Did you know the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has set up a website intended to prepare people for terrorist attacks at Ready.gov?
I didn’t either.

Disturbing new allegations have surfaced regarding the 2003 Weblogs Awards election. According to reports, voters are experiencing confusion filling out their ballots, with some claiming they mistakenly voted for the wrong blog.
The controversy centers on the Flappy Bird portion of the ballot. When this section is viewed using Internet Explorer on some monitors, the punch holes buttons do not line up horizontally with the website names–a phenomenon reminiscent the infamous 2000 Florida butterfly ballot fiasco.
Two weblog candidates–Quibbles & Bits and Sebastian Holsclaw–which border Resonance, have apparently benefited from the ballot alignment problem. If you combine the misdirected votes from both those sites and add the votes to Resonance, it would currently be in first place.
The mess has prompted some voters to raise angry cries of disenfranchisement.
“I headed to the polls intending to vote for Resonance,” said Margaret Hobbs, age 89, of Chicago. “But when I turned off my computer I had the sinking sensation I had voted for someone else. There was no way to go back and check.”
“It’s wrong,” fumed Philadelphian Burt Moore. “Every vote should count.”
“I want Resonance,” cried Britney Ford, age 5, of Houston.
Analysis of early returns appeared to confirm the charges of voter confusion. University of Toronto election specialist Dr. Phil McGhee examined ballots from the Tennessee precinct and was surprised by his findings.
“I found an unusually high percentage of votes for Quibbles & Bits and Sebastian Holsclaw,” said McGhee. “It just doesn’t make sense given the high proportion of Rocky Top Brigade bloggers in the region. Something’s up.”
Election officials at Wizbang declined requests for interviews. But one source, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said they were aware of the display problem before the election. “Yeah, we know Internet Explorer sucks,” he said. “But we simply didn’t have the resources to produce a standardized ballot across all systems. The system isn’t perfect.”
Reaction was mixed at Resonance campaign headquarters. One angry staffer argued the situation could only be remedied with a re-vote using redesigned ballots. But officially the campaign sounded a more patient tone. “We are carefully monitoring the results and considering our options,” said one campaign spokesperson. “And we have not ruled out any legal recourse. We want to make sure that every vote counts.”
Voting for the Weblog Awards is scheduled to run through December 14.

Billmon has some great observations supplementing this Guardian piece.

Signal + Noise has the festivities. Plus a bunch of creepy insects.

Say Uncle posted on a revision to the official figures relating the start of the Bush recession. I thought it curious they are still revising data from three years ago. Then I read further:

Until now, statisticians at Commerce’s Bureau of Economic Analysis believed the economy did not start shrinking until early 2001. But extensive revisions dating back to 1929, incorporating both improved statistics and changes to definitions, revealed a contraction in gross domestic product, or GDP, in the July-to-September quarter of 2000.
[Emphasis added]

It’s interesting how economists manipulate revise data as they go. I’m not sure what we recently found out about 1929 that we didn’t know in, say, 1999. And why stop at 1929? We can write some exciting new chapters in world economic history by merely tweaking a few definitions and formulas.