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Gore Vidal Savages Electronic Voting
gribbly writes "aging author and social critic Gore Vidal savaged electronic voting in an interview with the LA Weekly. The interview deals mainly with (what's wrong with) the Bush Administration, but halfway down he says: 'We don't want an election without a paper trail...all three owners of the companies who make these machines are donors to the Bush administration. Is this not corruption?'."
Given that much of the media is similarly controlled?
Ph-nglui mglw'nafh Gates M'dna wgah'nagl fhtagn.
Yet another thinly-veiled hatefest. Weeha.
Hokey statistics and ancient misconceptions are no match for a good thought in your head, kid!
They just let us know there was cheating, but no one in power will look at them. Look at the presidential election in Florida 2000!
Are our electronic voting systems so f'd up? Is it really that hard to implement a decent system without retarted bugs like in the last article (110,000 votes recorded versus the real 5k number).
Also why don't most normal American's a have a problem with Bush yet?
Hmmm... Pie...
Of course not...now if Jello Biafra mysteriously is elected president next year, that'll be a different story.
Right. And I'm sure they were donors to the Clinton Administration as well.
Liberals are the ones who pushed for Motor-Voter legislation and now want to give driver's licenses to illegals. Who's up to their eyeballs in corruption?
Why do people need to believe this is some conspriracy. Bad Code /= a vast conspiracy to steal the election. Bad Code = Bad Code.
Lets get upset at that.
Bad code on a voting machine = potential to steal the election, but until you have proof please keep your fingerpointing to yourself. Both sides of the political debate here in the States and abroad would love to steal an election.
Fantasy remains a human right; we make in our measure and in our derivative mode... -- JRR Tolkien
Sign the HR 2239 petition. It requires electronic machines to produce a receipt which is deposited in a lock box in case of a recount and mandates .5% of districts at random do a recount to verify accuracy of the machines.
Keep the freedom to vote.
On the idea of rebelling against a clearly problematic system, is there a way for voters to 'inadvertantly' do something along the lines of, say, mistaking an evote machine for an unhammered nail, metaphorically speaking...
From that point the ballots should be counted in the traditional manner and used to audit the eletronic reports. If there is any significiant discrepency the paper ballots should take precedence. This procedure should continue until the eletronic voting process is as reliably accurate as the ballot method for a period of years.
After that point we can take the electronic method as the primary method, witht he printed results being automaticly placed into a ballot box connected to these machines.
If there is ever a time the printed ballot form should cease to exist i cannot for-see it right now. If there isnt physical evidence of the voting process somewhere, i feel highly dubious as to the integrity of the entire system.
--vision
--Idiots, Every single one of YOU, A flaming mass of conglomerated morons, hey wait a second, isnt that how RAID works?
The only corruption here is the horrible corruption of the English language that somehow lead to CmdrTaco thinking "to savage" meant "to ravage."
Jeremy
Looking for a Python IRC bot?
from the author of 'caligula', the motion picture.
take it or leave it.
Keep your packets off my GNU/Girlfriend!
Stop bitching and moaning and get out there and DO something about it. Jeez...
That's the last political statement I will make on /.
This is a test. This is a test of the emergency sig system. This has been only a test.
led away to his Guantanamo relocation center, he was quoted as saying ...oh, wait. The Official Information Minister has informed me that reporting Vidal's final statement would make me an enemy combatant, and would mean that the terrorists had won. And that would be doubleplusungood.
Another example of bitter young men growing up to be bitter old men.
Oh, and no solutions are provided in the article either, other than to replace the current swag of corrupt politicians with a new swag of corrupt politicians.
Even if activity is legal, it is the image or sense of impropriety which gets people's ire up. That seems to be the case with electronic voting, like the case with Haliburton.
Dogma - "let's just say we'd like to avoid any empirical entanglements."
"..all three owners of the companies who make these machines are donors to the Bush administration. Is this not corruption?'."
---------
I can see it now
---------
"Sir, the votes came in. You have a unanimous vote."
"hrm. couldnt this be a bug?"
Nono sir, its not a bug, its a feature!
~Just keep eating, porky. Fat people are harder to kidnap.
Why do I care what a popular salon owner says about this issue?
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
Whenever someone from an opposing party wins its all whines and cheese. If electoral races and political parties were IRC it would be something like this:
OMFG TEH VOET WAS RIGGIED!!!11 I WANT OPZ SO I CAN KICK THEM!
All I've heard since GWB was elected was people who wanted some socialst in power saying things bad about the current president as if it really matters. These people take their toys and go home when they don't get their way. Not to mention cry about it forever.
I didnt hear the "vast right wing conspirators" whining this much when Bill "pants around my ankles" Clinton was in office for 8 years. Lying his ass off and basicly fucking us all in the ass.
And even now, with this "memo" from the Democrats about slandering Bush next year to win the election, using the powers of the Independent Council to lock up the current administration so they can sneak some socialist in and tax us all to death. WAY TO GO, keep whining about people who care about this country and stop using this "conspiracy" blip to explain all your cry baby rants.
Vidal is one of America's sharpest social critics, although he only operates as a critic. He ran for office once but I suspect he would be a failure as a career politician despite his family ties.
No, I'm sad to say, it's the American way.
There is no spoon or sig.
I am so sick of hearing Gore bitch about Bush and about how elections don't work or whatever. Newsflash, you lost, now shut up.
Boromir, son of Faramir, King of Gondor and Minas Tirith
One possibility is something similar to DVD-ROM hardware region locks, in which chips are 'burnt out' every time a signal is transmitted.
Ph-nglui mglw'nafh Gates M'dna wgah'nagl fhtagn.
Slashdot hasn't been producing enough subtle leftist spin while michael has been out. Guess CT is trying to make up for it...
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
perfect example of biased moderation and politics on slashdot. how is the parent post any more or less flamebait than the fucking slashdot story that is being discussed?
One thing i will say about even traditional paper based voting is that
A. we know how it works,
and B. it doesnt have to be rebooted and have its hardware and software swapped out and replaced with unverified components (see Diebold). How the hell are we supposed to trust an electoral system thats going to allow this?
----
---- "Excuse me. Where's the children's gun section?"
We need these things to be built upon Open and Inspectable Source and on machines that the public can trust as giving valid results. Otherwise - it is all BS. I have been calling for a Corporation for Public Software to do just this. I continue to do so.
This simply is too important to allow hacked machines to spit out as answer that somebody pre-determined in a back-room deal.
We can do something about it now, or we can pay the consequences of an untrusted election system come next year. The choices are few, the ooportunities many. Write me off as stupid if you just don't give a rat's, but you will sooner or later.
All Ad hominem replies happily ignored as the sender shall be deemed to lack the faculties to comprehend the equation.
if only the story could be labled -1 flamebait
Bad code on a voting machine = potential to steal the election, but until you have proof please keep your fingerpointing to yourself.
Proof? No, but what looks like frightening bugs in one of the most critical tasks of a democracy, from companies whose owners are heavily involved in politic. Now, that does not necessarily mean that election-rigging is under way, but IMHO it is cause enough for public scrutiny.
Both sides of the political debate here in the States and abroad would love to steal an election.
So what? Should we let them do it, trusting that some sort of balance will be kept by the rigging on both side?
What do you know about World Politic? Find out in this quiz
How Luddite. We've just got to have a paper trail, eh? Let me see, does "hanging chad" mean anything to you? Sheesh....
Hah! Did it matter in the 2000 election in Florida?
The trail is still there -- is someone doing anything about it?
Bah crap! The precedent is already there. It could be the Dem party which does that the next time...
Its all the same in the end.
And if Clinton was president odds are they would be donating to Clinton. It may be corruption, but at least it's universal.
A one-time pad isn't what you seem to think of. For example, I could have a cd-rw with a 100,000 1,024kbyte keys, all different. You have the same cd-rw. I send you a message encrypted with one of the keys - then I overwrite that key w. the burner. You decrypt w. the same key, and overwrite the key w. the burner. So long as we are the only 2 people w. the physical CD-RW, the "one-time" pad is good for 100,000 messages.
So you think Vidal is an idiot (debatable). What is your position then on Bush's assault on the Constitution? Do you support the wholesale destruction of our freedoms that Bush is presiding over? Stand up and be counted if you really think this is better for the republic.
sulli
RTFJ.
OK, Gore Vidal is an idiot, and I'd pay no more attention to him than I would a Frenchman trying to "educate" me about how the U.S. ought to work.
But despite my Republican affiliation and support for Bush, I agree that current electronic voting systems are shamefully flawed. The lack of a paper, human-readable ballot receipt prevents any sort of independent audit of the results to confirm their accuracy. And the various statements attributed to Diebold's C.E.O. about "delivering" the electoral vote to Bush is just ludicrious and rightfully cast serious doubts on his company's credibility in this arena.
Electronic voting can be done right. But currently it is not...
Yep. Typical Slashdot uber-liberal Chicken Little-ism.
Marge: So, did you call any of your friends?0
Lisa: Friend? [scoffs] These are my only friends.
[holds up a book]
Grownup nerds like Gore Vidal, and even he's kissed more boys
than I ever will.
Marge: Girls, Lisa. Boys kiss girls.
sig--we don't need no goddamn sig
all three owners of the companies who make these machines are donors to the Bush administration
Everyone who pays taxes in the US is a "donor" to the executive branch. Perhaps you mean the Bush campaign? In that case, you may be suprised that most companies actually donate pretty equally to both sides just to cover the bases. What were these companies' total donations to political campaigns compared to just to just Bush's? Without that info, this is a meaninglessly paranoid "article".
If we're talking about paper voting, don't paper mill companies give big bucks to the Republican party?
Peter puffing faggot.
Vidal prefers the term "homosexualist".
-kgj
-kgj
Mr. Vidal seems to concentrate his focus on one administration. The reality is that this power grab is not owned by one particular party. Democrats want their share of control, just like Republicans. Both parties have entitlement systems and power systems which are designed to further the goals of the elite, the politicians, and their financial backers.
The rights of corporations often trump the rights of individuals. Just look at the recent laws on the books...if they were reversed so corporations could also be fined not per song per use per day, but per person ripped off, colluded against, lied to, and per person they commit fraud against - at the exact same rate individuals pay per song, per offense, per unauthorized use...you would see laws get changed and fines more representative of real damages...or maybe they would just change their practices as would the public (if both were liable for $150000xYxZ.
The point is, while the Bush administration scares me, so does the other side of the isle. The only ones I am not so fearful of are the ones with (I) or (L) or something else next to their names, other than (R) or (D).
Everyone is aging at exactly the same rate. Isn't this rather agist, anyway? What information does that description impart, exactly?
The USA PATRIOT Act is as despotic as anything Hitler came up with -- even using much of the same language.
:o)
Really? The PATRIOT act was written in German?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
using the powers of the Independent Council
Dude. The Independent Counsel Act expired and will not be renewed after the Kenneth Starr debacle. If you don't even know that, why the fucking fuck fuck do you think anyone should pay attention to you?
...uber-corruption neo-conservative chickenhawk-ism
about my karma. I also dislike Bush, BUT you do raise an interesting editorial question. And, I, myself have seen a trend lately in content. And... you should have been modded as "OFFTOPIC" not "Flaimbait"
There is no spoon or sig.
Stories like this.
Over the years, the Socialist bias of the Slashdot garbagemen has begun to come through. Rather than run an unbiased site and let the readers decide for themselves (a la Fox News), they have taken an anti-Bush, pro-Socialism standpoint.
Also, the utterly confusing and occasionally frightening of self proclaimed Communist Richard M. Stallman is nothing short of disgusting. Check out his website for proof of his Communist beliefs.
I thought this was a libertarian-oriented site, but more and more the readers and janitors have demanded protection and increased spending for minorities, themselves, the poor, and other social outcasts at the expense of our economy and at the expense of hard working, capitalist Americans. It's really disgusting.
Abortion is advocated only by persons who have themselves been born.
--Ronald Reagan
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Guys, this is the man who wrote "Caligula". He is more intimately linked to many bad and savagable works of humanatiy than most of us will ever be. If he says that e-voting is bad, who am I to doubt it?
Since the SC made him the Selected President*, that's the official descriptor now.
...by a majority of the Supreme Court.
Have you OD'd on Fox News or were you just asleep for the last half of 2000?
Or maybe I'm wrong. Perhaps the USA already is a despotic state but with better PR. After all the last election wasn't actually won by Bush, and there was that scene of Republicans battering down the doors of the Democrat offices where they were holding ballots. You wont know if you're living in a dictatorship until you test the boundaries. But if the voting machines get in then you'll lose your chance.
Gore also mentions the partiot act part II which he condemns utterly. An old quote I came across recently now seems frighteningly prescient:
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
"There are no homosexuals, only homosexual acts." -Gore Vidal
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They Are Vermin Feeding On Each Other's Feces.
I Hate \.
The parent is correct, PLUS Gore Vidal is the brighter cousin of the Al Gore/Gore Vidal kinship (yes, the relation is a fact that seems to be little known).
Odd that so many times Bush's relatives are dragged out to make some sort of wacky conspiracy theory, but Gore Vidal talks about elections and everybody forgets that he is Albert Gore Jr.'s cousin!
I would be quite surprised if the blanket statement about contributions to "the Bush Administration" (sorry, in the USA we contribute to campaigns, not administrations) ommitted contributions to the DNC, the loosing campaign of Al Gore, and current Democrat candidates. Just a hunch, since large firms usually contribute to both sides.
Eve Fairbanks says I drive a hybrid!LOL
Manufacturers of voting machines and their employees must be stripped of their freedom of speech in regard to campaign donations.
And, more importantly, there must be mandatory disenfranchisement of anyone who works there, is related to someone who does, or saw an advertisement for the company at any time in the last 5 years.
This is the only way we can remove corruption.
I'll vote for a measure like this in a heart beat! Where do I sign?
Clif
Blogzine
clifgriffin > blog
I suggest strongly you actually read the Patriot Act (which I assume you're referring to) and see what it is really all about. Ask you local librarian to pipe down for a moment while you read the text.
May I respectfully submit this to you ?
This
I believe the correct answer to your question is mu.
20 January 2017: the End of an Error.
LISA: Books by grown-up nerds like Gore Vidal, and even he's kissed more boys than I ever will.
MARGE: Girls, Lisa. Boys kiss _girls_.
The sweet side says "Mod +1 Funny"
The plain side says "Mod -1 RTFA"
Department of Homeland Security: Removing the rights real patriots fought and died for since 2001
I guess that makes it insightful, as opposed to a steaming pile.
I really wish we could abolish "Left", "Right", "Liberal", and "Conservative" from political language. They've become no more than insults. The "Left" is in charge? Oh, then the "Right" is a bunch of evil zealots come to crush us under their heels! The "Right" is in charge? Now the "Left" is a bunch of evil terrorist sympathizers who want to bring about the downfall of America!
Stop it. Just stop it.
It disgusts me how easily people are blinded by their preferred camp. Both major parties(and their associated platforms) have major problems. Pretending otherwise is foolish, but it seems that that's just what people want to do. It's especially amusing when we have repeats of previous incidents that garner the same response from opposite sites. Clinton lies about blowjob? IMPEACH!(if "Right"), FORGIVE!(if "Left"). Bush lies about WMDs? CONDEMN!(if "Left"), IGNORE!(if "Right"). Sound similar? They are! What happened to lying itself being bad? Why won't people admit that their own side can fuck up too?
It doesn't matter which side you claim to be on. Evaluate people based on what they do, not what views they pay lip service to. If you do otherwise, you're just being a sheep.
And for the love of all that is good and right in the world, come up with some new insults while you're at it!
Visit the
How hard would it be to hack up a cash register to work as a voting machine, complete with e-reporting to the vote counting center and printing of a hardcopy receipt in duplicate, one for the backup ballot box and one for the customer?
.
You could revel in your contribution to democracy with the sound of the cha-ching!
--
"Every time a bell rings, a founding father gets his wings."
I am not trying to flame or troll here but I seem to remember the cry for a "better" voting system was coming most strongly from democrats.
Why is it that democrats turn everything on its head and blame bush? Perhaps instead of blaming bush for all problems grand and small we should take responsibility for our own actions.
Of course, Clinton didn't involve us in wars of aggression for the OBVIOUS benefit of his cronies. He also had a vague concept of this thing called "diplomacy" that keeps us from being at war with everybody. But of course talking is for wimps when you have the biggest military in the world...
Forget diamonds, copyright is forever.
Is this not corruption? that has to be the biggest understatement of the year, why arnt their riots in the streets? why has no-one used their founding-father given right to bare arms and march against the government, every day i see Bush doing this, Bush doing that, filesharers face jail time, people who burn flags face jail time, people who talk about rot-13 face jail time, 12-year olds face fines and maybe later jail time, tabacco companies lobby the government so that lighters dont get banned on planes, evoting companies which couldnt even design a system to count chickens,big politicians with alterior motives - enron etc i thought America was supposed to be a country where people took no bullshit and stood up for themselves, hell they kicked us out, whats going on?
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
And which rights, exactly, do you not have today that you had with your precious pothead, intern-screwing, Southeast Asian gangster-loving, Vince Foster-mudering, Grand Jury-perjuring former Arkansas goveror? Last time I checked, not a single Amendment in the Bill of Rights has been repealed. But, keep it up--uninformed liberalism is trendy these days.
Vidal is one of America's sharpest social critics, although he only operates as a critic. He ran for office once but I suspect he would be a failure as a career politician despite his family ties.
Vidal has also been in movies, without being an actor -- he played Director Josef in the movie Gattaca.
He's a bit stiff -- hell, he's an old man with no visible acting experience -- but there was a certain charming gleam in his eye, like he was having such a good time that you just couldn't help believing in him.
-kgj
-kgj
All three makers of the voting machines are Bush donors. And if they were Dean donors, this what matter... how exactly? Gore is once again shown to be a mere blathering idiot. Most corporations make political contributions to one or BOTH parties. It is irrelevant.
I live in Mississippi, where they're still untangling a mess made by malfunctioning electronic voting machines that do have a paper reciept deposited in lock boxes. As just an example of things that can still go wrong:
-Some poll workers didn't put reciepts in lock boxes.
-Some poll workers decided to "manually enter" data from back-up paper ballots once they got the machines working.
-Some reciepts/machines did not make it back to the main office until two days after elections.
-State law requires initials on paper reciepts. Some unititaled ones were counted anyway.
And before you come down too hard on Bush, it's the Dems who are benefiting here. From a developer standpoint it is clear to me that the problem is poor system design. Every company is trying to design an electronic equivalent to a paper process that is already suprisingly flawed. For example, because of civil rights issues, it is illegal to require a voter ID here. Which means in the electronic world, you cannot store a 1-to-1 relationship between a voter and a vote. What needs to be done is a standard design process: gather requirements, design the system, and implement it. Because state and federal laws come into play, legislatures should be envolved in the whole process and revamp laws where necessary. In the end, it all comes down to poor design.
nt
Not off topic? How about not relevant?
Come on guys, give the anti-Bush sh*t a rest. Try to report on some "News for Nerds" for a change.
It's about time we had a good flamewar on slashdot!
what's so sneaky about slashdot, is that they just don't discuss the issue more directly, they always have to wrap it around some leftist political drivel. So this discussion will inevitably devolve into a Bush hatefest.
slashdot has really shown its true colors now. the editors are the real trolls.
SIG:Slashdot: indymedia for nerds.
F**k Elections, what we really need is a two bit dictator, one who is both arrogant and ignorant.
Oh wait, we already have one, that alcoholic drug addict who stole the election. The puppet we euphemistically call Mr. President.
Well, it's not any more corrupt than one company owning the platform that 90% of the world operates on, then claiming that all the little fish can compete fairly against them and that they have no advantage owning the system....
If the Republicans own the voting system (and yes, I *know* they don't legally own the system, just as Microsoft doesn't *legally* own SCO), I highly doubt that they would use it to benefit themselves. I mean, come on! That would be unethical.
There is no one best method.
;-)
I think you should have two or maybe even three independent, redundant systems. Count the votes under each system, & they should agree within some standard error. Otherwise you do an audit.
IMHO, a paper ballot should have the voters' name or an ID number, so it can be traced back if necessary. Also paper holds fingerprints, which could be helpful tracking down those who manage to vote early & often.
"It requires electronic machines to produce a receipt which is deposited in a lock box.... "
Lock box.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
Electronic voting is screwy but, IMHO, The guy is just a little too out there on some stuff to be an effective spokesperson. If you google around you'll see.
For Example
America's most controversial writer Gore Vidal has launched the most scathing attack to date on George W Bush's Presidency, calling for an investigation into the events of 9/11 to discover whether the Bush administration deliberately chose not to act on warnings of Al-Qaeda's plans.
Vidal's highly controversial 7000 word polemic titled 'The Enemy Within' - published in the print edition of The Observer today - argues that what he calls a 'Bush junta' used the terrorist attacks as a pretext to enact a pre-existing agenda to invade Afghanistan and crack down on civil liberties at home
Yes, how dare he use the word appropriately!
Just because you aren't familiar with a word or phrase as used doesn't mean it isn't correct. I'm quite familiar with the usage, and perhaps next time you should look such a thing up before shooting your mouth off.
TRANSITIVE VERB:
Inflected forms: savaged, savaging, savages
1. To assault ferociously. 2. To attack without restraint or pity: The critics savaged the new play.
[The American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000.]
GL
Why are you wasting bytes on him?
Let me remind the weak minded people just who started this assault by the Bush administration on the Constitution; someone you never hear complainst about from those people screaming about Bush & Liberty.
i ?dbname=104_cong_public_laws&docid=f:publ132.1 04 )
The Patriot Act came from the same administration that tried and failed to force the clipper chip, the COPA, successfully got the DMCA, etc through. Their version of it was actually WORSE than the current patriot act. In fact it was struck down more than once and determined unconstitutional.
Counter Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 ( http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cg
Had all the secret court where defendants were not allowed to see evidence against them, secret wiretap monitoring, deportation of foreigners for "moral turpitude", etc, etc
So blame it all on Bush, obviously the Democrats are going to protect our rights. Maybe neither one is looking out for our rights.
Wally O'Dell has sworn to deliver Ohio's electoral votes for G.W. next year. That's well beyond the level of the generality you've just expressed.
And no, companies and industries don't give money equally. In some industries they do, in some there's a much more slanted bias. Think the energy industry's giving money to Howard Dean much? Trial lawyers give money to Democrats. HMOs give money to Republicans. For some mysterious reason, there's a very real Republican slant among these vote-counting companies. We're not talking about them covering their bases both ways, we're talking about openly advocating for one party while selling machines that count votes.
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
Will our next bought of "News for Nerds" be Kate Moss weighing in on Open Source?
(Pun intended.)
I do believe it's "PATRIOT Act", as "PATRIOT" is an acronym.
And regardless of the content of the act, you have to admire the wordplay.
[PowerPoint] is a tool for capitalist presentation
"Newsflash, Bush only won because a court stopped the count."
No, Bush won several counts. The only "count" that was stopped was a phony one that would have counted voteless ballots as Gore votes. (and it was found out that Bush would have still won this count)
I want to tell everyone the joys of the ABSENTEE BALLOT !!!
I live in Washington State, USA.
Almost a month before election time, for every election, I recieve my ballot and a booklet outlining each candidate (usually statements by them) and propositions or initiatives or whatever is on the ballot. I have plenty of time to think about the issues and look at the ballot. The only extra cost is the stamp I have to put on the included return envelope. (It would cost me 4 times as much to take a bus to the polling place) And there is a paper trail.
I originally requested it when I actually was going to be out of town. But have been 'enrolled' since and get an ABSENTEE BALLOT for every election. I love voting at my dining room table!
Also, IMHO...
I don't even care if the ballot is secret and I will freely tell anyone who asks who and what I vote for. (BUSH admin has set US back soooo much in the last 2 years!) I think that every social security number should have a record of voting. That way, you could go online and check that your vote is registered the way you want it to be. You could even go back and change your vote before the election was over. You should also get a tax break for voting, or I suppose, a tax penalty for not voting.
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They Are Vermin Feeding On Each Other's Feces.
I Hate \.
Stand up! Democracy is something worth fighting for!
The US has turned from a role-model Democracy into a country with democracy here and there but not everywhere. Keep those corporations out of the government. This is very dangerous, not only for the people of the US itself but for the entire world.
You are the ones that can prevent this world from slipping into a war dominated place with little democracy left.
How? Vote entirely differently, make them know you don't like what your government has turned into.
Democrats? NO.
Republicans? NO.
Non of those main stream parties, make sure many people are able to run for election with many different parties backing them.
If Al Gore were president, then they would be Gore (Al, not VIDal) donors. They just want to make money through policy, it doesn't matter the administration. Vidal needs to stop making it a party or conservative vs. liberal issue.
However, I am firmly on his side WRT paper trails. E-voting is fine in concept because of the ease of burden, but I have yet to see a viable solution, and moreover, I don't believe there is one. Basically, circuit boards are just too easy to switch out without people noticing as opposed to mechanical devices.
Guess what? I got a fever! And the only prescription.. is more cowbell!
Liberals are the ones who pushed for Motor-Voter legislation and now want to give driver's licenses to illegals. Who's up to their eyeballs in corruption?
This is mixing two issues. Motor Voter is about allowing you to submit for voter registration *at* the DMV. It is not about giving the right to vote to people with drivers licenses. They are two entirely different processes. Motor Voter was a _huge_ success in increasing voter registration by making it convient for the average person.
Right. And I'm sure they were donors to the Clinton Administration as well.
From what I've been reading. O'Dell, CEO of Diebold, has been reliably quoted as saying that he will deliver states to the Republican party.
Chuck Hagel, a republican senator, was at one time (and probably still is) a part owner of Election Systems and Software (ES&S).
It does not matter if they *are* being evil, what matters is that they should not even be _close_ to voting companies. It is a clear conflict of interest and smells bad no matter how you put it. I'd go further and say that all voting machines should not be done by companies at all -- too much at risk.
This has nothing to do with conspiricy theory, it has everything to do with common sense. You lock doors of your house, not to keep bad people out, but to "keep honest people honest". Power corrupts. And these people should not be putting themselves in to places where they could be corrupted, or even give the appearance of being corrupt. Its just wrong.
He can rig a case against Iraq and lie to the whole world but cant rig an election...
you surely must be joking mister Feinman....
... the numbers 70, 80 and 90. I mean, they were a great world power a long time ago, but they no longer matter. Instead of wasting their time trying to play with the big boys, somebody help them invent these numbers so they don't have to say sixty-ten, four times twenty and four times twenty ten.
If they can't figure out how to count properly, there's little to learn from them.
all three owners of the companies who make these machines are donors to the Bush administration. Is this not corruption?
Lots of companies contribute to both parties. Enron did. It would be good insurance for a voting-machine company to contribute to both parties, so that whoever came to power would look favorably on their system.
Mr. Vidal has never let the facts get in the way of an even better story in his historical fiction, so can Mr. Vidal prove that the voting companies didn't make similer contributions to the Democrats? Not merely claim no knowledge of any contributions, but show they did not?
Until then, this isn't worth getting worked up over.
Its funny how the best defense anyone can come up with for the current administration and the E-voting scandles is to say "But everyone else is corrupt too."
There is nothing so silly as other peoples traditions, and nothing so sacred as our own.
all three owners of the companies who make these machines are donors to the Bush administration
Slashdot Eds Link Anonymous Posts With Logged Posts
They Are Vermin Feeding On Each Other's Feces.
I Hate \.
Well, genius, he has also written hundreds of brilliant articles for The New York Review of Books and The Times Literary Supplement.
I bet if I pick and choose from among your many gems I find more boogers plopped out in your short life than Gore has flung out in a very long one.
Sheesh.
There's always been a liberal bias among the editors (and many posters) on Slashdot, and I've accepted that, given the amount of other interesting stuff that shows up here.
However, I think we're starting to see the editors, like many others on the left, become totally unhinged. Come on, LA Weekly has a long diatribe from Vidal, and in one small section he basically says "E-voting sucks!", and this is "news for nerds"? This is just the flimsiest excuse to link to another "Bush sucks!", "Bush=Hitler" screed.
We get to read yet-another limousine liberal bemoan how this administration is just as bad as the Third Reich, and how their free speech rights are being suppressed -- somehow the irony of them constantly reminding us of this in various news media is lost on them.
Remember this moment folks, you were there to see Slashdot Jump The Shark (not an exact analogy, but the best I could come up with). I think it's all downhill from here. The Slashdot editors should just go with their true hearts' desire, and start posting wholesale articles from Chomsky and the folks at A.N.S.W.E.R. -- c'mon guys, you know you want to...
Possibly we need some civic minded hackers to demonstrate the terrible failings of these systems, since the local two-bit supervisors of elections are too arrogant and too ignorant to listen to more than 200 PhDs in computer science warning them of trouble.
"Welcome to GITMO Disney, illegal combantant #873-78-3356!"
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
All the money we have wasted on the military, while our schools are nowhere.
What an absolutely bizarre comparison. Schools are funded by property taxes collected by the local/state goverment and given to schools completely managed by those local/state goverments. The federal government has absolutely no control and no fiscal responsibility for this local issue. Sometimes they make grants to states but this is an inefficient step for the federal government to collect taxes away from states and then give it back.
There is no health care
Another absurd statement; health care in the USA is the best in the world. Oh wait, he means health care paid for by the taxpayer. There are plenty of private health insurers and hospitals are forbidden to turn away patients who cannot pay.
We get nothing back for our taxes.
That's odd, I get protection from the greatest, by a wide margin, military in the world. Interstate highways, police, fire, national parks, etc. The list goes on and on. Vidal must be a serious hermit to not get ANYTHING for his taxes.
I wouldn't have thought that would have lasted the last 50 years, which I lived through.
Thanks to superior medical care and a solid national defence...
He's wrecked the economy. Unemployment is up.
Umm, what about last week's unemployment numbers down to 6 from 61? Umm, what about the stock market up significantly from the first of the year? Umm, what about corporate earnings meeting and beating expectations (which are up from last year)?
In short, there's nothing in this interview except paranoid rantings.
Imagine, for a bit, what the world would be like if votes were done completely in the open, attributable to persons who come in and cast their votes.
Sure, the FBI would have to spend a bit more on cracking down on those who illegally attempt to fix an election--but they have to do that anyway.
One could even bind it so that there's no more of a record than the final tally--which should be enough to satisfy the non-rabid privacy advocates.
"Yeah... of course if thousands of voters had not been "conveniently" wipped out of the registration lists"
A system designed by Democrats. Next....
"Or the fact that the person who had to certify the counts actually worked for the Bush campaign"
So? The certification process was out in the open. Bush got more votes, so it was time to send it to the electors.
"while it was the US Supreme court who over ruled the Florida's decision"
No, the Supreme Court let the decision of the Florida voters stand.
"of course ignoring that most of the justices who voted against the recount were either Reagan or Bush I nominees."
So? Look at the actual law, and what really happened. There were recounts before the lying lawyers forced matters to go the the Supreme Court. Bush kept winning them, because he got more votes. What is even worse is the Clintonazis in the court who wanted to overthrow an election and establish a dangerous precedent. Fortunately, they lost, the justices with the Constitution in mind won.
By the way, you know that recount that Gore demanded and did not get? The media did it anyway just to see: and Gore lost it.
No doubt, the Gore camp would have kept lying in court to trigger recount after recount until they managed to get one where they came out ahead. Then they would have said "stop!".
"then by all means Bush won "fair and square"
That is true at least.
"Oh, and if Bush was winning why did the republicans have to send their stormtroopers, err. I mean staffers to stop the recount and hackle the officials?"
He didn't, and they didn't (there were no stormtroopers, and there were a few recounts).
Man is there any sort of minimum moron level to be a right winger?
Gore Vidal and Al Gore are different persons...
NO, it's not
corruption is when you have actual proof of wrong doing
Manufacturing voting machines is not illegal
Donating money to politician is not illegal.
Where is the logical conclusion that because I give to a certain candidate, that I am going to behave badly and create machines that vote for that candidate? Many companies give money to WHOMEVER is in power because they want things done now, now have wait years for the next administration that is to their ideological liking.
Sure there is concern about such machines. Obviously the machines do need to be well documented, tamper-proof, auditable, etc. But there are many problems with the current system also (punch ballots anyone?).
By reading this sig, you agree to the terms of my sig license.
Means that you are not required to wear long sleeves.
You may be talking about the right to bear arms?
does that bother you even if it was true?
Yes, it does. You wouldn't have had to ask if you had to intellect necessary to consider the topic of my post. If I want political spin of any stripe I have limitless, and far better, options other than Slashdot. I'd prefer to find "news for nerds" at this particular venue and what Gore Vidal knows about electronic voting is likely less than what the typical nerd knows about hot women.
are you unable to think for yourself?
I've forgotten more original thoughts than you'll ever have.
if you don't like it, don't visit.
I'm not welcome to criticize? How open minded of you. I prefer to counter this nonsense in the hope that I can help keep a lid on it.
PS. you're a fuckwit. Obviously.
Ouch. That hurt.
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
The 90% that you see are just the voices and do not call the shots.
The 10% that censor what those toadies say are more powerfull Republican toadies.
In the end, money will always win over justice.
Normal americans wouldn't have a problem with a reincarnated Hitler. As long as they have TV, plenty of food, etc. most of them will be happy.
Maybe the parent poster would be happy...but most Americans would not.
that's gotta be one of the most idiotic arguments ever. which person involved in public debate doesn't have an agenda? fuckin' dipshit.
That leaves us with a mere 25% who do have a problem with Bush.
1) 9/11 happens and nobody from the administration, CIA, FBI, Department of Transportation, Department of Immigration etc. is fired/held responsible for the falling asleep on the job
2) We have the first net loss of jobs for 70 years
3) The economy tanks (unless you make over $300,000 a year from investments, in which case, sit back and enjoy your big, big tax breaks buddy)
4) We pre-emptively invade a country with no real International backing, find no WMD which was our specific reason for invading in the first place, sign off on lots of no bid price+profit deals for big, big, big connected companies, fail to find Enemy Number 1 (just like we failed to do with Enemies 1 and 2 from Afghanistan), declare "Mission Accomplished" and then so screw up the occupation that we go crawling on our knees to the UN begging them to come help and they laugh in our face
You know, there's more, but I'm still angry just thinking about it.
this.vote.print
if this.machine.vote.president.bush > 1
this.vote.president = bush
this.vote.record
Wow, a paper trail! A paper trail without feedback is useless.
Use 'paper ballot', or 'printed ballot' or 'printed selections to be deposited into the ballot box'. When people here the word 'receipt' they get the idea that the voter can take home a copy of how they voted... and this is *dangerous*. You don't want to confuse people. It is _not_ a receipt.
Let's see here... Dell, Unisys (ludicrus claims about unix and win2k), and Microsoft. Of course they support Bush, he's in office, and Both of the companies are somewhat unified with Microsoft. Microsoft doesn't want Bush to hit them with another lawsuit (not that they'd loose, judges suck), so they pay him off.
I don't trust Bush on a lot of stuff, but I don't particularly think Bush would want a payoff from microsoft, and I really don't think he's going to risk buying off voting machines when the Democrats still can't come up with a canidate that would get over 30% of the vote! (If I said that 3 weeks ago, you'd be talking about Wes Clark... no chance now)
"And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the World"
1 John 4:14
I think you've hit the nail on the head, here. While we squabble enlessly over who's the eviller party, both are doing whatever they can to fuck us just a little bit more, every day, a little harder and deeper. But so slowly we'll never really notice.
This didn't start when Bush was put in office. I just have this horrible feeling that The Man(tm) realized -- when we didn't revolt over the circumstances of Bush's election -- that the American people no longer care about their rights.
It's open season on us, and we have nobody to blame but ourselves... or rather the people we elected to do this to us.
Continuing our farcical argument of Liberals vs Republicans just prevents us from seeing that both are at fault. They care only for the cash given to them by corporate interest. We however are simply the cattle: we buy what we're told, we watch what we're told, we believe what we're told, and when the time comes to elect somebody new, we pick one of two essentially identical people and let it begin anew.
lorem ipsum, dolor sit amet
So you are telling me that the majority of newspapers -- which are municipal, county, and regional publications -- are liberal? It goes to follow, then, that massively-syndicated columnists like Dear Abby are also liberal. Does this mean that staunch conservatives in your strange corner of reality read the The New York Times for their daily dose of news?
========
Together, we will drive the rats from the tundra.
"...reasons for so many white males in the republican party... "
Why would you care what race/sex someone was, unless you were some kind of bigot?
"I am sure your boy Bush never lied right?"
He hasn't yet.
At least Al Gore seems to have "moved on" from those days and taken a stand in favor of freedom (more in opposition to the outrageous Bush "enemy combatant" designation than the Patriot Act, but this is definitely in the category of Bush's refusal to respect basic civil rights.) And Howard Dean, whom I support for President, has as well. So there are alternatives, even if there weren't previously.
sulli
RTFJ.
And Gore is wrong about this exactly how?
That's exactly what did happen.
In fact, it's likely that 9/11 was ALLOWED to happen (I'm not a fan of conspiracy theories that say that the CIA directly caused it to happen - that's not necessary) for precisely these reasons.
If you don't comprehend how far a US government will go for pretexts for war, Google for the "Northwoods Documents". And that's back in 1962.
And recently Harold MacMillan and Eisenhower were revealed to be using the CIA to fake border incidents to invade Syria - back in the 1950's.
You think somehow things have changed?
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
Put a big 64 box of Crayolas at each precinct. Print up a bunch of ballots with big boxes next to the names of the candidates. Mark ballot with Crayola. Voters can even pick their favorite color.
Count by hand.
Sounds childish, but I get the feeling it would be more accurate than e-voting.
I would use Burnt Sienna to cast my vote, btw.
- voting machines turning in negative numbers
The AC provided no proof for the assertion that the companies also donated heavily to the previous administration, just like you didn't. All the AC said was "I'm sure" (just like you said you'd seen the proof but didn't include any links).
Hmmm, are you the same AC pretending to be someone else?
Does anybody else think "leftist" really sounds like a property for a quark or something? Up, down, charmed, and leftist? It's probably just sticking it next to spin like that.
to cause giant problems.
Ya, bad-code is bad-code. The problem is bad code can cause far worse problems then a nice healthy conspiracy. Take a peek at MS LookOut, err I mean OutLook some time. No conspiracy alive could have caused that many problems on purpose.
As things are at the moment, my skin crawls at the thought of electronic voting used in the US for any serious election.
Of course, I'm a silly Libertarian, I lose if "either side" rigs the election...
see posts #7381461 and #7382457...
your first post is demonstrably wrong, but, hey, honesty hasn't exactly been the Republican Party's strong suit lately, so it's understandable.
Well genius, this is low moderated Slashdot comments after all, not the London Observer's Editorial page.
If you don't believe that the U.S. is a now a dictatorship and
:
are not operating under Plan G, after you read this, you WILL believe
the U.S. is a dictatorship and implement Plan G:
Despots in the Whitehouse
We are the patriots
How is it possible for the US to engage in
wars without the consensus of a large part of
the American people? Gore Vidal places the
question within a historical perspective that
reveals the remarkable foresight of Benjamin
Franklin
I belong to a minority that is now one of the smallest in the country and, with every day, grows smaller. I am a veteran of World War II. And I can recall thinking, when I got out of the Army in 1946, Well, that's that. We won. And those
who come after us will never need do this again. Then came the two mad wars of imperial vanity--Korea and Vietnam. They were bitter for us, not to mention for the so-called enemy. Next we were enrolled in a perpetual war against
what seemed to be the enemy-of-the-month club. This war kept major revenues going to military procurement and secret police, while withholding money from us, the taxpayers, with our petty concerns for life, liberty and the
pursuit of happiness.
But no matter how corrupt our system became over the last
century--and I lived through three-quarters of it--we still
held on to the Constitution and, above all, to the Bill of
Rights. No matter how bad things got, I never once
believed that I would see a great part of the nation--of we
the people, unconsulted and unrepresented in a matter of
war and peace-demonstrating in such numbers against an
arbitrary and secret government, preparing and conducting
wars for us, or at least for an army recruited from the
unemployed to fight in. Sensibly, they now leave much of
the fighting to the uneducated, to the excluded.
During Vietnam Bush fled to the Texas Air National Guard.
Cheney, when asked why he avoided service in Vietnam,
replied, "I had other priorities." Well, so did 12 million of us
sixty years ago. Priorities that 290,000 were never able to
fulfill.
So who's to blame? Us? Them? Well, we can safely blame
certain oil and gas hustlers who have effectively hijacked the
government from presidency to Congress to, most
ominously, the judiciary. How did they do it? Curiously, the
means have always been there. It took the higher greed
and other interests to make this coup d'Ttat work.
It was Benjamin Franklin, of all people, who saw our future
most clearly back in 1787, when, as a delegate to the
Constitutional Convention at Philadelphia, he read for the
first time the proposed Constitution. He was old; he was
dying; he was not well enough to speak but he had
prepared a text that a friend read. It is so dark a statement
that most school history books omit his key words.
Franklin urged the convention to accept the Constitution
despite what he took to be its great faults, because it might,
he said, provide good government in the short term. "There
is no form of government but what may be a blessing to
the people if well administered, and I believe farther that
this is likely to be well administered for a course of years,
and can only end in Despotism, as other forms have done
before it, when the people shall become so corrupted as to
need despotic Government, being incapable of any other."
Think of Enron, Merrill Lynch, etc., of chads and butterfly
ballots, of Scalia's son arguing before his unrecused father
at the Supreme Court while unrecused Thomas sits silently
by, his wife already at work for the approaching Bush
Administration. Think, finally, of the electoral college, a piece
of dubious, antidemocratic machinery that Franklin
doubtless saw as a source of deepest corruption and
subsequent mischief for the Republic, as happened not only
in 1876 but in 2000.
Frankli
"LOL, If you consider GE and Disney to be liberal I just shudder to know what you may consider rightwing."
Measured from the center, they are left-wing, as evidenced by their liberal news mouthpieces on ABC News and NBC News.
If it is right of center, it is right-wing. Right now, we have a few left-wing major news media outlets and a couple of centrist ones (Fox News and C-Span: very different in style but still balanced). No right-wing ones on TV yet, while the right wing does dominate on AM talk radio.
I'm not counting MSNBC. It's not a real news network, as it devotes hours on end to celebrity fluff junk every day. "Savage" and Chuck "Clam Eyes" Scarborough cannot save them: it is in the deadly flops of a fish abandoned on a dock.
Put a big 64-box at the precinct. Print up ballots on paper. Have voters put an 'X' by the candidate with the Crayola. Votes are counted by hand. In fact, an eight year old could even do the counting.
Problem solved... and voters can even pick their favorite color. Burnt Umber, anyone?
Sound childish? Maybe, but it probably would be more accurate than e-voting. Sometimes the simplest solution is the best.
Keep it simple, stupid.
"Also why don't most normal American's a have a problem with Bush yet?"
Normal americans wouldn't have a problem with a reincarnated Hitler. As long as they have TV, plenty of food, etc. most of them will be happy.
Who the hell is this eurleif, and what gives him the authority to speak for most normal Americans?
If anyone can answer for those Americans, it's they themselves. I say we put it to a vote. Preferably not on an electronic no-paper-trail voting machine. Then we'll know what most normal Americans think of people like eurleif and their opinions...
No, he won the same way Clinton did: he won enough states to get enough electoral votes. That is not "theft": it is the Constitution.
Ah, the piteous whining of the sore losers on the left who believe their their guy has a divine right to the office of President even when he loses the election.
"honesty hasn't exactly been the Republican Party's"
They are extremely honest about matters, that is what gets the left-wing so mad.
This guy's first name is Gore and he is obviously against Bush. Is this not corruption?
Stay put Mr. Vidal, Barbra Streisand will be there shortly in a black helicopter to whisk you away to safety alongside Elian Gonzales and Vince Foster.
The vast right wing conspiracy shadow government zionist regime run by the aliens will never get their hands on you!!
Gore makes some interesting perceptions of the founding fathers and what not, which I personally did not know myself, so it was interesting to read. Then he went into this anti-Bush slander spin, which to me, completely rendered his points about the founding fathers as probably misleading or just plain wrong.
For instance, he blames the economy on President Bush. However, as any intelligent person would know, and as any economist would tell you, the President has zero to nothing to do with the economy. If any branch of government affects the economy, it would be the Congress, but even that affect would be minimal at best.
Secondly, he insinuates that Bush will win the election by playing favors with voting machine manufacturers. I would like to see his proof. I will take his word for it that these companies contributed to his campaign. I'm sure they contribute to lots of campaigns, on both sides of the isle, but I think the sin-of-omission rule applies here. This also borders on slander, since I do not think he can prove the case that this collusion is taking place.
He also claims the USA Patriot Act is similar to Hitler's rule over Germany, and says that the this is all Bush's fault. While that may or may not be true (which I personally think is a little extreme), the fact is, many of the ideas within the Patriot Act were first introduced by Al Gore in 1996 prior to Clinton's re-election (in order to help Clinton get re-elected probably?) Such items include the roaming wire taps on suspected terrorists and holding terrorists without access to lawyers and such.. was all first introducted by Al Gore. BTW, the President does not pass bills, the Congress does, and records show that the Patriot act was supported widely on both sides of the isle.
Then he refers to the president as deranged. Well, this is just a great comment because it shows the immaturity of an old man. You can disagree with anyone on politics, but to insult someone on the personal level is extremely immature.
Then he accused the administration of leaking the name of the CIA agent, when the reporter who leaked it, Robert Novak, has said he did not get that info from the administration, and that he himself, put this information together. Secondly, it has been public knowledge that this CIA agent was the wife of an ambassador even as far back as the mid-90s. Again, a statement like this makes Mr Vidal look petty, immature and uninformed.
Although I do agree that electronic-only ballots are not to be trusted...
you mean the ones owned by giant corporations? Like general Electric for instance? G.E. being a major defence contractor is sure to hire a bunch of pacifist lefties for their news operation because that would help their bottom line, right? I mean just look at the hard in dpeth questioning Bush got during the run up to the invasion of Iraq. The liberal media was out there all the time questioning whether Iraq had WMDs and whether they had ties to terrorists etc. Not.
We do, of course, have two American citizens (Padilla and Hamdi) declared as enemy combatants kept in Naval brigs, not charged with any crimes, not allowed access to lawyers, not allowed the right to remain silent, held indefinitely by fiat of W alone. But you're right, they're not at Gitmo. They're here in the US.
OK, I don't agree, but I can understand the logic. If you assume that everybody belonging to a party is corrupt then you have to reject everything produced by that party's supporters. If, however, you believe that both sides are corrupt, or if you believe that neither side is completely corrupt, then the logic pretty much falls apart.
Then he says they need to have paper trails. Why? If the software is rigged, that same software will rig the paper.
And what about older mechanical voting machines. They also have raw-number output with a paper trail. But does anyone begin to understand how they work? Do you think anybody could tell if one was rigged? And couldn't their paper-trails be similarly rigged?
What about punch cards? If the ballots are printed directly on the cards, then they can't be rigged. (Of course, if they're punched via a machine, that machine can be rigged, and tabulation machines can be rigged.) But hand-counts are extremely time-consuming and error prone (remember hanging chads?) And every recount causes more chads to fall off, so repeated recounting destroys any hope at accuracy.
OK, so we're now down to someone writing an "X" in a box on a piece of paper. Do we really want to force this system on the entire country? And even that is subject to tampering, since they'll be read by optical scanners (which can be rigged) or by human volunteers (who can be bribed.) And hand-counts will be time-consuming and error-prone (but not as error-prone as visually reading punched cards.) But at lesat they won't get repeatedly damaged as the candidates repeatedly demand new recounts.
But mandating paper ballots will bring back all the corruption problems that voting machines were supposed to eliminate - like ballot-stuffing (where corrupt poll workers literally stuffed extra ballots into the boxes). And there will still be disputes when someone checks two contradictory boxes, or when a circle is partly filled-in. So in many respects, we get back to the same nonsense that Florida's punch-cards produced.
Every voting system can be hacked and abused by corrupt individuals. Modern software-based systems are no more or less secure than other systems. They replace one set of flaws for another set. You can't just point to the flaws of one mechanism and automatically declare it evil without comparing it to all the flaws of the other competing systems.
"As long as they have TV, plenty of food, etc. most of them will be happy."
The japanese attacked us at pearl harbor primarily because they thought we were a fat complacent lazy country. They were wrong. You are wrong.
Ther eare hundreds of newspapers in the country, and Murdoch owns a mere fraction of them.
Wikipedia: Murdoch has 175 newspapers.
usinfo.pl: Daily and Sunday papers in US (not counting hundreds of alternative weeklies): 2,388 papers.
That means Murdoch controls less than 1/14 of the newspapers. Not 1/3 !
This is like the lie about Clear Channel's "media monopoly" when the fact is that they have about 8% of the radio stations in the country.
But again IQ scores are not a true mark of intelligence. I am a prime example iof that I have a great knack for figuring problems out. However I am very much socially inept. I am a Horrible typist and have a very bad grasp of writing. But I do have a rather high IQ score so what does that mean in the grand Scheme of things. I am good at Math have a good memory and I can do logic puzzles and pattern recognition like nobodies business. However will that help me write articles for a newspaper? no. Does that help me sway peoples opinions with what I say? No. But flat out Bush is a freaking Idiot. but who says thats really that bad. Clinton was not an idiot and he scammed the Country over and over again.
Courtesy of Ben Franklin Predicted Bush : We are the patriots How is it possible for the US to engage in wars without the consensus of a large part of the American people? Gore Vidal places the question within a historical perspective that reveals the remarkable foresight of Benjamin Franklin I belong to a minority that is now one of the smallest in the country and, with every day, grows smaller. I am a veteran of World War II. And I can recall thinking, when I got out of the Army in 1946, Well, that's that. We won. And those who come after us will never need do this again. Then came the two mad wars of imperial vanity--Korea and Vietnam. They were bitter for us, not to mention for the so-called enemy. Next we were enrolled in a perpetual war against what seemed to be the enemy-of-the-month club. This war kept major revenues going to military procurement and secret police, while withholding money from us, the taxpayers, with our petty concerns for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. But no matter how corrupt our system became over the last century--and I lived through three-quarters of it--we still held on to the Constitution and, above all, to the Bill of Rights. No matter how bad things got, I never once believed that I would see a great part of the nation--of we the people, unconsulted and unrepresented in a matter of war and peace-demonstrating in such numbers against an arbitrary and secret government, preparing and conducting wars for us, or at least for an army recruited from the unemployed to fight in. Sensibly, they now leave much of the fighting to the uneducated, to the excluded. During Vietnam Bush fled to the Texas Air National Guard. Cheney, when asked why he avoided service in Vietnam, replied, "I had other priorities." Well, so did 12 million of us sixty years ago. Priorities that 290,000 were never able to fulfill. So who's to blame? Us? Them? Well, we can safely blame certain oil and gas hustlers who have effectively hijacked the government from presidency to Congress to, most ominously, the judiciary. How did they do it? Curiously, the means have always been there. It took the higher greed and other interests to make this coup d'Ttat work. It was Benjamin Franklin, of all people, who saw our future most clearly back in 1787, when, as a delegate to the Constitutional Convention at Philadelphia, he read for the first time the proposed Constitution. He was old; he was dying; he was not well enough to speak but he had prepared a text that a friend read. It is so dark a statement that most school history books omit his key words. Franklin urged the convention to accept the Constitution despite what he took to be its great faults, because it might, he said, provide good government in the short term. "There is no form of government but what may be a blessing to the people if well administered, and I believe farther that this is likely to be well administered for a course of years, and can only end in Despotism, as other forms have done before it, when the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic Government, being incapable of any other." Think of Enron, Merrill Lynch, etc., of chads and butterfly ballots, of Scalia's son arguing before his unrecused father at the Supreme Court while unrecused Thomas sits silently by, his wi
In all the arguements about the viability of various voting methods, there is only one that really does work: optical mark-sense sense similiar to a Scantron sheet.
:-)
Similar to the forms you use to fill out the answers on an SAT/ACT test or fill out a paper lottery ticket, optical mark-sense scan sheets are easily read by both machine and hand counts, and the potential for fraud is by far the lowest on this method, according to the November 2003 issue of Popular Science.
Here's how I would implement it:
1. The sheet would be standard letter size (8.5" x 11"). Most paper-handling machines are already designed for this paper size.
2. As each blank spot is filled, it'll be filled by a very small black ink stamp set up on a special mount so it precisely marks each blank spot at the correct location. I prefer ink stamps because they produce marks that are easier to read by machine and hand counts.
By the way, they can use recycled paper for the ballot sheet, since what it needs to do is read the black markings in the blank filled areas.
It's a method I'm sure even Mr. Vidal would approve of.
All I can hope for is that all of the people who are yelling about how evil Bush is get out and vote next November. If every person here on Slashdot votes next year we'll get him out for good. And if the guy we vote in sucks then lets vote him out as well and keep voting them out until they get the message that THEY work for US.
"Terminate?"
"Terminate... with extreme prejudice"
All three makers of the voting machines are Bush donors. And if they were Dean donors, this what matter... how exactly?
Nobody would bat an eye if the donors were any other party. I'm actually kind of glad that this electronic voting crap happened on a conservative rather than liberal watch. If this had happened, say, with Clinton in office or after the next Democrat President, we'd never hear about the problems inherent in the system in the mainstream press.
Most corporations make political contributions to one or BOTH parties. It is irrelevant.
Thank you! Did anybody ever see a report on exactly who Enron donated to? The Rebpulican connection was heavily touted as "proof" that Bush was in bed with Enron, but the truth of the matter was that Enron donated heavily to both of the big political parties. Yes, they did give a bit more to the Republicans, but the disproportions can be traced to state and local political parties. Enron was in Texas, a heavily conservative state.
I'm really getting sick of the constant Conservative bashing using distorted facts. It's gotten to the point now that if somebody in the mainstream media (anything but Fox News) criticizes Bush, I just can't believe it; it takes too much effort to verify the sources any more to find the real truth. Since Fox has a decidely "fair and balanced" Conservative bent, any criticism of Bush from them automatically gets more attention.
It's sad, really. If they guy I voted for is screwing up, I want to know about it. But I can't trust any of the sources to tell me the whole story any more.
There's so little difference between politics and jihad lately...
The EFF is running an action alert on the Voter confidence and Increased Accessability act of 2003 which mandates public review of the machines (i.e. opening the source for review) and including paper recipts for recounts. U.S. Citizens can go here to submit a letter to your congressional rep.
What's a few minutes of your time for democracy?
No, I counted Savage and Clam-Eyes as an idea of MSNBC as a New Cartoon Network, not a journalist! I wasn't clear on that one.
:)
"and when you consider ABC and NBC liberal"
There is nothing scary about that: they are more liberal than the American center. It's just a fact, just like AM talk radio is more conservative than the American center.
Unlike you, I measure left and right from the center of political culture, not my own center.
"And calling FOX news centrist is just funny, afterall the only openly liberal (and a poor one at that) in that whole organization is Colmes"
He's actually the best "liberal talking head" in television today, as he is able to make convincing arguments without becoming another human cartoon like B'B'BeGala and the Carville-mander. His liberalism is a matter of making intelligent arguments, rather than reading some think tank's talking points memo and trying to get the best zingers in. He's just one of several liberals on Fox, including guys like David Corn from The Nation who is to the left of the typical "liberal".
"whereas Hannity, O'really, Oliver North, Cabuto"
Hannity? Right wing, part of a left-right pair. So what? O'Reilly? He puts the lie to Limbaugh's claim that moderates have no beliefs. He confounds everyone by being an angry centrist muckraker: the extremists of either wing, such as yourself, have no idea what to make of him. Cavuto? Never seen him. I won't comment on things I do not know about.
"semi-dead uptight middle aged angry white males "
Sheesh. more racism from you. Why do you care what race someone is? I thought racists were supposed to be only on the right. Conveniently ignore Greta Van Susteron too
about what? more votes in more states would imply that Bush got more votes - but he didn't. Gore did. The references I pointed you at indicated that. Gore got more votes overall and more votes in Florida - thus the person who should have won (by those counts) did not. How is that legitimate? The SC ruled on standards both inconsistent with previous rulings and said their ruling was not applicable to any other situation...yeah, that sounds reasonable. That excludes of course the long list of conflicts of interest in the people running the Florrida recounts, as aagain recounted in the referenced posts.
Oh, and what HAVE the Republicans been honest about lately? I spent eight years listening the Republicans claim everything from "Clinton is a Chinese agent" to "Clinton is a Russian agent" (neglecting the obvious point that Russia and China haven't gotten along for about forty years) to "Clinton murdered Vince Foster". Did they ever manage to substantiate any of it? well...no. I am led to believe that the Republican Party is run either by very dishonest people or simply very stupid ones. Considering recent policy, I can't tell which.
Bad physicist. No toroidal discontinuities in the fabric of space-time for you!
1. Hmm - have to agree with this completely - except to mention that most of those people are career bureaucrats or democrats like Tenet.
2. We have lost jobs, but that particular stat is a numbers game - it is based on a selective time measurement to meet your need.
3. Hmm - the economy and markets were going down as of February 2001, and everyone saw them moving that way in the spring of 2000. Now I know most people like you are so irrational that you want to blame Bush for everything - but I find it hard to believe that with less than 10% of his appointees sworn in and no major legislation passed he made the economy start dropping magically in February 2001.
4. Attacking a country with no international support - you mean like in Desert Fox when Clinton pulled the inspectors out of Iraq and bombed them? You mean like our bombing campaign of Kosovo, which had no UN sanction? Remember how were were told about the genocide in Kosovo -except opps, they never found the 1000's of dead they said were there. But you're on the right track - we should have waited until we had all of the enlightened and morally better countries like Cuba, China, Russia and France onboard. The UN always moves quickly to help people - just ask the Tutsis in Rwanda. Oh wait, you can't, cause they're all dead.
You know, there's more, but I'm just sad thinking about it.
I see a heavy hand with Republicans here! Let's not forget the Democrats; for a lot of years they have been pressing hard for "statistically corrected" ballot counts. I'm sure that was so that they could "correct" elections they thought were an error.
I just get beat over the head with it constantly. Bush is evil, Bush is bad, Clinton is great, Clinton was the best prez. It's just so irksome when they seem to be stuck in a vote "party line" mentality.
They are extremely honest about matters, that is what gets the left-wing so mad.
Extremely honest like insisting Iraq had weapons of mass destruction? Like insisting that Iraq was connected to 9/11?
That's some honesty, pal.
Indochina all they had to do to earn their concept of freedom was to ask nicely to their French overlords, right?
Actually, if you look at France after De Gaulle and his American-like militarian views, colonies asked for their freedom, and obtained it by public vote.
Freedom loving fest indeed, AND improvement with time. No wonder more and more Americans go live there...
...afterall the only openly liberal (and a poor one at that) in that whole organization is Colmes...
It is easy to make a generalization when have no idea what you are talking about. You've probably never watched that network, and have missed the frequent presence on FNC of such "open liberals" as Susan Estrich, Ellis Henican, Eleanor Clift, David Corn, Geraldine Ferraro, Mara Liasson, Juan Williams, Ellen Ratner, Gregg Hymowitz, Geoffrey Feiger..... to name a few.
of Boromir's pathetic trolls. Get a brain in your head, next time.
"all three owners of the companies who make these machines are donors to the Bush administration. Is this not corruption?'"
In a word, no. Although I think he brought up some interesting points, this is a stupid thing to say. Show some proof before you say the companies making voting machines are going to commit voter fraud. Another stupid thing he said was that the person with the most tv time will win the election, certainly not if the people don't agree with his message.
If he obviously hates this country so much (or the way it is now at least), why did he decide to make this his place of residence? I am not saying he should "love it or leave it", but if we are doing things so horribly wrong, and there are places in the world doing it better - than why not live there? Isn't it hypocritical to choose to live here and then say that it is effectively garbage? I for one think that most people that live here do so because for THEM it is better than living just about anywhere else. Just my 2 cents. BTW - I am a foreigner :P
Cheers!
===========
"Wrong, the LA Times is owned by the Chicago Tribune folks"
Don't worry, he's getting things wrong every time he tries to assert a fact. He was off by about 300% when talking about Murdoch-owned newspapers. His error rate was similarly staggering when he was talking about the number of liberals being on Fox News Network.
We're his fact-checkers.
Computer-controlled elections? That's a dangerous idea. I mean, what's next, computer-controlled nuclear weapons?
That's a good movie. Better than the last two matrix films.
I've happily past the stage where this disturbs me and can now just find that incredibly funny. It helps that I don't live in the US.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
see the subject ffs
If you have a district with 10,000 registered folks, and the fancy electronic voting system shows 120,000 votes, and the lockbox contains 120,000 paper receipts, do you believe it? If somebody is gonna hack a voting system, obviously they should be considering that their hack needs to mimic the casting of an actual e-vote, thus generating an e-receipt. Rather than spend millions on what most techies see as a bad idea, why not spend those millions to educate folks on how to punch a paper ballot? "See the box next to the name? Poke a hole through the box. Yes, like that. Good."
"about what? more votes in more states would imply that Bush got more votes - but he didn't. "
I'm not implying that. Why do so? The national vote totals NEVER MATTER in presidential elections. There is a certian Constitutional process involved, and this is likely news to you.
". Gore got more votes overall and more votes in Florida"
The first is true, but not relevant (it never has been in any presidential election). The 2nd is not true, everyone knows Gore lost Florida.
"thus the person who should have won (by those counts) did not. How is that legitimate? "
Back to the constitution again. The first count you mentioned has nothing to do with winning the election. It never has! Gore lost the 2nd count, which does matter.
"The SC ruled on standards both inconsistent with previous rulings and said their ruling was not applicable to any other situation...yeah, that sounds reasonable"
It is perfectly reasonable if you look at the situation (and realize that it had not happened before). Of course, you probably have no idea what went on (since you are under the misconception that national vote totals have put Presidents in office, you probably know nothing about the SC).
"That excludes of course the long list of conflicts of interest in the people running the Florrida recounts"
More claims that amount to nothing. You are accusing people of crimes just because they are in a political party that you do not like. (never mind the facts).
"I spent eight years listening the Republicans claim everything from "Clinton is a Chinese agent" to "Clinton is a Russian agent" (neglecting the obvious point that Russia and China haven't gotten along for about forty years) to "Clinton murdered Vince Foster"."
HAHAHA. You are confusing G Gordon Liddy with the mainstream of the Republican Party... which never made any of the claims you list. Sorry, these claims are not the GOP just as Lyndon La Rouche is not the Democrats.
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Or does he work for Renraku?
Yep - go back to sleep America, the Megacorps are in control.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
I posted this as a reply to another comment here, but I saw other comments which claim that Diebold probably gives to Democrats equally, depending on who is in power. This is simply not true.
Diebold employees give exclusively to Republican candidates and organizations. During the 1996 and 1998 election cycles (when, I probably don't need to remind you, Clinton was president) Diebold gave over $36,000 to Republicans, and $0.00 to Democrats. Source. Further, for the 2000 and 2002 cycles, they gave $31,000 to Republican causes, and zero dollars to Democratic ones. Source.
As ridiculous and conspiratorial as it sounds, there is some evidence that the Republican party, or at the least some of those who have associations with it, is engaging in a conscious effort to undermine the democracy. Add to this the fact that all opposition to paper trails is coming from the Republican leadership and things begin to smell just a tad.
"Extremely honest like insisting Iraq had weapons of mass destruction?"
No, he insisted that they were developing them. This was based on the same sort of intelligence that others, including France, had, and they had the same belief.
"Like insisting that Iraq was connected to 9/11?"
He never insisted any such connection other than that Saddam and Al Quaeda were both terrorists.
"I guess you haven't looked at the Republican Party's membership lately"
Yes, and there are no racists there. Unlike the leadership of the Democrats, most of which insist on policies designed to punish people of being of the wrong skin color.
"Strom Thurmond left the Democrat Party for the Republican Party because the Dems were for civil rights of all."
No, he left the Dems because he was no longer a racist, and the Republicans are the party of equal rights now.
Take a read, AC. Too bad the SC didn't
After all the last election wasn't actually won by Bush
From this CNN.com article (hardly a conservative stronghold): WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A comprehensive study of the 2000 presidential election in Florida suggests that if the U.S. Supreme Court had allowed a statewide vote recount to proceed, Republican candidate George W. Bush would still have been elected president.
This is a tired and annoying recycled claim.
Give it a break!
Thanks for reminding me that there are some voices of reason on your side of the pond.
From WHO COUNTS THE VOTES?:
"Here are short profiles of the three most important voting-systems companies in the United States:
ELECTION SYSTEMS AND SOFTWARE
By far the largest vote-counting company in the United States, Election Systems and Software (ES&S) of Omaha, Neb., was founded in 1980 by brothers Todd and Bob Urosevich. According to internet journalist Bev Harris of Talion.com, the company, originally known as American Information Systems, was controlled in the 1980s by the hard-right, fundamentalist-leaning Ahmanson family of California, heirs to the Home Savings of America fortune. In the nineties, the company could boast future U.S. Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) as its chairman; Hagel still owns stock in the McCarthy Group, which currently has a stake in ES&S. Since ES&S enjoys an exclusive contract with the state of Nebraska and counts 80 percent of the state's votes (the rest are hand-counted), Hagel is effectively part owner of the firm responsible for counting his own votes.
ES&S has been involved in voting-related scandals across the country, particularly in the South. In April 2002, Arkansas secretary of state Bill McCuen pleaded guilty to taking bribes and kickbacks in voting-machine scandals, part of which involved Business Records Corp. (BRC), now merged into ES&S. A BRC executive, Tom Eschberger, accepted immunity from prosecution in return for cooperating in the investigation, and has since become a Vice President of ES&S.
According to The Tallahassee Democrat, Sandra Mortham, Florida's top election official from 1995 to 1999, lobbies for both ES&S and the Florida Association of Counties, which endorsed ES&S in return for a commission. Mortham herself received commissions for ES&S touch-screen machines purchased by Florida counties (see "The Re-Election of Jim Crow," Southern Exposure Election 2002 Special Edition).
In another revolving-door scandal, the state of California has begun an investigation into Louis Dedier, the state's director of voting systems. Dedier accepted a job with ES&S, then made recommendations without disclosing the potential conflict of interest.
Breakdowns and other problems have plagued ES&S machines since at least the late 1990s. When the company's new ballot-reading machines malfunctioned in Hawaii in 1998, Tom Eschberger admitted there were difficulties, but protested to the Honolulu Star Bulletin that "in all fairness, there were 7,000 machines in Venezuela and 500 machines in Dallas that did not have problems." However, during that same election season, the Dallas devices initially failed to count 41,000 votes. And two years later, massive breakdowns and technical difficulties with ES&S systems rocked the Venezuelan national elections, causing the vote to be suspended. Pres. Hugo Chavez and Venezuelan election officials accused the company of "trying to destabilize the country's electoral process," while protesters chanted "Gringos go home!" at ES&S technicians.
ES&S-related problems continued in 2002, as Bev Harris has documented:
In the primaries, Union County, Florida, used ES&S machines for the first time. According to The Bradenton Herald, under old methods of hand counting, election workers usually finished tallying the county's votes by the end of the day. This time, when a programming error corrupted the machine count, officials had to resort to the old method. Altogether the process took more than twice as long as manual counting.
During early voting in Dallas County, Texas, voters complained that ES&S touch-screen devices were recording Democratic votes as votes for Republicans. Similar problems were reported in Florida.
Twenty percent of ES&S machines in Tangipahoa Parish, Louisiana, malfunctioned on election day. According to the Baton Rouge Advocate, the state committee that chose ES&S ignored the wishes of local officials
Translation from babelfish: You should calculate the average altitude of your country, any bulldozer has this level and to start again has nine.
Saddam put himself in power: just another thug who got enough power to murder the thug already in power.
The Taliban put itself in power.
Yes, the US helped Afghanistan throw out the imperialists. However, since the US tends to be non-imperialist, it left Afghanistan to the Afghans. Unfortunately, the Taliban built themselves up and took over all on their own.
Here's a reality check: the unemployment rate right now is 6%. This is lower than the average for: Clinton over his first three years (6.23%), George H.W. Bush's single term (6.28%), Reagan's 2nd term (6.48%), Carter's single term (6.56%), Ford/Nixon (6.64%), and Reagan's 1st term (8.58%). FDR, of course averaged about 18% unemployment for his two full terms before the war. The current rate of unemployment is, in fact, lower than the average rate of unemployment for the past 30 years.
Yes, Gore indeed made the false claim that he invented the Internet during a CNN interview.
$party_attorney: Ok, let's see those receipts and get the recount going. Polling place worker: Sure, let me just get that lockbox out of my trunk. *PPW returns with slightly warm lockbox. Opens the box, looks at strip after stip of black paper. $party_attorney & PPW: WHAT THE FSCK!?
Sony ha
I find it troubling when the shortcomings of the electronic voting schemes currently being used are portrayed in a partisan perspective, to illustrate how evil Bush is, or or conspiracies to steal elections, or claims like that. Approaching the issue as a political attack ploy might mobilize the left to action, but will only cause backlash from conservatives and drive them to support these voting technologies, if only to oppose the political attack.
In truth, having fair, verifiable, open elections with accurate vote counts is not a liberal thing or a conservative thing, it's something that everyone participating in a democratic process should be striving for.
Too often, voting issues are used not simply to elect political leaders, but as a political tool in their own right. For instance, in Florida in 2000, liberals push for recount after recount hoping to eventually get a result favorable to their candidate, yet in California 2003, the same left tries to halt a recall election until all precincts have electronic voting machines that would make such scrutiny of the paper trail impossible. Do they like double checking votes, or not, or do they just pick whatever is most advantageous for their candidate? Obviously, counterexamples of inconsistent attitudes towards voting by conservatives could be put forth as well, the point is that the voting process can become politicized and that is bad.
I just want a good, honest election. I want a paper trail that can be used to verify the winner according to some specific, predefined criteria. I want the ballots secure from tampering, hacking, fraud, and such. I want every part of the process, from how the votes will be tallied to how the electoral college works to how the voting machines work (including full source code) available for full public review and discourse. I do not want these things because I am conservative or liberal, but because I believe in a representative system of government. The candidate I hope will prevail will not be shared by someone of a differing ideology, but my vision for the voting process itself certainly could be.
opensource vote machines need to be used, at least you can tell if someone messed with the software, and what's in the software to begin with. with closed source, they can show you one thing, and then change it later without any visible changes...
and there should be logging to ensure a paper trail.
2) It's the length of a Presidential administration. W is in line to be the first one in 70 years to have a net loss of jobs. How is that arbitrary?
3) The economy has been in the tank for three years (and counting). Despite getting all of the tax breaks he asked for and despite having control over both houses and despite all of the positive sentiment coming out of the WH, the economy has been down for 3 years. When does he start taking responsibility for this? Oh, wait. We dealt with that in number 1: never.
4) a) We've found lots of mass graves of the dead of Kosovo killed by Milosevic. That's one of the reasons he's on trial now.
b) As an obvious supporter of the current invasion of Iraq, are you saying it was bad of Clinton to bomb them to try and get them to comply?
c) Are you saying you would have supported an invasion of Rwanda to save the Tutsis? That was during the previous administration, after all.
d) No, I was talking about Iraq. I was talking about taking all of the good will towards the US after 9/11 and throwing it in the crapper, taking a big dump on it, pouring on some gasoline and setting it on fire. I'm talking about invading Iraq on false pretenses (WMD, al-Quaeda) and then rewriting your reasons after you can't support your original ones (killing fields, democracy-building). I'm talking about failing to secure the supposed prime target again (where are Osama and Mullah Omar?). I'm talking about living in a dream world as to post-invasion circumstances (they'll be tossing flowers in our path and giving us their daughters to use) and having no real plan that approached reality. I'm talking about he huge number of conventional weapons caches that we know about and continue to leave totally unguarded because Rummy has determined that exactly the right number of soldiers are there right now. Those are the things I'm talking about.
You know, there's more, but I'm too annoyed thinking about it.
And here I am punching a paper ballot like a sucker.
Here's another reality check: those employment figures keep getting manipulated. Also, let's note where Clinton started out (6.28% under Bush the Elder) versus where Bush the Younger started out... Then there's the issue of people being underemployed--if I'm working as a greeter at Wal-Mart, I'm not making the same money I was as a programmer/financial planner/etc.
I'll bet all three companies have donated to the major democratic presidential hopefuls, too. So what?
-- Will program for bandwidth
Look, you may disagree with him, but Gore Vidal is one of the country's foremost writers and public intellectuals. He's been writing and publishing a sustained and articulate critique of the current directions of American political leadership -- from a decidedly patriotic, and small-r republican, perspective -- for decades. He was one of the most prominent intellectuals in this nation before I was born. Disagree with him all you like, but calling him an "idiot" like that betrays an incredible depth of ignorance.
He is a large stockholder in a corporation that owns media outlets out the wazoo.
you have a good point. Too bad the mods don't agree with it.
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I'll make it simple for you, AC.
We're not talking about unemployment rate, but job creation. The time frame is a Presidential term in office, 4 years.
WJC, WJC, GHWB, RWR, RWR, JC, RMN/GF, RMN, LBJ, JFK/LBJ, JFK, DWE, DWE, HST, FDR/HST, FDR, FDR, FDR: None of them had a net loss of jobs during these terms in office.
Herbert Hoover, 1929-1933 was the last President who presided over a net loss of jobs during his 4 year term in office. Now do you get it AC?
The CEO is on record as saying he will be honored to *DELIVER* the votes to put Bush into the white house in 2004.
At the very least, this is not an appropriate thing for a representative of an electronic voting machine company to say... let alone at a Bush fundraiser.
When it comes to voting, even the *appearance* of impropriety is a problem. The voting system and counting system must be above reproach by any party.
By this standard, the planned voting machines utterly fail. Austrailia has done a better job, as have some other countries. Electronic voting machines at the very least need to be open-source so that everyone can have confidence the code is valid and not biased or insecure. Beyond that, some sort of verifiable paper-trail or some other verification system is a must.
When it comes to voting systems, there MUST be voter-trust of the system. The current system that is planned for use in 2004 has no such trust, and this is a serious problem that must be addressed.
- Spryguy
There are three kinds of people in this world: those that can count and those that can't
What does this have to do with Bush? The electronic voting initiative was started under Bill Clinton.
Get your tinfoil hat ready, Gore.
The solution is not to get rid of one entirely, but rather to use both. That is, what we should have is an electronic machine that you vote on, a touch screen or whatnot. When you've made your vote, it prints out on a piece of paper your decisions. This gives the voter a chance to review their decisions to make sure everything is hunky dorey. If they are satisfied, they simply drop the paper in a slot and leave the voting booth.
Now, the votes can be auto-tallied by the computer system. If there needs to be a recount, there's a paper trail. Why is this hybrid approach not an option?
I could not justify my existence if I were a turkey farmer. Would I terminate myself? Undoubtably, yes.
You know, sometimes I wish people like you could actually live in the country you describe the US as being. That way you'd really be locked up, instead of creating this little fantasy world you live in.
Which of course means nothing. There is no national presidential election. There are 50 state elections for presidential electors, all held on the same day. Those electors are the ones who actually elect the president. So if a presidential candidate's electors in one state win by a large majority and another candidate's electors in another state win by a slim majority, they are still wins. The overall majority vote in the nation as a whole means nothing to the election of a president.
Yup, that's liberals for ya. "Free speech", unless it's something they don't agree with, and then they do everything in their power to shut 'em up.
You only think that FOX is conservative because they have "gasp!" actual conservatives to counter all the bullcrap liberals get to spew freely on other media outlets.
Just about every major newspaper, ALL the broadcast networks, nearly all the morning talk hosts, CNN, MSNBC, and you can go on and on about all the liberals on TV.
You just don't think they're liberal because they're not far enough left for ya.
If you had read the references I quoted about three or four posts back, you might have a clue, but why quote facts when you have Fox News?
Anyway, I fully understand that popular vote doesn't elect a President - however your title claimed that W got more votes in more states - two falsehoods in one. Gore got more votes - as recounted in the references which in turn are referenced to actual news sources rather than the orifices or Republican Party members - in both Florida (the only state that mattered with respect to the electoral college) and overall. The (multiply referenced) recounts indicated this as well. Thus W did not get more votes (he may have gotten more states, however) in any count that matters. But who needs the electoral college when you have the Supreme Court?
The coflicts of interest? Well, if you had read the references you might have found them. Two justices (Thomas and Rehnquist) both had family members working for Bush. And of course the Secretary of State in Florida (responsible for overseeing the recounts) was the chairwoman of W's campaign in Florida. Why let facts get in the way of a (bad) argument? As for nothing like this happening before, well, that isn't true either...see Bugliosi's analysis - it happened in Hawaii in 1960 (I believe - not certain on the date) Precedent did in fact exist, along with conflicts of interest.
The claims made about Clinton have been made by lots of people, but you are correct that they are not Republican Party positions and so it should not be accountable for them. That was a cheap shot on my part.
Didn't bother algore last election. (Sorry, cheap shot).
But I do get your point. Voting should be above reproach. They should arrest people that intimidate voters at polling places, throw people commiting voter fraud into jail, and make sure that everyone that wants to vote GETS to vote.
That's regardless of party. The voter fraud in the last election in Missouri (let's leave the polls open late to stack the deck) and Wisconsin (let's bribe the homeless with cigarettes to vote), was bad, but nothing compared to what it will be next election. Electonic voting will only make it worse.
Well it's no wonder that Gore's all upset about voting methods. Look what happened to him in the last presidential election!
::sigh::
Hi there, fellow AC, Libertarian, troll. I'm depressed now.
I truly believe in the Libertarian ideals and practices. I live my creed daily, unlike watermelons (green on the outside, Red on the inside), limousine liberals or fundy conservatives.
Yet I see Libertarian philosophy incessantly bashed by folks who are bright enough to know better.
- 1 Troll Insightful
How about: + 2 Flames both sides when they're obviously wrong, but they're so partisan they can't see it
or + 3 Carries the courage of his convictions.
Keep the faith, Libertarians. Either Justice for all will win out, or everything will go down in flames.
I can still post this because no Ha-- er, Thought Crime legislation prohibits it. Thanks Slashdot for at least not deleting my post. I can respect being modded to oblivion.
That's why we should put someone who will cut federal spending like Dubya in. No wait, he just spends money like there's no tommorrow and cuts taxes, bankrupting future generations.
Tax and spend liberals my ass.
It's better then running up a tab that someone else is going to have to pay for.
Yes. Yes it is.
Q.
Insert Signature Here
During my time at University, we had a lecture given by Professor Conan Fischer, a leading researcher on the Nazi party. This was given by the History Society and not part of any course. It was entitled "Hitler, the Nazis and the politics of New Labour". It was just after Tony Blair had become leader and was not yet Prime Minister.
Anyway, just before the lecture began we had about 30 university Labour group members march in and sit at the back of the lecture theatre. They then sat with folded arms and could not have made the point more clearly if they had brown shirts on.
The argument that was presented was that the mix of left and right wing rhetoric, family values, tough compassion, was very similar to the rhetoric that the Nazis used in pre war Germany. It would not be hard to draw parallels to Bush's compassionate conservative rhetoric. The cult of the leader was a strong theme as well.
Now I'm not suggesting that either Tony Blair or Dubya are Nazis, but it becomes clear that the same ideals and rhetoric can hide a multitude of different meanings.
You call me a pedant? I prefer the term "correct"
It's too bad the person with the most votes didn't win.
Nobody would bat an eye if the donors were any other party. I'm actually kind of glad that this electronic voting crap happened on a conservative rather than liberal watch. If this had happened, say, with Clinton in office or after the next Democrat President, we'd never hear about the problems inherent in the system in the mainstream press.
And how many stories have you heard about this in the mainstream press? By my count, CNN has run one story on it, and the New York Times has run another single story on it. The AP also ran a story, which was picked up by some outlets. But doing a search of news.google.com does not turn up all that much, certainly not as much as you'd think this would warrant.
Thank you! Did anybody ever see a report on exactly who Enron donated to? The Rebpulican connection was heavily touted as "proof" that Bush was in bed with Enron, but the truth of the matter was that Enron donated heavily to both of the big political parties. Yes, they did give a bit more to the Republicans, but the disproportions can be traced to state and local political parties. Enron was in Texas, a heavily conservative state.
Look at this. Summarized here for your pleasure: Total donations, 1990-2004 for Enron: 29% to Democrats, 71% to Republicans. Enron heavily favored Republicans in their political contributions, both on the state and national level. Enron obviously favored the Republican party.
Wait a second, Gore invented the internet-- how can he be against e-voting?
My point is that the absence of a paper trail is not a new problem. The real problem with electronic balloting is the fact that the ballots can be hacked remotely - a fact that we will realize only when wake up one day and find that a 14-year-old punk hacker nobody ever heard of has just been elected president.
[this
There are plenty of us on the other side of the pond with voices of reason. It just so happens that MY voice of reason may not agree with your voice of reason.
First off, Bush had absolutely NOTHING to do with invoking the September 11th attacks. Just like there was no way of him preventing it. Remember there was a bombing attemp on the WTC years before Bush was even elected. It has been a desired target for many years by those who would wish to cripple Western Civilization.
The economy was going bad before Bush was elected. Most of us saw it comming, and were ready for it. Those who were taken by surprise were the ones that actually thought that the president has the power to turn the tides of commerce.
However, don't take my defense of Mr. Bush as support for him. I think that he has bungled up foreign affairs even more than they were before, and embarassed our nation.
But the mess didn't start with Mr. Bush. It didn't start with Clinton either. It's been brewing for a long time. The English are mainly responsible for the mess over in the Middle East (Check your post WWI history). The U.S. didn't help the situation with our one-sided involvement with Israel either.
What urks me is all of those european "intellectuals", and the self righteous ones from other countries, who do nothing more than sit back on their laurels, find fault, and try to make themselves believe their country would handle things any different than the way the U.S. has if THEY were the most powerful nation in the world.
I didn't vote for Bush, and I certainly didn't vote for Gore. I'm an Anarchist by philosophical choice. I just wish the governments would step asside and let the people run the show. Then we'd see some real results.
-Jim
"Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws." Plato
I ran for office once, to be a state representative.
Talking with lobbyists from various groups, it became very apparent.
They all agreed with the high standards I was looking to bring to the office. They wanted to give my campaign as much money as they could.
BUT. . . the demographics for the district I was running in, showed that more than likely my party would -not- get elected. Therefore, (and they told me these things directly to my face) they were going to give their campaign contributions to the other party.
Their point was, if they gave money to me, and I didn't get elected, then they wouldn't be "in good" with the person who was.
Is that corruption? Maybe if you misconstrue it a bit. I don't think it is, I call it Political Pandering. They towed the line of the incumbant party. I see these folks as doing nothing more than the same thing.
It is not uncommon, for public companies to give money to incumbant presidents. It's no more than that.
Yes, Bush would have won the recount in progress. But the subsequent media study showed that in a majority of recount scenereos (ones that recounted ALL the ballots), Gore won. Six of Nine scenreos in fact.
The great irony is that using Bush's parameters for a recount, Gore would have won... and using Gore's parameters, Bush would have won.
But its' a lie to say Bush WON. In reality it was a statistical tie, with the margin of error much larger than the margin of winning, in ANY recount scenereo. But the clear intent of the people was to Gore, in particular, taking into account the disenfranchised minority voters, and the butterfly ballot fiasco that had thousands of votes intended for Gore actually going to Buchanan... it's clear that Gore *should* have been given the state and its electoral slate.
But Republcians don't care about what's right. Republicans care about getting their way, whatever the means, whatever the cost. And that's why they worked so hard to disenfranchise voters, harass the people doing the recount, and to stop the recount all together. They didn't give a shit about the "will of the people". They cared about winning.
But I guess it is hard to acknowledge that you are methodically and knowingly sowing the seeds of your own eventual destruction.
At least you aren't alone, my government is hell bent on following yours into the gaping abyss.
Q.
Insert Signature Here
Good job stating the truth...now if it would only matter to this crowd.
You point is 100% accurate, but, unfortunately, you're talking to dead wood. Notice how the concept of a majority vote is constantly repeated, with no recognition that we are not a democracy, we're a representative republic.
Anyway, it's nice to see that there are a few individuals on here that have a brain!
Cya...
Come on... if it ain't broke don't fix it. Paper ballots, while not perfect, are just fine! Quite frankly, the excuse that Elections Supervisors are overworked and under too much pressure having to count individual ballots is silly in the extreme. Every *4 years* these people have to kick into high gear and earn their keep. I want to see them sweat for the paycheck and have them count ballots!
My local county uses optical scanning. You black in a circle next to your choice then it gets run through a counting machine at each precinct. Subsequent checks at Election Central is done to corroborate the count before the final tally is released. If there's an issue or a recount is ordered there are boxes full of paper ballots to go over. Your anonymity is assured, a paper trail is available, the initial count is done by a machine to ease the work load of the Elections Office and there have been *NO* problems, issues or questions of corruption. The software that counts the ballots is dirt simple and wide open for review and evaluation. And nobody donates to the dirtbags in the paleocons party.
Like someone said, the Republicans don't want to be in the majority, they want to rule.
...is ill-fated on many levels. If you have the time, listen to "The Annoying Gap Between Theory and Practice" audio found on this page. If fills many gaps as far as understanding the fundamental "problems" with e-voting.
"The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance - it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel Boorstin
And how many stories have you heard about this in the mainstream press? I've seen several in Newsweek recently, actually. My local news in Phoenix also ran a few stories recently. That's exactly my point, though. There actually were stories, though far too few for the magnitude of the problem, reported on this recently in the mainstream press.
By my count, CNN has run one story on it, and the New York Times has run another single story on it. The AP also ran a story, which was picked up by some outlets.
Yep. There were others, mostly local. I believe Fox also ran one, but I'm not entirely sure.
But doing a search of news.google.com does not turn up all that much, certainly not as much as you'd think this would warrant.
At this point it's largely (and badly) treated as a "techie" issue.
Look at this. Summarized here for your pleasure: Total donations, 1990-2004 for Enron: 29% to Democrats, 71% to Republicans. Enron heavily favored Republicans in their political contributions, both on the state and national level. Enron obviously favored the Republican party.
I don't know anything about opensecrets.org , but it's yet another source I wasn't familiar with; thanks for another site to look at. And that, I believe, illustrates my frustration a little better. Looking back on the mainstream stories I've read about how Enron was totally a "Republican" company, there was never a mention of any donations to the Democrats; even a statement of "largely donates to the Republicans" would have been nice.
It comes down to this for me: I'm having a hard time finding any news sources that don't present a glaringly biased point of view for either conservative or liberal views. CNN is extremely liberal, Fox is extremely conservative. Even my local news stations are leaning towards the conservative side, as I live in a largely conservative state. Finding out the truth is becoming more and more confusing as more and more sources dilute actual news with political leanings towards one side or the other. I'm watching CNN and Fox together to try find out what the real truth is, but I suspect that a lot is left out on both sides. I want facts, not political interpretations of some of the facts that support a position.
There's so little difference between politics and jihad lately...
Yes, democrats wanted a BETTER voting system. This isn't it. This is a worse voting system. Its insecure, and it's being created and forced by people who have actively promised to deliver the next election to Bush. Now, do you think that's right?
And why is it that republicans turn everything on its head and blame Clinton? Perhaps instead of blaming clinton for all the problems grand and small we should take responsibility for our own actions.
(why is it always okay when Republicans do something -- like lie, or blame someone else and pass the buck -- but they then turn around and poitn fingers at Democrats when they do what amounts to the exact same thing?? Huh?)
As a review of the sordid history of the election from some reputable source such as This One will remind you, the recounts were stopped by order of the US Supreme Court in response to legal action sponsored by Bush et al, and Florida selected it's electors based on the original, suspect totals.
The remaining thousands of votes were thus never actually recounted properly. If they had been, it could easily have been either candidate's race.
In my opinion, when the margin of victory in any state is less than the margin of error in your polling, it is negligent in the extreme to claim that either side is a valid victor. Of course, if more states followed a process of proportionally selecting electors, rather than the prevalent all-or-nothing system, this wouldn't be nearly as much of an issue...
>Every company is trying to design an electronic equivalent to a paper process that is already suprisingly flawed. For example, because of civil rights issues, it is illegal to require a voter ID here. Which means in the electronic world, you cannot store a 1-to-1 relationship between a voter and a vote.
Secret ballots are an important principle. You don't *want* to store a 1-to-1 relationship between a voter and a vote. The secrecy allows voters to be free of pressure and intimidation.
While voting results can be faked, Mares never fake orgasm!
When you vote you should be given a copy of how you voted. It should be electronic and have an identification number. Just purchase and bring a usb memory device with you when you go to vote and you get an electronic receipt which you can verify later when you get home and compare with voting records.
Organizations for voters rights can solicit people to send in copies of your receipts for stitistical validation of an election.
If you can get a stitistically signifigant amount of voting error an election should be invalidated and people should vote again. Florida should have voted again during the last presidential debacle as well as other states given how close the election was the ammount of error was statistically signifigant.
What better place for the paper trail than with the voters?
"all three owners of the companies who make these machines are donors to the Bush administration. Is this not corruption?"
Gore Vidal, just because this is something you would do if you were President and had these donors does not mean everyone will too.
Thank God I don't think like Gore Vidal.
Not even worth bringing up. He is simply speculating, and everyone jumps on it as proof. E-gad, it's just some old guy expressing an opinion.
As for other states, it's the same way - it's not that Drivers licenses have been given out to illegal aliens for decades, but rather that states didn't impose non-driving-related requirements until recently. During the 1980s, the Feds changed the 1970s privacy laws to permit the States to collect SSNs from foolish volunteers, then changed them again to permit States to make SSNs mandatory, with the excuse of preventing bad drivers from getting licenses in multiple states after losing their home licenses, and then started using Federal highway money bribes to get states that weren't collaborating with them to play along, just as they did for forcing the drinking age up to 21. There have been states besides California that wanted to go with the right-wing political correctness flow and harass immigrants during the 90s or maybe even 80s, but it was all basically a new thing.
Free countries generally restrict who's allowed to drive to protect other drivers. It's not strictly Constitutional, and it's an interference with the fundamental human rights of freedom to travel, but road safety is an important thing to preserve and nobody's come up with a really good alternative. Totalitarian societies, on the other hand, like to have pass laws, and internal passports, to keep the rabble in line and make sure the underclasses only go where the government wants to let them. You've probably noticed that over the last 10 years, the airlines have gotten the US government to let them require ID to fly (the government likes the amount of database feed they get, and the airlines get to stop travel agencies from buying lots of cheap discount tickets and reselling them), but even Greyhound has been talked into letting cops harass passengers, and in some cities, they're also demanding government photo ID, and increasing numbers of hotels are demanding photo ID, sometimes claiming it's because of local government requirements. I'll leave you to draw your own conclusions about whether the US climate is moving more towards freedom or totalitarianism.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
"With each action Bush ever more enrages the Muslims. And there are a billion of them. And sooner or later they will have a Saladin who will pull them together, and they will come after us. And it won?t be pretty."
Is this not corruption?
No, it's not.
Just because money changes hands doesn't mean anybody is corrupt.
And once again, the paper trail is just a stupid idea in the first place. Who cares if the votes are on paper or on a properly verifyable electronic system? The electronic one will ALWAYS be superior to the paper one; in terms of accuracy, dependability, reliabiliy, and availability to anyone who wants to look an electronic system wins hands down.
Done properly, electronic voting is superior to paper voting in all ways. Let's not contaminate that by throwing paper back into the mix.
Look, you may disagree with him, but Rush Limbaugh is one of the country's foremost radio personalities and political pundits. He's been writing and publishing a sustained and articulate critique of the current directions of American political leadership -- from a decidedly patriotic, and small-r and big-R republican, perspective -- for decades. He was one of the most prominent and informed conservative voices in this nation before you were born. Disagree with him all you like, but calling him a "big fat idiot" like that betrays an incredible depth of ignorance.
[/petard]
Being alarmist, partisan, and incorrect for a sustained amount of time does not lend any validity to your claims. Vidal is intelligent, erudite and articulate, but the fact that he has been being self-righteous and fatuous since time began doesn't make him worth listening to. Like Noam Chompsky, he couches his absolute inability to see opposing points of view in compelling language which arouses liberals and persuades no one. If Ann Coulter and Michael Moore continued on for 50 years and learned to write, would they suddenly become fountains of knowledge?
...he wouldn't have hacked the electoral college's vote. The people don't elect the president, the electoral college does. Of course, I pitty the electoral college representative (in some states) who doesn't vote with the mandate of their state's population. Some states will hand out jail time.
To know is to have knowledge....to understand is to be enlightened.
Bush is not the first President elected without a majority of the popular vote. That's the way the system is set up, doofus. Didn't you learn anything in school?
People like to talk about politics. I see people talking about politics on video game forums.
Vidal undoubtedly had current pols like Bush and Ashcroft in mind when he wrote his latest book, his third in two years. Inventing a Nation: Washington, Adams, Jefferson takes us deep into the psyches of the patriotic trio. And even with all of their human foibles on display -- vanity, ambition, hubris, envy and insecurity -- their shared and profoundly rooted commitment to building the first democratic nation on Earth comes straight to the fore.
I dislike making statements like this, but only an American could have said that. There was a democracy in Switzerland in Europe in the 8th century, almost 1000 years before the USA came to be. And it's not the only one. There were others as well.
But that's not really my point, although the American habit of forgetting that a world exists outside its borders is surely a problem. No, actually I think the problem in the USA is a two edged sword. On the one hand there are few nations that believe in a written document as religiously as the Americans do in their constitution (I doubt that even Islamic republics have as many true believers). That blind belief in the constitution and the freedoms that it entails is what makes America a country that is not beset by shifting forms of governments and revolutions.
But that same belief in a document that is over 200 years old also makes the USA inflexible to change until it gets forced on them by corrupt politicians using fear to corrupt the system and change the meaning of that document.
With your rubbish leader, corrupt politicians and dodgy wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, must say I'm bloody happy not be American. Thank god I'm english...........hang on........bugger, we have all those things too.
Tierra del fuego probably best option.
> Diecinueve. Treinta y dos... ten and nine. Thirty and two...
In spanish, like in most languages, there's a single word for the numbers 70,80,90.
In spanish ninenty, is "noventa". Ninty nine is "Noventa y nueve". In French, it's quatre-veint-dix-neuf, which is "FOUR TIMES TWENTY TEN NINE" whic is basically doing addition just to express a number.
Because if you get a receipt to take with you out of the polling place, you can prove who you voted for, and purchasing votes then becomes feasible. The only thing preventing buying votes right now is that the people would take the money then vote for who they were going to vote for anyway.
I can't help but thinking that this is a very weak argument. Buying votes that way would require an enormous conspriracy, and would be discovered in a heart beat (in order to get people to sell the votes in the first place, the buyers would have to get the word out to a large number of people...the chance that at least one of them would rat on them is about 100%).
Instead, we get the nice quiet "all in the family" conspiracy of rigged voting machines, which is much easier to keep quiet.
I, for one, would rather see reciepts.
-- MarkusQ
Hey, PhysicsGenius! I see you and Boromir are back trolling. It's been awhile...welcome back!
..at the least they can realize that he is far from perfect. I think the public's views of him are far more accurate now then right after 9/11 when many people treated him like a great American hero for making a few speeches and promising revenge.
Hmmm... Pie...
If you think the Media constitutes AM talk radio including Rush Limbaugh and replicas and no other voices, you're sadly mistaken.
CNN is not titled towards the conservative point of view. Neither is ABC, CBS or NBC. Or CNBC or MSNBC or PBS. You can point to Fox News as the lone exception. Various talk radio shows are titled to the right, but Alan Colmes is not a right winger, neither is Jim Hightower and there are others out there who aren't right wing.
We don't want an election without a paper trail...
Umm, I think an electronic trail would be much more reliable than a paper trail.
Don't become a regular here, you will become retarded. -- Yoda the Retard
Thursday, November 13, 2003
Al-Qal'a (The Fortress) an Islamist Internet forum, posted the first of a two-part interview with a person who introduced himself as Abu Salma Al-Hijazi, one of the Al Qaida commanders closest to Osama bin Laden.(1) The interview was conducted in Iraq, south of Faluja. The article notes that Al-Hijazi was surrounded by five masked men carrying missiles as well as personal weapons. The following are excerpts from the interview:
In regard to rumors about a large-scale attack against the U.S. during the month of Ramadan, Al-Hijazi said that "a huge and very courageous strike" will take place and that the number of infidels expected to be killed in this attack, according to primary estimates, exceeds 100,000. He added that he "anticipates, but will not swear, that the attack will happen during Ramadan."
He further stated that the attack will be carried out in a way that will "amaze the world and turn Al Qaida into [an organization that] horrifies the world until the law of Allah is implemented, actually implemented, and not just in words, on His land... You wait and see that the balance of power between Al Qaida and its rivals will change, all of a sudden, Allah willing."
Regarding Al Qaida detainees, Al-Hijazi said: "We follow their situation closely... the collaborating governments will pay the price for capturing these heroes who want to revive the glory of their nation and shake off the dust of humiliation and disgrace."
Al-Hijazi added that the "collaborating and treacherous" governments should know that Al Qaida has a long reach and its members enjoy popularity that will not end just because apostate governments detain hundreds of Al Qaida's members. "As soon as the governments detain one of our people, ten like him join us... this is no secret."
Al-Hijazi said that Al Qaida instructed its members not to confront the governments of Islamic countries and clarified that Americans are the main target of the organization, wherever they may be, in order to cause their disintegration and collapse, even if it takes a long time. "We are patient," he added, "our patience will only end with the collapse of America and its agents."
Al-Hijazi also said: "There is no doubt that the demise of America and its collapse will lead to the collapse of these fragile regimes that depend on it... We will not stop until we establish the Islamic Caliphate and until Allah's law is implemented in His land."
It seems, that if the machines were made by the Democratic Party's contributors, he (and/or many of people agreeing with him on this forum) would not have minded.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
ummmm, except in Rush's case, it's just false. This isn't about ideological bias; it's about intellect.
Gore Vidal is related (albeit distantly) to Al Gore. Doesn't this sound like sour grapes to you? Plus, he's got a new book out so he's probably going after some free publicity. The new book looks pretty good, though, I must say.
Amazing magic tricks
Strategery.
Ah, I see you follow the time-honored Slashdot tradition of replying before you finish reading the article. The missing logic is the point of the post....as noted, conveniently I might add, in the sentence following the one you cited.
===============
Together, we will drive the rats from the tundra.
Look at this [opensecrets.org]. Summarized here for your pleasure: Total donations, 1990-2004 for Enron: 29% to Democrats, 71% to Republicans. Enron heavily favored Republicans in their political contributions, both on the state and national level. Enron obviously favored the Republican party.
And yet when push came to shove, and Enron came begging the Bush Admin for a bailout, they shut the door in their faces. Contrast with the Clinton Admin, which pulled big strings to win a lopsided deal for Enron in India. Which dollar was the better spent for Enron?
It is false that dollars spent=influence gained. The dollars get the donor a hearing (sometimes), but the convincing is not merely in the talking.
You're right, but it does explain why MORE comments are on the liberal side, because MORE people feel that way. Especially when you add the Democratic and Libertarians together. You've got a few million more liberals than conservatives. It's very simple math, DUH
Slashdot is made up of INDIVIDUALSposting their opinions, not representatives of groups of opinion holders. If it were we would all call it stupid.
So when you sit there and go "GOD I CAN'T BELIEVE ALL THESE FUCKING LIBERALS" Just think about the past presidential election and you will realize that there are more voting liberals than voting conservatives.
Slashdot Eds Link Anonymous Posts With Logged Posts
They Are Vermin Feeding On Each Other's Feces.
I Hate \.
The governor of Florida helped out, too.
This isn't about ideological bias; it's about intellect.
Ah, you seem to think that one cannot be an idiot if one has intellect. I disagree with that position. Indeed, I acknowledge Mr. Vidal's knowledge and skills, but IMO that isn't enough to disqualify one from idiocy. Intellectual idiots are everywhere. In the world of partisan politics, in fact, one need only stroll across the aisle to find them (either direction; idiocy is of course in the eye of the beholder).
"we need to stop paving the earth and be friends with the people of the world!" "I love Captain Planet" "Never use force unless its to take land and rights away for the good of the social collective" "We are responsible for 9/11" Good God protect me from this load of horse shit thinking
In 2000 the Democrats just made new ballots when
they lost Florida. They kept on making new
ballots, and endless recounts, all in violation
of Florida law, and the all Democrat Florida
Supreme Court let them. In a FAIR election, you
follow the rules in place at the time the voting
occurs. You don't make up new rules because you
lost! The U.S. Supreme Court had to finally slap
the Florida court's collective hands. BAD boys
and girls. You took an oath, now live up to it!
The DamnOldRats also threw out the military
absentee votes (on paper also I believe). Heaven
forbid the military votes get counted. Hell, they
were even caught eating chads they had punched out
of ballots, several times. Not to mention taking
ballots to be counted in public to private LOCKED
areas, again, several times.
Paper trail, schmaper trail. The Democrats don't
need paper to cheat! And Republicans don't cheat,
so what is the big deal?
Crying "dictatorship" over this reminds me of those that cry "genocide" over a few people getting injured, while overseas real genocide (ie. lots of people getting killed just because the belong to a particular group) is going on.
People will tend to remember the hysteria but not the problem - which is a large and scary issue in this case. I don't live in the USA, but it sets the policy of my country.
The two sets of skills (politician, critic) do not necessarily intersect but bot are necessary.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
... don't ejaculate such nonsense.
Anonimity is the only thing that ensures people can vote according to their beliefs and not to social pressures.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
It is just that the politicians have legalized it and you, the US citizens, even defend such rotten state of affairs.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Goverments do not affect the economy.
To inccur in a debt of 87 billion US$ to "reconstruct" a foreign country will have neither a positive nor negative effect in the US economy.
To protect US steel producers will have no effect on the economy.
To ignore the Kyoto agreement will have no effect on the economy.
NAFTA did not have any effect on the economy.
Man, thanks for letting me know, I was under such false impressions that I now feel ashamed of my ignorance.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Or the Mafia guy hanging around outside (or even working at the polls) says to you "vote for 'so-and-so' or else! We'll be watching."
You know...there are some reasons for anonymous voting...
"Empathise with stupidity, and you're halfway to thinking like an idiot." - Iain M. Banks
The debate was never over electoral versus popular votes. It was over the Supreme Court deciding Florida. When Republicans start defending the Electoral College, it sounds an awful lot like, "I have an alibi for the night in question, and even if I didn't, it was self defense."
Gore won. Six of Nine scenreos in fact
And the link supporting this claim is where exactly. Probably the same place your head is at (hint, up your ass). What has your political party done for you lately? We should just be thankful that GW Bush is president and not Al Gore at this important point in our history.
Al Gore: "I see you have a bomb in your trunk. How do you think that makes ME feel?"
OK, so Gore's older by far than the average Slashdot reader; presumably most of us won't mind be referred to as "puerile readers"?
How is this insightful?
Hmm If i were a voting machine company, wouldn't I donate to WHOEVER was in office to get them to use MY machine in the next election?
It's the Slashdot conspiracy effect! All theory, no logic!
"I can't give you a brain, so I'll give you a diploma" - The Great Oz (blatently stolen sig)
> more votes in more states would imply that Bush got more votes
Maybe in your fucked up left-wing logic (right-wing logic is just as bad). "More votes in more states" means that in each of more than 50% of the states, Bush got more than 50% of the votes. That does NOT mean that all states counted he got more than 50%.
> I've forgotten more original thoughts than you'll ever have.
;)
Oh man, altzheimer's already?
At least Al Gore [moveon.org] seems to have "moved on" from those days and taken a stand in favor of freedom (more in opposition to the outrageous Bush "enemy combatant" designation than the Patriot Act, but this is definitely in the category of Bush's refusal to respect basic civil rights.)
BAHAHAHAHA! Yea, he moves on and supports freedom when he is out of office? How wounderful, generous and all the rest. BTW, he was saying the same things when he was IN office and dismantling our freedoms. Seems to be a family thing with his wife, Tipper, heading up the PMRC.
Eve Fairbanks says I drive a hybrid!LOL
Just to be clear, since you seem to be defending him fairly assiduously, do you agree with the president on this? Stand and be counted if you do.
sulli
RTFJ.
First, I was speaking of GORE.
Now, for the unrelated question, YES I support the proper application of the President's Constitutional Powers.
Where were Canadians sent to Syria by the US? You are speaking of that Syria that is constantly pissing us off and barely has any sort of diplomatic relations with the US?
Eve Fairbanks says I drive a hybrid!LOL
Backing up a bit, who was held without legal representation?
If his lawyer filed anything I believe your question is poorly stated.
Eve Fairbanks says I drive a hybrid!LOL
read my most recent journal.
sulli
RTFJ.
And this is a classic case of you not knowing what the hell you're talking about...
The whole story is based on which "US Official" "admitting" that this was done so the suspect would be tortured?
What would this "official's" title be?
Ah, yes, un-named.
The Washington Post Guide to un-named officials:
White House Source: a person who delivers stuff to the White House
Administration Official: a person who signs for deliveries at the Department of Education cafeteria.
Pentagon Source: perhaps a janitor, perhaps lower.
Pentagon Official: the E4 I got drunk at Bullfeather's last night
etc.
Eve Fairbanks says I drive a hybrid!LOL
That is one of the funniest trolls I have seen in a while.
Welcome back, PG.
Your credit card information wants to be free.
Yes, this is absolutely the case. Bush has managed to get every single judge through the senate, unabated. His entire $700 billion tax plan was passed and became law last year. The estate tax is gone and dead for good, he passed his medicare drug coverage, and noone anywhere is critisizing anything about the Bush administration within the US. You can't find anyone "dissenting" because they've all been rounded up at Gitmo when they dare utter "uh maybe we should do this instead" in response to a Bush administration proposal. No polls report Bush having favorable ratings under 90% because all those who oppose him don't get polled and pollsters are rounded up and beaten if they dare cross the president.
Rush isn't even consistant. If you listen to him he changes his views on everything. He is just a reactionary and a demagouge. I love listening to Rush but only for the entertainment value.
im suprised the self-deprecating over-simplyfying armchair asshole havent moderated this one down to -500 Truth Hurts.
The fact of the matter is most of the modern systems have quirks, and the leaders are sometmies quirkier and disconnected, but thats okay, these armchair pros have all the answers.
i think its simple. these people who bitch, generally they are smart, but they cant do enough hard work or apply themselves in a way that makes them wealthy. so instead of trying harder, they sit back, enjoy our advanced civilization, and shit on it every chance they get.
i love to see those pricks suddenly warped back in time to a 15000BC hunter gatherer commune and see how the fuck they like a society they could come up with all the answers for.
Liberal? Conservative? When did I mention or even hint at either class?
If you had bothered to actually read what I wrote, you'd find that I did neither. What I did comment on was his explanation of our election system and how the reality of it is lost on a lot of the Slashdot crowd.
It is you who assumed that I was making a political comment. In fact, I was making a comment about how everyone seems to think that our government is all about the majority of people voting a certain way. It is not. We are, again, a representative republic, not a democracy. Granted, there are democratic principles at the core of our government, but we are not a complete democracry.
And, I'm glad we're not. People like you are the reason why.
DEAD WOOD comes to mind again...get a brain and learn how to respond to what people write, not what you think their beliefs are. That you assume, and assume too much, is obvious.
But, since you brought it up, I don't sit around going "GOD I CAN'T BELIEVE ALL THESE FUCKING LIBERALS", I sit around going "GOD, I WISH ALL THESE FUCKING LIBERALS WOULD GO THE FUCK AWAY BECAUSE THEY'RE FUCKING ANNOYING MORONS."
Regards.