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Larry Wall

Denison, TX
Commenter for
4 years 9 weeks

Recent Comments

Posted on 07/01/09 at 07:32 pm in response to Impressive unanimity: The historical significance of Coleman v. Franken

Thank you for your analysis, Mr. Foley

I also thought the court ruling was exceptionally strong and well reasoned.

And I am especially pleased that the ruling sets a precedent of establishing that an Equal Rights Violation regarding counting of absentee ballots has not occurred if:

(1) There is not purposeful intent of election officials to count ballots in a manner that favors one candidate over another, or discriminates between classes of people.

(2) There are...

Posted on 07/02/09 at 09:53 am in response to My analysis of the Supreme Court's Franken-Coleman ruling

I thought the MnSC ruling was exceptionally strong and well reasoned.

And I am especially pleased that the ruling sets a precedent of establishing that an Equal Rights Violation regarding counting of absentee ballots has not occurred if:

(1) There is not purposeful intent of election officials to count ballots in a manner that favors one candidate over another, or discriminates between classes of people.
And:
(2) There are statutory requirements on how votes are to...

Posted on 06/30/09 at 05:58 pm in response to My analysis of the Supreme Court's Franken-Coleman ruling

The MnSC stopped at stating that the disparate treatment of absentee ballots due to minor process variations did not constitute a valid Equal Rights violation.

But even had they gone one level futher down, there was no evidence the disparate treatment of absentee ballots changed the outcome of the election.

No proof that revealed that either Coleman or those who voted for him were harmed by this disparate treatment.

Posted on 06/30/09 at 05:04 pm in response to What Coleman said

A most gracious statement indeed!

A lot has happened before the end of June. Mr. Black's prediction was solid.

My wife has always told me it would be so.

Posted on 06/30/09 at 11:04 am in response to Impatience in Coleman-Franken-land?

Perhaps the Court is taking great care to ensure there is unanimous agreement, not only with regard to the bottom line on which side prevails in the court ruling - but also in the exact language used to delineate the ruling.

It will want to do the best it can to protect against being overruled if appealed.

And also there is surely consideration for the historical precedent that will be established with the ruling.

My best guess is considerable time is being consumed by...

Posted on 06/27/09 at 03:41 pm in response to Fun facts to know and tell about MN guv races

Thank you, Mr. Black. I am off to Europe at the end of next week.

My last post then, on the Coleman/Franken MnSC Appeal:

If a minor level of disparate acceptance of absentee ballots is deemed to be random throughout the State, then both candidates of a close election are essentially equally affected and there is little or no net effect in determining the winner.

If a minor level of disparate acceptance of absentee ballots is considered to probably be biased in favor of...

Posted on 06/26/09 at 01:14 pm in response to Fun facts to know and tell about MN guv races

Mr. Black said: "and no, I'm not counting Franken/Coleman, but odds are that the DFL percentage could improve slightly, pretty soon, don't get me started."

Sir, if I may remind you that you stated that the MnSC ruling ref. Franken/Coleman would be in May or June.

Since June ends on Tuesday, are you still as confident?

I would prefer to reschedule a Europe trip until after the results are in. But my wife says it will not be necessary because you have great credibility...

Posted on 06/24/09 at 05:54 pm in response to KSTP wants to see the rejected absentee ballots and I get all weird and philosophical

By inspecting rejected secrecy envelopes and/or ballot applications, I am not sure what KSTP is really trying to accomplish (other than to perhaps improve their ratings).

With data from rejected ballots, KSTP might be able to develop some sort of analysis resulting from disparate treatment of ballots. But to what end, at least as it relates to determining the candidate receiving the most legal votes?

If disparate treatment of absentee ballots is deemed to be random throughout...

Posted on 06/01/09 at 07:19 pm in response to Ned Foley, Rick Hasen weigh in on the Franken-Coleman oral arguments

It may well be that the Court finds that insufficient physical evidence was provided by Coleman to conclusively demonstrate that a meaningful quantity of ballots were incorrectly accepted by some voting centers.

We will never know why the Coleman team didn't weed through the 288,000 accepted ballot applications and secrecy envelopes, in order to develop this evidence.

Surely this is not just an error of omission. I have to believe that the Coleman legal team must have thought...

Posted on 06/01/09 at 01:57 pm in response to Peterson emerges as obstacle to major energy and climate legislation

Mr. Mesaros

The average incandescent light bulb in a home dissipates about 60 watts. A fluorescent bulb of equivalent luminosity dissipates a bit less than 15 watts. A 1500-watt generator (same as 1.5kw) can light 100 of these bulbs.

I know of no home light bulb that dissipates as much as 1.5kw.

My 2500 sq ft home consumes on average about 1,000 kilowatt-hours per month. In terms of a steady state consumption rate, that is equivalent to dissipating about 1,400 watts (...