Harehunter

Originally Posted By: The Kingdom of West Brom Here here! Sign outside an audiologists office: Quote: Hear here.

Originally Posted By: Slenderman. How much do you define is a reasonable fee? You add a reasonable "fie pheaux fum" at the end.

Good one That makes so much cents, you have left me punnyless.

Sounds like the title of a book. "Die Laughing". At least he went out doing something he loved to do.

Originally Posted By: Lilith the Wizardry series has had both cat-dudes and lizard-dudes since Wizardry VI in 1990 and i'm pretty sure it's an acknowledged influence on Jeff's games, so if you want a plausible common source of inspiration there it is I never met a cat-dude before, but in electronics class I learned about cat-toads and ant-toads. One of them had great potential, the other was just revolting. I'd better get myself back to ground.

I was wireless for a while, but then I started drinking coffee again. All week long I've felt like a hybrid between a mythical reptile and a burro. You know why they call a seven day period a week? Because that's how you feel at the end of it. That is why they give us weakends. The puns in that last paragraph are pretty week as well.

Did I hear someone cry wolf? And all that talk about Who, I can't seem to be able to get past first base. Meanwhile there is a stone that is still rocking and rolling along.

Was it that Romney was more prepared, or was it that Obama didn't feel the need to prepare? Romney had reason to come with both guns loaded. The polls probably lulled the President into thinking that he only needed to bring his knife. Round two will be different. The VP debates promise to be quite explosive. P.S. I don't put much stock in polls. Ever since that college course, I have always been a curmudgeon with respect to statistics unless I see the basis upon which they are formed; sample size, how sample was chosen, % of non-respondents, weighting factors, standard deviations.

@Lilith, Again and again I hear that "There is no evidence that voter fraud exists". I agree with that because there is no evidence at all, period. None, zero, zip, nada. Whether you wish to prove or disprove it, there is no evidence. As to the premise that voter ID laws will / have disenfranchise 10% of the population, again, how can one prove that theoretical estimation without actually testing it and making quantifiable observations? An assertion that is simply being repeated many times by many people does not make it a fact. What quantitative method is being used to count that 10%? I also assert that if that 10% of the population could be verified to have been denied the right to vote, we would also have identified those individuals and be able to correct the problem. As for the process of purging the voter registry of deceased people, well even that is a contentious problem as evidenced in Florida. There are claims that people who are still living have been dropped from the registry. I can see how this could happen, given the mobility in our society. The procedures to verify if a citizen is dead or alive vary from state to state, but I would presume that it involves matching a persons name with their address. In that case, it is up to the individual to apply for a new registration card with their current address. If I were to show up at the polls without a valid voter registration, whose fault is that? Did I move and not tell the county registrar of such? How are they going to know if I don't tell them? There is a responsibility on the part of the individual to register and to keep that registration current. @Jerakeen, Your point is very well taken. I was just thinking about that myself. I do not know the procedure for verifying the validity of these, but I am certain there is one. Your assertion that absentee ballots traditionally favor Republicans is very intriguing. What demographic is most likely to have to vote by absentee ballot that would also favor Republicans? Surely you can't be talking about our men and women in the armed forces who have volunteered to put themselves at risk, and have been deployed by the Commander In Chief to overseas stations?

Nice summary: Originally Posted By: Randomizer Stocks have to deal with different investment types: Fundamentalists -[snip] Technicians - [snip] Quants - [snip] The rest of us - snip One thing that has bothered me is the behavior of the stock market and how volatile it is with respect to the "futures market", which is reflected almost immediately in the current value of a commodity. What troubles me mostly is that, while the cost of producing a commodity has not changed, the price of it can sky rocket at the hint of a possibility of something bad that may or may not occur in the future. Sometimes it seems that the stock market is run by a bunch of lemmings. That being said, without the stock market, raising capital to start or grow a business would be far more difficult.

Originally Posted By: Lilith Originally Posted By: Harehunter Where lies the truth? IMO it lies somewhere between the two polarities. snip the truth is not in the middle: the truth is wherever it is. it doesn't move just because people's opinions change Correct, the truth is *not* in the middle. Correct, the truth is wherever it is. What I said is that it is somewhere between the biased perspectives. It may certainly be closer to one perspective or the other. The truth is what it is. Where the distortion comes in is from the biased perspective of the observers. @Aloreal, I would love to be able to disprove the theory that people are fraudulently voting in the name of other people, dead or alive. But riddle me this, how does one go about *verifying* that it does not occur if you are not verifying the identity of those who show up to vote? To conduct a study of voter fraud today, you send out a questionnaire to the effect of: "Did you have any voter fraud in your district?" "No." "How do you know this?" "I just know." "What metric did you use to arrive at this conclusion?" "What what???" "What method did you use to verify there was no fraud?" "I stood around and watched people coming in to vote." "Do you know all those people?" "No." "How did you identify them?" "They came in, they voted, they left." "On this basis you assert there was no fraud?" "Yes." I understand this sounds sarcastic, but under the current rules, how else could this conversation go? On the other hand, if verification of a persons identity was in place, would it not then discourage the practice of voter fraud in the first place? In that circumstance, it would (could only) prove that there is no voter fraud. It seems we have one Heller of a Catch here.

Originally Posted By: Triumph Just don't get puffed up thinking you made a clever pun there. Awww, you're just trying to butter me up. But I've already been a-salted.

Unless you're trying to be attractive. But who would I be fooling? You've seen my picture.

I thought it was just corny.

I really need to spend less time in General. It can be a major time sink. I have a CodeBlocks install with wxWidgets, but I haven't had much time to delve into it.

Aloreal, When ever I try to make a point from the conservative perspective, I make an effort to cite liberal leaning sources. If I only cited FOX sources, then my arguments are shot down as being based on a biased news source (which FOX is). But bias is rampant in our so-called media today. When I read your cite to NEWS21, I felt compelled to research the source. The National Center for Public Policy Research has a report that conflicts directly with the NEWS21 article. Here is an example of what I mean by using statistical modelling based upon flawed or merely insufficient sampling techniques. Is the NCPPR biased? I would have to say yes. But that does not mean that NEWS21 is not biased. I have said it before, that there is a great distortion between journalism and editorialism. We expect that our journalists will tell us objectively what the facts are, without creative editing or biased spin. But that sort of journalism doesn't grab peoples attention enough to increase a stations ratings. Why should that factor in? Follow the money. Low ratings mean low viewership, and advertisers need large viewerships in order to sell their product. So now we wind up with Chris Mathews ad Bill O'Reilly, stirring the pot in opposite directions. Where lies the truth? IMO it lies somewhere between the two polarities. Harehunter yields the soap box. Sorry, Sylae, I haven't had time to look at your citation. I will try to get to it tonight.

The one thing that everyone seems to miss is this. Those people who are in this country and are not citizens DO have the right to vote... in the country of which they ARE citizens. When our military personnel are stationed overseas, they do NOT get the right to vote in the elections of the host nation, but they do have the right to vote absentee in the elections of the U.S. and the state which is their Home of Record, i.e. the state in which they lived when they joined the service. Second, why should I not take into account the laws of other nations? The One World government you aspire to does not exist. The closest we have gotten to that ideal is the United Nations, and even that body has only limited authority with respect to the laws that its member nations may enact for their own purposes. Thirdly, with respect to Khoth's post, I admit that half the countries I mentioned do have some cross border voting rights; those states that are members of the European Union. Since they are a union of separate states it would be reasonable that they would have elections on interstate interests. The same principle applies here in the United States of America. Each state has its own governing body, which is elected by the citizens of that state. And since these states are members of a federal republic, the citizens of those states also qualify as citizens of the republic. Fourth; How can you prove there is *not* any voter fraud? What evidence have you collected to prove that point. Do you have any evidence? No, because you are not even trying to collect any? Fifth; With regard to senior citizens who are bedridden, there are organizations that exist to enable these people to get registered. And they don't have to even go to the pols; they are allowed to vote absentee even though they are not physically absent. Sixth; What overwhelming evidence states that the majority of the people who would be /are disenfranchised are predominantly democrats. Again, without collecting any evidence to verify that point, how can such a claim be proven to be valid?

I have one question: A photo ID is required for just about anything you do in this country. You want to open a bank account? Write a check at a store? Parents have to show a photo ID to enter their child's school. Many politicians have been requiring a photo ID to gain admittance to their town hall meetings, for security reasons they say. Not everyone drives a car, or boards an aircraft or passenger train, but if you do you have to have a photo ID. Establishments that sell alcoholic beverages or tobacco products are required by law to verify the age of their customers; photo ID required. Police, firefighters, hospital staff, military personnel are required to have a photo ID. True, there are people who fit into none of the above categories, so they would have little or no reason to have a photo ID. In most cases there is a fee for getting a photo ID. But those can be waived. In fact, in the Texas Voter ID law, it specifically calls for such fees to be waived for those people who could other wise not afford it. Back to my question: How can it be considered to be biased to require that a person who presents themselves to the polls to participate in their civic duty to verify their eligibility to do so? Does Australia allow non-citizens to vote in their elections? Great Britain? Denmark? India? El Salvador? Venezuela? Cuba? Does any country that has some form or semblance of democracy allow a citizen to vote more than once, in districts they do not live in? This is probably not considered to be a problem in most countries because the fraction of non-citizens in their population is so small as to be insignificant. But what other country has over 13 million non-citizens living within their borders? And that is just those who are in this country **legally**. According to the N.Y. Times, there are 11 million illegal residents in the U.S. And that's only the number they counted. With the total population being 311.5 million, non-citizens represent just a bit over 7% of the population. Not a lot you say. But with the division of political opinions being almost even, that 7% can seriously affect the outcome of an election. For those here who live outside the U.S., I ask you to think honestly how you would feel if foreigners who owe their allegiance to another country, were allowed to come into your country, vote in your elections, and leave you with the results. I ask you Americans to consider the same. I step off the soap box.

The article refers to a different group that was "ACORN like", but was specifically stated that it was not ACORN. The group in question was called "America Votes".

It goes both ways.

More fan mail. Due to the graphic nature of this post I put in on my web site.

A Couplet Squared; You dangled an angle And tempted me mangle. My mind is a tangle, I hope I don't strangle.

If wildebeast roamed on the plains of Highpot, would they be known as Highpoten gnus? Just a Randomized thought.

This is quite nice. Thanks for the reference.

Silicon based lifeforms. Even though silicon resembles carbon in many ways, it just doesn't combine into molecules as complex as carbon does.