Posts by DerekCurrie

Murdoch says Microsoft needs 'big clean out'

In the mold (mould?) of Bill Gates...

... Rupert Murdoch states the old and obvious as prophesy.

Maybe you should retire Rupert. You've done enough dire damage for one lifetime, don't you think?

Google kills fake anti-virus app that hit No. 1 on Play charts

Re: You need to understand, trollers…

"…unwittingly nudging those that prioritize value for money (but aren't necessarily tech literate) in the direction of the Android platform."

No. The exact opposite. What a disappointing troll post.

Android gear: Cheap devices. Cheap (free) ripoff OS. The biggest malware magnet since Windows, with the number of malware rising exponentially. Your costs don't end after you've paid for the device.

Apple gear: Consistently the best ROI (return on investment) and lowest TCO (total cost of ownership) compared to comparable gear from competitors and/or plagiarists. That's factual, therefore useful information.

I'll take Apple's well (but not perfectly) vetted 'walled garden' any day. I like getting work done, not fighting with the OS or malware. Why that's difficult for certain people to understand is beyond my imagination.

Symantec scratches head over balance sheet, calls in JPMorgan

May I have the honor of the final shove?

From an Apple Mac user's perspective, Symantec has been a significant bane. It started the anti-Apple security FUD festival in 2005 with its nonsensical hypothesis of 'security through obscurity'. It foisted some of the least usable and most annoying 'anti'-malware software available. It constantly slagged on the Mac platform simply for the sake of hate mongering. It ate alternative and often superior security software and learned nothing from the experience. It offered inspired Java programming tools one day, then EOLed them the next, leaving customers shipwrecked. IMHO, a vile company.

May I PLEASE give Symantec that last, final push into oblivion?

Samsung's thumb-achingly ENORMO Galaxy Note Pro 12.2

But does it have to so ugly and chaotic?

No elegant, functional simplicity? I'm reminded of eye-catching advertising inserts that assault you with dozens of colorful blasting and bursting items on sale within the dimensions of a single page. My instinctual response is to fling it at the nearest rubbish bin.

Five-year-old discovers Xbox password bug, hacks dad's Live account

... Returning us to that age old question: You use Microsoft because WHY?!

Thankfully, Google's Android has offered Microsoft a run for it's, um, money regarding insecurity. But still that nagging question: Why use Microsoft when you know its poor security is gonna bite you?

Too late, Blighty! Samsung boffins claim breakthrough graphene manufacturing success

Did Samsung Actually INVENT Something? That's a change.

The worst plagiarist of our time, next to Google, actually invented something? If so, good on them! It's about time. Now STAY THAT WAY! Inventing your own IP, that is. Can you do it?

Apple: You're a copycat! Samsung: This is really about Google, isn't it?

Apple Requires Competition. Deceitful Liars And Plagiarists Need Not Apply.

Dear Apple,

Rip Samsung to shreds please. Make room for REAL competition. That is what we *all* require.

Boeing, Cupertino to 'explore weaponisation of Apple technologies'

Coward Murder Machines vs Apple Ethics vs US And International Law

[Diatribe withdrawn] I just noticed the clock had ticked into April 1st here in the USA. I'm very pleased this article is… [Spoilers withdrawn]

Meet the man building an AI that mimics our neocortex – and could kill off neural networks

To Point Out The Obvious: AI is beyond human capability at this time

…However, Artificial *Insanity* is WELL within our grasp. Expect it.

Judge rules Baidu political censorship was an editorial right

The China-fication Of The World

Oops. No westernization of China. We got it backwards.

This sick and twisted ruling gets my nomination for The Orwell Award of 2014. Judge Jesse Furman, please get out of my country and move to China where you belong. You don't belong on the bench in the USA. Shame on you for setting a horrifying precedent directly suppressing freedom of speech in the world. That is what you've accomplished.

Boffins power wearable tech with body static

Just add a hole on the side for a Winding Key

"Billy, did you wind up your fondle slap last night? You don't want it going comatose at school, you know."

What utterly ridiculous research. I can't believe The Register didn't go ape wild over the sexual innuendo of rubbing and fondling your device until the battery tops off. Was it as good for you…?

Get serious China. Kick the oppressive communist habit and engender a creative Chinese culture once again. No creativity: no invention: no innovation: just more crime and imitation.

Zuckerberg, Musk and Fake Steve Jobs invest in secretive AI firm

… Or Lithium

Considering the current state of Actual Intelligence amidst my human species, what we're likely to create is Artificial Insanity.

Reality check: Java 8 finally catches a multi-core break

Let Me Know When Internet Java Is Again Securely Sandboxed

... Then I'll care.

Until then: I hate you Oracle.

Symantec fires CEO Steve Bennett: To lose 1 chief is unfortunate, to lose 2 is OK, apparently

Symantec: Please Just Roll Over And Die

I for one have been long sick of your deceit and lousy software. Symantec: Just die already.

'Arrogant' Snowden putting lives at risk, says NSA's deputy spyboss

NSA Deputy Director Richard Ledgett: Go To Jail. Go Directly To Jail…

… For Treason.

Bravado, FUD, propaganda (aka 'PR') and pushing around US citizens (aka your bosses) accomplishes nothing in the effort to hide your crimes. The NSA went rogue. You lost your integrity. You broke your vow to protect and defend the Constitution of the USA.

Go To Jail.

Disband the NSA.

Start again, legally and properly.

Hidden 'Windigo' UNIX ZOMBIES are EVERYWHERE

Going OT: "What Android malware?"

THIS Android malware:

http://www.kaspersky.com/about/news/virus/2014/Number-of-the-week-list-of-malicious-Android-apps-hits-10-million

Head-In-Sand Android users. It sounds similar to the Linux/Unix server botnet denial syndrome, getting us back On Topic.

Mozilla takes Windows 8-friendly Firefox out back ... two shots heard

Let's hope this attitude toward Microsoft accelerates exponentially. The sooner we're out of The Dark Age of Computing, aka the Windows era, the better.

Sony can't wait to flash you its enormous disc ... a 1TB Blu-ray spinner

Another Roadmap? Again?

Sony had a roadmap past Blu-ray yonks ago. Then it vaporized as Blu-ray fizzled and sputtered. Now we have another roadmap, and not much of anyone cares.

Q: What new diaboliical layers of DRM (digital rights manglement) and user surveillance will Sony perpetrate this time, I wonder.

Q: Will the initial price of the new tech be as exorbitant as Blu-ray was?

Q: Does this mean that Blu-ray burn discs will drop in price sufficiently enough to actually become genuinely popular?

Sony is currently run by a marketing guy. Expect the worst.

Apple investors fall for CEO Cook's product-presentation prank

Thank You Tim Cook!

As a long time Apple fanatic, it's pleasing to hear Tim Cook directly respond to the parasitic and raid-oriented investors with a negative. Because Apple has become the biggest, most important technology company on the planet, it has attracted the riffraff of what, these days, I call Wall-Nut Street. I heartily encourage the coke addicted thrill investors to move along and leave Apple to thrive without their dullard demands and machinations for ruining the company in their image.

Thrive on Apple!

Netflix coughs up to cruise on Comcast

Next Up: The Verizon Protection Racket

OMF:

http://www.electronista.com/articles/14/02/24/ceo.calls.deals.necessary.for.survival.of.streaming.services.like.netflix/

"In an interview with CNBC, Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam noted that he was fairly certain that he would strike a similar deal as Comcast's with Netflix, making the streaming video purveyor pay for bandwidth, at least in part. McAdam called the Netflix deal with Comcast a "good thing," which allows for funding necessary infrastructure maintenance and build-outs."

Comcast Protection Racket

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protection_racket

Now do you understand what Net Neutrality is for, Netflix?

French youth faces court for illegal drone flight

Art vs Officiousness

- I'm no fan of ruining people's privacy, let alone lives, via drones.

- I don't like the video maker's choice of lenses.

- I don't like the video maker's penchant for shooting into the sun.

But this is ART.

So the officials are complaining about WHAT?!

Microsoft asks pals to help KILL UK gov's Open Document Format dream

Not this Microsoft garbage, again?!

CORRECTIONS:

The Open Document Format is already an an ISO/IEC international standard. That happened back in 2006. Because of severe Microsoft lobbying, their own incredibly clunky and inefficient Office Open XML ALSO became an an ISO/IEC international standard in 2008. Neither format is 'proprietary'. Both are considered 'open source'.

Here are some useful Wikipedia articles to get folks started understanding the actual state of affairs:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenDocument

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_Open_XML

Therefore, what's going on here is specific only to the UK Cabinet Office, a temporal policy decision, not a big deal. No doubt, whatever format the Cabinet Office decides to use as their particular standard, they'll be dealing with documents in the other standard as well. Neither standard is going anywhere but onward into the future where both will be required to be supported everywhere.

JavaScript is everywhere. So are we all OK with that?

ECMAScript is the name; JavaScript is a quaint old sentimental name we can't give up

These days, 'JavaScript' is just a quaint old sentimental name that proves how stupid marketing morons (versus marketing mavens) can be when the put their minds to it. It was invented by Netscape as 'Mocha', changed to 'LiveScript', then renamed 'JavaScript' after some jerks from Sun Microsystems and Netscape decided it would be RadiKewl to make it sound like 'Java', the Sun programming language, despite having no relationship to it whatsoever.

Then 'JavaScript' went mongrel and has remained that way ever since. Microsoft vomited in their own code, imaginatively called 'JScript'. Adobe egested their own code, called 'ActionScript'. Chaos ensued. Ecma International took control of the situation and hammered out an actual standard, officially called ECMAScript. 'JavaScript' refers only to the original old source core of ECMAScript.

Meanwhile, despite ECMAScript being a standard, even more mongrel code calls are consistently mated into the mess, causing no two web browsers to consistently render ECMAScript the same, returning us back into a state of chaos.

The Biggest Fattest Problem with ECMAScript has always been security. There isn't any. Enough said.

Apple's Hacker Princess dumps fruity firm for Elon Musk's Tesla

Bastion The Walls Against Superenigmatix!

Hilarious: '...the state of Idaho, where a US district court ruled that anyone calling themselves a "hacker" forfeits their Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable searches and property seizures.'

...Which in and of itself is an unconstitutional judgement. #MyStupidGovernment at work.

'The Internet Of Things' is exactly where the best hackers should be working at this very minute. It has, as predicted, turned out to be an exponentially growing swarm of bots with any deliberately unprotected device being questioned of its loyalty. In particular, imagine the fun of a networked car racing and crashing game with REAL CARS; An IRL Carmageddon. Good hire Tesla.

Bitcoin value plunges as Mt.Gox halts withdrawals and Russia says 'nyet'

Bad Press; A run on the Bank; The herd rules.

Bitcoin is for fun. If you can play games with it and make a profit, great. But never take it seriously. It has no basis in actual value and never will. It's play money. It's worth what the herd says its worth through their behavior.

Bitcoin got bad press this past week. The herd made a run on the bank. The bank closed its doors out of desperation and self-preservation. The herd rules. The herd is emotional. Emotion is played out in game behavior. The play money changes value. Play play play.

Larry Ellison: Technology has 'negatively impacted' children

Larry: Save The Java

Oracle: I Hate You.

So Larry: Return Java to a usable form again, one that can never 'negatively impact' a user who merely has it installed on their computer. No more Java drive-by infections and botting. No more Java Trojans. Yes more actual sandboxing of Java in order that it doesn't wake up children screaming in the night that Oracle, once again, has ruined their computing life.

Until then, Oracle: I Hate You.

HP offers $150,000 for 'exploit unicorn' in Pwn2Own hacker competition

Oracle Cheapskates; Java's Worst In Class Security

Damn pompurin! I was going to throw a shot at Oracle for being so cheap in their Java exploit award, but you totally out did me. And of course, as we all know, it's specifically Java that's the single most dangerous software we can run on our computers.

Hey Oracle: How about offering a $Million for whoever can permanently return Java to actual sandboxing forever. But you don't care, do you.

Apple declares war on PAYPAL: Pay-by-bonk + iTunes = profit, right?

War? Drama headline much?

As a long time PayPal user who always buys stuff from Apple via PayPal, I cannot fathom what myth you're attempting to foist today. There is no 'war' with PayPal. If, however, Apple eventually decides to compete with PayPal (which they are NOT at this time) then good on them! Competition is the father of innovation.

Meanwhile: What's with the drama infliction on your readers? Going tabloid?

Samsung: Men, our Gear smartwatch will make you a hit with the sexy ladies

And don't forget the Aussie outback hat!

kekeke!

TPP leak: US babies following bathwater down the drain

TPP Is By And For The USA's Corporate Oligarchy, Period

The USA Corporate Oligarchy wrote TPP. The US Corporate Oligarchy is the beneficiary of TPP. The core of TPP is treating customers of the USA Corporate Oligarchy as DEFAULT CRIMINALS. I call it customer abuse, the spirit of the age in modern biznizz.

No thank you. Go parasitize another planet.

UN report says killer bots could fight WAR WITHOUT END

Re: Singularity is nigh

"And as the UN frantically scrambles to reach a quorum, the machines rise and commence decimating there one-time masters....."

Considering how self-destructive we are to invent coward murder machines in the first place, of course the machines would want to wipe us out as a species. Hopefully that would then be followed by them wiping themselves out, leaving our miracle planet Earth to flourish once again. Next dominant species in queue, your turn!

Coward Warz

I consider war to be the single most primitive and self-destructive behavior of homo sapiens sapiens. (Followed close behind is our inability as a species to control our birth rate or to even be willing discuss the matter).

Compounding war with utter cowardice in the form of drones and robots, autonomous or not, turns our worst trait into our incomprehensibly insane worst trait. Congratulations mankind. Surely the 'mark of the beast' is actually the series number on one of these murder machines. (0_o)

So god. When do I get to graduate from being human?

You hear that, Mr Cook? Samsung's profits have gone UP

Yeah but, parasitism is never comfortable

"The South Korean firm's figures make for uncomfortable reading for Apple CEO Tim Cook as his company's fortunes start moving in the opposite direction."

Yeah but, parasitism is never comfortable. Samsung skims the suckers and attracts people with little to spend and little interest in high tech. Thankfully, Apple has no interest in competing in the cheap device, of any kind, markets. I don't consider Samsung a competitor of Apple's due to their high degree of ripoff and dependence upon Google. But at least they are an alternative to Apple.

Your phone may not be spying on you now - but it soon will be

Re: Android Malware and Number of Infected Devices

The only malware for iOS attacks user-hacked iPhones. If you stick to the 'walled garden', there is zero.

But I should point out that Dr. Charlie Miller stuck a surveillance app past Apple's App Store process. Therefore, it's not impossible to foist malware to iPhone users. But when it happens, Apple simply yank the app and disable it on all iPhones.

In general, it is a good ideal to keep malware in mind and to be a safe user, not a 'LUSER'. No operating system is perfect. Modern programming continues to be plagued with poor memory management, allowing buffer overflows and PWNing of systems. However, having your apps vetted for you before you install them is extremely useful, as indicated by the number of iOS malware vs Android malware.

Android Malware and Number of Infected Devices

"Please don't think your smartphone or tablet is safer than your PC"

Unless you're using an iOS device, which suffers from zero malware.

Keeping up with the Android malware count is difficult. But here is one recent report:

http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/technolog/android-malware-more-doubled-worldwide-2012-6C9525347

"The amount of malware aimed at infecting Android devices worldwide more than doubled last year, according to a new report from a mobile-security firm.

"The sheer number of pieces of malware for the Android platform rose from less than 25,000 in 2011 to more than 65,000 in 2012.

"The annual report, published by mobile security company NQ Mobile, also estimated that nearly 33 million devices were infected in 2012, up from just under 11 million the year before — an increase of more than 200 percent."

Apple slips Antennagate victims $15 each. The lawyers get $16m

The Microsoft Tax

"The Cupertino idiot-tax operation" is a lame, knee-jerk reaction to the long well known and infamous "Microsoft Tax". Which one of the two concepts makes sense? You decide. But check your facts before you decide. Knowing what you're talking about is consistently useful.

Spooky action at a distance is faster than light

Extra-dimensional distance measurement

Consider this an imaginative post rather than scientific:

What If: Entanglement enables a 'identity' of two points in another dimension, other than what we perceive is 3D space. Or, more likely the two entangled energy bundles (since matter is only an illusion) may be separated by a much smaller 'distance' within an extra-dimensional space than in our 3D space. Therefore, when the change of one is measured against the time perceived change in the other, when we theoretically are seeing that change occur 'faster than light', perhaps the speed of light remains the intact limit, except that change is occurring across that extra-dimension we cannot perceive. The 'faster' the change speed, the CLOSER the two entangled energy bundles are to each other in that extra-dimension.

IOW: We can now, theoretically, measure distance within that extra-dimension (I'm avoiding calling it the 'fourth dimension' because of the abusive application of that term to the process, not dimension, of time) by measuring the speed of change between two entangled particles.

What that's good for, I don't know. But it certainly sounds a lot more useful than the scary/nasty idea of so-called matter teleportation, which involves destruction and reconstruction rather than actual transportation. I'd rather play in this apparent extra-dimension than get torn up into bosons and EM radiation.

Next from Microsoft: 'Blue', the Windows 8 they hope you don't hate

2D Mosaic GUI, yawn

Isn't this the 21st century? Microsoft continues to celebrate it by going dire retro? Whoopee, lots of colored of flat rectangles. Nothing says 'MODERN!' like spending your time looking at what amounts to a Kiosk from the 19th century. At least a few things are occasionally animated. Otherwise: FAIL deluxe. Sooo boring and anti-functional. I'm looking elsewhere for the future of computing.

Microsoft says WinPhone outselling iPhone, BlackBerry

Desperation PR

How embarrassing.

Google revs Motorola innovation with Guy Kawasaki hire

Innovation of WHAT exactly?

Guy Kawasaki is what I call a 'marketing maven' (as opposed to the dime-a-dozen marketing morons of our current biznizz bozo age who parasitize humanity to the max). But what 'innovation' is he going to provide Motorola? New marketing strategies, no doubt! But Motorola/Google has gained nothing-at-all in tech innovation, which is their worst weakness.

Samsung mocks Apple lawsuit in SuperBowl teaser ad

Samsung as juvenile and parasitic as ever

It's amusing to watch Samsung pull off their own mask and show the world their juvenile and parasitic nature. This is a self-destructive company and we get to watch the self-induced carnage. I'd hide my eyes if it wasn't simple justice.

Time Warner Cable to Netflix: We want your 3D films, not your network

Time Warner Cable: User Abuse, Insincerity, Stupid As Hell

I'd enjoy learning what EXACTLY is Time Warner Cable's problem here. It is my experience, over and over, that TWC is Stupid As Hell. I seriously can't think of a company more adverse to adequately and respectfully providing their service to their customers. When I see this behavior I don't think of 'evil company'. I think of 'STUPID company'.

TWC are literally doing their best to destroy themselves. This fiasco with NetFlix is entirely in line with typical TWC behavior. Their management requires not just a major enema. it requires firing and replacement with tech savvy and sincere executives. From what I'm reading here, I applaud NetFlix and bitterly laugh at the TWC.

I've written a series of documentation articles about TWC USER ABUSE, available here:

http://zunipus.blogspot.com

Please TWC! Hurry your suicide so we can swiftly progress into a user-friendly Internet future.

Apple threatens to ruin peace worldwide with voice-controlled iMacs

Asian Patents? Nice try Samsung troll.

The US Patent Office is well known to be a largely technology illiterate, underfunded, deadly slow bureaucratic hell hole. That it does as well as it does these days is remarkable. But to expect 'Asia' to start pumping out patents (outside of Japan and Taiwan) is flippant absurdity. China, despite money poured into education, has a government and culture that kills incentives to be creative and innovative. China in instead almost exclusively imitative. For reasons I personally cannot comprehend, South Korea is stuck in a similar rut, as blatantly illustrated by Samsung in court and the almost exclusively imitative products of other South Korean companies. I wish South Korea to become creative in the future, but for now, it's not. China sadly looks hopeless with its current demented regime and culture.

So 'Michelle Knight', you are either kidding, or ignorant, or working for Samsung in order to troll us. Whatever the case, do your homework and know what you're talking about.

Macs Have Had Voice Command Recognition Since 1993

IGNORANCE ALERT!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plaintalk

In 1990 Apple started a project that became 'PlainTalk'. It was released in 1993 on AV Macs and became standard in Mac OS 7.1.2. It includes speech command recognition and action. It remains integrated in OS X today. Anything can be made a command by way of AppleScript. Surprise, no catastrophic Register nightmare imagined horrors have resulted.

Yeah, obviously this article is deliberately insane and stupid by intent. Why? What is the point here? Stupid anti-Apple FUD perpetration? (FUD = an ancient propaganda method known as 'Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt' for the purpose of manipulating sheeple).

Here we go again: Critical flaw found in just-patched Java

Link To Source Security Explorations announcement

From Friday, 31 Aug 2012:

http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2012/Aug/388

"... Today we sent a security vulnerability report along with a Proof of

Concept code to Oracle. The code successfully demonstrates a complete

JVM sandbox bypass in the environment of a latest Java SE software

(version 7 Update 7 released on Aug 30, 2012). The reason for it is

a new security issue discovered, that made exploitation of some of

our not yet addressed bugs possible to exploit again."

Apple Java update fails to address mega-flaw – researcher

Re: Publish a retraction or update, please

Further Details:

Apple and Oracle have made the Java JRE for OS X into an open source project with both companies providing support. Apple had originally planed to drop out of providing Java updates to OS X users. For now, Apple is remaining in the supply chain, forwarding updates for ONLY Java 6 JRE as required.

Meanwhile, the JRE of Java 7 for OS X is available only through Oracle. The only reason OS X users would want the Java 7 JRE would be for specific projects or applications that require it. As has been noted in the thread, at this time there is NO safe version of Java 7 for browsing the Internet. Therefore, if you installed Java 7 on ANY platform, turn Java 7 OFF while browsing the Internet, or only turn it on ONLY at trusted websites, or UNINSTALL Java 7 entirely.

(JRE = Java Runtime Engine, the part of Java that is specific to any particular operating system).

CORRECTION: The CVE-2012-0547 'mega-flaw' does NOT affect Apple's Java update

This article by The Register is INCORRECT. This was pointed out previously in the comments thread.

Please allow me to teach you how to discover the CORRECT information:

The 'mega-flaw' in Java 6, is described in CVE-2012-0547. You can read the CVE description HERE:

http://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2012-0547

"Unspecified vulnerability in the Java Runtime Environment (JRE) component in Oracle Java SE 7 Update 6 and earlier, and 6 Update 34 and earlier, has no impact and remote attack vectors involving AWT and "a security-in-depth issue that is not directly exploitable but which can be used to aggravate security vulnerabilities that can be directly exploited."

Note that this security hole is specific to Java 6 Update 34 and earlier as well as Java 7 Update 6 and earlier. In response to this security hole, Oracle rushed out two patched versions of Java: Java 6 Update 35 and Java7 Update 7. Apple then forwarded Java 6 Update 35 to its OS X users.

NO further security holes have been found in Java 6 Update 35 at this time.

UNRELATED to Java 6 was the discovery of a further Java security hole described in CVE-2012-4681. This vulnerability is ONLY in Java 7 Update 6 and earlier, NOT Java 6, as is evident in the CVE report found HERE:

http://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=2012-4681

"Multiple vulnerabilities in the Java Runtime Environment (JRE) component in Oracle Java SE 7 Update 6 and earlier..."

Also UNRELATED to Java 6 was the discovery of a new security hole in Java 7 Update 7, discovered by Security Explorations. So far, it does not have a CVE report. You can read about it HERE:

http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2012/Aug/388

"Today we sent a security vulnerability report along with a Proof of Concept code to Oracle. The code successfully demonstrates a complete JVM sandbox bypass in the environment of a latest Java SE software (version 7 Update 7 released on Aug 30, 2012)."

In fact, the ONLY secure version of Java being distributed at this time is Java 6 Update 35, the version Apple is currently providing to OS X users. There is currently no secure version of Java 7.

Learning about and reading CVE reports is easy. Below are links to the Wikipedia article about CVEs as well as the link to the CVE website. You can search for any CVE report using the 'SEARCH' link at the top right of the CVE home page.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Vulnerabilities_and_Exposures

http://cve.mitre.org/

Reagan slams webmail providers for liberal bias

Re: Why are they all worried about the public vote?

"In the US the public vote is largely irrelevant. The Electoral Colleges decide who is President most of the time."

Or a majority vote in the US Supreme Court, in the case of Dubya's first 'win', despite popular votes entirely to the contrary.

No, the public vote dictates the votes from the Electoral College. It is done state by state where each state winner grabs ALL that state's electoral college votes. It's an old stop-gap horse and buggy days system that is now antiquated and a detriment to sane democracy. It's how US maps get broken down into 'Red' and 'Blue' states, indicating how the Electoral College typically represents them. Sad and silly.

[e-mail]

Yes Dear World. Obsessed extremist paranoid PoliTard lunacy like this is now rampant in the USA. Everything is interpreted as politically extreme, one way or the other. Political thinking exists only along the brain dead 1-Dimensional political line of right or left. Thus our USA two party system FAILs. It's time for a new world revolution of 3-D thinkers over the lame non-thinkers and psychopaths. (A special 'hello' to VP candidate Paul Ryan, 'Starve The Beast' perpetrator and Ayn Rand quisling).