For once.

Already late for work, I was in sourpuss mode when the phone rang at 8:30. “Who the hell is calling me at 8:30?” I grumbled.

It was Adam, calling to tell me this.

Sourpuss mode ended immediately. It’s a bright and sunny day.

In the words of Milo Bloom, “No matter how thin you slice it, it’s still baloney.”

After a year and a half of conversely trying to dump their failed voting unit and/or lying to customers about the reliability and security of their voting systems, corporate parent Diebold is giving up the ghost of its election business which, according to an analyst in a Reuters report, was “responsible for less than 10 percent of Diebold’s revenue, and 100 percent of its bad publicity.”

According to a company statement [PDF] just released, Diebold Elections Systems, Inc., will become Premier Election Solutions as of today.

The cigarette companies have tried giving themselves new corporate names to avoid bad publicity, as did WorldCom. Don’t let Diebold fool you, and don’t let “Premier Election Solutions” sell you any snake-oil voting machines.

Read on at the Brad Blog.

(link via Metafilter)

Over the strong objection of federal safety officials, a quiet movement to lower the legal drinking age to 18 is taking root as advocates argue that teenagers who are allowed to vote and fight for their country should also be able to enjoy a beer or two.

…Libertarian groups and some conservative economic foundations, seeing the age limits as having been extorted by Washington, have long championed lowering the drinking age. But in recent years, many academics and non-partisan policy groups have joined their cause for a different reason: The age restriction does not work, they say. Drinking has gone on behind closed doors and underground, where responsible adults cannot keep an eye on it.

“It does not reduce drinking. It has simply put young adults at greater risk,” said John M. McCardell, former president of Middlebury College in Vermont, who this year set up a non-profit organization called Choose Responsibility to push for a lower drinking age.

Read on at MSNBC.

(link via Fark)

Karl Rove, President Bush’s senior political adviser, will voluntarily step down from his White House post at the end of the month, senior administration officials said Monday.

Rejoice.

DailyKos reports:

The “Left Behind: Eternal Forces” video game, is set in a “post apocalyptic” New York that looks almost exactly like New York City after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks and lets players simulate commanding a paramilitary Christian army that seeks to convert Jews, mainline Christians, Muslims, atheists, Buddhists, and everyone else in New York City to fundamentalist Christianity. All who resist will be killed.

…Now, with the blessing and endorsement of the Pentagon, a Christian ministry with apocalyptic fundamentalist beliefs that is planning a series of tours it calls a ‘military crusade’ to entertain US troops in Afghanistan and Iraq will also be distributing the “Left Behind: Eternal Forces” ‘Convert or Die’ religious warfare video game….

To US troops.

What ?

Let me repeat:

The United States Pentagon has endorsed sending a Christian supremacist religious warfare video game to United States troops in Iraq, a predominantly Muslim nation.

Once again:

“Left Behind: Eternal Forces”, a game depicting fundamentalist Christians religious warfare will be distributed to US troops.

Courtesy of the PENTAGON.

…or, “Why the Dems are running around with their pants around their ankles”. You see…

President Bush signed a controversial bill Sunday that temporarily revises federal electronic surveillance laws.

…Rep. Rahm Emanuel, the third most powerful Democrat in the House, said lawmakers “are not going to leave Alberto Gonzales as the gatekeeper on American civil liberties.”

“That’s the fundamental problem, and we’re going to fix it when we come back,” Emanuel told reporters Sunday.

Hey, Rahm? Here’s an idea. Why not first fix it, then pass it?