Ranked vote elections (aka instant runoff elections)

What Utah needs right now is ranked voting.  That way we could all vote BOTH on principle AND strategically.

Here's how ranked voting works.  Let's say you could live with 3 of 4 candidates for president (or city treasurer, whatever).  You can rank the candidates, and ignore the 4th one because you would never vote for them.

Your rank	Candidate	Popular vote of first rank votes
1	Integrity Iverson (3rd party)	19%
2	Livable Longfellow (3rd party)	20%
3	Horrible Hendricks (your party's first pick)	21%
(not ranked)	Opposition Olessen	40%

Given this scenario, everyone who voted for I.I. would be sadly disappointed their first pick was the lowest of the 3. Because of that, I.I. is taken out, and the numbers are run again. Ballots who ranked I.I. first are now counted for their second vote.

Let's say that 18% of voters had marked I.I. first and LL as 2nd (like you), and 1% put I.I. first and Horrible Hendricks as their second choice. The re-rankings now look like this:

Your rank	Candidate	Popular vote of first rank votes
2	Livable Longfellow (3rd party)	20% + 18% = 38%
3	Horrible Hendricks (your party's first pick)	21% + 1% = 22%
(not ranked)	Opposition Olessen	40%

Now, if we had gone by the current simple popular vote system, Horrible would have had the popular vote in round 1.   But now LL is ranked above Horrible.  Since Horrible is now the least popular, they are dropped off, and votes for HH are recounted.  Let's assume that this gives LL another 4%, and that the remainder of the ballots have no further valid ranks (they were already counted out), which leaves the final vote at:

LL: 42%
OO: 40%

This is somewhat contrived.  You could come up with much more elaborate scenarios.

This kind of election changes how you vote. You probably only voted for I.I. and L.L. because ranked elections let you do so safely--in the current election system, you would have voted for Horrible because it seemed like you'd only split the vote and help Opposition win.

This kind of voting allows you both a conscience AND a strategy.  You don't have to vote for Horrible first, but if you think they are the most likely to win and you don't want a split-vote scenario, you can still rank them lower than your first pick and your ballot counts (eventually) toward them, in the worst scenario.

We could really use this today.  I wish we had it.

10 reasons you're lovable (repost)

http://www.pickthebrain.com/blog/10-reasons-why-youre-lovable/?utm_source=feedly

Beautifully written, and probably applicable to all of us; this is a great mentor of a blog post on seeing the good in ourselves and others.  We all have talents and growth to be proud of.

I think we need to recognize the good that God has made us desire to become, and able to become, and able to desire to become.

What's fun? New stuff or old? Introspection.

I just had an epiphany: the work that's fun involves elements I've done before.

When I was younger, I thought stuff was cool if it was new, different, and innovative--Software, if it provided features I hadn't had.  Books and movies, if they looked at ideas with a new angle.

But I forgot that in looking for the new cool stuff, it was always building on the old.  Music collections. Photos.  Managing filesystems.

My interests have evolved, and so has what I think is interesting and cool.

I used to get through a class in school by relating it to something I already knew and liked.  I got through geography and world history in 8th grade because, at the time, I was into role playing and was trying to figure out how to design an imaginary world--with realistic geography and backstories.  The class gave me fuel for understanding my fiction.  Kind of backward, perhaps?  Maybe.  But it worked.  My interest level rose, and I did well in the class.  I found a reason to do well.

Today, I was having trouble getting traction (and interest, frankly) in a new software project at work.  Then I realized I needed to plan out what to do next.  I started looking at one of the vague requirements our BA told me she was working on refining.  I started thinking about different steps to get familiar with the app, and as I did, I noticed I got excited by the idea of looking at the file importers and processors.  That was odd--last time I'd done something like that, it hadn't sounded interesting.  But I think it sounded more interesting because I've done it before.  It's somewhat familiar territory, but also new.  These are new files, new formats, with new purposes.  It's a chance for discovery, in something I haven't done but where I have some knowledge already.

If the file formats turn out to be binary, I can already tell you I'll lose some steam. But then I'd find something else interesting about the feature/requirement.

From maker to taker

John Stossel recently wrote a column where he said:

Americans in "open rebellion"? I'm skeptical. Handouts create fierce constituencies. The tea-party movement is wonderful, but it takes strength to say no to government freebies.
(source)

Not all of us want a country where the government is the nanny, the government takes care of us. But I think if we're ever going to get out from under a nanny government, we will have to work for it--I mean work hard. And stop accepting handouts we don't need. Start giving voluntarily before we do it by government.

Unfortunately, our system is designed to punish those who have personal philanthropic initiative--you don't get any easy tax exemptions for donating to charities. Sure, you can get deductions but not credits.

What if my brothers and I all decided tomorrow that we wanted to pay our parents for retirement, instead of our 7% social security and other fees? (actually, it's 15%, but half of it is hidden because employers have to pay it--and that inevitably means lower wages to remain competitive). Our parents would probably be far better off if we did that. But it's not an either-or decision. It's a government mandate. I'm definitely in favor of staying out of prison and obeying the law. But it illustrates an important point.  For me, at least.  YMMV.

The importance of Honesty

Just a few half-baked thoughts.

The most important characteristic of any politician in office is honesty--in personal and public life. You cannot be sure of anything else until you are sure of their honor.

Admittedly, it can be hard to find honorable men for office, not because there are few, but because dishonest ones aren't always detectably or consistently dishonest.

But to put it another way--would you rather hire an employee with poor communication skills and something odd growing on their face, or an employee who has bragged about lying to friend or family? Would you prefer to grow up in a home where you're never sure when your parents are lying to you, or in one where they're consistent and honest, even if not perfect?

One of the things that really bothered me about Clinton is that he was patently dishonest, but got left in office. He was willing to lie in his personal life, and clearly to the public as well. What else could he have been willing or able to lie about? It troubles me, deeply, that he wasn't removed from office. I heard a talk show host excuse him: to paraphrase, he said "Come on, he's the president of the United States. Give him a break!" -- Give me a break. I don't want someone who is absolutely trustworthy in office. Yes, I hold men and women of public office to a higher standard, because they have to be in order to stand up to pressures to take advantage of their power or misuse it, even a little.

I would rather have an honest fascist in office than a lying patriot who professed my favorite political opinions.

Nobody in the USA is under the illusion that there aren't liars out there. There are just too many contradictions in the media, in the government, in all aspects of the national infrastructure. Good luck trying to get everyone to agree on who's lying, though.

We need God's help to discern who is trustworthy to hold office.

Eye drops for dry eyes

My eyes water whenever I am about to give myself eye drops. It kindof defeats the point of actually using the eye drops. I can just threaten my eyes to moisten them up. I love irony.

Some reasons I oppose government healthcare.

Since it's in the media and my friends and family are talking about it, here are some reasons I oppose government healthcare. Read my document on it, at google docs:
https://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AdRugBTHTSy5ZGQ0cnBreHFfODR2OGZoamNoag&hl=en