Thoughts on Larry Summer's Thoughts

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Thursday January 20, 2005 · 10:11 AM PST

2005/01/20 · 10:11

By now everyone's heard about the remarks Harvard president Lawrence Summers made re: the dearth of women in math and science careers. If by some chance you haven't, here is a good news report on the controversy.

[Update: Daily Kos won't let me include the grafs I'd intended to put in here - they exceed the limit of 1150 characters. Says I "didn't read the rules" and didn't "use the extended entry." Wrong on both counts, but anyway, see the extended entry for the context for the next sentence.]

Obviously, it was his second and third "points" that created the brouhaha. But what about the first? Read More

A Quick One: CLW's Senate Voting Record

Mathwiz

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Monday August 09, 2004 · 1:57 PM PDT

2004/08/09 · 13:57

Like many advocacy groups, the Council for a Livable World, an antiwar advocacy group, scores Congressmen on selected votes important to them. They recently published their 2001-2004 Voting Record for all 100 current Senators. (The usual caveat applies: because only 12 votes are considered, these scorecards can be manipulated to make certain officeholders look good or bad. I don't think CLW has tried to do this, but it's something to keep in mind.)

Like most groups who do this, CLW penalizes officeholders for absenteeism: missed votes count the same as a vote against the group's position. Because some Senators missed several votes due to campaigning for President, I've "corrected" the scores so they don't get unfairly penalized for their absenteeism.

For instance, CLW listed Kerry's score as 33%; my "corrected" score for Kerry is 75%. My corrections and methodology are below the "There's More" link. Read More

Why not IRV? I'll tell you....

Mathwiz

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Thursday July 22, 2004 · 2:28 PM PDT

2004/07/22 · 14:28

Steven Hill of the Center for Voting and Democracy has written a thought-provoking essay at CommonDreams.org called "How to Handle Nader.

Basically Hill proposes that swing states that are under Democratic control (New Mexico, Maine, West Virginia and Tennessee) should eliminate the "spoiler" effect by implementing a runoff for Presidential electors. But to avoid having to hold two elections, he suggests they implement Instant Runoff Voting (IRV).

His essay contains a lot of food for thought; go give it a read. But I don't agree with his conclusions. My own thoughts are under the "There's more" link. Read More

Clinton, Fair and Balanced

Mathwiz

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Thursday June 24, 2004 · 12:56 PM PDT

2004/06/24 · 12:56

With the release of Bill Clinton's memoir, the SCLM has been spending a great deal of time rehashing the Clinton legacy from the right-wing fantasy point of view (just as they did with Reagan). Liberal blogs like this one, in contrast, have been engaging in a bit of Clinton hero-worship, writing as if Clinton was the greatest President of all time, except maybe for Lincoln and FDR. Maybe.

From my (progressive) perspective, both viewpoints are wildly inaccurate. Clinton was a better President than any GOPer since Eisenhower, but he was no hero. So here's my Fair and Balanced look at Clinton's legacy: Read More

AFA Presidential Poll

Mathwiz

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Wednesday March 10, 2004 · 8:21 PM PST

2004/03/10 · 20:21

I can't imagine how my email address ended up on their mailing list, but the rightwing American Family Association is conducting a Presidential poll.

Always willing to torture wingnuts, I went to their site to cast my ballot for Kerry, but expecting the poll to be heavily skewed toward Bush, since I expected most recipients of their email were fellow wingnuts.

To see the results at the time I voted, click the "There's More" link. Read More

E-Voting Controversy Heating Up

Mathwiz

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Monday January 12, 2004 · 5:04 PM PST

2004/01/12 · 17:04

There's a new article over at TomPaine.Com regarding the growing controversy over paperless e-voting machines. It looks like the issue is finally getting mainstream media attention.

The article is by Henry Norr, former technology columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle. Here are a couple of grafs:

"Congressman Rush Holt (D-N.J.), a former Princeton University physicist, last year filed a bill that would amend the Help America Vote Act--the 2002 legislation that provides funding for new voting equipment--to require a voter-verified paper record for the 2004 elections. That bill, H.R. 2239, now has 94 co-sponsors, including three Republicans. In December, Sen. Bob Graham (D-Fla.) filed a similar bill in the Senate (S.1980), and Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) announced her attention to do likewise, while Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) announced a separate bill that would add a general voter-verification requirement, but not require that it take the form of a paper record--opening the door, according to Dill and other critics, for technological pseudo-fixes that add no real guarantee of the systems' integrity.

(Sigh. Leave it to Hillary to try to fashion a "compromise" on something as basic as voting! If more heat gets turned on this subject, look for the Rethugs to move from outright opposition to embrace the Clinton "compromise" so they can claim they've "solved" the problem.)

"The prospects for these bills are of course uncertain. The opposition -- led by the voting-equipment manufacturers, but supported by many state and local election officials who don't want to face the extra hassle and expense inevitably associated with a paper trail, as well as by some disability-rights activists and, surprisingly, the League of Women Voters -- will surely be formidable, and although the Bush administration has yet to take a public stand on the issue, it would be a major surprise in the wake of the Florida fiasco if the Republican majority were to support a paper-trail requirement."

(The League of Women Voters opposes Rush Holt's bill? Et tu, Brute?)

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