The Question Isn't Whether You Are Paranoid ...

posted by The Vidiot @ 9:48 PM Permalink

Bump and update: I think it's important to acknowledge when your predictions were wrong. In that spirit, I'd like to admit I was too paranoid about the Italian election. It appears now that everyone (except Berlusconi) has accepted defeat:

Berlusconi allies ready to accept election defeat

Political allies of Silvio Berlusconi, Italy’s premier, are backing away from contesting last week’s narrow election victory for the centre-left, in the belief that a government led by Romano Prodi will soon collapse.

“We have been united in government, and we will be even more so in opposition,� Giulio Tremonti, finance minister in the centre-right government, told La Repubblica newspaper on Sunday.

More than a week after Mr Prodi’s narrow win, Mr Berlusconi still has not conceded defeat and appears intent on making the transfer of power to the opposition as complicated as possible

I'm so happy to be proven wrong. Seriously. I work in science, and the axiom is that when better data is available you have to re-evaluate your hypothesis. New data became available, and, as it turns out, I was wrong. And something much more important happened, democracy triumphed. On those terms, I wish I was proven wrong everyday.

Original Post:
... the question is, are you paranoid enough?

Voters in Italy are using electronic electronic voting machines for the first time in a national election.

The polls and the exit polling all have the incumbent, Bush's good friend Silvio Berlusconi, who literally owns the Italian media, losing.

And for the first time in Italian democratic history, suddenly the election is too close to call.

I hope I'm wrong, but I think I've seen this movie before ... in Florida and Ohio. I predict that Berlusconi will win. But only by the grace of machines that have no paper trail.