Monthly Archives: August 2010

So How Did We Do?

Sink, check; Meek, check and bigtime (over weird and unsavory billionaire Jeff Greene); Gelber, check.

(The ones I voted for are in bold.)

Locally, with about 2/3 of the precincts reporting…

Circuit Judges – Group 45: Samantha Ruiz Cohen coasted to victory over incumbent Judge Peter Adrien. This is good.

Circuit Judges: – Group 62: Robert Kuntz seems to be losing big to Monica Gordo; a shame, I think, but not a problem.

County Judges – Group 7: Incumbent Judge Edward Newman (50.6% at this moment, but it's varied) neck and neck with Manuel 'Manny' Alvarez.

County Judges – Group 11: Incumbent Judge Flora Seff seems to have lost to the relatively unqualified but Hispanically-named Michaelle Gonzalez-Paulson. I don't think this is good, both because the incumbent didn't deserve to lose and because this (and perhaps the Newman race above, although that is more complex) tends to support the widespread and not-unreasonable belief that a lot of uninformed voters just vote for the judge with a Hispanic name.

School Board District 6: Dr. Kitchka Petrova never had a chance. The only question was how big a margin Raquelita Regaldo would win by. In the last days before the election, her campaign sent me a box with an apple in it containing a note saying “For the apple of your eyes and mine, we must salvage our public education”. The next day it was a small (mini-golf size) pencil and a sharpener (“Salvaging our Public Education from Financial Disaster Require that We Sharpen Our Pencils and Get Back to Basics!”) Education, teachers, apples and pencils, get it? So far the margin is overwhelming, pushing 60% of the total vote. Name recognition and a huge financial advantage.

Charter Amendment Eliminating the Office of County Manager: I supported NO, but suspected Yes would win — voters liking the sound of eliminating a government job. So far Yes is winning 60-40, so I think that's the outcome. Pity.

Home Rule Charter Amendment Authorizing County Commission to Abolish Municipalities of Twenty or Fewer Electors: Everyone was for YES. Winning but only 64-36.

Home Rule Charter Amendment Relating to Franchises: I supported NO, feared Yes would win, but NO is winning 67-32.

The other races I was watching were:

  • The Republican gubernatorial slugfest: boring apparatchik Bill McCollum v. crazy dangerous mega-millionaire Rick Scott: with 72% of the votes counted, Scott is ahead 47-43. Wow.
  • The Republican primary in FL-25 — how big would the inroads from Republicans nervous about David Rivera be in what seemed his certain majority; and the answer is — only a little, as Rivera has 63% to Crespo's 26% with 55% of the precincts reporting.
  • The Democratic primary in FL-25 — how big would Joe Garcia's margin of victory be? So far looks about 3:1.
  • The County Commission race in District 8, very near where I live, in which Annette Taddeo was a candidate in a crowded field with some good candidates: so far it's Finn in the lead with Bell the other candidate likely in the runoff. Although Taddeo is only 300 votes behind Bell, that's a lot given light turnout.

I'll update this in the morning if the final totals change anything. The closest races are the GOP primary for Governor, and the nail-biter for County Judges – Group 7

Posted in Politics: 2010 Election | Comments Off on So How Did We Do?

Your Vote Card

The lower part of Miami-Dade ballot contains non-partisan races that often don't get the attention they deserve. Here are some recommendations on how to vote:

Circuit Judges – Group 45: Samantha Ruiz Cohen

Circuit Judges: – Group 62: Robert Kuntz

County Judges – Group 7: Edward Newman

County Judges – Group 11: Flora Seff

School Board District 6: Dr. Kitchka Petrova

Charter Amendment Eliminating the Office of County Manager: NO

Home Rule Charter Amendment Authorizing County Commission to Abolish Municipalities of Twenty or Fewer Electors: YES

Home Rule Charter Amendment Relating to Franchises: NO

Explanations for these suggestions will be found in these five blog posts:

Part I: Introduction
Part II: Circuit Judges
Part III: County Judges
Part IV: School Board, District 6
Part V: Miami-Dade County Charter Amendments

[UPDATE: forgot to mention the obvious — today is election day for these races!]

Posted in Politics: 2010 Election | Comments Off on Your Vote Card

UM On a Roll

The highly reliable folks at US News have given the University of Miami another bump in the rankings, raising it to 47, and vaulting it above its in-state rivals. The local booster rag, the Miami Herald, duly pens a very favorable local story, Once derided, University of Miami basks in now-lofty status.

For all the USN rankings' lack of science, there is something real going on here. In fact, there are two sets of things.

Locally, “the U” has made enormous strides in the past decade — new faculty being hired in the departments are smart and industrious, SAT scores are way up, there is a great sense of optimism.

Equally significantly, the cash-poor state of Florida has been starving its public universities, and that as much as anything may account for their declining USN scores.

Indeed, the parlous condition of public higher education around the country is, I suppose, another argument for the legitimacy of private education if the private schools are better able to weather hard times: they keep us from eating all the seed corn. Of course, the counter-argument is that if elites had to send their children to the state system then they would take better care of it….

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In Which I Am Falsely Accused of Understanding the Blowfish Algorithm

I have been cited in the Canadian Journal of Electrical and Electronics Engineering in an article entitled, Microcontroller Application in Cryptography Techniques, which appears at Vol. 1, No. 4, June 2010 and is by Ali E. Taki El Deen and Noha A. Hikal. Normally it warms the cockles of my heart to be cited by cryptographers. But not this time.

You see, the place where my article, The Metaphor is the Key: Cryptography, the Clipper Chip and the Constitution, 143 U. Penn. L. Rev. 709 (1995), was cited is this one:

The decryption process for Blowfish [8] is almost identical to the encryption process except the P-array values are reversed.

[8] sends you to my article. The problem is, I wasn't aware I knew much about the Blowfish cipher, or that I had ever written about it.

There must be some mistake? A month ago I emailed the authors to ask, but so far no answer.

Posted in Cryptography | 2 Comments

Florida Politics Remains Weird

Sadly, the height of coverage of the Florida primary election may be this report in the St. Pete Times, A view inside the Florida political circus.

Posted in Politics: 2010 Election | 1 Comment

How Did It Happen?

A friend who just spent six months abroad concentrating on his work asks in bemused wonderment, “What happened to the US while I was away? How did it lose 15 IQ points and lurch to the right?”

Posted in Politics: US | 3 Comments