Definitely. It'd take a lower price. Oh, and music worth buying. Even if those two requirements are met, I'm just not sure I'm into the idea of buying any physical media. Like the EMI guy said, I'd just use it to rip it and then store the CD. I can't imagine any material that would motivate me to use the CD for any other purpose than to rip and store. So why buy the CD?
For the geeks out there who haven't studied Archemedes Principal, that 5.5 times heavier than air coupled with the fact that it doesn't mix with air, produces the same effect when CFC's are dropped into the atmosphere as dropping a solid steel cannon ball into a lake. Since there are noted to be no large collections of cannon balls floating on lakes the obvious conclusion here is that CFC's are highly unlikely to float up to the high atmosphere and cause any problems. They can't do it. They fall out.
Nice try. Grains of dust are trillions of times heavier than a molecule of air or CFC, and don't mix with it, yet they can be blown miles into the atmosphere and across oceans without immediately settling to the ground. The suggestion that CFCs can't reach the stratosphere based on their relative weight is entirely bogus. It'd be true if there were no air currents agitating the atmosphere, but that's not the case.
United Airlines is bad too. I had to go through their stupid automated system that kept misunderstanding what I was saying. I was about to rejoice when it told me it was sending me through to a live rep, until the damn rep was someone in India who couldn't understand me any better than the machine. I felt entirely helpless as I tried to make a change to my ticket.
UAL: Get a clue. If I run into another situation where I can't talk to an American customer service rep when I need one, I'm going to stop flying your airline.
It would be accurate to say that the Earth is here, but to say it is here for a specific species is a bit much because that's an unprovable claim as far as anyone can tell.
Lacking any other species to challenge us on the point, the earth is here for us. If some intelligence created it for us, it's ours. If some intelligence created it for a species that will follow, then that will happen someday and there's nothing we can do about it. If it's just random luck that the planet exists, then all species are free to use it as they see fit and there is nothing morally superior about refraining from using it so that some other inferior species can benefit. It's almost like we are so arrogant that we know better than "survival of the fittest."
In short, I don't see any scenario where I should feel compelled to think that we do not have a right to exist and use our planet to the extent we see fit. We should do what is in our own best interest. If there is evidence that we'd be better off using sticks and stones and returning to a hunter/gatherer existince, that'd be interesting. So far as I know, no such evidence exists. After all, how would we ever be able to give free healthcare to the {insert your favorite number here} million uninsured Americans if we were all hunting and gathering? Ironically, it's generally the same group of people that think that everyone should have free healthcare that, directly or indirectly, think we should return to some pre-industrial that would make such healthcare impossible.
Oh, that's right... all our medical ills can be solved with marijuana... My bad.
What part of "anarchy" don't you understand? How do you plan on petitioning a government that doesn't exist? How do yo "own" a government that doesn't exist? Sorry, man, as bad as things may be, I'll take it to anarchy any day of the week.
What exactly is the point of overwhelming the FCC on this particular issue? I'm pretty fond of driving across town with my radio tuned to a single station and being able to hear that station clearly without it being stomped by a dozen illegal stations on some ilconceived crusade. There is a reason why anarchy isn't our choice of government, and those same reasons are why anarchy of the airwaves is no better than any other anarchy.
In a perfect world, people would be able to keep their voting receipt. It would solve a lot of problems. But as GP indicated, it opens another set of problems that I am not sure are any less serious.
I'd say that the solution would be a modified version of the original:
1. You prepare your vote with a touch-screen. You confirm it is correct and it prints a single copy of your vote which you can again physically verify. The machine also tallies the vote on the server.
2. You then walk out and deposit the ballot in plain sight of everyone, with a representative of every party watching the ballot box. Once the ballot is in the box, that voter is done. If there's any hanky panky, representatives of all the parties are there watching. I'd go so far as to say that a video camera should monitor the party reps and the ballot box.
3. As soon as voting is done, the ballot box is sealed and the results from the server are automatically uploaded and an immediate count is known. If there is any reason for a recount, the video can be checked to see if it is warranted. If it is, the ballot box is opened under the supervision of the original party observers and election officials.
That's it. It's pretty damn simple, really.
Like I said, unfortunately we can't give a voting ticket to the voter to take home because that does open the door to vote buying, threats from employers, etc.
Anyone seeing that this guy is proving exactly what I was saying about liberals? There is a negative energy and vibe about many (if not most) Democrats while Republicans transmit a much more positive vibe. You're not going to win elections by being negative and depressing people. But keep at it. It just makes things easier for the Republicans.
Your post absolutely reeks of an extremely partisan right-winger trying to act like a moderate in order to try to persuade others to your extremist viewpoint.
I guess you have me all figured out then. Truth is, you wouldn't recognize the truth if it slapped you upside the head. Be well.
yep.. big media is VERY liberal.. I mean ABC, the most liberal of the "liberal media" is set to release a multipart documentary blaming clinton for 9/11... Oh wait that doesn't prove your point.. that DISPROVES it..
ABC is the most liberal? Sorry, I do insist that the people I debate are in the reality the rest of the world is in.
be my guest, but if they continue to do what theyre already doing they'll be deposed, either by a UN coalition or the 70% of the nation which is pissed off at them according to the latest polls.
Let's see... I'm guessing you're a liberal--and you're telling me if I vote Republican that I should expect an invasion by a UN coalition or a coup d'etat? Wow, what a great way to convince me to vote for you.
By the way.. if you make under 200,000 a year as a household and/or own a small business you're screwing yourself with that vote, and i'm laughing at you.
I own a small business and earn less than 200,000 a year, and I'm very comfortable with my vote. But feel free to laugh at me. It's what Democrats do best and then they wonder why those damn rednecks don't vote for them. Perhaps because you're arrogant, condescending asses?
AA is fighting the right wing talk radio attitude with the same type of bullshit as the right wing,
not true, they fight stupidity with reason.. oh the concept!
Y'think? Back in March I was driving through Texas in the early AM and listening to talk radio to keep me company. The only station I found was an Air America station. The show that came on was Springer. So I listened to him. Now I've heard Rush's parodies, etc. so I was not surprised when Springer had the same idea. But you know what the parody was? It was basically making fun of the people that enlist in the military!! I couldn't believe it. It wasn't taking any shots at Bush but basically insulting those that are "stupid enough" to enlist. Amazing, but I let it go. Then not more than 10 minutes later Springer was bitching about how Rush was available in Iraq over military radio but Air America wasn't, and why was that? I actually grabbed my cell phone to call him and tell him, "Think about the damn parody you played not 10 minutes ago and ask yourself WHY the military isn't thrilled to broadcast you?" Unfortunately, the phone just rang and rang and rang. No-one even answered.
Later in the day, I tuned to another station and caught some Rush. At some point I felt compelled to call... busy signal constantly until I gave up trying to call. I found that to be interesting in and of itself, i.e., the contrast to the unending-ring-and-no-answer of Springer.
After Rush faded out, I again ended up catching Air America and for 20 minutes the guy (I don't remember his name, it was early afternoon mountain time) just sounded like an angry man that was doing nothing but complaining about "unfounded" rumors that Air America was going out of business in a couple of markets. He insisted it wasn't true and complained about conservative talk shows, and he sounded defiant. Basically he talked about nothing of interest for 20 minuts until I said, "Hell with this" and just listened to some music. I later found out that the markets he said weren't going out of business actually did go out of business. So much for honesty.
I can understand that people have a difference of opinion, but there as a decidedly negative attitude on Air America. I would've enjoyed some liberal commentary, but there wasn't any. It was just angry bitter men that weren't talking about anything remotely interesting in regards to politics. They were insulting to the military, overly concerned with their own business prospects, and basically just depressing. Say what you want about Rush, he's entertaining and while he does rip on liberals, his attitude is positive.
The energy is just different, and I think that's a difference in energy that goes beyond talk radio and is representative of Republicans and Democrats. That, too, is why Democrats continue to lose elections.
There is no far left anymore, and hasn't been for a while.
That's because liberal economic policies don't work and liberal social policies are, at best, a coin toss. It's the natural evolution of policies. Those that don't work get swept aside, which is why liberals are having a tough time even with all the ammunition that they have at their disposal with an electorate that wasn't fired up with Bush in 2004, but he won anyway. Because liberals didn't have a platform. And why didn't they have a platform? Because they knew that if they actually could agree on a list of their beliefs, the voters most likely wouldn't want it.
Which is why all they represent now are "We're not the Republicans." That's a weak platform, but probably stronger than if they actually defined their position and ran on that.
In general, the voter fraud is down to the level where it does not effect the outcome - the only time this can really be argued about is when the polls are very close. And, in a democracy, if the polls are really close then throwing a dart at a wall is a reasonable way to elect the gevernment...
Amen. I wish more people understood this reality. It doesn't mean that fraud should not be stamped out, but it does make it silly to whine about it for 4-6 years. It's not statistically significant.
Accusing the Democrats of sour grapes seems within the realm of possibility but to suggest that even if this were all true just to ignore it undermines the very foundation of your democratic process. Like it or not (and I'm guessing not - as it is a clear and present threat to your obvious political alligence) free and fair voting for everyone matters in a democracy.
The point is that that's pretty much the only thing Democrats have talked about since 2000. If there's a case, take it up in court. I suspect the lack of significant successful court cases (or even filings) is due to a lack of evidence which is very curious given the supposed magnitude of the fraud. But to make that just about the only thing Democrats talk about as they head into another election is just stupid. Sure, they can talk about it until the cows come home but it doesn't matter unless they make their accusations in court, not in the court of public opinion. Making this the only issue (well, and Iraq of course, but without really explaining what their alternative is) might get your loyal Democrats upset and get them to the polls, but you generally need substance to bring in the independents and maybe grab some conservatives, too. And that's how you win elections.
Let me put it this way: You deal with past perceived transgressions in court. You secure the next election by giving the voters something of substance to vote in favor of. Hoping that voters will vote against someone or something will only get you so far, and that's pretty much the only thing Democrats have done since 2000--and they've continued to lose because of that. If they had presented a compelling platform that people could get excited about, and you add to that the general discontent with Bush and the war, they could've cleaned up in 2004 and sent Bush packing. They could have won by such a margin that fraud, even if true, wouldn't have made a difference.
I'll be the first to recognize that elections are not always clean, and it happens both at the hands of Republicans and Democrats--to suggest otherwise is naive. But even if we assume the Republicans engaged in some fraud, the only reason it even mattered is because the Democrats were unable to open up a statistically significant margin. And considering all they had in their favor going into 2004, it should've been cake. They should've won by 10% and all the Republican fraud in the world wasn't going to be able to overcome that. If the Democrats had a platform, I think they would've accomplished it.
It is my position that until we get a good, solid, open-source voting system with appropriate safeguards, there will always be some amount of fraud on both sides. That's just the ugly truth. I also think it is safe to assume that Republican fraud is generally counteracted by Democratic fraud in other places. I also believe that such fraud is always small-scale (nothing like what liberals suggest happened in Ohio) because anything large-scale would be impossible to cover up sufficiently to stand-up to legal scrutiny--so the fraud we face around the country is small-scale that could only have an impact on a race that is so close that it's in the statistical noise anyway. That doesn't excuse the fraud, but it does recognize that it's statistically irrelevant.
I do not accept allegations of fraud in the magnitude of hundreds of thousands of votes. It's just not possible. In the case of Ohio, the election came down consistent with the multiple polls done in the days and week ahead of the election. There is no statistical evidence of fraud in Ohio--the election agreed with numerous pre-election polls as close as the day before the election. The odd-man out were the exit polls, not the election. If hundreds of thousands of votes were really manipulated, then all the pre-election polls would've had to have been wrong.
Oh goodie, another opportunity for Democrats to bitch about losing in 2004 and blame anyone but themselves. Run a decent candidate (Kerry was not it) and you'll have better results.
The Kennedy article was a rehash of all the nonsense liberals have been spewing since 2004. So the article itself was redundant when Kennedy wrote it. And it's been months since it was published, so why exactly is it suddenly news now? Oh, that's right, because the elections are just over a month away and the Democrats are offering no clear and concise alternative to Republicans so all they can do is rehash the same assertions they've been making since 2004. Heck, let's be honest, since 2000. The close election of 2000 and the close election of 2004 gave them the idea that if they try to highlight how close the election was and try to make the case that they should've won, people won't realize they have no platform themselves.
Democrats, wake up! Come up with a real platform and stop bitching and moaning about past elections and start focusing on future elections and you'll do a lot better. Even on the off chance all your assertions about past fraud are right, what do you really expect to gain from from staying stuck in the past? GET A PLATFORM, PLEASE! GIVE US A REAL ALTERNATIVE!
They are conditioned by corporate and authoritarian society that a good citizen maintains a good credit rating at any and all costs.
I don't know how credit scores are calculated, but a good citizen (and a good person) does pay what he owes, and he does it at the agreed upon time. Except for fraudulent bills, anything else is theft.
While there are legitimate complaints about both Republicans and Democrats, I wonder how many of the people that actively promote the idea of a "third party" have actually lived in a country where such multi-party systems lead to tenuous coalition-building that is every bit as ineffective as the two parties we have now. Unless your goal is to make Congress completely ineffective (thereby increasing the relative power of the president), coalition/multi-party systems have as many faults as our current system. Short of having no parties whatsoever (which I have mixed feelings about), I don't think the two-party system is particularly bad.
I wouldn't mind having better candidates in the parties, though.
Don't know. I just bought my first house about 6 months ago. All I had on my credit report was two open credit card accounts (a car loan and other financial activity from a decade ago apparently had fallen off as being too old) with a total available credit balance of probably 40% of my annual income at the time, though one card was never used and the other never had more than $1500 on it and was paid in full each and every month. With that scenario, I pulled my credit score and it came back as 801 which they said was higher than 99.98% of the population, or something like that. When I was shopping for a mortgage, they basically all came back and just asked how much and how soon I wanted the money, that my credit history was perfect and I should just focus on finding the house I wanted.
My experience would lead me to suggest that people that want a good credit score should be most concerned about paying their bills on time, they should always try to pay more than the minimum, and they should try to pay off the debt as soon as they can (though, best I can tell from a credit report, you can't tell if the balance was paid off in full each month if you rack it up again the next month... it'll just show you constantly paying on time).
If you live a financially responsible life, your credit score is going to follow. I'd be hesitant to try any tricky efforts to game the system by just driving up your available credit or doing other things that supposedly help your credit score. The people that come up with the algorithm know the tricks people play and I'll bet they take that into account.
Determine how much credit you might need in a non-medical emergency, increase that by about 50%, and that's how much credit you ought to have. Use it just enough to keep the account active each month, pay on time, and be responsible. Your credit score will fall in line without having to try to trick it and possibly be penalized if you have bad information about this information that nobody really knows about, since it's secret.
Screw that. I can understand why they might want to look at a credit report to determine how responsible an applicant is, but I wouldn't do it as an applicant. Maybe if the credit bureaus start dishing out a "responsibility score" that just gives them a number based, basically, on absence of negative information without giving them the information.
Except in special cases, my financial information is no business of my employer. I would never give my credit report to a prospective employer, period, unless they're going to give me a loan or something. If they have a problem with that, they can keep on looking for another candidate. And your example is also interesting... so the person wanted a part-time job and they initially didn't want to give it to her because it wouldn't be enough to pay her debts? If enough employers implement systems like that, it will make sure that someone that is in debt will be in debt forever.
Nope... candidates for jobs just need to say "no" to this trend. I've never been faced with it myself, but if I ever am then I'll just keep looking for some other employer.
Blockbuster is right, Netflix is wrong. I think this will be a useful case that could actually highlight just how messed up the patent system is. There is absolutely nothing novel about letting people keep a DVD as long as they want, there's nothing novel about letting them rank the order in which they want to watch them, and there's nothing novel about doing it online.
Slashdot Mirror
I might even pay $20 for the CD in that case.
Definitely. It'd take a lower price. Oh, and music worth buying. Even if those two requirements are met, I'm just not sure I'm into the idea of buying any physical media. Like the EMI guy said, I'd just use it to rip it and then store the CD. I can't imagine any material that would motivate me to use the CD for any other purpose than to rip and store. So why buy the CD?
If you want to eat bugs, go ahead. No-one's stopping you. I'll stick with cows, thanks.
Nice try. Grains of dust are trillions of times heavier than a molecule of air or CFC, and don't mix with it, yet they can be blown miles into the atmosphere and across oceans without immediately settling to the ground. The suggestion that CFCs can't reach the stratosphere based on their relative weight is entirely bogus. It'd be true if there were no air currents agitating the atmosphere, but that's not the case.
United Airlines is bad too. I had to go through their stupid automated system that kept misunderstanding what I was saying. I was about to rejoice when it told me it was sending me through to a live rep, until the damn rep was someone in India who couldn't understand me any better than the machine. I felt entirely helpless as I tried to make a change to my ticket.
UAL: Get a clue. If I run into another situation where I can't talk to an American customer service rep when I need one, I'm going to stop flying your airline.
Lacking any other species to challenge us on the point, the earth is here for us. If some intelligence created it for us, it's ours. If some intelligence created it for a species that will follow, then that will happen someday and there's nothing we can do about it. If it's just random luck that the planet exists, then all species are free to use it as they see fit and there is nothing morally superior about refraining from using it so that some other inferior species can benefit. It's almost like we are so arrogant that we know better than "survival of the fittest."
In short, I don't see any scenario where I should feel compelled to think that we do not have a right to exist and use our planet to the extent we see fit. We should do what is in our own best interest. If there is evidence that we'd be better off using sticks and stones and returning to a hunter/gatherer existince, that'd be interesting. So far as I know, no such evidence exists. After all, how would we ever be able to give free healthcare to the {insert your favorite number here} million uninsured Americans if we were all hunting and gathering? Ironically, it's generally the same group of people that think that everyone should have free healthcare that, directly or indirectly, think we should return to some pre-industrial that would make such healthcare impossible.
Oh, that's right... all our medical ills can be solved with marijuana... My bad.
What part of "anarchy" don't you understand? How do you plan on petitioning a government that doesn't exist? How do yo "own" a government that doesn't exist? Sorry, man, as bad as things may be, I'll take it to anarchy any day of the week.
Ssssh, don't tell anyone. That might pop their conspiracy theory in which Diebold is trying to steal elections for the Republicans.
I'd say that the solution would be a modified version of the original:
1. You prepare your vote with a touch-screen. You confirm it is correct and it prints a single copy of your vote which you can again physically verify. The machine also tallies the vote on the server.
2. You then walk out and deposit the ballot in plain sight of everyone, with a representative of every party watching the ballot box. Once the ballot is in the box, that voter is done. If there's any hanky panky, representatives of all the parties are there watching. I'd go so far as to say that a video camera should monitor the party reps and the ballot box.
3. As soon as voting is done, the ballot box is sealed and the results from the server are automatically uploaded and an immediate count is known. If there is any reason for a recount, the video can be checked to see if it is warranted. If it is, the ballot box is opened under the supervision of the original party observers and election officials.
That's it. It's pretty damn simple, really.
Like I said, unfortunately we can't give a voting ticket to the voter to take home because that does open the door to vote buying, threats from employers, etc.
I guess you have me all figured out then. Truth is, you wouldn't recognize the truth if it slapped you upside the head. Be well.
ABC is the most liberal? Sorry, I do insist that the people I debate are in the reality the rest of the world is in.
be my guest, but if they continue to do what theyre already doing they'll be deposed, either by a UN coalition or the 70% of the nation which is pissed off at them according to the latest polls.
Let's see... I'm guessing you're a liberal--and you're telling me if I vote Republican that I should expect an invasion by a UN coalition or a coup d'etat? Wow, what a great way to convince me to vote for you.
By the way.. if you make under 200,000 a year as a household and/or own a small business you're screwing yourself with that vote, and i'm laughing at you.
I own a small business and earn less than 200,000 a year, and I'm very comfortable with my vote. But feel free to laugh at me. It's what Democrats do best and then they wonder why those damn rednecks don't vote for them. Perhaps because you're arrogant, condescending asses?
not true, they fight stupidity with reason.. oh the concept!
Y'think? Back in March I was driving through Texas in the early AM and listening to talk radio to keep me company. The only station I found was an Air America station. The show that came on was Springer. So I listened to him. Now I've heard Rush's parodies, etc. so I was not surprised when Springer had the same idea. But you know what the parody was? It was basically making fun of the people that enlist in the military!! I couldn't believe it. It wasn't taking any shots at Bush but basically insulting those that are "stupid enough" to enlist. Amazing, but I let it go. Then not more than 10 minutes later Springer was bitching about how Rush was available in Iraq over military radio but Air America wasn't, and why was that? I actually grabbed my cell phone to call him and tell him, "Think about the damn parody you played not 10 minutes ago and ask yourself WHY the military isn't thrilled to broadcast you?" Unfortunately, the phone just rang and rang and rang. No-one even answered.
Later in the day, I tuned to another station and caught some Rush. At some point I felt compelled to call... busy signal constantly until I gave up trying to call. I found that to be interesting in and of itself, i.e., the contrast to the unending-ring-and-no-answer of Springer.
After Rush faded out, I again ended up catching Air America and for 20 minutes the guy (I don't remember his name, it was early afternoon mountain time) just sounded like an angry man that was doing nothing but complaining about "unfounded" rumors that Air America was going out of business in a couple of markets. He insisted it wasn't true and complained about conservative talk shows, and he sounded defiant. Basically he talked about nothing of interest for 20 minuts until I said, "Hell with this" and just listened to some music. I later found out that the markets he said weren't going out of business actually did go out of business. So much for honesty.
I can understand that people have a difference of opinion, but there as a decidedly negative attitude on Air America. I would've enjoyed some liberal commentary, but there wasn't any. It was just angry bitter men that weren't talking about anything remotely interesting in regards to politics. They were insulting to the military, overly concerned with their own business prospects, and basically just depressing. Say what you want about Rush, he's entertaining and while he does rip on liberals, his attitude is positive.
The energy is just different, and I think that's a difference in energy that goes beyond talk radio and is representative of Republicans and Democrats. That, too, is why Democrats continue to lose elections.
Really? Well in that case I guess I have no choice but to vote Republican.
Big media is owned by republicans so you don't see it..
Funny, big media is liberal.
listen to air america and they spend each and every day spelling out those exact same points.
Hahahah, yeah right. Someone might as well tell you to listen to Limbaugh.
That's because liberal economic policies don't work and liberal social policies are, at best, a coin toss. It's the natural evolution of policies. Those that don't work get swept aside, which is why liberals are having a tough time even with all the ammunition that they have at their disposal with an electorate that wasn't fired up with Bush in 2004, but he won anyway. Because liberals didn't have a platform. And why didn't they have a platform? Because they knew that if they actually could agree on a list of their beliefs, the voters most likely wouldn't want it.
Which is why all they represent now are "We're not the Republicans." That's a weak platform, but probably stronger than if they actually defined their position and ran on that.
Amen. I wish more people understood this reality. It doesn't mean that fraud should not be stamped out, but it does make it silly to whine about it for 4-6 years. It's not statistically significant.
The point is that that's pretty much the only thing Democrats have talked about since 2000. If there's a case, take it up in court. I suspect the lack of significant successful court cases (or even filings) is due to a lack of evidence which is very curious given the supposed magnitude of the fraud. But to make that just about the only thing Democrats talk about as they head into another election is just stupid. Sure, they can talk about it until the cows come home but it doesn't matter unless they make their accusations in court, not in the court of public opinion. Making this the only issue (well, and Iraq of course, but without really explaining what their alternative is) might get your loyal Democrats upset and get them to the polls, but you generally need substance to bring in the independents and maybe grab some conservatives, too. And that's how you win elections.
Let me put it this way: You deal with past perceived transgressions in court. You secure the next election by giving the voters something of substance to vote in favor of. Hoping that voters will vote against someone or something will only get you so far, and that's pretty much the only thing Democrats have done since 2000--and they've continued to lose because of that. If they had presented a compelling platform that people could get excited about, and you add to that the general discontent with Bush and the war, they could've cleaned up in 2004 and sent Bush packing. They could have won by such a margin that fraud, even if true, wouldn't have made a difference.
I'll be the first to recognize that elections are not always clean, and it happens both at the hands of Republicans and Democrats--to suggest otherwise is naive. But even if we assume the Republicans engaged in some fraud, the only reason it even mattered is because the Democrats were unable to open up a statistically significant margin. And considering all they had in their favor going into 2004, it should've been cake. They should've won by 10% and all the Republican fraud in the world wasn't going to be able to overcome that. If the Democrats had a platform, I think they would've accomplished it.
It is my position that until we get a good, solid, open-source voting system with appropriate safeguards, there will always be some amount of fraud on both sides. That's just the ugly truth. I also think it is safe to assume that Republican fraud is generally counteracted by Democratic fraud in other places. I also believe that such fraud is always small-scale (nothing like what liberals suggest happened in Ohio) because anything large-scale would be impossible to cover up sufficiently to stand-up to legal scrutiny--so the fraud we face around the country is small-scale that could only have an impact on a race that is so close that it's in the statistical noise anyway. That doesn't excuse the fraud, but it does recognize that it's statistically irrelevant.
I do not accept allegations of fraud in the magnitude of hundreds of thousands of votes. It's just not possible. In the case of Ohio, the election came down consistent with the multiple polls done in the days and week ahead of the election. There is no statistical evidence of fraud in Ohio--the election agreed with numerous pre-election polls as close as the day before the election. The odd-man out were the exit polls, not the election. If hundreds of thousands of votes were really manipulated, then all the pre-election polls would've had to have been wrong.
The Kennedy article was a rehash of all the nonsense liberals have been spewing since 2004. So the article itself was redundant when Kennedy wrote it. And it's been months since it was published, so why exactly is it suddenly news now? Oh, that's right, because the elections are just over a month away and the Democrats are offering no clear and concise alternative to Republicans so all they can do is rehash the same assertions they've been making since 2004. Heck, let's be honest, since 2000. The close election of 2000 and the close election of 2004 gave them the idea that if they try to highlight how close the election was and try to make the case that they should've won, people won't realize they have no platform themselves.
Democrats, wake up! Come up with a real platform and stop bitching and moaning about past elections and start focusing on future elections and you'll do a lot better. Even on the off chance all your assertions about past fraud are right, what do you really expect to gain from from staying stuck in the past? GET A PLATFORM, PLEASE! GIVE US A REAL ALTERNATIVE!
I don't know how credit scores are calculated, but a good citizen (and a good person) does pay what he owes, and he does it at the agreed upon time. Except for fraudulent bills, anything else is theft.
I wouldn't mind having better candidates in the parties, though.
My experience would lead me to suggest that people that want a good credit score should be most concerned about paying their bills on time, they should always try to pay more than the minimum, and they should try to pay off the debt as soon as they can (though, best I can tell from a credit report, you can't tell if the balance was paid off in full each month if you rack it up again the next month... it'll just show you constantly paying on time).
If you live a financially responsible life, your credit score is going to follow. I'd be hesitant to try any tricky efforts to game the system by just driving up your available credit or doing other things that supposedly help your credit score. The people that come up with the algorithm know the tricks people play and I'll bet they take that into account.
Determine how much credit you might need in a non-medical emergency, increase that by about 50%, and that's how much credit you ought to have. Use it just enough to keep the account active each month, pay on time, and be responsible. Your credit score will fall in line without having to try to trick it and possibly be penalized if you have bad information about this information that nobody really knows about, since it's secret.
Except in special cases, my financial information is no business of my employer. I would never give my credit report to a prospective employer, period, unless they're going to give me a loan or something. If they have a problem with that, they can keep on looking for another candidate. And your example is also interesting... so the person wanted a part-time job and they initially didn't want to give it to her because it wouldn't be enough to pay her debts? If enough employers implement systems like that, it will make sure that someone that is in debt will be in debt forever.
Nope... candidates for jobs just need to say "no" to this trend. I've never been faced with it myself, but if I ever am then I'll just keep looking for some other employer.