h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

*A room adjacent to the Think Tank is fitted out with a small kitchen area in a corner, with coffee, tea and Joanna's doughnuts available. The walls are covered in white boards except for where three plasma screens show different news channels. Several laptop computers are scattered on a table, connected to the computer lab by wireless, and the room is furnished with comfortable chairs and coffee tables*

*Lil tapes her latest dailyKos find to a board, gets a fresh cup of tea and moebius doughnut, and resumes her seat*

"
No less than 5 of Diebold's developers are convicted felons, including Senior Vice President Jeff Dean, and topping the list are his twenty-three counts of felony Theft in the First Degree. According to the findings of fact in case no. 89-1-04034-1:

"Defendant's thefts occurred over a 2 1/2 year period of time, there were multiple incidents, more than the standard range can account for, the actual monetary loss was substantially greater than typical for the offense, the crimes and their cover-up involved a high degree of sophistication and planning in the use and alteration of records in the computerized accounting system that defendant maintained for the victim, and the defendant used his position of trust and fiduciary responsibility as a computer systems and accounting consultant for the victim to facilitate the commission of the offenses."

To sum up, he was convicted of 23 FELONY COUNTS of theft from by - get this - planting back doors in his software and using a "high degree of sophistication" to evade detection. Do you trust computer systems designed by this man? Is trust important in electronic voting systems?
"

That is very messed up lil. No, I don't trust this man, and no one else should. I wonder if the election had gone to Kerry, would all of this made the major news? Would something have been done about it?

Continuing the old topic...Condi is scary. I think it's clear that Bush isn't going to reach out and make a more inclusive cabinet this term. That really points the way towards how his policies will be...

I agree that Condi Rice is frightening. Do non-Amurricans here know the story of how she accidentally referred to Dubya as "my husband"? She is also thoroughly beaten down by Rumsfeld and can be counted on to do as he says.

I think it's sad. She's such a smart lady and has a lot of potential to do a lot of good in this world. How did she go over to the Dark Side?

The Dark Side is the easy way and it forever dominates your destiny.

Movies aside, surely the thing about the dark side in this case is that they don't think it is the dark side?

B

Very true. They do actually believe that they have a madate from God.

But, as post #1 suggests, that's not who may have handed them the mandate.

Couldn't you rack that up to "God works in not-so-mysterious ways, eg through his human agents who know how to hack into crappy-*ss diebold voting machines/systems" ?

Back to Gonzales: while I'm certainly disgusted by the whole torture story, do you really think that the people are going to be so crazy as to go for anything like that? I know no one in this country cares about the Geneva Conventions, but surely they see that torture constitutes cruel and unusual punishment and that it's in direct opposition to all of America's ideals? There was, after all, all that hubbub over the Abu-Ghraib scandal. Surely the same thing would occur were anything like a pro-torture movement to get started?

*hoping and praying, in a secular way*

Didn't a pro-torture President just get re-elected? Maybe Americans just don't give two hoots about the Geneva Convention when it's not their citizens in the torture chamber.

More bad news. The Republicans have changed the rules so Tom DeLay won't have to relinquish his leadership post if he's indicted. Which means they all think he will be. It's a all a load of codswallop.

I think most Americans believe that the rules are for everyone else. It's the old we're top dog we'll scratch any place we want thing. I'm really sorry the USofA is turning into such a problem for the rest of the world.

Lil you need to design us a guilt smiley.

Guilt smile, good idea, I don't think it could look nearly guilty enough though.

It is true though that many Americans feel that the rules don't apply to us.

Hyp, I just saw the salon.com article on DeLay. Made me wonder - wasn't it the Republicans who went to the election on "high moral standards"...

They changed that rule in the first place in order to depose Rastenkowski, a Democrat. Now they're changing it again to suit their own leadership, AND they are planning to change the rules about filibustering to close off that avenue to Democrats.

Never mind a guilt smiley, we need a depressed smiley.

The reptilians make me ill.

That's it. It's time to fight back. I think everyone in here, barring those with a lot on their hands right now (Hypatia...) should join their local Democratic, Independent or Green Party and help out at the local level.

Socialist would work better for me I think I see what you're saying though.

Between changing the rules for DeLay, Condi Rice being nominated as Sec of State, and Diebold, how can we not feel somewhat, well, overwhelmed? There's such an uphill battle.

We do what the Reptilians have done for the last 20 years: infiltrate the local levels of government...then move up from there.