Angry

On Thu, 22 Dec 2005 16:04:33 -0800, "Peter Duniho"
wrote in
::

"Larry Dighera" wrote in message
.. .
Save the anger for things that
matter (like politicians who break the law, lie about it until they are
exposed, and then claim that they don't have to obey the law).

His days are numbered: [...]

I wish I could share your optimism. I think it's pretty clear that a
majority of Americans are quite willing to simply overlook criminal acts on
his part. The current scandals aren't any different than those that
preceded the most recent election, and we all saw how much effect *those*
had.

I can't see how the American people can possibly overlook all the
current administration's transgressions:

Failure to jail Bush family friend Kenneth Lay for Enron scam
The Downing Street Memo: revealed Bush Iraq war plan lie ...
Outing CIA operative in retaliation for debunking Iraq yellow-cake
Creating DHS while failing to secure US southern border
Screening airline passengers but not cargo
Placing former Unocal oil consultant Hamid Karzai in Afghanistan
Secret overseas prisons for torturing ...
Holding prisoners without attorney representation
Suspension of Habeas Corpus
Criminal domestic wire-taps ...
...

The stench of hypocrisy, since the last attempt to impeach a President, is
astounding. I see no end in sight.

The last attempt resulted in Clinton's impeachment, but you must be
referring to Nixon's burglary of Democratic headquarters.

Of course, the alternative explanation is that the election WAS rigged, and
that there really aren't so many people willing to overlook that sort of
thing after all. One hopes the recent Diebold scandals (illegal
certification, untraceable vote hacking, etc.) will produce some movement
toward resecuring the elections. Maybe once that's done, the results will
seem more rational.

http://www.eff.org/Activism/E-voting...723_eff_pr.php
Security researchers at Johns Hopkins University and Rice
University announced today that they have discovered numerous
serious security flaws in what they believe is one of the leading
e-voting systems in the country -- the Diebold Electron Systems'
e-voting terminal.

Among the security flaws discovered were several ways in which
individual voters could vote multiple times in a given election.
The researchers also uncovered methods permitting voters to
"trick" the e-voting machines into allowing them system
administrator privileges or even terminating an election before
tallying all legitimate votes.

-------------------------------------------------

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/24/te...2998&ei=5 070
July 24, 2003
Computer Voting Is Open to Easy Fraud, Experts Say
By JOHN SCHWARTZ

The software that runs many high-tech voting machines contains
serious flaws that would allow voters to cast extra votes and
permit poll workers to alter ballots without being detected,
computer security researchers said yesterday.

"We found some stunning, stunning flaws," said Aviel D. Rubin,
technical director of the Information Security Institute at Johns
Hopkins University, who led a team that examined the software from
Diebold Election Systems, which has about 33,000 voting machines
operating in the United States.

The systems, in which voters are given computer-chip-bearing smart
cards to operate the machines, could be tricked by anyone with
$100 worth of computer equipment, said Adam Stubblefield, a
co-author of the paper.

"With what we found, practically anyone in the country — from a
teenager on up — could produce these smart cards that could allow
someone to vote as many times as they like," Mr. Stubblefield
said.

The software was initially obtained by critics of electronic
voting, who discovered it on a Diebold Internet site in January.
This is the first review of the software by recognized computer
security experts.

A spokesman for Diebold, Joe Richardson, said the company could
not comment in detail until it had seen the full report. He said
that the software on the site was "about a year old" and that "if
there were problems with it, the code could have been rectified or
changed" since then. The company, he said, puts its software
through rigorous testing.

"We're constantly improving it so the technology we have 10 years
from now will be better than what we have today," Mr. Richardson
said. "We're always open to anything that can improve our
systems."

Another co-author of the paper, Tadayoshi Kohno, said it was
unlikely that the company had plugged all of the holes they
discovered.

"There is no easy fix," Mr. Kohno said.

The move to electronic voting — which intensified after the
troubled Florida presidential balloting in 2000 — has been a
source of controversy among security researchers. They argue that
the companies should open their software to public review to be
sure it operates properly.

Mr. Richardson of Diebold said the company's voting-machine source
code, the basis of its computer program, had been certified by an
independent testing group. Outsiders might want more access, he
said, but "we don't feel it's necessary to turn it over to
everyone who asks to see it, because it is proprietary."

Diebold is one of the most successful companies in this field.
Georgia and Maryland are among its clients, as are many counties
around the country. The Maryland contract, announced this month,
is worth $56 million.

Diebold, based in North Canton, Ohio, is best known as a maker of
automated teller machines. The company acquired Global Election
Systems last year and renamed it Diebold Election Systems. Last
year the election unit contributed more than $110 million in sales
to the company's $2 billion in revenue.

As an industry leader, Diebold has been the focus of much of the
controversy over high-tech voting. Some people, in comments widely
circulated on the Internet, contend that the company's software
has been designed to allow voter fraud. Mr. Rubin called such
assertions "ludicrous" and said the software's flaws showed the
hallmarks of poor design, not subterfuge.

The list of flaws in the Diebold software is long, according to
the paper, which is online at avirubin .com/vote.pdf. Among other
things, the researchers said, ballots could be altered by anyone
with access to a machine, so that a voter might think he is
casting a ballot for one candidate while the vote is recorded for
an opponent.

The kind of scrutiny that the researchers applied to the Diebold
software would turn up flaws in all but the most rigorously
produced software, Mr. Stubblefield said. But the standards must
be as high as the stakes, he said.

"This isn't the code for a vending machine," he said. "This is the
code that protects our democracy."

Still, things that seem troubling in coding may not be as big a
problem in the real world, Mr. Richardson said. For example,
counties restrict access to the voting machines before and after
elections, he said. While the researchers "are all experts at
writing code, they may not have a full understanding of how
elections are run," he said.

But Douglas W. Jones, an associate professor of computer science
at the University of Iowa, said he was shocked to discover flaws
cited in Mr. Rubin's paper that he had mentioned to the system's
developers about five years ago as a state elections official.

"To find that such flaws have not been corrected in half a decade
is awful," Professor Jones said.

Peter G. Neumann, an expert in computer security at SRI
International, said the Diebold code was "just the tip of the
iceberg" of problems with electronic voting systems.

"This is an iceberg that needs to be hacked at a good bit," Mr.
Neumann said, "so this is a step forward."

I'm not holding my breath. To start with, it would require that those in
power acknowledge the flaws with electronic voting, and agree to address
those flaws. For some odd reason, they seem to think it's perfectly fine to
have unverifiable, easily hacked election results. You'd think that EVERY
SINGLE POLITICIAN would be jumping up and down demanding auditable
elections. But a majority of them are not. I wonder why. What do they
have to fear from it?

Either way, it's not clear that we're headed for an improved situation any
time soon.


After the populace endures sky high winter heating bills, they could
be in the mood to remove him. We can hope.

"Larry Dighera" wrote in message
...
The last attempt resulted in Clinton's impeachment, but you must be
referring to Nixon's burglary of Democratic headquarters.

No, I mean the Clinton impeachment attempt. How people can get so worked up
over a blowjob, and yet turn a blind eye to repeatededly lying as part of
one's actual JOB, is beyond me. It is the height of hypocrisy.

"Peter Duniho" wrote

No, I mean the Clinton impeachment attempt.

You should take a civics class again; the one you must have slept through.

Clinton WAS impeached.
--
Jim in NC

Peter Duniho wrote:
"Larry Dighera" wrote in message
...

The last attempt resulted in Clinton's impeachment, but you must be
referring to Nixon's burglary of Democratic headquarters.


No, I mean the Clinton impeachment attempt. How people can get so worked up
over a blowjob, and yet turn a blind eye to repeatededly lying as part of
one's actual JOB, is beyond me. It is the height of hypocrisy.



What attempt? He WAS impeached.

Matt

"Peter Duniho" wrote in message
...

No, I mean the Clinton impeachment attempt. How people can get so worked
up over a blowjob, and yet turn a blind eye to repeatededly lying as part
of one's actual JOB, is beyond me. It is the height of hypocrisy.

What repeated lying are you referring to?

I don't recall Clinton being impeached because of a blowjob. He was
impeached because he sat down, raised his hand and said "I swear to
tell the truth, the whole truth, so help me God....I did not have
sexual relation with that woman..."

-Robert

In article . com,
Robert M. Gary wrote:

I don't recall Clinton being impeached because of a blowjob. He was
impeached because he sat down, raised his hand and said "I swear to
tell the truth, the whole truth, so help me God....I did not have
sexual relation with that woman..."

Well, Bush sat down, raised his hand, and said, "I do solemnly swear
that I will...preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the
United States."

He hasn't.

"beavis" wrote in message
...

Well, Bush sat down, raised his hand, and said, "I do solemnly swear
that I will...preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the
United States."

He hasn't.


Nor have any of his predecessors for quite some time.

Bush has been the best President since RWR. At least in my
opinion. Am I fully satisfied with his actions? No!
I think we need to have a tighter border, he should veto
some of the crap that comes out of the Congress and he
should politely "defend-attack" the decisions he has made
and those who call him a liar.


--
Merry Christmas
Have a Safe and Happy New Year
Live Long and Prosper
Jim Macklin
"beavis" wrote in message
...
| In article
. com,
| Robert M. Gary wrote:
|
| I don't recall Clinton being impeached because of a
blowjob. He was
| impeached because he sat down, raised his hand and said
"I swear to
| tell the truth, the whole truth, so help me God....I did
not have
| sexual relation with that woman..."
|
| Well, Bush sat down, raised his hand, and said, "I do
solemnly swear
| that I will...preserve, protect, and defend the
Constitution of the
| United States."
|
| He hasn't.

beavis wrote:

In article . com,
Robert M. Gary wrote:


I don't recall Clinton being impeached because of a blowjob. He was
impeached because he sat down, raised his hand and said "I swear to
tell the truth, the whole truth, so help me God....I did not have
sexual relation with that woman..."


Well, Bush sat down, raised his hand, and said, "I do solemnly swear
that I will...preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the
United States."

He hasn't.

He absolutely has. Name one example where he hasn't?


Matt