Greetings!
… and welcome to another Baja Arizona Kossacks Open Thread. I am your host this week, providing a bit of Baja news and of course pictures from my backyard.
Happy Independence Weekend!
The sun is shining, the sky is blue and the breezes are cool — in the sense that it's July in Arizona, and at noon the temperature was only a little bit over 90°, and that's below average y'know. So it's a great time for a holiday!
Speaking of weather, it's been a rough week in Tucson. A microburst over Himmel Park took out some trees. I heard that that section of the park was due for some landscaping work anyway, but I don't think they were going to take out any trees, so that's a sad loss. Tucson also got quite a bit of rain with that storm. Heh, heh. It turns out that "quite a bit" means TWO INCHES. I actually got an email inquiry from a friend in Florida about the "flooding" we had here, which apparently made the news over there. He'll die laughing when I tell him it was two inches. In Florida, "drainage" is a way of life, not just some passing irritation that crosses your mind once or twice a year, as we do it here. Once, during Hurricane Erin, my neighborhood got three FEET of rain in 24 hours. It's like a whole different planet there.
At my house here outside Tucson, I got a little over an inch that day, bringing my total for June to 2.3 inches, or five times the NWS-reported average for June (0.4"). And my year-to-date total is 8.6", or merely double the normal value. So we're not yet becoming the desiccated hellscape of climate change yet.
On to politics…
Upcoming Dates:
- Thu, July 7, 2016 — Last day to file constitution & initiative petitions
- Wed, July 13, 2016 — Last day to file arguments for or against ballot measures (General Election)
- Thu, July 21, 2016 — Last day to file as a write-in candidate for the Primary Election
- Mon, August 1, 2016 — Voter registration deadline for Primary Election
- Wed, August 3, 2016 — Early Voting begins for Primary Election
- Tue, August 30, 2016 — Primary Election
So if you're changing your registration before the primary, you still have one month to do so. (This information is being provided for all of you who are not currently Democrats, and desperately want to become one, of course, because here there is only one party, and there is only one candidate. And don't you ever forget it!)
And speaking of voter registration, the online site is currently down, and there is no estimate being given for when it will be restored. From the Arizona Secretary of State news blog:
June 28:
In light of information recently shared by the Arizona Department of Administration, access to VRAZII and Voter View will be temporarily interrupted due to maintenance related to system security. State and local election officials can expect the voter registration system to be restored by the weekend and that it should not impact online or in-person voter registration.
June 30 (Update)
“The FBI alerted the State’s cyber response team at the Arizona Dept. of Administration to the fact that they had reason to believe that a credential related to the Voter Registration System had been compromised. The response team immediately contacted the Sec. of State’s Office, advised them to investigate their system which resulted in the confirmation of a compromised County computer with malicious software on it. Under an abundance of caution, the Secretary made the decision to take the site offline last night to further investigate. The Secretary and our team takes cyber security very seriously and protecting citizen data very seriously. We are working closely with the Sec. of State’s office and the FBI to determine next steps to ensure the integrity of the system.”
— Mike Lettman, Chief Information Security Officer, Arizona Dept. of Administration.
So good luck with any changes you might have wanted to make, anyway.
And here's a few pictures from my backyard:
So that's it. Have a fun Holiday! It's an open thread, so add your news, say hello, chat amongst yourselves, or at least let us know you stopped in by taking advantage of the handy tip-n-rec buttons.