The United States Elections/Political Party Discussion Thread

Kimball, even using the civil standard of the basis of probability your whole "the French speaking Senator Allen could have been likely using Spanish".

When you're dealing with an esoteric set of audible syllables, there's little chance it's a mistake. Of course, you want to believe since he's your guy it can't be racism, right?

E_S

 

Actually, if you dig a little deeper, it turns out that "caca" is found in both French and Spanish. In fact, I said that in my last post. (You did read it, didn't you?)

And Ender, if you notice, I've defended both Democrats and others for making remarks like this before. The other example I've cited quite a bit (the "niggardly" incident) involved a Democrat, and actually working in an office that I think was horribly mismanaged. I still defended the guy (and continue to do so today), even though I disagree with his policies and the policies of the Williams administration in DC.

My personal view on it is that everyone (and especially the press) pulls out the race card far too often, even when there are other likely explanations. The accusation of racism without even seriously looking at other factors (including other etymologies) is nothing more than jumping to conclusions and a rush to judgement.

Kimball Kinnison

 

As is the assumption of total and utter innocence. If I said you were a shagua, only 3 people in the Senate might get it, at most. I could be insulting you in order to get away with it.

Caca, with it's faecal connotations, strikes me as far too esoteric a replacement for **** that I don't buy it. But I'm not inferring he's a hardcore racist; just that's it probable he used macaque based on a number of mitigating factors.

E_S

 

I believe in the presumption of innocence when it relates to criminal charges, but no one's looking to charge anyone with anything. They're simply deciding who they want to vote for, and who they do not want to vote for.

It's not like Allen's entitled to certain votes absent hard evidence proving he's a racist. It's reasonable to at the very least strongly suspect that Allen was making a racist comment, and it's equally reasonable to feel uncomfortable at the thought of voting for him as a result. I may only be 75% sure Allen's a racist, but that may be a bigger chance than I'm willing to take in the voting booth.

 

Well, I've always had a problem with the assumption of guilt in the court of public opinion.

As one of my favorite old hymns says:

School thy feelings, O my brother;
Train thy warm, impulsive soul.
Do not its emotions smother,
But let wisdom?s voice control.
School thy feelings; there is power
In the cool, collected mind.
Passion shatters reason?s tower,
Makes the clearest vision blind.

School thy feelings; condemnation
Never pass on friend or foe,
Though the tide of accusation
Like a flood of truth may flow.
Hear defense before deciding,
And a ray of light may gleam,
Showing thee what filth is hiding
Underneath the shallow stream.

Should affliction?s acrid vial
Burst o?er thy unsheltered head,
School thy feelings to the trial;
Half its bitterness hath fled.
Art thou falsely, basely, slandered?
Does the world begin to frown?
Gauge thy wrath by wisdom?s standard;
Keep thy rising anger down.

Look back at what happened to bring it into the media. At first, all of the different stories (with the exception of a few blogs) showed quite a bit of uncertainty about whether or not Allen made a racist remark or not (i.e. whether it was intended to be racist). Then, without any change in the facts available (the earlier stories mentioned his speaking French, where his mother was from, and even his past display of confederate flags, and even the "mohawk" excuse), the tone shifted to assuming he is guilty.

To me, that looks more like an echo chamber effect than anything else. At that point, I'll stick to the words of the hymn:

School thy feelings; condemnation
Never pass on friend or foe,
Though the tide of accusation
Like a flood of truth may flow.

Kimball Kinnison

 

Bob Novak is calling the GOP's chances in this eletion 'pitiful' or something like that. If the election were held today, apparently the Dems would takeover like 25 seats or so in the House.

 

KK, I had to find a Hymnal and plunk it out on the piano to see if I knew it.

 

There's an article here detailing Allen's links to the Council of Conservative Citizens (CCC), a racist group, as well as other blatantly racist associations and statements he's made over the years.

Some fun CCC quotes from Wikipedia:

"Each of the three major races plays a distinct role in history. . . . The whites were the creators of civilization, the yellows its sustainers and copyists, the blacks its destroyers.â??

"Western civilization with all its might and glory would never have achieved its greatness without the directing hand of God and the creative genius of the white race. Any effort to destroy the race by a mixture of black blood is an effort to destroy Western civilization itself."

I think it's becoming increasingly ludicrous to defend this guy.

 

Republicans are changing sides...in Kansas?!

Yes, you read it. Republicans are changing their colors (so to speak) in Kansas. You know you're party's really going downhill when that happens. Or I'd think so.

 

Can we get more of that article, since it seems to be behind a login?
Anyway, from what it showed, it was only one person. It seems a bit overblown at that, unless the article has more.

 

More than anything, the article illustrates that strict party labels shouldn't trump everything else, especially if one is grappling with the issues. Just as the governor in the article moved to the center, and enlisted those who used to be her "opposition" as her running mates.

 

I wish to relate to you all my political statement on MSNBC's cute slogan, "Battlefield America," boy this news people are morons.

[image=http://www.petridish.net/pics/24453/battlefield.jpg]

 

some of the local ads are getting ludicrous. Senator Jon Kyl just released an ad saying that his challenger (jim pederson) wants a trillon dollar tax hike.

what do these people take us for?

incidentally, it's fun to watch the republican governor primary ads here. they're all just fighting for the right to be crushed in November by Janet.

 

I'm finding it funny, but annoying, that for California, the race for governor, on the part of the Dem candidate, has gotten to the point of having commercials entirely consisting of pointing out that Arnold supported reelecting Bush. That was the ONLY point made in one I saw the other day.

 

I'm finding our political ads to be quite amusing. Here's their 'promise': "If elected I will lead the fight to stop George Bush's war in Iraq." or, "I promise to lead the fight to bring our troops home." Given that this is a Marylander saying this I can't help but laugh at the idea. We're such a screwed up state to begin with that seeing our senator 'leading' anything would make hell freeze over.

By the way the democratic party in Maryland 'voted' to see who would 'win' this election.

Ben Cardin will be going up against Michael Steele. Oh boy, I'm excited to see this race!

 

I read that Cali computer deal is under investigation.

 

Strictly speaking, they didn't hack the website. Everything that they accessed was publicly accessible, and they didn't circumvent any security measures to protect the files.

Many web servers, by default, will provide a listing of files in a directory if there is no "index" (or default) file. Because of that, if someone links to http://example.com/directory/file1.htm you could remove the "file1.htm" part, and get a listing of everything else in that directory, even if you don't link to it on any web page.

That's really all that they did. I do that myself all the time, especially when someone sends me a link to graphic or video file (seeing if I can see what other images/videos are available. I've also used it on various government sites to review different pub lic documents without getting links to all of them (for example, changing the year in a filename to get the previous year's report). It's something that any competent system administrator can disable with the change of one line in the proper configuration file.

As a general rule, if you don't want something public, you don't put it on a web server without securing that server. Just because you don't link to it doesn't mean that it's protected.

Kimball Kinnison

 

Let us all see that KK does indeed stand up fairly for both sides, not just republicans/conservatives. i think it's only worth pointing that out.

interesting info, and not something i had considered.

 

Contrary to some reports (yes, I'm looking at you, OWM, among others), I do think for myself, and I try to be even-handed.

It's also my job. I'm a UNIX admin, and I'm currently working on my Masters in Computer Engineering (emphasis in system and network security), and sometime next spring, I'll know if I'm accepted into the joint Masters/PhD program.

Unfortunately, "hacking" has been so distorted by the press that it is far too easy to spin something as simply as guessing a URL as "hacking". By that standard, I am a master hacker who should have been arrested years ago. Phear my wrath!!!!

Kimball Kinnison

 

Once, as an admin, you reset my colours to default red once when I was being a smartass on MSN.

I hardly think that qualifies as hacking.

E_S

 

OWM, what's the mood around Madigan's office regarding her determination that Ryan should loose his $100,000+ state pension?

I personally think he should forfeit it as well, but it was gutsy for Madigan to come out and actually say it...

We will see if the same thing applies if Blagojevich ends up in the same situation...

 

Once, as an admin, you reset my colours to default red once when I was being a smartass on MSN. ]

 

Hold up, KW. I did, kinda, maybe a little bit, insinuiate he didn't have the balls* to do it...

E_S

* - Yay! Can say that word now!

 

how do you know i was waving a finger at you?

or are you guilty about something?