Another week flew by. The Olympics started and Brazil (Brasil) pays a heavy price. Here they are in the midst of a coup by an oligarchy that can't even cheat their way to the presidency, so they just out right steal it. Public servants doing without pay to prop up the extensive costs of the games including security that abuses them. Then there's Turkey and Russia are joining forces after the coup, as we escalate attacks in Libya.
OK, Wait a minute!
I'm hearing WAY too many people going back to talking about politics as usual, and just accepting that Bernie got screwed over in the primaries, in depth no less, but what do we do NOW? -And honestly, I've found myself getting caught up in that. But at least speaking for myself, that has to end. FULL STOP.
Welcome to Openly Eccentric where I don't have a standard opening line and I like it that way.
So, first up looking forward to the 2nd Portland Meetup at the Lucky Lab. If you missed the last one, it was a blast. See you all on 8/20 at Noon, and if you need further details, the announcement is right here!
25+ New election links, must reads, videos and posts
8-5-2016 - Politico's 'How to Hack an Election in 7 Minutes' Finally Gets Close to Real Solutions - With Russia already meddling in 2016, a ragtag group of obsessive tech experts is warning that stealing the ultimate prize—victory on Nov. 8—would be child’s play. If this century has shifted our trust from away from our neighbors toward machines, it might be time to switch back again. Eight countries in Europe that once flirted with digital voting have seen six go back to paper; Britain counted its Brexit votes by hand. Even if the vote were never hacked—and it is an exceedingly implausible event—the remotest possibility is an albatross on democracy and a boon for mischief-makers, and not just the cyber attackers. Trump’s most recent jujitsu—pointing out that by virtue of the fact that the election is hackable, it could be rigged against him—illustrates this risk. Technology has amplified not only the threat of hacking, but the threat of a hack.
8-5-2016 - BradBlog - Politico summarizes much of BRAD BLOG's 15 years of e-voting coverage in 8,500 smart words.... - Please read the cover story of Politico Magazine today headlined "How to Hack an Election in 7 Minutes". Ben Wofford's excellent, comprehensive feature summarizes a great deal of almost 15 years of our work here at The BRAD BLOG. The 8,500+ word article is far too detailed to adequately summarize, or even quote from in detail here. So please go pour a tall drink or cup of coffee (you may need several, there's a lot there) and go read about the "parabola of havoc and mismanagement that has been the fifteen-year nightmare of state and local officials", as he accurately describes it, following the horrifically misguided and ill-advised move to computerized voting and tabulation systems following the 2000 election. I suspect we've filed almost as many articles on this topic as Wofford has words in today's piece!
Finding a job was hard enough for people with disabilities even before our current economic cluster. Now, with more and more jobs requiring drivers' licenses and the ability to travel to multiple locations, it's damn near impossible to find any employment whatsoever.
Hey, did you all realize that there are at least a couple searchable databases of the emails released from Clinton's server she used while at State? These are from the release(s) pre-March 2016.
Wikileaks
Just broke my self-imposed boycott of Charlie Pierce of Esquire, a very witty commentator who has shown a distressing tendency in recent years to line up along the Democratic party line. During the primary season this meant toeing pretty close to the Clinton party line, with occasional gestures toward impartiality. So, like so much other corporate media, he went in the trash bin. Today, though, I'm home getting over a cold, and wandered over to his joint. Imagine my surprise to see an entry from Friday entitled Somehow Hillary Clinton Made the E-mail Mess Even Worse Today.
(In British- Scrapheap Poo Pit Challenge)
I stand accused of being unfair to Brazil and mouthing the Imperialist Exceptionalist tropes that mark our Northern fully industrialized (hah!) First Worlder institutionally and systemically privileged status.
Guilty! I'm the whitest guy you'll ever meet. Nurses greet me with- "Son, the last time someone came in with numbers like that, they'd been shot." Oh, how'd they do? "They died."
I think this person doesn't understand what I find humorous.
I received a reply to a comment requesting me to repost it as a blog. My response was to a comment advocating voting for Hillary Clinton, then pressuring her to the left. I think my comment was posted late enough in the discussion that many who might have been interested, positively or negatively, did not have the opportunity to read it.
Lindsey Deaton frequently is between Cincinnati and Los Angeles on business. She recounts her experiences in a recent essay at Cincinnati.com.
