Third Party & Independents: Archives

I don’t doubt that there is vote fraud to clean up out there, and that money is a major component driving the fraud, but I do think a small town with a fixed mind-set of the voters can produce exactly identical vote counts. Billy Bob republican might not switch over to be Billy Bob Democrat, as easily as you would probably assume. If it were primary races, I would be far more suspicious of the numbers there.

Speaking of Texas, Lyndon Johnson was under investigation for the assassinations of political rivals in Texas, and by some strange coincidence, all that went away when JFK was assassinated. voila, no more investigations, and Bobby Baker got to keep his lips sealed. Mostly.

Too much of what is key in American life is up to the highest bidder: education is bought, not earned by academic study. Justice is bought, not earned on the merits of evidence. And political office is bought, not earned on the merits of stances on the issues. Houston, we have a problem. I don’t see it as a purely racial thing though, because Kobe and Michael Jackson and OJ are just as able to buy their way out of prosecution as, say, John Ramsey, or a Kennedy.

Four years later; still waiting for the outrage.

Still astounded by the argument that we heard back in 2000 that this problem occurs under the aegis of both parties, so it’s OK. (Democrats whip their slaves. Republicans whip their slaves. Ergo, it’s OK to whip your slaves.)

We give away our democracy so easily.

Just listen to this stuff—“the Jeb Bush, Jim Crow State.” Why not just the Jeb Bush Third Reich or the Jeb Bush black helicopter state? That’s the level of discourse we’re on here.

The fairy tale about there being a suppression of black votes in 2000 has been so thoroughly discredited by even the normally-left leaning national media that I don’t know where to even start. The idea that the so called “Civil Rights Commision” is even remotely non-partisan is utterly out of line with the facts. The Commission has been nothing but the private soapbox of a single political appointee, radical leftist Mary Frances Berry who has used the
Commission to broadcast her own political views while squelching even the smallest sign of dissent even by other commission members!

Martin, Martin, Martin,
when someone writes about a problem in america, it doesn’t mean it is an attack on you the republican. the article was speaking of an interview of an author, who wrote about voter fraud. It is a problem when 1 million black votes are thrown out for whatever reason, and less white votes are thrown out. I know you have intelligence Martin, surely you are not saying that isn’t an issue.

And even if it isn’t a racial issue (which i doubt that it is) econmics shouldn’t make it okay for rich people to get a fairer shake. That in my opinion is a worthwhile topic.

I would be curious, Martin, to read any facts you have that discredit that people were removed from voting lists erroneously at best, illegally at worst, in Florida.

Greg Palast while sometimes waxing a bit conspiratorial for me, does back up his reporting with facts. Perhaps his conclusions are beyond the facts at times, at least he does fact check.

LBJ murdered politicians in Texas? Huh? I live in Texas and have heard the “LBJ was behind the JFK assasignation” theory….but investigation?
By who? Other than Oliver Stone I mean. Yes, he was sleazy and stole elections, but murder?

I’m guessing you think Hillary killed Vince Foster, too.

The fairy tale about there being a suppression of black votes in 2000 has been so thoroughly discredited by even the normally-left leaning national media that I don’t know where to even start.

A little off topic, but when are the conservatives going to get off their damn “Left Wing Media” accusations. That has to be one of the biggest falicies in politics today! Where is this big liberal conspiracy in the media? I sure don’t see it on Fox! ABC is sure not taking part. I don’t hear it from Rush Limbaugh or on any Clear Channel stations. I sure don’t read it in the Wall St. Journal. OK, so CNN has a moderate slant and there’s the New York Times. But NBC is clearly skewing right, with CNBC and new shows on MSMBC. Sure doesn’t seem like any “left wing media” bias to me…

His facts, figures and critique on voting were relatively bi-partisan. He noted in Chicago a minority white government and its election organization insures that the majority black community is not represented by simply not counting their votes. Democrats are involved there.

David,

Speaking as a resident of Chicago, I do have a problem with this assertion by Mr. Palast.

First, White residents are not the minority in this city. Plus, most wards with majority Black or Hispanic populations are represented in the City Council by one of their own.

I was shocked to learn in 2000, that an average of 150,000 ballots are not counted due to over-voting, spoilage, etc. Since punch card ballots were used in the Primary, I assume they will be used in the general. However, I did notice a different procedure and extra equipment used by polling place officials.

One last thing. I can’t cite the source, but 18% of all American Black males will be unable to vote in November, due to criminal convictions.

The Florida voter disenfranchisement story has been so thoroughly vetted and dismissed by the mainstream press and independent observers that I’m shocked it’s even making a comeback on C-Span and Watchblog. Is it election year again already?

Much of the evidence for disenfanchisement of the black vote cited by the Commision was not only antecdotal, but downright wierd such as—now brace yourself—police cars being parked within sight of two different polling stations in Florida! As if African-Americans flee automatically from the sight of a parked cruiser (and as if policeman aren’t allowed to visit polling stations and vote—or even buy a donut down the street). So let’s put that kind of stuff aside for a moment and go to the best and most sensational evidence—the allegation that more votes were rejected in areas with larger African-American populations.

1. 24 out of 25 of the polling stations in question had Democratic supervisors (one was a declared “independent.” Why Democrats would conspire to disenfrachise black voters is anybody’s guess.

2. Voting machines have no way of knowing a voter’s race—in fact, it’s illegal to collect such info at a polling station (and not even the Commision says this was done), so the rejected votes (spoiled ballots) cannot actually be correlated by race. We have no actual numbers, beyond conjecture, about whose votes really did become “spoiled.”

3. Spoiled vote rates did correlate, however, with rates of poverty and illiteracy in a given area. Places that used the SAME VOTING TECHNOLOGY and also had higher incomes and literacy rates did not have the same rates of rejected votes. This held regardless of the population percentage of African Americans.

4. The Civil Rights Commision, headed by an outspoken Gore supporter and Clinton appointee, chose to ignore all statistics about vote spoilage other than demographic percentages of race. They had nothing to say about the Hispanic vote, for example, which is much higher than the black vote in Florida (in Florida blacks make up just 15 percent, I believe). They had nothing to say about income, literacy or education levels in areas with high spoiled vote rates. Which brings us to…

(5). Voter error does not equal disenfranchisement. I’ll agree with you if you want to cast this argument along the lines that poor illiterate people tend to become “disenfranchised” in many ways in our society—and we can talk about ways to combat this problem (like breaking the cycle of poverty or the teacher union’s strangle-hold on the education system)—but it’s outrageous to suggest that a bunch of Democratic officials in Florida deliberately targeted Blacks for disenfranchisement.

Martin you’re right to bring up the connection of socioeconomic levels in society relative to their inherent higher probability for disenfranchisement - but to argue that race is not connected to socioeconomic levels is not only blinded, it is irresponsible. What world do you live in? Not the same one I do.

David,

I actually don’t doubt it a bit. In 1992 I was living it a dominately black area (80%+) and at the polling station not only were the attendants predominantly caucasian males but the machines were extremely faulty, hard to operate(levers partially missing or taped up,rust buckets to say the least)and the questions on various propositions were worded in such legal-ese that you’d almost have to have a lawyer with you to figure out which was which prop. and what it was for. Not conducive for that voting block at all, being that if any of them were lawyers they wouldn’t be voting there in the first place and secondly there ain’t no paperboys delivering to projects and low income housing in the hood, see what I mean? How would they know what is on the ballot as far as state propositions without those informational resources.

This stuff is not a joke and does go on.

Now I really don’t know about throwing votes away, and I have read Palast, but I can vouche how black areas are treated with such disregard as to the rights of blacks and not only with their own rights to vote but treatment by law and law enforcement in general. I’d have to say that there is a chance that such claims could have real validity.

Palast is a good writer and yes conspiratorially centrifical in some regards but although his biased selectivism with what facts (usually liberal) get highlighted and making more conservative-fitting facts get extracted from the quotient if not negated entirely. This stuff actually does go on and states don’t react accordingly because these areas don’t have good representation, usually, to bring it up to legislators.

My question in 92’ was where did all these whites come from all of a sudden in a very predominantly black city. And secondly why don’t they deserve better equipment by which to vote and informational resources to vote with.

Martin, I guess like Mr Bush, when you don’t like the question you simply avoid answering it.

Blacks WERE illegally purged from the voting roles. That is a documented fact. A partisan group was allowed to vette these voters with false claims of criminal convictions as one supposed reason. It happened, deal with it.

The election was close enough for this to possibly have affected it. There were multible other tactics used…..by both parties. There were other irregularities…..The Supreme court appointed Mr. Bush. Remember now? He didn’t win an election ..he won a court intervention. Rush really has to stop the Oxycontin..It’s making him a lot wacky.

Skunkbud said, “Now I really don’t know about throwing votes away,”

That reference was to ballots that were trashed (literally) due to hanging chads, overvoting, etc. In the wealthier districts almost no ballots are thrown away since the more expensive machines gave real time feedback of invalidated ballots before the voter left the station. This results in a huge disenfranchisement of poor voters.

Martin, you miss the essential point of Palast. The machines which alert voters to an invalidated ballot before they leave (such as the digital reader machines) are not found in the poorer voting districts. Thus, when in poorer minority communities, when a ballot is invalidated by a hanging chad or overvoting, the voter is long gone before it is discovered. The states have the authority to correct this situation by making balloting machines equal in performance and feedback. Florida, a Republican dominated Government under Jeb Bush, has no intention of doing that. He likes things fine just the way they are. A similar situation occurs in Texas, also, under a Republican dominated government.

Which begs the question, are similar lack of incentives and intent to upgrade and equalize voting machines in Democratic dominated state governments also evident? I don’t know, but, Palast who has researched the subject implies that may be there is a difference between Republican and Democratic dominated states in this regard. We should have facts and data on money spent per capita on voting machine upgrades by state, before too long. I gathered from Palast that this research is underway.

Actually, I was refering to the voter registration lists that were purged of valid voters by classifying them as felons. Many of them commited felonies in the future. They were largely Black, of course by sheer coincidence. This was done at the direction of Republican hacks. No one can obviously say how they would have or even if they would have voted. I believe the number was in the thousands.

The Intimidation and early closures are a little more murky. The intentional disqualification of some votes and the rushed certification by Harris were rather obvious manipulation of disorder to bias the outcome. Delay and Baker had already devised the Florida Legislature/ Federal Court routes to victory by then.

“LBJ murdered politicians in Texas? Huh? I live in Texas and have heard the “LBJ was behind the JFK assasignation” theory….but investigation?
By who? Other than Oliver Stone I mean. Yes, he was sleazy and stole elections, but murder?

I’m guessing you think Hillary killed Vince Foster, too.”

A little defensive there, aren’t you Greg? This was a two hour spot on the History Channel, which was airing documentaries with competing theories on “whodunnit”, and it was one of many. I did misrepresent one aspect of it though, that Johnson personally wasn’t under investigation but that Bobby Baker was for his connection. The documentary interviewed witnesses who said that if Baker was offered immunity for testimony, it would have led straight to LBJ.

If you’re interested in a little more than Magic Bullet jingoism and discrediting dissent to the Warren Report by any means necessary, one of the less frothing-at-the-mouth examinations of the theory is here:

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=565

My personal opinion is based on the “story lines” where the dots line up independantly and corroborate one-another (Judyth Baker, for example, would have no motive to corroborate Billie Estes’ story and James Files would have no motive to vouch for either of the other two—nor do any of them have personal axes to grind against LBJ).

And usually when there is suppression of information, that to me is a good indicator of “the truth hurts”:

“It said will no longer be aired or made available on home video.” …where ‘it’ is the History Channel, talking about the documentary.

——————————-
They don’t gotta burn the books
They just remove ‘em
—Rage Against the Machine, ‘Bulls on Parade’
——————————-

DaveO—did you even read what I wrote? I never said that race isn’t connected to socioeconomic levels. Of course it is.

The point is that nobody but themselves disenfranchised these illiterate and undereducated people (of any race, because they weren’t just black) when they failed to properly operate their voting machines. No voting technology can eliminate spoiled votes for people who have so little comprehension of how to carry out even simple tasks. Do we need Elmo to come out and explain how to vote? Pictures of the candidates put to song? Better yet—why not just let Terry McCauliffe cast votes for the uneducated? Democratic attitudes towards the poor really are that patrician and condescending.

That a higher percentage of Democrats of all races cannot read and follow simple directions (but nevertheless think they should be choosing our leaders) is, I think, a very telling fact—one manifested every day in our national debate.

Haha! Thanks Martin. You just took yourself out of the realm of serious discourse. :)

Seriously, though. Defective voting machines are a problem. And it’s going to be worse this time because of the electronic voting machines.

Martin, I think the point is that in wealthier voting districts, when people do similar stupid mistakes, they are handed a new ballot and given an extra chance to re-vote. In the poorer districts where there are no such machines, they are not given that chance.

I would be 1000% in favor of somewhat of a subliminal IQ test engineered into the voting process, but for it to pass moral muster with me it would have to be universally applied, not just in poorer districts. There are some old-money rich out there who are amazingly brainless as well. And even new-money rich who occasionally self-medicate into non-lucidity, and they’d need to be screened out as well.

Martin, if you could only hear yourself. Fact, people are people regardless of race or socioeconomic class. Fact, rich white folks, Republican and Democrat, make mistakes on ballots. Fact, wealthier voting districts have machines which check the ballots for errors before the voter leaves and the voter is handed another ballot to redo when the machine invalidates their ballot. Fact, in the poorer districts, the punch ballots, etc. are not machine checked while the voter is still standing there, therefore, the voter leaves, the ballot is checked hours or days later, and thrown out when the error is found.

It appears quite bigoted and prejudiced to me for a person to read what has been written here, and then assert that Democrats or poor people are somehow less intelligent, illiterate, and less capable of following instructions than rich folks, white folks, or Republicans. What a convenient excuse to invalidate minority and poor folks votes.

It can’t be made plainer - people in all voting districts make balloting mistakes! The wealthier folks (AND 10’s of thousands OF OLD FOLKS) are told about the mistakes and GIVEN another ballot to do it right. That is what accounts for the disenfranchisment of poor district voters. NOT intelligence or literacy, as some bigots would like to contend.

The deconstruction of Democracy begins with districting schemes, which ensure one party dominance for decades. Our Courts should act as non-partisan arbitors of important issues, but they usually side with power and money. The legal record on voting rights is 75 years of working “in the system” never gave women the vote. The sordid century long tale of black vote suppression was often led our dear Supreme Master Rehnquist. Kathleen Harris led the charge in widespread subversion of the 2000 Florida election, dropping 20,000 registered voters, counting invalid overseas ballots and voiding 127,000 other ballots were just a few of the antics. Our Supreme Court sealed the fraud without any recount, ignoring Florida State law, (just for Bush they said). Only Congress or the Executive branch can fix this mess and it won’t happen as long as the Republicans are in charge.

yes Martin, unfortunately I did read what you wrote:

“3. Spoiled vote rates did correlate, however, with rates of poverty and illiteracy in a given area. Places that used the SAME VOTING TECHNOLOGY and also had higher incomes and literacy rates did not have the same rates of rejected votes. This held regardless of the population percentage of African Americans.”

In this statement you are assuming that race plays no role in the strata of socioeconomic levels and the corresponding effect in voting disenfranchisement (I’m assuming that’s why you used the term “regardless”). A higher percentage of African Americans are in poverty than whites, so it’s not fair to say “regardless”. This is why your statement is blinded and irresponsible.

FACT: When the exact SAME voting machines are used in places with higher literacy rates, the spoiled vote rates are significantly lower.

FACT: Any voting machines imaginable or already in existence are going to reject or not register the votes of people who are not intelligent enough to operate simple equipment or follow simple instructions.

This has nothing to do with race—no doubt plenty of people of all races and incomes have their votes rejected. In almost every case, however, IT IS THEIR OWN DAMNED FAULT.

There is not data in existence that shows that more blacks than whites had their votes rejected in Florida—the Commission only wanted to look at black areas and assume that the same percentages of populations that had their votes rejected must have been black. But in fact, blacks had very poor turnout in 2000 relative to their own numbers and relative to other racial groups.

In any case, DaveO, I think (but don’t know) that blacks probably did have their votes rejected in higher numbers. This is not Jim-Crow style disenfranchisement, however, but part of the tragedy of black America having put all their hopes for economic advancement and education in the hands of Democrats—who have apparently not even ensured that common citizens have the tools to even properly cast votes or follow simple written instructions.

Martin, mind supporting those facts with some reference to someone who has researched the data? Otherwise, your opinion does not move the teeter totter one inch when Greg Palast is on the other end. He has gone through the data and done the research. As has the Civil Rights Commission under the Bush administration, as is the Congress as we speak in their hearings on voting discrepencies and problems to anticipate in November on C-Span.

Against all these fine folks, we should take your contrary opinion? I don’t think so.

I mostly just lurk here and rarely post, but I’ve just got to say something to/about Martin. Does he always see things so black and white? Is he always this closed-minded? Does his current political ideologies make him incapable of critical thought? I’m not saying that conservative ideologies make one incapable of thinking critically about issues, but he seems to often make comments like the following:

“part of the tragedy of black America having put all their hopes for economic advancement and education in the hands of Democrats—who have apparently not even ensured that common citizens have the tools to even properly cast votes or follow simple written instructions.”

It makes my head hurt when people from either side of the spectrum make such knee-jerk, paint-with-a-broad brush rants against people or parties that they don’t themselves identify with. And this certainly isn’t just limited to Martin, it was just a few of his posts on recent threads seemed like perfect examples of this repugnant phenomenom.

Martin, and others of you out there who are too caught up in identifiying themselves with a particular party or a particular side of an issue or a particular label (liberal/conservative, etc), open your mind! Quit being such a TRUE BELIEVER! TRUE BELIEVERS get so caught up in what they think is right that they are incapable of rational discourse and serious consideration of competing trains of thought. DON’T BE A TRUE BELIEVER!!!

I’m reminded of the often quoted and cliched quote by Emerson:

“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do.”

Perhaps that isn’t exactly apropos to this discussion, but it just seems to me people want to create an identity for themselves by wrapping themselves in ideologies and then remaining steadfast in their views and soon become more and more pigheaded and increasingly narrow. Why be like that? Expell those “hobgoblins” from your minds and soon you will see that they (your minds) aren’t so “little” anymore.

Thanks for the concern, Cody—really. I hope the Watchblog Manager doesn’t delete your post for “critiquing the messenger” and will take it in the spirit of constructive criticism that I intend to.

I can’t claim that I always make the best possible defenses of my positions (you’re not convinced obviously), but the inevitable lack of concensus doesn’t mean that I’m necessarily the one—or the only one—thinking in black and white terms. I only side with “conservatives” on certain issues, actually—the main one being the war. On social issues, I’m extremely liberal (I’m pro-choice, and pro-gay marriage to cite two examples). I tend to vote Republican nationally and Independent locally, but I have also on occasion voted for Democrats.

As you may have noticed the voices from the right are heavily outnumbered around here. You use Emerson’s quote, but heck, I’d say “One man and the truth make a majority.” There is obviously a tendency to be blind to our own prejudices while accusing the other side of “black and white” thinking—don’t fall into this trap yourself.

We’re living through a time now when any and all attacks against the administration and the president in particular—no matter how poorly reasoned—are considered by the left obvious truths. Hence anyone mounting a defense must be a robot blinded by ideology. Take a look at the very topic of this thread—the claim, rebutted by even independent observers and the major media—that the African-American vote was deliberatly disenfranchised in Florida. A radical ideologue makes an appearance on C-Span to recycle these claims, and presto—we get to debate once again this smear against Jeb Bush and the Republicans. Elsewhere we see suggestions that Bush, who we all know is evil and has oil running through his veins, must somehow be complicit in the acts of a few probably sexually deviant soldiers. As long as we’re airing our favorite quotes, here’s one by Bush’s favorite political philosopher: “Why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but do not consider the plank in your own?”

Here’s a link which details the major problems with the so called facts and research compiled by these “fine folks,” as David calls them. The irony in my having to defend myself on this matter is that I’m not the one who has chosen, because it’s an election year, to adopt a minority fringe view:

http://www.austinreview.com/articles/2001_08/elections2.html

Let me add—in case you’re tempted to not follow the link—that it’s written by two members of the Civil Rights Commission and is backed up by a detailed numerical analysis by a Yale Economist—hardly partisan hacks.

This has nothing to do with race—no doubt plenty of people of all races and incomes have their votes rejected. In almost every case, however, IT IS THEIR OWN DAMNED FAULT.

So just because they have trouble operating voting machinery, or live in a place where the machinery is not well maintained, their vote shouldn’t count?

And I read that article you point to, Martin. It looks like the authors are basing their findings on the work of Dr. John Lott, the gun nut.

I looked into his report. He’s apparently basing his information on what was published in USA Today, while the commission report he’s “refuting” is based on the raw numbers.

It’s also interesting to note that Lott, your “Yale Economist” had to resort to posting defenses of his own work under the pseudonym, Mary Rosh. As Rosh, Dr. Lott would post to web sites and defend himself by saying she was a student of his and he was very non-partisan.

When caught, Lott said, “I probably shouldn’t have done it — I know I shouldn’t have done it — but it’s hard to think of any big advantage I got except to be able to comment fictitiously,”

I have to agree. Once he got caught, there was no big advantage for him, since it cost him any credibility he might have had with me.

hi guys,
also a lurker, decided to post on a tangent point-
(also at Martin, sorry to gang up on ya here..)

Regarding leftists trying to pin this on Bush: a few off the cuff remarks aside, I don’t think this specific problem is being pointed at Bush. Sure, someone under his watch (or under Rumsfelds watch) should take responsibility - but I don’t think this is directly a Bush issue.

What is a Bush issue however, is the administration’s method of operation. This has been noted by journalists, washington officials, and nearly everyone who has dealt with the Bush administration - The Bush admin is a secretive and protective group, and works largely behind closed doors. They display a level of secrecy not seen since the Nixon days (which is somewhat ironic that Bush actually appointed Henry Kissinger on his domestic security investigation task force thing after 911). Many journalists have expressed frustration of trying to get any info out of this administration as compared with previous presidents- nobody is willing to talk to them. Even in the 911 committee hearing, they’ve sidestepped having to divulge info by testifying under time limits. Condi Rice and Bush are both under a time limit (unlike the Watergate hearings), so they really don’t have to answer anything as long as they can sidestep questions until the clock runs out.

Now, while this is not outright breaking any laws or standards we hold, it does beg the question of ‘who knew what’ any time these types of issues come up. This is why we have the 911 committee, this is why the Valerie Plame issue is still unresolved. This is also the root problem behind Catholic Church scandal last year- the people at the top knew about it but covered it with a tight lid (and by the time it exploded, the problem was much bigger). This approach may help some problems blow over unnoticed, but when they are noticed - the people at the top are definitely going to get some of the blame for promoting a ‘behind-closed-doors’ operation. In that sense Bush is somewhat responsible for these issues as well.

ps- before anyone brings out the ‘Clinton did it too’ response - his skeletons were primarily in the personal closet and were not carried over into the daily operations of the administration, hence any results of secretive tactics were not likely to affect the nation at large.

Lee, I think you should more closely inspect the content of your own links. Your third one clearly states that the USA Today numbers are more exhaustive and complete than the less detailed panel numbers. Also, it says that if anybody’s votes were undercounted it was African American Republicans!

The attacks on Lott are irrelevant. The article I’ve pointed to was not written by Lott but by two dissenting members of the Civil Rights Commission who use his analysis as part of a larger picture—they cite other evidence as well. I have no idea and don’t care whether or not Lott, a Yale Economist, may also be a “gun nut” (though I see no evidence that he even owns guns in the piece you link to). None of it has anything to do with voting in Florida.

The real issue is that this article is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to discrediting this study. I find it particarly telling that the Commission Chair personally insulted Jeb Bush when he voluntarily appeared to testify before them and wouldn’t let him even make and opening statement—as everyone else who testified was allowed to. It was a big-time partisan witchhunt.

Pete, Rumsfeld? Now the Secretary of Defense is at fault for maintenance problems on voting machines? Are we talking about the same issue here?

The real issue is that this article is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to discrediting this study.

Then maybe you could cite something by a different source, Martin. It’s hard take Lott seriously. Thanks.

martin,
sorry, thsi was pretty tangential, but in your post I was responding to, you spoke of bush blaming, and carried it over to the other big issue on the table at the moment:

“Elsewhere we see suggestions that Bush, who we all know is evil and has oil running through his veins, must somehow be complicit in the acts of a few probably sexually deviant soldiers.”

Thats what I was getting at w/ Rumsfeld.. But my point was at the administration in general which is somewhat more directly applicable to the thread and the rest of your comments..