The Race to Watch Last Night Was in Mississippi

Perhaps state and local governance is indeed within conservative capabilities -- microgovernance, you might say -- but the day Republicans attempt federal governance -- macrogovernance -- is the day they surpass not so much their level of competence, maybe, but, for sure, their level of interest. ------------------- edwina mississippi drug rehab

Also read/buzz the BuzzFlash.net article reference: House Takeover in Mississippi Shows Good Things Come in Threes for Dems http://www.buzzflash.net/story.php?id=51880 Democrat Travis W. Childers won the House special election runoff Tuesday in Mississippi’s 1st District. The victory gave the Democrats their third special election takeover victory in recent weeks, for the first time in 30 years. Said Oklahoma Rep. Tom Cole , who chairs the NRCC, “Though the Democrats’ task will be more difficult in a November election, the fact is they have pulled off [these] special election victories [....] should be a concern to all Republicans.”

To think the entrenched, wingnut Republicans in Congress are going to simply roll over and let Obama rub their collective bellies just because he's able to effectively communicate an unchanged series of empty yet "uplifting" platitudes is naive at best, disastrous at worst.

If things are going so well with Obama, just why did he have to don a flag pin? And did you see his campaign event in Missouri yesterday? Talk about a pathetic speech and a small bored audience. Obama better hope that the Super Delegates don't watch that uninspired speech. The audience spent most of the time trying to supress yawns. I had to laugh. Hillary was upbeat, gorgeous, vital, brilliant and her audience behind her was joyous and ecstatic. Just the total opposite of Obama's. What is Obama doing by pretending he has a "Mission Accomplished" event on the same day he was demolished in West Virginia, despite campaigning there and spending twice as much as Hillary? My God, do we have to watch such arrogance and stupidity all in the same event with Obama. And at the same time, we can see passion, brilliance and courage from Hillary. THe contrast is so great and belies the media attempt to portray Hillary as doing nothing but attack Obama and poor Obama just speaks so brilliantly about issues and uplifting themes. What hogwash! But what can you expect from the mainstream corporate media. However I always expected BuzzFlash not to echo the MSM ad infinitum. It was just such an illustration of how Hillary's campaign is upbeat and passionate and the reality of Obama's speechifying BS.

truthisall.net http://www.progressiveindependent.com/dc/dcboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=120&topic_id=3898 But it's too simple, too foolproof; too obvious...so Congress won't even consider it. Precinct Voting: Paper ballots input to PC (Excel); Uploaded to Internet; Votes/Totals Verified Online There are approximately 200,000 precincts nationwide (average of 4,000 per state). How much would it cost and how long would it take to process and count an average precinct (600 voters)? Hava look at this. Precinct Hardware: One (1) Personal Computer: $400 (used for ballot data entry only) Ballots are completed by the voter with pen and paper. Printer: $100 Software: Excel $100 Total cost: $600 Data entry volunteers: Three (3) independent data input/verification volunteers (12 hours). Two or three shifts. Volunteer A reads the ballot, B enters the data, C verifies the result. Process: The voter fills out a ballot marking each selected candidate (i.e. a,b,c,d). The volunteers use their god-given optical scanners (EYES) to read the ballots and enter the votes in a spreadsheet. As each vote is entered, the spreadsheet automatically calculates the total vote and percentage for each candidate. Estmated Time: Assume data entry/verification takes 1 minute per voter. Total data entry time would be 600 minutes (10 hours). But that would be spread out over 12 hours on Election Day. Data entry would be completed shortly after the polls closed. Upload to the Internet: The following simple steps complete the process: 1) Print the spreadsheet (1 minute). 2) Upload the sheet to the Internet (10 seconds). Anyone can check the precinct results. 3) Upload the sheet to the Central Tabulator (10 seconds). The published totals should match the Internet. That's it. Physical locations of redundant data files: 1) The original ballots are retained in a secure location 2) Precinct Excel file: recorded voter id, verified votes and totals 3) Internet Excel files: copies of uploaded precinct files 4) Internet County/state composite Excel files: votes/totals for online viewing Many advantages over current method: 1) Secure paper ballots- documented chain of custody 2) Data redundancy- discrepancies between local/internet files must be accounted for 3) No proprietary DRE/central tabulator code (just public Excel/VBA, password protected) 4) No bribing of SOS gatekeeper to purchase DREs 5) No need to recount votes 6) Diebold/Premier & ES&S out of the DRE/Opscan voting machine business The Internet precinct files can be used as a check on the Exit Polls.

My state, Missouri, like many states, still has touch screen voting machines. If you are looking for an act of God, these machines are the perfect deus ex machina for the next election. In Missouri the software that counts the votes (100,000+ lines of code) has never been reviewed by a single person in the state. Since updates from the manufacturer come out every couple of months, it is safe to say that nobody except the manufacturer knows how these machines count votes. Further, Missouri is like most states in that it doesn't do anything effective in the after voting audit (we don't even have a machine-independent record of the vote--a paper ballot--to audit the electronic results against). The odds against catching an electronic election theft are almost nill. If a candidate is looking to win what would be easier wooing two or three manufacturers (or their employees) or trying to overcome the track record in the public's eye of an administration from hell that you've tied yourself to? This election will be counted by partisan Republican manufacturers, the act of God is already in place.

"Short of some act of God, Barack Obama is the presumptive Democratic nominee." Hmmm... Last time around, some evil god was acting up, making the supreme court inflict supreme injustice on this god-forsaken country. What god do you expect to act up this time?

was there a black candidate in Mississippi?