Russ posted:
Dear EM subscribers,
I just joined this list to reply to a post regarding me and my website http://ElectionMethods.org. Some of this post may be off-topic, but I am replying to a post that went off-topic regarding me, so I feel that I should have an opportunity to reply.
I reply:
No, my explanation for what happened to electionmethods.org was on-topic, because it was about a voting system website.
But yes, I did include one or two brief sentences about your support of the carnage being perpetrated on the Iraqis.
But your posting goes on at very great length about off-topic things, like 9/11. EM isn't the place for you to post your opiniions on 9/11 at such great length.
Russ continued:
I realized very early that he and I were on opposite sides of the political spectrum.
I reply:
The moral/ethical spectrum.
Russ calls himself a libertarian, apparently not understanding that "authoritarian" is the opposite of "libertarian". Few if any libertarians would call Russ a libertarian.
rRuss continiued: . Well, it couldn't last forever. I don't remember exactly when it happened, but a few months ago we started talking politics.
I reply:
Most people, normal people, can speak in a civil manner when they disagree. But Russ is loud, and couldn't keep from spewing some namecalling about those with whom he disagrees.
And it finally became evident that Russ says what he says because he derives satisfaction from hearing himself say it, and without regard to details such as fact or accuracy, or even his own belief regarding the accuracy of what he's saying. EM has guideliness asking that we not kep repeat arguments that have already been answered, so you know what I'm talking about.
After a while, with Russ, one realizes that it won't make any difference what one says, because Russ merely wants to say what gives him satisfaction to say. As I said, without regard to any other consideration, such as what Russ believes to be true.
Anyway, predictably, Russ's behavor became worse and worse, until finally he was no longer someone with whom I wanted to work. When I asked him to not have material from me, or material deriving from things I'd sent to him, his anger and namecalling escalated, and after a few days of that it was necessary to ask him not to send any more e-mails to me. I eventually had to
block his e-mail. So, for that reason apparently, he's now imposing his off-topic grudge on you.
Russ continued:
Not just "garden variety" politics, mind you, but really bizarre stuff. Mike put forth the notion that the Bush Administration was behind the 9/11 attacks.
I reply:
Russ believes that telling people that will devastatingly discredit me.
The funny thing is that that comes from someone who believes that the evolutionof species has never taken place.
For instance, here's a quote from a recent e-mail from Russ:
"And just wait till everyone finds out your wacko views on 9/11 !"
That was in an e-mail that threatened to reveal my 9/11 oipinions, as if I'd been keeping them secret . How flattering, to have a website devoted to my opinions on 9/11, without even having to ask for it. But I reminded Russ that there are no exceptions to my refusal of permission to have at his website anything that I'd sent or anything deriving from what I'd sent to him.
My reply to that threat was:
"You mean the wacko views of families of 9/11 victims, families of fallen firefighters, at least one congressmember, a long list of military officers in the U.S. & elsewhere, 46% of New York City residents, 41% of New York state residents, 1/3 of Germans, a Republican presidential candidate, fire-protection journals, an increasing number of fire-protection engineers, leaders in the defense departments of Germany & Russia, and every non-U.S. intelligence service that has expressed an opinion on whether 9/11 could have been done without help from the administration?"
Many believe that something is very fishy about 9/11, and advocate a thorough investigation by people not appointed by the administration. Many of those people say that administration particpation in 9/11 is the most likely explanation for the evidence.
With great faith in his president, Russ considers that to be out of the question, beyond-the-pale, something that shouldn't even be considered. It doesn't matter that there's a mountain of evidence that something is very wrong with the administration's account of 9/11. It doesn't matter how many respected and responsible people say that there's something very fishy about 9/11.
But this isn't the place to debate 9/11.
Russ continued:
At first I thought Mike was suggesting that Bush had merely "allowed" the attack to occur because he thought it would help him politically. I didn't think that was likely, but I was willing to consider the possibility. I then soon realized that Mike believed more than that. He believes that Bush or his aids actively organized the attacks.
I reply:
Making sure that, on that day, only on that day, the U.S. air defenses would be unavailable to intercept hijacked planes, would amount to active participation in the attack. Russ wants to acll it "allowing". I call it participating.
Russ continues:
He also believes, for example, that the WTC was wired with explosives that were detonated on cue to make the WTC collapse.
I reply:
Russ wants to debate details of 9/11, and I apologize that the list's time is being wasted on so much off-topic discussion. Please understand that I wouldn't have started a detailed 9/11 debate here. I'll keep my reply brief, because the matter is off-topic.
Don't take my word for it.
Because everything I've written here about voting systems would be discredited :-) if I didn't defend against Russ's charges, I'm justified in citing other sources, to show that many others find the administration's 9/11 story
fishy.,and so that you can get information to show that Russ is wrong to say that those claims are wacko.
First, let me recommend the book _The New Pearl Harbor_, by David Ray Griffin, available in many progressive bookstores.
And in the Canadian magazine _Global Outlook_, issue #9,which will be displayed till Feb 28, on news-stands and magazine shelves of progressive bookstores.
Their website is:
http://www.globaloutlook.ca
Their e-mail:
[EMAIL PROTECTED] or [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Griffin's book, and many others, are available from them, by mail.
Their phone number for callers outside Canada:
: 1-705-720-6500
Fax: 1-888-713-8883 or 1-705-726-7300
Issue #9 is about the odd facts of 9/11. Global Outlook is also an organization that offers many books, tapes & DVDs regarding the questionable aspects of the administration's 9/11 story, by many interesting asuthors.
I wouldn't have posted that information here if the topic hadn't been brought up. The information available from those sources is relevant to my answering of Russ's criticisms.
Another website relevant to Russ's claim that only a few isolated kooks question the administration's 9/11 story:
http://www.911inquiry.lorg
That's the website of International Citizen's Inquiry Into 9/11.
Summarizing a little here:
Though incompetence is the official explanation, no one has been fired or even reprimanded for that incompetence. In fact, some of those who presided over the alleged incompetence were promoted. That includes, in partilcular, people in the FBI who consistently blocked investigations and buried reports about things such as Al Qaida members entering the U.S. illegally, and taking flying lessons at American flying schools, some of them on U.S. military bases. There were an impressive number of blocked investigations and buried reports before 9/11. A number of people who did that were promoted instead of fired or reprimanded.
I won't go into the many odd things abouit 9/11 here, because this isn't the place for that topic, but because Russ implies that no one should consider that demolition was used:
Fire-protection experts say that a hydrocarbon fire can't melt steel, making it difficult to explain the pools of melted steel that were found in the rubble, reported by a number of different reliable witnesses. Explosives or thermite could melt steel.
Fire protection experts say that it would be very surprising and unlikely for a fire to collapse a steel-frame bldg. If fire collapsed the twin towers, that would be the first time in history that a fire has ever collapsed a steel-frame bldg.
Experts on the subject have found it decidedly odd that so much of the concrete was turned to powder. Falling wouldn't do that. Explosives could.
Even the "independent" commission's authorized report says that one of the towers collapsed in 10 seconds. Others have reported that figure too. That means that the roof of the tower fell with an average downward accleration of .85g. Some say it's difficult to explain how that would be possible, considering that the falling floors, on their way down, had to bash through about 80 intact floors.
There's even a report that one of the bldgs collapsed at g.
Though it's well-known to be a felony to remove or conceal evidence in a felony, the govt quicklly removed the pieces of steel from the bldg frame (which was conveniently in truckbed-size pieces, as demolition companies advertise that they can do) and hustled them away in trucks in which $5000 GPS devices had been installed. One truck driver was fired because he stopped for lunch instead of getting his load of bldg steel pieces to where it was supposed to go, shipped overseas to be melted down.
During that removal, a fire protection journal forcefullly objected to the removal of evidence and sad that it's got to stop. It didn't stop of course.
Efforts to conceal or destroy evidence are usually considered a sign of guilt. Is that how we "smoke out" the terrorists? By destroying evidence?
Though there were all these questions about the bldg collapse, the 9/11 commission doesn't comment on how the collapse happened, its mechanism or manner. Just a vague statement that it happened due to fire. One would have expected that that would be central, especially when the matter was in question.
Check the video. Doesn't the bldg just appear to melt into dust all at once?
Russ continued:
Wait, that's not all. Mike is convinced that that a US missile, rather than an airplane, hit the Pentagon. Why? Because he read a book by a Theologian that says the hole in the Pentagon was too small for the airplane to have penetrated, and not much of the airplane was left outside the wall.
I reply:
No part of a 757b was found outside the wall or inside the demolished bldg. Every trace of it apparently burned up in a fuel-fire. :-)
What I pointed out to Russ was that there was only the small hole in the facade, and apparently the wings, engines and all, went through that small hole, without the heavy and fast-moving engines making any mark on the facade or the lawn. And the tail too. "The case of the tall tail".
I also pointed out the Pentagon is probably the best-defended place in the world, and the question of how that big slow airliner was able to crash into it, when it had been known for a long time that the airliner was on its way there.
Russ continued:
When I asked him where the airplane (and the people in it) went if it didn't hit the Pentagon, he said it could have simply flew out over the ocean and ditched.
I reply:
What I replied was that apparently something went wrong. Maybe the passengers overpowered the hijackers, as happened on one of the other hijacked planes. Apparently the plane wouldn't be available to hit the Pentagon, and apparently someone decided to substitute a missle. That decision would of course be more likely if the plane went down in the ocean.
Witness are divided on whether it was an airliner or something much smaller. The professionally qualified witnesses, if I remember correctly, say it was somethign smaller. And remember that the witnesses kept hearing that it was a jumbo jet, and under the great stress of the incident, they might not have remembered the detail of what the craft looked like, and could have adopted what they'd heard about that.
Russ continued:
I told Mike that such a massive conspiracy would not only be incredibly risky
I reply:
Maybe not, if one can trust the public's gullibility and the media's unwavering support for the administration.
Russ continued:
, but any net benefit to Bush was highly questionable.
Everyone agrees, including members of the administration, that 9/11 was the
answer to the administration's dreams, enableing them to push agendas that otherwise were stalled.
Russ continued:
Had Bush been caught in such an act, not only would he be hung by the gonads, but the Republicans could plan to be out of power for the next 50 years! B
I reply:
Maybe they felt there wasn' t much risk, for the abovementioned reasons.
Russ continued:
Well, at that point I started to wonder what sort of person I had hooked up with, but I decided to just ignore it and keep the website as is. Then we started talking about the war in Iraq. Now, I respectfully disagree with the position that the war is unjustified and too costly in terms of lives
I reply:
Russ says that because it's the life of some Iraqi child instead of his own life.
Actually, according to the medical journal Lancet, and a study by Johns Hopkins University, it's likely more like 100,000 lives, so far.
Worth it to whom? Not to the victims or their families.
Russ continued:
Guess what Mike believes. He believes that the people of Iraq would be better off with Saddam still in power. He also thinks that the US is torturing Iraqis as bad or worse than Saddam and his regime ever did.
I reply:
What I said was that nothing like the current killing rate was taking place before our invasion. International law calls for an immediate threat of civilian deaths to justify an invasion. It's widely agreed that no such thing existed.
Russ has decided that those 100,000 people, and more, on an ongoing basis, should die in order to allegedly benefit the abstraction known as a country.
Russ continued:
And apparently Mike's committment to democracy doesn't extend to the Iraqi people.
I reply:
They don't have democracy. The puppet regime that we'd install if we could wouldn't be a democracy. What a joke, the notion that we're going to give democracy to Iraq when we don't have it here.
Democracy? All the polls, including recent ones, say that nearly all the Iraqis want us out. How is it democracy, then, when we stay and continue the killing? Apparently to Russ, the little detail of what the Iraqis want doesn't enter into his democracy.
I asked Russ:
How much sense does it make to speak of forciblly keeping a people liberated against their own will?
Russ continiued:
But even that wasn't enough to end our collaboration on the website. It turns out that Mike is also convinced that Bush stole the 2004 election by means of rigged voting equipment with no paper trail. Now, I agree completely with him that we need paper ballots, and I even wrote an article at the website about it that has been there for years. Furthermore, I am even willing to consider evidence that the machines were rigged. But I was absolutely amazed that Mike is certain it happened when even the Democrats aren't making that claim. That was the straw that made me realize what sort of person I was dealing with.
I reply:
What I said was that, with or without proof that the result would have been different with verifiable voting, the mere fact that we're supposed to take the machine vendors' word for the outcome, when the results are completely unverifiable, and when the programming of the machines is secret and not available for examination, means that the election was not legitimate.
Aside from that, I heard that the odds against all those "glitches" being in favor of Bush are billions to one. And that those upsets where the result contradicted the exit polls tended to be where the unverifiable machines were used.
The owner of one machnine provider said that he'd deliver Ohio to Bush. Ohio's secretary of state, a co-manager of the Bush campaign there, made the same promise. A Republican politician said that it would be necessary to "suppress" the vote in Detroit, where there are many Black Democrat voters.
Russ continued:
Things got really nasty when Mike ordered me to "take down the website" or, as he put it in his post to this group,
[quoting me]
["I've asked Russ to either take down his website, or at least remove from it my articles, and anything there that has its origin in any suggestions or comments that I'd sent to Russ."
Well, Mike does not have the authority, either legal or moral, to order me to take down the website that I spent so much time developing. The website was my idea to start with, I own the domain, I wrote most of the material
I reply:
...only to the extent that you slopily reworded my definitions.
I don't care if Russ posts information on Approval, Condorcet, & IRV that he gets from other websites. All I'm saying is that he shouldn't have anything that's specificallly from me, that he can't find elsewhere with a different origin.
If Russ believed any of his rabid, ranting-&-raving namecalling about me, he wouldn't want any material from me to be at the website. If there's any dispute about the website, it's about whether Russ should have material that he couldn't find elswhere with a different origin. If Russ wants to keep that material, then he's eating humble-pie and admitting that he doesn't believe any of his namecalling.
If Russ has any self-respect at all, he won't have at his website anything specifically from me. He won't have anything that he couldn't get elsewhere with different origin.
Russ continued:
I'd said:
"Over the years, Russ's website has been an ongoing embarrassment on EM, because Russ has often reworded my definitions in a way that is ambiguous or means something different from the wordings that I'd sent to him."
Russ replied:
This is gross distortion. Here's how it worked. Mike would send me his definitions and other material, and I would edit them for readibility.
I reply:
Russ's readibility usually or always meant vagueness and ambiguity.
Russ continued:
His text was often convoluted and garbled. I spent a lot of time improving his text.
I reply:
\
As I said, Russ's improved text was often the object of justified derision at EM, where people pointed out its vagueness, ambiguity, and befuddledness. When I corrected the sloppified definitions, when I stated on EM what my actual definition was, the criticizer agreed that now it made sense, wasn't ambiguous or vague. What was criticized here for sloppiness, vagueness and ambiguity were Russ's befuddled, sloppified rewordings.
And contrary to Russ's claim, often the first I heard of those sloppifications was when I was criticized for them here.
Mike Ossipoff
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