Actually it is. In general, different regions have different biases in terms of who gets more votes. For example, West Palm Beach is a primarily Democratic enclave, the vast majority of voters vote Democratic. Similarly, Martin County - just North of Palm Beach - generally votes Republican.
If you remove a ballot box from an area where the voting pattern is generally significantly different from the average - and most of the time, it will be - you introduce a bias. For example, by destroying a Martin County ballot box, I would be giving Kerry an advantage. By destroying a Palm Beach ballot box, I'd be giving Bush an advantage.
Daytona Beach is, if I recall correctly, in a red area of Florida. Bush can expect to have significantly more votes in that voting machine than Kerry. If 2/3 of the votes are for Bush, then we're looking at about 8667 votes for Bush, vs 4333 for Kerry, a 4334 vote difference. If the vote is anything like as close as it was last time over Florida as a whole, you can bet those 4334 votes will make a major difference.
I don't know what those percentages are in practice. What I can say is that Florida is a diverse state, and just because the margins are close over the state as a whole doesn't mean that the margins are close on a county by county basis, or especially a precinct by precinct basis.
I would assume Badnarik's relatively isolationist. What his diplomatic skills are like I don't know.
I think the major issues with Bush were the lack of diplomatic skills couplied with a unilateralist world-view. A decent President could probably have done everything Bush did - reject Kyoto, declare war on Iraq, etc - without pissing off most of the world in the process. I think this goes for virtually any foreign policy - isolationist, multilateralist, etc - excepting, of course, straightforward expansionism.
If China doesn't recognize patents and copyrights, then the whole issue of not GPLing the firmware becomes irrelevent, correct?
Of course, if it comes into the US, all patents and copyrights are enforcable. Any distributor better pay the royalties, or face the legal consequences.
I mean, if they licensed it for free distribution, what would prevent some half-baked Chinese knock off from mass producing the wireless chipset reference design, burning the for-profit's "free" firmware, and selling for a huge profit?
Patents and copyrights? (Patents on the principles of the design, copyrights on those parts of the implementation that are sufficiently creative.)
electoral-vote.com uses the latest poll in each state. In theory, if nobody polled a state since August, he'd still have August's data up there for that one state.
This, interestingly, introduces a little bit of randomness into the system because different pollsters poll different states at different times, and they all have their own methods with accuracies and inaccuracies.
I know they are both against it. But Kerry actually says a draft is likely under Bush.
And?
No. You asked a question, I answered it.
No, you didn't, that was point scoring.
The primary reasons I gave for why RTV is a Democratic party operation is its politics, its anti-Bush activities, and the history of the person who runs it. Because it is a Democratic party operation, I therefore still define her as a Democratic operative. You're misreading my argument: it does not do what you say.
I asked if the (wo)man was still a Democratic operative in the context of whether her previous experience really showed that she was partisan in her current role. You responded by using your circular argument.
Whether you think your argument is circular or not (and goodness help you if you don't see it), clearly:
The group appears to have very few policies other than encouraging young people to vote. The only issue it seems to take a stand on, or be appearing to take a stand on, is the draft. This, despite your claims otherwise, is not a partisan issue: BOTH PARTIES HAVE THE SAME POLICY. What Kerry says is irrelevent, Bush can just as legitimately make the same claims about Kerry. Likewise, the issue is clearly one that youth will be interested in, and one that will mobilise them to take an interest.
There are no visible "anti-Bush" activities I can see on the website and I must have missed where you mentioned them
Clearly the experienced polito RTV drafted to run their campaign is not involved in any other political campaigns, or at least, none that are party affiliated, otherwise you would surely have mentioned them. I suspect we wouldn't be having this discussion if the coin had fallen the other way and an ex-Republican operative had been drafted for the same role, even with Rock the Vote doing exactly what it's doing now.
I'm amazed and pissed at myself I'm even bothering to respond to this, and I'm going to let you have the last word.
It's not a Democrat-affiliated website. It's a joint venture between Rock the Vote, which is non-partisan, and Motorola, a popular manufacturer of mobile phones.
Pudge has responded to a comment I've made questioning his assertion claiming that they have positions on various major issues that take the Democratic line, and claiming that the person who runs RTV is a former Democratic Party operative, but so far the evidence for the former is extremely weak (the only policy we could find that on the website was to do with the Draft, a policy both parties have identical positions on), and you'd expect a political participation campaign to draft an experienced pol to run them, it's inevitable he or she would have had a role in at least one of the major parties.
I looked recently, and found them to be in favor of federal handouts for education, for free health care, anti-war, pro-choice, anti-ANWR. Just go down the list, they support every Democratic position on every major issue.
We're obviously looking at two completely different websites then. As I said, the draft seems to be the only "issue" mentioned on the (admittedly appallingly designed and expensive to navigate on a slow PC with poor bandwidth) website I was looking at. Perhaps I'll take a better look at it when I get home.
Yes, a good dishonest way, that the Democrats are using to make people vote for Kerry.
That's right, because Kerry's against the draft whereas Bush is... hold on?
She is, yes. That's what Rock the Vote is.
Great. So it's now a self defining argument. Rock the Vote is a Democratic Front because a Democratic Party Operative runs it. And the person who runs it is a Democratic Party Operative because she runs Rock the Vote which we've established is a Democratic Front because a Democratic Party Operative runs it, proof of which is that she runs Rocks the Vote which we've established is a Democratic Front because a Democratic Party Operative runs it, proof of which is that she runs Rocks the Vote which we've established is a Democratic Front because a Democratic Party Operative runs it, proof of which is that she runs Rocks the Vote which we've established is a Democratic Front because a Democratic Party Operative runs it, proof of which is that she runs Rocks the Vote which we've established is a Democratic Front because a Democratic Party Operative runs it, proof of which is that she runs Rocks the Vote which we've established is a Democratic Front because a Democratic Party Operative runs it, proof of which is that she runs Rocks the Vote which we've established is a Democratic Front because a Democratic Party Operative runs it, proof of which is that she runs Rocks the Vote which we've established is a Democratic Front because a Democratic Party Operative runs it, proof of which is that she runs Rocks the Vote which...
It's a facade! Their appearance of neutrality only extends to what they say and do! They're obviously biased because they're campaigning about one thing that both parties have identical policies on!
I give up. I guess this "logic" explains why Republicans think the press is left wing.
Rock the Vote leans left on every single issue (just look at their issues pages)
Try as I might, I can't find one. The nearest thing I see to one is the Petition against the Draft on the front page. Given the site is aimed at encouraging the participation of the young in elections, it strikes me that the draft is a pretty good way of getting their attention.
and their executive director is a former Democratic party operative
Is he still a Democratic party operative? Would you prefer someone not involved in politics to be the leader of an organization aimed at encouraging people to vote (notwithstanding any disagreements you might have with the message of the campaign?
And as to the draft, how do you figure that is nonpartisan? They are trying to make people think the draft is a possibility, which is entirely false, and the ad is clearly aimed at hurting Bush.
It's non-partisan because they're not aiming at any particular party, and there's no particular party associated with the draft? I mean, the only connection I can think of between Bush and the Draft is that Bush is the leader of the current administration, and therefore the one that took us to war. I'm 100% certain that had rumours of a draft appeared while Clinton was in office and a bloody war was raging, the same group would be highlighting it.
Any campaign to encourage people to get up and vote is going to use issues in the news. Usually having power, and thus the ability to frame and decide the issues, is one of the benefits of being an incumbent. In this case, it isn't.
Sorry your anti-Republican stuff just does not stand up.
Wow, you Republicans are testy today. That's the second time I've been called anti-Republican. No wonder you bunch think the media are "biased" towards the "left". Still, with Pudge pretending that "Rock the Vote" is a Democratic conspiracy...
As the other respondant has pointed out, Andrew has said that the vast bulk of the hate mail he gets is from Republicans. Draw your own conclusions.
No, it's generalizing. My experience is that if someone is arguing that such-and-such-a-group shouldn't vote, it's usually a Republican. Usually the argument goes that people shouldn't be encouraged to vote when they don't plan to because it means they're stupid or ignorant.
Likewise the groups most famous for trying to encourage voting tend to be considered liberal, for example 'Hollywood', etc.
That's my experience. If I'm wrong, and right-wing types start encouraging popular participation in democracy, then I'll notice and change my views accordingly.
Despite Pudge's write-up, it's actually the non-partisan Rock the Vote allied with Motorola that runs this particular site.
There are probably more Democrats than Republicans involved with that site, but only because, as a rule, Democrats seem to be more interested in encouraging people to learn about their choices and vote, Republicans - again, I'm generalizing - count among them more people who'd rather the great unwashed stay indoors.
It should be noted that all participants opted-in to the survey through a site run by Democrats, making the results non-random and therefore highly suspect
I thought "Rock the Vote" was originally an MTV (Viacom), campaign, whose CEO has come out in favour of Bush? On their front page, I can see a petition aimed at both the DNC and RNC about the draft,
Or is it Motorola that counts as "The Democrats" for this particular campaign?
Or is this just a "Republicans would never encourage people to vote, therefore it's those lousy Democrats that are behind it" thing?
whose absence does not impede the reader's ability to understand the expression
What you omitted changed the meaning of the paragraph completely. The original was a prayer to God to kill someone. The version with the removed words was a call to the reader to kill someone.
I'm actually amazed you have the gall to reply and to claim that the removal of those words did "not impede the reader's ability to understand the expression". You CHANGED THE ENTIRE MEANING OF THE PARAGRAPH.
o you're saying that anybody who wants to threaten somebody's life can simply say: "please, God, kill my enemy" instead of "I will kill my enemy", and it's suddenly not a threat?
Yes. In the same way as they can similarly threaten someone's life by saying "I'll have two bags of sugar please", or "Does anyone have the time?"
Can you come up with a justification for arguing that "Please God, kill my enemy" is a threat? I'm assuming you're not a beyond-help Christian who believes that a prayer to God to kill someone is going to result in that person's death. Like I said, if you are, then there's not much we can do about it.
No, she didn't. She wished a certain person was dead. By itself, especially within the context she used it (a prayer), that isn't a threat or threatening.
So we have some context, here's the relevent part of the article:
"I don't think we should deny people rights to a civil union, a legal arrangement, if that's what a state chooses to do so....
"I view the definition of marriage different from legal arrangements that enable people to have rights. And I strongly believe that marriage ought to be defined as between a union between a man and a woman.
"Now, having said that, states ought to be able to have the right to pass laws that enable people to be able to have rights like others," Bush told ABC's Charlie Gibson in an interview broadcast Tuesday on "Good Morning America."
"So the Republican platform on that point, as far as you're concerned, is wrong?" Gibson asked the president, to which Bush replied: "Right."
I read that is implying that he's in favour of civil unions between gay couples as long as such arrangements are not forced upon states. He feels he's breaking with the Republican party because, if the last question and answer makes sense, the Republicans, in general, believe that states should not and should not be allowed to recognize civil unions between groups other than married man and woman couples. So to him it is a big step to support the rights of states to recognize gay couples and provide them with many legal privileges usually reserved for married heterosexual couples.
Now, it could be that both the questioner and George W Bush, the Republican candidate for President, misunderstands general Republican policy and feeling in this area. That said, the question and Bush's apparent belief that it's valid matches what I've seen, where very few Republicans have argued that the solution to gay marriage is recognized civil unions, and many are just opposed to gay civil unions as they are marriages.
Are you refering to your post or the quoted one? I ask, because you've carefully edited what she wrote to remove any sign that it was addressed to God. Instead, with your editing, it looks like she's inciting the reader to kill Bush.
How is it a threat? What is she doing by wishing death upon the President that is, in any way, increasing the chance that the President will die?
If it doesn't increase, and isn't intended to increase, the chances of the President dying, it certainly isn't a threat by any stretch of the imagination. It's just a juvenile, foul mouthed, pointless barrage of hate.
I read the Google cache of her comment and cannot see how it was "threatening". Threatening, in general, doesn't mean to "wish God would kill someone", it generally means to imply a threat exists or to create one. If she was organizing the killing of our beloved leader, or even encouraging others to do so on her behalf, then that would be something, but...
...but just asking God to do it is stretching things. It's clearly not serious, it's clearly not an attempt to kill anyone, and it certainly doesn't fit into anything of the quoted US code: It isn't a document containing a threat to take the life of (...) upon the President of the United States (...) or (...) otherwise (is making) any such threat against the President"
Be reasonable, please. Don't stretch definitions to this kind of degree.
I realise, incidentally, that I may simply not understand your point of view because I'm an atheist. If you're a God-fearing Christian, and seriously believe that God, on receipt of a message from a foul-mouthed blogger, would say "Well, goodness. I better do as she asked and get rid of this Bush fellow", then, obviously, we're at odds, though such a view would seem wrong on so many levels that I don't know where to begin understanding someone who'd think that way.
(1) is subjective. Many people have no great desire to carry around a large number of gadgets. You don't find the feature useful, don't buy it then, don't assume others will.
(2) Put up or shut up. If you actually believe the majority of digital cameras have large, decent, screens, then by all means show this. It shouldn't be hard.
(3) Again, put up or shut up. I can't fit my Kodak in my pocket, not comfortably anyway. Neither can my girlfriend. I think I know only one person in the entire office with a small, reasonably functional, digital camera. I've walked past the rows of cameras at various electronic stores and online and, by and large, the small, comfortably pocketable, cameras are in the minority - and most of them have small screens. Take a look at the search results from Amazon I just linked to and count the number you'd comfortably carry around with you everywhere compared to those you wouldn't.
(4) I stand corrected. I don't think it changes my point much, 20G carries a lot of photos, 1G doesn't.
Oh, and ad-hominems aren't really a way to get your point across. You might have scored more than one out of four if you were less interested in insulting iPod owners (or "ipod fans") and more interested in publishing facts and figures.
Quite. Despite commonly called "Caller ID", CLI (Calling Line Identification) doesn't even do that. Forget this service: if I call from someone else's phone, the number doesn't ID me in any way.
I do often get surprised at the number of people in computing I know who'll usually make a big deal of defining databases, etc, to refer to distinct entities, and then are perfectly happy to refer to CLI as "Caller ID".
On my cellphone it's the only call screening feature available, but at home, where I have the luxury of chosing a suitable technology for the job, I use a cheap, no-subscription-required, $15 answerphone to screen calls. I always know who's calling using it, and I'm not demanding what's ultimately private information that's none of my business (other people's telephone numbers) before I speak to them. There is no other technology, other than the answerphone, that does what CLI advocates claim CLI does.
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If you remove a ballot box from an area where the voting pattern is generally significantly different from the average - and most of the time, it will be - you introduce a bias. For example, by destroying a Martin County ballot box, I would be giving Kerry an advantage. By destroying a Palm Beach ballot box, I'd be giving Bush an advantage.
Daytona Beach is, if I recall correctly, in a red area of Florida. Bush can expect to have significantly more votes in that voting machine than Kerry. If 2/3 of the votes are for Bush, then we're looking at about 8667 votes for Bush, vs 4333 for Kerry, a 4334 vote difference. If the vote is anything like as close as it was last time over Florida as a whole, you can bet those 4334 votes will make a major difference.
I don't know what those percentages are in practice. What I can say is that Florida is a diverse state, and just because the margins are close over the state as a whole doesn't mean that the margins are close on a county by county basis, or especially a precinct by precinct basis.
I think the major issues with Bush were the lack of diplomatic skills couplied with a unilateralist world-view. A decent President could probably have done everything Bush did - reject Kyoto, declare war on Iraq, etc - without pissing off most of the world in the process. I think this goes for virtually any foreign policy - isolationist, multilateralist, etc - excepting, of course, straightforward expansionism.
Of course, if it comes into the US, all patents and copyrights are enforcable. Any distributor better pay the royalties, or face the legal consequences.
This, interestingly, introduces a little bit of randomness into the system because different pollsters poll different states at different times, and they all have their own methods with accuracies and inaccuracies.
Whether you think your argument is circular or not (and goodness help you if you don't see it), clearly:
- The group appears to have very few policies other than encouraging young people to vote. The only issue it seems to take a stand on, or be appearing to take a stand on, is the draft. This, despite your claims otherwise, is not a partisan issue: BOTH PARTIES HAVE THE SAME POLICY. What Kerry says is irrelevent, Bush can just as legitimately make the same claims about Kerry. Likewise, the issue is clearly one that youth will be interested in, and one that will mobilise them to take an interest.
- There are no visible "anti-Bush" activities I can see on the website and I must have missed where you mentioned them
- Clearly the experienced polito RTV drafted to run their campaign is not involved in any other political campaigns, or at least, none that are party affiliated, otherwise you would surely have mentioned them. I suspect we wouldn't be having this discussion if the coin had fallen the other way and an ex-Republican operative had been drafted for the same role, even with Rock the Vote doing exactly what it's doing now.
I'm amazed and pissed at myself I'm even bothering to respond to this, and I'm going to let you have the last word.Pudge has responded to a comment I've made questioning his assertion claiming that they have positions on various major issues that take the Democratic line, and claiming that the person who runs RTV is a former Democratic Party operative, but so far the evidence for the former is extremely weak (the only policy we could find that on the website was to do with the Draft, a policy both parties have identical positions on), and you'd expect a political participation campaign to draft an experienced pol to run them, it's inevitable he or she would have had a role in at least one of the major parties.
It's a facade! Their appearance of neutrality only extends to what they say and do! They're obviously biased because they're campaigning about one thing that both parties have identical policies on!
I give up. I guess this "logic" explains why Republicans think the press is left wing.
Any campaign to encourage people to get up and vote is going to use issues in the news. Usually having power, and thus the ability to frame and decide the issues, is one of the benefits of being an incumbent. In this case, it isn't.
As the other respondant has pointed out, Andrew has said that the vast bulk of the hate mail he gets is from Republicans. Draw your own conclusions.
Likewise the groups most famous for trying to encourage voting tend to be considered liberal, for example 'Hollywood', etc.
That's my experience. If I'm wrong, and right-wing types start encouraging popular participation in democracy, then I'll notice and change my views accordingly.
There are probably more Democrats than Republicans involved with that site, but only because, as a rule, Democrats seem to be more interested in encouraging people to learn about their choices and vote, Republicans - again, I'm generalizing - count among them more people who'd rather the great unwashed stay indoors.
Or is it Motorola that counts as "The Democrats" for this particular campaign?
Or is this just a "Republicans would never encourage people to vote, therefore it's those lousy Democrats that are behind it" thing?
And, BTW, would you rather they linked to a site whose author claims no bias or hides it?
For some reason, the site is much disliked by the dittohead/freeper community, who regularly launch DoS attacks on it.
I'm actually amazed you have the gall to reply and to claim that the removal of those words did "not impede the reader's ability to understand the expression". You CHANGED THE ENTIRE MEANING OF THE PARAGRAPH.
Can you come up with a justification for arguing that "Please God, kill my enemy" is a threat? I'm assuming you're not a beyond-help Christian who believes that a prayer to God to kill someone is going to result in that person's death. Like I said, if you are, then there's not much we can do about it.
Now, it could be that both the questioner and George W Bush, the Republican candidate for President, misunderstands general Republican policy and feeling in this area. That said, the question and Bush's apparent belief that it's valid matches what I've seen, where very few Republicans have argued that the solution to gay marriage is recognized civil unions, and many are just opposed to gay civil unions as they are marriages.
If it doesn't increase, and isn't intended to increase, the chances of the President dying, it certainly isn't a threat by any stretch of the imagination. It's just a juvenile, foul mouthed, pointless barrage of hate.
- She really would like God to terminate King George. Which means, precisely, nothing.
- She doesn't really want God to kill his glorious leaderness. Which, again, means precisely nothing.
What's the difference? Wishful thinking?Be reasonable, please. Don't stretch definitions to this kind of degree.
I realise, incidentally, that I may simply not understand your point of view because I'm an atheist. If you're a God-fearing Christian, and seriously believe that God, on receipt of a message from a foul-mouthed blogger, would say "Well, goodness. I better do as she asked and get rid of this Bush fellow", then, obviously, we're at odds, though such a view would seem wrong on so many levels that I don't know where to begin understanding someone who'd think that way.
(2) Put up or shut up. If you actually believe the majority of digital cameras have large, decent, screens, then by all means show this. It shouldn't be hard.
(3) Again, put up or shut up. I can't fit my Kodak in my pocket, not comfortably anyway. Neither can my girlfriend. I think I know only one person in the entire office with a small, reasonably functional, digital camera. I've walked past the rows of cameras at various electronic stores and online and, by and large, the small, comfortably pocketable, cameras are in the minority - and most of them have small screens. Take a look at the search results from Amazon I just linked to and count the number you'd comfortably carry around with you everywhere compared to those you wouldn't.
(4) I stand corrected. I don't think it changes my point much, 20G carries a lot of photos, 1G doesn't.
Oh, and ad-hominems aren't really a way to get your point across. You might have scored more than one out of four if you were less interested in insulting iPod owners (or "ipod fans") and more interested in publishing facts and figures.
I do often get surprised at the number of people in computing I know who'll usually make a big deal of defining databases, etc, to refer to distinct entities, and then are perfectly happy to refer to CLI as "Caller ID".
On my cellphone it's the only call screening feature available, but at home, where I have the luxury of chosing a suitable technology for the job, I use a cheap, no-subscription-required, $15 answerphone to screen calls. I always know who's calling using it, and I'm not demanding what's ultimately private information that's none of my business (other people's telephone numbers) before I speak to them. There is no other technology, other than the answerphone, that does what CLI advocates claim CLI does.