Diebold! Newsweek! Thank the gods for machine poetry.

Woah. Remember when I got to use the word “agog” recently, and I was so happy? Well, today I get to use the word “buggin’”, which is next on my Alphabetic List of Words I’d Love To Legitimately Use (the famed and feared ALOWILTLU).

But I’m not happy about that, because I’m too busy buggin’. WOW am I buggin’.

Why am I buggin’? Because of Slashdot, those bastards. This isn’t the first time they’ve caused me to bug. I forgot to say the word last time, though. Darnit.

Anyway, the Prime Bugger in this event is a very big-deal article in Rolling stone about Diebold voting machines. And yes, you’ve heard about those before, but some of this information is really shocking, as /. says, even to a “clued-in crowd”.

They got me. I’m shocked. (Uh oh…buggin’ and shocked are not a good combination…zzZZZZZzT! zT! ZZt! ZZzzt! Ow! Ow!)

I deeply apologize for that last joke.

My brain is rebelling against what I’m reading. I mean it. This information about the 2004 election, and what I’ve heard about these machines, now being used in so many places, and this election coming up…yeah, I’m a bit freaked out by all that. I’m not worried that the neocons will do something flagrant and obvious so much as I am that they’ll pull something sneaky and subtle.

And the fact that it’s the guy at Diebold who was told to make these unauthorized changes….in a very shady way….in districts where the outcome of the vote confounded all the experts….who’s come forward to talk about it, is just creeepy.

…and then, just as I was recovering from that buggin’, I found new bugginosity:

This is the cover story of the Newsweek online current International edition. But this is the article that’s on the cover of the American edition this week. The former has a story about the rise of Jihadism titled “Losing Afghanistan”, and the latter has a piece about a photographer titled “My Life in Pictures”. (Here’s the original writeup, with pictures of the magazine covers.) What the Sam Crapping Hell is that?!

Alright, I’m too upset to think anymore, and I really should be doing Logic homework in the remaining hour before bedtime (note: minor changes to schedule again; will explicate later). So that we can end the weekend on a high note, however, Behold! Poetry written by a computer program. It’s kind of surprisingly…not bad. Definitely interesting. It just wrote another one that ends a section with, “I left the kitchen to be ashamed of you.”

I think we’re gonna be great friends, technology.

-PD