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

wake up Donald - have you never heard of the famous phrase "its the economy, stupid"; that's my reference.
It's like having to explain, "Knock knock who's there?". , and there's me thinking h2g2 is frequented by intellectuals. BTW mixing with the military is hardly a normal way of assessing the electorate.......................

>>I'm talking about 9/11 as a symbolice attack upon American soil, stupid.<<

Does not bring to mind "It's the economy, Stupid."

I give up

god bless america

doo do do do dooo doooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Blair IS Son of Thatcher, and possibly better at it. The Labour party has swung completely to the right and is unrecognisable as anything approaching socialism. Those party members who remain slightly to the left, don't get much of a say.
Mandleson, student loans, new gambling regulatons, committing to war without consulting party or people, lying about WMD, Mandelson (again) spinning Campbell, Afghanistan, promised European referendum, Stupifying rises in housing costs so that those students (the ones with loans) can't afford a normal sized house.

>>I'm talking about 9/11 as a symbolice attack upon American soil, stupid.<<

Does not bring to mind "It's the economy, Stupid."


Not in the context it was said it doesn't, considering we were talking about something completely different.

It may surprise you but the Military do form part of the electorate, and in the USA, a large part of it.

Donald

more to the point, why has colin powell just resigned? I liked him.....

Probably because he can see what's coming and doesn't want to be part of it!

Donald

I don't think he wanted to be part of the last four years either. He's eaten as much crow as he can stomach. He was one of the only members of that administration that actually told the truth and they forced him to start toeing the party line of lies. I'm amazed he lasted as long as he did.

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Reddyfreddy, hey. Probably, but only if somebody looked. If, as last time, the election officials are elected Republicans (who rigged the voting rolls then), then who would check to see the computers hadn't been hacked into?
I do find it a bit hard to believe that it happened, but I would like some positive proof that it didn't before I dismiss it completely. It's not like they don't have form or anything...

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Reddyfreddy, hey. Probably, but only if somebody looked. If, as last time, the election officials are elected Republicans (who rigged the voting rolls then), then who would check to see the computers hadn't been hacked into?

Anyone here know anything about the online security at the polls in the US? Even just to put this to bed.

I do find it a bit hard to believe that it happened, but I would like some positive proof that it didn't before I dismiss it completely. It's not like they don't have form or anything...

I feel so strongly I had to say it twice

Were these PC-based vote-counting machines even connected to the internet? "Why the hell are they?" would be my next question. There certainly seems to be no need for such a connection with all the options for data storage available, not to mention removable hard drives and such.

It seems strange to claim that the election officials are elected and are Republican when that is so easily shown as untrue. For example, the Secretary of State in my own state (New Mexico) is a Democrat, Rebecca Vigil-Giron is her name FWIW. The states supervise their elections through their own state constitutions, but as far as I know they are all under the purview of the state's Secretary of State. I'm pretty sure that the Federal election laws are implemented through these people, but by and large these laws are broad enough to be adapted on a state-by-state, even county-by-county basis. I'm reasonably certain this is very close to how it works in every other state of the Union (I know it does in Idaho, Texas, and California, just to name the ones where I have friend/relatives that I've talked to about voting recently).

The thousands of election officials in NM work for individual counties and precincts and are not elected at all, but then I'm not familiar with what sorts of PCs were used to tally all the votes in this state - I do know that Vigil-Giron allowed access to the entire vote-counting process to representatives of the three major parties of New Mexico on the presidential ballot (Democrats, Republicans, and the Green Party).

While Michael Moore (with the aid of an expert of some kind) showed how simple it was to edit the database used on the PCs for counting votes, that is all he did. He conveniently didn't mention anything about how easy or hard it is to GET to the data on those computers, which is about par for the course for him. (BTW, for anyone possibly reading me wrong here, please don't confuse my distaste for Moore and his methods as automatic support for those he attacks or being in disagreement with his opinions on many issues). I wish he wouldn't try to sensationalize the conclusions he jumps to so often; in this case, he makes it hard to discuss intellligently the possible reasons for the observed statistical skew and the disparity between the exit polls and the election results - things that should be discussed, IMO.

- JD

Yes, Colin Powell did seem to be one of the good guys... I've just heard - his replacement is to be - Condoleeza Rice!

Yes, he was reluctant to go into politics in the first place and had to be persuaded and they are usually the best kind of politicians.

Donald

~*~You don't still believe that there is a connection between 9/11 and Iraq do you? Or that the "War on Terror" is going to stop it happening again? In fact the "War on Terror" is likely to increase the chances of it happening again.~*~

You would rather lie down and let them walk all over you? Not our style; you attack us, we slaughter you.

~*~I do find it a bit hard to believe that it happened, but I would like some positive proof that it didn't before I dismiss it completely.~*~

And I would like ~some~ evidence at all before I'm inclined to think of you as much more than insanely paranoid.

So far we've only seen that it's possible to rig a computerized election, and that's without knowledge of the security restrictions. But there hasn't been anything to suggest that it actually was.

"You would rather lie down and let them walk all over you? Not our style; you attack us, we slaughter you."

Who attacked you in Iraq Mr X?

~*~You don't still believe that there is a connection between 9/11 and Iraq do you? Or that the "War on Terror" is going to stop it happening again? In fact the "War on Terror" is likely to increase the chances of it happening again.~*~

You would rather lie down and let them walk all over you? Not our style; you attack us, we slaughter you.

. . and there lies the problem. Overkill. Use the biggest sledgehammer available to crack a every nut. Regardless of the fact that most of those being slaughtered are completely innocent of any attack. You cannot defeat terrorism with more terrorism. All that does is breed more terrorism. I though the USA would have learnt that lesson in Vietnam but apparently not.

If Britain had adopted the same attitude in respect of the IRA, the RAF would have been bombing Dublin and Boston as well for that matter.

Donald

I agree with you Donald' that's why it'll be great to see Dubya stew in his own juices!