Alex Speaks

Northern Cyprus elections favor hardliners

2009-04-20T07:52:00.003-04:00

Elections in Northern Cyprus have given the "hardline" National Unity Party (UBP) of former prime minister Derviş Eroğlu 44 percent of the vote, making it appear that Eroğlu will form the next government (see BBC for a summary). The Republican Turkish Party (CTP) of president Mehmet Ali Talat took only 29 percent; this figures to make peace talks somewhat more difficult as the UBP favors a loose confederation-type system of two essentially independent states, while the CTP was supportive of the Annan Plan which was more federal in nature.

In comparing Cyprus to another nearby conflict in Israel/Palestine it might seem incongruous that Cyprus' "hardliners" are in favor of a two-state solution while in I/P it's the other way around, but when you view it as a continuum from "one state for two peoples" to "two states for two peoples" to "one state for one people, who cares about the rest" what becomes clear is that the Cypriot situation simply hasn't become as hardline as that in I/P. This makes sense when you consider that the situation on the ground is much more balanced (in part since neither side gets billions of dollars from the US, and in part due to geopolitical factors) and there are some refugees but no occupation. Nobody can realistically hope of expelling the other or somehow denying them political rights, nobody will be able to impose their perfect solution, and the separation means there aren't the everyday frictions that are the cause of so much of the frustration in the Palestinian territories.

Afghanistan: Domestic call to ban human rights violators from presidential candidacy

2009-04-19T23:52:00.004-04:00

Reuters reports that Afghanistan's state human rights body has said that warlord candidates (those with past human rights records) should be barred from the presidential election, as provided by the Afghan constitution. Massouda Jalal, the only female Afghan presidential candidate in 2004, said much the same when she was in Washington, so I infer that there's at least some support in Afghanistan for the idea (she'd say there's a lot).

Of course, there's the question of who, exactly, falls under this category--apparently, nobody's ever drawn up rules to implement the law. Even if this is worked out somehow, the parliament is still full of warlords, and the SNTV electoral system doesn't help matters by allowing anyone with a decent number of localized followers to get into parliament and discouraging strong political parties.

In a more general sense, this is just another example of Afghanistan's weak state and lack of capacity to enforce its own laws, but the question is whether or not the state is better strengthened by ignoring the issue and trying to achieve warlord buy-in (as has been done) or by actually taking the warlords out of the equation. Note that the Taliban was popular, for a while, because it actually accomplished the latter, and it does seem that no government including the warlords will be a well-functioning democracy. The dilemma for ISAF is, of course, that everyone going after warlords isn't going after Taliban. Two questions, then: (1) Is it worth taking the risk of going after these figures, if it means a better final chance of defeating the Taliban, but also, perhaps, a greater risk of losing? (2) Is it worth defeating the Taliban--and how much is it worth--if it upholds a corrupt Afghan pseudo-democratic government?

Honduras: All aboard with party unity (*except Mel)

2009-04-19T22:08:00.005-04:00

Honduras's ruling Liberals (Partido Liberal) held their convention this weekend, sans President Mel Zelaya, who was at the ALBA summit and the Summit of the Americas. Zelaya accused Liberal presidential candidate Elvin Santos of planning the convention so he wouldn't be there, to which Santos, according to La Prensa, "lamented that the president could not be present, but noted that it had not crossed anyone's mind but his own that the convention was planned for those dates for that purpose of avoiding his presence." Santos proposed that the president record his message on DVD instead. Meanwhile it was also reported that one of the reasons the convention was shortened--other than the impact on Elvin's pocketbook--was to avoid the president's appearance to discuss his unpopular proposal for a constituent assembly.

However, the rest of the Liberals seem to have united successfully, at least according to El Heraldo. Despite some boos, Santos saw to it that Roberto Micheletti, the speaker of the legislature and his opponent in the Liberal primaries, was elected head of the party's Central Executive Committee; Elvin knows that he'll need everyone on board in order to defeat National Party candidate Pepe Lobo in November.

Argentina: Menem is back in the game

2009-04-19T21:59:00.002-04:00

Clarín reports that Argentine ex-president Carlos Menem will again run for the presidency in 2011. Menem, who served in office from 1989 to 1999 and finished first in the first round in 2003, is also known for his involvement in scandals involving the sale of arms to foreign countries and possibly questionable privatization deals during his time in office.

However, in that 2003 election, Menem took 24.5% in the first round, and withdrew from the second round against Néstor Kirchner, realizing that victory was unlikely. There's really no reason to think that he'll be any more attractive an option for anyone this time around, but if he's able to reach a second round against a Kirchnerista candidate, given the unpopularity of the current administration, that could present an interesting situation.

Summit of the Americas: One big happy family

2009-04-19T21:09:00.004-04:00

This weekend's Summit of the Americas, on the theme of "Securing Our Citizens' Future by Promoting Human Prosperity, Energy Security and Environmental Sustainability," was (unsurprisingly) unable to agree on a declaration. As Moisés Naím notes in El País, the Summit is like organizing "a convention of dogs and cats," given the disagreements between hemispheric leaders--so much so that Trinidad and Tobago had to be talked into hosting the event.

That said, President Obama was able to come across as reasonable and conciliatory toward the "left bloc" of Nicaragua, Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia (plus the wannabe Honduras), with Hugo Chávez even saying he's ready to send an ambassador back to the U.S. The New York Times says that Bolivian president Evo Morales accused Obama of being behind a reported assassination attempt last week--three men were killed in Santa Cruz in a confrontation with police, and the entire escapade remains rather murky--though the Bolivian press (see La Prensa and La Razón) are reporting that what Morales actually said was that if Obama didn't condemn the attempt, he'd construe it as meaning that Obama might have been behind it. At any rate, Obama chose the correct path on this one, saying that "I am absolutely opposed and condemn any efforts at violent overthrows of democratically elected governments," without addressing the specific situation in Bolivia.

The Summit also marked another step out for Salvadoran president-elect Mauricio Funes, who attended along with current president Tony Saca (La Prensa Gráfica has the obligatory picture) and was part of a group of Central American leaders (those from SICA) that discussed the all-important Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for immigrants. Meanwhile, Costa Rica and Colombia apparently want to host the next Summit--maybe things are looking up...

Back to blogging...

2009-04-19T21:04:00.002-04:00

All right... I'm back after a long absence and heading back to blogging. I'm expecting to deal with subject matter that might be a bit different than before--especially a bit more of an emphasis on current events in Latin America--but will still be commenting on elections around the world, domestic policy, and (occasionally) baseball, particularly on the business end of it.

NCLB - It ain't over 'til it's over

2008-06-11T22:57:00.002-04:00

NYT reports on Education Secretary Margaret Spellings's quest to have NCLB enshrined as Bush's education legacy.

At a school she visited, "Doug Alpiger, the Fourth Street principal, said tests beget more tests, because school districts want proof their students are on track."

Sound Transit's new future plan is up

2008-06-10T10:58:00.003-04:00

Proposition 1, rejected last fall by Puget Sound voters, would have approved a large package of mass-transit improvements as well as highway improvements. Interestingly, after its failure at the polls, surveys indicated that a large bloc of voters (environmentalists who did not vote for passage) would have been swayed towards the proposal had it had less highways, not more.

A survey conducted by Sound Transit (PDF) seems to bear that out. According to Sound Transit's telephone survey, there is good news--voters think that expanding mass transit is very important. ST didn't explicitly ask voters to prioritize funding for mass transit over other areas, but since mass transit will have its own referendum, that's not as much of an issues. Furthermore, 52 percent of respondents to an open question identified "transportation" or "congestion" as the most important problem facing the PS region. Voters had very favorable opinions of Sound Transit and King County Metro. In general, voters approved of almost every option put on the table, and seemed to give greater favor to options which were completed more quickly and were more extensive in scope.

Out of the individual projects, those that found the most favor were increasing Tacoma-Seattle commuter rail, using the Eastside freight rail tracks for commuter rail, and extending the light rail across I-90 to Bellevue.

My principal concern about the survey is that it seems to have grossly underweighted younger voters. Only 20 percent of survey respondents were 39 or younger. I am curious if this was deliberate, to represent the distribution of voters, or whether it was a result of polling methods (younger people being more mobile, younger people not having land phones, etc.) I have no idea if it would make a difference in the results.

So, then, what is the proposal? ST comes out with two--the "0.4" and the "0.5" proposals--based on the sales tax hike that each one would require. Essentially, 0.5 is 0.4, plus more stuff. Key points:

Expansion of light rail to Northgate, to Overlake Hospital in Bellevue, and to south 200th in Burien. The 0.5 plan extends it further, to Overlake TC in Redmond, and to Highline CC in Des Moines. Additionally, there would be studies done (and in some cases ROW purchased) for the eventual extension of the light rail to Everett, Tacoma and Redmond Town Center.
BRT on the new 520 bridge (not sure what, exactly, this BRT will look like, or how it would be different from current ST regional service. Guess it depends on the bridge outcome).
Improved Sounder on the southern end (through Kent and Auburn to Tacoma)--more service, station improvements, etc.
Construction of the First Hill connector that will link that area with light rail (how much gets done depends on which plan).
Study of transit possibilities on the freight line from Woodinville to Renton.
Of course, there are lots of little improvements all around.

The options cost $6.8bn or $7.8bn, in 2007 dollars. Overall, they're necessary just to deal with the growth the Seattle region will undoubtedly continue to see. Luckily, the survey suggests most people are eager to vote on the issue again this fall, and hopefully approve a package that will get started soon.

Charter schools

2008-06-10T09:51:00.004-04:00

Matthew Yglesias has a post up about Excel Academy in Boston, a charter school which--like KIPP--takes the brightest students from inner-city schools and requires family commitment contracts. Not surprisingly, it gets good results. Yglesias concludes that poor kids need more and better instruction without confronting the fact that the schools "cherry-pick" students.

He's right--more and better instruction is important. Yglesias's commenters point out that the problem isn't as much with academically capable kids from the inner city, but with those with families that don't know or don't care about a good education. Also true. (Note Finland's secrets to success).

Where I taught elementary, one of my colleagues who taught Vanguard (the gifted-talented kids) was perpetually frustrated by KIPP, which tried to recruit her brightest kids. Her feeling was that she'd rather have the kids in public magnet schools than KIPP, which she thought was needed for the kids who might not have been as naturally bright, but were still academically oriented. I tend to agree. Meanwhile, there's still the issue of behavior problems disrupting everyone left behind.

Griffey hits 600

2008-06-09T23:48:00.002-04:00

Ken Griffey Jr. has made it to 600. At ESPN, Tim Kurkjian reflects on Griffey in his prime--a prime that we in Seattle had the privilege of watching. Seeing an ESPN clip of Griffey ("the Kid") homering in the Kingdome brought me back to my baseball childhood. I thought I was 13 again! (If you don't feel it, you need to look at this).

It's sad to reflect that Griffey, out of the Mariners' great three (he along with Randy Johnson and Alex Rodriguez), was the only one to really be honest about his intentions--he signed with the Reds, his hometown team, for below market value--and he's been the one to be the most screwed by the situation. While A-Rod got $250m and eventually made his way to New York, and Randy got his rings too (and some Cy Youngs), Griffey just ran into injury and disappointment. He was 30 his first season in Cincinnati (2000) and the best part of his career was over.

The Reds have just one winning season during his time--that first season, 2000--and no playoff appearances. That's certainly partially due to Griffey's injuries. He's reached 500 at-bats only twice in eight full seasons so far. Strangely, he was never seriously injured in Seattle, bar his freak wrist injury on his center-field catch in 1995. Meanwhile, Griffey's seven best seasons in park-adjusted OPS all occurred in Seattle. His best season in Cincinnati (by OPS+ standards), and the eighth-best in his career, was 2003, when he had only 166 at-bats; his best "full" season was 2005, as he managed 491 at-bats, hitting .301/.369/.576 for a 144 OPS+.

That's all there is to this reflection... congratulations to Junior, and may there be many more left.

My favorite quote... on YouTube

2008-06-09T23:27:00.003-04:00

I found one of my favorite quotes on YouTube, though the audio quality is pretty bad. The President of the Spanish Republic, Manuel Azaña, as the Republic was clearly losing the war, gave a speech at Barcelona's Ayuntamiento (City Hall) in July 1938 and said the following (personally, I am surprised at the tone of voice that he used to deliver it, as I always considered it a more emotional and quiet quotation):

"Es obligación moral, sobre todo de los que padecen la guerra, cuando se acabe como nosotros queremos que se acabe, sacar de la lección y de la musa del escarmiento el mayor bien posible, y cuando la antorcha pase a otras manos, a otros hombres, a otras generaciones, que se acordaran, si alguna vez sienten que les hierve la sangre iracunda y otra vez el genio español vuelva a enfurecerse con la intolerancia y con el odio y con el apetito de destrucción, que piensen en los muertos y que escuchen su lección: la de esos hombres, que han caído embravecidos en la batalla luchando magnánimamente por un ideal grandioso y que ahora, abrigados en la tierra maternal, ya no tienen odio, ya no tienen rancor, y nos envían, con los destellos de su luz, tranquila y remota como la de una estrella, el mensaje de la patria eternal que dice a todos sus hijos: Paz, Piedad y Perdón."

The translation is as follows (mostly from Hugh Thomas, The Spanish Civil War, but I did the first couple clauses):
"It is a moral obligation, above all of those who suffer war, when it ends as we wish it to end, to take from the lesson and the muse of the punishment the greatest good possible, and when the torch passes to other hands, to other men, to other generations, let them remember, if they ever feel their blood boil and the Spanish temper is once more infuriated with intolerance, hatred, and destruction, let them think of the dead, and listen to their lesson: the lesson of those who have bravely fallen in battle, generously fighting for a great ideal, and who now, protected by their maternal soil, feel no hate or rancor, and who send us, with the sparkling of their light, tranquil and remote as that of a star, the message of the eternal fatherland which says to all its sons: Peace, Pity, and Pardon."

Education in Finland

2008-06-09T23:09:00.003-04:00

The Economist's correspondent took a trip to Sweden and Finland to look at their education systems--the latter country's education system is the world's highest-ranked. The correspondent leaves, noting that he approves more, in principle, of Sweden's system--which gives parents more rights vis-a-vis the state, and has competition between different schools and methods (despite not allowing grades)--yet it's Finland's system that gets the best results.

And why does Finland's system get such great outcomes? According to him, it's these three things:

Teaching is a highly respected profession. Only 10% of those who want to be teachers are accepted.
Teacher training lasts five years and ongoing teacher training is considerable.
Students respect the teachers, pay attention and work hard. ("When I asked Finns whether there were some families who despised education and resented schools, they seemed puzzled by the question.")

On the one hand, it's simple: make teaching a profession that will draw the brightest and hardest-working, train teachers well and retain them, and have orderly and respectful schools that dedicate students to hard work. On the other hand, it's pretty difficult... after all, we just have to entirely change societal priorities and attitudes. But I think 2 definitely leads to 1 (lots of training = more people motivated to pursue the profession and more specialized = better incentives for retention), and 1 and 2 definitely lead to 3 (good teachers inspire respect from their students and know how to get results from them), though they certainly aren't the only causal factors.

The correspondent notes that lots of Finnish students are in "special education", especially for behavioral factors. I think my class last year would have achieved 25% more without one or two particular students who, in turn, merited more specialized attention to get on track as well.

On a favorite Republican talking point, it's hard to get rid of bad teachers in Finland: "In Kulosaari, the head teacher, Anneli Rautiainen, said alcoholic teachers in Finland are moved between classes and sometimes even between schools, so that they don't do too much damage to any one child's education." Perhaps firing flexibility isn't the #1 factor. After all, you can get rid of bad teachers, but you've gotta have someone to replace them...

Graduating (or not) from college

2008-06-09T16:47:00.003-04:00

You can write me down as oblivious if you want, I suppose, but in working on a new project of mine I am looking at undergraduate dropout rates in public universities--I had no idea they were so high! Perhaps that is because I went to the University of Washington-Seattle, where the six-year completion rate for a bachelor's degree (for first-time, full-time students) is 75 percent--as opposed to 56 percent at Arizona State, or 42 percent at Sac State, or 12 percent at Texas Southern University.

Now TSU, for one, has been in the headlines in Houston recently for scandals involving the administration--but also because they may finally adopt admission standards. All that's been needed to get into TSU is a high school diploma. Now, it must be said that TSU's mission has been to educate the African-American community, and not to leave people behind--and there's obviously value to that mission, but if students are to succeed, it means the institution spends lots of money just getting them ready to be freshmen.

I'm not picking on TSU--they're just needing to find a better way to fulfill their valuable mission. Not surprisingly, there seems to be a very clear correlation between standardized test scores of entering freshmen and graduation rate. So...

are entering freshmen just not prepared because of subpar schools and/or home resources etc., or
are lower SAT/ACT scores not the important variable, but rather correlated to lower SES, which then creates financial difficulties in continuing with college, or
are lots of people who never wanted to be in college in the first place just leaving, and it's not mainly a preparation issue, or ...

I'm sure there are a million individual reasons why people don't graduate from college. But this raises the question--if these entering freshmen don't want to be in college, what do they actually want to do, and is there a better use of resources that will get them there?

Rice Owls head to the College World Series!

2008-06-09T14:37:00.009-04:00

As a serious baseball fanatic, living in Houston has been fortunate in one way: I've gotten to follow the Rice Owls, one of the best teams in college ball. I started going to games midway through last season and this season I bought season tickets. Now, you have to understand, in junior high/high school I was one of the youngest active members of SABR (the "saber" in "sabermetrics"), and my old bedroom is still full of my baseball library (probably to my father's chagrin. But where else can I put it?).

This 2008 season has featured a slow start, but the end has definitely made up for it. Last weekend saw Rice go 3-0 in the regional, beating Texas 7-4 on Sunday night in a game that featured a rare ejection (after some truly bad calls by the umpire against Rice).

The super regional this weekend against Texas A&M was two compelling games, in front of excited sellout crowds (about 60 percent of the crowd was probably for A&M). On Saturday night, A&M grabbed an early lead, but Rice came back, with #9 hitter Jordan Dodson--who hit .167 during the regular season, had no at bats in the regional, and went undrafted as a senior--going a stunning 3-for-3 with 4 RBI (this led to "Jordan Dodson" chants all night long on Sunday). Closer Cole St. Clair entered in the fifth, and took Rice the rest of the way, 4 1/3 innings, giving up only two hits and one run, as Rice won 9-6.

On Sunday I managed to bring a camera, so I will throw in some pictures.

The starting lineups posted on the wall at Reckling Park.

The lineups are introduced.
Aggie fans start to pack the left-field hill; they would fill it by the 2nd inning.

A&M again took an early lead in the bottom of the third, scoring two runs off Mike Ojala. (Ojala's most notable moment was probably sticking up his glove in the 3rd inning to catch a quick throw from catcher Adam Zornes... which was actually supposed to go to second base. Ojala knocked the ball off line and the runner was safe.)

In the top of the fourth, the Owls took advantage of a fielding error; freshman shortstop Rick Hague then hit a two-run double and tied up the game. (This would be a good time to mention that this win was thanks to Hague and the relief pitchers, Bryan Price and Bobby Bell; Hague was 3-for-4 with 4 RBI and shone in the field, and the two pitchers went 4 1/3 innings, giving up one hit and no runs).

This led to a near-disastrous bottom of the 4th. Ojala retired only one batter (and that on a sacrifice bunt), leaving with runners on first and third, and a run already in, to make the game 3-2 for A&M. Usual starter Matt Langwell entered, giving up a walk and a double before striking out a hitter, and then giving way to lefty Matt Evers. Evers then walked A&M's cleanup hitter, Luke Anders. This put the bases loaded, with two outs, and three runs already home. Then, a strange call... Kyle Colligan tried to steal home from third base. Catcher Adam Zornes simply tagged him out (see the Chronicle for a picture). A&M did not score after running out of the 4th.

Rice remained down, 5-2, until scoring two in the top of the 6th (again taking advantage of an A&M fielding miscue). With the A&M lead now only one run, the bottom of the 6th was not Diego Seastrunk's finest hour. The Rice 3B was unable to stop a sharp grounder into left for a leadoff single; the next hit bounced off his glove, and while he got it to second for one out, could have been a double play. Rick Hague made a nice play for the inning's second out, but the next batter hit another grounder to Seastrunk, whose throw was offline (for his only official error) and put runners on first and third. Luckily, Hague made another nice play to end the inning and the game remained 5-4.

The top of the 8th was the next big event. Aaron Luna led off with a walk, then was thrown out by a laughable margin trying to steal second. Rick Hague's weak chopper to the left side went for an infield single, but Chad Mozingo flied out, and suddenly there were two outs with a runner on first. Up came catcher Adam Zornes--while he remains the team's home-run leader, his slump had been ongoing since the second part of the regular season. This time, though, Zornes hit a line drive to left field that cleared the fence and gave Rice a 6-5 lead. The Owls would take this lead home, as Price and Bell didn't let A&M threaten.

Rice players mob Adam Zornes at the plate after his home run put the Owls ahead, 6-5.

The final scoreboard.
Rice players celebrate after the Comerota-Hague-Padron double play ends the game.
Sophomore 2B Jimmy Comerota ("Jimmy Baseball") at the screen after the game.
One of the game's stars, freshman SS Rick Hague, after the game.
Coach Wayne Graham (#37) and C Adam Zornes (below him) after the game.

It will be sad to say goodbye to the Rice Owls, so instead I will wish them good luck in Omaha, and I hope I will be back in Houston someday to see them play again!

On the Tigers' goose egg

2008-04-07T21:47:00.004-04:00

Okay, so the Detroit Tigers are off to an 0-6 start. We've gotten the mandatory barrage of "only two teams have recovered from an 0-6 start to make the postseason." I feel compelled to chime in with my elementary knowledge of statistics...

These first six games are 3.7 percent of the schedule. If the Tigers can go, say, 92-64 the rest of the way, we'll probably see them in the postseason. So, then, why the poor performance by teams that open 0-6? Without any actual numbers, as I'm not the person who will have time to run them, I'd assert that, over the long term, teams have an equal probability of having a losing streak at any point in the season. From that assertion, it follows that teams which are worse have a higher probability of beginning the season with a losing streak, just as they have a higher probability of having a losing streak in any single stretch during the season. If you break it down, I'm "guessing" (or declaring) you'd find that teams with six-game losing streaks to begin the season also have a higher overall rate of losing streaks during the season (which, after all, makes sense, since only two of them have made the playoffs).

ESPN's Jayson Stark points out: "Of the last seven teams that won the World Series, five of them had losing streaks of six games or more at some point that season -- several of them had multiple losing streaks of six games or more." Right, but they probably had fewer losing streaks than everyone else, right?

So, is the Tigers' fate sealed? Clearly not, but they'll have to be a statistical outlier--a good team that just happened to begin the season 0-6.

Montenegro: President Vujanovic wins reelection

2008-04-07T20:11:00.003-04:00

From early returns in Montenegro, it appears that President Filip Vujanović has handily won reelection, taking a majority of votes cast (around 52%). Vujanović is a part of the ruling Democratic Party of Socialists, the party of PM Milo Đukanović (the Milosević ally-turned-enemy also known for allegedly smuggling into Italy and backing NATO during the Kosovo crisis for, perhaps, his own opportunistic ends; Đukanović quit in 2006, then decided he couldn't stay just in private business and returned to office in February).

At any rate, this is a pretty resounding mandate for the ruling coalition, which has been in control since the early '90s. A quickly growing economy--especially since leaving the union with Serbia--may have much to do with that. The pro-Serb opposition candidate appears to have received just over 20 percent, and a liberal candidate around 17 percent. The president is a typical European ceremonial president, so the significance of this is essentially as a voter endorsement for Đukanović's resumption of power and the ruling DPS (whose continued stranglehold over Montenegrin government is, however, a little worrying).

One interesting/misleading quote from the AP article is:

"Ethnic Serbs, who make up about 30 percent of the population, opposed the split."

Note that the difference between "ethnic Serbs" and "ethnic Montenegrins" is political; they speak the same language (be it "Serbian" or "Montenegrin") and are the same in everything except for their ethnic self-definition. Compare to the "Moldovan" and "Romanian" languages, or perhaps "Valencian" and "Catalan." Therefore, the definition is somewhat tautological; "ethnic Serbs" by definition consider Montenegro and Serbia one country.

See also election article at Wikipedia.

Zim vote "count" proceeds slowly

2008-03-31T18:58:00.003-04:00

"Count" of course in quotes, since the counting's been done, but the electoral commission (ZEC) isn't releasing results. No presidential results out, and only 66 parliamentary seats (Zanu-PF 31, MDC-Tsvangirai 30, other MDC faction 5). Some are taking the relatively even distribution of the parliamentary seats as a sign of foul play. Obviously there's the specter of rigging, but (not knowing how the released official results correlate with the MDC's count) I would speculate, alternatively, that the ZEC may be playing it safe and selectively releasing constituencies at a slow pace, making sure they're about tied, until the ruling elite around Mugabe has figured out what the hell they're going to do about the situation. As for the presidential vote, well, who knows... I'm sure they're keeping some usually pro-Mugabe constituencies in their back pocket so they can release presidential and parliamentary figures together showing big Mugabe and Zanu-PF wins, if need be.

Speaking of that ruling elite, reports suggest they're all trying to pass the back as to who tells Bob that it's over. I have to run and can't find the source, but I think BBC was reporting that...

Is the fix in?

2008-03-30T21:05:00.004-04:00

On Saturday, voters in Zimbabwe went to the polls to elect a new president, parliament and local councils. Despite intimidation, a lack of independent media, very public (and threatening) statements by government officials, the presence of police in polling stations, and the inability of the millions of emigrants to vote, unofficial results from polling places seem to confirm that longtime opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai should be elected president. Financial Times reports that independent observers put the race at Tsvangirai 55%, President Robert Mugabe 36% (with most of the remaining votes presumably going to ex-government minister Simba Makoni). These tallies came from about two-thirds of polling stations, albeit more heavily weighted toward the opposition-heavy urban areas.

There are a lot more questions this time than in previous elections, however. In 2002, the entire government apparatus still backed President Mugabe; when counting stopped with Tsvangirai in the lead, and suddenly Mugabe had won, the opposition had few options. This time around, there are cracks in the leadership, evinced by Makoni's breakaway campaign (which does not appear, however, to have had a great deal of success). These cracks are much the result of the disastrous economy (including inflation over 100,000%, price controls which have stifled production and restrictions on bank withdrawals) which even some rural dwellers as well as civil servants, all traditional backers of Mugabe, must accredit to the horrible economic reign of Mugabe and ZANU-PF.

With the delay in the release of results, one can conjecture that, perhaps, the leadership is unsure how to proceed as they lose by a clear margin. The MDC has already declared preliminary victory, not wanting to be caught flat-footed like in 2002. Reports state that riot police are being deployed on the streets--perhaps in preparation for the announcement of the "results." Could the leadership hope to carry out a quick arrest of leading opposition figures to stifle any protests? And how strong is the MDC's grassroots organization this time? In the past, protests have been brutally suppressed, including the breaking of Tsvangirai's skull just two years ago.

There are three possibilities:
(1) Mugabe concedes. Not likely.
(2) The electoral commission announces that a runoff will be needed as no candidate reached 50 percent of the vote. While this seems like a "compromise" to some (I think I actually saw that word used in a BBC article), it's the worst option, as it gives another period for repression to intensify and magnifies the chance of violence.
(3) Mugabe is proclaimed the winner, in which case, the MDC will probably try to begin some sort of protests, and the government will try to preempt them. The presence of riot police on the streets may testify to the beginning of this strategy.

At any rate, we should know the "official results" within 24 hours.

Business

2008-03-15T11:56:00.002-04:00

There will be no posting until next Saturday at the earliest, as I am headed out of town for a while.

Friday anthem - Maamme/Vårt land

2008-03-15T00:55:00.001-04:00

Maamme ("Our Land"), the de facto national anthem of Finland, is in the tradition of non-nationalistic Scandinavian anthems which behold the beauty of the North. Indeed, the original Swedish text ("Vårt land") does not mention Finland. The music (by Frederik Pacius) and words (by Johan Runeberg) were written in the 1840s and translated into Finnish in 1867 (where a mention of "Suomi" was added). As Finnish and Swedish are both official languages of Finland, both versions are official. The same melody was later used to create Estonia's national anthem.

The Wikipedia article is good and includes lyrics, though note the English translation is based on the Swedish and not the Finnish lyrics.

Below is a video of Finnish singer Tarja Turunen singing the anthem at Independence Day festivities. She sings Finnish verse 1, Swedish verse 1, Finnish verse 2.

Here is a choral a cappella version including some images of Finland:

Thoughts on the Spanish election

2008-03-10T20:43:00.003-04:00

The Spanish government of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero won reelection on Sunday, gaining five seats in the process. However, the results were mixed for both the Socialists and the opposition People's Party.

Almost all the Socialist gains came from cannibalizing smaller leftist partner parties. Here is a list of PSOE gains:

Almería (the constituency gained a seat which went to PSOE)
Barcelona, 2 (gained from the Esquerra and Iniciativa per Catalunya-Verds, two leftist parties)
Girona (gained from the Esquerra)
Guipúzcoa (gained from the Basque social democrats, Eusko Alkartasuna)
Las Palmas (gained from the Canarian regionalists)
Ourense (gained from the PP)
Tarragona (gained from the Esquerra)
Toledo (constituency gained a seat which went to PSOE)
Vizcaya (gained from the Basque Nationalist Party, EAJ-PNV)
Zaragoza (gained from the Aragonese leftists, Chunta Aragonesista)

The PSOE made only one pickup directly from the PP, in the Galician province of Ourense, but lost several seats to the PP, resulting in only a 5-seat gain overall. The only seats which flipped to the PSOE from non-leftist parties were that seat, plus the seat in Vizcaya lost by the Basque nationalists. Most voters showed identical voting patterns to previous years; in Andalucía and Castilla-La Mancha, swing voters trended towards the PP, and the populares picked up 5 points in Madrid. Here is, by contrast, a list of PP gains:

Alicante (constituency gained a seat which went to PP)
Almería (gained from PSOE)
Cádiz (gained from PSOE)
Ciudad Real (gained from PSOE)
Lleida (gained from Esquerra)
Madrid (gained from PSOE/far-left Izquierda Unida)
Málaga (gained from PSOE)
Murcia (constituency gained a seat which went to PP)
Valencia (gained from leftist Entesa)

Three of the PP's losses were in constituencies which lost seats due to population shifts, plus the Ourense loss. Thus, overall the PP lost one seat to the left in population shifts and one more directly, while taking seven seats directly from leftist parties. Advantage, PP, and the overall composition of the legislature shifts rightward. It will be somewhat more difficult for the PSOE to push through legislation this time around without the help of the Catalan conservatives; this may not be a consolation for Mariano Rajoy, but it's certainly a difference.

Other trends from this election:

The United Left is almost gone. The country's "third force," the United Left coalition, consisting mainly of the formerly-powerful Communist Party of Spain, has almost vanished from the scene. In the last election, the United Left just missed the 5% needed to form an official parliamentary group and won only 5 seats; that was their worst result ever. This time around, they did far worse, taking only 3.8% and winning just one seat each in Madrid and Barcelona. Their share of the vote remained in third nationwide, but as it is dispersed across provinces in a small-constituency proportional system, they have no hope of being elected in most areas, and they probably won't rebound. They are far from their heyday of being elected in places like Asturias and Córdoba.
The big parties gained. Together, the PSOE and PP went from 312 to 322 seats, leaving only 28 seats (less than 10%) for other parties; the two big parties took 83.8% of the vote. Losses were felt most strongly by the Catalan Left (Esquerra), which lost 5 of its 8 seats (4 of those losses were to the Socialists). However, the Basque nationalists lost a seat, the Canarian regionalists lost a seat, and the Basque social democrats and the Aragonese regionalists lost their only seats. This is a qualified victory for those who don't support excessive regionalization (though the Socialists gained some of their popularity in Catalonia through their pro-regional policies, and some of the changes in the Basque country might be due to a onetime "sympathy vote" after the assassination of a former Basque Socialist councillor).
Most provinces were stable. Along with the gains by big parties... in 31 of 52 constituencies, there was no change at all in the seat allocations. Another six constituencies saw change just because they gained or lost a seat due to population. This leaves only 15 constituencies where a seat actually changed hands. Only in the large cities of Madrid and Barcelona did more than one seat change hands. That is to say that winning a seat on the list of the PP or PSOE is essentially a guarantee to election, since the PP and PSOE are essentially "guaranteed" their seats. What will be interesting to see in following years is if the vote "locks in" with few changes or if the PP and PSOE are able to enlarge their platforms to court more centrist voters. There have been steps in that direction from both, but neither has moved enough ideologically to strongly appeal to large groups from the other side (in particular, the PP has had trouble with this). If the former occurs and the vote stabilizes, will Spain see a loss in interest at the polls? (And will Spain see a loss in interest anyway, especially in the smaller constituencies which seem to have no hope of changing a seat in one direction or the other? In the context of three- or four-seat constituencies, the vote swings required to move a seat are pretty big!)

One more note: there are several three-seat constituencies (mostly in Castile-Leon) which are regularly won by the PP, resulting in a 2-1 split (see Palencia, Zamora, Cuenca, Guadalajara, Avila, Segovia). Soria was formerly one of these, but lost its third seat and dropped to the minimum two seats, the first province to do so; the seats therefore split 1-1 in Soria this time around. If, eventually (we're talking over 10 years or more), the other three-seat constituencies drop to two seats, that will be a five-seat drop to the PP without any votes changing hands. (Five seats, not six, because the next seat to turn would probably be Teruel in Aragon, which is a regular PSOE 2-1 win).

To summarize, then: trends are favorable for the two big parties, and in particular for the PP, but for the PP to capitalize, it must continue to abandon its rigidity and continue to make gains in former PSOE strongholds such as Andalucía. And if Spanish democracy is not to become rigid and stagnate, the parties must continue to broaden their platforms and appeal to large groups of centrist voters, or else make systemic changes to create more "swing seats."

Results at the Spanish Ministry of Interior.

Spain: Zapatero gets another term

2008-03-09T17:22:00.003-04:00

It appears, from incomplete returns, that the two big parties have made gains in Spain's general elections. With about 75% counted, the Socialists (PSOE) are in line to win 168 seats, eight short of an outright majority, and if numbers hold up, the PSOE can team up with the Catalan Left and the United Left to pass legislation. The Senate appears also that it will be closer. See the Spanish Ministry of Interior for returns; more later.

Is it the 1700s again?

2008-03-02T21:05:00.003-05:00

At the Washington Post today, an opinion piece that makes me wonder about that very question.

Columnist Charlotte Allen says that:

Hillary Clinton's campaign has been undermined by "every stereotypical flaw of the female sex."
Women always fall for "the hysterical, the superficial and the gooily sentimental," citing historical literature and "Grey's Anatomy" to back up her claims.
Women get into more accidents! (Sure, the odds that men's accidents are fatal are 3 times as high, but so what?)
Men's brains are bigger! (I've seen the evidence that men have a higher distribution in terms of intelligence--i.e., there are more men on the very high and very low end--but that proves what, exactly?)
A made-up story about how women had to remember where berries were back when humans were hunter-gatherers! (That is supposed to prove something?)

The conclusion from the overwhelming evidence she has presented:

So I don't understand why more women don't relax, enjoy the innate abilities most of us possess (as well as the ones fewer of us possess) and revel in the things most important to life at which nearly all of us excel: tenderness toward children and men and the weak and the ability to make a house a home. (Even I, who inherited my interior-decorating skills from my Bronx Irish paternal grandmother, whose idea of upgrading the living-room sofa was to throw a blanket over it, can make a house a home.) Then we could shriek and swoon and gossip and read chick lit to our hearts' content and not mind the fact that way down deep, we are . . . kind of dim.

So, I guess my question is... well, I have 2 questions:
(1) WHAT?!?!?
(2) Is this some sort of satire? I don't think so, based on this opinion column from 2005 regarding the Larry Summers events at Harvard. Allen states that feminism is one of three 20th-century totalitarian ideologies (along with communism and Nazism). She then makes essentially the same argument as here.

Apparently, we're still a little behind the Victorian Age...

Friday anthem - God Defend New Zealand/E Ihowa Atua

2008-03-01T00:02:00.002-05:00

New Zealand is the only country in the world with two official national anthems. Many countries have a "national" anthem and a "royal" anthem, but in NZ, "God Defend New Zealand" and "God Save the Queen/King" are co-anthems. In reality, "God Defend NZ" is much more commonly played as the national anthem.

The song was first performed in 1876; two years later, it was first translated into Maori, and the plethora of vowels in Maori is clear from the shorter length of the Maori version (as more vowels = more short syllables). The meaning of "Pacific's triple star" is still unclear; it could stand for a Maori symbol, for the Southern Cross or for the three largest islands in NZ, to quote three theories.

The anthem became official in 1976 after the presentation of a petition to the House. Today, the Maori first verse is typically sung before the English first verse. Full lyrics and a history are available from the government of NZ; the Maori lyrics and their English translation are here.

There are lots of videos online for this one; the NZ government site linked to above also has several mp3s.

This version is a video formerly played on an NZ TV station; it includes two verses in Maori and three in English.

The video below is NZ singer Hayley Westenra singing both "God Defend NZ" and "God Save the Queen" at a memorial dedication in Britain.

Useless things I just learned

2008-02-29T00:40:00.002-05:00

"Putin" in French is spelled "Poutine." Now I'm hungry again.

(Learned from: Le Monde.)

Decaying suburbs?

2008-02-27T22:41:00.003-05:00

An interesting article at The Atlantic posits the idea of residential single-family suburbs turning into tomorrow's low income communities, homes divided into rental units, while cities redevelop and gentrify.

Key idea paragraph:

For 60 years, Americans have pushed steadily into the suburbs, transforming the landscape and (until recently) leaving cities behind. But today the pendulum is swinging back toward urban living, and there are many reasons to believe this swing will continue. As it does, many low-density suburbs and McMansion subdivisions, including some that are lovely and affluent today, may become what inner cities became in the 1960s and ’70s—slums characterized by poverty, crime, and decay.

It's interesting to think about. While I certainly could believe it, I'd like to know more about the reasons for these changes other than just "there's lots of demand out there." They said that about Clear Pepsi.

Michelle Obama in Houston

2008-02-26T22:42:00.004-05:00

Michelle Obama spoke at UH in front of an estimated 1200 supporters last night. Michelle is a great speaker. She hit mostly the same points that you can see in the Youtube video (Part 1 here). The clip embedded here is a short bit of the actual Houston rally.

Those of you who know me can check out the picture with the article. As I headed off the stage, I got to shake the hand of the introductory speaker. I thought of absolutely nothing to say to him. Not one of my finer moments.

Tonight's Democratic debate

2008-02-26T22:35:00.004-05:00

was pretty much useless and horribly repetitive. The best lines were Obama's quips--when they played Hillary parodying him at a campaign rally, and he responded "Sounds good"; and when they were debating the ridiculous Farrakhan question and he said "If Hillary thinks that reject is stronger than denounce, I'm happy to concede the point and I both reject AND denounce." Obama noting (during that same exchange) that he wouldn't be there if not for Jewish supporters of civil rights was good too.

The only point Hillary made that I don't think Obama rebutted effectively was during the interminable health-care segment. She hit him on mandates and he said something about "we want to make sure that kids have care but we don't want to force adults if the subsidies are not enough." Not good if your health-care plan is based on lowering costs sufficiently without mandates. I think there is a way to rebut but he didn't do it.

Hillary's SNL line was bad. That's two debates in a row where Hillary has had a horrible planned joke/line and it sounded whiny.

Last question... why can't we ever get NAFTA and immigration covered simultaneously, since everyone talks about "getting environmental and labor standards" (for Mexico obviously) and everyone talks about "improving economic conditions in Mexico" (to cut immigration long-term). Any thoughts from the candidates on how to reconcile the two? How, exactly, can we renegotiate NAFTA to be good for all Americans (in the short term)? How would Mexico get any advantage out of it, then?

It's time for baseball!

2008-02-24T19:20:00.003-05:00

~~One of the great things~~ The great thing about living in Houston is that there are nice days in February--nice enough to go see a baseball game in shorts. And so I ended up at Cougar Field at the University of Houston today, just in time to catch a painfully slow game between the Cougars and Pacific. I was almost asleep as the game dragged on for four hours, but was brought back to life by a great last two innings, as the Cougars, who trailed all game, rallied to win in the bottom of the ninth.

I met someone there who was a contributor to Project Scoresheet, the sabermetric project from the early '80s that later evolved into STATS Inc. The project got its impetus from the refusal of baseball's official statistician (Elias) to share specific data. He told me about a conversation he'd had with one of the Astros' announcers at the time. "I was telling him about these numbers," the man said, "and he said to me, 'That's great, but nothing will ever replace the crack of the bat and the smell of the grass.' " And so it is.

Time for baseball once more!

Quote of the week... McCain edition

2008-02-23T14:41:00.003-05:00

Robert S. Bennett, McCain attorney, on McCain's denial of meeting with broadcaster Bud Paxson, and Paxson's claim that it occurred:

"We understood that he [McCain] did not speak directly with him [Paxson]. Now it appears he did speak to him. What is the difference?" (from the Washington Post).

Incentive pay for teachers

2008-02-23T14:18:00.001-05:00

Cross-posted at the other home.

One of the big movements in teaching is “incentive pay.” Now, the rules of rewards are simple: be clear on what is needed to get the reward, be sure everybody agrees that the rules are fair, and be sure the reward is aligned to desired behavior.

The Houston Independent School District has a new “incentive pay” system called “ASPIRE.” This system fails on all three counts. The system is somewhat unclear, nobody can agree that the rules are great, and it does not create what (in my opinion) desired behavior should be.

What does one need to do to get money (up to about $8,000) under ASPIRE? The answer, in short form, is (a) get your students to have high test scores and (b) be at a school that makes overall improvement in test scores. However, the way in which the “value added” to each student is calculated is unknown. HISD students take two tests: the Stanford 10 (for all grade levels), which is a waste of a week of instructional time, and the TAKS, which is the state exam (starting in third grade). Somehow, these scores are put into a formula that derives the “value added” for all students—i.e., evaluating a student based on how the student performs year-to-year, and not comparing grade cohorts to the previous cohort.

Now, “value added” is great as a concept, but there are two significant problems. One is that if students score extremely high, it’s hard to have “value added,” since it’s tough to beat expectations. How is that accounted for in the formula? I have no idea, since I haven’t seen it, and neither has my principal. This was a major problem for my school. We typically score very high, in particular because GT students (gifted-talented) have a magnet program at my school. Our percentage passing went from 93% two years ago to 92% last year (these are very high percentages for HISD). Therefore, we ended up in “Quadrant 4,” which in HISD lingo means that we get $150 per teacher in school bonuses—since we didn’t create more “value added.”

The second problem with “value added” is that there are sometimes changes from year-to-year that aren’t accounted for. The specific change I am referring to is the language of instruction. My students are in their first year of taking their tests in English—last year, they took all assessments in Spanish. Therefore, last year their teacher taught them almost all in Spanish, and this year I have to get them speaking English and passing writing, reading and math tests at a fourth-grade level. Obviously, their scores go down in fourth grade compared to third, because their English is not at a fourth-grade level. This is not accounted for by the ASPIRE system, which expects them to improve at the same rate regardless. Therefore, my behavior is negatively impacted. I got no individual bonus because my students didn’t improve their scores over last year’s—for obvious reasons.

So, there are unclear rules, and the rules are unfair as regards the bilingual program and how exactly “value added” is calculated. But do the rules motivate the right behavior, regardless? That depends on what you think the right behavior should be. Generally, what is desired is (a) more campus cooperation and, as a result, (b) higher test scores. The amount of disagreement about the rules and even the concept of ASPIRE means that (a) is grievously undermined. It doesn’t affect the behavior of the teachers at all and it creates a lot of anger when the bonuses are actually distributed. Our campus felt disregarded when we didn’t get a lot of school money, even when schools which are much worse than ours got far more money just for bringing up very low scores. Really, this means that (b) is not impacted. Is (b)—raising test scores—a worthy goal? Well, that’s a long discussion for another time.

What this shows, I think, is that a system which many people think of as “worthy” (the pay is being funded, I am told, by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation) is really the subject of much disagreement and bitterness. “Incentive pay” as a concept for teachers remains a good idea, in theory. But, of course, there have been many other good theories that fail upon execution.

Friday anthem - Ој, свијетла мајска зоро

2008-02-23T00:36:00.003-05:00

"Oj, svijetla majska zoro", or in English, "Oh, bright dawn of May," is the national anthem of Europe's now second-newest independent state, Montenegro. It is also quite catchy. It's existed in several forms since originating as a folk song, but the newest lyrics were adopted when the anthem itself was officially adopted, in 2004. At that time Yugoslavia was dissolved into the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro (which itself dissolved in 2006 after Montenegrins declared independence). The independent Montenegrin principality which existed before World War I used a different anthem.

My favorite Montenegro fact is that the name Montenegro ("Black Mountain") is often translated into other languages literally--English, which uses the Italian name, is an exception. In Montenegrin/Serbian, the name is Crna Gora; in Turkish, Karadağ; in Albanian, Mali i Zi.

There are four verses to the anthem; some of the lines are repeated in a certain pattern, however. For the full lyrics, see the Wikipedia article.

The Economist agrees with me! Kind of

2008-02-18T20:34:00.004-05:00

No less an authority than The Economist dislikes Kosovo's flag, too! (see below for image). They have a somewhat specific point for their objection, though: they don't like having "a precise outline of a map," since that makes it hard to reproduce. I suppose the one thing that makes Kosovo's flag distinctively sterile--a lack of symbolism--is the one thing that was necessary, but they could have done better even so.

Cyprus: Republic voters call for more dialogue?

2008-02-17T18:57:00.003-05:00

In the Cypriot presidential elections this weekend, current President Tassos Papadopoulos has been eliminated for a three-horse race. Papadopoulos, who has been rather intransigent on reunification talks and torpedoed the Annan Plan, was regarded as the most hard-line of the three candidates running. This is a little surprising insofar as Papadopoulos had shown a modest lead in all the opinion polls. However, the final results were:

Ioannis Casoulides (Democratic Rally), 33.5%
Demetris Christophias (AKEL), 33.3%
Tassos Papadopoulos (Democratic Party), 31.8%

Casoulides is the candidate of the conservative Democratic Rally of former president Glafcos Clerides, who endorsed the Annan Plan for reunification. He is generally seen as the most capable of reaching a negotiated solution. The second round will be held in one week, on February 24.

It's done.

2008-02-17T18:41:00.007-05:00

Not "done" as in the sense of "resolved," but "done" as in the sense of "finally occurred," that is. Kosovo declared independence today. Luckily, it appears that the largest war this has set off is the edit war on Wikipedia's Kosovo page, the lead of which has changed approximately 532 times today.

There's still a lot more to resolve--for example, Serbia (and Russia) mildly disagrees with the whole independence thing--but in the spirit of celebration, the Kosovan government started things off by adopting the world's ugliest flag (see below, image from Wikipedia). They managed not only to copy the Bosnian flag, but to make it much, much worse. The Albanians will no doubt continue using the Albanian flag (perhaps the real intention behind adopting a horrible flag, anyway).

Many countries, including some EU countries, won't recognize Kosovo's independence, starting of course with Serbia and opportunistic big-power ally Russia--this means that Kosovo can't join the UN for the foreseeable future due to Russia's Council veto. But EU members who won't recognize independence, generally for self-interested reasons, including Greece and Cyprus (due to the Northern Cyprus separatist issue), Bulgaria (Russian relations, perhaps?), Romania (Russian relations, too, but also maybe solidarity with Moldova over Transnistria?), and Spain (which has its own problems with ethnic separatism).

On the other hand, France (no more Corsica problem), Germany, Britain and Belgium (following its national motto of "ever ~~closer union~~ more secession"), along with the US, are expected to recognize Kosovo's independence in the coming days (of course, Albania will too). On the ground, nothing really will be changing except for the arrival of the UN mission, and the northern part of Kosovo remains under de facto Serb control. However, we can look forward to the country adopting a (horrible?) national anthem, too, as well as of course a constitution, which should be coming in the next few months.

Friday anthem - Mawtini

2008-02-08T19:52:00.000-05:00

Mawtini (Arabic - "My Homeland") is currently the national anthem of Iraq, but the anthem has its roots in Palestine. The anthem was written at a time of anti-British fervor in the Palestine Mandate, 1934, just before the Arab revolt against the British mandatory government erupted in 1936. Since then, it has become a song used in many Arab countries, and is in its second stint as national anthem of Iraq. There's a clear anger in the song, a sense that there's a fight on against external enemies who are denying security to the homeland--common in national anthems, certainly true of the Palestine in 1934 as well as today, and true in Iraq as well.

Best lines (from the first verse, referring to the homeland): Will I see you? / Safe and comfortable / sound and honored / Will I see you in your eminence / reaching the stars?

See Wiki for the full lyrics and a good Latin transliteration.

The Youtube I post here is a beautiful rendition from Iraqi singer Ilham al-Madfa'i along with pictures of Iraq. Note that he changes two lines in the second stanza--to what end, I don't know.

There is also a good version here which posts the Arabic lyrics along with a chorus singing the song. I don't have any clue what the rest of the site is about, but it's a good rendition of the anthem.

Will WA go for Obama?

2008-02-08T19:46:00.000-05:00

I certainly don't have any unique insight on this, having been out of the state for one and a half years, but certainly a lot of people I know who are still there are excited about Obama; polls show Obama out in the lead. While Clinton has a 6-3 superdelegate advantage in the state, the #3 for Obama is the just-now endorsement of Gov. Christine Gregoire; Clinton's mostly committed a long time ago. Obama drew a packed house at KeyArena as they were turning people away at the doors an hour ahead of time. Amazing. It will certainly be a proud moment for me if my home state votes for change!

Chad: back to normal...

2008-02-08T19:34:00.001-05:00

Looks like everything in Chad is, as much as possible, back to normal--i.e. most people are still poor, the government is dysfunctional and corrupt, and instead of rebels in the capital, there's just a low-level insurgency. Seemed as though Sarkozy was really going to go through with not supporting Déby's government for a little while... then it turned out they just got the Security Council to legitimize it. There's certainly a good case for France to support Déby, for the reasons in my previous post, and really no argument that the rebels are a better option; but it will be disappointing not to see some serious pressure on Déby's government on human rights and transparency at this point.

Tadić reelected in Serbia

2008-02-03T20:36:00.000-05:00

Pro-European candidate Boris Tadić won reelection by a slim margin in the runoff over nationalist Tomislav Nikolić today; the margin was 51.6 percent to 47.7 percent. (See my previous post on the results of the first round). Turnout was reportedly again extremely high, even higher than the first round at 66 percent, as Serbs knew the stakes today. I guess we can probably expect to see Kosovo declare independence shortly, then...

Commemorating Palestinian villages

2008-02-03T11:55:00.000-05:00

According to a report in Ha'aretz, the Jewish National Fund will place signs in parks which were formerly occupied by Palestinian villages. For those not familiar with the Israeli land ownership system, the Jewish National Fund owns some parts of Israeli land but is also the custodian of "absentee lands"--i.e. lands of Palestinian refugees (including those who were in Israeli territory at the cease-fire but not actually on their land).

About 500 former Palestinian villages were demolished. According to the organization Zochrot, which is fighting for the commemoration, there are 86 former villages within the boundaries of national parks; the JNF has reportedly will commemorate 31, placing information about the villages on their former sites.

There are different ways to look at this move. A cynic would say that the JNF wants to accelerate the process of historicizing and making everything a fait accompli, as has always been Israel's strategy; but realistically, it's almost certain no Palestinian will return to these demolished villages to live. Note that the organization, Zochrot (Remembering), which is pushing for the commemoration, supports the right of return for Palestinian refugees, so they clearly hope that such moves will keep the memory alive as older refugees who went through Nakba continue to die out. I would think a bigger question is, what about the other 450 villages that aren't yet commemorated?

It's also sad that most of these plaques will probably be vandalized by right-wingers. The Ha'aretz article shows a standing sign which had already been mostly removed. Just another reminder that the issue is far from being ancient history.

Chad: change of dictators?

2008-02-02T19:27:00.000-05:00

We have drama today in the African nation of Chad, where apparently, rebel forces were able to make it into the capital of N'Djamena and all the way to the presidential palace. It seems that President Idriss Déby is still in control of at least part of the capital, and he's not gone, but everything is far from certain. This echoes a rebel strike in 2006 where they made it to the National Assembly building but were repulsed.

Chad is one of those countries where things like this are possible because, outside the capital (and key ~~presidential properties~~ oil fields), there really isn't too much of a government. One of the terms for such places is "failed states," though there is certainly some question as to whether Chad ever enrolled in the course to begin with. Anyway, these rebels are backed by Sudan, and Chad backs rebels in Darfur, so this does have some international relevance as well.

President Déby is certainly no democrat. Technically, he's "elected" against "opponents," but he did have the minor incumbency advantage of coming to power in a rebellion in 1990 which ousted his former boss, Hissène Habré, who ruled from 1982-1990. Chad has a long and storied history of aides and deputies deposing their previous employers, which also appears to be the case with our current rebel, Mahamat Nouri, who apparently has been a top gun for both presidents. (While I'm not a Chad expert, I do get the sense that a large number of people in the narrative change sides frequently in an opportunistic fashion). Nouri heads the "Union of Forces for Democracy and Development." This name is undoubtedly accurate insofar as it is (maybe) a union of some type of forces.

Déby, by the way, is hated by most people after changing the constitution to allow himself yet another term in office in 2006--not that he was Mr. Popular before then, having stuffed the army with members of his small Zaghawa group. He's also the one who gave the finger to the World Bank, taking the money out of that account which was supposed to be for "long-term development" use and spending it (surprise!) on the military.

Now, there is no reason to believe that Nouri would be any different than Déby, at least that I can figure out. This makes reason #1 that the French continue to back Déby. Better the devil you know, right? Reason #2 would be the Sudanese support for the rebels; no need to make Sudan feel more secure what with everything going on in Darfur. Reason #3 would be the danger of creating more instability, not just in Sudan but also in the neighboring Central African Republic, which, if it were a pigs' house, would definitively be of straw. It will be interesting to see what develops in the next 48-72 hours with regard to the situation.

Friday anthem - La Marcha Real

2008-02-02T19:11:00.000-05:00

I'm late on what is only the second Friday anthem... not a good start, I know.

Today's national anthem is the anthem of Spain, La Marcha Real (The Royal March), sometimes referred to as the Marcha Granadera (March of the Grenadiers). It's been Spain's national anthem since sometime in the 18th century, with only a quick interruption from 1931-39 when the Second Republic introduced the Himno de Riego instead (that anthem celebrates General del Riego's installation of the liberal First Republic). Franco then restored the Marcha Real.

Spain's national anthem has been in the news recently (as I noted in a recent post); the Spanish Olympic Committee was intending to submit a petition to parliament to adopt a new set of lyrics. However, it appears that today in Spain, there are no lyrics which would be acceptable to everyone, given the separatism, regionalism and left-right schisms that persist. Therefore, the anthem remains wordless.

Many on the Right still sing the lyrics written by the nationalist José María Pemán during the Franco era, which you can see by heading to the Wiki article.

Quote of the night

2008-01-29T21:34:00.001-05:00

"Our jobs are being sought by foreign countries, like Asia and India." --Mitt Romney in his concession speech

State of the Union

2008-01-28T21:39:00.000-05:00

#1 line: "...the Constitution means what it says."

Russian presidential election: not quite as close

2008-01-27T13:13:00.001-05:00

Dmitry Medvedev is probably not quite so tense as Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton these days. Results from a recent poll (January 18-21) show Putin's chosen heir with 82%, though to be fair, that is just a 73% margin over his closest rival, Gennady Zyuganov.

Just to make sure that the margin doesn't close, though, the electoral commission has disqualified the only man close to being regarded as an "opposition candidate," ex-PM Mikhail Kasyanov, who had a solid 1% in the poll (but it's a committed 1%). Also, undoubtedly, Medvedev can count on 99% turnout and 99% of the votes from Chechnya and Ingushetia, just like in the parliamentary elections. The Chechens love Vladimir Putin!

Caroline Kennedy endorses Obama; Obama's SC victory speech

2008-01-26T21:37:00.000-05:00

Caroline Kennedy has endorsed Barack Obama in an editorial in the NYT entitled "A President Like My Father." She says, in part, the following:

All my life, people have told me that my father changed their lives, that they got involved in public service or politics because he asked them to. And the generation he inspired has passed that spirit on to its children. I meet young people who were born long after John F. Kennedy was president, yet who ask me how to live out his ideals.
Sometimes it takes a while to recognize that someone has a special ability to get us to believe in ourselves, to tie that belief to our highest ideals and imagine that together we can do great things. In those rare moments, when such a person comes along, we need to put aside our plans and reach for what we know is possible.

Barack is an inspirational voice for the future for our generation, just as JFK was for his.

Meanwhile, if you didn't see it, Barack gave an amazing victory speech tonight in South Carolina after his 55-27% blowout of Hillary Clinton, calling on us to move past divisive politics that box people in, and look to the future and to addressing the problems that concern all of us. It was a denunciation of the manipulative, deceptive methods the Clintons have been using and a call to go down the path that will best serve the Democratic Party and all Americans.

Update: (1) Here is the transcript of Obama's speech from NYT.

(2) Ezra Klein says, re Hillary: "The chances for disappointment are less, but so are the chances for transformation." I agree, but (a) we need transformation and (b) I'm young and still believe in voting for the honest guy.

Opera relegalized in Turkmenistan: good thing or bad thing?

2008-01-26T14:53:00.000-05:00

On the plus side, it looks like the autocratic government continues to at least restore a semblance of normality. Opera, the circus, ballet and other such pernicious foreign cultural influences are now legal again after being illegalized during the Years of the Rukhnama. (For other examples of the weirdness of Saparmurat Niyazov, Father of the Turkmen, I recommend checking out the archives of the Turkmenistan Project, which have weekly news summaries up through 2007).

The downside, of course, is that some people will have to listen to opera.

More seriously, it's also being reported that the Turkmen government will actually permit an international auditing of the country's gas reserves. To see, you know, if they really exist. Niyazov said they did, but depending on Niyazov's sanity was always inadvisable.

Friday anthem - Auferstanden aus Ruinen

2008-01-25T23:34:00.000-05:00

The national anthem of East Germany, "Auferstanden aus Ruinen" (English: Risen from Ruins). The Youtube includes many images of the DDR. ¡Qué Ostalgia! It reminds me of Good-bye, Lenin!, one of my favorite movies because it includes not one, but two national anthems in their entirety ("Auferstanden" and "Das Lied der Deutschen").

Anyway, the "fun fact" about "Auferstanden" is that it has exactly the same beat as "Das Lied der Deutschen," that is, each can be sung along with the other melody (the music for "Auferstanden" was by Hanns Eisler). Also, since the author of the lyrics (Johannes Becher) neglected to anticipate the incoming Cold War, the lyrics ("Germany, united fatherland!") had to be left behind somewhere in the '50s, leaving just the tune. Best other line: "If we unite as brothers, we will defeat the enemy of the people."

Electoral reform in Italy

2008-01-25T22:52:00.001-05:00

Romano Prodi's government in Italy has fallen. However, Italy can't really go to elections yet, because the electoral system is defective. The current ridiculous system was introduced by Silvio Berlusconi's outgoing rightist government in a blatant bid to win the next elections. It allowed Prodi's Union coalition to sweep into office with a big majority in the House of Deputies, yet have only a two-vote margin in the Senate (whose confidence must be retained). This meant small parties could still play the blackmailer role, and one of them, UDEUR, a small Christian-democratic party most popular in the Naples area, left the coalition due to a corruption probe into the justice minister's wife.

It appears that Italy will have some sort of unity or technocratic government whose task is to bring the country to elections. All sorts of solutions have been mooted for the problem of the disproportionate power held by smaller parties in the large coalitions (especially on the left), even as far as bringing in first-past-the-post. (In Israel, which has the same problem, the same solutions have been mooted).

The Italian Constitutional Court has just okayed a referendum to go forward. From the Reuters link it seems that voters would vote "yes" or "no" to several different possibilities to be incorporated into a law. Of course, if that's the case, this sort of referendum is defective insofar as some of the possibilities approved might well be contradictory. But it may well result in something better than the political parties have managed to agree on.

If the big parties can put aside their rivalries, the best solution may well be the simplest--just forget about everything else, and impose a 4 or 5% threshold, distributing seats in the regions. Ban joint electoral lists or coalitions if it's necessary. MMP doesn't seem like a great idea--in prior years it was manipulated by the larger parties, who ran duplicate "front" parties in the constituencies to increase their parliamentary overhang (as is legal, but distasteful; it doesn't happen in Germany, New Zealand or Scotland, other places where MMP is used).

A threshold of 5% would likely allow in the center-left Democratic Party, the Communist Refoundation, the centrist/Christian-democratic Union of Christian and Center Democrats, the conservative Forza Italia, and the rightist National Alliance. Also possibly clearing the bar would be the socialist Democratic Left and the regionalist Northern League. A reasonable diversity of opinion, all in all, without allowing excessive proportionality to continue to paralyze government.

New flag for Iraq

2008-01-22T19:17:00.000-05:00

The Iraqi parliament has approved a new flag design, eliminating the three green stars from the center band of the flag:

old flag

new flag

The three stars in the old Iraqi flag were for Iraq, Syria and Egypt, which under their Arab nationalist (Ba'ath in Iraq and Syria) leadership were supposed to form the United Arab Republic. The United Arab Republic, in any form, hasn't existed in around 45 years, plus it reminds everyone of the Ba'ath party, so they ditched the stars.

This is supposed to be a "temporary" design for when a new flag is agreed upon, theoretically next year. I will, however, be taking 2015 in the office betting pool.

Update: Changed on 25 January because Wiki changed the images on me. The "old" flag now comes from Flags of the World.

Martin Luther King, Jr., Day

2008-01-22T00:55:00.001-05:00

I had, admittedly, not listened to Martin Luther King's speech "Why I Oppose the War in Vietnam," before today. It is worth 23 minutes to hear in its entirety.

The Belgian version of "intercultural"

2008-01-21T14:41:00.001-05:00

An amusing (?) note from the Economist's EU blogger:

2008 is the European Year of Intercultural Dialogue. As such, the website highlights national projects done in each of the EU member states. There are 27 member states, and 29 projects. Why 29 projects? It seems that 26 member states have one project each, and Belgium submitted three--one intercultural project from the Flemings, one intercultural project from the Walloons, and one intercultural project from the tiny German-speaking community of Belgium. That's the true meaning of multiculturalism.

Guess we shouldn't read too much into it. After all, six months after their elections, they did finally manage to form a provisional government...

Update: I changed the title of the post, just because its dripping sarcasm is hard to pick up through a computer.

Serbia: second round, as expected, on high turnout

2008-01-20T23:50:00.001-05:00

Radical Party candidate Tomislav Nikolić and current president/Democratic Party candidate Boris Tadić have finished 1-2 in the Serbian presidential election first round, as was widely expected. The greater surprise here was turnout, which was around 60 percent, well up from the last presidential poll in 2004 and roughly equivalent to turnout in last year's parliamentary poll.

Compared to the previous election, both leading candidates took higher shares of the vote (Nikolić at 39 percent and Tadić at 35 percent). A key question will be where supporters of the third-place candidate, Velimir Ilić of New Serbia (an ally of PM Vojislav Koštunica) decide to put their second-round votes.

If one assumes that Tadić takes most of the votes of Cedomir Jovanović (a liberal) and Ištvan Pastor (the Hungarian minority candidate) this gives him 43.2 percent; Nikolić gets the support of Milutin Mrkonijć (from Milosević's Socialists) for 45.4 percent. It therefore seems that much will turn on those who voted for Ilić, who took 7.6 percent in the first round. Note that in 2004, turnout for the second round was almost identical as for the first round.

RFE/RL has coverage. The numbers I have seen come from Wikipedia, and I am not sure of the original source.

The day's other big election

2008-01-19T20:35:00.000-05:00

While on Saturday, January 19, many people were paying attention to the caucuses in Nevada and the GOP primary in South Carolina, there was of course another earth-shattering election taking place. I refer, of course, to the general election in the Danish dependency of the Faroe Islands.

Interestingly, (and of more interest than this year's outcome), the Faroe Islands appear to have reached an equilibrium between four parties in their proportional-representation system, despite their minuscule size. Note that the Faroes have not just traditional left-right divisions, but also cleavages between pro-independence forces and pro-union (with Denmark) forces. The same four parties have been the largest in parliament since 1950 in this small island group of under 50,000 people (see Wikipedia for background).

No party, since that same year of 1950, has taken more than 27.5 percent of the vote; no party has ever held an absolute majority in parliament; and no party has even held more than 10 seats in parliament (26 to 33 seats total) since the 1946-47 period. From 1958 through 1980, the Social Democrats were marginally larger than the other parties (enjoying a 1- or 2-seat advantage after each election compared to their largest competitor), but this advantage no longer exists.

For this year's election, the electoral system was changed slightly, to eliminate regional constituencies which had resulted in slight disproportionalities. The system used this year allocates seats based on open lists for the entire territory.

Perhaps the biggest story in this year's uneventful election was the gain of almost 6 percent of the vote, and 2 seats, combined for the other two small parties in parliament. Other than that, the Social Democrats lost one seat, and all other parties remained even in terms of seats: Republic 8; Union Party 7; People's Party 7; Social Democrats 6; smaller parties 5. Summary in English is available at Parties and Elections.

Still life with food

2008-01-19T20:25:00.001-05:00

These still life photographs entirely made out of food are pretty crazy. They kind of remind me of the book Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, especially the end where everybody gets onto the food boats and leaves (see photograph #8, also notable for creative use of salmon).

Tadić looking for a second term in Serbia

2008-01-19T13:15:00.001-05:00

Serbia goes to the polls tomorrow to elect a president. Expect current president Boris Tadić and Radical Party leader Tomislav Nikolić to advance to the second round. Interestingly, it looks like ultranationalist Nikolić is running a slick campaign (reportedly helped by a Western PR firm) while the pro-EU Tadić is showing the Serbian flag whenever he can. A good sign, at least, that the two are trying to appeal to crossover voters. PM Vojislav Kostunica is backing a small-party candidate to gain more leverage in the second round (he probably will back Tadić in the end).

The question is whether Serbia has an alternative to Europe (answer: no, unless it becomes a Russian puppet state). Russia has reportedly been trying to pressure the Serbs, but they only want a relationship on their terms (read: Russian control over gas, Russian economic/political ties, in return for Russian support on Kosovo).

Picking Nikolić would be a throwback to the old days. If Tadić can win over most of the Serbs who want continued economic growth (the #1 issue despite all the talk about Kosovo), he should squeak by in the runoff which is almost certain to come.

See the Economist or RFE/RL (and an analysis from RFE). Wikipedia entry here.

No further comment necessary

2008-01-17T18:26:00.001-05:00

WSU student arrested twice in same night for smoking pot

New Spanish anthem lyrics rejected...again

2008-01-17T18:13:00.001-05:00

Yet again, Spaniards are unable to agree on an anthem. This time the idea was propelled by Spain's Olympic Committee, with the hope of having lyrics for Spain's athletes to sing in time for the next Olympics. Lyrics by a self-described unemployed "loser" from La Mancha were chosen by the panel of experts. Paulino Cubero said that "I wrote the anthem for the fatherland of the average people, of those that take the metro to go to work."

Apparently, the objections mainly came from the left, and wisely, Zapatero doesn't seem to have said much at all. Rajoy apparently didn't comment, while the leader of the small United Left, Gaspar Llamazares, was quite critical. However, there's been enough objections that the Committee has shelved the proposal, which was supposed to be debuted by Placido Domingo.

Honestly, if they can't agree on these lyrics, which ones will they agree on?

¡Viva España!

Cantemos todos juntos

con distinta voz

y un solo corazón

¡Viva España!

desde los verdes valles

al inmenso mar,

un himno de hermandad

Ama a la patria

pues sabe abrazar,

bajo su cielo azul,

pueblos en libertad

Gloria a los hijos

que a la Historia dan

justicia y grandeza

democracia y paz.

Selig's contract extended again

2008-01-17T18:09:00.000-05:00

A couple days after being called out at Congress, Bud Selig's contract as commissioner has been unanimously extended again (through 2012). In his statements, Selig said: "By the time I leave, you won't recognize the sport." Not sure which is sadder: (1) that Selig thinks not recognizing the sport would be a good thing or that (2) he doesn't realize this is already the case. He's already done quite enough.

Voting in Poland

2007-10-21T13:09:00.000-04:00

Poland has voted today, two years ahead of schedule, after corruption scandals brought down the coalition between conservative/nationalist Law and Justice (PiS), left-populist/xenophobic Samoobrona and the right-Catholic/xenophobic League of Polish Families. The Kaczynski government has been notable for its lack of foreign-policy acumen, and its perhaps overzealous prosecution of the "removal of ex-communist influence" from government bodies, as well as the corruption issues which have generally involved Samoobrona.

Recent polls showed the more classical-liberal Civic Platform (PO) of opposition leader Donald Tusk leading PiS by a couple of percentage points. Either way, a coalition would be necessary, with the most likely partner for PO being Left and Democrats (LiD), a grouping of the former ruling Democratic Left Alliance as well as splinter parties from that party, the Social Democratic Party and the Democratic Party, and another center-left party, the Union of Labor. LiD lags in the polls and will take under 20 percent in any event, but shares with PO the trait that they are pragmatic and not insane ideologues. Hence the two groups seem the most natural partners.

So far, turnout through 16.30h is far ahead of the 2005 turnout--nationwide, 38% compared with 27% two years ago. The Kaczynski government (yes/no) is a clear wedge issue. Whereas in 2005 abstention was 60%, it appears that more than 50% will probably turn out this time.

Results as they come.

Symbols, but not actions

2007-10-04T23:19:00.001-04:00

Props to Barack for not needing a flag lapel pin to love America.

Makes me proud to live in a state where every morning I have to say "Honor the Texas flag. I pledge allegiance to thee, Texas, one state under God, one and indivisible."

Ukraine results coming in

2007-09-30T20:35:00.000-04:00

Results from the Ukrainian parliamentary election are coming in. This is Ukraine's third election in three years as the country continues to try to resolve the East-West tension (with the more Orthodox, Russian-speaking east supporting current PM Viktor Yanukovich and the Catholic, Ukrainian-speaking west supporting President Yushchenko).

Ukraine is rather unique in that it has a 450-seat parliament which is allocated entirely based on proportional representation in one nationwide constituency, with a 3% threshold. Moreover, the lists are closed. This system is tailor-made for abuse, as there's an obvious ability to get big businessmen ("oligarchs") and questionable characters in automatically by putting them high on the list. (Of course, this was happening well before Ukraine made the switch to this electoral system, anyway.)

At any rate, there's little reason to expect a large swing one way or the other. Because most voters are choosing a party on the basis of their religious/cultural leanings, they vote the same way each time. I'd wager that the number of swing voters is exceptionally low. There have been stories about how both sides are getting American advisors to make their policies more media-friendly, but I'm not sure who exactly needs to be convinced one way or the other.

The BBC is currently reporting that exit polls show 45 percent for Yuliya Tymoshenko's bloc plus Yushchenko's "Our Ukraine" party, next to 35.5 percent for Yanukovich's Party of Regions. This may have been influenced by what looks like, at first glance, slightly higher turnout in some "orange" regions. However, we'll have to wait to see what the full regional breakdown looks like.

Russian presidential term limits

2007-09-14T02:32:00.001-04:00

Article 81.3 of the Russian constitution states: "No one person shall hold the office of President of the Russian Federation for more than two terms in succession."

So if Putin steps down (surprise!) and Zubkov takes over before the elections, Putin could run again, right? Just another theory.

Another fun quote: "Acting Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov said Wednesday he has no doubts parliament will approve the head of the country's financial regulator as the new premier. He also said he was sure the new government will continue the course led by the dismissed government."

Well, of course.

Shocking: NCLB needs changes!

2007-07-26T21:13:00.001-04:00

A Daily Kos journal talks about Jim Cummins, the researcher whose work deals mainly with second language acquisition, something I spend a lot of my time dealing with. It's a good read on the defects of NCLB, especially in relation to English language learners (ELLs), if you're not familiar with the issue.

I post at more length on the other blog, and I promise to extend my thoughts over there soon.

AKP carries the day!

2007-07-22T14:35:00.000-04:00

With results coming in from most constituencies, it's clear that the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) is going to take the Turkish election. Three parties--the AKP, the "secularist" CHP and the nationalist MHP--will win seats in the parliament, along with Kurdish independents (really members of DTP running as independents) in the southeast.

Really, who would have thought that a hard-line, uncompromising strategy from Turkey's ruling generals would fail to carry the day? Seriously, it looks like most Turks have really cast their lot with AKP not so much for solidarity with their ideological goals--whatever those are--but to show the generals that their peculiar "secularism" no longer holds any weight in Turkey and that they disagree with discrimination against Islamist candidates.

For once, BBC has a decent map of the results, here. Currently with about 60 percent of ballot boxes reporting, we have:
AKP 48%
CHP 20%
MHP 14%
independents 6% (not all of which, of course, is for independent candidates who will be elected)

Canadians aren't civic, too

2007-06-30T21:20:00.000-04:00

It seems like we always hear about how Americans don't know anything about the United States. Or maybe we don't always hear about it; regardless, it's true. Most native-born Americans couldn't pass the citizenship test.

But, apparently, they have the same problem in Canada! And while most first-generation immigrants can still pass, native-born Canadians do dismally--and are doing worse now than they did 10 years ago. Only 40 percent of native-born Canadians would pass their citizenship test. This Globe and Mail article has more, with Canada Day tomorrow (July 1). The test is linked to from the article; I got 17 of 19 (although with multiple choice).

Sprawl doesn't kill people, people kill people

2007-06-29T01:24:00.001-04:00

As an amusing aside, I link to: "The Phony Problem of Sprawl." Unfortunately, a majority of Houstonians would probably find no problem with it.

As a fun enrichment game at home: find as many dubious statements as you can. Then, compare with your friends. Cross off a flaw that you both have. The person with the most remaining wins!

By the way, checking comment #2 counts as cheating, kind of.

Might want to say that more softly...

2007-06-29T01:12:00.001-04:00

In a move sure to play well on Iraqi TV, George Bush apparently said that Israel is a good standard for Iraq to work towards, as quoted by the BBC:

"In places like Israel, terrorists have taken innocent human life for years in suicide attacks. The difference is that Israel is a functioning democracy and it's not prevented from carrying out its responsibilities. And that's a good indicator of success that we're looking for in Iraq."

Right. And Israel faces multiple suicide bombings and car bombings on a daily basis as well as sectarian death squads working within its army and police force that are leaving thousands dead. Uhhh, wait a minute... when was the last suicide bomb in Israel again? Oh yeah, but Hamas sporadically fires ineffective missiles at an isolated border town. Same thing as Iraq, pretty much.

Anyway, Iraqis, the point is that Israelis aren't letting a few stray missiles here and there prevent them from carrying out their responsibilities! Figure it out already, if you want to be like Israel! Take advantage of your freedom! (By the way, Iraqis, a good way to unite your population is to fight a foreign war. Maybe try that out... invade a small neighbor or something...)

Houston is... a big city

2007-06-24T23:41:00.000-04:00

First, consider these facts:

Houston is larger than Los Angeles (but has just over half the population).
Houston is almost twice as large as New York City (yes, all five boroughs) in land area.
Into Houston, you could fit...

Philadelphia, 4.3 times
Seattle, 6.9 times
Washington D.C., 9.4 times
Boston, 12 times

Now, I just want to know how many roads Houston has--as far as just square footage, or even just length. For those of you who ever played SimCity, it reminds me of when you would build too many roads and maybe try lowering road payments under 100%, and the road would start turning into rubble. Yeah. That actually happens somewhere... it's called Houston.

Past that, though, is the question... why is Houston so freaking big? Turns out (not surprisingly) the answer has something to do with Texas annexation laws and such. All the information that follows can be accredited to what I gleaned from a Texas Municipal League document I read on the Web a few weeks back (the TML is pro-annexation, note):

First of all, there are two kinds of cities in Texas: home rule cities (I think that's what they're called) and other cities (I don't remember the name... general law cities I think). Anyway, point being that home rule cities can make their own ordinances, and general law cities can't.
But also, home rule cities can annex up to five miles beyond their limits, pretty much whenever--although some laws have made it a bit tougher. The only thing they can't do is annex another home rule city. They have the obligation to provide services within a couple of years to whatever land they annex.
The point of this (according to TML) is that cities don't get screwed over: they get the tax base of an expanding area, unlike in other metropolitan areas, where these areas would incorporate into suburbs and not give the city any tax revenue, hence making the city a blighted area and downward spiral, etc. (so if this is where we are with annexation, imagine where we'd be without it...)
TML also states that cities don't really get much revenue from the state government; hence, they need that local tax base to keep going. (I would argue that a probable effect of some of this is to hinder improvements in more well-off areas, whose inhabitants are more able to collectively act and otherwise don't want to pay more taxes to improve poorer parts of town. Hence why the roads suck even in good parts of town--if the city were able to raise taxes to pay for them, that still wouldn't be the infrastructure most in need of work.)

Now, what would I say if I were dictator? I'd say that at least some zoning regulations are in order, and the ridiculous growth out should stop in favor of "filling in the gaps," i.e. the vacant lots that are everywhere. But hey, what do I know?

I'm alive!

2007-06-21T17:33:00.001-04:00

Really. I'm not dead. However, I am caught in a whirlwind of a tornado of a twister of things, and it's really been enough for me to follow what's going on with the French and Belgian elections and everything over in Gaza, let alone comment or do any sort of strategic analysis. Once July hits, I should have things a little easier.

Few surprises in Spain's autonomic elections

2007-05-28T00:01:00.000-04:00

Spain's elections in the Autonomous Communities today produced very little in the way of drama or surprise; indeed, the results were pretty much the same as in 2003. The opposition Partido Popular (PP) did seem to make more gains, relative to the ruling Socialist Party (PSOE), taking a greater percentage in Madrid.

It appears that the only government which may change hands is that in Navarra, where a potential Socialist-Nafarroa Bai-Navarra United Left coalition has won more seats than the local conservative parties. (Nafarroa Bai--"Navarra Yes"--is a combination of the Basque nationalist parties EAJ-PNV, EA and Aralar). However, the ability of these parties to come to agreement is far from certain.

Note that the most volatile Communities, the Basque Country and Catalonia, did not hold elections; neither did Galicia or Andalucia.

Meanwhile, the opposition Partido Popular took the most votes in the municipal elections in all of Spain, with a margin of about 157,000 votes (0.7%). This is a slightly greater margin than the PSOE's victory in the same in 2003, and gives the PP some confidence, as since 1983 the winner of the municipal elections has won the following general election.

The Continental League debuts

2007-05-27T23:27:00.000-04:00

Yet another new independent league--the Continental League--made its debut tonight, including in League City, Texas, where the hometown Bay Area Toros faced the traveling-team Texas Heat. The Continental League is one of eight independent leagues to play this year; together, the leagues total 64 teams, including probably the most famous independent team, the St. Paul Saints of Mike Veeck.

The Bay Area Toros are apparently run by a former Rice assistant athletic director; they play their home games at a high school, Clear Creek HS. (This is a larger high-school ballpark than I'm used to in the Northwest; it seats at least 1,000 in its bleachers, though it has no seat backs.) Overall, they seem like a well-run operation.

Tonight's game was well-attended in relation to the stadium, as there were few empty seats. Notably, the focus was on baseball, not on gimmicks; the crowd seemed into the game, and a large percentage stayed until the end of a game that went 10 innings and took almost four hours. The league president was there and went around meeting fans, and overall the environment was very positive. (The quality of play at a glance seemed around Class A ball).

As would be expected, the park was the only real negative. In addition to the lack of seat backs, the park is oriented towards the northwest, meaning some serious glare. A chain-link fence between the backstop and the field interferes with vision. The only real solution is to succeed at the gate and eventually get a new park (as was already discussed a few days ago in the Chronicle).

I'm quite surprised that the Continental League chose to begin play this year, given that it has only three home markets--two in the DFW market, plus League City (situated between Houston and Galveston). The track record isn't good for leagues that begin without at least a few solid home teams. The Houston area, however, would seem ripe for independent league play; in a market of over 3 million, the Astros are the only game in town once NCAA baseball ends.

I meant to provide pictures, but I forgot my camera, so that will have to wait for the next game... perhaps tomorrow.

[Final note for those in the Northwest: Clear Creek HS was attended by none other than Jay Buhner--"the Bone"! There's a name I hadn't heard in a while...]

Update: Hey, it's me on the Toros homepage! Check out this nice pic...

PCL baseball in Reno won't be successful

2007-05-26T22:21:00.001-04:00

Looks like there's an agreement to move an unnamed Pacific Coast League team (Tucson? Omaha? New Orleans? Las Vegas?) to Washoe County, aka Reno-Sparks, Nevada. The following are the smallest five PCL markets, plus Reno:

17. Reno, NV, 410,000
16. Des Moines-West Des Moines, IA, 534,000
15. Colorado Springs, CO, 599,000
14. Tacoma, WA, 767,000
13. Albuquerque, NM, 817,000
12. Omaha-Council Bluffs, NE-IA, 823,000

Note the following:

The Iowa Cubs, with the smallest market in the league, have been quite successfully managed and continue to outdraw their market by the largest ratio. This is an outcome that is by no means guaranteed, and the Midwest is one of the top minor-league regions in the country.
Colorado Springs and Tacoma are regarded as weak markets.
Omaha is doing quite poorly.
Albuquerque, with a renovated stadium and a second chance (after their original Dukes took off), has been supportive--and has almost twice as many people as Reno.
Nick Lachey is a part-owner of the Tacoma Rainiers (not really relevant, I guess...)
Reno's independent-league efforts have failed, although the Golden League is giving it another shot this year.

All in all, clearly someone thinks this is a good idea, but there were people who thought the West Tenn Diamond Jaxx were a good idea. I'd predict a decent first couple years, followed by a fall-off to attendance near the bottom of the league; to be fair to the PCL, there aren't many good markets left, and with some teams struggling, this may look like the best of the bad options, but you wish that they'd just make things work rather than move into a probably doomed market.

And they say all parties are the same...

2007-05-26T16:27:00.000-04:00

Well, maybe. Apparently in April (see El Mundo), the Socialist Party of the Canary Islands (PSC-PSOE) got caught copying the platform of the party Ciutadans (C) of Catalonia. Yes, different parties, from different parts of the country, with pretty much the same platform. It's not just "pretty much the same"... it is the same:

From "125 measures for the first year of a Socialist government: for change in the Canaries" [PDF] (my translation):

We reaffirm the right of the citizens of the Canaries to refer to the Defensor del Pueblo, who is also defender of Canarians; to defend their rights and freedoms when those are threatened by public powers, whether they be autonomic, local or national.

From "100 proposals to improve Catalonia" [PDF] (again, my translation):

We reclaim the right of the citizens of Catalonia to refer to the Defensor del Pueblo, who is also defender of Catalans; to defend their rights and freedoms when those are threatened by public powers, whether they be autonomic, local or national.

The second is the original; the first is the copy. (What, you couldn't tell?). Now, no more comments on how all those politicians are identical!!

This is part of the lead-up to tomorrow's Spanish municipal and autonomic elections--more on those as the results come in.

Farmers Branch: why not STV?

2007-05-21T22:16:00.000-04:00

A judge has ruled that the Dallas suburb of Farmers Branch cannot enforce its new ordinance against renting apartments to illegal immigrants. The judgment apparently held that the city created its own way of determining whether or not a resident was legal, a responsibility that belongs only to the federal government.

I would be against this ordinance for a couple of reasons: first, because it seems likely to lead to some harassment of people who are legal, but happen to be Hispanic; second, because if all communities adopt similar ordinances, it probably won't cut the number of illegal immigrants, but it could have a very substantively negative impact on the conditions they and their children live in.

What interests me more, however, was further down in the article:

The federal suit, on behalf of three Latino voters who live in Farmers Branch, claims minorities are underrepresented because of the at-large city council system.

It seeks the creation of single-member districts, in which a city council member is elected to represent a specific section of the city. Both large and small cities with diverse racial makeup use the system, said Rolando Rios, the attorney leading the suit.

Activists say if the method had been in place, at least one Latino candidate would have been elected to the council and could represent the group. All five council members are white men.

This assumes that the only or, at least, primary way to represent a voter is by racially descriptive representation. This may be true on this issue, but as the article notes, all five current members of the council are white men. What about women? What about representation on the basis of nonracial issues?

Instead, the plaintiffs would have the city box itself into a racially charged model of electing its City Council by creating seats "reserved" for Latino voters (much like, of course, the U.S. Congress), at the expense of other forms of representation, and at the expense of "disenfranchising" the minority-majority white population in the "Latino" district.

Why not ask, instead of a district model, for a proportional representation model--in particular, the single transferable vote? STV would maintain the system of citywide representation while representing what voters want to see represented.

This is just, of course, a microcosm of the U.S. system in general: if we just took measures to make things more proportional, there'd be no need for ridiculously gerrymandered districts [warning--PDF] to satisfy someone's exclusive concept of "representation." Then the Texas legislators would never have to go to Oklahoma again!

Welsh Assembly MMP: not quite proportional

2007-05-06T20:55:00.000-04:00

The results from the Welsh Assembly elections are in, with some interesting results:

Labour - 29.6%, 26 seats (43% of seats)
Plaid Cymru - 21.0%, 15 seats (25% of seats)
Conservative - 21.5%, 12 seats (20% of seats)
Lib Dems - 11.7%, 6 seats (10% of seats)
local independent - 1 seat
others - 16.2%, 0 seats

The facts that most jump out are:
(1) Labour won a disproportionately large share of seats, despite the MMP system, and
(2) Plaid placed ahead of the Conservatives despite a slightly smaller regional vote share.

Both of these issues stem from characteristics of the MMP system that Wales (and Scotland) use for elections. The Welsh system has 60 seats, with 40 elected in single-member constituencies and 20 elected from the five regions (four per region) as compensatory list seats. The two features that lead to the outcomes noted above are:
(1) The system does not compensate for overhangs. Every region has 11-13 seats, of which 4 are compensatory and the rest are from single-member constituencies. Taking South Wales West as an example, Labour won all 7 single-member districts (63 percent of the seats already) but took only 36 percent of the PR vote, meaning it deserved only 5 of the 11 seats. In the version of MMP used by Germany or New Zealand, Labour could keep the 7 seats, but an additional 6 seats would be awarded to other parties, increasing the size of the legislature by two. Not so in Wales (or Scotland)--the extra seats are scrapped, meaning fewer seats for the others.
(2) Compensatory seats are only 1/3 of the Assembly. Enlarging compensatory seats to 1/2 of the Assembly, even if overhangs are still not included, would mostly eliminate the problem.

The overhangs described in (1) give Labour five extra seats in the Welsh Assembly. The big loser was the Conservatives. In the regions where Labour took extra seats in constituencies, the Conservatives were generally the party that lost the compensatory seat which was no longer allocated. This happened in North Wales, South Wales West and South Wales East. (The Lib Dems also lost two seats in this way).

If overhangs were incorporated into the electoral system, the results would have been:
Labour - 29.6%, 26 seats (40% of seats)
Conservative - 21.5%, 15 seats (23% of seats)
Plaid Cymru - 21.0%, 15 seats (23% of seats)
Lib Dems - 11.7%, 8 seats (12% of seats)
local independent - 1 seat
others - 16.2%, 0 seats
The Assembly would be enlarged from 60 to 65 seats.

Labour would still enjoy a disproportionate share of seats, but not by quite a large margin.

Elections for Turkey

2007-05-02T03:19:00.000-04:00

The Constitutional Court made its unfortunate, yet predictable, ruling today, "upholding" the secular system by rejecting democracy. The response of PM Erdogan was the election call. In a previous post I noted how the opposition's argument has little actual merit--the New York Times, too, noted that the decision was more political than legal.

Abdullah Gul is the only clear presidential candidate because he is the candidate of a party that holds very close to 2/3 of the seats (the necessary majority). Note that this is possible because of the antidemocratic 10% threshold for the National Assembly. As a result of this threshold, AK took about 65% of the seats with 34% of the votes in the previous election, as only two parties qualified for parliament. This threshold exists because of the fear of marginal Islamist parties.

While AK obviously is on a much different position in the political spectrum from myself, were I Turkish I would support AKP as the best party to lead the country toward full democracy. In fact it is doubtful whether any other party could accomplish this! In this role AKP has been thrust into a liberalizing position, whatever the natural tendencies of its leaders such as Gul and Erdogan. In order to defend their right to be in the political spectrum, AK figures must reach for legitimation to liberal democratic rights--meaning that the Islamist party is (quite effectively) enacting economic reforms needed for EU membership and supporting all-around political reform and liberalization. Quite unlike some other places.

Well, we will see the electorate's opinion soon enough.

Will Canada have a majority government again?

2007-05-02T03:13:00.000-04:00

Referring, of course, to a single-party majority government.

I would argue that the days of single-party majority government are permanently over.

A Conservative majority would require the hold on the West to continue, plus about 2/3 of Ontario and half of Quebec. This is the most likely scenario for a single-party majority but still unlikely due the continued failure of the Conservatives to catch on in Ontario, and the large constituency that simply will never vote Conservative.

A Liberal majority would require a virtual sweep of Ontario, as in '93 or '97, a return in Quebec, and a sweep of the Maritimes. That is to say, all the conditions of the '90s--but the right wing isn't divided anymore. The only alternative would be a Liberal reemergence in the West, which is not on the immediate agenda.

Nobody else will be close to a majority anytime soon.

Especially given the impetus in many provinces (BC and Ontario most notably) toward electoral reform, it seems likely that Canadians will eventually tire of the cycle--not necessarily of minority government per se, but of votes not translating correctly into outcomes. This heralds a change toward PR on a federal level, and possibly coalition majority governments. But I would predict there will not be another federal single-party majority government--and in the unlikely event there is, it will be Conservative.

Turkey elects a president

2007-04-27T22:16:00.000-04:00

Turkey's presidential election has been the focus of some speculation for a while, as current Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan mulled a bid for the position. His moderate Islamist AK Party decided instead on Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul (the same one who served as PM while Erdogan was not in the parliament immediately after AK's victory). This is a good decision, as Gul is generally seen as more statesmanlike and diplomatic than Erdogan; it may benefit AK as well, since Erdogan can remain at the party's head in upcoming elections.

Now, since AK is Islamist, this has of course caused a wave of angry reactionism from the powers that be in Turkey about how this somehow threatens the secular system (nevermind that an Islamist agreeing to become part of the system strengthens its relevance and creates more buy-in from all Turks; cultivating popular acceptance has never been as big a priority as crushing opposition for the Kemalist government). Anyway, the opposition CHP has organized big demonstrations in Ankara, and today the army apparently issued a warning to the government.

Meanwhile, CHP is challenging the election in the Supreme Court on some sort of grounds that 2/3 of all deputies need to be present (they stayed away from the Grand National Assembly for just this reason). I can find no justification in the Turkish constitution for this:

Article 96 Quorums Required for Sessions and Decisions
(1) Unless otherwise stipulated in the Constitution, the Turkish Grand National Assembly shall convene with at least, one-third of the total number of members and shall take decisions by an absolute majority of those present; however, the quorum for decisions can, under no circumstances, be less than a quarter plus one of the total number of members.

Article 102 Election
(1) The President of the Republic shall be elected by a two-thirds majority of the total number of members of the Turkish Grand National Assembly and by secret ballot. If the Turkish Grand National Assembly is not in session, it shall be summoned immediately to meet.
(4) If a two-thirds majority of the total number of members cannot be obtained in the first two ballots, between which there shall be at least a three-day interval, a third ballot shall be held and the candidate who receives the absolute majority of votes of the total number of members shall be elected President of the Republic. If an absolute majority of votes of the total number of members is not obtained in the third ballot, a fourth ballot will be held between the two candidates who receive the greatest number of votes in the third ballot; if the President of the Republic cannot be elected by an absolute majority of the total number of members in this ballot, new general elections for the Turkish Grand National Assembly shall be held immediately.

There is no other condition for a quorum, so the AK Party's contention that the quroum to meet is 1/3 of the members seems correct, and the CHP's demand for a new election immediately seems to come from nowhere. If the Constitutional Court rules in favor of CHP, and bows to the army, it will set Turkey back yet again, especially in the eyes of Europe. For the sake of freedom in Turkey it should be hoped that the Court will stand up to this attempted intimidation--part of the same reactionism that was part of the Orhan Pamuk and Elif Shafak prosecutions, that characterizes the continuing intimidation of legal Kurdish groups and activities, and the murder of Hrant Dink.

The first debate!

2007-04-27T00:43:00.000-04:00

From my delayed viewing of the first Democratic candidates debate on MSNBC...

Hillary Clinton: Worst response was the first part of the debate, on Iraq. Repeated the insufferable line about how we gave Iraqis the "opportunity for freedom." Her health care response started interestingly, as she emphasized the middle class that already has insurance but is struggling to afford premiums, then she went on to say something along the lines of getting the most out of our current system before we pay any more for something else. What does she mean by that? Her website has no policy, so I don't know! She did take the opportunity to redirect a possible criticism of Obama (opportunity handed by the moderator) into Bush criticism.

Barack Obama: Barack was, as usual, pretty generic. His health-care response was straight out of The Audacity of Hope. He took a few opportunities to emphasize the need for a national movement. Three candidates had a question on the abortion decision, and all three took different angles; Obama emphasized women's choices in concert with families, doctors and clergy (he didn't miss the chance to throw that in). My favorite answer of his was actually to the question "what is your biggest mistake of the last four years?". He was the only one to answer nongenerically, saying that he should not have left the Senate during the Schiavo case but should have stayed to fight for families' privacy.

John Edwards: I was unimpressed with Edwards on Iraq (he seemed smug about his position) or on his wealth. His SCOTUS response was to emphasize the need for a Democrat to appoint the next justices--predictably for a trial lawyer. He did win points for having the most specific health-care response.

Bill Richardson: I wasn't actually aware of some of Richardson's positions before the debate. He was good on Iraq--the most specific and committed of any of them. Said if he were president he would withdraw everyone before 2007 is out. On health care, said that there's a lot of waste and that it should be cut, and no raising taxes, but no specifics. Top three priorities: out of Iraq, energy independence, climate change.

Joe Biden: Biden wins points with me for saying "If we want the best students in the world, we need the best teachers in the world." Otherwise, his response on Iraq seemed to be a mandate to the Iraqis! Good responses on gun control, the NAACP and South Carolina, and on his mistake ("overestimating the confidence and underestimating the arrogance of this administration"). When asked if he'd be able to be president despite some of his notorious errant comments, stated, "Yes."

Chris Dodd: I don't think he said too much to stand out. He put a lot of emphasis on his experience and political background, which isn't necessarily the way to go. Good responses on why welfare recipients should not have drug tests, and on justifying civil unions by "thinking if it was your own kids" (though I disagree with his opposition to gay marriage).

Dennis Kucinich: Alternated between awkward (which he always is), unrealistic (international peacekeepers in Iraq!), and somewhat decently principled (in response to abortion, America needs a "culture of life" that includes a lot more than just abortion). But hey, we should support his campaign because it "comes from the heart."

Mike Gravel: Who is this guy? He tried to grab attention by criticizing Iraq and the other candidates over, and over, and over again, hijacking a question about nuclear energy and turning it into terrorism and why the war was wrong. Rambled about Congressional strategy to pass a law to end the war in Iraq. Tried to engage Barack in an argument (along with Kucinich) while Hillary stood in the middle rather awkwardly. Says all the "top-tier candidates" "scare [him]" and seems to imply they will support an Iran invasion. He might get a little attention, but not sure what he'll get out of that...

Overall: No huge winners or losers; this was really more of a warmup. Richardson is a rational guy with a couple policy stances that seem a little off with the base. Obama, Clinton and Edwards said nothing new. Biden is probably the biggest riser.

Computer problems lead to book use!

2007-04-26T00:24:00.000-04:00

I've meant to comment on a number of pending issues, but instead I've had a lot of computer problems. My computer contracted some sort of bug that made the CPU run very slowly and wasn't picked up by any spyware/malware programs, so I ended up having to do a system recovery. Now I can't access my old documents through some sort of Windows quirk--they're sitting there, but I can't get into the directory!

While dealing with that, I've been able to catch up on some reading. I read large parts of Philip Short's Mao: A Life the other night, a book which I started a few months ago, and I've been reading parts of Chernow's Alexander Hamilton as well. Both appear to be excellent biographies of memorable figures in world history. Short describes Mao as a master politican during the years of the PRC, extremely sensitive to criticism, especially as he got older, but also extremely concerned with his legacy--a legacy which he ended up failing to protect (to the benefit of the Chinese). Hamilton, a remarkable figure, emerged from an impoverished background on the island of Nevis, and took advantage of the unique times he was in to be one of the most profound shapers of the United States and our current system. I'm looking forward now to completing both books in order. I also finished Doris Kearns Goodwin's Team of Rivals a couple of weeks ago; I will post some sort of review as soon as I catch up with life, and Windows XP.

Reckling Park grandstand

2007-04-22T18:14:00.000-04:00

As promised, a few more pictures of Reckling Park on the Rice University campus. Today the Owls defeated UCF 8-0, sweeping the Golden Knights in the weekend series. Rice is now 13-2 in conference play and 33-11 overall.

A look at the grandstand from right field.
The main entrance behind home plate, looking out.

Home plate entrance is on the left; this is the exterior down the first-base line.

France's first round: lack of surprise is a surprise

2007-04-22T17:04:00.000-04:00

Looks like the polls were more accurate than anyone wanted to admit. With about 64% of votes counted, Nicolas Sarkozy of the UMP has taken over 30%, with Ségolène Royal, the Socialist candidate, taking just under 25%. François Bayrou of the Christian-democratic UDF is around 18% and perennial nationalist candidate Jean-Marie Le Pen has 11%.

Extremely high turnout, probably around 85%, was advantageous to the main candidates. It seems many, many people turned out because they did not want to see a spoiler candidate (i.e., Le Pen) in the second round. And those who voted Le Pen last time as a protest this time either voted for a main candidate or for one of the other candidates. The polls did not hide any Le Pen votes as Sarkozy votes this time around.

What does this mean for the second round? Well, Sarkozy has made a very strong showing. He needs to net some of Bayrou's following while also managing to convince those who voted for Le Pen to come around to him--i.e. appeal to the center and to the right. Royal has a tougher time, as she will probably take the vote going to the smaller leftist candidates, but absolutely needs a strong majority of those who voted for Bayrou. This is possible, if she can continue to frame Sarkozy as too extreme and liberalizing.

All that said, the polls going into today were showing a very narrow (2-4 point) Sarkozy lead in a hypothetical runoff. Still, I give Sarkozy a 60-40 shot at this point.

Oh yeah... how did I do? Well, I accurately stated that the two major candidates would make the runoff, but definitely underestimated their percentages, and overestimated Le Pen. Everyone, including me, was looking for a surprise; but the only surprise was the turnout, not the percentages.

Interesting facebook stats...

2007-04-22T01:44:00.000-04:00

are available now, thanks to the newest (yes, another) design of facebook. Looking at the networks for U.S. News's Top 28 national universities (why the top 28? Because that's as far as I got), some interesting notes:

The #1 interest, at every school, is the suitably generic "Music." #2 is almost always "Reading" (understandable exceptions: "Skiing" at Dartmouth; "Movies" at USC).
As for that music, 25 out of 28 schools had Coldplay #1 in mentions. The Beatles, Radiohead, and Jack Johnson were the most common #2 and #3; some combination of those two popped up almost everywhere.
In movies, the two most commonly cited movies were Fight Club (#1 at a majority) and Wedding Crashers. As you move down the rankings, Wedding Crashers becomes more prevalent. The only school with a different #1 was Harvard (Love Actually).
TV provided an interesting pattern. Almost everywhere, the top program was "Family Guy" or "Grey's Anatomy." A top predictor of which was #1 was provided by whether there were more self-identified male or female students. "Family Guy" schools averaged +5 percent male. "Grey's" schools averaged +3 percent female. (One school--Princeton--had "24," then "Family Guy," then "Grey's"; it is +7% male).
And for the readers, "Harry Potter" as a generic category was #1 at all schools. #2 was split between several books, the most common being The Great Gatsby and The Catcher in the Rye, with no discernable pattern showing.
As for self-identification of sex, the top male school was MIT (44%) and the top female school UNC (46%).
Students at the very top schools tended to be more discreet about their political leanings and relationship status. At the top 10 schools, an average of 57 percent revealed no political affiliation; at the remaining 18, the average was 51 percent. The gap was even more profound for relationship status (52 percent versus 43 percent).
As for that relationship status, 40-45 percent of those divulging tended to say "single," and at all schools, 32-36 percent of those responding said "in a relationship" (of course, this counts facebook-only relationships). At most of the 28 universities, from 6 to 8 percent of all in-network people stated "married," and from 2-4 percent said "engaged." "It's complicated" almost always netted 2 percent of the network and "in an open relationship" (almost always fake) 1 percent.
The top school for singles, relative to those responding, was UCLA (52% single), with USC (51%) a close second. The lowest proportion of singles was Harvard (37%).
Finally, as for political affiliation, on a scale of 5 points for "very liberal" and 1 for "very conservative," and excluding "libertarian," "apathetic," and "other," the top 28 broke down as follows:

Most liberal: UC-Berkeley (3.85), Yale (3.82), Brown (3.80), Columbia (3.77)
Most conservative: Notre Dame (3.02), Vanderbilt (3.11), UNC (3.16), UVA (3.40).
Note for Huskies: UW (not one of the 28 included) comes in at 3.48, towards the middle of the ranked schools.

You'd think these are a somewhat accurate reflection, despite the inclusion of some alumni.

Reform in Ontario?

2007-04-21T12:50:00.001-04:00

Exciting developments in Ontario, where the Citizens' Assembly, a randomly chosen body of citizens from each of the 103 current provincial ridings, decided to overwhelmingly endorse reform to an MMP system. The system the Citizens' Assembly provides would combine 90 ridings with 39 province-wide closed-list seats--i.e. minimal change while providing proportional outcomes. It is already facing the predictable opposition from the main parties and establishment, and must clear a 60 percent threshold to pass, but it certainly deserves support. See democraticSPACE for more.

The NDP has come out in support; BC and PEI have already rejected reform, though BC seems likely to move to STV (having voted 58 percent in favor last time, Note: the approval threshold was 60 percent) in 2009. New Brunswick is currently studying the issue.

Correction: New Brunswick is actually done studying the issue; the Commission on Legislative Democracy proposed an MMP system with 36 riding and 20 closed-list seats in 4 regions (also recommending that the new system prohibit riding candidates from running on a list, and vice versa). However, it is unclear if the new Liberal government will call the referendum, which was promised by the previous PC premier, Bernard Lord. This would be sadly appropriate, as the Liberals just won the 2006 election despite losing to the Conservatives by 1,400 votes.

A big weekend for elections

2007-04-21T12:43:00.000-04:00

It's a big weekend for elections, with Nigeria at the polls now and France voting tomorrow. In Nigeria, I would predict a ruling-party win, violence, and denunciations by the opposition--in other words, I am taking the easy guess. In France, I predict that despite all the talk of Bayrou or Le Pen possibly spoiling, that Royal and Sarkozy will go to the second round; however, I think that Royal will be substantially closer to Sarkozy than the polls have stated, and that both will be around 22-23 percent with Bayrou and Le Pen no more than 4 points behind.

In other election news, Manitoba Premier Gary Doer has called elections for May 22.

Photos of Reckling Park

2007-04-21T12:14:00.000-04:00

It's more expensive to see a game at Rice's Reckling Park--$7 in the bleachers down the lines and $10 in the upper reserved--but the park has more of an atmosphere than UH's Cougar Field. Renovated and reopened in 2000, the park maintains somewhat of an older atmosphere through its brick exterior and concourse building (I'll take photos of that this weekend). However, it is comfortable, has great sightlines and has a nice modern press box behind the stands. I enjoyed the atmosphere--as with many college baseball games, many in the crowd knew each other, and I saw at least four or five other people keeping score near my section!

Skyline of the Med Center part of Houston.
Down the home-team side.
Rice's playoff appearances--the program has been competitive on a consistent basis since the mid-'90s.

Am I the only one who'd never heard of Don Imus?

2007-04-13T22:38:00.000-04:00

Don Imus no longer has a job due to his comments, which seem to have enraged a large portion of the blogs that I read on a regular basis.

I generally agree with them, but I have little to add, because to be honest I'd never heard of the guy before this whole thing. Is Don Imus more well known on the East Coast? Or am I just not in his demographic? Or is it neither, and I'm just out of the loop? I feel like everyone else knows more than me about this one... at any rate, nothing out of the media really surprises me anymore, and I'm more interested in the linguistics of the issue than the story at hand.

Franken posts some good numbers

2007-04-13T22:33:00.000-04:00

AP reports that Al Franken has raised almost as much campaign cash as Norm Coleman so far despite not even starting until February. Franken has received big donations from figures such as Tom Hanks, Larry David, Lorne Michaels, and Kevin Bacon.

Quote of the night: "Franken has held two fundraisers in California this year -- one in Los Angeles and one in California, said his spokesman, Andy Barr."

New Baltic governments

2007-04-09T23:36:00.000-04:00

In Finland, after the surprising surge by the conservative National Coalition (Kansallinen Kokoomus) in the March parliamentary elections, KOK will be incorporated into the new government. If all goes well in upcoming talks, the government will be formed by Finnish Center (Suomen Keskusta), the party of PM Matti Vanhanen; the Kokoomus; and two smaller parties, the Swedish People's Party (Svenska folkpartiet), which is always in government, and the Greens (Vihreä Liitto). Helsingin Sanomat provides more detail on the coalition negotiations.

One might expect that the new government platform will have something to do with lowering some taxes, increasing competitiveness, and perhaps doing something in the direction of a guaranteed minimum income (giving recipients more flexibility). One question HS brings up is what position will be awarded to wildly popular Sauli Niinistö, the 1994-2001 party leader and '06 presidential candidate (who almost defeated incumbent Tarja Halonen and relegated PM Vanhanen to a distant third). Niinistö served as finance minister in both Lipponen SDP-led governments (1995-2003), but that post apparently will go to current party chair Jyrki Katainen. Possiblities include foreign minister or speaker of the Eduskunta. (Apparently, the latter is a fairly prestigious position; the previous holder of the office was ex-PM Lipponen himself).

Governments in Finland tend to be supermajorities so that no small party can hold the coalition "hostage." The last government, KESK+SDP+SFP, met this criteria as Keskusta and SDP together held 108 of the Eduskunta's 200 seats. This time, KESK and KOK together hold 101 seats, a razor-thin majority; SFP holds 9, and the Greens 15, giving the coalition a total of 125 and not allowing either Greens or SFP to hold out on any particular issue.

SDP leader Eero Heinäluoma has criticized the Greens for participating in the government; this really just seems like sour grapes, especially before a platform is out. Hence we will have to see what comes of the negotiations. (Who knows... maybe the notorious Vanhanen's purported liaisons with a Green MP had something to do with it? Don't take my word for it, check out all these links in Finnish I can't read).

Meanwhile, in Estonia

The Center Party (also KESK, since Estonian and Finnish are family members) has been kicked out of government in the new post-election scenario. The new government (already sworn in on 5 April) seems rather awkward at first glance, incorporating the conservative Pro Patria/Res Publica Union and the Social Democrats as well as the free-market Reform Party of PM Andrus Ansip.

I have absolutely no idea what has led to the formation of this government, and the only suggestion I would have is that perhaps the Center Party's reportedly more pro-Russian (perhaps better to say less anti-Russian) stance got it booted from government, along with personal rivalries and the close finish between Center and Reform. This was probably more galling for the Center Party, which had the most seats of any party in the previous coalition; Reform surged ahead of Center to become the largest party in parliament. Hence electoral calculations (rather than policy) may have played a role, though that's pure conjecture.

As far as policy goes, it appears the government will cut the flat tax from 22 to 18 percent. The new government also reiterated its determination to remove the Soviet war memorial from Tallinn.

Update: This blog has a lengthy analysis of the Estonian government formation.

I am not talking about garden implements!

2007-04-09T21:48:00.000-04:00

The continuing controversy over broadcaster Don Imus's comments has had a beneficial side effect for me: I can spell a new word! Maybe.

The New York Times reports that Imus's offense was to call the Rutgers women's basketball team "nappy-headed ho's." Now, if we break it down, "ho's" is the plural form, and we come up with the singular form ho' (the apostrophe cannot, of course, be part of a pluralization, unless done incorrectly). This would make sense, since the word omits the following "r" sound of the original ancestor word. However, were the singular to be spelled ho, then ho's is a clear grammatical error.

AP, via ESPN.com, disagrees with NYT, however, using the plural "hos." This form seems to leave open the dangerous possibility of pronouncing the word "hoss," as in "Ol' Hoss."

How, exactly, are these cases decided at a newspaper? Majority vote? Or is the word ho' really in somebody's Style Guide?

Addendum: In no way do I condone the comments Imus made, by the way, but I haven't followed it closely so I have nothing to add to that discussion; there's plenty in the mass media. To me, honestly the more interesting aspect is this linguistic one.

Who wants Howard to run?

2007-04-09T02:42:00.000-04:00

A poll done in Australia at the end of March (posted here at Angus Reid) says 55 percent of Australian voters want John Howard to lead the Coalition into a new election.

The only question is... which voters? Only 38 percent of Australians say they'd vote for the Coalition. If I'm a Labor voter, I may want to see Howard running. Just like as a Conservative Party member I wouldn't want to see Gordon face a challenge...

Shots of Cougar Field

2007-04-08T19:36:00.000-04:00

The Houston Cougars played the UAB Blazers this afternoon in the finale of a three-game C-USA series, the Cougars emerging victorious 10-3. The crowd was tiny, due perhaps to (1) Easter, (2) unseasonably chilly weather and (3) a simultaneous Astros game; tickets were $7, perhaps a little more than I'd like to pay but not bad (the red reserved seats lower are $10). Given the paucity of fans, I was able to claim a first-row bleacher seat right behind the plate and keep score, something I hadn't done in a couple of years. (As for the "chilly weather," I thought it was pretty much perfect, but I assume many locals would disagree).

I took the opportunity as well to take a couple photos of Cougar Field, next to Robertson Stadium on Elgin St on the UH campus. It's a nice field and looks just like a comparable lower minor-league park from what I can see. Quite a contrast to Husky Ballpark, which looks temporary (because it is) and is in a beautiful but horribly windy location on Lake Washington...

A modern scoreboard sits in right field.
The grandstand with an enclosed press box and a roof on the upper seats.

In the game itself, the Blazers struck in the top of the first, but Houston scored four in the bottom of the first and knocked out the UAB starter. UAB had very little patience at the plate, letting the UH starter out on 5, 9, 16, 9, and 8 pitches in the first five innings. He finished having thrown 76 pitches in 7 innings. Cougar batters showed a good eye and walked seven times, which was key in the victory. The linked article above provides an overall summary.

As I left, fans were already arriving for the bigger sporting event of the night, David Beckham's Galaxy debut against the Houston Dynamo... I will probably be back next weekend, however, as Houston hosts crosstown rival Rice in a three-game series.

Phone solicitation!

2007-04-07T14:47:00.000-04:00

What is it with the inability of phone solicitors to deliver their lines with some sort of emotion? I've received two calls so far from Obama For America, and while I'm sure the operators are volunteers who are convinced of the mission of the campaign, they don't convey it to me! What they are able to convey is that they've been sitting next to the phone too long. (They also thanked me for my donation in February. What donation?)

At any rate, I just get annoyed by donation calls, being newly out of college and not particularly affluent, and I wish they weren't so necessary. Can't say they haven't been effective despite it all, though.

Most... ridiculous... writing... ever

2007-04-07T11:14:00.000-04:00

Well, not quite, but check out this blogger on conservative National Review, about the British soldiers.

Choice quote:
"In any case, there was no evidence of torture or mistreatment in any of the filmed cases I have seen. They look just fine. You can't fake that."

Wonderful. Also, via Daily Kos, check out the article from The Guardian which explains how Blair turned down flat American offers to use military ops to pressure the Iranians.

What lies beyond the northern border

2007-04-06T19:38:00.000-04:00

Word is that the Washington Post will close its Toronto bureau. In and of itself, not that big of a story, except that there will be no more American newspaper correspondents based in Canada. At all. Yes, there's been a lot of cost-cutting at paper media, but there can't be just one correspondent to our north?

Of course, since Canada is the same as the U.S. anyway... just change the tagline from "Los Angeles" to "Toronto" and it'll sound right, won't it?

Medal of Honor goal almost reached!

2007-04-06T13:49:00.000-04:00

The Seattle P-I reports that fundraising is almost done for the memorial to honor UW's Medal of Honor recipients.

Congratulations are due to those who have been behind this effort from the beginning. Medal of Honor winners have done a great service to their country and represent the UW showing the same courage, selflessness and model character we would desire of all alumni.

I had a longer post witten, but really, no need to dredge up past controversies...

Change afoot in Turkmenistan

2007-03-29T21:12:00.000-04:00

Once a week the Turkmenistan Project (part of George Soros's Open Society Institute) posts digests of the news from that Central Asian country. The news of late has been very positive, on a relative basis. Since the death at the end of last year of president-for-life Saparmurat Niyazov and the inauguration and then "election" of Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov, the country has already been opening up:

Berdymukhammedov has abandoned daily recitation of the oath to the leader, which is now for special occasions only, and replaced the word "Turkmenbashi" with "President";
The year of secondary schooling dropped under Niyazov has been readded, 23,000 teachers rehired, and foreign languages put back in the curriculum;
Pensions which had been dropped to veterans, agricultural workers and others as well as maternity benefits are being restored;
The Academy of Sciences will reopen;
Health clinics outside Ashgabat (closed by Niyazov--actually by Berdymukhammedov when he was Health Minister under Niyazov, not that he had a choice) are to be reopened;
Internet cafes have opened, and seem to be relatively free in terms of content, but are too expensive for most Turkmen;
The president has restored communication with Azerbaijan after eight years of silence and is restoring ties with others as well.

While it is certainly more boring to read the digests than it was when Turkmenbashi was ruling, the Turkmen people have every reason to celebrate. The negatives: the blatantly rigged election (inevitable) and the detention of an opposition leader in Bulgaria after a Turkmen request to Interpol. The goal of Berdymukhammedov is probably to establish a stable authoritarianism as elsewhere in Central Asia, but really, who knows?

Price discrimination at Dodger Stadium

2007-03-28T00:03:00.000-04:00

The L.A. Times reports on price discrimination in baseball:

The Dodgers sell tickets in the field box section for $20, $30, $35, $37, $40 and $45, depending on whether you buy on game day, before game day or as part of a full-season, partial-season or group ticket package.

What's the ticket price? The Dodgers offer you 104 answers in all.

Inevitable as prices climb higher. To put those higher prices in perspective, with some numbers from when I was tiny and not yet aware of baseball,

In 1987, the Angels sold tickets for $8, $7, $5 and $3 and the Dodgers for $7, $6 and $4, with every seat on the same level at the same price.

Hmm. If I count the Dodger increase as 500 percent ($7 to $35, $6 to $30, $4 to $20), that's 8 percent every year for 20 years. And they wonder why you can't get kids interested in baseball anymore... maybe if they could go to more than one game a year there'd be a better chance.

Québec: reactions

2007-03-27T23:49:00.000-04:00

Well, to update my favorite story, in Sherbrooke it appears that the reason for Charest's speedy recovery was indeed the counting of the advance votes. In 2003 Charest won the advance votes by about 1,000 votes; it would appear that he won them by a similar or even greater margin this time, as he was trailing by up to 700 votes during the count, then recovered to win by over 1,000.

Reactions from the Canadian blogosphere include:

democraticSPACE reflects on where the projections went right, and wrong.

Paul Wells has much to say.

Antonio reflects from Quebec.

Calgary Grit last night, and on Boisclair--in particular, his statement that 2/3 for the opposition = PQ victory.

Red Tory the night of; on the aftermath; and on Dumont's "autonomism".