Sunday, November 28, 2004
Sunday, November 21, 2004
Top News Article | Reuters.com:
"The Senate voted 65-30 for the legislation late on Saturday that sets aside funds for a range of priorities including a presidential yacht, foreign aid and energy. It is one of the final pieces of work for the 108th Congress and they may return to finish a spy agency overhaul before the end of the year. "
I completely agree with Atrios on this one (on alot of ones really) that the democrats would be utter morons to let this go. On a personal note however, I will be praying that this leads to the eventual, Gilligan's Island like stranding of the entire administration, as well as the senate and house majority party leadership, on a desolate deserted island. It'd be just like the show except with all Mr. Howells.........
"The Senate voted 65-30 for the legislation late on Saturday that sets aside funds for a range of priorities including a presidential yacht, foreign aid and energy. It is one of the final pieces of work for the 108th Congress and they may return to finish a spy agency overhaul before the end of the year. "
I completely agree with Atrios on this one (on alot of ones really) that the democrats would be utter morons to let this go. On a personal note however, I will be praying that this leads to the eventual, Gilligan's Island like stranding of the entire administration, as well as the senate and house majority party leadership, on a desolate deserted island. It'd be just like the show except with all Mr. Howells.........
Friday, November 19, 2004
The Effect of Electronic Voting Machines on Change in Support for Bush
in the 2004 Florida Elections
ex-Summary:
- Irregularities associated with electronic voting machines may
have awarded 130,000 excess votes or more to President George W.
Bush in Florida.
-
Compared to counties with paper ballots, counties with electronic
voting machines were significantly more likely to show increases
in support for President Bush between 2000 and 2004. This effect
cannot be explained by differences between counties in income,
number of voters, change in voter turnout, or size of
Hispanic/Latino population.
-
In Broward County alone, President Bush appears to have received
approximately 72,000 excess votes.
-
We can be 99.9% sure that these effects are not attributable to
chance.
in the 2004 Florida Elections
ex-Summary:
- Irregularities associated with electronic voting machines may
have awarded 130,000 excess votes or more to President George W.
Bush in Florida.
-
Compared to counties with paper ballots, counties with electronic
voting machines were significantly more likely to show increases
in support for President Bush between 2000 and 2004. This effect
cannot be explained by differences between counties in income,
number of voters, change in voter turnout, or size of
Hispanic/Latino population.
-
In Broward County alone, President Bush appears to have received
approximately 72,000 excess votes.
-
We can be 99.9% sure that these effects are not attributable to
chance.
'Stinking Evidence' of Possible Election Fraud Found in Florida
excerpt-Bev Harris of www.blackboxvoting.org, the erstwhile investigator of electronic voting machines, along with people from Florida Fair Elections, showed up at Florida's Volusia County Elections Office on the afternoon of Tuesday, November 16, 2004, and asked to see, under a public records request, each of the poll tapes for the 100+ optical scanners in the precincts in that county. The elections workers - having been notified in advance of her request - handed her a set of printouts, oddly dated November 15 and lacking signatures.
Bev pointed out that the printouts given her were not the original poll tapes and had no signatures, and thus were not what she'd requested. Obligingly, they told her that the originals were held in another location, the Elections Office's Warehouse, and that since it was the end of the day they should meet Bev the following morning to show them to her.
Bev showed up bright and early the morning of Wednesday the 17th - well before the scheduled meeting - and discovered three of the elections officials in the Elections Warehouse standing over a table covered with what looked like poll tapes. When they saw Bev and her friends, Bev told me in a telephone interview less than an hour later, "They immediately shoved us out and slammed the door."
In a way, that was a blessing, because it led to the stinking evidence.
"On the porch was a garbage bag," Bev said, "and so I looked in it and, and lo and behold, there were public record tapes."
Thrown away. Discarded. Waiting to be hauled off-
excerpt-Bev Harris of www.blackboxvoting.org, the erstwhile investigator of electronic voting machines, along with people from Florida Fair Elections, showed up at Florida's Volusia County Elections Office on the afternoon of Tuesday, November 16, 2004, and asked to see, under a public records request, each of the poll tapes for the 100+ optical scanners in the precincts in that county. The elections workers - having been notified in advance of her request - handed her a set of printouts, oddly dated November 15 and lacking signatures.
Bev pointed out that the printouts given her were not the original poll tapes and had no signatures, and thus were not what she'd requested. Obligingly, they told her that the originals were held in another location, the Elections Office's Warehouse, and that since it was the end of the day they should meet Bev the following morning to show them to her.
Bev showed up bright and early the morning of Wednesday the 17th - well before the scheduled meeting - and discovered three of the elections officials in the Elections Warehouse standing over a table covered with what looked like poll tapes. When they saw Bev and her friends, Bev told me in a telephone interview less than an hour later, "They immediately shoved us out and slammed the door."
In a way, that was a blessing, because it led to the stinking evidence.
"On the porch was a garbage bag," Bev said, "and so I looked in it and, and lo and behold, there were public record tapes."
Thrown away. Discarded. Waiting to be hauled off-
Tuesday, November 09, 2004
Ok, I didn't vote for the guy (Arlen Specter) But, I did say to my husband on several occasions that in the race between Specter and Hoeffell I preferred Hoeffell, but either way we gat a good senator, and after Specter's inital election night comments I had some hope that the rarest of breeds-the moderate republican, still existed. We all see what those comments are costing him now So if anyone cares about protecting the integrity of Roe v. Wade and the Supreme Court in general, during this long national nightmare I urge you to write letters of support to Senator Specter, and letters to the White House as well voicing your support for the senator as a public servant, and how backing him for head of the senate judiciary committee would be a great start if Bush is even remotely serious about reaching out to his detractors in the voting public. That's IF he was serious tho, which is a big if.
Ding-Dong Ashcroft's gone! I'm not actually celebrating I'm far too cynical for that. At this point it's more like waiting for the other shoe to drop. God only knows who they can force us who's worse than Ashcroft, but rest assured if that oppressive chief of the thought police exists they'll find him or her and we'll all be stepping out of viewing range of our tv's to blog in a small unseen corner before too long. Oh well, at least the new person will have plenty of free time to strip us of our rights since Ashcroft put a stop to all crime and terrorism. In his hand written resignation letter to the prez he wrote that he was resigning because, "The objective of securing the safety of Americans from crime and terror has been achieved." Well, thank God THAT'S over! I can finally sleep at night knowing that all the crime and terrorism has been taken care of! Of course I may still have some sleepless nights worrying about all those Statues with their tits hanging out that still mar the face of the earth now that Mr. Ashcroft won't be around to use my tax dollars to cover them up.Maybe he can use his newfound free time to start a foundation to continue this important work? I'm sure he can get some sort of faith based funding for such noble works, no?
Monday, November 08, 2004
MSNBC - Male fish becoming female?
There's no way you can read something like this and tell me that America has sound environmental policy.
There's no way you can read something like this and tell me that America has sound environmental policy.
Yahoo! News - Terror Financing Fines Fall After 9/11
excerpt [WASHINGTON - Despite the Bush administration's pledge to battle terrorist financing, the government's average penalty against companies doing business with countries listed as terrorist-sponsoring states fell sharply after the Sept. 11 attacks, an Associated Press analysis of federal records shows.
The average penalty for a company doing business with Iran, Iraq, North Korea, Sudan or Libya dropped nearly threefold, from more than $50,000 in the five years before the 2001 attacks to about $18,700 afterward, according to a computer-assisted analysis of federal records.
Nineteen executives or directors of companies fined by OFAC for dealing with state sponsors of terrorism were top campaign fund-raisers for Bush.
One example is Joseph J. Grano Jr., chairman of the federal Homeland Security Advisory Council, which the president created by executive order and whose members he selected. Grano formerly headed the U.S. subsidiary of the Swiss bank UBS AG. It paid more than $100 million in fines for trading U.S. currency to Iran and other nations and for transferring funds to Iraq during Saddam's rule.
excerpt [WASHINGTON - Despite the Bush administration's pledge to battle terrorist financing, the government's average penalty against companies doing business with countries listed as terrorist-sponsoring states fell sharply after the Sept. 11 attacks, an Associated Press analysis of federal records shows.
The average penalty for a company doing business with Iran, Iraq, North Korea, Sudan or Libya dropped nearly threefold, from more than $50,000 in the five years before the 2001 attacks to about $18,700 afterward, according to a computer-assisted analysis of federal records.
Nineteen executives or directors of companies fined by OFAC for dealing with state sponsors of terrorism were top campaign fund-raisers for Bush.
One example is Joseph J. Grano Jr., chairman of the federal Homeland Security Advisory Council, which the president created by executive order and whose members he selected. Grano formerly headed the U.S. subsidiary of the Swiss bank UBS AG. It paid more than $100 million in fines for trading U.S. currency to Iran and other nations and for transferring funds to Iraq during Saddam's rule.
Friday, November 05, 2004
Kerry Won. . .by Greg Palast
Kerry won. Here are the facts.
I know you don't want to hear it. You can't face one more hung chad. But I don't have a choice. As a journalist examining that messy sausage called American democracy, it's my job to tell you who got the most votes in the deciding states. Tuesday, in Ohio and New Mexico, it was John Kerry.
Most voters in Ohio thought they were voting for Kerry. At 1:05 a.m. Wednesday morning, CNN's exit poll showed Kerry beating Bush among Ohio women by 53 percent to 47 percent. The exit polls were later combined with—and therefore contaminated by—the tabulated results, ultimately becoming a mirror of the apparent actual vote. [To read about the skewing of exit polls to conform to official results, click here Kerry also defeated Bush among Ohio's male voters 51 percent to 49 percent. Unless a third gender voted in Ohio, Kerry took the state.
So what's going on here? Answer: the exit polls are accurate. Pollsters ask, "Who did you vote for?" Unfortunately, they don't ask the crucial, question, "Was your vote counted?" The voters don't know.
Here's why. Although the exit polls show that most voters in Ohio punched cards for Kerry-Edwards, thousands of these votes were simply not recorded. This was predictable and it was predicted. [See TomPaine.com, "An Election Spoiled Rotten," November 1.]
Once again, at the heart of the Ohio uncounted vote game are, I'm sorry to report, hanging chads and pregnant chads, plus some other ballot tricks old and new.
The election in Ohio was not decided by the voters but by something called "spoilage." Typically in the United States, about 3 percent of the vote is voided, just thrown away, not recorded. When the bobble-head boobs on the tube tell you Ohio or any state was won by 51 percent to 49 percent, don't you believe it ... it has never happened in the United States, because the total never reaches a neat 100 percent. The television totals simply subtract out the spoiled vote.
Kerry won. Here are the facts.
I know you don't want to hear it. You can't face one more hung chad. But I don't have a choice. As a journalist examining that messy sausage called American democracy, it's my job to tell you who got the most votes in the deciding states. Tuesday, in Ohio and New Mexico, it was John Kerry.
Most voters in Ohio thought they were voting for Kerry. At 1:05 a.m. Wednesday morning, CNN's exit poll showed Kerry beating Bush among Ohio women by 53 percent to 47 percent. The exit polls were later combined with—and therefore contaminated by—the tabulated results, ultimately becoming a mirror of the apparent actual vote. [To read about the skewing of exit polls to conform to official results, click here Kerry also defeated Bush among Ohio's male voters 51 percent to 49 percent. Unless a third gender voted in Ohio, Kerry took the state.
So what's going on here? Answer: the exit polls are accurate. Pollsters ask, "Who did you vote for?" Unfortunately, they don't ask the crucial, question, "Was your vote counted?" The voters don't know.
Here's why. Although the exit polls show that most voters in Ohio punched cards for Kerry-Edwards, thousands of these votes were simply not recorded. This was predictable and it was predicted. [See TomPaine.com, "An Election Spoiled Rotten," November 1.]
Once again, at the heart of the Ohio uncounted vote game are, I'm sorry to report, hanging chads and pregnant chads, plus some other ballot tricks old and new.
The election in Ohio was not decided by the voters but by something called "spoilage." Typically in the United States, about 3 percent of the vote is voided, just thrown away, not recorded. When the bobble-head boobs on the tube tell you Ohio or any state was won by 51 percent to 49 percent, don't you believe it ... it has never happened in the United States, because the total never reaches a neat 100 percent. The television totals simply subtract out the spoiled vote.
Wednesday, November 03, 2004
To every "reporter" who is filling the airwaves with one sided slams against John Kerry remember that this was close, and you aren't just slamming Kerry, you're slamming half the country, half your viewers, and we don't appreciate it.
I don't know what to do. I have a million things to say. I can't say them now.
