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The Votemaster Is...Andrew Tanenbaum
A reader writes: " www.electoral-vote.com, a site of daily updated maps of the US electoral college based on a number of polls is probably a site that the policially inclined check daily. Well, it has been revealed that the person behind the site, AKA the votemaster, is none other than Andrew Tanenbaum, noted author of numerous CS books." He's also known for a little discussion with someone named Linus Torvalds.
As I imagine the replies to this post will mostly be drooling fawning over Andrew Tanenbaum, much like the Jon Stewart/Crossfire article, I'd like to actually ask some meaningful questions. (And please note that I have great respect for Tanenbaum, but don't understand a couple of his central points, described below.)
Why does running a statistical analysis website that gathers information on polls and aggregates them into something quasi-meaningful "support" the Democratic candidate?
Yes, yes, I'm well aware that while incognito he had said on numerous occasions that he was a Kerry supporter, and a Democrat. But he himself says:
Why Did You Do This?
In a nutshell, because I want to be proud of America again.
Meaning that Kerry can somehow make him proud again. Ok, fine, but what does running electoral-vote.com have to do with that? The question "Why Did You Do This?" implies that he is "do"ing something to influence people to vote in a particular way, which I simply don't see that website doing. In fact, other than the admittedly editorial sections of the site, I have found the site to be remarkedly unbiased.
He then goes on, at length, describing/proving that the world "hates" Bush/the administration/etc. This comes as absolutely no surprise to me. However - and FORGET about "Bush" for a second - how does "hating" someone have any logical correlation with whether their positions or courses of action are appropriate or inappropriate? That would seem antithetical to the viewpoints of most progressive persons. That's a serious question, but I doubt I'll get any serious answers. And this is an important question, because the fact that so many abroad "hate" Bush, and somehow getting more Americans to understand that, is central to Tanenbaum's multitude of statements on the topic. Why does "hating" someone mean what they're doing is wrong? (I will concede that a leader of a nation being hated probably makes it vastly more difficult to do diplomatic work, but that is somewhat tangential to my core question.)
The rest of this post amounts to what are essentially footnotes on this topic, but I believe are critical to the discussion of the belief that Kerry can somehow to a better job.
So let's address these things. The world "hates" Bush, and Kerry can somehow not only fight terrorism more effectively, but will also bring respect back to the US.
Sen McCain said it best yesterday on Face the Nation:
"I also believe that President Bush has a vision and a view that the war on terror is not going to be over until we have some democracy in the Middle East, and I don't think he means by imposing that at the point of a bayonet. But I do believe that he's correct that the issue of radical Islamic extremism is not going away until those countries have some kind of freedom and democracy, and I think that's his long-term goal."
Now, before you start spitting and sputtering about why the US is in "Iraq", then, well, reread that last statement. I'm not going to beat around the bush, as it were, any more: the US is in "Iraq" because it was an easy target in the region, period. Not because Saddam tried to kill Bush's "daddy", not because Bush is an angry dry drunk, and not because Cheney has a secret plan to line his pockets and that of Halliburton. This isn't a black-and-white zero-sum game where there is only one reason the US is in Iraq. There are myriad reasons. But the prime one is that it is part of a comprehensive, omnibus strategy to bring free or quasi-free governments to the region, in the hopes that more of the same will be encouraged, even as organizations like al-Qaeda redouble their recruiting efforts. This strategy will make things worse in the meantime. Possibly a lot worse. People will hate us. Including some people who will ultimately be protected by our actions (i.e., Europe).
Panislamic radicalism will not go away on its own
Most of the electoral votes are in the heartland of the US. If you told an average person on the streets that Europeans want to see Kerry elected, the instinctive response is to vote for Bush. If you don't think Karl Rove is using this to the Republicans' advantage, you're on crack.
We'll see the result tomorrow. I expect something decisive. No two elections are the same.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
It was very enlightening to follow along as things went back and forth (with a sprinkling of DoS attacks on the site) and the Votemaster's analysis was always a good read. Kudos to him for a job well done.
Now, for all of the US citizens out there, go vote.
If you were to set up the same vote for say England you would be luckly to find many people in the US to know who is actually running against Mr Blair.
Give the man a break. From a purely academic design standpoint, Linux *is* obsolete... and hey, AST is definitely an academic. But that doesn't mean he has to be ignorant to its commercial success. Proving once again that just 'cos something isn't beautiful, if it gets the job done, people will use it. :-)
How appropriate. You fight like a cow.
I've followed this guy's site for the last few months and I think he has recently developed a problem with his intellectual honesty.
He is an unabashed Kerry supporter, not in and of itself a bad thing, but he is discarding poll results favorable to the President in order to show a Kerry victory. For example he claims to have averaged recent polls in Florida but a Quinnipiac poll from 10/27 thru 10/31 shows an EIGHT point Bush lead. How he ends up with a 2 point Kerry advantage with that in the average I don't know.
Today is his worst showing yet, in my opinion, and he may be indirectly helping the President. If Kerry supporters believe their man is going to win and win big then voters who are not as committed may not show up to vote.
Remember Karl Rove asking where the FOUR MILLION evangelicals were in 2000? If people think their man will win regardless of their vote then fewer people will make the effort to vote and strange things can happen.
Yes, my only tool is a hammer. And you're starting to look like a nail.
I disagree. If you'd read Tanenbaum's assessment of European attitudes of Bush (and his remarkably refreshing attitude towards American leadership in the world) you'd find that, while people may loathe Bush, they are not "loopy," they simply see American power as resting in the hands of an international bully.
I for one will be voting for Kerry not because we are unpopular, but because I desire to see America lead the world again, which we cannot do under the current administration.
Why is it that everytime Andrew Tanenbaum is mentioned on Slashdot, the "infamous thread" must be brought up, and not much else? This man IS UNIX history.
Tanenbaum was around looong before Linus/Linux. Before Linux even began, before Soft Landing Linux, those of us who wanted UNIX on our home computers used/loved Minix.
Minix was the technology that sparked a lifetime love of UNIX for many a users, not just the younger Linux.
Occasionally, I'll reflect on the beautiful blue console of my Amiga, on which I ran Minix off of 3 (as I recall) floppies.
So please, let's not dismiss Andrew Tanenbaum's role in computer history. Remember that his shoulders are the giant's that Linus has been standing on.
I can't wait to see what the people standing on Linus's shoulders come up with...
But for whatever reason, ICEs move most people to work in the morning. It just happens to work REALLY REALLY well for the particular size vehicle people drive. Besides, improvements in computer control technology have largely rounded off the rough points of ICE.
To a mechanical engineer, we all should be driving around in cars powered by turbines, or Wenkel rotary engines.
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
The electoral college is not obselete. If we got rid of it, the presidential election campaigns would focus on the top five or ten population centers/media markets in the country, and effectively disenfranchise the rest of it. There is a reason why our forefathers gave disproportionate numbers of votes to smaller states--because they realized the danger of letting one particular geographical area or population center have control of the system.
You need to remember that this country is (or at least, is supposed to be) a federation of states, and the president is supposed to be the representative of the states, not necessarily the people in them. People do not cast ballots for presidents -- states do. The states can decide the procedures in which they determine how to cast their ballots in any way they deem appropriate.
If this does not make sense to you, think about the UN. You, as a person who lives in a country represented in the UN, do not get to vote for UN resolutions. Rather, your country's representative does.
As for our congressional election system, I think that although the Senate should remain in tact, it would probably benefit the country to change the House to a more European-style parliament so that people outside the Republican-Democrat duopoly could actually have a voice.
So what? If you took a Slashdot poll of who the next CEO of Microsoft should be, you might find widespread support for some guy who would give away all their IP and then disband the company. If you took a poll of the shareholders, they would have a different opinion. Why would anyone need to poll 113,000 people to realize that third parties have different agendas than the people doing the voting?
Even if foreigners are well-informed about the platforms of the candidates in a different country, why would they care about things like domestic issues or tax policy? Such people would have no interest in picking the candidate who would act in the best interest of Americans, but rather who would do things that were best for people in the poll-respondant's part of the world, regardless of whether the policies were good or bad for the candidate's own constituency. People in India want might more outsourcing, people in Japan might want America to run a bigger trade deficit with them, others might want to take America down a notch or two economically, politically, militarily, and so on.
Consider this interpretation of your data: people who actually have to live under the administration they are voting for are many times more likely to support Bush than are poll respondants who are foist a candidate upon someone else's country from afar.
But American actions affect France, Canada, the U.K., Iraq, Iran, China, North Korea, India, everywhere for that matter.
The worlwide poll results reflect to a minimum extent the feelings generated by the current administration's actions.
If you don't want to repeat the past, stop living in it.
Your government misrepresented its reasons for going to war. In fact, the correct expression is, "it LIED".
Saddam Hussein has/had no proven connections to Al Quaeda. No secret relationships with Osama Bin Laden. No Weapons of Mass destruction. No ability to threaten America or American citizens (except those who wandered into Iraq) directly.
Was he a "bad man"? Oh, probably. But so is Kim Jong Il.
The reason why there is so much anti-american sentiment is that America (through its governmental representation) is so anti-global-community. So blatantly false in its motivations. And has proven to be very untrustworthy.
The war was NEVER about terror, Weapons of Mass Destruction, regime change, or making the world a safer place. It was always about securing oil resources and securing a military foothold in the middle-east.
The rest of the world knew this immediately (except for the UK government). We didn't swallow anything hook-line-and-sinker. We called a spade a spade, and are frankly quite disgusted by the lack of respect that America has demonstrated to the international community.
At the very least, if the American government would've said, "uh, we're going into Iraq because the instability of the area threatens our Oil supply." At least they would've been honest.
Are Americans evil? Hardly. My wife is American. I visit my inlaws regularly and they are fantastic folks. So are all of the people I've met on a face-to-face basis. However, the American government is NOT a good representation of its people. All that the rest of the world is saying with these fake votes and inconsequential opinion polls is that we'd like your government to give you the international representation that the good people of America deserve.
-- All views expressed in this post are mine and do not
-- reflect those of my employer or their clients
Tough. It's our vote, not yours. I'm getting really sick of these arrogant Europeans thinking their oppinion in our election even matters. We (by and large) hate the French president, do they care? Are they changing their votes because of it?
You're right, it is your vote, and it's perfectly justifiable for Americans to consider their election a purely internal matter for Americans to deal with.
Oddly enough though, whenever another country has elected a leader that Americans happened to dislike, you always went in and removed them. It didn't matter if it required an invasion (too many to list), a kidnapping (Panama), an assassination (Cuba), or a fake coup (Guatemala), you supported it.
And to think all we're doing to express our dislike of your leaders is letting you know about it. Oh the horror! But you're getting pissed that we would dare interfere in your election by *talking about it*? What a fucking hypocrite.
I'm getting really sick of these arrogant Europeans thinking their oppinion in our election even matters.
Let's make this simple:
Their opinions of our nation affect our individual lives. Sometimes the effects aren't obvious, but the effects are there. Therefore, we have a reason to care about what they think of us.
Their opinions of our nation are largely determined by our nation's actions in the area of foreign relations. Foreign relations is handled by the State Department under the direction of the President. Ergo, their opinion of us is principally affected by our President. Therefore, we have a reason to care about what they think of our President.
Their opinion matters. It's not decisive by any means, but to the extent that our interests and theirs coincide, we should at least give consideration to what they have to say.
Beyond that, sometimes it's good to get a point of view that is at a remove from the problem. Marriage counselors aren't necessarily all that smart, but they are fairly effective because they're outside of the problem. Sometimes I think the US citizens and the US government could use some intervention to help us work out our differences :-)
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
You can check all the data behind the graphs, I would think if he did something sneaky it would have been routed out by now. Many other sites are not using *all* available polls, which means they are not swinging as wildly and also not as up-to-date as Tanenbaum's. As he explains in the FAQ now, his graphs have not been significantly different from the pro-bush electionprojection.com site.
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Also, read this:
http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaySt
This from a magazine that endorsed Dole and Bush on previous US elections...
If you don't like having choices made for you, you should start making your own. - Neal Stephenson
Reading this retort, I was immediately reminded of Tannenbaum's comment about the bully in his school. If you really _don't_ care what the rest of the world thinks of the U.S., then don't be surprised when they aren't willing to help us the next time a terrorist attack strikes us.
Considering just how crappy our economic health is at the moment, an international boycott would only make things in the U.S. worse, irregardless of the size of our economy. And I wouldn't be surprised if that came to pass.
Geoff
I think I see a trend here. Maybe for them it really would be easier to muzzle the entire internet than to produce p
If you always do the opposite of what those you dislike do, you're not really going your own way. You are just slavishly following others. That you're going in the opposite direction from them doesn't change the fact that you are a slave to their decisions. You're an "anti sheep" if you will.
A true free thinking rebel has no problem doing exactly what the huge masses of idiots do, if he happens to enjoy it.
Why exactly do "[The US citizens] (by and large) hate the French president"?
It's just the fanatical Bush supporters, the ones who live in an entirely different reality filled with entirely different "facts". They generally beleive that we did find WMD's in Iiiiqar, or that there was an active WMD program, that Iraq was involved in the 9/11 attack or otherwise supported Al Quaeda, who think we still have the vitally needed international support for hunting down terrorists across the globe.
And based on that view of reality, obviously the French are aiding the terrorists. They are all obviously currupted by the Oil for Food program. And most of all they simply want to see a weak America so they can puff-up their own relative importance and strength.
But as I said, that's the Bush supporters. The rest of us may have chucked at the "Freedom Fries" stuff, and laughed at the French-surrendering jokes, but we in no way hate the French or your President.
I'd say 20% of the problem is our administration intentionally deceiving the public, 20% of the problem is idiot people beleiving the administration's baloney, but the majority of the problem is that our media has rolled over for the Whitehouse. Immediately after 9/11 attack we all naturally came together in unity and support. After the attack any critisism of the country or of the president was simply UnAmerican and Not Done. While the effect has faded, it is not gone. The press has been reluctant to carry news that was critical of the US or of the President. When they do critique the administration and their statements and their 'evidence', the media tends to softpeddle that critique.
Half of the country is outraged at the lies the administration has foisted on us and on the world, and the other half still beleives those lies. It is human nature that people do not like to find out that they are wrong - that they have been fooled. Bush supporters are emotionally invested in not accepting evidence that they have been fooled, and that they have been supporting a war that most of them would have opposed had they known there were in fact no WMD's and no WMD programs.
The people on each side have a very different view of reality. This election is increadibly polarized. A one or two percent shift in voting will throw the electorial college vote massively one way or the other. There seems to be good reason to believe that that major shift will be in Kerry's direction. And hopfully after a Kerry election the public will become more accurately informed.
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First of all every government security agency in the world believed that Saddam had WMDs.
Foreign government security services didn't say much about it at all, as far as I know. But US government experts, including weapons inspectors, said that there was no way there were WMD there anymore, or even to create them.
Just look at the financial relations that exist between the US and everyone else.
Yes: a result of the dollar having become the international standard of exchange after WWII. The question is: will the US let the Euro take over that role?
If we were so anti-global we would create tarrifs on imports that duplicate the tarrifs our good face when exported to other countries. Almost every country in the world has much more severe barriers to foreign competition and foreign ownership or acquisition of companies than the US.
The US has low trade barriers in some areas (e.g., high tech) and high trade barriers others (e.g., agriculture). Those policies don't represent a general commitment to free trade, but the political influence of selected US constituencies. Some of those policies, like US (and EU) agricultural policies, can only be described as evil.
The US government sends more aid to other countries than any other country in the world. They probably (unsubstantiated) send more aid to other countries than the entire EU combined.
The US is one of the stingiest nations when it comes to foreign aid. And even those official figures are overestimates because what the US counts as "foreign aid" is often thinly disguised political or military aid, or tied to the purchase of US goods and services. So, in effect, that "foreign aid" is US corporate subsidies, which is not only bad foreign aid policy, but also in violation of fair trade principles.
I'm getting really sick of these arrogant Europeans thinking their oppinion in our election even matters.
You are shortsighted and and dooming our efforts to defend ourselfs against terrorist attack if you think overwhelming world oppinion is irrelevant.
The world - our staunchest allies - they all beleive that the US has been lying and that *WE* have become the rouge nation. I'd say the evidence is that they are right, but even if they are wrong, the fact is that they do beleive it. The fact is that they no longer trust us. The fact is that they no longer support our efforts to track and catch or kill terrorists.
How the hell are we supposted to find and catch or kill terrorists across the globe - even in nations that have been our staunchest allies - when we no longer have their public support and police support and intelligence support and their military support?
Bush has been increadibly damaging to our international relations. Bush has destroyed our capacity to find and catch and kill terrorist cells outside the country and planning attacks on us.
We are talking about Australia, and England, and Mexico, and Canada. And yes, France and Germany as well.
Bush is famous for saying "you're with us or you're against us". Well he got his wish, now the entire world is against us. How the hell are we supposed to keep out terrorists when even Canada and Mexico are against us?
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If you look at the perception of Europe in Israel, say, you'll find that the Israeli's consider Europe to be Arabist. This is their term. It is born out of the was European members vote against Isreal in the UN.
What would be a more meaningful measure that American voters would be more inclined to listen to is the opinion of their Coalition partners who took part in this survey. Britain and Australia, say. You'll find similar results there, but from people who entirely back America as a nation. So the net result from the public from your Coalition Partners is :
"Love you guys and fight side by side, but Geez, could you pick a better figurehead?"
Of course this is my reading of the poll,not my opinion on the war or the worthiness of GW Bush.
I think everyone in the whole world stands to learn a lot by seeing how Americans dictate their own President and working in response. No point bitching and moaning. Americans are going to elect whomever they deem fit, and the sooner we can work with both outcomes, the better. That is my opinion.
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European governments would have to convince their besotted (with social programs) populace that spending more than 2% of their GDP on defense is required.
Required by what? To have a military that is as bloated and useless as the US military?
Most of your nations
You're making unwarranted assumptions.
still operate under a US-provided nuclear umbrella.
I gather most Europeans would prefer not to, if they ever did.
"Asserting leadership" is impossible without military might.
What is the US going to do with its military might? Bomb Europe? Bomb China? The instant that happened, the US economy would be in complete ruins and the US would be an international outcast. Those hundreds of billions of dollars spent on Iraq and Afghanistan haven't even been able to bring those nations under control. Military might is an outdated concept: what little the US has, it can't seriously exercise.
I don't consider Europe a threat, and neither does this administration
This whole notion of "threat" is so cold war. If you want to talk about "threats", Europe is an economic threat to the US, along with China and India. And if the US wants to counter that "threat", it can only do by becoming more open, more tolerant, and more competitive, not through more military power and intervention.
Speaking as a Canadian .... very well said. TO be clear though, we do have a lot of respect and are protective of our friends in the US, as they generally are of us.
We whole heartedly support the fight against terrorism
We just get upset when our VERY large friend to the south doesn't think strategically, becomes unreasonably impatient, works outside their network of friends, alienates most of them, and then opens up an unnecessary second front to fight an unnecessary (Iraq was well contained) war, instead of the War Against Terrorism.
In short, Bush has made the US has looked like a lurching, violent, idiot on the world stage
"If you look at the perception of Europe in Israel, say, you'll find that the Israeli's consider Europe to be Arabist."
To be fair US is the only ally Israel has. They regard everybody else as being arabists, not just europe but russia, africa and the far east too.
The only two countries that see the palestenian occupation as just and moral are Israel and the US. Everybody else sees it as immoral and unjust.
evil is as evil does
RE costs:
I don't think cost is a factor. If it was they would have stopped by now.
RE Arab population and Israel as a Democracy.
Isreal needs to make up it's mind. Is it a jewish state or is it a democracy. You can no more have a jewish democracy then you can have a christian democracy, a white democracy or a muslim democracy. You either have full sufferage or you don't have democracy. Israel is not a democracy, it's the fullfillment of zion. I frequently describe it as a theo-democracy. It a theocracy that is governed by pseudo democratic process.
RE Borders:.
THere are UN resolutions that draw the Israeli border.
RE Fence:.
I agree with you to an extent. I agree that whoever is left on the israeli side of the fence gets to become a full fledged israeli citizen. The only thing you have to be careful of is that the fence is not constructed so as to take all of the available water, arable land, etc.
RE Geneva convention:
It's toothless. For all practical purposes israel is the most powerful nation on the planet. If anybody attacks israel the US will turn them into a parking lot. If the UN attempts to pass a resolution to force israel to do something the US will veto it. If Israel bombs another country and the country attempts to retaliate the US will destroy that country.
Israel is not bound by any laws of man or god. It can do whatever it wants, whenever it wants to whoever it wants. They could carpet bomb syria tommorow and kill everybody in there and nobody can do anything about it.
The only thing that is holding back israel from massive ethnic cleansing in the occupied terratories is their own internal morality. Right now the people calling for genocide are a minority. Who knows what will happen in the future. I suspect if the soul of the israeli nation continues in it's current path that minority will become a majority and a final solution will be proposed in the knesset by the likes of netanyahu and sharon.
evil is as evil does