Happy Birthday to Me!
Other talented people sharing my birthday include golfer Tiger Woods, basketball player LeBron James, baseball pitcher Sandy Koufax, comedienne Tracey Ullman, "Runaway" singer Del Shannon, two members of the Monkees (Davy Jones and Michael Nesmith) and Today Show hosts Matt Lauer and Meredith Veiera. My horoscope today: "You're resourceful and highly practical. You're an excellent problem solver. You like efficiency, effectiveness and productivity. You can have fun with the best of them; nevertheless, you don't like chaos or messy situations." That's spot on (although my Mom and others might take issue with that last assertion).
Another Left-Handed President (Go, Fellow Southpaws!)
George W. Bush is only the second right-handed President to succeed Nixon (Carter was the other). I knew we would regain the Presidency, because both Barack Obama and John McCain are southpaws (and the competition in 1996 were also lefties). (Other members of our select fraternity are Garfield, Hoover, and Truman). Why is it that 10% of the population also produces a disproportionate number of Nobel Prize winners, artists, and writers? Here's another quirk: two of my goddaughters were also born lefty. I also have some oddball traits; I can throw a baseball equally hard with either hand.
Remember the droning monotone voice of science teacher Mr. Cantwell (Ben Stein) in that brilliant turn-of-the-90's nostalgia series "The Wonder Years"? Add a liberal dose of um's and you know's to a sex education teacher's lesson plan, and Caroline Kennedy could make a discussion on sex sound BORING to hormone-crazed teens.
It's not really clear what is driving her ambition for the office of US Senator. Is it a sense of entitlement given her father, her Uncle Teddy, or her predecessor Uncle Bobby? What struck me as odd in terms of her pressing her political positions, she decides being in favor of gay marriage is noteworthy. Let me figure this out: we have a funding crisis for social security and Medicare, escalating twin deficits, the most severe recession in decades--and she's showing political "courage" in coming out for gay marriage? You would think, perhaps, she might push for something like her daddy's business and investment tax cuts. But all we get is a run-of-the-mill Democratic views, no obvious prior interest or demonstrated competencies in New York issues and politics.
Governor David Paterson of New York can do better than Caroline Kennedy as a potential replacement for Secretary of State nominee Hillary Clinton.
Time to Pardon Scooter Libby
Judge Reggie Walton had unjustifiably excluded a key defense witness on memory, UCLA Professor Robert Bjork. This relevant excerpt is from NBC producer Joel Seidman (11/02/06):
Judge Reggie Walton, in an opinion Thursday, wrote the testimony of memory export, Dr. Robert Bjork, chairman UCLA's psychology department, would be a "waste of time," and could mislead and confuse a jury.Libby's attorneys had argued many potential jurors do not understand the limits of memory and Libby should be allowed to call an expert to make that clear to them.Judge Walton disagreed, and wrote in his opinion, "the average juror may not understand the scientific basis and labels attached to causes for memory error" but jurors encounter the "frailties of memory" as a "commonplace matter of course" and do not need the guidance of a memory expert to use their "common sense" in the understanding of how memory works.
I'm rather incredulous over this "legal opinion" which can only be seen, in anything under trial, that the role of experts can be arbitrarily dismissed. No doubt Walton have ruled against Galileo, arguing that jurors could rely on their own life experience in knowing whether the earth is flat and the earth is the center of the universe!
I'm particularly sensitive to this issue because I wrote an unpublished article around 20 years ago where I was the first MIS academic I know to have disputed a key related argument Pearson had made regarding his computer user satisfaction satisfaction (later used by Ives, Olson & Baroudi in a Communications of the ACM article in adapting their own measure); this argument essentially treated memory recall as statistically independent events.
I think many lay people seem to consider memory as a virtual copy machine; it simply is not. Regardless of how people politically regard Libby's memory, the question is whether Libby could have fuzzily stored and retrieved bits and pieces of what he recalled from a series of conversations close in time some time back. U.S. Attorney Fitzgerald had argued Libby deliberately misled his witchhunt (my choice of words) after having already having determined that Armitage was Robert Novak's source for the Valerie Plame leak.
The Blago Appointment of Roland Burris: A Good Choice
Even Blagojevich can make a good decision with a federal prosecutor looking over his shoulder given the already established pay-for-play charges. Roland Burris was the first successful African-American statewide officeholder, before and without Blago's help and is qualified. First reactions show the Senate Dems leaning against seating Burris and Obama echoing their concerns, mostly because they think any selection by Blago is tainted. I think Burris needs to be evaluated on his own merits, and the Senate, eager to distance themselves from Blagojevich, may be overplaying its hand.
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