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Ion Sancho retiring as Leon County Supervisor of Elections
Ion Sancho, the historic Supervisor of Elections for Leon County, has held the office since 1988. Sancho has been a national advocate for fair and verifiable elections for his entire tenure and has often been in the news for his efforts.
Ion Sancho announced in June that he would not be running for re-election.
Tallahassee, FL - The Leon County Supervisor of Elections is retiring. Mark Early has filed to run for the Leon County Supervisor of Elections in 2016.
Early works in the elections office. He is currently the manager of voting systems of Leon County. He's the programmer for ballots and voting machines.
Supervisor of Elections Ion Sancho is endorsing {Mark} Early. He says Early is the one who ensures that everybody's vote has counted properly over the last 20 years.
Sancho says, "The technology required to manage a modern-day elections office is incredible. Quite frankly, Somebody with an engineering degree, somebody with experience and understanding to know when a vendor is filling them with hot air and when a vendor is telling the truth is necessary."http://www.wctv.tv/home/headlines/Leon-Co-Supervisor-of-Elections-Endorses-Candidate-to-Take-His-Place-307692931.html
After he endorsed one of his staff members, Mark Earley, as a candidate for supervisor of elections in the 2016 election, his position on the Canvassing Board was questioned - http://www.tallahassee.com/story/news/politics/2015/06/16/sancho-endorsement-make-step-board/28827189/
Now a Democratic candidate, Alan Williams, has declared for the office - http://www.wctv.tv/home/headlines/Alan-Williams-to-Run-for-Leon-Co-Supervisor-of-Elections-330338421.html
While I have met Alan Williams and like him, I think I will go with Ion Sancho's endorsement for the office. Sancho's priority has always been to ensure verifiable elections and I doubt that he would endorse a candidate who would not have the same priority.
Kentucky - Hundreds turn out to rid mosque of graffiti
There are a lot of good people in Kentucky that want to get rid of the bad! Some good news to offset the Kim Davis types.
Allison Ross and Alton Strupp, [email protected] 4 p.m. EDT September 18, 2015
Hundreds of people turned out Friday afternoon to clean up anti-Muslim graffiti left on the Louisville Islamic Center.
The center, 4007 River Road, was defaced this week by vandals who left slurs in red paint on the white walls. The graffiti included "Stop terrorism" and "Moslems — leave the Jews alone."
Instead of expressing anger, members of the mosque asked on Friday that the vandals come forward and help clean up the graffiti. They said they would welcome them and invite them to learn more about their religion and their mission.
Mayor Greg Fischer, speaking at the event, said, "There is a lot of extremism in the world today. But today I'm seeing a lot of extreme love and support and I love it."
More: http://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/local/2015/09/18/hundreds-turn-out-rid-mosque-graffiti/72388502/
Inspired by art, lightweight solar cells track the sun
Contact Katherine McAlpine, 734-763-4386, [email protected]
ANN ARBOR—Solar cells capture up to 40 percent more energy when they can track the sun across the sky, but conventional, motorized trackers are too heavy and bulky for pitched rooftops and vehicle surfaces.
Now, by borrowing from kirigami, the ancient Japanese art of paper cutting, researchers at the University of Michigan have developed solar cells that can have it both ways.
"The design takes what a large tracking solar panel does and condenses it into something that is essentially flat," said Aaron Lamoureux, a doctoral student in materials science and engineering and first author on the paper in Nature Communications.
Residential rooftops make up about 85 percent of solar panel installations in the U.S., according to a report from the Department of Energy, but these roofs would need significant reinforcing to support the weight of conventional sun-tracking systems.
More: http://ns.umich.edu/new/multimedia/videos/23109-inspired-by-art-lightweight-solar-cells-track-the-sun
What really scares me about Kim Davis
Her position does not just issue licenses and records documents. Her office is in charge of elections, taxes and the county's finances.
First off, I think that puts too much power in one person's hands. The county clerk will know everything about every person in the county - marital status, mortgages, tax obligations, everything that has to be recorded in that county. While much of it may be publicly accessible records, some may not. I'm not familiar with Kentucky's laws on public records. In Florida most of that information is public but the control of the various aspects of a Kentucky county clerks job are separate in Florida counties.
If by some perverse legal loophole Kim Davis is let out and allowed to run the county clerk office again, what other rights might she deny on the word of her god? While the focus has been on her denial of the right to obtain marriage licenses she could abuse any other aspect of her office to deny rights to any group the voice in her head tells her to. If she wins the right to use her office to inflict her religious views on other citizens, the potential for abuse and denial of rights is unlimited.
Do the unions keep a history of strikes?
In scanning my grandfather's negatives, I came on four photos of what appears to be a strike. Very laid back images - two guys sitting under a beach umbrella and one is holding a sign that says:
Swift Co. Employees on Strike.
I. C. W. U.
Local No. 38
A. F. of L.
If they of the same vintage as the other photos in this group this would have been about 1951, probably in Agricola, Florida. My grandfather was a manager of the phosphate mine in Agricola that was owned by Swift & Company.
He may have been taking pictures to send back to corporate headquarters. Or he may just have been taking pictures since he had for decades. Yesterday I also scanned pictures that seem to be of his training in the Army Corp of Engineers in 1918. Most of those are of them blowing things up.
If the union(s) involved would like digital copies of the pictures, PM me. Eventually I will be posting nearly all of the photos I am scanning online but right now I don't have these ready. But I would like them to get to interested parties for history's sake.
"The Aloha Vet" has died
I just discovered his show on National Geographic Wild Channel (Nat Geo Wild) and have grown to like the man. Now I found out that he died before they could film a second season. 
Friends remember Dr. Scott Sims,who died Saturday
Tom Hasslinger - The Garden Island
Posted: Sunday, July 26, 2015 2:00 am
LIHUE — Dr. Scott Sims, a veterinarian made famous by starring in his own reality television show but revered on Kauai long before that, died Saturday at Wilcox Memorial Hospital.
Friends said they will remember a man who was caring, witty and wise — and someone who lived up to his nickname, the barefoot Aloha Vet, while caring for goats, chickens, horses and parrots at any hour.
He was 59.
“He touched so many people on this island,” said Su Haynes, a close friend of Sims since the veterinarian moved to the island around 2002. “There’s hardly anyone on this island that he didn’t touch.”
http://thegardenisland.com/news/local/goodbye-aloha-vet/article_6ba560aa-7882-5c02-a942-2efa88f90982.html
What I found nice about him was that he often helped people work out affordable ways to get their animals treated. I could tell that he really cared about the creatures he treated.
Vote, then pray your ballot is counted - Daniel Ruth, Times Columnist
A very critical opinion piece about Florida's election head. Well worth reading!
Daniel Ruth, Times Columnist
Wednesday, July 29, 2015 2:09pm
Not to be overly simplistic, but the essential skill set to perform the duties of Florida's secretary of state would seem to be the ability to perform this task: one, two, three, four, five …
For the person responsible for overseeing the state's elections, counting is very important.
Ken Detzner has other things to do, like protecting the state seal to make sure it doesn't get lost, fall into a mayo jar, or wind up on Jameis Winston's mantle. But it's the election stuff that is the primary item on Detzner's agenda — when he gets around to it.
Yet on Detzner's watch, voting in Florida has become an abacus adventure as the secretary of state has plotted against voters by engaging in a sloppy, ham-handed purge of voting rolls. Detzner also opposed the use of remote dropoff points for mailed ballots.
More: http://www.tampabay.com/opinion/columns/ruth-vote-then-pray-your-ballot-is-counted/2239194
Anybody have a test program that will stress a computer?
I posted before about my husband's Acer laptop that had been throwing BSODs constantly even with fresh installs of Windows 7 Home and nothing extra installed. I took one of the suggestions and got information from the BSOD which indicated it was a problem with ntfs.sys. Searching that got to pages that said that was caused when a driver forced dumps and one source said to turn off write caching. So I've done that.
Now I want to stress the thing and see if that fixed the problem. I don't have time or inclination to mess with the damned thing myself. I already got my husband a new laptop - nice Toshiba on sale the week before July 4. But if I can get this one to be reliable I can use it for email and browsing when we're on vacation and not have to take turns with the husband using his laptop.
Any test programs you can suggest that I can just start and run for a while?
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Gender: Do not displayHometown: Leon County, Florida
Member since: Tue Feb 12, 2008, 10:18 PM
Number of posts: 34,135
