California Propositions

You are all no doubt following the presidential race with avid interest and have already made up your minds as to who you're going to vote for! But you may not have focused yet on the rest of the ballot. If you vote in California, I am referring the bewildering array of propositions that we're going to have to weigh in on---a full dozen state-wide propositions and various local propositions. If you're wondering what to do with these state-wide propositions, this post is here to help. I've looked at the propositions and the recommendations of the LA Times and the SJ Mercury News to put together this post (complete with my recommendations). I'd love to hear your opinion on these recommendations. Also please do vote on Nov 4th---even if you think your vote won't matter in the presidential election, it could well matter for many of these important propositions.

Let's start with a summary of my recommendations:

Vote Yes on propositions 2, 3, 11, and 12. Vote No on all the rest.

(You may want to research proposition 1A a bit more, since that's the vote I'm least confident about. Also, the above are recommendations for the state-wide propositions. For the county and city propositions, I'm leaning toward voting Yes on Santa Clara County propositions A, B, C, and D and a definite Yes on Palo Alto proposition N.)

Now to the details of the propositions and the basis for these recommendations. A couple of guiding principles I used were the following. First, say No to unfunded mandates. It makes absolutely no sense to say that $X billion dollars must be spent on some cause (however wonderful) without saying where the money is going to come from. Second, say No to constitutional amendments unless you truly believe there's a constitutional principle at stake. As Patt Morrison notes in the LA Times, California makes it way too easy to add to its constitution: a simple majority of the voters who show up at the polls suffices. As a result there are almost 500 constitutional amendments, compared to only 27 amendments to the US Constitution. Don't add to this mess. Finally, if you're interested in the back story for each proposition, check out this article.

Here then are my recommendations and recommendations from the LA Times (LAT) and the SJ Mercury (SJM).

• Proposition 1A: High-speed passenger train. Vote No on 1A.
  LAT: Yes on 1A. SJM: No recommendation yet.
  This is a difficult one. The goal is to build a bullet train connecting SF with LA and later expanding to Sacramento and San Diego. The basic SF-LA line is expected to cost $33 billion, with 75% of it raised from federal and private sources. This bond is to raise almost $10 billion. LAT articulates the promise of this high-tech bullet train: "A high-speed rail line would not only provide a cleaner and faster alternative to automobiles, it would encourage transit-friendly development." On the down side, LAT notes: "If voters approve Proposition 1a, it seems close to a lead-pipe cinch that the California High-Speed Rail Authority will ask for many billions more in the coming decades, and the Legislature will have to scrape up many millions of dollars in operating subsidies."
  
  I should be excited about the prospect of a bullet train in California. But I fear this is going to be just a sink of money that, at best, will result in a bullet train that won't be used effectively to make a difference. Nothing I've seen of public transportation in California gives me confidence that the government knows how to get it done effectively. I think of San Jose's Light Rail as an example of a pretty ineffective form of public transportation. And so while I would love to be proven wrong, I have to recommend a No vote here. Read the LAT Yes case and make up your own mind.
  
  
• Proposition 2: Prevention of Farm Animal Cruelty. Vote Yes on 2.
  LAT: No on 2. SJM: Yes on 2.
  This proposition is all about the treatment of egg laying hens (pig and veal farming is small in California). Egg laying hens are treated quite inhumanely, being confined to cages the size of a sheet of letter paper. While LAT agrees that this is inhumane, the No argument is that this proposition won't have the intended effect---it will only serve to make California eggs expensive thus driving the industry out of California. The inhumane treatment would then be meted out in neighboring states on in Mexico. SJM responds that the extra cost isn't expected to be that high, that there's plenty of time for farmers to adapt, and that the growing demand for cage-free eggs will give California a competitive advantage in the future. My own feeling is that treating these hens more humanely is the right thing to do, so this proposition deserves your support.
  
  
• Proposition 3: Children's Hospital Bond Act. Vote Yes on 3.
  LAT: Yes on 3. SJM: Yes on 3.
  Authorizes nearly $1 billion dollars in bonds to expand and upgrade California's 8 regional and 5 UC children's hospitals (including Lucille Packard, UCSF, and Oakland Children's here in the Bay Area). This seems like a critical need. As SJM notes: "Children's hospitals throughout the state are overflowing with the seriously ill and injured. ... At Stanford, Lucile Packard Children's Hospital is forced to turn away more than 400 children every year." And LAT notes that Medi-Cal rates are so low that these hospitals can barely pay for operating expenses with nothing left over for capital expenses. This is money well spent.
  
  
• Proposition 4: Waiting period and parental notification before termination of minor's pregnancy. Vote No on 4.
  LAT: No on 4. SJM: No on 4.
  Both LAT and SJM give compelling opinions on why this constitutional amendment is deceptive. For example, SJM says: "From top to bottom, Proposition 4 is the most deceptive measure on the California ballot this fall. It might look like yet another well-meaning but misguided effort - the third in four years - to force minors to notify their parents before seeking an abortion. But this year's version is more insidious. Voters should run to the polls in November to reject it." Read both opinions before you even consider voting yes. Also check out this piece by Francesca Ratner.
  
  
• Proposition 5: Non-violent offender rehabilitation act. Vote No on 5.
  LAT: No on 5. SJM: No on 5.
  On the surface this looks like a proposition worth supporting: non-violent drug addicts using crime to feed their additiction would get rehab instead of jail, thus saving money for jails. But in fact, it's full of loop holes and would unleash complete chaos. The Con case in the voter guide says that "Loophole allows defendants accused of child abuse, domestic violence, vehicular manslaughter and other crimes to effectively escape prosecution" (presumably by saying that "drugs made me do it"). LAT strongly agrees with this: "If it passes, Californians would soon learn that they had swept away the state's few successful diversion programs, inflicted chaos on the parole system, layered on a staggering new bureaucracy and set back the cause of modernizing drug treatment."
  
  
• Proposition 6: Save neighborhoods act. Vote No on 6.
  LAT: No on 6. SJM: No on 6.
  This is one of those unfunded mandates: requires almost $1 billion extra for law enforcement without identifying a source of funds. It also mandates 30 revisions to California's criminal laws (not clear these are needed), adds new bureaucracy, and builds in a provision that amending it requires 75% of the legislature (the recent budget battle only required 2/3rds of the legislature, and we saw how that went). As SJM notes: "Initiatives like this have distorted state priorities and tied up the budget in knots."
  
  
• Proposition 7: Solar and clean energy act. Vote No on 7.
  LAT: No on 7. SJM: No on 7.
  Requires utilities to increase electricity generation from renewable sources. Sounds good, doesn't it? But turns out everyone opposes it: major environmental groups, major utilities, renewable energy providers, consumer groups, taxpayers association, unions, both political parties---they all oppose it! Read the op-eds to see all the things wrong with this proposition. And don't feel that a no vote means less renewable energy. LAT notes: "Under a law passed two years ago, the state is on a path to cut its greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020. There's broad agreement among policy-makers, including Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, that in order to reach this goal, the state must get 33% of its power from renewable sources by 2020." So it's going to happen without this proposition.
  
  
• Proposition 8: California marriage protection act. Vote No on 8.
  LAT: No on 8. SJM: No on 8.
  This is a constitutional amendment that eliminates the right of same-sex couples to marry. Do you really want your constitution eliminating rights rather than granting rights? LAT, in its strongly argued piece, says: "We fervently hope that voters, whatever their personal or religious convictions, will shudder at such a step and vote no on Proposition 8." Proposition 22, passed in 2000, also eliminated same-sex marriage, but it was overturned by the California Supreme Court as being unconstitutional (thus the constitutional amendment here). LAT notes that: "Californians have accused the state Supreme Court of obstructing the people's will on marriage before -- in 1948, when it struck down a ban on interracial marriages."
  
  
• Proposition 9: Victims bill of rights act. Vote No on 9.
  LAT: No on 9. SJM: No on 9.
  This is one more of the constitutional amendments that duplicates many rights that victims already have in the law and adds many others. It is a naive attempt to protect victims, but only serves to provide them new and inappropriate roles in prosecution. LAT notes: "The level of punishment a criminal receives should not depend on how persistent a particular family is in pleading for punishment or blocking parole. Civilized justice rejects vendetta and instead places retribution in the hands of the entire society. It may seem depersonalizing, but that's a goal, not a defect, of our system."
  
  
• Proposition 10: Renewable energy and clean alternative fuel act. Vote No on 10.
  LAT: No on 10. SJM: No on 10.
  Authorizes bonds worth $5 billion to fund various clean energy initiatives. But a bulk of this money, some $2.875 billion worth, is reserved for alternative fuel vehicles with most of it going to vehicles using natural gas rather than for things like plug-in hybrids. That's not surprising since this proposition is sponsored by Texas billionaire T. Boone Pickens who co-founded Clean Energy Fuels Corp. that operates natural gas filling stations. There are lots of other problems with this proposition (see LAT and SJM for details). A much better way to get to the goal of more clean energy is to mandate vehicle pollution limits (which the Bush adminstration prevented California from enacting).
  
  
• Proposition 11: Redistricting constitutional amendment and statute. Vote Yes on 11.
  LAT: Yes on 11. SJM: Yes on 11.
  Here's a constitutional amendment that is worth supporting, and it does feel like a constitutional issue. It puts the power of redistricting for state elections (though not Congress) in the hands of a 14 member commission rather than in the hands of the State Legislature. In the current situation, LAT observes that: "Voters are supposed to choose their representatives, but in California, political parties select their voters." SJM notes that: "Proposition 11 would deny incumbents the ability to use redistricting to their advantage. ... Legislators put self-interest first when they control redistricting. Minorities and everyone else will benefit from taking that power out of their hands."
  
  This is a case where I've changed my mind! In a past election I recommended voting against a similar proposition. This was at the height of the Bush era when Texas was using redistricting to cement Republican control, and I didn't want the Democratic party to be at an unfair disadvantage in California. This view was perhaps short-sighted, and LAT addresses it squarely: "By the same token, it would be foolish for Democrats to oppose the measure out of a belief that it would cost their party its majority in Sacramento. It won't. For every district it puts in play that currently elects Democrats, it is just as likely to put in play a district that currently elects Republicans. It would simply ensure that legislative Democrats (and Republicans) would heed voters and not just party bosses."
  
  
• Proposition 12: California veterans bond. Vote Yes on 12.
  LAT: Yes on 12. SJM: Yes on 12.
  This is the most straightforward Yes vote. It provides a $900 million bond for farm and home aid for California veterans. The aid is in the form of loans to veterans, so historically it has not cost the state anything. Californians have approved this 26 times before, and there's no reason why we shouldn't support our veterans again this time. And what ever you may think about the war in Iraq, supporting veterans is a no-brainer.
  

Vipassana Meditation

Vipassana is a meditation technique originally taught by the Buddha. It is meant to promote peace and harmony in ones life and eliminate the agitation, irritation, and disharmony one often experiences. The link above provides a summary of the principles underlying the technique. These principles are discussed at greater length in the book The Art of Living (note: this is unrelated to the Art of Living courses one hears about). The technique itself is taught in a completely free 10 day course held at various locations around the world (see the Vipassana site for details of a course near you).

I was introduced to Vipassana by my father. He has been practicing Vipassana for over 15 years now. My father is the most spiritual person I know---not religious in a traditional sense, but rather someone who was always searching for the higher truth. He says that of all the things he's learnt, Vipassana has been by far the most beneficial. This is high praise indeed.

I've read The Art of Living and have heard a series of lectures by S. N. Goenka, the person who has been instrumental in spreading Vipassana in India and around the world. From everything I've read and heard, the technique sounds very compelling. There's no hocus-pocus. It's a very concrete technique, with very concrete reasons for why it works. I'm not going to try to distill the essence of the technique here; for that I refer you to the above sources for an authoritative and comprehensive treatment (but I'm happy to talk to you about my understanding if you're interested).

An important point, emphasized by Goenka, is that reading books or listening to lectures is no substitute for actually practicing Vipassana. A good friend of mine, Raj, recently had the good fortune of actually attending a Vipassana course. Here's what he writes about his experience:

Just got back from Vipassana. 11 days of living like a monk in silent meditation. It is wilderness survival training for your mind. Training your mind to survive on its own and manage your anxieties, fears and other strong emotions without the support of conversation, reading, television or any contact with the outside world. You learn how to control your subconscious mind to recognize and control your cravings, desires and attachments. It is frightening to realize the depth and strength of the roots of your cravings. As you try to teach your subconscious mind to be equanimous to cravings, these deep rooted desires literally surface in waves that get amplified as they bounce around in your head without any of the usual distractions to dampen their intensity. Your mind feels like it is going to snap, much like the suspension bridge bearing the army garrison that did not break file. The first few nights I literally woke up sweating in my eight by eight cell surrounded by the ghosts of physical manifestations of my cravings swimming around me in the darkness. It starts getting better after about the fourth day.

That sounds like a pretty intense experience! (And, yes, he's a rather good writer!) I've been wanting to do the course for some time now. I almost attended a course back in 2004, but a minor emergency at the last minute intervened and I chose not to attend. Now, almost 4 years later, I'm finally getting around to fixing this omission : I'll be attending a course starting next week (assuming, of course, there are no emergencies this time!).

Google's Search UI

I wanted to make a note of a couple more Google blog posts that point at some more cool technology. No, I'm not talking about Chrome or the Chrome comic book. Rather, I'm referring to two recent posts by Ben Gomes. In the first post, Ben talks about the principles that guide the design and evolution of the Google search user interface. Of course, any talk of the evolution of the search interface raises a natural question:

A common reaction from friends when I say that I now work on Google's search user interface is "What do you do? It never changes." Then they look at me suspiciously and tell me not to mess with a good thing. Google is fine just the way it is -- a plain, fast, simple web page. That's great, but how hard can that be?"

Turns out it's not as easy as it may seem. Ben discusses a number of principles that guide UI development and provides several examples of the principles in action. One of the most interesting points he makes is related to the goal of search:

...to get you to the web pages you want as quickly as possible. ... This goal may seem obvious, but it makes a search engine radically different from most other sites on the web, which measure their success by how long their users stay. We measure our web search success partly by how quickly you leave (happily, we hope!).

A key part of UI development is experimentation on live traffic. In his second post, Ben describes a series of UI experiments ranging from big, prominent changes to tiny, subtle ones.

... we test almost everything, even things that you would think are so small that we could not possibly care (nor could they possibly matter). In fact, small changes do matter, and we do care.

Check out these posts for a glimpse of the care with which the Google search UI is designed.

Olympic Track

So after a wonderful week of Olympic swimming, we had a very fun week of Olympic track! The star of the week was, of course, Usain "Lightning" Bolt of Jamaica---3 gold medals with 3 world records. How do you start celebrating with 15 meters to go in the 100 meters and yet break the world? And how do you break Michael Johnson's seemingly unbreakable 200 meter world record while running into a stiff 0.9 m/s headwind? And how do you do all this while clowning around before every race? A completely remarkable young man!

There were lots of other great events. One of my favorites was the the mens 10000 meter. Ethiopia's Kenenisa Bekele was the star coming into the event. Two Eritreans and two Kenyans wanted to take Bekele out of the race, and so they tried to break away from the pack at various points in the race. But Bekele just hung in there right behind the leaders, usually in third place, sometimes falling back to fourth place. And then, with one lap to go, Bekele decided that he'd had enough---he went into overdrive with his famous finishing kick and left the field in the dust. He ran the final lap in something like 54 or 56 seconds---and that's at the end of 10k race! Quite a remarkable effort.

The high hurdles were exciting in both the mens and the womens events. Dayron Robles of Cuba won the mens 110 meter hurdles in convincing style, with exquisitely beautiful hurdling! (On a side note, it was a little confusing to see some who looked so nerdy hurdle so beautifully...:-) In the women's 100 meters Lolo Jones, the favorite, took control of the race and was all set to win in style, when tragedy struck---she hit the 9th hurdle causing her to slow down and helplessly watch as most of the rest of the field swept by her. Her loss was reminiscent of Gail Devers's fall at the end of the 100 meter hurdles in Barcelona.

Another favorite to lose was Sanya Richards in the women's 400 meters. She entered the home straight leading comfortably, looking like she had the race all sewn up. But suddenly things started going wrong and she couldn't find the extra gear necessary to finish, and so had to watch helplessly as Britain's Christine Ohuruogu and Jamaica's Shericka Williams powered past her.

And another highlight (or, more appropriately, a lowlight) was the butterfingers displayed by both the US mens and womens 4x100 meter relay teams. In the semi-finals, both teams were leading as they entered the final exchange, only to drop the baton in truly tragic style. It's unclear whether either team would have challenged the powerful Jamaican teams in the finals, but now we'll never know. (The Jamaican women had their own butterfingers in the finals.)

Finally, Yelena Isinbayeva of Russia turned in a typically dominating performance in the women's pole vault to win gold and break the world record. This is the 15th time she's broken the world record, reminiscent of her countryman Sergey Bubka who broke the pole vault record 17 times!

All in all, a very fun week of track (though I think I enjoyed the week of swimming more).

Olympic Swimming

That was an incredibly fun week of Olympics competition! For us it was mostly about the exciting swimming events (and a little about gymnastics). Naturally, the biggest news in swimming (and of the Olympics thus far) was Michael Phelps's eight gold medals. But the most dramatic and exciting moment of the week belonged to Jason Lezak in the anchor leg of the 4x100 meter freestyle relay: how do you spot the world champion (France's Alain Bernard) almost a body length lead and then find some hidden strength to close the gap in the last 25 meters and out-touch Bernard by eight one-hundredth of a second?! Of course, Phelps's victory in the 100 fly was even closer---by powering to the finish with a half stroke he out-touched Serbia's Cavic (who was gliding to the finish) by the smallest possible margin (one one-hundredth of a second)!

There were plenty of other exciting races. In the womens 400 meter individual medley Katie Hoff, the reigning world record holder, led much of way and appeared to have a stranglehold on the race. But Stephanie Rice of Australia tracked her down and passed her toward the end to win gold. In the 200 meter breast stroke, Rebecca Soni caught up with and passed Australia's powerful Liesel Jones. Soni looked strong and smooth at the finish, while Jones had started faltering on the final 50. And, best of all, Dara Torres won a silver for all us middle-aged geezers! Unfortunately, she wasn't as lucky as Phelps---she lost the gold by one one-hundredth of a second.

All in all, a great week of swimming!

Truth or Fiction?

As you know, we are big fans of Jack Bauer and the show 24. This in spite of the fact that Bauer and his cohorts regularly use torture as a standard interrogation procedure. (Not only is it terrible, we also know torture doesn't work well as an interrogation technique.) But we take this in stride and ignore it---it is after all fiction. And escapist fiction at that. Right?

Apparently not...

A recent NY Times op-ed by Bob Herbert talks about a new book called The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned Into a War on American Ideals by Jane Mayer of The New Yorker. It spends a lot of time on David Addington, a key member of Cheney's staff:

In the view of Mr. Addington and his acolytes, anything and everything that the president authorized in the fight against terror — regardless of what the Constitution or Congress or the Geneva Conventions might say — was all right. That included torture, rendition, warrantless wiretapping, the suspension of habeas corpus, you name it.

Okay, fine---this isn't particularly surprising. But here's what really got me:

To get a sense of the heights of madness scaled in this anything-goes atmosphere, consider a brainstorming meeting held by military officials at Guantánamo. Ms. Mayer said the meeting was called to come up with ways to crack through the resistance of detainees.

“One source of ideas,” she wrote, “was the popular television show ‘24.’ On that show as Ms. Mayer noted, “torture always worked. It saved America on a weekly basis.”

What??? They were really looking to 24 for ideas on what to do to the detainees?

Ranking Technology at Google

In a previous post I mentioned that Amit Singhal had promised to have a follow-up post focusing on the technology underlying Google's search algorithms. Earlier this week Amit delivered on his promise with a fine post entitled Technologies behind Google ranking. He says that the driving force underlying ranking is to give users what they want:

Search in the last decade has moved from give me what I said to give me what I want. User expectations from search have rightly increased. We work hard to fulfill the expectations of each and every user, and to do that we need to better understand the pages, the queries, and our users.

Check out the post for more detail.