Reading
“A new book by Tales of the City author Armistead Maupin: The Night Listener. ‘The first novel ever broadcast as a spoken-word serial in its entirety on the web prior to publication!’
Read and listen to Chapter 1 of The Night Listener.”
Thanks for the link, Sheila.
You can also download it as PDF. Oh, and here’s a biography of the author.
Fromme Wünsche
Ich auch. Allerdings hätte ich lieber ein blaues. 
Stories
Al told great stories yesterday and today.
“Megan will now provide running commentary of the morning events along with interpretive dance movements; you may assume from this point on that she is closely following the morning action while bouncing randomly off the walls.”
20/20 vision
Look at my new and improved boyfriend, now with perfect vision again! 
More snow
It seems everyone’s got snow. John reported plowing through snow drifts, Garret has 6″ of new snow, and now Susan has snow as well. I want some snow, too!
Oh, and look at Susan’s icicle photos from yesterday! Walking in a winter wonderland…
US election
Finally. The election is over, and it seems like George W. Bush is going to be the next president of the US.
Here are the transcripts of the statements of George Bush and Al Gore.
Oliver has some thoughts on the outcome of the elections.
To me, it seems like the whole vote counting business has been made more complicated by those voting machines – which are supposed to make counting easier!
In Germany, we vote by putting crosses next to a name or party on a sheet of paper. After the election is over, all the votes are being counted by hand, and we get the results an hour or two later. No half-punched ballots, no discussion what counts as a vote and what doesn’t, no recounts. It’s that simple.
I think the US should think about using this technique instead of their fancy machines.
I think the US should think about using this technique instead of their fancy machines.
You can’t really compare German and US elections like this. Germans hold only one election at a time. Americans vote in several at the same time. I wish I had kept a copy of my ballot from Arizona… there must have been at least 40 separate offices and questions. It was certainly A4, double-sided, type no bigger than 10 pts.
And it was a paper ballot. ;-)
You can’t really compare German and US elections like this. Germans hold only one election at a time. Americans vote in several at the same time.
Yes, I’ve seen sample ballots and heard that elections are more complicated, but I feel that it would still be easier to count the votes by hand. It’s always easier for the voters to make some crosses instead of punching the ballot, or at least I think so because if what I read about the voting machines.
I wish I had kept a copy of my ballot from Arizona… there must have been at least 40 separate offices and questions. It was certainly A4, double-sided, type no bigger than 10 pts.
And it was a paper ballot. ;-)
Well, it sure would be difficult (and expensive!) to send punching machines to all absent voters along with the ballots, wouldn’t it?