Random portents of doom and gloom

This was the day when a woman accused of adultery in Nigeria was saved from a sentence to death - by being burried up to the neck and stoned to death. Her partner in adultery was never charged and it was never clear if international pressure had any bearing or she escaped death due to a technicality. But I truely wonder if America's death by electric chair seems any less barbaric to Nigerians?

This was the day when an 8.0 earthquake hit Japan and the only person reported to have died was hit by a car while picking up broken bottles after the quake.

This was the day when the French government released the latest figures for the number of people who died in the heat wave that hit Europe this summer - over 19,000. NeoCons would probably advise them to shell out for some air-conditioning next summer, and suck down even more CO2 producing power... At least Enron isn't still around to sell it to them, but don't worry, someone will step up to the plate.

This was the day that iconic American symbol of couture - Levis Jeans - announced they are closing their last North American manufacturing plants and would switch to their "world network of manufacturing in over 30 countries". Now designed in the USA Levis will finally be the perfect match for your designed in the USA Nikes.

This was the day Congress steped in to make it clear what they thought of the Federal judge who tried to stop the FTC do not call list. Unfortunately, even after the Senate and GWB have rubber stamped the house bill the 50 million people who have already signed up will most likely get screwed. It'll probably go all the way to the Supreme Court as the telesales corporations say forcing them to honor a do-not-call list is infringing their First Ammendment right to free speech. You see, this is what happens when you let Corporations pretend they are real people and hijack your constitution

This was the day that Maryland announced they would be deploying Diebold electronic voting machines inspite of their own report summarizing that the system is "at high risk of compromise". Instead of adopting fundamentally secure system, or at least one that wasn't already full of known holes, they prefered to recommend 23 patches that, fingers-crossed, will make the machines secure. Everyone knows what comes after 23 security patches - that's right people, more security patches.

This was the day the press picked up on Wednesday's report by CCIA that pointed to a Windows based operating system monoculture as a security risk for the USA and the entire world. According to the report "the world's computer networks are now susceptible to massive, cascading failures". As if on queue, the same day the report was issued the State Department was virtually shut down by the "Welchia" virus and was unable to issue visas for nine hours.