Comments on: Come Saturday Morning: Burying The Lede, Wall Street Meltdown Edition

By: dude

dude — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 22:27:25 +0000

It seems to be Fannie and Freddie are given a higher standard of scrutiny fot he same reason they are generally given a higher standard of “security” as a special creature of Federal creation. You have always heard that they were regarded as “safe” under some implicit “full faith and credit” umbrella when, in the same breath, bankers/realtors/investors claimed there was no real obligation by the government to underwrite them. So what happens? That “no real obligation” becomes a reality in a pinch and now we expect these entities to behave like a goernment agency.

As a percentage of the overall problem in dollars, maybe Fannie and Freddie are disproportionally criticized; however, the impulse is there to blame them like a government asleep at the wheel too and I think that is why they are so easy to scapegoat.

By: sophiehunter

sophiehunter — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 19:43:32 +0000

Git her done! I think it isn’t as important how complex it sounds as how few steps it takes to get it done. I saw a documentary on the Sundance Channel a year or so ago that had a computer savvy guy show a middle-aged housewife and activist, step by step how to hack in and change the counters on the main computers at County election centers. Needless to say, it was eye-opening and very disturbing.

By: kdh22

kdh22 — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 18:10:39 +0000

If you can prove it, write it.

By: dakine01

dakine01 — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 18:01:41 +0000

Blue America a couple of flights upstairs with some Ohio races to look at.

By: SouthernDragon

SouthernDragon — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 17:21:05 +0000

I’d like to do a diary about how easy it is to make the machine steal votes but I’m afraid I’d lose a lot of folks because I’d have to use code examples to show how it’s done. They’re easy to follow but have a tendency to glaze folks eyes over.

By: kdh22

kdh22 — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 16:36:48 +0000

This election rigging is our toughest fight IMO.

By: kdh22

kdh22 — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 16:35:46 +0000

Yeah the political dynamic in Iraq is something that I have a hard time understanding fully. I think the fact that now there are so many new political factions in Irag, that has complicated the dynamic from hundreds of years of stability. This, of course, was a mission accomplished moment for Cheney and Bush. Instability is a sure tell of when to advance. Cheney and Bush advanced after they created the instability.

It may still work. We have to make sure it doesn’t.

By: rwcole

rwcole — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 16:30:50 +0000

Yep- and that pertains to vote counting machines using paper ballots as well- but at least with paper ballots you have something to go back to in case of a recount.

I have read that poll workers can screw up a ballot by simply making a small nearly invisible mark on a blank bubble.

By: Twain

Twain — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 16:29:30 +0000

OT
Did everyone see that Opus is going to be no more. It makes me sad.

By: SouthernDragon

SouthernDragon — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 16:28:52 +0000

The real trick is in the counting algorithm. With just a few lines of code I can make the machine come out with any number I want. With a switch statement I could steal votes from every candidate and give them to the one I want to come out on top. Diebold had this down pat.