> Whether for licenses or not, this seems to be more an issue about record keeping.
Unless of course MS was right and they didn't have valid licenses.
I know that the popular mentality is that you should just ask your friends for a copy of any software they have, if you want it and don't have it. I used to get hit up pretty regularly, back when I actually had commercial software for my friends to see.
Of course, the same is true in the Linux world. The difference is that it is actually legal there, at least for the most commonly exchanged software.
If people subscribed to your arguments, they would have to conclude that the largest peacetime expansion of government spending in the history of our planet was actually good for our economy.
Why then is the Republican party harping so much on tax cuts and reduced size of the government? If "tax and spend" worked miracles under RR, shouldn't we all be pushing for a "tax and spend" platform now, too, so that our children can also enjoy an economic boom of historic proportions?
If the DMCA flies, yes, software consumers will be scrooged. But will it stop there? When other big corporations see that software companies can ram this kind of legislation through the legislatures, will they ever be content with anything less?
Will the consumer of the future have any rights at all?
The claim that MS is stealing Linux code to make Windows more stable is absurd on the face of it.
Windows and Linux have almost nothing in common. You can't just stick the Linux kernel in Windows and expect it to fit. Nor any major portion of it.
Reliability has to be designed in from the ground up. Frankly, that's why I give more credence to the people claiming that W2K is unstable than to those who claim that it's stable. Stability wasn't an issue at MS until Linux started getting popular. By the time MS started talking up the stability line, W2K had already been in development for several years. I know they didn't go back and retrofit stability as an add-on, because it simply isn't possible.
Now if they were desinging a new OS from scratch they might be able to benefit from Linux. But there's not really even any need for that. Good OS design has been an open topic of discussion among researchers for decades. All you have to do is want it and then apply yourself.
The problem with MS and stability isn't a matter of know-how, it's a matter of care-how. They have always been more interested in bells and whistles than in substance. If they are suddenly interested in stability now, it's because Linux's stability has been killing them in markets that they wanted very badly to corner. Expect them to brag about new, improved stability for several years while they go back and design their third generation of Windows with stability actually built in. If they're still in business you'll be able to buy stable Windows systems in 4-5 years. Not sooner.
> Texas is really about the only exception to that rule, actually.
Hey, you're right. At least as far as explicit mention in the laws is concerned. Search for "dimpled" at the Jurist FAQ.
> The Illinois court case Boies cited had the court rejecting dimpled ballots, as the Chicago Tribune found.
The jury seems still to be out on that claim, as the same link shows. The actual ruling in that case is quoted as saying -
"Whatever the reason, where the intention of the voter can be fairly and satisfactorily ascertained, that intention should be given effect."
The debate is over how that opinion was used by the canvassing boards, not over the very plain text of the judicial opinion.
Also, FWIW, at least one person has signed an affidavit stating that dimples were counted in that election after that ruling.
Also, the Massachusets decision (see same site) was very explicit about dimples -
"The trial judge concluded that a vote should be recorded for a candidate if the chad was not removed but an impression was made on or near it."
A bigger issue, IMO, is why counties are still using voting systems with known defects and long histories of litigation. Unfortunately, I don't expect any vigorous round of reform after this election, because any changes to the laws would be interpreted as an admission that the process was not fair after all.
Anywhere that you have a rule of law, you've got to have lawyers. Otherwise you get a dictatorship where the powers that be can do what they please without anyone to pull the plug on abuses.
Lawyers suffer from a PR problem. The ones you hear about are the ones that get notorious criminals off the hook or that win huge settlements for frivolous tort cases. You don't hear about the hundreds of cases every day where a lawyer convinces a judge or jury that the little guy is right.
Also, even in cases where you hear about "outrageous" tort settlements and "notorious" criminals getting off the hook, how often do you really know what the jury heard in the case? Businesses have the money and motivation to put a PR spin on lawsuits that they lose. Public prosecutors are usually either elected officials or else their appointees, and "tough on crime" plays better in election years than "defended innocent accusees", so there's money and motivation for PR spin there, too. And the media know that controversy brings viewers in to feed at the commercials trough, so they have every motivation to talk up "outrageous" court rulings, and little motivation to look at the underlying facts.
So give laywers a break. Your freedom might rely on one someday.
> Surprisingly, weeks of recounts... didn't change the results.
???. Bush was ahead by 1700 votes after the machine count, and won the biggest share of absentee ballots to boot, but now for some reason his "lead" is only about 700. The recounts are making a difference -- or at least they would be, without all the obstructionism.
> Gore going any further proves that Gore thinks more of himself than the country to continue to be the cause of damaging faith in the Constitution, law, and fairness. And he is the SOLE cause of all this.
I apologize in advance. I usually resist the temptation to flame here, but... get a fucking clue. Gore has been pursuing the mechanisms that Florida's law allows for. He has also challenged the arbitrary actions of Republican administrators. (I believe it was you who brought up the word "corrupt", yes?) The courts have ruled in his favor on about 19/20 of all the questions so far. The only thing that ought to be damaging the public's faith in anything is the fact that partisan public officials can do so much to prevent such a simple and important thing as a recount.
The Republicans are playing this exactly the way a k1dd1e plays a hacked version of Quake. Instead of trying to win on their merits, they are trying to win due to a bug in the system. I have no respect for gamers that try to "win" by beating the system rather than by beating their opponent, and I have no respect for politicians that try to "win" by beating the system either.
The Republicans think they have an "entitlement" win, because the first count went to them. But it could not be more obvious that the only way to win an election is to get more votes than the other guy. When the results are within the margin of error, the only solution is a careful recount. The votes are what matters -- not the lamer gamer's luck at "winning" on a system error.
But the Republicans have a problem. A fair and accurate recount will almost certainly cost them the presidency. Meanwhile, all the fat cats who donated the $100MM to the Bush campaign are clamoring for the promised ROI on their investment. The will of the voters in Florida are not on those fat cats' agenda.
> For an example of a successful, popular administration with a real mandate, see the Reagan years which truly set the stage for the current robust economy that Clinton/Gore have taken credit for.
Your Republicanism is showing through. Among people who are not Devout Republicans, RR is generally considered to be a clueless luser almost in the same category as GuuB.
As for the economy, the Regan Era (including his "third term" under Daddy Bush) was an unmitigated economic disaster. The recovery started almost the day GBSr left office, and has continued unabated ever since.
Frankly, I don't think a president can do much about the economy directly, but what does matter IMO is the optimism of consumers, small businesses, etc., who were in constant fear of being crushed under Regan's "trickle down" philosophy, but who have actually stood a fighting chance in the post-Regan era.
The ultimate irony is going to be for all those muddle^w middle class and upper middle class voters who swung for GuuB under the delusion that they were rich enough to matter to the fat cats who pull his strings. After voting for a luser on the hope for "upperclass welfare", they will find themselves faring as poorly as they did in the Regan Era, wondering why middle and upper-middle class citizens have trouble making ends meet, and living under constant fear of losing their jobs or being subjected to more excesses of corporate feudalism.
> set the stage for the current robust economy that Clinton/Gore have taken credit for.
Is that like GuuB taking credit for laws enacted in Texas before he was governer, or in one case even taking credit for a law that he opposed while in office, and left unsigned when the state legislature passed it in spite of him?
> The GOP asks for a strict interpretation of the Constitution while the Democrats want it more fluid and changing to the "will of the people".
Pure spin. The GOP is asking that an accurate count be avoided, because they expect to lose the election if it is. The Demos are asking for an accurate recount because they expect to win if they get one. IMO, the Demos have the morally superior position -- but only because of the two occurences of the word "accurate" in my description of the situation.
And no, the GOP's position has nothing to do with a "strict interpretation of the Constitution". Nothing the Demos have done or asked for is unconstitutional. What the GOP means when they say that is "strict interpretation of the results of the erroneous count". If they thought the voters of Florida actually favored them by even the tiniest margin, they would not be fighting tooth and nail to prevent an accurate recount.
> Come on guys, we had to live through 8 years of Clinton for christ sakes.
Yep, the man's a real worm. Did a better job of the presidency than most of his recent rivals though. (Not nearly good enough a job, but much better than, say, Regan or Johnson.)
> You can live through 4 years of W. Bush!... In fact, if anything happens our stock market will get back on track and we'll all get a tax cut out of it.
Ignoring for now the fact that I doubt your predictions... Are you suggesting that we should vote for whoever offers us the most money? Did panem et circenses improve the quality of elected officials in Republican Rome?
> On to the subject of the dimpled chad and all that. There were ballots that were clearly punched through for all other offices but "dimpled" for president. Was this voter incapable of punching the holes? I think not.
You should have said, "I think. Not."
There is ample legal precedent for counting dimpled ballots. Counting the voters' intent is even the law in backwards places like Texas now, thanks to a law supported and signed by none other than GuuB himself.
Why so? Because the whole point of holding an election is to find out what the voters want.
> As far as the whole military absentee ballot thing goes...
Pure spin by the Republican attack dogs. See my post on the topic elsewhere under this article.
> On an added note, in Palm Beach County, FL a local news station took that "butterfly ballot"...
Another thing that the "liberal media" isn't bothering to tell everyone is that "butterfly" ballots caused so much confusion in the 1984 election that the US Congress ordered an investigation (General Accounting Office, IIRC), and the investigators reported back that such ballots were inherently unreliable, and recommended that they should not be used anywhere.
The shame is that state and local officials are not aware of these things. I wonder how many voting systems are just snake-oil solutions being peddled by someone out to make a profit? (I hear that the county commissioners in the county where the capital of Texas is are going to vote within a month about whether to upgrade to a slick new computer voting system. They probably don't have the first clue about the pitfalls with such systems, as recently discussed in comp.risks. Their decision will be based on the fact that they tried it in a single booth during this election, and "didn't have any problems with it". In the event, they are dragging their feet because of the price tag rather than because of concerns for system integrity, auditability, and the other issues recently identified by people researching computer voting.)
> They only recounted Democratic counties.
Agreed. IMO any election in any jurisdiction with less than a 2% difference between the top candidates should trigger an automatic hand recount throughout the jurisdiction. (And here the "jurisdiction" would be Florida, since that is the source of the block of electoral votes.) Notice that under my rule, a couple of other states would have needed statewide recounts as well.
> And, as far as I'm concerned, the changes in counts are more due to human error now than machine error then.
There is absolutely no basis of this claim, other than by invoking the Republican SpD's as authorities. Before this election, everyone agreed that hand counts were more accurate in a tight situation, and machine counts were just useful because of their superior speed and cost effectiveness whenever an election was not too terribly close.
> By the way, this isn't even the worst election in US history. Take John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson.
Also, a very complex situation with Rutherford B Hayes, ultimately resulting of a postponement of the inauguration until March of 1877 (IIRC). And some decisions by the US Congress that sound distinctly unconstitutional to me.
> Democrats are known cheaters when it comes to elections.
Indeed. But what does that have to do with Florida's electoral vote? Are we supposed to give the presidency to Bush as a way of punishing the Democrats for past wrongdoings?
> Hand counting cannot possibly be more accurate.
Do you have a source for this, other than Baker's deranged ravings?
> That is why he only asked for a recount in those counties.
And the reason Bush didn't ask for a recount in all the other counties is because he thought he would benefit more by holding the "no recounts" line.
> They made all attempts to throw out the military vote because it is known to be traditionally Republican. What about the will of those voters? Ahh, screw em - they're only serving their country, what the hell would they know about who should be Commander in Chief?
You are uncritically buying into the Republican spin on this one.
What actually needs to be known is:
The "campaign" against military voters was actually just a memo to election boards reminding them what the law said about absentee ballots.
The Republicans are being grossly hypocritical on this one, because they also sent out a memo saying the same damn thing about a week earlier. (In their case it was in hopes of screening out the civilian vote from Florida residents in Israel. Should the Democrats take a clue from the Republican playbook and spin it up as an anti-Semetic move?)
Most interesting of all, the actual rejection rate for military absentee ballots is almost exactly what it was four years ago. Why? Because the canvassing boards followed the law regarding what votes are acceptable. Both now and back then, even though no one was watching the election so carefully then as now. The only difference this time is that the Republican SpD's [Spin Doctors] are desperate for any advantage, and thus latched on to the (non-existant) military issue for its knee-jerk value. Just like they tried to do with military preparedness back during the campaign.
> I didn't vote for Gore because he is a major league asshole
Agreed. Along with essentially all the other politicians in this country.
But Bush has other attributes on top of his ass-holiness, such as cluelessness, moronicity, and gross hypocrisy.
I don't want Gore for my president, but if he would serve to keep Bush out, then that's a bargain by me.
> Don't try to justify what Gore is doing.
And just what is he doing? Subtract out the Republican misinformation and spin, and he is only pursuing the recount-rights universally assumed to be available to any political candidate.
> I'm just saying Gore is being a bigger ass.
Not everyone agrees. You should dig around and find out more about the stories on Bush that the national media are ignoring.
> "A slew of lawsuits were filed by Republicans, and unsuccessful appeals to state election commissions routinely followed."
Also note that the courtroom battles dragged on for months after the election. The current challenges are still a short-term affair by comparison.
> I'm sure we'll continue to hear the story of the "stolen election" despite of any court findings.
Yeah, the whole thing is about spin control. And unlike the Nixon case, we now have the internet and multiple 7x24 broadcast news outlets looking at every detail of the story in hopes of dragging viewers back for a peek at more commercials, so this one is not going to be able to lie hidden like the Nixon story did.
"The senator from Microsoft", as The Register calls him.
> It will be over in four years.
People familiar with Bush's "part-time job" approach to the Texas governership have been expressing serious doubts about his ability to manage a job so demanding as the presidency. Add that to his louche lifestyle [always wanted to use that word!], and we're likely to have another presidency troubled by continual scandals, rumors of scandals, and hostile investigations.
I honestly don't expect him to finish a four year term.
> Well, at least bush will be the winner until the idiot lawyers get their hands on it tomarrow and steal the election from him.
You seem to be operating under the assumption that an election is something you "win" by beating the system, rather than by finding out how people actually voted.
> Quite frankly, I think that the hand counting is biased, because quite frankly humans are not impartial, we are going to see what we wish to see.
You seem to be unaware that the hand counting is being done by having a small team look at each ballot, with a Republican representative on each team.
You also seem to be unaware that hand counting is^w was universally recognized as being more accurate than machine counting, up until the day it turned out that this election will be decided by whether or not we get an accurate count. GuuB himself supported a law in Texas that favors hand recounts over machine recounts whenever a recount is requested.
> If the lawyers and judicial system decide this election any further...
You are falling for Republican spin control on this one. Believe it or not, our state and Federal constitutions give the judicial system the last word in all matters of law and public procedings.
You will also be surprised to learn that the judicial system hasn't innovated anything this time around. In fact, there is ample precedent for decisions that would have favored Gore more, such as revotes, counting dimpled ballots, throwing out masses of absentee ballots, etc.
Don't let the Republican party do your thinking for you.
> because it will mean that all this country was founded on has been yet again trampled on...
Thing like letting the voters decide who gets the executive offices?
> Because, Dear Santa, I wish to be able to post my e-mail address with impunity, for all to see.
Subject: Unsolicited e-messages
From: postmaster@northpole.org
To: BogBlockMopar
Dear Mr. Mopar,
My client, Mr. Claus, respectfully requests that you and all the other k1dd135 on the planet quit sending him unsolicited e-messages requesting toys. If you continue this practice, I will be forced to notify your ISP and ask them to terminate your account.
Slashdot Mirror
> Whether for licenses or not, this seems to be more an issue about record keeping.
Unless of course MS was right and they didn't have valid licenses.
I know that the popular mentality is that you should just ask your friends for a copy of any software they have, if you want it and don't have it. I used to get hit up pretty regularly, back when I actually had commercial software for my friends to see.
Of course, the same is true in the Linux world. The difference is that it is actually legal there, at least for the most commonly exchanged software.
--
> Wouldn't use a free system unless it had a very good implementation of Solitaire and MineSweeper.
Fortunately, those are two of the games that work flawlessly under WINE.
Provide a clicky icon linked to a script to start them, and the average government employee won't know s/he isn't in Microsoft Heaven.
Unless they stop to wonder why they haven't lost a high-scoring game to a system freeze-up lately.
--
> You have a point that setting up a Linux box is hard for Average Q User.
And of course, how many AQUsers set up their own Windows boxes? Particularly public employees' boxes at work?
This is a null issue.
--
If people subscribed to your arguments, they would have to conclude that the largest peacetime expansion of government spending in the history of our planet was actually good for our economy.
Why then is the Republican party harping so much on tax cuts and reduced size of the government? If "tax and spend" worked miracles under RR, shouldn't we all be pushing for a "tax and spend" platform now, too, so that our children can also enjoy an economic boom of historic proportions?
> There is no designflaw in NT that makes it unreliable.
Ever run it without the GUI?
> Dave Cuttler is a well known and well respected Operating System designer
...who unfortunately works for Bill Gates, who is happy to walk through the lab and say "make it more like the Mac".
The best engineers in the world are useless when their environment's politics are maladaptive.
If the DMCA flies, yes, software consumers will be scrooged. But will it stop there? When other big corporations see that software companies can ram this kind of legislation through the legislatures, will they ever be content with anything less?
Will the consumer of the future have any rights at all?
The claim that MS is stealing Linux code to make Windows more stable is absurd on the face of it.
Windows and Linux have almost nothing in common. You can't just stick the Linux kernel in Windows and expect it to fit. Nor any major portion of it.
Reliability has to be designed in from the ground up. Frankly, that's why I give more credence to the people claiming that W2K is unstable than to those who claim that it's stable. Stability wasn't an issue at MS until Linux started getting popular. By the time MS started talking up the stability line, W2K had already been in development for several years. I know they didn't go back and retrofit stability as an add-on, because it simply isn't possible.
Now if they were desinging a new OS from scratch they might be able to benefit from Linux. But there's not really even any need for that. Good OS design has been an open topic of discussion among researchers for decades. All you have to do is want it and then apply yourself.
The problem with MS and stability isn't a matter of know-how, it's a matter of care-how. They have always been more interested in bells and whistles than in substance. If they are suddenly interested in stability now, it's because Linux's stability has been killing them in markets that they wanted very badly to corner. Expect them to brag about new, improved stability for several years while they go back and design their third generation of Windows with stability actually built in. If they're still in business you'll be able to buy stable Windows systems in 4-5 years. Not sooner.
> he has basically no real credentials to be President.
My friends in Austin are saying that he just wants to be pres in order to pad his resume for next time there is an opening for Baseball Commissioner.
Hey, you're right. At least as far as explicit mention in the laws is concerned. Search for "dimpled" at the Jurist FAQ.
> The Illinois court case Boies cited had the court rejecting dimpled ballots, as the Chicago Tribune found.
The jury seems still to be out on that claim, as the same link shows. The actual ruling in that case is quoted as saying -The debate is over how that opinion was used by the canvassing boards, not over the very plain text of the judicial opinion.
Also, FWIW, at least one person has signed an affidavit stating that dimples were counted in that election after that ruling.
Also, the Massachusets decision (see same site) was very explicit about dimples -A bigger issue, IMO, is why counties are still using voting systems with known defects and long histories of litigation. Unfortunately, I don't expect any vigorous round of reform after this election, because any changes to the laws would be interpreted as an admission that the process was not fair after all.
> what about the important distinction that a tax cut goes to all, not just those people who voted a certain way?
Uhm, yes. All the billionaires are going to benefit from GuuB's tax cuts.
> GPL is not free. public domain is free.
Forget the friggin' election. Them's fightin' words!
> Americans hate lawyers, as do I.
... didn't change the results.
I'm an American, and I don't.
Anywhere that you have a rule of law, you've got to have lawyers. Otherwise you get a dictatorship where the powers that be can do what they please without anyone to pull the plug on abuses.
Lawyers suffer from a PR problem. The ones you hear about are the ones that get notorious criminals off the hook or that win huge settlements for frivolous tort cases. You don't hear about the hundreds of cases every day where a lawyer convinces a judge or jury that the little guy is right.
Also, even in cases where you hear about "outrageous" tort settlements and "notorious" criminals getting off the hook, how often do you really know what the jury heard in the case? Businesses have the money and motivation to put a PR spin on lawsuits that they lose. Public prosecutors are usually either elected officials or else their appointees, and "tough on crime" plays better in election years than "defended innocent accusees", so there's money and motivation for PR spin there, too. And the media know that controversy brings viewers in to feed at the commercials trough, so they have every motivation to talk up "outrageous" court rulings, and little motivation to look at the underlying facts.
So give laywers a break. Your freedom might rely on one someday.
> Surprisingly, weeks of recounts
???. Bush was ahead by 1700 votes after the machine count, and won the biggest share of absentee ballots to boot, but now for some reason his "lead" is only about 700. The recounts are making a difference -- or at least they would be, without all the obstructionism.
> Gore going any further proves that Gore thinks more of himself than the country to continue to be the cause of damaging faith in the Constitution, law, and fairness. And he is the SOLE cause of all this.
I apologize in advance. I usually resist the temptation to flame here, but... get a fucking clue. Gore has been pursuing the mechanisms that Florida's law allows for. He has also challenged the arbitrary actions of Republican administrators. (I believe it was you who brought up the word "corrupt", yes?) The courts have ruled in his favor on about 19/20 of all the questions so far. The only thing that ought to be damaging the public's faith in anything is the fact that partisan public officials can do so much to prevent such a simple and important thing as a recount.
The Republicans are playing this exactly the way a k1dd1e plays a hacked version of Quake. Instead of trying to win on their merits, they are trying to win due to a bug in the system. I have no respect for gamers that try to "win" by beating the system rather than by beating their opponent, and I have no respect for politicians that try to "win" by beating the system either.
The Republicans think they have an "entitlement" win, because the first count went to them. But it could not be more obvious that the only way to win an election is to get more votes than the other guy. When the results are within the margin of error, the only solution is a careful recount. The votes are what matters -- not the lamer gamer's luck at "winning" on a system error.
But the Republicans have a problem. A fair and accurate recount will almost certainly cost them the presidency. Meanwhile, all the fat cats who donated the $100MM to the Bush campaign are clamoring for the promised ROI on their investment. The will of the voters in Florida are not on those fat cats' agenda.
> For an example of a successful, popular administration with a real mandate, see the Reagan years which truly set the stage for the current robust economy that Clinton/Gore have taken credit for.
Your Republicanism is showing through. Among people who are not Devout Republicans, RR is generally considered to be a clueless luser almost in the same category as GuuB.
As for the economy, the Regan Era (including his "third term" under Daddy Bush) was an unmitigated economic disaster. The recovery started almost the day GBSr left office, and has continued unabated ever since.
Frankly, I don't think a president can do much about the economy directly, but what does matter IMO is the optimism of consumers, small businesses, etc., who were in constant fear of being crushed under Regan's "trickle down" philosophy, but who have actually stood a fighting chance in the post-Regan era.
The ultimate irony is going to be for all those muddle^w middle class and upper middle class voters who swung for GuuB under the delusion that they were rich enough to matter to the fat cats who pull his strings. After voting for a luser on the hope for "upperclass welfare", they will find themselves faring as poorly as they did in the Regan Era, wondering why middle and upper-middle class citizens have trouble making ends meet, and living under constant fear of losing their jobs or being subjected to more excesses of corporate feudalism.
> set the stage for the current robust economy that Clinton/Gore have taken credit for.
Is that like GuuB taking credit for laws enacted in Texas before he was governer, or in one case even taking credit for a law that he opposed while in office, and left unsigned when the state legislature passed it in spite of him?
> The GOP asks for a strict interpretation of the Constitution while the Democrats want it more fluid and changing to the "will of the people".
... In fact, if anything happens our stock market will get back on track and we'll all get a tax cut out of it.
Pure spin. The GOP is asking that an accurate count be avoided, because they expect to lose the election if it is. The Demos are asking for an accurate recount because they expect to win if they get one. IMO, the Demos have the morally superior position -- but only because of the two occurences of the word "accurate" in my description of the situation.
And no, the GOP's position has nothing to do with a "strict interpretation of the Constitution". Nothing the Demos have done or asked for is unconstitutional. What the GOP means when they say that is "strict interpretation of the results of the erroneous count". If they thought the voters of Florida actually favored them by even the tiniest margin, they would not be fighting tooth and nail to prevent an accurate recount.
> Come on guys, we had to live through 8 years of Clinton for christ sakes.
Yep, the man's a real worm. Did a better job of the presidency than most of his recent rivals though. (Not nearly good enough a job, but much better than, say, Regan or Johnson.)
> You can live through 4 years of W. Bush!
Ignoring for now the fact that I doubt your predictions... Are you suggesting that we should vote for whoever offers us the most money? Did panem et circenses improve the quality of elected officials in Republican Rome?
> On to the subject of the dimpled chad and all that. There were ballots that were clearly punched through for all other offices but "dimpled" for president. Was this voter incapable of punching the holes? I think not.
You should have said, "I think. Not."
There is ample legal precedent for counting dimpled ballots. Counting the voters' intent is even the law in backwards places like Texas now, thanks to a law supported and signed by none other than GuuB himself.
Why so? Because the whole point of holding an election is to find out what the voters want.
> As far as the whole military absentee ballot thing goes...
Pure spin by the Republican attack dogs. See my post on the topic elsewhere under this article.
> On an added note, in Palm Beach County, FL a local news station took that "butterfly ballot"...
Another thing that the "liberal media" isn't bothering to tell everyone is that "butterfly" ballots caused so much confusion in the 1984 election that the US Congress ordered an investigation (General Accounting Office, IIRC), and the investigators reported back that such ballots were inherently unreliable, and recommended that they should not be used anywhere.
The shame is that state and local officials are not aware of these things. I wonder how many voting systems are just snake-oil solutions being peddled by someone out to make a profit? (I hear that the county commissioners in the county where the capital of Texas is are going to vote within a month about whether to upgrade to a slick new computer voting system. They probably don't have the first clue about the pitfalls with such systems, as recently discussed in comp.risks. Their decision will be based on the fact that they tried it in a single booth during this election, and "didn't have any problems with it". In the event, they are dragging their feet because of the price tag rather than because of concerns for system integrity, auditability, and the other issues recently identified by people researching computer voting.)
> They only recounted Democratic counties.
Agreed. IMO any election in any jurisdiction with less than a 2% difference between the top candidates should trigger an automatic hand recount throughout the jurisdiction. (And here the "jurisdiction" would be Florida, since that is the source of the block of electoral votes.) Notice that under my rule, a couple of other states would have needed statewide recounts as well.
> And, as far as I'm concerned, the changes in counts are more due to human error now than machine error then.
There is absolutely no basis of this claim, other than by invoking the Republican SpD's as authorities. Before this election, everyone agreed that hand counts were more accurate in a tight situation, and machine counts were just useful because of their superior speed and cost effectiveness whenever an election was not too terribly close.
> By the way, this isn't even the worst election in US history. Take John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson.
Also, a very complex situation with Rutherford B Hayes, ultimately resulting of a postponement of the inauguration until March of 1877 (IIRC). And some decisions by the US Congress that sound distinctly unconstitutional to me.
Indeed. But what does that have to do with Florida's electoral vote? Are we supposed to give the presidency to Bush as a way of punishing the Democrats for past wrongdoings?
> Hand counting cannot possibly be more accurate.
Do you have a source for this, other than Baker's deranged ravings?
> That is why he only asked for a recount in those counties.
And the reason Bush didn't ask for a recount in all the other counties is because he thought he would benefit more by holding the "no recounts" line.
> They made all attempts to throw out the military vote because it is known to be traditionally Republican. What about the will of those voters? Ahh, screw em - they're only serving their country, what the hell would they know about who should be Commander in Chief?
You are uncritically buying into the Republican spin on this one.
What actually needs to be known is:
> I didn't vote for Gore because he is a major league asshole
Agreed. Along with essentially all the other politicians in this country.
But Bush has other attributes on top of his ass-holiness, such as cluelessness, moronicity, and gross hypocrisy.
I don't want Gore for my president, but if he would serve to keep Bush out, then that's a bargain by me.
> Don't try to justify what Gore is doing.
And just what is he doing? Subtract out the Republican misinformation and spin, and he is only pursuing the recount-rights universally assumed to be available to any political candidate.
> I'm just saying Gore is being a bigger ass.
Not everyone agrees. You should dig around and find out more about the stories on Bush that the national media are ignoring.
> "A slew of lawsuits were filed by Republicans, and unsuccessful appeals to state election commissions routinely followed."
Also note that the courtroom battles dragged on for months after the election. The current challenges are still a short-term affair by comparison.
> I'm sure we'll continue to hear the story of the "stolen election" despite of any court findings.
Yeah, the whole thing is about spin control. And unlike the Nixon case, we now have the internet and multiple 7x24 broadcast news outlets looking at every detail of the story in hopes of dragging viewers back for a peek at more commercials, so this one is not going to be able to lie hidden like the Nixon story did.
> Republican Slade Gorton lost
"The senator from Microsoft", as The Register calls him.
> It will be over in four years.
People familiar with Bush's "part-time job" approach to the Texas governership have been expressing serious doubts about his ability to manage a job so demanding as the presidency. Add that to his louche lifestyle [always wanted to use that word!], and we're likely to have another presidency troubled by continual scandals, rumors of scandals, and hostile investigations.
I honestly don't expect him to finish a four year term.
> Well, at least bush will be the winner until the idiot lawyers get their hands on it tomarrow and steal the election from him.
You seem to be operating under the assumption that an election is something you "win" by beating the system, rather than by finding out how people actually voted.
> Quite frankly, I think that the hand counting is biased, because quite frankly humans are not impartial, we are going to see what we wish to see.
You seem to be unaware that the hand counting is being done by having a small team look at each ballot, with a Republican representative on each team.
You also seem to be unaware that hand counting is^w was universally recognized as being more accurate than machine counting, up until the day it turned out that this election will be decided by whether or not we get an accurate count. GuuB himself supported a law in Texas that favors hand recounts over machine recounts whenever a recount is requested.
> If the lawyers and judicial system decide this election any further...
You are falling for Republican spin control on this one. Believe it or not, our state and Federal constitutions give the judicial system the last word in all matters of law and public procedings.
You will also be surprised to learn that the judicial system hasn't innovated anything this time around. In fact, there is ample precedent for decisions that would have favored Gore more, such as revotes, counting dimpled ballots, throwing out masses of absentee ballots, etc.
Don't let the Republican party do your thinking for you.
> because it will mean that all this country was founded on has been yet again trampled on...
Thing like letting the voters decide who gets the executive offices?
> Because, Dear Santa, I wish to be able to post my e-mail address with impunity, for all to see.
Subject: Unsolicited e-messages
From: postmaster@northpole.org
To: BogBlockMopar
Dear Mr. Mopar,
My client, Mr. Claus, respectfully requests that you and all the other k1dd135 on the planet quit sending him unsolicited e-messages requesting toys. If you continue this practice, I will be forced to notify your ISP and ask them to terminate your account.
> Apparently, it differentiates between forground and background components of an image, and compresses each appropriately.
Yeah, but can it detect the difference between nude and naked?
> In either event, I don't quite remember what happened to him after that.
More info on the infamous "posture photos" here, though I can't vouch for the site's veracity.
Interesting is the comment that the tobacco industry did a study using the male photos to try to detect a link between smoking and, uhm, "manliness".
I have heard elsewhere that some very famous women in US politics were photographed under the system; I don't see a link right off.
As they used to say during the Counterreformation,
> This reminds me of an amusing email from RMS on the evils of Natalism
Oh. From your subject line, I thought you were going to say that RMS was already demanding that she be named GNU/Torvalds.
> hat's right. The video arcade. .NET is actually "MS Return of Arcade," without pacman.
Who says Office won't come with pacman?
> You make Australia sound like some kind of backwater that's up there with the places they have more guns than food.
You mean, like the USofA?