She means it, too! She’ll sic the Three Felines of the Apocalypse on you.
“My God! It’s full of ears!”
The pun claws at me, but I will not weaken, it is too cheesy, too juvenile, a man of my age and dignity simply doesn’t say anything so patently Beavis.
Gather chi, repulse monkey, grit teeth…
Not to worry, my dear ETA. We do indeed have an understanding, and it is intact and impervious to harm. 
I must come to the defense of the shameless elucidator here, however, as I fear I am the guilty party who started him thinking his unwholesome thoughts. In post #57 of the thread you linked to, I said, in very small letters, that I loved the guy. He and I had a very amusing exchange/argument one night while he was kicking back in the ole double-wide after a night of beer-drinking and strip-club crawling, and since then, I find that I’m almost always amused by his sense of humor and way of putting things. (But not always!)
Hence, my comment. I meant it, however, in the sort of man-to-man way that guys sometimes use jokingly. As I wrote it, I had in mind Petey Pablo in the song Freek A Leek, who, in response to a listener’s thanks for playing his song, says in a rough voice, “No problem. You know I do it 'cause I love ya.”
I meant it like that. But I’m afraid my good buddy luci chose to use the occasion to try to wheedle a free dinner and movie out of me. And that’s all there is to it. I promise! 
Hell, I didn’t even know they had gladiator movie festivals!
And just when was this that you hung out in the double-wide with this bar-hopper, eh? Was it perchance the night you’d promised – PROMISED – to take me to the Blue Bayou for a candlelight dinner? And never showed up? :dubious: I always thought that story about having to sit up late revising Bush/Cheney campaign speeches was mighty thin. :dubious:
<snip>
Yeh, I’ve heard THAT line before. :rolleyes: You better watch it, Buster, or I’ll reconsider that offer from Shodan. :mad:
I’m usually annoyed by people who, like Vanilla, don’t use the word wrap feature of this editor but have begun to read it as blank verse and enjoy it more.
Just wanted to say, is all.
I have no idea what word wrap is.
probably a commie plot
YOu keep hitting return/enter after you hit the edge of the page. Just keep typing, you don’t have to keep hitting “Enter” every time you want to start a new line.
In other words, if I kept typing and hitting Enter
my words would look like this.
But if I just keep on typing, they reach the edge of the page and it looks better. Word wrap simply means that the page doesn’t stretch across to infinity and require one to keep scrolling horizontally.
See?
Yeah, I thought it might seem a little dubious myself, but given your knowledge of my orientation it seemed the most plausible at the time.
<snip>
Boy, are you going to feel guilty when you find out what I’ve really been spending my time doing!
And Shodan??? That tool? I’m wounded to the core!
Guin: word wrap.
Oh, okay. But I like making little paragraphs, it seems to make it look nicer and easier to read.
Maybe I am wrong. I apologize for anyone’s annoyance at my not stretching words alll the way out to the edge.
vanilla; Capitalist.
“All available technicalities” is, no more and no less, the date of the postmark. The ballots being contested were ones postmarked after Election Day. The news about the closeness of the count certainly had time to reach the people casting them, to see that they had the ballots still in their possession, and that they might have a chance to affect the result anyway. The “targeted section of the voting public” were those who attempted to vote after the election was over. The counties that accepted them *anyway * were Republican-controlled. Question: When is it too late to vote? Is it too late even now?
Again here, we’re referring to the date in which the attempted voters put their ballots *into * the postal system, not the slowness of the system after that point. It’s too bad you’ve received ballots after Election Day, but when did you request them and how much allowance for the mails did you make?
Was there no one in the vicinity who could affirm your state and city of residence? Wouldn’t your registration be confirmed by the fact that they sent you a ballot at all?
Not as bad as all the other rationales for other reasons, and for refusing to count at all?
Sorry, friend, the attempts to circumvent the basic rule that you don’t get to cast a vote after the election is over are what should have left a bad taste in your mouth. That isn’t a technicality.
I am not now, nor have ever been, a member of the House Unamerican Activities Committee.
[QUOTE=ElvisL1ves]
“All available technicalities” is, no more and no less, the date of the postmark.
[quote]
Actually, as I understand it, in addition to the postmarks being an issue, the qualifications of the witness signatures was made into an issue. And that is something I do find objectionable.
Well, let’s see… I’d told the county board of elections I was stationed on a ship that was homeported out of the state, and would be needed absentee ballots for the next 4 years. The particular ballot in question came in with a postmark approximately two weeks prior to the election. Of course - it wouldn’t have mattered had the ballot been sent as early as four weeks in advance: That cruise we only got mail ONCE - 6 weeks after we got underway, and then had to wait another week and a half after we got back into Norfolk(! :eek: !) for the frigging Army to figure out that they could actually deliver the CENSORED mail.
[quote=ElvisL1ves]
Was there no one in the vicinity who could affirm your state and city of residence? Wouldn’t your registration be confirmed by the fact that they sent you a ballot at all?
[quote]
Plenty of people could confirm that, but the witness block on MY absentee ballots was for someone who was a ‘representative of the Monroe County Board of Elections, affirming that the named person is a registered voter in the County at the time of the election.’ (Emphasis mine) Can you explain who, and when, that signature block is to be signed? Let’s add that expecting a legal officer to be along with most deployed commands - the sort of person who would have a responsibility for keeping track of this minutia for EVERY COUNTY in the US of A is more than a little ignorant of reality.
Odd, I thought these same people were the ones who were arguing for things like counting ‘double votes’ as votes. Isn’t there a basic rule of one person one vote?
You can talk about principles, but when you’re bending principles for one group of people and enforcing them with unusual vigor against another, it seems that principle is not what you’re really concerned about.
I’m sorry I even mentioned military mails. I agreed from the first that postmark dates ARE a legitimate reason for discounting the ballot. I remain of the opinion since it is not unusual for absentee ballots to arrive on, or after, the date of the election through no fault of the service member that some leniency here is not unwarranted, but I can see the principle you are defending.
May I ask you, when was the last time you voted via absentee ballot?
[QUOTE=ElvisL1ves]
“All available technicalities” is, no more and no less, the date of the postmark.
[quote]
By the way, if you believe that, why are you bothering to ask and argue about witness signatures? Could it be that you do accept that the legitimacy of the witness signature WAS something that was targetted for determining the legitimacy of the ballot?
Oh, Og. Can helpful, wonderful, kind and other nice qualities mod fix up that coding? Please?
I know of no challenges of the so-called “military ballots” on any basis other than postmark date, a criterion upon which we agree. Do you *know * of witness signatures actually being used as well? It’s notable that Florida law has since been changed to specifically *allow * late postmarks on absentee ballots (how’s that grab ya?), but AFAIK hasn’t been changed in regard to witness signatures.
There’s something I don’t get - how the hell could your county require a witness signature from a county official on a document intended to be used by someone *not able to be in the county * at the relevant time? You’re sure you read that thing right?
Since you ask, I’ve only used absentee ballots a few times, either via US domestic mail or by simply dropping by Town Hall or the courthouse before Election Day and marking a ballot right there. I sympathize with you about the inefficiency of military mail, but I don’t know specifically what to do about it.
Actually according to an article I just read while looking for a copy of the infuriating Mark Herron memo states that the change you describe to Florida’s state law actually brings Florida into explicit agreement with US law, as directed by the legislature. cite
And, no I can’t point to any ballots tossed because of witness signature discrepancies. However, I CAN point to the line in Mark Herron’s memo that shows that was one of the tactics that the Gore campaign recommended for throwing out military ballots. cite
Here’s the quote from the memo in question:
Emphasis there is mine. Just to emphasize the confusion on the issue of witnessing signatures is not a product of my imagination.
Again, to my mind, it doesn’t matter whether a single vote was thrown out because of this portion of the directive - that it was part of the Gore campaign’s strategy and, by extension, part of the Democratic Party’s strategy is more than enough to leave me with a pretty bad taste in my mouth.
I have NO frigging idea. I always read that as an instruction to leave the witness signature blank, to be filled in by the Board of Elections after they recieved the ballot. Without meaning to sound vain, I am of above average intelligence, and I couldn’t figure it out, how the Hell is the stereotypical go-po to figure it out? And it may be possible that language has been corrected in the new NYS voting laws revised in 2002.
Well, for one thing, get the Navy’s mail out of the hands of the Army :smack: . At least Navy personnel can figure out that you check where a ship might be actually cruising before you send their mail to CENSORED Germany. (Especially when said ship is steaming in the Caribbean.) ElvisL1ves, I hope you realize that smack was for the Army, not you.
“Communist” is a bit dated, isn’t it? Isn’t “terrorist” the new fnord now?
If it is, then vanilla should stop getting his news from al-Jazeera.
