NH Results From Diebold Counting Machines Suspicious But Not Damning

Presscue, Ronrox, The Contrarian, and others are pointing out that Clinton seems to have done much better in towns with Diebold voting machines than in other towns, in New Hampshire.  Drunkard’s Lamppost looks closer at the numbers and suggests that this is a correlation without causation: larger towns tended to go for Clinton (and presumably Romney) and those tended to have the machines.  D.L. ends however with the wise comment:

For democracy to work, the system must be transparent and maintain the confidence of its participants. Proprietary voting machines fail both these tests. American, as far as I know, are still capable of counting, so should return exclusively to the paper ballot.

Yesterday’s News

From the Boston Globe:

January 3, 2007

VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. –In what has become an annual tradition of prognostications, religious broadcaster Pat Robertson said Tuesday God has told him that a terrorist attack on the United States would result in “mass killing” late in 2007.

“I’m not necessarily saying it’s going to be nuclear,” he said during his news-and-talk television show “The 700 Club” on the Christian Broadcasting Network. “The Lord didn’t say nuclear. But I do believe it will be something like that.”

Robertson said God told him during a recent prayer retreat that major cities and possibly millions of people will be affected by the attack, which should take place sometime after September.

Meanwhile, back in Deuteronomy….

18:20 But the prophet, which shall presume to speak a word in my name, which I have not commanded him to speak, or that shall speak in the name of other gods, even that prophet shall die.

18:21 And if thou say in thine heart, How shall we know the word which the LORD hath not spoken?

18:22 When a prophet speaketh in the name of the LORD, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which the LORD hath not spoken, but the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously: thou shalt not be afraid of him.

The Problem With Ponerology

Psychopaths in the Software Industry

The aforementioned Zed’s Rant inspired thoughts on evil in business — ponerization, the process by which an organization falls into the control of psychopathic individuals (a topic that’s been written about at some length — good links in the article).

This is pretty interesting and important stuff.  The big problem though with studying and publicizing the phenomenon of the small minority of people who seem downright evil, is that labeling certain people as evil and pointing to them as the cause of problems is a favorite tactic of the pschopaths themselves.  It’s tough to start playing that game and hope to win when it’s their home court.