Raise this, you bastards from Derek Burt's Weblog
Time and time again I rail against what over half a century of NDP rule has done to our province. It's still a fantastic place to live and work (if you can find a job); it's just too bad that nobody lives here because of their ridiculous policies. ... [Read More]

Tracked on November 23, 2005 11:40 PM

Canadian blogosphere rising from Magic Statistics
Last week Kate McMillan of small dead animals exposed a Saskatchewan government online poll as a fraud. She hit a nerve, apparently; she was then attacked by Minister of Learning (say what?) Andrew Thomson. A member of the opposition defended her in ... [Read More]

Tracked on November 27, 2005 6:03 PM

Kate,

I just voted and I will be watching with interest. I think you caught a rat in your trap here.

You're so cool.

Duke

Nah, I just have really cool sources.

I just voted and the numbers stick. LOL. Thanks for that 30 seconds of fun I needed that.

still 90 / 10 after my vote

Yup....its rigged.
What a waste of time and money

Hmmmm - you would think that 20 'no' votes would change the outcome. Maybe I'll do another 10 - that will work - won't it?

Same here.   90/10 "Yes/No" split after I voted.

Heh.  Probably too lazy/stupid to actually tabulate running totals from the form they created -- assuming the form's actually submitting votes anywhere in the first place, that is.

Anybody sent an e-mail to the sysadmin of the site asking "What gives?" yet?

I just voted it is still at 90 - 10 God don't you just hate it when "your caught" playing the game!
If they are going to waste the time to run a fixed poll at least they could change the numbers a little. Belinda got caught on that one!
Good on you Kate!
Mary

I just voted; still 90/10.

me too, it's 90-10........

Garth - my source gave me details on earlier voting experiments - the poll seemed to respond as expected. Then, the 90- 10 result came up and it's not changed since.

Voted no...still 90-10

Madam McMillan,

I surrender. Your siren song to freedom has....

90 - 10. and holding. Surely the site coordinator has realized his mistake by now.

90 - 10 after my vote

Mistake? What Mistake?

Yank who voted NO for you :-).

Voted "NO", yet still 90/10

Another No for you.

Same here, no change. Taxpayers money...

I just voted No.

Let's wait and see. Bet your right.

Athenian Stranger says no.

Just voted no. Still 90 yes, 10 no, though.

What giveth?

I voted no - still 90-10 7:51pm EST

Voted NO, 90-10.

There is an option to contact them through an Email form .. .. I took the liberty of poining out that we were on to their lying sum bag trick using that very form. Although I wouldn't be surprised if the Email goes into a vortex.

Cheers,

No. Still 90/10

Dam I just was able to vote twice..... and it's still 90% to 10% no.
Sorry Kate Calvert is not a Moron, just a big used and abused Liberal whore.

Just voted No...and guess what? No change, still 90/10.

Do Canadians deserve a fair and honest government?

No.

CALLING ALL FREEPERS, LEFT IS WINNING THIS ONLINE POLL!!!!
Oro Valley Explorer ^ | 11/22/05 | Unknown

Posted on 11/22/2005 4:31:45 PM PST by Greek

HELP, THE LEFT FIGURED OUT HOW TO HIT THIS POLE MULTIPLE TIMES... NEED YOUR VOTE NOW >>>

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1527040/posts

just voted still 90 10, ya know if they were actually tabulating votes you's think it would say something like 91.5 - 9.5, running up or down from that set of numbers, also it would also have a tally of how many voters have logged their vote, you know 90/10 with ten recorded voters who were all involved in the creation of this web poll.

Daryl

BTW I just read the raise a flag campaign, yes it's a waste of taxpayers dollars since if the sask gov't actually meant a bit of what they talk about in the campaign they would't have a bogus poll on their website and they'd just go for the JUGULAR while the paul martin liberals were down instead of pretending to ask Saskatchewanians about an issue that any kindergartener can determine is profoundly unfair, that being transfer payments. I have long beleived that the whole principle of transfer payments have always been a may for our federal government to embezzle taxpayer dollars away from the public while providing spurious make work project civil service jobs to captive voters. All the while beguiling the weak of mind and lazy, with the appearance of activity.

or am I just an ebittered gen-Xer?

Daryl

I voted twice. Once with firefox and once with netscape.

What happened with B.S's "poll" anyway?

No thing.

Still 90-10. Still better VALUE than the gun registry...

Mission accomplished , over. (and still 90/10 )

still 90/10

Yup, another "No" vote, still 90/10.

This website must run by the same chucklehead at the NDP's website who spiked the "leader who's done most for students" poll a little while ago after Stephen Harper got way out in front.

9 pm EST. I just voted. Still 90-10.

I just voted No.

Voted no - still stuck at 10%.

Internet fraud = RCMP investigation.
.
Click on the link and see what happens. Another rigged poll !

Still 90-10 with my no vote.
Perhaps we should all go back and vote yes to see what happens.

Voted no, 6:09 pm PST

oops. forgot html code works here.
.
click on the "Email Ralph Goodale" link and see what's up.

No!

Im in, score remains... commies 90, cool guys ten.

Mmmmm, 3 or 4 votes and as you predicted 90/10.

Where did Calvert get the name of this polling outfit from Lieberals????

Voted no
Still at 90 / 10
Looks like Ontario's fearless liar, Dalton McG, has given them some lessons!

NO and NO again and again no change.

Voted no and no change. This pretty much illustrates why I put zero faith in polls.

Voted NO, still 90/10

C'mon folks, your'e not supposed to have an opinion, at least not one that isn't authorised by the nanny state.
If they would like to tell us that they think 90% of us SHOULD think that way, that would be one thing. But what they're telling us is that 90% of us DO think that way.
And that's just plain lying to us.
If their ideas are so good, why do they need to lie to us about them? And why do they spend our money to lie to us?
I looked at the poll earlier, it was 77% NO, 33% Yes, to a rather stupid question.

From 7:03 to now 47 votes..Hmmm,

This poll is correct and exact to withing + or - two percent in 2 times out of five.

Forcast accuracy is 100 % reult: 10% for and 90% against. Flip that if you wish. We want to please everyone.

Poll validated by the Poll standards advisory committee Ottawa Canada. TG

I'm part of the 10% that voted no. But of course it might not be counting us Yanks.

Voted NO, and it's still 90/10! I honestly don't know why they'd bother with the rigging, though. "Fair" must simply mean "good," right?

Still 90% yes, 10% no as of 9:35 PM EST.

I voted no twice, and the poll didn't call me on it the second time, even though it says "Users can only vote once per poll". Just to be sure, I voted no a third time after clearing my cookies (Mozilla Firefox 1.0.4).

I can assure folks that many more than 40ish votes have been cast since the results were pegged to 90 - 10.

Oh. Misunderstood you Tony. Nevermind.

Another No . . .

Still 90/10 at 9:55 EST. Cheers. Eric.

another 2 No's here

Another "No"... still 90 - 10

2 more no votes and still 90-10.

Still 90-10 after my vote.

so who are the nine people who vote yes every time I vote no?

90/10 after my NO vote

90% yes, 10% no, at 8pm in Calgary what a bunch of maroons! Congratulations Saskatchewan glad your tax dollars are still very hard at work. Make sure you turn out the lights when you leave Kate.

Could be rigged....could be just a phoney non-functioning page!!!!
Any way voted using different IP conections and no change.....also e-mailed to the contact us link with complaint.
If this was actually illegal I'd care a bit....

90-10

But...you know I would support the initiative.

I just voted "No". 90-10 when I voted.

Voted NO!

What we need is some spray to get rid of these fools.

Electorate Spray

And Visit Duke's Place for a laugh once in a while.

Will you people please stop voting no? Do you realize how many times I have had to flush my cache and vote "yes" just to maintain the 90-10 ratio?

voted no , still reading 90-10
socket

voted 'no' @ 10:30 est.

still 90/10....

I just voted 'no'

voted no a 7:40 pm pacific. Still showing 90-10

Ditto. Still 90/10. Typical of NDP ethics.

Voted NO, 90/10 hasn't moved.

A no from me, still 90-10

Glad to pitch in. I voted No even though I happen to agree with it. Still 90-10 in favour.

Cheers

Got my no vote.

Now that the rat is in the trap, let's hurry up and put it out of its misery. Quick and humane like.

I just checked the source code for the results page and the 90% Yes and 10% No are hard coded into the page. Vote all you want, it won't change

Code follows

Complete our poll
Do you think Saskatchewan deserves a fair
Energy Accord?
Yes (90%)
src="Raise a Flag Polling_files/pixel.gif" width=1> class=ans>No (10%)
src="Raise a Flag Polling_files/pixel.gif" width=1>
style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-BOTTOM: 5px; PADDING-TOP: 5px"> href="http://raiseaflag.ca/index.cfm?page=7">Take the
Poll

NOTE: Users can only vote once per
poll

"Could be rigged....could be just a phoney non-functioning page!!!"

Well it seems odd that when I press "vote" without selecting yes or no it still takes me to the result page. That should be prevalidated with javascript anyway. I can't see anything wrong when I View Source but I'm not a front end guy.

No doubt tomorrow morning it will be claimed this is a malfunction. "Baloney, let's see the Visual Source Safe timestamped code check-ins on the .cfm files" might be one response.

The poll appears to be a module of a content management system called Mercury CMS from a Regina company TMC. From the website:

Polling Module
"Get realtime data on the attitudes, opinions, and thoughts of your website visitors. Create Opinion Polls fast and easy using the Mercury CMS Poll Admin Tools. View your Poll results as they are calculated and respond quickly to make changes."
http://mercury-cms.com/index.cfm?page=4

Always happy to help out by expatriatically voting NO - still 90-10 yet I'm shocked, shocked that anybody could think a government official might rig a poll.

Just voted no... still 90-10.

Voted No Still 90/10

Voted No -Still 90-10. Must be the same pollster(s) as the Libranos use.

Juts voted No - "results" still 90/10

I just voted (twice) and it is still sitting at 90/10, doubt it's going to move.

You are right, but every thinking person knows that most polls are fixed. Granted, most are not so blatant. NDPs are just Liberals in a rush, so we should not be surprised when they employ similar tactics.

Kate.

Voted no. Stayed at 90-10.(Surprise!)

You're the best, Kate.

Hi Kate. Earlier today, the poll was actually working. Unfortunately for the NDP, it was running about 76% no to 24% yes. Then, at about 12:30 pm, it suddenly changed to 90-10 for yes. So either thousands of people voted over the noon hour (not) or someone hard-wired a more favourable result into the poll (which you appear to have proven).

Aren't you glad the NDP is spending $300,000 of your taxpayers' dollars to advertise this excellent website?

Yes Kate, you are the best. Add me as one who also voted no.

Got my no - no change - no surprise!

Well, my "No" just boosted the percentage to:
10%! There's a surprise...

caught like Rats at the Alberta border.

does the Sask. energy accord account for consorting with the Chinese national petroleum company and none of us "capitalist pigdogs and our craven lackeys"

Notice "home" page, actually named home.htm, (I guess that would be patrie.htm for the bi-lingual version))has link to "TODAY´S POLL". What's tommorow's poll?

Should medical data from MRIs in Alberta be BANNED access by Saskatchewan doctors?

Don't laugh. Was proposed from the floor at last weekend's Congress of SKoviets in Regina.

That sounds interesting..
Do you remember guys that Xmas is coming soon?
You can find exclusive gifts at :

http://jewelry4xmas.seavenue.net

Dont forget about Christmas and your family!

Voted NO.

Voted "No" from three machines (one local, 2 remote, each one on a different subnet). LOL. This poll is so rigged.

I got same thing at 1:19 a.m. EST. I also voted a second time without getting any sort of pop-up saying anything like "a vote has already been cast from this p.c." despite their claim along the lines of 'only one vote will be counted'.

By the way Kate :

"I just checked the source code for the results page and the 90% Yes and 10% No are hard coded into the page."

Just an FYI : Remember that what you're looking at is the HTML sent to your browser by their web server. With dynamic pages, the HTML pages are constructed on the fly on the server. I'm not saying this is, or is not the case here, just saying that's how it works.

Either way, there's clearly only one of two scenarios here - either the poll is rigged, or there's a bug in the poll software. Actually there's a third scenario, which is that when Raise A Flag realises they were caught rigging the poll, that they will claim it was a bug.

voted no
12;30am

Voted "no" several times with no impact. Why I am I not surprised at NDP slime trying to fake an approach to the crooks who hoild Regina Wascana, Don't they kn ow that Ralph and his cronies have used every crooked trick in the book and are the masters of lies and deception. What a bunch of second rate losers! ON BOTH SIDES!

voted no - still 90 - 10

Despicable!

I just voted No then I took a picture of the code. It is set up to have a 90 to 10 outcome for the Yes no matter how many people vote, the outcome cannot change. Who would rig something like this and think no one would figure it out - especially knowing there is someone like Kate and sda on the lookout? Dumb gets dumber.

Yes, the code is rigged - unfortunately the screen shot doesn't show it...shows how much everyone should put their trust in polls?!

Lev if you can read programing language - DOS - you will be able to comprehend from the screeenshot that there is no outcome allowed but 10/90 in favor of Yes.

I voted no -- it's still at 90-10

Kate, sorry for the OT but:

In question period the parties were "test driving" their campaigns and Paul Martin specifically asked Steven Harper was his hidden agenda was. Here we go.

The money response should be:

The difference between Liberal corruption and the Conservative hidden agenda, is Liberal corruption is a proven fact as found by Judge while the conservative hidden agenda is nothing more than a concoction of the Liberal spin machine. (this is important because the press is already putting liberal spin on the same level as liberal corruption - they're both "charges")

voted no - 90/10

Voted "NO" 25 times,same pc,same ISP,no warning message,same result.Funny how they call it a "fairness" thing.I'm surprised its still up.

Hah! I voted "Yes" and it went to 91/9.

Just kidding.

Mr.Pundit: "Just an FYI : Remember that what you're looking at is the HTML sent to your browser by their web server....Either way, there's clearly only one of two scenarios here - either the poll is rigged, or there's a bug in the poll software. Actually there's a third scenario, which is that when Raise A Flag realises they were caught rigging the poll, that they will claim it was a bug."

I think this is a soild analysis. The code on the results page has stuff like div class="CMSPoll" inicating it is at least set up to be dynamic; I don't think you can prove - given the raw html - that the page was not dynamically generated. Should the matter be pursued then I'd say that a "bug" is not a credible explanation.

It is common in these circumstances for there to be a "CVS", a sorta database of all the code n' stuff which tracks updates. It looks to me like the code was changed sometime during the day from dynamic to fake static, and there is a paper trail to confirm that.

Is the source the HTML source or the source that is from the server? If it is the HTML source then there is no way to know if it was hardcoded or not since the server would dynamically figure out the percentages, embed them in the HTML and then send them to the browser.
D.

Voted no. Still 90/10

7:47am and I voted and WOW! it's still 90 - 10 for! LOL

What a fraud! Will the Media report on this? Or is it too unimportant?

Still 90-10 after my "NO" vote. Thanks, Kate. Joe

Jem54, I am sorry but you don't know what you are talking about. DOS? There are no websites written in DOS, that was the name of an operating system years ago.

It is not possible to tell what the server is doing by looking at the resulting html page, period.

If you don't believe me, try pulling your connection out of you computer and hitting the 'vote' button. You will see that it does submit the request to the server.

The fact that the server seems to be returning the same page everytime and that the poll is fixed is only backed up by the empirical evidence, not the source html.

My vote did not register.

If we had REAL media in this country, somebody would be all over this. What a waste of taxpayers' money. I thought Calvert was a pastor or something? BTW, Toronto Sun reporting today that there was a contract out on PMPM in 2003. The informant is spilling his guts, but since it's the first I've read about it, don't know much more of what was going on behind the scenes other than drug dealers were involved. It's early out here in Vancouver, so I can't quite get my brain around what was going on in 2003 that would have involved a hit.

Wanna poll? Wanna a survey? We'll pay you $75 if you live in Manitoba.
http://www.paidsurveysonline.com/?hop=holtebooks
>>>>

"polls-surveys" are used to mould/make/manipulate public opinion(s). They are not credible/are used to selllselllsell product/opinion; sample question:

Do you think/believe the Librano$ have your interest at heart? Answer(no means yes): 1. yes. 2.yes. 3. yes. (Is this Librano$ poll rigged?)

No. Of course, I have to apply a vote discount because I am part of the SDA 'voting block'. Better 'a voting block' than to 'block voting'.

what a poll! shows goverment hard at work - again!

Gormley mentioned this poll on his radio show yesterday morning and commented on how stupid the question was (who can be against a "fair" deal?). About half an hour later he was laughing about how the NOs had suddenly shot up. Looks like someone decided they didn't like the Gormley Effect and decided to "correct" the poll results.

I voted No.

Lools like the poll has been taken down.

To explain my previous comment, I looked over the coding on both the vote page and the results page.
It seems that clicking on the results button just took you to the results page without running any code. This also explains why you were able to vote multiple times. The way to block duplicate votes is to check for a unique 'cookie' before recording the vote and then to create a 'cookie'after recording. That is why you have to clear cookies to 'freep' a normal poll.
Votes weren't being recorded therefore the 90/10 split would never change.

I just voted and it still shows a 90% in favour. Rigged, somehow, I guess.

Poll is down in a thunderin' heap. 404'd

*sigh* anarchy strikes again! Darn those Small Dead people anyways!

Some might say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting a different result.

Must be the same polling technique that gave Saddam Hussein 100% approval.

A commie government taking a poll? LOL! Kinda like 100% turnout during the old USSR elections!

Just heard you on the 6pm news over this issue Kate. Way to go!

I don't know who runs this site but they clearly do not understand why the survey was stopped.

The government was trying to get a realistic number on who supports this and who doesn't. They froze it because the poll was flawed as you can vote more than once.

No, Mike - they stopped it after listeners to John Gormley decided to have a little fun with it by voting "no'". That wasn't the desired outcome, so they pegged the results where they were "supposed to be".

Way to go Kate!

There is a LOT of speculation regarding their software here with only a couple correct responses.

The first thing to note is, you can't tell from the HTML file whether or not the code is hard-coded. Period. I've worked at a company who designs software for multiple websites (10,000+) on their servers, for proprietary distribution as a value added service so I have a lot of experience in this.

The second point, for David Simpson, is that you also can't tell if they are checking a cookie or not by looking at the HTML file. Sure, if they use Javascript, but any designers worth their weight know that you don't *rely* on JS and that you must take matters into your hands at the servers. So, they may be checking for a cookie on the server. Still, allowing multiple votes would be bad.

Third, there is a possible theory, in defense of the government but I refuse to mention it here for two reasons....a) It may give them fodder for their position in the press tomorrow, and b) it would reveal what horrific software architects the company who designed the polls are, if true.

Fourth, you cannot make the assumption that the results were not updated then therefore the poll was not recorded. In programming web pages we frequently record data about the viewer *after* the page has been sent to the browser - usually metrics. There is a chance that they were recording votes, albeit erroneously and multiple times, but were not updating the output results report. This again would prove what terrible programmers they are. I'm almost inclined to believe it though after seeing their url look something like "index.cfm?page=7". That is the calling card for someone who doesn't know what they are doing and a security risk waiting to happen. We call it "spaghetti code" and usually means the index file encompasses every page on the site instead of just one piece of code for each page. They also wind up being 10,000 lines of code instead of 100 lines for a well-pruned single script. The typical website would be more likely to have an URL say "/online_poll.html"

Lastly, *ALL* output from a dynamic script happens on the server. We can't even begin to guess what kind of work they may be doing on the other side of the fence. You can't determine the storage system, you don't know the file type, you can't read the database schema and you don't know what color their keyboard is. The script runs, it returns the data it is told to return and it exits. In the case of this page, it will ALWAYS return an HTML file. The only portions I would be concerned with are the 'ACTION' portion of the FORM tag, and the numbers '90' and '10'. Seeing as how even the action tag doesn't tell us anything, you can ignore it. The programmer can point it to a script name, the same page, or even leave it empty and the script still does the work. If empty it just reloads the same page. The key here is that "/index.cfm?page=7" Tells you that the script will ALWAYS run a file called "index.cfm" and in this case it passes the variable named 'page' with a value of '7'. We already know that is the poll page so it is just processing the poll. Whether or not it is an empty script, whether or not it records the data or whether or not it activates a screensaver on Calvert's laptop we don't know. We can't tell.

So, while the obvious statement that the poll display report on the output HTML page never seemed to increase today would be correct, in order to keep our clout, we need to make sure that we don't jump to wild speculation as to what may be happening. We need to make sure that our analysis and logic are correct so that we can bring something to the table that the government doesn't already have - a well-directed sense of purity and our own technical excellence.

Why do you people want to derail one of the best governments we've had in 20 years. Why rig a poll that is a good start to fighting deficientcies in transfer payments.What should we do? Fly our flags a 1/2 mast? We are not Newfoundland..........It has one of the worst track records of any province.They're poor unemployed people in that province...........and they're always Liberal or Conservative governments in power.....It's nice to know we're a have province.........no thanks to the right wing patrons of this sight. You are probably still pissed off that the Sask party lost the last election. What other Party besides the Sask Party has their own Radio station? News Talk CJME..........it told voters this morning to not vote for the Liberals(Murray Wood)If you haven't noticed we're in a boom here in Saskatchewan. #2 housing starts in Canada(Saskatoon),#3 housing starts (REgina). I don't trust the farm community or believe the crisis is that bad.I want to see farm receipts for the last 10 years ..........Gross pay. I don't trust anyone in the Sask party..........they're all farmers and only rich farmers can afford to vote for the Sask Party.........all hangovers from Reverend Devine's vision for a broken economy. You tell me one good thing that Grant Devine ever did for Saskatchewan and I will rebuke it.I've lived here for over 50 years. You have to do more that give yourselves a makeover and a new suit to win my vote.

Good post Archie,

I would like to add one thing regarding radio though. I have friends in different angles of the entertainment industry, including radio. Radio exists for one reason, to sell advertising. As I was told recently after approaching a station for their poor music and content, they aren't concerned with what happens in between the ads.

Newstalk radio is one of the most insidious formats ever. They literally design their content to incite and enrage their listeners. They don't have positive programming. They don't spend 12 hours a day creating original content that praises Regina's own local talent, good samiritans or otherwise noteworthy citizens. They complain. Always compalining. If they have anything good to say it is but a brief mention.

Why? Because people will always take one side or the other. It doesn't matter what side you take, you are passionate about it. You call in and express your opinion and they agree or argue with you and bam, you just helped their salesman prove their position and bought some advertising.

There was never a reason for Saskatchewan to have a "Howard Stern" style radio program, but unless they recognize what is happening that is what it will become. Radio manipulates their listeners to obtain the outcome they desire which is to have the highest listenership, because the highest listenership means the most advertising dollars. I don't care how much money it makes them, I don't like being manipulated.

Saskatchewan doesn't need to degenerate into that kind of garbage. I came back here because I remember the friendly people that make this place worth living - even though I can't find a job. If we keep allowing this garbage radio to infiltrate into our lives we'll turn into a society of complainers with nothing good to say. A bunch of unemployed complainers that spend their day listening to this garbage and their nights talking about it.

Oh, and about the boom, tell those of us in the tech sector that there is a boom. Ya, a Walmart retail, 20 years behind the rest of the country boom. I personally don't believe any reports of a boom because my family is going broke fast and the government won't step in and help. Pity them.

And housing starts in the middle of the lowest interest rates in history isn't a feat. The place I left cost $550,000 to buy a house that costs $60,000 here. Even in Calgary you are looking at $250,000. Housing is cheap because opportunities are low. Try to encourage a young person to stay here when they can make $125,000 a year in Alberta. Well, cost of living is a factor. Anybody can afford a house here so everybody owns a house here. Well, those of you that have jobs anyway....

John, I know that the internet language is HTML - HTML AND Windows sits on DOS. I am not an expert and I do not claim to be one but DOS and HTML use a lot of the same language because they are in the same family; one is the Dad, one is the kid. Frount Page allows regular language to be translated into HTML and HTML relies on Windows, Windows runs on top of DOS. I may be right out in left field for pursuing this but I really would like to know whether or not this poll was hard wired into the 90/10 report. It looked like it was to me. Please explain how you came to the conclusion that it was not; based on the perimeters set in the equasions set up and pictured in the screen shot. Thanks.

Jema, you have no idea what you are talking about. HTML is not a programming language. HTML is basically a page description language. It tells your browser what to show on the screen. It doesn't have any ability to perform logic. The logic will be in some other code written in a programming language like Perl, PHP or any of a variety of popular web programming languages. That code will generate as its output the HTML code that you see. So, of course, if you "view source" in your browser, it will appear hard-coded. Without seeing the underlying code, we can't say for sure that it is, though.

The real story here is that no matter how many votes were submitted, the output remained the same. THAT is the evidence that it was hard-coded.

I am a web programmer. (Programmer, not designer.) I know what I'm talking about.

I have a question........how do you pay to keep this site going? Thanks

The sad thing is that many of your "no" voters probably think that Sk. doesn't deserve an energy accord or fair equalization formula.

Of course, they are the same !##$oles who happily sold out their neighbours 20 years ago when the Liebrals were looking to kill the crow and give the railways complete freedom to abandon railines and "centralize collection points."

CBC writes, "Calvert said that is not what happened. He added he doesn't trust anything called "Small Dead Animals" especially when it encourages people to vote "no"." He then probably added that Little Green Footballs in no way represents the views of the Saskatchewan Roughriders, and doesn't trust it too.

Just FYI David Simpson,

You mentioned that Mercury CMS, the software run on the raiseaflag website, is a Regina company called TMC. It is not. A quick search yields their contact info:

The Loft
Suite 300, 323 - 10th Avenue SW
Calgary, Canada T2R 0A5
T.403.262.2554
F.403.264.2684
E.tmcvisionpool@tmctech.com

They are in one of the downtown towers on 10th in Calgary. They have a 403 contact number. So let me see.....the Sask government hires programmers that simply buy their programming from Alberta instead of build it themselves.

$100 says the guy in Calgary who wrote this sfotware was a Saskatchewan export.

My mistake, they do have a Regina branch.

Altruistic: Hang in there man. I used to work in radio and you are dead on. I got out because I couldn't stomach it anymore. Now I am in a job where I hope I can have a hand in improving the fortunes of people in Saskatchewan. Also to Kate: fantastic website--I'll be back

Thanks irma, glad to hear my assessment and experiences (and friends) aren't far off.

Thanks again Kate....

Altruistic,

I appreciate your comments on the economy, but wonder about one statement. "My family is going broke fast, but the government won't step in and help." Is that the purpose of government? I would think that a better purpose of government would be to secure the personal liberties of the people so that they have the right to start a business, to work for someone else, to try to make money and, if they don't make the right decisions, to go broke fast. At some point does each individual have the responsibility to make those decisions on their own and then live with the results? Or is it the purpose of government to step in any time individuals make the wrong decisions?

The Government of Saskatchewan doesn't guarantee that anyone can start a business and have any chance of succeeding. In many industries, especially a growth sector like information technology, many companies who are here or want to be here refuse to set up shop here. People aren't interested in having to battle with SaskTel - who gets their nose into every little nook and cranny of the IT market. And if you're Joe Schmoe who has the skills and wants to set up a business, you're ESPECIALLY uninterested in having to compete with SaskTel. Check out the Vicq report. Sask ain't biz friendly.

How much in dollars does a buisness pay in corporate tax on $500,000.00 income here in Sask?

i am an idiot and i am lead by richard simmons