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A Few Recall Thoughts 14 Comments More | Login | Reply /

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  • Philosophy aside, what has happened here is that once again, a handful of extremely wealthy Republicans have made us a laughingstock to the rest of the world. We have Gary Coleman on the ballot to lead the fifth largest economy in the world.

    And what's funny is that if the vote were held today, Arnold would win and he has no more experience than Gary.

    • The people of California decided they wanted it to work this way. You call it a circus, which it may be, but it is, in fact, what the people of California chose when they created the recall, and when they used it in the past. Calling it a circus and saying it makes us look like a laughingstock -- whether true or not -- are completely irrelevant and uninteresting assertions to me.

      Saying it is a "handful of extremely wealthy Republicans" ... it seems like you are trying to paint it as some fringe element c
      • The people of California decided they wanted it to work this way.

        I am a people of California, and I was not asked!

        The proceduralist perspective comes down to: dead people who you don't know set it up this way for you and unless you follow the other process the dead peopleset up for changing it, then it will stay this way and therefore all is as it should be.

        Well, no; if something is ridiculously broken, then pointing out that every step followed the letter of The Law (or, in Californian, The Lah) does

        • I am a people of California, and I was not asked!

          Sucks to be you. Especially living in Alaska!

          The proceduralist perspective comes down to: dead people who you don't know set it up this way for you and unless you follow the other process the dead peopleset up for changing it, then it will stay this way and therefore all is as it should be.

          Yes, that is exactly right, and good.

          Well, no; if something is ridiculously broken, then pointing out that every step followed the letter of The Law (or, in Califo
      • The people of California decided they wanted it to work this way. You call it a circus, which it may be, but it is, in fact, what the people of California chose when they created the recall, and when they used it in the past.

        Actually quite a lot of people are calling it a circus not just Jamie. Yesterday's Arizona Republic Headline "Hurry, step right up! It's California's circus'. The fact that California wanted it this way is completely irrelevant and doesn't mean that people shouldn't comment on how
        • Actually quite a lot of people are calling it a circus not just Jamie.

          I never contended or implied otherwise.

          Yesterday's Arizona Republic Headline "Hurry, step right up! It's California's circus'. The fact that California wanted it this way is completely irrelevant

          Irrelevant to what? Whether it is a circus? I already said this, that it may be a circus, but that whether it is a circus is unimportant to the reality of the situation.

          and doesn't mean that people shouldn't comment on how ridiculous the

  • As you pointed out it's all a moot: the law is the law. If people don't like the law, they should change it. On the other hand, our political system has been reduced to petty bickering and gamesmanship. Making a few cosmetic changes will hardly matter so I can't say that I particularly care one way or another how things turn out in California. Nothing will change.

  • A long, long time ago, Arnold Schwarzenegger's foray into politics was predicted by, of all things, a Shadowrun 2 supplement book. (Anybody who finds the phrase Paranormal Animals Of North America significant will know what book I'm referring to.)

    I'm waiting for horses with wings and dragons to start crawling out of the woodwork. Apparently SR2 is a map to reality. :\

    --

    ------------------------------
    You are what you think.

  • Some things are now obvious to me about government procedures:

    • Every election should have a planned runoff. No candidate should be allowed to be elected to any office on only a plurality.
    • If the two final candidates in any election poll within 1% (or some threshold) of each other, the election should be declared a statistical tie and the law should specify a clear cut procedure for resolving the tie (legislature vote, temporary electoral college, court proceeding, or whatever). Unless the number of vote
    --
    J. David works really hard, has a passion for writing good software, and knows many of the world's best Perl programmers
    • I have no problem with plurality, as long as a majority chooses to accept a plurality. If that is what the people want, who am I to tell them they shouldn't do it? So I can't go along with "every election" and "no candidate."

      However, if it is a district of *mine*, that is a different story. In that case, I am conflicted. One nice thing about runoffs is that it helps third-party candidates, in that you might be more inclined to vote third party, as right now people might vote for Gore instead of Nader j

      • Well, when I said "should," I was assuming this was in a state/country/district where I/you have a vested interest in getting it right. Other governments can do whatever the people there want, and it's no skin off my back. I was just musing on what I'd do if I were writing a constitution (or whatever).

        Runoffs seem very fair to me. Seems like the Nader votes ought to go wherever the Nader voters wanted them, if he can't when. Maybe you'd enjoy reading about Condorcet's method and other interesting voti

        --
        J. David works really hard, has a passion for writing good software, and knows many of the world's best Perl programmers
        • I disagree with your statement that it is not impossible to do a perfectly accurate count of an arbitrarily large number of votes.

          You can disagree all you like, but it is, in fact, not impossible. :-) It is easy to imagine a system where accurate counts are not only possible, but immediately tallied. Yes, software has bugs, but that doesn't mean it is impossible to write software that is provably accurate in its tallies.
        • "a Republican watcher who asked why a Bush vote was being put in the Gore pile was expelled for being unreasonable"

          Wow, I saw this debunked almost three years ago... you still believe it happened?

          • I saw video of it on the evening news. I'm willing to listen if there's an alternative explanation for what I saw.

            --
            J. David works really hard, has a passion for writing good software, and knows many of the world's best Perl programmers
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