The Votemaster Is...Andrew Tanenbaum 978
A reader writes: " www.electoral-vote.com, a site of daily updated maps of the US electoral college based on a number of polls is probably a site that the policially inclined check daily. Well, it has been revealed that the person behind the site, AKA the votemaster, is none other than Andrew Tanenbaum, noted author of numerous CS books." He's also known for a little discussion with someone named Linus Torvalds.
Worldwide results (Score:5, Interesting)
From the other side of the ponds, the story is quite different. About 113,000 people cast their vote here [globalvote2004.org]. In this worldwide shadow election: Kerry wins (77.1%), and Bush comes second at 9.1%. Surprisingly, support for Bush is largest in the Middle East (many votes from Israel?). Some hilarious (frightening...) responses by US citizens to this shadow-election can be found here [benrik.co.uk].
Another initiative (about 20,000 people) is here [theworldvotes.org]. Results will be published later today.
It's logical that the results are different than those in the US. However, one wonders how much of a hint some (some) US citizens (especially those posting very harsh comments in response to these shadow-elections) need to realize that it's not just the US that matters in this world.
Mod me flamebait, if you wish. But before you do, consider: it's not me delivering the criticism, it's 113,000 people (on behalf of a much larger group). I'm just the messenger boy here...
Minix (Score:3, Interesting)
Interesting that Andy now refers to MINIX in terms of Linux, no? Considering that Linux is obsolete [educ.umu.se] and all that ... ;-)
Amazing (Score:5, Interesting)
Mostly, I can wait to see how Linus is inspired by this project, writes his own version and then invites the global electoral community to help him make it even better. Take that! (j/k)
Thank you Anerew. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Worldwide results (Score:2, Interesting)
High turnout (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Sigh, how about a less biased site? (Score:5, Interesting)
It doesn't matter if the latest poll is a Strategic Vision poll (thought to be republican-leaning) or a Zogby (who some think is democrat-leaning)
If you've been really watching the site, you'd notice that there have been wild swings from Kerry to Bush in the past.
Now, I think that this is just a crackpot attempt to discredit what has been a really good site (even if I did wish that he'd throw out Strategic Vission).
Re:Thank you (Score:3, Interesting)
FUD does not have to come from the hollowed halls of Microsoft in order to be FUD. Liberals do it as well as Conservatives, both of which leave a sour taste on the palettes of the American people. People are getting disenchanted with the whole system. Everyone feels cheated and feels that they cannot trust the other side.
I reperesent a third alternative, one who is disenchanted with both parties enough, that I'm actually doing something about it (in my own ways). Refuting the logic of polls like this and questioning the spreaders of disinformation is the start. Voting your conscience tomorrow is the answer.
Re:Serious questions (Score:5, Interesting)
I would guess that for many people the causal connection is backwards from what it appears you are suggesting. I.e., people "hate" Bush because they think that he his positions or courses of action are inappropriate. I personally don't hate him, but his positions and courses of action are why I'm voting against him. (Yes, I'm one of those many people who are voting against Bush more so than voting for Kerry. I've never been particularly partisan, but have always thought that respect for the environment was very important.)
I do believe that the reasons you've listed are primary reasons we attacked Iraq. I'm still undecided as to whether the reasons were sufficient. Saddam was an evil person, and only time will tell whether we've helped to secure freedom and democracy for Iraq or whether we've prepared the way for a worse dictator. (The US has a bad track record with this - think Khomeni, etc.) Nevertheless, I do think that there has been significant profiteering going on, (e.g., Haliburton), and that is very disturbing.
An interesting thought experiment is to imagine what would have happened had we invaded Germany and removed Hitler instead of ceding the Sudetenland to him. People probably would have said we were overstating the threat, etc. Was Saddam as big a threat as Hitler? (Remember, Hitler had no WMD's either,) Maybe not. But if we had removed Hitler when he invaded the Sudetenland, Hitler wouldn't have been as big a threat.
However, even if you believe we should have attacked Iraq, it is hard to believe that Bush followed a well thought out plan. I think a good diplomat could have bargained with France, Germany, and Russia and gotten them on board. I know that seems impossible now, but that's only because Bush has so alienated them that it's difficult for even them to imagine ever helping us.
Of course, my number one reason for voting against Bush is because of the number of policies he has enacted that have rolled back the environmental policies enacted under Carter, Reagan, Bush Sr., and Clinton.
Re:If anything, that crap is counterproductive (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Worldwide results (Score:3, Interesting)
As a Brit I'm sure I'll manage to get through it
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Worldwide results (Score:5, Interesting)
Because to them, this war is basically the United States saying, "we have the right to invade anyone anytime for any reason, and there's nothing anyone can do about it". For some reason other countries don't take that well
This administration is thumbing its nose at the principals behind post-WWII international law (even UN secretary general Kofi Annon, usualy quite subserviant to the US, has called the war "illegal").
Specifically the ones who do the inevitably dirty work of wars, exporting security to the rest of the world.
What an Orwellian phrasing. "Exporting security"... that's quite a lot of security we've exported to Vietnam, Nicaragua, and Iraq. Look at what great shape those countries are in now.
I hope that the Europeans discover independent thought one of these days and stop letting themselves be culturally dominated by American media and American corporations.
Amen. Lets hope Americans do the same and stop letting ourselves be dominated by corporations and their media outlets.
Traffic spike (Score:3, Interesting)
All this for a dinky little site that never made it past the second page of the google search results. I can imagine what the servers at some of the more widely publicised sites are going through.
Re:Worldwide results (Score:1, Interesting)
2000 Redux? (Score:3, Interesting)
I wonder...
Re:Thank you (Score:1, Interesting)
Is this your first day looking at this site? Then you should know that Kerry's huge lead in the electoral college is a recent change. For a while, it was even or at times showing a huge lead for Bush.
The real reason is that the electoral college system can really amplify a tiny advantage. The winner-takes-all system for each state really does that.
The cell phone issue reminds me of a 1936 poll (Score:1, Interesting)
The cell phone issue reminds me of that situation, although it is not as pervasive. If the turnout of cell-phone-only young people is significant, this could become very interesting.
Re:Worldwide results (Score:1, Interesting)
We do?
Because they'd rather talk than kill?
Because they'd rather try diplomatic methods before testing out our new weapon systems?
George W. wanted to finish what his dad started 10 years earlier. Dick Cheney wanted to make some serious $$$ for his company.
Wake up, smell the oil, and put down the kool-aid.
Re:Worldwide results (Score:3, Interesting)
While in most years these groups may not pull that high of a percentage, it is not unheard of for them to make a difference. For example Ross Perot managed to achieve 19 percent [msn.com] of the popular vote. The fear of this possibility will force any major candidate to run a nationwide candidacy to avoid being victim to potential localized swings that could be achieved in given areas.
The idea that nearly one in five voters can select a candidate and still not have a singe electoral vote to represent their wishes. This is a clear example that this systems fails to represent the people and needs to be revised.
Re:Because the polls generally favor Democrats (Score:3, Interesting)
Your speculation is pretty much unfounded. In 2000, Gore was several points behind in polls the day before the election, and he ended up winning the popular vote. That tells me that polls favor republicans.
Re:Worldwide results (Score:2, Interesting)
Because it was a crime. A violation of international law and of the basic premise of national sovreignty. At best, international vigilantism; at worst the outright mugging of a nation to control its oil reserves.
Oh, and those 100,000 dead innocents might have something to do with it.
Yes, Saddam bad. That doesn't mean killing a bunch of people and letting a whole nation descend into chaos (from which it may well emerge into a fundamentalist theocracy) to put him in jail is a smart or moral course of action.
If my neighbor was beating his wife, I'd want to stop him, but it would not be good to burn down his house and kill his whole family to do so.
Re:Worldwide results (Score:2, Interesting)
Well, this time that isn't really the case. There is a lot of power up for grabs this time (moreso than usual).
The next president willwill be nominating up to 3 conservative Supreme Court justices in the next term. Assuming the senate stays republican, a democratic president would have to nominate justices who are fairly moderate to get by a republican senate. If its republican senate and a republican president, you can add three more conservative justices to the Court now.
Plus the current issues that are being debated - Patriot Act, Gitmo rights, DMCA etc., are/will be handled by Ashcroft's (or his replacement's) minions. There was a story in the Times today about the DOJ ignoring the SC's Hamdi decision in its arguments to the Federal District Court on remand. There is some heavy stuff being debated and right now the government is being represented by ultraconservative Christians. If these cases come before an conservative court, the government will have a much easier time persuading them.
At least if there is a split, there will be something to limit and fragment power so that some moderate voices will be heard too.
Disclaimer: I am a registered Independent who would have voted for Badnarik if I didn't live in a battleground state.
Using LGPL script, but removed copyright notice. (Score:3, Interesting)
One of the things I liked about the site was the Dynamic HTML summary that pops up when you place your cursor over the state. It turns out he uses a script written by Walter Zorn [walterzorn.com], but removes the notice information and doesn't give him credit for it.
Disappointing, considering his line of work.
Hopefully, the lawsuits will happen (Score:5, Interesting)
This is my opinion of course, but I think it has a lot of merit based on what we know so far.
Re:Worldwide results (Score:3, Interesting)
As a biotech studen I am anti-Bush because his position against funding research on stem cell genetics.
My opinion of him has radically changed (Score:5, Interesting)
Sure, you can disagree with many issues but there needs to be an open mind in the scientific and academic community. Flaming others is a sign of weakness and insecurity. Especially when he told Linus "You would not get good grades in my course..." kind of proves that.
He tried to explain himself later on slashdot saying he merely disagreed with him but I was not too sure.
www.electoral-vote.com is an awesome site that I find truly non biased. I go there every day being a political junky. For those who say he is liberal all I have to say is look at his past entries? When Bush was ahead after the RNC liberals accused him of being a Bush sheep.
What kills me is he using Linux and not Darwin, AIX, or MacOSX which are "not obsolete".
I think Linus has the ultimate say now in the flamewar contest.
Re:Serious questions (Score:5, Interesting)
Interesting. Now, consider that the Bush administration used the supposed presence of WMD as its primary justification of the invasion of Iraq to the nation and the world. Unless you dispute that (and it's pretty tough to dispute after reading the transcripts of President Bush's speeches between Jan 2003 and May 2003), then we come to an interesting conclusion. Apparently, you are less concerned about what a candidate/president _says_ his reasons are for doing a thing than you are concerned about what those reasons actually are. If you are correct that the U.S. invaded Iraq because it was a target of opportunity that would provide a platform for countering panislamic fundamentalism, then the WMD justification must have been both a smokescreen and a false statement.
I call this conclusion "interesting" because many who support Bush (perhaps not including you) spend much of their time spouting about "character" and "lies". It's refreshing to see a true pragmatist abandon that tired moral rhetoric and attempt to justify support of Bush's policies and actions based on facts, self-interest, and logic. I happen to disagree with your eventual conclusion (that Bush's methods are sound), but I admire the process by which you reach it.
Not the whole truth (planet-web research) (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Worldwide results (Score:4, Interesting)
I think you left out "America" as well. If you go check your facts, the US made more money from that deal and even increased its output just shortly before the war because it knew it wouldn't have the pay the debts.
Where can I find the underlying poll data online? (Score:3, Interesting)
On electoral-vote.com, Penn is Kerry, 50-46.
On gallup.com, Penn is Bush, 50-46.
On electoral-vote.com, Wisconsin is Kerry, 51-44.
On gallup.com, Wisconsin is Bush, 51-44.
I'm confused, I thought electoral-vote.com used the gallup data where appropriate, but that seems to not be the case. Where can I find the other source data (not the graphs on electoral-vote.com, but rather, the actual site/sites where the data is coming from).
Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Electoral College is Obsolete (Score:2, Interesting)
I've never heard an anti-electoral college discussion address this and I'm interested in hearing a response, especially as we are a representative democracy.
Thanks, Jason.
Re:Electoral College is Obsolete (Score:4, Interesting)
Which would be so much different than the current system, where the campaigns focus on the top five or ten states in terms of available electoral votes -- which are based on population.
Nobody will ever campaign heavily for the votes of people in North Dakota, even though with the weighting of the Electoral College a single person's vote in that state carries roughly three times the weight of that of a voter in California. Either with the EC or with direct election, it will still be more cost-effective to appeal to the voters in the large cities of California.
Re:Worldwide results (Score:2, Interesting)
Mostly I have in mind the ones forming the European Union. It's a very interesting form of post-nationalist cooperation taking shape over there. (Of course, considering that we're still dealing with the problems many of these nations left the world after their colonial conflicts climaxed in WWI, a certain dose of salt is still in order.)
Certainly. But that debacle is the price we (not just the U.S. but the industrialized West in general) pay for putting our attention on the Middle East (oil! oil!) and ignoring the multiple catastrophe of Africa. (The votes of African nations that put Libya into that position are believed to be a quid pro quo for Libyan financing of the African Union.)
Considering that Israel owes its existance to a U.N. declaration but doesn't feel bound to other declarations, that is Israel killing more people than Palestinian terrorists/resistance fighters/choose your term by a factor of about 2.5, and that Israel is a nation with an effective government that can take action while the Palestinian Authority has no de facto authority to stop terrorists/resistance fighters, that's not unreasonable.
What could the U.N. do, sanction the Palestinian Authority? If you don't have a nation, you probably don't feel too bound by the opinions of the United Nations.
Re:Serious questions (Score:3, Interesting)
Also, since the US holds power over Israel (in the form of foreign aid), it has the ability to convince the Israelis to accept a compromise which is more tilted towards the Palestinians. Since the Palestinians have little power, any compromise Israel offers is likely to be less than fair to them. Or more to the point, they have so little power that there's no difference to them between accepting the compromise the Israelis would offer and continuing the intifada. The Israeli wall is a perfect example of that: it's a two-state solution as designed by the Israelis, and because the Israelis have the power they draw the line outside (sometimes well outside) the 1967 borders that many people agree is fair (if somewhat arbitrary to my mind).
Israel's unilateral compromise may eventually evolve into a peace; the Palestinians will have their de facto state and choose to leave peaceably in it. But if the US had forced Israel to draw the border less aggressively, that would have been more likely. The present border is the compromise Sharon draws between the conservatives and the liberals, and therefore offers the Palestinians rather less than most of the world believes they are entitled to.
Ultimately it will rest with the Israelis to say, "We now have enough land and we need not take more" and the Palestinians to say, "We're tired of war; let's try living with the compromise we've got." And then for the Israelis to say, "They seem peaceable enough, let's stop killing their radicals, which usually kills a few bystanders". And then the Palestinians to say, "This is pretty good; if any more terrorists try to jeopardize what we have we risk losing everything and we will stop them ourselves rather than making the Israelis do it."
But it starts somewhere, and I'd love to see the US or the EU or the UN find an effective way to jump start it. I have some hope that Israel's unilateral solution will go into effect (possible) and will lead to the cascade I describe (doubtful; both sides have parties who want it to fail). But it may be the best they can impose without help from a more agressive power, which doesn't need to provide genocide, only police and diplomatic pressure.
Re:If anything, that crap is counterproductive (Score:2, Interesting)
While there are numerous reasons for Alan Keyes lack of success at energizing the electorate, I think one of them is that he's just too conservative for a lot of Illinois Republicans.
Re:This is why US-Europe relations are at nadir (Score:1, Interesting)
See, in the US, a lot of us tend to draw different morals from 20th century history. Some of the most common lessons being:
I don't list these to say whether they are right or wrong, but rather to illustrate why we (as a nation) behave the way that we do.
It may seem arrogant for Americans to be drawing these conclusions from a war that mostly took place in Europe, East Asia, the Pacific, and North Africa.
But if Europeans can express their opinions about what goes on in the US, surely it's okay for Americans to think about faraway lands where some 500,000 of their soldiers once went to fight and die.