Tuesday, November 08, 2005
More whiny!
Continuing the theme of whiny women... Letter sprint! DC and BDP:
Brian Wantz isn't a woman, but writes with the mathematical understanding of one. He's objecting to the compactness requirement of Prop 77:
And second, Proposition 77 includes several standards the judges would be bound by, despite their alleged nonpartisan independence. Importantly, one is a "compactness standard," that decrees that the minimum number of districts shall exist in a single city and vice versa. While this seems to make geographical sense, consider the arithmetic: Ask your Math 1A GSI and she'll tell you any time you have an optimization problem (in the case, optimizing fair representation in state government), you will have a better solution without constraints (i.e. compactness standards) than with constraints. In other words, these standards, which must be followed, impede fair redistrictng.
Alternatively, ask your IEOR GSI. IEOR folks actually deal with real situations rather than mathematical abstractions. IEOR folks might point out that optimizing requires some kind of objective. The concept of "fairness" can only be defined relative to some theory of what would be absolutely fair. One measure of fairness might be the avoidance of arbitrary boundaries, which is actually more suitable as a constraint than an objective. In summary, unless you're going to go out and define fairness mathematically, don't bring up mathematical arguments for fairness. By the way, do they teach optimization in Math 1A here?
Free Beetle Points to whoever can figure out what John Bauer is saying. Can you imagine a legislature being in charge of its own district lines?
And on to the Prop 73 whining, where the real feminine whining rears its head:
Alan Steinbach may as well be a woman, when he says:
It's their safety and our responsibility.
Why is it our responsibility? Becase Steinbach says so.
Nicole Sarabia-Rivera wastes no time in telling an outright lie. Did I say outright lie? Yes, I did. Nicole Sarabia-Rivera is a filthy liar.
What you may also not know about this proposition is that it will require doctors to report the names of these teens to the Department of Health Services. The niggling question in my mind is: For what reason does the Department of Health Services need to know the names of these women?
Fascinating! Part of the reason we may not know that is because Prop 73 says "The report forms shall not identify the minor or her parent(s) or guardian by name or request other information by which the minor or her parent(s) or guardian might be identified."
Meanwhile, if you read the rest of the piece by the filthy liar, you can find this impressive statistic:
Of those minors who did not inform their parents of their abortions, 30 percent had histories of violence in their families, feared the occurrence of violence, or were afraid of being forced to leave their homes.
This is supposed to be an objection, but it seems to me to be a good reason to pass Prop 73, as the remaining 70% who are just being petty wouldn't have a choice.
Apparently, some teacher in Berkeley high asked students to write a letter to the Daily Planet, because there are three letters from high schoolers which all look like they follow exactly the same outline.
The first one may be a parody, considering the name attached to it is Tiara Swearington. She lists how some of her friends have really petty and exaggerated reasons for not wanting to tell their parents, again an argument that seems to go in favor of Prop 73. Also, it's biased because parents are voting. Duuuurr... Apparently, three of her friends say:
My parents tell me all the time if I get pregnant I would be dead or kicked out.
Really? Do parents actually say that? How often does it come up?
Anyway, read the letters and draw the parallels. They're pretty blatant.
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