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01 May 2 0 0 9

Stimulator of the Week

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Lilly Smith- Neves

By more than 1,500 votes, 18-month-old Dorothy Lillian (Lilly) Smith-Neves, whose family owns Eastside Mart, takes the honor. The youngest of three, Lilly is often camped out behind the counter with a pile of Cheerios and a smile.

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VOTE

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Fun With ‘Voter’ Fraud

by Scott Kingsley

When we wrote that voting for Stimulator of the Week was Chicago-style (Vote often!), we had not anticipated computer-aided voting fraud. However, that is precisely the sort of trickery that upended this week’s contest. And it was fun, sort of.
When the vote totals hit several dozen, we marveled at the “turnout.” When the total exceeded a couple hundred, we imagined a boiler-room operation with Lilly’s relatives hunched over their computers rhythmically clicking away on StimulusTimes.com . . . vote, refresh, vote, refresh, vote, refresh, vote.
Then the numbers really jumped. Thousands voted, and Christina surged into the lead. No way two families are that organized, we thought. Feeling disappointed for Pam and Tony, whose vote tally lagged behind the others, we voted a few times for the Lams. To no avail.
We were no match for our phantom voter. A call to our website designer confirmed our suspicions. No, she said, we had not attracted thousands of unique visitors to our Stimulator page.
For a day or two, the vote total went up, up, up. With no rules in place, no rules had been broken, but the spirit of the contest had been violated.
Then the taunt arrived in the inbox: “HI IM 10 CAN U ADD LILLY 100 POINT PLZ THX U SHES SO CUTE.” And, our email reply was bounced. And, a second taunt followed: “ITS ME AGAIN WHEN DOES THE VOTING END IM GETTING TIRED OF CLICKING!!!!!:):):) THX.”
We waited for the week to pass with the eventual winner probably determined by one person and a computer. Lilly eventually surged into the lead and remained there, claiming her rightful place on the cover.
So what is the Stimulator of the Week, anyway? The idea is to introduce people to each other. Who is that person who hands you your coffee, who gets up in the middle of the night to bake your bread or who grants your wish for extra ginger with your sushi? We thought it might stimulate a little eye contact, maybe add a little niceness to your day. Having a “contest” adds drama. Voting seems so All-American. But, now we are adding a cutoff. Relax, you can still cheat — just not 7,600 times.
No doubt Mr. sitting-in-his-boxers-in-his-mother’s-basement will try to figure out a way to break the rules, pitting his computer savvy against ours. As we learned from the under-regulated mortgage industry debacle, it is also All-American to use the rules to one’s own advantage.
But, this contest is just for fun.

Rats Rule

Britain’s rats are relishing the worst recession in decades by growing their kinfolk to more than 50 million, nearly one rat per citizen.
The rats have found homes throughout England in vacant stores and unfinished houses, all casualties of the economic crisis. At the same time, leaner budgets have resulted in fewer trash collections and less extermination, so the rats are feasting on mounting piles of fetid garbage.
The National Pest Technicians Association Ltd. estimates that the rat population has grown 13 percent this year to more than 50 million, based on industry consensus. Residents have reported seeing rats jumping out of trash bins, darting from headlights and just hanging out.
Weekly garbage collections at 12.5 million British homes fell 7.1 percent in the last three months of 2008 from a year earlier, according to government data. At the same time, the number of vacant businesses and unfinished homes to harbor rodents has skyrocketed — a record 15 percent of British stores will be vacant by the end of 2009.
British health officials should give more than a rat’s ass about the widespread infestation as rodents spread some 35 diseases through contact bites, contamination of food and water with feces and airborne exposure to rat urine and droppings. Those illnesses range from murine typhus and rat-bite fever to salmonellosis and the deadly hantavirus pulmonary syndrome, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Rats also contaminate food, damage the infrastructure of buildings and chew electrical wires.

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