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Black Box Voting 2008 Election Protection Toolkit
Gottesser writes "Bev Harris over at Black Box Voting has done everyone a favor and released her 2008 Election Protection toolkit as an ebook. It's like Cliff notes of Bev's 8+ years of experience on the front lines of the modern voting rights movement. The ebook presents succinct information to get individuals actively involved in the full-contact sport that is democracy. The target audience is those who believe that the political process requires more than just showing up to vote once every four years those who know that something's up with those voting machines. You may remember Bev Harris from her Emmy-nominated HBO documentary 'Hacking Democracy.' I've been working on election integrity issues in Ohio for some time now and have met Bev several times. Her work is nothing less than groundbreaking. Please check it out."
Ok well we all know its been rigged . . . at least I hope we do, but the damage has already been done. They got away with it already.
Bev Harris is a fake. Her ideas don't work.
We already know in advance that the election is going to be as rigged as the GOP believes they can get away with. Diebold was forced to admit it. Fortunately, Obama's success this November will be too sweeping for even the usual election-stealing shenanigans to saddle us with four more years of war, corruption, lies, and deepening economy woes.
dog gocg tremoer
Who cares about election theft when the average voter isn't capable of making an informed choice in the first place? And no, I don't mean the 50% picking the other party, I do mean that 90% of the people voting hardly have a clue about the issues at stake.
I hate to sound like an elitist but when most other people so clearly demonstrate they are not, it leaves one little choice but to think that way..
luddites decrying technology. why ont we go back to stone tablets?
the voting machines work fine. do you really think a major corporation like diebold is going to make a mistake on something as important as voting?
im so sick fo liberals who spit in the face of our troops, attack police, and try to tear down 'corporate america'.
if you dont like it, go live in the workers paradise of north korea or socialist europe. we dont need your kind here, destroying our freedom.
Yep -- elitist claptrap. Nobody knows anything public, sez Plato. But, when the issue is taking my money or property or freedom I have FIRST HAND INFO. I am the expert and will vote accordingly. Do not confuse politics with quantum mechanics.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0u6lCBnRoHQ
and
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJ4SSvVbhLw
You don't need to be out of town or anything to get an absentee ballot. All you have to do is request one ahead of time.
Come on, people; is this so difficult?
The fact that you are on Slashdot says that you are NOT 'the average voter' that the OP was talking about. Hate to break it to you, but the vast majority of people really don't have a clue, or indeed care that they don't.
If you feel that politics, law and economics are easier to grasp than quantum mechanics, fine, but I am not convinced.
Good for you that you have first hand info on most issues, but what I'm trying to get across: 90% of the population doesn't know what the DMCA or net neutrality are, or why it might affect them. But that doesn't make the issues irrelevant, nor their choices informed.
Oh, and I didn't mean to claim I'm part of the 10% that does know it all, for most issues I'm probably just as clueless as the rest and will be voting on instinct as well.
Somebody told me that ignorance and apathy were on the rise. Well, I don't know and I don't care.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
On page 48 (or 24 since the PDF has two document pages per PDF page) of http://www.blackboxvoting.org/toolkit2008.pdf they recommend keeping a sequence of snapshots of the web pages reporting the raw results to detect any anomalies.
Now keeping snapshots of webpages to analyze how they change sounds exactly like what Archive.org was designed for. It would be nice if on the night of the election, Archive.org set their refresh (?) rate for those pages abnormally high. Then the data can be used by everyone and not just those who thought ahead of time to take the snapshots.
The single most important thing you can do to protect our democracy is to volunteer as an election judge -- or poll worker, or election inspector, or whatever you call us in your state.
It's easy, it's fun, and we desperately need more people under 80 to do it.
I started right after the election debacle in 2000. Call your city elections department NOW while you can still get into training sessions. Make sure that your local voting is clean, fair, legal, and trustworthy. It all depends on volunteers!
"Skill shows through where genius wears thin." -Wittgenstein || Religion: uniting aviation and architecture.
what exactly is groundbreaking here?
Every state has different rules on what's a valid reason for an absentee ballot.
I've only done it once (when I was going to be on a business trip), and although I found it much slower to vote as I was looking up people's voting records and such while filling out the ballot, I felt as if I had made much better informed decisions on my choices, rather than just going by name recognition or party affiliation.
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
The fact that you are on Slashdot says that you are NOT 'the average voter' that the OP was talking about. Hate to break it to you, but the vast majority of people really don't have a clue, or indeed care that they don't.
Funny, I have seen tremendous displays of political ignorance on Slashdot; in fact, a lot of people here take pride in such ignorant statements as "both parties are the same."
Obama looks taller and he has good hair, he'd get my vote!
BlackBoxVoting.org published an announcement that voting machine vendors are now hiring more support techs, asking people with skills who want to protect democracy from broken voting systems to get paid to do it:
--
make install -not war
I'm sick of W's policies and can't wait to get him out of office... McCain looks like more of the same.
Au contraire. McCain has always been representative of those of us Republicans that cheered when he condemned the extreme right for intolerance. There's plenty of people who have noticed that McCain voted against the Bush tax cuts and argued to pay off the federal debt instead, argued against expanding medicare when we can't pay for what we already had, argued against NCLB (well intended but ultimately a disaster)... and, of course, McCain made himself even more famous by arguing that the USA needed more troops in Iraq. Most damning of all, Woodward, hardly a fan of Republican politics, has McCain quoted storming out of the white house, saying, "All I get about the war is f--- spin."
So, I would look for McCain to be someone in the mold of a Teddy Roosevelt, whom he has publicly said that he idolizes. As a president, I would probably look to see McCain do some of the progressive things that T.R. did, while still working to bolster Pax Americana. If McCain lives up to his fiscal promises and the way he's generally voted, I think there's probably enough libertarian and fiscal Republicans (as opposed to the religious right), and right of center Democrats to actually put together a governing coalition that for 4 all too brief years sheds the lunatics on both sides of the aisle.
But I keep seeing people completely dismiss the Republican ticket. I keep seeing people talk like it's a done-deal, like the Democrats are already in office
Obama is doomed in this election. It's not even that he's black that's the problem, its his politics and his pick of VP. Then, there's a character test here. Obama's never really lost and one has to wonder if he will panic when McCain pulls ahead in the polls post convention.
He's running too far to the left in the general election. Obama's plan is and always was to get all the black vote plus the liberals and the problem is that there's not enough liberals in the states he needs. He's just misread the USA at a national level, and so he has a hard time seeing the need shed his own maniacal base to succeed publicly in a way that Clinton would have surely done.
I thought he gave a fantastic speech, but, since then his moves almost smack of desperation... he's almost devolving into a sort of a classic class war candidate and that's not a good thing to do when American for the most part tend to prefer to keep open the doors of opportunity for the rich just on the offbeat chance that they get rich themselves. I would say that Sarah Palin's retort on drilling (borrowed from Paris Hilton - we Republicans have no pride), was absolutely devastating.
Obama's pick of Biden as a VP was just a disaster. Nobody likes Joe Biden, even in Delaware, but here in the 1st state our GOP is so retarded that Biden always wins. Obama let himself get talked into thinking that he needed a foreign policy wonk added to the ticket and really, that's just stupid. Most people get the sense that foreign policy is really about being fair but firm and Obama already had foreign policy sewn up after his wildly successful European trip.
Worst of all, Obama's success is his own enemy. He's got himself surrounded by so many leaches flocking to all that campaign money he's raising that he's becoming almost Carter like in his perceived obligation to take heed of all them. The left wing has this obsession that a leader needs to listen to all of his counsellers, whereas, if Obama just borrowed a small page from Bush and listened to his own gut, he'd more effective in getting what we wants. As it is, the Obama posse is just dragging him down.
This is my sig.
"The target audience is those who believe that the political process requires more than just showing up to vote once every four years"
You mean they show up once every two years, at least? Because even at just the federal level, there's more than just presidential elections. That's what you're alluding to, right? Or did the frequency of attendance not cross your mind?
On a good cycle, we might get 60 % of the enfranchised to show up for a presidential election. Instead of giving even more homework assignments to them (on top of, say, trying to wrap our heads around state constitutional amendment proposals), how about seeing what can be done to involve the other 40 %?
We Republicans did rig this election. You guys always look trying to think we're screwing up votes in Ohio but our strategy has always been to vote for the most radical Democratic candidate in all too many open primaries. Because Democrats have proportional representation, this strategy ALWAYS works.
We registered Democrat in many states and voted for Obama in droves. Then, when it looked like it was over for Hillary, we supported her just enough to drag the race out and bleed Democrats dry. But at the end, Hillary was always the big problem for us as she can appeal to our bread and butter middle class people but Obama is just another George McGovern. Instinctively for us, Hillary was a bigger problem because when we say a woman is a b---, that means we admire her fighting spirit even as we loath her policies. She has -always- terrified us.
Now, that Obama and company genuinely believe that a bunch of Republicans who've made a lifetime of supporting free trade really, seriously, crossed the line to support his quasi-socialistic policies is all too good for us. He's not even aware of the danger that he is in come November. Hillary gets it though.
This is my sig.
Hardly related to either. Black Box Voting has been universally dismissed by the scientific community as a fringe group of conspiracy theorists.
It seems /. is pandering to anyone who's willing to slam e-voting. (Even if she thinks the reason science exists is because scientists want to be godlike and she's not too fond of the Jews)...
Whoever modded you insightful didn't read closely enough. Are you seriously claiming Iraq had any involvement of the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995? Even the Bush administration isn't that dumb. That attack (the largest terrorist attack in the US pre-911) was domestic terrorism by right-wing nut-job Timothy McVeigh. His confession stated his reason was a retaliation against the US government for Waco and Ruby Ridge. His only 'tie' to Iraq was that he was a veteran of Operation Desert Storm, where he made his first kill (I wonder how many new 'Timothy McVeigh's will come back from the current war there).
Support Right To Repair Legislation.
Good for you that you have first hand info on most issues, but what I'm trying to get across: 90% of the population doesn't know what the DMCA or net neutrality are, or why it might affect them. But that doesn't make the issues irrelevant, nor their choices informed.
The two 'major' candidates don't even know what the DMCA or net neutrality is. They just listen to their 'advisors'.
That's great.
The Dilbert Principal for Management Selection is alive an well ;)
I have discovered that I have totally unrestricted access to voting machines at four separate locations.
How can this be, you ask? Simple...
The teachers at my children's schools have found that I will fix things for them when their entrenched bureaucracy won't or can't. This is particularly important to them when they see a threat to the educational process that the administrators are incapable of handling in a timely manner (like a busted drain pipe in the library ceiling). They call me when they need me, I show up after hours when nobody is there, I fix the problem, this means the school administration saves money (to spend on their own foolishness) so they pretend they know nothing. Or maybe they really do know nothing, I try not to talk to them.
Similarly, the local churches that don't have the funds and political power of mainstream denominations (the Catholics never call me) know they can call me in an emergency. I will unplug toilets for the B'hai, I will fix the vandalized roof at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, I will replace a ballast for the Bhuddist Temple. The only criteria for me is that I won't sponsor any organizations that actively foster hatred, so I only help out Reform Jews, not the nasty Zionist types, and I won't help Southern Baptists because of their anti-gay propaganda.
In the past I've been given keys and punch codes and passwords and suchlike to get in, but I used to always lose them, and that generates more work for me, re-keying the locks and replacing keys. So nowadays I get somebody to let me in the first time, I figure out how to hack their security, and I just go in my own way from then on. I suppose I will eventually get busted by some passing policeman for breaking and entering (I've been doing this for many years, after all) but I figure I will just explain that I lost my keys and have the cop call the person who asked me to do the work to verify my story.
Anyway, the two schools I do work for, and two of the churches, are polling places. They've had voting machines stored in them for at least the last two days, totally unattended at night.
What do y'all think I should do? I was thinking of making large, difficult to remove stickers saying "this voting machine has been hacked" and sticking them on. I'd like to do something that wouldn't get the churches in too much trouble, though.
While who is leading in the polls is one indicator of who might win, our system is somewhat more complicated than that - as proven by the fact that Gore lost, despite winning the popular vote.
The Daily Kos has an interesting analysis of the Electoral College votes, and the likely battleground states and challenges the contenders will face. From that perspective, Obama has a significant if not insurmountable lead.
[Ego]out
The situation in the Caucuses is a lot more complicated than simply writing it off to Georgian aggression. Note that South Ossetia is (was) officially part of Georgia; it was breaking away much the way the South broke away from the United States back in the 19th century. Georgia responded exactly like the US did back then, and any country does when part of it tries to secede. In that situation, though, South Ossetia was making their life particularly difficult, with military actions and direct support from Russia - which as we saw was quite quick to respond in force.
That is not to say that Georgia was in the right, or that the Western response (which seems rooted firmly in restoring a Cold War sort of world order) was appropriate. All around there was a failure of diplomatic action, because for whatever reason the various powers feel that going to the military option is the solution to any situation. Surely nothing about the actions during the last eight years of the world's largest superpower has nothing to do with that.
If you want change in foreign policy, then you need to elect congressmen willing to cut our military budget. As long as we fund that disproportionately more than any other initiative our country has, it will continue to dominate the way we interact with other countries. But how much chance is there that any of us are going to make that an issue?
[Ego]out
what I'm trying to get across: 90% of the population doesn't know what the DMCA or net neutrality are
Do you really think those are "the big issues" for 90% of the population ? That kind of stuff only affect us "few".
For the other 90%, the big issues is (un)employment, education, having money to pay the bills (because of their US$6/h job).
Yes, I agree most of them don't understand those issues either, but your examples sucks. If you think those are the big issues USA have right now, you really should take a reality check.
morcego
I'm really not sure why this is so hard. A simple display terminal where to users votes (let the parties haggle over layout, yes it does matter but it's a political issue) that prints out a filled out ballot that's human and machine readable and maybe even tallies things internally. Human checks over what the machine did and deposits into traditional locked box with observers from at least two political party's watching it. Have the human readable version be authoritative and the official count. Give the TV people results once the poles are closed.
Sure it would be nice if we had a complicated system where users can check how there vote was counted etc, but the crux of this "improvement" was for disable access to the system. With above system you do not even have to get rid of the old units just add a few of these for the handicap line since it's output could be the same form as the existing methods.
No sir I dont like it.
Check out Wikipedia's page on jobs created during each president's term.
Sort that chart of jobs created during each president's term by the Average Annual Increase:
(Notice that the sort in wikipedia is text based - after sorting, you have to mentally move the top two entries to the bottom to get the real numeric sort.)
The sort neatly puts ALL democrats at the top of the chart, and ALL republicans at the bottom, with one democrat exception (Roosevelt/Truman, who would have placed third best as a Republican).
That's right, since 1929, the second worst democratic record of job creation beats the best republican record. Now, some of that must be luck, but the evidence is astoundingly strong that having a democratic president is simply much better for the economy than having a republican president.
Remember that, and remember how well trickle down economics worked for Reagan and Bush, the next time you hear McCain say his tax cuts for the rich are just there to keep jobs in America.
If vote is to be authentic and secure, what's wrong with giving every voter a public/private key pair. I'm sure there are many good ideas out there that implement a secure voting system with public key cryptography, but neither the voters nor the politicians understand it, and hence do not consider it.
"There can be little doubt that union activities lead to continuous and progressive inflation." F. A. Hayek
Don't be so sure about Georgia being the aggressor. True that is how it was reported but Russia has a lot more resources to put forth their side of the story and Putin has been planning this for months (Issuing passports, hiring mercenaries, supplying weapons) Russia had their version ready for news crews while Georgia was in the midst of chaos. Russia clearly won the PR war.
At least one independent journalist in the area reported that Russians invaded with a full armor column on the 6th and the Georgian "Attack" on South Osseta was the Georgian military's attempt to halt the tank column from Russia after the Russian shelling of Georgian villages began.
http://www.michaeltotten.com/archives/2008/08/the-truth-about-1.php
It gives a VERY different perspective on the conflict. Well worth a read. Makes you understand why both candidates are angry with Russia. They are both briefed by the CIA with the full story while we are limited to what gets reported in western newspapers.
Seeing as she can't tie Bush to the Kennedy assassination, she's now on to terrorizing us voters by telling us to watch out for the evul registrar offices around the country.
Though I'm as much in favor of transparency as the next guy, doesn't this lady give up?
The Kai's Semi-Updated Website Thingy
Au contraire. McCain has always been representative of those of us Republicans that cheered when he condemned the extreme right for intolerance. There's plenty of people who have noticed that McCain voted against the Bush tax cuts and argued to pay off the federal debt instead, argued against expanding medicare when we can't pay for what we already had, argued against NCLB (well intended but ultimately a disaster)... and, of course, McCain made himself even more famous by arguing that the USA needed more troops in Iraq. Most damning of all, Woodward, hardly a fan of Republican politics, has McCain quoted storming out of the white house, saying, "All I get about the war is f--- spin."
These are all things McCain did before running for President, and especially before getting the nomination. Since that point he has swung hard to the Republican party lines, even to the point of saying he would not vote for bills he sponsored on immigration. He's backed away from his signature issue of finance reform, and despite being anti-war in the past, no one accuses him of that now.
The fact of the matter is that regardless of what McCain championed before, he's a different man now, with different positions. If you're voting for the McCain of 2000, or even 2004, you're voting for someone who doesn't exist.
Obama is doomed in this election. It's not even that he's black that's the problem, its his politics and his pick of VP. Then, there's a character test here. Obama's never really lost and one has to wonder if he will panic when McCain pulls ahead in the polls post convention.
Let's talk about VP picks first. Until Palin was picked we heard nothing from McCain or the right other than Obama was inexperienced. Palin is as inexperienced as national level politicians get. A governor of two years does not a VP make - and that's about her only credential. Biden may not be your favorite person, but he has a great deal of experience backing him. Further, he has a lot of blue collar people on his side - and has fought for that class well for a long time. He's not the terrible pick the right is making him out to be - to the contrary one has to wonder if they keep calling him a bad pick because he's a good one? This idea that no one likes him is demonstrably false - he's being elected time and again, so it can't be that no one likes him - just no one you like.
But this notion of a character test... where is that from? What makes you think that Obama is going to suddenly implode because of poll results? What, for that matter, makes you think his moves are desperate? Which moves, particularly? And why is it that being a 'classic class war candidate' so bad? Especially in an era when our middle and lower classes have been at the spear's point of the sacrifices our country has demanded?
He's got himself surrounded by so many leaches flocking to all that campaign money he's raising that he's becoming almost Carter like in his perceived obligation to take heed of all them.
Where are you getting this from? Is there any actual evidence he's being pulled in too many directions? Or is that just the spin right now on why Obama will never work? And where is this idea that he's swung to the left come from? Most on the left would actually say that Obama has swung towards the center (backing off on eliminating our commitment in Iraq, backing off the telecom amnesty) far more than he has taken up hard leftist issues (like... what? Nothing.)
What I hear consistently from the right is that Obama is 'maniacal', 'messianic', 'too leftist', 'egotistical', 'desperate'. Where these claims can be supported or refuted by evidence, they're refuted. His supporters on the left don't think he's left enough - only the right is trying to claim that he's left (presumably to sway the centrists to picking a right candidate). They talk about leeches on his campaign, but never about the fact that of McCain's top ten advisers, se
[Ego]out
For the /. Comunity being a Paid Election Support Worker would me the best safeguard. According to previous BlackBox.org posts, all voting maching contracts come with an Election Day Support Contract. Diebold etc. are required to hire on site technicians for each polling station. These techs are to setup the machines, ensure that they are not tampered with, trouble shoot any voting/printing snafus and take down the machines after polls close.
Bb.org feels these jobs are the "front line" for ensuring fair elections.
These jobs are hiring in your area right now!
P.S. You might want to leave MOST of your experience OFF of your resume, since this is a very low paying temp job, and most everyone here would be considered vastly over qualified.
Ernie Dambach
"It is no small thing to celebrate a simple life -Tolkien
1) There is no evidence that Iraq was involved in 9/11. Not a shred. Never been found. "Maybe not" doesn't cut it. If there is evidence Saddam knew of the attack, by all means cite a source. I've yet to hear a single credible, confirmed story.
2) Iraq may have been involved in state sponsored terrorism - at least so far as we claimed. But please, please cite some evidence showing they were involved, as a nation, in any of those attacks. That some of the attackers were Iraqis is not valid, unless you think that Greenpeace interfering with Japanese Whaling Vessels is equivalent to the US attacking Japan.
3) Clinton looks like a saint because Clinton didn't kill half a million people. Regardless of what Iraq did, the bloodshed we unleashed on that country is insane. There were 6k deaths in the WTC, deaths that arguably couldn't have been prevented. But we've knowingly killed 4k of our own people in Iraq. Clinton pulled out of Somalia after losing 18 soldiers - because that was too high a cost. Why does Clinton look like a saint? Because he's not bathing blood. And by the way - what does 'bomb them for 8 straight years' mean? We did not sustain an eight year constant bombing campaign. So what was it that Clinton really did?
4) Iraq was a real threat? To whom? Did we go in because of humanitarian reasons? (If so, why not Darfur?) Did we go in because of terrorist reasons? (If so, why not Saudi Arabia - which sponsors far more terrorism. Or Iran?) The fact of the matter is that regardless of the threat, we broke our own rule; never attack first. We had the high ground, sometimes tenuously (Korea, Vietnam, Cuba), since 1776. But we invaded that country, without waiting for UN approval, or sanctions to work, or anything.
5) "Threat or possible justification" is not, I repeat not sufficient for initiating an invasion of a foreign country. The threat must be great. It must be imminent. The justification must be strong - indeed, ironclad. If the threat is vague and indirect, if the justification is weak and does not hold up well, if at all, to scrutiny, then it is as no justification at all. Otherwise, we might as well say it's alright to use military force because we wanna. And there is simply no moral, ethical or legal reason to allow that.
The upshot is that, yeah, you should be labeled a troll for this. This is bupkiss.
[Ego]out
sheesh... what a day to not have mod-points! ...and I'm not even a 'Merkin!
New mod option wanted: -1 DrunkenRambling
I consider these views as wrong as the one about Iraq and 9/11.
Really? On what basis? The deal with Iraq and 9/11 is pretty solid; they had nothing to do with 9/11. It's a falsehood. On the other hand, many people disagree on the effect of taxing the rich.
For instance, the top tax bracket in the US is 35%, for everyone making more than roughly $350k. (Note that McCain doesn't think you're rich until you're making $500k, so technically the rich are being taxed the same as the upper middle class there - that both works for and against your argument.) Let us note that the Great Depression lasted from 1929 to the 1930s. Let us note that in the decade immediate prior, the 20s, the US top tax bracket was at 25%. From the mid thirties through to 1970 - over many eras of economic success - our top tax bracket was above 60%, often higher than 70% or 80%. In 1944-45, while we were paying for a large war, it was 94%.
Frankly, you can try and convince me that high taxes, and taxes alone, will prevent the country from having a vibrant economy - but I'm unlikely to buy it. We are stifled by debt (I think our #1 problem, economically and societally), due to overspending and a hugely expensive war, but we won't raise taxes, even a little bit. (In fact, the top tax bracket has decreased over the course of the Iraq war.) Our economy is dependent on a great many factors - it's a lie we're being fed that somehow, the people at the top need to retain as much cash as absolutely possible or we will all suffer. We should examine what people are claiming to be wrong views; you know, just to be fair.
[Ego]out
Note : I can't claim that Michael Totten is absolutely right. Only that he reports a very different side of the war, and unlike other reporters, he went to the area to investigate.
A opposing timeline is here : http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article5904.html but notice that there is little explanation how Georgia with "15,000 troops in South Osseta" got driven out of the country in a single day by 800 Russian peacekeepers. That seems astonishing.
Wikipedia has a timeline that also suggests the simple version or the war is incomplete. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_South_Ossetia_war
Black Box Voting 2008 Election Protection Rootkit?
I regret that I only have one mod point to give per post.
Obama looks taller and he has good hair, he'd get my vote!
Actually, though you meant it as a joke, there's copious evidence that voters generally have a strong preference for the tallest candidate. If you look at election records in the US (and likely other countries as well), and you can get info on the candidates' heights, you'd be surprised at how often the tallest candidate wins. If you're going to bet on election outcomes, this is the simplest way to decide how to bet.
This is generally well known among politicians. It's why, for example, at the "debates", they are often standing on platforms that will make them look the same height to the cameras.
It's just one more illustration of the irrationality of the great majority of the citizenry.
This also turns out to be a good explanation of why women so rarely win elections. Several multivariate analyses of elections have turned up the result that, if you know the candidates' heights, the coefficient for sex drops to zero, and knowing candidates' sex adds nothing useful for predicting the outcome.
So far, I haven't read of any statistical analyses of the effects of hair style. I wonder if there are some actual significant studies on hair and election outcomes. Politicians do act like this is something known, but it could just be their vanity speaking. Anyone know of real data on the topic?
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
Palin is as inexperienced as national level politicians get. A governor of two years does not a VP make - and that's about her only credential.
And, what, really, is Obama's experience? All we've heard from the Obama camp is how inexperience Palin is, but Obama has done -NOTHING-. What has he accomplished? It's a joke.
Biden may not be your favorite person, but he has a great deal of experience backing him. Further, he has a lot of blue collar people on his side - and has fought for that class well for a long time
There's absolutely no evidence for that statement on the national level. Biden's been running for President for a billion years and he's not been able to get more than 2% of the vote. The only reason he succeeds in Delaware is because the GOP in the 1st state is just utterly hopeless, not because Biden is anything special.
What I hear consistently from the right is that Obama is 'maniacal', 'messianic', 'too leftist', 'egotistical', 'desperate'. Where these claims can be supported or refuted by evidence, they're refuted.
That's an absurd statement on its face. You can't refute an opinion of a person. If the right wing thinks Obama is too egotistical or too leftists for their taste, then he is. All you can say is that he's not too leftist or egotistical for you. It's like you are trying to persuade people to vote for the guy by telling them their opinions are wrong.
This is my sig.
Of course, McCain also said we'd be "welcomed as liberators" in Iraq.
Anyhow, you're talking about the McCain we used to know. I should know. McCain is my senator. I've been a registered Republican since I was first able to vote and I have supported him.
But no more. The thing I liked most about McCain was that he used to hate political phonies. Now, he's become one. Maybe you haven't noticed, but he's changed. He's adopted every policy he once hated to win this election. He's gone from shooting the breeze with reporters to hiding from them. He's not the same McCain. If someone told me that three years ago, when he first started voting with W 90%+ of the time, he was replaced with a doppelganger, I would tend to believe them.
But he's NOT THE SAME McCain. He has sold out. He has become exactly the sort of political phony he once hated and I have watched him do it.
Which McCain? Do you mean the old one or the new one? Because there's a HUGE difference between the two. The new McCain opposes the immigration plan the old McCain wrote. The new McCain supports the religious right the old McCain called "agents of intolerance."
Which McCain will take office? New? Old? Some hybrid? And just how do you know? Because I think he has to keep the party happy, I'm guessing you'll see a hybrid. But that's a guess. Do you really want to gamble on what kind of President you'll get?
Wrong. Obama lost his first run for a US Senate seat big time. But I'm not surprised you don't know this. You clearly haven't been paying attention to the difference between the old & new McCain, but there haven't been that many news stories about it, so maybe you lost all that in the "flip-flopping" flap. But I know. I've been watching. This McCain is not the same. The McCain is not the McCain you knew, no matter how many times he says "my friends."
But you don't realize that this helped cause 2006. Elections are always trying to fight the "last war" as it were, true.
No, it was to change the experience narrative. Though McCain was the one to kill that with the Palin pick. It's working in Florida. Look at the state pol
Actually, you're missing a subtle point: I'm trying to persuade people by showing them how their opinions are built on a bad basis.
Let's go through the comparisons, though; Palin went to four different state-level colleges, and graduated with a degree in communications. She won Miss Congeniality, was a sports reporter and helped in a fishing business. She was a city council member in a town of 7k people, and then mayor for two terms. After that she chaired a single commission on Oil and Gas conservation for a year. Then she was governor for two years.
Obama, in contrast, went to Occidental and then Columbia University - both considered to be very good schools. He has a BA in poli-sci. He worked at Business Internation and NY Public Interest Research. He worked as a community organizer, but more to the point was a director and ramped the budget for the Developing Communities Project from 70k to 400k. He went to Harvard Law School, and was selected for the review based on his writing. He taught Constitutional Law and U of Chicago Law School and was a lawyer for many years. He then went on to be a state legislator for six years and US Senator for three. There is literally no phase of his life wherein his experience doesn't totally outstrip Palin's.
In fact, I'm not sure where this idea that he's inexperienced comes from? Sure, he hasn't been a politician as long as other people - but why is that a bad thing?
Lots of people run for president - even lots of people who lose the first time and then win, like Reagan. Biden has actually only run for president three times, and only two serious bids. He's been a Senator for over thirty years. You cannot just chalk that up to Delawares GOP being 'utterly hopeless'. I mean, you can, but there is no evidence supporting it. If you're going to go after Biden, make it for something that matters, like his shift on drug policy.
So, as it turns out, I cannot refute that you have an opinion, but I can refute that your opinion is worth taking as sound advisement. Note, too, that you're twisting words: you added "for their taste" to "Obama is too egotistical or too leftist". Those labels; 'egotistical' and 'leftist' are being applied by the right, and being applied as though they are objective truth - without supporting basis. By the same basis I can say "You're too tall." But I'm not supporting it with facts, and so it's objective reality is called into question. Will you trust the opinion I just stated? If you do so on any basis other than evidence, well, then don't pretend that you're doing so on a rational basis. By the same token, don't pretend that you or the right think Obama is objectively egotistical or leftist unless you're willing to front some evidence.
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Statistics show that tickets with a woman as VP never win.
Intron: the portion of DNA which expresses nothing useful.
There is literally no phase of his life wherein his experience doesn't totally outstrip Palin's.
So I just see it differently you. Education is a prepatory thing, not a success in and of itself. Palin got some schooling and stepped into the ring and made herself a success against determined opposition. She was tested. She ran a budget of a small town, engaged in the political arena and then has become a governor with several thousand people working for her.
If the contest were one of who might be the best prepared to serve on someone's staff, then yeah, Obama's education stands out. But, this is a contest of leadership and part of that leadership is in initiative, and Palin has showed way more initiative and zeal by the mere act of stepping into the policy ring and just leading. Obama's been selected for various things but he's never really lead until the primary.
You cannot just chalk that up to Delawares GOP being 'utterly hopeless'. I mean, you can, but there is no evidence supporting it
Yeah you can. Just go look at the web site for the GOP's US Senate candidate in Delaware and tell me how you do not see hopeless! :-)
leftist unless you're willing to front some evidence.
There's plenty of evidence to say that Obama is leftist. The whole appeal of Obama to the left is that he is unashamedly leftist and he even argues in favor of it in his book and in his speeches. He argues against businesses, he frames his thinking in terms of a class struggle, he fondly recalls his discussions with communists in college and he runs with a leftist crowd.
This is my sig.
Statistics show that tickets with a woman as VP never win.
Well, you're right there! Of course, the confidence interval is rather large.
My favorite statistic is that the average American adult has one breast and one testicle.
(When I've mentioned this in the past, it has often resulted in fun threads from people pointing out that neither number is exactly 1. The mean number of breasts is somewhat over 1, and the mean number of testicles is slightly less than 1. But they're pretty close, closer than most election-year statistics usually are.)
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
If your state elects the person who supervises elections, then donating to and volunteering for a reformist candidate can help.
In Washington State, an incumbent who has installed Diebold touch screens, optical scanners, and central tabulators is running against a software developer whose platform calls for transparency and integrity.
The challenger is Jason Osgood, and you can donate at Jason Osgood's contributions page.
That's not ignorant, that merely displays having observed politics for any reasonable amount of time, and watching both parties screw us over. When one guy is shooting you, and the other is stabbing you, both are the same as far as you're concerned. You're just as dead.
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
I can't understand why elections take place on a day when most people have to go to work. Sure, the polls are open before and after the conventional work day, but the fact of the matter is, most ordinary people have a hard time finding that extra time to go and vote and still be able to get in their 4 hours of TV viewing.
Imagine instead that everybody gets that Tuesday off and only needs to present their ballot receipt to their employer to verify that they actually voted. We would have a lot more people able to help out with the voting process, and tons more people coming to the polls just to get out of work. People may actually spend an hour or two of their new free time looking at the issues behind the candidates.
We honor our veterans and our workers with paid national holidays -- why can't we do the patriotic thing and honor our voters and ordinary citizens as well?
Not only those things, but it is also now well established that it was Saddam Hussein who kidnapped the Lindbergh baby.
As a European, I wish the USA will elect an educated, wise person for president.
You also claim:
Wild claim.
Nothing you said supports this argument.
Again, nothing you said supports this argument.
You see, I can post nonsense too. Such as 'Pax Americana' is dead because its in a huge debt. Nothing I write in this post supports this claim though. Even while I feel it is accurate, I cannot provide a good rationale. Therefore, I shut my mouth about it or else it'd be easily refuted by others. Which is precisely what has been happening in this thread with many of your so-called arguments (lacking basis).
Also, what is this 'left' and 'right' people are talking about? Utter nonsense, perhaps? The Soviet Union doesn't exist anymore. You have to come up with different rhetoric. It isn't original anymore. Try terrorism or child pornography. They seem popular FUD tactics these days.
Signed: not a left or right person, but one with both legs on the ground. And, a European.
Nothing you said supports this argument.
Absolutely I did. You are just too close minded to dismiss it. What does Obama need on his ticket? He wants a VP that help him win states he can't win by himself, insulate himself from experience attacks from the right, raise money for his party so he doesn't have to do it, and then has some experience as a leader to help run the country. Question is, is Biden the best the Dems have to offer? Let's see, there's over 30 Democratic governors in states like Texas, Virginia, PA, and Ohio, any one of which puts Obama over the top, and any of them can raise more money than Biden can, and have more executive experience than Palin does (because Alaska has such a small population). If Obama picked Rendell, or Kain, or almost any Democratic governor, this election is over three weeks ago. But he didn't. Therefor, Biden is a mistake, and a big one, because McCain made the perfect counter-move.
Such as 'Pax Americana' is dead because its in a huge debt.
Pax Americana is the US Air Force and US Navy establishing lawful open trade in the skies and high seas. USA has fiscal problems, but none that really alter that equation at the moment. If the USA had to immediately balance the budget, it ends the war and lets the Bush tax cuts lapse and that pretty much balances the budget immediately.
Also, what is this 'left' and 'right' people are talking about? Utter nonsense, perhaps? The Soviet Union doesn't exist anymore.
Utter nonsense? No? Left wing and right wing have been political debates since the beginning of civilization and will be until civilization ends. The impulse for more order through government, versus the impulse for freedom and openness, are human impulses and have gone on for some time.
Signed: not a left or right person, but one with both legs on the ground. And, a European.
Well, you can call yourself a centrist but that you identify with Obama suggests and are a European suggests that you are a tad more left wing. You have to remember that free enterprise in the USA and Europe have entirely different historical results. In the USA, free enterprise and open capitalism made this country enormously rich, with some social costs. In Europe, free enterprise, in its transition from the monarchy, came to represent a dangerous turn from an established social order, and -then- lead to the bitter experiences of empire and the enormously destructive depressions wars that followed. Germans, for example, would never really grasp the American idea of completely free speech and open gun laws, when, free speech and open gun laws lead to a bunch of liars with guns taking over and starting a world war that killed 10% of her own population, and of course the French have the same memory from the last 18th century. That just hasn't happened in America and hopefully never will.
This is my sig.
When I see a University "pedigree" I instantly know it also comes with an incredible level of arrogance. "Pedigreed" students have access to not only top-notch learning, but also start building connections via networking, and other "intangible" benefits from going to good schools, and one of the inevitable things that happens is they start to feel "anointed" or perhaps "entitled".
Never met a "pedigreed" person who wasn't also at least an order of magnitude more arrogant than someone who didn't have the "pedigree", even the humblest ones.
I'll pass on putting "good college background" up as a good reason to vote for someone. As someone who's attended "state schools" (which you apparently look down your nose at), I'm regularly offended by the arrogance of supposedly smarter people who I've watched make as many mistakes as others, including Harvard MBAs running businesses into the ground, etc etc etc...
You can keep the "pedigree" if you think it's worth something. Seeing someone "make it" from a humble State school background and a Communications degree, makes me feel better about all the times I've watched "pedigreed" people hurt others with their arrogance and greed.
+++OK ATH
Heaven forbid we elect someone who is proud of an accomplishment. And, you know, completing law school - any law school, but in particular the top notch ones - is a real accomplishment. Completing an undergraduate degree at a variety of barely-known schools (it has nothing to do with their State nature - there are plenty of good state schools) is, by comparison, less of an accomplishment.
But that's not your problem; you've made a blanket statement that anyone who goes to such a highly ranked school is arrogant and incapable of being a good leader. That's as insane as thinking anyone who has gone to a state school is incapable of running the country. Even if your basic statement is true, it's still utterly anecdotal - a terrible argument all around.
What really bothers me about Palin's education record is that her schools are no-name schools, not that they're state schools. The quality of a school really does matter, and better schools really do turn out more qualified people. Those people will, of course, make mistakes. Everyone makes mistakes. But on average they're going to do better. That is why they are, on average, promoted to higher positions; it's not just cronyism.
What I find particularly ironic about your post is Palin's behavior whenever she's been in office; she has been the heart of arrogance. She's driven out good people, and installed high school friends, in all the administrations she's been in. On pure chance, what do you think the odds are that the best people to be in those positions all went to school with her? She has acted consistently to surround herself with people whose primary credential is that they know her of old, not that they're qualified people.
If you've made your decision already, why bother using the education as the reason? You're free to not like Obama because he's not like you, but there is nothing that recommends poorly educated people to the office of President. It's just not a winning point to argue otherwise.
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No I didn't say the ALL are that way, I said I've never MET anyone with a pedigree who didn't act utterly arrogant.
There probably are SOME, but the MAJORITY... are arrogant as hell, and pretty bad PEOPLE at their core. They may be "qualified" but they're assholes who look down their noses at the average person, and assholes with arrogance aren't who I want running the country.
Hey, there's a good slogan for the Obama/Biden campaign: "Intellectual Assholes with Arrogance"
As far as non-arrogant pedigreed people, I bet the non-arrogant ones are the ones who worked damn hard to even pay to go to the schools. Obama had a scholarship, right?
Comparatively, and to be fair, there ARE some pedigrees worth paying for, and Harvard is one of them if you're out to be "qualified" and make money... or run for President. Because people THINK the pedigree means something qualitative. It doesn't. It's all about class and status, first -- education second, once you hit the Ivy League.
On the contrary, there are some good PEOPLE in some DIFFERENT schools that are pedigree mills, too.
MIT grads tend to run about 50/50. Either they're pompous asses who believe they're here to save the world with technology, or they're highly intelligent inquisitive folks who bring a lot to the table.
Also, comparatively I've met more than my fair share of RPI grads over the years, and they have both the mega-arrogance AND the skillset, so you put up with it. (THAT is a school that cranks out some brilliant real-world engineers, year after year after year.)
So again, I point out -- I'm going off of personal experience with grads here. Beyond Harvard, MIT, and RPI... haven't seen too many other "pedigreed" folks hanging around out here in the West. (Colorado) We're boring to them, and the few that make it here are division heads wishing they could move back to the East coast. A few want to go West, they usually work in Tech and miss Silicon Valley.
Only the cream of the crop move here for OTHER reasons, like being avid every-weekend skiiers, or similar. Otherwise, they just buy overly-expensive vacation homes in places like Aspen, Vail and "Breck" (everyone here calls it Breckenridge) and dump money into the mountain town economy, while making it impossible for locals to afford second homes up there. Whatever. That's just what happens when "Money Gone Wild" shows up in Western states.
Judging by your reply, you probably are one of these pedigreed people? Or are you one of those who truly believes that the pedigree means someone is worth -- at their core -- being President, more than someone else?
If not - why do you think "better schools really do turn out more qualified people"? That's discrimination right there, bud.
Maybe you're right... since "qualified" isn't objective in virtually any job role these days.
Any idiot from Harvard can run a company into the ground just as fast as an idiot from a State no-name school. None of these people in leadership positions really end up held accountable at the end of the day. Not Democrats, not Republicans.
It's just that the Harvard guy has better contacts, can get the job in the first place, and the job comes with the perk of a golden parachute, and can get another one. Run any old corporation through the bankruptcy carwash, bud... they'll give you another one to run, and say you are a "great leader" who had to have a "learning experience".
Wheee... no wonder they end up thinking the rest of the world works at their whim.
Anyway... Palin "driving out" people and being arrogant... were the people EFFECTIVE at their jobs that she drove out? I don't care their background, their whatever... did they do their jobs?
Plus, any Party and any leader does that... it's just the usual changing of the guard in politics.
Palin ended up their leader somehow, and I doubt the "great" folks working there prior OR AFTER she did the personnel swaps would pay a single bit of attention to what she wanted to
+++OK ATH
Alright, you clearly have a chip on your shoulder, so I'm not going to respond to your entire post; at best you're trolling, see? But let us debunk your backpedaling.
No I didn't say the ALL are that way, I said I've never MET anyone with a pedigree who didn't act utterly arrogant.
Actually, you said, "When I see a University "pedigree" I instantly know it also comes with an incredible level of arrogance." You made a 100% blanket statement, and you should own that. I would accept that you probably didn't mean it as that, but it is what you said.
Secondly, I would challenge you to take a class at any of your so-called 'pedigreed' schools and tell me it was easier than the equivalent level class at a median-ranked state school. The reason those pedigreed schools are flat out better, and turn out, on average, more qualified people is because they have more resources. More resources means, on one level, better equipment and better space. But it also means that the top minds want to work there as teachers and researchers. And that means the students there are exposed to a far higher level of learning. It is a tougher environment to succeed in. It turns out better people. You have no objective basis to claim otherwise.
So, instead, it seems you go through a litany of schools and your opinion on them - which is next to meaningless, even if I agree with some of it. I do think, though, based on what you've said and the verbiage you used, that you don't know too many Harvard graduates, or Princeton or Brown graduates. It seems like maybe you've found one or two MIT folks you like, and you seem to know a lot of RPI people. You don't need to confirm or deny that; just consider, on the off chance I'm right, that your impressions are formed by the people you know - or more importantly, those you don't.
Any idiot from Harvard can run a company into the ground just as fast as an idiot from a State no-name school.
They could, especially if that were their objective. On average they're going to have a better grasp of how to do that. For the same reason, on average, they're not going to do it as fast as your median student from a median state school if their goal is to run it successfully.
As a side note, one of the more brilliant insights Warren Buffet has shared is that some people do better with different levels of money. You might consider that, were that true (I think it is; you may not), might you see the sort of profile of win/loss that you're basing your views on? It is a hard lesson to learn that in life that save for that one thing (in your case, a 'pedigreed school), not all else is held ceteris paribus.
Regarding Sarah Palin; I think that the librarian case is the one easiest to point to. A very popular librarian, good at what she does, who did not agree with her. The librarian was fired, and the city objected strongly. Only at that objection did Palin reinstate her - her original reasons for firing never coming out. But incompetence? Doesn't seem likely, given the judgment of the rest of the city. So, yeah, I think that she cares more about having supporters than competent people. I think that's a true thing, and I think that you can still support her knowing that. That's a reasonable point of view. Outright objecting to her having ever done anything wrong ever is not.
What I find outright laughable, though, is the claim that the current administration is run by snob intellectuals. Honestly, I'd rather a meritocracy than a fascism, even if the virtues of the merits selected are dubious. Well, that and the claim that the taxes leveled on you are all that dire. Grow up. You have plenty of money. The only problem is that you don't think that's enough. How long are you going to blame that on Congress? Or do you actually find it morally reasonable to sluff off all blame onto someone else?
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