One Man, One Vote...One Machine, One Million Votes

[Stevepol]

A good analysis of new security hole in the Diebold machine, so wide you could drive a bus thru it.



Security and Privacy Blog
Gregg Keizer Keeps You Up To Date

Who would have thought we'd be looking back on chads, as in "chads, hanging" with fond memories?

Researchers have pegged a new bug in a widely-used electronic voting system as the "worst ever."

Great.

And I thought it was bad because a worm might hit Microsoft Exchange any day now...



It gets better. It's not really a bug, see, it's a feature. At least that's how it looks to Diebold Election Systems, the Ohio-based maker of the gizmos. The security hole was installed so updates could be quickly deployed. Here, however, "hole" sounds like "backdoor."

And according to several computer researchers -- as reported by yesterday's Oakland Tribune, which broke the story -- the backdoor can be accessed by anyone armed "with a common computer component and knowledge of Diebold systems," then used "to load almost any software without a password or proof of authenticity and potentially without leaving telltale signs of the change."

My PCs are better protected than that. Yours are probably, too.

snip.... (VotersUnite)

Link: http://techsearch.cmp.com/blog/archives/2006/05/one_man_one_vot.html?loc=security_and_privacy

[Peace Patriot]

1. If Bushites COULD rig an election, WOULD they? Even normal humans

(let alone Bushite fascists) might be tempted--given an election system that is owned and controlled by your partisans, using 'TRADE SECRET,' PROPRIETARY programming code, with virtually no audit/recount controls, in electronic voting machines that are extremely insecure and hackable (one hacker, a couple of minutes, leaving no trace). Having put this non-transparent, unverifiable voting system in place all over the country, and having promoted it with almost $4 billion in taxpayer boodle, and having failed to put any controls on partisan vendors, or on lavish lobbying, and having failed to require any paper trail--let alone a real paper ballot--and having permitted secret industry "testing" of the machines, and having set up an underfunded regulatory commission appointed by your party, and having told them to go slow about meeting and regulating, WOULD you, if you were a Bushite, then USE all this secrecy and unaccountability, to rig an election (or two, or three...)?

And what is the Bushite track record for honesty and good government?

The naysayers on election fraud 2004 always avoid the facts of the election SYSTEM that was set up by the biggest crooks in Congress, Tom Delay, Bob Ney and Christopher Dodd, with the "Hack America's Vote Act of 2002." They say there is no evidence (although there is plenty). They say you can't "prove" it, meaning "prove" it in a court of law--and they avoid the obvious, that the election system was SET UP to bury the "proof" in secret codes with no paper trail. And they forget that--contrary to procedures in criminal law, with perps presumed innocent and the prosecutor required to "prove it"--elections REQUIRE TRANSPARENCY and the powers-that-be are PRESUMED GUILTY until THEY can PROVE that the votes were honestly counted.

That's the bottom line of elections--transparency. Add in Bushite corporations and 'TRADE SECRET' programming, and all the rest, and what do you have but the utter NECESSITY to PRESUME guilt? --that is, if you believe in transparency, accountability and democracy.

THEN you look at the exit polls (Kerry won), and the way the war profiteering corporate news monopoly exit poll "consortium" doctored those numbers to confirm Diebold/ES&S's non-transparent 'official result' (Bush won), and the Democratic blowout success in new voter registration in 2004 (nearly 60/40), and the 'funny' numbers all over the map, and the Diebold touchscreens changing Kerry votes to Bush votes 86 times out of 88 (and the odds against that), and the Warren County "terrorist alert" lockdown for the vote count, and the 10 hour voting lines only in poor, black and Democratic precincts, and all the mountain of evidence of a non-transparent, unverifiable, rigged election.

Non-transparent elections are not elections. They are tyranny. Ask the citizens of Stalinist Russia.

And what has been the result of this deliberately devised, non-transparent, unverifiable election? More non-transparency, more lack of accountability, more trillions of dollars in federal debt, more war, more lies, more theft from the poor to give to the rich, more lawbreaking, more violations of the Constitution, more gas-gouging. Add it up. Look at it. It is OBVIOUS. It is a no-brainer. The only puzzle is the Democratic leadership and its SCREAMING SILENCE on the egregious non-transparency of the election system. (Corruption on electronics in government? Outright collusion? Fear? War profiteering? --probably some combination of these.) (Christopher Dodd, of the Bilderburg Group--annual meeting of the world's Corporate Rulers--helped Tom Delay and Bob Ney engineer the Diebold/ES&S takeover of our election system. Only two Senate Democrats voted against it--Hillary Clinton (surprise, surprise!) and Charles Schumer; and only 63 House members voted against, including John Conyers and Dennis Kucinich.)

2006 elections? Diebold/ES&S voting systems are entrenched all over the country. They are coming under increasing attack by well-organized, passionate grass roots groups, but they are hanging onto their power over our elections with tooth and claw. They will probably somewhat back off in November (after tweaking primary elections against antiwar candidates), and will permit some modest Democratic gains (mostly war/corporate Dems), but probably not a majority in the House. This, with the Bush junta down to 29% in approval ratings, and the Bushite Congress even lower than that! The war profiteering corporate news monopolies, after they talk about the amazing Bushite come-from-behind improvement, will call it a Democratic "victory"--all the better to silence and destroy the grass roots election reform movement.

That's my prediction. That's what they'll do if they're smart. This lumbering, blundering, falling, burning 'Hindenburg' of a fascist coup has not been looking very smart lately, true enough. And they may make the mistake of a Diebold/ES&S blowout rigging against the 70%-plus anti-Bushite majority in the country. That could get ugly. But I think they can count on war/corporate Democrats to keep a lid things (investigations, reforms...), and, as I said, if they're smart, they'll tweak it slightly toward war/corporate Dems, with maybe one or two flamethrowers to make it look good. But nothing much will change.

So, if you want your country back any time soon, you will join with others to...

THROW DIEBOLD AND ES&S ELECTION THEFT MACHINES INTO 'BOSTON HARBOR' NOW!

[glitch]

4. To keep their loot and themselves and their cronies out of jail? Nah, not

the righteous and upstanding Bush family.

[Blue Shark]

8. Aloha P.P. ...its been awhile

THROW DIEBOLD AND ES&S ELECTION THEFT MACHINES INTO 'BOSTON HARBOR' NOW!

This would, of course, be the most toxic type of waste being illegally dumped :)

I know metiphorically what you mean, but I would much rather see the Wally O'Dell types tarred and feathered.
It is more environmentally aware, and we all seem to forget that it is not the machines themselves that are evil any more than an assault weopon is evil. It is the purposes to which they are put.

We must always put faces with the machines so the average American can know the thieving traitors are amongst us in powerful positions of Authority, cough *Blackwell* cough. The machines don't operate without instructions from humans. We are, sadly, finding out just how much "instruction" they have been subjected too.

If the machines are to be used no matter what, I think that our side better learn the "new Rules" but not to cheat on our own behalf.

Personnally I would like to see...oh say...the Cannibus Candidate who is listed 37th on the ballot get 127% of the votes cast in some upcoming election. Then there might be some attention paid to what is happening in elections in America today. As long as all the Republicans have to steal is 4 or 5%, I am afraid they can do so under the radar forever.

Keep writing, of all the DUers around I enjoy your thoughts and missives the most.
Blue Shark

[kster]

2. kick. nt

[grace0418]

3. So are there still any DUers who want to try and tell me that the

2004 "election" wasn't rigged? I remember not so long ago having several DUers tell me to shut up about it because Bush won and it was just that there are too many idiot freepers out there. While I agree there are too many idiot freepers out there (one is too many as far as I'm concerned), it now seems pretty apparent what went on.

[glitch]

5. They got another assignment. Now their mission is to deny the NSA

Constitution violation problem.

[grace0418]

7. Apparently not all of them got the memo.

See reply #6.

[glitch]

9. Lol! Retraining can be difficult in times of rapid change. ;) nt

[OnTheOtherHand]

6. well, if you insist

The problem is, we can be pretty sure that the 2004 election wasn't stolen on Diebold DREs, because for one thing, there weren't any in Ohio.

Yes, I know the 2004 election could have been rigged in lots of ways. I have tried to look at all of them. I don't think it was rigged.

And this does not mean I think that Diebolds are safe. It means I think that we have a crying-wolf problem.

Since you asked.

[grace0418]

10. I sure did. In that you are correct.

To the rest of it I say...oy vey. Boy who cried wolf? Really?

*sigh*

I give up.

[OnTheOtherHand]

13. actually, I'm referring to other sorts of people

I see in another post (from last August) where you wrote, "But those of you who disagree that the election was stolen, can you PLEASE REFRAIN from calling those those who think the election was stolen lunatics, tinfoil hat wingnuts, blathering idiots, etc. or that their ideas are claptrap, bullshit, crazy, etc.?"

I'm fine with that. We can agree to disagree about that, and work together on a lot of the rest.

[garybeck]

11. Diebold DREs and Ohio

PULEEZE. Your argument is only correct because you confine it to Ohio and Diebold DREs. WTF? The election was likely stolen in dozens of states and not on just Diebold and not just on DREs. We know the opscans are just as wide open and there were no recounts. There are two other companies that are just as bad as Diebold.

your point is completely moot.

[OnTheOtherHand]

12. gary, I think you know that I know a thing or two

about this subject.

I don't think my point is moot at all. The post to which I responded implied that the OP provides additional evidence that the 2004 election was stolen. It provides additional evidence that Diebold DREs are insecure, but that is sort of bouncing the rubble from my POV (although the more specifics, the better). But I bet it hasn't altered your view of 2004, nor the view of the person I was replying to -- and it hasn't altered my view, either.

If the election was stolen, I'm sure it was stolen in dozens of states and not on just Diebold and not just on DREs. However, I don't believe the election was stolen.

If folks can get used to some diversity on that point, things will probably go better.

[Stevepol]

15. You have some evidence that it WASN'T stolen??

Mark Crispin Miller, who researched the subject with some degree of thoroughness, says there's no evidence that he knows of that indicates the 04 election was genuine, that is, not stolen, while there is a ton of evidence that it was.

Maybe you shd send Mark some emails with your evidence and disabuse him of his foolish misunderstanding. He shd certain be apprized of any information you have and perhaps have been keeping secret that bears on this point.

[OnTheOtherHand]

16. sigh

I like Mark Crispin Miller very much, but I do not kneel before his altar, sorry. If there was something in his book that convinced you that Kerry actually won the election, that would be interesting to know. (I am guessing that you were convinced Kerry won the election before you read the book.) He sort of lost me on page 7 when he wrote that Bush "miraculously" won Montana, Colorado, and North Carolina.

In the real world, it doesn't matter much what MCM thinks he does and doesn't know. He is going to have to convince some people who don't already agree with him, and that is always a tough row to hoe.

(EDIT: BTW, don't hijack your own thread. This is about Diebold, right? You weren't going to argue that Bush stole the election on Diebold, were you?)

[BeFree]

26. Good point, Stevepol

But as you see, otoh writes:
" He sort of lost me on page 7.. "
So he didn't even read the book!!

Notice that he avoids your question about the proof that the election was not stolen. There is of course no such proof. All the evidence points to a stolen election and when there is an investigation the point will become very clear to those who read it. But as we see, some won't even read the book. Sad.

[Febble]

29. [sigh]

There is no evidence that OTOH didn't read the book. I happen to know he did. All you know is that MCM's arguments began to lose credibility for OTOH on page 7. That may be due to faults in the arguments.

But I agree with you that there is no proof that the election was not stolen

I do not agree with you that "all the evidence" points to a stolen election, although a substantial amount of it points to a corrupt election.

However, a substantial body of evidence also points to an election that, though probably corrupt, was not stolen.

And now, a convincing body of evidence points to the possibility that elections could be stolen using Diebold DREs.

Marshalling the best evidence for a campaign is important if you are going to make a convincing case, and making the case for which there is the most convincing evidence is a good strategy.

The case that that DREs are insecure and unauditable is now virtually unassailable. However, the case that the 2004 election was stolen on DREs has a substantial body of evidence against it.

[Febble]

30. At least some of the counter-evidence

is here:

http://inside.bard.edu/~lindeman/slides.html

As the author notes, it is not proof that the election was not stolen, but it is evidence against the case that it was stolen on a particular type of machine, or in particular states, and, I believe, is evidence against massive widespread theft. (Full disclosure: as you may know I had a hand in the analysis in question).

Focussed theft remains possible, and the most reasonable place to expect that focus must be Ohio, given that Ohio had the closest margin between Bush and victory. But in that case it wasn't stolen on DREs exactly, although the simple fact that the were inequitably distributed in Franklin county demonstrably cost Kerry more votes than it cost Bush.

Other evidence for electoral injustice in Ohio abound, even if there can be debate on the extent to which it was deliberate theft, as opposed to systemic negligence. Either way, it is unacceptable, and either way, it has nothing to do with the hackability of Diebold DREs.

Tabulator fraud is another issue, but again, the case that the election was stolen on tabulators is not supported by the analysis cited above, as only a minority of those data points reflect tabulated totals.

It seems to me that in campaigning for election reform it is vital to get the right evidence lined up behind the right arguments. The hackability of DREs is appalling, and has plenty of good evidence from computer scientists behind it. The case that the election was stolen, IMO, is far more convincingly made by reference to evidence of voter suppression tactics of many many kinds, also "vote suppression" via inequitable provisional ballot allocation and other means. The case for illegal and/or sloppy practice by election officials is also best made by reference to specific cases, which may stand or fall on their merits. Clearly, the recount in Ohio did not satisfy Ohio's own rules regarding random selection of precincts.

As for keeping evidence against the case that the election was stolen secret - well, if it remains secret it is not for want of some of us trying to get it out there! Indeed, the fact that the above analysis is in the public domain at all is due to myself and Mark Lindeman. However, I have to say, it hasn't been a very welcome topic on DU, although I remain grateful to a number of DU posters who took it and shook it extremely thoroughly, as in the thread referenced below:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=203&topic_id=398267

[garybeck]

17. bottom line

the above post only asked if people still think the election wasn't stolen. The context was that the machines made by the biggest manufacturer of voting machines has just been found to be completely open to rigging. Again. First their opscans, now their DREs. The person asking the rhetorical question is correct - this is another HUGE indicator backing up the stolen election argument because it shows that the MEANS is there.

People have gone to jail when it is proven that they had the means, motive, and opportunity to do something.

We don't know if the other manufacturers have this problem, but we have absolutely no reason not to believe it.

look, i won't argue with you about '04. it's your right to believe what you want (even if it's illogical).

the bottom line is what we have today and the next election. do you support the electronic voting machines? do you think the system is secure? does it matter to you that these private companies have the mere ability to rig elections without any way to be detected?

[OnTheOtherHand]

18. please choose one argument

No, gary, this is not a huge indicator backing up the stolen election argument, because it does not show that the means is there, because there were no Diebold touch screens in Ohio. Not much Diebold op scan, either. Actually, over 70% of Ohio voters used punch cards. Whether or not one thinks Ohio was stolen, it's sort of hard to see how this would be big evidence in that direction.

Here's something that Mebane and Herron wrote about the Ohio returns: "The fact that the pattern of voting for Kerry is so similar to the pattern of voting for the Democratic candidate for governor in 2002 in these precincts and wards is strong evidence against the claim that widespread fraud systematically misallocated votes from Kerry to Bush (unless someone wants to go further and make the unsupported claim that the 2002 election for governor was stolen in exactly the same way, precinct by precinct and ward by ward)." Got a rebuttal?

No, I do not support electronic voting machines, or think the system is secure. Since you are a board regular, I assume that you already knew that. But you did not come down on me for saying something nice about DREs (I didn't), you came down on me for an argument about the 2004 election. What's that about?

[eomer]

19. What it says about 2004 is not the direct effect on Ohio, it is contextual

The fact that information like this is only now coming to light shows that there has been no investigation. It shows that the reason we don't have direct evidence that the election was stolen is not because it wasn't stolen or even because such evidence doesn't exist. The reason we don't have such direct evidence is because there has been a willful looking the other way, nothing to see here, move on approach to the whole problem. Like in so many other serious concerns affecting our country in this phase, the approach is to cover up, to refuse to investigate and to refuse to allow the truth to come out. This Diebold revelation is proof that there is stuff that happened in 2004 that has been covered up. It is proof that the authorities whom a significant part of the public deemed trustworthy were in fact not trustworthy -- they were only pretending to be so.

[OnTheOtherHand]

20. with respect, you are using words too broadly

"There has been no investigation.... (T)here has been a willful looking the other way.... (T)he approach is to cover up...." The perils of the passive voice. I cannot tell what, specifically, you mean, so I can't really afford to agree or disagree.

"This Diebold revelation is proof that there is stuff that happened in 2004 that has been covered up." That I don't see, unless you were using "proof" very freely.

"It is proof that the authorities whom a significant part of the public deemed trustworthy were in fact not trustworthy -- they were only pretending to be so." Well, I don't know which authorities you have in mind. Certainly the people who do the certifications look very bad.

What I see is additional evidence that Diebold sells insecure, unreliable products under false pretenses. I'm no lawyer, but it seems to me that someone at Diebold probably ought to do prison time for that. I would not be surprised to find that some election officials should do time, too.

[eomer]

21. I think (with respect also) that my broad language is justified.

Diebold is not the only party implicated, not by a long shot.

What about the federal and state entities that have "tested" and "certified" this equipment? They did not take their responsibility seriously. Instead they rubber-stamped a system that was unsafe on its face even upon casual observation from a far distance. Surely they bear some of the blame.

What about law enforcement and the courts? They looked the other way when there were so many irregularities that should have been investigated. We didn't find out about this problem by way of some DA or judge somewhere causing them to be seized and examined as they should have if they were doing their jobs. They get their share of blame too.

What about the media? They called them "glitches" and effectively told the public not to worry too much. They repeated the accusation of "conspiracy theory" every time they covered the subject, however seldom that was. Once, again, blameworthy if you ask me.

What about the other vendors? The only difference between them and Diebold, as far as I know, is they haven't been caught yet. They've played the same game as Diebold where instead of bringing a safe and secure system for us to use, they, for whatever reason, chose to wine and dine, cajole and coerce their way in. Plenty of blame to them also.

How about Congress? The majority in Congress (including some Democrats) were hell-bent to ram this system into place without giving a care whether democracy was abused or even lost in the process. And that's giving them the benefit of the doubt that they weren't active participants in an election stealing conspiracy, which I think some of them actually were (Tom Feeney to name one).

Who in the entire system is not to blame? I would say the foot soldier election workers are, most of them, not to blame in this part of the problem (I do blame some of them in other parts of the problem such as the Ohio recount but not the part of the problem we're discussing now). Above the foot soldier level I blame just about everyone who had anything to do with this farce.

Maybe you agree with me on some of the derelictions and therefore derelicts that I listed above (let me know). You alluded to election officials and maybe that overlaps with some of my categories.

[OnTheOtherHand]

22. OK, that helps

I certainly agree that Diebold isn't the only party implicated, and despite many differences of extent and emphasis, I am sympathetic with your examples.

Your preceding message referred to "stuff that happened in 2004," and I'm still not sure what that means. I assumed, from the context of the thread, that it referred to vote rigging. I've always been sympathetic to the expectation that equipment this misbegotten was likely to have been rigged somewhere or -wheres, but so far I haven't been able to find any support. (Possible exception in New Mexico, although I can't say whether "rigging" happened there. Still curious about Florida -- I haven't jumped in because my initial explorations make me doubt that the outcome is in question, but I sure won't vouch that the returns are clean.) So there is a huge gap between me and the folks who think ten million votes were stolen.

That has some bearing on the media critique, too. For all I know, the glitches were just glitches. The security holes have always been a separate or separable issue for me. The media could have done a lot more on the e-voting story, but I'm not sure I fault them for their coverage of specific election problems. I'm also not sure I don't; I haven't tried to study this systematically. But most of the critique around here has been along the lines of 'Those bozos, don't they realize the election was stolen?' Weak argument IMHO.

I don't think I can convey here, without sounding much shriller even than people already think I sound, how unhelpful I think the highballing of subjective certainty of election theft has been. Security has always been a winning argument; theft has so far been a losing argument, and remains so. If we can find a way to make the theft argument work, fine, but just repeating it in the confidence that now it's sure to work strikes me as a really bad mistake. (I'm not saying that people should stop talking about 2004, just that for many reasons I don't think the movement can ride it to victory.) I am not assuming that you disagree or agree with me about any of this.

[eomer]

27. By "stuff that happened in 2004" I mean stuff

like votes that switched from Kerry to Bush on DREs (Diebold, ES&S, et al). Also stuff like the Warren County lockdown. Both of these are evidence of vote rigging that should be investigated and hasn't been.

Regarding glitches, the problem with the media is that they don't think it is their job to find out whether they are just glitches or something more. They take whatever information the election authorities dish out and, as Colbert says, just type it down. So, yes, I do fault them and, yes, they are bozos. If they want to stop being bozos all they have to do is start being investigative reporters, which is what they claim to be anyway so that doesn't seem unreasonable.

I take your point about strategy and don't really disagree with it. I've always thought the things we know for sure are already monumentally unacceptable and that it's not necessary to pile on top a bunch of things that are more difficult to prove. Unfortunately the parties don't usually express the debate in terms of strategy but rather in terms of truth and belief. You and I disagree if we are talking about what we believe because I believe it was stolen and you believe it was not. But if we talk about strategy I tend to agree with you that sticking to our strongest arguments may be better. Someone I know very well has a tendency to put forward a winning argument and then augment it with a bunch of other arguments that are fallacious. Since this person is my wife I usually go ahead and admit defeat (which is always wise for a husband to do, for reasons that are off-topic) but if I were discussing with someone else then I would choose several of the most fallacious arguments, demonstrate that they are wrong and claim victory.

_{Edit: typos}

[OnTheOtherHand]

28. we are converging

Based on other circumstantial evidence, I don't think the switches and the lockdown amounted to much, but that is beside the point -- unanswered questions should be answered. (Hertsgaard thinks Warren is settled, but on that score he did not entirely convince me.)

And the media are awfully passive a lot of the time, no doubt. There have been some decent stories on the security stuff, in part because folks like Rubin and Mercuri and Jones give them such good material. But I sure haven't noticed any major outlets who are actually doing their own work on e-voting.

I hope it's clear: I'm not telling anyone not to believe the 2004 election was stolen, or not to talk about it. It's the folks who are hooked on misinfo that I worry about. One of the things I like about Mark Crispin Miller, although I cannot ride his train, is that he obviously made a good-faith effort to put only good info in his book. (Some flaky things crept in, and I've heard him say a few odd things -- but hey, he is talking a lot, so that is bound to happen.)

However, my wife never makes fallacious arguments. (And, yes, if she did, I probably would not say so here. She is a media specialist, for heaven's sake -- it isn't as if she doesn't know how to find my posts.)

[eomer]

31. Second thoughts on strategy:

As soon as election irregularities started surfacing, the talking point of "but it's not enough to change the result" popped up quicker than you can say the word "glitch" three times. The media worked very hard to sell the idea that it wouldn't change the result and therefore it's really not to worry about, move on. I think I know where they probably got that talking point from *cough* _rove *cough*.

I think that talking point is largely to blame for the focus on whether the cheating rises to the level of stealing.

_{Edit: typo}

[Febble]

32. I do agree

and is one of the reasons I have always been keen to decouple the issues of corruption and injustice from the issue of whether it affected the result. Any form of disenfranchisement is a crime against democracy and there is abundant evidence of disenfranchisement. Likewise any lack of transparency, accountability and security of the ballot undermines the basis of democracy, whether or not it was utilized for fraud, or whether that fraud affected the result.

The response, IMO, to "but it's not enough to change the result" should have been - "that isn't the issue - the issue is the basis of democracy", thus obviating the "sore loser" charge. But the response "oh but it was..." was a set-up for failure, IMO, whether or not the case could be made convincingly, and, in the event, I don't believe it can be. It may, nonetheless be true.

But it's not too late! These new developments are very encouraging.

[OnTheOtherHand]

33. seconding the estimable Febble

First, I think we can stipulate that when folks concluded that 'the exit polls were right,' they didn't intend it as a strategic decision. It's just what they believed.

I would also say that the talking point was completely inevitable and foreseeable, no need to invoke Karl Rove -- actually probably no need to invoke Republicans. Naturally the Republicans would sound the sore-loser note. But even if they hadn't, of course people wondered whether the irregularities put the results in doubt. Very quickly a wide divide emerged between people who were damn sure Kerry had won by millions of votes, and people who were pretty damn sure he hadn't. A few of us who could actually understand both sides of the debate attempted to provide simultaneous translation, but it didn't go very well.

In fact, I wasn't paying enough attention. I thought I was working with people who wanted to know what had happened. Actually, I was mostly working with people who Knew what had happened and were trying to prove it. (EDIT: I don't know whether that was true in terms of numbers -- quite possibly not.) That's crippling.

I know people who seriously suspect that some of the Exit Poll True Believers are agents provocateurs. Heck, for all I know they could be right -- Trust No One and all that. But I read it as Greek tragedy, or maybe farce.

[autorank]

23. There are...

...but I "IGNORE" them.

AT THIS POINT, DENYING THAT THE 2004 ELECTION WAS STOLEN IS LIKE DENYING GLOBAL WARMING.

Excellent Point!!!!!! :yourock:

[OnTheOtherHand]

25. OK, then point me to the equivalent of the IPCC report

Sorry, but that is just untenable.

The scientific consensus is clearly expressed in the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Created in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations Environmental Programme, IPCC's purpose is to evaluate the state of climate science as a basis for informed policy action, primarily on the basis of peer-reviewed and published scientific literature (3). In its most recent assessment, IPCC states unequivocally that the consensus of scientific opinion is that Earth's climate is being affected by human activities: "Human activities ... are modifying the concentration of atmospheric constituents ... that absorb or scatter radiant energy. ... (M)ost of the observed warming over the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations" .

IPCC is not alone in its conclusions. In recent years, all major scientific bodies in the United States whose members' expertise bears directly on the matter have issued similar statements....

The drafting of such reports and statements involves many opportunities for comment, criticism, and revision, and it is not likely that they would diverge greatly from the opinions of the societies' members. Nevertheless, they might downplay legitimate dissenting opinions. That hypothesis was tested by analyzing 928 abstracts, published in refereed scientific journals between 1993 and 2003, and listed in the ISI database with the keywords "climate change" (9).... Remarkably, none of the papers disagreed with the consensus position.

--Naomi Oreskes, "Beyond the Ivory Tower: The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change," Science 306, 5702 (3 December 2004), p. 1686, at http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/306/5702/1686

Try that with 2004 election theft, and get back to me.

[Mudcloth]

14. You know what really makes people mad?

When their vote isn't counted correctly on American Idol. I shit you not.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12748906/

[autorank]

24. Hey, What about "Survivor"

Can we "really" be sure those are counted properly;) One of these days, the islanders will smarten up and overtake that condescending host who runs the election and put him in the islands dungeon. :evilgrin: