Mr. Potato Head is Cephalopod Friendly

Louis the giant octopus gets excited when he sees his favorite Mr. Potato Head toy.

Louis regularly plays with the Mr Potato Head figure which was given to him as part of an enrichment project at Newquay's Blue Reef Aquarium.
"We wanted an octopus-friendly toy which had a compartment to hide food in," said the aquarium's Matt Slater.
He says Louis gets very excited when sees the toy, which he plays with for an hour at a time.
"Its bright colours, strange shape and moveable parts make it fascinating for Louis," said Mr Slater.
"The secret space within Mr Potato Head allows us to hide tasty treats like fresh crab inside and that perhaps more than anything has resulted in him becoming such a hit."

Hat tip to Ogg for this find.

octopus by ~Mersi

Nietzsche 2008!

Hat tip to Wagga for this find.

Diebold Voting Fraud in NH?

How Wrong Were The Polls?

These New Hampshire stats seem rather disconcerting.

By Percentage
Method Hillary Clinton Barack Obama
Diebold Machines 53.23% 46.77%
Hand Count 47.47% 52.53%

By Votes
Method Hillary Clinton Barack Obama
Diebold Machines 82860 72807
Hand Count 18898 20912

By Number of Municipalities Won
Method Hillary Clinton Barack Obama
Diebold Machines 54 33
Hand Count 43 77

While I have no evidence at this time --- let me repeat, no evidence at this time --- of chicanery, what we do know is that chicanery, with this particular voting system, is not particularly difficult. Particularly when one private company --- and a less-than-respectable one at that, as I detailed in the previous post --- runs the entire process.

I should also note that some 40% of New Hampshire's precincts are hand-counted, which equals about 25% of the votes. All the rest are counted on hackable Diebold op-scan systems, with completely hackable memory cards, all programmed and managed by LHS Associates. As Bev Harris of BlackBoxVoting.org who seems to share my concern, says, LHS is the "chain of custody" in New Hampshire elections.

Other folks that I've spoken to, who follow this sort of thing, share my concern at this hour. Harris noted that it will be interesting to compare numbers of the hand-counted precincts with those counted on the hackable Diebold op-scan systems.

If I was Barack Obama, I'd certainly not have conceded this election this quickly. I'm not quite sure what he was thinking. And as far as offering an indication of whether he understands how these systems work, and the necessity of making sure that votes are counted, and counted accurately, it does not offer a great deal of confidence at this hour.

I'm trying to get in touch with his campaign, to let them know of these concerns. I hope you'll feel free to let them know as well, if any of you happen to be in touch with them, or a part of the campaign. I will, of course, be happy to discuss these concerns with them if they wish to call.

Do NH Primary Statistics Show Election Fraud?
NH Machine vs. Paper
Exit Poll

(c)2004-06 Rand Careaga/salamander.eps

More groovy Diebold posters here.

Glowing Pigs and Check Cashing Corpses

Some rather odd and interesting news in this morning feeds...
I wouldn't mind having one of these glowing pigs as a pet to accompany me on my evening walks.
What a great idea: Swedes to Use Body Heat to Warm Offices
I would have loved to have witnessed these guys rolling a corpse into a Pay-O-Matic to cash his social security check.

Far Out!

The Feminists, a circa 1971 work of pulp fiction is featured on this new sci fi site, io9. Quite funny. I love the “FAR OUT!” period detail on the book cover.
On the same site I discovered they’re making a film adaptation of Neuromancer. Given the director’s main experience involves Britney Spears music videos, I’m concerned this will be a travesty.

My dog has gone crazy!

While we were out for a walk today Tanuki attacked the lower leg of a guy who just happened to be passing by. He has never done anything like this before. By the time I realized what was going on I pulled him back. Luckily he didn't break through any skin, but he tore a big hole in the guy's jeans. I felt really bad and offered to reimburse him, but he kept saying "No it's OK". If I had sufficient cash on hand I would have just handed it to him, but I didn't. Perhaps being pent up inside during the storm has caused this, but I'm very concerned about this aggressive behavior and could use the Dog Whisperer’s help right now.

In other news, I guess erotic radio host Monika Thomas could be considered loosely freegan.
"There are so many empty houses in this city, all the time, which is amazing given all the people who can't afford to live here," Thomas said. "I like to think this is a way of recycling living space, of not having housing go to waste."

UPDATE! Zillow Book has been flagged as "objectionable". WTF is objectionable about it?

Our Lady of Highway Beautification

The current Scrapiteria collage theme is goddesses and I found Our Lady of Highway Beautification particularly amusing.

Given my fondness for tea I also appreciated Doris - Goddess of Tea.

In traffic related art I also liked this Interthinker illustration by Valero Doval via Las insólitas aventuras del pez .