Here’s the situation: The President is going to give an address to the nation’s schoolchildren. Initial reports say he will emphasize the importance of taking their education seriously, staying in school, etc. He’s a controversial President. There is an outcry from the other side of the political continuum. There are fears he will push his political platform through the nation’s children. It sounds like Nazism, or Communism, or some kind of scary -ism.

This happened in 1991. The President was George H.W. Bush. His Department of Education encouraged teachers to broadcast the speech and use it as a teaching opportunity. Bush encouraged students to write him letters, with suggestions on how he could better achieve his goals. The Democrats were upset. The party leader called Bush’s address a “paid political advertisement.” Bush’s supporters said that was ridiculous.

So now we come to the current hullaballoo, suspiciously similar to the above, except the players have all flipped sides. Now the Conservatives are accusing the President of indoctrinating the kids. Some school districts won’t broadcast the speech. Many parents will keep their kids home, rather than risk them hearing it.

Somehow (I am seriously not sure how), this has become confused with the paranoia about “pledging allegiance to Obama.” Here’s my synopsis of both issues, after some internetz researchz: Continue reading →

I was recently referred to a blog post so I could understand better why some parents are concerned about allowing their children to hear the upcoming education speech. I also read about a dozen others, trying to get a handle on all the facts (as much as one can do so via the interwebs).

A long time ago, in a galaxy called High School, a teacher taught me that people who use underhanded rhetorical techniques quite likely got nothin’ else. Of course, it’s possible to use nasty debate tricks and have a good point, but I think the presence of the former does reduce the probability of the latter, overall. There are definitely liberal outlets (*cough*HuffPo*cough*) that use these ridiculous tactics on a regular basis, but I think I find them even more from the Right. Perhaps I should do a structured study to test whether this is just a perception issue.

Anyway, here’s most of the dumb tricks from that blog post.

Why Parents Don’t Trust Educator-In-Chief
By MICHELLE MALKIN | Posted Thursday, September 03, 2009 4:30 PM PT

the sneering defenders of Barack Obama – can’t fathom – the cult of Obama – activist language – Obama’s bureaucrats – whitewash – the taint of left-wing radicalism – the Educator-in-Chief and his “comrades.”

The bulk of the post is actually about William Ayers, and is composed of quotations establishing his leftist views. Standard.

I knew when President Obama was elected that we were all in for some disappointments. I thought it possible he’d be just as bad, in a different way, as the Bush Administration. What I did not consider was that he would BE the Bush Administration.

He’s been pulling 180s on his campaign promises since January, but this week he dropped a bomb. In honor of our country’s complete, bipartisan rejection of a five hundred years of legal and human rights progress, I made a flowchart:

Habeas Corpus Flowchart

How to get a fair trial in the U.S.A.

Love it or hate it, I think you must admit the Obama Presidency is a clear break from the Bush Presidency. Of course, I think many (though certainly not all) of these changes are for our long-term good, but that’s just me. Obama’s White House doesn’t just show us what a different President looks like; it shows us some interesting things about other organizations, too.

A discussion of a recent White House press conference (on one of my favorite political blogs) was thought-provoking. It seems the reporters kept grilling the White House spokesman about Obama’s intention to actually implement the tax plan he campaigned on. As it turns out, it’s in the budget, nearly word-for-word as he explained it during his campaign, and that is apparently shocking for some people. The White House guy kept telling the reporters (who kept repeating the question in some aggressive ways) the basics:

• 95% of American families will see a tax cut. As mentioned 100+ times in 2008
• Those making above $250,000 per year will see a tax increase. As mentioned 100+ times in 2008.
• Nobody — not even rich people — will have tax rates any higher than they were during the 90s, with the Clinton Presidency. As mentioned 100+ times in 2008.

For the record, there was strong economic growth during recent Democrat Presidencies (especially Clinton’s), though causes might be debated.  Here’s a chart showing that, during Democratic presidencies, those with lower incomes benefit the most, economically. During Republican presidencies, the greatest beneficiaries are the minority who are the richest. Surprisingly, Democrats are (so far) better for everyone’s bottom line. Gotta think about that one. Hm. Here‘s another chart, showing that the federal deficit (or surplus) has followed the same pattern since 1980. This one goes back 50 years (note: y-axis is reversed). Pretty convincing stuff.

So, after a contentious press conference, with reporters grilling the WH spokesman, bringing up terms like “class warfare” and “income redistribution” in connection to this “new” (not really) tax plan, one (presumably print) reporter apparently observed,

“Did you notice all the questions about taxes came from reporters making over $250,000 a year, especially the TV guys?”

In some domains, I fully believe there is a liberal bias in much of the mainstream US media. However, I think bias must be more like granite than obsidian. Different biases are strewn throughout an industry, or even an individual, packed together into hard little lumps. How else to explain some media outlets’ nearly rapturous praise of then-Senator Obama, back in 2007, while these same companies buckled to Bush Administration demands on how they should (and should not) cover his two very unpopular wars, his massive increase in deficit spending, and a dozen other potential scandals that were never fully reported?

Maybe part of the answer is that journalists, idealists or not, respond to nice, big, personal income tax cuts.

The business of election politics seems to sweep aside the uncertainty and concern that some of us may feel during the decision process. I feel a sense of dissonance when I see the rah-rah signs and slogans that seem to assume a monolithic, eternally-supportive fan base. It’s even worse after the election, when the candidates begin to allow something other than their one-dimensional elect-me faces to show, and We the People are reminded of what a compromise democracy is.

So, without further ado, here are some campaign stickers, horked and shamelessly vandalized to represent something much closer to my true feelings on the subject of our president-elect:

this is my fave

I realize my font choices were pretty bad here. What am I, a designer?

yes, this one is just silly

(if you really wanna see which websites from which these done been ganked and then abused, you should click through to the flickr pages and read the notes there)

Sigh. And sigh again. I have been moderately excited about Barack Obama as a presidential candidate, especially in contrast to the nominees that the GOP produced. And I probably would have voted for Asmodeus if he was Hillary Clinton’s opponent. I don’t think I’ve blinded myself to the planks of Obama’s platform that are in some conflict with  my morals and ideals, but I considered (and still do, I guess) his potential positive effects to be more than sufficient to outweigh them, when compared to the other presidential alternatives.

Sadly, the other shoe has begun to drop. Perhaps, now that he’s no longer campaigning against a fellow Democrat for Democratic Party votes, he’s shifting strategies, being “pragmatic,” or something. This means, apparently, campaigning like a true politician. The most recent annoyances:

1. HE SIGNED THE FRICKIN’ FISA BILL! To be fair, he expressed deep regrets and a promise to keep fighting, but he still signed it. He signed it despite a promise last Fall to filibuster any bill with retroactive telecom immunity in it. So, the value of Obama’s promises is now lower. Not as low as McCain’s (not for a long while, yet), but still, lower. His high ground is getting muddy.

2. Obama now has one foot on the “Bomb Iran” bandwagon. He is following McCain’s and Bush’s footsteps in exaggerating Iran’s known military nuclear capabilities. This is very disturbing to me. Not good. One hint about why he might be doing this comes from his attempts to beat McCain to the pro-Israel votes. In an AIPAC speech recently, he threw them some bones, such as classifying Iran as “always” having been a greater threat to Israel than Iraq. Of course, he’s nowhere near the bellicosity of McCain’s AIPAC speeches, but we already knew that McCain is both ideologically hawkish, and also probably pretty confused about the Middle East in general.

3.  Obama used that fake presidential seal for a few minutes. Okay, that’s not such a terrible sin, especially since it was clearly fake (and also perhaps a bit tongue-in-cheek, a fact completely lost on Obama-haters). The problem, for me, is that’s the kind of thing Republicans usually do. I guess he’s decided he should emulate their tactics… or something…?

I guess the honeymoon has to end sometime. Obama’s has ended here, for me. He’s still — so far — the candidate I find least distasteful, by a long shot, but he’s a politician. He has demonstrated that, for the votes, he will use at least some of the same stupid tricks the other politicians use.

There are multiple online news sources, from obscure to heavyweight, reporting the possibility of voter fraud in the New Hamster Hampshire primaries this past Tuesday. But let’s keep our shirts on (especially you; yes, you), and think rationally about this. I’m going to be teaching my intro stats class next week, so bear with me while I warm up the stats brain.

First, what are the data that suggest the possibility of voting irregularity? I’ve seen 2 items:

1. Clinton beat Obama in the NH precincts where votes were cast using Diebold ^TM voting machines, but nearly the exact opposite happened in precincts where votes were hand-cast¹.
2. In the GOP primary, at least a couple dozen Ron Paul votes were uncounted in Diebold^TM precincts, as well (after announcements that he received zero votes, several individuals said they had voted for him, after which the voting-management types said, “Whoops! So you did!”).

Let’s focus on #1. The allegations of irregularities are fueled into the flame of near-accusation by longtime knowledge that the Diebold^TM machines are easily hacked, and by the fact that the hand-voting results are much, much closer to the exit poll. Let’s look at those numbers:

By itself, this is nothing more than a coincidence. However, it’s the kind of coincidence Columbo would have jumped on with both feet. The differences are like 5%, but with an N of more than 200,000, numbers like these are extremely unlikely to have happened purely by chance². As long as there’s no difference in the distribution of hand-voting vs. computer-voting precincts in NH.

But there’s the double rub³. “Extremely unlikely” is not “impossible.” Even more important is the distribution question. If the hardcopy votes are somehow not a representative sample of all NH votes, then it’s quite plausible that no irregularity occurred.

What if affluent, suburban precincts had computer voting machines, while poorer, urban precincts had paper ballots? Maybe all the White Soccer Moms voted with computers, and all the ethnic minorities and disaffected humanities majors and computer scientists voted by hand. I’m not saying this actually happened; but things like this have happened regularly in the history of American politics.

In fact, I think I’ll copy this post to my stats-teaching files. It will make lovely fodder for an introductory discussion of sampling. :D

Statistical sleuthing aside, I think the larger issue involves the use of the electronic voting machines. The paper votes are the only ones available for a recount. Cause if the computer voting machines were hacked, then re-counting the hacked votes doesn’t really do much good. The “paper trail” is as compromised as the final result.

1. Note: tallied by optical scanners, from a paper ballot [↩]
2. Anyone wanna dare me to do the chi-square test and calculate the p-value? Huh? Huh? Chicken? [↩]
3. Mmmm. double rub. [↩]

So, Michael Bloomberg might run for president in 2008. Interesting. Sure, he’s a ridiculously rich politician who probably has little in common with mere mortals, but that just makes him the same as the others in the field. Here is what little I know about him at this moment:

• He’s fiscally conservative (good)
• He’s socially fairly liberal (good)
• He has little patience for annoying journalists (good)
• He likes John McCain and possibly Barack Obama (good)
• He seems to be annoyed by most of the other major candidates (good)
• He has done pretty well running NYC (good)

Hm… I could vote for this guy, even if the pollsters are saying he doesn’t have a chance.

In other news, I’m a sissy. I biked to the store (like 3 blocks) and shopped, then biked home. That just plum tuckered me out. It must be the illness, because it’s certainly not the altitude.

In other other news, Mi Topita is finally (FINE-uh-LEEE!) reading Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. I read it a year ago. Now, at last, I can discuss its plotty details! If only I could remember what they were…