Tired_Old_Man

WORLD'S EASIEST QUIZ (Passing requires 4 correct answers) Please answer all questions before scrolling down for the answers. 1) How long did the Hundred Years' War last? 2) Which country makes Panama hats? 3) From which animal do we get catgut? 4) In which month do Russians Celebrate the October Revolution? 5) What is a camel's hair brush made of? 6) The Canary Islands in the Pacific are na med after what animal? 7) What was King George VI's first name? 8) What color is a purple finch? 9) Where are Chinese Gooseberries from? 10) What is the color of the black box in a commercial airplane? All done? Remember, you need 4 correct answers to pass. Check your answers below. ANSWERS TO THE QUIZ (Passing requires 4 correct answers) 1) How long did the Hundred Years War last? 116 years 2) Which country makes Panama hats? Ecuador 3) From which animal do we get cat gut? Sheep and Horses 4) In which month do Russians celebrate the October Revolution? November 5) What is a camel's hair brush made of? Squirrel fur 6) The Canary Islands in the Pacific are named after what animal? Dogs 7) What was King George VI's first name? Albert 8) What color is a purple finch? Crimson 9) Where are Chinese gooseberries from ? New Zealand 10) What is the color of the black box in a commercial airplane? Orange, of course. What do you mean, you failed? Me, too. (And if you try to tell me you passed, you lie!) Pass this on to some brilliant friends, so they can feel rotten, too.

I have a Windows XP computer, and a Linux Computer (Linspire) and have use of my wife's iMac. The iMac is the best, but cost more than twice what both of my other PC's cost combined. The comparison figures I am using are for "bought from store" prices. Jack is right about XP being a vast improvement over its predecessors. I have been building computers since 1990 and if I ever got lazy and had plenty of money, I would buy a Mac, but XP is much cheaper and Linspire even cheaper than that. Linspire's only short-coming is that does not play some of the games that you might want to play. But it is virus, spyware and hack resistant (as is a Mac).

VOTING 2004: Clinton Curtis Interview before the U.S. House of Representatives... This computer programmer swore under oath that he was asked to create a program to "control the vote in South Florida." Text of the Interview with Computer Programmer Clint Curtis, before the U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES Democrats of the Judiciary Committee, December 13, 2004. Cliff Arnebeck called Clint Curtis before the Committee, for the purpose of determining if the vote-counting process of the 2004 U.S. General Election in Ohio could have been manipulated by computer. ~~~ (begin interview) ~~~ [Mr. Curtis is sworn in by the court reporter, on-camera, but without sound. Then sound commences.] [Cliff Arnebeck:] Mr. Curtis, would you please state your full name for the record. [Mr. Curtis:] My name is Clinton Eugene Curtis. [Cliff Arnebeck:] And where do you reside? [Mr. Curtis:] Tallahassee, Florida. [Cliff Arnebeck:] And what is your profession? [Mr. Curtis:] I'm a computer programmer. [Cliff Arnebeck:] Would you please speak into the microphone so that the audience can hear your testimony. [Mr. Curtis:] I'm a computer programmer. [Cliff Arnebeck:] Mr Curtis, are there programs that can be used to secretly fix elections? [Mr. Curtis:] Yes. [Cliff Arnebeck:] How do you know that to be the case? [Mr. Curtis:] Because in October of 2000 I wrote a prototype for present Congressman Tom Feeney, at the company I work for in Oviedo, Florida, that did just that. [Cliff Arnebeck:] And when you say, "Did just that," it would rig an election? [Mr. Curtis:] It would flip the vote fifty-one forty-nine to whoever you wanted it to go to, and whichever race you wanted it to win. [Cliff Arnebeck:] And would that program that you designed be something that elections officials, that might be on county boards of elections, could detect? [Mr. Curtis:] They'd never see it. [Audience: "Hmmm!"] [Cliff Arnebeck:] Mr....[Audience speaks "... question again"] Would you answer that question once again? [Mr. Curtis:] They would never see it. [Cliff Arnebeck:] So how would such a program, a secret program that fixes the election, how could it be detected? [Mr. Curtis:] You would have to view it either in the source code, or you'd have to have a receipt, and then count the hard paper against the actual vote total. Other than that, you won't see it. [Cliff Arnebeck:] Alright, Mr. Curtis, if you had been asked, you or others with your professional expertise, had been asked to design a protective program, a program that would protect the Ohio elections from against such software to fix the election, could you have done so? [Mr. Curtis:] If we'd been asked to make a program that could fix the election? Sure, anybody can do it. [Cliff Arnebeck:] No, could you have designed a program, a procedure, a protocol, that would have protected Ohio against this kind of rigging? [Mr. Curtis:] No, you have to look at the source code. You have to get, probably, programmers from both, or all, parties to look at the source code, and determine if there's anything in there that shouldn't be there. I mean, it's a simple program, you're adding one, two persons total. It's a hundreds lines of code, tops. There's.. [unintelligible] [Cliff Arnebeck:] Are you aware of whether there was any protective action in Ohio against this kind of vote rigging through software? [Mr. Curtis:] I don't know. [Cliff Arnebeck:] You don't know? [Mr. Curtis:] I don't know. [Cliff Arnebeck:] You were not asked to assist in the development of any protective system, is that correct? [Mr. Curtis:] No I was not. In your op.. uh..have you reviewed at all the elections results in Ohio? [Mr. Curtis:] No I haven't. [Cliff Arnebeck:] OK. Given the availability of such vote-rigging software, and the testimony that has been given under oath of substantial statistical anomalies, and gross differences between exit polling data and the actual tabulated results, do you have an opinion whether or not the Ohio election, the Presidential election, was hacked? [Mr. Curtis:] Yes I would say it was. I mean, if you ... have exit polling data that is significantly off from the vote, then it's probably hacked. [Cliff Arnebeck:] And your testimony is under oath? [Mr. Curtis:] Yes, sir. [Cliff Arnebeck:] And the testimony you've given is true? [Mr. Curtis:] Yes, sir. Thank you. [Applause, considerable.] [Congresswoman Stephanie Tubbs Jones:] Congresswoman Waters and I have the same question: [Curtis is directed: "Back to the podium." Curtis returns to podium.] [Congresswoman Stephanie Tubbs Jones:] What did you say you were asked to prepare? [Mr. Curtis:] I was asked by Tom Feeney, he's now Congressman, at that time he was Speaker of the House of Florida; Yang Enterprises' --- which is the company I worked for --- lobbyist; and their corporate attorney. He wore a lotta hats. [Congresswoman Stephanie Tubbs Jones:] And at that time, he was the Speaker of the House of Florida, is that what you said? [Mr. Curtis:] Yes. [Congresswoman Stephanie Tubbs Jones:] Ok, thank you. [Congressman Jerrold Nadler:] You say he was the lobbyist for the voting machine company at the same time he was Speaker of the House? [Mr. Curtis:] I don't know what the voting machine company, but he was a lobbyist for Yang Enterprises. We had NASA contracts... [Congressman Jerrold Nadler:] Yang Enterprises did what, computers? [Mr. Curtis:] Computers. [Congressman Jerrold Nadler:] OK. And he was your lobbyist, your company's lobbyist? [Mr. Curtis:] He was the lobbyist for Yang Enterprises. [Congressman Jerrold Nadler:] And he asked you to design a code to rig an election? [Mr. Curtis:] Yes. [Congressman Jerrold Nadler:] While he was Speaker of the Florida House? [Mr. Curtis:] Yes. [Congressman Jerrold Nadler:] Was that during, or previous to, the 2000 election? [Mr. Curtis:] Yes, October, end of September. [Congressman Jerrold Nadler:] Did he ever express why he wanted the code to rig an election? [Mr. Curtis:] No. I immediately assumed that they were trying to keep you guys from cheating on them. [Audience laughs.] So I wrote up the documentation of what you would look for in the source code, how you would make sure that you didn't get, you know, taken advantage of, make sure that all voting machines had receipts, because that way you could back count the ones that looked funny. [Congressman Jerrold Nadler:] By "receipts," you mean a paper trail? [Mr. Curtis:] Yes, paper trail. And I handed that in to Mrs. Yang and said, "Here's your report, here's your program." And she said, "You don't understand. We need to hide the fraud in the source, in the source code." [Congressman Jerrold Nadler:] Hide the fraud, not reveal it? [Mr. Curtis:] Not reveal the fraud, "Because we need it to control the vote in South Florida." That's what she it said. [Audience: "Woh!!"] [Congressman Jerrold Nadler:] To your knowledge, was this used? [Mr. Curtis:] I have no idea, I, I was ready to leave. [Audience/Curtis laugh.] I retired and left the company. [Congressman Jerrold Nadler:] Your testimony just a moment ago I think you said just before you left in answer to Congresswoman ... Jones' question, would you just repeat what you said in reference to the exit polls? [Mr. Curtis:] The exit polls should not be significantly different from the vote. [Congressman Jerrold Nadler:] And if they were, you would conclude what? [Mr. Curtis:] I would conclude someone's playing with the vote. [Congressman Jerrold Nadler:] Not with the exit polls? [Mr. Curtis:] That's possible too. [Congressman Jerrold Nadler:] OK. [Mr. Curtis:] Something is definitely skewed. [Congressman Jerrold Nadler:] Something is skewed in one or the other? [Mr. Curtis:] Right. To select which one, you'd have to see where the problem is. [Congressman Jerrold Nadler:] Let me ask you one further question. Assuming for the moment that such software, that's what you call it? such software to rig a vote, was used, in one or more machines in Ohio or in Florida, could you today detect that, if you looked at the source code? [Mr. Curtis:] If you could get the machines, and they had not been patched yet, I mean once they get in and touch 'em, anything could happen. You could also set timers to do that, but then you'd see the timers. Then you'd have to take those machines, decompile 'em, which I couldn't do, but possibly a Microsoft or MIT something, could do, you might, you might, be able to do. [Congressman Jerrold Nadler:] You might. [Mr. Curtis:] Depends on how good they are at destroying what they had. [Congressman Jerrold Nadler:] Destroying what they had by tampering with the machine afterwards, or by programming it with destroying instruction in the first place? [Mr. Curtis:] Right. [Congressman Jerrold Nadler:] Either or both? [Mr. Curtis:] Either or both. Because since you didn't actually see what's in there. So you don't actually know if the code is running in single executable, or running in various modules. If it's running in modules, you can make the code actually eat itself. [Audience murmurs, then "Wow!"] [Congressman Jerrold Nadler:] Let me ask you just one further question. We've been told, I've been told, that people who assume that lots of the election results, a large fraction of the election results in this state may have been affected by computerware fraud in the computer are paranoid, because in order to do that you would have to have access to thousands of machines, and that would be readily detectable. Is that true? [Mr. Curtis:] It depends on the technology used. If you did a central tabulation machine that fed in, all you would have to do is set a flag. If you set a flag, the central tabulation machine would then flip your vote. [Congressman Jerrold Nadler:] So if you, so one person putting in bad code in a central tabulation machine could affect thousands and thousands, or tens of thousands, of votes? [Mr. Curtis:] Right. And you could activate it ... [Congressman Nadler starts to speak, but stops] [Mr. Curtis:] ...you could activate it either automatically, or you could make it so that there's code existing on like an automic [?] machine that feeds it, where you would punch it in, it would set the flag, server would receive the flag, and then... [Congressman Jerrold Nadler:] And if you had a recount ... [unclear] ... no paper trail --- assuming that would happen --- would that be revealable by seeing a discrepancy between what the tabulator, the central tabulator trail [unclear] the individual machines which had not been tampered with, have? [Mr. Curtis:] Not if I wrote it. [Congressman Jerrold Nadler:] Why not? [Mr. Curtis:] I would make it match. [Congressman Jerrold Nadler:] You could work back from the tabulator to the individual machines? So the tabulator would tell the machines to switch their results? [Mr. Curtis:] Yes. It talks both ways. You can flip it to do whatever you need. [Congressman Jerrold Nadler:] And they actually do talk to each other, the machines...? [Mr. Curtis:] Yes, once it's hooked up, if it's networked together, they can talk to each other. [Congressman Jerrold Nadler:] So there's absolutely no assurance whatsoever that anything could be [right?] with these machines? [Mr. Curtis:] Absolutely none, unless you look at the source code, and make sure it's safe before it goes out. [Congressman Jerrold Nadler:] Thank you very much. [Madam Chair:] Thank you, Congressman Nadler. I know that Congresswoman Waters has questions, and then Senator Miller, and then Congresswoman Stephanie Tubbs-Jones. [Congresswoman Maxine Waters:] This will only a moment, if you will come back to the uh, microphone. [Audience laughs] [Curtis: ] I'm new at this. [Congresswoman Maxine Waters:] As you know, there has been a lot of discussion about, I think it was Diebold Company, their relationship to the President, and the administration, and supposedly comments about helping to insure that the President was re-elected. In your world, in your environment, have you heard any of this kind of discussion? Do you know people at Diebold? Do you have any sense of any actions that may have been taken? [Mr. Curtis:] Uh, I don't know anything about that at all. [Congresswoman Maxine Waters:] Thank you. [Madam Chair calls Dr. Miller] [Dr. Miller:] I suspect that people will attack you in terms of your credibility. Could you restate once again your, your credentials. [Mr. Curtis:] Uh, I'm a programmer, I worked for NASA, I worked for Exxon Mobil, I worked for um, Florida Department of Transportation, and other elements of my story, because this company, well, let's get into it. Why not? This company also had a NASA contract, and they were basically downloading tons of information, I mean, gigabytes' worth, and handing them off to this little Chinese guy named Henry Nee (?) And, it didn't seem right, and, he was hacking things I wrote a program for DOT that allowed contractors to send information into DOT, and he was kind of the quality assurance guy for software. He put a wiretapping module into the program that went out to the contractors so that it actually sent everything they sent, back to Yang. So I reported all this, and just last March I think, he was arrested for attempting to send anti-tank missile chips to the capital of Communist China. If that's correct, this is like a small thing... Of course I think he only got a hundred dollar fine. [Audience: Hmmmm! Hmmm!] And no time. [Audience: Oh God!] [Madam Chair:] Thank you. Congresswoman Stephanie Tubbs-Jones.... [Audience: long, hearty applause] We are now going to um go back to the public testimony and... [End]

Before I was married, I was dating a women who had a college degree, a good job, was attractive enough to make people assume that I must be rich (or well endowed in a different way) and had a great sense of humor and a great personality. When I would compliment her on any topic but one, she would say, "thank you", but when I would compliment her on her looks, she would light up like a sunrise and say, "Gee, thanks. Do you really think so?" Way before I met her, she had been brainwashed to think that physical beauty is the most important female trait, maybe the only female trait that really matters.

The "Today Show" featured a story today on Big Busted mannequins that are being put into the store windows of many department stores. The Mannequins' measurements are 5'10", 40"-23"-32.5", which is not very realistic and will lead to more children demanding breast augmentation, more women feeling inferior until they get breast surgery and another round of medical problems for US women. Only the doctors who perform breast enlargement surgery, the clothes manufacturers and men who see women only as sexual toys will benefit from this assault on the female body.

"I have tried to engage you in serious conversation. You return with remarks and innuendo about my faith, my God and the Bible, and you wonder why I get defensive?" No one objects to you becoming "defensive", but the problem that bothers many members is that you become "offensive".

TURN THE OTHER CHEEK!!

That sounds about right!! That is how God works!Or mental illness. Or maybe the voice of SATAN!!

There is some merit to that because Christ was a Jew as were all of the Apostles. The people who became the first Christians had to be Jewish or had to convert to Judaism first in order to then convert to Christianity. Of course this requires much interpretation of the "Older Testament" or Tora to make things fit. Much of what is in the Jewish version of the "Old Testament" is not in the Christian Version and vice versa. There is a movement afoot in some of the Christian Right Political Movement circles to back the state of Israel in order to bring on the start of the "End of Days" countdown. For all we know, the Illogical Illegal Iraqi Invasion may have been the first step of the "Tribulation". For those that do not like my mixing of politics into this religious thread, please realize that US politics and the Middle-East's (including Israeli) politics are completely intertwined with religion. If the problems in the Middle-East were about any other issue, they could be solved in a very short time. Also please realize that this thread was about a political issue at its inception.

"No, Sharon Tate nor Abigail Folger will come back to life if the killers are executed, but their families would not have to relive their murders every few years by having to go to the parole hearings tryin to keep them in prison." The families do not need to keep going back for parole hearings, they want to. Their need for vengeance is keeping them in Hell and ruining their lives, and is self destructive You may have noticed how the Amish welcomed the family of the killer of the 7 school children into their homes. They could have acted like most Americans and shunned them, but they forgave. Forgiveness is too often preached, but very seldom practiced. The families who dedicate their lives to parole hearings are killing themselves in a possibly subconscious attempt to join their deceased love ones. I watched a documentary once about a family in which a little girl watched a family friend kill her mother in their home. The other children and their father were not home. The man was sentenced to life in jail. The two other children and their father dedicated their lives to making sure the murderer would never be paroled, while the girl who was the witness moved away and flushed vengeance (and hate) from her mind. She is living a descent life. The father and her two sibling have all had bouts of alcohol and drug related problems including multiple failed marriages. Hatred truly harms the hater, while the hated is not effected.

"And, if you have ever seen an interview with Charles Manson, you would absolutely believe he was a monster." No. He is a human being that belongs in a mental institution. We, from the community of fat people who can not control our emotions and who get angry because people make fun of us because that emotional disorder manifests itself as over-eating, should realize that not only physical illness is beyond the control of human beings. I am not taking pity on Mr. Manson, but he is truly sick just as (though not like) I am sick. We both know better (the only legal definition), but we are unable to control ourselves. Maybe someday mental illness including may be cured. Maybe the Charles Manson's of the world can be cured before they act in their depraved way. Maybe that research will help those like me, who can not control eating and/or others who can not control gambling, wife beating, etc. Or maybe it will be the other way around; the cure for over-eating, gambling, wife beating, etc. will lead to a cure for the mental illness that Charles Manson is a poster boy for. Either way, Charles Manson is no monster. He is a human being.

"He was found guilty in a civil court for causing their deaths and ordered to pay $36,000,000, which he has not paid a dime of." OJ was not found quilty in a civil court. Civil courts do not have guilt or innocent verdits. Civil courts are not set to the same standards as criminal court. If the standards for criminal court were lowered to that of civil court, you would be living in Nazi America. "He was found not guilty because the jury had reasonable doubt." That is all that is required. That is all that is ever required in this country.

"12 jurors are chosen from the community where the crime occurs, so people like myself and mousecrazy have just as much right to be on a jury as you do. I believe having the 12 people ends up making the jury balanced." I am not allowed to be on the jury, because I do not believe in the death penality, so the jury is already stacked (because my disqualification means it is not a jury of peers).

The most beautiful part of a women is her mind and that is what I will say to my wife in 6 months on our 40th wedding anniversary.:clap2:

Are you hearing excuses? Wouldn't you fire a worker if he was unable to do any of the requested tasks given to him?

Are you hearing voices?

How do you know she murdered her children? Because a jury said so? How many juries have been wrong? Wasn't the OJ Simpson Jury wrong? Or do you only think juries are wrong when they acquit? Are they people or monsters? Make up your mind. Will Sharon Tate or Abigail Folger get a chance to come back to life if their killers are executed? Scott Peterson was convicted on the flimsiest of evidence. Will you change your tune if someone else is found to have been the killer prior to Scott Peterson's execution? Who should we execute in those cases? Should we pick someone at random? So you not only wanted people on death row executed, but also people who were found innocent? You claim the opposite in your last paragraph. Should I be executed for pointing out these faults? And many people have had their death penalty overturned because they were 100% innocent and it took many years in many cases. One, I believe took 18 years before the death row inmate was proved to be 100% innocent. Would you care if he had been put to death for the crime he didn't commit so that you could have your "die and quickly" wish?

There is no scientific basis. It is just an attempt to fit what someone observes with a preaccepted conclusion.

And I am not accusing you of that. I respect your knowledge and your willingness to research and fight for what you believe, but the people you are relying on for research either have a political agenda or have sold out to those that have a political agenda. Watching religion grab at straws for centuries to keep its need to prove the literal interpretation of the bible, has only shown a willingness to be very un-Christ-like. "Thou shalt not lie" has never been one of the Religious Right's strong suits. I do not question your integrity, just the people that you are relying on. No scientist needs to have a political agenda. No scientist should have a political agenda, yet we have read reports from cigarette company scientists for generations claiming that smoking is not harmful. See who is paying the salary of any of the scientists involved in the Evolution vs. Creationism debate. If a Right Wing Religious organization is paying the creationist's salary, it does not prove the creationist is lying, but... Follow the money.

The scientists that are pushing creationism IMHO are doing it for one of two reasons. Either money being paid to them by the Religious Right or a need to feel that their Christianity and its myths must be sustained at the expense of their scientific integrity.

And when scientists were put to death by the (philosophical) ancestors of creationists, would you also have said that once the establishment has spouted something as truth, it takes a heck of a lot of time to reverse it?

It would seem that God is more complex that even the most complex building or organism, so who do you think designed God?

I believe that I was basically saying the same thing when I said, "Trying to pass off religion as science is my complaint".

When you say to me, "Your preference seems to be to dismiss creation theory as a knee-jerk reaction because you don't want to consider the option that the Bible might be literal," you miss one point about my reasoning process. If creationism is valid, it is not because it is based on science, but because God put misleading scientific evidence in the way of scientists. If I would have said, "All of this is of course consistent with the simultaneous creation of all water-dwelling creatures on day six of creation week", it would not have been any less valid scientifically. It would have been invalid versus creationism based on Biblical text. Trying to pass off religion as science is my complaint and when the USA tries to develop scientists for the future, this inability to distinguish myth from scientific research will harm our nation. This is one of the reasons why the USA has not taken the lead in fighting climate change, because we as a political nation bordering on a theocracy fight science. We will be at the level of 3rd world Muslim countries soon if we do not start realizing the difference.

I missed the science that proves that on day five all the fish were created.