OK. I'll be the first to say it. I'm thankful for you, Brad, and people like you that are willing to put it all on the line for truth and justice in this crazy world of ours. I have enormous respect for you and Bev Harris along with all the other fighters for a real democracy, battling those that would try and destroy our republic while claiming just the opposite. Hooray for you and keep up the good work. I know it's draining but it's worth every second and at the end of the day you can hold your head high and be proud.

I absolutely second that. Brad, you have started something bigger than yourself. It kinda reminds me of V for Vendetta.

Richard Dreyfuss on Bill Maher about how crucial it is that we learn, understand, and take responsibility for the mechanisms of our democracy--what used to be studied as "civics":
part one and part two.

Today, I am grateful for Bush and Rove and Baker and DeLay and Wolfowitz and Brownie and Murdoch and the whole lot of them for making me understand how much our form of government requires my personal participation.

I'm very thankful for Al Gore's internet.

Just imagine how much the crony-packed media could have gotten away with in it's absence.
- - - - - - - -
GEORGE BUSH, FIGHTER PILOT WAR HERO, LEADS U.S. ON HEROIC MISSION!

That turkey is dead!

William Burroughs Thanksgiving Prayer

C-SPAN2/BOOK TV
On Friday, November 24 at 4:00 pm and Saturday, November 25 at 3:30 am and at 10:00 pm

Description: Editors and contributors to the book, "9/11 and American Empire," assess the Bush administration's responsibility for the attacks on 9/11, arguing that key administration officials either purposefully ignored the threats leading up to the attacks or were complicit in the planning them. The panelists say that the administration has used the attacks to enact long established plans to expand American empire. The participants are: David Ray Griffin (co-editor/contributor), Peter Dale Scott (co-editor/contributor), Peter Phillips (contributor) and Kevin Ryan (contributor). Former CIA analyst Ray McGovern moderates the discussion. The event was hosted by Berkeley, California-based Pacifica radio station KPFA (www.kpfa.org).

Author Bio: David Ray Griffin, professor emeritus of philosophy and theology at the Claremont School of Theology, is the author of "The New Pearl Harbor" and "The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions and Distortions." Peter Dale Scott, former Canadian diplomat and former professor of English at the University of California, Berkeley, is the author of "Deep Politics and the Death of JFK" and "Drugs, Oil, and War." Peter Phillips, professor of sociology at Sonoma State University and director of the Project Censored media research program, is most recently the co-editor of "Censored 2007: The Top 25 Censored Stories" and "Impeach the President: The Case Against Bush and Cheney." Kevin Ryan is a former site manager with Environmental Health Laboratories. Ray McGovern, a 27-year veteran of the CIA, is co-founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) and a contributor to the book "Neo-CONNED! Again."

I am thankful that the world was given a little hope in the November '06 election.

For a while the weary and concerned nations can stop their plans to protect themselves by destroying the empire ... stop their plans to head off world domination by the neoCons of K-Street and PNAC, who are the frontal lobe of the corporations gone mad.

What is wrong with a country that has only about one sixth of world population spending more money on weapons than all the other 5/6ths of the world added together?

And what is wrong with that seemingly barbarian dominated country, while being the number one weapons monger, always preaching "peace", and invading countries to bring them "peace" at the end of a rifle barrel? Is Pastor Haggart or sicko Foley the real microcosm of symbol of that national hypocrisy (or perhaps schizophrenia)?

I am thankful for all the many movements composed of caring people around the world who want to return sanity to the earth. I am especially thankful for all the independents who voted to put a power block in the US congress by giving the dems the gavels, and breaking the rubber stamp of the neoCons.

But even as I dance with the Ewoks ... knowing that the empire is planning to strike back ... I am looking back to see if they are looking back at US.

The BIGGEST bombing just occurred YESTERDAY in the CAPITAL Baghdad, since we've been there. How can we claim to have any control whatsoever, there, if that just happened yesterday?

Is it possible WE, or Israel, or Britain, are actually doing this, so we stay there longer? No Sunni's have claimed responsibility for this...then who is doing it???

I'm just throwing that out there...but the more unrest, the longer we stay there. If there's peace there, we have to leave, right?

WE have most of our people concentrated in BAGHDAD...and yet, the BIGGEST bomb killing the MOST people ever just happened YESTERDAY!

Sounds very, very fishy to me.....

Here's the deal:

Either:

1. We (us, Britain, or Israel) did it.

or

2. We are TOTALLY INEPT after being there for YEARS.

Either way, we should get out....if we did it or we're inept. We are maintaining ZERO control in the CAPITAL Baghdad after YEARS of being there in the place where WE HAVE MOST OF OUR PEOPLE!!!

Either we did it, or we're totally inept at stopping ANYTHING there...one or the other...no one can argue with this....

So, we (the US) invite the rest of the world to come to Iraq and help re-organize a government and police force - not an army - and we split. Am I just a simple-minded little fellow in Hickland, TN, or does this make some sense to any of the deep thinkers out there?
So the US military comes home, cuts the Armed Services budget, and lets some of our best and brightest leave military research and get back into civilian research; the chasing of the dollar for the good of mankind, more or less...
A civilian dollar bounces through the economy seven times, a military dollar, only two. That's because a bullet (or tank or cannon or...) doesn't do much good for anybody after it's shot (not to mention the question of what good is done when it is shot...), or maybe it won't be shot, it'll just sit around till it's too old to use and then be thrown away. A civilian item has many uses as it ages, each involving some kinda interaction with the economy and the people it touches. Such as, say, uhhm, a computer's mouse. I'll use it again and again and again, for personal connections, but also to make money. And I may even get tired of it and want a new mouse and give (or sell) this one away to someone else who can also use it to spread information and/or make money... And so it goes...

That score again: Good money: 7
Bad money: 2

So let's invite the world to help us straighten Iraq and bring our young soldiers and sailers home. How hard could that be?

shw

Big Dan #8

Good question.

Here is a link to a Noam Chompsky + Robert Trivers discussion on the institutionalization of self deceit within the US.

I think self deceit explains a lot of it, because if we do not break the institutionalization of national self deceit, we can't possibly hope to find the way of peace.

Like Iraq, the only common thread to a substantial degree is "there are no good ideas" for solving that problem.

Iraq is not the problem, the institutionalization of deceit is the problem.

Shannon #11

Good questions too. You and Big Dan are on a very good role in my opinion.

The outgoing leader of the UN said "the US can't stay in Iraq and it can't leave Iraq", and that seems to describe the current debate in the US.

One side (neoCon right) want more weapons and soldiers, as they always do. The other side (the people) want to have peace, leave and forget Iraq, as they always do.

This time the government suffering from self deceit deceived the people and congress, and lied their way into Iraq.

Now they tell us we can't leave because if we do Iraq will be a disaster.

Like it isn't already?

The self deceit has lead to another no win situation with all the crazoids still yelling for "victory".

Like Mike Barnacle said on Hard Ball a couple of days ago, "There is something criminal about this administration".

I am thankful for the voters turning out in such numbers that the Repugnantcans didn't dare trying to flip all the votes....
Sure, they might've flipped some...
And I know this fight isn't over...

But I AM sleeping a little better...knowing there's at least a chance that Chimpy & his criminal cabal just might be held accountable for their atrocities, war crimes and lies.

Let's start ramping up the pressure on our newly elected Dems to investigate these bastards!!

Having just spent Thanksgiving with my son, now 24, I am thankful that he received a football scholarship after graduating high school in May of 2001, rather than joining the military, as he had planned to do. As an ex-Marine (Viet Nam Era), I knew that the military experience could be good for him, although mindful that politicians can change the world very quickly.

In 1997, I read a book "The Fourth Turning" by William Strauss and Neil Howe. Their predictions, based on generational tendencies, offered a chilling prediction of world events to come. Their theories on generational tendencies were praised by both Newt Gingrich and Al Gore, issustrating that there must be some intellectual merit to their well research thesis. To re-read this book today, one would think that it was written post-911, rather than ten year's ago.

And I am thankful that my prediction of ten year's ago have come nearly to fruition: that the internet would be democracy's instrument of salvation against our society's entrenched power centers and pecuniary interests. But I would emphasize "nearly", because we aren't there yet.

Great cartoon!

Publius2K #15

Congrats for recognizing vision.

Driving while looking out the windshield (vision) is better than driving while looking into the rear view mirror to try to determine where we are going.

Cheney was driving while looking in the rear view mirror when he alienated the Russians a few months back. Now they are arming Iran, and not selling us natural gas as had been planned.

Meanwhile preznit blish goes to Vietnam to pronounce that we would have won if we had not quit there, and by implication that it is how we "win" or "loose" Iraq.

No windshield vision, just rear view mirror "stay the [wrong] course".

Enough already neoCons, look out the windshield if you want to see where we are going! Hell, the people already know where we have been and they have shown that rear view bushit does not get it.

I read this at one of my lists and it fits how I'm feeling pretty closely, As always I'm thankful for Brad and all Americans who are trying to make sense of the sham our country has become HAPPY THANKSGIVING!
From: Dennis Grover, American
dennis@...

In these times of poisoned food and water, chemicals from the sky,
mind-altering pharmaceuticals, revised history and mind-numbing
education; there has emerged an unusual breed of humanity. People
like you and I who can clearly see what is happening in our once
free country. I like to call this wonderfully immune group,
Americans. The very core of a healthy, free people has three basic
attributes. Praise, Gratitude and Love. On this holiday I express
them all.

I give thanks to the "elected leaders" in majority along with their
word and actions. Without them I would not be able to recognize that
I have morals.

I give thanks to the Federal Reserve System. It would be my pleasure
to meet those who devised such a scheme for a quick back patting
session prior to their demise, however, I know that to be impossible
since when we depart this earth, their accommodations and my own
will be quite different. I do appreciate their efforts here as they
have taught me the true meaning of fraud.

I give thanks for the Internal Revenue Service. (Re-read the last
paragraph.)

I give thanks to chemical companies and the aircrews who spew their
poison across our skies. Without their presence I would not remember
the clear blue skies that used to cover our land, nor would I have
realized the vast amount of people lacking the ability to look
upward and venomously attack those who request that they do so.

I give thanks to the marriage of pharmaceutical companies and the
medical industry. Without this union from hell, I would never have
learned the true meaning of natural health and healing.

I give thanks to those who renamed the hazardous waste
hydrofluorosilic acid to fluoride and made it more acceptable to
dump in our municipal water supplies. Without them I would have
never known why osteoporosis, cancer and dental profits were on the
rise.

I give thanks to those who designed and implemented our government-
controlled public school curriculum. Without them I would never have
believed the high level of frustration among dedicated teachers
trying to do their job with their hands tied. I would not understand
the emergence of generations of children functioning without
conscious interpretations of their actions. I would also not know
the value of self-education.

I give thanks to the major media networks now owned by an elite few
because in their absence I would still believe that puppets have
visible strings. I would not know that man was capable of distorting
facts daily for a paycheck. I would not know to question what is
being said instead of just accepting it.

I give thanks to the present judicial and legal profession that has
replaced our justice system. They have successfully nudged out the
honest whores to become the oldest profession. The present day
system, through personal experience, has taught me that those
participants in their fine suits and black ceremonial robes strike
the very core of corruption by replacing law with procedures.
Contempt of court has become a national phenomena rather than a
crime.

I give thanks to organized religion and political parties, as
bearing witness to the actions of their leaders has taught me the
value of exercising personal spirituality and creation of my path
rather than blindly following theirs.

I give thanks to sheep as watching their every move in reaction to
the dog bark has taught me to not react and conform to a shepherd
masquerading as an owner of the flock.

While there is much more in this same vain to give thanks for, I
will always remember the words of a very wise Western Shoshone Elder
when he looked me straight in the eye and said "We as a vast and
varied people in a great and free nation screwed up and are now
living on government-granted reservations. Now you are the Indian,
what are you going to do about it?"

I give thanks to you for having read this far and understanding. You
must be an American. After spending years at racetracks I learned
that coming in second only meant that you are the first loser. In
this race to regain our Freedom, health and sanity, I will only
accept the first place trophy. America, Land of the Free and Home of
the Brave.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Dennis Grover, American
---------------------------------------------------------------------

Permission to re-print and/or forward is freely granted. (Hopefully
you will include the following paragraph.)

Dennis Grover is the host of the 8 year running public access
television program "With Liberty and Justice For All" and author
of "Knowledge Equals Freedom, The True American Way Resource Guide"
A complete listing of works can be found at
www.libertyandjusticeforall.tv or can be mailed to you by request.
email dennis@...

"One PEOPLE, One MOVEMENT, FREEDOM FOR ALL"

--- End forwarded message ---

DeleteReplyForwardSpamMove...

Thanks to:
Neil Young for the Living With War Album
and the Let's Impeach the President song.
The Rolling Stones for the My sweet Neocon song.
Bob Dylan for the Masters of War song.
and of course, The Brad Blog!

Dredd: Isn't Bush's speech in Vietnam, just the icing on the cake for all those soldiers dying in Vietnam for no reason? 59,000 American soldiers died in Vietnam, so that 35 years later, Bush could open up trade talks with COMMUNIST VIETNAM??? So, then, exactly WHAT did those 59,000 American soldiers die for???

The only thing they possibly could've died for, was so that future presidents wouldn't make the SAME MISTAKE. That is ALL I can see that they died for.

Now that Bushco did the SAME THING in Iraq, those 59,000 American soldiers definitely DIED FOR NO REASON.

Click on the 2006 November Edition of "Liberty News" only on Free Speech TV, DISH channel 9415. NOT on cable or DirecTV...

It's 30 minutes, it's about the myths the Republican Noise Machine in the corporate mainstream media, including the Washington Post, are telling us...to hate the U.N. and "think" there's something wrong with it, or it has to "be fixed"...who's telling us this? Corporate U.S. interests, who represent the opposite of what the U.N. stands for: keeping peace, feeding the hungry, evening out the rich/poor playing field...it's VERY VERY interesting, and it's news you won't see on cable or DirecTV...only on DISH 9415 Free Speech TV...compare it to CNN, FOX, etc...you know, corporate run news.

http://www.libertynewstv.com/

Corporations and private interests are sending our troops off to die for contractors to make $$$ war profits...that is what has become of our country. We have private sector doing things the govt sector should be doing and always did. Bush & Cheney privatized the military. Troops are working side by side with corporate privatized troops making 10x the pay, who's interests are not the troops, but the corporations that are paying them. That equals low troop moral. Bush & Cheney have done what the Republicans have always wanted to do: privatize the public sector, thereby taking away public accountability and public scrutiny and public input.

I'm thankful for anime-style catgirls.

....

... what? you expected relevance?

Blogs are fun too.

Blogs that are (mostly) well-run and cover interesting things are much more than fun.

And I'm thankful for those.

Perhaps they could exercise their little grey cells over the weekend?

Resolved: Voter Verified Paper Trails should only be considered acceptable if the voter is required to verify the paper trail.

Sunshine Greenie #6

Glad you posted that C-SPAN2 show. I just barely got my VCR set up in time. I haven't seen it yet, but it's encouraging to see the size of the crowd. Usually there are not many people who show up at these things. Can't wait to watch it!

I was just over at TruthOut and saw with great joy that Paul Krugman has apparently been reading BradBlog! Hooray! I'm feeling even thankfuler...

#24

"Resolved: Voter Verified Paper Trails should only be considered acceptable if the voter is required to verify the paper trail."

That would not be good enough for me!

Every voter can verify that their vote was on a paper trail correctly, but if that paper trail is changed for another that represents what the computer counted rather than what the voter verified absolutely nothing is Resolved!

If we are going to use computers to "count" our votes we need verified voting not verified paper trails.

Neither hand counted paper ballots nor EVM’s (Electronoc Voting Machines) with verified paper trails are the answer to the vote counting problems we have had in our recent elections. Even if all voters were to verify a paper trail those in control of the EVMs can replace that “verified” paper trail with one that matches the “results” they chose to arrive at. We thus still have to trust those who have access to the paper trail until the results are finally certified.

The correct answer to eliminate vote fraud is verified voting. That would solve our problems. Everybody associated with our elections wants to test the EVM’s prior to elections, test them after the elections or eliminate their use altogether. None of these options will likely result in verifiable election “results”. The only time our votes need to be counted correctly is during our elections. So why not verify that our votes are being counted correctly during our elections? If we can do this we then have a correct answer to the problems we are having with fraudulent election “results”.

As they are used now EVM’s are a big part of the problem. That is so because the corrupt people who control our elections are taking advantage of the weaknesses of the EVM’s rather than taking advantage of their strengths. We are already using EVM’s that can memorize every vote cast. Why not have them remember where that vote came from as well? They can very easily do so if we want them to. Then everybody could check to see that their vote was really and truly counted as cast. For the purpose of keeping the vote secret every voter could be given a uniquely numbered receipt of their selections. A second copy of that uniquely numbered ballot could be securely stored by each precinct in case a recount was needed. Before leaving the polling place the voter could verify that the receipts were both correct. The machine could easily order all the ballots it memorized in order of the unique numbers they were assigned. It could publish that list on the internet and elsewhere so that those who want to know if their votes were counted as cast could check and see if they were. If nobody can find any discrepancies the votes were clearly counted as cast. If we also insure that extra ballots were not added to control the “results”, then we arrive at verified voting. That is somewhere that we may never have visited before.

There should rarely be any errors found if the EVM’s are really trying to get the count correct. Therefore if any candidate can demonstrate that there is less than 99.9% accuracy in the published list a recount is clearly required. The EVM’s have clearly failed badly if this does happen anyway. Therefore, the cost of a hand count of the receipts the precinct secured must be covered by the company that contracted the counting. The outcome of this monitored recount determines the winner of the election.

It is not that difficult to get to where we want to go if verified voting is our goal. The big problem we have left to solve is that those who have been controlling the outcomes of our elections don’t want to venture anywhere near verified voting.

No rational person should be asked to trust the output of these EVM's with their secret software unless the "count" of those computers can be verified by the voters to be correct. Verified voting is the only answer. Verified Paper Trails can not eliminate the Fraud these EVM's were clearly set up to facilitate!

And how do you enforce the other half of the social contract implied by the secret ballot ... and keep folks from selling their votes?

The paper trail commentt was an idle thought in response to people simply being unaware of the existence of the paper trails even as they voted... in some cases because the poll workers were instructed to not tell the people about them.

But I've listened to endless discussion of schemes like yours on FreedomToTinker.com and they all ran afoul of excessively complex machinations needed to try and handle the dichotomy between tracking the vote... and not tracking the voter.

Hmmm... why am I being italicized...? I don't feel particularly Neapolitan this morning...

Great thread folks. Made my day.

Big Dan #20, Yes, I think that Vietnam was a bit of national wisdom. We learned not to do what preznit blush has done. Now he has stolen our Vietnam wisdom. He seeks to be the most ignorant and disfavored preznit by making us blush.

I fear more and more that it will take what the congress does not have the balls to do ... bring him and The Dick to justice via impeachment.

Now that a non neoCon would replace preznit blush and The Dick I favor impeachment of both at the same time. However, I am very doubtful that there are enough votes (it takes 2/3 of the senate).

I can't blame the Vietnam vets for what the preznit has done as commander of grief.

the_zapkitty #29

The reason for the italicized runaway is that your post #24 did not have the HTML code to end your italicized segment attached to the end of your italicized text within your post. So it left everything italicized following your post.

This software does not recognize runaway HTML.

I stopped it in my previous post by putting the HTML code for ending italics at the beginning of my post.

Historian Howard Zinn compares the Bush administration to the Nazi's on Democracy NOW! TV news, on DISH 9410 LINK-TV & 9415 Free Speech TV...

"""...And Göring said, “Why, of course, the people don’t want war. Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war? But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy. The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. All you have to do is tell them they’re being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism. It works the same way in any country.”

I was interested in that last line: “It works the same way in any country.” I mean, here, these are the Nazis. That’s the fascist regime. We are a democracy. But it works the same way in any country, whatever you call yourself. Whether you call yourself a totalitarian state or you call yourself a democracy, it works the same way, and that is, the leaders of the country are able to cajole or coerce and entice the people into war by scaring them, telling them they’re in danger, and threatening them and coercing them, that if they don’t go along, they will be considered unpatriotic. And this is what really happened in this country right after 9/11. And this is happened right after Bush raised the specter of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and got for a while the American people to go along with this.

But the question is, how did they get away with it? What about the press? What about the media? Isn’t it the job of the press, isn’t it the job of the media, isn’t it the job of journalism to expose what governments do? Don’t journalists learn from I.F. Stone, who said, “Just remember two words,” he said to young people who were studying journalism, he said, “Just remember two words: governments lie”? Well, but the media have not picked up on that. The media have gone along, and they embraced the idea of weapons of mass destruction. You remember when Colin Powell appeared before the United Nations just before the onset of the Iraq war and laid out to the UN this litany of weaponry that Iraq possessed, according to him, and gave great details in how many canisters of this and how many tons of this, and so on and so forth. And the next day, the press was just aglow with praise. They didn’t do their job of questioning. They didn’t do their job of asking, “Where? What is your evidence? Where did you get this intelligence? Who did you talk to? What are your sources?” """

Click here for the entire transcript of the best news on television, non-corporate, no commercials, no govt money, viewer-sponsored only TV news...it's different...it's better ... it's important ... it's essential.

It's essential that you dump cable and DirecTV, and get DISH for channels 9410 LINK-TV and 9415 Free Speech TV...

http://www.democracynow.....pl?sid=06/11/24/1442258

How about for Christmas, you get DISH for channels 9410 & 9415? Oh, and btw? DISH is cheaper than cable...you save money...and you get a DVR (Tivo) for free...and then you get Cadillac news, instead of Yugo news CNN, FOX, ABC, NBC, CBS...who sold you down the road for corporate interests...I saw a deal, where you get DISH for 10 months @ $19.99...keep your cable, and keep letting them take you over the coals with their price-gouging and crappy news...

I saw a show called ELECTILE DYSFUNCTION on FSTV last night. Don't know how old the show was, but it nice to see them run it. All the regulars were there, Dill, Rubin, Harris, etc...

shw

Debra Bowen!

Ex-employee says FAA warned before 9/11

http://rawstory.com/show...whistle-blower-faa_x.htm

Now: US Citizens to be Required ''Clearance'' to Leave USA International Politics October 26, 2006 Forget no-fly lists.

http://www.wakeupfromyourslumber.com/node/64

#28 Selling votes would be a problem but not nearly as big of a problem as we have right now. Right now anybody who cares to game the system can take as may votes as they care to take for free. In addition the voting guidelines are being adjusted to make stolen votes harder to detect. Name one stance the RNC takes on voting that is not positioned to facilitate fraud.

I spent today with Clint Curtis and friends, working to verify the vote in Florida's Pasco County for John Russell, who ran for congress in FL-5. We were there helping John, as Pasco county has provided him with the lists of voters. Unfortunately none of the four counties in Clint's district have yet provided him with any data. It seems they probably won't until the statuatory deadline for recounts or challenges has passed. There's a big surprise... So, we went ahead and did what we could where we could... We definately encountered some seriously fishy things today. I'm reluctant to divulge them at this time publicly because I'm not sure of how they're planning to use the information gathered today... So in the spirit of not wanting to let the cat prematurely out of the bag, I'll just leave it at that. Very fishy...

Anyone besides me wondering why your VP made a quick, 'in and out' visit to Saudi Arabia.

The news reports tell us that it's to do with the Iraq war..........do I believe that.....not for a minute..!! No details....it's all hush, hush..!!

He was probably there checking on his and the Bush family oil investments.

What I would like to know is, while he's over in that part of the world, why WOULDN'T he pay a visit to the troops in Iraq.....you know, a sort of morale booster for the troops...!!!

Ha, ha, ha......we all know the answer to that one eh...!!! He didn't want to risk having his fat ass used for target practice.

Cowards, all of them...

ITMFA

"The news reports tell us that it's to do with the Iraq war"

change "Iraq" to "Iran" and you'll be on the money.

THE HIGHJACKING OF A NATION

Part 1: The Foreign Agent Factor

By Sibel Edmonds

http://www.nswbc.org/Op%...Op-ed-Part1-Nov15-06.htm

WTF

"Exclusive: Sushi bar man is nuclear waste expert
Mysterious past of last man to meet dead Russian"

""I told the police that 10kg of uranium was hidden in a suitcase and on its way to Italy on June 2; and on June 2 the arrests were made and the uranium found. It was enriched uranium 90 per cent capable of making a small atomic bomb. Also an electronic target device was seized."

The uranium plot came a year after Prof Scaramella announced that he had information that 20 nuclear warheads had been lost by a Soviet submarine in the Bay of Naples. "

http://rawstory.com/show...le&icc=NEWS&ct=5

NY Times article:
Experts Concerned as Ballot Problems Persist

In January, the legislative vs. executive battles will begin. Subpoenas, vetoes, filibusters, liberal legislation attached to spending bills, etc.

In the following months, Cheney and Rumsfeld will refuse to appear before any Congressional committee. Bush will pardon Abramoff, Libby, Delay et al. Iraq will get worse and worse.

I am thankful for Nancy Pelosi, John Conyers, Russ Feingold, Pat Leahy, Henry Waxman, Ted Kennedy and the other Dems who will confront the BCFOL.

David Francis #39

Me thinks this may be big. Any shinadigins will not be buried or hushed up. Thankyou friend of truth and freedom for helping Clint Curtis in his peaceful crusade.

I'm hoping like hell the registry that Clint Curtis set up on his website can prove he had more votes then the polling places said by verifying the poll books against the registry. That would be a great model for future elections all across the country.

Sadly, also a challenge to Republican operatives, (or the NSA), hoping to find a way around it by hacking into home computers and political websites. Sorry, can't help but bring out my flying saucer conspiracy theories of the 21st century.

"#28 Selling votes would be a problem but not nearly as big of a problem as we have right now."

Sadly amusing in an unintentional way. As mostly imaginary"voter fraud" was used as an excuse to invoke the police-state tactics of forcing government ID on everyone who's likely to buck the system (i.e. everyone who votes), you would now give the system the ability to track dissenters down name-by-name?

Sorry, but essaying that proposal would flunk you out of civics 101... if there was still a civics 101 to flunk out of.

Another one chalked up for "Implicit Faith In E-voting" ?

#48 There is no way to track down who voted which way under my system unless those who vote share their number with others.

It isn't "voter fraud: that is the problem. All the laws of probability tell us that there was big problems with "vote counting fraud" in both of the last two Presidential Elections. Without that fraud George W. Bush would never have been President of the USA!

I've never came close to flunking out of anything before and it is a very safe bet that you would have a much better chance of flunking out of that civics 101 class than I would. Your logic sure has a lot of holes in it.

... BOB YOUNG said...

"#48 There is no way to track down who voted which way under my system unless those who vote share their number with others."

Strange. Such an innocent. You sure you've read history and stuff like that?

The reason I ask is that it isn't that far back in our own history that workers were told "You vote the Party ticket or you don't work."

You have assumed that the sharing must be voluntary.

Your system is not a new proposal. It has come up again and again recently as folks try to deal with the e-voting concepts that have been rammed down our throats.

And it's been blown out of the water again and again because while it seems to be a natural... it's a natural that won't work unless you assume pure motives on the part of the ruling party.

Because when you start issuing receipts you start giving leverage over the voters to whoever is willing to use it.

You may have noticed that the current administration has little truck with the word "voluntary" when it's anywhere in the vicinity of the word "citizen"?

"Your logic sure has a lot of holes in it."

No.

I make errors in logic (and all kinds of other errors, too! ), but this has all been thrashed out again and again over on FreedomToTinker.com

And such ideas always fail oover one or both of two assumptions:

Either the myth that "Surely e-voting can be made to work if it's done right!"

... or the myth that "Nobody would misuse their powers over voters like that!"

Now stop. Cool your heels. Think.

You'll feel a sense of deja-vu...

"e-voting can be made to work"

"Nobody would misuse their power over voters like that"

... where have you heard that before?

e-voting can be made to work. That is a logical fact not an idiotic assumption. Never assume when you can use logic to reach a correct conclusion. The fact that there are many who don't reason well at FreedomToTinker.com does not make them any more correct than if there were only a few logically challenged people posting at FreedomToTinker.com!

The machines are not evil. They are completely neutral. Those who set them up to facilitate cheating are the big problem. You can very safely bet that those people are cheating with hand counted paper ballots also. The problem has never been the machines. The problem is the people who want to have their own way. This huge problem will persist even if the machines go!

Think a bit before you speak!

... BOB YOUNG said...

"e-voting can be made to work."

Great!
...
...
... how?

Hmmm? My statement is based on the work of a variety of reputable sources who agree that e-voting cannot work with current equipment and techniques.

Do you have evidence to the contrary?

I'm not speaking of paper trail systems, which can record votes one way and print a trail that says they were recorded another way.

Nor am I speaking of optical-scan systems which have a verifiable back-up... but take a risky electronic shortcut in initially counting the votes.

I speak of e-voting pure and simple. E-voting is, of a necessity, still black box voting even if the code is open source.

"That is a logical fact not an idiotic assumption."

Then please present your solution to the dilemmas in detail and not in airy assertions. The solution must grant the same safety and backups that paper ballots provide and not endanger voters any further than the paper secret ballot system does.

"Never assume when you can use logic to reach a correct conclusion."

You have yet to show your logic that backs up your assertion... or to show that you have reached a correct conclusion.

"The fact that there are many who don't reason well at FreedomToTinker.com does not make them any more correct than if there were only a few logically challenged people posting at FreedomToTinker.com!"

Then don't bloviate, illustrate! Illustrate where they went wrong.

"The machines are not evil."

Evil...? No, they are much worse- they are vulnerable to traceless third-party manipulation.

"They are completely neutral."

Until manipulated by something other than the voters' votes.

"Those who set them up to facilitate cheating are the big problem."

One possible problem... But try this thought exercise just for fun:

What if the voting machine companies hadn't thought things through either... and the vulnerability and fragility of their e-voting machines were just a massive screwup? *cough cough* *stop laughing* *ahem* ... if the machines were a screwup instead of an evil plot would that somehow make them any less of a non-working proposition?

Honesty will tell you that the answer is no.

"You can very safely bet that those people are cheating with hand counted paper ballots also."

And now we get to the meat of the problem. Are you a Diebold shill? Quick, check your bank account for a few stray millions of dollars

Because if you are not a voting-machine company shill then you have just displayed an appalling ignorance of the dangers of e-voting.

The effect of e-voting on election fraud (election fraud, not the nigh-imaginary specter of voter fraud)... the effect of e-voting on election fraud is that of a classical force-multiplier in military parlance. E-voting enables one person to do vastly more damage with it than without it.

To effect the paper ballots of a precinct you'd have to physically do something to each of hundreds or thousands of ballots... and if you just add or disappear ballots that can show up like a red flag.

But with e-voting in place you just need a minutes access to one machine and you can change every ballot in the precinct to suit your whim and disappear the malicious code afterwards... and no one would be the wiser.

And with the e-voting virus the Princeton team iillustrated, or access to a central tabulator, you can change the votes of every precinct in a state.

"The problem has never been the machines."

As illustrated above the problem is very much the machines.

"The problem is the people who want to have their own way."

The problem is with the machines whose sole design criteria apparently seem to have been to make it as easy to commit election fraud as possible... and to build them as cheaply as possible to increase corporate profits.

"This huge problem will persist even if the machines go!"

"This huge problem.."? If you think people wanting to have their own way is somehow a huge problem you need to get out more

Of course e-voting does turn human nature into a truly huge problem... so what does that tell you about e-voting?

But without the fraud-amplifying and confidence-destroying effects of e-voting the "problem" of human nature will once again subside to manageable levels... and the other forms of rampant voter disenfranchisement and intimidation can then be addressed.

E-voting was the wrong solution to the wrong problem.

"Think a bit before you speak!"

I did. You didn't... or rather, you apparently haven't read the literature and thought things through.

To illustrate that you can think things through please respond with your e-voting solution... with details.

#52:

“Hmmm? My statement is based on the work of a variety of reputable sources who agree that e-voting cannot work with current equipment and techniques.
Do you have evidence to the contrary? “

Logically I don’t need any evidence to the contrary. I completely agree with the “variety of reputable sources who agree that e-voting cannot work with current equipment and techniques” That should not lead any logically thinking person to conclude that the machines if used properly can not lead to verifiably accurate results.

“I speak of e-voting pure and simple. E-voting is, of a necessity, still black box voting even if the code is open source.”
Any logical person should be able to clearly see that e-voting does not have to be black box voting. As I stated before every vote could be recorded and listed for verification that all votes were indeed counted as cast even if the code is secret. There is then nothing black box about the results. No sensible person should care if the process is black box if the results are not! “

“if the machines were a screwup instead of an evil plot would that somehow make them any less of a non-working proposition?
Honesty will tell you that the answer is no.”
The answer clearly is not no! If they were the big mess they are now by chance only, then they would not be nearly as big a problem because their errors would not have the set political bias they now have. Their output would still be very bad but not nearly as bad as their output is now. So once again you come to another illogical conclusion.

Unfortunately trying to carry on a logical discussion with somebody who doesn’t come to logical conclusions is a waste of time.

“Of course e-voting does turn human nature into a truly huge problem… so what does that tell you about e-voting?”

It almost certainly does not tell me the same thing that it tells you. E-voting didn’t turn "human nature" into a huge problem. "Human nature" turned e-voting into a huge problem! You clearly have the cart tied to the wrong end of the horse.

Logically I don’t need any evidence to the contrary.

Oh... OK!

Any logical person should be able to clearly see that e-voting does not have to be black box voting. As I stated before every vote could be recorded and listed for verification that all votes were indeed counted as cast even if the code is secret.

Is this where the endless epicycles of encryption and voter PINs and "coercion-signalling false PINs" comes in? But we'll never know... because it's obvious you don't have a plan and just wish to repeat over and over that "e-voting can work"... without providing evidence to back up that assertion.

You do not see that you have just placed your black box in a glass box ... at the cost of voter security?

If you have no facts to present, no math to back it up... no plan at all, really... then it isn't "logic"... it's just your opinion.

The system I described makes it possible for every voter to verify that their vote was counted as cast. The machine posts a spreadsheet with all votes on it. Anybody with a logical mind can order that spreadsheet and quickly see if the votes were counted correctly. If you have any grasp of logic whatsoever, you should not feel any need to have a clue what software the machine used to come up with the resulting correct count. The fact that it can be verified that that count is correct should be good enough for any logical person. Unfortunately for those who are not logical there can be no logical solution that is good enough. That does not imply that there can be no logical solution.

The End!