Jaber Borran

Category: Logic and Reasoning

  • Weaponization of the DoJ

    “President Donald Trump ordered Attorney General Pam Bondi and other top officials Thursday to investigate two of his former first-term officials who publicly refuted his baseless claims that the 2020 election was fraudulent and criticized his chaotic administration from within.” I wonder if Jim Jordan will make as much noise, or open an investigation, as…

  • A Ponzi Scheme, or an Insurance Policy?

    So the genius billionaire co-president believes that the Social Security Program is “the biggest Ponzi scheme of all time.” Actually, I take it back. While he may not be as smart as many believe he is, I don’t think he is as dumb as he pretends to be either. I am fairly confident that he…

  • 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…

  • 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,…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • A Democracy in Peril

    The minimum requirement for a democracy to function is that, at every election, each individual voter is able to correctly identify and vote for a person/party whose policies protects that individual’s own interests. Ideally, each individual would be able to determine what is in the best interest of the entire society, and would vote based…

  • Lack of Dialogue, and Extreme Polarization

    I don’t know when sentences like the following started becoming fashion statements: These days, many seem to be taking pride on not talking about political and socioeconomic issues of their societies, and instead talking about sports and celebrities. Not that anything is wrong with talking about sports and celebrities; but I just wonder how “not…

  • 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…

  • 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…