Unknown Buddhist

Last year, astronomers fixed their eyes to a lump of rock from another planetary system that whizzed through ours. under most circumstances, this may have been noteworthy, but I quickly digested the article and moved on. In the months following, a pair of Harvard scientists claimed the massive, fast-moving ‘Oumuamua‘ may have been a probe sent by an advance alien civilization. Named ‘Oumuamua‘ (Hawaiian for “messenger” or “scout”) might be a probe sent by an advance alien civilization.

Researcher comments were posted alongside Oumuamua’s picture. So, I have to say, if Oumuamua’s picture is accurate, the probe’s craft looks liked my first car from high school – meaning that probe was beat to hell and back. I keep wondering if the probe passed Elon Musk’s Tesla Roadster and its dummy driver, Starman. Cruising by, the probe pouts, “He got a convertible. I got a rock.”

So what does Oumuamua have to do with anything?

Well, I linked Oumuamua to current events by coining the term the Oumuamua Factor. And, in all transparency, the Oumuamua Factor was inspired by American astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson when Tyson, in effect, said:

“When something moves at speeds never seen before,has a shape never seen before and if it’s something you cannot explain, the most extraordinary account is used to explain it. The account is probably not correct, yet people buy it.”

Global citizens having been buying into Oumuamua like conspiracies for ages. Take Rick Scott. Scott held a news conference calling for the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to investigate elections officials in Broward and Palm Beach counties, and announced he had filed a lawsuit against top election officials in each of them.

“I will not sit idly by while unethical liberals try to steal this election from the great people of Florida,” Scott said. “Their goal is to keep mysteriously finding votes until the election turns out the way they want … left-wing activists have been coming up with more and more ballots out of nowhere.”

Scott raised suspicion that vote counting delays were due to misconduct, but failed to present any evidence that it actually occurred. Within hours of Scott’s news conference, President Trump tweeted that he categorically characterized vote count process as “another big corruption scandal having to do with Election Fraud,” and asserted that “Florida voted for Rick Scott!”

Trump pulled an additional Oumuamua yesterday when he claimed citizens committed voter fraud by casting a ballot, returning to their cars, changing clothes, and reentering the polling facility in disguise to cast additional ballots.

“The Republicans don’t win and that’s because of potentially illegal votes,” Trump told the Daily Caller. “When people get in line that have absolutely no right to vote and they go around in circles. Sometimes they go to their car, put on a different hat, put on a different shirt, come in and vote again. Nobody takes anything. It’s really a disgrace what’s going on.”

So what’s real? Well, there are two issues: The allegation of voter fraud and the Florida recount process.

Voter Fraud

Trump’s claim about illegal voting might be right. On Twitter, David Rich noted:

“Sometimes, I don’t know, they come dressed as Batman or Spider-Man. Then they leave, come back and vote again as Peter Parker or Bruce Wayne! I don’t know, people are saying…” https://t.co/67hy5tB3HN

However, I know for a fact that Superman is a Democrat and voted in 27,000 times last week. He flew as Superman, changed his clothes to Clark Kent, used his mind power jump the line to first and flew onto the next polling place. In southern Arizona, he flew across the border to Mexico, picked up a bus load of illegals, brought them back. The illegals voted and he returned everyone back to Mexico. And it worked. ‘Blue Wave.’ Thanks Superman.

Simply put, if I sound crazy, then you should find neither Scott’s nor Trump’s allegations fundamentally sound.

Florida’s Recount Process

Why does Palm Beach County, Florida have so many issues? Susan Bucher, the elections chief who ‘doesn’t suffer fools’, has repeatedly asked for additional funding to update antiquated voting machines and blasted state officials for not extending the deadline so the county can count every vote. There are only eight machines in Florida’s third-largest county to scan nearly 600,000 ballots cast.

In fact, voting technology deployed by most states around the country is now so antiquated and unreliable that it is in danger of breaking down at any time, experts say. Some states are having to go on eBay to buy spare parts for machines that are no longer manufactured. Despite the nationwide scope of the problem, little was being invested in finding a solution. “No one is expressing any interest in paying for new machines. Congress has shown absolutely no interest in doing so.”

In Closing

A customer at Simon’s Stingray Fishmongers marveled at the owner’s quick wit and intelligence.

“Tell me, Simon, what makes you so smart?”

“I wouldn’t share my secret with just anyone,” Simon replied. Lowering his voice, “But since you’re a good and faithful customer, I’ll let you in on it. Fish heads. You eat enough of them, you’ll be positively brilliant.”

“You sell them here?”

“Only $4 apiece,” says Simon.

The customer buys three. A week later, the customer returns and complains that the fish heads were disgusting and he isn’t any smarter.

“You didn’t eat enough,” says Simon. The customer goes home with 20 more fish heads.

Two weeks later, he’s back and really angry. “Hey, Simon,” he complains. “You’re selling fish heads for $4 a piece while I can buy the whole fish for $2.00. You’re just ripping me off!”

“See?” says Simon. “You’re smarter already.”

Scott and Trump continues to offer the Oumuamua Factor. It’s simply an appearance of a more viable story. However, what people continue to purchase are only fish heads.