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Diebold Patch May Be Evidence of '02 Election Tampering
An anonymous reader writes "Stephen Spoonamore, founder of IT security firm Cybrinth and former advisor to John McCain, claims he has new evidence of election tampering by Diebold in the 2002 Georgia gubernatorial and senate races. A whistleblower gave Spoonamore a patch that was applied to Diebold machines in person by the Diebold CEO. Spoonamore confirmed that the patch did not correct the clock problem it supposedly addressed, but contained two parallel programs. Without access to the hardware, he could not learn more. He reported his findings to the Justice Department, which has not acted."
the worst thing is even if the next election was rigged no body would really do anything.
Honestly? Surprised that there exists interests in changing the outcome of an election in a favourable way?
Were the Diebold voting machines Euclidean or non-Euclidean? Without this key bit of information, we can't know if these programs intersected or not.
I think I'll vote via absentee ballot and send it via registered mail. Paranoid? Maybe.
> He reported his findings to the Justice Department, which has not acted.
Bush co already patched the justice dept.
No worries.
I live in Atlanta, and lived here in 2002. "King" Roy Barnes and Max Cleland didn't get "robbed" of anything. They lost their elections because they were both liberal Democrats running in a conservative state in a big Republican year. Barnes in particular had become so personally obnoxious that a good many in his own party crossed over to vote against him out of pure spite.
Good grief, people. Put the tinfoil hats away.
If the patch is not suspicious enough, inaction by the Justice Department is damning.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
The first flag should've been that it was the CEO who performed the patch. If a CEO _ever_ gets his hands dirty, you can rest assured that there is something illegal going on that needs to be covered up.
I live in constant fear of the Coming of the Red Spiders.
As an IT support person, the scope of the Diebold patch update is suspicious. Why just two counties? Why not the whole state? Why a special trip by the CEO? Too many bells are going off here.
When I did IT updates. I would update a few test configurations and select users then let them run for a bit. Then roll out to the masses. About 2,500 PCs if you will.
The justice department needs to begin investigating this immediately.
This whole situation stinks to high heaven.
Thanks,
Jim
I wonder how many people have stopped to think through the implications of this charge. If it's proven to be true, it could very well mean Diebold's CEO is guilty of treason. In a time of war (which President Bush has repeatedly said is the case), that's a death penalty offense. While I don't favour the death penalty, I think you have to take a very serious look at it for somebody who hasn't just killed people, but who has attempted to kill democracy in an entire nation. This particular incident may have been restricted to one state, but Diebold has been very active in attempting to get its machines and methods protected from legal supervision at the federal level.
By the way, what's their new name? I keep forgetting.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
Remember folks, Diebold is now known as "Premier Election Solutions"--they changed their name to get away from the bad PR! So don't call them "Diebold" any more and don't forget!
Just like MediaSentry becoming "SafeNet", we shouldn't be so quick to forget who the scumbags are!
- I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property
2003;
The head of a company vying to sell voting machines in Ohio told Republicans in a recent fund-raising letter that he is "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year."
The Aug. 14 letter from Walden O'Dell, chief executive of Diebold Inc. - who has become active in the re-election effort of President Bush - prompted Democrats this week to question the propriety of allowing O'Dell's company to calculate votes in the 2004 presidential election.
O'Dell attended a strategy pow-wow with wealthy Bush benefactors - known as Rangers and Pioneers - at the president's Crawford, Texas, ranch earlier this month. The next week, he penned invitations to a $1,000-a-plate fund-raiser to benefit the Ohio Republican Party's federal campaign fund - partially benefiting Bush - at his mansion in the Columbus suburb of Upper Arlington.
The letter went out the day before Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell, also a Republican, was set to qualify Diebold as one of three firms eligible to sell upgraded electronic voting machines to Ohio counties in time for the 2004 election.
"Kill 'em all and let Root sort 'em out"
The story says "The computer patch was installed in person by Diebold CEO Bob Urosevich, who flew in from Texas and applied it in just two counties, DeKalb and Fulton, both Democratic strongholds."
If that's accurate, that's astonishing to me.
I don't know much about "The Raw Story," which describes itself as an "alternative" news source. If this had appeared in the mainstream media I would regard it as something close to a smoking gun. I hope this isn't the end of the story.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
Three problems with your point:
1) The patch was made to certified machines, thus making them non-certified.
2) It was only applied in 2 counties. (*cough*Democratic counties*cough*) Why not the whole state?
3) I'm fairly certain that if *I* merely open the ballot box or machine during the election, that satisfies the requirement for "tampering" regardless of me touching ballots or flipping bits, and I'd be making an extra stop at the local police precinct before going home.
Of course, it all depends on who's prosecuting and how it gets presented.
But if:
1. it doesn't fix the problem it claims to fix
2. it was personnally installed by the CEO of the vendor's firm
3. it was only installed on a subset of machines (and those in democratic strongholds)
alarm bells should be going off all over the place.
If, at my bank, we tried to push a change that hit even one of the above, ten people would be on the phone to in-house lawyers, compliance, management, etc.
Had one of my new guys yesterday wanting to push a change. "I'll tell you what it does," he said. "Don't bother," I said, "if what it's doing is not obvious, it's not going anywhere."
FTA: "...The first red flag went up when the computer patch was installed in person by Diebold CEO Bob Urosevich..."
Oops. Bob Urosevich was not and has never been the CEO of Diebold. That seems like a pretty important oversight for a front-page non-fiction piece.
FUD.
The software engineers try to get a handle on how many bugs are left after a certain number have been found, but how do we get a handle on how many events like these might be happening after one has come to light?
It has long been pretty clear that these voting machine vendors, Diebold chief among them, have had something to hide because of how cagy they have been about allowing people to examine their machines. It's very frustrating that their arguments seem to always win out - it makes you wonder how many Secretaries of State (for non-US readers, that is a state-level office that is frequently in charge of elections. Not to be confused with the Federal level Foreign Minister) want to know what is going on, or really d know what is going on, and just want deniability.
The CEO personally getting involved is more suspicious to me.
I mean Deibold is a fairly large company, why is the CEO applying patches to products in person?
And how often does he do this?
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
Why doesn't Diebold allow for open source code?
* They are afraid of scrutiny. They might have errors and some might turn out to be embarrassing.
* Competition might ensue.
* Hide any funny business.
* Have to follow someone else's rules
* Have to spend effort/expense making code available.
* Code files too big as they were written with PowerPoint (tm)
Interesting that he's not mentioned in the summary, but several other sources seem to indicate that Karl Rove is behind this.
Go ahead and mod me down, I've got decent karma.
Your sig(k) has been stolen. There is a puff of smoke!
perhaps. However, there are many many many factions there. Do you know and trust all their motivations? Some factions might like the war because it is profitable, or gives them an edge in gang fights.
A Good Troll is better than a Bad Human.
Jeff Dean, Senior Vice-President and Senior Programmer at Global Election Systems (GES), the company purchased by Diebold in 2002 which became Diebold Election Systems, was convicted of 23 counts of felony theft for planting back doors in software he created for ATMs using, according to court documents, a "high degree of sophistication" to evade detection over a period of two years[8]. In addition to Dean, GES employed a number of other convicted felons in senior positions, including a fraudulent securities trader and a drug trafficker.
Avi Rubin, Professor of Computer Science at Johns Hopkins University and Technical Director of the Information Security Institute has analyzed the source code used in these voting machines and reports "this voting system is far below even the most minimal security standards applicable in other contexts.
Following the publication of this paper, the State of Maryland hired Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) to perform another analysis of the Diebold voting machines. SAIC concluded "[t]he system, as implemented in policy, procedure, and technology, is at high risk of compromise."
My point is, Obama should feel pretty safe in Iraq.
Not from the Blackwater goons. And he might want to stay away from the showers.
What?
The extremists among the Iraqi insurgency and other terrorist groups are devoted to the idea of pushing the broader Islamic world into open war with the West. They would probably prefer that the winner of the election prolong the occupation so that they can continue to claim to be fighting against Western aggression and collaborators, rather than just killing their own people. The last thing that the kookiest of the terror groups want is a president who is interested in multi-lateral diplomatic settlements to points of conflict between Muslim countries and the US. A diplomatic resolution to conflicts over Iran's nuclear program, for instance, amounts to a disappointing fizzle if you're interested in widening the rift. An invasion and war, on the other hand, would push moderates in Iran into the arms of Islamic radicals that promise to defend them.
Intellectually, I hate this. Our oligarchy* requires free and fair elections.
But in terms of news-as-entertainment, this is the stuff the best thrillers are made of.
(*: used in place of "democracy" for maximum correctness)
Fixed that mistake for ya.
why is the CEO applying patches to products in person?
And how often does he do this?
Whenever he needs to get paid
Well, Bart, your uncle Arthur used to have a saying: "Shoot 'em all and let God sort 'em out."
Credibility? You want credibility on an anonymous third-hand account of something that allegedly happened six years ago? Get real. There will be many, many claims of fraud, affairs, and other misdeeds against the Republicans in the next four months. To paraphrase Dan Rather "We're sure the story is true, even if the evidence doesn't support it".
Oh, God, no! Once US troops leave, Iraqi insurgents will be able to kill... other Iraqi people. Big deal to you, eh? Are you aware of all the other wars and everyday murders of innocent people (including children) in the rest of the world?
Geekocracy?! Talk about rule by the unwashed. :D
FTA: "he identified two parallel programs, both having the full software code and even the same audio instructions for the deaf." And I thought Braille on a drive up ATM was pointless.
You're so cynical that it makes you cool.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
For hundreds of years elections have been held using paper and pencil ballots, and fraud was very difficult to get away with. This is because you have to employ large numbers of people to commit it.
Electronic voting can be subverted very simply indeed, just by one person with the right technical knowledge. All electronic voting should be scrapped until a reasonably secure system can be organised, most likely by open source solutions. Even then there's no real reason for it.
And what the hell was the CEO doing installing patches? Sounds highly suspicous to me.
It looks like from older sources that the CEO was traveling with a technician who actually installed the patch. The technician has since thought that it was an unusual thing to be doing. http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/11717105/robert_f_kennedy_jr__will_the_next_election_be_hacked/2 "We were told not to talk to county personnel about it. I received instructions directly from Urosevich. It was very unusual that a president of the company would give an order like that and be involved at that level."
And why would a huge corporate company make noise about criminal activity done by one of their possible advertisers, or someone with connections in Washington? They wait until the feds start busting them up. That way, you know they don't have any leverage inside the beltway, and there's nothing you can do to save them anyway.
When the feds are bought and paid for, and the media is bought and paid for, mainstream media becomes an outlet for AP stories that don't offend anyone.
Don't be silly. That's exactly the kind of thing they'd want. They can lie through their teeth, extract all kinds of concessions and appeasement, then point to those concessions as proof that the US is weak, immoral and powerless. Then launch an attack against the US but claim that they didn't do it. After the attack, more rounds of diplomacy and concessions, and the loop continues.
Further, they can point to the weakness of the US and tell the people they are oppressing that there is no help coming from the US -- just like Saddam was doing to his people before the war. Saddam used every city government anti-war resolution against us and his own people, repeatedly broadcasting the fact that the US wasn't going to ever do anything because all the people said they weren't. The fact he was wrong didn't stop him from doing it, and he was only wrong because we have a president that knows when enough is enough.
If you don't think this is how the terrorists operate, review the history of Iraq, or North Korea, which got concessions in exchange for nuclear limitations, and went ahead and built their nuke program anyway after they got the concessions.
An invasion and war, on the other hand, would push moderates in Iran into the arms of Islamic radicals that promise to defend them.
Yes, they win by spinning things either way. They lose if we remove them, which will never happen by talking to them. There is nothing we can say that will make them peaceful. They have no interest in compromise with Satan, unlike many of the people in the US.
It's the only way to make eliminate problems, or suspicions of problems, like this one.
It's not hard. The voting machines would work the same, but produce paper ballots printing the voter's choice and also encoding it in bar code (if you are afraid of bar codes print it a second time with an OCR-friendly font). The voter then verifies that the ballot prints what was chosen and casts this ballot (and he can print many ballots to fix errors, but can cast only one).
At the end of the day the ballots are scanned and we get the result. In case of problems we go back to the ballots to check them. The result is as fast as the electronic, and as reliable as the paper version.
So why is everyone pushing evoting trying to kill the paper trail? That is what creates the problems. And it is totally unnecessary.
if you believe in the American Dream then you better wake up because the only people that are dreaming are asleep...
i'll try to remember that as i watch my neighbors who live below the poverty line drive home in their 4x4s to watch their 1 television per person, use their high-speed internet and consume enough calories to feed a small african village for a week.
or did the American Dream change from enjoying an affluent lifestyle to having more money than 95% of your fellow Americans?
not to sound like a troll but do you really think voting does any good? the evidence seems to prove otherwise, i think its all smoke & mirrors...
one thing is sure: whomever wins the election, there will be a great wailing and gnashing of teeth crying "election fraud"
We seem to conveniently forget that extremists are not interested in diplomacy as a solution. Extremists were attacking the West long before the war in Iraq; it is a fallacy to assume they would just revert to killing each other, and leave the West alone.
Iran is case-in-point: The goal of the leadership in Iran has nothing to do with diplomacy; they want their nuclear toys, period, and will risk war to get them. The thought of a peaceful Middle East with a nuclear-armed Iran stretches just that little bit past the bounds of reality.
If a person isn't hungry, food is the wrong negotiating tool.
And he might want to stay away from the showers.
He'll be fine, as long as he wears shower shoes and sprays his feet with Tinactin afterwards. Though some of the fungi in military showers can be pretty tough.
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
There has to be a line. Yes, bad things happen in the world, and my heart bleeds a little every time I hear about a child starving to death, or the AIDS epidemic, or genocide. But the United States is only so strong, and only capable of dealing with so much.
Would you, personally, by hand, go out and try to feed EVERY homeless person in your city? Not build a shelter and feed the ones that come in. Actually walk the streets with a bag/shopping cart/truckload/whatever of food, and find the homeless, and feed them?
We spread ourselves too thin. We try to do so much good in so many places that all we manage is a barely mediocre achievement anywhere. I believe that isolationist policies are stupid, but we can't be the world's nanny anymore, we can't kiss everyone's boo-boos anymore. Our economy is in bad enough shape. Pouring so much of it into other places, nay, wasting it, is doing NOTHING to help stabilize ourselves. Yeah, it makes you feel warm and fuzzy to say 'My country feeds starving Nigerian babies' but what nobody says is that our aid programs drain public resources that could be put into health care, education, public works, or reducing the national debt.
Think about it. Yeah, it makes you warm and fuzzy to clothes a homeless man, but if you give him the clothes off your back, now, YOU are naked. How much good can we do to third world countries and those in need if we reduce ourselves to third-world status?
Don't be silly, making speeches is lousy theater. Video of anguished families rending their garments over the corpse of their child killed by an American soldier is a lot more effective in recruiting dissatisfied people than giving a powerpoint presentation about the oppressors.
Your enemies will certainly try to spin anything in their favor (what do you think the job of the White House press secretary is?) because nobody is going to hold a press conference to say "wow, we're idiots, it turns out those other guys are really great, look at this awesome aid package they're giving us!"
You have to convince people not to follow crazy leaders, which is difficult (it's taken eight years for us to ignore ours). You can either kill them mercilessly and terrify everyone into not wanting to risk it, you can give them jobs and food so that they're too comfortable to want to upset the status quo, or you can give them an alternate leader who they believe will be more effective (see: political history of Hamas).
As it stands, we're giving them jobs and then shooting them on their way to work, which doesn't make us look either strong or benevolent, it makes us look alternately malicious and idiotic.
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
McCain might also have tried to manipulate elections an old fashioned today by commenting on the probable timing of Obama's arrival in Iraq.
In what kind of nutcase fantasy world do you live that you think a stupid comment from one political candidate about another is on the same level as election fraud?
" Remember, remember the Fifth of November, The Gunpowder Treason and Plot, I know of no reason Why Gunpowder Treason Should ever be forgot. "
Although I am not an unconditional fan of open source. I think it has its uses and its non uses. But this is one definite use. It might be the case that as a matter of law right now, what you say is true--it's not evidence. But I actually don't see how we'd be hurt by having a law that makes it into evidence by making it, ipso facto, a crime to apply an undocumented patch at all.
If you're going to have voting machines at all, it seems to me they ought to have open source programs running on them. (I personally don't care if the programs are free in cost, though I imagine they could be. I only care that they are inspectable by anyone and that it is fair use to copy them to other machines for the purpose of verifying their correctness and aherence to advertised and required spec.) I don't see that anyone other than someone doing something illegal is served by keeping the source secret. The data, of course, might be protected. But the program should be auditable by anyone.
And in such a world, I don't see any reason whatsoever that it shouldn't be a crime for there to be any software applied where its entire content and purpose were not carefully documented. Then it wouldn't require any proof other than that it happened in order to detect wrongdoing; and it could be further a crime to phony up a faulty description of what the patch does, so that then it could be audited for validity by anyone who wants to.
The weak link in all this seems to be the hardware. It's quite hard to look at a box and know what's going on inside it. It requires specialized skill. It likely wouldn't be hard to make a machine with a dummy system for show that had the right program on it and another shadow machine tucked away that had the wrong program, with just some subtle wire somewhere leading to one doing the real voting. Call it "democracy theater" if you like, borrowing on the "security theater" moniker used a lot in other venues these days. Such a charade could be hard to notice. Which is why I prefer paper balloting. It means the entire process is exposed.
Kent M Pitman
Philosopher, Technologist, Writer
Probably not me or anyone in my generation; but the amount of time, money and effort wasted in waging these wars [war on drugs, war on terrorism, war on Islamic fundamentalist etc.] could have been well spent on improving the education system her in US which could have resulted in what you wished there.
I wonder every time when people complain here about the student/teacher ratio - I came from a place where we had 120+ students in almost all my grades and still over 60% of the students managed to graduate with excellent grades.
No Sig for you.!
When one cites this case, can't the argument be made that the USA is just like any other third world country?
If you asked me, I'd say "yes" "yes" "yes" it is.
And I'd say you're an idiot.
You obviously don't know what a third world country is.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_World
The quality of elections is not a characteristic upon which you can base which "World" a country is in. As a matter of fact, you can't even use the phrase "third world country" without accepting that the frame of reference is to the Cold War, where the USA & friends = the first world and the Soviets & friends = the second world.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Though some of the fungi in military showers can be pretty tough.
So can a ground fault
in case first link fails
What?
The story doesn't appear at the linked URL anymore.
And, it's been scrubbed from Google's cache. A search shows a matching page, but clicking the link for the cache brings up no document found.
I hope somebody kept a copy ... assuming that person hasn't been disappeared.
Because I wrote the patch and I gave it to him and I personally watched him install it.
What? You don't believe me?
Guess I should have posted anonymously.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Saddam had basically nothing to do with the war the US started against Iraq. He was just another dictator (hint - Pakistan was just another dictatorship until recently, but we're not going to invade them any time soon, right?). Iraq did not have a nuke program. It didn't have weapons of mass destruction. The reason given for the war was wrong.
Many, many more people have died in Iraq as a result of the invasion than would have died under Saddam's rule. Extremist religious groups are much more powerful now in Iraq than they were under Saddam's rule.
The old Iraqi government has never been meaningfully linked with any acts of terrorism against western nations. They had nothing to do with Al Quaida.
The US/Allied military invasion has killed far more civilians just in Iraq than terrorists have worldwide in the last 10 years.
These are facts... onto subjective opinion.... You are a true moron if you think that all Iranians believe the west "satan". Honestly, I hope you do not believe that Iranians hate the west and want a uniform Islamic world, because that would show absolute ignorance of Iran. The "they" you talk about are essentially a creation - "they" do not exist.
Also, how is North Korea an example of how terrorists operate? I mean, how on earth do you figure out that North Korea is a bastion of terrorism?
Basically, my advice to you is quit being so scared. These places you demonise are not actually inhabited by demons. They're just generally ordinary people.
OT here I come.
The pictures from Abu Ghirab showed naked men in black hoods, not tinfoil hats.
You are welcome on my lawn.
See, now you're trying to make sense, which means those on the Right's eyes will glaze over and they'll just skip to the next comment which mentions terrorist fist-bumps and flag lapel pins.
I'm afraid that instead of trying to engage these people (listeners to right-wing radio), we're just going to have to ignore them and do the best we can for this country without their input. It's probably for the best, all around.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Is that so? Seeing the blue dot next to your name makes me want to ask...
Are you hiring?
Consider this a joke if you aren't hiring, otherwise I'm serious.
I think where we went astray was forcing our aid into places despite the armed opposition of various forces. As soon as the aid truck needs armed guards, a lack of aid is not the real problem and it will not help.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
The problem with the American educational system is not, at the moment, a lack of money.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
You must think Christians are really stupid, huh?
The "Christians" I see on the tee-vee just blame it all on the gays, and insist that I send them money. I haven't seen a "give him the clothes off your back" Christian around these parts since, well, never.
Having undergone a brief and unpleasant stint attempting to educate American students, IMO you're dead on - the problem with the American educational system is primarily the lousy uninterested Americans that pass through it, more interested in sports, drugs, sex, and popularity (which is largely a function of the first three items) than in actually learning anything. No amount of money will make these degenerates any more interested in learning, and that's the fundamental problem. To put it plainly, nothing about our educational system will improve unless our culture shifts so that the nerd is socially more respected than the jock.
If we talk while our enemy fights, we lose.
Yep and thus India remains firmly under British control.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
I doubt Wallmart would want a greeter with Tourette's Syndrome, or undercontrolled Schizophrenia. Not so coincidentally, a disproportionate number (I've heard upwards of 50%) of the homeless population has mental disabilities. The rest? Yes, some are lazy. Some are young people who escaped abuse in a broken home, took up drugs, and are now essentially unemployable. Some people suffer from chronic pain which prevents them from working. Many are women who have escaped abuse, have young children to look after 24/7, and no marketable skills. Have you ever try applying for a job without an address or a change of clothes? Of course, don't let any of these cases get in the way of your simple and elegant world view.
Jeremy
Kids being disinterested in school is not a problem. It is a good thing. Anyone who believes that school is good for kids is delusional.
Agreed. On the other hand, school should be good for kids. If it's not, we're doing it wrong.
Pirate Party UK
We spread ourselves too thin.
We spent a trillion dollars on the Iraq war and ruined our economy. The majority of our discretionary spending goes to the military. And almost none of that money is actually going to aid.
We're way beyond "spread to thin".
but we can't be the world's nanny anymore
We've never been the world's nanny. Almost everything the US has done internationally has been in the US military and economic interest, including WWI and WWII. The difference between then and now is that (1) past efforts were successful and (2) past efforts were aimed at deriving a benefit for us by helping others. The problem with the current efforts is that they are unsuccessful and that nobody benefits.
These people don't want to fight so much as they want to win. Driving the Americans out of Iraq will bring more converts than a losing war (in their eyes). Driving us out will prove that all you have to do is hold on and the Americans wil give up. Just keep killing a few soldiers and we'll lose our taste for war. They've said as much. I work in Iraq as an intelligence analyst and have been tracking AQI as well as JAM. They want the same thing: for the U.S. to leave so they can take over the country.
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
Nuclear program would not be a deterrent towards invading Pakistan, they simply don't have the oil :(
Also... Iraq before the war was a country trying to get by under heavy embargo. Sure journalist were not the happiest men on earth, but life was going on. Now all remain is chaos and destruction.
Saddam biggest mistake was to sell his petrol in euro instead of dollars... That was his only weapon of mass destruction...
... is that computers cannot be trusted to process anonymous transactions. Particularly when the stakes are high.
Digital electronic ballots can't be considered real, as they do not leave scads of physical forensic evidence the way a physical ballot would.
Everything else we do with computers involving trust also involves personal identification and verification procedures (logging in, checking a bank statement, etc. for which there are no analogs in voting systems) and even that is problematic enough.
Iran is case-in-point: The goal of the leadership in Iran has nothing to do with diplomacy; they want their nuclear toys, period, and will risk war to get them. The thought of a peaceful Middle East with a nuclear-armed Iran stretches just that little bit past the bounds of reality.
Ah! Republican talking points. Also unfounded in reality. You're watching too much Fox (faux) news.
I'm inclined to agree. Believing in a deity does sort of indicate a weak mind, but you've got to give it to the New Testament, as an outline for living a decent life, it's not that bad.
It's no Hitchiker's Guide of course, but you can't go wrong with that "love your neighbor" and "help the poor" and "do unto others" stuff.
You are welcome on my lawn.
"At every meeting I repeated the warning that unless they felt that in non-violence they had come into possession of a force infinitely superior to the one they had and in the use of which they were adept, they should have nothing to do with non-violence and resume the arms they possessed before."
"Had we adopted non-violence as the weapon of the strong, because we realised that it was more effective than any other weapon, in fact the mightiest force in the world, we would have made use of its full potency and not have discarded it as soon as the fight against the British was over or we were in a position to wield conventional weapons. But as I have already said, we adopted it out of our helplessness. If we had the atom bomb, we would have used it against the British."
- Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi
Saddam had basically nothing to do with the war the US started against Iraq.
You mean, other than completely violating - year after year - the terms of the cease fire following his invasion of neighboring Kuwait. Other than regular attacks - with actual anti-aircraft guns and missiles - against the aircraft patrolling the no-fly zones that were set up to protect the populations he had been busy slaughtering in the many thousands in the north and south of Iraq. Other than his ongoing program to build and buy long range missiles (lots of business with North Korea on that front), which continued right up through 2003, in violation of his agreement not to, following his lobbing of SCUDs into Israel as he forces were being pushed back from Kuwait and the Saudi border. Other than his continuous shut-down of the UN inspectors and non-stop obfuscation about his weapons programs, including his refusal to come clean on the disposition of tons of VX gas and related hardware that were anything but imaginary (since they were seen and reported by inpsectors in the early rounds following Kuwait, before they were kicked out by Saddam). So, no, Saddam had nothing to do with his own regime being dismantled, other than a non-stop campaign of smuggling, scraping cash meant for his people's food and health so that he could buy military hardware and build palaces, live fire at coalition troops and aircraft on a regular basis, publicized cash payments to families of suicide bombers (remember the $50,000 checks and photo-ops?) to buy favaor with Hamas and Hezbollah, and more. Nah, he was just "trying to get by under an embargo." An embargo that he could have ended in a minute by simply doing what he said he told the UN he would do after being spanked following his violent invasion of Kuwait.
Many, many more people have died in Iraq as a result of the invasion than would have died under Saddam's rule
He buldozed dirt over mass graves - when anyone bothered to try to cover anything up - as part of a sustained effort that killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. And, do you really count Iran's finance, sponsorship, and direct participation in years of destabilizing bombings in Iraq as being "a result of the invasion?" They just can't stop themselves, can they. They have no choice but to ship high explosives to Iraq, and pay the thugs they station there to strap them to mentally impaired women who are then sent into markets to blow up dozens of women and children at a go... because the invasion made them do it. I see.
It didn't have weapons of mass destruction
Other than the ones they used many times, and other than the large stockpiles observed by UN inspectors, but the disposition of which remained a complete mystery. Saddam's regime wouldn't allow further inspections in the areas where they were previously stockpiled, and wouldn't provide the documentation he agreed to provide showing the nature and timing of any disposal process. So, we know they had them - that is simple fact - and where they got to is not known.
You are a true moron if you think that all Iranians believe the west "satan".
Does it matter if the average Iranian thinks that, when the people who run the place, write the checks to people who DO think that way, and are willing to deploy armed insurgents who operate with that notion in mind? No, it doesn't. Not of the people who do NOT think like that aren't willing to tear that murderous theocracy down. Which they aren't willing to do. They support them, by continuing to give them power.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Don't be silly. Al Queda was a marginal, regional group of thugs that happened to have some financial backing until we invaded Iraq. Suddenly, they get support across the Arab world and we lose any of the international sympathy that we had after 9/11. Six years and thousands of American dead and wounded later, Al Queda is strengthening in Afghanistan while their preferred candidate, McCain, promises 100 more years of an "infidel" presence in Iraq. That's almost the same complaint, by the way, that motivated Bin Laden in the first place.
So, even if the Iraqi main street is pacified, the extremists will continue to recruit there; stirring passions in the ignorant, insulted, and under-employed and convincing them that the one hope of Heaven is to strap on a belt of explosives. There's a chance, though, that this message can be blunted if the U.S. can advertise our message of economic freedom and good will while pushing the military presence into the background. Unfortunately, McCain is not the guy to walk that walk and the extremists know this.
Waltz, nymph, for quick jigs vex Bud.
The point being that Indians were lucky (some might say "blessed", but I wouldn't) that they were forced to nonviolence because they had no alternative. Lucky because nonviolence is, as Gandhi said, the mightiest force in the world. Mightier than the atom bomb. Since Indians were forced by lack of alternatives, not so much from any greater enlightenment, they failed to stay nonviolent once the British were out.
And that's why their resorting to violence lost India Pakistan. Which of course is the greatest turning point in world history of the last century apart from the splitting of the Allies into the Cold War with the Soviets. And the Pakistan war is still raging 60 years later. In Afghanistan, Pakistan's secret police's colony, Pakistan is "winning". And along the Pakistan/India border, their nuclear "Cold War" (that is not infrequently a hot, shooting war), the brink is usually closer than it ever was between the US/SU, but for a couple-few times some fool actually ordered the launch of armageddon.
Gandhi was of course not criticizing nonviolence. He was criticizing the weakness of Indians who abandoned it once it was no longer necessity, though nonviolence was the mightier force. Through it India and "Pakistan" could have gone down a road that these weaker forces, including nukes, only make more dangerous to everyone.
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make install -not war
Actually, no, they failed to stay nonviolent long before that. The "Quit India" campaign during WW2 saw quite a few terrorist acts on behalf of Indian freedom fighters.
In general, it makes more sense to consider that the British left India not because Ghandi's nonviolent resistance campaign was particularly successful by itself, but simply because the colonial era has ended. Other colonies (some of which had far more violent resistance movements) were vacated shortly after - or even before, in some cases - by the European powers.
Please, for the sake of our country, try and read a little bit. Whatever political beliefs you may have, knowing a little bit of history will make you a better citizen. Wikipedia may not be completely unbiased, but it's a good starting point.
Here's a quick overview...
An alliance of tribal chiefs (the Mujahideen) with support from three successive U.S. administrations from Carter to Bush I (are you old enough to remember all those Stinger missiles?) was the primary opposition to the USSR's invation. Once the USSR withdrew -- starting in 1989 and primarily due to economic reasons of their own making -- a civil war ravaged the country as the various warlords jockeyed for position. Eventually, the winning group, a psychotic group of religious fanatics known as the Taliban, took control and ruled as a theocracy until we overthrew that overnment.
It was under the protection of the Taliban that al-Queda -- not even a cohesive group until 1988 -- was able to establish terrorist training camps in Afghanistan.
Now, I can already foresee the attacks on this post:
1. many of the founders of al-Queda were part of the Mujahideen
2. their ability to fund their operations was perfected during that war and the subsequent civil war
3. Bin Laden, who led the group that was later to become al-Queda, did have a broader view than just the regional conflict
However, to claim that Al queda WON a war with the USSR is a gross misrepresentation of history.
Waltz, nymph, for quick jigs vex Bud.
Errr....I think someone has a grave misunderstanding of how our electoral system works in the U.S.
Speaking as a deputy director of a Board of Elections[1] in Ohio, I will say that yes we DO count all of the absentee ballots, regardless of how unbalanced the race results are. The absentees are counted and are included in the results that we report on election day after the polls close.
And for those who maintain that provisional ballots aren't counted either...yes, we count those too. And, once again, we count them regardless of how unbalanced the race results are.
Provisional votes, however, are not counted on election day; we have to research the validity of every provisional ballot in the 10 days after the election to ensure whether or not it can be counted.
It's funny. Just yesterday one of the 4 board members called into the office to report that his mother -- a cashier at one of the local restaurants -- was talking to a customer who informed her that "naw...I ain't votin' absentee...they never count them votes!" This seems to be a very common belief in America. Completely wrong, but pretty common.
footnotes:
[1] Our county uses the Diebold touchscreen machines, in case you care. Personally, I've worked in debugging software for more than a decade and am a luddite when it comes to election technology.
I think we'd be better off if we still used the old punchcards. They were cheaper, non-proprietary, simpler for our non-tech-savvy poll workers to understand, cheaper, easier to archive, and a lot less hassle overall. (Oh...and did I mention they were a lot cheaper?)
Now we can argue that had Labour not won and had the Tories refused to grant independence that the situation would have degenerated and the British forced out anyway as happened in Iraq, Palestine, Iran, etc. etc. But independence had been an objective for Labour for decades.
The key difference between the Diebold situation and the McCain attempt to sabotage Obama's trip to Afghanistan is that we have no direct evidence to link the Diebold situation to the party that benefited. But we do know that McCain did in fact reveal Obama's trip and the only room for speculation is whether it was reckless or intentional.
I don't see how either is a recommendation for McCain. Was he as cavalier with confidential information when he was in the military? Is that why his career ended at captain and he was never on track to become a flag officer?
Why is it ok for McCain to make this statement that could get Obama killed but not ok for people to point out the fact that McCain is too old for the job? Perhaps he let the information drop because he is already going senile. I think that is a fair debate to have. Why is it ok for McCain to joke about 'seizure club' but not ok for people to ask if he is too old?
Why is it ok for McCain to put US servicemens lives at risk in this way but not ok for people to ask about the nature of the military service that he bases his entire campaign on? A fighter pilot that graduates bottom of his class and looses three planes is not exactly the first choice for a President. Maybe if he had studied harder and not had such a party reputation he would not have been shot down in the first place.
Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
As much as I hate replying to my own comment, another five minutes googling reveals: The typewriter you're looking for is the IBM Executive, Model D. It featured variable spacing, superscript characters (as required), and while the model D may not have been in every office, was a simple matter to order and use. It was also customisable in terms of individual keys being replaceable. I also note with interest the various font experts who have explained that the MS Times New Roman font has many differences from the IBM font that was used in the document in question (particularly in the numerals). Have a nice day.