Tracking of electoral votes

Two sites have come to my attention that are tracking polls in order to give an electoral-college view of how the race stands.

Electoral Expectations for 2004
Current Electoral Vote Predictor for 2004

Electoral Expectations takes the average of polling results for the last 30 days to arrive at its number. Current Electoral Vote takes the most recent polls in a state to arrive at its numbers. The different methods provide different results, and they can be educational. For instance, Kerry is gaining ground again after losing quite a bit after the GOP convention. Therefore the Electoral Expectations numbers are more pro-Bush than the Current Electoral Vote Predictor numbers.

Current Electoral Vote Predictor has an RSS feed.

Manned spaceflight

Like children of the 1960's I believed that by the time I was an adult, spaceflight would be routine. And that by the time I hit retirement, the cost of going into space would be low enough that non-millionaires would be able to afford it. I had solid hopes of getting into the Astronaut corps once I got out of college.

The Astronaut idea came to a halt when I developed certain disqualifying medical conditions, I could still be a payload-specialist but only just. Then it turned out that the degree that I got in college was not a hard science degree like I'd need, but the far less useful (from a scientific point of view) computer science degree. So, I wasn't going into space in the prime of my years.

Unfortunately, the rest of the aerospace industry hasn't kept up with desires. The Ansari X-Prize is doing good work in creating civilian space technologies, but those are still a decade or two away from real-world use, and multiple decades from profitability. NASA is facing continual budget cuts, as big-science is seen as big-pork in an era of record setting deficits.

The space shuttle is now limited to flights only to the international Space Station. A shuttle replacement is on the drawing board, but research into a replacement system was shelved a few years ago due to lack of funding. Right now it looks likely that there will be a few years between the end of the Shuttle program and the beginning of the replacement program, years that the United States will have no native manned presence in space. Hopefully by that point either the ISS will be built up enough to be able to withstand that, or relations with Russia will be improved enough that we can work with them to facilitate ISS resupply.

What can help is a redefinition of 'spaceflight'. The Ansari X-Prize defines the edge of space as 100km altitude (about 62 miles, or 327,000ft). What the X-Prize contenders have to do is send three people (or weight equivalent) above that line twice within two weeks. This is seen as spaceflight, for you are above the atmosphere at that height.

Suborbital flights such as that could be a real boon to the transportation industry. The 1980's saw lots of plans for a "hypersonic transport system", the Concord being an example of a "supersonic transport system". None of them came to fruition. A suborbital ballistic flight such as those being performed by X-Prize contenders could lay the groundwork for getting to Tokyo from New York in five hours or less. So long as the price was right, it could compete against conventional airlines that fly under 45,000ft.

Alternately, such technologies could be quite useful for the satellite industry. Most of a booster's fuel is to get it to the edge of space. If the portion of the booster that gets it that high can be made to be reusable, it greatly reduces the cost of getting a kilogram into orbit. The throw-away portion is reduced to the bit that gets it from the edge of space to the correct orbit, a much less Herculean task. Cheaper cost-to-orbit numbers are a prime goal for the entire space industry as it greatly reduces the barrier to development.

On the other hand, humans in orbit performing science is an area that is still threatened. There are many arguments against having humans on-site for orbiting laboratories, as the state of robotics has improved to the point that a lot can be done remotely. Secondly, humans-in-space require very heavy and extensive life-support systems that can potentially dwarf the science-payload of whatever. One of the chief criticisms of the ISS is the fact that not enough science can be performed around station-keeping activities (something that is even more true now that only two crewmembers can be on board due to Soyuz constraints). Technologies developing out of X-Prize contenders won't get to development in time to help the ISS, so the Government will have to foot the bill to support the thing. And I have a sneaking suspicion that such will not be done, and the ISS will be deorbited once the Shuttle program is concluded.

By the time I'm in The Home the world might finally be getting a start on building a Space Elevator. This is grand engineering on a nearly unimaginable scale. What a space elevator is, is a station in geosynchronous orbit tethered to a ground station. The tether is then used to ship up material. Due to the nature of it, it could potentially provide a very cheap cost-to-orbit. The downsides of the system are several, including the requirement that it be on the equator, the fact that the tether itself would be on the order of 257,000 miles long, and failure of the tether could be called "really a lot very bad." One of the not frequently discussed up-sides is that a tether that long that happens to be at all conductive could pull energy out of Earth's magnetosphere in enough quantity to run itself and possibly have enough left over to power any local electrical grids.

But that isn't going to happen until materials science manages to create a cable strong enough to withstand the stresses, and some government or coalition of governments comes up with the $300bn it'd take to build the system. But a guy can dream. Perhaps I'll see something like that before I can't understand what I'm looking at.

Prescription drug re-importation

This is a big issue for some people. The high cost of prescription drugs is a prime mover of the increase in direct-to-consumer health care costs. As such, consumers are looking for a way to reduce this cost. This affects seniors the greatest because you does accumulate prescriptions as you get older.

It has been widely noted that drugs in Canada sell for a lot less than they do in the US. What's more, the costs are low enough on most of them that import duties aren't invoked when these 'scrips are passed through customs (if they were even declared). This particular 'loophole' has been exploited on a wider and wider basis in recent years as the cost of the drugs goes higher and higher. Some Canadian pharmacies are making quite a good business out of re-importing drugs into the US.

I say "re-import" since most of these drugs are manufactured in the US and then exported to the world market. The drug companies cry unfair to the reimportation practice because it effectively imports other countries price controls into the much less controlled US market. In effect, consumers are 'laundering' their medications through foreign countries in order to get a better deal. This, by the way, is what 'Globalization' is all about.

Another reason the drug companies claim for the need to stop the reimportation practice is the idea of counterfeiting. Drug counterfeiting already is a big business, and it is a much greater problem outside of the United States. Viagra is probably the most famous of the drugs to be counterfeited; should you ever reply to those spams about male enhancement, what you get in the mail was likely made in China without the knowledge Pfizer. By ordering your meds from overseas, so the argument goes, you do not get the benefit of FDA controlled distribution channels. Introducing middlemen to the process in the form of re-importers introduces another spot where fake (i.e. unsafe) drugs can be substituted.

This is somewhat disingenuous, at least for "first world" countries with their own medical boards regulating prescription drugs. Repute is a key thing to look for in a reimporter, and Canada is pretty reputable. Yes, their border controls are more porous than ours, but we're pretty strict with that as it is so that's no reason to hold it against them.

It is the price control argument that really sticks to me. Drug costs are subject to a complex array of factors. The drugs cost a lot, yet are needed for some people to continue living. This puts unique pressures that something like the price of steel isn't subjected to. Besides the 'standard' economic influences of price of the dollar in the local market, distribution details, and local competition, drug prices are also influenced by any nationalized health care system, out right legislated price caps, and socialist-seeming sliding-scales. That's quite a lot to contend with when you try to compete in the market.

Globalization has permitted a business culture such that if it is too expensive to produce or obtain something in one country, it is often far easier to obtain/produce it in another country. The export of jobs from the US and importation of Cheap Plastic Crap is but one symptom of this. Consumers are now exercising themselves in this 'new' market in the form of importing their own medications, and the companies are not liking it.

Protectionism is not the way to grow global prosperity, even in drug markets. The drug companies in the US are having to essentially compete with themselves in other markets, something they haven't done before. They claim that this reimportation practice will bring higher prices to Canadians (or other reimporting countries) in order to recoup losses incurred to US-based business. This can only go so far, especially in countries where price-caps set an absolute maximum. This very global competition is what globalization is all about, and should result in lower prices in the US.

Liability & tort reform

Tort-reform is one of those issues that seems to divide democrats from republicans. The republican view is that out of control damage awards is hampering business, where the democrat view is that tort-reform removes the right to redress from legitimate complaintants. It is a demonstrated fact that malpractice insurance costs are a prime mover behind the rise of health care costs, and those rates are rising due to huge pay-outs.

plaintiff argue that the healtcare industry needs to be more careful. Doctors argue that multi-million damage claims are excessive. Republicans argue that a large chunk of the money goes to the winning trial lawyer so the incentive to try more cases is right there.

Healthcare is another of those areas where perfection is expected, and anything short of perfection is a fault that needs to be fixed. Recently, 'fault' has a pricetag attached to it once that fault is determined. Our society is a litigious one, so fault is a matter of big bucks.

Doctors need malpractice insurance in order to be able to pay out if a claim is filed. As with all insurance, if a claim IS paid out the cost of the insurance goes up dramatically. For a lot of firms, it is one strike and you're out. HMOs have pushed margins for medical offices so far that a quadrupling of the malpractice insurance premium can't be absorbed without serious cuts to the basic business. A lot choose to just go out of business.

And this doesn't just extend to healthcare. Liability for injury of any form has caused dramatic changes in many areas. Doctors are now having patients mark which part of their body will be operated on. Tickets to sporting venues have "agree to hold harmless" clauses on the back of each ticket. Warning labels abound for what common sense would tell a person anyway.

Take a personal example, soccer. The rules as put out by FIFA state that the Referee has the responsibility to make sure that the player's equipment is safe. The rules go on to list what is safe equipment. This implies rather strongly that the referee will inspect the players equipment.

High School soccer is the very beginning of the traditional ladder of sports god-hood, as athletic scholarships to colleges can be earned here. Since significant money can ride on how well a player does in a season, there is vested interest that the player is dealt with fairly. High School rules state that the standard equipment check shall not be performed by the referee, but rather by the coach. The referee will ask the coach, "Coach, are your players appropriately equipped," the coach will say, "Yes," and that is it. Should a piece of equipment prove defective during play the referee will send the player off to deal with it. This transfers the liability of any injury relating to unsafe equipment being allowed onto the field onto the backs to the player's school, not the official or the league. Some USSF/USYSA leagues are now doing this as well.

Second point, handling of injuries. Officials are told quite clearly to never touch an injured player. The job of the official is to halt play and call onto the field attendants who are skilled at handling injured players. If an official touches a player it could be construed as a form of treatment, and subject to lawsuit. It may be human kindness to offer a hand to help the guy up, or a comforting hand on the shoulder of the sobbing 12 year old girl, but don't do it. Things are complex enough as it is regarding when the whistle blew to stop play ("failure to recognize a serious problem") and how the player got injured ("permitted player to get injured") to add in possible another big area ("aggravated injury").

Third point, blood. The rules were changed several years ago to codify what had been a decision of the international board that any player who is visibly bleeding has to be removed from the field before they can be allowed back on. This ruling first came into being due to HIV considerations of all things, but on reflection the lawyers liked it on principle.

Personally, I have to break from the democratic pack on this one and think that some restraints on damages might be in order. Not the $250,000 cap proposed by some quarters, since that kind of money can go really fast in the case of a serious and prolonged injury. But some form of restraint.

Format change

I changed the format of the blog. The old one, while pretty, didn't really fit with a long format blog like this one. Also, while it was possible to expand the elements to be bigger the base image behind it wasn't expandable. So I chose this format.

This new template is easier on the eyes I think. I hand edited things so that the various elements are sized relative to the window rather than the hard coded size it was before. I believe this gives the blog the room it needs and makes for less of a "Wall Street Journal" column look and more of a magazine article look.

Electoral college reform

The electoral college gets attention every presidential election cycle as a relic of an outmoded election system. The fact is that the framers of the constitution did not expect a strong two party system to develop, nor did they expect the federal government to wield such wide-ranging powers as it does today. Both of these are good arguments for abolishing the electoral college in favor of a more representative system.

The constitution to the United States rather specifically does not include direct representation of the average citizen. Rather, it is the States that are represented at the Federal level. For a long time in our history members of the House were the ones that the average voter directly voted for in their state and the members of the Senate were appointed/elected by State legislatures.

Innovations like the Federal Elections Committee (FEC) helped to change some of that. As did the move around the turn of the 19th century for Senators to be elected through state-wide elections. The FEC regulates elections for federal elections like the President, Senate, and House, which unavoidably adds a federal flavor to such races.

One of the more frequently touted ways to reform the Electoral College is to change how states apportion their electors. In all but two states, electors are assigned to the presidential candidate who won the most votes in that state. The reform idea, which I also subscribed to until recently, was to change things so each elector votes for whomever carried their district. So winning a state would yield at least two electoral votes for the Senate electors, but the House electors would be on a per-district basis.

Unfortunately, there is a big problem with that set up. The constitution states in Article II, Section 1 that there shall be a majority of electoral votes to select a president. Not plurality, majority. As in, 270 electoral votes or more in this race. If no majority exists, the House of Representatives will select the president. For a very clear summation of how this all works here is a good explanation:

http://www.electoral-vote.com/info/electoral-college.html

It is mitigated in some sense in that it is the newly-elected house that chooses, not the one that is seated during the election. But still, in this era it would be a Bush presidency if it went to the House no matter how badly he lost the plurality. For instance, if Kerry wins 47% of the electoral votes, Bush %35, and Nader the remaining 18%, you would think that Kerry would carry the race. Not if the Republicans maintain control of the house. It would be Bush. The last election to go to the House was in the 1820's.

And here is the kicker! The part where the selection of the President by the Legislature is defined (Amendment 12) still retains the language that states that the number two vote-getter in the house-balloting will be the Vice-President. This is something that had been in the constitution for years for the general election, but was removed in the mid 1800's in favor of the current "ticket" system. I am not a lawyer, so there may be Supreme Court case-law somewhere that deals with this contingency, so don't take my word on it.

What all this means is that just going to apportioned electors won't help things much. In fact, it could lead to a Presidency selected by the House and that is something that will not sit well with the American public. No, if there is going to be reform in the electoral college it will have to be in the form of an amendment to the constitution.

The electoral college as a whole was a bitterly debated thing during the constitutional convention. It is a compromise, and an ill-fitting one. But its what we have. One of the side effects of this is that a voter in Wyoming (3 electoral votes) 'counts' more than a voter in California (55 electoral votes) for the dual reasons of the Senate seat representing less people, and the one House seat representing less people than a Rep. from CA. This gives smaller states a bigger voice in the election than they otherwise would in a purely 'straight election' environment. The reasons for this set-up are many, including the same rival opinions that gave us both a Senate and a House as well as a fear about big states (New York) dominating little states (Pennsylvania, which was small in the 1780's) in the Federal government.

Because of all of this, it is not a good idea to change how Electors are apportioned. If any reforms are to be had, it should be to reform the college as a whole. Since that will require an amendment to the constitution it will be debated in every state legislature before adoption. A constitutional crisis, Bush and Kerry tieing at 269 electoral votes, would greatly spur the desire to do so (at least among Democrats). Nothing short of that would force the change, and tinkering with the current system would be bad overall.