Ali Barone

Hey squirrels!!

The new lipstick prophets winter line is FINALLY up at www.lipstickprophets.com!!!!

And we did a re design on the site so check it out

Its got a fresh new look

Tell me what you think!!!!!!

Do you like the new look?

What's your favorite new LP item?

xoxo
Ali

The most important presidential election in our lifetimes... perhaps in history!

History.

It's a big deal! I mean I teeter on the edge of conspiracy theorist as far as elections go I have suspicions my vote doesn't count. I feel like it's that episode of the Simpsons where homer becomes a "Stonecutter"

Who controls the British crown?
Who keeps the metric system down?
We do, we do

Who keeps Atlantis off the maps?
Who keeps the Martians under wraps?
We do, we do

Who holds back the elctric car?
Who makes Steve Gutenberg a star?
We do, we do

Who robs gamefish of their site?
Who rigs every Oscar night?
We do, we do!

I feel like a fool going to the polls "voting" I feel like the voting machine isn't even hooked up to anything... I knew this guy in a moderately "important" band (in some circles) and they would send him out on stage night after night with a cigarette box covered in electrical tape as his wireless. He would charge out onto the stage strumming away.. no clue he was not being amplified. ( this is the same guy who on tour in Europe fell asleep backstage before a 8pm show and awoke in a panic looking at the clock radio "it's 7:99!!! we gotta be on stage in 1 minute!!!!" The radio was set to station 79.9.. .so yha.. I feel like that guy.

Have you ever done any research on the whole voting mechanism? It's ridiculous! It all started with "voice voting" where you went to the court house swear to the good lord you are who you say you are and that you haven't already voted then call out your choice. Then the paper ballot which amazingly enough the voter would usually have to provide, scribble down the candidate and slip it in the box. (And obviously as many little pieces of paper "votes" you can stuff in the slot if you are shady).

Then the paper ballots also called Australian or secret ballots shhhh. You privately check the box of your candidate choice and place it is a sealed box then ballot counters would count them up and send the numbers off to Washington. Easy enough but there were 3 different templates to choose from and each party wanted the layout to be balanced so the eye would be drawn to their party. So it really was more an ad for the candidate than a ballot.

Back then New York used (and still does in some parts) a lever machine instead of these paper ballots. These lever machines use a click system. When the election begins the wheel is set a 0 and with each push of the lever vote it clicks around sort of like a step counter (a little device for the anorexic or overweight that counts each step you take like a human odometer). But no paper proof.

Then there is the punch card system which gives you a clip board and a peg to punch a hole in the ballot next to the candidate you like then your ballot is whisked away into a computer that counts holes. This wonderful game was brought to us by "Votomatic" and "Datavote" This system was developed in the 1960's (in case you couldn't tell by the name) I can just hear the Benny Hill theme playing in the background. Now for my favorite part of this contraption... CHAD!!!! Chad is the ballot after being pricked with the voting pin. And get this.. these ballots get so fucked up they have names for all the many ways to have your vote NOT count... Hanging chad means one corner of the chad is hanging onto the punchcard. Swinging chad means two corners are attached to the ballot card. Tri chad means three corners are hanging but the hole has been punched. Pregnant chad means a hole is punched through the chad but it still hangs on all four sides. Dimpled chad means there is an indent in the chad but no clean hole has been punched. Chad and all the chad fuck ups is why Bush got into office in 2000. Thats not my opinion, it is a fact. Another interesting chad fact... the plural of chad is chad. Like swine.

Then there is the "Marksense" which basically is the paper ballot only choices are preprinted next to an empty rectangle, circle, oval, or an incomplete arrow instead of a box. As a voter you fill in the shape, unless it is an arrow. In that case you "complete the arrow" You complete me. This one is only cool because it uses "dark mark logic" well.. really it's the name that is cool. All that is... is a D & D way to say a computer looks for the darkest spot on the paper and records where it is therefore who it is for.

And then there is good 'ol DRE (Direct Recording Electronic) which is much like the voting odometer in the way it has buttons, levers, touch screens, a keyboard what have you.. but no actual ballot. There is a memory card that holds every single vote. Then the card is taken to a master computer that has the software to read the card... sounds modern like email but here is the problem... voters can't hold the ballot in hand to insure they voted the way they wanted to. Also computers freeze, crash, act stubborn and plain old take a shit.. which happened in Ohio last November where 200,000 votes were freezing up the Dell so they turned to the paper print outs the voting machines are supposed to spit out only the paper got jammed in about 20% of the machines. Thus no way to REALLY prove who won.


All that being said I AM voting this year. This election is so historically important and seriously if Obama doesn't get elected I am joining the peace core or moving to Canada or Thailand or Mexico. There are a few places I have my eye on. This country is just a breath away from becoming a 3rd world nation. I do not want to have a distended stomach via malnutrition and flies in my eyes while I wait on a bread line for moldy scraps left on a pier from some concert proceeds.

I feel like the atheist who is on her death bed praying just in case there is a God. I am voting just in case it counts. Or gets counted.