I don't trust either Republicans or Democrats, but I really don't want anything to do with the Democrats socialist platform.
What the $%@$% are you talking about? It's appaling what a stronghold the US cold war propaganda still has in the US. For the rest of the world, the US race is between the moderate/center right (Kerry) and the far right (Bush). Maybe you should go past the propaganda and really check was socialism is all about...
The world - our staunchest allies - they all beleive that the US has been lying and that *WE* have become the rouge nation.
I/m sure you mean rogue and not rouge as rouge means red.
Of course, if you use the blue/red colors for Democrats/Republicans, then you are a red nation (hopefully for only a day more) but outside the US, red is mostly associated with Communism and you're far from that...
60 minutes had a pretty good piece this evening on how the Congress and the Pentagon are screwing the soldiers in Iraq...
Thanks for the info. As I'm on the West Coast, it's just starting now...
On the same subject, I've recently seen some 3 part documentary on Discovery/NY Times following a guard unit from their prewar training to the actual stay in Iraq and they were showing similar pictures of soldiers adding rusted plates over their Humvees doors. Whatever you think of the war, when you see that, you have to feel sorry for those guys...
clearly, we need to enact an amendment to the Constitution that will provide that all election methods must be "open source".
No, as others pointed out elsewhere, open source is not an issue and might even be detrimental to the adoption of sane standards: the real issue as you also mention is to provide an complete audit trail allowing a full recount and this means a paper ballot and nothing else.
Also, in your list of changes, you should probably add making the election day a day off to make sure more people can go and vote.
Myself, I have no idea if I can refuse to use the machines on election day.
I believe I've seen on the news or some political web site (it might even have been on another discussion here about electronic voting) that you're allowed to refuse to use electronic machines and that each voting place is supposed to have paper ballots. When I saw that, the controversy was that poll workers were instructed not to mention that fact when greeting voters.
The problem: we're the only Western democracy that allows for partisan election commissions.
Finally somebody brings this up. To a Western European, that's one disturbing fact, along with the police, firefigthers and non-elected public officials endorsing a candidate and the public voting for judges (isn't the law supposed to be non-partisan?) and police chiefs.
And of course, the most disturbing fact is that active military people are used during political rallies. In France at least, police and military personel have a "devoir de reserve", meaning that they have the duty to keep their political views to themselves and you would not see military personel clapping during a political meeting or any official function. In fact, they wouldn't even be allowed at a political meeting in uniform but could attend in civilian clothes. This brings the question: how are those troups selected for the meetings? Is it "voluntary" or do they have to follow the political view of their platoon/division leader?
So the main question is, who is more important, the drunks or the soda addicts?
Now, there is one problem that not everyone gets their soda from 7-eleven.
So you're saying we should look at the other poll instead? Based on your logic, I'd like to point out a problem: not all drunks voting in US elections buy their drink in an american bar in Paris, France.
Well, instead of refusing to see the problem(s) with the current US system, you could take some clues from other countries to improve the system. But I guess this goes against the "we're the best country/democracy in the world" propaganda the US public has been fed for so long as well as the Not Invented Here syndrom. And of course, you would have to admit the current system is not perfect, something the current administration may have a problem with...
National ID is anathema to Republicans, but would Kerry consider the idea if elected? He is popular abroad, where such IDs are common place...
While I'm sure you enjoyed bashing Kerry, the fundamental difference between the US and Western Europe is that in most countries over there, the individual still has control over his/her data, meaning a company cannot resell the data without the individual's consent so having some form of national ID is not such a problem over there as it doesn't open the door to big corporations tracking your every move...
A war cannot be fought with nukes until everyone has one; otherwise, it won't be a war with two sides. And when everyone has one, no one side will attempt to use it in battle, because of mutual destruction, or the potential thereof. Thus, they would most likely resort to using conventional weapons.
You forgot the disclaimer: unless the leaders on one side are convinced that the second coming is near and that their faith will save them in the end. But of course, that's just a theory, no sane leader of the free world would be thinking along those lines...
"this is not really a democracy as you cannot legally express that you don't like any of the choices"
Apparently, you haven't heard of 3rd party canidates.
This is not the same and for your information, the French system has multiple candidates for all elections and two rounds where only the most popular candidates stay for the second round so I am familiar with 3rd party candidates.
That being said, casting a protest vote for a 3rd party candidate is not the same thing as saying you don't like any of the choices and casting an invalid ballot intentionally is not the same thing as legally expressing your dissatisfaction with the candidates. For instance at the last French presidential election, the second round was between the right and the far right and thus voting blank was an indication of the reject of both candidates.
One can easily choose not to vote for any particular office or question. It's not invalid. Some (Democrat Party lawyers) might consider this "undervote", but it isn't invalid. "Overvote" (accidentally voting for two candidates for the same office) is an invalid ballot. The news media may not report it often, but the "undervote" (either accidental or "blank vote") can easily be obtained by subtracting votes cast from turnout.
The difference is that the blank vote is reported separately and there's no "complicated" math to be performed. Besides, doing the difference between turnout and vote cast will give the total of the undervotes and overvotes so it's not really the same.
I think a "none of the above" line on each ballot question would be an improvment as then there's no question about the intent of the voter as opposed to a lack of selection for that question. And that may the only option to cast such a vote with the new electronic machines...
This is why in some other countries, there's the idea of a "blank" ballot and this is not the same as an invalid entry. For instance, in France, for each candidate there's a separate piece of paper that you put in the envelope. The voter has the option not to put anything in the envelope (blank vote) which is different from a damaged paper, more than one paper, something unrelated in the envelope (invalid vote). The blank votes are counted as such and distinct from invalid votes and both counts are part of the election results.
I had a discussion a long time ago with an American, the first time I was here during an election where I stated that without this option, this is not really a democracy as you cannot legally express that you don't like any of the choices and no, staying at home or casting an invalid ballot is not the same thing...
Nor does Condorcet have a 'friendly' name, especially for states that started selling 'Freedom Fries.'
I agree with your post, even the part above but I guess you shouldn't tell the populace where the idea of the separation of powers is coming from (hint, it's from a philosopher with a 'friendly' name, Montesquieu)
or for that matter what the nationality of a lot of the philosophers who influenced your constitution was...
As a non native English speaker myself, from my experience in the US, it looks to me that English speakers are more likely to make the mistake, maybe because most non native speakers had to deal with their own grammar that is more complicated than the English one and have a better command of the logic behing the rules...
[If you think you're getting a 17" LCD or iPod for free, your an idiot.]
Before calling somebody an idiot, at least make sure to check your sentence for grammatical error, otherwise it may give the impression that you are the idiot. To your credit, you got it right once...
As far as the free ipod is concerned, it doesn't really cost anything to do it except maybe some more spam but that's what disposable email addresses are for.
See, this is disturbing, how is this not an invasion of privacy?
If you find the database at opensecrets.org disturbing, check out this other one I mentionned in another post yesterday: http://www.fundrace.org/neighbors.php. This database will give you the name, amount, employer and address for each donor.
You're talking about the Basque separatists vs. Al Queda? Seems to me that would have been a good place to start the investigation, even if it didn't ultimately turn out to be correct. Don't know that that constitutes a "lie" or a "coverup" as the terrorist appeasers now in power have spun it.
No, and this is another example of the US misunderstanding of the rest of the world or to be more precise of regional terrorism versus global terrorism like Al Queda. Western europeans are used to regional terrorism as most countries went through successive waves at one point or another. As I've said in another post, ETA has never been involved in a terrorist attack targetting random civilians so the modus operandi was totally different from typical ETA attacks and thus, specially in the war context, it made sense to suspect Al Queda first. Besides, Basque people, or at least some of them, want their independence but still want to (and have to based on geography...) live next to the Spanish people and random civilian casualies is not the best way to do it. ETA terrorist acts are targetting military or governmental targets as they represent the occupier but not random civilians.
Americans, unlike the Spaniards, it seems, don't like being told how to vote by terrorists.
Some facts about the Spanish election: it was a close race before the attack, due in part of the opposition to the war from the Spanish people and thus opposed to the government being part of the coalition and the most important fact and probably decisive factor: the government lied and blamed it right away on ETA, the Basque separatist group, which has blood on its hands but was never involved in such a terrorist attack targetting random civilians.
So the US interpretation that this is just Spaniards caving in to terrorists is wrong and is just another example of how you don't get the rest of the world and this is in part due to the US media not doing a good enough job going past he sound bites.
His comment was based on the fact that in recent years before 9/11, the US was launching cruise missile from the safety of boats/submarines and that there was no direct contact with or risk of casualties. Whereas the terrorists on 9/11 or at least the leader(s) on each plane knew perfectly well the direct and immediate outcome of their actions on their lives. So in that context, I don't think it's that stupid but what do I know, I'm just a "cheese-eating surrender monkey"...
No Bill Maher turned that show off by making stupid comments about 9/11.
Here's the quote from Bill Maher: "We have been the cowards lobbing cruise missiles from 2,000 miles away. That's cowardly. Staying in the airplane when it hits the building, say what you want about it, it's not cowardly".
That's not really that stupid once you take the knee-jerk reactions out and try to think about it for a while and this is not a praise of the terrorists.
Maybe it's for the best that he's now back on HBO. It gives him a little bit more freedom as the advertisers can not indirectly dictate what is appropriate...
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What the $%@$% are you talking about? It's appaling what a stronghold the US cold war propaganda still has in the US. For the rest of the world, the US race is between the moderate/center right (Kerry) and the far right (Bush). Maybe you should go past the propaganda and really check was socialism is all about...
His name is Jacques Chirac. Now how do I get my buck?
I/m sure you mean rogue and not rouge as rouge means red.
Of course, if you use the blue/red colors for Democrats/Republicans, then you are a red nation (hopefully for only a day more) but outside the US, red is mostly associated with Communism and you're far from that...
Thanks for the info. As I'm on the West Coast, it's just starting now...
On the same subject, I've recently seen some 3 part documentary on Discovery/NY Times following a guard unit from their prewar training to the actual stay in Iraq and they were showing similar pictures of soldiers adding rusted plates over their Humvees doors. Whatever you think of the war, when you see that, you have to feel sorry for those guys...
No, as others pointed out elsewhere, open source is not an issue and might even be detrimental to the adoption of sane standards: the real issue as you also mention is to provide an complete audit trail allowing a full recount and this means a paper ballot and nothing else.
Also, in your list of changes, you should probably add making the election day a day off to make sure more people can go and vote.
I believe I've seen on the news or some political web site (it might even have been on another discussion here about electronic voting) that you're allowed to refuse to use electronic machines and that each voting place is supposed to have paper ballots. When I saw that, the controversy was that poll workers were instructed not to mention that fact when greeting voters.
Finally somebody brings this up. To a Western European, that's one disturbing fact, along with the police, firefigthers and non-elected public officials endorsing a candidate and the public voting for judges (isn't the law supposed to be non-partisan?) and police chiefs.
And of course, the most disturbing fact is that active military people are used during political rallies. In France at least, police and military personel have a "devoir de reserve", meaning that they have the duty to keep their political views to themselves and you would not see military personel clapping during a political meeting or any official function. In fact, they wouldn't even be allowed at a political meeting in uniform but could attend in civilian clothes. This brings the question: how are those troups selected for the meetings? Is it "voluntary" or do they have to follow the political view of their platoon/division leader?
So the main question is, who is more important, the drunks or the soda addicts?
Now, there is one problem that not everyone gets their soda from 7-eleven.
So you're saying we should look at the other poll instead? Based on your logic, I'd like to point out a problem: not all drunks voting in US elections buy their drink in an american bar in Paris, France.
I know it's not popular around here but if you checked the links you would have seen:
Voting began on Oct. 2 and was open to anyone with an American passport.
Well, instead of refusing to see the problem(s) with the current US system, you could take some clues from other countries to improve the system. But I guess this goes against the "we're the best country/democracy in the world" propaganda the US public has been fed for so long as well as the Not Invented Here syndrom. And of course, you would have to admit the current system is not perfect, something the current administration may have a problem with...
While I'm sure you enjoyed bashing Kerry, the fundamental difference between the US and Western Europe is that in most countries over there, the individual still has control over his/her data, meaning a company cannot resell the data without the individual's consent so having some form of national ID is not such a problem over there as it doesn't open the door to big corporations tracking your every move...
A war cannot be fought with nukes until everyone has one; otherwise, it won't be a war with two sides. And when everyone has one, no one side will attempt to use it in battle, because of mutual destruction, or the potential thereof. Thus, they would most likely resort to using conventional weapons.
You forgot the disclaimer: unless the leaders on one side are convinced that the second coming is near and that their faith will save them in the end. But of course, that's just a theory, no sane leader of the free world would be thinking along those lines...
"this is not really a democracy as you cannot legally express that you don't like any of the choices"
Apparently, you haven't heard of 3rd party canidates.
This is not the same and for your information, the French system has multiple candidates for all elections and two rounds where only the most popular candidates stay for the second round so I am familiar with 3rd party candidates.
That being said, casting a protest vote for a 3rd party candidate is not the same thing as saying you don't like any of the choices and casting an invalid ballot intentionally is not the same thing as legally expressing your dissatisfaction with the candidates. For instance at the last French presidential election, the second round was between the right and the far right and thus voting blank was an indication of the reject of both candidates.
One can easily choose not to vote for any particular office or question. It's not invalid. Some (Democrat Party lawyers) might consider this "undervote", but it isn't invalid. "Overvote" (accidentally voting for two candidates for the same office) is an invalid ballot. The news media may not report it often, but the "undervote" (either accidental or "blank vote") can easily be obtained by subtracting votes cast from turnout.
The difference is that the blank vote is reported separately and there's no "complicated" math to be performed. Besides, doing the difference between turnout and vote cast will give the total of the undervotes and overvotes so it's not really the same.
I think a "none of the above" line on each ballot question would be an improvment as then there's no question about the intent of the voter as opposed to a lack of selection for that question. And that may the only option to cast such a vote with the new electronic machines...
Now, does anyone really think he knows what VOIP is, or even how to spell internet?
Which internet are you talking about? If you'd watched the last debate, you would know that Bush is well aware of the internets...
This is why in some other countries, there's the idea of a "blank" ballot and this is not the same as an invalid entry. For instance, in France, for each candidate there's a separate piece of paper that you put in the envelope. The voter has the option not to put anything in the envelope (blank vote) which is different from a damaged paper, more than one paper, something unrelated in the envelope (invalid vote). The blank votes are counted as such and distinct from invalid votes and both counts are part of the election results.
I had a discussion a long time ago with an American, the first time I was here during an election where I stated that without this option, this is not really a democracy as you cannot legally express that you don't like any of the choices and no, staying at home or casting an invalid ballot is not the same thing...
Nor does Condorcet have a 'friendly' name, especially for states that started selling 'Freedom Fries.'
I agree with your post, even the part above but I guess you shouldn't tell the populace where the idea of the separation of powers is coming from (hint, it's from a philosopher with a 'friendly' name, Montesquieu)
or for that matter what the nationality of a lot of the philosophers who influenced your constitution was...
Or perhaps not a native English speaker? ;)
As a non native English speaker myself, from my experience in the US, it looks to me that English speakers are more likely to make the mistake, maybe because most non native speakers had to deal with their own grammar that is more complicated than the English one and have a better command of the logic behing the rules...
Before calling somebody an idiot, at least make sure to check your sentence for grammatical error, otherwise it may give the impression that you are the idiot. To your credit, you got it right once...
As far as the free ipod is concerned, it doesn't really cost anything to do it except maybe some more spam but that's what disposable email addresses are for.
See, this is disturbing, how is this not an invasion of privacy?
If you find the database at opensecrets.org disturbing, check out this other one I mentionned in another post yesterday: http://www.fundrace.org/neighbors.php. This database will give you the name, amount, employer and address for each donor.
At http://www.fundrace.org/neighbors.php, you can enter your address and see the contributors in your neighborhood...
You're talking about the Basque separatists vs. Al Queda? Seems to me that would have been a good place to start the investigation, even if it didn't ultimately turn out to be correct. Don't know that that constitutes a "lie" or a "coverup" as the terrorist appeasers now in power have spun it.
No, and this is another example of the US misunderstanding of the rest of the world or to be more precise of regional terrorism versus global terrorism like Al Queda. Western europeans are used to regional terrorism as most countries went through successive waves at one point or another. As I've said in another post, ETA has never been involved in a terrorist attack targetting random civilians so the modus operandi was totally different from typical ETA attacks and thus, specially in the war context, it made sense to suspect Al Queda first. Besides, Basque people, or at least some of them, want their independence but still want to (and have to based on geography...) live next to the Spanish people and random civilian casualies is not the best way to do it. ETA terrorist acts are targetting military or governmental targets as they represent the occupier but not random civilians.
Some facts about the Spanish election: it was a close race before the attack, due in part of the opposition to the war from the Spanish people and thus opposed to the government being part of the coalition and the most important fact and probably decisive factor: the government lied and blamed it right away on ETA, the Basque separatist group, which has blood on its hands but was never involved in such a terrorist attack targetting random civilians.
So the US interpretation that this is just Spaniards caving in to terrorists is wrong and is just another example of how you don't get the rest of the world and this is in part due to the US media not doing a good enough job going past he sound bites.
His comment was based on the fact that in recent years before 9/11, the US was launching cruise missile from the safety of boats/submarines and that there was no direct contact with or risk of casualties. Whereas the terrorists on 9/11 or at least the leader(s) on each plane knew perfectly well the direct and immediate outcome of their actions on their lives. So in that context, I don't think it's that stupid but what do I know, I'm just a "cheese-eating surrender monkey"...
Here's the quote from Bill Maher: "We have been the cowards lobbing cruise missiles from 2,000 miles away. That's cowardly. Staying in the airplane when it hits the building, say what you want about it, it's not cowardly".
That's not really that stupid once you take the knee-jerk reactions out and try to think about it for a while and this is not a praise of the terrorists.
Maybe it's for the best that he's now back on HBO. It gives him a little bit more freedom as the advertisers can not indirectly dictate what is appropriate...