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Election Wrapping Up (Part 2)
Things shuffled a bit as CNN recalled Florida from Gore, and left
the electoral votes at 217 for Bush and 172 for the VP. Things have kind of lagged a bit as apparently the wires are being a little more careful about calling states. And I was hoping to get to bed on time *grin.* Update: 11pm EST by CT : polls on the west coast have closed, Gore inched up 230/217. Update: 11/08 5:45 AM EST by C :By now you all know that Florida, originally awarded to Gore, then later awarded to Bush, is now recounting the votes in a race that is way too close to call. Surprisingly enough, it appears that Gore has now won the popular vote. With the results split between the EC and the people, will this affect how the next president will be able to govern the U.S.?
And it looks like Nader did play the role of the spoiler after all, in Florida at least. Well, Ralphie boy, hope you're proud of yourself; now you're going to have to live with the consequences of your actions. If someone doesn't run you over with a Corvair first :-).
I hope Bush remembers that he has no real "mandate" as a result of this election. If he tries to pull anything too radical, he may face a wholesale housecleaning of Congress, giving it to the Democrats. It happened to Clinton in '94 (after his "health care reform" proposal basically scared the piss out of everybody); it can happen to Bush in 2002 just as easily.
Now I think I'm going to go down a shot of something while my wife wonders if she should leave the country...
Eric
--
Be who you are...and be it in style!
I live 6 miles down the road from a state college where I can find people willing to engage in a rational, friendly, and openminded discourse regarding America and it's history of interaction with the world.
Americans are pretty good at telling each other how great their country is. They were equally good at doing that about slavery, racial discrimination, status of economy right before Great Depression, witch hunts and other darkest pages of their history -- I am sure, you can find a lot of very friendly supporters of propaganda about this one. But until you will talk to your opponents, research what really happened in WWII by something other than US propaganda, and try to make real arguments instead of slogans and insults, you will remain ignorant. Ignorance is, of course, bliss, and collective ignorance is even better, but hangover can be a bitch.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
http://jolt.dpb.vii.com/pics/beavisbushcheny.jpg
Mad props to all candidates and voters for making this the most entertaining, stimulating, and nerve-wracking election race not just in my life, but arguably, in the past century.
But with Nevada firmly in the Bush camp, and cnn.com reporting a Florida margin of 50K with 98%, it's over. (Shit, it ended "officially" while I hit "Preview" on this post and "Reload" on CNN, how's that for down-to-the-wire predictions? ;-)
So now - the hard work:
Dubya - you preside over what is arguably the most divided America in a generation. 50/50 splits to within epsilon in the popular vote, the electoral vote, the Senate, and the House. Moreover, those "50/50 splits" mask serious racial, income, and geographical gaps among the various demographic and voting blocs. It appears that the campaign rhetoric that most matters tomorrow isn't gonna be about tax cuts, Social Security, Medicare, foreign policy. It's gonna be that fluffy stuff about "being a uniter, not a divider", and it's about to be put to the ultimate test.
That said - good luck, sir, and congratulations.
Whoever loses: You can at least rest assured that your opponent will be laughed out of office if he claims a "mandate".
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
You guys need a two round election. If no-one gets 50% in the first round, the second round would be between the two who got most votes.
And cut this voting system involving electoral votes. Just vote on the person and count the votes. Or at least don't give the whole state to the winner.
It doesn't matter who wins and what side you're on. National and statewide races are always neck and neck. The world didn't end when Kennedy, Carter and Clinton won, and it didn't end when Nixon, Reagan and Bush won. All you young guys running scared will learn in time that it never matters who wins the presidential or senate races. With either side you'll get the status quo as they both pander to the middle.
The fact that these big races are invariably 49/51 illustrates that there is no majority. It's a crap shoot. In fact, this nearly even split between parties is unnatural. Pick any issue that people care enough about to get their dander up on, and it will NEVER be a 50/50 split.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
It's okay, it was so close that Bush knows he can't pull anything remotely radical because that'll get him booted out fast in four years. Whoever would have won would have had to stay pretty centrist.
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I don't care how "balanced" your views on WWII are -- they are wrong, and historical facts, not spin demonstrate it. I have no idea how you can teach me about things that happened where I lived, with my relatives and neighbors, and call what you have picked at your school after decades of anti-soviet and anti-russian histeria in this country something other than propaganda. Saying "both sides were somehow right" is not the right way of discussing history, no matter how they teach you "tolerance" in this screwed up education system -- looking at facts, actions and their consequences is the only way to find out the truth. I would respect Americans much more if they will openly admit how wrong they are and teach their children it as an example that never should be repeated -- after all, Russians openly admitted how wrong/evil Stalin's rule was as early as in 50's (yes, I know, you Americans missed it), Germans denounced Nazi even earlier, and regarding US and WWII we are looking at a bit lesser kind of shame than either. Accept it -- at least stop hiding the facts from students that take your history classes -- and you will be respected more.
And I don't think, you should use counter-accusations of racism (or whatever else) toward me to change the subject -- again, you should leave your cheap discussion tricks for something else. First, racism was merely an example of dirty page in US history that was defended and distorted by "patriots" for centuries. Second, being of jewish/ukrainian origin (yes, "jewish" can be a nationality, and it's unrelated to judaism or any other religion) in Russia I was a target of enough hate and discrimination to feel nothing but disgust toward all kinds of racial/national discrimination, no matter who is the target.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
What the heck is that? And where is any kind of separators between quotes and your answers?
More important, where did I mention US "material support and sheer numbers that overwhelmed the German war machine"? US "supported" (traded) with countries at war, so what? So could everyone else, and Russia actually managed to keep its industry running even though it required relocating factories over thousands of miles to the east. US politicians _delayed_ invasion in Europe until it became absolutely clear than no matter what will follow, Germany will be defeated. This is the most cowardly action that US taken in WWII (maybe second most cowardly after using nuclear bombs in Japan), and Russians' huge losses in large part could be decreased if US did that earlier. US didn't, and millions of Russians died.
When Americans finally came to Europe, it was anything but liberation of Europe from Nazi -- it had no effect on the Nazi's destiny, as Nazi were already incapable of keeping Russians from advancing on the Eastern Front. Americans helped, but it was too little, too late -- by then war already went for five years, three of them on Russian territory. What Americans seen was severely beaten Nazi, who couldn't move anything from Eastern Front to fight them. What Americans encountered wasn't even comparable with force Nazi had at any moment against Russians.
US had more than enough opportunities to attack Nazi in Europe, yet they waited -- some Russians believe that it was done intentionally to weaken them, some think that it was an act of extreme selfishness, I believe that it was some degree of first and a lot of the second, but it really doesn't matter, as consequences are more important than details of the intent -- consequences happen to be that war in Europe lasted for more than five years, each day claiming thousands of lives, while Americans had an opportunity to help to end it much sooner while losing small fraction of that. When it would matter most -- in 1941-43 -- US was in a better position than Russia to fight with Germany (you are right about that -- sheer numbers, industry, etc...), the problem is, Russia had no other choice, and did, but US had a choice, and didn't. When US finally came they could just as well send those people to Antarctica, attack South Pole, and report losses due to cold -- Germans wouldn't notice the difference. Difference started later, when US became concerned first about the need of counteracting possible Russian influence in Europe, then about the need of Russian help in a war with Japan (where Russians came at the first possible opportunity despite their military and industry being seriously weakened by the war with Germany), then about Cold War, when Russians were painted as the enemy of everything, so it was really convenient to remove all references to Russians' role in the defeat of the Nazi, and claim to be the deciding force in WWII in Europe -- what US was anything but.
British documentaries weren't that much friendly to Russians because -- surprise -- there were no Russians (or Germans, unless you count stupid and inefficient attempts of bombing) in Britain. Eastern Front was far in the East, no one but Russians and Germans were there, no one was writing about it, and neither Russians nor Germans were trusted in the rest of the world.
I?ll not support military intervention that doesn?t involve defending our own borders or interests, because, it is either unappreciated or not necessary if I am to believe you. Tell me Alex, why should one American life, or one American dollar be spent helping people who have only hatred and bitterness with which to thank us?
Americans were allies of Russians, alliance in war means much more than marching together on some parade, making long speeches and visiting each other's wargames. It's an obligation to defend each other as much as their own people. Russians did that a year later for Americans in Pacific (of course, you haven't heard about that either, but my grandfather was there, so, please, don't try to prove me that he didn't exist).
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
Your answer is as large as it's unreadable, so I have to answer in multiple messages
At what point do I say ?both sides are somehow right?? Putting words in my mouth is as dirty a conversational tactic as any you accuse me of, but I?ll get to that later.
You said that you will rather discuss that with friendly people at local college. I have explained, what kind of "balanced point of view" you will find there, as this is what is supposed to be "politically correct" at the moment -- it was "we are right, and everyone else is a servant of Satan!", now it is "we are still right, but other side has some minor point that we can acknowledge but can't mention because it's so nonessential to the fact that we are still right". Guess what -- in this case Americans are plain wrong, and could admit it if not ignorance and arrogance that they are so famous for in the rest of the world.
Educate me then, tell me, what part of American history even remotely compares to the genocide and atrocities committed by the Nazi?s or by the Russians under Stalin?s rule?
I would, but first, it's way far from the original topic of WWII, second, the amount of time and space don't allow me to explain why absolutely every occasion when US used its military (or semi-military) abroad was either a major screwup for everyone involved (ex: Vietnam, Iran, Chile, Kosovo), or ended up with negative results for everyone but american corporations, whose interests brought American military there in the first place (Kuwait). List and explanations are long, and most of sources are not in English, but if you care to look, it's easy to find information about them even here in US.
All of America?s ugly truths wouldn?t fit on the small toenail of Germany or Russia?s past misdeeds this century.
This is precisely what is wrong with Americans. They for some reason think that THEIR country is different from everyone else. That THEIR country has no bloody past, that THEIR government's atrocities don't compare with others. Guess what, ALL COUNTRIES that actively participated in world politics in last few centuries have approximately the same share order of magnitude in mass murder made over that time -- of course, applied compared to their size. US, Germany, Russia, France, Japan, China, Serbia, Turkey, Spain, UK,... -- all did it, some more, some less, no one significantly deviated from average, not even Hitler. The only countries that have cleaner record are ones that intentionally or because of their "lucky" locations removed themselves from the wars and conflicts, and even they occasionally shared part of that. In other countries at some point despite all the ties between governments and media, people become aware of what dark and dirty deeds their particular country has on its records, people acknowledge it and make conscious effort to prevent those things from happening again. Some succeed, some don't, but people understand the shame of their government's behavior.
Americans don't do that. So far they managed to admit only things that were done by their government toward them, inside of this country -- racism is the most prominent example. Nothing about anything that was done abroad. Inside the country there are some problems, but everything that was done TOWARD OTHERS was right, Americans are the leaders of "Free World", Americans rescued the rest of the world in WWII, Americans defeated Communism in Russia (despite the fact that "Communism" never was implemented anywhere, especially in Russia, and events in Russia in the end of 80's have little to do with Americans), Americans defeated Iraq's dictator (despite the fact that he is still im power, and embargo only strenghten his power while weakening the mostly innocent people), etc. Americans are still far from admitting that yes, their deeds are comparable with Russia and most of other countries -- and yes, some apology will be very appropriate, in the same way as Russians, Germans, and even Pope did for his church.
Do a mental exercise, say: "Nazi regime". Then "Communists' regime". Them "Hussain's regime". Then "Chinese regime". Now try to pronounce "American regime". See the difference? Can you pronounce it without a feeling of anger and protest toward anyone who could think of this expression? Don't you feel toward that phrase the same thing as black person feels when someone calls him "nigger", a feeling of undeserved, unfair and plain evil kind of insult? This is what differs a person who was fed on propaganda and not denounced it from person who understands that he lives in a country that has a lot of horrible things, that he, supporting that country keeps some, possibly small, piece of responsibility for, and that this responsibility is not to take punishment (as it won't help anyone) but just to make sure that it's not forgotten and never will be repeated. This is what must disappear in Americans before they will become able to jugde their own history rationally, something that other nations either managed at large extent or trying to, and Americans never did and show no desire for.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
Is this, then, a hallmark event signalling a challenge to the two-party system? Will the Democrats respond to this by working together with the Greens henceforth, or simply drowning them out by moving their agenda back to the left? Gee, let me guess...
No. Remember who Nader is.
Nader likes the spotlight, but doesn't really care how he gets it.
He's not the consumer-advocate man-of-the-people that everyone who got suckered in by him seems to think that he is. He's a *lawyer*. And a bad one at that, who used to be known for frivolous lawsuits, before he found fame with "Unsafe at any Speed" and the Chevrolet Corvair.
The Green Party was all about Nader, not about their platform. And a whole bunch of poor or unrealistic people who want to restrict your employer's freedom to pay you what you're worth. And to force you to ride public transit with the lice-infested hotel chambermaids and convenience store clerks of the world.
A Gore-Nader alliance is not going to happen. Probably Gore would welcome it for obvious reasons, but Nader has tried and been rejected several times from getting a Democratic nomination. This election was designed to be payback for Nader.
I do like the third and fourth party concepts, though, because like many people following this election, I was forced to think of Gore as being the lesser of the two (viable) evils. I still hope that Gore gets in.
The Reform Party, with Buchanan at the helm, is completely out to lunch. Want to see what his America would be like? Replace Iran's mosques with Baptist churches, and there ya go.
But Reform is pretty badly split. Note that Jesse Ventura, Reform governer of Minnesota, is a polar opposite to the Reform presence in this federal election. Ventura's version of the Reform Party appeals to me; Buchanan's terrifies me.
In the future, if the Reform Party eventually gets itself figured out and moves back towards its center-left position, and if the Libertarian party gets their act together, then the Democratic Party wouldn't be such a shoe-in for my vote.
Not that I'm an American citizen, so for the moment it's all an academic discussion. I'm watching this from the sidelines of Canada, with a huge number of American frieds calling and e-mailing me about the results. I love politics, and had 4 TV sets set up, watching the live coverage on ABC, NBC, CBS and CNN.
But this was not the election for a protest vote like Nader, no matter how disillusioned the two-party system makes you. If Bush wins Florida (which, let's face facts, he probably will), he's going to be the President.
Philosophical disagreements with the Republicans aside, Bush is an idiot. I have no respect for the man. Not because I disagree with him - that's okay, I still respect lots of people I disagree with. But Bush commands no respect. He's an imbecile. Immature, unqualified, unprepared, and unaccomplished, he's not half the Presidential figure that his father was.
Gore may be boring and smug, but he at least understands international policy. He understands how to get things done. (The Texas record proves that Bush doesn't.) And, most importantly between two otherwise uninteresting candidates, Gore is at least someone who will uphold the honor and dignity of the most important office in the world.
With an idiot like Bush at the helm, all nature of bad things are going to happen. I hope the Florida recounts save the world from Bush.
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
You can accuse America of clumsiness in it?s handling of foreign affairs, but not of outright malice. Ask a citizen of Kuwait what they think of America and our intervention in Iraq?s invasion of their country. Then ask a citizen of Iraq the same question. I have had the luxury of speaking to both, one a doctor, the other a student at the local school I mentioned earlier. It doesn?t take a genius to figure out who supported American involvement and who opposed it. Right and wrong are relative concepts, historical facts are historical facts, you can use the same facts or statistics to prove or disprove anything you want.
I happen to have the benefit of being born in the country that never was invaded by Americans, and right now I live in US. This makes it easier for me to make comparisons. The fact is, no country (at all!) in the Middle East is satisfied with what Americans did there -- some believe that Americans should get the hell out now, no matter what, as they screwed up a lot and can only screw up more, others believe that since Americans entered the region and destroyed the balance of power there, Americans should keep things from blowing up, but absolutely no one supports the idea that Americans' presence actually improved anything, or that anyone owes anything to US. Even Israeli -- and Israel became completely dependent on US in everything political by now.
American people have strange idea that when bad things happen in other country, US "couldn't take it anymore" and goes there to set things straight. No country ever does that -- internationsl politics simply can't work that way even if someone tried to. US threatens, economically enslaves, or even attacks other countries when it sees it being beneficial for US government or corporations -- excuses often sound noble and great, but they are just excuses, after all the result of Americans' interference never has anything to do with the "cause" that was announced. This is not clumsiness, this is plain undiluted selfishness at the expense of everyone else, this is what people call "blood for oil". Clumsiness is what Clinton did on Israel-Palestina peace talks, pushing both sides to the agreement that neither side was ready for -- and it still can be argued that if he thought more about Palestinians and Israeli interests than about his place in history books he would not try to reach an agreement before his term ends -- if talks are handled well, he personally can get out, and sides will still be able to decide the details, and if his presence is still necessary, damned will be a person who will start discussing anything that involve Jerusalem. But yes, I think, it's still can be called clumsiness. Kosovo and Iraq can't.
The rest of the world learned that the best way for powerful country to keep other from fighting is to STAY OUT. To make a policy, that no matter how many children are killed in a localized conflict, if countries involved are small, larger player shouldn't enter simply because everyone will start playing him and his interests, and damage will be huge. If country is powerful enough to threaten most of the world, it should stay out of everything that doesn't touch it directly -- even Russia managed to learn it pretty quickly. "Keeping the peace" by throwing around enormous force never works, and no one ever succeeded in doing that, this is something that US should never do and never pretend to do -- and if it ever tried to keep its hands out of everyone's pies, it would gain a respect of the people abroad, and I would not feel ashamed that I live in this country. Of course, I can dream about honest used car salesmen (anywhere in the world), too.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
Then I challenged your assertion that you were in any position to speak on the subject of racism and backed it up with my personal stake in the issue. The fact that you are Jewish and have been persecuted for it doesn?t prove to me that you are not a racist.
Am I supposed to "prove" that? I thought, declaring my position and following it consistently is more than enough for it to be true -- and my behavior in all my life is very consistent with the idea that I don't support any form of racism.
It?s not that I believe that you wouldn?t discriminate against someone due to any racial or ethnic factors. But how closely would you associate with someone who was different than you, would you be friends, marry, engage yourself in their culture? As close as I do, I doubt it, but I won?t assume that you would or would not, note that I do ask the question of you rather than assume anything about you.
So now it means that I should not just respect, consider people of all nations equal and accept their differences, but accept just everyone who can be "different than me" equally to be my personal friend or family member, and sincerely accept just any kind of culture that exists in the world? Of course, I won't differentiate people by nationality -- but no one has a "right" to be my friend, I can choose friends depending by my preferences, and nationality doesn't happen to be one of them, but compatibility with my cultural background does, and I expect the same from others. I wouldn't want, say, a wife that will be religious no matter what nationality she is, because that will be incompatible with my philisophy. Incompatible is incompatible, and I am not going to allow anyone whom I don't like to force his/her constant presence on me in my personal life, I am not going to force myself to like anything and anyone. Most of my friends are Russian not because I "discriminate" toward others but because we share the same pieces of memory, culture, philosophy -- things that I will be happy to accept in everyone else, but rarely find in people who haven't studied Russian culture and lived in Russia. I don't see Russians as being "better", and a lot of my friends are Americans, but I don't think that the fact that I have mostly Russian friends means that I "discriminate" others -- also most of my friends are Unix programmers, and sets of Russians and Unixoids among my friends only partially overlap.
Saying the same thing in more general way, only a person who has no culture can "closely associate" with everyone despite of differences, and I don't have to make excuse for not liking someone whose set of values is radically different from my own. Nationality has nothing to do with it.
Your last line about disgust at discrimination of any kind is kind of ironic, since it?s that same feeling about your prejudice against America that keeps me wasting my time replying to your posts. (Coincidentally, your assumptions about me without basis of fact would be a good example of prejudice as the word applies to an attitude, not just racism.)
Don't mix nation and culture. I can get American passport, but that won't automatically change my culture. What I oppose is American values and traditions -- values that include worshipping US as the best country in everything everywhere, without allowing any acknowledgement of seriouslu negative actions toward others, and traditions of teaching children whitewashed history and pride in things that are nothing to be proud of. There are other pieces of American culture that I dislike, but this one is relevant to this discussion. I have seen americans who were able to overcome those things, and I respect them more than if they lived in an environment more favorable to critical thought, but this doesn't change the fact that their achievement is not a part of American culture -- mass media, education, etc. still are heavy on propaganda, heavier than what I have seen in Russia in 70's-80's, and probably the same as in Russia in 30's-50's. Russians always had large piece of intellectual elite that opposed it, and the survival of this elite was THE reason for accepting thoughts that were contrary to government's propaganda in 80's and subsequent dismantling of Communist Party rule and USSR. The same elite now accepts the blame for doing a lot to destroy and little to build a better country, and this is a different story, but what is important, there always were people who understood misdeeds of the government, both in and outside the country, they protested not just to shock someone but to express this, and in the end people understood. American culture has no such thing. No one is keeping track of horrible actions and lies of the government, no one is thinking about it, and certainly no one makes an effort to give this knowledge to the masses in a form that will allow them to understand, get scared and disgusted, accept, grow morally and think about that every time when something similar can happen again. This is american culture, elite has the money to play with, others have shiny things and are too busy to care, kids are too lazy to read, so if they do it should be something simple to understand -- "we are great". Exceptions are not in a kind of movement, they are just that, exception, outsiders, no one cares for their ideas, no one publishes them, no one votes for them, and they don't see any point in communicating their ideas to the others -- even though Internet is the best place for "samizdat", no one uses it that way here.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
Bush doesn't need to screw up in office - he has enough skeletons in his closet to keep the US in scandals for the next four years at least.
Here's one for you. The Howard Stern Radio Show got a hold of a rumor that, back in the early 1970s before abortion was legal - and right in the middle of Bush's party-boy days when he was drinking and doing lines of coke off the toilet tanks in bars - Bush managed to get a woman knocked up, and the baby was aborted.
Again, this is Bush. The Republican ?candidate? ?President-elect?, and he's in the right rear pocket of the Right to Life campaign. Further, abortion was *illegal* back then.
Howard Stern called the Bush campaign headquarters several times throughout the week leading up to the election, seeking a confirmation or a denial.
Finally, yesterday, on election day, came the news from the Bush people: "We do not make statements to the tabloid news.", or something to that effect.
Not a confirmation, but certainly not the "you've-gotta-be-kidding" adament denial that one would have expected.
I would suggest that this bears further scrutiny.
As a sidenote, the Bush campaign should have considered using the tabloid media that they so eschew. It strikes me that Star, Globe and the National Enquirer are probably the best media outlets with which to address his strongest states.
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
Well, unfortunately who would you have suggested we vote for? Bush was the republican nominee (don't blame me, I voted for McCain in the primaries).
Oh, absolutely. McCain would have made a far better President than Bush. I don't agree much with the Republican philosophy, but at least Gore would have had a worthy opponent, and the US would still have had a great statesman as President, whether Gore or McCain won.
McCain is a statesman. Bush is a bumbling fool that I wouldn't even hire as a tractor salesman.
That Bush got the nomination proves, of late, there is something very seriously wrong with the Republican party.
I'm sure as hell not going to vote for ol' baby-killing tax-and-spend Al Gore and his band of merry liberal pot-head cronies.No. It's a much better idea to have an alcoholic admitted cocaine-user in the White House, especially since he's got 20 years of his life unaccounted for.
Try getting a job with even six months unaccounted on your resume.
Geez. I say deal with it America. We (Republicans) had to live through years of torture when democrats controlled the congress and the executive branch so I hope you guys get to have a taste of what that's like.If it were just about the fact that the Republicans won, that'd be fine. The country has spoken, that's the direction that people want.
But the fact that the Republicans appear to have won with George W. Bush at the helm, to my way of thinking, very seriously calls into question whether the people are intelligent enough to be allowed to determine their own fate.
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
Yup...his dad destroyed the economy, and his dad wasn't an idiot. This does not bode well for the next four years.
Add the (at least) two rightists he will put in the supreme court, squandering the SSN funds to his investment pals on wall street...
The way his dad ignored the pleas from the DOJ that the S&Ls/Insurance companies were ripping off america...and kept it all under wraps til america got totally screwed and it was too late to fix.
Finally, the house, senate and president are all republicans...Bill Gates just got his reprieve.
Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.
See my user info for links.
"Pass the crow, please."
...and boy are our faces red.
ABC to the world: We have shifted our projection back to "Too Close to Call"
There goes the whole "Not Bush" vote
Wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyy To early. Florida is one THE states that will make or break who wins this elections.
Also, you again assume that I am ignoring Russia's role in World War Two. That's not true, just for the sake of time and space I lump Russia together with the rest of the Allied powers, and atrocities committed in Russia with those in Germany. I won't even go into the rest of the distortions you make to my position's, because I am tired of debating you.
Huh? You "lump together" Russia and other Allies when it's convenient, and when it allows you to ignore the fact that Russia's role in WWII is quite different from one of US (or from anyone else if it matters).
It doesn't surprise me that you live in America yet have not one good thing to say about the country that allows you freedom from the discrimination you faced in your home land.
I owe NOTHING to this country, and I suffer from more discrimination and humiliation here than I did in Russia. I came here because I couldn't find a job in Russia after its economy was foolishly dismantled along with its political system, and being a programmer I came to a country where my chances to get a job are the best. I don't assign any political/ideological value to my choice whatsoever, and find it the most honest way of making this kind of choice.
Actions speak louder than words, so why don't you use that American passport of your's and move to a country where the people and the politics match your views and principals?
I don't have an American passport, and at best I will have to wait six more years before government will consider me to be "good enough" to become a citizen. I lived here for six years already on H-1B visa (plus a year before that on B-2 visa), and was unable even to change employers without long and humiliating procedure (that seems to be changed few months ago, right after my H-1B expired, thanks for nothing), so I had less "freedom" than what I had under Communists. I paid taxes to the government that I couldn't even vote for, my work supported US economy, so I definitely owe nothing to you, your government and your corporations.
The act of staying here alone is to support the corporations, individuals and the government's present and future foriegn policy mistakes.
I feel no obligation toward this country -- it exploits me, I have all rights to exploit it, but having rather strict moral rules, I believe, everything that I did here only helped others in the end. "Staying here" is not an approval or disapproval of what this country did or does, blind "patriotism" may be a part of American culture, but it has no place in my head.
Especially if ALL Americans are ignorant and complacent about our government's activities as you claim so often. You know that you can't make a difference and you are fooling yourself if you claim to be here for any other reason than your own personal gain. You are entitled to your opinions under America's political system, you are even entitled to hate America while reaping the benefits of living here. That's ok, I am entitled to think that you are an ingrate who needs to show the country you choose to live in some respect or else pack up your bags and leave.
Again -- I didn't come here to improve America, I probably do that just by being there, but this is an unintended side effect, not in any way my goal. If my expression of this will help -- fine, if not -- sucks, but I didn't choose this place because I love its government. I don't see why "personal gain" is less respected reason for choosing a country than ideology -- I am not a politician but engineer, so I live like an engineer and where I can apply my knowledge, skills and abilities better without doing something that is radically contrary to my beliefs. My work improves the technology in the direction that not only makes people's life better, but even makes them less dependent on overblown corporations -- if there is something political about my work here, it's this.
I also completely disagree that the fact that I was born abroad makes me "ingrate" for living here. Again, this country takes from me more than from others and gives less, so if someone should be ashamed, it's government and INS that discriminate against me just because I was born somewhere else. In this country discriminating against someone of different race is not "politically correct" (since recently) but discriminating against foreigner who moved here and leads productive, beneficial for others, life for many years is ok, and not only government feels no shame about it, people like you dare to tell me that I am "ingrate" and that I should not express any protest against it. This is the ultimate expression of hypocrisy and selective thinking -- the same one that supported rampant racism in this country in the first place.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
What is more interesting than whether Nader cost Gore the election, or whether the U.S. is headed to hell in a handbasket as our fuzzy foreigner friends seem to agree on, is how this affects the Microsoft ruling.
I'm torn. I agree with Judge Jackson's findings of fact. But I don't trust the gov't to make things right and rosy.
With Bush president elect we are probably heading for an amicable solution. That is, the gov't won't be delegated to solve all MS problems, yet Microsoft will still have to change their ways.
I guess I just figure we'll beat Microsoft even if the fight isn't fair. And if not us, some game console will.
p.s. No disrespect to non-U.S. residents, but I'm allways rather reassured when you dislike our choices.
--
you must amputate to email me
--
you must amputate to email me
i read all replies to my comments
A Fundamentalist Christian, who beleives that the Bible is the exact word of God - including that wacky fire-and-brimstone Revelations ending - has his finger on the fucking button.
"Tell me when, lord, tell me when..."
PigPog.
Do gay minority Wiccan women prefer Bush or Nader? Your post wasn't clear.
Kevin Fox
Kevin Fox
And the Greens' total is much larger than it was in 1996.
Green voters could have voted held their nose and ended up with Gore as President. But it appears that libertarians did hold their nose and got the candidate that prefers smaller government, lower taxes, and partial privatization of Social Security.
In comparison to Greens, I'd say Browne voters and sympathizers have nothing to complain about.
2004 won't be such a close race. (I mean, let's get real, how could it be any closer? ;-)
And then, third parties on the right and the left will probably improve their numbers. Make no mistake, enough voters are interested in alternatives to the Demipublicans that both parties will have to take notice.
Oh please Alex, you make it sound like I said America singlehandedly won World war Two. Granted, America entered the war late, but you can't dismis out of hand the many lives American soldiers lost because they are less in number than the 20 million Europeans who died.
20 millions _Russians_ only. Other european nations had more losses. Guess what, Americans die all the time, just like anyone else, but the point is, they did near to nothing to help Europeans when they needed help most.Especially if it is as you say and we were "beating a dead horse". If that was the case, why should we have wasted a single American life or materiel resource to help Europe beat the Axis powers?
To keep Russians out, and to establish military and political presence (what became NATO) and economical ties in Europe, of course.
What did or does America owe any country in Europe?
Americans insist that everyone owes them their lives.
Not that there would be a Europe free of Soviet influence if not for our substantial and expensive military presence in Europe after the war.
Soviet and American influence would be worth each other -- no matter what propaganda of each country's government was telling for decades about the other. And if US got into Europe earlier Soviets wouldn't have much opportunity for expansion there either -- as they would be more busy repairing their own country anyway. However it worth to be noticed that after WWII Soviets quickly learned to limit military involvement abroad to situations that were seriously threatening them or their direct allies (for right or wrong reason). OTOH, US started (and continues) to throw its military weight around while being completely unprovoked.
Oh, and a belated congratulations to France for getting America mired in Vietnam and then pulling out.
France got beaten in Vietnam with heavy losses and got out. Americans went there, got basically the same with less losses but while pissing off more people, and pulled out. Result: a lot of people killed.
While I'm at it, thanks for helping out in the Persian Gulf war too, we appreciate the token show of support on Europes part in stopping Iraqs naked territorial aggression against Kuwait.
US behavior in Kuwait was a great example of doing everything to piss off Iraq people, destroying economy of Iraq, thus leaving no chance for recovery with or without Saddam, then extorting oil for worthless food while maintaining embargo (as sending food to starving person can help that person, but sending food to starving country can only harm its economy further). Yeah, a lot of reasons to help.
Europe having no strategic or economic interest and all of that, in what goes on in the Middle East or Northern Africa. I won't even go into Serbia, and Europe's lack of interest in doing anything about Milosovichs Hitler-esque atrocities without American backing. Go ahead and shed your tears, they aren't America's fault or problem.
American aggression in Kosovo is one of the most blatant examples of US sticking its nose where it doesn't belong. The only result of this was strenghtening Milosevich's position in Serbia and weakening of opposition precisely at the time when he needed it most. "Atrocities" mostly started after US attacked Serbia/Kosovo, basically fighting at the side of Kosovo rebels that even now are neither a legitimate organization, nor a positive force in Kosovo politics. Don't believe all the propaganda, especially when it comes from CNN.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
...we'll be able to bring our guns to church.
Having exclusively used the public transit system during my first years as a programmer (quite happily, mind you), I'll kindly ask you to go suck an egg for posting such narrow-minded stereotypical crap. I actually agree with just about everything else you said, but that kind of garbage only serves to undermine your message.
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
In this crowd it's a dangerous allusion, but I am reminded of the words of the olden days 'Wobbly' labor organiser Joe Hill, shot to death by the cops. (You think this stuff is _modern?_)
"Don't mourn, boys. Organise."
There is a definite problem to this system, and that comes in with the write-in vote. How do you rank it? Do you limit the amount of people that you can vote for in order of preference? Do you come up with some scale for the amount of people that you ranked -- and can you assure that in that situation that the person who ranked more candidates votes are counted the same as the person who only voted for one person?
With these situations in mind, I think that the only way to do this, is through the "vote for all whom you would like" method (I can't remember the technical name"... in this situation you can write in as many names as you want and give them each one vote!!! I think if this were the case, Ralph Nader would have gotten a great deal more votes than he did, as I can personally think of a good number of my friends who were holding out to the bitter end, in hopes that they wouldn't have to vote the hate vote (that they hated George Bush more than they liked Ralph Nader), myself being one of them.
I think with a system like that, you would open up the system to 3rd parties and get a much bigger variety of people in the government. Something which I personally think needs to happen!!
In your example of why you think it's a bad idea, did you consider that the same thing would happen with the rankings? If someone's main objective is to vote against Gore, he'd give Gore the lowest ranking, to make sure that no matter how close it came, his vote wouldn't promote Gore over anyone else.
1. Bush
2. Some guy I vaguely recognize who isn't Gore.
3. I dunno who he is, but he's not Gore.
4. I think this guy's a fascist, but he doesn't really have a snowball's chance in Hell, and he's not Gore.
5. Gore.
I really think that in that system, people would have this issue pointed out to them, and they'd bother to learn who all the candidates on the ticket are (or at least the majority would vote strongly against all the ones who they don't recognize).
--------
Whose daddy was the head of the CIA and the president of the United States? Who, upon discovering that polls had put Florida's electoral votes into Gore's column ditched his own election party at the Four Seasons Hotel, fleeing to the governor's mansion... with daddy? Whose daddy has the power, the means, and the will to change a few votes in Florida? I smell a rat! I demand a recount, and you should too!!! Something fishy happened in Florida, that much is patently clear. Come on, you can't blame calling Florida for the wrong candidate on faulty data entry... Have all the absentee ballots been counted... accurately? Not if George "W" Bush and his DADDY have anything to do with it...
stay the fuck away from here man, we are about to have an election to, and we dont need your bad juju.
I am become Troll, destroyer of threads
I voted for Nader, and i'm glad i voted for Nader.
Granted, i didn't vote for him in a swing state, nor did i encourage anyone to, but i didn't discourage it, either. I let people make up their own minds on whether they want to vote out of fear or vote their conscience. Frankly, i see both sides.
Anyway, in those swing states, everyone seems to say, "oh, if you had just added Nader's totals to Gore's totals, Gore would've won." It'd be nice if the world worked like that. However, Nader supporters are OFTEN not Gore supporters. Some of us are, but many of us would have voted for other third party candidates. A lot of us wouldn't have voted at all, and some of us-- a significant portion of us, actually-- would've voted for Bush. You can't blame Nader, just 'cause we didn't vote for Gore. Why not blame the +100k people who didn't vote for ANYONE? How about the people who actually voted for Bush? How about blaming Gore for not addressing issues that a segment of the left obviously cares about?
You'll see a lot of polls that try to break down the Nader vote into Gore, Bush, and not voting segments, but this is a definite manipulation of the polls. A very large portion of Greens would, if given the choise between those three, pick Gore, but if Nader had dropped out, then voted for another third party instead.
Don't try to blame the Greens when the Democrats fail.
Here come the flames.
-benc
Florida by county
Broward County. 600,000 votes, 94% reported. That leaves 36,000 votes uncounted in Broward.
With Broward going 70% Gore and 30% Bush, that's a spread of 15000 votes.
That's within the margin of error for Florida as of 0351 EST.
I don't fuckin' believe it, this thing ain't over yet, recount in Florida or not.
UN - FUCKING - BELIEVABLE.
Anybody who voted Nader because of what he HAD TO SAY will be totally immune from this sort of blackmail. He was and is RIGHT. Both the main parties are so completely corrupt they are indistiguishable. Hell, they are so indistinguishable they produced probably the closest Presidential election in history. It's time for the Demopublicratians to get out of the way. They are _slime_ and their candidates are slime too.
And your question, 'what good has it done you?'?
I didn't vote for slime. I voted based on issues and a platform that backed my personal concerns and beliefs. Try it sometime if you have the guts.
Which highlights the problem with Canada, and why the Reform party started in the first place: the entire western half of the country only has 90 seats. The election can be over before the polls close in BC.
Couple that with virtual dictatorship power for a majority government, and you have effectively no representation in Ottawa at all for the country west of Winnipeg.
The CA was an attempt to stop splitting the right wing vote, but the eastern Conservatives refused to play ball. Instead they dig up old Joe Clark, the west's last major PC player, other than perhaps Mazankowski, supposedly appealing to western regional interests and the eastern red Tories.
So once again, we face a split right wing, a disenfranchised west, and an unchecked Liberal party. Sigh...
1200 votes out of 1.2 million.
Granted, the election's over with Bush taking FL. So this is all hypothetical. But given the closeness of the races, consider...
1200 votes. Six hundred people changing their minds in a two-party race, or one non-voter in a thousand getting off his or her ass and voting, could have changed WI's 11 electoral votes one way or the other.
In a parallel universe not too different from our own, the Presidency was won by WI's "scanning-tunnelling-electron-microscope-sharp" 600-voter margin, rather than FL's "merely razor-sharp" 50,000-voter margin.
Back to our universe, let that be a lesson to anyone who said "one vote doesn't count". (And for that matter, the guy who said "voter fraud shouldn't be a felony")
I admit defeat. Nader did indeed cost Gore the election
Perhaps. Keep in mind that if it weren't for Ross Perot costing George Bush the 1992 election, we might not have Al Gore running in this election.
It's obvious that we need to use a different method of voting, and we need to cripple the two-party duopoly that the Dems and Repubs have put in place to keep themselves in power. I think we'd be well off using a Borda count (see the November 2000 issue of Discover Magazine for a discussion of alternative methods).
Like a large segment, possible most, of the population, I am tired of the president being either a guy that the Republicans want to be president or a guy that the Democrats want to be president. It's highly doubtful that a person who fits either of those descriptions will ever be someone that I want to be president. There are a lot of us who feel that way. At its worst, we end up choosing between the lesser of two evils. But, almost by definition, the person who wins isn't the person that most people would have wanted.
A Borda vote can change that. Until then, I did the smart thing and voted for Harry Browne.
Michael
Do you have ESP?
Bush was declared the winner a while ago, but further Florida counts have shown Bush beating Gore by only 1310 votes. 13-hundred-and-fucking-ten. More votes than that are not yet counted. Furthermore, such a small margin will certainly warrent a recount.
Bush will probably win, but it is still possible for Gore to pull through. Amazing. Simply amazing.
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And don't forget that it's Shrub's own running mate Dick Cheney, as a lowly representative from Wyoming, who railroaded the Iran-Contra Joint Investigation Committee's proceedings and ran them into the ground, basically clearing the way for Bush Sr. to escape the incident unscathed and unindicted. The real sad thing I see coming out of all this is that when Clinton was elected, we had the Congress & the White House controlled by opposite parties. (And thus all the investigations launched by one party.) Now, there's nobody out there to attack Bush on his shady dealings with Draft Dodging through the Texas Air National Guard (and going AWOL for over a year)...
--You will rephrase your request for me to go to hell. Goto statements are not acceptable programming constructs
Kindly don't jump to the conclusion that all Nader voters are racked with guilt. I think Gore is scum _too_. I refuse to consider him a better option than Bush. If I had to choose between the two I'd have refused to vote, same as last election.
Bush appears to have won Florida, giving him 271 votes in the Electoral College.
The difference between whether Gore or Bush won Florida, the last deciding state, was the wasted votes directed at Ralph Nader.
As punishment to Florida and to the Green Party, I'm yanking half the spark plugs leads off my truck tomorrow morning before I drive to work. I hope my small contribution to the cause of global warming gives Nader lung cancer, and melts the polar ice-caps to drown the wasteland that is Florida.
Troll this all you want, I've got more karma than you have.
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
Voter.com has projected Bush the winner of Nevada, which is appropriate considering he has almost 20,000 more votes. So, even if Gore wins Florida, Bush will still win with Oregon (where he leads by 30,000 votes) and Wisconsin (where he leads by over 7,000 votes).
Yes, the election is close, and I can understand the Gore Campaign's reluctance to concede at this stage (I would do the same I think). But it's extremely likely that Bush will either carry Florida or will carry both Oregon and Wisconsin. For absentee votes to turn around all three of those states would be quite amazing.
So I'm going to sleep very confident that a Republican has been elected to the Presidency.
Of course, the real winner in this election, if I might say so, is the United States, who turned out in amazing numbers to cast their votes. I'm so proud of the turnout in this election, and I hope people will gain a new appreciation of the importance of everybody's participation.
I can say with a straight face, "God Bless America". Cheers, John
The florida results are available here for anyone who wants the best up to the minute numbers since Florida is the only thing that matters now. Good luck getting through though :)
You are correct.
IANAL, but my California Bar Exam results come out on November 17th.
But, read Marbury v. Madison (actually don't read it, it's dense). Essentially, if the Supreme Court cannot rule on the constitutionality of a law or government act, then there's absolutely no point to having a constitution. Ergo, the constitution implies that the Supreme Court has the power of constitutional review.
A bit of a circular argument, but it's the basis of the power of the Supreme Court, and it ain't going to be changed until the revolution.
144l. ph34r my 133t l3g4l 5k1lz!
With 99% in, Bush has won Florida by 9,163 votes, from 5,757,579 votes cast!
That's the closest race I've ever heard of in politics.
Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.
See my user info for links.
Don't worry, Dubya is going to "bring us together" as a nation, and puts lots more money into the War on Drugs. We can all sleep soundly.
BTW. You better start getting your bids together to buy oil drilling rights in Alaskan protected land; You wouldn't want to miss out on that.
"It's overkill, of course. But you can never have too much overkill." - Anonymous Slashdot Coward
God, please help us...
And the final results state:
Bush: 2,904,198
Gore: 2,902,988
Nader: 94,368
But this is without recounts. Which is what they're doing in Dade County as we speak.
Talking to a friend of mine in Taiwan via ICQ and he's saying a lot of taiwanese are really excited that Bush is in the lead (or Shao Buo Shi as he's known affectionately over there. Ask a chinese person). They feel that he'll do something about the US's decidedly ambiguous policy towards TW's independence. Personally I think he'll cave to the PRC anyway (on Cheney's rather cold-blooded policy making). Admittedly my friend works at an english language publication with a more 'americanized' staff but still, an interesting perspective. I'd have thought the international perspective would be on Gore.
PS-Gore has decided not to address the Dems personally - probably worried he might not be able to keep both fingers AND toes crossed L:)
That means that it really does come down to Florida, as all the network kept saying, and as I kept wondering why they kept saying. Turns out it was I who was wrong all the time, since I completely missed Gore's win in Washington state.
Fortunately, I'm still very confident that Bush will win Florida, primarily because of the absentee vote. The ones that have yet to be counted (or even received) are the overseas military votes, which should easily have a Bush majority. So if I was a betting man, my money is still on Bush. Sorry about my mixup. John
It looks as if neither candidate has 50% of the popular vote. Doesn't this mean that the majority of the American voting populace will not support the victor?
(Electoral College not withstanding)
I've heard the "vote for Nader is a vote for change" line for so long now, and I can't help but think it overlooks something very important:
What if you don't beleive in Nader??
Yes, this election has been a choice between two very similar candidates. Yes, both candidates have ties to various business interests. That doesn't mean I should vote for Nader who is probably further from my own views than D "Dubyah" I is...
I voted for Gore not because I was voting for the status quo, or even because I hold the Democratic party in high regard. I voted for Gore because his platform was closest to my own beliefs.
I won't vote for a party if they don't reflect my beliefs, no matter how much we need "change"...
Let's try not to let fact interfere with our speculation here, OK?
Second, Florida (and Michigan and California) are declared Gore instantly when the polls close. Bush leads in all, with a respectable margin, for some time. Gore comes back in Michigan and California, but eventually Florida is declared undecided. Then it turns Bush! That's when it gets interesting.
Third, Bush is declared winner. Gore congratulates him on victory. And then takes it back! No one can accuse him of dishonesty this time; Florida is declared undecided again.
Fourth, no one knows who won. Bush leads by almost a thousand votes in Florida, the deciding state, as I write this. Slim margin, maybe, but that's up from 500 earlier in the evening. Unfortunately, the margin is just too small, and we won't know until most of the absentee ballots are received by mail.
So finally, the dilemma: obviously I can't wait up for the results, since they probably won't be known for several days. So, do I go to bed now, or do I start coding in earnest? Bed, yeah, it's just an assignment that isn't due until tomorrow.
If you are modding me down because you disagree with me, use the "Flamebait" category, not the "Troll" one.
So let's play a little guessing game.
What will be the first target Mr. Bush or Mr. Gore attacks and when will this happen?
If (and when, unfortunately it looks like that at the moment :( ) Bush is elected, I'd say it'll be sooner rather than later but it's hard to speculate about the target. Though I'd guess Middle East since if we're talking about Middle East, we're always talking about oil either directly or not so directly, but oil is always related to Middle East issues somehow and Bush sure knows something about oil.
If Gore is going to be the new president, he might wait a couple of years but someday he'll fight too. Clinton has shown that also Democrats can arrange nice little attacks. The place? Just a lucky guess... Some small Central American country where extreme left guerrillas have captured some important Americans (say, the senator of California and his family) but the commando operation to bring'em back fails and this is discovered by the media. So the president have to do something in order not to loose faces entirely and that something could be finish off those commies. Not entirely directly, though. Of course the operation would be led by corrupted local officials. But at least the Government of the USA would cry it loud they're involved with the instability in the area, unlike a few decades ago.
What's your bet?
And we have to figure out the prize, too... Slashdot ID below 1000?
What's wrong with an election in two stages? The primary/caucus system make it a two stage election system already in a sense.
If primaries were abolished, and instead all candidates participated in the first round, and only the two candidates with the highest national percentage of the votes participated in the second round, everyone could vote for the candidate they like most, instead of against the candidate they like least. The fear of wasting your vote wouldn't have to influence your choice.
In a system like that, McCain might even have won the elections, and in the first round too.
No shit! Automatic recount is being done...600-700 vote difference in FLA!
Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.
See my user info for links.
Sheesh- I'm _never_ going to get to sleep, and I don't even like either of these guys. But if I ever have grandchildren I'll be able to say I watched the 2000 election- on slashdot :)
At the moment - 0423 EST - we may not know for DAYS. Florida will be recounted with Bush leading by 1200 votes, and will determine the Presidency.
At a minimum, we won't have the recount in Florida done until Wednesday afternoon.
The allegations I've seen on the press are just weird - people claiming they voted for Buchanan "by accident", missing ballot boxes, and Lord only knows what else.
I really can't believe what I've seen tonight. But there it is. I'm stunned. And I'm calling it a night on the reasonable grounds that nobody's gonna know who will win the Presidency until sometime later today.
Unfuckingbelievable.
CNN is reporting as I write that the FL secretary of state is calling the margin approximately 600 votes. This narrow a margin means automatic recount under FL law.
The first one to say "Republican Revolution" gets smacked...
Let's try not to let fact interfere with our speculation here, OK?
This election just keeps getting stranger, the networks have retracted the statement that Bush has won the election and Florida is doing a recount in accordance with state law. It's still anyone's game.
Los Angeles: 1,000 suburbs in search of a city.
He hasn't won yet - it's gone to a recount.
The Florida election official on CNN said about 3000 was the number - which was pulled from the 1996 election.
--
Evan in Florida
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
Then what you get is whoever has the most money, wins. Allowing unlimited spending only leads to politicians having to make too many promises to the people who can give them lots of money ie. big business. You also get the minor parties being completely left out since they are unable to effectively compete for the sponsors backing. Limiting the amount they can spend will mean the politicians need to be more efficient.
Phear my l33t homepage.
Statistically, coming from cnn, one community is republican slanted and one is democrat slanted, and then we have estimated something like 2300 absentee votes which were statistically slanted republican in 1996, with 53%.
Very close indeed.
One of the arguments brought to bear in favor of voting for "third" political party candidates is that, in hotly contested elections where the votes for a third party are greater than the difference between the two major parties, then the winning major party candidate must reconsider their platform.
The argument goes something like this: If X and Y are the major party candidates, with Z as a third party candidate, and the voting goes as follows:
- 48% X
- 47% Y
- 5% Z
Then the winner X is politically compelled to consider adopting some of the planks of Z's platform. Had X chosen to address the Z party's concerns, those 5% of votes may well have gone to X instead, and the outcome would have been more decisive. Likewise, in the next election, the Y party will also have to consider the Z party's platform to try and get some of those 5% for itself.Well, it looks like this election is going to give us exactly that situation. It's not going to be a popular or an electoral landslide. Anything but, in fact. The numbers so far show Bush and Gore within 100K popular votes of each other, with Nader picking up some 1M votes. So, if the theory is correct, both the Democrats and Republicans will pay lip service to, if not adopt, some of Nader's/the Green Party's platform.
Hands up, everyone who thinks that's actually going to happen. (Cynical Leo suspects that Bush, if he wins, will try to declare a, "geographical landslide.")
Schwab
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
In 1984, Walter Mondale got 85% of the vote in Washington, D.C., barely won in Minnesota, his home state, and lost every other state to Ronald Reagan.
Looking at the current election results, Gore got 85% of the vote in Washington, D.C., and Bush was a distant second at 9%.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
I'll take the ID, if I get this right.
For Bush, I don't predict an international war. I predict a civil uprising. Look at the WTO, IMF, etc. riots. Think about the policies Bush would institute. Now, think about the riots. Think about the overwhelming military force Bush would use. Close enough to a war for me.
For Gore, I predict the Middle East. After all, with the current Israeli situation, and a Jewish VP, don't you expect there'll be a bit of a US hammer descending?
---
Mod me down, you fucking twits. Go ahead. I dare you.
(I read with sigs off.)
...on cnn, FLA just went down to 214 votes in favor of Bush, and Gore has the popular vote.
Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.
See my user info for links.
Why?
Just because they decided for themselves whom they felt best to vote for, rather than voting for who YOU wanted them to vote for?
Interesting...
Hint - the USA is supposedly a DEMOCRACY, Mr Coward, which means that they can vote for who the hell they want, not who YOU tell them to. Neat, huh?
(Not being from the USA, I personally couldn't care which way the vote goes, mind you :) )
--
People should not be afraid of their governments - Governments should be afraid of their people.
Here is the actual Florida statues:_ mode=Display_Statute&URL=Ch0103/titl0103 .htm&StatuteYear=2000&Title=%2D%3E2000%2D%3EChapte r%20103
http://www.leg.state.fl.us/Statutes/index.cfm?App
Link
Cite anything interesting under this thread.
--
Evan
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
It looks like lots of Bush people went out and voted. It looks also like a bunch of Bush politicos cheated. However, that doesn't change the fact that still a lot of Bush people went out and voted. If I don't like the results of that it is MY obligation to continue fighting the political actions taken by the resulting all-republican, all-corporate, all-fundie America. Lord knows it wouldn't be the first time people had to use civil disobedience- if the Bush people are really stupid it could even get to fighting in the streets, like the WTO riots.
None of this alters the fact that if the Bush people won, they won. I think the Democratic party is garbage- I hold them responsible for ignoring the left and swinging totally right in attempts to be 'centrist'. They don't stand for anything anymore, and I particularly distrust Gore from back when his wife was trying to put rating stickers on rock records, the better to let stores ban them.
Assuming the Bush side won, and aren't simply cheating, we can argue with their supporters, we can try to educate them, we can civilly disobey, if things get nasty enough we can turn on the government (with the guns they're in favor of us being able to have- hey thanks *g*) and fight them in the streets and endure another civil war. We might ask Ireland what that's like- and find another country that understands complete desperation.
The one thing we can't do is wish the election away because it seems extremist. Political problems this severe can't be solved with procedural solutions. No matter which way you look at it a large chunk of the electorate are going to be hosed.
Frankly, I think my little snippet is the most hosed- it's not even possible to vote the way the goddamned Vermont voter's oath _obliged_ me to vote, without having this honest result turned into bipartisan politics as usual. I hope at least some of these media idiots can comprehend that some people were _not_ oathbreakers, that some people obeyed their duty to their country and gave their best effort to find a candidate to vote FOR and voted for that candidate.
To disrespect that is the most severe loss I will suffer this election. I knew Nader was probably going to lose. I didn't know that the very context of my vote would be twisted until I was expected to feel _shame_ at hindering Gore. Doesn't anybody understand that I'd like nothing better than to hinder both major parties right out of Washington?
Bush 2,905,723 Gore 2,904,932 The difference? 791 votes So Pre-recount Bush has Florida, but it's all up in the air. (PS over 94,000 for Nader)
I only post twice a year, who needs a sig?
> All the networks just gave California to Gore 4 mins. after the polls closed, with 0% counted!
They use a more sophisticated model than you might think. The retraction of Florida was a pretty rare event.
> Is it just me, or have they seemed really eager to get Gore elected?
If they particularly wanted Gore to win, they could have beat Bush to death over the last year. Instead, they are still accusing AG of claiming to have invented the internet (though we know that's not what he actually said, and that he does have legitimate grounds for what he did say), and are virtually ignoring GB's lies and faux pas.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Additionally, from what I've seen on the web sites, Nader's not going to get anything close to the 5% he needs to get the Green Party government funding next time around. If Gore loses because of Nader's campaign, and the Greens don't get the funding they were after, I'm betting for some recriminations amongst the American left :)
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
Bush electoral 291 popular - 31,475,385
Nader popular 1,516,982.
GORE IS LEADING ELECTORAL, LOSING POPULAR!!!
This is known as "BAD"
tagline
... hi bingo
How on earth can you blithely state Bush is 'not even in the same ballpark when it comes to evil'? You think the Nazis were comic book monsters? They were human beings that conned themselves into believing in and supporting a political system that was _horribly_ wrong.
I get kind of upset when I see reactions like this. The horror of Nazi history is that these were for the most part JUST PEOPLE! There was no special 'evil gene' that made Hitler's Germans specially evil in ways no current people can compare to. That is a damned racist implication. If you think logically about it you can see that Bush is just as capable of moving in the direction of horrors- for instance, he could crack down on homosexuals without really surprising anyone. On the flip side, Gore is capable of pulling off a Big Brother-like informational police state with every communication centrally monitored by the government- this is the guy behind Clipper, and associated with the PMRC attempts to categorise 'harmful' music so it could be more easily suppressed and censored, removed entirely from the mainstream media to control public thought so that America would not have to confront ideas like 'drugs' or 'occult'.
THESE PEOPLE ARE NOT A DIFFERENT DAMN SPECIES THAN THE NAZIS! The potential is there. It is really disturbing to see this immediate assumption that 'nobody we're actually dealing with today could ever be that bad'. (/godwin)
Don't forget that two Supreme Court justices will almost definitely step down this term. Both justices are liberal.
ANother two Supreme Court justices are nearing retirement age. One is liberal, one is conservative. I would bet that the liberal one will not step down this term, but the conservative one will.
So, we have a single man in one 4-year term of office selecting 1/3 of the Supreme Court justices, tipping the balance of the courts. In this case, if the election goes to Bush (with 100% of precincts reporting, we're looking at a 900 vote differential), Bush will not only gain the power of the US federal government, but will select 1/3 of another branch of government. It is likely that his choices will result in the reversal of a number of key precedents, including Roe v. Wade (different aspects of this have been upheld 5-4 and 6-3).
As a result, this four year term of the presidency is more important than other elections. And Bush will likely win the election while falling short of Gore in the popular vote by about 300,000 votes. Our political system, with its all-or-nothing approach, will end up giving the minority viewpoint "control" over 2 of the three branches of government. This, to me, reaks of a crisis at a very severe level. And all this was done within the confines of the Constitution.
Now, I do find it odd that Jeb, George's brother, is the governer of Florida. And George's dad used to be head of the CIA. The last time we had an election that was almost this close (1960), there were quiet accusations of voter fraud instigated by the (very powerful) Kennedy family. In the end, Nixon chose not to pursue it. Cronies close to Nixon say his choice came because he did not want to cause a constitutional crisis. I wonder if similar accusations will be made this election, and whether Gore, already the victim of one constitutional crisis (Clinton's impeachment process), will be reserved enough to make the same choice Nixon did.
--Be human.
Bush up 6-5; 2 outs: runner on third; 1 strike, 2 balls. Bush winds up and pitches. Gore swings and misses.
Folks, I haven't seen such a close game in all my years. Absolutly amazing!! We all thought it was over when the Dems scored that grand slam in the bottom of the 6th, but The Pubs rallied in the 8th and 9th, bringing this game to a dead heat. Then, in the top of the 11th, Bush scored an amazing run, and it looked as if the games was over, and it looked as though the Dems would be forced to concede, but they managed to score a single run and stay in the game--
Bush winds up... and the pitch -- low and outside, ball 3.
Then, nothing happened for several innings, until the top of the 16th when the Pubs managed to score off of a Dem error and once again take a one run lead--
Just a moment folks, the umpires are getting together... It looks as though the game has been delayed on acount of time...
Well, we hope you all tune in tommarrow for the conclusion of one of the most amazing games in the history of the sport.
This is the phantom, signing off. G'night.
----------
Rhapsody in Numbers
Although florida still can't be called CNBC just said that right now Bush is up 4% over Gore in florida right now. Florida is the key to this election, whoever takes florida will win.
Perhaps by a freak of nature Harry Browne will take florida. Heh; there's always 04'
-- Greg
Slashdot, would a spell-checker for posting be too much to ask? It's not rocket science!
Gore electoral 231
Bush electoral 229
i got the correct popular votes, though...
tagline
... hi bingo
I just hope the 67,503 Nader voters feel smug about voting their concience while they're riding in this hand basket come January 20th.
Eh? It doesn't seem to make a difference from the numbers you posted. Bush would still be ahead of gore if ALL nader votes had gone to Gore.
It's hard enough getting people out to vote in the first place. Don't give people shit because they voted for the candidate they wanted to be president.
-- Truth goes out the door when rumor comes innuendo. -- Groucho Marx
If I had my way, Nader would take a single state worth 3 electoral votes. The other candidates would come in at 269 and 268.
I'd be able to giggle for the next two months, every time I thought about my government.
-C
rather than assigning all the delegates to the candidate who gets the majority of the votes, split up the delegates proportionally to the fractions of the voters, probably with a slight bias towards the guy who got the majority (there are algorithms for this). It's a little bit like converting doubles into singles on a computer - you get roundoff errors. And by using a higher precision you can avoid that.
Dade County is hold everything up check it out here most counties already reported expect Dade county.
The "returns" are pure speculation, but a little more on the dramatic side. They are interpreted from the exit polls with the express intent of keeping our dumb asses glued to the tube so we can watch more commercials. Even the news outlets won't know the real winner until the last electorial ballot is cast, and that won't happen until all the polls close and the popular vote is completely tallied.
:)
The idea is to generate as much drama as possible surrounding the election, and capitalize on the hype by targeting ads at the idiots who are sitting and biting their nails at the TV or foolishly refreshing some web page.
Sensationalism at its finest.
-- lk t lv ll th vwls t f wrds. T svs lts f tm t wrt bt ts pn n th ss t rd nd mks m lk lk cmplt dpsht.
I don't understand your reasoning. If I lived in USA and in a swing state, I would definatly vote for a third party candidate.
A vote for a third party candidate is not a waste. It is the exactly opposite in a swing state. If your vote changes who wins you have just shown that your vote matters. Of course most americans don't seem to understand this because of decades of propaganda.
The following example is pretty extreme, but it does make a point.
If I told you to select one of the following three options:
1. You are to be executed with a gun
2. You are to be executed using hanging
3. You are allowed to live
I also told you that lots of other people had also voted and the third option would not do anything for you. Would you in that case not choose the third option?
> hat, like ouija boards? There were no votes counted!
Exit. Polls.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Define "too many" -- it was around 500 when the second article appeared, which is nowhere near where other threads peter out. Does that mean that Katz should get to repost once his articles hit ~500 responses?
Example carefully chosen to elicit catcalls :)
All these networks guessing with 30% of precincts reporting... its easy to start calling states just to make the race look close. Wonder why they would do something like that?
-gerbik
For all of you that are predicting a Bush win in Florida, check this out:
If you look closely at the county level results, you would see that populous counties in Florida like Broward, Orange, and Palm Beach, Gore is winning by a 2 to 1 margin (read:landslide), and only 20ish percent of those counties precincts are reporting.
For example:
De Soto County
73 % of Precincts reporting:
Gore 1,477 votes
Bush 1,653 votes
Broward County
22% of Precincts reporting:
Gore 67,866 votes
Bush 38,476 votes
So as you can see, Bush is marginally winning in the more rural areas (that have finished reporting, and don't have a whole lot of votes), but Gore is winning comfortably in the urban areas (which have a whole lot of votes, and it will take longer to count that many votes).
Hope that helps explain the Too close to call/undecided prediction for Florida. I imagine that the other states that are undecided may have the same thing happening for either candidate.
Hope this helps explain the confusion!
-Isaac
I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice. For Entertainment Purposes Only.
This does mean that the president could be from one party, and the vice president from another. Gore-Cheney for 4 years?
REP George W. BUSH 1,175,673 48 0
DEM Al GORE 1,152,351 47 54 W
GRN Ralph NADER 85,195 4 0
Gore is down by 23k votes in California... thats a whole lot at this stage (25%) of the game...
I wonder how long they are going to keep calling it for gore?
tagline
... hi bingo
What I can't figure out here, while listening to people on CNN talk about Nader voters throwing their votes away, is why they keep talking about Nader voters like they're doing something wrong!
If Nader is causing the Dems to lose votes, then why the hell aren't the Dems thinking about taking on some Green platforms? Nader isn't getting votes just to piss Gore off; he's getting votes because he has issues that are really appealing to a segment of the population that feels neglected. Why aren't the pundits talking about how the Dems should react? Instead they are just complaining about him being a spoiler.
The problem here is that many Gore voters aren't voting for Gore; they're voting against Bush. "I'm not him" is a really weak platform, and I think it's amazing that Gore's doing as well as he is. If the Repub candidate wasn't as distasteful as he is, I bet at least a third of the today's voters would have stayed home. Nader probably would be stronger, though, since his supporters are really supporting him (and not trying to deny someone else).
In fact, I think Gore is more guilty of stealing Nader's supporters. I really like Nader's anti-corporate stance, but I'm not exited about Gore at all. If I didn't live in Michigan (key swing state, for those not paying attention), I would definitely have voted for Nader, but I voted for Gore. I waffled over that until I voted, and I'm still wondering if I wished I'd voted otherwise.
-JimTheta
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My stupid web site
I think it is outdated for todays needs. After all everyone has access to everything needed to vote. You can be a well educated voter.
Of course the guy in front of me at the polls today had to let me go first. Why? Because he hadn't decided, because he hadn't managed to figure this out before a minute before he went to vote.
I felt like my vote was pretty pointless today. I voted Democrat and a completely Republician state, Virginia.
Anyway I think that we should have a popularly elected president and stop with the old fashioned methods. If we can popularly elect Senators then we can do it with presidents.
_________________________ Visit me at http://pornforcomputers.com
Looks like Bush got Canada. That's 15 electoral votes right there. He wins. )c:
Everybody's saying "it all hinges on Florida". Um... Why? If Florida had counted really quickly it wouldn't all depend on Florida right? And that's all that's happening right now, counting. So "it all hangs on florida" because it's close and they're slow counting?
That's really all that's going on now, it's counting. The polls are closed. If the counting took a week instead of a night, would it really make a huge difference?
I understand watching a close football game (like that great one on Monday night) to see who will win. The winner isn't yet determined, it will depend on the plays that follow. But this is different. The events that will cause the win or loss are over. All that's left is to figure out who won. So... why do we care so much about counting? Yes, I include myself. I'm watching Peter Jennings right now (a fellow Canadian) as he presides over the reporting of the count, 242 each right now....
WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON IN CALIFORNIA???!!!???
REP George W. BUSH 968,840 49 0
DEM Al GORE 907,778 46 54 W
wat??? looks like Bush is winnong Californina, but they are still trying to give it to gore...
Oh yeh, add nader's CA votes 64,542 to GOres, and Gore would be in the lead
Hey democrats... you want the liberal vote next time? you know, the one that nader took away from you? how about doing something for it? end the drug war, save the environment, add a green plank to your platform...
idiots...
tagline
... hi bingo
hey, if you all were so god damned worried about the supreme court justices why the fuck is scalia on the bench? oh thats right... its not like the democrats held the senate there... no... they just let them in, didnt they...
thanks... we've had enough of your "help"...
tagline
... hi bingo
Seth
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
2 reasons why they're not waiting:
1- You look better when you can predict the winner earlier.
2- They base themselves on the exit polls to say who will win.
If you look at the California polls, Gore wins in all categories (almost). So they declared him winner as soon as the polls closed. Of course, right now Bush has 54% of the vote with around 20% of the precinct opened.
Check out California By County
In many of the counties that they assumed Al Gore would win and list him as the winner are now reporting in ~20% of their results and for quite a few of them GW is up ~60% to ~30%. I think when everything is tallied up California is going to be an upset going to GW. Or perhaps they know california is going to GW and declare it Gore to sell more advertisements. *shrug*
-- Greg
Slashdot, would a spell-checker for posting be too much to ask? It's not rocket science!
It looks like whoever wins Florida will take the election. Watch that page very closely. Right now, Bush is ahead, but Gore is gaining on him at about the right rate to make it a tie.
------
No, you won't see projections like that here. Mostly because there are no exit polls (are they illegal? I have no idea). That's what they use to predict the winners.
I'll point out that in all the Canadian elections I've seen (based on the CBC coverage in French), I have rarely seen them make wrong calls. Of course they wait to make sure before they do, unlike here it would seem.
The mathematics behind the US election system (and what's wrong with it) where presented in Discover Magazine, now online at http://www.d isc over.com/nov_00/gthere.html?article=featbestman.ht ml
They also present several other voting schemes' pros and cons, but point out the difficulty in getting all of America to understand and switch to a new system.
Yes it's broken up, but even in the counties they are handing to Gore the votes are showing Bush up by around ~60% to ~30%..
See my other post
-- Greg
Slashdot, would a spell-checker for posting be too much to ask? It's not rocket science!
Now they have Gore winning.
Why don't we all wait a bit before trying to call this one?
---
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
I'll offer my Canadian perspective on why voting Green isn't a good idea.
Up north here, we've historically had two big parties, the Liberals and the Conservatives. A few years ago, a new party to the right of the Conservatives started up, the Reform party. Since then, the Reform and the Conservative parties keep splitting the right-wing vote, letting the Liberals run away with majority governments despite receiving only 35-40% of the popular vote.
The only reason this stopped in Canada is because of a succession of completely inept leaders of the Conservatives (Mulroney, Campbell, and Clark -- though Charest wasn't bad). So the Conservatives collapsed, and now we're back to having two big parties.
My point is this: If you vote Green, and they DO get more popular, or even their 5%, you're contributing to a split among left-wing voters. Not just a split this election, but a split that will last in all the other elections until either the Greens or Dems collapse. Since neither is likely to happen, you'll be handing maybe up to 10 consecutive terms to the Republicans. So that's why I voted Gore even in safe Massachusetts (well, besides the fact that I don't like anything about the Green party beyond Nader himself).
Am I rambling? Or does this make a bit of sense?
vasi
"Hey, who took the cork off my lunch?" -- W. C. Fields
Sanchi
"They said we couldn't do it [Athlon]... but we built it, we shipped it... and we didn't have to recall it." Rich Heye
They chocked up Michigan for Gore hours ago, but right now it's 49% to 49% with a slight Bush lead. only 45% precicents reporting.
-- Greg
Slashdot, would a spell-checker for posting be too much to ask? It's not rocket science!
I agree.
The real results (actual votes, not exit polls, or guessing), have been within 500K thw whole night. I'm thinking this is like a great movie, or a quadruple-overtime game.... Whoever comes out on top, it's been a great ride.
I'd rather have someone respond than be modded up.
Bush 2,671,708 votes 49 %
Gore 2,651,038 votes 49 %
94% reporting.........
Can you say a week of recounting before the winner is declared???
Wow this one is sooooooo close
no sig.
Huh? So you're saying that Nader, with his way far leftist Green Party, at least as far left as Socalists, and maybe as far left as Communists, will be the third party of choice for disgruntled Republicans? If that's the case, we (as in the whole country) might as well give up.
You know what's been bugging me this election? It's how Nader gets all this press as though the Green party were the Official Third Party, just because of Mister Corvair, when the Libertarians have been sticking in there for years. And nobody, at least not the media, has bothered to look deeply at his party platform. A lot of people are just voting for him as a "None Of The Above" checkbox.
Those who say they would have voted for Bush if Nader hadn't been running are the worst of the lot. No matter what else you can say about Nader and the Green Party, they certainly are farther left than Gore.
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
I just watched CNN go through the Wisconson results, stepping through the third parties.
Why is it they are consistantly reporting the 'natural law' party results (Hagelin) and not Libertarian (Browne) when the LP has eight times the votes of Natural Law?
By all their counts, Browne is doing nearly as well as Buchanan. At the state and local level I would suspect LP is beating all the other parties.. Yet no mention on the networks.. Why is the LP shunned by the media? Lame.
-- Greg
Slashdot, would a spell-checker for posting be too much to ask? It's not rocket science!
There's been an amazing amount of controversial instances of voter fraud this election. From broken machines in New York, to poll closing in Missouri, to absentee ballot stuffing all over the country. I'd say this probably has a lot to do with the fact that we no longer have several competing organizations working on election results- we now only have one. But Geez America- this election has looked more like a Third World/South American election than a First World one.
Am I too suspicious?
It's said that 60% of Nader's votes are coming from people who would otherwise vote for Gore.
But, OTOH, most of the people who'd vote for Buchanan or Browne would have otherwise voted for Bush. And those two canidates votes add up most places to the number of votes Nader got.
And like Nader says, who's to say a vote for Gore isn't a vote against Nader (or a vote for Bush being a vote against Browne for that matter)!
-- Greg
Slashdot, would a spell-checker for posting be too much to ask? It's not rocket science!
I would divide it up more like this:
40% are clueless but vote Republican because it's what they've always done, it's what their parents did, or similar reasons.
40% are clueless but vote Democrat, same as above.
20% actually care for more than just voting the party line, somewhat pay attention to more than just the ads, and rhetoric, and make a quasi-informed choice on election day. Some of us vote for third parties because we're so disgusted with what both the Democrats and Republicans stand for.
Mod down posts with a "Free Mac Mini/iPod" sig, they're spam!
According to CNN and ABCNews The vote count in Michigan is more solidly Bush..but they are still projecting Gore.
Okay, so I'm checking out the popular vote situation: as of 12:27 am, Bush received 1,132,596 popular votes, and Gore received...1,104,930 popular votes (24% of precincts reporting). And CA is still listed as Gore's state. Anyone know what CNN bases their projections on???
You know, looking at this election, I think I finally understand why the Constitution set up the Electoral College, and I must say, I'm in favor of it.
Before I start the explanation, please understand that I don't like any of the candidates, and chose to remain neutral this election.
Now, head over to CNN.com, ABCNews.com, or any other place with a map of how the electoral votes came out, and take a look. Gore has the popular vote, but look at the states he won. You'll notice they're concentrated in three major regions: the noetheast, the southwest (particualrly California), and the upper midwest.
Contrast this with the states Bush won: many smaller states, but generally spread out to cover the nation as a whole.
This, I think, is what the Framers were tryting to get at with the College: a system which takes not only sheer number of votes into account, but also the distribution of those votes. By winning more states, you prove that you not only represent many people, but people from many different regions of the nation. In the end, that truly is a fairer system. Not perfect by any means, but consider this: more people in the US live in urban areas than rural. Is it fair, then, that the urban votes could, at least in theory, control elections while rural voters, outnumbered by their urban counterparts, are never heard?
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WHAT YOUR VOTE MEANS
YES
A YES vote on this measure means: New contribution and voluntary spending limits will be established for state elective offices. Limits pre-viously adopted by the voters for state and local offices, which have not been im-plemented because of a pending lawsuit, would be repealed. The new limits are higher than those that would be repealed.
NO
A NO vote on this measure means: Existing contribution and voluntary spending limits for state and local elective offices enacted by a voter-approved initiative would not be repealed.
--
The shareholder is always right.
Even without the re-vote this will take probably at least another day for the recount and getting all the absentee ballots. With a re-vote this could take many days or possibly even weeks!
Even then there's always the off-chance that an elector or two will "buck the system" and throw the election to the other candidate (if, for example, Gore wins Oregon and Bush takes Florida, the result would be 271 (Bush) to 267 (Gore), it would take only 2 electors switching from Bush to Gore to force a tie and throw the whole thing to the house and senate, highly unlikely, but perhaps more likely if Gore wins the popular vote).
It's trite, but turnabout is fair play.
And the brethren went away edified.
Well this is confusing ... CNN.com has Bush winning Rohde Island on the main page, but has gore winning it on the detailed page ...
Ignore the "p2p is theft" trolls, they're just uninformed
... that Cubans traditionaly vote Republican whether Puerto-Ricans whose amount is growing side with Democrats.
Tigers respect lions, elephants and hippos. Maggots respect no one. (C) S. Dovlatov
Right now, Florida is the important state. 25 electoral votes up for grabs, with Bush ahead 51% to 46% in the popular vote and 500K+ absentee ballots to count.
I believe that most of the states that haven't been called yet will go to Bush, but the deciding factor will be Florida.
Well it appears that UC Santa Cruz has insider information on who will win the presidential election. Guess there really is a conspiracy. Check out a scan of their news paper here
Well, I can't blame you if you're not in this country, but to think that the two candidates' progams have "very little difference" is just wrong. Here's a good place to see just how much they differ:
n dex.html
:)
http://ww w.c nn.com/ELECTION/2000/resources/where.they.stand/i
Though I still agree with Nader that the two candidates are too similar, particularly in terms of the degree to which corporate interests have their hands in the candidates' pockets. But that doesn't mean I can't distinguish between the two.
The enemies of Democracy are
Lots of other first world countries use proportional representation - look at this cool map. In fact, South Australia's upper house is proprotionally elected - which is how the Democrats got a strong presence there in the first place.
Fixing copyright
Wow, what a nail-biter. Better than the Super Bowl (well, maybe not this past year, but most years.)
Oh, and big thank you to all you Nader voters. I'll buy any one of a you a beer sometime.
DrLunch.com The site that tells you what's for lunch!
(Canadians, please bear with me through the background)
In Canada, we have a Parlimentary system, which means we have one body like Congress but which has all legislative power (in theory, we also have a Senate, but it doesn't really do anything). Each seat is given to the candidate with the largest number of votes in a given riding (riding == congressional district).
The Prime Minister is just the guy who leads the party with the largest number of Parliament seats; he isn't seperately elected and has no special veto power (although he has some other special roles). The funny thing is that lately the P.M. has had a majority in the Parliament, so he pretty much rules like a king and the whole discussion process in Parliament has been a pathetic joke.
Now, in the last election, Reform was the official opposition (that's the party with the second largest number of Parliament seats). The Liberals had a majority. However, they did not have a majority of the popular vote (as pointed out above). Also, the Conservatives had a significant portion of the popular vote (I believe somewhere between 10% and 25%; I should look it up, but I'm feeling lazy and Gundam Wing is on) but an insignificant number of parliament seats.
The change we need to make is to adopt the South American system: a Parliament corrected to reflect popular-vote. Half of the seats are elected regionally, and the other half are given out to the parties which recieved a greater proportion of popular vote than regional parliament seats. So in the last election, the Liberals wouldn't have a majority, there would be a three-way standoff between the Conservatives, the Liberals, and Reform, requiring an alliance between any two to win (I think; it may have been more complicated with the involvement of the Bloc). So we'd have a real Parliament, not a king who could expensively cancel needed military contracts and bring in a system of gun registration on a whim.
--------
Check out cnn.com and check out Nevada and the total.
Now Go To msnbc.com and do the same.
This is has been like this for about an hour now.
What the hay?
There is already one discussion underway about the election(actively, I might add), and Taco posts another article about the same election?
I can imagine doing this sort of thing if the candidates had been swapped out mid-election for bench replacements, but what does splitting one topic into a series of articles accomplish? More first posts to go around? An open signal for moderators to give up on the earlier article and migrate over to this one? What?
"When the election is final, we'll post one more story [...]" sounds reasonable until one realizes it might mean we'll periodically receive a new "national election" article every three hours or so until things are "done".
Can someone explain why it was necessary to open a new article when everything mentioned here could have been appended as a correction or update to the original?
I'm all for third parties, but we need a new voting system where people can vote for Nader without effectively voting for Bush. Perhaps a system similar to Kuro5hin's comment moderation system?
------
CNN declared Bush the winner in Florida, and therefore, the winner of the election.
11:44 PM MST: Bush 246, Gore 242. Florida is still way too close to call, and Gore has to win Florida to win. He's been coming up fast though. (And there are 2300 absentee ballots that were sent overseas from Florida, I just heard...it may not be over even when it's over...)
Here in Colorado, there wasn't much doubt; this state went for Bush. But we had a number of entertaining statewide issues, such as a medical marijuana initiative (looks to be passing...I voted for the California measure, and I voted for this one, too), the well-publicized "gun show loophole" measure (passing, much to my chagrin...the way that measure defines a "gun show," it could apply to garage sales and estate sales), an anti-growth measure (going down--it was way too broadly worded and extreme), a measure mandating a 24-hour waiting period for abortions (also going down...someone said it best on the radio this morning, "A man has no business getting in between a woman's legs unless he's invited!"), and a measure that would let Colorado join Powerball or another multi-state lottery (seemed to be hanging in there, last I saw).
To all you Gore supporters out there, let me just say..."You gotta believe."
Eric
--
Be who you are...and be it in style!
Proposition 34 limits the amount that an individual can spend on campaigning. If you're not allowed to spend money on it, you're not free to do it.
Apparently, in Nevada you can vote for "None of these Candidates." It's doing better than Harry Browne too.
Any sufficiently advanced civilization is indistinguishable from Gods.
As a Canadian watching the procedings I find the electronic projections (trending) quite interesting.
I wonder if the same will occur for the Canadian Federal Election on November 27th. Probably not, because CNN doesn't care....
Technology is only a vehicle. People are the ones that drive it.
It's this kind of short-term thinking that has created the current big-money duopoly party system.
Unless you're totally happy with the current two-party system and are comfortable with the entire package of policies provided by the party of your choice, it would be in your (and America's) long term interest to have a third party with some influence. It doesn't look like Nader will win enough to qualify for matching funds in the next election, but he almost had a shot at it, and might have been able to do it, if it weren't for the fact that both major parties managed to hoodwink people like you into thinking that this election was more important than all future elections.
The truth is, if we end up with a President Bush, one of two things will happen: either his administration won't do much worse than the previous administration, in which case you have little to worry about; or he'll create a backlash for the next time around which will be to your benefit (as a Democratic voter).
In closing: I hope all those non-strategically-minded Nader supporters who voted for Gore can sleep easily in their beds in four years time, when America still won't have an alternative to the two corrupt parties we have now. Of course, they will sleep easily, since they're clueless about strategy at this level. Oh well. The vote will continue to go to those best at manipulating the "common people": and you, GeorgeH, have just been manipulated.
When you make that kind of statement, you trivialize the evil of the Nazis. The Nazis committed great atrocities, and these atrocities should be remembered so they never have to be repeated.
By calling Bush, a man who is clearly not a Nazi, nor even in the same ballpark as the Nazis when it comes to evil, a Nazi, you disrespect the memory of all those who died at the hands of Nazi butchers.
Perhaps you would profit by perusing the Nizkor Project.
Brilliant, you mean that if people didn't actually have a choice, they'd vote for Gore.
Or how about, 'Gore is a surefire win, if no one else is running against him.'
Right now more people are driven to vote because they HATE on of the choices. Not because they love one of them and want to vote for him.
Sheesh,
Erik Z
Democrats or Republicans. They are both taking us to the same place and they are not afraid of us anymore.
Oh wait, wrong election. Sorry.
Frankly, I wouldn't be happy to see either candidate win (though I do think Bush-as-president would probably be easier to survive with our rights intact than Gore-as-president).
But hey, there's room for humor. Any trolls here want to start a campaign for the goatse.cx guy next time around?
I can see it now: "Vote Goatse! At least we can say our candidate has nothing to hide!" Hey, I'd take him over Bush or Gore. Now, what platform should he run...
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Meanwhile, far away, Satan and his infernal minions were becoming concerned about the distinct record low temperatures in their domain. They eventually traced the cause to a single event: Millennium actually agreeing with the Slashdot trolls.
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Heh. With a 200-odd vote margin this morning, only a few Nader votes would have made the difference.
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There is no premature anti-fascism. -Ernest Hemingway
1. You are to be executed with a gun
2. You are to be executed using hanging
3. You are allowed to live
I also told you that lots of other people had also voted and the third option would not do anything for you. Would you in that case not choose the third option?
If you truly believe that the choise btw Bush/Gore is equivalent to choose method of execution, your analogy is correct
Others might rather see it as a choise between:
1. I break your right leg.
2. I smack your face.
3. I let you go.
Knowing that most people want to kick your butt and that it is a close call between 1. and 2., you might want to vote for no 2.
i.e. the Nader/Gore choise depends on wether the Gore/Bush choise matters to you or if they are equally unacceptable.
All opinions are my own - until criticized
Go tease the Gore boys: I sincerely _despise_ both your stinking candidates, did just what I set out to do, and you're an even greater fool if you think I'm going to stop there.
My only regret is that I am _not_ a terrorist or assassin. But at least I'll stay out of jail better if I refrain from committing crimes.
_Your_ beloved new President commits crimes.
Florida vote status 12:15am CST:
Bush 2,598,890 49.539% (They say 49%)
Gore 2,546,906 48.548% (They say 49%)
Nader 85,281 1.626% (They say 2%)
Buchanan 15,043 0.287% (They say 0%)
Total 5,246,120
They round down for Bush and up for Gore. Must be the new math.
Strangely, not all of us went to US high schools.
Some of us, in our rebelious youth, chose to be born in entirely different countries, with their own governments and no electoral college. Imagine that.
The current results as of 11:14 EST shows the following from Florida:
Bush 2,111,170 51%
Gore 1,964,211 47%
Nader 67,503 2%
IIRC, Florida carries 25 electoral college votes, enough to give the winner the presidancy at this point. I just hope the 67,503 Nader voters feel smug about voting their concience while they're riding in this hand basket come January 20th.
For the record, I like Nader better than Gore, but I voted for Gore. I live in Michigan, a swing state, and couldn't vote for Nader.
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Why can't I moderate something "Wrong" or at least "Grossly Misinformed"?
with all this political talk, I was almost forgetting that I was reading slashdot. Can someone please tie this election in with legos?
Hopefully I didn't put any [] around my words.
Nader won't win. This has been clear for some time. The majority isn't interested in anyone but the Democrats and Republicans.
Under these circumstances (taking either a Gore or Bush victory as given, knowing that voting for any other party is effectively equivalent to not voting), a vote for Nader, from a person who would prefer Gore over Bush, really is equivalent to a half-vote for Bush. You can make the statement that you are willing to vote for a third party in other ways (especially in those pre-election polls; always say who you'd like to vote for when they ask for who you intend to vote for).
The election system is severely screwed up, creating this situation. If there was a simple candidate-ranking scheme (rate each from 0-10, highest average wins; unmarked counts as 5), you wouldn't have this problem. You could vote Bush=0, Nader=10, Gore=5, and actively oppose Bush without promoting Gore over Nader.
OTOH, true democracy can't work. However, the defacto system of influence auction seems to work fairly well. Don't get too worked up over who wins. They're pretty much the same, and either will keep the old system grinding along.
"Democracy can't work... Wisdom is not additive; its maximum is that of the wisest man in a given group. But a democratic form of government is okay, as long as it doesn't work."
-Robert A. Heinlein
Glory Road
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Who modded me troll? It's a fucking joke!
HINT: This one should be flamebait. I should teach a class called Moderation for Dummies. Sheesh.
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
Having exclusively used the public transit system during my first years as a programmer (quite happily, mind you), I'll kindly ask you to go suck an egg for posting such narrow-minded stereotypical crap. I actually agree with just about everything else you said, but that kind of garbage only serves to undermine your message.
No, it only serves to undermine the overall usefulness of Nader.
Let's say that Nader had gotten the Presidency. Let's further suggest that he managed to have private cars banned from New York, Los Angeles and Chicago. This is within his party's platform.
Generally, those who can afford to avoid public transit do avoid public transit.
Why?
Well, public transit tends to be crowded. It tends to be slow. And it tends to be chock full of people that you'd rather not be forced to get intimate with.
I'd rather not have to sit beside an individual who cannot afford to drive a car because he cannot comprehend such basic concepts as daily bathing, let alone daily work.
I'd rather avoid sitting with a teenaged mother adjacent, her lack of parenting responsibility eclipsed only by her lack of basic birth control comprehension, as her child runs all through the bus, screaming and spilling grape juice on my new suit.
And, call me anti-social, but I'd rather not have to sit beside someone who feels a terrific need to engage me in a fascinating conversation about how lottery tickets are a viable means to ensure a financially comfortable retirement or how if you want to score some really good heroin you can just head down to the docks.
While I was perhaps a little extreme in my condemnation of public transit riders, you imply yourself that you no longer take it. Why is that?
If you're a Los Angeles resident who drives to work every day, assuming a 1-hour drive each way, and assuming that public transit has been greatly improved so that your commute time by bus/subway is still one hour each way, which are you going to take?
I can afford to drive, and therefore, I will. I do sincerely consider myself to have worked hard enough to have elevated myself to the point where I don't need to take public transit every day. I am therefore better than those people with whom I would be forced to fight for a seat on a bus.
Now, if a political party with an ill-conceived platform managed to ban outright or artificially increase the cost of driving to the point where it negated one of the benefits of my skills and hard work, what are my options?
I could continue to live and work in that community with a reduction of my ability to enjoy being a part of that community. Or, I could walk away from that community, taking with me the benefits of my skills and disposable income.
I assure you, I'm interested in improving my standard of living at all levels. I can therefore guarantee the option I would exercise would be the latter.
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
Hopefully when I wake up the world will realize it made a msitake.
The counting kind, not the voting kind...
Kevin Fox
Kevin Fox
At 215EST CNN and NBC called it for Bush. Fox beat them by about 5 minutes at 210EST (for me it was 2315PST and 2310PST)...
Although there were noises that Gore might demand a FLA recount...
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
Is this, then, a hallmark event signalling a challenge to the two-party system? Will the Democrats respond to this by working together with the Greens henceforth, or simply drowning them out by moving their agenda back to the left? Gee, let me guess...
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
Joe Lieberman won his seat, he's still got a job, but come January, Al Gore will be without a job, if the Electoral College votes as projected.
However, it is rumoured that he could take up the presidency at his alma mater, Harvard. Anyone feel this would be a much better move for him to accept an academic role for future leaders, rather than attempt to run again in 2004 where he may lose even more footage for not holding a political office?
Dragon Magic
Human nature is the same everywhere; the modes only are different. -- Earl of Chesterfield
Ever take statistics? If you count the votes for a completely random subset of the population, even if the subset is a very small subset, you can still be 99% certain that the winner in that subset will win the election. That's how they calculate these things. The only reason why the had to take back Florida is because the first few votes that they counted didn't represent a completely random subset of the Florida population.
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Soon: remaining branch populated by same party.
Life is GOOD!
Now hiring experienced client- & server-side developers
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
The final tally:
Bush wins the presidency by half a Nader.
vasi (suddenly feeling good about living in the True North)
"Hey, who took the cork off my lunch?" -- W. C. Fields
Carla Howell's "possible second-place finish" in MA didn't happen, but she did achieve double-digit results, a remarkable thing.
Other than that, it looks like the numbers are generally down from past years. The official excuses can now be released from National. Be sure to swallow them hard. Not taking the LP News seriously is grounds for party dismissal.
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The political system here in Finland is a bit different.
We basically have 3 big parties: the national coalition (right wing, prolly like your democrats), center, and the social democrats (supposedly left wing, but quite right wing actually). The scandinavian concept of right and left wing is a bit more on the left, so Republicans would probably be considered to be on the far end of the political right.
Then we also have quite a few of smaller parties: there's a party for the swedish speaking minority (right wing), the green party (environmentalists, quite left wing), the leftist party, the reform group and also independent people can apply for political offices.
Since the larger parties need to have majority to make decisions, they must team up with the smaller parties. Usually one of the three big parties is left in opposition, and the result is that no one party can dictate policy and the smaller parties also have their voices heard.
The presidential elections are 2 round direct majority votes. The first vote selects the 2 candidates that are the final competitors and the second vote selects the president from these 2. This way people have can vote for their favorite on the first round and their vote still counts on the second round, where they get to pick their favorite of the two remaining canditates.
ACThis is better than any professional sport. You've got a game that never ends like the eternal struggle of good vs. evil. Plus it has the illusion of mattering a whole hell of a lot. We can only wish that this ends up in the courts with scenario that no one ever banked on; that there is no winner by Jan. 20 and there is provision to have a provisional President until the two parties can stop squabbling in court. Wouldn't it be great sport if each of the 50 State Supreme courts gets to decide the election. Not because of a tie that ostensibly gets broken in the Senate but because neither party even wants the vote to get there and send every state's election into the courts?
This would be great fun, even more entertaining that saying "Lewinsky" 1E9548 times in a row. Think of the great fun we'll have: either Bush wins and we tear up the Constitution, bring back slavey and outlaw not being fat white male middle class bible thumping gun nut, or, Bush loses and we have CW2 (Civil War 2- the Sequel) complete with threats of secession, state referendums to bring back criminal trials for Witchcraft.
OOOOps there's a firealarm going off here in the office. It looks like the fun is only beginning!
It is now the morning after the election for the next President of the United States of America. Like so many mornings after, many of the participants are having regrets. It is clear from the popular vote count that many people did not get what they wanted. The press is showing George W. Bush with 48% percent of the popular vote, and roughly 200,000 votes less than Al Gore. It is clear that the people of the United States do not want the government they have.
Governing without a clear mandate is not such a bad thing, however. If the voters of this country pay attention to the real meaning of the results, there is no surer check against abuses of power. Large majorities can hide abuses against minorities. With such a narrow split in the popular vote for the President, and no strong majority in either house of Congress, we have no "Ruling Party". Perhaps we will get a government that does very little for the next few years. Would it be so bad for the rest of us to get on with our lives?
The net will not be what we demand, but what we make it. Build it well.
So the election has come down to the state of Florida. For those of you who don't know, voter fraud is epidemic in Florida. Generally, it's for small-time stuff, primarily influencing the outcomes of local elections, but the state of Florida is sufficiently corrupt and lax enough in voter registration that there's an excellent chance of some fairly large-scale voter fraud taking place there.
There's an interesting little paper on voter fraud in Florida that discusses some of the weaknesses of the Florida system, including:
- Lax "Motor Voter" registration and absentee voting which allows for easy manipulation of absentee voting;
- The ability to register to vote with very minimal credentials, which hasa generated a problem with non US Citizens registering and voting in Florida;
- Vote buying
- Absentee voter assistance fraud, where a third party submits an individual's ballot for them, often without the individual knowing who was voted for (especially bad in Florida because of the high number of senior citizens).
Add to this the fact that Florida politics are about as rotten as they come, and you've got a potential political minefield to tiptoe through. It'll be interesting to see if anything comes of this, seeing as the state is now the deciding factor in who wins the presidency. I, for one, wouldn't mind seeing some heavy federal investigation of Florida's political beast.Obliteracy: Words with explosions
Congrats Bush!
Go ahead and waste three democratic moderator points getting this down to -1, troll!!!!
voter.com projected 230-232 without the 'battleground sates'... with Gore taking Fla, PA and MI it is ALL OVER.
pronoblem
Well, watching the election carefully, they don't. While they depend on the same data, they have drawn their own conclusions, because they have all differed slightly through the night (I was watching.)
So much for conspiracy theories.
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-- Slashdot sucks.
And, interestingly, the operation of vast quantities of voters and vote collectors represents a distributed "computing cluster."
(On the other hand, "Think of a Beowulf cluster of Politicians." Costs a lot and doesn't compute very well ;-[).
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
Your viewpoint is obviously greatly slanted against the United States. I won't argue that you raise legitimate issues, but you make it out as if America was an evil empire that has never made a wise foriegn policy decision or a positive contribution to the world.
Nope. US' "positive" impact on world politics is dwarfed by its negative, harmful actions that couldn't be explained by anything but extreme selfishness at the expense of everyone else. The closest analogy is to compare USSR with a dangerous predator that still doesn't attack unless he is hungry, his life is threatened, or at least he is seriously scared -- no one likes to deal with such a thing, yet it's more or less understandable what and why he is doing, and he has its own role in the ecology. US however behaves like a poacher that has no restraint on his killing whatsoever -- whatever he wants or finds profitable to kill, he kills, and if he fails to kill, he still makes life miserable for everyone around. He understands how harmful his actions are, but without someone with a bigger gun in sight he doesn't care.
Also, it is a gross generalization to assume that I or every American doesn't recognize the sacrifices made by the Europeans in World War Two.
Not in a slightest degree. Americans may "recognize" European nations as victims of war, but they don't acknowledge the role of Russians at all. They don't teach it in their history courses, and you are a good evidence of that.
I'll stick by my guns and say that although late and not the whole war effort by any means, Americas intervention in World War Two was pivotal. I won't argue with you because we can both put whatever spin we like on the issues we have discussed.
Nothing "pivotal" happened in Europe in 1944 because the course of war was turned around in 1942-43 already, when the only forces fighting were Germans and Russians. Americans' "help" in Europe by then was limited to trade, what hardly qualifies for part of the "glory", or whatever you call it. And Africa, despite an impressive amount of sand, was at most non-essential sideshow compared to what was going on in Europe. Americans helped, and indeed their involvement saved some number of lives, but it was too little, too late, and with too much fanfare compared to actions.
Can you at least agree with my original post that although evil, the Nazi regime had stylish uniforms?
I don't know and really don't care. Nazi killed 25% of population in the area where I lived, and that makes their fashion sense quite irrelevant for me.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
I voted Nader. Nader did not win, nor does it look like he got 5%. But ya know what? I have never been more proud of myself.
For the first time in my life I voted for what I believe in and not "the lesser of two evils" or "party lines". I voted exactly what I think.
FWIW, don't confuse me with a Nader voter who would have supported Gore in any event.
-Isaac
I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice. For Entertainment Purposes Only.
That's a big "if".
In fact, if more people had turned up to the polls, Gore may have won, too. Again, that's a big "if".
In fact, if you look at the breakdown of Nader voters, those who would have voted for Gore if not for Nader are usually around 30%-40%, not 52%. Florida, being a swing state, i would guess would be lower, but i have no proof of that.
CNN has a slanted poll that makes it look like 60% of Nader voters would vote Gore, but the question specifically excludes other thrid parties which have been shown to be a very large chunk of Nader voters. Not to mention, many Greens would otherwise vote for Bush-- usually around 13%.
Don't try to blame Gore's failures on Green's hopes.
-benc
about 23:15 PST, the counties with fewer votes counted (less than 85%) seemed to be going for Bush. By 23:25, CNN had called it for Bush.
All the vote reports come in from an outfit called VNS - At first they reported bad data to the networks, leading to a Gore Call in Florida. It was pulled back (ABC First). The question then came down to - did the data that VNS was reporting include the absentee ballots or not (we were not sure). Before we got an answer, Fox made the call. We had (Internally) been saying "If it includes the absentee ballots, it's over"
Good night all, from the election desk
-- 73 de KG2V For the Children - RKBA! "You are what you do when it counts" - the Masso
yes, forget alaska, we are so fucking republican it sickens me
Over 60% for gwb curently
The Uber Nerd
The current count on cnn.com says 1785 vote difference for bush. With everything counted and a majority of absentee votes likely to go towards bush, there would have to be some major mistakes found in a recount to allow Gore a win.
The networks aren't calling it because they already made two mistakes the night before.
Bush has won in Florida, and as some of you have said, by margins split by Nader. Doesn't look like Nader even got the 5% he wanted, but that's the fault of people who were scared of Bush...and that didn't help did it? Well if Bush screws things up you can be sure Nader will be back in 4 years and take far more than that 5%. That's my prediction.
Also, is it just me or did I hear something on CBS about 78% of pro-Bush voters voting just based on morals alone?
If so...I'm believing the Federalists such as Alexander Hamilton who wrote the Constitution that the common, uneducated man is incapable of electing a President. After all that's why the electoral college was set up in the first place.
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"I do know I'm ready for the job. And, if not, that's just the way it goes." G.W. Bush 8/21/2000
Canada doesn't sound that bad now.
Elian Gonzalez.
Judging from the Florida senate race, handily won by a Dem despite many independent candidates, Dade county Floridians were voting against Gore, rather than for Bush. I suspect inhabitants of the "home of the Miami relatives" couldn't hold their noses long enough....
If Bush has won the electoral college, grass roots organizing against the corporate agenda will have to speed up a bit. I don't believe it's possible for that spoiled little rich kid to win the election again (in 4 years), however, so I am not that worried about the Supreme Court. I am looking forward to a Dem. party forced to reevaluate its move to the center, though. (-8
And to think I stayed up for this.
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I'm gonna drink me a BUSCH because BUSH WON!! Decided in florida, the state that looks like, uhh, nevermind.
Eh...
I think the networks have found a new way for gaining revenue: adjusting the polls (keeps people watching the tube). Just when you think one candidate is winning (and you can go to bed), the networks do a 180.
Go Bush!
I am John Hurt.
And if it did, that would mean the initial poster lost when he posted.
Some quotes from tonights(Todays ?!?) coverage...
This much tension you can't cut with a saw, you need a blowtorch.
So close you can't put cigarette paper between 'em.
Heart pumpin' twist like a roller coaster ride.
The good book says the race is not always to the quick, nor the battle to the strong.
Counted those absentee ballots till the cows went to sleep.
The bandwangon is hmmmmmm... resting.
It's spandex tight.
Round and round it goes who gets the electoral vote win, and from where nobody knows.
The presindential race still hotter than a loreto parking lot.
This thing is as tight as the rusted lug nuts on a 55 ford.
He hasn't gone to bed, you can bet the rent money on that.
When it comes to reporting a race like this I'm a long distance runner and an all day hunter.
This is driving me absolutely crazy! I can't believe it's this close! I've been watching the coverage since it started and I don't even know if I'm going to sleep tonight. This election is really seriously tough for me because for the first time I've been able to vote that the election has been close.
All Americans did in Europe was kicking a dead horse while pretending that it's still alive. At the time when Americans apppeared in Europe Germany was pretty much doomed, as Russians already got all their territory back, and were successfully pushing Germans back all by themselves. Americans found absolutely no reasistance from Germans to speak of simply because everything usable for a battle was on Eastern Front fighting with Russians.
The rise of US "industrial might" was the result of war because all countries actually involved had all available resources either destroyed or thrown at war, and US was both undamaged (no, resources spent on war in Africa and Pacific were nothing compared to the economy as a whole), and trade with countries at war, despite all losses involved, still helped US in the end. Now, half century later, this effect seems to start wearing off.
Thanks for nothing, and accept our belated congratulations with nice shooting/bombing vacation in France and Germany in 1944. Sorry for some fatal accidents, but we can't weep with you because we have lost more than 20 millions of our people while your government was delaying involvement in Europe for three years.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
Does this mean that /. will now run my long "Ask Slashdot" about killing the Electoral College?
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-- Geof F. Morris
Two problems with Borda. First, it would be exceedingly painful to explain preference ranking to everyone in the country, and it would drastically increase the time needed to cast each vote. Second, most current voting machines would need to be heavily rewired or completely scrapped.
A much easier method that is arguably equal to Borda is Approval Voting . It's trivial -- each candidate has a yes/no checkbox that says "would you approve if this guy won?" You check yes for the ones you like, and the most yesses wins. Easy to explain, avoids "spoiler vote" problems, and most current voting machines can handle the counting.
Granted, I also think the Democratic party is obscene, but yeesh, do you have any idea how it sounds to quote _that_ man and use it as a 'yay' for Dubya? *cringe* man... read some history...
Yes, it's official. Americans are retards.
Well, certainly the Bush outcome demonstrates that the experiment called Democracy - longer-lived than Communism - is equally flawed.
Apparently, the masses are not intelligent enough to determine their own fate.
Republicans are one thing, fine. I can respect an ideological difference. But *Bush*? Bush?
It was bad enough that he won the Republican nomination from a distinguished gentleman lile McCain. But the public vote, too?
I'll bet large sums of money that the first Bush scandal happens or comes to light within the first 30 days that this illiterate and incompetant goofball is in office.
As a protest, "president" and "presidency" shall no longer be capitalized in the context of Bush.
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
This is the first time since 1954 that the Republicans have controlled both Congress and the White House, and (here's my own statistic that I haven't heard anybody else say) the first time since Nixon in 1960 that a sitting vice president ran for and lost a subsequent Presidential race.
Now get some sleep :)
Janet Reno cost Gore the election
The Cuban-american population in Broward and Dade countines (in florida) gave the Democrats the big F-U for the Elian raid. Perhaps we should talk about gun control for federal agencies.
-- Greg
Slashdot, would a spell-checker for posting be too much to ask? It's not rocket science!
NBC and then CNN have just said that Bush will win FL and be the next president. I'm not sure I'm going to believe it until I see all the votes in...
glad its over.
Too bad Nader didn't get 5%.
Bush took Florida.
.
According to ABCNews, Bush wins Florida, giving him 271 electoral college votes, for a win in the presidential election. Looking at the voter breakdown for Florida, we see that if all those Nader voters had voted Gore instead, Gore would have won Florida.
Nader cost Gore the election
Say what you will about Bush and Gore, but Nader is a fool. Guess this is karma for Perot losing the GOP that election....
Wooooo!!! Republican President, Republican Senate, Republican House, and soon to be Republican nominated Supreme Court justices. It is a GREAT day for the Republican party. Oh my god.. this is AWESOME. I have renewed faith in the democratic process in this country.