Using this logic, the other networks would be all over this "story" like flies on shit. Making your competitors look bad is good for business.
Unless you don't have any competitors. ABC, CBS, CNN, NBC, Fox, and the Associated Press all collaborated to produce exit poll & vote count information. It's this joint effort that is being maligned by conspiracy theorists.
Why aren't we seeing that?
It takes time. In the worst case, I'd only accuse them of making a mistake. I do trust that if they made a mistake, eventually college statistics professors will say so, and the media will cover it.
Why aren't we seeing inquiries and stories from Kerry's camp?
Because Kerry thought it would make him look bad. Kerry's legal team had planned a "scorched Earth" campaign of contesting vote counts, but Kerry overruled them. It would have been detrimental to his image and to the status quo.
My point was that your analogy implies that pirate radio operators are damaging other people's property. I feel that they are violating a law, but not necessarily harming other people's property. I feel that they, like DMCA violators, may not be harming anyone at all.
Neither hacking websites nor the DMCA are directly related to pirate radio operators. That's the point of analogies.
Even if you believe they are central, I defy anyone to explain to me why the fuck CNN would change numbers to suit Bush. It is pure insanity.
No. Even if they are left leaning, there is a reason for them to change the poll numbers to suit Bush: Otherwise their exit poll data would look inaccurate, due to the mismatch with the election result. After two well publicized failures in a row, people would stop paying attention to their inaccurate exit polls.
There are both legitimate and illegitimate reasons for them to revise their exit polls. If you are confident either way, you're an idiot. We do not know whether the revision was done for impartial (not left-right, but pro-journalist) reasons. Hopefully, the raw data will be examined by experts, and there will be a consensus that the revision was statistically sound. Until then, you don't know.
Bruce Schneier won't be happy until every electronic voting machine is triple-AES encoded and guarded by a yarmulke-sporting, Uzi-wielding, Torah-babbling hebrew.
Check the CJR's Campaign Desk. It's a little like FactCheck.org, but focusing on journalistic hoo-ha rather than politician's hoo-ha. And they've been decrying "balance" where none exists throughout the campaign.
Yes 44% of California went to Bush, but 40-something went to Kerry in Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, N. Carolina, Missouri, and Ohio, to look at the most populous Republican states.
But more of the biggest states went to Kerry. The smaller states are less effected by this change, because a larger portion of their electors correspond to senators. There are two games to play with our system:
Win narrowly, lose by landslides
small state bonus
The Democrats use one, the Republicans use the other. If you eliminate either arbitrary bonus, you would dramatically shift power to the other party. I'm sure the Republicans would be opposed to subtracting two electors from every state.
Before you say you think it's a good idea, work out what the electoral college result would have been with this system in the past two elections. I guarantee it would lean things towards the Republicans.
Campaign strategies would shift, and maybe Texas would be 40-something for the Democrat, so more votes.
Yes, perhaps. But why is it better for both parties?
I like this system better than what we have presently because it makes 8 large, currently uncompetitive, states competitive and important to the race.
This is not a sufficient answer for me. I'm in one of those 8 states, and I want the Democrats to take me for granted. It means that much to me to remove the Republicans from the whitehouse. I'm happy to be ignored during the race. So. Why is your system better for me?
They have bigger problems than that. Their system whitelists people after they pass a single valid hash. Which means that the typical spam/virus solution of sending mail "from" someone that you know will continue to work just fine.
SPF will fix that, not hashcash. Once admins implement SPF, lord only knows what our remaining spam problems will be.
Nobody wants a fiasco in their state, so the states are individually reforming the system to avoid a situation like the one in Florida in 2000.
It takes time, anything involving government does.
No, no, no. They've already succeeded. That's the point. In 2000, there was contention over who won Florida. Now, there can never be contention again, because it is impossible to verify the vote. We have been told that Florida & Ohio won, but there is no way to show that to be true. Or false. I suspect that it is true this time, but it is guaranteed that at some point in the future, someone will hack the election and we won't be able to tell.
I like this system better than what we have presently because it makes 8 large, currently uncompetitive, states competitive and important to the race.
And I don't, because I'm a member of the reigning party in one of those big states. Your change would cause a dramatic shift in power, and I think that the shift would diminish the power of populous states more than it would diminish the power of less populous states. Yes, they might have reason to campaign here, but the liberals would lose nationwide, every time.
It would convince the average Joe, impress a lot of liberals, and he would gain the respect of the average./er.
I'm not sure you understand. Bush is not beholden to the average Joe, nor lots of liberals, and certainly not the average./er. The far right has control of the entire government, and it was due to their base, white evangelicals, coming out in record numbers. They don't need shit from you. Bush will fix this problem when Hell freezes over.
FlexWiki was CPL. I'm pretty sure Microsoft chooses their OSS licenses on a case-by-case basis. Keep in mind they also have their "shared source" license (I forget the specific name) that isn't OSS at all.
How many members of Congress does it take to stop a bill from becoming law?
Oh. I thought you were talking about the people's variously proportioned ability to select the president. Yes, I see that our bicameral system prevents legislation that is harmful to one and only one popular minority: people who live in states with small populations.
We agree there but I have not seen a president in my lifetime do that, and John Kerry would not have any more than Bush.
I only said that in reference to your defense of the electoral college system as an improvement to direct democracy, where the wolves vote to eat the sheep. Diminished executive power protects the sheep, not the electoral college. I did think the two candidates had different opinions on the role of the executive, but that is totally irrelevant to anything we're discussing.
1) Because we are a federal Republic the president does not, and was never intended to represent the people. He was intended to represent the states. Given this how can the states have fair representation without the EC?
I believe my point is unscathed. "Because we are a federal republic" does not explain why we should be fairer to states or to people. It explains why we are, but not why we should be. I certainly don't know.
Yes becuase of joe and 50 of his freinds decide to screw jane and 48 of her friends out of something, in a democracy they can.
And our system is obviously better, because jane and her 48 friends can screw joe and his 50 friends.
So instead they built a Representative system with checks and balances.
This would make sense if you were arguing in defense of "activist judges" that were striking down giant swaths of the PATRIOT Act. But you are not. I do not see that the electoral college is a check or a balance. It was a compromise made between the thirteen states that wrote the constitution. It is not inherently right or wrong. It is a totally arbitrary way of weighing the ability of each state to pick the president.
WRT the "representative system", the electors were never intended to do the critical decision making of who should become president. They were the best physical mechanism we had for getting the states to pick the president.
As Franklin said "Two Wolves and a Sheep voting on whats for Dinner"
If you look at our system from the liberal perspective, we have one wolf and two sheep voting on what's for dinner. And the wolf wins anyway. Diminishing the power of the executive branch is the only way to stop the wolf from eating the sheep, and that is what "checks and balances" are for, and that is totally unrelated to the electoral college.
I am not advocating the abolition of the electoral college. It is a system. It's our system and it's worked pretty well for us, but you have not explained why it is inherently safer, fairer, or better that a popular vote, and I have not explained the opposite.
Yup and if you want to trash the EC have fun because at least 35-40 States stand to lose power if you do.
Slashdot Mirror
Innovation is going to be the US export of the future.
You seem to think that we have some kind of competitive advantage for innovation. If we do, I don't know what it is.
My point was that your analogy implies that pirate radio operators are damaging other people's property. I feel that they are violating a law, but not necessarily harming other people's property. I feel that they, like DMCA violators, may not be harming anyone at all.
Neither hacking websites nor the DMCA are directly related to pirate radio operators. That's the point of analogies.
You didn't do very well in the analogy section of the SATs.
My analogy does not imply that hackers are like pirate radio stations, and it does not imply that all hackers violate the DMCA.
Even if you believe they are central, I defy anyone to explain to me why the fuck CNN would change numbers to suit Bush. It is pure insanity.
No. Even if they are left leaning, there is a reason for them to change the poll numbers to suit Bush: Otherwise their exit poll data would look inaccurate, due to the mismatch with the election result. After two well publicized failures in a row, people would stop paying attention to their inaccurate exit polls.
There are both legitimate and illegitimate reasons for them to revise their exit polls. If you are confident either way, you're an idiot. We do not know whether the revision was done for impartial (not left-right, but pro-journalist) reasons. Hopefully, the raw data will be examined by experts, and there will be a consensus that the revision was statistically sound. Until then, you don't know.
Whatever.
Ham is to pirate radio as hacker is to DMCA violator.
Bruce Schneier won't be happy until every electronic voting machine is triple-AES encoded and guarded by a yarmulke-sporting, Uzi-wielding, Torah-babbling hebrew.
That's why we love him!
Do not play poker with djhertz.
Check the CJR's Campaign Desk. It's a little like FactCheck.org, but focusing on journalistic hoo-ha rather than politician's hoo-ha. And they've been decrying "balance" where none exists throughout the campaign.
WA never made a dime for AOL, and in that respect was a poor investment.
That's debatable. When AOL bought WinAmp, WinAmp was about to get disappeared. They were losing a lawsuit with Freunhoffer (sp?).
How many people got internet access so that they could download MP3s and play them on WinAmp?
Win narrowly, lose by landslides
small state bonus
Yes, perhaps. But why is it better for both parties? This is not a sufficient answer for me. I'm in one of those 8 states, and I want the Democrats to take me for granted. It means that much to me to remove the Republicans from the whitehouse. I'm happy to be ignored during the race. So. Why is your system better for me?The Democrats use one, the Republicans use the other. If you eliminate either arbitrary bonus, you would dramatically shift power to the other party. I'm sure the Republicans would be opposed to subtracting two electors from every state.
Before you say you think it's a good idea, work out what the electoral college result would have been with this system in the past two elections. I guarantee it would lean things towards the Republicans.
The article hits it pretty close to the mark with:andI'm still using my dual-usb iBook, even after the LCD died. I hope to buy a new computer around 2010 at the earliest.
They have bigger problems than that. Their system whitelists people after they pass a single valid hash. Which means that the typical spam/virus solution of sending mail "from" someone that you know will continue to work just fine.
SPF will fix that, not hashcash. Once admins implement SPF, lord only knows what our remaining spam problems will be.
Yes, they have partisan & nonpartisan counters that do all their counting together. Anyone can watch the count. It's rather verifiable.
I like this system better than what we have presently because it makes 8 large, currently uncompetitive, states competitive and important to the race.
And I don't, because I'm a member of the reigning party in one of those big states. Your change would cause a dramatic shift in power, and I think that the shift would diminish the power of populous states more than it would diminish the power of less populous states. Yes, they might have reason to campaign here, but the liberals would lose nationwide, every time.
'The objective of securing the safety of Americans from crime and terror has been achieved.'
That is the BEST NEWS EVER! How come he didn't tell us about this before?
(1)
Finder comments do this.
(2)
Whatever.
(3)
Whatever.
It would convince the average Joe, impress a lot of liberals, and he would gain the respect of the average ./er.
./er. The far right has control of the entire government, and it was due to their base, white evangelicals, coming out in record numbers. They don't need shit from you. Bush will fix this problem when Hell freezes over.
I'm not sure you understand. Bush is not beholden to the average Joe, nor lots of liberals, and certainly not the average
Uh, no, they prefer to use BSD licensed software, because then they can relicense it however they want. They don't BSD license their own software.
?
FlexWiki was CPL. I'm pretty sure Microsoft chooses their OSS licenses on a case-by-case basis. Keep in mind they also have their "shared source" license (I forget the specific name) that isn't OSS at all.
?
In what regard did Apple choose the BSD license? They chose the APSL. And this is loonies in action, not the GPL. Linux & GNU are the GPL in action.
How many members of Congress does it take to stop a bill from becoming law?
Oh. I thought you were talking about the people's variously proportioned ability to select the president. Yes, I see that our bicameral system prevents legislation that is harmful to one and only one popular minority: people who live in states with small populations.
We agree there but I have not seen a president in my lifetime do that, and John Kerry would not have any more than Bush.
I only said that in reference to your defense of the electoral college system as an improvement to direct democracy, where the wolves vote to eat the sheep. Diminished executive power protects the sheep, not the electoral college. I did think the two candidates had different opinions on the role of the executive, but that is totally irrelevant to anything we're discussing.
1) Because we are a federal Republic the president does not, and was never intended to represent the people. He was intended to represent the states. Given this how can the states have fair representation without the EC?
I believe my point is unscathed. "Because we are a federal republic" does not explain why we should be fairer to states or to people. It explains why we are, but not why we should be. I certainly don't know.
WRT the "representative system", the electors were never intended to do the critical decision making of who should become president. They were the best physical mechanism we had for getting the states to pick the president.If you look at our system from the liberal perspective, we have one wolf and two sheep voting on what's for dinner. And the wolf wins anyway. Diminishing the power of the executive branch is the only way to stop the wolf from eating the sheep, and that is what "checks and balances" are for, and that is totally unrelated to the electoral college.
I am not advocating the abolition of the electoral college. It is a system. It's our system and it's worked pretty well for us, but you have not explained why it is inherently safer, fairer, or better that a popular vote, and I have not explained the opposite.Yeah. Obviously not going to happen.
These are, of course, displaying different information.
The picture you've linked to is displaying county-by-county presidential preference percentages, which is totally fascinating.
The picture in the story displays county-by-county presidential victors by population, which is also totally fascinating.
Can these guys collaborate or something? I kindof want to see the nighttime lights superimposed on the purple map.