Over at Pajamas Media, Robert Zubrin touches on an important topic:
The degree of contrivance behind the design of a set of districts is directly related to the oddness of the shapes employed to reach the election-rigging objective. There is a precise mathematical way to measure such malformation. That is, if you take the square of the perimeter of any shape, and divide it by the shape’s area, you arrive at a number, which can be called its irregularity. For example the irregularity of any square, regardless of its size, equals 16 (because (4s)2/s2 = 16.) On the other hand, the irregularity of a rectangle whose long side is 10 times the length of its short side is 48.4 (because (22s)2/10s2 = 48.4.) The odder and more contrived the shape, the higher will be its irregularity.
Now congressional districts need to have equal population sizes, so the task of dividing a state fairly is more complicated than simply slicing it up into low-irregularity shapes. Still, there is a solution which can be objectively ascertained that does accomplish the goal of creating equal population districts with the minimum total irregularity. This can be found either by humans or computers.
I suggest it be done as follows. Let’s let the majority party in the state legislature take the first shot at proposing a redistricting plan. The sum of the irregularities of all the proposed districts can then be added up to create a score for the majority plan. The minority party can then be given 30 days to come up with an alternative plan. If they can come up with a design whose irregularity score is 1 percent lower than the majority plan, then the minority plan is adopted. If not, then the majority plan remains in place.
Between now and the 2020 census, I would have a contest to have Computer Science deparments derive mapping algorithms and data inputs to define what ‘optimal’ districts look like. The problem could be moved to the data collection and description of the algorithm for calculating a state’s layout. Make the data publicly available and transparent. Let the boundaries fall where they may. The only losers will be the political parties and the incumbents who are buttressed by the current approach. Boo hoo.
The contradictory impulses stirred by the death of Osama bin Laden have sent the Left and their media friends stumbling into absurdity. Do you remember how we were told that the election of President Obama would restore U.S. international prestige and make the world love us? Tell that to the Pakistanis:
A senior Pakistani intelligence official reacted angrily Wednesday to comments by CIA Director Leon Panetta, who told U.S. lawmakers in a closed-door session Tuesday that Pakistani officials were either “involved or incompetent” in bin Laden’s case — and, “Neither is a good place to be.”
The official, who did not want to be named, said his country had been generously sharing intelligence with its American counterparts.
“Of all people,” the Pakistani official said, Panetta “knows how much we have been doing.” “What worse statement can come than that we heard from Panetta?” the official said. “I am afraid this statement is totally regrettable.”
Here’s the CNN video report:
And here’s a similar report from ABC News:
What’s so absurd about this is how, on the one hand, it’s blindingly obvious that important people in Pakistani must have been helping protect bin Laden, while on the other hand, they pretend to be angry at us for suspecting them of collusion with al Qaeda, and complain about us intruding on their turf to take him out. Yet we must now tiptoe around (“We don’t need to spike the football“) for fear of offending their sensibilities. But wait — there’s more! Continue reading Bin Laden Dead; Liberal Media Sick →
Three days since I went to the emergency room. I’m coughing less, but my chest is still sore. Everybody keeps telling me to drink lots of fluids and get plenty of rest. Which I do, but then news happens and I feel the need to blog it. Also, there are feminists who need to be offended . . .
Asked to comment on The Daily’s performance, [NewsCorp chief operating officer Chase] Carey says it’s a work in progress, which lost $10 million last quarter. Then, in the background, someone — most likely [chief financial officer] Dave DeVoe — mentions “800,000 downloads.”
So: 800,000 people have downloaded the iPad software needed to read NewsCorp’s online newspaper. And at the current burn rate, they’ll chew through $40 million in their first year of operation. When the site launched in February, there was a lot of world-historical blather:
“News Corp. is redefining the news experience with The Daily,” says Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “We think it is terrific and iPad users are really going to embrace it.” . . .
The Daily is the first application made available on the App Store as a subscription — which will be billed directly to an iTunes account. And because this paperless paper requires no multi-million dollar presses or delivery trucks, it will be priced at just 99 cents a week (or $39.99 for an annual subscription).
“The Daily launches at a moment when advances in technology are changing the job of the modern editor,” says Mr. Angelo. “These advances are giving us new ways to tell stories. We intend to take advantage of all of them, and make The Daily the new voice for a new era.”
The Daily launched on February 2, 2011 with the mission to provide the best news experience by combining world-class storytelling with the unique interactive capabilities of the iPad.
Led by Editor-in-Chief Jesse Angelo and Publisher Greg Clayman, The Daily is a category first: a tablet-native national news brand built from the ground up to publish original content exclusively for the iPad.
The Daily is incisive, optimistic, and independent. It’s not just an app — it’s a new voice.
How many people have paid for TheDaily.com subscriptions? We don’t know. But however many it is, it’s not enough to keep them from losing $10 million in the first three months of the year.
Folks, Egypt is over — time for us to get focused on covering America. We need to get out there and start finding more compelling stories from around the country — not just scraping the web and the wires, but getting out on the ground and reporting. Find me an amazing human story at a trial the rest of the media is missing. Find me a school district where the battle over reform is being fought and tell the human tales. Find a town that is going to be unincorporated because it’s broke. Find me a story of corruption and malfeasance in a state capitol that no one has found. Find me something new, different, exclusive and awesome. Find me the oldest dog in America, or the richest man in South Dakota. Force the new White House press secretary to download The Daily for the first time because everyone at the gaggle is asking about a story we broke. Get in front of a story and make it ours — force the rest of the media to follow us. It’s good stories that will keep people coming back to The Daily — we’ve assembled a crack news team, so let’s show the world what we can do.
Angelo has already spent most of his life in the Murdoch orbit. He’s known Murdoch’s son James since they were in kindergarten. They went to Harvard together . . .
Angelo was born in 1973 and grew up on Central Park West. His father, John Angelo, founded the firm Angelo, Gordon & Co., which today manages about $23 billion in assets.
Jeff Jarvis did a back-of-the-envelope calculation and estimated The Daily will need 750,000 subscribers at its current price of 99 cents a week or $40 a year before it starts breaking even. It’s fair to say they have a ways to go.
During his Sunday announcement that U.S. special operations forces had killed terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden, President Obama said, “Justice has been done.”
Not even the president’s harshest Republican critics would argue with that. But you know who could argue? Jos Truitt at Feministing:
That’s not what I call justice. I don’t see justice in violence responding to violence. I see vengeance. I don’t see justice in one killing in the midst of many. Where’s the justice in 10 years of war, in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, now Libya? In the killing of uncounted, unacknowledged civilians, including when bin Laden was killed? In sending young Americans, my friends, overseas to kill and be killed? In endless war?
Where’s the justice in pumping money into war overseas while there’s continued state violence against people on American soil? Against American Indians robbed of resources and exposed to sexual violence? Where’s the justice in our “criminal justice” system? A system that locks up far too many people, far too many young people of color including invisibilized queer and trans youth, for non-violent reasons in prisons that produce increased violence within their walls, that condition people to this state of violence and then send them to do violence outside?
Where’s the justice in funding wars while Americans experience the more subtle violence of lack of access to health care, including reproductive health care? When the US deports huge numbers of immigrants? When the divide between rich and poor in this country is getting bigger every day, the poor group growing and the rich group shrinking?
How far gone into moral blindness can you be, to view the unspeakable acts of Osama bin Laden as equivalent to, e.g., the deportation of illegal aliens?
Herman Cain appeared on the Neal Cavuto show Wednesday afternoon to talk about Thursday’s debate in Greenville, South Carolina. Asked about the presumed GOP 2012 candidates who are skipping the debate, Cain said: “I think they’re making a mistake by not being here.”
With the first 2012 GOP presidential debate Thursday in South Carolina, top Republicans in the Palmetto State are warning several hopefuls who have chosen to skip the event that it will hurt them. “Anyone that discounts South Carolina is making a huge mistake,” said South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley.
South Carolina traditionally holds the first primary in the south. Since it began in 1980, no Republican has won the GOP presidential nomination without first winning the state. . . .
Gov. Haley believes skipping Thursday’s debate will put some of the candidates at odds with demanding Palmetto State voters eager to begin reviewing the candidates and their character.
“They’re gonna have to work twice as hard to prove that they’re in the game and while it is early, to show that you’re strong early makes an important difference in South Carolina,” Haley said. “So I would advise all of them get here, get here fast and make sure every part of the state notices you.”
Cain will be joined by Rep. Ron Paul, former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum and former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson in Thursday’s debate (9 p.m. ET). Dave Weigel runs down the lineup, and explains why the no-shows are no-shows. The latest news from the Mitt Romney campaign is intriguing; one of his top New Hampshire supporters has quit:
Romney’s wishy-washy political identity and inability to stake out firm, consistent positions as a candidate were the reasons for his decision to cut ties with Romney. “He struggled with that in the last campaign,” [Bruce] Keough explains, “and to some extent I think he’s still struggling with it.”
Meanwhile, back to Thursday’s debate, Carl Cameron of Fox News observes: “Retail politics is key in South Carolina. The voters here insist on meeting the candidates and kicking the tire and figuring out what the candidates are all about.” Retail politics is where Cain says he’s strongest in early primary states. As he told Cavuto in Wednesday’s interview: “Start looking at some of the results we’re getting on the ground in Iowa and New Hampshire.”
In an interview with Steve Kroft for this Sunday’s 60 Minutes, President Obama says he won’t release post-mortem images of Osama bin Laden taken to prove his death. . . . Republican House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers said Wednesday that the Obama administration should not release the gruesome post-mortem images, saying it could complicate the job for American troops overseas. Rogers told CBS News he has seen a post-mortem photo.
“The risks of release outweigh the benefits,” he said. “Conspiracy theorists around the world will just claim the photos are doctored anyway, and there is a real risk that releasing the photos will only serve to inflame public opinion in the Middle East.”
“If you’re a sergeant in a town in Ghazni, Afghanistan and you’re trying to get some local elder to cooperate about what’s happening in your village, are you going to do it if this inflames into some kind of trophy — we have a trophy of Osama bin Laden? I worry about that,” Rogers told [George Stephanopoulos]. “And if we can’t answer for sure and for certain this doesn’t make the job of that soldier easier, if it makes it harder, I say it’s not worth it.”
Just saw Fox News interview John McCain, who said: “My initial opinion is that it’s not necessary to [release the photos].”
If he sticks to this, it’s a bad move in my opinion. If the photo is being withheld out of sensitivity to Muslims, we are once again baptizing Osama bin Laden into mainstream Islam, after years of telling the world that OBL wasn’t a good Muslim. Stupid. Obama has just created his own pet version of the Warren Commission Report. If Obama sticks to this decision, we’ll get a lifetime of bad Photoshops and conspiracy theories out of it. And the radicals who want to kill us will still want to kill us.
UPDATE IV: In a White House briefing just now, spokesman Jay Carney said, “It’s not in our national security interests” to release the photos.
Right: But one way or another, the photos will be public within weeks — perhaps within days. The National Enquirer will pay somebody $50,000, the photos will be leaked, and then the White House will engage in public hand-wringing about how “irresponsible” it is for the Enquirer to publish the photos.
Does the phrase “plausible deniability” ring a bell?
As for our betters who say don’t release the photos because it might inflame the Religion of Peace into a murderous rage (a state also known as “everyday”) …everyone of you bastards better be on record either urging the withholding of or condemning the release of photos from Abu Ghraib.
UPDATE XI:Professor Glenn Reynolds: “This seems like a mistake to me, and the double-shuffle of contradictory messages that has led up to this decision hasn’t looked ready for prime time.”
Rather than bomb the compound, Obama (after 16 hours of deliberation and a half-round of golf) made the “gutsy” call to send SEAL troops into harm’s way so that he could make sure the US had proof of death. This was a “Kill Only” mission, we’re told — and the SEAL “assaulters” dutifully shot the unarmed bin Laden and his young bride. Obama then ordered a 45-minute burial ceremony, performed Arabic, in which bin Laden’s “Kill Only” corpse was cleaned and dressed and placed in a burial shroud. Then dumped into the sea.
And now Obama is saying he won’t release the proof of death he claimed was so vital — and Andrea Mitchell, among others, is satisfied with this: the government has all the proof it needs, so why show anyone else? Per Mitchell, we’re inherently to trust the government. Because it isn’t a Republican in the White House. So it must be good and righteous.
And besides, we don’t want to offend Muslim sensibilities. After all, there’s no telling how these inherently peaceful people might react to photos of a dead bin Laden, who doesn’t represent Islam in any way.
Like I said: “Plausible deniability.” The photo will leak, and the official reaction from the White House will be to denounce the leak. But this is just about maintaining appearances.
Sadly, I suspect the possibility of permanently elevating ObL to a near mythical stature was disregaded in favor of a more self-serving domestic political calculus.
Really: Why is it that jihadis post online videos of the executions of innocent Americans (e.g., Daniel Pearl) and yet, when we finally get the world’s most bloodthirsty terrorist, we can’t publish the photo because we’re afraid of inflaming “the Arab street”? I don’t give a damn one way or another whether they publish the photos, but I very much give a damn about U.S. officials kowtowing to the sensitivities of such savages: “Oh, we don’t want to offend them.”
They need to be offended, and often, and by someone who knows how.
