Some of you have been on this site for over a decade.
What was your favourite moment?
(sits down, cross legged. BIG eyes).
= new reply since forum marked as read
Best moment, especially considering the hell Bush* put us through, the hurtful Kerry loss, etc.
ETA: I wasn't actually on DU that night, but I went to bed really happy. 
That night places in the top five of my life. 
George W. Bush being Whisked away in a Helicopter....
This was great moment too...
Thank you.
I remember seeing, I think it was in a comments section somewhere, that the water vapor discovered by that experiment was "proof that we made the moon cry"
it wuz bad. 
When I read some of that today, it still cracks me up.
That was definitely the biggest WTF moment that I can think of.
the thread.
It was epic!
Reading that as it happened was priceless.
That's just classic right there.
"Not the remote, the animal"
heh... Lots of great material in that thread 
It is hysterically funny - tears are rolling down my face wit laughter - seriously this is delish!
but kind of rubbery. The tail is not striped. It's
light black and has bristly short like horsehairs
that stick out when it's startled. Right now it's
asleep on the top of a bookshelf. I don't know how
it got up there. It's snoring and sounds like somebody
shaking a can of plums.
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P.S. Although I still believe certain things in that thread
were made up entirely of hole cloth. Please also you will
notice there was never a photograph of it posted, despite
several clear if not polite requests.
Thank you so much for providing DU with so much fun. Thanks & you're welcome, myrna. It was a DU-wide venture.
Throughout our discussions with county officials Serio and Lance, it quickly became apparent that the problems in Arkansas --- at least in Monroe --- are likely to get much worse before they get better, as the county has plans to buck the trend in the rest of the country, which is moving away from 100% unverifiable e-voting systems, back to paper ballots.
This story is 4 years old, what has happened since? Also, the story notes that the TS systems have paper printers attached to create an audit trail, but that they have jammed without anyone noticing.
File that under "You can lead a horse to water..."
The adding of paper audit trails to TS machines was a direct result of the holy Hell we raised starting 12 years ago. In my state (NC) they are required by law, and there is a set audit procedure in place for post election verification which randomly picks precincts and checks the digital count against the paper count. The law also states, in essence, that should discrepancies appear, paper beats electron.
Safeguards are no damned good unless they are used. You mention your own district, but give me no information on it so I could look it over and see if anything looked hinky. The situation you describe can arise, and generally does arise, from various legal/semi-legal and blatantly illegal voter suppression tactics, rather than voting machine tampering.
As I have stated on many occasions here, on the TV machine, to reporters, and to groups in a number of states:
1) Technically, you could rig an election by tinkering with a voting machine. Realistically, folks are not going to go to the trouble due to how many people have to be involved in the conspiracy. And you DO have to have a LOT of corrupt people to pull that off. Also, if you are caught (and tampering with a computer and not leaving evidence is harder than most people think), what you have done is a prima facia felony. The other means of "rigging" elections (vote caging, purging voter roles, poll "watchers", parking police cruisers in front of polling places in minority areas, intimidating billboards, misleading robocalls/emails about poll times and dates, etc) are either legal, or VERY difficult to prosecute. So as a straight forward, low risk "high return on investment" tactic, tampering with voting machines is unlikely because of the danger and cost.
2) All the voting machine problems I have reviewed over the years have four possible explanation:
a) Software error: These things run on Windows and are subject to the same bugs all other software is subject to.
b) Operator error: Election officials/volunteers are not computer tech/gurus/scientists, and as such they can get tripped up on tasks as simple as exporting results to a spreadsheet and uploading them to a web site.
c) Machine failure: Computers break. When you consider that these are very specialized computers than only get used about once a year, but have to be brought out of storage, transported to precincts, set up, calibrated, used, then broken down and packed up for the return storage, failure of a certain percentage of machines is expected.
d) A dark cabal of partisan individuals who have conspired to rig the election.
The simplest explanation for a phenomena is probably the correct one, so I go with the first three if they fit the facts, over the fourth unless someone can come up with some compelling evidence for the fourth (And again, tampering without leaving evidence is pretty hard).
3) ALL of the election officials I have met over the years (in the hundreds), even the ones who disagreed with me and hated my guts, struck me as honest and conscientious about their work. These people get a LOT of grief for what they do (administer the machinery of democracy at its most basic level). They HATE controversy and like their elections to go smoothly without opening the door and finding a battalion of reporters on their doorstep (or worse, legions of lawyers bearing papers with Latin). The major problem I had with them was they were sold a bill of goods by the voting machine companies ("Since there are no pesky paper ballots to count, your election will run quickly and be error-free"
. It takes a lot of effort to disabuse them of the sales hype. And since they don't have computer security professionals on staff (they should, but good luck getting that job budgeted for), they trust the sales people as "experts" since they have been working with these people for years.
Are there bent election officials out there? Certainly, and their insider access give them all sorts of ways to tamper with the vote, but practically all leave some evidence a proper investigation will catch, thus there's that whole felony thing again. So, if they are going to tamper with the results, they are more likely to "lose" some actual ballots, since "misplacing" ballots is not a crime.
4) The idea that most elections can be hand counted is wrong. People point to Canada as "hand counting Mecca", but it is an apples/oranges comparison. Their election rules are mandated at the national level and their ballots are pretty simple, only a handful of races. American elections, by contrast, are conducted according to 3000+ sets of laws, one for each county in the country. Also, ballots can be lengthy and complicated, which means logistically it would take a VERY long time to count the ballots with the resources currently available to your average county. Also, realistically, the more complicated the ballot, the more likely a human will miscount. The more a ballot is handled, the more likely it is that the ballot will be damaged or lost.
5) The best of all worlds, least of all evils, system currently available, is a paper ballots, tallied by an optical scanner. The optical scanners would tested for accuracy by election officials (not voting machine company employees/contractors), and a statistically significant random number of precincts are hand-counted after the election to insure accuracy.
In conclusion, there are still places that need to ditch "paperless" systems, but they have been growing fewer every year. People, especially voters, are more aware of the problems of TS systems and more likely to point out any problems they encounter. Many states have enacted anti-BBV laws to insure paper audit trails for TS machines. This world is a VERY different world than 2002 when TS machines were set to quietly become the national standard and few people saw the consequences of such a standard.
I would call that a win.
I watched the TV, followed on DU (moderating) and blew my air horn when the election was called.
There was more unity on DU than I had ever seen before.
I thought of Walt Starr, too. 
Thank you!
Also - NO IDEA you were gay
Still makes me giggle.
was the Bill O'Reilly falafel/loofah story!
DU was so fuuny, we all had pics of falafel in our sig lines!
...copying the flyer here, and watching as thread after thread popped from people in their own communities handed out the same flyer, or handed out their own, and then shared their experiences.
That's what this place was about back then. There was a coming-together, in the midst of pitch darkness, and a sense of shared purpose.
Beyond that: CALL CONGRESS RIGHT FUCKING NOW
No data to follow.
9/11 here, and the days after, kept me sane. 2006 and 2008 were tremendous.
I've been thinking about it since you posted this. I have a hundred answers.
Oscar.
What not to say when watching The Passion.
Elizabeth Edwards.
Hunting Freepers back in the day.
But the CALL CONGRESS RIGHT FUCKING NOW thread still gives me joy.
I was here, remember it "live" so to speak, but can't remember who it was. 
Anyway, funny stuff.
But for a while there were loads of them. People understandably frustrated with the abuses of the Bush administration but who couldn't quite verbalize their call to action 
.
mebbe not
Lots of familiar names that don't post here any longer. Some for the best. Some whose posts I miss reading.
Of course, it's a bit embarrassing to read my own post in that thread, LOL. I was still in my defiant phase.
on edit-- I just wanted to add that I actually did pick up a cyber-stalker because of that post. He was an active duty soldier-- he wrote letters to my dept chair, the university president, the CSU Chancellor, and for all I know, the governor of California. Gawd love academic freedom. And tenure. But nothing ever came of it other than my being told-- just letting me know-- that the guy was writing letters up and down the food chain. I'm told that he complained strenuously about the influence of liberal professors on impressionable minds.
When asked to stop spamming in his sig lines, he gave a FU to both the DU2 mods and Skinner. http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=437&topic_id=3505&mesg_id=3529
could post the millionth post. I think we wanted to see the column size change in the most viewed thread. We are silly sometimes.
Wonder how old Shell Beau's baby would be by now?
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I loved the Kudzu thread.
I drive past an enormous kudzu patch daily and I often think to myself: "Kudzu. It's going places."
Good times on DU!
I did my part to keep it going.
Kudzu is a interesting plant.
It has lots of uses, really.
It's true!
Also, livestock like to eat it.
And, it's really hard to get rid of it.
And, the vines are used to make baskets.
rem made an Athens, GA kudzu patch very famous.
These kinds of threads frankly leave me a little depressed for what we have lost here as a community.
NewJerseyMaverick put me in a good mood for a month.
Speaking of filthy asshole divisive fucking trolls, that is.
I miss the cyber-dada there, though. It's far too sensible these days...
Andy in Seattle. A memorable eulogy.
Still has the power.
Yep, tucking this thread away for future use also. 
and left, iirc.
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with the help of Howard Dean's fifty state strategy. Otherwise, Obama would have been impossible. Runners up:
Georgie's "Mission Accomplished" Banner
The Kaloogian Photo: Instanbul or Baghdad?
Outing Jeff Gannon
The Al Qeada Job Application
The Moran Family Reunion
Not Buying The "Pretzel-Dunce" Story
Neil Munro Could Dish It Out, But Couldn't Take It -- (Click Here for Video)
Steve Colbert: "The Emperor Has No Clothes -- And There Isn't Much Of An Emperor, Either!"
(Click Here for Video)
2012 Republican Convention, Democratic (Underground) Backdrops
(Click Here for Video)
Let's Keep This (Thread) Kicked Till Franken Is Seated Or Hell Freezes Over
rocktivity
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x6739759
The thread that followed was pretty hilarious. Unfortunately, I don't think that poster ever posted again.
I still get a chuckle when someone posts that missive on one of his dumb threads.
Love it! " I don't hide with you"
People went nuts and partied around here! They were taking pictures of cakes they made! 
and Skinner promptly did
but nobody caught on. Or I didn't do it right, lol.
Still, I think we always retain that flashing wit. There was just a time when everyone experimented more with the forum and had fun with it.
Those days shall return, I hope.
Hope you are well Hekate!
Hope you are well, too.
Tsiyou later
I recall that what made me more of a regular in the Lounge at once time was people in GD "complaining" about the silliness going on over there, specifically a "questions only" thread. Well, that thread alone drew me in, mostly going back and forth with GreenPartyVoter
at the time. It was during the 2004 Primaries... I was a HUGE Deaniac (I have a signed photograph of him with me and PassingFair), and I got accused of being a Dean hater all the time. I guess I was doing a good job. I also, at times, got accused of being an Edwards/Kerry?Gephardt/Etc. hater.
In those days, mods were not allowed to participate in or start flamewars... I wish Hosts kept to those standards.
Depending upon the time of day, active posters, and interpersonal problems, the jury system is a mixed bag. It wasn't really broken, so I'm not sure why we fixed it.
Hope you have a great weekend, Puglover!
Those were some of the funnest threads.....
WHAT?
I don't even know whether to believe you.
What am I talking about, it's DU, of course I believe you
I was partying out and about. Didn't see the threads until well into the next day as I was nursing a wicked crazy hangover.
But I've been around for other great nights and very not so great nights (election '04 was the worst). I enjoyed the '06 midterms. Taking back the House and Senate were great, and Rummy getting canned the day after was just icing on the proverbial cake.
Some really memorable threads and memes:
Wes Clark man-boobs in Haiti
Earthquake/Tsunami '04 caused by DARPA (I loved how the admins basically said "anyone denying plate tectonics is an idiot and will be banned"
The Passion thread (Olive Garden!)
And breakdowns of certain trolls that lasted much longer than they should have...
....we donated all we could for his treatment - and a nasty RWer froze the $$$ that could have saved him.
The # of ppl and the support that was offered was a beautiful thing to see....
Perhaps not my favorite, but a beautiful, salient moment for this site.
He was the first poster I recalled missing when I first read this thread. Then I got searching for old threads and forgot ole Swampy.
His artwork was awesome. He made the BFEE lizard people come to life!
He lived through Katrina, but suffered a great deal because of it.
I miss Swampy a LOT.
to Swampy and with hope he has lots of crawfish to eat and music to play
I was browsing GD sorted by author and I ran across an OP that was actually a deleted sub-thread from the previous day. On DU2 there were no reply links in deleted messages but you could make a reply URL by substituting the message ID into another reply link, so as a joke I decided to reply to the Deleted sub-thread by asking, "If this is a deleted sub-thread, what happened to the rest of the thread?"
After a couple dozen replies to me (since there was no reply link in that OP) a few people figured out how to reply to the OP. However, someone (I think it was mikelgb) discovered something sinister in making your own reply URLs - you could make a reply end up in a new thread that wasn't the thread you were actually replying in - and the DU2 software wouldn't list the "new thread" in the forum listings but people could see the post with a direct link. They could also reply just like in a normal thread. I believe Renew Deal dubbed it the sideverse, which seemed to be what most people started calling it. There ended up being multiple invisible sub-threads occurring on that thread before it was over.
Another funny thing about the 'Deleted sub-thread' thread was that people kept recommending it and it stayed on the Greatest Page even after the 24 hour time limit. There was no stopping it. Until someone deleted the whole thing, which I guess was what was supposed to have happened in the first place.
The sideverse -- yes indeed. My gosh, that was just a fun day all around. 
while filling up your SUV with gas. Good luck getting to the gun show!'
You could print them out in advance of the debate and the drinking!
say that as always I am thankful that DU is here. What a great support system for maintaining sanity in a messed up world.
I still don't have 7500 posts.
How nice to meet you.
welcome to the club.
I remember looking for some other progressives after the appointment and through Buzzflash, I ended up here.
Back when the Plaid Adder and the Hate Mail bag were weekly features, Back when BBV was the rage.
I still love this place. It feels like home, a little dirty, a bit ragged around the edges, needs a bit of paint,
but it's structurally sound.
to this day.
Classic DU
