Free For All @ Rhode Island Avenue Giant!

Since the opening of Columbia Heights' "new" Giant store a few years ago, the Brentwood Giant hasn't gotten much respect. But when it opened, it was the jewel of Northeast, the only full-service supermarket for miles around. I used to go by there now and then, if I happened to be going to Home Depot anyway. N. and I stopped by yesterday on exactly such a trip.

They've got these new self-checkout aisles there, and the configuration is a bit different than our Columbia Heights system. Instead of four self-serve terminals served by a single line, you've got four individual lanes with four individual lines. From the outset, this raised a huge red flag. As anyone knows, in the self checkout line, at least every other person either has no idea how to use the system, or has foolishly decided that they can check out an entire cart full of groceries by themselves before the store closes. Either situation can result in agonizing delays.

Either way, if you get stuck behind such a person, you might as well settle in, because it's going to be a long night. The "bank line" system at the Cohi Giant (and most other stores designed by people who posess even an iota of compassion for their customers) addresses this problem at least by ensuring that one slow person doesn't kill the whole line.

The other thing that's odd about the Brentwood system is that the self-checkout lanes resemble the baggage x-ray security lanes at an airport more than anything else. There are plastic barriers on both sides of the lane, preventing access to your groceries until the very end. I guess this had something to do with security, though I couldn't really understand what. As it turns out, I could not have been more wrong.

Since all the non-self-checkout lines were enormous, we took a big gamble and got in line at one of these TSA checkouts. Someone was just finishing, and two other people were ahead of us.

The first person stared at the machine for a few moments and, in a bit of self-awareness as rarely seen by elderly, technology-impaired supermarket patrons, realized his error and recused himself. Woo hoo! One down, one to go. It looked like our gamble would pay off!

Things went downhill from there. The woman in front of us only had about 7 or 8 items, but she started by putting a half-smoked cigarette on the scanner. This was the first sign that things were about to go horribly wrong. But things just got weird from there. At a snail's pace, probably predicated by her state of inebriation as was evident from the occasional whiff I got, she scanned two items: a bottle of gatorade, and a bag of chips.

The, she took the rest of her items and non-scanned them by simply throwing them down the conveyor belt. As we watched, she bagged (in her reusable giant bag, bless her heart) enough groceries to fill the bag, including a big box of frozen chicken or something, some milk, crackers, and several other items. It was enough to fill the bag such that boxes were sticking out the top. None of this caused any alarms to be raised by the system, like the sort that we are all familiar with when the weight of the items doesn't match what has been scanned.

But rather than just pay the total of $3.05 that she had actually scanned before proceeding to leave the store with her ill-gotten gains, she sought customer assistance. Apparently because she was paying with food stamps or something. She turned to us briefly to apologize for the delay (now going on almost ten minutes) because she was waiting for the cashier.

The cashier finally came over, and in a roughly 90 seconds process, keyed in an incredibly long series of keystrokes to process our hero's transaction. Thoughout this process, I kept wondering:

What kind of person not only conducts a small-scale heist at the self-checkout, but doesn't leave well enough alone and just pay the tiny sum of money involved to avoid possible detection?

What kind of supermarket employee cares so little about their job, that they will happily conduct their manual checkout intervention without noticing or caring that someone's leaving the store with a full bag of groceries for 3 bucks?

Why didn't the woman just finish her cigarette before she went shopping?

I briefly considered getting involved, but frankly, I have been wronged by Giant enough times that I felt they had it coming to them. And by that time we were happy to finally be able to check out and any further delay just seemed unnecessary.

But seriously, Giant. If your staff don't even bother to stop a shoplifter when the shoplifter is going out of their way to involve your staff in their transaction, you've got problems.

PETA: Hoax, or You Can't Make This Stuff Up?

I am really not obsessed with PETA, athough I have mocked them here or on facebook many times in the past. It's just that they're so darn craaaaazy, those PETA people. The reason for my post today is to pose a very important question, and try to answer it through the preponderance of evidence.

PETA: Bullshit or Not?

There are an ever-increasing number of clues that PETA is, in fact, an elaborate hoax perpetrated by some very clever pranksters. Over the years, PETA has become near and dear to tofu-toasters everywhere, and indeed, they have become very comfortable with their acceptance as a quasi-legitimate operation. But the jokesters are getting cocky, going a little too far, as we will demonstrate through an analysis of some of PETA's recent actions. Today, I will set out to prove that PETA is, in fact, one of the biggest public hoaxes ever perpetrated on American society.

All Lives Are Equal

This June, PETA took a stand against the swatting of flies, arguing in favor of "compassion for all animals, even the most curious, smallest, and least sympathetic ones." Or, the most pestilential. I blogged about this, and wondered publically about their position regarding life forms such as the H1N1 virus or chalmydia. I have not heard back on that one.

Chickens Have Feelings Too

Next, PETA announces plans for the Chicken Empathy Museum. The goal would be to help everyone understand the truth about chickens. Not that they are delicious when spiced and deep-fried, but that

"Chickens are sensitive, smart animals who have feelings just as we do"

I sincerely apologize if, with this mocking of the plans for the Chicken Empathy Museum, I have hurt the feelings of any particularly sensitive chickens. But the kicker is that they would also serve

"delicious faux-chicken drumsticks and chickenless pot pie."

Now that strikes me as pretty odd. So, PETA is operating on the assumption that chickens are as sensitive as human beings, and the entire purpose of this museum is to promote empathy towards chickens.

Let me ask you, PETA. How do you think someone of Native American descent, or, indeed, any sane person, would feel about the National Museum of the American Indian offering delicious treats that looked like the skinned, severed heads of American Indians?

Yeah, not so much. Clearly, PETA is starting to show their hand.

PETA's CEO, hard at work.

Peta-philes? Oh no. You really didn't.

Finally, it has come to my attention that PETA decided it would be a funny idea to name their blog The PETA Files.

This time, they didn't just tip their hand. They threw it down on the table, and it's full of jokers. Unless they have literally gone so far off the deep end that they think empathy towards chickens takes a front seat to emapthy towards victims of child abuse, this is the clincher: PETA's a joke. And I don't mean the kind of joke that we all always thought they were, I mean a REAL joke, and they got us GOOD.

Go I gotta hand it to you PETA. You put one over on all of us. And I, for one, can't wait to see what the punch line is when the curtain drops!

Fenty: Corrupt Or Stupid, Take Your Pick

About a week ago I started writing a great big long post about Adrian Fenty and how his administration has been a tremendous letdown. I never posted it because honestly, it was too long. But it seemes like a day doesn't go by where another mini-scandal isn't splattered all over the blogs, and I wanted to say something about it. The common theme has been opacity in the administration. Every request for comment about Fenty's schedule, an apparent conflict of interest, or any situation with an appearance of impropriety (of which there are many) is simply met with stonewalling.

WTOP reporter Mark Segraves has been tirelessly holding the Fenty administration's feet to the fire. Unfortunately, it seems that he's about the only mainstream (e.g. non-blog) reporter who cares about this. Marc Fisher has commented on the brouhaha around Fenty's mysterious Dubai trip, but otherwise the Post hasn't had much to say about any of this. Which is too bad - because it's becoming a daily embarassment, and as long as the major outlets continue to give Fenty a pass, it's doubtful anything will change.

This administration reeks of corruption. Peter Nickles, the Attorney General, was appointed by Fenty... and is a longtime personal friend. After the previous AG Linda Singer resigned in disgust, because Fenty was essentially tying her hands. That's checks and balances?

This is where investigative reporting is needed. While the Washington Post has never really excelled at covering local politics, there is without a doubt a big story to be found here. Let's hope someone with the resources and connections is working on finding it. Perhaps we're starting to see one of the real consequences of the fall of conventional media and the rise of internet "journalism." Sure, every local blogger is complaining about Fenty now, but nobody can point to a law he's broken. We aren't journalists - we are just observers. While there is value in the perspectives of the common man, we don't find news, we just aggregate it and snark about it. If we lose real investigative reporting, then we might as well be living in a propoganda state because there will be no watchdogs. And Fenty's sure acting like there's no watchdog.

In one recent situation, Fenty is off on another mystery trip, and when asked where he was going, simply said "I'm not telling." Yet his scheduled meeting with the NYC Schools Chancellor was on the Chancellor's public schedule! So the administration appears to just have a policy of opacity. Now what possible reason could there be for concealing from the public information about official business? The only thing I can come up with is, to deflect attention from all the other shady stuff that's going on. Put another way, by keeping everyone in the dark all the time, it makes it much harder for people on the outside to know when something untoward is happening.

I can think of no legitimate reason for an elected official to have a policy of an information blackout as to his whereabouts and activities. There is an old Chinese proverb which states, "Never tie your shoes in a watermelon patch." The point of this proverb is that if you do not want to be treated like a thief then don't act like a thief -- and bending down to tie your shoes would look to an observer as if you were stealing a watermelon.

Fenty is tying his shoes in the watermelon patch. So either he's stupid or he's stealing watermelons. Frankly, we deserve better than this from our mayor. In some ways, the city has come a long way since our Marion Barry was arrested for smoking crack with a prostitue and the most popular tourist souvenier was a "Bitch Set Me Up" tee-shirt. In other ways, it looks like it's still business as usual. What a shame.

Lovely Weekend. Will Someone Please Kill The Groundhog?

Don't ever do it without your fez on

I attended the "Fez and Mustache" party at the Looking Glass on Saturday night, which was hilarious and very well attended. Nice work Jason. Then proceeded back to my place with a few friends, where we laughed at nonsense and danced on the tables until the wee hours.

Helped a friend move into Petworth. The dog in residence welcomed her by peeing on her mattress within five minutes. She has two dogs so I guess he just wanted to make sure that any question about who was "top dog" was settled up front.

Sat in lawn chairs on my sidewalk sipping cold beers on Sunday afternoon. It was such a gorgeous day. Warm in the sun, breezy, it felt like being at the beach. Well, a beach where the sand happened to be mixed with portland cement, and the ocean happened to be asphalt and parked cars, but it was almost the same. I swear.

And on that note I am officially calling shenanigans on the goddamn weather. Umm, really? 30 degrees? On my way to work this morning, I heard overnight lows in the low 20's. For the love of baby back ribs when the hell is this going to end? I've had milder winters in Maine. For what seems like an eternity now, we get thrown a bone every two weeks with one nice day, then it's back to the igloo and another $350 gas bill.

Yes, I realize complaining about the weather is about as useful as ordering foie gras at McDonalds. But I just need to vent. We are officially in Spring now, and this is freaking Washington, DC where it's usually 90 degrees at some point in April. Yes, that April, the one that's about 8 days away. If I see another snowflake before December I think my head will explode.

Okay, I feel better now that that's out of the way. I leave you with this. While reading my email yesterday, through seven degrees of Kevin Bacon I arrived at this random person's twitter picture thingy or whatever.

I have never in my entire life seen a better advertisement for a realtor. That's right, they are not, in fact, selling professional assassination services. Nor are they offering private aerial moose-hunting lessons. Yes, they are selling homes. This was apparently seen in a shopping cart at a supermarket in Minnestota.

What the hell is wrong with those Minnesotans?

Why I Heart Why I Hate DC

"Dave" over at the blog why.i.hate.dc finally managed to come up with this hilarious commentary this week, after months of the blog itself being high on my list of things I hate about DC. You see, this blog has had a number of different writers since the longtime guardian Rusty checked out a year or so ago. Yes, things have been a little rocky.

Writers on why.i.hate.dc must meet a number of criteria before being allowed to take the helm of this venerable blog:

1. You must not be from DC.
   
2. You must be under 26 years old.
   
3. As a consequence of #1 and #2 you must have lived in DC for less than 4 years.
   
4. The exception to #3 is if you went to Georgetown, GW or AU for undergrad. It is acceptable, and even ecouraged, to have lived in DC between 4 and 8 years if you meet this qualification.
   
5. Your hometown must be in a midwestern state.
   
6. If you live in DC, it must be west of Rock Creek Park. Otherwise you must live in Northern Virginia or Bethesda.
   
7. You must bitch about crime constantly, even though you have probably neither witnessed nor been a victim of one.
   
8. If you ever actually become a victim of a crime in DC, despite living in AU Park or thereabouts, you must move out of DC within three months and find someone essentially similar to yourself to replace you at why.i.hate.dc.
   

A candidate meeting these qualifications is generally well suited to write snarky, long-winded missives that detail the trials of the five-minute delay they experienced on their rush-hour metro ride from their apartment in Van Ness to their desk job at Metro Center. Yes - this is the perfect why.i.hate.dc writer.

While Rusty himself sucked in his own uniquely hypocritical, sheltered, suburban-transplant way, I had a soft spot in my heart for him. Sometimes, his predictable rants would make me laugh. The rage with which he would declare DC uninhabitable over such rare events as a power outage in the middle of the summer would make me chuckle. So I missed him when the blog floundered following his flight to Columbus, Ohio.

As of late, though, we have seen a single guardian replaced with five others who share the burden - nay, the responsibility - of keeping this blog alive. Which is why it has been so troubling to see so little of the old DC anguish and fire from a Chevy Chase perspective that we once hated but loved. So it was a sad day when I read a post that began with "I Love WMATA" from "Dave," one of the five new writers. What a change from the glory days of why.i.hate.dc when a typical post would be entitled "I Still Hate WMATA."

Well, Dave finally got it right today. Some genuine sarcasm with a post that stabs right at the heart of the corner-bodega-shopping, ANC-meeting-attending, gentrifying-neighborhood-living, Bethesda-moving-when-kids-go-to-school DC resident.

That's right - he made fun of neigborhood bloggers. And even more importantly - I resemble those remarks. So let's see how my blog stacks up against Dave's list of tips to making a successful neighborhood blog.

Your blog's banner must include a photo of either the local Metro station, or a group of rowhouses. Check!

You should only live in a neighborhood that's considered "gentrifying." Only fellow gentrifiers read blogs. Columbia heights? Check!

At a minimum, one post per week must be dedicated to the discussion of dog parks. I don't give a crap about dog parks. No points.

You should always discuss how awesomely friendly your neighbors are, in so much that the people who have "lived there forever" say hi to you. Good grief I mentioned my awesome neighbor yesterday! Is this guy actually using my blog as a model?

Hearing gunshots warrants an immediate "live blogging" event. You should definitely make note of how long it took the police to arrive. You should also mention that while you aren't sure what actually occurred, you intend to call the police station to find out. You may or may not post a follow up, explaining how unhelpful the police were on the phone. Well, there were no guns and I can't live-blog since I detest large, internet-enabled phones, but I have definitely discussed my near-involvement of crimes and police response time. Check!

Highlight how much the neighborhood has changed since you moved in, and how you now feel comfortable "walking anywhere you want" before 7 PM. I got that blown out of the water, here's a post with pictures of Columbia Heights in 1913!

You should lament how despite the growing number of restaurants and bars, you have yet to find one that's "cozy" or "neighborhood" enough for you. Don't mention that any place that would meet this criteria is EWWW waaay too gross for your taste. Can't get on board with this one - I love my neighborhood joints.

Post a lot of poorly composed, low quality photos that you took with your iPhone/cell phone. I think I get bonus points for this post which involves poorly-composed cell phone pictures, a fire, and police.

Lament the lack of a good (name brand) grocery store in your neighborhood; when a new, name brand grocery store arrives, lament the harm done to local grocers. I'm not actually that kind of whiner. I want as much new stuff to open as possible and I have no use for crappy businesses.

Talk endlessly about how you ride your bicycle to work, and how much you hate DC drivers. Leave out the fact that you most likely don't even ride on the street, and you mow down a few pedestrians each week. Check!

Refer to your neighborhood with a ridiculous acronym (i.e. BloMi for Bloomingdale). Check! Though it was tongue in cheek...

Attempt to have constructive dialogue about race relations on your blog. Check!

Become frustrated about the lack of constructive dialogue about race relations on your blog. See above post.

Highlight the fact that you have, on at least three occasions, ridden on the city bus. Check!

If you follow these tips, you should find yourself linked by DCist and The Washington City Paper in no time! Maybe you can even become blog friends with Tina.

Got not one but two pictures in DCist just last week. And I've been quoted in the Washington Post Express blog log a half a dozen times. Do I win? I have no idea who Tina is, though.

Well, anyway, that's not even the whole list from Dave's post but it should be pretty clear that my blog is, in fact, the archetypal neighborhood blog. Thanks, Dave, for finally making me laugh. You were one dc-loving post away from the "unsubscribe" button.

Comcast: You Can Blow Me

My last bill for the suite of services that I could almost certainly live just fine without - that is, cable television, internet, and my "land line," or IP phone, was $245.

That makes it officially the biggest single bill that I have ever received at my house, including gas in the dead of winter last year, despite having a house with windows that are older than Methuselah, a front door that seals so badly that I can clearly see the street when it's closed (and no, it has no windows), and no insulation.

Okay, technically it's three bills. But if you take out the phone ($40 a month, which I've been too lazy to cancel) and the internet ($35 a month, well worth it) we're still talking $170 a month for cable television.

ARE YOU F@&#($&*!ING INSANE?? I don't even have the full-on package! I've got HBO and Skinemax. That's all. Oh yeah, and I have such "services" as HDTV and DVR which used to be basically free. In six months there won't even be any non-HDTV, it's going the way of the dodo. The "teaser" price for this exact same set of services -- my first bill about 18 months ago -- was $105. In the intervening months, the price has gone up incrementally. I mutely accepted that, like a frog in a pot of water slowly coming to a boil. But last month, it went from the already outrageous $205 to $245. WTF? I haven't been paying the teaser rate for nearly a year now, so that's not it.

A regression analysis of the incredibly complex bill revealed that the rate for Skinemax and HBO was now $36 per month (up from $22) and the rate for my DVR service was $15.95 a month (up from $4.95 when this all began). The remainder I assume is bured among the various "screw you" fees.

Wow. That's a pretty big jump for one month. And frankly, no television is worth $170 a month. That's more than 5 bucks a day for Reno 911 and Alien versus Predator at 2 AM.

Comcast must have forgotten something very important.

YOU HAVE COMPETITION. Oh yeah, and it's a recession. When times get tough, ridiculously expensive luxuries like cable TV are the first things on the chopping block. Brilliant thinking - now that people are watching their spending, let's just jack the prices about 40 bucks for no good reason! Everyone else who didn't get their business degree from a cereal box is doing just the opposite- offering crazy deals to try to get their piece of the approximately seventeen dollars that the entire population the United States is willing to spend this year.

The resolution: DirectTV is being installed in two weeks. Their full-on package is $110 a month AFTER their teaser expires, and that includes about everything under the sun. Coincidentally, Verizon just mailed me an offer for their crappy DSL internet service for $9.99 a month for a year. So I'm going to get more channels and functional (if old-timey) internet service for exactly half the price of Comcast.

You coulda fooled me...

From the Baltimore Sun: Race is expected to be a factor in W. Va vote.

"I'm not voting for that n--, and I ain't no racist when I say that either."

-- Anonymous West Virginia Democrat

And I thought the red-state plumbers and builders and blacksmiths or whatever, who don't even know the difference between gross and net income and consequently will vote against their own financial self interest, were ignorant.

West Virginia is now the frontrunner for the "hairy mole on the ass of the United States" award, ousting Alaska. What are we, in 1950? Jesus. Get a grip rednecks. Or lay off the meth. Whatever. Just do something other than confirming the stereotype of your stupidity.

Shortchanged

I just went to the slev's by my office for a couple morning necessities. You know, advil, red bull, two packs of lucky strikes, a taquito from the heat roller case, and a ten-pack of scratch-offs. All right, I'm not quite that ghetto, that's pretty much what everyone else there was getting.

After waiting in line for five minutes while the guy in front of me carefully selected his Powerball numbers by hand -- because using six non-randomly selected numbers dramatically increases your chance of matching the ping-pong-balls than six computer-selected numbers -- I handed the lady a twenty for my $6.87 purchase. She gave me back $13.10.

I stared at the palm of my hand for a minute, confused. I looked again at the register. Yes, the price was $6.87. I looked back at my hand.

Jamie: It's $6.87, right?

Clerk: Right.

Jamie: (Confused) The change is $13.13.

Clerk: Right. $13.13.

Jamie: Umm. OK. Maybe I'm missing something. This is ten cents.

Clerk: Yeah?

Jamie: Do you see the problem here?

Clerk: No.

Jamie: Umm... how can I make this any more clear? I would actually like ALL the change. This is 10 cents, not 13 cents.

Clerk: (Finally appearing to understand) Oh, ok.. umm...

I don't really care about the 3 cents, of course. In fact I despise pennies, and usually leave them in the penny tray. This is about principle. About the idea that someone thinks it perfectly fine to shortchange ANY amount of money, and not only that, when called out on it, doesn't really even see the problem. And if it had been one or two cents, I might not have said something, since at least that's rounding in the right direction. But rounding down - when the closest nickel is up - is being given the finger.

As it turns out, she doesn't actually have any pennies in the cash register. Which I suppose was her reason for shortchanging in the first place. So the incident finally ends with the cashier getting my three cents... by raiding the charity jar. Classy.

Forest Hills Frank: Buzzkill, AND Hypocrite

Startling developments today in the Frank Winstead saga. City Paper reporter Jason Cherkis, in his tireless efforts to create entertainment by getting a statement from Frank, has obtained exclusive video footage of Frank at his apartment, refusing to comment.

But the CP expose has overlooked the real story here. CP's shocking video reveals that Frank is harboring an exotic bird in his apartment. Frank lives at "The Brandywine," an apartment building on Connecticut Avenue. A bit of web sleuthing reveals that The Brandywine does not allow pets!

This profile of The Brandywine clearly indicates that Frank is harboring an avian creature in violation of the terms of his lease. Frank, the man who calls out Mary Cheh for failing to turn her wheels to the curb in violation of an obscure DC regulation, is living a lie! The ANC commissioner apparently thinks that rules are meant to be followed only by other people, while he can endanger the health and well being of his fellow residents without consequence. Truly, this man is a monster.

In order to find out who this monster really is, we put our crack team of digital forensic reconstructionists on the job. We have come away with damning revelations about Forest Hills Frank's true identity. Below, we see a capture of the only known image of Frank Winstead to exist on the Internet, from CP's video. It had been theorized that he was, in fact, a bloodsucking vampire, and hence photography would be impossible. But CP has debunked that myth, since we can clearly see Frankie peeking out of his apartment in this still. On the right is Frank's face blown up and enhanced.



Here at Farm Fresh Meat, we employ only the latest and most advanced digital enhancement software available today via The Pirate Bay. After hours of digital processing, the truth began to appear. When the process finally completed, the startling image below was revealed:

ALL WORK AND NO PLAY MAKES FRANK A DULL BOY!!!

I strongly urge anyone residing at The Brandywine to vacate immediately, or risk Asian Bird Flu and possible dismemberment. Get out while you still can!! Mr. Cherkis is lucky to have survived this encounter.

Ping Pong is no longer the greatest threat to Connecticut Avenue.

New Hampshire primary miscount scandal? Not!

There has been a bit of a tizzy over a perceived inconsistency in the ballot counts between hand-counted and machine-counted votes in the New Hampshire primary. And today, Kucinich asked for a recount because of the "unexplained disparities between hand-counted ballots and machine-counted ballots."

I am constantly amazed at how people completely fail to understand statistics and just look at the bottom line. This web site does a nice job of presenting all the data, and breaks it down by type of ballot and small towns vs. large cities.

Overall, there were 228,307 machine ballots cast, and 59,157 hand ballots cast. Clinton: 39%, Obama: 36.4%. The supposed fraud is because if you look at the results of just hand-counted and just machine-counted votes, the results are different:

New Hampshire - Hand vs. Machine
	Clinton	Obama
Overall	39.0%	36.4%
Machine	40.1%	35.8%
Hand	34.7%	38.8%

So if you just count the hand votes, Obama wins!! There must be a scandal. Well, sorry to burst your bubble o' conspiracy, but it ain't so. Is it even remotely possible that there are demographic differences between the people who cast machine versus hand-counted votes? Well, that would hardly be surprising, if anyone bothered to look at where these votes are coming from.

Small towns are far more likely to use hand-counted ballots than cities. In small towns, 86.7% of the votes were counted by hand, whereas in cities a mere 2% were counted by hand. In fact, only 7% of all the hand-counted votes cast came from cities, and 63% of them came from small towns. What this means, is that the hand-counted votes are almost entirely representative of people from small and medium towns, whereas the machine-counted votes are almost entirely representative of people from big cities.

That is a major demographic difference. It is well established that rural areas vote more conservatively than urban areas. For example, see this analysis of the 2004 presidential election from the Carsey Institute which clearly shows urban areas voting for Kerry, and rural areas voting for Bush.

Each precinct uses only one method of vote counting. If you look at the town-by-town results, you will notice dramatic variation in the outcome from town to town. It's amazing how differently they each vote. But each county uses only one method of vote counting - either hand-counted or machine-counted. So, when you're comparing machine versus hand counts, you are not looking at a cross-section of all voters. You are looking at the results of a certain group of towns compared to the results of a different group of towns. This is very different than if all towns used both hand and machine counting, so there was an equal distribution of hand versus machine counting across the whole state. But this is not the case.

The machine-counted results favor Clinton in small towns, but Obama in large towns or cities. The vast majority of machine-counted votes (nearly 80%) came from larger towns or cities. Yet when only looking at large city votes, Obama did much better for machine counted versus hand counted votes - 36% verus 31% voted for him. Kind of an odd conspiracy - to boost the loser's numbers? And if the conspiracists think it was the hand-counted votes that were tinkered with, then that would be a HELL of a conspiracy - since the vast majority of them came from precincts with less than 750 votes, and Clinton actually lost to Obama when only looking at those small-town hand-counted votes! And finally, if you think it was the big-town hand-counted votes that were tinkered with, wrong again. Clinton kicked Obama's ass among those votes - unfortunately, there were only 4,281 votes in that category. Even if Obama had gotten every last one of them, he still would have lost.

Ironically, Kucinich, our man for the recount, is basically dead even for hand vs. machine statewide. Of course he only got about 4,000 votes, so who cares.

The bottom line: the disparity between hand-counted and machine-counted votes in New Hampshire is not a result of fraud - and in fact is entirely to be expected. There is absolutely no reason we would expect the outcome to be the same between them, because they do not represent a cross-section of voters.

Update 1/14/2008:I got the data for this post from this web site. Since last Friday, the summary data has been changed. He no longer breaks out small (<750 votes), medium (750<1500) and large (1500+). Now, medium and large are combined, and the cutoff for small has been changed to 700. I am not sure why he did this, but this reworking of his analysis means you can no longer see what's important -- that only a tiny fraction of the hand-counted votes came from the largest precincts, though overall 78% of all votes came from the largest precincts. The base summary data that I used, which used to be published there, is as follows:

New Hampshire - Hand vs. Machine by Precint Size
	Machine	Machine %	Hand	Hand %
Small (<750 votes)	5,799	13.5%	37,309	86.5%
Medium (750<1500 votes)	42,363	70.1%	59,930	29.3%
Large (1500+ votes)	180,145	97.7%	4,281	2.3%
Total	228,307	79.4%	59,157	20.6%

It is plain that the vast majority of hand-counted votes came from precincts under 1,500 votes, whereas overall the vast majority of votes overall came from 1,500+ precincts. There is a huge demographic difference. The way the medium and large precincts were combined on the CheckTheVotes web site now doesn't emphasize this any more, since they broke it down basically where the number of hand counted votes would be the same in the two sections (small vs. medium + large).

All Right.... Crime Spree!

You really have to wonder what's going through her head. DC Police Chief Cathy Lanier, in response to the typical summertime surge in crime and the typical gentrifier's outcry upon realizing that the ghetto where they bought their $670,000 house last month has crime, enacted the All hands On Deck initiative for the third time this summer.

According to Lanier, this miraculous program, which costs nothing, "is good for public relations, which to her, plays a part in successful policing." At least she's being honest: it's all about PR. I'm so pleased that our police department puts it's public image at the top of it's "to do" list, rather than, say, actually fighting crime in any kind of effective way.

So, what exactly is the result of these brilliant "All Hands" initiatives? Well, they sure arrest a lot of people - more than 1,000 in a single weekend, to be exact. Unfortunately, arresting drunks, hookers, and pot dealers -- the vast majority of whom will be back on the street the next day -- doesn't really do much to keep people safe from street crime. Frankly, your average small time drug dealer probably improves public safety - he's there all the time and knows everyone who comes and goes. Thugs don't mess around on blocks where everyone knows everyone. But the proof is in the pudding - and these initiatives so far seem to have had little effect.

OK, well, if it doesn't cost anything, what's the big deal? Unfortunately, this is, quite simply, a lie. Nothing is free. You cannot wave a magic wand and create police officers who are willing to work overtime, for free.

The cost is coming now. As the Examiner reports, all these cops who worked overtime for the latest All Hands fiasco last weekend, have been taking some time off later in the week. From the aforementioned Examiner article: "In the 1st District station on Wednesday afternoon, 14 officers were on patrol for an area where the department requires at least 30."

So, Ms. Lanier, perhaps you can explain why double-loading the police force for two days, and then being half-staffed for two more, helps us in any way. If more police is better, than why isn't fewer police worse? To the extent that you think a greater police presence will hinder crime, don't you think a dramatically reduced police presence will be a free pass for the same criminals?

So, kids, grab your pipes and chains... the cat's away. This weekend, it's gonna be a crime spree!

Shut the Internet down!!

This is absolutely priceless. Clearly fame has it's privileges. No matter how much of a crackpot you are, you can still get your looney tunes opinion in print.

"I do think it would be an incredible experiment to shut down the whole internet for five years and see what sort of art is produced over that span."

Ummmm... we'll get right on that!!

"In the early seventies there were at least ten albums released every week that were fantastic."


I am guessing he's referring to this sort of thing.

Heroes

Sometimes you gotta just love the news. In "Sword seized after man mistakes porn for rape," we read the story of James Van Iveren, resident of Oconomowoc, Wisconsin, who charges into his neighbor's apartment after hearing screams that he believed to be a woman crying for help. Actually, he heard his neighbor's porn video.

This is so deliciously lurid. CNN, in a sidebar, bullets out the story highlights:

• James Van Iveren says he feels "stupid" after breaking into neighbor's apartment
  
• Neighbor says Van Iveren held him at sword-point, demanding proof he was alone
  
• Neighbor says he played part of the pornographic movie for police
  
• Van Iveren charged with criminal trespass, criminal damage, disorderly conduct
  

You really can't make this kind of stuff up. But at the same time, where's the human interest here? This is cast as News of the Weird, and surely it qualifies. But I believe James Van Iveren is a true American hero. This is a man who ran to the aid of what he believed was another human being in peril, with no regard for his own safety or the possible consequences of his actions. Instead of raising him up as in icon of the good that can be found in humanity, he is being slapped with a bunch of criminal charges.

There is very little doubt, in my reading of this story, that Iveren acted in good faith, even if he does look like a serial killer. Yet instead of forgiving him for what appears to be an honest mistake, the outcome just reinforces that people should mind their own business and not get involved. The absurdity of the story on the surface belies the truth: we are a society that increasingly mistrusts itself, and punishes altruism.

Then again, maybe he's just crazy as a crack-house rat.