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Does Redskins Loss Presage A Kerry Win?
Puny Human Nick writes "As mentioned before, the last home game the Redskins play before the election has predicted who will win since 1944. Well, the Redskins v. Green Bay game ended a few hours ago and it looks as though Kerry is going to win on Tuesday."
The Redskins suffered a bad call with 2:35 when they were about to tie the game. If Kerry does win, this must mean he does it unfairly.
Of course, Baseball is the definitive method for predicting the outcome of political elections.
(?)
Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes. --E. W. Dijkstra
...unless... can they tie in football?
Red Sox win 8 in a row, Patriots lose today, old sports adages are breaking all over the place when MA is involved.
As someone who watched the game it means that Bush will win the election and then it'll be overturned in favor of Kerry by the judges. That would be the exact parallel with the game.
Since the Red Sox won the Series the end of the world must be rapidly approaching.
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
This is not really politically related, but I am a huge Packer fan and a Bush support (wait, do I hear hick jokes in the distance ?). What is a poor divided Elephant with a Cheesehead supposed to do ?
It was actually 1932. The washington times quoted it wrong as 1936 also.
it doesnt matter who is elected, it will be a loser.
You would think that people with sport superstitions would have had some sense knocked into them after the World Series...
... not that I would mind Kerry winning.
http://snopes.com/sports/football/election.asp According to Snopes, Redskins have had magical powers since 1936.
I believe a better question is does collective consciousness somehow affect the outcome of certain events, and could some events be tied together?
o .com/sections/scitech/WhosCounting/whoscounting021 006.html
Remember September 11th 2002, the New York Lottery came out 9-1-1? That was very coincidental.
http://www.saliu.com/bbs/messages/911.html
http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:more.abcnews.g
Yeah, but Tues/Wednesday of what week? Surely you don't think the election will actually end on the day it's supposed to...
Loves science, hates superstition... unless it agrees with their world viewpoint...
Indeed, let us hope so. Otherwise...
"OH SHIT, THERE'S A HORSE IN THE HOSPITAL!"
The Weekly Reader has also correctly picked the president for about the same length of time. They chose Bush.
I think I speak for at least three Slashdotters with mod points - whether they be Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, Green, Constitution, or Guns-And-Dope Party - when I pound out the following message in Morse code using my head and the desk:
"What the fuck? What the fucking fuck fuck?!?!"
Of course, I'm continually let down. What in the heck kind of superstition makes this worthy of being posted to Slashdot in the first place? Are we trying to ignite flamewars? Are there too many mod points being used in technically sound articles and we need to draw some away? Seriously.
If not now, when?
I was at this game only a few short hours ago - the mood there was incredible. I was actually surprised at the number of packers fans who showed up - there was plenty of jeering amongst everyone in the stands (me included, being both a packer fan and a democrat).
At one point there was what seemed to be the scoring play of the game from Washington Redskins - it would have made the score 21-20, but it was called back for a very interesting foul. (NFL.com reports: " The flag apparently was thrown because Thrash was not set for a full second after going into motion on the play. He said he didn't want to comment on the call because he "didn't know for sure" if it was the right one.")
Seems to me to be the exact kind of tone of the election too - very close, with some contested calls!!
But not because it predicts anything. Interresting because it allows us to discuss critical thinking. This is a perfect example of "post hoc ergo propter hoc" - a VERY common logical fallicy, also known as a "coincidental correlation".
Basically the problem is people frequently see something happen and ASSUME that something they noticed, or known about the prior situation MUST be the cause. - It gets better with increasing numbers (if the reskins game had only predicted the winner once its cute, but after 15 elections it has got to be right!)
Now the reason this is such a good exercise to use for this important critical thinking skill is because most reasonable people would already know that the redskins game predicting an election is absurd.
Then again, yesterday on the radio, Daniel Schorr said the electorate is looking for something, anything on which to base a final decision. This is why stories that would normally not be gaining a lot of attention any other time (flu shots, 'Azzam the American') are getting so much play.
#!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I'm glad you pointed all that out. There was me thinking there was a serious cause and effect going on here
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
It died in 1996 - the Redskins lost to the Bills 38-13 and Bill Clinton was reelected two days later.
I should also point out that the Red Sox broke 80+ years of losing the World Series, the Patriots just lost for the first time in 18 games, and all three major schools in Florida lost on the same day for the first time in almost 30 years.
Have the Redskins won a game since 1936?
Signed, former VA resident.
Sig it.
The rule follows for the incumbent party, not just the incumbent president. That makes 17 data points now, possibly 18.
It's obviously just a coincidence, but an interesting one at that.
Also, I'm sure that if the Redskins won, we would have had the same story, and the same things would be said except with "Bush" instead of "Kerry".
What?
enough said.
go get it
Imagine the headline: Slashdot polls won by serious option (re: not cowboyneal). World assumed to end soon.
As an anti-Bush Redskins fan, I can't decide whether to be happy or sad. I think my head is about to explode.
SpyDock: Scientific Python in a Docker container
Say we're talking about 15 elections. To be able to predict them accurately is a 1 in 2^15 chance or 1 in 32768. All you need to have is 32 thousand things going on and you're all but assured that one of them will be a perfect predictor.
It reminds me of a stock scam from a few years back. You mail out aprediction on some random stock to 10,000 people. Half you say it will rise, half you say it will fall. Repeat until you've been right 10 times in a row. Now contact the 10 people you were right for, and offer to sell them your method for $LOTS. How many people would turn down someone who was right ten times in a row.
Of course, like every other non-american, I'm desperately hoping Bush loses
As a slashdotter, I think we have the responsibility to hack the diebolt boxes to ensure that Kerry wins. Not an Eminem fan, but I liked this video. Eminem's antibush Video
The real reason Kerry will win is because the polls are very wrong. Just as generals always "plan to win the last war" the polls are showing methods designed to win the last election.
When they poll "likely voters" they ignore, among other considerations, people who have cellphones. AFAIK, they only poll over land lines.
Also, there's huge assumptions in the statistical breakdown of voting age. Young voters often don't care about the election and have the lowest turnout. However, many people are so worked up over this election and the results of the last one that I believe we'll see the highest percentage of young voters in a long time. Most younger voters lean more towards the left.
Thus the polls are skewed because their assumptions are totally wrong. Given that it's a dead heat in most polls right now, Kerry should come out ahead.
Unless there's some kind of cheating/manipulation of the election, but what are the odds of that?
Introducing the new Occam Fusion! Now with sqrt(-1) fewer blades!
This curious "streak" has been reported for a week or so, long before anyone knew what the outcome would be. To say that Kerry supporters are grasping at straws is silly, this is merely reporting the result of a story brought up a week ago, no party is seriously trying to spin this, everyone realizes this is just a funny coincidence.
Also, just to clarify since you didn't seem to understand the story, it involves the incumbent's party not the incumbent himself, so if some correlation did exist (it doesn't), it would apply in every election, not just one where someone was running for reelection.
Sigh...drawing causation or correlation from 5 data points is just sad. Kerry supporters are grasping at straws.
...sure helps to demystify curses with logic, but most people don't bother.
I think the sad thing is how seriously the Bush camp is taking this. While most everyone else is taking this as a "Ha ha! What a neat coincidence", repeating it tongue in cheek, the rabid frothy spittled Bush supporters have actually come out defensively regarding this (see your post, and many before it). Amazing.
There's been 17 elections since this 'pattern' supposedly emereged. At most, that means 9 times an incumbent was running. At most, that means 5 times the incumber lost when the Redskins did.
Huh? Firstly it's not a curse, it's a humorous coincidence. Ha ha. Secondly, RTFA - They're talking about the incumbent PARTY. Thirdly, your convoluted attempt at bringing "logic" to the table looks like it misfired - your logic is nonsensical.
It _is_ a pretty unlikely coincience....but unlikely coincidences happen all of the time.
Ahem. Allow me to demonstrate to you chaps my fine-tuned statisical methode for calculating the electature of the united states presidentiary - because as we all well know, a correlation implies causation, especially when we have a data set of such magnitudinous proportions ...
I personally didn't take the article as anything that was meant to be remotely serious - I figured it was just some people having fun and saying 'hey, look at this neat thing' - is that so wrong? I seriously doubt there is anyone who thinks this actually means something, but everybody's pounced on this story as if someone suggested that installing linux causes bad breath - it's obviously meant to serve as a little bit of humor to lighten to overly virtriolic political atmosohere. Let's not go crazy over it...
My blog
Yes, they're both rich white men. But aside from that there are a host of rather large differences.
For one thing, the Bush Doctrine is a serious departure from previous American foreign policy. Kerry has advocated an approach that relies on the sort of coalition-building that Bush Sr. used with such effectiveness in the first Gulf War.
Kerry believes that excessive tax cuts for those who make over $200k per year is counterproductive. Bush believes that tax cuts of any kind, particularly those that favor the wealthy, result in increased entrepreneurial activity, which pumps up the economy, resulting in more jobs for everyone. These differences definitely have an effect on economic policy.
On the environment, the candidates aren't even close. Kerry has a long history of working for the environment, and Bush doesn't even know what the word "environment" means.
Bush has to cater to his "Base" by nixing stem cell research. Kerry knows that science is not something to be feared.
The differences go on and on and on...
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
While the umps named the wrong player, the player on the far right side of the redskins line wasn't set when the ball was hiked, so the call was a good call. They screwed up, and paid the price. Of course, we could say the first part of that about Bush, and I hope the second as well.
Love your comments about the polls. I think it's hilarious that people pay such close attention to them; they ask 3,000 out of millions of registered voters and claim that it has an accuracy of +/- 5%... ludicrous....
I think you're reading WAY too much in this. Get out and vote, rather than saying who's going to win based on a football game...
Holy shit .. by the looks of these replies, you'd think you folks were on his Doctoral comittee and he just submitted this as his Disertation thesis ... ... sweet jesus, it's just a funny coincidence ...
...
... hey, there is no Santa Claus either so I don't want to hear about that weird deer you saw running around on your roof on christmas eve last year, either ...
It's an 'interesting' statistic -- an urban myth. You people are busting out with Chebyshev's law this, and according to Modus Ponens that
hey, news flash, you're not going to find the meaning of life encoded in the articles of slashdot
Wow
Now hold your horses! Scientific method is basically a sophisticated method of ancestor worship. Never underestimate the power of the ancestors.
O Mighty Einstein, use thy divine powers to curse the writer of the parent post; may his equations never ring true, may his chalk break at inopportune times, and may an especially heavy copy of Principia Mathematica fall on his head from a high shelf.
Ah, but only a harsh demonstration of the fallability of these machines will make them get rid of them. I'm thinking a land slide victory for Homer Simpson.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Ignoring which team was better each year, the odds are 1/2^14 that the game would predict the outcome of the election (14 elections since 1944). That's .0061%, roughly.
Of course, you gotta realize that they look at all the games played over the years and look for patterns, and ANY football game of the season could possibly be a predictor of who will be elected. In the NFL, there are 32 teams, which have played about 8 games each so far this year. So total number of games played = 32 * 8 / 2 = 2^7. that brings our odds to 2^7/2^14 = 1/2^7 = .75%. Not at all negligible.
Now you can start including multiple criteria for each game. For instance, if the total points stored in the Redskins game is over 30, the incumbent wins. Or, you could change it to a certain party winning. And we're just considering football, imagine if we included games from other sports played this year. The sheer number of baseball games almost guarantees that one annual match-up will be a good predictor of any "coin-flip" event such as a presidential election.
So, the moral is, this isn't the least bit extraordinary.
I'll form my OWN solar system! With blackjack! And hookers!
THERE'S NO SANTA CLAUS?!?!
lameness filter... it really sucks.
Policies aside, at least with Kerry the rest of the world won't be snickering so much.
I mean, ~290 million people to choose from* and George Bush was viewed as the USA's best choice for President? That really is funny on a very fundamental level.
* Yes, I'm aware that the entirety of the US population isn't eligable to be president, but anyway....
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
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IMHO Just like dealing with 'indian' violence had to be put on hold until after the Civil War. I really think the war on terror is likely going to need to be put on hold till the US solves some of it's internal problems. And I think this election will reflect that.
The biggest problem that no-one is talking about, but everyone is going to half to face is the trillion dollar question about copyrights. They simply can't survive in an age defined by the unrestricted flow of information so something is going to half to be fought out soon. The question is will the Government finally get it and back off on the copyright gestapo - or will they go full blast untill all hell breaks loose, and they fail crash and burn.
Since Bush is more accountable to the tech industries, and Kerry is more accountable to the legal and hollywood sector. I think a Kerry win will symbolize the copyright battle being fought inspite of the system, a Bush win will symbolize the battle geing fought within the system. It's a tough call.
I have also been informed by reputable sources that the tidal force of the moon affects human behavior, in spite of the fact that monitor you are looking at right now has a greater tidal interaction with you than does the moon.
English is easier said than done.
What was the final score? Packers 28 Redskins 14
What is a Touchdown worth? 6 points + PAT.
Now, the neo-cons are claiming a call on one touchdown prevented them from winning.
Looks like the neo-cons their touchdowns are worth 15 points.
We can see sequences and coincidence in anything. Give me a large enough stat base and I can probably work out the odds of Kerry winning based on the nth decimal place in pi.
A sig is placed here
To display how futile
English Haiku is
Every time kids/teenagers have been polled en masse about the presidency, the president they chose won. Strangely enough, Bush came out on top by about 10% in ChannelOne's massive poll of teenagers. Does this mean Bush will win? No, it means superstitions are bullshit.
If you have to ask, you'll never know.
That's because Gore was foolish, and only demanded a recount in counties where he expected to do well. That's a dubious strategy anyway, and as you say, it turns out Bush would have "won" counting that way too. (Never mind that it's really a statistical tie and we all pretty much lose.) But when a _real_ recount of all state ballots was conducted by a consortium of newspapers, the results came out with Gore winning by over 20,000 votes. Too bad the Supreme Court didn't order that!
Actually, you'd get +/- 5% out of much less than 3,000 respondents, under 1000 actually. You might want to study elementary statistics before you try to discuss it, so at least you won't be talking out of your ass like this time. While there are certainly grounds to be suspicious of the poll results, the quantity of people polled isn't one of them. I'll leave it to you to figure out the real issues, after you study some stats...
Pro football has "sudden death" ovetimes. First team to score wins. If nobody scores its a tie.
"Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the the universe." --Albert Einstein
Not to worry - this means Kerry will win just about as much as sampling rising temperatures over the last 80 years or so means humans are causing global warming. It's just a stupid misuse of statisitics and co-incidence.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
That's why a third party will never be viable..
You silly... Everybody knows a third party candidate wins whenever the Washington Generals beat the Globetrotters.
No sig
Considering the teams playing, it might be more of a mercy killing.
SecondPageMedia - Wha
Well, the terrorist apparently are big Tom Clancy fans. 9-11 was just a ripoff version of "Debt Of Honor." What your describing is "Sum of All Fears."
Well, there's only one thing to do:
Let's use the PATRIOT Act to throw Clancy in the clink for abetting the enemy! That'll learn him!
On the other hand, Monday Night Football might have saved some lives September 11, 2001. One of the New York teams was playing September 10th, and I suspect a few groggy stockbrokers and office workers got into the office late.
Nyekulturniy... Proudly confusing readers and editors since 1981!
monkeys fly out of my ass?
Who does that mean will win? Because it happened to me this monring, I swear it did. While I was watching FOX news, a troop of flying monkeys burst forth from my rectum, wearing bellhop hats and carrying tin cups.. I also heard this strange organ grinder music while it was happening...
Damn, I knew I shouldn't drink Starbucks and watch FOX news at the same time..
What would you propose then? They had to certify somebody and Bush was ahead after 2 recounts (one was definately illegal, the other was questionable since it was not statewide) and ahead after several more recounts following the certification that were done on the whim of the various press agencies.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
The apathy of the electorate, in *not* demanding better candidates from the major parties, has gotten us into a mess. The parties have no interest in *really* fixing things, because a fixed government is one that doesn't need to give handouts. But the handouts are what buys the votes of the uneducated/ignorant/lazy.
I thought football was that game where the ball was only played with the feet. Oh that's right, you think that's called Soccer. So calling them a base ballteam doesn't seem so odd to me. :)
Umpires? Mr. Kerry, please stop playing around on slashdot and go campaign or something.
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur
but unlikely coincidences happen all of the time.
One in a billion events happen to six people on earth every day...
Most of them are probably dull and go unnoticed.
Bush is cheating - and this fraud screws up the natural order of things.
This looks to be reverse cause and effect? The Redskins lost *because* Kerry wins. It makes perfect sense when coupled with Hawking's views on gravitationally depressed chronospaces.
I find this to be intriguing - yet dangerous, as it is not wise to play with local cosmic areola.
Let me be the first to say that we here at the Bush camp concede early to Kerry. It seems clear that due to this unfortunate turn of events that Kerry has won the election. As a side note, we should also point out that with the election already all but decided, you shouldn't burden yourself on election day with voting if it is an inconvenient, especially if you happen to be black, gay, poor, a college student, or a woman. So stay home. Nothing to see here.
You do realize that it's this kind of paranoia and fearmongering that got things like the PATRIOT act and DMCA passed?
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
hey, news flash, you're not going to find the meaning of life encoded in the articles of slashdot ...
*ponders mios's uid*
7+1+5*7+3-4 = 42
To believe otherwise is metaphysics.
I hope this helps.
--- Ban humanity.
He said "umpireS"...There is only 1 umpire in the NFL. Couple that with the fact that he said the ball was "hiked" (the ball isn't hiked - "hike" is what you say for the center to "snap" the ball) and I'm pretty certain the guy has no clue what he's talking about. But 'twas a joke, so don't get your jockstrap in a wad.
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur
I think the real question here is, how the hell have the Redskins been rigging the election for the past 60 years?
"President Mitnick's first official act was to pardon everyone who had anything to do with his unexpected landslide victory."
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed are not necessarily my own, as I've not yet had my medication today.
I was hoping for a tie...then this pattern theory could really be put to the test...
May I ask what money you are referring to?
* Do you earn more than $200,000 a year, if you do: welcome back to 1999. Big deal. You just helped our country. If you earn less than that, you keep your tax break.
* Are you referring to premiums for non-privatized health insurance? That's why Kerry supports a cap on insurance payout: $30,000.01 and up is covered by government. This effectively reduces how much you pay for your insurance premium each year. Privatizing health insurance leads to misinformed citizens and patchy plans - backed by companies that could go under any second in the resulting big business competition.
* Are you referring to the war in Iraq which has cost over $120,000,000,000? Are you not concerned that nearly half of your taxes go to the military and fund this war? That's what is being deducted from your paycheck. Vote with your wallet.
So 1944 to 2004 is 60 years - 15 elections (excluding this one) - so the odds of the elections going the same way as the Redskin games (if there is no connection between them) is 1 in 32768.
With the vast numbers of unrelated binary-outcome public events happening close to the elections, it should be possible to find plenty of them with seemingly better predictive power than this one...
Numbers of Florida voters pushing out the wrong cardboard chads for example.
www.sjbaker.org
And every college game at Michigan's "Big House" draws 110,000+ fans, but I keep going there every home game. I'm sure as hell not going to let anyone scare me away from living my life.
They did stop allowing advertising planes above/around the stadium during games though, probably to reduce the risk. This happened right after 9/11.
On a side note, the most powerful moment of silence I have ever taken part in was the Michigan football game following 9/11 when EVERY fan in the stadium was silent, not even breathing. It was the only time that every person in the stadium sung the national anthem, I think. And the only time the anthem was followed by humbled silence, instead of rowdy cheers. I don't remember who won the football game, but I remember that.
Real eh?
Florida recount study: Bush still wins
... and furthermore
There are lies, damn lies, and statistics. This idea of predicting the election is silly. About like watching those signs at the roulette table listing the past numbers and seeing 5 reds come up in a row. You just know that the next number to come up has to be black. No such thing. The last roll has nothing to do with the current roll.
:)
If you want a predictor try this out:
http://128.255.244.60/graphs/graph_Pres04_WTA.cfm
And if you want put $50.00 on number 35 for me. It is a sure winner.
I know a few people that feel that this election may result in wide spread violence in the streets. In effect a civil war. So far there has been nothing very civil about this election. Just look at the replys to this item. People are split with few people undecided.
Have to say the article is not a bad troll just before the election. The editors might want to watch that in the next couple of days. I am sure there will be more troll arcticles like this. Would be nice to be able to moderate the main article instead of just the replys.
Looks as if you are swallowing the Democrat party line of class hatred and not looking at the actual process and results of taxation and the history of how Congress votes.
Another Democratic platform is codifying 'workers rights' into labor laws that companies are forced to adhere to that is the same as taxation. When's the last time you bought any thing European other than a tin of biscuits, wine, or a Linux distro? They are not expensive because they are good. They are expensive because you are paying for the outrageous taxes and labor costs which many European companies have to pay.
Do the research and really think before you vote.
Too lazy to create a sig...
Vote on the third?
?-|||-----x<*))))><
I wouldn't be surprised if Bush & Co. decided on a major offensive Monday:
It's certainly interesting that a huge number of fresh troops just arrived in preparation for just that.
Would it work against the administration to do this? Polls say no.
Obviously, I'm not sure if they'd be that daring, but if they are, you heard it here first (if they're not, this comment, like most conspiracy theories, will just lapse into oblivion).
As a slashdotter, I think we have the responsibility to actually listen to "Mosh" and act responsibly. The republicans can sink to their own filthy level of voter fraud and intimidation by themselves. There are two ways to stop them:
1) Get out the vote, and overwhelm any cheating the bad guys can do. That kind of cheating works great if the candidates are tied (which every wishful poll in the country would have you believe). The more people get out to vote for Kerry, the less chance cheating can throw the election. So don't go to those polls alone: bring your friends, family, and anyone else you can (without forcing, kidnapping, or bribing them, of course). Give Kerry a landslide from the people those polls don't count.
2) Join the efforts by various rights groups to help monitor and protect voting polls and voters.
Personally, I think Eminem delivered the true October surprise. He's right too, the coming of the King of Terror began in a schoolroom, it's reign should end there too, with the only real swing state that matters: the youth of America.
There is hope Kerry can win, and not only from sports omens. Leading Hindu astrologers and a noted Hindu mystic believe that Kerry is going to win, Bush will never again be president, and Kerry will end terrorism and bring world peace! The sun and the moon have even endorsed Kerry.
"The last hope is to fight by ourselves."
Belebera, "Mothra 3: King Ghidora Attacks"
Nader isn't just a victim of the DNC. In Pennsylvania, he's off the ballot because there were names like Mickey Mouse, John Kerry, etc. on his petition. It was thrown out because something like 20,000 signatures were invalid.
dailykos has the details. The GOP doesnt like to lose.
ourvote.com has a site up and a hotline ready. See also: my earlier post on fraud and corruption in American politics.
I care who wins, but I care more about winning legally and properly. I care about every vote being counted. I wish more of my fellow countrymen felt the same way.
Of course as a cheesehead I am very happy the Packers won, but I am not counting on that to hand Kerry the election. Fortunately, there is another game that will decide it... it is called the election 'ground game'. In this game, armies of volunteers knock on doors, talk to their neighbors, drop off flyers, and give rides to the polls. It is grass roots politics at its finest.
The republicans seem to be finally getting into the ground game this year. Compared to previous elections, their ground team this year is very impressive. Unfortunately for them, the democratic and Kerry supporting groups are fielding a force that is probably four or five times larger. I've been talking to campaign veterans that have been doing this for over 30 years, and they describe the current groundswell of grasroots activism in support of Kerry with words like 'unprecedented' and 'staggering'.
It is also interesting to see the differences in how to ground game is run by both sides. The republican effort is pretty much all the RNC. It is top down, hierarchical, very organized. There are great many dedicated volunteers, but their actions are very cordinated by the campaign.
On the Kerry side, however, it is much more bottom up. There is a huge swath of liberal leaning non-profits and newly created ad-hoc citizen groups all doing their own part. The DNC itself is very experienced at the ground game and just by itself can put up a good fight against the RNC effort. Add all those third party groups to the mix, like MoveOn.org, ACT, the NAACP, the Seria Club, and newcomers like The League of Pissed of Voters... and you begin to see what the Republicans are up against.
Lets put it all in perspective for a moment. Gore was trailing in the polls by up to five points but ended up winning the popular vote due to unexpectedly high democratic turnout. Kerry is now polling about even with Bush, even ahead in some polls, going into the election. All indications are that the Democratic turnout will break records this year. To me, that looks like a Kerry win.
The Bolachek Journals
It is very easy to tell if your ATM withdrawal/deposit went through, by simply calling the bank/going on-line/waiting for your monthly statement. If there was any hint of a impropriety, the bank would drop Diebold like a hot rock (banks rely on their own reputation of trustworthiness in order to be successful).
There is no way to check if your vote was recorded, let alone tallied correctly. The unelected civil servants who run the elections don't give a Tinker's Damn whether your vote went through or not; they just care about their yearly rating and doing just enough to not get written up. The cherry on top of the cupcake is the fact that the average politician is incapable of understanding the technical issues and operational risks behind e-voting, so you won't get any help from that corner.
Yeah, right.
Here's the deal with the stadiums. Yeah, it was really windy on saturday here..
Here's a copy of the NOTAM (Notice to airmen) from saturday which applies to Michigan Stadium (and also other large seating stadiums).
3/1862 (PREVIOUSLY MISSING TEXT) PART 1 OF 2 SPECIAL NOTICE. THIS NOTICE MODIFIES FLIGHT RESTRICTIONS PREVIOUSLY ISSUED IN FDC NOTAM 2/0199 TO COMPLY WITH STATUTORY MANDATES DETAILED IN SECTION 352 OF PUBLIC LAW 108-7. EFFECTIVE 0303061100 UTC (0600 LOCAL 03/06/03) UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE. PURSUANT TO 14 CFR SECTION 99.7, SPECIAL SECURITY INSTRUCTIONS, COMMENCING ONE HOUR BEFORE THE SCHEDULED TIME OF THE EVENT UNTIL ONE HOUR AFTER THE END OF THE EVENT, ALL AIRCRAFT AND PARACHUTE OPERATIONS ARE PROHIBITED AT AND BELOW 3,000 FEET AGL WITHIN A THREE NAUTICAL MILE RADIUS OF ANY STADIUM HAVING A SEATING CAPACITY OF 30,000 OR MORE PEOPLE IN WHICH A MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL, NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE, NCAA DIVISION ONE FOOTBALL, OR MAJOR MOTOR SPEEDWAY EVENT IS OCCURING. ALL PREVIOUSLY ISSUED WAIVERS TO FDC NOTAM 2/0199 ARE RESCINDED. THOSE WHO MEET ANY OF THE FOLLOWING CRITERIA MAY REAPPLY FOR A WAIVER TO THESE RESTRICTIONS: (A) FOR OPERATIONAL PURPOSES OF AN EVENT, STADIUM, OR OTHER VENUE, INCLUDING (IN THE CASE OF A SPORTI NG EVENT) THE TRANSPORT OF EQUIPMENT OR PARTS, TEAM MEMBERS, OFFICIALS OF THE GOVERNING BODY, THE IMMEDIATE FAMILY MEMBERS AND GUESTS OF SUCH TEAMS, AND OFFICIALS TO AND FROM THE EVENT, STADIUM, OR OTH ER VENUE, END PART 1 OF 2 WIE UNTIL UFN
PART 2 OF 2 SPECIAL NOTICE. (B) FOR BROADCAST COVERAGE FOR ANY BROADCAST RIGHTS HOLDER, (C) FOR SAFETY AND SECURITY PURPOSES OF THE EVENT, STADIUM, OR OTHER VENUE. THIS RESTRICTION DOES NOT APPLY TO; (A) THOSE AIRCRAFT AUTHORIZED BY ATC FOR OPERATIONAL OR SAFETY PURPOSES INCLUDING AIRCRAFT ARRIVING OR DEPARTING FROM AN AIRPORT USING STANDARD AIR TRAFFIC PROCEDURES; (B) DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE, LAW ENFORCEMENT, OR AEROMEDICAL FLIGHT OPERATIONS THAT ARE IN CONTACT WITH ATC. STADIUM SITE LOCATIONS AND INFORMATION REGARDING WAIVER APPLICATIONS IN ACCORDANCE WITH SECTION 352 OF PUBLIC LAW 108-7 CAN BE OBTAINED FROM THE FAA WEBSITE AT HTTP://WWW.FAA.GOV/ATS/ATA/WAIVER OR BY CALLING 571-227-1322. PART 2 OF 2 WIE UNTIL UFN
Bush's regime would have you believe terrorists just came to be 3 years ago. They don't want you to think about the fact that there have been terrorist attacks before and we didn't need things like the Patriot act to make ourselves feel safe....
Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity, though I'm not yet sure about the universe. - A Einstein
> What your describing is "Sum of All Fears."
And a character in Sum of All Fears, the book, actually refers to a movie that had the same scenario - I think it was "Black Sunday".
Have you ever noticed how you never see George Bush and Clancy in the same place at the same time? It's clear to me that Clancy is really the president, being an expert on all government conspiracy kinds of things, and is only dressing up as a dufus, pretending to the president.
while I admit there is a possiblity that your a real japanese person and saying 'baka' was slipping into your native language.... I highly suspect your mixing up your own real life with the anime you watch.
-You're wasting your time. Alfador only likes me.
Note that Boston just won the World Series in Busch stadium.
so are you saying that it's GWB's fault that we did nothing before 9/11 (like a response to the first WTC bombing, the African embassies bombings or the Cole bombing)? Or are you saying that after Bad people knocked down two huge buildings in lower Manhattan and killed a bunch people in a multi pronged assault hitting 3 out of 4 targets that it was wrong for GWB (and the congress) to try and take steps to stop it from happening again?
Dear USA,
We've decided to step in to fix a problem you seem to be having.
Unfortunately, the election of your President impacts many of us greatly. While it has been a source of considerable amusement to us in the past, recently we have become less tolerant of the outcomes it has produced.
Starting today, here is the amended process whereby a US president gets elected:
- US citizens get together to elect a US Presidential *candidate*. Your current options: Bush, Kerry, various others nobody cares about. Method: Toss a coin, spin a bottle, use the results of a sporting event nobody cares about. We don't care, so knock yourselves out
- candidate is put forward to the rest of the world to decide whether he/she/it is suitable. Their current options: winner of Bush/Kerry, "go find someone else". Method: secured regulated ballot process, as used in nearly all Western countries for many years without problems. Feel free to read up on it some time if you're interested
- results announced: "go find someone else"
- repeat approx 300 million times, or until point is made...
WE REALLY LIKE YOU AMERICANS, BOTH INDIVIDUALLY AND COLLECTIVELY. SURE, YOU DRESS FUNNY AND MAKE US LAUGH WHEN YOU'RE IN INTERNATIONAL VENUES, BUT YOU'RE REALLY NICE PEOPLE REGARDLESS AND WE LOVE HAVING YOU ALONG FOR THE RIDE. ON TOP OF THAT, YOU'VE GOT SOME OF THE REALLY SMART PEOPLE IN THE WORLD LIVING IN YOUR COUNTRY. HOWEVER, WHAT CRAZY SYSTEM LETS YOU IGNORE THE REALLY GOOD PEOPLE AND SPIN OUT SUCH LEADERSHIP CANDIDATES AS YOU MANAGE TO COME UP WITH?
Ahem, sorry about that. Anyway, please understand that these changes take place immediately, no correspondence will be entered into, yada, yada, yada.
Yours truly,
God (no, NOT yours, and not yours either. In fact you were all wrong, and what the hell made you think I'd give a stuff about you tiny little humans anyway?)
Remember to get out and vote for Dubya on Nov. 3rd.
All of these polls (and especially the superstitions) are a crock of shit.
When's the last time you bought any thing European other than a tin of biscuits, wine, or a Linux distro? They are not expensive because they are good. They are expensive because you are paying for the outrageous taxes and labor costs which many European companies have to pay.
My cars were made in Germany and England. My best suit was made in Italy, and my spectacles have Italian frames. My coffee grinder is from Germany, and the best shoes I have were made in Spain. My favorite beers are made in England, Germany, Denmark and Belgium (Ok, I admit I like beer a lot...), while my girlfriend is addicted to Swiss and Belgian chocolates. My phone is Finnish and the engine in my boat was made in Sweden.
I do the research when I buy and, while all of these item are good quality, they are not the most expensive by any means. I don't think your argument against European products is is true at all.
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
Isn't Bush supposed to be done in by an assasins bullet?
I mean, the 0 year "curse" has been responsible for the deaths of US Presidents longer than the Redskin election "prophecy" has been around.
So I'd say the 0 year curse trumps the Redskin Prophecy and I see you one war before 2006.
Cowboy Neal for president!
[What's even more fascinating] Is that people whine about spelling so much.
Maybe because not making the effort to use proper spelling and grammar demonstrates a lack of respect for the reader? Nobody's perfect, but even without a spell checker you can catch the vast majority of your errors by just re-reading your post, and if you don't know the spelling of a word, there's a handy thing called a dictionary (there are even online dictionaries) to help you out. I'll agree that criticizing another's errors is generally uncalled for, but the nature of Slashdot (an "informal Internet forum", as you put it) doesn't mitigate the impression your post makes on readers--especially given the emphasis many people here seem to put on proper spelling and grammar.
Just a thought . . .
Is this the same Major who said he never saw an IAEA seal on any of the bunkers he visited? The same Major who said he blew up "munitions" and couldn't say if any of it was the high-grade explosives that are in question? The same Major who said he was at Al Qaqaa 5 days before the embedded KSTP TV crew shot video of US Soldiers at Al Qaqaa breaking IAEA seals, opening the bunkers, and examining the barrels of the high explosives still contained therein? Same guy? How can you conclude from his testimony that the explosives had been detonated?
Liberal (adj.): Free from bigotry; open to progress; tolerant of others.
No. He didn't. In the scenario that the Florida supreme court ordered (incl. overvotes), Gore won:
, 36 04,430276,00.html
:P
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0
Gotta stop this myth at its source
Besides, forget not that the largest amount of contested votes, by far, was from the "felon list". You know, the list that contained around 20,000 black voters and around 50 hispanic voters?
POTUS Witch Hunt tracker: 75 charges filed against 19 witches, 4 witches cooperating and 5 witches have pled guilty.
Well, MOST people who follow the situation in Iraq closely believe that the Bush administration is incompetent. Where do we begin? Letting looters run wild? Not securing the arms depots (not just the high explosives, all kinds of stuff was left unguarded- hell they stood by and watched as insurgents carried weapons off)? Disbanding the army? Going into Fallujah? "Flip-flopping" and getting out of Fallujah when it got a little too messy? Total cockup start to finish.
Afghanistan has been done better but there is still more of the country under the control of the Taliban and warlords than Karzai. Half-assed, but not a total cockup.
Bush on the economy has been something of a failure. Sure, we're coming out a recession, and I'm sure the tax cuts helped that- they could hardly hurt. But instead of directing the money where it would do the most good (the middle class) it went to where it did much less good (the wealthiest people in America) and created a massive budget deficit that will take years to pay off. This didn't help the economy so much as it helped the rich. The recovery has been far from amazing.
Socially? Most people feel he did a good job post 9-11. But it's amazing to see how much that has been messed up. He said he'd be a uniter, and he hasn't been- he's divided this nation. America is now more divided than it has been since the Viet Nam War. For some people he's been a good leader. If you're rich, right wing, and/or Christian he's great. But he seems to think that everyone else can go fuck themselves.
Finally, how about those American values like freedom and our rights that he is supposed to be protecting? Under the Bush administration we have seen people locked up without trial for years at a time. Four years ago if you said that America would do that I'd never have believed it. Sure, governments do that. But just the bad guys- the USSR, China, Nazi Germany- right? Those kinds of governments lock up people without trial. Not the good old freedom-loving USA.
I could go on forever. As for mandates, let's not get started on that. Bush lost the popular vote, so he has no mandate.
Actually, you're incorrect.
The Bush administration nixed federal funding for embryonic stem cell research.
Adult stem cell research is still fully sponsored by the federal government and the Bush administration.
Private funding for embryonic stem cell research is still legal as well.
Actually, this makes sense. If you needed stem cell therapy in the future, wouldn't you want to use adult stem cells harvested from yourself, rather than stem cells harvested from an embryo that has a stranger's DNA?
Some of the objectionable actions they made note of include:
- Ordered massive changes to a section on global warming in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's 2003 Report on the Environment. Eventually, the entire section was dropped.
- Replaced a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention fact sheet on proper condom use with a warning emphasizing condom failure rates.
- Ignored advice from top Department of Energy nuclear materials experts who cautioned that aluminum tubes being imported by Iraq weren't suitable for use to make nuclear weapons.
- Established political litmus tests for scientific advisory boards. In one case, public health experts were removed from a CDC lead paint advisory panel and replaced with researchers who had financial ties to the lead industry.
- Suppressed a U.S. Department of Agriculture microbiologist's finding that potentially harmful bacteria float in the air surrounding large hog farms.
- Excluded scientists who've received federal grants from regulatory advisory panels while permitting the appointment of scientists from regulated industries.
To me this is fear of science - fear that scientific inquiry will derail Bush's political agenda, which is largely driven by religious fundamentalists and big business interests.Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
Corporations never pay taxes, they are just a collector. Taxes for any company are a Right Hand side of the ledger entry.
Berkshire Hathaway paid $1.75 billion in federal taxes last year or 2.5% of ALL taxes paid by corporations. Read about it here. Or, as Buffett writes in his Annual Report:
In 1985, Berkshire paid $132 million in federal income taxes, and all corporations paid $61 billion. The comparable amounts in 1995 were $286 million and $157 billion respectively. And, as mentioned, we will pay about $3.3 billion for 2003, a year when all corporations paid $132 billion. We hope our taxes continue to rise in the future - it will mean we are prospering - but we also hope that the rest of Corporate America antes up along with us.
There actually are some honest companies out there. If we can get rid of the corrupt CEO's and cut down on executive salaries, then we would be moving in the right direction. While I am liberal, I miss the days of the fiscal conservative... at least I can understand where they're coming from.
the country hasn't melted
But it's about as close as possible.
Budget: fail
Foreign Policy: fail
Education: fail
Healthcare: fail
Jobs: fail
What else? Oh yeah, we were attacked, and we started a war that we are losing with people totally unrelated to our attackers.
What else can go wrong?
I know more than you drink.
I find it highly amusing, but at the same time disturbing, that the Americans since 9/11 have been shouting for terrorists heads on a plate while for many years before 9/11, and quite likely after 9/11 as well, collections has been and are being made in support of the IRA.
Do tell me that you actually realise the double morale in that...
Swedish, but resident in the UK since 1996.
Well, truth be told, it has been done elsewhere. Putin in Russia seems unlikely to give up power, though he is not in danger of losing any elections. The opposition parties are finding it curiously hard to gain any ground against him. It helps to have all the TV stations on your side. He has a vast majority in their congress and he can legislate more terms for himself as he sees fit.
But we're not Russia. Truth be told, I really think it's just not worth it in a truely robust, though obviously imperfect, democracy like ours. Even if the election goes horribly for the Republicans they'll still hold nearly half the congress and in just four short years they'll get another shot at the White House.
What you are talking about isn't an impossible scenario, given extremly dire circumstances, but it's very difficult to imagine it now. We did have a civil war once upon a time, but we were a different country then, and people's allegences were much more local. I think that anything like that happening now would never work because people, despite their differnces, would rightly see it as an attack on democracy on a very fundamental level. In other places in the world were democracy is a relatively new thing this might not be as huge of a concern. Many peoples have known only periods of disorder and periods of tyrany. Look at Russia or Iraq, many people there still believe that however scary it may seem, one all powerful man may be the only force that can actually keep order. Saddam was a brutal tyrant, but he kept the many fractured, tribal elements in his country from endless bloodshed.
America, fortunately has no such history. We have seen democracy work. We have a peaceful country and we are not concerned about internal strife like this. The Republicans, or the Democrats for that matter, have lost many presidential elections but have always been able to get power back down the road. Our political warfare has so far served both sides relatively well. If Bush loses, a war will certainly begin to restore power, but it will, thankfully, be a peaceful one.
120 character sigs suck. Make it 250.
You know, it's interesting that people (even Republicans, i find) totally ignore Democratic cases of voter fraud. Republicans are not the only ones responsible for it -- in fact, they seem to me like they're less likely to do it than Democrats, on the whole.
Some of these are really biassed, but here are some examples:
http://www.intellectualconservative.com/article385 5.html
http://billhobbs.com/hobbsonline/004765.html (LOTS of articles about it here)
http://powerlineblog.com/archives/007968.php
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1250035/p osts (admittedly, Free Republic is a pretty bad place to go for potentially reputation-harming information about Democrats, but there it is anyway <_<)
http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/fund20040913 0633.asp
Even The New York Times had a story about Democratic voter fraud.
This isn't to say that the Las Vegas thing and Chuck Hagel's involvement with that voting-machine company and the convenient Diebold incident in Georgia aren't troubling, because they are, very much. But so many people mysteriously forget that the other party isn't the only one that can be 'filthy'.
Everyone repeat after me... Correlation does not prove causality... correlation does not prove causality.
Unless you earn > $200,000 a year, you should be safe. In fact, according to Kerry, you could be getting even more tax breaks under his administration. From the second debate--
All I know about Bush is I had a good job when Clinton was president.
All the ballots were later counted by several (liberal) mainstream newspapers and Bush won in every scenario.
Wrong.
1. The Wall Street Journal was amoung those newspapers. (It isn't liberal)
2. Out of the 24 scenarios they considered, Gore won most of them.
3. The scenarios that counted the most votes Gore won. Bush only won if (a) recounting stopped after just a few counties, or (b) a large number of votes were disgarded as spoiled.
So in the final consideration, although the recounts Gore asked for wouldn't have made him the winner, a full, correct counting of the whole state would've. The only reason nobody's made a big deal about this result is that it was released on September 13, 2001.
so are you saying that it's GWB's fault that we did nothing before 9/11 (like a response to the first WTC bombing, the African embassies bombings or the Cole bombing)?
Nah, but what I'm saying is that you're full of shit.
Looks as if you are swallowing the Democrat party line of class hatred and not looking at the actual process and results of taxation and the history of how Congress votes.
I know you're probably trolling, but lots of people really believe (and spread) this kind of BS, so I'll pretend you really think what you say.
In short, you get economy 101 but apparently you didn't make it to 102.
Sweden (yes, 50%+ income tax Sweden) has a massively positive trade balance with the USA. When I say massively positive I mean they sell you almost three times as much as they buy from you ! And no, it's not biscuits or linux distros. It's high tech industry-oriented goods. Except for Ikea, Ericsson and Volvo, most Swedish exports are from small specialised companies that employ ridiculously educated workers to desing and produce high value-added goods.
France and Germany are a mess, but that's not because of taxes or social security. It's just that they dug themselves into a bureaucratic hole. Saying that a strong state with highly developed social services entails sprawling, Franco-German like bureaucracies is a lie ! Hell, you Americans share a border thousands of miles long with Canada, don't you ever look at what's going on up north ?
Your whole argument about labor costs and massive offshoring is dumb. The same BS that politicians serve us daily. Read any book by Paul Krugman as an introduction (looks like you'll need it), then hit a real economy manual. In short, wages in any given national industry tend to equal the average productivity of this industry in this country. Do you really think that wages in India and China have not risen in the last decade ? See South Korea or Taiwan for other recent examples.
Do the research and really think before you vote.
Yup, good idea.
Thomas-
My favorite beers are made in England, Germany, Denmark and Belgium (Ok, I admit I like beer a lot...), while my girlfriend is addicted to Swiss and Belgian chocolates.
What, no Ireland (Kilkenny, Guinness) nor Czech Republic (Staropramen, Pilsner Urquell, Kozel) on the favorite beer list!?
As to chocolates... Any chocolate connoisseur owes it to herself to check out Finnish Fazer Blue chocolate. It's legendary.
while true;do echo -e -n "\033[s\n\033[u\134_\033[B";done
Also: Norway and pretty much anything nautical.
From a purely economic standpoint, anyone who works for a living and votes republican is an idiot. They've been duped into voting "what's good for the country" instead voting based on their own situation.
For 2003 a single man making 28,400 dollars, and living in WA state (8% sales tax) he will pay 27% of his wages in tax. This assumes that 50% of what he makes will be spent on taxable goods, and that he takes the standard deduction. It should be noted that this same table gives the U.S. tax rate at 35% because it only displays the highest rate for countries with a variable tax.
According to www.worldwide-tax.com, if the same man lived in Germany he would pay 25% of his wages in tax. In Norway, 28%, in the UK, 30%.
The way I see it, the big difference here is not how much we pay vs. European countries, but what we get for those taxes vs. what people in European countries get for thos taxes. Free medical, free University level education, real Social Security. We get give two billion dollars to Halliburton.
Samsung took back my unlocked bootloader because Google wants me to rent movies. They're both evil.
more in my journal
"It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance." - Thomas Sowell
...On one of the last plays of the game the Redskins scored to take the lead. AFTER the play had been completed a flag was quietly tossed in the backfield. A flag that was thrown for absolutely no visible reason - look for yourself. That flag effectively ended the game for Washington. We're not talking about a "bad call" we're talking about a call on a game winning play after the fact that was fabricated. Could it be that professional football has lowered itself to the level of the media at large and indeed the frenzied and violently vocal anti-bush lemmings? You decide...
I used to fear clowns...but I'm discovering that chimps are far, far, worse.
If I had a million mod points, I'd mod all the "Kerry will raise taxes on small businesses" and "Bush is an imperialist" posts as off topic. It seems I'm in the minority so mod me to the bucket if you must. Yeah, I know, I must be new here and welcome to /. but doesn't the nerd-atrons, pulsing through your veins, find the /actual/ article at all interesting to comment on?
Let me save the submitters to the Politics topic some time. We can enumerate all the off topic responses and save reading time to thouse that want to read about the actual submission:
Dibold
Bush is an imperialist
Bush administration is incompetent
PATRIOT act
Bush stole the 2000 election
Counter: all recounts had a Bush win
Kerry flip-flops
Kerry has been consistant
Edwards is way under qualified
Kerry has his secret plans for everything
when 85% of the population voted for Gore
The actual results were:
Criminy, its almost as if the Supreme Court were voting on party allegiance rather than the facts! Inconceivable!
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
Interesting point here is that the Constitution specifies that treaties we sign and get ratified by Congress BECOME the law of the land. ;)
Self-referential sigs are rarely entertaining.
Jerry Rice's Catches and the Niners' games where they scored at least once among many others.. I think this could be another one of those streaks coming to an end very soon..
"Make it idiot proof, and someone will make a better idiot."
For 2003 a single man making 28,400 dollars, and living in WA state (8% sales tax) he will pay 27% of his wages in tax.
l
Where are you getting those numbers? Spending half of his earnings on taxable goods yields about $1100 in sales tax, or about 4% of the income. Are you implying that he would have a 23% income tax rate? Think again...
At the other end of the income spectrum, the bottom 50 percent of the nation's taxpayers (everyone whose adjusted gross income was under $28,654) earned more and paid less. Total income for this group rose from $861 billion to $870 billion. That was up from 13.8 percent of all income in 2001 to 14.23 percent in 2002. Despite growth in the percentage of total income earned by the bottom half of earners, their average tax rate fell from 4.1 percent to 3.2 percent.
(http://www.taxfoundation.org/prtopincome.html)
What a lot of people are confused about when it comes to income taxes is that just because you get a certain amount of money taken out of your paycheck (in the neighborhood of >20%) doesn't mean that that's your actual tax rate. When tax return time comes around, you get a lot of it back (depending on how much you make), making your effective tax rate far lower than what it APPEARS to be on your paychecks. If you make a decent amount of money, you OWE additional money come tax time, making your effective income tax rate even HIGHER.
You know why low income earners don't get many tax breaks? Because they hardly pay any taxes to begin with!
Here's a good table: http://www.taxfoundation.org/prtopincometable.htm
The Virgina Republican Party has filed a lawsuit contesting the final score of the Washington Redskins game, stating that several of the Green Bay players were illegally enrolled in the NFL
the simple fact is that Bush moved the front lines on the war on terror out of here and over there.
Reminds me of the drunk who dropped his keys in a dark alley but looks for them under the streetlight because it's easier to see there.
I am Sartre of the Borg. Existence is futile.
Nobody glorified the war before it happened. It was the Bush administration who envisioned the Iraq war as planting democracy in the middle east, among other great pictures. In fact, the majority people around the world always knew this was going to be messy, costy, fruitless and backfiring. However, in spite of waves of anti-war protests, Bush lead the world to war. Now it turned out to be ugly, you say it's meant to be this way. This is either naive or dishonest. Neither is suitable for the US president.
Any other year I'd say this is true but looks like Bush will win, The RedSox fouled up everything this year.
yeah but the red sox won the world series...
all bets are off this year.
ôó
What is this... "football" you speak of? Perhaps a new distro?
The U.S. military forces in fact were shockingly successful.
I suppose that depends on your definition of success. If you consider barging in there with size 12s, blowing up innocent civilians left, right and centre thus alienating the entire population to be success, then yes.
Iraqis weren't ready to be liberated.
Correction, they weren't ready to be liberated by fuckwits barging in there with size 12s, killing innocent civilians left, right and centre, then setting up shop capitalising from the nations rich natural resources.
Not a troll - this is my opionion. You have yours, and this is mine.
In this world nothing is certain but death, taxes and flawed car analogies.
Actually, my wife will be working her first election, tomorrow. She's VITALLY interested in the process, and cares that it work correctly. Her father worked the elections, years ago. (In this light, the question we asked ourselves yesterday was, "Why did it take her this long to sign up to work an election?") For that matter, my mother used to work the elections, too. As far as I can tell, most of the election workers are locals, ordinary people, hired for the day, and share that motivation with my wife.
Aside from the part of your post denigrating the poll workers, I have to agree with you. Fortunately in our precinct, we have optical readers and use 'fill in the circle' ballots. I didn't realize how lucky we were until the Diebold fiasco started brewing in the past year or two.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
Actually there are several different officials on the field, one of which is an umpire.
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
you do not get rich by spending money foolishly. and you spend it very foolishly.
I don't want to get rich, and I don't want to seem rich. I want to live well. You seem to think the wealth is what matters. It doesn't, and there's little point in accumulating huge amounts of money if you don't spend it on things you enjoy. Believe me, I spend my money very wisely.
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
Wow what a typical "know-it-all" slashdot attitude. He gets 2 ridiculously minor details wrong so of course he doesn't know what he's talking about..
In other sports, such as baseball, the officiating crew are called "the umpires". This nomenclature does carry over sometimes to football, although the more correct term would be "the officials".
Yes, technically after the QB says "hike", or otherwise indicates to the center, the ball is "snapped". However, to say that the ball is "hiked" is not incorrect. The usage is common.
What's next, are you going to start running around posting how "ain't" isn't a word so any poster who uses it must be wrong? Hold on, gotta check my grammar.. wouldn't want you to think I have "no clue" because I have a misplaced comma..
Hmmm, the most active article on Slashdot is about football and politics. It doesn't seem like "news for nerds" anymore, it seems more like "news for dorks".
A real nerd doesn't care about politics, since its run by all the popular rich guys that made fun of us all through school.
Sleep is for the Weak
If Bush won it would be a bad omen for his last 4 years, if Kerry won it would mean next election would be even more dumbed down - millions of people would be watching the Redskins to see the result, and political journalists and news stations would actually be basing their predictions on it. Then there would be some kind of scandel over who got paid to take a fall. All I can say is GO GREENBAY! DOWN WITH BOOSH W00T!
However, this really doesnt fill me with confidence:
"Oh, yeah, he's going to win. It's guaranteed," said Packers safety Darren Sharper, a Kerry supporter. "I don't have to vote now. Don't even have to go to the polls. Saved me a trip."
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
When you consider how the Skins game ended (with a questionable call taking away a Portis TD that would have won it for the skins), that would translate to a questionable legal decision deciding the election. That part is almost sure to happen, given all the shysters, I mean lawyers both sides have hired.
Mathematics is made of 50 percent formulas, 50 percent proofs, and 50 percent imagination.
Thats the sad part of Affirmative action, rich white liberals dont think Black people can make it unless they are given in's.
I'm not sure that anyone will read this, as I'm late to the party and replying to something way, way deep in the comment tree, but I feel like I need to respond.
I'm a Christian (Presbyterian to be exact) and Bush is hardly a "great leader" for me. Christianity at its roots values love and tolerance, two ideals which I'd hardly associate with the current administration. The Christians whose values coincide best with Bush's are evangelical and fundamentalist. I and many other Christians I'm sure, think that those particular sects give the rest of us a bad name.
It really saddens me to see that "Christian" is almost becoming derogatory because of a vocal minority. I just wish people would remember that most of us also value things like science and the right of everyone to determine their own way of life.
Wrong. More neo-con spin. There is only one scenario that the Florida State Supreme Court considered. Counting all the votes statewide.
Gore also won Florida when all the votes in Florida were counted by the newspapers after the election by the standards the FLA Sup Ct. had ordered and the US Supreme Ct. ordered stopped.
Pointing to various Bush/Gore campaign strategies is pointless, becasue the FLA Sup Ct. never ordered any of the campaign strategies. The FLA Sup Ct. ordered all the votes in FLA counted. The US Supreme Ct. stopped that and prevented the votes from being counted and appointed Bush President.
Budget: The Democrats tried to force some fiscal restraint on Bush on the famous 87 billion vote. Dems were ready to support the money spent if Bush had removed the tax cut to the top 1% of the most wealthy to pay for it. Bush refused and threated to veto that 87 billion in defense spending funding if any of the tax cuts that were only going to the top tax bracket were removed
Foreign Policy: Do some reading. Libya happened becasue Khadafi had a ludicrous fantasy about Libya hosting the World Cup that was scheduled to be held in Africa, and was awarded to South Africa. Khadafi's son plays pro soccer in Europe, and Khadafi had strange visions of his son returning home to play the World Cup in Libya. anyway, to have his bid have a remote chance in hell, Khadafi had to get in compliance regarding international law.
Case of truth being stranger than fiction.
Education: Bush signed the No Child Left Behind bill with Kennedy, then refused to spend the money budgeted the bill by Congress. The money is still sitting there and the bill's provisions are not being followed by Bush.
Jobs: Nice try. Clinton created 23 million jobs during his presidency, and Clinton had the lowest unemployment rate since WW2. Bush has lost more jobs than any President since Hoover.
than the fact that the 19 of the 20 counties with voting irregularities were run by Democrats and the 20th by an independant.
No more factual of an issue than using a football game to predict an election.
The only difference is that certain people needed something to blame and a conspiracy makes them feel better about it.
Besides, Florida's voting actually was less problemsome than Georgia's. Yup, the rate of issues was lower in Florida than many other states. However Florida was easier to tip using the courts. I fully expect this election to be no different, if a state has a difference low enough to affect the overall election I fully expect certain parties to be out in force in an attempt to claim voter fraud or similar.
Voter fraud only became an issue when it no longer worked.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Low earners pay plenty of taxes. FICA and the like take up a substantial percentage of most working folks' paychecks. The scam is that social security fund is then raided by politicians who dip into these revenues for general funds--it's an income tax in all but name for those who draw a paycheck from an employer and have that as their only income.
The working poor have it bad enough, they don't need be looked down as "lucky duckies" for not paying in their fair share of taxes. I'd much rather be where I am than in the position of not having to pay federal income tax.
I'd suggest you don't use Slashdot as your only news source, or you will suffer permanent brain damage.
Anyone lacking his connections who had the same discipline and academic record as The Shrub would likely have been expelled from Yale.
Why is it that the proponents of "one nation under God" are so eager to get rid of "liberty and justice for all"?
You're absolutely right, he did graduate from Ivy League universities given the chances that apparently neither you or I deserve. Did he get that chance fairly? No. Is he a hypocrite? Yes.
First Andover, then Yale, then Harvard, then the Whitehouse. Anyone who doesn't believe that the aristocratic power of Legacy exists has his head in the sand.
= 9J =
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