Angry

Yeah, like 900 secret FBI files in the possession of a White House employee
whom no one could remember hiring. Or having a friendly commodity trader
"parking" five grand in your old lady's account, and then, presto, it's
$100,000.00. Or using the IRS to harass personal enemies. Or giving secret
manufactuing technology to the Chinese in exchange for bags of money. Or
having your former national security advisor stuff his pants full of secret
documents so the marginal notes pertaining to Able Danger would never see
the light of day. Or -- oh wait, wrong guy. And I was just getting
started.

What Bush did with surveillance was perfectly legal, moral and the proper
thing to do. The legal precedent is clear beyond question. This is a point
that Carter, Clinton, Reagan and Bush would all agree upon, since they had
exactly the same view, and did exactly the same thing. In fact,
Clinton-Gorelick took it further than Bush ever dreamed.

"Peter Duniho" wrote in message
...
"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.

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

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.

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.

Pete

Larry Dighera wrote:
On Thu, 22 Dec 2005 14:59:06 -0800, "Peter Duniho"
wrote in
::


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:

Yes, they are, but I'm too tired to count the number of days left in
Bush's second term. :-)


Matt

If you think the election was rigged, how many votes do you think Bush
got? If not 51%, then 50.5%, 49%?? Even 49% is still around 60,000,000
votes. Certainly someone voted for Bush. So, if you really think he's
so bad you either have to believe that 60 million people are just
totally stupid, or you must come to the understanding that other
intelligent people see things differently and your opinion is just
that, an opinion, not fact. Democrats will continue to lose elections
if they continue to not understand Republicans. If you choose to
believe Republicans vote out of stupidity, you've lost that vote.
Republicans, on the other hand, DO know why people vote liberal.
Liberals want the gov't to take responsibility of taking care of
everyone.

-Robert

dave j wrote:
Angry, I think because it is so senseless and needless. It's upseting
to see people killing their families in stupid ways. I don't know what
it is about the hills around gilroy, but they seem to be magnets for
airplanes.

A couple of years ago, a CFI and Commercial student hit the hills in similar
conditions although it was day time. Scud ran all the way from RHV along
Hwy 101 below 500' in a Commander and then ran into the hills when they
tried to get through next to the reservoir near Hollister (heading into the
valley).


On the other hand, I might disagree with Hilton about whether the time
and type/age of the AC made for unacceptable risk factors for family
flying in and of themselves. If the pilot was skilled for IMC and the
plane was properly equipped and maintained, I don't have a problem with
it.

The database lists the owner with no IFR rating, only ASEL. Disclaimer:
Might not have been the owner flying, might have got his IR recently, etc
etc etc.


There is, of course, the old single-engine-night-imc worry of
engine failure, but I'd bet $0.50 that this plane augured in with
cruise power. (that's purely speculation, of course, but I'd bet $0.50)

Reports of 'aerobatics' probably imply a spin, which in turn probably
implies disorientation, which probably implies a stupid VFR into IMC flight
at night. Obviously, yes, we'll have to wait for the final report, but
unfortunately with most accidents, just the names and faces change.

Hilton

Peter Duniho wrote:
Angry, I think because it is so senseless and needless. It's upseting
to see people killing their families in stupid ways.

What's the point in being angry?

There is no point in being angry. I'm not angry about this delibrately. It
makes me angry to hear about two kids who will never grow up to see their
teens, never go on a first date, never get married, etc, all because
(*probably*) of some stupid decision. As pilots, we bitch and moan that
people see 'little planes' as dangerous. Quite frankly, many pilots are
doing a great job at helping to propagate that belief and statistics. Those
kids were strapped in by an adult taking their lives in his hands. As a
father of two beautiful young girls... yes, it makes me angry.

[zip]
Anger as an emotional response to an accident like this is draining,
stressful, and misdirected. **** happens. 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).

Using the same logic, I shouldn't feel any emotion when I transport a 2
year-old girl who has organ problems to hospital. Using the same logic, I
shouldn't feel any emotion when this girl runs up and gives me a big bear
hug and kisses me on the cheek. Using the same logic, I would be
emotionally dead and with all due respect Pete, I prefer having my eyes
swell up with tears of joy helping on an Angel Flight.

Hilton

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.

Well put.

On 22 Dec 2005 17:02:13 -0800, "Robert M. Gary"
wrote:

If you think the election was rigged, how many votes do you think Bush
got? If not 51%, then 50.5%, 49%?? Even 49% is still around 60,000,000
votes. Certainly someone voted for Bush. So, if you really think he's
so bad you either have to believe that 60 million people are just
totally stupid, or you must come to the understanding that other
intelligent people see things differently and your opinion is just
that, an opinion, not fact. Democrats will continue to lose elections
if they continue to not understand Republicans. If you choose to
believe Republicans vote out of stupidity, you've lost that vote.
Republicans, on the other hand, DO know why people vote liberal.
Liberals want the gov't to take responsibility of taking care of
everyone.

-Robert

Peter Duniho wrote:

What's the point in being angry? Stupid or careless people kill their
families every day. How is this any different, for example, from this
highway accident:

I see your point, but to me every preventable (no, not the sit on your
couch or fly comparison here - I mean poor decision making) GA airplane
accident that kills especially children is yet another black mark against
"those small planes."

You discuss a logical response but the non-flying masses, those who read
the newspapers and watch their favorite talking heads, will most certainly
respond with emotion.

--
Peter

In article .com,
wrote:

Angry, I think because it is so senseless and needless. It's upseting
to see people killing their families in stupid ways. I don't know what
it is about the hills around gilroy, but they seem to be magnets for
airplanes.

Gilroy is in a valley, with passes -- one way going to San Jose,
another to Watsonville, and another out to the San Joaquin Valley. Scud
running -- especially at night -- is too tempting for some folks and
they meet the cumulogranite.

--
Remve "_" from email to reply to me personally.

"Robert M. Gary" wrote in message
oups.com...
A belief that voting machines were rigged seems to be especially common
among alien abductees and those receiving secret messages from David
Letterman.

I'm sure there was a funny in there, but I have to admit that I missed it.
g
--
Jim in NC