Althouse: At the Evening Café...

November 16, 2020

At the Evening Café...

... you can write about whatever you want.

106 comments:

Kai Akker said...: I cannot live without brain-work. What else is there to live for?; 11/16/20, 5:49 PM
readering said...: For a second I thought I saw the Kracken in that photo. Optical illusion. Anyone seen it?; 11/16/20, 5:51 PM
stevew said...: If all goes as planned I have 20 months of this work left to do. At that time I will move on to the next thing. Not sure I will make it that far; this is a younger man's game and I am not young(er). Then again, if Biden does what he has done throughout his political career I will want to be working at this job much longer.; 11/16/20, 6:00 PM
Narr said...: Kai Akker says "I cannot live without brain-work. What else is there to live for?"

1. What is your def of brain-work?

2. Not enough info to process the question, as good a question as it is.

readering asks if anyone else saw the Kracken.

I did not, but I never saw the hidden dinos in those images back in the 90s(?) either.

Narr
I tawt I taw a sky afire; 11/16/20, 6:04 PM
Clyde said...: Kraken. No C.; 11/16/20, 6:50 PM
Achilles said...: "According to Dr. Shiva and others, the voting machines used in the US in the current election and in prior elections have the ability to store votes not as integers but as fractions. This allows these machines to weigh votes for candidates and change elections based on this weighting."

They would never be stored as "fractions." Saying this makes no sense from a programming point of view. That would be a Float or Double depending on the programming language. The variations on Integer are only in how large of a number you can store there and they are used because they don't have a decimal point and whether or not you can store negative numbers. Double and Float allow you to have specific numbers in front of and behind the decimal and negative numbers.

It is possible that Dr. Shiva thought the reporter of the story was an idiot and that is a good assumption to make of a journalist. But most people would understand if you told them the numbers were stored as decimals.

Doubles and Floats take up more memory and far more computer cycles to process. You only use them when you need them. There is never a need for .9 votes or 1.1 votes.

If you want an honest election.; 11/16/20, 6:52 PM
J. Farmer said...: @Narr:

I did not, but I never saw the hidden dinos in those images back in the 90s(?) either.

That was the first thing I thought of when I read his comment. Those are autostereograms, and the series was called Magic Eye. Several of my family members had a number of them. I never once saw a damn thing. Often people with astigmatism are unable to get their eyes to operate in the manner necessary to see the image. Very annoying.; 11/16/20, 6:52 PM
Achilles said...: readering said...

For a second I thought I saw the Kracken in that photo. Optical illusion. Anyone seen it?

I am sure the extra c is accidental and you are not showing everyone how stupid you are with your dumb joke.; 11/16/20, 6:54 PM
Unknown said...: Achilles, the vote counts are stored as Doubles. Clearly the system is designed for fraud.; 11/16/20, 6:55 PM
RK said...: Google tells me that it's transgender awareness week. What, only a week?

I'm seeing an increasing number of women in academia putting their pronouns in their email signature and Zoom name. I thought pronoun virtue signaling was dying out. Maybe, like COVID, it's in its second wave.; 11/16/20, 6:56 PM
TickTock said...: To follow up on David Begley’s observation in an earlier thread that a substantive departure from election codes by election officials may violate the grant of authority in Art. II, § 1, cl. 2, of the United States Constitution to determine the manner of selection of Electors to state legislatures: Judge Amy Totenberg of the US District Court for the Northern District of Georgia found, only weeks prior to the election, that that “the [Georgia’s] Secretary of State’s January 2020 Procedures Manual [used in testing Dominion equipment for the November election] is plainly inconsistent with the state statutory objective and requirements.” I rather suspect that testing is substandard (i.e. below requirements of the diverse statesssssssssss0, particularly given what appears to be a practice of uploading patches shortly before the election. I suspect this might be a fruitful avenue for application of the doctrine suggested by Justice Rehnquist in the concurring opinion in Bush v. Gore. Sorry not to have a page cite to the quote above, but the opinion can be found here: https://www.courthousenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/ga-voting.pdf; 11/16/20, 6:58 PM
Lawrence Person said...: This is today's election fraud update.; 11/16/20, 6:59 PM
Guildofcannonballs said...: There is no problem of knowledge, understanding, or wisdom. America's main problem is how information is conveyed to who and how.

I look at Kurt Schlictor and J. Farmer as very different yet having characteristics shared.

Most of humanity is like this: Deeper you dig, deeper the non-hypocrisy goes. Very beautiful when not war.

There is nothing Buckley conveyed not understanding time changes all cultures in ways he couldn't conceive of.

All this extrapolation is useful in peace but absolutely harmful when looking at the greatest vote fraud ever perpetrated happening now. The impotence is part of the process, a process known more for punishment of the bereaved as well as leniency toward more and more and more evil.

I am beginning to feel as though shooting those espousing "hey they stole this one, but just you wait and see how much they are punished by the voters for stealing the last one dufus, AND BUY MY BOOK TOO DUMMY." Uh uh next election we'll get 'em, believe me by God next time we will make sure this doesn't happen again.

No reason for people who cheated and won to cheat again, that's for sure. Nobody can argue that. Of course if they cheated and won, they would NEVER think of cheating again. Duh.; 11/16/20, 7:05 PM
Attonasi said...: Kai Akker says "I cannot live without brain-work. What else is there to live for?"

Everyone needs a purpose to their life. Hopefully when everyone is blissfully ensconced in their own VR world with a direct dopamine injector you are able to solve your world's problems.

Narr said...

1. What is your def of brain-work?

This is a personal question. For some people it is running and fence building company. For others it is finding a way to get to Io.

The goal of our society should be to help everyone find this answer. First they need to learn to accept their reality and control their own desires.; 11/16/20, 7:05 PM
Guildofcannonballs said...: Oh but oh but oh but we'll put toghether a committee, BIPARTISIAN, and PEER REVIEWED, and duh, you've have to be an idiot to argue or give any money otherwise.

With REFORMS from a BITPARTISIAN, PEER REVIEWED committee, of course you fucking dolts aught to have faith in elections.

YOU LIVE IN AMERICA DIPSHIT!

Not some third world ass country, ya moron. So let 'em just have this one. Everything will be normal jackhole. Heck I bet iowahawk 'll be funny again even. Just let 'em take this one miniscule little voter fraud to the American bank, 'cause America has unlimited withdrawals and mistakes. Nothing bad could ever happen to the good abortionists America has produced, for instance.; 11/16/20, 7:09 PM
I Have Misplaced My Pants said...: Tonight’s easy dinner: a package of Prasek’s fully cooked sausage, sliced; red potatoes, cubed up; a tub of pre-cubed butternut squash; a sliced red onion. Toss on a foil-lined sheet pan with pepper and seasoned salt. Roast at 425 for thirty minutes, stirring every ten minutes. Finish with a few minutes under the broiler and serve with a salad kit on the side and an eyewatering mustard for the sausage.; 11/16/20, 7:10 PM
DavidUW said...: Busy transferring assets to Nevis LLC controlled by Cook Island Trust.

Bye America.

Thanks for the cash.; 11/16/20, 7:19 PM
Achilles said...: Unknown said...

Achilles, the vote counts are stored as Doubles. Clearly the system is designed for fraud.

Which language? Is the source code available?

Vote counting software should literally boil down to one loop for the while(A[x++]=optical_reader.next_line_read() != NULL){...} and a loop with for x in A: CASE x:
x=0 candidate_0++; .. ;

After 2 weeks of Intro to Programming any passing student could write the code necessary to do this if you have an optical scanner and appropriate API.; 11/16/20, 7:20 PM
Drago said...: readering: "For a second I thought I saw the Kracken in that photo. Optical illusion. Anyone seen it?"

Achilles: "I am sure the extra c is accidental and you are not showing everyone how stupid you are with your dumb joke."

You missed the fun last night when readering pretended Brennan and Clapper did not have to apologize, under oath, for lying under oath about spying on Americans along with pretending democrat senator complaints about the FBI/DOJ attempting to frame/prosecute innocent congressional staffers never occurred, all as part of a larger conversation where readering pretended any complaints about the Carter Page FISA warrants were "gibberish".

readering was in rare form indeed.; 11/16/20, 7:20 PM
Guildofcannonballs said...: If you put forward your best in Althouse comments, you're me.

I know I am unique verily.; 11/16/20, 7:24 PM
Guildofcannonballs said...: None of you, not even Althouse, knows what I have efforted.

Here, at the Althouse blog.; 11/16/20, 7:25 PM
Achilles said...: Drago said...

readering: "For a second I thought I saw the Kracken in that photo. Optical illusion. Anyone seen it?"

Achilles: "I am sure the extra c is accidental and you are not showing everyone how stupid you are with your dumb joke."

You missed the fun last night when readering pretended Brennan and Clapper did not have to apologize, under oath, for lying under oath about spying on Americans along with pretending democrat senator complaints about the FBI/DOJ attempting to frame/prosecute innocent congressional staffers never occurred, all as part of a larger conversation where readering pretended any complaints about the Carter Page FISA warrants were "gibberish".

readering was in rare form indeed.

I read the thread.

readering is an imbecile and completely lacks self awareness.

At some point these people will realize that screaming at the top of their lungs that the 2016 election was stolen by Russians for four years but then turning around and saying the 2020 is completely free of fraud is really stupid.

Some have already realized that.

They just refuse to acknowledge it.; 11/16/20, 7:25 PM
mandrewa said...: Achilles said, "They would never be stored as "fractions." Saying this makes no sense from a programming point of view. That would be a Float or Double depending on the programming language. The variations on Integer are only in how large of a number you can store there and they are used because they don't have a decimal point and whether or not you can store negative numbers. Double and Float allow you to have specific numbers in front of and behind the decimal and negative numbers.

"It is possible that Dr. Shiva thought the reporter of the story was an idiot and that is a good assumption to make of a journalist. But most people would understand if you told them the numbers were stored as decimals.

"Doubles and Floats take up more memory and far more computer cycles to process. You only use them when you need them. There is never a need for .9 votes or 1.1 votes."

Votes in the Dominion software are stored as doubles, or in other words as floating point numbers. Or at least they are according to Shiva. I agree this makes zero sense. But your assumption that it isn't happening because it makes no sense may be wrong.

Shiva also shows in documentation from Dominion that Dominion was compelled to reveal by court order that they have functions that allow the user to give different weights to different categories of voters.

Now I'm not terribly inclined to trust Shiva because I believe he has deceived us in other things, but if it is true that Dominion vote counting software has these functions in it then this is direct evidence of an intent to commit vote fraud. It doesn't matter whether we can actually prove these functions were used or not, any election conducted with software with functions like this in it should be assumed to be fraudulent.; 11/16/20, 7:26 PM
Fernandinande said...: autostereograms

I can do those almost instantly. If I do the "cross-eyed" view, which is easier and quicker than "almost instantly", it reverses the 3D effect and makes it look like e.g. dolphin-shaped dent rather than a dolphin jumping out of the page.; 11/16/20, 7:27 PM
Achilles said...: Guildofcannonballs said...

None of you, not even Althouse, knows what I have efforted.

Here, at the Althouse blog.

I am not sure I know how much efforted your posts are.

I know there is effort and I see depth.

We would probably end up arguing over things that make no sense if it came to that. I might try it sometime.; 11/16/20, 7:28 PM
Kyzer SoSay said...: Another good thread to follow . . .

https://twitter.com/TheSharpEdge1

RE: Dr. Shiva - perhaps he was talking about improper fractions, like 6/3 (six over three). I think he is indeed onto something but is missing a piece of the picture, likely one he would never find on his own. Fortunately, we have Sidney Powell and CodeMonkeyZ for that.; 11/16/20, 7:28 PM
Ingachuck'stoothlessARM said...: Big victory moments ago in the State of Nevada. The all Democrat County Commissioner race, on same ballot as President, just thrown out because of large scale voter discrepancy. Clark County officials do not have confidence in their own election security. Major impact!
per potus

The Clark County Commission just threw out an election that represents almost 1/6 of the total votes cast in Clark County because there were too many “discrepancies” to be sure that that the results in that election can be certain. 153K votes in this election. twitter.com/meganmesserly/…; 11/16/20, 7:31 PM
Kyzer SoSay said...: "For others it is finding a way to get to Io."

I prefer Europa, notwithstanding the warning from Star Child. Ganymede would also suffice.; 11/16/20, 7:31 PM
Paul J said...: In what competitive activity would you delegate one of the participants to also act as umpire?

It's nuts from the get-go.

The government should delegate running elections to a third party institution, but which includes complete observation of all aspects allowed to the parties involved.; 11/16/20, 7:31 PM
Achilles said...: mandrewa said...

Now I'm not terribly inclined to trust Shiva because I believe he has deceived us in other things, but if it is true that Dominion vote counting software has these functions in it then this is direct evidence of an intent to commit vote fraud. It doesn't matter whether we can actually prove these functions were used or not, any election conducted with software with functions like this in it should be assumed to be fraudulent.

I agree with all of that.

There is only one broad reasonable conclusion from everything we have seen.; 11/16/20, 7:32 PM
Kyzer SoSay said...: Re: Nevada and Clark County . . .

https://twitter.com/AdamLaxalt/status/1328473113504354305; 11/16/20, 7:36 PM
narciso said...: The kraken

https://monoskop.org/Rop_Gonggrijp; 11/16/20, 7:44 PM
Guildofcannonballs said...: https://madison.com/wsj/opinion/letters/stop-drinking-the-trump-kool-aid----wayne-bruno/article_242e70cb-23c3-53fe-9c6d-85f0b81e3c38.html

Stop drinking the Trump Kool-Aid -- Wayne Bruno
Feb 26, 2020
Facebook
Twitter
Email
Print
Save
[I]* hear people and politicians praising President Donald Trump for our low unemployment numbers and the good economy. To them, it doesn't seem to matter that he and his minions are undermining our Constitution, insulting war heroes and corrupting our political institutions.

The citizens and politicians in Nazi Germany also looked the other way when their leader gave them low unemployment and a good economy. That all ended in April 1945.

A survey by the Federal Reserve found that 40% of American adults do not have $400 in a savings account to cover an emergency expense. Seven million Americans are three months or more behind in their car payments. More Americans are working two jobs -- 7.6 million, the highest number in 20 years.

Remember the now defunct Trump University? Remember the failed Trump Airlines? Remember the president's fake hair and fake physical? Remember when he congratulated the state of Kansas for the Chiefs, who play football in Missouri?

Wake up, Americans. Stop drinking the Trump Kool-Aid and the Republican Kool-Aid.

Wayne Bruno, Merrimac

Tags
Letter To Editor Commentary Economy Record Donald Trump Kool Aid Physical Fake Trump University Trump Airlines

*This is one of the funniest little fellas ya ever heard of; 11/16/20, 7:56 PM
Drago said...: I should point out that Burgess Owens has retaken UT4 for the republicans because I know how livid it will make our resident LLR-lefty C**** for a conservative black fella to knock off one of C****'s beloved and heroic lefty dems.

I fully expect another round of C****'s patented gin-induced spittle flecked rage-aholic posting sessions since that is his established pattern when encountering black conservatives and/or conservative politicians with distinguished military records.; 11/16/20, 7:56 PM
Kai Akker said...: Look at his long letters. They hardly rise above the common herd. Men of character always differentiate their long letters, however illegibly they may write. There is vacillation in his k's, and self-esteem in his capitals.; 11/16/20, 8:06 PM
Achilles said...: Sidney Powell: "I’ve got a firsthand witness. In fact I’ve just emailed you an affidavit from a witness who can now be used publicly. It’s redacted in some places but he was present for the creation of the system for this specific purpose of falsifying election results for Hugo Chavez and then Maduro. They exported this all over Latin America . It’s the Smartmatic and Dominion systems that were built to do this very thing, for changing the results of elections… And he realized when things were happening the way they were here, particularly with the states the suddenly went down, they stopped counting the votes. It was because the need was so great to President Trump that they had to go in and do a separate reset on the machines to have them come out for Biden."

This is the current topic on the Marc Levin show.

I can't listen to these things live. I either need a transcript or a recording. It isn't on his site yet but this was just posted.

Something lumbering this way comes...

They are really slow playing this to affect though.

I know investigations take time but fuck all...; 11/16/20, 8:12 PM
FullMoon said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 11/16/20, 8:12 PM
Achilles said...: Kyzer SoSay said...

Re: Nevada and Clark County . . .

https://twitter.com/AdamLaxalt/status/1328473113504354305

What did he say? The tweet is not available to me.

All I have seen so far is they had to throw an election in Nevada out completely because the election commissioners could not certify the results due to a large number of discrepancies in Clark County that affected a large number of votes.; 11/16/20, 8:17 PM
I'm Not Sure said...: I have gone to tweet links that said "not available" before, and after refreshing the page a couple of times, it showed up.; 11/16/20, 8:19 PM
Kai Akker said...: [He] took his bottle from the corner of the mantelpiece and his hypodermic syringe from its neat morocco case. With his long, white, nervous fingers he adjusted the delicate needle, and rolled back his left shirtcuff. For some little time his eyes rested thoughtfully upon the sinewy forearm and wrist, all dotted and scarred with innumerable puncture-marks. Finally he thrust the sharp point home, pressed down the tiny piston, and sunk back into the velvet-lined armchair with a long sigh of satisfaction.; 11/16/20, 8:19 PM
Yancey Ward said...: Yeah, Paul J. above has it right. Elections should never, anywhere, be run by one of the participant parties- not the ballot preparation, not the ballot mailing, not the ballot verification, not the ballot counting, and not the ballot tabulation. I think each party on the ballot should nominate two people for any task. Every single division and subdivision of election offices should, at the very least, have equal representation of the parties involved- for the two major parties, this is easy to accomplish- you would have legions of volunteers from which a party could vet and appoint- hell, I would do it for free since I don't need the money. Basically, Philadelphia County's election board employees should be equally Democrat and Republican- every task is done in the full view of the other employees. The same applies to Barebutt County, Oklahoma where Biden got one vote.

Additionally, every aspect of ballot production, distribution, receipt, authentication, counting, tabulating, and certifying should be done on 4K video camera- all databases should be open access to everyone 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. I should be able to go to a database and see every single mail in ballot that was sent, where it was sent, when it was sent, and when it was returned. There should be a database that contains video images of every single signature line in a mail in ballot so that I or anyone else can compare the signature on record should the need arise. These are things I or any candidate should not have to fucking to go to court to get. If you don't like having to compare signatures, then lets use a fucking PIN.

You just wait- the Democrats can smell permanent victory with mail in voting- you just watch in 2022- we will have the great Norovirus III Pandemic come up the months before the election that necessitates national mail in voting, or any other excuse to repeat the election we just saw two weeks ago.; 11/16/20, 8:22 PM
Achilles said...: FullMoon said...

Expect there will be some robust conversation this evening.

I wish people had a better understanding of how addiction works and just how works in the brain.

He needs all the support he can get. Some of it tough love but it needs to come from people that want him to get better.

In a better society his employer would be given an effective incentive to help him get better rather than just fire him. Purpose is key to solving this problem.; 11/16/20, 8:22 PM
narciso said...: Some background

https://elamerican.com/dominion-the-foreign-software-company-with-a-controversial-background-deciding-american-elections/?lang=en; 11/16/20, 8:31 PM
rehajm said...: Fraud vitiates everything.; 11/16/20, 8:31 PM
rehajm said...: The maths, the data says black holes must exist. Show me proof...and none of that things being sucked in nonsense...; 11/16/20, 8:35 PM
William said...: All my life reality has given me nothing but trouble. At this stage, I find gravity and death particularly upsetting. They're so damned implacable. Worse than politics in many ways. Whenever possible I prefer to retreat into fantasy worlds. I don't have much imagination so I prefer to get my fantasies via television. What with CGI, they can create such wondrous worlds. Up until that damned last season, Game of Thrones was my favorite. Death and gravity were negotiable on that world, and there were lots of naked women. The Good Place was pretty good too, but it got too political in the last season. Politics and no naked women, Well, it was supposed to be hell.....I got through the entire season of Emily in Paris. There's no mention of death and all the actors are young and gravity resistant. No nudity, but the girls are pretty and sometimes wear seductive clothes. It takes place in Paris against such backdrops as the Paris Opera, the Pont Neuf and the kind of places that women with a rich fantasy life would like to act out their courtship dances. These are not my fantasies, but it's kind of cool to see such fantasies acted out with such precision and attention to detail.....I don't believe in God, but I know what religious bliss must feel like by listening to Alison Krauss sing those old time hymns....The romantic fantasies in Emily in Paris are so totally fabricated out of air, thin air,that their very unreality makes you smile. If only life were like that for anybody on planet earth.; 11/16/20, 8:36 PM
FullMoon said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 11/16/20, 8:37 PM
Kai Akker said...: He smiled at my vehemence. "Perhaps you are right, Watson," he said. "I suppose that its influence is physically a bad one. I find it, however, so transcendently stimulating and clarifying to the mind that its secondary action is a matter of small moment. ... I crave for mental exaltation."; 11/16/20, 8:37 PM
Achilles said...: "John Bolton was one of the dumbest people in government that I’ve had the “pleasure” to work with. A sullen, dull and quiet guy, he added nothing to National Security except, “Gee, let’s go to war.” Also, illegally released much Classified Information. A real dope!"

Trump is not acting like someone who thinks he is going to lose.; 11/16/20, 8:42 PM
stevew said...: I've been an anti-government, anti-collective, pro individual freedom sort my whole life, even before I knew how to articulate the specific things and approach I favored. Ronald Reagan spoke to me - even though he was flawed, in a naive and gullible way. Likewise Donald Trump. But those two are the best, most positive presidents of my lifetime, in terms of alignment with my preferred approach to government and policy. On balance I think Donald Trump has been the most pro America, pro American president I know of.

I hope he prevails. If he does not I have to say Biden and Pelosi and Schumer are such dolts that the negative impact of their rule on me will be marginal. Their first priority is the filling of their own pockets, not the emptying of mine.; 11/16/20, 8:50 PM
Ingachuck'stoothlessARM said...: are over 100 Dominion peeps deleting their Linkedin profiles?
...like Serbian types?
who's this dude?
Goran Obradovic Vice President Dominion Voting Systems
President of the Board of Directors CANSEE Canadian Serbian Business Association

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Em_RPKsUcAEwRiQ?format=jpg&name=small

hey--per Lin Wood, is he going to expose Georgia corruption that will "knock your socks off"?

Stacy Abrams and Sec of State Brad Raffensperger "cut a deal" to alter election process, bypassing the General Assembly??

@GaSecofState awarded the contract to Dominion before it was even certified then refused to release the certification testing?

Dominion had the benefit of bid rigging in some states, Louisiana caught it?
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Em-7E4bUUAEfGgU?format=jpg&name=small

Call Barry Herron for all your Dominion Voting machine needs!; 11/16/20, 8:59 PM
Kyzer SoSay said...: Basically, 153K voted in Clark County NV need to be tossed and they can't explain the discrepancies they were finding, machine vs human recount.

It's not Biden I worry about, when it comes to this election. Nobody should be worried about Biden. He's gone by St. Patrick's Day, assuming he lives that long. COVID's a helluva bug.

They'll make sure he gets it - even if he doesn't get it.

Harris is a mostly blank slate with a gaping hole in her head where anyone can shove in bad ideas or other things and get what he wants to come out later. So bad in fact, that she didn't even make it to the first Dem primary. She will be the tool - like a subpar substitute for Michelle Obama, but somehow even less "intellectual". At least Barack and Michelle had genuine support - the best Harris can muster are halfhearted "yass qween!" solidarity statements, and that wasn't enough to translate to votes less than a year ago. And now I wonder who she might nominate as VP, if and when it's decided to shuffle Biden away.; 11/16/20, 9:09 PM
Ingachuck'stoothlessARM said...: Ho Li Fuk!
Asian kids lose their POC status in WA

For this reason, in one of our online documents from 2019, titled “Monitoring Student Growth,” we evaluated the achievement data by “Students of Color” and “Students of Poverty.” In the document we grouped White and Asian students together.

https://www.nthurston.k12.wa.us/Page/21229; 11/16/20, 9:12 PM
J. Farmer said...: I wish people had a better understanding of how addiction works and just how works in the brain.

Unfortunately, we don't really know much of how anything works in the brain. Psychology has been obsessed with neuroscience the last couple of decades driven by improvements in brain imaging technologies, and the misguided belief that mental states can be understood in terms of brain structure and neural patterns.; 11/16/20, 9:17 PM
I'm Not Sure said...: "In the document we grouped White and Asian students together."

Well, of course. When the data as it exists is inconvenient, redefine it to fit your conclusions.; 11/16/20, 9:19 PM
Ingachuck'stoothlessARM said...: Never again! …to Smartmatic
per the manila Times

an oldie but goodie

Consider the following incidents:
During the canvassing of the 2008 ARMM (Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao) election, several precincts in Wao, Lanao del Sur, showed zero results. When this was reported to Smartmatic, a technical person in the company accessed the machines in Wao and made the correction … from Manila! This is the first proof that Smartmatic can change the results in any region, at will, from anywhere in the country.

https://www.manilatimes.net/2016/06/21/opinion/columnists/never-again-to-smartmatic/269238/; 11/16/20, 9:20 PM
Kyzer SoSay said...: Big, if true

https://newstalk1130.iheart.com/featured/common-sense-central/content/2020-11-16-disability-service-coordinator-blows-whistle-on-vote-fraud-in-group-homes/; 11/16/20, 9:21 PM
Ingachuck'stoothlessARM said...: hey- what happened to Bobulinski?

hope he didnt, ya know, "kill himself".

...and Humper's Lap-d̶a̶n̶c̶e̶r̶ --er,top-- did the FBI "lose" it??; 11/16/20, 9:25 PM
Narr said...: OK, Holmes was well known for being easily bored without outside mental challenges, and that's understandable.

To me, engaging here is brain-work; so is almost all the stuff I do that gets scant or no mention here, since I do very little work anymore in the physical sense-- I have to walk more and use the weights more (but still not much) to make up for the job I retired from in 2015, and the time and energy expended on elder-care until mid 2018.

My newfound access to recorded classical music concerts on prime video is affording me both pleasure and brain-work. Just a few instances--

The Beethoven piano concertos, Andsnes. It took me long enough, but I realized that the camera-work complements and helps reveal the music, both as to structure and instrumentation. As familiar as I am with the music, including live performances, I'm hearing things anew because I'm seeing them differently.

Claudio Abbado semi-conducting the Brandenburg Concertos with Orchestra Mozart. Except for the harpsichord and cellos etc all the players standing up. It has a different energy; and again the cameras offer some intelligent help.

These shows are 10 and more years old, but the sound quality--even on our cheapo old Toshiba-- is superb.

Narr
All that is old is new again; 11/16/20, 9:27 PM
Sally327 said...: Joe Biden is giving advice about how to have Thanksgiving. No more than 10 people, everybody tested, everybody masked up. That's if we're not all dead because Trump is refusing to coordinate the pandemic response with the (presumed) incoming Biden administration. That didn't really make any sense, though, because I understood that Trump has totally botched the pandemic crisis, so what could his administration possibly have to offer by way of coordination, which Biden shouldn't need anyway because he's the guy who can hit the ground running from day one and has all the scientists to tell him what to do.; 11/16/20, 9:32 PM
Michael McNeil said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 11/16/20, 9:38 PM
Achilles said...: Kyzer SoSay said...

Big, if true

I read the article. On one level it is big.

On another level it is just another line in a massive list. Everyone knows this is happening. Everyone knows Democrats commit election fraud on a wide scale.

The issue is whether or not Americans will sacrifice and give up their comfort to fight for the Republic. We are all fat and happy.

As you see here on this board there is no evidence that will convince the relatively few democrat partisans. They know they are cheating and they don't care.

You cannot have a Republic with people like this.; 11/16/20, 9:38 PM
Michael McNeil said...: Brought forward from last night's thread.

@Readering wrote:
I also believe the Mueller investigation was insufficient.

Here's a summary of the Mueller investigation (compiled from these sources):

Team: 19 lawyers were employed (all rabid political enemies of Trump), assisted by “about 40 FBI agents, intelligence analysts, forensic accountants and other professional staff”

Investigation timeframe: 22 months (675 days)
Cost: some $34 million
Report length: 448 pages (with redactions)
Redactions: 865*
Requests to foreign governments for evidence: 13
Pen registers: 50 monitoring orders authorized
Comm. records: more than 230 orders obtained
Interviews: approx. 500 witnesses interviewed
Search warrants: close to 500 executed
Subpoenas: more than 2,800 issued

Results: [quoting the first source]

Indictments: Mueller ultimately indicted, convicted or got guilty pleas from 34 people and three companies. [None were related to “Russian collusion” — Mueller's original commission.]

Facebook: The St.Petersburg-based Internet Research Agency, which is financed by Yevgeny Prigozhin, purchased 3,500 Facebook ads. The expenditure cost the the group $100,000, according to the [Mueller] report.

Twitter: On Twitter, the Russian IRA was responsible for 3,814 accounts. Ahead of the election, these accounts were responsible for posting about 175,993 tweets. About 84 percent of those tweets were election related. Twitter said it contacted about 1.4 million people who it believed were in contact with the IRA-controlled accounts.

[/unQuote]

Such was the totality of the Russian interference in the 2016 election, as determined by Mueller's extensive and nearly 2-year-long investigation.

Please inform us, Readering, just how much more Mueller's team should have done, how much longer they should have taken — and how much more they should have spent (> $1 billion, say?) — to satisfy your request for a good and complete investigation. How many more search warrants than 500 (!), for instance, should have been executed?

____
*“Four types of information … were redacted: matters that could affect ongoing investigations (405), sensitive intelligence (87), infringements on personal privacy (66) and grand jury material (307).”; 11/16/20, 9:40 PM
320Busdriver said...: God... Loeffler is not an inspiring candidate. As one of the wealthiest Senators, if not THE wealthiest, I thought she should be investigated for insider trading on non public covid info. Her husband is the chairman of the NYSE and dumped a ton of shares prior to the March plunge. I got no use for these types. If I lived there it would require holding my nose to vote for her. Fortunately for her, and the rest of us God willing, her opponent has a few skeletons too.; 11/16/20, 9:43 PM
I'm Not Sure said...: On one level it is big.

On another level it is just another line in a massive list. Everyone knows this is happening. Everyone knows Democrats commit election fraud on a wide scale.

There's an awful lot to process here, and seemingly more is turning up every day. As proponents of a "living Constitution", I'm sure Democrats won't have a problem with taking all the time that's needed to sort things out before making any declaration regarding the outcome of the presidential election.

Right?; 11/16/20, 9:52 PM
narciso said...: Oh really

https://m.theepochtimes.com/dominion-part-of-council-that-disputed-election-integrity-concerns-in-dhs-statement_3581659.html; 11/16/20, 10:18 PM
stephen cooper said...: March - flatten the curve

November - skinny Joe from Philadelphia; 11/16/20, 10:33 PM
Mike of Snoqualmie said...: Stop drinking the Trump Kool-Aid -- Wayne Bruno

Wayne Bruno conflates Nazi Germany's low unemployment with Trump's low unemployment and then reaches the conclusion that Trump's America is headed toward a Nazi-Germany future. Perhaps he'd like to give some concrete examples of unconstitutional action, maybe like all the "journalists" who have disappeared never to be heard from again or been banished into Siberia? What, the ghosts of Nazi Germany say that no "journalist" has disappeared and the only "journalists" who have been banished from the White House press pool are two, Jim Acosta for being rude to a White House press office staffer and another journalist (can't remember who) who was also banished for rudeness to White House press office staffer.

That Ol' Trump sure is a real fascist, isn't he!; 11/16/20, 10:53 PM
J. Farmer said...: @Achilles:

When I say one party that refers to the .0001% + college educated technocrat class + welfare class alliance that is represented by the GOPe and the Democrat party. A one party state of this coalition is California.

The Trump GOP retains the 1% + working/middle class as constituency.

You seem to be purposely obtuse right now.

My comment was not directed to you, so so what you mean when you say "one party" was not relevant.

That said, I basically agree with that demographic breakdown. The Democrats and Republicans are the left and right wings of an elite-backed centrism. After the Cold War and the narrowing of policy differences between the two parties, each side is incentivized to overreact and overhype threats from the other side in order to create ideological distance and distinction. That dynamic combined with the tribal nature of American partisanship has helped sort Americans into the "winners" of neoliberalism and the "losers." These two groups barely occupy the same reality. How they will occupy the same political space remains to be seen.; 11/16/20, 10:55 PM
Yancey Ward said...: "I cannot live without brain-work. What else is there to live for?"

I feel the same way. I started last week to study mathematics again, but I basically need 6 months to bone up on the basics in algebra, trig, and 1st year calculus. I stopped studying math after finishing my differential equations book my junior year in college (I was a chemistry and biology major). Last year I started watching lots and lots of math Youtube videos, and it has rekindled my interest in math itself on a functional level. When I was in college, I could literally spend five to six hours at a time working through the textbooks and problem sets (I did this for chemistry, too)- I don't quite have that level of concentration any longer- at least I haven't had it during this first week working through the Schaum College Algebra workbook, but I have found it refreshing to not have turned into a complete dolt at age 54. I remember almost all the algebra even though I haven't used any but the most basic of it in over 30 years.

The downside is I have a horrendous case of hand cramps in my right hand after about an hour.; 11/16/20, 10:57 PM
Gahrie said...: "I cannot live without brain-work. What else is there to live for?"

I feel the same way.

I plan to retire in ten years to a small college town somewhere (Boise?), buy a condo near the school campus, buy a meal plan and enroll full time. Take classes I'm interested in, and find a few professors it's fun to argue with. Hang out with young people instead of people waiting to die.; 11/16/20, 11:15 PM
J. Farmer said...: The citizens and politicians in Nazi Germany also looked the other way when their leader gave them low unemployment and a good economy. That all ended in April 1945.

I think these kinds of statements are symptomatic of a bigger conceptual problem we have in the US. Because contemporary American identity is so grounded in WWII and the subsequent postwar order and Cold War, we are overly dependent on metaphors and symbols from that era. Hence the incessant appeals to Churchill, Hitler, Stalin, Chamberlain, Munich, appeasement, etc. We're always on the verge of either a fascist-theocratic or Leninist totalitarian takeover. And yet, it is neoliberalism that has been the dominant ideology for decades and has faced very little organized opposition. Neither the left nor the right is well equipped critique neoliberalism. It is so ingrained many people take it for granted and assume it is synonymous with America, that we've always been about free trade, immigration, and war to protect liberty. It's a kind of American mythology that became quite prevalent in the post-WWII era.; 11/16/20, 11:17 PM
Gahrie said...: Unfortunately, we don't really know much of how anything works in the brain.

I want to know where *I* exist. My {soul} for want of a better term. Does it reside in a physical space? Is it separate physically but linked in some way? Is my body me, or is it a vehicle I am riding in? What happens if we clone a human? What if it lives, but is not animated? What if it grows into a completely separate person, with a {soul} of its own?; 11/16/20, 11:23 PM
Gahrie said...: The citizens and politicians in Nazi Germany also looked the other way when their leader gave them low unemployment and a good economy. That all ended in April 1945.

I think you'll find that all of that changed several years before 1945.; 11/16/20, 11:26 PM
Kathryn51 said...: Yancey Ward said...
I feel the same way. I started last week to study mathematics again, but I basically need 6 months to bone up on the basics in algebra, trig, and 1st year calculus.

I think I could do the algebra and trig (always got straight A's), but 1st year Calculus was my Waterloo. Walked into the final with an "F" - pulled out an "A" on the final (long story on how things were graded back then) and ended up with a C+. Thankfully, a couple of "philosophy" course on "logic", of all things, counted toward the math/science requirement. Aced those as well.

I've looked in auditing classes at my old Alma Mater - but I began to look at Con Law - My God, they have split the course into FOUR different social justice type classes. Since it is all online these days, I'm thinking I may still do one of them this winter. But. . . .so much garbage to sort through. :-(; 11/16/20, 11:29 PM
narciso said...: You lived in the border lands between a marxist regime and monarchical regime where the latter was the target of the first.; 11/16/20, 11:32 PM
Yancey Ward said...: I can't believe you aren't excited to take Constitutional Law As It Applies to Left-Handed Albino Ungendered And Undocumented Citizens.; 11/16/20, 11:35 PM
narciso said...: Oh

https://mobile.twitter.com/NiceDeb/status/1328546955316916225; 11/16/20, 11:35 PM
Yancey Ward said...: https://mobile.twitter.com/NiceDeb/status/1328546955316916225

A recount like this absolutely must be done with at least two people- one chosen by the Republican Party and one chosen by the Democrats. I mean, this is hard to do or hard to understand why it has to be done this way.

Seriously, would any Democrat trust a guy off the street to go to the ATM and get them a $100?

Really, we are going to pretend to be this stupid?; 11/16/20, 11:39 PM
narciso said...: Sure why not:

https://mobile.twitter.com/adamhousley/status/1328552144232878080; 11/16/20, 11:43 PM
Yancey Ward said...: Some animals are more equal than others, especially if it involves a free trip to Maui.

How long before George Orwell's Wiki page is removed?; 11/16/20, 11:50 PM
eddie willers said...: If I lived there it would require holding my nose to vote for her.

That's the situation I find myself in. I knew our weak brained Governor was an old time RINO when he tagged her instead Doug Collins. But hold my nose, I will.; 11/16/20, 11:50 PM
narciso said...: Its the ultimate in crime think. They have to suspend this mail in ballot system and throw raffenberger to the dogs. It only seems fair.; 11/16/20, 11:53 PM
Gospace said...: Gahrie said...
"I cannot live without brain-work. What else is there to live for?"

I feel the same way.

I plan to retire in ten years to a small college town somewhere (Boise?), buy a condo near the school campus, buy a meal plan and enroll full time. Take classes I'm interested in, and find a few professors it's fun to argue with. Hang out with young people instead of people waiting to die.

One of the reasons why at age 65 I'm still a Scout leader.; 11/17/20, 12:27 AM
gadfly said...: Democracy’s Afterlife: Trump, the GOP, and the rise of zombie politics.

If Trump is eventually removed from the Oval Office, the study of revenge and immortal hate, not sober self-criticism, will be the response in Trumpworld. There will be no chastening, just a further injection of resentment and conspiracy-mongering.

This is zombie politics—the life-after-death of a former conservative party. And as Gothic stories tell us, it is very hard to kill the undead. One half of a two-party system has passed over into a post-democratic state. This reality has to be recognized, and a crucial aspect of that recognition is to accept that the claim Ford could make in 1974—“Our Constitution works”—no longer applies. After the long national nightmare of Watergate, America could rub its eyes and awaken to a renewed confidence in its system of checks and balances.

But the Trump presidency has been no nightmare. It has been daylight delinquency, its transgressions of democratic values on lurid display in all their corruption and cruelty and deadly incompetence. There may be much we do not yet know, but what is known (and in most cases openly flaunted) is more than enough: the Mueller report, the Ukraine scandal, the flagrant self-dealing, the tax evasion, the children stolen from their parents, the encouragement of neo-Nazis, Trump’s admission that he deliberately played down the seriousness of the coronavirus. There can be no awakening because the Republicans did not sleep through all of this. They saw it all and let it happen. In electoral terms, moreover, it turns out that they were broadly right. There was no revulsion among the party base. The faithful not only witnessed his behavior, they heard Trump say, repeatedly, that he would not accept the result of the vote. They embraced that authoritarianism with renewed enthusiasm. The assault on democracy now has a genuine, highly engaged, democratic movement behind it. ~Fintan O’Toole; 11/17/20, 1:15 AM
J. Farmer said...: @Gahrie:

I want to know where *I* exist. My {soul} for want of a better term. Does it reside in a physical space? Is it separate physically but linked in some way?

The mind-body problem. I'm a materialist, so I don't believe that the mind can exist separately from the body, and I think when your body stops, your mind stops. But while I believe the mind emerges strictly from physical properties, I don't believe we can understand it by reducing it to these processes.

When people say the mind is in "the body," what they often really believe is that the mind is in "the brain." This has been a dominant view in cognitive and affective neuroscience. The brain is conceptualized as the "command center" that regulates the body's subsystems. This is almost certainly not an accurate way to understand how the brain functions. The brain cannot be separated from the body in that way. It operates in a reciprocal and interdependent relationship with the enteric nervous system, the endocrine system, and the immune system. And none of these systems can be isolated from the individual's physical or social environment (i.e. ecology). The "self" emerges from the feedback loops these interactions produce. Maybe. It is uncertain that we even have the ability to understand how this process works. And even if we did, we are a million miles away from it currently. We're not even scratching the surface. We're still trying to figure out the quesrions.; 11/17/20, 1:37 AM
Ann Althouse said...: What a great quote!

"...I cannot live without brain-work. What else is there to live for? Stand at the window here. Was ever such a dreary, dismal, unprofitable world? See how the yellow fog swirls down the street and drifts across the dun-colored houses. What could be more hopelessly prosaic and material? What is the use of having powers, doctor, when one has no field upon which to exert them? Crime is commonplace, existence is commonplace, and no qualities save those which are commonplace have any function upon earth."

Thanks, Kai Akker, for getting the thread started with such an enticing concept.

Arthur Conan Doyle, "The Sign of Four."; 11/17/20, 4:52 AM
Kai Akker said...: Sherlock Holmes's relentless logic extracts order from chaos, even if a bit stagily at times. A great antidote to the disorder and destruction we have been living with this year; at least this year.; 11/17/20, 4:57 AM
Kai Akker said...: Of course, we cannot overlook what happens right after Holmes's lament about the prosaic material world.

In comes the landlady carrying a card upon a brass salver.

"A young lady for you, sir," she said.....; 11/17/20, 5:00 AM
Ann Althouse said...: But he's so distanced from real life. Why isn't drifting fog in the streets beautiful? He finds the world worthless.; 11/17/20, 5:01 AM
Ralph L said...: Why isn't drifting fog in the streets beautiful?

Sulfurous smoke from coal fires wasn't easy on the eyes--or noses.; 11/17/20, 5:27 AM
Michael McNeil said...: What happens if we clone a human? What if it lives, but is not animated? What if it grows into a completely separate person, with a {soul} of its own?

Human cloning happens — naturally — all the time, in the phenomenon of identical twins (triplets, etc.). Best anyone can tell, not only are all the different bodies bearing the same identical genome “animated,” but they have souls no different qualitatively from those of any other human beings.; 11/17/20, 5:43 AM
Kai Akker said...: Ms. A, he says himself somewhere in the opening of The Sign of the Four that he craves mental exaltation. So the workaday world, the quotidian, certainly the colorless quality of the scene Conan Doyle uses Holmes to describe, all of that defies his craving for the exceptional, the unusual, the confounding -- the zones in which his mental gifts could operate.

The ordinary world is boring to Holmes by definition. Even though he can still observe and draw inferences on small matters. The price of exceptionalism. It must have a price.; 11/17/20, 6:02 AM
BUMBLE BEE said...: He's back in Biden's presidency...https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/11/16/21570072/obama-internet-threat-democracy-facebook-fox-atlantic; 11/17/20, 6:09 AM
iowan2 said...: its transgressions of democratic values on lurid display in all their corruption and cruelty and deadly incompetence.

Stupid
The constant hyperbole is stupid.
Name one "transgressions of democratic values" this is very vague. "corruption" Name one so we can identify exactly how dishonest you really are. "Cruelty"? Meaningless word in this context, My kids called me cruel from time to time. Adulting has certain requirements. "Deadly incompetence"? Don't know what you mean. There hasn't been a president in more than 100 years that has kept our troops out of foreign entanglements as well as our current President. As for covid, Fauci testified under oath in September. When asked specifically, with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight what he would do different. He responded that he couldn't think of anything.
So get specific or go away. Put up your opinion instead of aimlessly posting meaning twaddle from others, that you don't understand.

(The handwringing of the left sure doesnt feel like a group that is confident of their self declared victory); 11/17/20, 6:26 AM
iowan2 said...: I recognized the quote from Doyle/Holmes. Audible membership gets me free classics. I downloaded a collection of Sherlock Holmes stories. Very nice because they are short stories and can get through them in relatively short trips.; 11/17/20, 6:43 AM
gilbar said...: When the Dodgers won the World Series, few Americans were watching the game that had once been dubbed America's Pastime. The 2020 World Series broke all sorts of records, mostly bad ones, becoming the least watched world series. With an average of less than 10 million viewers, the series commanded the attention of some 3% of Americans.

The 32% drop in viewers came at a time when people, many stuck at home, are obsessively watching television. What were the other 13 million who had been watching last year do?

serious question
was there a baseball World Series this year? First i heard; 11/17/20, 7:12 AM
Jaq said...: US Household Incomes Increased More in 2018 Than in the Previous 20 Years—Combined.

Had to stop, it was taking money out of the pockets of the wealthy. Servants were getting uppity.; 11/17/20, 7:41 AM
Jaq said...: I think that readering’s version is “release the crackhead!"; 11/17/20, 7:45 AM
William50 said...: Deutsche Bank Green Covid-19 Recovery Plan: Tax People for the “Privilege” of Working from Home

You might think a German bank would see telecommuting as a positive step towards a more climate friendly future. But according to Deutsche Bank, people who ditch the daily commute should be taxed.

From the report;

To save capitalism we must help the young

Democratic capitalism is under threat as increasing numbers of young people view the system as rigged against them. The pandemic has only exacerbated their economic disadvantage. However, there is a growing risk that as the young gain an electoral advantage, a populist politician will harness the anger and upend capitalism in ways that hurt inclusive development. To avoid this, we must now redistribute from the old to the young in ways we have not yet considered.

A work-from-home tax

People who can WFH and disconnect themselves from face-to-face society have gained many benefits during the pandemic. A five per cent tax for each WFH day would leave the average person no worse off than if they worked in the office. It could raise $49bn per year in the US, €20bn in Germany, and £7bn in the UK. That can fund subsidies for the lowest-paid workers who usually cannot work from home.; 11/17/20, 8:04 AM
mockturtle said...: So many investigations, so few conclusions. I'm still waiting to hear who killed Epstein.; 11/17/20, 8:12 AM
Rosa Marie Yoder said...: That photo made me say, "Wow!"; 11/17/20, 9:00 AM
Jim said...: Open Source Software in voting machines would remove a lot of doubt about whether or not the code has been fiddled in order to bias votes for one candidate or another. OSS means that the vote-counting program the machines execute can be inspected by anyone, including really good programmers. Checksums and other more sophisticated techniques would reveal if the code had been modified from the original standard.

Of course the Dominion and Smartmatic owners and their minions would go to the mattresses to prevent it from happening.; 11/17/20, 12:30 PM
Jupiter said...: Black Lives Matter; 11/17/20, 4:44 PM
Jupiter said...: "So many investigations, so few conclusions. I'm still waiting to hear who killed Epstein."

So far, only one suspect has been conclusively eliminated.; 11/17/20, 5:53 PM
newinshops said...: you invited to visit : https://newinshops.com/cute-design/; 11/18/20, 10:03 AM