Today, a technical glitch has been exposed in the scanning machines to be used in the Philippine national and local elections in just five days time.
A mock election was held in parts of the Philippines on Monday to test and seal the Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) machines, but the votes didn’t scan correctly.
The PCOS machines were specially designed for this election by the Commission on Elections (Comelec) together in a partnership with Smartmatic and Total Information Management, Philippines (TIM); Smartmatic-TIM.
These glitches come after troubles with humidity affecting PCOS machines were detected during advance overseas voting in Hong Kong last month.
The spokesperson for Smartmatic-TIM Cesar Flores says that the problem was caused by incorrect programming. The test was supposed to prove that the machines worked before they were sealed up ready for the elections. Instead it revealed that the PCOS machines may be rigged.
Not so flashy cards
Each PCOS machine has its own compact flash card specific to its area. These are a little like the SIM card in a mobile phone. The two gigabyte card includes information on the number of registered voters in the area, and the names of candidates for the local elections.
Hand-written ballot paper is scanned into the PCOS machine, where the specific program on the flash card and the software in the machine work together to read the scan. The results are then transmitted via satellite to a secure central server for counting.
During printing, the local forms were adjusted to match the national forms; from a single space to a double. The PCOS machine read the ballot as if it was still single-spaced; and so the machine wrongly allotted votes to some candidates, and skipped others.
“For some reason, the configuration was telling the machine that the second row visually is actually the third row,” says Flores. The next row was read as a “blank space,” he said.
Across the country, 76,300 compact flash cards will need to be recalled and replaced from deep inside the PCOS machines.
The blame game
According to The Daily Inquirer, Smartmatic-TIM has blamed Comelec for the problem because they didn’t want to run tests with the actual voting forms. Comelec are only allowed to print the exact number of ballot papers (50.7 million) per registered voters.
At a nationally televised news conference yesterday, Flores simply blamed the glitches on "human error".
Either way, Smartmatic-TIM is responsible for fixing the problem. With a processing rate of 40 cards per hour in 75 stations (3,000 cards/hour), Flores hopes that 54,000 cards can be reprogrammed in the next 18 hours.
Flores said that it planned to process 31,500 flash cards today. However he also said that 43,000 cards are due to arrive tomorrow on order from Taiwan and Hong Kong.
Comelec Commissioner Gregorio Larrazabal said Smartmatic-TIM had only 20,000 spare flash cards on hand in the Philippines.
Deception through machines?
According to the Nacionalista Party, in six towns on the island of Mindoro (140 km South of Manila), the machines were rigged.
“There were five votes for Villar, five votes for Aquino, but when it came out (in the machine), there were no votes for Villar, no votes for Noynoy and 10 votes for Teodoro,” Nacionalista Party spokesperson and senatorial candidate Gilbert Remulla said.
“Is this automated cheating?” asked Remulla.
Gilberto Teodoro is the preferred Presidential candidate for the administrative party. Supporters of Villar, led by Remulla, have filed a complaint with the Comelec office in Manila.
Henrietta de Villa, chair of the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting, the Comelec’s citizen’s arm says “I will not be honest if I will say that my confidence has not been diminished because, as I said, what will happen next?”.
What will happen next?
Next, the election may either be delayed, it may be a failure or it may not happen at all. There’s sentiment that the chain of problems in the lead up to this election is not coincidence, but an effort to boycott the election. If this election fails, current administration will continue for another six months until a new election is rescheduled.
A strong push to postpone Election Day for two weeks has been re-instigated. There is also a push to reinstate the manual system; however the manual system was abandoned because it provides too many opportunities for corruption.
Originally two additional weeks were allocated for manual counting, now made redundant by automated polling, so there is leeway to allow for a delay to ensure that the election is a success.
Comelec and Smartmatic-TIM have confirmed that they’ll be able to reach their optimistic goal to retrieve and replace all 76,000 flash cards across the archipelago in a few days.
The public has been assured that the problems will be sorted by Sunday – a close call when the elections are on Monday.
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Smokey Mountain Two
Underfoot it’s as though I’m sinking into fresh snow, smoke stings my eyes, and there’s a familiar stench. The ground is spongy from several metres of compressed plastic; the smoke is toxic from the burning of treated wood to make charcoal; and the stink is like that of any dump site, except that it is mixed with the smell of the human lifestyle – cooking, morning breath and human faeces.
I’m at Smokey Mountain Two, the biggest active waste site in Manila, the Philippines. Its namesake, Smokey Mountain One was bulldozed in 1995 due to its pitiful living conditions.
The site where I now stand is completely man-made. It used to be part of Manila Bay, but years of rubbish and silt have piled up to create new land where the inhabitants now live.
I squint through the smoke at old Smokey Mountain One; a six-storey high mountain of rubbish now covered in patches of grass, where 20,000 people found their livelihoods and their homes for three decades.
Entire families – in fact generations – make between $1 and $4.50 US per day collecting recycling from freshly-dumped garbage from Manila.
An important livelihood here is charcoal, which is made by slowly burning old wooden furniture covered in dirt in an anaerobic environment (without air). This is how Smokey Mountain got its name, not because it sounds like an idyllic holiday ranch. Even Smokey Mountain One still smokes in the distance.
We walk through the 'streets', which are more like dirt roads, black with fine dust and rubbish, past houses made from off cuts of wood, scraps of metal and old car parts. Converted tricycles make a bedroom for two kids. Old bedsprings serve as fences and security doors. A shop attendant is cooking skewers on a BBQ made from old car tyres. The sides of the grill are curved – it looks like it was taken from the inside of an old refrigerator. This really is a creative place, where ingenuity is a survival skill and new inventions are born.
I respect that the people who live here are resourceful, but it’s not through choice that they are exposed to dangerous toxic waste everyday. It’s incredible to see that through necessity, people can become such experts on what can and can’t be recycled, or if it can’t be, they’ll find a use for it. It's the exact opposite of many people I know in Australia who have no need, and therefore no desire, to make an effort to reuse or recycle.
In one of the cul-de-sacs, planks of wood have been lain out to walk across the thick, black, rotting mud. Here in this depression, it’s easy to imagine that this place was once covered in the sour water of Manila Bay.
We approach the swirling, rancid soup of the newly-shaped bay. The bloated carcass of a pig is being poached in the centre of a foaming brown whirlpool. Workers are waist deep in the water, cleaning the dirt off plastic bags. In a methodical rhythm, thin layer after thin layer of wet plastic is laid onto a huge pallet. For 10 kg of clean plastic bags, these workers will get 100 pesos (just over $2 US), and about 50 recycled plastic 1-litre bottles will be made.
Blue trucks pull up to dump piles of rubbish on the barge before it also sets off to dump its load at another site in Montalban, Rizal. By this stage, most of the leftover waste is supposed to be biodegradable, but it's hard to imagine that everything could be scavenged out of these copious quantities of rubbish.
Last year, three whale sharks were found dead in Manila Bay – two were washed up to shore, and the other brought in by fishermen. An autopsy revealed that all three had rubbish in their gut.
The last in the Smokey Mountain recycling hierarchy chain must be those that sort through the ‘compost’ on the barges, when there is little left to scavenge. It’s a race against the clock to get as much as you can before the supposedly biodegradable load is emptied. Nimble teens fumble on top of the moving trucks desperately trying to get recyclables out before the tray is tilted onto the boats.
The main problem I have is that wealthier people and wealthier companies don’t manage their waste properly, leaving people such as those from Smokey Mountain to rummage through rubbish. In the past, some of this toxic waste was from other countries, although the ratification of the Basel Convention should have stopped this. I think that people expect this last point of resource recovery. It’s selfish reliance to assume that someone else will make the effort instead.
Another aspect, however, is that dumpsites like Smokey Mountain provide an important livelihood for people in poverty. If waste was managed properly, then how would these people feed their families?
Does this mean that it's good to litter in the Philippines? Is it better leave my plastic bottle on the street, rather than putting it in the bin? That way someone can come along and pick it up without having to rummage through a potentially dangerous bin? In Australia, if I throw a bottle in the rubbish instead of the recycling, it could end up in landfill for another 1000 years, slowly leaching chemicals into the soil.
I was lucky enough to attend a Christmas Party for the kids of Smokey Mountain II Day Care Center. UCCP-Tondo is an NGO that gives education, love and a little bit of hope to the kids of Smokey Mountain. The kids enjoyed a whole day of activities and games together with a development assistance organisation in the Philippines, DevConcepts Ph.
A particularly special treat for the kids was when JolliBee arrived - this is kind of like a Filipino version of McDonalds and Ronald McDonald. It was as though the kids had just stepped into a fantasy world, their faces stricken with awe and their arms uncontrollably reaching to squeeze the friendly giant character!
The kids – not through lack of room in their tiny stomachs – left more than half of their JolliBee meals uneaten. Names were carefully written on the partially-eaten polystyrene boxes and stored away to be shared later with the rest of the family. Even after the massive grab for lollies from the fallen piñata, the kids shared their loot amongst themselves, and not through pressure from the adults. The sense of community is strong here. Survival depends on working together and looking after each other. In these kids, there’s a lesson we can all learn about fair use of the resources available to us.
If you’re lucky enough to have your waste looked after for you, spare a thought for the families at Smokey Mountain Two. Be grateful for the system that you have, and while there’s always room for improvement, it shouldn’t be taken for granted.
As we are leave, one kid jumps on the back of the minivan. He’s holding onto the windscreen wiper and the tips of his toes are balancing on the numberplate. I turn around to wave to the hanger-on. He ducks out of view so I can’t see him, as though he’s doing something wrong. He doesn’t jump off until we reach the main road when the futility of his actions dawns on him. He can’t come with us.
I’m at Smokey Mountain Two, the biggest active waste site in Manila, the Philippines. Its namesake, Smokey Mountain One was bulldozed in 1995 due to its pitiful living conditions.
The site where I now stand is completely man-made. It used to be part of Manila Bay, but years of rubbish and silt have piled up to create new land where the inhabitants now live.
I squint through the smoke at old Smokey Mountain One; a six-storey high mountain of rubbish now covered in patches of grass, where 20,000 people found their livelihoods and their homes for three decades.
Entire families – in fact generations – make between $1 and $4.50 US per day collecting recycling from freshly-dumped garbage from Manila.
An important livelihood here is charcoal, which is made by slowly burning old wooden furniture covered in dirt in an anaerobic environment (without air). This is how Smokey Mountain got its name, not because it sounds like an idyllic holiday ranch. Even Smokey Mountain One still smokes in the distance.
We walk through the 'streets', which are more like dirt roads, black with fine dust and rubbish, past houses made from off cuts of wood, scraps of metal and old car parts. Converted tricycles make a bedroom for two kids. Old bedsprings serve as fences and security doors. A shop attendant is cooking skewers on a BBQ made from old car tyres. The sides of the grill are curved – it looks like it was taken from the inside of an old refrigerator. This really is a creative place, where ingenuity is a survival skill and new inventions are born.
I respect that the people who live here are resourceful, but it’s not through choice that they are exposed to dangerous toxic waste everyday. It’s incredible to see that through necessity, people can become such experts on what can and can’t be recycled, or if it can’t be, they’ll find a use for it. It's the exact opposite of many people I know in Australia who have no need, and therefore no desire, to make an effort to reuse or recycle.
In one of the cul-de-sacs, planks of wood have been lain out to walk across the thick, black, rotting mud. Here in this depression, it’s easy to imagine that this place was once covered in the sour water of Manila Bay.
We approach the swirling, rancid soup of the newly-shaped bay. The bloated carcass of a pig is being poached in the centre of a foaming brown whirlpool. Workers are waist deep in the water, cleaning the dirt off plastic bags. In a methodical rhythm, thin layer after thin layer of wet plastic is laid onto a huge pallet. For 10 kg of clean plastic bags, these workers will get 100 pesos (just over $2 US), and about 50 recycled plastic 1-litre bottles will be made.
Blue trucks pull up to dump piles of rubbish on the barge before it also sets off to dump its load at another site in Montalban, Rizal. By this stage, most of the leftover waste is supposed to be biodegradable, but it's hard to imagine that everything could be scavenged out of these copious quantities of rubbish.
Last year, three whale sharks were found dead in Manila Bay – two were washed up to shore, and the other brought in by fishermen. An autopsy revealed that all three had rubbish in their gut.
The last in the Smokey Mountain recycling hierarchy chain must be those that sort through the ‘compost’ on the barges, when there is little left to scavenge. It’s a race against the clock to get as much as you can before the supposedly biodegradable load is emptied. Nimble teens fumble on top of the moving trucks desperately trying to get recyclables out before the tray is tilted onto the boats.
The main problem I have is that wealthier people and wealthier companies don’t manage their waste properly, leaving people such as those from Smokey Mountain to rummage through rubbish. In the past, some of this toxic waste was from other countries, although the ratification of the Basel Convention should have stopped this. I think that people expect this last point of resource recovery. It’s selfish reliance to assume that someone else will make the effort instead.
Another aspect, however, is that dumpsites like Smokey Mountain provide an important livelihood for people in poverty. If waste was managed properly, then how would these people feed their families?
Does this mean that it's good to litter in the Philippines? Is it better leave my plastic bottle on the street, rather than putting it in the bin? That way someone can come along and pick it up without having to rummage through a potentially dangerous bin? In Australia, if I throw a bottle in the rubbish instead of the recycling, it could end up in landfill for another 1000 years, slowly leaching chemicals into the soil.
I was lucky enough to attend a Christmas Party for the kids of Smokey Mountain II Day Care Center. UCCP-Tondo is an NGO that gives education, love and a little bit of hope to the kids of Smokey Mountain. The kids enjoyed a whole day of activities and games together with a development assistance organisation in the Philippines, DevConcepts Ph.
A particularly special treat for the kids was when JolliBee arrived - this is kind of like a Filipino version of McDonalds and Ronald McDonald. It was as though the kids had just stepped into a fantasy world, their faces stricken with awe and their arms uncontrollably reaching to squeeze the friendly giant character!
The kids – not through lack of room in their tiny stomachs – left more than half of their JolliBee meals uneaten. Names were carefully written on the partially-eaten polystyrene boxes and stored away to be shared later with the rest of the family. Even after the massive grab for lollies from the fallen piñata, the kids shared their loot amongst themselves, and not through pressure from the adults. The sense of community is strong here. Survival depends on working together and looking after each other. In these kids, there’s a lesson we can all learn about fair use of the resources available to us.
If you’re lucky enough to have your waste looked after for you, spare a thought for the families at Smokey Mountain Two. Be grateful for the system that you have, and while there’s always room for improvement, it shouldn’t be taken for granted.
As we are leave, one kid jumps on the back of the minivan. He’s holding onto the windscreen wiper and the tips of his toes are balancing on the numberplate. I turn around to wave to the hanger-on. He ducks out of view so I can’t see him, as though he’s doing something wrong. He doesn’t jump off until we reach the main road when the futility of his actions dawns on him. He can’t come with us.
Friday, January 15, 2010
Parasitic problems
Before coming to the Philippines I had alomst 20 vaccination shots in my arm. I’ve heard plenty of stories and statistics about lethal parasites and water-borne diseases in developing countries. I just never thought it would happen to me.
Parasites are a major problem in the Philippines. One survey of 30,000 people across the country found that 86% had intestinal parasites of some sort, sometimes a few types at the same time.
The few stomach troubles I’d had I put down to just getting used to the food. In my view, one of the best things about travel is trying new local foods. A bit of antigenic stimulation is good for you – right? That's what I thought until I found out I was incubating a few thousand parasites in my belly. I can’t pinpoint how or when I got infected; I might have drunk water that wasn’t filtered or eaten dirty vegetables.
For two weeks, the parasites had been living in my lower intestine and going about their lifecycle. Finally, my body retaliated. It was incredible how quickly it all happened. One minute I was fine, and the next I was vomiting. I assumed it was food poisoning from the disappointing Thai food we’d had that night. I thought it would pass.
After two hours of projectile vomiting, I started to cough up blood. At that point, my kind, compassionate and ever-helpful housemates decided it’d be a good time to take me to hospital. So off they went to find some transport. Then, I started loosing blood out both ends. At this point, all alone on the first night in my new house, both my body and I finally realized that something was seriously wrong.
I had Amoebiasis, a water-borne protozoal parasite. It’s quite common in the Philippines for people to carry the parasitic amoeba Entamoeba histolytica, but only some people develop symptoms of Amoebiasis. The World Health Organization estimates around 100,000 people die worldwide from Entamoeba histolytica infections per year.
Being a commensal organism the amoebas had been living in a symbiotic relationship with the good bacteria in my gut. The only reason my body realized there were unwelcome guests was because the infection got so bad that they entered my bloodstream. I even had symptoms of them in my lungs (hence the coughing up blood).
These freeloaders will take up residence in your organs if they’re ignored for too long. They can remain completely unnoticed in your body for up to three years. So, I could look on the bright side and say that at least I only had them for the normal incubation period of about two weeks. I’d only been in the country for three weeks before I got this introduction to the Philippines.
Once at hospital, after everyone had peeked behind the curtain to gawk at the sick white girl in emergency, I was admitted. Meanwhile, my body was doing all it could push everything that was inside, outside. Thousands of eggs, or cysts, were sent into the sewerage, ready to infect another poor unsuspecting individual.
The amoebas can’t live outside of the body, but the cysts can survive outside the body for months. The cysts are often found in farm soils, mainly because sewerage is not treated properly, and fields are often fertilized with dirty water. That’s why it’s so important to ‘cook it, peel it or leave it’.
There are two possible lifecycles for this parasite. First the cysts are ingested, then from each mature cyst eight amoeba’s hatch. They latch onto the large intestine, and eat away your cells – such as the lining of your intestine and your blood – and produce more cysts. When the cysts exit the body they are infective and if eaten can create another eight amoebas. The second possible lifecycle only occurs in 10% of cases. This is where the amoeba’s burrow through the intestine and move through the bloodstream to infect organs such as the liver, lungs, heart and brain.
I lost a lot of fluid, and my Potassium levels were dangerously low. The amoebas were getting along quite well with my normal gut flora, so every living thing in my digestive tract needed to be killed. I was started on a really strong course of antibiotics, plus another antiprotozoal drug, and a diet of rice crackers and bananas.
I was on a drip in hospital for three days. One unexpected side effect was the excruciating pain of the Potassium in my drip. It was a dull, heavy ache that was amplified 100 times by moving – even flicking the remote made me feel like I had just won the Iron Man Challenge. Luckily, the cute nurses helped me cope with strong painkillers and gorgeous smiles.
A week later, I had to give a ‘sample’ to test if all of the amoebas were out. The nurse handed me two glass bottles which were smaller than the palm of my hand, each with an opening the size of a pea. I thought she was joking. The lady waiting behind me, obviously keen to get her test results, urged me on by saying ‘Just a piece’ while giggling under her breath. I can’t imagine how they could know that I was now healthy from the diminutive stool sample I supplied. Handing your sample jar to a nurse is embarrassing at the best of times – having to forcefully insert and then hand over my miniature clear bottle was probably my worst moment.
I am now fully recovered and feeling fine. But knowing that I have now infected the water in Los Banos with a bunch of Entamoeba histolytica cysts, I won’t be brushing my teeth with the tap water anymore.
Parasites are a major problem in the Philippines. One survey of 30,000 people across the country found that 86% had intestinal parasites of some sort, sometimes a few types at the same time.
The few stomach troubles I’d had I put down to just getting used to the food. In my view, one of the best things about travel is trying new local foods. A bit of antigenic stimulation is good for you – right? That's what I thought until I found out I was incubating a few thousand parasites in my belly. I can’t pinpoint how or when I got infected; I might have drunk water that wasn’t filtered or eaten dirty vegetables.
For two weeks, the parasites had been living in my lower intestine and going about their lifecycle. Finally, my body retaliated. It was incredible how quickly it all happened. One minute I was fine, and the next I was vomiting. I assumed it was food poisoning from the disappointing Thai food we’d had that night. I thought it would pass.
After two hours of projectile vomiting, I started to cough up blood. At that point, my kind, compassionate and ever-helpful housemates decided it’d be a good time to take me to hospital. So off they went to find some transport. Then, I started loosing blood out both ends. At this point, all alone on the first night in my new house, both my body and I finally realized that something was seriously wrong.
I had Amoebiasis, a water-borne protozoal parasite. It’s quite common in the Philippines for people to carry the parasitic amoeba Entamoeba histolytica, but only some people develop symptoms of Amoebiasis. The World Health Organization estimates around 100,000 people die worldwide from Entamoeba histolytica infections per year.
Being a commensal organism the amoebas had been living in a symbiotic relationship with the good bacteria in my gut. The only reason my body realized there were unwelcome guests was because the infection got so bad that they entered my bloodstream. I even had symptoms of them in my lungs (hence the coughing up blood).
These freeloaders will take up residence in your organs if they’re ignored for too long. They can remain completely unnoticed in your body for up to three years. So, I could look on the bright side and say that at least I only had them for the normal incubation period of about two weeks. I’d only been in the country for three weeks before I got this introduction to the Philippines.
Once at hospital, after everyone had peeked behind the curtain to gawk at the sick white girl in emergency, I was admitted. Meanwhile, my body was doing all it could push everything that was inside, outside. Thousands of eggs, or cysts, were sent into the sewerage, ready to infect another poor unsuspecting individual.The amoebas can’t live outside of the body, but the cysts can survive outside the body for months. The cysts are often found in farm soils, mainly because sewerage is not treated properly, and fields are often fertilized with dirty water. That’s why it’s so important to ‘cook it, peel it or leave it’.
There are two possible lifecycles for this parasite. First the cysts are ingested, then from each mature cyst eight amoeba’s hatch. They latch onto the large intestine, and eat away your cells – such as the lining of your intestine and your blood – and produce more cysts. When the cysts exit the body they are infective and if eaten can create another eight amoebas. The second possible lifecycle only occurs in 10% of cases. This is where the amoeba’s burrow through the intestine and move through the bloodstream to infect organs such as the liver, lungs, heart and brain.
I lost a lot of fluid, and my Potassium levels were dangerously low. The amoebas were getting along quite well with my normal gut flora, so every living thing in my digestive tract needed to be killed. I was started on a really strong course of antibiotics, plus another antiprotozoal drug, and a diet of rice crackers and bananas.
I was on a drip in hospital for three days. One unexpected side effect was the excruciating pain of the Potassium in my drip. It was a dull, heavy ache that was amplified 100 times by moving – even flicking the remote made me feel like I had just won the Iron Man Challenge. Luckily, the cute nurses helped me cope with strong painkillers and gorgeous smiles.
A week later, I had to give a ‘sample’ to test if all of the amoebas were out. The nurse handed me two glass bottles which were smaller than the palm of my hand, each with an opening the size of a pea. I thought she was joking. The lady waiting behind me, obviously keen to get her test results, urged me on by saying ‘Just a piece’ while giggling under her breath. I can’t imagine how they could know that I was now healthy from the diminutive stool sample I supplied. Handing your sample jar to a nurse is embarrassing at the best of times – having to forcefully insert and then hand over my miniature clear bottle was probably my worst moment.
I am now fully recovered and feeling fine. But knowing that I have now infected the water in Los Banos with a bunch of Entamoeba histolytica cysts, I won’t be brushing my teeth with the tap water anymore.
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
Stars over you
“Red, white and blue; stars over you; Mama said, Papa said, ‘I love you’.”
This is a nursery rhyme in the Philippines that describes the flag of the Philippines. Though, most Filipinos today would prefer the order of the rhyme to be blue, white, and lastly red, as these colours have significant meanings. Blue is for peace and unity, white is for purity and red represents patriotism and the revolution.
The National Historical Institute of the Philippines explains the importance of the colours:
“The red field symbolizes the willingness of the Filipino people to shed blood in defense of their country. The blue stands for common unity and noble aspirations of the Filipino people. The white stands for purity.”
The flag of the Philippines I’ve shown on this blog is the same one I see displayed around my university campus, University of the Philippines Los Banos – and that’s very fortunate for me, as it means that the country is experiencing a time of peace. During a time of revolution, the flag is turned around so that red is the topmost colour. I guess it’s important to know that the country I’m now living in could turn to chaos simply by turning the flag around.
The golden yellow sun is also important. Its eight rays symbolise the eight provinces or ‘barangays’ that instigated the Philippine revolution against Spanish rule. The three yellow stars are there for the three geographical regions; Luzon (the main island to the north), The Visayas (central island archipelago) and Mindanao (the island with the level 5 ‘Do not travel’ warning from DFAT).
I’m living in the Philippines at a very interesting time in history. The celebrated boxer, Manny Pacquiao, is selling everything from shampoo and toothpaste to the current Government. There’s the horrific Maguindanao massacre, where so much blood was shed that it could easily have warranted turning the flag up-side-down if it had been for a more noble cause. Plus, I can’t neglect to mention the upcoming Presidential election, scheduled for May 2010. Let’s just hope that flag stays the right way around.
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