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Author Archive for JOHN ADAMS

Presidential race 2012

Romney & Gingrich, Drudge Report & Huffington Post

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Embedded below are screenshots of the Drudge Report and Huffington Post, and from them one can see different views on Mitt Romney.

Matt Drudge is a Romney supporter, and on his site, the highlight is Newt Gingrich’s failure to excite a Florida debate audience. Down below, in the lower left, Drudge links to news of Romney’s income and tax returns. For one of Romney’s opponents, a main story; for information that may damage Romney, it’s a small link in the corner.

Drudge will highlight other Republicans to the extent that doing so divides opposition to Romney, or simply zings Obama, but not often otherwise.

(By the way, I don’t think there’s anything substantively wrong with Romney’s income, but that’s not the same as considering the political impact — how others will demagogue — that money. On the merits, see Bain’s Not Romney’s Weakness, It’s His Strength.)

Over at the Huffington Post, the story’s all about how wealthy Romney is, albeit with some mention of his significant charitable contributions. He’s not even an American — it’s Swiss Mitt.

I still think Romney will be the GOP nominee; if he should not be, one would have to reassess the fall elections, as another GOP nominee from this field would be a decided underdog.

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 1.24.12

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Good morning.

For Whitewater, it’s a day of gradual clearing with a high of twenty-six. For Washington, awaiting Pres. Obama’s State of the Union address at 8 PM CT, it’s a mostly sunny day with a high of fifty-five. The White House website will stream an enhanced broadcast of the address, with charts and supporting documentation.

In Whitewater, the Urban Forestry commission meets at 4:15 PM, and the Community Development Authority at 5 PM.

The Wisconsin Historical Society recalls that on this day in 1960, rural residents confronted a

Crisis of Morals in Green County

On this date representatives of civic and service organizations, schools and churches met in Monroe to discuss the “crisis of morals” in Green County, where the number of unwed mothers increased to 40 in 1959. [Source: Janesville Gazette]

After a quick look a map, I can see that Green County’s still shown, so my best guess would be that residents came through all this well enough.

Just in time for elections in America, scientists abroad have a model for detecting election fraud. Rachel Ehrenberg of Science News reports that

The researchers examined voter turnout and votes received by the winning party for recent parliamentary elections in Russia, Austria, Finland, Switzerland and the United Kingdom and for presidential elections in Uganda and the United States. Graphing the relationship between turnout and votes for the winner revealed unusual peaks in the data for the elections in Russia and Uganda — a signature of funny business, the scientists contend.

Ballot stuffing best explains the data, says study coauthor Peter Klimek, a complex systems scientist at the Medical University of Vienna.

“Of course, this is a statistical detection technique, not conclusive proof,” says Klimek, who, along with Stefan Thurner and other University of Vienna colleagues, reported the analysis online January 15 at arXiv.org. But the numbers need explaining, “and nothing explains them as cleanly as the fraud hypothesis,” Klimek says.

Thousands of precincts in Russia and districts in Uganda reported 100 percent voter turnout with 100 percent of those votes for the winning party, the researchers found. Graph these data various ways and the fraud signature pops out, notes Klimek. Plotting votes for the winner against voter turnout, for example, reveals a line that slopes off into a plateau for most countries, but for Russia and Uganda those lines keep climbing right off the graph.

Google’s puzzle for today is an historical one: “If you were being served terrapin stew at a historic presidential inaugural ball, in what government building would you be?”

For your own dish, consider a recipe for Chesapeake Terrapin Stew from reciperascal.com.

Government Spending, Libertarians, Poverty

How Selfish Politicians Use the Poor or Children to Protect Wasteful Programs that Have Nothing to Do with the Poor or Children

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It’s a cruel game to defend government spending on the well-fed with the lament that spending cuts must be stopped, lest the poor and vulnerable suffer.

The poor and vulnerable will not suffer in a society that reduces spending on corporate welfare, sham job-creation programs, so-called business-development grants, and spending on weapons so expensive and impractical that the military can afford to build only a few (and dare not risk a one).

These are not programs for the poor — they’re programs for well-connected friends, favored businesses, and influential military contractors.

The politicians who feed friends on the slop of Big Government care about the vulnerable simply as a talking point, a defense of other business as usual.

The national Libertarian Party highlights this selfish tactic in this week’s message (“Libertarians propose rolling back the most-needed services last – after getting government out of the way so that voluntary solutions can take their place.”)

(For more about how libertarians will support transitional spending for the vulnerable and destitute, see On Poverty Spending)

Public Records, University

Polling and Public Records

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Charles Franklin, a UW-Madison professor and pollster is now visiting at Marquette. He’ll be conducting polls on Wisconsin politics (recall, other topics) while a visiting professor.

Embedded below is a brief interview of Franklin, conducted last week.


Watch Polling specialist assesses recall movement on PBS. See more from Here and Now.

Writing at Fighting Bob, in a post entitled “Open records open minds,” blogger-lawyer Ed Garvey wonders if Franklin’s visiting professorship at Marquette will allow Franklin to leak polling data to Team Walker. Garvey thinks that, if Franklin were at UW-Madison (or on sabbatical from UW-Madison), then his polling data would be subject to an open records request (as it would not be at private Marquette):

….if he [Franklin] is on sabbatical and is being paid by UW I would argue that his polling information is a public record. Possibly he came to the same conclusion so someone switched it from sabbatical to visiting professor. I wonder who is paying him? I don’t know, but will ask and report to you. Wisconsin voters should have all the information they can get. Time for Marquette to open the books.

Garvey’s argument is unpersuasive. There’s no evidence that Franklin will leak any data to the Walker campaign. Second, much of Franklin’s polling data will be — as is common with many polls — publicly available, anyway. Garvey’s argument really assumes that (1) Franklin would publish results without underlying data on survey size, etc., or (2) would conceal from the public some questions entirely (passing that information along to Gov. Walker’s campaign). The first would reduce the poll’s credibility, and the second would be difficult for anyone at a large university — public or private — to conceal. I’ve no reason to think Franklin is so inclined.

Even for polling from the public UW-Madison, one can guess UW-Madison would argue that the law should recognize that some social science data were exempt from the Public Records Law (Wis. Stat. 19.31-19.39). At the very least, a university would be sure to object to records-access while data collection was ongoing, and during analysis. To do otherwise would be to leave academics’ research exposed before a study concluded.

Since timeliness matters so greatly for campaign polling, public-records access to data after an election would have historical value, but would come too late to alleviate someone’s immediate (unsupported) concerns about an election advantage for Team Walker.

In any event, Franklin will only be one of several pollsters (beyond the campaigns) surveying Wisconsinites closely this year. more >>

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 1.23.12

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Good morning.

It’s a warm, wet day for Whitewater, with a high temperature of thirty-nine. In Atlanta, it’s a day of scattered thunderstorms and a high of sixty-four.

In 1869, it wasn’t easy — it was impossible, actually — for a woman to run the post office in Janesville, Wisconsin:

1845 – Angela Josephine King Born

On this date Angela Josephine King was born in Trumbull County, Ohio. She moved to Janesville in 1848 and graduated from the Janesville Ladies’ Seminary in 1867. King obtained a job as a clerk at the Janesville Post Office. In 1868 President U.S. Grant announced he would appoint a new postmaster in Janesville. A special election was held in February of 1869, with the understanding that the candidate who won the election would be endorsed by Congressman Benjamin Hopkins. King won the race by 42 votes and traveled to Washington to receive her appointment.

Hopkins balked at the idea of appointing a woman and innstead he gave the runner up, and his political rival James Burgess, his endorsement. As a result, King requested an interview with President Grant, but Grant refused to make the appointment without Hopkins’ endorsement. In the fall of 1871, Angela King attended Chicago Law School and returned home to Janesville to continue her study of the law.

In January of 1879, she was admitted to practice law in Rock County Circuit Court. Shortly thereafter, she and Rhoda Lavinia Goodell formed the partnership of Goodell and King, located next to the Janesville Post Office. Angela Josephine King continued to practice law in Janesville and served as an advocate for the women’s suffrage movement until her death in 1913. [Source: State Bar of Wisconsin]

Via Wisconsin Historical Society.

Google’s puzzle of the day is particular: “When the Edmund Fitzgerald sank, she was carrying 26,000 tons of pellets of what kind of iron ore?”