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Obama & McCain on Women in Science, Technology, Engineering, & Math

By on Oct 20, 2008 in Politics

This is an issue close to my heart: Campaign Responses to Questions from The Association for Women in Science & The Society of Women Engineers Obviously I’m biased, but McCain really comes off and not knowing anything about the issue. His answers are much shorter than Obama’s, he doesn’t show that he even knows what the initiatives they are asking about are, and his focus seems generally to be on education. What about female scientists, engineers, and mathematicians working right now? McCain’s only real input is to say that he will create a presidential commission to study the issue. Why? There is a plethora of research out there on these issues. To me, this just says that he doesn’t care enough to get informed and he doesn’t want to committ to a decision. At the very least, it becomes clear that this is an issue that the Obama/Biden campaign...

Understanding Science …

By on Sep 30, 2008 in Politics

I think most competent, intelligent people would agree that our society – mostly fueled by right wing fundamentalist Christians and/or oil execs – is seeing a major assault on science. I would argue that this is more pervasive than even the standard anti-climate change conservatives; it is perpetrated by our poor education system as well as left wing radical animal rights activists, a lazy, profit drive media, and others. My views on that are for another post but the point is that it is clear that there are many misunderstandings about how science works. So here is an incomplete list of things I’d like to see more widely understood about science: 1. Yes, science is based on “theories” but those theories are upheld by consensus among experts in the field. How do you know if a theory, climate change for example, has passed the test? A good rule of thumb is...

Why Computers Don’t Work and Touchscreen Voting Machines are BAD FOR DEMOCRACY

By on Jan 16, 2008 in Politics

Over Thanksgiving, Adam and I visited an old friend and his new girlfriend. The conversation, predictably, turned to politics. Adam or I somehow or another, predictably, brought up Greg Palast and his investigations into systematic voter disenfranchisement by the republican party in 2000 & 2004 in FL, NM, and OH. Don’t know what I’m talking about? Read about it on GregPalast.com and/or buy his book, Armed Madhouse. Girlfriend commented that we are less sophisticated with voting that Honduras (or some Central American country) because they use touch-screen voting machines. I was instantly transported back to my Computer Science professor’s office after the 2004 elections and our, admittedly random, conversation on the horrors of touchscreen voting. That’s right: Two people with advanced degrees in Computer Science think touch screen voting machines are a bad...