Media and Polling

Cartoonist and Stanford robotics PhD Jorge Cham sends an illustrated guide to the media concerning the reading of polls. Via Bruce Bartlett via Chris Lawrence's Google Reader stream.

Dueling Analogies For 2010

Many pundits have suggested that the 2010 elections may see a repeat of the pattern of the 1994 midterms: a first-term Democratic president, wounded by intraparty squabbling over a controversial health care proposal, loses big in Congress in what is seen as a "referendum" on liberal overreach. Mike Munger, on the other hand, suggests that we may want to ...

Health Care: All Over But The Secrecy

David Lightman and William Douglas of the McClatchy Newspapers syndicate point out that the real action on the health care bill will take place in the murky world of conference committees, which--like many other things on the Hill--don't really work the way your father's (or, for that matter, your) American government textbook says they do: To most Americans, the conference process ...

On Excessive Moderation

As Steven Taylor notes, the third-party candidacy by Doug Hoffman in New York’s 23rd congressional district seems to have backfired, delivering a solid Republican seat for generations to Democratic candidate Bill Owens. While some conservatives like my Twitter pal (and OG blogger) Jayvie Canono have suggested that Republican nominee Dede “Scozzafava would’ve been a vote for the Dems,” one of the ...

Iranian Politics 101

As background for some our posts on the Iranian election, it is probably helpful to have some information about Iran's political system. Helpfully, The Red Pill at Cadillac Tight has a lengthy primer on the design and workings of the Islamic Republic's various directly-elected and appointed political bodies. As Dave Schuler points out below, the Iranian political system, as currently ...

Thoughts on the Voting Rights Act Case

One of the Supreme Court's most anticipated decisions this term is likely to deal with the constitutionality of part of one of the landmark laws of the 20th century, the Voting Rights Act of 1965; this may be the most important of a series of cases the court will tackle this term considering civil rights. In this post, I'm ...

Alabama’s Constitution: A Result of Vote Fraud?

[caption id="attachment_31685" align="alignright" width="250" caption="Constitution of the State of Alabama, 1901"][/caption] A group of voters in Alabama is suing to strike down Alabama's 1901 constitution based on their claim that it was ratified fraudulently: The voters this month sued several state officials in Jefferson County Circuit Court's Bessemer division, claiming they violated voter rights by failing to ensure that Alabama's 108-year-old ...

Pelosi Goes Through The Motions

The opening of the 111th Congress is, as always, accompanied by the typical minutiae of opening a new session of Congress. Most of these events aren't too terribly interesting to the public, although the events surrounding the Minnesota and Illinois seats have raised the profile of the opening of the Senate. By contrast the opening of the House of Representatives ...

From The Department of Dubious Complaints

I'll concede that those who are upset about Rick Warren giving the invocation at Barack Obama's inauguration have a point when it comes to his views about homosexuality, but this complaint seems a bit beyond sanity: I’ll grant that appointing a creationist to give the invocation is not exactly the same as appointing him science adviser, but if it represents the ...

Jonesing For An Apology

The Chronicle of Higher Education reports today that Bob Jones University's current president has "apologized" for his institution's racist policies, which persisted until the Civil Rights Movement finally made it to their little corner of Greenville, South Carolina in 2000. Per the university's website: For almost two centuries American Christianity, including BJU in its early stages, was characterized by the ...

Clinton Supporters Want To Lose Again For Catharsis

Marc Ambinder dutifully reports that the ordinary kabuki theater of the Democratic convention will now include an extra layer of double-secret kabuki theater so Clinton supporters will feel better about themselves. Jeff Jarvis is right: journalists and their employers must end the farce now. The conventions now only exist to feed the fantasies of political reporters who dream of a “brokered ...

Blogger Balko Bags Dodgy Doctor

Congratulations to Radley Balko, whose dogged reporting on miscarriages of justice in Mississippi has led to the dismissal of the state's most prolific medical examiner, Dr. Steven Hayne. Hayne's bogus medical reports led to a capital murder conviction for Cory Maye, a man wrongly subjected to a no-knock drug raid by police, and quite possibly many other innocent men ...

Deracialization and Barack Obama

While I've been busy moving my stuff to Texas, Barack Obama has been inadvertently injecting race into the presidential contest with his statement that he "doesn't look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills." While the historically-inclined might have criticized his remark for lumping Alexander Hamilton in with the motley crew of ex-presidents represented among the now-circulating ...

Labour, Brown Lose Big in Glasgow

The Scottish Nationalist Party took one of Labour's safest seats in a rather dramatic and unexpected upset that marks yet another setback for British prime minister Gordon Brown: Unfortunately for Labour, Glasgow is only the latest in a string of woeful electoral performances for the party under Mr Brown’s leadership. His party lost the London mayoralty to the Conservatives; it was ...

Making Friends and Influencing People

Biologist PZ Myers has followed through on his threat to acquire a consecrated communion wafer and deface it--for good measure, he also decided to desecrate an English translation of the Koran (which, according to my understanding of Islam, doesn't actually count as a copy of the Koran) and a copy of Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion apparently just to ensure ...