David Ross, one of the last living liberals

In the recent California primary election, Republican candidates for Governor Meg Whitman and Steve Poisner criticized each other as being liberals. Each used the word liberal as if it were a curse, as if it were worse than denouncing their opponent as a murderer or rapist.

When did liberal become a dirty word?

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Statistics

Inflation: 3.26%

Change in browser market share for Internet Explorer since March 2003: −57.0%

On the same page inside the Los Angeles Times "Business" section on 27 March 2010, two articles had conflicting headlines: "Stocks edge higher as pessimism grows" and "Optimism grows as 4th-quarter earnings soar".

Both optimism and pessimism are growing at the same time? This only proves that no one really knows future economic trends. They can only guess. Predicting the economy often requires the reading of burnt goat entrails.

Why is that that when angry white men do things like fly planes into the IRS building or shoot police officers at the Pentagon it's not terrorism? Is it the color of their skin or their religion that keeps that term from applying to their actions?

Community Service

Profession

Computer software engineer specializing in requirements analysis and testing. Advocate of software life-cycle methods that minimize errors and prevent budget overruns, schedule slips, and dissatisfied end-users through up-front analysis, ongoing reviews, and formal verification. Proficient with software for platforms including stand-alone main-frames, desktop PCs, and client-server networks. Experienced in technical management and, for small organizations, top-level management.

Expertise includes:

Requirements Analysis: Consult directly with customers to ensure that software requirements reflect their needs. Prepare specifications that contain verifiable requirements.
Software Verification: Develop tests to determine correctness, implementation of requirements, and integration of both commercial off-the-shelf and custom software.
Mathematical Analysis: Apply numerical analysis and statistics to the design and study of scheduling systems and physical systems.

Professional Activities

Published research: "Pseudo-random number generators for a calculator", Communications of the ACM, volume 38 number 1 (January 1995), pages 122-124.
Member of the Association for Computing Machinery, 1966-2003.
Reviewer of computer literature for the monthly Computing Reviews, 1993-2003.

Hobbies

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Stamp collecting

Gardening

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Listening to classical music

Surfing the Internet

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When I turn on the faucet, water comes out. At night, the street lights come on. Our streets are swept, and our joint school and public library continues to operate. Both children and adults enjoy themselves in our community's parks. Our public schools are as good as any other schools — public or private — in California. Deputy Sheriffs patrolling our streets and judges in our courtrooms keep our community's crime rate very low in a county with one of the lowest crime rates in the nation. Mail is delivered six days each week. In Oak Park, government is working; it is not our enemy.

David E. Ross

Oak Park, California 91377

Statistics

Community Service

Profession

Professional Activities

Hobbies