If you choose a code that is not available (anymore), you are asked to choose another code.
And you somehow don't think that will be a problem?
Let's say there's 150,000 voters in a district. Each one needs to pick a unique, 6 digit number.... So how many tries do you think it would take for the last person to find one? If you think it's less than 5 you need to consider the IQ of the average voter... 111111, 123456, etc... what this "solution" does it make it REALLY inconvenient for the voter to verify their votes.
Every (random) voter that checks his/her vote successfully confirms the result, you need only a small percentage to reach a high level of confidence.
And since you know which votes have been verified (you'd have to, or else this would be meaningless... you can't claim confidence if you don't know how many votes were verified!) then you can tamper with the votes that HAVEN'T been verified, which will very likely be the majority of them.
#3, given #2, is fine. But see the point above. There's not much point to verifying 5% of the votes, especially if you CAN verify 100% of the votes AT THE POLLING PLACE and not have to worry about ANY of these issues!
That specific pass code may turn out not to be available.
So you're saying that it would be easy enough for Joe Q Voter to select a random code that nobody else uses, but it wouldn't be easy for Jack D Fraud to select one and give it to Joe?
And even this doesn't help, because Joe could be coerced into giving up the code he DID use anyway. That's the problem: there is NO WAY to be certain that only the voter can see the vote and know it's his. Any system that allows a vote to be publicly viewed and still be correlated to an individual (via pass code, in this case) is already a thousand times more prone to corruption than the current system.
Not so. The information on the internet has to match the real-world voting, otherwise there will be many complaints. Tampering with the paper ballots is always possible, but the slips have to correspond to the internet (including the codes), and people are allowed to place an unobtrusive mark of any kind on their paper ballot (and check in case of a recount) if they suspect it might be replaced by a fraudulent copy.
So what happens when the website is tampered with? You fall back on the paper ballots. What happens when the ballots are tampered with? For fall back on the website. How do you know which is correct?
You said only a small percentage of the votes need to be verified, that leaves a lot of room for screwups with no way of knowing which is right... maybe both of them are wrong!
To be fair, this is the same problem the current system faces. Your idea just fails to address it.
Checking the final tally is fool-proof, and is able to give complete confidence among everybody involved.
And your idea does not secure this any more than the current system. Also, the "final tally" is not fool proof because you have no way of being 100% sure that the tallies were not altered before you counted them. It's only "fool proof" in the sense that you can't change them afterwards to any effect, which is true today anyway.
---------------
How about this proposal... the voting machine prints a receipt in a 100% human readable format, like a scantron. The user examines the receipt for accuracy.
If the receipt is valid, the voter slips it into a slot, and the slip gets a validation seal printed on it. The voter has verified the ballot and NO information leaves the booth. The ballot can be scanned at this point to verify it wasn't tampered with (voter doodling on it, ect) as well as counted electronically for convenience.
If the receipt is incorrect, the user folds or rolls the receipt in order to insert it into a different slot (Or hole, which is to prevent the user from confusing the two slots...) and is shredded or otherwise destroyed/mark
It takes very little energy to get pure hydrogen to oxidize. If a tank is under enough pressure, the energy released from the expanding hydrogen leaking out will be enough to get it going.
And pure hydrogen "flames" have no color. It burns invisible!
If there should be a rupture somewhere, which is more likely if there is a leak and a flame that nobody will be able to detect unless they walk into it, then you're in trouble. Ka-boosh!
Gasoline is actually much safer, even though it is easy to light on fire it is not prone to bursting into flames by itself, and can't explode unless under pressure and pretty exact fuel-air ratios. =Smidge=
1) It assumes that everyone at least in the same voting district will select unique codes, unless you correlate each person's code to some other type of data to uniquely identify them which pretty much does away with the anonimity.
2) It assumes that the majority of people will bother to check it when they get home or wherever they may have internet access (if any at all.. yeah, those places still exist!) The chance of someone actually bothering to go to a library or somesuch to check their vote is exceedingly small.
3) It assumes that everyone who participates will actually remember their passcode correctly. If they type an invalid key, they will either get an error or someone else's vote (see #1). If they get an error can they be sure their vote was cast correctly? Since there is no way to link a passcode/vote result to an individual, password recovery/reset is impossible.
4) It does not eliminate the possibiliy of coercion or fraud. I can threaten/pay you to vote a certain way using a certain passcode, and then I can verify it.
5) It assumes that the information online will be faithful to real world data. In short, you are creating another avenue for mistakes and/or fraud. The claims that false reports won't acheive anything is absurd: They would force a recount. Do you think it's easier to tamper with the original election or the paper records and try to invoke a recount?
In short, why not just have the vote checked by the citizen right then and there, before they leave the booth, and maintain a paper trail like everyone agrees we should. You are just adding another layer of complexity to the system and not really solving anything. =Smidge=
Air has a density at STP of 0.0013 g/cm^3. A pair of large, adult human lungs can hold as much as 6000 cm^3 of air. That's only 7.8 grams assuming the lungs TOTALLY collapse.
Not that I actually believe the results of the experiment, but this explaination alone seems inadequate. =Smidge=
This is easy. Just let the voter enter a unique 4-digit number to go with the vote to make it traceable (for only that voter) on the list.
Yeah, and the election would be so much easier to handle if no more than 10,000 people voted!
That doesn't solve anything. There is still a way to associate a vote with the person who made it. This is BAD. The only sensible verifying step that can be made is before the voter leaves the booth. =Smidge=
Technically speaking, it was an explosion. An explosion in the general sense does not necessarily mean a whopping big bang and a crater. The key here is that the hydrogen was not under pressure and the reaction was not contained. That's why the blimp was not a flying bomb.
A high pressure storage tank would be, though! ('cept for maybe the flying part...) =Smidge=
Actually, I don't think anyone (at least in the story) is crying foul that it was done on purpose. The point is the machines are showing signs that they screwed up.
Regardless of who won, and regardless if it was intentional or not, it is essential to investigate the problems, if only to prevent them from happening again. If it is determined that the errors are significant and widespread, then the elections must be redone. Those are the breaks.
We can discuss possible fraud once we know what the problem is.
Oh, and unless Diebold manufactured scantron-style counters and are responsible for printing provisional ballots with no addresses, I think your little rant is just slightly misplaced. =Smidge=
And yes, you still end up with waste, but much, much less of it. And even the waste can be somewhat useful. Many forms of nuclear waste still produce large quantities of heat, which can be used to extract energy for thousands of years.
A mix of nuclear, geothermal, solar, wind, tidal and biofuel energy sources can completely solve the world's energy problems for pretty much the rest of human existance. The only real hurdles are economic (using coal/oil is cheap and effective, verses huge investment in developing new sources) and policital. =Smidge=
Mmm, no, WMDs was their sales pitch, not their justification.
As you said, we had a decade of non-compliance from them. Based on that, we probably could have taken action at any time (not necesserily toppling the government, mind you). We would have had a perfectly valid reason.
But the world, and the american public, probably wouldn't have gone for a full scale invasion since there were still other actions that could have been taken. Bush wanted to overthrow Iraq. He had been planning it since the day he took office. Why did he wait until after 9/11 do even bring it up?
Because everyone was pissed off, and he leveraged the emotion to justify the action.
If Iraq developing WMDs was ever a priority, he could have started to push for action before 9/11. Instead, he waited until after. Presumably he knew that "something" was going to happen, but I'm not about to suggest he deliberately waited for an attack... though that does make excellent conspiracy fodder doesn't it?
A week after 9/11 Bush declared that we wanted OBL "Dead or alive" (9/17), and that he was our "number one priority" (9/13). Then he goes and starts a furor over Iraq having WMDs. Suddenly OBL is "not our priority" (3/13/02), and we rush in to dismantle Iraq's government in 2003. OBL still hasn't been caught, and we have every reason to believe he plans to organize another attack. (Isn't that what we've been constantly warned about with this terror alert BS?)
But now we're committed to Iraq for the next several years and basically can't do anything about it. Brilliant! How long would it have taken to find OBL? Two, three years tops? We knew where he was more or less, but let him get away. We should have gone after him and kept/increased pressure on Iraq in the meantime. Ten years of BS, another two under careful watch would probably not see much progress for any programs he might have had.
How long will the Iraq occupation last? Time will tell...
Do not forget how long we were in Japan.
Seven years. 1945 to 1952.
Look how long we were in Germany...
Three years. 1945 to 1948.
There is also the point that Iraq could potentially have given small WMDs to terrorists
Could have. But there was no evidence given that they had, and in fact there was little reason to really suspect that he would since Saddam and Osama hated eachother. That would be like the US selling Russia nukes in the height of the cold war.
John Kerry will not do this.
NOW who's stating opinions as fact? I also like how you assumed that since I'm obviously not a Bush supporter I must be a Kerry supporter. How stereotypically narrow minded of you. =Smidge=
How was it jutified by me? By the administration? By whom?
Unless you were somehow personally involved in the decision, I mean by the administration.
Let's get something straight, here, if Hussein had never invaded Kuwait, none of this would have ever happened. If he had followed the cease fire agreement, the sanctions would have ended long ago and none of this would have happened.
You seem to be stating opinions as fact, unless you have hard evidence that the current invasion would not have happened if Saddam didn't invade Kuwait. But before we get into that I'd like to get an answer to my question.
Do you really want me to go into all the bullet points?
The problem is that you stated your opinion... you may have formed your opinion based on the facts you had available, but they are still your opinions...
So did I state an opinion or a factual error? They seem mutually exclusive. If you don't agree with my opinion that's fine, but if they are factual errors please correct them.
Though I understand completely what you are getting at, so allow me to back off a little and ask a more direct question:
And if you believe I have made "factual errors" I'd truly appreciate a correction with backing. I like to think my opinions are based on more than emotional rhetoric and blind "patriotism". =Smidge=
So you're saying it wasn't short sighted to attack Saddam now when he wasn't a threat, instead of Osama who not only was (and still is) but who was actually responsible for the attacks... instead of taking care of Osama first and going back for Saddam a few years later, when he very likely would STILL not be a threat?
I honestly do not feel the world - at least int he short term - is a better palce without Saddam in power.
Yes, he was a ruthless tyrant who put thousands of his own people to death just for the hell of it. He was a total prick and hated the USA and our allies with a passion.
But he kept his sh*t in line. As bad as Saddam was, he hated OBL, and subsequently kept him and his cronies out of Iraq. He filled the gap and acted as a buffer between Iran and Saudi Arabia.
He was no threat to us. During the Gulf War when he was launching missles at Israel, he was completely unable to do any real damage. (No more so than what the daily suicide bombings do!). We had no trouble kicking him out of Kuwait and he had no problems kicking him out of power.
What we are dealing with now are the insurgents that were too afraid to come out of the shadows when Saddam was in power. It's almost exactly like another Vietnam - a protracted urban gurilla warefare that was totally unneccessary. (Do you even remember why we went there to begin with? Bet ya don't!)
So lets see what the Iraq invasion really accomplished:
1) Kicked Saddam out of power (good) 2) Created $450 Bil. deficit (bad) 3) Destabilized middle east (bad) 4) Alienated US from most foreign relations (bad)
Anyone else care to contribute to the list? =Smidge=
Whatever the outcome, we're most likely going to deal with it for the next 4 years. (Even if you're not a US citizen, you'll have to deal with it at some level!)
Now how could this be the most important election in our lifetimes? We're at "war". How many "wartime elections" do you honestly think you'll be alive to participate in? Above and beyond all the regular domestic issues (taxes, healthcare, blah blah) you have over US$450 billion in war expenses and people getting blown up left and right. It's not going to get any better, but choosing the right president may help against it getting so much worse.
Especially this whole "war on terror" thing which is such a convieniently obscure and invisible enemy. Watch where you step, lots of BS around... =Smidge=
The problem with this (rather empty) argument is that you are banking on someone's "lack of evidence" as proof that they are wrong. That doesn't work.
It also appears to assume that since A (Platynereis dumerilii with very primitive "eye") exists now, and Z (Humans with very advanced "eye") exists now, then somewhere B through Y (various intermediate steps) must also exist now. Clearly that is not solid logic.
So, just because there aren't dumerilii swimming about with human eyes dangling off of them is hardly damaging to their claim. What did happen though, is that a theory was proposed (evolution) which accurately predicted the results of a test. That is what science is about, and that is how theories are given credibility or discarded. =Smidge=
I've heard this quite a bit. It always seems to me that this is a way to salvage creationism, so one can acknowledge the scientific evidence and still not have to concede that maybe they were mistaken in their belief...
So I'd like to ask; Now that the role of (insert favorite deity here) has been reduced to such an abstraction, what purpose does he/she/it serve in the process, other than maintaining compatibility with what you were taught to believe as a child? At what point does chemistry become divine influence?
I mean, if you believe in creation, that's fine. If you believe in evolution, that's also fine. What does this hybrid belief offer other than a weak compatibility between religion and science? =Smidge=
I didn't watch the game. How many calls were made against the Reds? I'm under the impression it was only one, taking back a touchdown...
Since the most points you can score in one attempt is 8 (6 for touchdown + 2 point conversion), that places the final score at Packers 28 to Reds 14+8=22. Still not a win...
Apparently my reading comprehension skills ARE better than yours. From the article you linked to:
A day after acknowledging that up to 58,000 absentee ballots have not reached the voters who requested them, Elections Supervisor Brenda Snipes decided to mail new ones.
Hmm. Sounds like they never got there to me.
I also liked how you highlighted the part about finding no criminal wrongdoing. Did I ever say anything to suggest there was? No, I didn't. In fact, the original BBC article said the same thing. But somebody screwed up, intentionally or otherwise, and should get a proper reaming for it.
As for the 2,000 ballots returned thing, I will admit that's a mistake. I guess between the original parent and seeing "2000" a few times in the article (referring to the year 2000) somehow clicked the wrong way. My apologies. But in either case it still seems that 58,000 ballots have gone completely unaccounted for, and that's extremely unusual.
It's reasonable that a few people wouldn't know they had it already, but that's an awful lot. The problem will almost certainly turn out to be "much smaller", but even 100 lost votes is 100 too many. There needs to be some accountability here don't you think?
Kudos to Snipes for overnighting additional copies. =Smidge=
Slashdot Mirror
If you choose a code that is not available (anymore), you are asked to choose another code.
.... So how many tries do you think it would take for the last person to find one? If you think it's less than 5 you need to consider the IQ of the average voter... 111111, 123456, etc... what this "solution" does it make it REALLY inconvenient for the voter to verify their votes.
And you somehow don't think that will be a problem?
Let's say there's 150,000 voters in a district. Each one needs to pick a unique, 6 digit number
Every (random) voter that checks his/her vote successfully confirms the result, you need only a small percentage to reach a high level of confidence.
And since you know which votes have been verified (you'd have to, or else this would be meaningless... you can't claim confidence if you don't know how many votes were verified!) then you can tamper with the votes that HAVEN'T been verified, which will very likely be the majority of them.
#3, given #2, is fine. But see the point above. There's not much point to verifying 5% of the votes, especially if you CAN verify 100% of the votes AT THE POLLING PLACE and not have to worry about ANY of these issues!
That specific pass code may turn out not to be available.
So you're saying that it would be easy enough for Joe Q Voter to select a random code that nobody else uses, but it wouldn't be easy for Jack D Fraud to select one and give it to Joe?
And even this doesn't help, because Joe could be coerced into giving up the code he DID use anyway. That's the problem: there is NO WAY to be certain that only the voter can see the vote and know it's his. Any system that allows a vote to be publicly viewed and still be correlated to an individual (via pass code, in this case) is already a thousand times more prone to corruption than the current system.
Not so. The information on the internet has to match the real-world voting, otherwise there will be many complaints. Tampering with the paper ballots is always possible, but the slips have to correspond to the internet (including the codes), and people are allowed to place an unobtrusive mark of any kind on their paper ballot (and check in case of a recount) if they suspect it might be replaced by a fraudulent copy.
So what happens when the website is tampered with? You fall back on the paper ballots. What happens when the ballots are tampered with? For fall back on the website. How do you know which is correct?
You said only a small percentage of the votes need to be verified, that leaves a lot of room for screwups with no way of knowing which is right... maybe both of them are wrong!
To be fair, this is the same problem the current system faces. Your idea just fails to address it.
Checking the final tally is fool-proof, and is able to give complete confidence among everybody involved.
And your idea does not secure this any more than the current system. Also, the "final tally" is not fool proof because you have no way of being 100% sure that the tallies were not altered before you counted them. It's only "fool proof" in the sense that you can't change them afterwards to any effect, which is true today anyway.
---------------
How about this proposal... the voting machine prints a receipt in a 100% human readable format, like a scantron. The user examines the receipt for accuracy.
If the receipt is valid, the voter slips it into a slot, and the slip gets a validation seal printed on it. The voter has verified the ballot and NO information leaves the booth. The ballot can be scanned at this point to verify it wasn't tampered with (voter doodling on it, ect) as well as counted electronically for convenience.
If the receipt is incorrect, the user folds or rolls the receipt in order to insert it into a different slot (Or hole, which is to prevent the user from confusing the two slots...) and is shredded or otherwise destroyed/mark
It takes very little energy to get pure hydrogen to oxidize. If a tank is under enough pressure, the energy released from the expanding hydrogen leaking out will be enough to get it going.
And pure hydrogen "flames" have no color. It burns invisible!
If there should be a rupture somewhere, which is more likely if there is a leak and a flame that nobody will be able to detect unless they walk into it, then you're in trouble. Ka-boosh!
Gasoline is actually much safer, even though it is easy to light on fire it is not prone to bursting into flames by itself, and can't explode unless under pressure and pretty exact fuel-air ratios.
=Smidge=
This still fails on several levels.
1) It assumes that everyone at least in the same voting district will select unique codes, unless you correlate each person's code to some other type of data to uniquely identify them which pretty much does away with the anonimity.
2) It assumes that the majority of people will bother to check it when they get home or wherever they may have internet access (if any at all.. yeah, those places still exist!) The chance of someone actually bothering to go to a library or somesuch to check their vote is exceedingly small.
3) It assumes that everyone who participates will actually remember their passcode correctly. If they type an invalid key, they will either get an error or someone else's vote (see #1). If they get an error can they be sure their vote was cast correctly? Since there is no way to link a passcode/vote result to an individual, password recovery/reset is impossible.
4) It does not eliminate the possibiliy of coercion or fraud. I can threaten/pay you to vote a certain way using a certain passcode, and then I can verify it.
5) It assumes that the information online will be faithful to real world data. In short, you are creating another avenue for mistakes and/or fraud. The claims that false reports won't acheive anything is absurd: They would force a recount. Do you think it's easier to tamper with the original election or the paper records and try to invoke a recount?
In short, why not just have the vote checked by the citizen right then and there, before they leave the booth, and maintain a paper trail like everyone agrees we should. You are just adding another layer of complexity to the system and not really solving anything.
=Smidge=
Air has a density at STP of 0.0013 g/cm^3. A pair of large, adult human lungs can hold as much as 6000 cm^3 of air. That's only 7.8 grams assuming the lungs TOTALLY collapse.
Not that I actually believe the results of the experiment, but this explaination alone seems inadequate.
=Smidge=
This is easy. Just let the voter enter a unique 4-digit number to go with the vote to make it traceable (for only that voter) on the list.
Yeah, and the election would be so much easier to handle if no more than 10,000 people voted!
That doesn't solve anything. There is still a way to associate a vote with the person who made it. This is BAD. The only sensible verifying step that can be made is before the voter leaves the booth.
=Smidge=
Technically speaking, it was an explosion. An explosion in the general sense does not necessarily mean a whopping big bang and a crater. The key here is that the hydrogen was not under pressure and the reaction was not contained. That's why the blimp was not a flying bomb.
A high pressure storage tank would be, though! ('cept for maybe the flying part...)
=Smidge=
Actually, I don't think anyone (at least in the story) is crying foul that it was done on purpose. The point is the machines are showing signs that they screwed up.
Regardless of who won, and regardless if it was intentional or not, it is essential to investigate the problems, if only to prevent them from happening again. If it is determined that the errors are significant and widespread, then the elections must be redone. Those are the breaks.
We can discuss possible fraud once we know what the problem is.
Oh, and unless Diebold manufactured scantron-style counters and are responsible for printing provisional ballots with no addresses, I think your little rant is just slightly misplaced.
=Smidge=
By that argument, any energy source in finite.
And yes, you still end up with waste, but much, much less of it. And even the waste can be somewhat useful. Many forms of nuclear waste still produce large quantities of heat, which can be used to extract energy for thousands of years.
A mix of nuclear, geothermal, solar, wind, tidal and biofuel energy sources can completely solve the world's energy problems for pretty much the rest of human existance. The only real hurdles are economic (using coal/oil is cheap and effective, verses huge investment in developing new sources) and policital.
=Smidge=
I am Canadian. I don't care about American politics as long as WE don't get screw...
Oddly enough, most Americans don't care about American politics as long as they don't get screwed...
=Smidge=
Mmm, no, WMDs was their sales pitch, not their justification.
As you said, we had a decade of non-compliance from them. Based on that, we probably could have taken action at any time (not necesserily toppling the government, mind you). We would have had a perfectly valid reason.
But the world, and the american public, probably wouldn't have gone for a full scale invasion since there were still other actions that could have been taken. Bush wanted to overthrow Iraq. He had been planning it since the day he took office. Why did he wait until after 9/11 do even bring it up?
Because everyone was pissed off, and he leveraged the emotion to justify the action.
If Iraq developing WMDs was ever a priority, he could have started to push for action before 9/11. Instead, he waited until after. Presumably he knew that "something" was going to happen, but I'm not about to suggest he deliberately waited for an attack... though that does make excellent conspiracy fodder doesn't it?
A week after 9/11 Bush declared that we wanted OBL "Dead or alive" (9/17), and that he was our "number one priority" (9/13). Then he goes and starts a furor over Iraq having WMDs. Suddenly OBL is "not our priority" (3/13/02), and we rush in to dismantle Iraq's government in 2003. OBL still hasn't been caught, and we have every reason to believe he plans to organize another attack. (Isn't that what we've been constantly warned about with this terror alert BS?)
But now we're committed to Iraq for the next several years and basically can't do anything about it. Brilliant! How long would it have taken to find OBL? Two, three years tops? We knew where he was more or less, but let him get away. We should have gone after him and kept/increased pressure on Iraq in the meantime. Ten years of BS, another two under careful watch would probably not see much progress for any programs he might have had.
How long will the Iraq occupation last? Time will tell...
Do not forget how long we were in Japan.
Seven years. 1945 to 1952.
Look how long we were in Germany...
Three years. 1945 to 1948.
There is also the point that Iraq could potentially have given small WMDs to terrorists
Could have. But there was no evidence given that they had, and in fact there was little reason to really suspect that he would since Saddam and Osama hated eachother. That would be like the US selling Russia nukes in the height of the cold war.
John Kerry will not do this.
NOW who's stating opinions as fact? I also like how you assumed that since I'm obviously not a Bush supporter I must be a Kerry supporter. How stereotypically narrow minded of you.
=Smidge=
How was it jutified by me? By the administration? By whom?
:)
Unless you were somehow personally involved in the decision, I mean by the administration.
Let's get something straight, here, if Hussein had never invaded Kuwait, none of this would have ever happened. If he had followed the cease fire agreement, the sanctions would have ended long ago and none of this would have happened.
You seem to be stating opinions as fact, unless you have hard evidence that the current invasion would not have happened if Saddam didn't invade Kuwait. But before we get into that I'd like to get an answer to my question.
Do you really want me to go into all the bullet points?
Maybe later
=Smidge=
Asctually, scratch that... let me ask an even more direct question that ties in a little better to your original post:
How was the invasion of Iraq justified?
=Smidge=
Yes and no...
:)
Cute
The problem is that you stated your opinion... you may have formed your opinion based on the facts you had available, but they are still your opinions...
So did I state an opinion or a factual error? They seem mutually exclusive. If you don't agree with my opinion that's fine, but if they are factual errors please correct them.
Though I understand completely what you are getting at, so allow me to back off a little and ask a more direct question:
How was Saddam a threat to the USA?
=Smidge=
Are you being facetious? I really can't tell...
And if you believe I have made "factual errors" I'd truly appreciate a correction with backing. I like to think my opinions are based on more than emotional rhetoric and blind "patriotism".
=Smidge=
So you're saying it wasn't short sighted to attack Saddam now when he wasn't a threat, instead of Osama who not only was (and still is) but who was actually responsible for the attacks... instead of taking care of Osama first and going back for Saddam a few years later, when he very likely would STILL not be a threat?
=Smidge=
I honestly do not feel the world - at least int he short term - is a better palce without Saddam in power.
Yes, he was a ruthless tyrant who put thousands of his own people to death just for the hell of it. He was a total prick and hated the USA and our allies with a passion.
But he kept his sh*t in line. As bad as Saddam was, he hated OBL, and subsequently kept him and his cronies out of Iraq. He filled the gap and acted as a buffer between Iran and Saudi Arabia.
He was no threat to us. During the Gulf War when he was launching missles at Israel, he was completely unable to do any real damage. (No more so than what the daily suicide bombings do!). We had no trouble kicking him out of Kuwait and he had no problems kicking him out of power.
What we are dealing with now are the insurgents that were too afraid to come out of the shadows when Saddam was in power. It's almost exactly like another Vietnam - a protracted urban gurilla warefare that was totally unneccessary. (Do you even remember why we went there to begin with? Bet ya don't!)
So lets see what the Iraq invasion really accomplished:
1) Kicked Saddam out of power (good)
2) Created $450 Bil. deficit (bad)
3) Destabilized middle east (bad)
4) Alienated US from most foreign relations (bad)
Anyone else care to contribute to the list?
=Smidge=
After how much damage has been done?
Whatever the outcome, we're most likely going to deal with it for the next 4 years. (Even if you're not a US citizen, you'll have to deal with it at some level!)
Now how could this be the most important election in our lifetimes? We're at "war". How many "wartime elections" do you honestly think you'll be alive to participate in? Above and beyond all the regular domestic issues (taxes, healthcare, blah blah) you have over US$450 billion in war expenses and people getting blown up left and right. It's not going to get any better, but choosing the right president may help against it getting so much worse.
Especially this whole "war on terror" thing which is such a convieniently obscure and invisible enemy. Watch where you step, lots of BS around...
=Smidge=
The problem with this (rather empty) argument is that you are banking on someone's "lack of evidence" as proof that they are wrong. That doesn't work.
It also appears to assume that since A (Platynereis dumerilii with very primitive "eye") exists now, and Z (Humans with very advanced "eye") exists now, then somewhere B through Y (various intermediate steps) must also exist now. Clearly that is not solid logic.
So, just because there aren't dumerilii swimming about with human eyes dangling off of them is hardly damaging to their claim. What did happen though, is that a theory was proposed (evolution) which accurately predicted the results of a test. That is what science is about, and that is how theories are given credibility or discarded.
=Smidge=
I've heard this quite a bit. It always seems to me that this is a way to salvage creationism, so one can acknowledge the scientific evidence and still not have to concede that maybe they were mistaken in their belief...
So I'd like to ask; Now that the role of (insert favorite deity here) has been reduced to such an abstraction, what purpose does he/she/it serve in the process, other than maintaining compatibility with what you were taught to believe as a child? At what point does chemistry become divine influence?
I mean, if you believe in creation, that's fine. If you believe in evolution, that's also fine. What does this hybrid belief offer other than a weak compatibility between religion and science?
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Asphyxiation, then?
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I didn't watch the game. How many calls were made against the Reds? I'm under the impression it was only one, taking back a touchdown...
Since the most points you can score in one attempt is 8 (6 for touchdown + 2 point conversion), that places the final score at Packers 28 to Reds 14+8=22. Still not a win...
(I'm probably missing something)
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Clever troll, there. :)
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What is a poor divided Elephant with a Cheesehead supposed to do?
Vote.
A coincidence, however long it's lasted, is still a coincidence. Voting makes a difference.
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Buhs is not mentally challanged, he's going senile!
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Apparently my reading comprehension skills ARE better than yours. From the article you linked to:
A day after acknowledging that up to 58,000 absentee ballots have not reached the voters who requested them, Elections Supervisor Brenda Snipes decided to mail new ones.
Hmm. Sounds like they never got there to me.
I also liked how you highlighted the part about finding no criminal wrongdoing. Did I ever say anything to suggest there was? No, I didn't. In fact, the original BBC article said the same thing. But somebody screwed up, intentionally or otherwise, and should get a proper reaming for it.
As for the 2,000 ballots returned thing, I will admit that's a mistake. I guess between the original parent and seeing "2000" a few times in the article (referring to the year 2000) somehow clicked the wrong way. My apologies. But in either case it still seems that 58,000 ballots have gone completely unaccounted for, and that's extremely unusual.
It's reasonable that a few people wouldn't know they had it already, but that's an awful lot. The problem will almost certainly turn out to be "much smaller", but even 100 lost votes is 100 too many. There needs to be some accountability here don't you think?
Kudos to Snipes for overnighting additional copies.
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