics.com

This trailer made me laugh pretty hard today.

The fact that it had such great LJ-icon material built right into it meant that I had to use it at least once.

Because, you know, I DO have a big head.

I hate being sick.

I’m holding water down now, but I’m running a fever and I’ve got aches and chills. Writing about it is helping me to NOT make whiny noises my family has to listen to.

When Patches was sick last week he practically took care of himself. We came downstairs and found that he’d quietly filled his bucket, wiped his face, and was back to watching a movie.

When Link was sick early this week, he was the same way.

Me, though… I shiver, groan, and ponder death. If I DO die, I’ve got a week colored and uploaded, and another three weeks inked. Sandra’s in charge of finding somebody to wrap the current story per my notes.

My notes are pretty sparse. It’s all up here *points at head*, where I have exactly zero blood-nannies to haul my sorry, whiny, shiny tuckus back from the beyond.

Based on the best data we’ve got (three children worth of baseline), I’ll bounce back sometime tomorrow around 8pm. Then again, none of the baseline cases were as whiny as I am.