http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2008/08/the_tsa_told_yo.html

So weird:

A plane was forced to land when a passenger had an extreme allergic reaction to a leaking jar of mushroom soup, it was revealed today.

The soup fell on the man from an overhead locker on a Ryanair flight to Dublin from Budapest.

He reportedly suffered allergic swelling in his neck and struggled to breathe, forcing staff to seek emergency medical treatment.

I will post pictures of the goats soon, but I have to borrow M's camera and I forgot to ask her where it is.  

I have a headache, I am way tired and Pearl WON'T STOP BARKING.  OMG!   I need to snap into mental energy.   The fact is that I am DEFINITELY a night person and teaching consistently goes against what my body wants to do, which is probably part of why i am always so tired.   That and I don't sleep very well.  We really need a new bed, a bigger bed, and a GOOD one.  I've been sleeping on a queen sized futon for two years.  I don't know how we'd fit it in there, but a king bed must happen.  And M is a total cover hog!  I had to actually PRY the duvet from her vicelike grip in the middle of the night - SEVERAL TIMES.    And then she complains when I end up sleeping right on top of her... well, DUH!  Give me some covers, biatch!  I say this with love.  But seriously.

In the spring we hired this guy to come take care of some cleaning in the house.  M hates to clean and I am more particular about things are and it lends itself to bickering since we are both so busy and no one wants to clean on their time off.   Anyway, we hired this guy and he was a bit of a dolt and we let him go after a month or two.   He didn't get why it wasn't working.   He was wierd.   We both went against our better judgement and hired him even though we both got a wierd vibe.   (SHUTUP PEARL SHUTUP SHUTUP!!)   We finally decided to give him the boot and take care of things ourselves during the summer.   I kind of regret that we didn't find someone to replace him because I felt like i cleaned all summer, but it saved us money.  Anyway, the time is nigh.  School.   (insert Beethoven's 5th theme here)  So we put the feelers out and I think we found someone.   To be honest, that money isn't really "extra" for us, but I think we've come to terms with the fact that it's worth our sanity and our relationship to have someone take that part of things off of our minds.  With the animals we simply can't let the house go longer than a week.   Really, by a week's time it is pretty furry and funky in here.   If I could live out my dream of being a housewife, I'd take care of it but it's not happening for a while yet.   

I hear goats meh-ing.   Love it!  

I have managed to do nothing relevant for work in quite a while.   I really need to make some progress.   I am so glad that I have those magical moments where other teachers teach my main lesson.  The first one starts 10/13, so I just need to make it through the first two blocks and then I can reorient myself.  I have a lot of lessons after school and weekends this year.   Good for money purposes, bad for sleeping/relaxation purposes.  But it increased my income to 150% compared to without lessons, and it's a necessary thing.

Yawn.  Bark.  grr.

http://wendi-aarons.blogspot.com/2008/08/pita-pity.html

http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2008/08/diebold_finally.html

Premier Election Solutions, formerly called Diebold Election Systems, has finally admitted that a ten-year-old error has caused votes to be dropped.

It's unclear if this error is random or systematic. If it's random -- a small percentage of all votes are dropped -- then it is highly unlikely that this affected the outcome of any election. If it's systematic -- a small percentage of votes for a particular candidate are dropped -- then it is much more problematic.

Ohio is trying to sue:

Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner is seeking to recover millions of dollars her state spent on the touch-screen machines and is urging the state legislature to require optical scanners statewide instead.

In a lawsuit, Brunner charged on Aug. 6 that touch-screen machines made by the former Diebold Election Systems and bought by 11 Ohio counties "produce computer stoppages" or delays and are vulnerable to "hacking, tampering and other attacks." In all, 44 Ohio counties spent $83 million in 2006 on Diebold's touch screens.

In other news, election officials sometimes take voting machines home for the night.

My 2004 essay: "Why Election Technology is Hard."