RTFA: http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5j9YDTLWNOCPajU8…

TROY, N.Y. AP – Who is running for president? In an upstate New York county, hundreds of voters have been sent absentee ballots in which they could vote for “Barack Osama.”

The absentee ballots sent to voters in Rensselaer County identified the two presidential candidates as “Barack Osama” and “John McCain.” …

The elections office faxed a statement in which the two commissioners, Democrat Edward McDonough and Republican Larry Bugbee, said they regret the error but never acknowledge what the error was.

“It’s human error, it’s very unfortunate, it’s an embarrassment to our office, obviously,” McDonough said in a later phone interview. “We wish we could turn back the clock, but we can’t.”

Who knew Osama was running for elected office? Must be his family’s long-standing Bush connections that made him full of pluck. Anyway, O. Bin Laden doesn’t have my vote.

It’s rather hard to believe how this “error” could have occurred. Absentee ballots are not just viewed by one person before they are sent to voters. Furthermore, any persuasion researcher or psycholinguist can tell you the negative effects of a mistake like this. If you’re wanting a taste of what those effects might be, check out classical conditioning and/or the sleeper effect. I think we have to believe the official explanation, though, just so our heads don’t explode. An additional oddity is that they will send out a new ballot and count either one … methinks we’ll be hearing about counting errors in Rensselaer County, don’t you?

Terrible.

RTFA: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPX935sKrvw

Howdy there. I was just reflecting on the homeland, and what it means to be American. Americans have a tradition of speaking their minds. Why, it’s part of what makes this country so great, and I reckon it’s part of why the rest of the world hates us.

RTFA: http://www.boingboing.net/2007/09/05/psychological-tortur.html

your jaw may drop when you read the chapter titles:

* The Physiological State of the Interrogation Subject as it Affects
Brain Function

* The Effects of Reduced Environmental Stimulation on Human Behavior:
A Review

* The Use of Drugs in Interrogation

* Physiological Responses as a Means of Evaluating Information

* The Potential Uses of Hypnosis in Interrogation

* The Experimental Investigation of Interpersonal Influence

* Countermanipulation through Malingering

These articles were written by the people who were paid by the US
government, mostly in the 1950s, to research brainwashing and
interrogation techniques by giving people drugs, placing them under
sensory deprivation, hypnotizing them, etc. etc. Many of these
experiments essentially involve torture and are likely to be widely
regarded as highly unethical. This is fundamental research, and if
there was any followup research done, it has not yet been published
for public consumption.

Contains link to original text.