Thursday, February 03, 2005

Report from the TDE's roving reporter in Palo Alto Report from the TDE's roving reporter in Palo Alto for the Stanford Seminar by Prof. Taylor. The Seminar by Prof. Taylor began with a brief story of how Prof. Taylor was handed down the problem by a senior member of the Statistics Department at Stanford. Taylor began by giving a summary of the political situation in Venezuela. Here are some points mentioned by Taylor in his summary: * Chavez has been a popular figure among Venezuelans, but has not been so  popular for the US government probably because of Chavez' strong ties  with Castro. The relationship between Chavez and Castro has been beneficial  for Venezuelans as many Cuban doctors and teachers are now working in  Venezuela. * The opposition is mainly composed by businessmen and members of the  political class that used to rule the country before Chavez. The private  media (TV & newspapers) are controlled by the opposition and so, it is very  hard to get objective information about what's happening in Venezuela. Prof. Taylor then described studies he has finished recently using the models he has on his web page (he mainly referred to the last three). He revisited the hypothesis testing problem using FDR (False Discovery Rate) did not find any weird behavior in the referendum data under the models he assumed. However, he pointed out that it would be possible to come up with relatively simple mechanisms of fraud that would be basically impossible to detect with these models. He then presented some new results about Benford's Law. He said that there is no reason to believe that Benford's Law would apply to the results of the recall referendum. (My comment: How come the 2000 Presidential election does follow it?). He showed that data simulated under the assumption that Elio Valladares' model was the "fair model" did not followed Benford's Law and looked pretty similar to the recall referendum data.  He mentioned that he had talked to experts on electoral data who also said that there is no reason to believe that Benford would be followed by data like these. He then mentioned some recent work with exit poll data but didn't have time to go over it. He is now working with the Carter Center on providing recommendations for future elections. 10:00:09 PM    comment []

Six years, same promises Hugo Chavez tonight celebrating his sixth year in office: "Government will look in 2005 to reduce inflation and unemployment" My take: Weren't those the same promises made the first year? 12:35:33 AM    comment []

Another proof of the of how cynical the Attorney General is This is an image of Chavista reporter Ernesto Villegas on the Government's TV station VTV a few days ago, as published today in newspaper El Nuevo Pais. The picture in picture shows our illustrious Attorney General/Prosecutor Isaias Rodriguez talking about the documents that Villegas has in his hands. What are they? Copies of the same transcripts that the Prosecutors found in Patricia Poleo's house and for which she is being prosecuted under the corruption law for having them. Now Mr. Rodriguez, one of the most cynical personalities of the revolution said yesterday: Attorney General Rodriguez: “We will be implacable with those that filter information.” Obviously he meant to say "We will be implacable with those in the opposition that filter information". Clearly reporter Villegas' house has not been raided, nor has he been charge. Oh! the pretty revolution!     12:13:46 AM    comment []