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Fixing the Elections, or Voter Suppression?
In the last post, I discussed the magnitude of potential errors due to ineligible voters in the election results in the US, and proposed a very generous confidence interval of 0.01%, based on the results of a recent investigation from the state of Georgia, a with substantial amount of overestimation and scaling to be applicable…
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Elections, or Statistical Experiments?
As you can guess from the title of this post, I am trying to pose elections as statistical experiments. I know there is a big difference; unlike polling, elections do not involve taking a sample of data to make a decision. Instead, every single vote is expected to be counted in every election. So, yes,…
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Minimum Qualifications for Holding Public Office
Back then when the former president would refer to his political rivals as “very low-IQ” individuals, implying that he himself has a very high IQ score, I used to fantasize about congress calling the bluff and making a minimum IQ score as a requirement for running for public office. But then I remembered instances like…
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No Longer Surprised!
A few friends had expressed surprise over Trump’s nominees for top positions in his incoming administration. Quite frankly, I was a bit surprised too; even for Trump, some of the nominees are quite out there! But then I came across this piece in which Don Jr announces his heavy involvement “on” the transition, and expresses…
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Ignorance is Bliss (2)
My previous post on this topic focused on Trump’s nominations for critical cabinet and other positions in the executive branch. But I didn’t want to miss this opportunity to point out that the expression in the title applies to many other situations as well, one of which relates to a recent and unfortunate encounter I…
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The Day After
So, we didn’t just lose the presidency, we lost the senate too. And chances are we will lose the house as well! 😟 Go project 2025. 😥 In his last term, he did what he promised (except for the wall): tax cuts for the wealthy (Reagan’s trickle-down economics) and overturning of Roe v. Wade (probably…
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The Election Night
With most polls indicating a very close presidential race -pretty much within their margins of error- I doubt anyone can confidently make a prediction about the outcome of the presidential election (please see How Reliable Are Election Polls for a more sinister view on the predictions made solely based on such polls in general). However,…
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Questions for Elon Musk
How much is a person’s dignity worth? or their pride and self-respect? in absolute terms, or relative to one’s current worth. What does it take for a well-educated, incredibly intelligent person to set aside all that intelligence and play dumb, pretending that they don’t understand or appreciate the absurdity of pretty much anything the former…