(I challenge ANY Republican to come up with a better explanation for offering Ohio in a fundrasing letter
I've read that letter, I recieved a copy of that letter. It says no such thing. It asks for donations, and lets the people know that the life-long activist will do his best - to do everything he can - to deliver Ohio's electoral votes to Bush.
Somehow you take this to be proof of a grand conspiracy. That's your whole case! The CEO of a publically traded company entered into a conspiracy to pull off the largest fraud in American history and he reveleaded his intentions in a letter sent to 2 million people. That's your claim! Do you understand how it seems absurd on multiple levels? Do you know how many people would have to be in on a such conspiracy?
Delay is a crook. I'd love to seem him in jail. I've written my letters to my congresspeople indicating that.
Finally, I am not a Republican, but this silly busness with the Ohio fundraising letter is beyond absurd. The letter is harmless. The guy in question personally donated tons of cash to the election campaign and to the RNC. He donated tons of cash to local candidates. He sent a letter of testimony, saying effectively, "I'm on board, so should you. I am doing everythng I can to deliver Ohio, so should you.". Thats the explanation, and if you read the entire letter not a single reasonable minded person could disagree.
You and your ilk make it seem like the letter read: "Dear voter, I am planning on stealing the election by rigging electronic vote machines on Ohio. But first I need your money. I will do everything I can to deliver Ohio's electoral votes to Bush, if only you will make a large donation first. Best Regards, CEO of Diebold."
Let's be clear. You will never be able to have voting machines made by dis-interested third parties. Never. It will never happen. Companies have interests. People who work for them have interests. That is why there are procedures, certification, and rules that all involved follow.
If you have any actual proof - not innuendo or suspicion - but proof - of any actual wrong doing by a Diebold employee present it now.
and they are *known* to leave no audit trail by design
They do in fact leave an audit trail, just not a truly perfect one. A good audit trail cannot be tampered with, cannot be modified to hide a change. This isn't possible with off the shelf hardware/software (aka Windows/Access).
The hardware is known to be easily hacked, but not faulty. e-Vote machines are statistically much more reliable than any other voting machine around. It's not even close!
There are at least 3 bills pending that will set federal requirements regarding integrity, auditability, and security on these machines.
Why are these machines being made by third parties?
As opposed to the government? Thats your choice. Government made. Or privately made. Choose your gun. I'll take a publically traded company in an industry of 5-10 competitors over the government any day.
Why are they not transparent?
They are transparent. Well Diebold is because they publically owned.
that your assertion that Diebold's CEO's comment about Ohio was nothing more than "a fundraising pitch in a letter" is somewhat ludicrous
What was it then? You really think he was saying "give us your donations, I am going to steal the election illegally using my voting machines (which I already sold to Ohio, by the way)?" Get real man. It was a fundraising pitch. Not a grand conspiracy that he accidentally let slip to 200,000 of his closet friends!
They make VOTING MACHINES for Christ's sake.
They make voting machines as 1% of their business. It's a big company, publically traded, and they make THOUSANDS of other devices. It's one segment of a big business. Really man. Get a grip. Somehow you hold this notion that the CEO of a large publically traded company formed a conspiracy to vote rig a battleground state and do so with no smoking gun and very cleverly, knowing that it'd come all down to Ohio, and in the process he accidentally forgot to keep it secret. It was all part of his diabological plan, I tell you.
If that is what he is willing to say out loud, what is he really thinking?
There isn't a person in the country who does't have a political opinion. I never said there wasn't a conflict of interest, but this one statement made by a lifelong avowed public Republican openly about "delivering Ohio's electroal votes" to the President hardly is evidence of a grand conspiracy that would be the mostly shocking, most widespread, and most sinister that the nation has ever seen. That is what you are suggesting. That there was this big conspiracy and that he just forgot to not mention it in his letter. Right.
Do what ever you want. But the voting machines used this election are the most accurate ever in the history of the country.
He had a majority in both houses of Congress! Plus, most democrats did view him as illegimate.
But if Kerry was put into office after a long battle in Ohio and coming up 3.5 million votes short of a pluarlity, well, then, he'd be a lame duck for sure: less votes than Bush, long court battle, battleground state, and Congress against him. Not a good mix.
I was referecing the previous message who was suggesting that because the CEO of Diebold is a Bush supporter that the election was obviously rigged. Sarcasm.
Your post is riddled with falsehoods and deceptions.
and some even stated their intentions to do everything they could to give Bush the election.
One life-long Republican supporter of one company pledged to support Bush and deliver Ohio to Bush. All of the sudden this taken as sometype of public admission that he was going to steal the election. That's a big time deception you tried to lay on everyone. It wasn't the companies. It wasn't companies. It was one CEO making a fundrasing pitch in a letter! And, oh, the company in question makes about 1% of its profit from voting machines, is very transparent and publically traded. Hardly a good candidate for fruad. You make it seem like a bunch of people pledged openly to comitt election fraud. Very deceptive!
The question was going on long before the fact, in case you hadn't noticed. Blackboxvoting.org was specifically set up to contest the media hype surrounding the infallibility of electronic voting.
This type of question has been around for 200 years. Not two years. Blackbox voting has always been an issue. Before there were telephones and fax machines and video cameras people complained: how do we really know who California voted for? They are so far away? Who are these people claiming to be electors? Same story, different century. Again, deceptive on your part. This is a very old problem for our country. Additionally, I urge you to find for me one media article that claims infalability of electonic voting machines. Finally, I urge you to find me one article or study that can prove that electronic voting machines - flawed as they are - are anything short of the most accurate and secure voting system we have.
Which I intend to do. Loudly. Obnoxiously, even. So in the immortal, family-friendly version of the words of Dick Cheney:
You ought to examine why you are in this mess. Assuming that in fact your guy won deep down and that everything is wrong and that the only way Bush could be re-elected is through Republican fraud is why instead of walking away this election like he should have Kerry is going back to the Senate.
The more shrill you side gets the more offended, turned off, and disgusted the middle 20% of votes in the country get. You needed these votes: conservative democrats, conservative minorities, moderate Republicans. You cannot win a national election without them. It's actually like the democratic party was searching for a condescending attitude, found yours, and ran with it.
I dont think so. I think it maybe shows that the people who voted for Kerry voted earlier, and that the people who voted for Bush voted later in the day. Is that so hard to imagine?
Exit polls only address a very small narrow question.
Yeah, that was my analysis this time and last time. The basis of this complaintant seems to be "but they SAID they were going to vote [Kerry/Gore]".
The south is famous for "Blue Dog" Democrats. Democrats of the Zell Miller/Phil Graham stripe. Conservative democrats. Minority democrats.
Bush is much, much, much closer politically to these type of religiously minded, morally conservative voters than John Kerry is. Add in their almost single minded nationalistic bent and you have a big cross-over.
Just because you dont get the votes you expect doesn't mean much of anything.
If the situation were reversed you can be certain that the "republicans" would be crawling up the orrifice of anyone who ever got near to anyone who ever touched one of those voting machines and contesting every single vote in a last ditch effort to get their man in power.
Bush narrowly lost many, many, many other states that he could have chosen to fight in. Also, the same with 2000. New Mexico in 2000 went to Gore by the tinest of margins.
It's just not true.
Its great that you hate Bush, but you are blinded by your own hate. I would have considered voting for Kerry had he told Michael Moore and George Soros to bugger off.
There is nothing to fight here. If Kerry did by some magical way get the electors from Ohio aftera a long court battle, and unseat Bush he'd be the most illegitimate President ever, and he'd probably end up impeached by the end of next year.
So what? At the time, niether WIndows nor Word was a monopoly. They were just another competitor in a world with 10-15 vibrant platforms and a dozen word processing packages. Lotus was openly hostile to Microsoft and its Windows platform, which they wanted to see done away with. The fact that MS killed WP isn't a crime.
A big complaintant of the whiners in this case have been people who thought all the newly registered democrats would vote democratic. They said: "registrations are up 3:1 Democrat versus Republican. Great. We'll get 3 new votes for everyone 1 they get".
When that doesn't happen, they get all whacked out. Ohh no they say! Some thing bad has happened.
What happened is that the new democratic vote never materialized. They didnt vote in the proportions they registered. And, on top of that, they didnt stick with the party they registered with. Just because you stop youth on the street and ask them to register and they check the democrat box does mean they are going to vote for Kerry.
The evidence is that Novell got the money. Extortion works. MS can fight it, but Novell has a good point. MS has more to lose from the EU than from Novell. MS getting Novells help in the EU matter is more important and more valuable than the money they paid Novell.
The fact that Novell withdraws it's claim in the EU proceedings is not an indicator of guilt or innoncence of Microsoft. The tactic about going to a government body investigating your competitor is age old. That is all.
Great idea, but you figure out how to make it happen. Elections are a big business, you'll be rich.
There are 300 million people in this country across a vast area.
Registering them, validating their right to vote, and recording and tallying those votes is a big effort. Out of about 110 million votes cast, if there are a total of 250,000 that are in question that is a very good outcome. A.020% spoilage rate would very agreeable.
Florida also added the bulk of 330,000 jobs in October, mostly in construction.
Kerry is running around Florida talking about the crappy economy when all of the sudden more people are working than have in months.
Throw onto that bin Laden's last minute tape, the desire not to change "horses midstream" and other issues like gay marriage, and a 3% margin isn't all that far fetched. Not to mention that Kerry hadn't been shown winning in a major national poll for quite some time, with the vast majority of all recent polls showing Bush winning a narrow victory.
Kerry realized that if we squeaked out an electoral win after a month court he'd be must the most hamstrung President in the history of the country, ever.
Let's say that if we could determine truly that the will of Ohio voters on election day was Kerry by 100 votes. Let's pretend that. If the total came out Bush +140k, and Kerry successfully fought to get some votes thrown to him, some provisional ballts thrown to him, some spoiled votes recounted, some pregnant chads thrown to him, and some absentee votes thrown to him so that the got every single vote intended for him. He gets Ohio's electors, and Bush is unseated.
You've got Kerry in office viewed by all of Bush's supporters as illegitimate. You have Republic majority in both houses of Congress and on the federal court. If any wrongdoing was discovered by them, at all, Kerry could be impeached out of revenge in just a few weeks. Facing mid-term elections some democrats might even swing with the angry mob. All the sudden you have Kerry being lame duck. Doesn't jibe with notion of what President should be.
I have news for you. Elections in this country have never, never, ever been "perfect". I agree they should be, but this type of questioning after the fact isn't all that new, or special.
Close elections happen every year. The nation is more evenly divided now than ever, which is making it seem like a big deal. It's not.
There is no hijacking going on. The real story is that semi-independent groups all over the country setup before the election with the specific intent of finding reasons to question the election if and only if it did not go there way. There were a ton of groups ready to swoop in and challenge result they didnt agree with.
That's the true story here. These types of actions are reprehensible.
Voting equipment today is just about as good as it has ever been in the country's history. There are several bills in Congress that will require all systems to have a standardized requirement and verification trail.
The electronic systems that are out there now are 100 times more verifiable than most princints in the country. Some of which are operated out of the homes and living rooms of citizens. Despite their flaws, systems that are recently installed and used are less like to cause spoilage, easier to use, easier to maintain, and easier to operate by poll workers.
We had no way of knowing exactly how many voters used provisional ballots, but I estimate that probably 10% did so at my precinct. Now that we know that these provisional ballots will never be counted, this seems highly irregular.
This person wanted Kerry to win (she mentions she was optimistic that he would win, and that she was hopeful due to the new registrations coming in).
Yet, the 10% number is an estimate. There is no verification of it, absolutely no scientific basis for it all. No coroborrating evidence. It's simply a number that sounds plausible but can't be backed up in any way whatsoever scientifically.
Not only that, but its red herring. Regardless of the circumstances, if you vote in the wrong precinct or polling place you are not casting a legal vote (well, that's my understanding of New Mexico law, and I was uanble to find court rulings that changed it last minute. Anyone with more detailed knowledge, please feel free to rebut).
I don't understand the problem here. People mistakenly voted in the wrong place. The author blames this on the fact that the voter registration notices sent to voters did not have a polling address on them. Therefore, this is some how highly irregular, and highly suspect.
I call no way. It is every citizens responsibility to make sure they execute a valid, legal vote to the degree which they are physically able. How is this evidence of anything?
She also contradicts herself:
At the end of the day, we waited until the pollworkers posted Presidential vote results on the precinct door. In an area that was expected to vote heavily Democratic, Kerry only had a plurality of 12 votes. Thus I remain extremely concerned about the integrity of the touchscreen voting machines used there, and the overall election results on a national basis.
She distrusts the votes because Kerry was suppsoed to win the precinct by a much larger margin? What? Hello? So the voters don't agree with this activist and suddenly the results of the election are in question? And because her pricinct does not conform to what she wanted to see happen the whole election is in question by extrpolation?
It's ironic, since a paragraph before she writes that some democratic citiznes were called 16 times in a three day period, and this "may" have caused resentment and effected the outcome of the vote. 16 times in three days! Good gracious!
This is not surprising; as the Diebold CEO has pledged to give Shrub the votes.
Right.
The Republicans faked 90% of every poll leading up to election day that showed Bush narrowly winning. And on election day they covertly added over 3 million votes to Bushes totals without anyone being caught red-handed, despite thousands of laywers and activists all over the country begging to catch someone in the act.
Maybe some of the failures of Word Perfect (and every other competitor) had something to do with Microsoft's ability to lock them all out of every large Enterprise by their bundling practices.
That's untrue in this case. MS has never truly "bundled" Offce in the same since it bundles other products. It's always been a very expensive add-on for Windows. My research shows that at no time was Office ever required as a requiste for getting a Windows license.
MS's success at killing Wordperect came from good old competition: MS offering discounts to new users, students, lawyers, creative types, Mac users, and the like. MS aggresively marketing Works and then later Word. MS aggresively discount their product and offering it as an add-on for Windows to business PC OEMs.
Word Perfect died because of a lack of vision, a lack of management, and being passed around to crappy vendor after crappy vendor.
First off, this isn't a criminal case per se. MS is involved with the EU in a civil case - meaning no one is going to go to jail if the case goes one way or the other. Your choice of terms "prosectuion witness", etc do not jive with what the case is. The judicial world is more complex than a 40-minute episode of Law and Order let's on. What the EU is doing would be closer to investigation here. There isn't a big dramatic trial going on, or anything like that. This is a regulatory issue.
Secondly, you say that "[MS should] be tried to perverting the course of justice". You assume that what they've done here is plainly illegal, when it's not. Filing a regulatory complaint against a competitor is a technique that is perhaps hundreds, if not a thousand years old. Commonly used for leverage, and to force settlements on other issues. Filing a complaint or statement should never cause a person - regardless of your opinion of the group being targetted - to assume guilt.
Thirdly, you say "Imagine you were a witness in a blackmail trial and you were called into an appeal" . Again, your analogy displays a lack of understanding of what is going on. The EU hasn't tried MS. This isn't an appeal of a criminal or civil conviction, but rather, a regulatory setting where the word "appeal" means very little.
Finally, your argument displays a clear bias against MS without examining any side of the argument other than your own. It is much more likely in this case that Novell, knowing of MS's legal trouble with the EU, decided to file a complaintant for the sole purpose of using it against MS in financial settlement negotiations. This is a tactic which has been used since literally the dawn of commerce. A similiar version is used in divorce cases aka "He beats our daughter.. but if he ups his alimony payments 50% then I will withdraw my legal complaint".
For a business isn't the ultimate intimidation "if you don't do what we want we won't give you buckets of cash"?
It is much more likely that in this case Novell said to MS: "look, you are going to owe on this issue anyways. If you don't pay up what we want when we want it, we will make your life more difficult with regards to the EU case, and that could cost you WAY more than this piddly $500M."
MS here is the one being blackmailed, almost certainly.
Bush contunally avoided the 'What have you done wrong' question?
That's an easy one. How would you feel, as a solider serving oveseas being at shot at, if the President said: "Yeah, well, I really screwed up sending troops to Iraq.. I wish I could withdraw them but if I did the middle-east would collapse into choas and civil war even moreso than it has. I am really in a pickle.". That wouldn't do much for our effort in Iraq or for our soliders there.
Likewise if Bush said: "I really regret nominating John Ascroft for Attorny General. He truly is a big old mistake." Suddenly you have Aschcroft as a lame duck and posturing for his replacement and whatnot.
Admitting mistakes - big strategy mistakes - like that in office isn't a good idea. I researched this around the time people were bent on asking the question and came back with zero cases where any other sitting President answered such questions while in office. I'd love to see some quotes otherwise, but it just doesn't look like they exisit.
open-source style politics was the reason Howard Dean was leading before the primaries
Dean's supporters and staff fell into the trap of the ultimate echo chamber: blogging. You take a group of like minded people, throw them into constant communication for months on end, and suddenly you start to think that you are the majority.
Dean never won a majority of the votes in primary, save maybe Vermont. They had a few thousand extremely active users and it really got people into thinking that everyone else was on board. Add in a few early polls and all the sudden Dean is front runner who has never caught any votes.
Blogging is great. And politics that are more open are great. But let's be real here for a minute. Blogging is not a way to influence people's minds. It is a way to connect to like minded people.
I am convinced that is what happened with Dean. You had a sizeable but still minor portion of the population on board with him. The echo's got very loud, and convinced everyone he was the guy to beat.
It's not dissimiliar to the rest of the OSS minority. Some OSS apps have made great inroads, as have some companies. Get people together that use the apps, and all you get is how the players are going down.
It's like the constant stories/comments about how "5 years from now MS will not exisit as it is known today", despite the fact that MS has increased units shipped and profits consistently and that although it's relative market share isn't necessarily growing in all segments, its absolute users clearly is. Yet none of that matters. Because a large plurality of the users use non-MS products at least somewhat often, therefore, MS is losing users left and right, and MS is doomed.
Whenever you discuss events online, and get involved in a community you always have to recognize that you are dealing with like-minded individuals more than you expect.
and also had breakfast the morning of 09/11/01 with the head of the bin Laden family at the Ritz-Carleton in Washington, D.C.????
The "bin Laden" family is sired by Mohammed bin Laden, who died in 1968. When he died in 1968, he had sired at least 54 childen - potentially hundreds more that are considered illegitmate and not "bin Laden's". One of those ten wives - the only Arab one - gave birth to Osama bin Laden.
Osama bin Laden was expelled from Saudi Arabia in 1991. The bin Laden family publically offically disowned him 1994.
The bin Laden clan is a powerful, wealthy and vast - there are at least 6,000 members. They are like the Kennedy's in the United States, only 250 times larger, and probably about 100 times more wealthy. They own the most respected heavy construction firm in the middle easy, and have been friends with the House of Saud for several decades.
I am convinced that it was in fact co-incidence that George HW Bush had dinner with the family before the attacks. It is also very unlikely that the legitiamte bin Laden family had any knowledge of involvement in the politics and actions of Osama. By Osama's own mouth his mother was disfavored by the family, looked upon as a concubine. The vast family sizes in the middle east are hard for the uneducated conspiracy theorist to grasp. Feast your mind on this tidbit: Abdallah bin Laden, one of Osama's 24 children is an assistant to Iraqi Prime Minister Allaywi. Another one for you: Omar bin Laden, another of bin Laden's sons, has a daughter who went to the same day care as one of the Kerry daughters.
As far as the other connection you mention, the Hinkley family owned an oil company, Vanderbuilt Energy. The Bush family, of course, is an age-old oil family, and has vast connections in the industry. Your claim however, that GHWB had dinner with the family the night before is provably false, and spurious. Bush was out of country at the time. He had to be flown in from an overseas trip, and the choas between when Reagan was shot till when Bush arrived at the White House is very well documented. Neil Bush, a son of the elder Bush and brother to George, was scheduled to have dinner with John Hinkley's father the day after the assination attempt.
These type of co-incidences seem odd, but they are not. They abound. For example, Michael Moore shot a documentary a few years back, and a Bush cousin was the audio-man. Does anyone really believe that this is still a co-incidence? Moore's latest film probably helped Bush get re-elected. It's obvious that Moore is a tool of the Bushes.
You really have to stop, and think critically about these important issues. The higher levels of government and business are a close-tight circle. It is not uncommon for these people to have inter-relationships.
Slashdot Mirror
(I challenge ANY Republican to come up with a better explanation for offering Ohio in a fundrasing letter
I've read that letter, I recieved a copy of that letter. It says no such thing. It asks for donations, and lets the people know that the life-long activist will do his best - to do everything he can - to deliver Ohio's electoral votes to Bush.
Somehow you take this to be proof of a grand conspiracy. That's your whole case! The CEO of a publically traded company entered into a conspiracy to pull off the largest fraud in American history and he reveleaded his intentions in a letter sent to 2 million people. That's your claim! Do you understand how it seems absurd on multiple levels? Do you know how many people would have to be in on a such conspiracy?
Delay is a crook. I'd love to seem him in jail. I've written my letters to my congresspeople indicating that.
Finally, I am not a Republican, but this silly busness with the Ohio fundraising letter is beyond absurd. The letter is harmless. The guy in question personally donated tons of cash to the election campaign and to the RNC. He donated tons of cash to local candidates. He sent a letter of testimony, saying effectively, "I'm on board, so should you. I am doing everythng I can to deliver Ohio, so should you.". Thats the explanation, and if you read the entire letter not a single reasonable minded person could disagree.
You and your ilk make it seem like the letter read: "Dear voter, I am planning on stealing the election by rigging electronic vote machines on Ohio. But first I need your money. I will do everything I can to deliver Ohio's electoral votes to Bush, if only you will make a large donation first. Best Regards, CEO of Diebold."
Let's be clear. You will never be able to have voting machines made by dis-interested third parties. Never. It will never happen. Companies have interests. People who work for them have interests. That is why there are procedures, certification, and rules that all involved follow.
If you have any actual proof - not innuendo or suspicion - but proof - of any actual wrong doing by a Diebold employee present it now.
and they are *known* to leave no audit trail by design
They do in fact leave an audit trail, just not a truly perfect one. A good audit trail cannot be tampered with, cannot be modified to hide a change. This isn't possible with off the shelf hardware/software (aka Windows/Access).
The hardware is known to be easily hacked, but not faulty. e-Vote machines are statistically much more reliable than any other voting machine around. It's not even close!
There are at least 3 bills pending that will set federal requirements regarding integrity, auditability, and security on these machines.
Why are these machines being made by third parties?
As opposed to the government? Thats your choice. Government made. Or privately made. Choose your gun. I'll take a publically traded company in an industry of 5-10 competitors over the government any day.
Why are they not transparent?
They are transparent. Well Diebold is because they publically owned.
that your assertion that Diebold's CEO's comment about Ohio was nothing more than "a fundraising pitch in a letter" is somewhat ludicrous
What was it then? You really think he was saying "give us your donations, I am going to steal the election illegally using my voting machines (which I already sold to Ohio, by the way)?" Get real man. It was a fundraising pitch. Not a grand conspiracy that he accidentally let slip to 200,000 of his closet friends!
They make VOTING MACHINES for Christ's sake.
They make voting machines as 1% of their business. It's a big company, publically traded, and they make THOUSANDS of other devices. It's one segment of a big business. Really man. Get a grip. Somehow you hold this notion that the CEO of a large publically traded company formed a conspiracy to vote rig a battleground state and do so with no smoking gun and very cleverly, knowing that it'd come all down to Ohio, and in the process he accidentally forgot to keep it secret. It was all part of his diabological plan, I tell you.
If that is what he is willing to say out loud, what is he really thinking?
There isn't a person in the country who does't have a political opinion. I never said there wasn't a conflict of interest, but this one statement made by a lifelong avowed public Republican openly about "delivering Ohio's electroal votes" to the President hardly is evidence of a grand conspiracy that would be the mostly shocking, most widespread, and most sinister that the nation has ever seen. That is what you are suggesting. That there was this big conspiracy and that he just forgot to not mention it in his letter. Right.
Do what ever you want. But the voting machines used this election are the most accurate ever in the history of the country.
I am convinced that the margin of error on this election will be the lowest recorded in American history.
He had a majority in both houses of Congress! Plus, most democrats did view him as illegimate.
But if Kerry was put into office after a long battle in Ohio and coming up 3.5 million votes short of a pluarlity, well, then, he'd be a lame duck for sure: less votes than Bush, long court battle, battleground state, and Congress against him. Not a good mix.
I was referecing the previous message who was suggesting that because the CEO of Diebold is a Bush supporter that the election was obviously rigged. Sarcasm.
Your post is riddled with falsehoods and deceptions.
and some even stated their intentions to do everything they could to give Bush the election.
One life-long Republican supporter of one company pledged to support Bush and deliver Ohio to Bush. All of the sudden this taken as sometype of public admission that he was going to steal the election. That's a big time deception you tried to lay on everyone. It wasn't the companies. It wasn't companies. It was one CEO making a fundrasing pitch in a letter! And, oh, the company in question makes about 1% of its profit from voting machines, is very transparent and publically traded. Hardly a good candidate for fruad. You make it seem like a bunch of people pledged openly to comitt election fraud. Very deceptive!
The question was going on long before the fact, in case you hadn't noticed. Blackboxvoting.org was specifically set up to contest the media hype surrounding the infallibility of electronic voting.
This type of question has been around for 200 years. Not two years. Blackbox voting has always been an issue. Before there were telephones and fax machines and video cameras people complained: how do we really know who California voted for? They are so far away? Who are these people claiming to be electors? Same story, different century. Again, deceptive on your part. This is a very old problem for our country. Additionally, I urge you to find for me one media article that claims infalability of electonic voting machines. Finally, I urge you to find me one article or study that can prove that electronic voting machines - flawed as they are - are anything short of the most accurate and secure voting system we have.
Which I intend to do. Loudly. Obnoxiously, even. So in the immortal, family-friendly version of the words of Dick Cheney:
You ought to examine why you are in this mess. Assuming that in fact your guy won deep down and that everything is wrong and that the only way Bush could be re-elected is through Republican fraud is why instead of walking away this election like he should have Kerry is going back to the Senate.
The more shrill you side gets the more offended, turned off, and disgusted the middle 20% of votes in the country get. You needed these votes: conservative democrats, conservative minorities, moderate Republicans. You cannot win a national election without them. It's actually like the democratic party was searching for a condescending attitude, found yours, and ran with it.
I dont think so. I think it maybe shows that the people who voted for Kerry voted earlier, and that the people who voted for Bush voted later in the day. Is that so hard to imagine?
Exit polls only address a very small narrow question.
Yeah, that was my analysis this time and last time. The basis of this complaintant seems to be "but they SAID they were going to vote [Kerry/Gore]".
The south is famous for "Blue Dog" Democrats. Democrats of the Zell Miller/Phil Graham stripe. Conservative democrats. Minority democrats.
Bush is much, much, much closer politically to these type of religiously minded, morally conservative voters than John Kerry is. Add in their almost single minded nationalistic bent and you have a big cross-over.
Just because you dont get the votes you expect doesn't mean much of anything.
If the situation were reversed you can be certain that the "republicans" would be crawling up the orrifice of anyone who ever got near to anyone who ever touched one of those voting machines and contesting every single vote in a last ditch effort to get their man in power.
Bush narrowly lost many, many, many other states that he could have chosen to fight in. Also, the same with 2000. New Mexico in 2000 went to Gore by the tinest of margins.
It's just not true.
Its great that you hate Bush, but you are blinded by your own hate. I would have considered voting for Kerry had he told Michael Moore and George Soros to bugger off.
There is nothing to fight here. If Kerry did by some magical way get the electors from Ohio aftera a long court battle, and unseat Bush he'd be the most illegitimate President ever, and he'd probably end up impeached by the end of next year.
So what? At the time, niether WIndows nor Word was a monopoly. They were just another competitor in a world with 10-15 vibrant platforms and a dozen word processing packages. Lotus was openly hostile to Microsoft and its Windows platform, which they wanted to see done away with. The fact that MS killed WP isn't a crime.
A big complaintant of the whiners in this case have been people who thought all the newly registered democrats would vote democratic. They said: "registrations are up 3:1 Democrat versus Republican. Great. We'll get 3 new votes for everyone 1 they get".
When that doesn't happen, they get all whacked out. Ohh no they say! Some thing bad has happened.
What happened is that the new democratic vote never materialized. They didnt vote in the proportions they registered. And, on top of that, they didnt stick with the party they registered with. Just because you stop youth on the street and ask them to register and they check the democrat box does mean they are going to vote for Kerry.
The evidence is that Novell got the money. Extortion works. MS can fight it, but Novell has a good point. MS has more to lose from the EU than from Novell. MS getting Novells help in the EU matter is more important and more valuable than the money they paid Novell.
The fact that Novell withdraws it's claim in the EU proceedings is not an indicator of guilt or innoncence of Microsoft. The tactic about going to a government body investigating your competitor is age old. That is all.
Great idea, but you figure out how to make it happen. Elections are a big business, you'll be rich.
.020% spoilage rate would very agreeable.
There are 300 million people in this country across a vast area.
Registering them, validating their right to vote, and recording and tallying those votes is a big effort. Out of about 110 million votes cast, if there are a total of 250,000 that are in question that is a very good outcome. A
Just because something is hackable doesnt mean it has been hacked.
The machines definately need a re-working to be ground up secure, with open auditable processes and design with source code.
But none of that changes the fact that all the evidence points to the fact that the Bush handily but still narrowily beat John Kerry.
Florida also added the bulk of 330,000 jobs in October, mostly in construction.
Kerry is running around Florida talking about the crappy economy when all of the sudden more people are working than have in months.
Throw onto that bin Laden's last minute tape, the desire not to change "horses midstream" and other issues like gay marriage, and a 3% margin isn't all that far fetched. Not to mention that Kerry hadn't been shown winning in a major national poll for quite some time, with the vast majority of all recent polls showing Bush winning a narrow victory.
Kerry realized that if we squeaked out an electoral win after a month court he'd be must the most hamstrung President in the history of the country, ever.
Let's say that if we could determine truly that the will of Ohio voters on election day was Kerry by 100 votes. Let's pretend that. If the total came out Bush +140k, and Kerry successfully fought to get some votes thrown to him, some provisional ballts thrown to him, some spoiled votes recounted, some pregnant chads thrown to him, and some absentee votes thrown to him so that the got every single vote intended for him. He gets Ohio's electors, and Bush is unseated.
You've got Kerry in office viewed by all of Bush's supporters as illegitimate. You have Republic majority in both houses of Congress and on the federal court. If any wrongdoing was discovered by them, at all, Kerry could be impeached out of revenge in just a few weeks. Facing mid-term elections some democrats might even swing with the angry mob. All the sudden you have Kerry being lame duck. Doesn't jibe with notion of what President should be.
Listen up.
I have news for you. Elections in this country have never, never, ever been "perfect". I agree they should be, but this type of questioning after the fact isn't all that new, or special.
Close elections happen every year. The nation is more evenly divided now than ever, which is making it seem like a big deal. It's not.
There is no hijacking going on. The real story is that semi-independent groups all over the country setup before the election with the specific intent of finding reasons to question the election if and only if it did not go there way. There were a ton of groups ready to swoop in and challenge result they didnt agree with.
That's the true story here. These types of actions are reprehensible.
Voting equipment today is just about as good as it has ever been in the country's history. There are several bills in Congress that will require all systems to have a standardized requirement and verification trail.
The electronic systems that are out there now are 100 times more verifiable than most princints in the country. Some of which are operated out of the homes and living rooms of citizens. Despite their flaws, systems that are recently installed and used are less like to cause spoilage, easier to use, easier to maintain, and easier to operate by poll workers.
This is the quote from the last link:
We had no way of knowing exactly how many voters used provisional ballots, but I estimate that probably 10% did so at my precinct. Now that we know that these provisional ballots will never be counted, this seems highly irregular.
This person wanted Kerry to win (she mentions she was optimistic that he would win, and that she was hopeful due to the new registrations coming in).
Yet, the 10% number is an estimate. There is no verification of it, absolutely no scientific basis for it all. No coroborrating evidence. It's simply a number that sounds plausible but can't be backed up in any way whatsoever scientifically.
Not only that, but its red herring. Regardless of the circumstances, if you vote in the wrong precinct or polling place you are not casting a legal vote (well, that's my understanding of New Mexico law, and I was uanble to find court rulings that changed it last minute. Anyone with more detailed knowledge, please feel free to rebut).
I don't understand the problem here. People mistakenly voted in the wrong place. The author blames this on the fact that the voter registration notices sent to voters did not have a polling address on them. Therefore, this is some how highly irregular, and highly suspect.
I call no way. It is every citizens responsibility to make sure they execute a valid, legal vote to the degree which they are physically able. How is this evidence of anything?
She also contradicts herself:
At the end of the day, we waited until the pollworkers posted Presidential vote results on the precinct door. In an area that was expected to vote heavily Democratic, Kerry only had a plurality of 12 votes. Thus I remain extremely concerned about the integrity of the touchscreen voting machines used there, and the overall election results on a national basis.
She distrusts the votes because Kerry was suppsoed to win the precinct by a much larger margin? What? Hello? So the voters don't agree with this activist and suddenly the results of the election are in question? And because her pricinct does not conform to what she wanted to see happen the whole election is in question by extrpolation?
It's ironic, since a paragraph before she writes that some democratic citiznes were called 16 times in a three day period, and this "may" have caused resentment and effected the outcome of the vote. 16 times in three days! Good gracious!
This is not surprising; as the Diebold CEO has pledged to give Shrub the votes.
Right.
The Republicans faked 90% of every poll leading up to election day that showed Bush narrowly winning. And on election day they covertly added over 3 million votes to Bushes totals without anyone being caught red-handed, despite thousands of laywers and activists all over the country begging to catch someone in the act.
Maybe some of the failures of Word Perfect (and every other competitor) had something to do with Microsoft's ability to lock them all out of every large Enterprise by their bundling practices.
That's untrue in this case. MS has never truly "bundled" Offce in the same since it bundles other products. It's always been a very expensive add-on for Windows. My research shows that at no time was Office ever required as a requiste for getting a Windows license.
MS's success at killing Wordperect came from good old competition: MS offering discounts to new users, students, lawyers, creative types, Mac users, and the like. MS aggresively marketing Works and then later Word. MS aggresively discount their product and offering it as an add-on for Windows to business PC OEMs.
Word Perfect died because of a lack of vision, a lack of management, and being passed around to crappy vendor after crappy vendor.
First off, this isn't a criminal case per se. MS is involved with the EU in a civil case - meaning no one is going to go to jail if the case goes one way or the other. Your choice of terms "prosectuion witness", etc do not jive with what the case is. The judicial world is more complex than a 40-minute episode of Law and Order let's on. What the EU is doing would be closer to investigation here. There isn't a big dramatic trial going on, or anything like that. This is a regulatory issue.
Secondly, you say that "[MS should] be tried to perverting the course of justice". You assume that what they've done here is plainly illegal, when it's not. Filing a regulatory complaint against a competitor is a technique that is perhaps hundreds, if not a thousand years old. Commonly used for leverage, and to force settlements on other issues. Filing a complaint or statement should never cause a person - regardless of your opinion of the group being targetted - to assume guilt.
Thirdly, you say "Imagine you were a witness in a blackmail trial and you were called into an appeal" . Again, your analogy displays a lack of understanding of what is going on. The EU hasn't tried MS. This isn't an appeal of a criminal or civil conviction, but rather, a regulatory setting where the word "appeal" means very little.
Finally, your argument displays a clear bias against MS without examining any side of the argument other than your own. It is much more likely in this case that Novell, knowing of MS's legal trouble with the EU, decided to file a complaintant for the sole purpose of using it against MS in financial settlement negotiations. This is a tactic which has been used since literally the dawn of commerce. A similiar version is used in divorce cases aka "He beats our daughter.. but if he ups his alimony payments 50% then I will withdraw my legal complaint".
For a business isn't the ultimate intimidation "if you don't do what we want we won't give you buckets of cash"?
It is much more likely that in this case Novell said to MS: "look, you are going to owe on this issue anyways. If you don't pay up what we want when we want it, we will make your life more difficult with regards to the EU case, and that could cost you WAY more than this piddly $500M."
MS here is the one being blackmailed, almost certainly.
Bush contunally avoided the 'What have you done wrong' question?
That's an easy one. How would you feel, as a solider serving oveseas being at shot at, if the President said: "Yeah, well, I really screwed up sending troops to Iraq.. I wish I could withdraw them but if I did the middle-east would collapse into choas and civil war even moreso than it has. I am really in a pickle.". That wouldn't do much for our effort in Iraq or for our soliders there.
Likewise if Bush said: "I really regret nominating John Ascroft for Attorny General. He truly is a big old mistake." Suddenly you have Aschcroft as a lame duck and posturing for his replacement and whatnot.
Admitting mistakes - big strategy mistakes - like that in office isn't a good idea. I researched this around the time people were bent on asking the question and came back with zero cases where any other sitting President answered such questions while in office. I'd love to see some quotes otherwise, but it just doesn't look like they exisit.
open-source style politics was the reason Howard Dean was leading before the primaries
Dean's supporters and staff fell into the trap of the ultimate echo chamber: blogging. You take a group of like minded people, throw them into constant communication for months on end, and suddenly you start to think that you are the majority.
Dean never won a majority of the votes in primary, save maybe Vermont. They had a few thousand extremely active users and it really got people into thinking that everyone else was on board. Add in a few early polls and all the sudden Dean is front runner who has never caught any votes.
Blogging is great. And politics that are more open are great. But let's be real here for a minute. Blogging is not a way to influence people's minds. It is a way to connect to like minded people.
I am convinced that is what happened with Dean. You had a sizeable but still minor portion of the population on board with him. The echo's got very loud, and convinced everyone he was the guy to beat.
It's not dissimiliar to the rest of the OSS minority. Some OSS apps have made great inroads, as have some companies. Get people together that use the apps, and all you get is how the players are going down.
It's like the constant stories/comments about how "5 years from now MS will not exisit as it is known today", despite the fact that MS has increased units shipped and profits consistently and that although it's relative market share isn't necessarily growing in all segments, its absolute users clearly is. Yet none of that matters. Because a large plurality of the users use non-MS products at least somewhat often, therefore, MS is losing users left and right, and MS is doomed.
Whenever you discuss events online, and get involved in a community you always have to recognize that you are dealing with like-minded individuals more than you expect.
and also had breakfast the morning of 09/11/01 with the head of the bin Laden family at the Ritz-Carleton in Washington, D.C.????
The "bin Laden" family is sired by Mohammed bin Laden, who died in 1968. When he died in 1968, he had sired at least 54 childen - potentially hundreds more that are considered illegitmate and not "bin Laden's". One of those ten wives - the only Arab one - gave birth to Osama bin Laden.
Osama bin Laden was expelled from Saudi Arabia in 1991. The bin Laden family publically offically disowned him 1994.
The bin Laden clan is a powerful, wealthy and vast - there are at least 6,000 members. They are like the Kennedy's in the United States, only 250 times larger, and probably about 100 times more wealthy. They own the most respected heavy construction firm in the middle easy, and have been friends with the House of Saud for several decades.
I am convinced that it was in fact co-incidence that George HW Bush had dinner with the family before the attacks. It is also very unlikely that the legitiamte bin Laden family had any knowledge of involvement in the politics and actions of Osama. By Osama's own mouth his mother was disfavored by the family, looked upon as a concubine. The vast family sizes in the middle east are hard for the uneducated conspiracy theorist to grasp. Feast your mind on this tidbit: Abdallah bin Laden, one of Osama's 24 children is an assistant to Iraqi Prime Minister Allaywi. Another one for you: Omar bin Laden, another of bin Laden's sons, has a daughter who went to the same day care as one of the Kerry daughters.
As far as the other connection you mention, the Hinkley family owned an oil company, Vanderbuilt Energy. The Bush family, of course, is an age-old oil family, and has vast connections in the industry. Your claim however, that GHWB had dinner with the family the night before is provably false, and spurious. Bush was out of country at the time. He had to be flown in from an overseas trip, and the choas between when Reagan was shot till when Bush arrived at the White House is very well documented. Neil Bush, a son of the elder Bush and brother to George, was scheduled to have dinner with John Hinkley's father the day after the assination attempt.
These type of co-incidences seem odd, but they are not. They abound. For example, Michael Moore shot a documentary a few years back, and a Bush cousin was the audio-man. Does anyone really believe that this is still a co-incidence? Moore's latest film probably helped Bush get re-elected. It's obvious that Moore is a tool of the Bushes.
You really have to stop, and think critically about these important issues. The higher levels of government and business are a close-tight circle. It is not uncommon for these people to have inter-relationships.