November 30, 2004

Mediation Works when it's done right

I had a legal dispute with a major company over a contract. After years of litigation we agreed to sit down with a mediator. We used the JAMS service in San Francisco and chose a mediator John Bates - who did an EXCELENT JOB and managed to get us to reach a settlement.

In mediation it's not about who is right or wrong. It's not a trial - and both parties have to agree. So the process is all about reaching a deal that every is willing to settle for.

In my case we were so far apart that I had serious doubts that it was going to happen. In fact - at the end of the day we had failed to reach an agreement. I left an offer open on the table till the end of the week and the week passed and nothing.

But John Bates refused to accept failure and he kept the negotiations open, working mostly on the other side to bring them closer to reality - and it paid off. Ultimately we agreed and both came away feeling screwed. But - I've been screwed worse in real court and as they say - a bird in the hand ....

So - my point. Mediation is definitely worth trying and I really like John Bates for pulling off a miracle. It was a very educational experience.

Posted by marc at 09:02 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Liberals Crossing into Canada

The flood of American liberals sneaking across the border into Canada has intensified in the past week, sparking calls for increased patrols to stop the illegal immigration.

The re-election of President Bush is prompting the exodus among left-leaning citizens who fear they'll soon be required to hunt, pray and agree with Bill O'Reilly.

Canadian border farmers say it's not uncommon to see dozens of sociology professors, animal-rights activists and Unitarians crossing their fields at night.

"I went out to milk the cows the other day, and there was a Hollywood producer huddled in the barn," said Manitoba farmer Red Greenfield, whose acreage borders North Dakota.

The producer was cold, exhausted and hungry.

"He asked me if I could spare a latte and some free-range chicken. When I said I didn't have any, he left. Didn't even get a chance to show him my screenplay, eh?"

In an effort to stop the illegal aliens, Greenfield erected higher fences, but the liberals scaled them. So he tried installing speakers that blare Rush Limbaugh across the fields.

"Not real effective," he said. "The liberals still got through, and Rush annoyed the cows so much they wouldn't give milk."

Officials are particularly concerned about smugglers who meet liberals near the Canadian border, pack them into Volvo station wagons, drive them across the border and leave them to fend for themselves.

"A lot of these people are not prepared for rugged conditions," an Ontario border patrolman said. "I found one carload without a drop of drinking water. They did have a nice little Napa Valley cabernet, though."

When liberals are caught, they're sent back across the border, often wailing loudly that they fear retribution from conservatives. Rumors have been circulating about the Bush administration establishing re-education camps in which liberals will be forced to drink domestic beer and watch NASCAR.

In the days since the election, liberals have turned to sometimes-ingenious ways of crossing the border.

Some have taken to posing as senior citizens on bus trips to buy cheap Canadian prescription drugs. After catching a half-dozen young vegans disguised in powdered wigs, Canadian immigration authorities began stopping buses and quizzing the supposed senior-citizen passengers.

"If they can't identify the accordion player on The Lawrence Welk Show, we get suspicious about their age," an official said.

Canadian citizens have complained that the illegal immigrants are creating an organic-broccoli shortage and renting all the good Susan Sarandon movies. "I feel sorry for American liberals, but the Canadian economy just can't support them," an Ottawa resident said. "How many art-history majors does one country need?"

In an effort to ease tensions between the United States and Canada, Vice President Dick Cheney met with the Canadian ambassador and pledged that the administration would take steps to reassure liberals, a source close to Cheney said.

"We're going to have some Peter, Paul &Mary concerts. And we might put some endangered species on postage stamps. The president is determined to reach out."

Posted by marc at 10:40 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

November 28, 2004

America is not a Democracy

When the results of an election depends on which party is counting the ballots and widespread fraud is acceptable and the law is "whatever you can get away with" and the government controls redistricting in ways that allows them to control the results of and election - that's not democracy. It's just a simulationm. It's a fraud. It's a lie. America has a fake democracy.

Posted by marc at 03:24 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

November 25, 2004

The Seven Sacred Missions of the Church of Reality

What does the Church of Reality do? What is it that we are about? Here is a quick overview of what we do using some of our own Terminology. These are the Seven Sacred Missions of the Church of Reality.

1. We believe in Reality - the way it really is! - If it's real - we believe in it. The Church of Reality is a Personal Commitment to the Truth. We Realists explore the universe together with our minds. We think about thinking. We wonder about wondering. We attempt to understand the Understanding of Understanding. We ponder the Great Questions. We are a curious people and we are bound together in our quest to know more.

2. We Spread the Sacred Message - Reality - Our mission is to promote reality in society. Every time we mention Reality we spread the Sacred Message. We are here to ask the Sacred Question - "What is Real?" in order to raise the status of Reality in society. We want people to consider reality when making important decisions. By spreading the Sacred Message we cause people to be Real in the Sacred Moment (which is Now). Our mission is to say "Reality" as many times as we can and to get other people to think about reality as often as we can. We introduce the Terminology of Reality into the Tree of Knowledge so that we have a common vocabularity to talk about reality in religious terms.

3. We Choose the Sacred Direction - Forward - The Sacred Direction is forward - onward and upward. Our Principle of Positive Evolution commits us to envision a future that is better than today. We are one planet and we are all in this together on our little ball in the universe. In order to answer the Sacred Question and explore our reality society must move forward. We take responsibility for our future and we commit to making tomorrow better than today.

4. We Honor the Tree of Knowledge - The Tree of Knowledge represents the sum total of all human understanding. It is what separates us from the animals. The Tree of Knowledge represents the soul of humanity. We are better than we were hundreds of years ago because our Tree of Knowledge has grown and if we continue to evolve in the Sacred Direction our Tree of Knowledge will continue to grow. It is through the tree that we explore reality as it really is and attempt to answer the Sacred Question - What is Real?

5. We Ask the Sacred Moral Question - What is Good? - The Sacred Moral Question is, "Is this a Good Thing?" What does "good" mean? That too is part of the Sacred Moral Question. We believe in the principle of positive evolution and the sacred direction as well as the other Sacred Principles as a foundation for determining right and wrong. We believe that right and wrong are important concepts that deserve to be carefully considered in realistic terms. Often reality is ignored and no one asks if the decisions that are being made are a good thing. We believe that when reality is ignored and no one asks if the decision is good that we end up with bad results. We as Realists are dedicated to Asking the Sacred Moral Question so that we make better choices so we can move in the sacred Direction

6. We Issue the Sacred Challenge - The Sacred Challenge is a challenge to other faiths and religions to ask themselves - "How do we know that what we believe is real?" The Sacred Challenge applies first and foremost to this church itself. Our Principle of Self Scrutiny demands that we constantly audit ourselves to make sure we are not deluding ourselves. We consider Reality to be a sacred thing and there are many other who claim their beliefs to be real when it just isn't. Many people want to be good moral people and are trying to "do what is right" but what they think is right has never been put to the reality test. Our message to people of other faiths is - question everything - challenging your beliefs is a good thing. We ask you to fully understand what exactly you do believe. We therefore ask other faiths to adopt the Principle of Self Scrutiny, to ask the Sacred Question, and to encourage your members to challenge your beliefs on the basis of if it is actually real. We require our members to scrutinze us. We challenge you to match us.

7. We make it Happen - We are a religion that is an activist religion. We don't just find problems - we solve problems. We are committed to coming up with solutions and to take responsibility to bring the concept into reality. We make sure that the job is done right. We are a community and we do the work to make community work. We go out and learn and we try to understand and we spend a lot of time thinking and we give of ourselves for the connon good of all people. In the Spirit of the Tree - our shared knowledge - we support sharing. It is our duty to look around and figure out how to make it all work.

Posted by marc at 10:18 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

November 19, 2004

There's a New Kid on the Block

I have been working a LOT lately with the Church of Reality web site. The Titles and Terminology page in particular:

http://www.churchofreality.org/terms.htm

I have doubled the number of definitions and I hav included far more detailed explanations of the Terms. But I have included new concepts not found in any other religion. These new concepts include terminology for understanding cult behaviour. I have included a number of tests and examples for people to determine if that are in a cult. For example - if you are "one of the chosen" - you are in a cult. I have included definitions that talk about being addicted to praise and Ego Masturbation that keep people plugged into the cult mind.

The world is becoming a cult and the time has come for the CoR to step out and make itself known. Adding this new material is a step in the process. I am still on track for our first radio campaign and I am in the process of crafting the message. For those who don't know - I used to own a couple of Computer Stores about 15 years ago and radio works. I've done this before and I think I can do it again.

The plan is for the radio to be self sustaining and leverage the Church into the news media. Get some interviews on bay Area newscasts and talk shows. And hopefully the word will spread. The plan is to get noticed by the other religoins and get people talking about the name and what it means to have a reality based religion. If it accomplishes no more that that it will have a huge impact at raising the status of reality in society.

So - that's the plan. Anyone want to help make it happen I'm always looking for ideas. Mostly at this point the mission is to spread the word. There's a new kid on the block and his name is Reality - and he's here to stay.

Marc Perkel
First One
Church of Reality

Posted by marc at 07:45 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

Virus Alert

Dear Readers,

There's a new virus spreading - I don't know what it is yet and it hasn't made the news. But I have observed several making it through the virus filter. The virus is an email attachment that clains to be a password file and has an attached document inside of a ZIP file.

If you are running windows you will see an attached file with a DOC.zip extension. Depending on tour windows settings you might not see the .zip on the end. So ......

Unless you are expecting the document and you look to see if its suspicious in any way - DO NOT OPEN THE FILE. If you are in doubt you can forward it to me.

Soon the virus definitions will update and the problem will be blocked.

Pass this warning on to as many of your friends as possible. Feel free to include it in your newsletter. And - you might want to do a special mailing about it.

Posted by marc at 07:43 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

November 17, 2004

News Media Tries to Immitate Bloggers

I find it amuzing the the main stream media thinks they can immitate the credibility of bloggers just by buying some blog software and publishing their news in blog format. There's a big difference between real bloggers and our media immitators. Real bloggers are writing about their own opinion. Its an act of total free speech.

On the other hand the corporate bloggers are what they are - corporate bloggers. They are hired to write what the corporation wants to say and what the corporation wants to say is the script that is sent to them from Karl Rove in the Whitehouse. That's why you won't find them calling Bush a war criminal or reporting that Al Gore really did win the 2000 election and that America is merely a simulated democracy.

The corporate bloggers might have more resources to find news that us real bloggers but the news they find and what they report are two different things. These fake bloggers are on a short leash and although they technically have the freedom to write anything they want - they can only do it once and they are out the door.

So - if you want the real news - go to the sites where the grammar and spelling are poor and the message is both true and interesting. I suppose it is a form of flattery that corporate media has addopted the blog format because it is more trusted than the mainstream news. But what they don't get is the difference between form an substance. You don't achieve sincerity by learning better ways to fake it.

Posted by marc at 07:10 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

November 16, 2004

More info on Stolen Election

Here's an article by Greg Palast published in tompaine.com.

Bush won Ohio by 136,483 votes. In the United States, about 3 percent of votes cast are voided—known as “spoilage” in election jargon—because the ballots cast are inconclusive. Drawing on what happened in Florida and studies of elections past, Palast argues that if Ohio’s discarded ballots were counted, Kerry would have won the state. Today, the Cleveland Plain Dealer reports there are a total of 247,672 votes not counted in Ohio, if you add the 92,672 discarded votes plus the 155,000 provisional ballots. So far there's no indication that Palast's hypothesis will be tested because only the provisional ballots are being counted.

Greg Palast, contributing editor to Harper's magazine, investigated the manipulation of the vote for BBC Television's Newsnight. The documentary, "Bush Family Fortunes," based on his New York Times bestseller, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy, has been released this month on DVD .

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.

Whose Votes Are Discarded?

And not all votes spoil equally. Most of those votes, say every official report, come from African-American and minority precincts. (To learn more, click here.)

We saw this in Florida in 2000. Exit polls showed Gore with a plurality of at least 50,000, but it didn't match the official count. That's because the official, Secretary of State Katherine Harris, excluded 179,855 spoiled votes. In Florida, as in Ohio, most of these votes lost were cast on punch cards where the hole wasn't punched through completely—leaving a 'hanging chad,'—or was punched extra times. Whose cards were discarded? Expert statisticians investigating spoilage for the government calculated that 54 percent of the ballots thrown in the dumpster were cast by black folks. (To read the report from the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, click here .)

And here's the key: Florida is terribly typical. The majority of ballots thrown out (there will be nearly 2 million tossed out from Tuesday's election) will have been cast by African American and other minority citizens.

So here we go again. Or, here we don't go again. Because unlike last time, Democrats aren't even asking Ohio to count these cards with the not-quite-punched holes (called "undervotes" in the voting biz). Nor are they demanding we look at the "overvotes" where voter intent may be discerned.

Ohio is one of the last states in America to still use the vote-spoiling punch-card machines. And the Secretary of State of Ohio, J. Kenneth Blackwell, wrote before the election, “the possibility of a close election with punch cards as the state’s primary voting device invites a Florida-like calamity.”

But this week, Blackwell, a rabidly partisan Republican, has warmed up to the result of sticking with machines that have a habit of eating Democratic votes. When asked if he feared being this year's Katherine Harris, Blackwell noted that Ms. Fix-it's efforts landed her a seat in Congress.

Exactly how many votes were lost to spoilage this time? Blackwell's office, notably, won't say, though the law requires it be reported. Hmm. But we know that last time, the total of Ohio votes discarded reached a democracy-damaging 1.96 percent. The machines produced their typical loss—that's 110,000 votes—overwhelmingly Democratic.

The Impact Of Challenges

First and foremost, Kerry was had by chads. But the Democrat wasn't punched out by punch cards alone. There were also the 'challenges.' That's a polite word for the Republican Party of Ohio's use of an old Ku Klux Klan technique: the attempt to block thousands of voters of color at the polls. In Ohio, Wisconsin and Florida, the GOP laid plans for poll workers to ambush citizens under arcane laws—almost never used—allowing party-designated poll watchers to finger individual voters and demand they be denied a ballot. The Ohio courts were horrified and federal law prohibits targeting of voters where race is a factor in the challenge. But our Supreme Court was prepared to let Republicans stand in the voting booth door.

In the end, the challenges were not overwhelming, but they were there. Many apparently resulted in voters getting these funky "provisional" ballots—a kind of voting placebo—which may or may not be counted. Blackwell estimates there were 175,000; Democrats say 250,000. Pick your number. But as challenges were aimed at minorities, no one doubts these are, again, overwhelmingly Democratic. Count them up, add in the spoiled punch cards (easy to tally with the human eye in a recount), and the totals begin to match the exit polls; and, golly, you've got yourself a new president. Remember, Bush won by 136,483 votes in Ohio.

Enchanted State's Enchanted Vote

Now, on to New Mexico, where a Kerry plurality—if all votes are counted—is more obvious still. Before the election, in TomPaine.com, I wrote, "John Kerry is down by several thousand votes in New Mexico, though not one ballot has yet been counted."

How did that happen? It's the spoilage, stupid; and the provisional ballots.

CNN said George Bush took New Mexico by 11,620 votes. Again, the network total added up to that miraculous, and non-existent, '100 percent' of ballots cast.

New Mexico reported in the last race a spoilage rate of 2.68 percent, votes lost almost entirely in Hispanic, Native American and poor precincts—Democratic turf. From Tuesday's vote, assuming the same ballot-loss rate, we can expect to see 18,000 ballots in the spoilage bin.

Spoilage has a very Democratic look in New Mexico. Hispanic voters in the Enchanted State, who voted more than two to one for Kerry, are five times as likely to have their vote spoil as a white voter. Counting these uncounted votes would easily overtake the Bush 'plurality.'

Already, the election-bending effects of spoilage are popping up in the election stats, exactly where we'd expect them: in heavily Hispanic areas controlled by Republican elections officials. Chaves County, in the "Little Texas" area of New Mexico, has a 44 percent Hispanic population, plus African Americans and Native Americans, yet George Bush "won" there 68 percent to 31 percent.

I spoke with Chaves' Republican county clerk before the election, and he told me that this huge spoilage rate among Hispanics simply indicated that such people simply can't make up their minds on the choice of candidate for president. Oddly, these brown people drive across the desert to register their indecision in a voting booth.

Now, let's add in the effect on the New Mexico tally of provisional ballots.

"They were handing them out like candy," Albuquerque journalist Renee Blake reported of provisional ballots. About 20,000 were given out. Who got them?

Santiago Juarez who ran the "Faithful Citizenship" program for the Catholic Archdiocese in New Mexico, told me that "his" voters, poor Hispanics, whom he identified as solid Kerry supporters, were handed the iffy provisional ballots. Hispanics were given provisional ballots, rather than the countable kind "almost religiously," he said, at polling stations when there was the least question about a voter's identification. Some voters, Santiago said, were simply turned away.

Your Kerry Victory Party

So we can call Ohio and New Mexico for John Kerry—if we count all the votes.

But that won't happen. Despite the Democratic Party's pledge, the leadership this time gave in to racial disenfranchisement once again. Why? No doubt, the Democrats know darn well that counting all the spoiled and provisional ballots will require the cooperation of Ohio's Secretary of State, Blackwell. He will ultimately decide which spoiled and provisional ballots get tallied. Blackwell, hankering to step into Kate Harris' political pumps, is unlikely to permit anything close to a full count. Also, Democratic leadership knows darn well the media would punish the party for demanding a full count.

What now? Kerry won, so hold your victory party. But make sure the shades are down: it may be become illegal to demand a full vote count under PATRIOT Act III.

I used to write a column for the Guardian papers in London. Several friends have asked me if I will again leave the country. In light of the failure—a second time—to count all the votes, that won't be necessary. My country has left me.

Posted by marc at 07:24 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

November 15, 2004

Zogby Smells a Rat

I found This Article on the John Zogby Site.

I Smell a Rat

I smell a rat. It has that distinctive and all-too-familiar odor of the species Republicanus floridius. We got a nasty bite from this pest four years ago and never quite recovered. Symptoms of a long-term infection are becoming distressingly apparent.

The first sign of the rat was on election night. The jubilation of early exit polling had given way to rising anxiety as states fell one by one to the Red Tide. It was getting late in the smoky cellar of a Prague sports bar where a crowd of expats had gathered. We had been hoping to go home to bed early, confident of victory. Those hopes had evaporated in a flurry of early precinct reports from Florida and Ohio.

By 3 AM, conversation had died and we were grimly sipping beers and watching as those two key states seemed to be slipping further and further to crimson. Suddenly, a friend who had left two hours earlier rushed in and handed us a printout.

"Zogby's calling it for Kerry." He smacked the sheet decisively. "Definitely. He's got both Florida and Ohio in the Kerry column. Kerry only needs one." Satisfied, we went to bed, confident we would wake with the world a better place. Victory was at hand.

The morning told a different story, of course. No Florida victory for Kerry--Bush had a decisive margin of nearly 400,000 votes. Ohio was not even close enough for Kerry to demand that all the votes be counted. The pollsters had been dead wrong, Bush had four more years and a powerful mandate. Onward Christian soldiers--next stop, Tehran.

Lies, damn lies, and statistics

I work with statistics and polling data every day. Something rubbed me the wrong way. I checked the exit polls for Florida--all wrong. CNN's results indicated a Kerry win: turnout matched voter registration, and independents had broken 59% to 41% for Kerry.

Polling is an imprecise science. Yet its very imprecision is itself quantifiable and follows regular patterns. Differences between actual results and those expected from polling data must be explainable by identifiable factors if the polling sample is robust enough. With almost 3.000 respondents in Florida alone, the CNN poll sample was pretty robust.

The first signs of the rat were identified by Kathy Dopp, who conducted a simple analysis of voter registrations by party in Florida and compared them to presidential vote results. Basically she multiplied the total votes cast in a county by the percentage of voters registered Republican: this gave an expected Republican vote. She then compared this to the actual result.

Her analysis is startling. Certain counties voted for Bush far in excess of what one would expect based on the share of Republican registrations in that county. They key phrase is "certain counties"--there is extraordinary variance between individual counties. Most counties fall more or less in line with what one would expect based on the share of Republican registrations, but some differ wildly.

How to explain this incredible variance? Dopp found one over-riding factor: whether the county used electronic touch-screen voting, or paper ballots which were optically scanned into a computer. All of those with touch-screen voting had results relatively in line with her expected results, while all of those with extreme variance were in counties with optical scanning.

The intimation, clearly, is fraud. Ballots are scanned; results are fed into precinct computers; these are sent to a county-wide database, whose results are fed into the statewide electoral totals. At any point after physical ballots become databases, the system is vulnerable to external hackers.

It seemed too easy, and Dopp's method seemed simplistic. I re-ran the results using CNN's exit polling data. In each county, I took the number of registrations and assigned correctional factors based on the CNN poll to predict turnout among Republicans, Democrats, and independents. I then used the vote shares from the polls to predict a likely number of Republican votes per county. I compared this ‘expected' Republican vote to the actual Republican vote.

The results are shocking. Overall, Bush received 2% fewer votes in counties with electronic touch-screen voting than expected. In counties with optical scanning, he received 16% more. This 16% would not be strange if it were spread across counties more or less evenly. It is not. In 11 different counties, the ‘actual' Bush vote was at least twice higher than the expected vote. 13 counties had Bush vote tallies 50--100% higher than expected. In one county where 88% of voters are registered Democrats, Bush got nearly two thirds of the vote--three times more than predicted by my model.

Again, polling can be wrong. It is difficult to believe it can be that wrong. Fortunately, however, we can test how wrong it would have to be to give the ‘actual' result.

I tested two alternative scenarios to see how wrong CNN would have to have been to explain the election result. In the first, I assumed they had been wildly off the mark in the turnout figures--i.e. far more Republicans and independents had come out than Democrats. In the second I assumed the voting shares were completely wrong, and that the Republicans had been able to massively poach voters from the Democrat base.

In the first scenario, I assumed 90% of Republicans and independents voted, and the remaining ballots were cast by Democrats. This explains the result in counties with optical scanning to within 5%. However, in this scenario Democratic turnout would have been only 51% in the optical scanning counties--barely exceeding half of Republican turnout. It also does not solve the enormous problems in individual counties. 7 counties in this scenario still have actual vote tallies for Bush that are at least 100% higher than predicted by the model--an extremely unlikely result.

In the second scenario I assumed that Bush had actually got 100% of the vote from Republicans and 50% from independents (versus CNN polling results which were 93% and 41% respectively). If this gave enough votes for Bush to explain the county's results, I left the amount of Democratic registered voters ballots cast for Bush as they were predicted by CNN (14% voted for Bush). If this did not explain the result, I calculated how many Democrats would have to vote for Bush.

In 41 of 52 counties, this did not explain the result and Bush must have gotten more than CNN's predicted 14% of Democratic ballots--not an unreasonable assumption by itself. However, in 21 counties more than 50% of Democratic votes would have to have defected to Bush to account for the county result--in four counties, at least 70% would have been required. These results are absurdly unlikely.

The second rat

A previously undiscovered species of rat, Republicanus cuyahogus, has been found in Ohio. Before the election, I wrote snide letters to a state legislator for Cuyahoga county who, according to media reports, was preparing an army of enforcers to keep ‘suspect' (read: minority) voters away from the polls. One of his assistants wrote me back very pleasant mails to the effect that they had no intention of trying to suppress voter turnout, and in fact only wanted to encourage people to vote.

They did their job too well. According to the official statistics for Cuyahoga county, a number of precincts had voter turnout well above the national average: in fact, turnout was well over 100% of registered voters, and in several cases well above the total number of people who have lived in the precinct in the last century or so.

In 30 precincts, more ballots were cast than voters were registered in the county. According to county regulations, voters must cast their ballot in the precinct in which they are registered. Yet in these thirty precincts, nearly 100.000 more people voted than are registered to vote -- this out of a total of 251.946 registrations. These are not marginal differences--this is a 39% over-vote. In some precincts the over-vote was well over 100%. One precinct with 558 registered voters cast nearly 9,000 ballots. As one astute observer noted, it's the ballot-box equivalent of Jesus' miracle of the fishes. Bush being such a man of God, perhaps we should not be surprised.

What to do?

This is not an idle statistical exercise. Either the raw data from two critical battleground states is completely erroneous, or something has gone horribly awry in our electoral system--again. Like many Americans, I was dissatisfied with and suspicious of the way the Florida recount was resolved in 2000. But at the same time, I was convinced of one thing: we must let the system work, and accept its result, no matter how unjust it might appear.

With this acceptance, we placed our implicit faith in the Bush Administration that it would not abuse its position: that it would recognize its fragile mandate for what it was, respect the will of the majority of people who voted against them, and move to build consensus wherever possible and effect change cautiously when needed. Above all, we believed that both Democrats and Republicans would recognize the over-riding importance of revitalizing the integrity of the electoral system and healing the bruised faith of both constituencies.

This faith has been shattered. Bush has not led the nation to unity, but ruled through fear and division. Dishonesty and deceit in areas critical to the public interest have been the hallmark of his Administration. I state this not to throw gratuitous insults, but to place the Florida and Ohio electoral results in their proper context. For the GOP to claim now that we must take anything on faith, let alone astonishingly suspicious results in a hard-fought and extraordinarily bitter election, is pure fantasy. It does not even merit discussion.

The facts as I see them now defy all logical explanations save one--massive and systematic vote fraud. We cannot accept the result of the 2004 presidential election as legitimate until these discrepancies are rigorously and completely explained. From the Valerie Plame case to the horrors of Abu Ghraib, George Bush has been reluctant to seek answers and assign accountability when it does not suit his purposes. But this is one time when no American should accept not getting a straight answer. Until then, George Bush is still, and will remain, the ‘Accidental President' of 2000. One of his many enduring and shameful legacies will be that of seizing power through two illegitimate elections conducted on his brother's watch, and engineering a fundamental corruption at the very heart of the greatest democracy the world has known. We must not permit this to happen again.

Posted by marc at 09:17 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

November 12, 2004

Did Bush Really Win Florida?

Do you think Bush really won Florida? The take a look at This Chart and tell me why there is such a huge shift in votes in favor of Bush as compared to the expected results. Especially when the exit polls - not shown in the graph - agree with the respected results.

Posted by marc at 10:12 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

Did Bush Win Cleanly?

Letter to the Editor

There is a lot of evidence of massive voter fraud in the last election. But people seem to think that Bush won by a margin bigger that the amount of fraud that he might have committed. To me - if someone has to cheat to win, and then they win - they can't come back at the end and claim they won fairly because they would have won anyway if they hadn't cheated. To me the cheating always taints the results and undermines the legitimacy of the cheater. But that's my moral values - and other people have different moral values than I do.

Posted by marc at 10:07 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

November 11, 2004

Who is Smarter? People in Red or Blue States?

What is the relationship between IQ and voting? Well - This Site answers the question. And it explains why Republicans want to gut Head Start and education.

Posted by marc at 06:22 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

NBC Criticizes Bloggers for Election Conspiracy Theories

I was watching the NBC evening news tonight as they dismissed people like me who question the results of the election - inferring that we are all part of the tin foil hat club. But where do left wing nutcases like myself get our information? What makes us think there's something to this? Well - I saw in on a report by Keith Oberman of MSNBC who spelled out a lot of the details. Areas where there are more votes than voters - areas that are 80% Democrat voting 80% for Bush - and exit polls that show a kerry landslide? And we are suppoed to trust these results?

So if NBC wants to understand why we don't trust the election - it's because we are watching NBC. If this election wasn't stolen - no one would ever know it because of all the cheating.

The Republican message is - we may have cheated - but we would have won anyway! Trust us - we have a mandate!

Where have we heard THAT before?

Posted by marc at 05:52 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 10, 2004

Who is Alberto Gonzales?

Here's yet another story that you won't see in the Republican press. Who os Alberto Gonzales? He's the guy who did the legal work to justify the torture at Abu Ghraib prison. The Bush administration wanted to torture people and needed a legal justification. The needed someone to torture and twist the law and the constitution to justify bush's position in case torture and murder came to light. Alberto Gonzales was the hatchet man who did the job.

Here's an example of his work. This is a guy who should be in jail for war crimes - not as attorney general.

Posted by marc at 06:43 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

Veterans vs. Draft Dodger - who is tougher?

This is the start of my review of the elections. So who is tougher? Most people would think veterans are - and if you do - you are wrong.

Lets go down the list and see who's tough and who's a pussy.


  1. Bush - draft dodger - politically tough. This guy is crooked as hell but he kicks butt. Bush can get right in your face and tell a boldface lie so well he could probably pass a polygraph test. This is a guy who argues "Why should we tax the rich? The just cheat their way out of paying anyhow." To Bush - honest is for suckers. The most important thing in politics is sincerity - and once you learn hor to fake that you have it made.
  2. Kerry - war hero - pussy. He had a choice to get tough or be nice. He chose to be nice and he lost. He could have got tough and told the truth the way it is - but he wimped out. He could have stood up and fought for it - but he had to be politically correect when we needed someone who was going to win.
  3. Al Gore - pussy - Gore served in Vietnam - barely - but he did serve. But he's a guy who was to cowardly to stand up with Clinton because the Republicans suckered him into deamonizing him.
  4. Clinton - draft dodger - Kicks Republican butt like there's no tomorrow. Clinton won two elections in a landslide and even during his impeachment the Democrats gaind seats in the House and Senate and the impeachment forced two major Republicans - Newt and Livingston - out of being Speaker of the House. Democrats who stuck with Clinton won. Democrats who abandoned him lost.
  5. Bob Dole - war hero - well - he got shot in the hand anyhow. Sellout and pussy best describe him. Served his country with honor. Clinton totally kicked his ass. Dole was a political coward. he was so owned by the Tobacco indusrty that he wasn't allowed to say that cigarettes were bad for you. It's not just that he lost to Clinton - but that he sold his loyalties to someone other than the American people. Dole is a discrace to America.
  6. Bush Senior - Veteran Mr. Winp Factor - pussy - Won his first election on Reagans coat tails but was no match for the draft dodging Clinton who focused like a laser beam and totally kicked his ass.
  7. John McCain - Prisoner of War - pussy - sellout - McCain hates bush but you would never know it except for a few moments where McCains conscience crys out and he can help but to speak the truth. But he is soon slapped down by his Republican owners and wimpers off like a puppy who has been slapped on the nose with a rolled up newspaper. To call McCain Bush's butt boy would be too generous. For someone who spent 5 years in a POW camp you would thin McCain would be tough. But the GOP has surgically removed his spine and he is little more than a puppet and an embarrassment to even think of his as an American.
  8. Reagan - draft dodger - but reagan kicks ass. no one out there looks a Ronald Reagan as a wimp even though he served not one day in the millitary. No one will say that Reagan isn't tough. When you compare politicians to Reagan - veterans like Dole and McCain don't even qualify to be in his shadow.

The bottom line is that there seems to be an inverse relationship between millitary servive and being politically tough. And I don't think its a coincidence. People who serve in the millitary aren't leaders or free thinkers. Their job is to serve - to obey. To fight and die isn't necessarilly a brave thing or something that come from strength. To not fight and die and to survive often does. People like John McCain, John Kerry, Bob Dole, and Al Gore - these men are not leaders. In contrast - George Bush, Ronald Reagan, and Bill Clinton are. These are people who aren't afraid of what other people think and they lead the direction - not follow others. And this is not to put down the sacrifices that people in the millitary make - but - making them a leader after a life of following is just putting them in the wrong job.

Posted by marc at 03:26 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 09, 2004

Media Blames Bloggers

Letter to the Editor

The Republican controlled news media is blaming bloggers for reporting early that Kerry had won the election. As a blogger I find that amusing because we got our information from pollsters like John Zogby of the Zogby poll who announced the day before the election that Kerry was going to win by a landslide. We also got our information from the real results of the exit polls that showed Kerry winning by a landslide. Were bloggers like me wrong about what we reported? No - we weren't.

The real story now is that with electronic voting on voting machines that are easily hacked, and in states like Ohio where the Secretary of State who counts the votes was also the state chairman for the Bush campaign, that the system is so riddled with fraud that we don't know who really won the election. The real story is that in areas with voting machines that are easily tampered with that the supposed error in the exit polls are far greater than areas with paper ballots and the error was all in favor of Bush. But if you want the details of those stories - you won't find that in the mainstream press. You have to get online and read the blogs.

Posted by marc at 06:18 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

November 08, 2004

Moral Values and Vote Suppression

I'm still trying to figure out this election. I've been really busy lately but I do have things to say, and I will say them.

But - this idea that Bush was elected on moral values is insane. I suppose cheating and voter suppression is a moral value? Supposedly they determined this from exit polls? The same exit polls that indicated Kerry won by a landslide? Sorry - Karl Rove wrote that script and I'm not buying it.

Posted by marc at 07:13 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

November 07, 2004

Bush Election leaves all problems unsolved

Nothing changes. We are still losing the war in Iraq, we are still bankrupting the country, we still have a moron in charge, and we are still heading in the wrong direction.

Posted by marc at 08:33 AM | Comments (7) | TrackBack

November 03, 2004

Election Exit Polls very different from the results

Snagged this from Slate

Updated Late Afternoon Numbers
Mucho flattering to Kerry; plus Nader makes an appearance.
By Jack Shafer
Updated Tuesday, Nov. 2, 2004, at 4:28 PM PT

Florida
Kerry 51
Bush 49

Ohio
Kerry 51
Bush 49

Michigan
Kerry 52
Bush 46
Nader 1

Pennsylvania
Kerry 53
Bush 46

Iowa
Kerry 50
Bush 49

Wisconsin
Kerry 51
Bush 48
Nader 1

Minnesota
Kerry 52
Bush 46
Nader 2

New Hampshire
Kerry 54
Bush 44
Nader 1

New Mexico
Kerry 50
Bush 48
Nader 1

Colorado
Kerry 49
Bush 50
Nader 1

Arkansas
Kerry 45
Bush 54
Nader 1

Missouri
Kerry 47
Bush 52

New York
Kerry 62
Bush 36
Nader 2

Nevada
Kerry 49
Bush 48
Nader 1

New Jersey
Kerry 54
Bush 44
Nader 1

West Virginia
Kerry 45
Bush 54
Nader 1

Why is Slate running these numbers? See this morning's piece. ... 4:20 p.m. PT

Late Afternoon Exit Polls: It's a tight squeeze: In the national exit poll, Kerry leads Bush 51-48. In Wisconsin he's up by three, and in Ohio and Florida he leads by one.

Posted by marc at 08:58 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Bush steals another election

Bush stole yet another election making it two stolen elections in a row. Republican's in Ohio succeeded in suppressing the Democratic vote. It also proved that the voting machines can be hacked in ways that are untracable so far.

There is a huge gap in the results of exit polls and the results of he election and I don't think the exit polls are wrong. It will be interesting to see if the "error" in the exit polling is different in places with electronic voting than paper balots.

Nonetheless - we still have an unelected ductator and we need to do everything in our power to take America back.

Posted by marc at 04:05 PM | Comments (10) | TrackBack

November 02, 2004

Working on a different blog tonight

I'm working with my good friend Bartcop and I set him up with a new blog and we are all posting election results there.

Posted by marc at 04:52 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Difference between Democrats and Republicans

The Democrats are trying to get everyone to vote - especially Democrats. Republicans are working to prevent people from voting - especially Democrats.

Posted by marc at 10:06 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

When will we know?

That is an interesting question. And it depends on how close it is. The news media in an attempt to appear responsible will not start calling the results until the polls close. But - that doesn't mean they don't know beforehand.

In races where there is a significant gap there is exit polling and the news media knows these figures. Just because they don't tell you who won doesn't mean they don't know. They need to know ahead to figure out how to coner the event. And - I think you'll be able to tell by things they hint at which way things are going.

In fact - and trying not to be optimistic - but most media I see seem to be aware that Kerry is winning. A lot of voting has already occurred and there may be enough information out there to make a good guess.

I am hopeful that the dark day of America will soon be behind us. And - then there's the cheating factor that I'm woried about. Kerry can win by a landslide but between the GOP controlled media they may call Bush the winner like they did the last time.

Posted by marc at 09:49 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

This is it people - Election Day

So - its time to vote. Time to get out there and make a difference. I voted this morning.

I still have Fahrenheit 9-11 online for the next few hours. I don't know when I'm going to take it down but it will be sometime soon. I need to free up the resources so that the discussion software I'm hosting so that people can discuss the election as the results come in.

Posted by marc at 09:40 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 01, 2004

US is losing Iraq war: Powell

Daily Times Monitor

LAHORE: Secretary of State Colin Powell has privately confided to friends in recent weeks that the Iraqi insurgents are winning the war, Salon.com quoted Newsweek as having reported.

The insurgents have succeeded in infiltrating Iraqi forces “from top to bottom,” a senior Iraqi official told Newsweek in its Monday’s issue, “from decision making to the lower levels”.

This is a particularly troubling development for the US military, as it prepares to launch an allout assault on the insurgent strongholds of Fallujah and Ramadi, since US Marines were counting on the newly trained Iraqi forces to assist in the assault.

Newsweek reported that “American military trainers have been frantically trying to assemble sufficient Iraqi troops” to fight alongside them and that they are “praying that the soldiers perform better than last April, when two battalions of poorly trained Iraqi Army soldiers refused to fight.” “If the Fallujah offensive fails, the American president will find himself in a deepening quagmire on Inauguration Day,” Salon.com quoted Newsweek as saying.

Posted by marc at 06:54 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Blair backs Kerry!

Nov 1 2004

TONY Blair has privately admitted that he wants Democrat John Kerry to win tomorrow's US election.

The Prime Minister has acknowledged to at least two confidantes that a Kerry win would be a 'lifeline' for his own political future.

If Kerry does triumph, the result will undoubtedly help draw the poison out of the Iraq debate in Britain in the run up to a general election It would mean Blair could focus on the future of Iraq - not the disasters of the past.

And it may also soothe fractured relations within the Labour Party.

Posted by marc at 01:24 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Last chance for Fahrenheit 9-11

This is the last day that I'll be hosting F 9-11. Even though Michael Moore said we could pirate his movie - I believe that really means only till the election. By tomorrow about 50,000 people will have downloaded it directly from my server. Additionally other sites have sprung up that are also hosting it. So I became the site that showed the world that it was OK to do this. So I wouldn't be surprized if hundreds of thousands of people got to see the movie.

I put it up and no one asked me to take it down. Thus it appears that Micheal Moore's offer to share his work for free was genuine that with the blessing of all interested parties. And - I fantasize that if Kerry wins by a small number of votes - that I will be the one who put him over the top.

I was interviewed by Wired Magazine and was asked if I was aware of any right wing sites doing the same thing. I said that I wasn't - and that it would be illegal if they did. You see - Michael Moore gave it away for free - but the greedy Republicans didn't so I have the advantage over them. I'm not breaking the law - but they would be. Kerry might get elected because Democrats are more generous than Republicans.

Posted by marc at 10:59 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

My Take on Osama bin Laden's message

font color=red>OBL message was directed at Kerry

Trying to put all my partisan biases aside - what does the OBL tape really mean? OBL had a message - but what is he really trying to say and accomplish?

After giving this careful thought it looks to me like he is NOT trying to affect the outcome of the election in spite of the fact that it comes just days before the election. There are so many elements that both hurt Bush and help Bush that I have to say it's neutal.

Let's look at the facts and see if there is a big picture here. We all know that OBL was behind 9-11. And we all now know that he's free and apparently doing well. And I think that one of the missing pieces of the puzzle is - that Bush and Osama have made a deal. And the deal is - you don't kill me - and I won't attack America.

Over a year ago the Times of India ran an article suggesting that Bush and OBL made a deal. Bush doesn't want Packistan to capture OBL. Then when Bush hd OBL at Tora Bora - he let him get away on purpose. But the think that really points to a deal is that Bush has actively downplayed the importance of capturing OBL. He has made many statements like, “I truly am not that concerned about him. I know he is on the run.” He described bin as “marginalized” and said, “I just don’t spend that much time on him.”

So - for those of you who are wondering why America hasn't been attacked - it's not the Patriot Act - the Jailing of Martha Stewart - or the deportation of Cat Stevens. Bush made a deal with OBL and as a result - we have a small wondow of security in exchange for OBL prospering in the middle east. I for one think its a bad deal.

So - now we are on the verge of an election and OBL appears on TV. Why? Because he has a message for Kerry. OBL can see that Bush is about to lose and if Bush loses - the deal goes away. So OBL is reacking out to Kerry to continue the deal. That is the message and that's why OBL made it.

Look at his change in demeanor. For the first time he is well dressed and groomed. He is not shown carrying a gun. He is going out of his was to be charking rather than threatening. As if he is preparing the American public that his deal - "you don't attack usd and we won't attack you" is something that is acceptable. And at some point Bush is going to have to break it to Kerry that there is a deal or the message will get to him through the Saudi embasy.

Making the deal with OBL is a serious mistake. Its a short term fix but the kind of fix that will get us into trouble in the long run. America has a history - mostly under Republican presidents - of getting into bed with the wrong people. OBL has now joined the club with Saddam Husein, the Shaw of Iran, Marcos, Franko, Noreiga, Pol Pot, Charles Taylor, Pinochet, and others. This is a mistake - and it will end under Kerry - I hope.

Posted by marc at 07:35 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack