Efficacy a Featured Blog at Showcase

Showcase has got a pointer to our INFALLIBLE 2004 Election Predictor

Thanks, Simon!

Trackback: http://blog.mu.nu/cgi/mt-tb.cgi?__mode=view&entry_id=47538

He's a Bugman on the Windshield, With the Blues

Don't look behind you Tom, I believe they're gaining on you.

This time you are the nail.

What part of INFALLIBLE didn't you understand?

You can argue with it, but it won't do you any good.

As I said, with the plethora of polls out there, you can cherry pick the numbers to support any conclusion you want to present. However, it is not open to argument that the facts show Zogby and Harris were the most accurate presidential race pollsters in 2000 and that Zogby claimed sole honors for 1996. That is why I have chosen Zogby as the primary (but again, not the only) data point for my predictor.

It is also not open to argument that in the latest Zogby Battleground States Poll, Kerry holds leads in both FL and PA.

Zogby will update his BSP one week after next Thursday's First Presidential Debate, which is the major predictable campaign effectable event between now and Nov. 2.

Until Zogby updates his BSP, regardless of the vagaries and swings among the many polls which may report temporary changes in one or more of the predictor states, Kerry will remain the predictor's pick to win the election.

Remember, this is an INFALLIBLE predictor. Resistance is futile and just makes the resisters look stupid, idiotic and ugly.

Like Buttah

Margin Of Error Clarified

If the margin of error of a poll is x, then any result within 2x is within the margin of error.

In other words, the MOE applies to both candidates' poll results.

For example: if Bush leads Kerry 48% to 44% in the latest Time poll which has a MOE of plus or minus 4%, then Bush's high and low numbers are 52% to 44% while Kerry's high and low numbers are 48% to 40% with a 95% degree on confidence for any of those numbers.

Suppose Bush leads Kerry 52% to 46% in a poll with a 4% MOE. It is equally likely Kerry has 50% and Bush has 48% as it is that the results are as reported.

Few people reading and reporting the top-line numbers of polls actually understand this, whether they are reporters for major media outlets or some cut and paste artist participating here.

So there you have it. You now understand more about the MOE than most Americans.

You're welcome.

Excellent segment of Now on Presidential Debates having become an essential (Jameson) charade (Farah)

NOW with Bill Moyers. Politics & Economy. Election 2004. The Debates | PBS:

Open Debates.com

Presidential debates can change the course of elections, but George Farah, executive director of Open Debates, has evidence showing that the debates' rules of order have been hijacked by the two main political parties. The result? Moderators can't ask follow-up questions, important issues are never raised, and credible third-party candidates are excluded from the proceedings altogether.

We're going to miss Bill when he's gone.

In the interest of full disclosure, I scored 60% on the quiz.

Don't it always go to show, you don't miss your League of Women Voters Presidential Debate Sponsorship until it's gone.

My buddy...Buster Brown

He's not my dog, I'm his human.

If You Use Microsoft Windows XP and/or Microsoft Office (and who doesn't?) You're in Trouble, again...

Ya'll need to pay attention to this:

JPEG exploit toolkit spotted online | The Register: "JPEG exploit toolkit spotted online

By John Leyden
Published Friday 24th September 2004 16:32 GMT

A toolkit designed to exploit a recently-disclosed Microsoft JPEG vulnerability has been released onto the net. The toolkit (screen shot from AV firm F-Secure here) makes it trivially easy for maliciously-minded attackers, however unskilled they might be, to exploit unpatched Windows systems and run malicious code.

The attack mechanism used here takes advantage of a recently discovered flaw in the way Microsoft applications process JPEG image files. Malformed JPEG files are capable of triggering a buffer overflow in a common Windows component (the GDI+ image viewing library), it was revealed last week. This behaviour creates a ready mechanism to inject exploit code into vulnerable systems. Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 make use of vulnerable library by default. Other Windows OSes might be vulnerable, depending on what applications users have installed.

Microsoft, which unsurprisingly rates the vulnerability as critical, released a patch to defend against the flaw on 14 September. To be at risk, users have to open a JPEG file modified to trigger the flaw using either IE or Outlook. They also need to be unpatched. Unfortunately there's plenty of scope for both conditions to be met and the gene pool of potential victims is huge.

The problem is exacerbated by the fact JPEG files are typically viewed 'as a benign and trusted file format... as such it is possible to cause image files to be viewed with minimal user-interaction through several applications including many email clients such as Outlook and Outlook Express,' Security tools vendor ISS notes. 'There is also potential for automatic exploitation in the form of a network-propagating worm.'

Since...Microsoft's update, security firm ScanSafe, which looks for malware in web traffic, has stopped numerous JPEG files identified as containing the exploit.

Users are strongly advised to download and install the latest software patches from Microsoft and to update their anti-virus definitions as soon as possible. If you haven't done it already now would be a very good time. Sysadmins need to include the contents of JPEG files among the types of traffic scanned by network security tools. Several gateway AV scanners, for example, do not inspect image files by default. ®

If you don't have your Windows OS on auto update, why not? You need to update your Office files, too, or this one can come in through the backdoor.

Pay attention to Phil - he's a very bright guy with loads of unique experience

INTEL DUMP -: "The legal story of the century

Forget O.J. Forget Michael Jackson. Regardless of what side of the aisle you sit on, Bush v. Gore has absolutely got to be the biggest legal case in recent history, by just about any yardstick. A number of law clerks from that term of the Supreme Court, apparently disillusioned with what happened in that case, have come forward to tell their story to Vanity Fair. The articles part one and part two are available over at SCOTUSblog with the permission of the magazine. They make for very, very interesting reading.
[Phillip Carter, Thursday September 23, 2004 at 9:00pm] http://inteldump.powerblogs.com/posts/1095987627.trackbacks.shtml

WB17 Jacksonville, FL�::�-�Fear of Flying�::

WB17 Jacksonville, FL�::�-�Fear of Flying�::: "Janet Linke has been thinking about George W. Bush a lot lately. Thirty-two years ago, her late husband Jan Peter Linke served briefly in the Texas Air National Guard�s 111 Fighter Interceptor Squadron. Bush�s service in the same squadron has gotten plenty of attention in an election year when what you did during the Vietnam War is suddenly a litmus test of character. But Linke claims she knows a part of the story that nobody has mentioned.
According to Linke, a Jacksonville resident and artist, Bush�s flying career was permanently disabled by a crippling fear of flying.
Linke�s husband was admitted to the Texas Guard in the summer of 1972 to replace Bush. President Bush has said that he stopped flying fighter jets because the Alabama Guard unit didn�t have jets, and he wanted the transfer to Alabama in order to work on a political campaign. But Linke says she heard a different story from her husband and Bush�s squad commander, the late Lt. Col. Jerry Killian. Shortly after her husband joined the Texas unit, Linke says, the couple discussed Bush�s service with Killian at a social event.
Contrary to some news reports that suggest Killian admired Bush, Linke says the officer didn�t have much use for the young lieutenant. He mentioned that Bush appeared to have a drinking problem, she recalls, but he was most offended by another incapacity: his fear of flying. According to Linke, Killian said Bush was grounded in his fourth year of flying after he became incapable of flying or properly landing a plane.
�He was mucking up bad, Killian told us,� Linke says. �He just became afraid to fly.�
Killian has become a major figure in Bush�s unfolding �Guardgate.� CBS news anchor"

From ��TBogg�� (And a healthy dose at that)

��TBogg��: "George Bush: The Basement Tapes

One Whiskey, One Bourbon, One Beer:

Just what kind of guy was President Bush during his character-defining early adulthood?
An aimless, inconsiderate, womanizing drunkard - if you believe Rolling Stone's article detailing how the 26-year-old Bush allegedly used his family connections to evade National Guard duties, was lazy and unreliable at his civilian job and boasted to colleagues about the benefits of being the grandson of a powerful United States senator."

But you knew that, right?

Put Down That Gun, skippy!

skippy the bush kangaroo:

"however, something that is totally beyond us is why the great piece of music that ."we touted earlier this week has not taken the left side of blogtopia (yes! we coined that phrase!) by storm.

Just put the gun on safety and lower it slowly...

Vote & Get Paid

$100,000.00 for your vote?

Maybe, but only if you're registered by November 2nd.

Boot Bush! 

GDubya's Exciting Stump Speech Wows Youths

Via Rising Hegemon

Easily one of the best posts ever from an always "must read" blogger

I agree totally with Chris Bowers of MyDD (easily one of the best poll watching sites): Juan Cole at Informed Comment has outdone himself with his eye-opening commentary.

What would America look like if it were in Iraq's current situation? The population of the US is over 11 times that of Iraq, so a lot of statistics would have to be multiplied by that number.

Thus, violence killed 300 Iraqis last week, the equivalent proportionately of 3,300 Americans. What if 3,300 Americans had died in car bombings, grenade and rocket attacks, machine gun spray, and aerial bombardment in the last week? That is a number greater than the deaths on September 11, and if America were Iraq, it would be an ongoing, weekly or monthly toll.

Just go.

I'm not especially enjoying the ride.

Have you heard of Global Election Management System, or GEMS?

You will.

We may be rushing into hell in a bucket with Wally Diebold and his ilk (I've temporarily suspended my dislike of that word) in charge of counting our votes this election cycle.

Activists Find More E-Vote Flaws

[snip]

"You have to know in advance what you want to change," Thompson said, "but it's pretty easy to write a script to find the data that you want to change. If you want Stan Smith to have more votes than he currently has, you write a line of your script that says select everything in the table where candidate equals Stan Smith, and increment the votes. Then you delete the votes from another candidate by the same amount."

Thompson acknowledged that the hack would take an insider with knowledge of the voting system and election procedures and access to GEMS. But this could include technical people working for a county or Diebold employees who sometimes assist technically challenged election officials on election night. It's unlikely that unsavvy election officials or observers would notice or understand the significance of someone writing five lines of code in Notepad.

I know Walt wrote the line for the original Earth Day, but Pogo's immortal words just seem so apt for our current situation:

"We have met the enemy and he is us."

And we only have ourselves to blame if we let them get away with it.

I don't see what all the fuss is about.

A flea is attempting to fuck an elephant. The elephant, completely unaware of the flea and its pathetic attempt, raises its trunk and trumpets a loud call. The flea yells, "Scream, bitch!"

Which reminds me, what's the deal with Instapundit? Is it just me or is that the most overrated, under informative blog on the internet?

This must be the learning curve I'm climbing.

I'll figure out why the links in my blogroll are links to the feeds of the sites listed instead of links to the sites in a bit. For now, forewarned is forearmed.

When you get hijacked...

Your machine may be suffering the effects of a BHO or Browser Helper/Hijack Object which may conceal more troublesome malware as well.

The removal sequence is fairly lengthy but should work for most BHOs:

*** BHOs - Detection & Removal ***

FIRST: BACKUP YOUR REGISTRY & any important data - 'cause you just never know.

SECOND: In WinME and WINXP - TURN OFF SYSTEM RESTORE!

THIRD: Enable viewing all system and hidden files.

1) Obtain HijackThis & CWShredder.

Get the latest CWShredder and yet more info on parasites and hijackers, here or here.

2) Get a registry cleaner. I use EasyCleaner v2.0 or later by Toniarts.

3) If you have not already, download anti-spyware/malware software like AdAware & SpyBot.

4) Boot to Safe Mode.

5) Run Hijack This. If confident, perform the deletions on your own. If not comfortable, post your HJT log to an appropriate forum for help.

6) Run CWShredder. Check for updates before you do. Make sure you have v1.56.0.1 or later before you try to fix anything.

(If CWShredder and Hijack This won't run to completion, download and run CoolWWWSearch.SmartKiller and then go back to step 5.)

7) Repeat steps 5) and 6) until everything is removed.

8) Run anti-spyware if desired (Recommended): AdAware v6 or Adaware Pro SE v. 1.05 and Spybot Search & Destroy 1.3. Make sure you have the latest dat files updated for both programs before scanning anything. Some folks also use Bazooka Spyware Detector,

9) Now run the registry cleaner. I used EasyCleaner v2.0 (Windows Help bug fixed).

That should allow you to set your home page to whatever you want, speed up your machine and generally improve your life and disposition.

If that doesn't work (rare but possible) see discussion here or an entire forum devoted to this topic.

HTH

When I'm not doing important stuff like opining on thiser and thater, I'm generally charging people to do the stuff I've just told you how to do for free. As always, if by incompetently following these detailed and highly reliable instructions (or even if you follow them to the letter, in your dreams), your computer or the computer of your friend or loved one melts, blows up real good or transports you into another dimension, I disavow any and all responsibility. In other words, this works, but proceed at your own risk.

INFALLIBLE 2004 Presidential Election Predictor

Whichever candidate wins two out of three of Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania will win the election.

I have been saying this for months now and many who read my posts already know that in addition to being exceedingly humble, handsome, intelligent and witty, I am very rarely wrong.

Zogby's latest battleground states poll has Kerry currently ahead in both Florida and Pennsylvania while Bush leads only in Ohio. Therefore, if the election were held today, Kerry would win. Unfortunately, the election is not being held today.

Poll enthusiasts will no doubt already be aware that Zogby is unmatched in accuracy in presidential polling in the latest two presidential election cycles (in 2000 he was tied with Harris). It is for that reason I have selected Zogby battleground states poll as the major (but not the only) data point for my INFALLIBLE election predictor.

Although the race is close nationally, generally within the margin of error of the individual national horse-race polls, there always exists the possibility of a "breakout" of one candidate or another. This hasn't happened yet. Both candidates have held the lead by varying margins this year only to see those margins collapse over time. Some may recall the wild swings in post-convention pollings in 2000. The little spoken truth is those wild swings result from pollsters' sampling (Rasmussen) and filtering (Gallup) methods much more than from the raw data (Here's looking at you, kid).

By most reliable measures at the present time, Bush holds a 3-5 point lead in the top-line number nationally while Kerry holds a slim and tenuous lead in the crucial battleground states. You may cherry pick the numbers from one poll or another to support almost any conclusion you care to present, but my predictor is INFALLIBLE.

The predictable major election event which could cause a "breakout" of one candidate or another from the tight race heretofore, is the debates. Nothwithstanding the foregoing, there are certain wildcards which may or may not change the election calculus: any major outside unforseen catastrophe or event, an October surprise, or health issues of either candidate.

My INFALLIBLE predictor will help you cut through the thicket to the chase when you are confronted with a dazzling array of inconsistent and unreliable poll results and the unrelenting spin of those results between now and November 2.

You may all now relax and just watch those three states.

And remember, it doesn't matter who wins the popular vote, the only thing that matters is who gets to 270 EVs.

What are you doing to help us get there?

Thank you for your attention.

You may move along now.

This post is over.

Nothing more to see.

In the event of any change you will be notified so please wait until I contact you and forgo your seemingly irresistable urge to contact me. I assure you the urge will fade over time.

Why are you still here?

the power to produce an effect

We'll see about that, given time.