User talk:AlistairMcMillan/Archive1

Please don't mock the John Kerry discussion

We are working hard to hash out problems there. You mocking us, does not help. Rex071404 01:31, 13 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Any more attempts at humour will be summarily shot. :) Lacrimosus 04:28, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)

FL 2000 - Re: "disenfranchisement"

The term "disenfranchise" plain and simply has a more profound meaning that merely missing a vote for one reason or another. Rather, a "disenfranchised" person is barred from all votes, now and in the future.

It is simply too extreme of a charge to lay upon Bush and/or the Florida 2000 fiasco to say that people were "disenfranchised". Think of it this way, if you are shot by a rifle in battle and are not killed, you are wounded. However, if the wound is fatal, you are killed.

In this analogy, "disenfranchisement" is equivalent to death. But what happened to complaining voters in FL was a wound - they are still free to vote again. Also, if they don't like Palm Beach butterfly ballots, they are free to move to whatever location they decide has a ballot they like. On the other had, a truly "disenfranchised" person is not allowed to vote regardless of the ballot type or where they live.

It is sloppy English, plain and simple to use that word ("disenfranchise") to describe the SNAFUs of FL 2000.

Also, such word usage to describe SNAFUs, flies in the face of the Law_of_large_numbers by suggesting that an election with millions of votes being cast, must not have any votes that are miscounted or voided in error.

And, unless you are claiming bad intent by a controlling party the Law_of_large_numbers will see to it that such errors and miscounts are evenly distributed among both major party candidates in a close election.

What this means is that both Gore and Bush voters missed out at roughly the same rate. This also means that Gore and Bush had a roughly equal number of miscounts and non-counts.

At the same time, this still does not constitute "disenfranchisement". Rather, what you must keep in mind is that even a precise process will, on a large scale have some error. And this is what happened in FL 2000.

Whether you believe Bush won or Gore won there is moot so far as the vote count error rate goes. That election was so-close, that for all intents and purposes all of the potentially different types of recounts would have still fallen within the margin of vote count error.

That being the case, the SCOTUS was perfectly just in making FL stop counting and stick with the rules which were in place on the date of the election. Those rules did not allow for Gore to keep counting again and again in hand picked areas. Regardless of what Gore was hoping for, it is true that GWB did win the tally (albeit, very closely) that was added up based on the rules which were in place on the day of the election. And in fact FL 2000 proves the value of rules of that type.

Prior to invoking a large election, the tally method must be agreed upon in advance. If not, for any election which is so close that it the tally falls within the margin of error, the outcome will change if you change the tally method.

This is why Gore voters still feel cheated - they assert that under some tally methods, Gore would have won. The only problem is that the tally methods they point to were not provided for under FL law at the time, but were instead being sought by Gore in court after the fact.

If such an approach is allowed, well then Bush could then come right back and say "use my method" while pointing to one that put him ahead. And back and forth we go.

It is this ex-post-facto re-jiggering of the tally methods that SCOTUS put a stop to, not any actually vote counting. The votes had already been counted.

On the other hand, what Gore was asking for was not provided for under FL law and in any case, SCOTUS agreed that in giving the green-light to Gore's extra-legislative request for a special tally, the FL Supremes violated the principle of equal protection.

You see, once the tally began being re-done under a statutorily unfounded court-ordered system, the only trumping law left is US Constitution.

The simple fact is that when judges re-write law from the bench, the only remaining defense is an appeal to constitutional principles, which is what Bush did. By the way, there were two rulings by SCOTUS in this case, one was 5-4, but the other was 7-2.

Anyway, in regards to all the vote SNAFUs issues themselves: errors on felon voter list, chads in Miami, Butterfly Ballot in Pam Beach, Military votes being DQ'd because military mail lacked a postmark, the news media falsely declaring the polls closed one hour before the FL panhandle (which is on Central Time) was actually done voting, were not under the control of any single person(s) or group(s), so there is certainly no way the say that all those who mis-voted or missed voting were "disenfranchised".

Certain voters and votes were adversely affected, yes. But this does not rise to the level of "disenfranchisement". The usage of that term is wrong and leaves a false impression.

Remember: precise thought requires precise word usage.

It is through the loopholes of imprecise language that race-baiters have long slipped on this issue. There are numbers of people out there who still try to suggest that there was a master plan (tied to Bush somehow of course) to "disenfranchise" black FL voters and thereby give Bush the win. Such racial based demagoguery is disgusting and offensive on the face. And in order to put a stop to it, people who write on the subject must give the facts in a rigorously clear manner.

I am trying to do that and it's why I oppose the use of the term "disenfranchised". It's not true. It misleads. And in the hands of certain race-baiters (such as Al Gore, Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, etc.) it fans the flames of racial discord.

Rex071404 04:15, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)

"Fevered ramblings"...?

What? After all that, I don't even rank as an "incoherent babbler"? Rex071404 07:03, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Journalists with bias

Can you offer any suggestions? Rex071404 15:15, 26 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I took the liberty of answering this on Rex's discussion page. You might have a few more, though. I hope that wasn't overly intrusive, butting into your conversation like that. Wolfman 01:16, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Oh dear. I'm afraid that Rex did find it intrusive. Frankly, my feelings are a little hurt. Wolfman 07:27, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Rex

Thanks for your input on Rex's edits. He has impeded progress a great deal. I invite you to continue to monitor his work in this and other article so we can put a stop to his disruptive editing style. --Nysus 02:36, 10 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I posted a petition about Rex's behavior. Please see Talk:Texans_for_Truth#Rex

Your contributions

I read you "contributions" list and I see that you post to a wide variety of articles. Hence, I imagine that my particular focus on political ones may alarm you. Please take note however, that I have been the proginator of (4) new articles in the two months I have been here (see my user page). Even so, since your experience is broad compared to say Nysus, I'd be inclined to put heavier wieght on comments from you than from him. Bear that in mind next time you think you'd like to tell me something. I do read your comments to me (even if I do delete them from my talk page, I've read them. [[User:Rex071404|Rex071404 ]] 03:23, 10 Sep 2004 (UTC)

examples please

If you are willing, please cite for me on my talk page, the three most recent edits by me which you feel show unacceptable Bush/Kerry bias. Also, please explain why you think that on each one. I assure you I will consider each one carefully. [[User:Rex071404|Rex071404 ]] 03:48, 10 Sep 2004 (UTC)

But it is your contention of POV I am concerned with. From my vantage point, my edits all pass muster. [[User:Rex071404|Rex071404 ]] 04:08, 10 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Alistair, what's your e-mail or a way outside of WP i can contact you? --kizzle 22:34, Sep 24, 2004 (UTC)

don't mock please

Your last Texans for Truth edit summary seemd to indicate intentional trouble making. Please desist. [[User:Rex071404|Rex071404 ]] 04:11, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)

it begins...

rex is coming back... --kizzle 06:28, Oct 25, 2004 (UTC)

Ann Coulter/Daily Show

Thanks for correcting the Ann Coulter/Daily Show thing. I was going to look it up at some point, but I'm glad you beat me to it. --Neschek 00:04, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)

User:Rex071404

"Just in case anyone else doesn't know who Rex071404 is. He was banned from John Kerry, then banned from a bunch of other pages relating to the 2004 election. Then he disappeared for about a week and now he is back but not signing in, so he appears as 216.153.214.94 all the time. He is basically trolling."

That's a pretty serious allegation. Where are you getting this information from? - Ta bu shi da yu 07:28, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Ignore my previous message. I misread what you wrote. - Ta bu shi da yu 08:44, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)

User:213.186.47.154

Hello Alistair, why are you reverting all the links added by 213.186.47.154 with comments like "Revert advertising by 213.186.47.154"? So far as I can see, all of the links this user added are free, GPLed source code that is directly relevant to the articles in question and likely quite useful to someone researching the subject. The remainder of the website in question also appears to be totally non-commercial. Securiger 08:10, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)

The policy, such as it is, is at Wikipedia:External links with extensive discussion at Wikipedia talk:External links; advertising is also mentioned in point 18 of Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not (boy do we have a lot of policies!). As you can see, even commerical links are not absolutely forbidden. The problem with advert links is people trying to conceal POV info about their products, or drive Wikipedia readers to a click-sponsored website. Commercial links are generally deprecated, but that isn't hard and fast if the linked page is reasonably NPOV and useful to readers of the article, and/or the best available source of the information. In this case, the linked pages are NPOV, useful, and at least as good as the alternatives. (I personally would have let the links stand even if they were on a commercial site; my remark about being non-commercial was in case you thought he was trying to lure Wikipedians deeper into his site only to later hit them with click-sponsoring.) Securiger 09:35, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Hah! You don't need to defer to me, I'm just another Wikipedia editor! Yes, the policy is not a 100% clear on this, there is plenty of grey area. IMHO, this one though is safely over the fence. I would put them back, but it's up to you. Securiger 09:47, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Hi! I thought I'd add my 2 cents: I think that for software that supports lots of different algorithms (DES, MD5, AES etc..), then it's better to put a single external link to the software on one "parent" page, rather than a separate link for each and every algorithm article. A similar question is still open for the "Jacksum" software, the author of which added links to every hash function page we have (see User talk:Jonelo). Perhaps a cryptographic software article would be good, given that we have PGP, GnuPG, AxCrypt, CrossCrypt etc? I'm just uneasy about adding these external links to all our articles — they'd be more maintainable in a single location. — Matt 10:18, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Dedham, Massachusetts

Your particpation in the un-justified deletion (via non-discussed reverts) of a factually accurate, non-POV, historical fact from that page has contributed to causing that page to be "protected". Therefore, I am asking you to particpate in the dialog at Talk:Dedham, Massachusetts which the "protection" notice calls for. Either that, or please leave a message for Mirv and request that the page be unprotected. This message will be reposted here daily (approximately) until you acknowledge it on the Dedham, Massachusetts talk page. Thank you 216.153.214.94 03:45, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)