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The Votemaster Is...Andrew Tanenbaum
A reader writes: " www.electoral-vote.com, a site of daily updated maps of the US electoral college based on a number of polls is probably a site that the policially inclined check daily. Well, it has been revealed that the person behind the site, AKA the votemaster, is none other than Andrew Tanenbaum, noted author of numerous CS books." He's also known for a little discussion with someone named Linus Torvalds.
As I imagine the replies to this post will mostly be drooling fawning over Andrew Tanenbaum, much like the Jon Stewart/Crossfire article, I'd like to actually ask some meaningful questions. (And please note that I have great respect for Tanenbaum, but don't understand a couple of his central points, described below.)
Why does running a statistical analysis website that gathers information on polls and aggregates them into something quasi-meaningful "support" the Democratic candidate?
Yes, yes, I'm well aware that while incognito he had said on numerous occasions that he was a Kerry supporter, and a Democrat. But he himself says:
Why Did You Do This?
In a nutshell, because I want to be proud of America again.
Meaning that Kerry can somehow make him proud again. Ok, fine, but what does running electoral-vote.com have to do with that? The question "Why Did You Do This?" implies that he is "do"ing something to influence people to vote in a particular way, which I simply don't see that website doing. In fact, other than the admittedly editorial sections of the site, I have found the site to be remarkedly unbiased.
He then goes on, at length, describing/proving that the world "hates" Bush/the administration/etc. This comes as absolutely no surprise to me. However - and FORGET about "Bush" for a second - how does "hating" someone have any logical correlation with whether their positions or courses of action are appropriate or inappropriate? That would seem antithetical to the viewpoints of most progressive persons. That's a serious question, but I doubt I'll get any serious answers. And this is an important question, because the fact that so many abroad "hate" Bush, and somehow getting more Americans to understand that, is central to Tanenbaum's multitude of statements on the topic. Why does "hating" someone mean what they're doing is wrong? (I will concede that a leader of a nation being hated probably makes it vastly more difficult to do diplomatic work, but that is somewhat tangential to my core question.)
The rest of this post amounts to what are essentially footnotes on this topic, but I believe are critical to the discussion of the belief that Kerry can somehow to a better job.
So let's address these things. The world "hates" Bush, and Kerry can somehow not only fight terrorism more effectively, but will also bring respect back to the US.
Sen McCain said it best yesterday on Face the Nation:
"I also believe that President Bush has a vision and a view that the war on terror is not going to be over until we have some democracy in the Middle East, and I don't think he means by imposing that at the point of a bayonet. But I do believe that he's correct that the issue of radical Islamic extremism is not going away until those countries have some kind of freedom and democracy, and I think that's his long-term goal."
Now, before you start spitting and sputtering about why the US is in "Iraq", then, well, reread that last statement. I'm not going to beat around the bush, as it were, any more: the US is in "Iraq" because it was an easy target in the region, period. Not because Saddam tried to kill Bush's "daddy", not because Bush is an angry dry drunk, and not because Cheney has a secret plan to line his pockets and that of Halliburton. This isn't a black-and-white zero-sum game where there is only one reason the US is in Iraq. There are myriad reasons. But the prime one is that it is part of a comprehensive, omnibus strategy to bring free or quasi-free governments to the region, in the hopes that more of the same will be encouraged, even as organizations like al-Qaeda redouble their recruiting efforts. This strategy will make things worse in the meantime. Possibly a lot worse. People will hate us. Including some people who will ultimately be protected by our actions (i.e., Europe).
Panislamic radicalism will not go away on its own
Most of the electoral votes are in the heartland of the US. If you told an average person on the streets that Europeans want to see Kerry elected, the instinctive response is to vote for Bush. If you don't think Karl Rove is using this to the Republicans' advantage, you're on crack.
We'll see the result tomorrow. I expect something decisive. No two elections are the same.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
Fortunately, it's US citizens and not Europeans that get to pick the next US president.
It was very enlightening to follow along as things went back and forth (with a sprinkling of DoS attacks on the site) and the Votemaster's analysis was always a good read. Kudos to him for a job well done.
Now, for all of the US citizens out there, go vote.
If you were to set up the same vote for say England you would be luckly to find many people in the US to know who is actually running against Mr Blair.
Fortunately, it's US citizens and not Europeans that get to pick the next US president.
Don't rest assured: It's not the American people either... Remember that Gore had about 500000 more votes than Bush in 2000.
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Wow, yes, those ever reliable Internet polls! We all know how accurate those are.
I've just signed legislation that'll outlaw Russia forever. We'll begin bombing in five minutes.
Give the man a break. From a purely academic design standpoint, Linux *is* obsolete... and hey, AST is definitely an academic. But that doesn't mean he has to be ignorant to its commercial success. Proving once again that just 'cos something isn't beautiful, if it gets the job done, people will use it. :-)
How appropriate. You fight like a cow.
As an American, I can see being against the Iraq war. It was a waste of blood and money for no real strategic gain.
But why is the rest of the world against it? Saddam really wasn't that nice of a guy. Deposing him is just the sort of thing that human rights monkeys (which includes a substantial bit of Europe based on their usual press) normally salivate over.
Other reasons that the world hates Bush are Kyoto and the ICC. Kyoto was an exercise in lunacy, of course. And the ICC's only point is to go after the law-abiding nations. Specifically the ones who do the inevitably dirty work of wars, exporting security to the rest of the world. (Hint: The US) It will be impossible to invoke ICC provisions against Gap nations (Google Thomas Barnett) until their rulers have already been deposed in a war (Hint: By the US).
So while I don't like Bush all that much, I think that the rest of the world's hatred for him only proves their loopiness. You can't believe everything you see in a Michael Moore movie, after all. And unfortunately, the rest of the world doesn't know how to take the American press with a grain of salt like Americans do. The gullible Europeans simply swallow it hook line and sinker everytime the BBC or its equivalent repeats something from CNN or another American news outlet. I hope that the Europeans discover independent thought one of these days and stop letting themselves be culturally dominated by American media and American corporations.
I've followed this guy's site for the last few months and I think he has recently developed a problem with his intellectual honesty.
He is an unabashed Kerry supporter, not in and of itself a bad thing, but he is discarding poll results favorable to the President in order to show a Kerry victory. For example he claims to have averaged recent polls in Florida but a Quinnipiac poll from 10/27 thru 10/31 shows an EIGHT point Bush lead. How he ends up with a 2 point Kerry advantage with that in the average I don't know.
Today is his worst showing yet, in my opinion, and he may be indirectly helping the President. If Kerry supporters believe their man is going to win and win big then voters who are not as committed may not show up to vote.
Remember Karl Rove asking where the FOUR MILLION evangelicals were in 2000? If people think their man will win regardless of their vote then fewer people will make the effort to vote and strange things can happen.
And the votemaster is showing that Bush will win the popular vote in five polls, while Kerry wins in only three polls, yet Kerry is expected to win the electorate by 67 votes, or over 10%. The popular vote is NOT the electoral vote, and counts for sh*t.
Change the laws if you don't agree, but getting OK, KS, and MO to move all the campaigning to NY and CA might be a little difficult...
Put identity in the browser.
Thats the saddest thing about it. You have a president who is one of the most powerful of the free world, and the free world hates him. You can either examine the reasons why or say "Screw the rest of the world".
A good example why.. The US$ is in the toilet at the moment. I have invested in US companies, but because of the US$ it is no longer profitable to do so. I am in two minds of removing my investments to another market or not. Really depends on this election.
Yes, my only tool is a hammer. And you're starting to look like a nail.
I disagree. If you'd read Tanenbaum's assessment of European attitudes of Bush (and his remarkably refreshing attitude towards American leadership in the world) you'd find that, while people may loathe Bush, they are not "loopy," they simply see American power as resting in the hands of an international bully.
I for one will be voting for Kerry not because we are unpopular, but because I desire to see America lead the world again, which we cannot do under the current administration.
The only thing worse than an un-opposed superpower is a superpower run by someone elected by some small fraction of a country's population.
Get out and vote for God's sake or shut up with all your "America is the beacon of democracy" bullshit and "leader of the free world" garbage. You think you're country is so great? Then vote God damn it!
Professor Tanenbaum has a lot of cred with me for his MINIX work. His OSDI book was the first real taste I had inside Unix, and I've been hooked ever since. Over the years he's also shown quite a bit of ivorytoweritis, which shows that we are all prisoners of the mental environment we construct for ourselves. For instance, from TFWS:
But he apparently misses the obvious converse, that the world media do a spectacularly bad job of informing the rest of the world what's going on in the U.S.
The U.S. Presidential race this year comes down to who wins Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. He thinks Kerry will win.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but he's been wrong before.
sigs, as if you care.
Yes, they were reacting to the the previous 8 years of presidentship of Clinton, Bush hadn't done anything up to that point, he was going to be a do nothing president, he said so several times, but after 9/11 he didn't really have that choice.
Why is it that everytime Andrew Tanenbaum is mentioned on Slashdot, the "infamous thread" must be brought up, and not much else? This man IS UNIX history.
Tanenbaum was around looong before Linus/Linux. Before Linux even began, before Soft Landing Linux, those of us who wanted UNIX on our home computers used/loved Minix.
Minix was the technology that sparked a lifetime love of UNIX for many a users, not just the younger Linux.
Occasionally, I'll reflect on the beautiful blue console of my Amiga, on which I ran Minix off of 3 (as I recall) floppies.
So please, let's not dismiss Andrew Tanenbaum's role in computer history. Remember that his shoulders are the giant's that Linus has been standing on.
I can't wait to see what the people standing on Linus's shoulders come up with...
I check www.electoral-vote.com every morning, and I was wondering why it was so slow this morning. SLASHDOT! Andrew Tanenbaum is a person that gives to society. Yes the world would be a better place if it had more Andrew Tanenbaums.
This site is worthless and obviously partisan
Because Zogby is so biased towards the left that even Fox News uses him. I'd provide a direct link but it's a stupid Javascript link -- go to the main page and click on the "Fox Swing States".
Zogby has publicly said that he expects Kerry to win
And he's basing that on the record number of new voters (that will likely break for Kerry) and the historical fact that most undecided voters break for the challenger. I suspect that Kerry will win for exactly the same reason. If he doesn't then I guess we'll both have egg on our face.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
he's got 9 servers it seems electoral-vote[2-9].com .... maybe it is time for some dns round robbin action?
Thats the saddest thing about it. You have a president who is one of the most powerful of the free world, and the free world hates him.
Tough. It's our vote, not yours. I'm getting really sick of these arrogant Europeans thinking their oppinion in our election even matters. We (by and large) hate the French president, do they care? Are they changing their votes because of it?
"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge"
- Charles Darwin
The rest of you arent worth a hill of beans..
(Feeding the troll, oh well...)
You do realize that the anti-US position of the rest of the world is caused by these kinds of postures, don't you?
Support a Europe-related section on Slashdot!
But for whatever reason, ICEs move most people to work in the morning. It just happens to work REALLY REALLY well for the particular size vehicle people drive. Besides, improvements in computer control technology have largely rounded off the rough points of ICE.
To a mechanical engineer, we all should be driving around in cars powered by turbines, or Wenkel rotary engines.
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
Well you make it sound like Bush single handidly f'ed up America. For some reason the rest of the world seems to believe this too. I suppose everyone needs to demonize some person or thing in order to justify what is wrong with their situation. But as much as I hate Bush, it's not all his fault.
You think he runs this country? Think again. This country is run by two parties - nothing else. They both have their own agendas to some degree, but they are essentially the same and whoring themselves out to the highest bidder. If you want my opinion, you better move your investmens if either a Democrat or Republican wins. America is screwed no matter what the outcome is - and that's because of the people as much as the politicians.
My point exactly. Andy has been in Linux flamewars since the beginning (probably even the first one!). Remember, also, that Kenneth Brown of AdTI wanted to claim that Linus 'stole' Linux from Andy's MINIX and how Andy refuted that at the time. Hence the careful choice of words ...
Alison
"It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education." - Albert Einstein
The electoral college is not obselete. If we got rid of it, the presidential election campaigns would focus on the top five or ten population centers/media markets in the country, and effectively disenfranchise the rest of it. There is a reason why our forefathers gave disproportionate numbers of votes to smaller states--because they realized the danger of letting one particular geographical area or population center have control of the system.
You need to remember that this country is (or at least, is supposed to be) a federation of states, and the president is supposed to be the representative of the states, not necessarily the people in them. People do not cast ballots for presidents -- states do. The states can decide the procedures in which they determine how to cast their ballots in any way they deem appropriate.
If this does not make sense to you, think about the UN. You, as a person who lives in a country represented in the UN, do not get to vote for UN resolutions. Rather, your country's representative does.
As for our congressional election system, I think that although the Senate should remain in tact, it would probably benefit the country to change the House to a more European-style parliament so that people outside the Republican-Democrat duopoly could actually have a voice.
So what? If you took a Slashdot poll of who the next CEO of Microsoft should be, you might find widespread support for some guy who would give away all their IP and then disband the company. If you took a poll of the shareholders, they would have a different opinion. Why would anyone need to poll 113,000 people to realize that third parties have different agendas than the people doing the voting?
Even if foreigners are well-informed about the platforms of the candidates in a different country, why would they care about things like domestic issues or tax policy? Such people would have no interest in picking the candidate who would act in the best interest of Americans, but rather who would do things that were best for people in the poll-respondant's part of the world, regardless of whether the policies were good or bad for the candidate's own constituency. People in India want might more outsourcing, people in Japan might want America to run a bigger trade deficit with them, others might want to take America down a notch or two economically, politically, militarily, and so on.
Consider this interpretation of your data: people who actually have to live under the administration they are voting for are many times more likely to support Bush than are poll respondants who are foist a candidate upon someone else's country from afar.
But American actions affect France, Canada, the U.K., Iraq, Iran, China, North Korea, India, everywhere for that matter.
The worlwide poll results reflect to a minimum extent the feelings generated by the current administration's actions.
If you don't want to repeat the past, stop living in it.
And it's people like you who were asking "why do they hate us" after 9/11...
Anyway, if we keep this national attitude up, in a few more years the rest of the world certainly won't give a damn about the U.S. elections. Because they won't give a damn about the U.S. - we won't matter in world affairs anymore. The "American Century" is over, and we can either be a player, maybe even "first among equals", in the new century, or we can be a second-rate laughing stock as nations that value cooperation and intelligent behavior lead the way.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
>Tough. It's our vote, not yours. I'm getting really sick of these arrogant Europeans thinking their oppinion in our election even matters.
It would be correct to tell the rest of the world to piss off and mind their own business because the U.S. presidential elections are U.S. business if the U.S. stopped meddling in foreign governments.
Whatever the outcome of this election, it WILL have repercussions on the rest of the world.
THAT'S why the rest of the world feels they must state their opinion, obviously.
I don't know the meaning of the word 'don't' - J
Your government misrepresented its reasons for going to war. In fact, the correct expression is, "it LIED".
Saddam Hussein has/had no proven connections to Al Quaeda. No secret relationships with Osama Bin Laden. No Weapons of Mass destruction. No ability to threaten America or American citizens (except those who wandered into Iraq) directly.
Was he a "bad man"? Oh, probably. But so is Kim Jong Il.
The reason why there is so much anti-american sentiment is that America (through its governmental representation) is so anti-global-community. So blatantly false in its motivations. And has proven to be very untrustworthy.
The war was NEVER about terror, Weapons of Mass Destruction, regime change, or making the world a safer place. It was always about securing oil resources and securing a military foothold in the middle-east.
The rest of the world knew this immediately (except for the UK government). We didn't swallow anything hook-line-and-sinker. We called a spade a spade, and are frankly quite disgusted by the lack of respect that America has demonstrated to the international community.
At the very least, if the American government would've said, "uh, we're going into Iraq because the instability of the area threatens our Oil supply." At least they would've been honest.
Are Americans evil? Hardly. My wife is American. I visit my inlaws regularly and they are fantastic folks. So are all of the people I've met on a face-to-face basis. However, the American government is NOT a good representation of its people. All that the rest of the world is saying with these fake votes and inconsequential opinion polls is that we'd like your government to give you the international representation that the good people of America deserve.
-- All views expressed in this post are mine and do not
-- reflect those of my employer or their clients
Tough. It's our vote, not yours. I'm getting really sick of these arrogant Europeans thinking their oppinion in our election even matters. We (by and large) hate the French president, do they care? Are they changing their votes because of it?
You're right, it is your vote, and it's perfectly justifiable for Americans to consider their election a purely internal matter for Americans to deal with.
Oddly enough though, whenever another country has elected a leader that Americans happened to dislike, you always went in and removed them. It didn't matter if it required an invasion (too many to list), a kidnapping (Panama), an assassination (Cuba), or a fake coup (Guatemala), you supported it.
And to think all we're doing to express our dislike of your leaders is letting you know about it. Oh the horror! But you're getting pissed that we would dare interfere in your election by *talking about it*? What a fucking hypocrite.
I'm getting really sick of these arrogant Europeans thinking their oppinion in our election even matters.
Let's make this simple:
Their opinions of our nation affect our individual lives. Sometimes the effects aren't obvious, but the effects are there. Therefore, we have a reason to care about what they think of us.
Their opinions of our nation are largely determined by our nation's actions in the area of foreign relations. Foreign relations is handled by the State Department under the direction of the President. Ergo, their opinion of us is principally affected by our President. Therefore, we have a reason to care about what they think of our President.
Their opinion matters. It's not decisive by any means, but to the extent that our interests and theirs coincide, we should at least give consideration to what they have to say.
Beyond that, sometimes it's good to get a point of view that is at a remove from the problem. Marriage counselors aren't necessarily all that smart, but they are fairly effective because they're outside of the problem. Sometimes I think the US citizens and the US government could use some intervention to help us work out our differences :-)
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Then try to keep him/her/it at home, and make sure his decisions do not interfere with my life. Otherwise, it is fair game to hold you, the american voter, responsible for the shit your elected president creates abroad.
What if people realized for once that "terrorists" aren't a country, a religion, or even a people? That you cannot send ground forces into a country and shoot things and claim to be waging war on "terrorism"?
Terrorism is an idea. In America's specific case (there are many, many others) its the idea that America is Evil. Muslim kids go to school and have that drilled into their heads on a daily basis. Then they go to church and have it drilled into their heads. And then some soldier's stray bullet mows down their best friend, cementing that idea so firmly in their mind that they're willing to kill themselves and their own people if they can take out some of the "evil people" with them.
Neither Kerry nor Bush address this fact because its a very scary thought: the end of war as its been fought for millenia. No longer can its effectiveness be judged based on the body count or how many millions of dollars worth of bombs have been dropped. The war of the new millenium is an information war, fought with concepts and memes, where the deathtoll is no longer an end but merely a means towards the goal.
To that end, we need to drastically alter the way we treat this war. Hire some of IBM and Microsoft's marketers to do what they do best: spread Fear Uncertainty and Doubt. Every time an Iraqi native is killed by a terrorist, hammer that home to the Iraqi people: America is your friend, the terrorists are evil murderers. Terrorists burning your trucks and having a party? Rather than strafing the crowd with gunfire, rig the trucks with a small electrically triggered heat-resistant charge, enough to cause injury if you're nearby and maybe kill someone stupid enough to stand on the hood of a burning truck. Set it off and hit the airwaves, lambasting the carelessness and incompetence of the terrorists in using their explosives. Use this intermittently (if it happened every time people would figure it out) and suddenly those parties won't be so fun. Osama making a new appearance every now and then? Given that it takes days for American intelligence (then again...) to "analyze" the tapes for authenticity, it must be easy to produce fakes of our own? Spread confusion and doubt. Have "Osama" tell his forces to quit killing Muslims, since they're starting to stray from his version of Islamic rule. Have him announce that they'll be retaking some small, inconsequential city and see who shows up. Have him go batshit crazy on TV. While we're at it, whatever happened to the leaflet bombing that showed some effectiveness in softening Afghanistan's troops?
Around the time of World War II, we saw the beginnings of concepts that should have become the new world of war: encryption, counter-intelligence, inflatable decoy military bases (suicide bombing is only fun when you kill more of the enemy than you do of yourself) and so on, but it seems in the past 60 years we've forgotten all of that, reverting to the "tried and failed" method of carpet bombing and footsoldier rampaging we saw in Vietnam and Korea and now in Iraq.
The why does the world seem so baffled when the US keeps electing conservative presidents?
The reason many Americans would react that way (vote Bush when they hear Europeans vote Kerry) is that the Rightwing propaganda machine has been brainwashing them by demonizing Europe. This propaganda offensive seemed to begin not too long after the news of the strong European social safety net began to leak out of Europe and into the conciousness of many Americans. The old "threat of a good example" strategy of the American propaganda machine. I guess the logic is that if Americans see that Leftist Europe can make the welfare state work, that eventually Americans will get the idea that they can make it work for themselves, too. And that would be bad for corporate/business profits. Same principle more or less applied to every American invasion of or manipulation of all those leftist Asian or Latin American countries. Oh, Guatemala/vietnam/Chile/cuba is going leftist? Well, we will just invade them/back a coup/embargo them....
A threat of a good example might give similar ideas to other countries...So they demonize/propagandize Americans via the mass media, the better to manufacture consent for invasion or a coup.
So the lesson for Europe is, I suppose, you best watch you asses, the Rich people in America and the multinationals don't like your opulent welfare states that keep the citizens from being at the mercy of the upper class/the corporations. So watch out for an invasion/a coup/a trade embargo in a few years, once Rush Limbaugh/The NY Times et al have worked Americans into a hate frenzy at the very mention of the word "Europe".
eat shiat and bark at the moon
You can check all the data behind the graphs, I would think if he did something sneaky it would have been routed out by now. Many other sites are not using *all* available polls, which means they are not swinging as wildly and also not as up-to-date as Tanenbaum's. As he explains in the FAQ now, his graphs have not been significantly different from the pro-bush electionprojection.com site.
o ry.cfm? story_id=3329802
Also, read this:
http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaySt
This from a magazine that endorsed Dole and Bush on previous US elections...
If you don't like having choices made for you, you should start making your own. - Neal Stephenson
Reading this retort, I was immediately reminded of Tannenbaum's comment about the bully in his school. If you really _don't_ care what the rest of the world thinks of the U.S., then don't be surprised when they aren't willing to help us the next time a terrorist attack strikes us.
Considering just how crappy our economic health is at the moment, an international boycott would only make things in the U.S. worse, irregardless of the size of our economy. And I wouldn't be surprised if that came to pass.
Geoff
I think I see a trend here. Maybe for them it really would be easier to muzzle the entire internet than to produce p
The UN is out there helping plenty of places, like Sudan or Kosovo. Only difference is everyone agrees something must be done, and can be done without errupting into multi-year wars.
There's plenty of "evil" places in the world. Bin Laden has links to Sudan, and unless we fix the Sudanese problems it'll probably generate terrorists. We need to pick our battles and not boldly stomp into a situation that we can't pay for or maintain.
If you always do the opposite of what those you dislike do, you're not really going your own way. You are just slavishly following others. That you're going in the opposite direction from them doesn't change the fact that you are a slave to their decisions. You're an "anti sheep" if you will.
A true free thinking rebel has no problem doing exactly what the huge masses of idiots do, if he happens to enjoy it.
You know, Mr. Slippery, you're a friend of a friend and all, but I think you're kidding yourself. What countries are those, exactly? The same countries that kicked us out of the UN Human Rights commitee, and appointed Libya as the leader? Is that cooperation? Is that "intelligent behavior"? Whatever you have to say about our human rights record, you MUST admit that we're better than Libya, for crying out loud.
The world is not truly cooperating for anything good, not yet. They are paying lip service to the idea of cooperating. Personally I think we should slowly sideline the UN and form our own organization. The UN is pretty much controlled by Islamic interests at this point. Evidence: they pass all kinds of resolutions about how Israel needs to be nice, but ignore the atrocities committed by the palestinians.
I really hate to say it, but the UN is practically a terrorist organization. As a group, they're no more interested in intelligence, cooperation, and human rights than Stalin was.
WWJD? JWRTFA!
Excellent selective use of information! You are ready to be a spin doctor!
;-)
The links you are pointing to are ones which use a slightly different algorithm that averaged polls over a multi-day period. When the site switched to using that algorithm, he got a lot of complaints from people, and so he switched back. This happened long before today, and if you look through the site history, Bush has been leading more than Kerry with the original algorithm. These choices of algorithms were made well in advance of today's result.
If you go back and look at the Oct. 29 versions of the site, you'll find Kerry losing using the original algorithm and Kerry winning with the averaging algorithm. The original algorithm was what was on the front page. So I guess a couple of days ago he was manipulating things for Bush then?
sigs are a waste of space
Why exactly do "[The US citizens] (by and large) hate the French president"?
It's just the fanatical Bush supporters, the ones who live in an entirely different reality filled with entirely different "facts". They generally beleive that we did find WMD's in Iiiiqar, or that there was an active WMD program, that Iraq was involved in the 9/11 attack or otherwise supported Al Quaeda, who think we still have the vitally needed international support for hunting down terrorists across the globe.
And based on that view of reality, obviously the French are aiding the terrorists. They are all obviously currupted by the Oil for Food program. And most of all they simply want to see a weak America so they can puff-up their own relative importance and strength.
But as I said, that's the Bush supporters. The rest of us may have chucked at the "Freedom Fries" stuff, and laughed at the French-surrendering jokes, but we in no way hate the French or your President.
I'd say 20% of the problem is our administration intentionally deceiving the public, 20% of the problem is idiot people beleiving the administration's baloney, but the majority of the problem is that our media has rolled over for the Whitehouse. Immediately after 9/11 attack we all naturally came together in unity and support. After the attack any critisism of the country or of the president was simply UnAmerican and Not Done. While the effect has faded, it is not gone. The press has been reluctant to carry news that was critical of the US or of the President. When they do critique the administration and their statements and their 'evidence', the media tends to softpeddle that critique.
Half of the country is outraged at the lies the administration has foisted on us and on the world, and the other half still beleives those lies. It is human nature that people do not like to find out that they are wrong - that they have been fooled. Bush supporters are emotionally invested in not accepting evidence that they have been fooled, and that they have been supporting a war that most of them would have opposed had they known there were in fact no WMD's and no WMD programs.
The people on each side have a very different view of reality. This election is increadibly polarized. A one or two percent shift in voting will throw the electorial college vote massively one way or the other. There seems to be good reason to believe that that major shift will be in Kerry's direction. And hopfully after a Kerry election the public will become more accurately informed.
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
First of all every government security agency in the world believed that Saddam had WMDs.
Foreign government security services didn't say much about it at all, as far as I know. But US government experts, including weapons inspectors, said that there was no way there were WMD there anymore, or even to create them.
Just look at the financial relations that exist between the US and everyone else.
Yes: a result of the dollar having become the international standard of exchange after WWII. The question is: will the US let the Euro take over that role?
If we were so anti-global we would create tarrifs on imports that duplicate the tarrifs our good face when exported to other countries. Almost every country in the world has much more severe barriers to foreign competition and foreign ownership or acquisition of companies than the US.
The US has low trade barriers in some areas (e.g., high tech) and high trade barriers others (e.g., agriculture). Those policies don't represent a general commitment to free trade, but the political influence of selected US constituencies. Some of those policies, like US (and EU) agricultural policies, can only be described as evil.
The US government sends more aid to other countries than any other country in the world. They probably (unsubstantiated) send more aid to other countries than the entire EU combined.
The US is one of the stingiest nations when it comes to foreign aid. And even those official figures are overestimates because what the US counts as "foreign aid" is often thinly disguised political or military aid, or tied to the purchase of US goods and services. So, in effect, that "foreign aid" is US corporate subsidies, which is not only bad foreign aid policy, but also in violation of fair trade principles.
As a frenchman who did not vote for Chirac (the French president)
Way off topic, but did you vote for Le Pen, then?
I'm getting really sick of these arrogant Europeans thinking their oppinion in our election even matters.
You are shortsighted and and dooming our efforts to defend ourselfs against terrorist attack if you think overwhelming world oppinion is irrelevant.
The world - our staunchest allies - they all beleive that the US has been lying and that *WE* have become the rouge nation. I'd say the evidence is that they are right, but even if they are wrong, the fact is that they do beleive it. The fact is that they no longer trust us. The fact is that they no longer support our efforts to track and catch or kill terrorists.
How the hell are we supposted to find and catch or kill terrorists across the globe - even in nations that have been our staunchest allies - when we no longer have their public support and police support and intelligence support and their military support?
Bush has been increadibly damaging to our international relations. Bush has destroyed our capacity to find and catch and kill terrorist cells outside the country and planning attacks on us.
We are talking about Australia, and England, and Mexico, and Canada. And yes, France and Germany as well.
Bush is famous for saying "you're with us or you're against us". Well he got his wish, now the entire world is against us. How the hell are we supposed to keep out terrorists when even Canada and Mexico are against us?
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
For the 2000 explanation, look at the LV calculation. The devil was in those details.
Polls are interesting, you should learn more about the decisions and the math that is done after the phone calls are made.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
I think that was what I was saying! We don't get to vote for the president and I think that is why we need to change the constitution to allow us to do just that. The un-ammended constitution has many bad ideas that have been fixed by ammendments over the years. As written there, we couldn't even vote for US Senators, they were appointed by the state legistlators. That was a bad idea that was fixed by an ammendment. The constitution is a wonderful document but it's far from flawless. Don't forget that the Bill of Rights was added almost immediately after the constitution was ratified due the fact that the constition did nothing to protect individual rights. If the founding fathers thought that the constitution was to be written in stone, they would not have ammended it themselves within a year.
Note that I'm not for ammending it for any new popular idea; the difficult ratification system that they put in does a good job of keeping most dumb ideas (I know prohibition was pretty darn dumb) but I think that this is one thing that needs to change. Whatever you think about the activities in Florida in 2000, it's just wrong that one candidate can win the popular vote but lose the electoral. And don't think that I'm just saying this because I support the Democrats; Bill Clinton did not get the majority of votes in either 1992 or 1996. It's a posibility that most voters did not want Bill in there but he won anyway. No matter who wins on Tuesday, I the system is broken and needs to be fixed.
European governments would have to convince their besotted (with social programs) populace that spending more than 2% of their GDP on defense is required.
Required by what? To have a military that is as bloated and useless as the US military?
Most of your nations
You're making unwarranted assumptions.
still operate under a US-provided nuclear umbrella.
I gather most Europeans would prefer not to, if they ever did.
"Asserting leadership" is impossible without military might.
What is the US going to do with its military might? Bomb Europe? Bomb China? The instant that happened, the US economy would be in complete ruins and the US would be an international outcast. Those hundreds of billions of dollars spent on Iraq and Afghanistan haven't even been able to bring those nations under control. Military might is an outdated concept: what little the US has, it can't seriously exercise.
I don't consider Europe a threat, and neither does this administration
This whole notion of "threat" is so cold war. If you want to talk about "threats", Europe is an economic threat to the US, along with China and India. And if the US wants to counter that "threat", it can only do by becoming more open, more tolerant, and more competitive, not through more military power and intervention.
Speaking as a Canadian .... very well said. TO be clear though, we do have a lot of respect and are protective of our friends in the US, as they generally are of us.
We whole heartedly support the fight against terrorism
We just get upset when our VERY large friend to the south doesn't think strategically, becomes unreasonably impatient, works outside their network of friends, alienates most of them, and then opens up an unnecessary second front to fight an unnecessary (Iraq was well contained) war, instead of the War Against Terrorism.
In short, Bush has made the US has looked like a lurching, violent, idiot on the world stage
In approximately 32 states, voting for a third party does not favor any one major party candidate over the other, because the winner of those 32 states is, for all intents and purposes, known in advance. I live in one of those states: Illinois. And I will be voting Badnarik without a single worry that it will change the outcome of the election.
I noticed that Gallup often seemed to be WAY different than other polls (ie back in mid Sept, right after the RNC bounce faded, I recall them putting Bush ahead by 12 points when every other major poll had them in a statistical tie), so I looked into their methodology...
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They poll based on the previous election's turnout. That is, they start from the assumption that Republican/Democrat turnout (as percentages) in 2004 will be identical to 2000. Since registered Republicans apparently had a higher turnout than registered Democrats in 2000 (40% to 33%), they include proportionately higher numbers of Republicans in their polling sample. That's how they determine their mix of "likely voters". Here's an (admittedly partisan) article on it: http://www.theleftcoaster.com/archives/002806.htm
As for what polls electoral-vote.com uses, he always uses polls with the most recent median date.
"Mind, as manifested by the capacity to make choices, is to some extent present in every electron." -Freeman Dyson
you wrote:
What's fascinating is the sheer control of the media by people who lean to the left, or even further to the left. The biggest spreaders of FUD are you ABC's, CBS's, NBC's, and CNN's. All of them are liberal outlets. The closest one to the right is Fox News, which is still a liberal station.
NONE of those media giants are liberal. And unlike you, I will present actual reasoning, evidence etc to backup my claim. Here goes:
Big Media is liberal on minor, token issues: affirmative action, abortion, gay rights. These are the offically approved liberal issues. But when it comes to the really important issues, the economic issues, Big Media is solidly conservative. For example, recently, we have had a lot of discussion on network and cable tv political news shows about the "Problem with Social Security." And there has been some discussion of "solutions" to this problem. Of all the many times possible solutions have been mentioned on tv news shows, there are only two possible solutions ever listed: raise the age of retirement, and reduce benefits. Gee, what about all the other possible solutions? What about raising the ceiling on the payroll tax? Currently, the payroll tax stops at about $87K, and income above that is not taxed at all for SS purposes. ALso, why not just create a special tax on high incomes and use that to fund SS? For example add a 1% tax on all earned and unearned income above $250K. That would take care of all SS problems, just like that!
But you never hear anything about that on tv because that is a LEFTist solution, and leftists are hardly ever seen on tv. All centrists and rightwingers. Go look at all the broadcast networks and look at each political news show. List all the neutral regular guests and all the rightwing and leftwing regular guests and hosts. Can't think of many leftists, can you? Well, maybe you never paid much attention to that kind of stuff? Maybe you just repeat what you hear on Rush Limbaugh, or what you read in the wall st journal?
Well, there is really only ONE true leftist regularly given a voice on broadcast TV: Bill Moyers, and he is being driven out this year. You might make a case for Eleanor Clift and Lawrence O'Donell on McLaughlin and and Juan Williams on Fox News Sunday, althoug they are really more classic democrats, which is not the same as true liberal/progressive leftist. Also, that lady who is on the PBS show run by the Wall St Journal editorial board.
Now, do you want to run down all the rightwingers on broadcast tv? And then we can get started on cable tv. And that is far worse.
You see, you really don't know much about the situation at all, do you? You just repeat talking points drilled into you by talk radio, WSJ, and other mainstream media outlets.
Anyone think of any other lefists regularly on broadcast TV?
eat shiat and bark at the moon
The only two countries that see the palestenian occupation as just and moral are Israel and the US. Everybody else sees it as immoral and unjust.
I am not even sure that the Bush administrations (either this one or the previous one) saw it as moral or just. Indeed *both* W and his father went as far as withholding foreign aid from Israel and if you look closely at the politics with regard to the foreign aid that was delivered, it is far more slanted against Israel than others might thing (more emphasis on loan guarantees and less on grants, etc).
The problem is that Americans as a whole are far more pro-Israel than they should be, and this ties the administration's hands. Now, it should also be noted that Clinton was far more pro-Israel than either Bush.
But there are funny things here-- this support creates a situation where problems which need to be peacefully resolved don't get resolved. And it means that other countries (Lebannon, f. ex.) will exploit US foreign policy to, say, push the line regarding water rights, etc. So this support doesn't really do Israel any good in the long run.
Israel has peace treaties with two of its neighbors (Jordan and Egypt). Its occupation of the Golan continues to make such treaties impossible with Syria and Lebannon. Netenyahu understood this which was why he had secret meetings with the Assad to discuss this situation. Such meetings eventually went nowhere, primarily because of the way in which Clinton and Barak handled this.
---Hope---
There are a couple of things to be hopeful here. THe first is that the Israeli High Court of Justice has been relatively progressive on addressing issues of the legal rights of Israel's Arab citizens (about 20% of their population) and has even come close to endorsing the ICC. It is likely that practices such as inhuman conditions in prisons and torture will be stopped as the High Court of Justice continues to hear these cases. The only thing missing for the Israeli population to really have liberty is some abolishment of administrative detention and some right similar to that granted by a Habeas petition here in the US. There is a growing movement to ensure that these rights become recognized as a part of law.
Also, despite a lot oft he resistance to it, I think that Sharon's Gaza withdrawal plan has the potential to be the first step towards the renewal of a peace process. Sure, Sharon wants to use this to fortify his position with the West Bank settlements, but even this simplifies the solution and makes things easier to eventually resolve. I am not saying Sharon could do it or even that he wants to (Sharon probably lacks credibility as a negotiating partner with both the Israelis and the Palestinians, so negotiating with him would be like negotiating with someone randomly selected from the street corner).
Israel will only have security when the issues of Gaza, Golan, and the West Bank are settled, when rule of law rather than force of arms prevails in the Palestinian lands, and when peace treaties are signed and recognized with all of Israel's neighbors. These will not happen overnight. But it will happen probably within my lifetime. Whether Israel is at that time a Jewish or a secular state will be their choosing. But it will lose some of its association with a single religion because either its Arab citizens (who have larger families and less education) will continue to have more children, or they will be given a fair education and set of economic opportunities and be better integrated into Israeli society.
Israel being against all Arabs is sort of like the US being against all people of African decent. Oh wait....
Not that I expect it to continue indefinitely.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
RE costs:
I don't think cost is a factor. If it was they would have stopped by now.
RE Arab population and Israel as a Democracy.
Isreal needs to make up it's mind. Is it a jewish state or is it a democracy. You can no more have a jewish democracy then you can have a christian democracy, a white democracy or a muslim democracy. You either have full sufferage or you don't have democracy. Israel is not a democracy, it's the fullfillment of zion. I frequently describe it as a theo-democracy. It a theocracy that is governed by pseudo democratic process.
RE Borders:.
THere are UN resolutions that draw the Israeli border.
RE Fence:.
I agree with you to an extent. I agree that whoever is left on the israeli side of the fence gets to become a full fledged israeli citizen. The only thing you have to be careful of is that the fence is not constructed so as to take all of the available water, arable land, etc.
RE Geneva convention:
It's toothless. For all practical purposes israel is the most powerful nation on the planet. If anybody attacks israel the US will turn them into a parking lot. If the UN attempts to pass a resolution to force israel to do something the US will veto it. If Israel bombs another country and the country attempts to retaliate the US will destroy that country.
Israel is not bound by any laws of man or god. It can do whatever it wants, whenever it wants to whoever it wants. They could carpet bomb syria tommorow and kill everybody in there and nobody can do anything about it.
The only thing that is holding back israel from massive ethnic cleansing in the occupied terratories is their own internal morality. Right now the people calling for genocide are a minority. Who knows what will happen in the future. I suspect if the soul of the israeli nation continues in it's current path that minority will become a majority and a final solution will be proposed in the knesset by the likes of netanyahu and sharon.
evil is as evil does