I wrote a letter to the editor(s) of Scientific American last night in response to an article that was recently published on their website. I've included my letter in response later in this blog post. I was probably harsher than what was deserved, because the article makes a valiant attempt to explain electoral reform beyond most of the options that have been tried in recent years. Delightfully, they explain Condorcet methods, and explain the problematic results in the Burlington mayoral election of 2009, when an unpopular incumbent remained in power despite clear majorities preferring the Democratic Party candidate. ( read more: https://robla.blog/2023/11/06/scientific-american-and-the-perfect-electoral-system/#articlebody )
Category: Wonk
Politics
Trump and the f-word
UPDATE: 2020-09-03 - I'm trying to force myself to use the visual editing tools for WordPress to edit this blog post. Please bear with me.
We’re getting down to the final stretch. There are only eleven TEN more weekends before the November 3rd election day. There are many elections that matter, but Biden vs Trump is the one that many of my Facebook friends are posting about. And the “f-word” keeps coming up. (EDIT: 2020-08-30 at 5:30pm – I’ve been cleaning this post up quite a bit based on the Facebook discussion)
To my friends and family who are registered members of the Democratic-party….
Thinking about “flyover country”
Doc Searls from Santa Barbara, USA / File:Glacial_features_near_Beaver_Dam_Lake,_Wisconsin.jpg / CC BY (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0) UPDATE: 2020-04-24 - I posted most of what I was working on a few days ago over at Quora: https://www.quora.com/What-dont-most-liberals-realize/answer/Rob-Lanphier I still have some content for Daily Kos as well, but I'm still working out how to present it for the Daily Kos… Continue reading Thinking about “flyover country”
Why donate to a non-profit with a hard-to-pronounce name?
I'm joining the board of Miraheze! I explain why in my very long story about my relationship with electoral reform, MediaWiki, Wikipedia, Electorama and Electowiki. I also give you instructions for donating.
Jimmy Carter, populism and Donald Trump
Jimmy and Rosilyn Carter, surprising the crowd by walking instead of riding in a limo (image from Carter Library via National Archives) In January 2016, before either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump had secured their nominations, I posted an article on Daily Kos titled “What Donald Trump and Jimmy Carter have in common”. Since Republicans… Continue reading Jimmy Carter, populism and Donald Trump
Western accent?
There’s a fantastic discussion of red state politics on the wellRED podcast interview of Sarah Smarsh by the three hosts of the show. At the 46:00 point in the podcast, the group discusses how they all deliberately chose not to lose their respective accents. Smarsh says as part of journalism school, she needed to learn… Continue reading Western accent?
Selectricity…yay, someone beat me to the punch
I just set up a mock election on Selectricity, just to see what it could do, and was pleasantly surprised that they created a very simple interface for creating Schulze/Condorcet elections that pretty much anyone can use. I tried getting to this point a few years ago with Electowidget, but sadly didn't get to a… Continue reading Selectricity…yay, someone beat me to the punch
Media companies really shouldn’t let this strike drag out
The writers strike has temporarily saved me from staring zombie-like from my slouched position on the couch, and instead has me typing zombie-like from a differently-slouched position on my couch. After seeing a couple of mildly amusing clips from on-strike writers (from The Daily Show and The Colbert Report), I was curious enough to poke… Continue reading Media companies really shouldn’t let this strike drag out
Inflated house prices
I like reading Paul Kedrosky's Infectuous Greed blog, even if I think he occasionally says some things that are completely moronic. One reason I do, though, is the occasonal food for thought, like this post on inflated house prices. Yale economist Bob Shiller says in the weekend issue of Barron's that he's still looking for… Continue reading Inflated house prices
Seattle Parking Tax: Money Has To Come From Somewhere
Apparently, Mayor Nickels plans to propose a parking tax for downtown Seattle to fund transportation. Fantastic! That means that the people who commute to downtown from Issaquah or wherever pay some for Seattle transportation (as they should) whereas those of us who live and work in Seattle aren't getting disproportionately taxed.
RoBlaBlog 