LIBERTY: College prof can’t see the value of the Electoral College

Tuesday, July 25, 2006

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/07/24/MNGIHK4CSQ1.DTL

SACRAMENTO
Stanford professor stumps for electoral alternative
— Matthew Yi, Chronicle Sacramento Bureau
— Monday, July 24, 2006
***Begin Quote***

(07-24) 04:00 PDT Sacramento — A Stanford University computer science professor has come up with an idea to circumvent the more than 200-year-old Electoral College system and institute a national popular vote to elect the president of the United States.

The proposal by John Koza, who also invented the scratch-off lottery ticket, is receiving serious consideration by lawmakers in several states. Legislators in California, New York, Colorado, Illinois and Missouri have sponsored bills to enact such a plan.

Koza’s scheme calls for an interstate compact that would require states to throw all of their electoral votes behind the winner of the national popular vote, regardless of which candidate wins in each state. The plan doesn’t require all 50 states to join, but a combination of states that represent a majority (at least 270) of the electoral votes. If the largest states join in the agreement, only 11 would be needed.

***AND***

Proponents say Koza’s proposal is ingenious because it would avoid the immensely difficult task of trying to get rid of the Electoral College system by amending the U.S. Constitution.

***End Quote***

Oh, of course, they don’t like that the current Electoral College system does NOT give the socialists on the East and West Coasts the answer that they wanted to hear. (Personally, I can’t see much difference between the Democan and the Republicrat.) SO they want to change the system.

Never mind, that the Electoral College was specifically DESIGNED to prevent the large states from dominating the small states. Never mind that the system eliminates the need for a precise accurate count in most state. (I’m not sure the dead old white guys thought of that problem.) Never mind that they want to do this without the muss and fuss of amending that old Constitution thing — a back room deal between the politicians of 11 states — oligarchy? — is all that is really needed.

And, that is just off the top of my head.

By the way, the invention of the scratch off lottery ticket probably has done more to impoverish the bottom half of the population than any other invention other than sales tax. Single-handedly he has allow the gubamint to steal more money that any bookie. So, if that is his credential, then I am singularly unimpressed. If the Intelligent Designer needed my advice, then I’d suggest he has to do extra penance for that invention. And, clean up all those darn scrapings at every 7-11 cash register.

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Posted by reinkefj

MONEY: Pennies … are no more money than the FRBie!

Tuesday, July 25, 2006

http://www.mises.org/story/2254

***Begin Quote***

Of course, with the continuing possibility of inflation with fiat money, we will one day find “give a nickel, take a nickel” trays, and perhaps even “give a dollar, take a dollar” trays, at the convenience store.
***End Quote***

Remember when pennies would buy something? I do. The joke of the penny is on us. We have allowed the gubamint to institutionalize their theft of our money. Prior to FDR’s gold grab, money was a “store of value” as we were taught in economics class. Now it’s a depreciating good that silently and transparently rots. At least you can see a sinking ship, you can’t see the gubamint “clipping coins”, like the kings and prices of old. They’ve automated the process. The dollar bill in your wallet shrinks in value 5% to 10% every year and you don’t realize it. Inflation sticks it to the savers, the old folks on fixed incomes, and the not-rich (i.e., the poor and middle class). Wonder why there’s a real estate boom? Cause they can’t print any more of it. And, when the Japanese get tired of sending us Toyotas for little green pieces of paper, when the Chinese get tired of that trade imbalance, and when the Arabs get their gold dinar, what do you think happens to all those pretty green pieces of paper? Yup, the chickens come home to roost. Read about what you can do with a Confederate dollar or the hyper inflation in post WWI Germany. It’s coming here sooner rather than later.

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Posted by reinkefj

FUNY: Abbott & Costello and “Who’s on first?”

Tuesday, July 25, 2006

I love it!

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Posted by reinkefj

GUNS: Criminal brings a knife to a gun fight? Surprise, surprise!

Tuesday, July 25, 2006

http://lonestartimes.com/2006/07/22/armed-citizen-stops-stabbing-spree/

Armed Citizen Stops Stabbing Spree
– Lonestar Times

***Begin Quote***

Proponents of gun control often use news of workplace massacres to justify their crusade against the Second Amendment. Try to reconcile that with this situation: “A knife-wielding grocery store employee attacked eight co-workers, seriously injuring five before a witness pulled a gun and stopped him, police said.”
***End Quote***

Here we have the principle of an armed citizenry act as the police when they are not around. Note that the unarmed citizen was protected by the voluntary action of an armed citizen. Criminals have to guess who are the sheep and who are the guard dogs in disguise. I’m reminded of a cartoon, where the wolf carries away the biggest sheep in the flock, only to find the guard dog unzipping the costume, and punishing him. I’d like my fellow citizens to have that protective uncertainty. Plus, in the cited case, how many of us, unarmed, would confront this attacker? It’d be fool hardy. I would like to have seen the expression on the knife weilder’s face when he was looking down the barrel of a gun. I imagine he could get on the ground fast enough. See, that’s the part that gets under reported, guns don’t necessarily have to be fired to bring peace to a situation.

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Posted by reinkefj

WRITING: ETR quotes one of my emails to Bill Bonner at the Daily Reconing

Tuesday, July 25, 2006

Bonner wrote about “created” equal on Lew Rockwell.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/bonner/bonner267.html
http://www.dailyreckoning.com/Issues/2006/DRUS071106.html


***Begin Quote***

As for the main truth that Jefferson thought self-evident, that “all men are created equal,” we are even less certain. What made him think it was self-evident, we don’t know. All the evidence we’ve seen tells us just the opposite – men are not born equal. One is rich; one is poor. One is fat; one is skinny. One has Viking blue eyes and pale skin; the other is a Blackamoor with eyes like burning coals and skin the color of soot. Maybe twins are born equal, but the rest of us are as variable as snowflakes. No two are alike. No two are equal.

***End Quote***

So, since I was taught to think that Jefferson was absolutely correct, I jumped to his defense as I was taught many years ago.

**Begin My Response***

I’ve bought and read your book. I follow your writings in Worldnet Daily with interest. If I may be so bold, I think you’re not understanding a distinction that Jefferson was making.

I’d like to share a grammar school lesson I got in the fifth or sixth grade of Catholic elementary school. Bear in mind that this was the fifties, and the boys were taught by the Christian Brothers. These guys were tough. Many of them, if not all, were WWII or Korean War vets. And, they had answers for most tough questions. They also were pretty blunt. And, not a lot of patience for distinctions that did not make a difference. Strangely, they took a pretty strong position on the very topic you cited. So, clearly, it was not a trivial distinction to them.
Jefferson wrote ‘all men are created equal.’ To these battle-hardened vets, there was nothing ‘wrong’ about this assertion. Quizzically, they would say, ‘All men ARE created equal. But, all men are NOT born equal.’

They made a BIG deal out of that. You had to approach every person with an open mind. With justice for the SOBs (Swell Old Boys)! With charity for all the people who weren’t born with the advantages we had. Report cards had things like ‘respects the rights of others,’ ‘works well with others,’ and my personal favorite: ‘helps others reach their potential.’

There were a lot of funny lessons all designed to help us learn what they were trying to teach. There was one activity that had envelopes with rewards and punishments in them at random – with random rewards and punishments written on the outside. Lesson: Don’t judge a book by its cover! Tests where all the students’ grades were equal to the lowest grade in the class. Lesson: Teamwork! Classes were split into sections – smart, average, stupid, and dumb – with tests graded on improvement. Lesson: Just cause you’re smart doesn’t guarantee you’ll win! Halfway through a test, the rules were changed, no sympathy. Lesson: Life throws curves! And we had to adapt, live with it, and grow up.

So, there is a theoretical ‘created,’ like the theory of poker. And then there is the ‘born,’ like playing the hand you’re dealt.

Hope this ramble makes some sense, and explains what I think Jefferson was trying to say. Seems obvious to me, but then I was taught about life by some Marines.”

***End My Response***

I was absolutely tickled that it was reused in the Early To Rise issue.

http://www.earlytorise.com/archive/html/072406-2.html

2 Comments | Writing | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj

LIBERTY: “The Death Penalty” … … a gubamint crime!

Monday, July 24, 2006

http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewNation.asp?Page=/Nation/archive/200607/NAT20060724b.html

Death Penalty Needs Fixing, Say Critics
By Monisha Bansal
CNSNews.com Staff Writer
July 24, 2006

***Begin Quote***

(CNSNews.com) – The death penalty should be changed or abolished because it is corrupting the U.S. system of justice at all levels, critics alleged on Friday.
“It corrupts all of us. It is corrupting our courts, it’s corrupting prosecutors, it’s corrupting defense attorneys, it’s corrupting juries, it’s corrupting our society,” said Bryan Stevenson, a defense attorney and professor of clinical law at New York University’s School of Law. He was among those participating in a National Press Club discussion on the future of the death penalty.
***End Quote***

I would argue against the death penalty on many points –authority, efficiency, effectiveness, and fairness.
Where does the government get its authorization to kill a citizen? As a principled pro-life little L libertarian I challenge anyone to cite from whence the gubamint gets permission to kill anyone. To prevent the use of force on a citizen, it is justified in stopping an aggression. That’s in a “hot” situation. It’s a logical principal. Once they have stopped the aggression, their right to use force ends. Further, if I can’t morally do something, then just counting more noses can’t make it more right! And, when we allow the gubamint to kill any citizen, they get the idea that they are authorized or permitted to do it. Soon they will think it’s a good idea for any “troublemaker”. Mount Carmel, Ruby Ridge, and the Japanese Internment come to mind.

Does the gubamint do “capital punishment” efficiently? Nah, mistakes abound. That stat of DNA clearing the convicted on death row illustrates the efficiency of the process. We don’t know the size of the problem. There is an old canard about shaking a haystack and having needles fall out means that there are more needles in that stack and why are they there in the first place. So if there are some mistakes we find where there are supposed to be zero, we can be assured that there are many more mistakes we haven’t found.

Is capital punishment effective? So few murders are solved, it’s ineffective by definition. If it’s purpose of is justice, surely that has to left in the hands of the Intelligent Designer. If it’s purpose is retribution, I guess it does that. If it’s purpose is prevention or dissuasion. it does very little. Restitution is not even on the gubamint’s value radar. So I think we can say it’s NOT effective.
Fair? You have to be kidding. Just look at the racial component of the stats. Prima facie, this should stop it on just this basis alone.

Convinced? If not, you do it. Don’t delegate it to a state worker! Pick a citizen out of the jury pool and ask them to do it.

You have to be willing to do your own dirty work.

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Posted by reinkefj

TURKEY: A seeker could … … “Getting an Education Online for Free”

Monday, July 24, 2006

http://www.jimmyr.com/blog/Online_Education_Free_201_2006.php

Is it the piece of paper or the wisdow that you want? If paper, skip this. If wisdom, here’s free dikw for you.

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Posted by reinkefj

TURKEY: OK, now you have an offer, what should you do … …

Monday, July 24, 2006

This reminds me of the Sultan’s Dowry problem.

http://mathworld.wolfram.com/SultansDowryProblem.html

***Begin Quote***

A sultan has granted a commoner a chance to marry one of his n daughters. The commoner will be presented with the daughters one at a time and, when each daughter is presented, the commoner will be told the daughter’s dowry (which is fixed in advance). Upon being presented with a daughter, the commoner must immediately decide whether to accept or reject her (he is not allowed to return to a previously rejected daughter). However, the sultan will allow the marriage to take place only if the commoner picks the daughter with the overall highest dowry. Then what is the commoner’s best strategy, assuming he knows nothing about the distribution of dowries (Mosteller 1987)?

***AND***

The problem is most commonly stated with n==100 daughters, which gives the result that the commoner should wait until he has seen 37 of the daughters, then pick the first daughter with a dowry that is bigger than any preceding one. With this strategy, his odds of choosing the daughter with the highest dowry are surprisingly high: about 37.10% (B. Elbows; Honsberger 1979, pp. 104-110, Mosteller 1987; Havil 2003, p. 136). As the number of daughters increases, this tends towards 1/e approx 36.787…%  (Sloane’s A068985).

***End Quote***

The best thumbnail answer is to listen to about a third and then take the next one that exceeds the highest you’ve heard so far. Not a perfect answer but surprisingly it gets the nod about a third of the time.

So to, the seeker, with an offer in hand, will rarely get a second one to weigh against the offer in hand.

As the inveterate tinkerer, I have some wisdom (I hope it’s wisdom and not barbara striesand) to offer:

(1) I evaluate offers on: (a) actual dollars, (b) commute, (c) “feel”, (d) potential earnings, (e) “potential opportunity”, and (f) “durability”. Being a mathematical kinda fellow, I have established “minimally acceptable” criteria in each dimension.

(2) One dimension doesn’t get to “trump” another dimension. Twice as much money with an arduous commute is not a good trade. I’ve done it I know.

(3) So as not to be labeled “job hopper”, I have to be able to keep the job for at least a year. That looks like two on a resume. That’s durability!

My policy is to take the first offer over the minimum in these six dimensions.

FWIW YMMV
Fjohn

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Posted by reinkefj

TECH: Microsoft Outlook has morphed once again into LookOut!

Monday, July 24, 2006

After a recent mandatory Outlook update for “security”, I see two things have happened:

(1) Links are turned off in all email messages. Who agreed to that?

(2) The junk mail filter is capturing good emails. Even people who are in the Address Books. What’s that about?

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Posted by reinkefj

TURKEY: A current or future jobseeker should … …

Monday, July 24, 2006

… alwaysbe “findable”.

In my mind, that means never using your employer’s email address in your networking activities. (I have gmail invites if you need them!)

So, that means you shouldn’t use an email you don’t control for networking sites like LinkedIn and Plaxo.

So, that means that you should join and use address synchronization sites like Plaxo.

So, that means you should track and measure the responsiveness of the people in your address book.

IMHO

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Posted by reinkefj

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