November 2004 - cypherpunks-legacy

Kerry Kept Money Coming With the Internet as His ATM
by R.A. Hettinga 06 Nov '04

06 Nov '04

<http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/06/politics/campaign/06internet.html?pagewan…> The New York Times November 6, 2004 FUND-RAISING Kerry Kept Money Coming With the Internet as His ATM By GLEN JUSTICE WASHINGTON, Nov. 5 - The power of the Internet in this year's election can be summed up in the story of Sam Warren, an Alabama voter who had never made a political contribution before but found himself donating 21 times to Senator John Kerry - all without opening his checkbook. Mr. Warren gave when the senator won the Super Tuesday primaries. He gave when the campaign sent him an e-mail message. He gave during the Democratic convention. By Election Day, Mr. Warren had given almost $2,000. "I surprised even myself," he said. "It's so easy to do. All you do is click-click with a Visa card." The emergence of the Internet as a major fund-raising tool is arguably the largest single change to the campaign finance system to come from this year's presidential race, allowing thousands of contributors like Mr. Warren to react instantly to campaign events as they happen. Although Howard Dean set the pace during the primaries, raising roughly $20 million, no one capitalized more on Internet fund-raising than Mr. Kerry. With a sophisticated marketing effort to keep people clicking, he emerged as the largest online fund-raiser in politics, bringing in about $82 million over the Internet - more than the $50 million Al Gore raised from all individual contributors in 2000. The Bush campaign, which used its Internet site primarily to organize voters, raised about $14 million online. The Internet helped Mr. Kerry cut President Bush's financial lead substantially. Mr. Bush raised about $273 million, while Mr. Kerry raised about $249 million. The amount Mr. Kerry raised online virtually ensures that few presidential and Congressional campaigns will develop in the future without the Internet in mind. "This is arguably the most powerful tool for political engagement we've ever seen," said Simon Rosenthal, president of the New Democratic Network. "It made it easier for the average citizen to participate in politics. Every moment they interact with the campaign can be a direct-response moment. They can watch a speech on TV, get motivated and give money." And they did. Though there is no precise tally of how many people gave to the candidates over the Internet, the amount of cash from people giving less than $200 increased fourfold from 2000, according to the Campaign Finance Institute, which studies presidential financing. Online fund-raising spread quickly, allowing candidates, parties and advocacy groups a low-cost supplement to big-donor fund-raising. The Internet pioneer MoveOn.org, which advocated Mr. Bush's defeat, raised millions. At the popular liberal Web log Daily Kos, its founder, Markos Moulitsas, directed more than $750,000 to the Democratic party and candidates from 6,500 contributors. Just a mention on the blog was worth thousands to a campaign. Even Amazon.com got involved, offering links that raised $300,000 for presidential candidates. "We were happy to make it as easy for people to contribute as it is to buy the latest Harry Potter book," the company said in a letter to customers. It was just four years ago that Senator John McCain made headlines when he raised more than $1 million online after winning the New Hampshire primary. This year, Dr. Dean created his entire campaign around the Internet, relying on it for fund-raising and organization and pioneering many of the techniques that have become standard practice. The campaign posted its fund-raising goals, long a taboo in the political world, and sent a relentless stream of fund-raising e-mail messages, liberally sharing information about why it needed the money and what it would pay for. And it took chances. "The Dean campaign really experimented a lot," said Nicco Mele, the campaign's Webmaster. "The Kerry campaign doesn't have that approach." Mr. Kerry's campaign came late to online fund-raising. He raised just $1.2 million in 2003, with an Internet team in the basement of a Washington townhouse. But the campaign awoke to the possibilities when Dr. Dean's fund-raising began to soar. Josh Ross, a 32-year-old former Republican with a Silicon Valley background, came aboard in late November 2003 to marshal the effort, but it was a period when Mr. Kerry was sagging in the polls and fund-raising had slowed. "Josh was building a car, but he didn't have a whole lot of gas," said David Thorne, Mr. Kerry's longtime friend and former brother-in-law, who was instrumental in creating the campaign's Internet program. The situation turned when Mr. Kerry won in Iowa. The Internet team persuaded campaign leaders to insert a mention of the Web site in the victory speech. Mr. Thorne made a late-night run to Kinko's to create a JohnKerry.com placard for the lectern. When the candidate mentioned the site, hits shot skyward. "There were never any nonbelievers after that," said Mary Beth Cahill, Mr. Kerry's campaign manager. When the campaign moved its headquarters, Mr. Ross ultimately found himself overseeing more than 30 people from a corner office on the sixth floor. Mr. Ross talked about running the operation like a business, with a heavy focus on quantifiable results. "We're not here to entertain," he said. The results often shattered records. The campaign raised $2.3 million online the day after Super Tuesday and $2.7 million the day after that. The one-day record of $5.7 million was set when Mr. Kerry accepted the Democratic nomination. Some campaign finance experts say that Mr. Kerry simply inherited the energetic donors whom Dr. Dean created, and that the campaign did not go far enough to engage them. Others say that anti-Bush sentiment drove the large numbers, and that any Democratic nominee was bound to make millions online. "Part of it is that they had the sizzle," said Ellen Malcolm, a veteran Democratic fund-raiser. "That's a very short-term fund-raising thing. We still all have a lot to learn about these sizzle donors." But the Kerry campaign made great strides to engage its online supporters. It publicized a petition calling for Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's resignation that drew hundreds of thousands of signatures. When Senator John Edwards joined the ticket, the decision was first announced online. The campaign challenged supporters to raise $10 million in 10 days online, and succeeded. It also spent a lot of time testing which wording in e-mail messages and on the Web site drew the most contributions. With 2.6 million supporters on the campaign's e-mail list and a Web page averaging 250,000 daily visitors during peak times, even small increases in the percentage of people who donated could equal large gains. "You start adding those nickels up and it makes a dramatic, dramatic difference," Mr. Ross said. The campaign learned that fund-raising letters do poorly on Monday. E-mail messages are best sent around 11 a.m., after people have cleared their mailbox of unwanted "spam." And contributions swell at lunchtime on both coasts, when people spend time online. Mr. Ross's team also tested e-mail subject lines. On the day of Mr. Kerry's convention speech in July - which was also the last day the campaign could raise private money before switching to public financing - the campaign sent out a long letter and a shorter letter, some carrying the subject line "this is it" and some saying "last chance." The short version with the "last chance" heading did best and was delivered en masse. The Web page was also engineered to bring in money. One example was the "splash page," the first thing that new visitors see. At one point, Mr. Ross and his colleagues had 30 versions of the page up on a wall. They tested photos until they settled on a picture of Mr. Kerry flashing the thumbs up. They tested headlines until they chose "Make history with us." Even a small contribution button toward the bottom, which was bringing in more than $75,000 a day at its peak, was maximized. The campaign tested four different versions before finding that the label "contribute before deadline" increased the number of donations by 35 percent. "We have no problem testing our own assumptions," Mr. Ross said. "We don't do anything based on a guess." -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah(a)ibuc.com> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'

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'Perilous Times': War of Words
by R.A. Hettinga 06 Nov '04

06 Nov '04

<http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/07/books/review/07HITCHENS.html?8hpib=&pagew…> The New York Times November 7, 2004 'Perilous Times': War of Words By CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS PERILOUS TIMES Free Speech in Wartime, From the Sedition Act of 1798 to the War on Terrorism. By Geoffrey R. Stone. llustrated. 730 pp. W. W. Norton & Company. $35. OWEVER seductively it may be phrased, the offer of an exchange of liberty for security has a totalitarian hook sticking out of its protectively colored bait. Societies that make the trade have very often ended up with neither liberty nor security. But on the other hand (as Fay Wray entitled her own memoir of monstrousness in New York) totalitarianism can present a much more menacing threat from without. I have heard serious people describe the reign of our pious present attorney general as fascistic. Given that jihadist armed forces could still be in our midst, that might be looking for fascism in all the wrong places. What this argument has long needed is the discipline of historical perspective, and Geoffrey R. Stone, a professor of law and former dean at the University of Chicago, has come forward at precisely the right moment with an imposing book that offers precisely that. In ''Perilous Times: Free Speech in Wartime, From the Sedition Act of 1798 to the War on Terrorism,'' he shows how the United States has balanced (and unbalanced) the scale of freedom versus the exigencies of self-defense. And he also demonstrates a kind of evolutionary learning curve, whereby the courts have distilled some of our dearly bought experience. America's first experiment with a national-security state was at once its most unambivalently disastrous and its shortest lived. The Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 were, to begin with, flagrantly partisan. The easiest proof of this is the exemption of the vice president from the list of official persons who could be calumniated, simply because the anti-Federalist Thomas Jefferson was at that time the holder of the office. They also vastly exaggerated the threat from revolutionary France and flatly negated the spirit and letter of the First Amendment. Editors were imprisoned; foreign-born friends of America like Thaddeus Kosciusko had already felt compelled to leave the country. So great was the eventual revulsion from this that, six and a half decades after the acts were repealed, President Lincoln had no choice but to read the most viperous editorials in the Democratic press, describing him as a demented tyrant bent upon a bloody war of self-aggrandizement. Stone's pages on this period are completely absorbing. He shows that Lincoln did imprison or fine the occasional editor, but with scant relish for the business, and that wartime censorship was so easily evaded as to be no censorship at all. The crisis came, rather, over conscription and the concomitant suspension of habeas corpus. Lincoln's secretary of state, William Seward, was widely quoted as having told the British minister: ''I can touch a bell on my right hand and order the arrest of a citizen in Ohio. I can touch the bell again and order the imprisonment of a citizen of New York, and no power on earth but that of the president can release them. Can the queen of England, in her dominions, say as much?'' This boastful inversion of the original purposes of the American Revolution may have been overstated for effect, but not by much. Lincoln did order nighttime arrests, and did ignore Chief Justice Roger B. Taney's ruling that a president had no power to deny habeas corpus. Taney's position is that the Constitution reserves such extreme measures only for the Congress. If a president wants to assume such powers, he cannot do so without at least resorting to the courts, which Lincoln steadily declined to do. Instead, he rather demagogically demanded to know why the law should force him to shoot ''a simple-minded soldier boy who deserts, while I must not touch a hair of a wily agitator who induces him to desert.'' The cause celebre here became that of Clement Vallandigham, a leader of the Copperheads, northern Democrats sympathetic to the South, who spiritedly opposed both conscription and emancipation. He was arrested, then exiled from the Union. I have never seen it argued that this measure had any influence on the desertion rate (improbable in any case, given that the thought of the firing squad probably had a greater effect on the mind of the simple-minded soldier boy). The best that can be said is that Lincoln seems to have sensed the absurdity of his own logic, and regularly urged local commanders not to embarrass him by locking up people who merely uttered anti-Union sentiments. The next two wartime crises involved the killing of foreigners rather than Americans, and in both cases the ''loyalty'' of ethnic or national minorities was in question. During World War I, the persecution of German-Americans put H. L. Mencken in a permanent state of alienated rage, while Woodrow Wilson outdid Lincoln in vindictiveness by refusing to release Eugene V. Debs, America's finest socialist, until well after the war was over. Debs had been imprisoned for urging Americans to take no part in an imperialist war; but against recent immigrants, mainly Jews, the weapon of deportation was also employed. It's from this period that we have Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes's notorious observation about shouting ''fire'' in a crowded theater as a symbolic limitation on free expression. (The antiwar forces might have retorted that the theater actually was on fire.) Holmes, however, became disgusted by some of the excesses of authority, and made some important rulings the other way. In the run-up to World War II, Franklin Roosevelt swung out against the antiwar isolationists with Lincoln's vigor, denouncing Charles Lindbergh as a second Vallandigham. The trial of William Dudley Pelley, leader of the fascist Silver Shirt militia, provided the war years' test case. Pelley had taken the Nazi side, proclaimed an administration conspiracy to exploit Pearl Harbor and announced that Americans were being drafted to fight a Jewish war. He was sentenced to 15 years in prison and served 10, which meant that he also stayed inside until after the war was over. (Stone does not notice the irony that he served his time in the penitentiary at Terre Haute, Ind., birthplace of Debs and today the site of his museum.) In a fascinating discussion of the case, Stone shows that Pelley was right in one respect about Pearl Harbor: the Roosevelt administration really did cover up the extent of the damage inflicted by the Japanese. Official statements described burned and sunken battleships as still afloat. Stone also provides a meticulous discussion of the internment of the Japanese-American population, even though this was not exactly a ''free speech'' question. If this argument ran in a straight line, one would expect the United States, after one civil war and two global conflicts, to have many fewer liberties than it had in the 1850's. But the effect is as much dialectical as it is cumulative, if not more so. As Stone demonstrates, the courts have made concessions based on precedent. In the Pelley case, a court of appeals reconsidered the Espionage Act of 1917, under which Pelley had been charged, to refine and dilute the definition of subversive speech. There was a line to be observed, demarcating the propagation of deliberate falsehood from the circulation of disputable opinions. By the time the United States was next divided in wartime, during the Vietnam years, the courts were ready to rule that speech and action should in effect be considered separately. In one case, it was ordered that Julian Bond, the charismatic young civil-rights campaigner, could be seated in the Georgia legislature despite his opposition to the draft. In another, it was decided that an Ohio Klansman named Clarence Brandenburg should be allowed to go on yelling his head off. So the cases of Bond and Brandenburg are now cited as joint precedents and, as Stone points out, there have been no federal prosecutions for speech or ''incitement'' since Sept. 11, 2001. It might be too soon, not to say too complacent, to make a case for American exceptionalism in this regard. And Stone does not take up the peacetime panic after the 1995 bombing of the Federal Building in Oklahoma City that produced the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, which is still employed for prosecutions and deportations. There was enough law already on the books, you might say, before the passage of the Patriot Act. And surely one central part of that act -- the correct decision to allow the sharing of intelligence between foreign and domestic agencies -- could have been made for its own sake. One closes this admirable book more than ever determined that the authors of the Constitution were right the first time, and that the only amendment necessary might be a prohibition on the passage of any law within six months of any atrocity, foreign or domestic. CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS is a columnist for Vanity Fair and a visiting professor of liberal studies at the New School University. His new collection of essays, ''Love, Poverty and War,'' is forthcoming this winter. -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah(a)ibuc.com> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'

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Re: Why Americans Hate Democrats-A Dialogue
by Nomen Nescio 06 Nov '04

06 Nov '04

John Young: > Tyler, > > Commie is the term used here like is nazi used elsewhere > as the most fearsome if thoughtless epithet. Nazi here is a > term of endearment, and also admirable role model by some. > > Calling someone both is not allowed, check the FAQ under impurity. > > Tim May, praise Allah, always claimed cypherpunks was a fair and > balanced forum thanks to the one person of the left here who > was fingered affectionately like a house rodent, an easy target for > errant shooters. > > CJ is not to be recalled, ever. > > Jim Bell still sends "very important" legal papers, the latest > yesterday, which describe the way things should be understood. But > who can believe an MIT chemist political prisoner. > > CJ and Jim jailed by the Democratic freedom-fighters. "CJ" is "CJ Parker", who posted a few emails to this list back in early 2003? I guess I haven't been around long enough to know all famous cpunks who have been posting to the list. Maybe someone could tell in short who those were, I guess there are one or two on the list who weren't around and would appreciate the stories. I think I remember having read about Bell, something about him having threatened FBI agents or something? Does Jim Bell post emails somewhere today?

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Singin' this'll be the day that it died
by Tim Benham 05 Nov '04

05 Nov '04

A long, long time agob& I can still remember How the dollar used to make me smile. And I knew if I had my chance I'd sell the currency of France And, maybe, I'd be happy for awhile. But all our spending made me shiver With every T-bill we'd deliver. Bad news on the doorstep; I couldn't take one more step. I can't remember if I cried When I heard our politicians lied But something touched me deep inside The day the dollar died. So bye-bye, dollar assets good-bye Sold my Chevy at the levee 'cause my pension ran dry. Them good old boys were drinkin' sake to try Singin' this'll be the day that it died This'll be the day that it died. Did you write Whitehouse.gov Or have you a Yen to fall in love If Japan will tell you so? Now, do you believe in oil 'n coal Can China fill our import hole And can we teach them how to grow real slow? Well I know the country's fit and trim 'Cause the jobs are in the Pacific Rim. We all knew savers lose Man, I dug not having to choose. We were living off the almighty buck We got their goods and they were stuck But I knew we were out of luck The day the dollar died. I started singin' Bye-bye, dollar assets good-bye Sold my Chevy at the levee 'cause my pension ran dry. Them good old boys were drinkin' sake to try Singin' this'll be the day that it died This'll be the day that it died. Now for ten years we were sure we owned All the stocks and bonds and mortgage loans But that's not how it's gonna be. When we've spent it all like kings and queens In clothes we bought from The Philippines The Asians pick the reserve currency. Oh, and while the king was looking down, Their central bankers came to town. Our stocks and bonds were spurned Those dollars were returned. And while unions filled their books with Marx The President said drill in parks Our thermostats froze in the dark The day the dollar died. We were singin' Bye-bye, dollar assets good-bye Sold my Chevy at the levee 'cause my pension ran dry. Them good old boys were drinkin' sake to try Singin' this'll be the day that it died This'll be the day that it died. . Helter skelter in a summer swelter The equity's gone from your leveraged shelter Fannie and Freddie are falling fast. Crash, they landed, but in a new class Full faith and credit have long since passed With Congress, in denial, out of gas. Now the Wal-Mart there has cheap perfume With imports filling every room. We all got up to dance Oh, but we never got the chance. The consumers tried to take the field The central banks refused to yield Do you recall what was revealed The day the dollar died? We started singin' Bye-bye, dollar assets good-bye Sold my Chevy at the levee 'cause my pension ran dry. Them good old boys were drinkin' sake to try Singin' this'll be the day that it died This'll be the day that it died. Oh, and there we were all in one place Our credit rating in disgrace With no time left to start again. So come on: Al be nimble, Al be quick! Al, cut rates by 50 ticks 'cause credit is the debtor's only friend. Oh, and as I watched him on the stage My hands were clenched in fists of rage No congressman in hell Could buy what he would sell. And as the rates climbed high into the night To stem the U.S. asset flight The IMF said, "Yes, that's right" The day the dollar died They were singin' Bye-bye, dollar assets good-bye Sold my Chevy at the levee 'cause my pension ran dry. Them good old boys were drinkin' sake to try Singin' this'll be the day that it died This'll be the day that it died. I met a girl who sang the blues And I asked her if we still could choose But she just smiled and turned away. I went down to the Medicare store Where we'd spent our dollars years before But the man there said those dollars wouldn't pay. And in the streets the children screamed The seniors cried and the workers steamed But not a word was spoken The commitments all were broken. And the three men I admire most: Faber, Rogers, and Bill Gross Were at the forex trading post The day the dollar died. And they were singin' Bye-bye, dollar assets good-bye Sold my Chevy at the levee 'cause my pension ran dry. Them good old boys were drinkin' sake to try Singin' this'll be the day that it died This'll be the day that it died. They were singin' Bye-bye, dollar assets good-bye Sold my Chevy at the levee 'cause my pension ran dry. Them good old boys were drinkin' sake to try Singin' this'll be the day that it died. -- Harry Chernoff is an independent economist in Great Falls, VA (with apologies to Don McLean)

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Machine Error Gives Bush Extra Ohio Votes
by R.A. Hettinga 05 Nov '04

05 Nov '04

<http://apnews.myway.com/article/20041105/D865R1DO0.html> Machine Error Gives Bush Extra Ohio Votes Email this Story Nov 5, 11:56 AM (ET) COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) - An error with an electronic voting system gave President Bush 3,893 extra votes in suburban Columbus, elections officials said. Franklin County's unofficial results had Bush receiving 4,258 votes to Democrat John Kerry's 260 votes in a precinct in Gahanna. Records show only 638 voters cast ballots in that precinct. Bush actually received 365 votes in the precinct, Matthew Damschroder, director of the Franklin County Board of Elections, told The Columbus Dispatch. State and county election officials did not immediately respond to requests by The Associated Press for more details about the voting system and its vendor, and whether the error, if repeated elsewhere in Ohio, could have affected the outcome. Bush won the state by more than 136,000 votes, according to unofficial results, and Kerry conceded the election on Wednesday after acknowledging that 155,000 provisional ballots yet to be counted in Ohio would not change the result. The Secretary of State's Office said Friday it could not revise Bush's total until the county reported the error. The Ohio glitch is among a handful of computer troubles that have emerged since Tuesday's elections. In one North Carolina county, more than 4,500 votes were lost because officials mistakenly believed a computer that stored ballots electronically could hold more data than it did. And in San Francisco, a malfunction with custom voting software could delay efforts to declare the winners of four races for county supervisor. In the Ohio precinct in question, the votes are recorded onto a cartridge. On one of the three machines at that precinct, a malfunction occurred in the recording process, Damschroder said. He could not explain how the malfunction occurred. (AP) Voters waited up to three hours to cast ballots after one of two voting machines failed to work at... Full Image Damschroder said people who had seen poll results on the election board's Web site called to point out the discrepancy. The error would have been discovered when the official count for the election is performed later this month, he said. The reader also recorded zero votes in a county commissioner race on the machine. Workers checked the cartridge against memory banks in the voting machine and each showed that 115 people voted for Bush on that machine. With the other machines, the total for Bush in the precinct added up to 365 votes. Meanwhile, in San Francisco, a glitch occurred with software designed for the city's new "ranked-choice voting," in which voters list their top three choices for municipal offices. If no candidate gets a majority of first-place votes outright, voters' second and third-place preferences are then distributed among candidates who weren't eliminated in the first round. When the San Francisco Department of Elections tried a test run on Wednesday of the program that does the redistribution, some of the votes didn't get counted and skewed the results, director John Arntz said. "All the information is there," Arntz said. "It's just not arriving the way it was supposed to." A technician from the Omaha, Neb. company that designed the software, Election Systems & Software Inc., was working to diagnose and fix the problem. -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah(a)ibuc.com> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'

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Election with Hunter
by R.A. Hettinga 05 Nov '04

05 Nov '04

Last blue-baiting post, I swear. Gotta love HST, especially after the ether kicks in... Cheers, RAH ------- <http://www.aspendailynews.com/Search_Articles/view_search_article.cfm?Order…> Aspen Daily News Friday, November 5, 2004 11/4/04 Election with Hunter By Troy Hooper/Aspen Daily News Staff Writer WOODY CREEK - It was Bailey's Irish Cream and Royal Salute Scotch Whiskey at the Thompson household on Election Night. A bottle of Cristal intended for a John Kerry victory remained uncorked, chilling on ice in a backroom. A hungry smell of anticipation hung in the kitchen at Owl Farm, which morphed into a makeshift Democratic headquarters as Hunter S. Thompson hunkered down with a small group of friends and manned what seemed like a global switchboard as calls came pouring in from some of the biggest names in modern American lore. Even a few pollsters dialed up The Good Doctor in search of the most up-to-minute score. Whether they were calling to ascertain Thompson's classified political knowledge or gauge his gambler's instinct was unclear. But without question, his phone was chiming more often than the Liberty Bell. "I don't mean to pop the bad news on you Bubba but John Kerry is getting beat just like George McGovern did in 1972 - or worse," Thompson proclaimed to his nephew well before the news networks gave any hint that Bush Nation was marching toward a second term. "The tide turned so quickly it was difficult to breathe." Actor Sean Penn, presidential historian Douglas Brinkley, Kerry press secretary David Wade and others checked in with Thompson who sat on a chair inhaling cigarettes and stiff drinks in between bites of breakfast, which wasn't served to the late-awakening writer until after the sun went down. Asked for a candid assessment of the election, Thompson put it plainly to Penn. "I've got the worst possible news. Colorado has gone to hell like all the other states," Thompson said into the speakerphone. "They must have all voted the same way they prayed." The way Thompson's neighbors voted was far removed from the national outcome. Bush mustered just 2,750 of Pitkin County's electorate while Kerry received 6,275. Nationally, Bush garnered the highest total number of votes ever, winning 51 percent of the record voter turnout, which preliminary estimates have put at roughly 117 million. He is the first president to win a majority of the vote since 1988 when his father beat another Democrat from Massachusetts: Michael Dukakis. "The news is getting logarithmically more horrible," Thompson told another caller as the night wore on. "They're all committing suicide up in Boston." Thompson has always had a keen eye for politics. His best-known work on the subject is "Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail '72" - an up-close study of South Dakota Senator George McGovern's effort to unseat President Richard Nixon. Over the weekend, McGovern and Thompson discussed the election: The two old friends suggested Bush might be more dangerous than Nixon. Kerry would make a fine president, they both agreed, as they noted the similarities between the two eras. This year's Democratic presidential candidate must have seen some similarities between now and then, too. When Kerry visited Aspen last June for a fund-raiser, he brought three hardcover copies of "Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail '72" to have them autographed. Thompson obliged and struck a friendship with Kerry, serving as his unofficial Aspen tour guide, meeting the candidate on a rain-soaked tarmac at Sardy Field and riding in a Secret Service procession up Red Mountain, showing Kerry the sights and conferring with him on national affairs. Now, five months later, Kerry has met the same fate as McGovern. "I feel like somebody's died," Thompson lamented as the sun was preparing to rise early Wednesday morning. "I'm just not sure who it was." He deemed the election "another failure of the youth vote." "Yeah, we rocked the vote all right. Those little bastards betrayed us again." But despite his disappointment, Thompson remained remarkably upbeat. "Their army is how much bigger than mine? Three percent? Well shucks, Bubba. Now is the time to establish a network and an attitude," he said. "You make friends in moments of defeat. People in defeat tend to bond because they need each other. We can't take the attitude that it's over and we give up. We're still here." Thompson added: "I'm proud to have known John Kerry." -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah(a)ibuc.com> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'

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Why Americans Hate Democrats-A Dialogue
by R.A. Hettinga 05 Nov '04

05 Nov '04

Here ya go, John and Bill, Knock yourselves out... :-) Cheers, RAH ------- <http://slate.msn.com/toolbar.aspx?action=print&id=2109218> Slate politics Why Americans Hate Democrats-A Dialogue The unteachable ignorance of the red states. By Jane Smiley Updated Thursday, Nov. 4, 2004, at 3:24 PM PT The day after the election, Slate's political writers tackled the question of why the Democratic Party-which has now lost five of the past seven presidential elections and solidified its minority status in Congress-keeps losing elections. Chris Suellentrop says that John Kerry was too nuanced and technocratic, while George W. Bush offered a vision of expanding freedom around the world. William Saletan argues that Democratic candidates won't win until they again cast their policies the way Bill Clinton did, in terms of values and moral responsibility. Timothy Noah contends that none of the familiar advice to the party-move right, move left, or sit tight-seems likely to help. Slate asked a number of wise liberals to take up the question of why Americans won't vote for the Democrats. Click here to read previous entries. I say forget introspection. It's time to be honest about our antagonists. My predecessors in this conversation are thoughtful men, and I honor their ideas, but let's try something else. I grew up in Missouri and most of my family voted for Bush, so I am going to be the one to say it: The election results reflect the decision of the right wing to cultivate and exploit ignorance in the citizenry. I suppose the good news is that 55 million Americans have evaded the ignorance-inducing machine. But 58 million have not. (Well, almost 58 million-my relatives are not ignorant, they are just greedy and full of classic Republican feelings of superiority.) Ignorance and bloodlust have a long tradition in the United States, especially in the red states. There used to be a kind of hand-to-hand fight on the frontier called a "knock-down-drag-out," where any kind of gouging, biting, or maiming was considered fair. The ancestors of today's red-state voters used to stand around cheering and betting on these fights. When the forces of red and blue encountered one another head-on for the first time in Kansas Territory in 1856, the red forces from Missouri, who had been coveting Indian land across the Missouri River since 1820, entered Kansas and stole the territorial election. The red news media of the day made a practice of inflammatory lying-declaring that the blue folks had shot and killed red folks whom everyone knew were walking around. The worst civilian massacre in American history took place in Lawrence, Kan., in 1862-Quantrill's raid. The red forces, known then as the slave-power, pulled 265 unarmed men from their beds on a Sunday morning and slaughtered them in front of their wives and children. The error that progressives have consistently committed over the years is to underestimate the vitality of ignorance in America. Listen to what the red state citizens say about themselves, the songs they write, and the sermons they flock to. They know who they are-they are full of original sin and they have a taste for violence. The blue state citizens make the Rousseauvian mistake of thinking humans are essentially good, and so they never realize when they are about to be slugged from behind. Here is how ignorance works: First, they put the fear of God into you-if you don't believe in the literal word of the Bible, you will burn in hell. Of course, the literal word of the Bible is tremendously contradictory, and so you must abdicate all critical thinking, and accept a simple but logical system of belief that is dangerous to question. A corollary to this point is that they make sure you understand that Satan resides in the toils and snares of complex thought and so it is best not try it. Next, they tell you that you are the best of a bad lot (humans, that is) and that as bad as you are, if you stick with them, you are among the chosen. This is flattering and reassuring, and also encourages you to imagine the terrible fates of those you envy and resent. American politicians ALWAYS operate by a similar sort of flattery, and so Americans are never induced to question themselves. That's what happened to Jimmy Carter-he asked Americans to take responsibility for their profligate ways, and promptly lost to Ronald Reagan, who told them once again that they could do anything they wanted. The history of the last four years shows that red state types, above all, do not want to be told what to do-they prefer to be ignorant. As a result, they are virtually unteachable. Third, and most important, when life grows difficult or fearsome, they (politicians, preachers, pundits) encourage you to cling to your ignorance with even more fervor. But by this time you don't need much encouragement-you've put all your eggs into the ignorance basket, and really, some kind of miraculous fruition (preferably accompanied by the torment of your enemies, and the ignorant always have plenty of enemies) is your only hope. If you are sufficiently ignorant, you won't even know how dangerous your policies are until they have destroyed you, and then you can always blame others. The reason the Democrats have lost five of the last seven presidential elections is simple: A generation ago, the big capitalists, who have no morals, as we know, decided to make use of the religious right in their class war against the middle class and against the regulations that were protecting those whom they considered to be their rightful prey-workers and consumers. The architects of this strategy knew perfectly well that they were exploiting, among other unsavory qualities, a long American habit of virulent racism, but they did it anyway, and we see the outcome now-Cheney is the capitalist arm and Bush is the religious arm. They know no boundaries or rules. They are predatory and resentful, amoral, avaricious, and arrogant. Lots of Americans like and admire them because lots of Americans, even those who don't share those same qualities, don't know which end is up. Can the Democrats appeal to such voters? Do they want to? The Republicans have sold their souls for power. Must everyone? Progressives have only one course of action now: React quickly to every outrage-red state types love to cheat and intimidate, so we have to assume the worst and call them on it every time. We have to give them more to think about than they can handle-to always appeal to reason and common sense, and the law, even when they can't understand it and don't respond. They cannot be allowed to keep any secrets. Tens of millions of people didn't vote-they are watching, too, and have to be shown that we are ready and willing to fight, and that the battle is worth fighting. And in addition, we have to remember that threats to democracy from the right always collapse. Whatever their short-term appeal, they are borne of hubris and hatred, and will destroy their purveyors in the end. Jane Smiley is the author of many novels and essays. She lives in California. -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah(a)ibuc.com> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'

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Re: Why Americans Hate Democrats-A Dialogue
by Tyler Durden 05 Nov '04

05 Nov '04

I dunno...a lot of it made sense to me. You don't have to be a Commie in order to believe that someone ELSE believes there's a "class war", and that they gotta keep us black folks po', or else we'll soon be having sex with their wives and daughters and competing with their sons for decent jobs. And as long as that somebody else believes there's a class war, they're probably going to vote like there's one, and try to dupe as many others as they can into voting like there's one, and that they're in the in-crowd. And then of course they'll open a military base everynow and then to demonstrate their largesse. -TD >From: "R.A. Hettinga" <rah(a)shipwright.com> >To: John Young <jya(a)pipeline.com>, cypherpunks(a)al-qaeda.net >Subject: Re: Why Americans Hate Democrats-A Dialogue >Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 13:15:48 -0500 > >At 1:05 PM -0800 11/5/04, John Young wrote: > >Bob, you know this is against list rules, everybody knows > >what's right, stop blue-baiting, you fucking nazi. > >:-) > >Cheers, >RAH > >-- >----------------- >R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah(a)ibuc.com> >The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> >44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA >"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, >[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to >experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' _________________________________________________________________ Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today - it's FREE! http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/

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RE: Your source code, for sale
by hal＠finney.org 05 Nov '04

05 Nov '04

Michael_Heyman writes: > Finney, Hal (CR): > > The problem is that if the source code you are purchasing is > > bogus, or if the other side doesn't come through, you're > > screwed because you've lost the value of the torn cash. The > > other side doesn't gain anything by this fraud, but they harm > > you, and if they are malicious that might be enough. > > > Quick fix for seller incentive: the seller rips some amount of their own > cash in such a way that they cannot recover it unless the buyer provides > the remainder of the buyer's ripped cash. Yes, I'm looking at ideas like this for ecash gambling, but you have a who-goes-first problem. One side or the other has to "rip" their own cash first, and then the other side can just go away and leave the first side screwed. The act of ripping cash is relatively atomic and involves a transaction with the ecash mint, so they can't both do it at the same time. I guess the best fix is for each side to rip a little bit of cash at a time, so that the guy who goes first only loses a trivial amount if the other side aborts. Then after a few rounds both sides are sunk pretty deep and both have a strong incentive to complete the transaction. Hal

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When A Pencil And Paper Makes Sense
by R.A. Hettinga 05 Nov '04

05 Nov '04

<http://www.forbes.com/2004/11/05/cx_ah_1105tentech_print.html> Forbes Ten O'Clock Tech When A Pencil And Paper Makes Sense Arik Hesseldahl, 11.05.04, 10:00 AM ET Thank goodness, it's over. Sometime around 4:30 A.M. Wednesday I went to bed, not the least bit uncertain that George W. Bush had been re-elected. But the one thing during this election cycle about which I have been uncertain is electronic voting. Florida in 2000 was a mess, and in reaction, some states and counties have turned to newfangled electronic voting machines, thinking that computer technology is the answer to a voting system that has started to creak under pressure. It seems that despite much worry about a repeat of Florida in other states, voting has gone pretty smoothly. Electronic voting methods are getting high marks. Of the 27,500 voting problems reported to the Verified Voting Project, a San Francisco-based group that monitored the election for voting problems, less than 6% of the issues reported stemmed from electronic voting machines. Election officials in states like Nevada, Georgia and Hawaii gave electronic voting systems a try. There were some problems: a memory card on an electronic voting machine in Florida failed; five machines in Reno, Nev., malfunctioned, causing lines to back up. Overall voter turnout was high. The Committee for the Study of the American Electorate, a nonprofit, nonpartisan outfit based in Washington, D.C., estimated that 120.2 million people, or 59.6% of those eligible to vote, cast ballots in this election, which would be an improvement of 5% and 15 million people, compared with the 2000 elections, and would make 2004's turnout the highest since 1968. Still, that's not as high as voter participation in my home state of Oregon, where 1.7 million people, or nearly 82% of those eligible, voted. In Oregon, voters cast their votes from home rather than going to a polling place. They submit their ballots by mail. The state abolished polling places in 1998 and has been voting entirely by mail ever since. Voters get their ballots roughly two weeks before election day. This year some were delayed because of an unexpectedly high number of voter registrations. Ballots must be received by county elections offices by 8 P.M. on the day of the election. Drop boxes are located throughout the state, as well. Voting should indeed take time and effort. It's undoubtedly important. But I like Oregon's common-sense approach. Voting from the comfort of your own home eliminates the inherent disincentive that comes from having to stand on a long line, for example. It's pretty simple. Oregon voters fill out their ballots using a pencil, just like those standardized tests everyone took in high school. If they want to write in a candidate, the ballot allows for that, too. I thought of this as I stood for about 45 minutes in a long, cold line at 6:30 A.M. to vote in my neighborhood in New York's Upper East Side. Throughout the day I heard reports from around the country of people who had to stand in line for as long as eight hours so they could vote, and I wondered how many others just threw up their hands in frustration because they had someplace else to be. The mail-in ballot also gives the voter a little time to consider his or her choice. Too often, voters will enter a voting booth knowing a few of the people they intend to vote for, but read about some ballot initiative or amendment for the first time. Rather than having to make a snap decision in the voting booth, having a ballot handy at home can give voters time to educate themselves and make a more informed decision. Sometimes, the best solution isn't a computer at all, but a good old-fashioned pencil and paper. Click here for more Ten O'Clock Tech Columns -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah(a)ibuc.com> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'

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