Blog Archives - Jay Evensen

This this election is scary? Just look at 1872

10/31/2016

Whatever may be said of the dismal choices voters face in this year’s presidential election, at least nobody’s running mate got so drunk at a campaign event that he tried to butter a watermelon.

That happened in 1872, which could be a good answer to the question, when have you ever seen such a dismal choice for the White House?

Maybe you could argue things weren’t as bad back then. At least, neither candidate was accused of

Now even our things are turning against us

10/26/2016

It turns out our toasters really are trying to kill us.

The image of rogue toasters can be traced to a paper three computer security analysts wrote back in 1996. They described a fictional terrorist attack involving hacks into an air traffic control system, the use of a simple website and a Trojan horse virus that eventually wipes out computer databases and other interconnected things across a wide swath of the United States.

Ballot selfies — boastful voting in the age of ignorance

10/25/2016

This is one of the few social waves Utah lawmakers caught early: Thanks to a unanimous vote in the 2015 Legislature, you may legally snap a selfie of yourself next to your ballot, even if you’ve already filled in the little bubbles and they are clearly visible for all to see.

Chances are good you may not have known this was an issue. That apparently was Justin Timberlake’s

How much will the election change your taxes?

10/24/2016

How much would you pay in taxes should either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton become president?

The question is, of course, not so simple. Either one of them would need cooperation from Congress to enact his or her plan, so reality may vary considerably from current campaign promises. However, I came across this nifty calculator,

Why Trump vs. Hillary is such a hard choice

10/19/2016

The election, Melissa Deckman told the New York Times, “could well be the most negative in history.”

One prominent television ad for the Democratic nominee features a man who says he is a life-long Republican. He always votes for the Republican presidential ticket. But of this year’s nominee, he says, “This man scares me.” He says a friend assured him that just because someone acts irresponsibly during the campaign, it doesn’t mean he won’t act differently as president. “I don’t buy that.”

County clerk says rigging an election would be impossible

10/18/2016

Here is an important number to remember: 3,143.
That is the number of counties, and county equivalents (boroughs, independent cities, etc.) in the United States. It’s an important number because, in order to rig a presidential election, you would need to somehow fix the outcome in a strategic number of these.

Dig deeper, and the number gets considerably larger. The conspiracy would have to involve, somewhere along the line, precinct judges, people capable of reprogramming computers without the

Trump's claims of election fraud baseless and harmful

10/17/2016

On Nov. 12, 1960, a small news story appeared in newspapers nationwide. The headlines all were variations on the same final declaration regarding the presidential election that had taken place four day earlier: Richard Nixon was not going to officially challenge the results.

That effectively put an end to official talk of widespread vote fraud in 11 states, most notably Illinois and Texas, where Democrat John F. Kennedy was declared the winner by narrow margins. Yes, Republicans got official recounts in some of those states, and yes, arguments over 1960 continue to this day, but once Nixon conceded, the nation, in an official way, moved on.

Trump's vulgar comments reflect American culture

10/12/2016

It’s time for a reality check, America.

I have no trouble castigating Donald Trump for his vulgar, misogynistic “locker room talk” about women. I’m glad so many people apparently feel the nation’s highest political office ought to be occupied by someone with higher standards, at least publicly.

But the outrage is laced with more than a thin ribbon of hypocrisy. How many Hollywood moguls would condemn Trump while producing movies or prime-time television fare that presents much the same, packaged as mainstream entertainment? And how many regular Americans, aghast at the 2005 video they watched on a news station last week, changed the channel and began enjoying that entertainment?

A nation that gleefully frolics in a smelly, wet bog sounds a little false when it gets angry because its

What do we tell children about the clowns?

10/11/2016

It’s hard to write about the current clown scare without resorting to cheap jokes about presidential politics. Yes, the race might be a squeaker, with one or the other winning by a plastic red nose — but enough about that. It’s time to get serious for a moment about the bozos wandering the streets, scaring our children.

Bad clowns, often as illusive as Big Foot sightings, are out in force, apparently, and that includes in Utah.

Ending the revolving drug door in Salt Lake City

10/10/2016

Would Utah benefit from a version of Casey’s Law in Kentucky, which allows people to more easily order involuntary drug treatment for their adult children?

Police are in the middle of an ongoing campaign to arrest people causing trouble in the Rio Grande area of Salt Lake City – and area that could compare with any of the most crime-ridden neighborhoods in the country. As of the end of last week, 113 people had been arrested for crimes related to substance abuse, according to a Deseret News story. Of these, 68 agreed to a deal in which they would go to a treatment center rather than to jail.

But after arriving at the center, 27 of them ended up walking away fairly quickly. They didn’t want the help.

That sort of behavior is not so unusual for people with addictions. But while the Salt Lake County

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