Recent Comments

1. about 1 hour ago on Non Sequitur

   Long live Thomas Nast!

2. about 1 hour ago on Doonesbury

   And at the same time he’s a “stable genius” who deserves to be re-elected — this time as “Emperor For Life”.

3. about 1 hour ago on Doonesbury

   For them, a Ph.D. equates to “Post Hole Digger”.

4. 6 days ago on Non Sequitur

   Billy’s trying to give us a “yank” job.

5. 7 days ago on Non Sequitur

   Above you say “Democracy is MATH.”

   I couldn’t agree more.

   One of the lesser-known problems in dealing with gerrymandering is that far too many judges do not have the ability to understand advanced math (when redistricting cases come before them) and far too many legislators are inextricably bound to the purely partisan goal of making sure they and others of their party can run in generally “safe” districts where they will meet little if any opposition.

   There are at least two purely mathematical techniques that will produce legislative districts meeting the three generally-accepted requirements for non-gerrymandered districts: 1) even distribution of the voting-age population; 2) geographically “connected”; and 3) “compact”.

   One mathematical technique is referred to as “split-line” districting (it uses the “shortest split-line” algorithm, which is too complicated to explain here) and the other uses probability theory to draw district lines. Probability theory technique first constructs the entire set of possible districts that could be drawn and then defines a class of probability measures on the set to determine which member(s) of the set has/(have) the greatest probability of truly meeting the demands of even population distribution, being connected, and being as compact as possible.

   There may also be other mathematical tools available – for example, fractal geometry might be very useful here.

6. 7 days ago on Non Sequitur

   Of course the Republican’ts hate democracy – after all, they’re the only ones who know what’s best for the rest of us.

7. 7 days ago on Non Sequitur

   The only subject Trump disciples study is how to be invincibly ignorant.

8. 7 days ago on Doonesbury

   There you go again – speaking truth to the MAGA faithful. You ought to be ashamed of yourself, taking such advantage of the truly ignorant in our society!!! :-)

9. 7 days ago on Doonesbury

   I nominate Melania, Ivanka, and Tiffany. Take your pick.

   Eric might make a good “in drag” version, but I’m not sure about Don Jr.

10. 7 days ago on Doonesbury

    Well said!