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William Kelleher
Internet voting is
coming to the USA |
 William Kelleher Internet Voting is
Coming to the USA Surprisingly, Internet voting is not new to the United States. There were small trials in the 2000 presidential election and in 2004, the Department of Defense (DoD) was ready to host the largest Internet voting trial in US history for 100,000 overseas civilian and military voters from seven states who had volunteered. Then, four computer scientists publicly alleged that the project, called "SERVE" (secure electronic registration and voting experiment), had security flaws, and the project was shelved. Now, the momentum towards increasing the use of Internet voting is picking up again. Discussing the once and future history of Internet voting is Dr. William Kelleher. This November, 33 states and the District of Columbia will use some form of online voting for their overseas population. DoD plans to reinstate its SERVE program for 2012. If all goes well this year, some states will begin domestic trials, and more states will offer online voting for their citizens overseas. Besides convenience, Internet voting offers an opportunity to further democratize U.S. elections. But concerns over security still linger. Dr. Kelleher, who earned his Ph. D. in political science from the University of California, Santa Barbara, in 1984, is the author of two books on American politics. The New Election Game (1987), which discussed the history of presidential election reform and expanded on Buckminster Fuller's idea of voting from home by telephone, was made obsolete by personal computers and the cell phone. Kelleher also wrote Progressive Logic, which discusses the principles and methods used by American progressives to criticize government policies, practices, and laws. He is currently working on a book on Internet voting.
*This
lecture will be repeated at 4:30 p.m. at
the Costa Mesa Community Center at 1845
Park Avenue, Costa Mesa.
map
Admission
The Calculus Diaries:
How math can help you lose weight, win
in Vegas, and survive a zombie
apocalypse! Were you traumatized by high school calculus? Does the mere mention of integrals and derivatives make you queasy? Author Jennifer Ouellette feels your pain. But she's here to tell you that then mysteries of calculus aren't nearly so scary when they're faced head on. In The Calculus Diaries, the award-winning science writer recounts her year confronting her math phobia. With wit and verve, Ouellette shows how to apply calculus to everything from gas mileage and dieting to Disneyland rides and shooting craps in Vegas - definitely proving that even the mathematically challenged can learn the fundamentals of the universal language. Ouellette, author of Physics of the Buffyverse, about which she spoke at the Center before, and Black Bodies and Quantum Cats: Tales from the Annals of Physics, has recently been the director of the Science and Entertainment Exchange, a program of the National Academy of Sciences aimed at fostering creative collaborations between scientists and entertainment industry professionals. She has written for numerous national publications, maintains a science-and-culture blog called Cocktail Party Physics, and lives in Los Angeles with her husband, Caltech physicist Sean Carroll, who also has lectured at the Center.
*This
lecture will be repeated at 4:30 p.m. at the Costa Mesa
Community Center at 1845 Park Avenue, Costa Mesa.
map
Admission
Celebrity Satiristas! What role does satire play among comedians and other performers who often seek not only to entertain, but to make people think? Can humor and satire change minds and attitudes? Should it? Veteran comedian, writer and producer Paul Provenza will answer these questions and more with excerpts from his recent book, Satiristas!. In the book, Provenza digs deep into the minds of such famous comedians as the Smothers Brothers, Lewis Black, and Cheech and Chong. He was the last person to interview George Carlin before the legendary comic's death in 2008. He asks some of the world's funniest people tough questions about if religion and politics can work onstage. You may be surprised at what they say. Provenza has been on the Tonight Show, David Letterman, and other TV shows too numerous to list here. He is the producer of The Aristocrats, a very funny movie about a very dirty joke, and the host of The Green Room, an onstage peek of what you might hear backstage.
Admission
The Untold Story of
Acupuncture Despite a growing interest in acupuncture, recent well-conducted clinical trials do not support most of its claims. These trials also indicate that its partial benefits for a limited number of conditions do not depend on the classical acupuncture theories for selecting points and means of stimulation, leading to the conclusion that acupuncture's actions could be attributed to the placebo effect. Explaining the non-empirical origin and nature of acupuncture and its claims, as well as critical research of it, is Ben Kavoussi, a history of science writer. In addition, these theories are not uniquely Chinese and significantly resemble theories found in European and Islamic astrological medicine and bloodletting in the Middle Ages. Kavoussi also shows that the current interest in acupuncture and other Eastern healing arts is due to New Age Orientalism, a pop culture trend based on false assumptions about Eastern thought and Western medicine. Kavoussi, who has a Master of Science in Oriental Medicine degree and is a licensed acupuncturist and member of the British Medical Acupuncture Society, became interested in Chinese medicine during the alternative medicine hype of the 1990s but turned apostate once he found it was premised on astrology. A contributor to the "Science-Based Medicine" Web site, Kavoussi has authored several articles on the history and science of acupuncture and appeared before the California Department of Consumer Affairs to object to their approval of non-scientific practice, such as astrology, in the name of alternative medicine.
*This
lecture will be repeated at 4:30 p.m. at the Costa Mesa
Community Center at 1845 Park Avenue, Costa Mesa.
map
Admission
Secrets of the Oldest
Old For more than 12 years, with the help of over 40 correspondents throughout the world, the Los Angeles Gerontology Research Group (GRG) has maintained an Internet List of the World's Oldest Living People or Supercentenarians (persons 110 years or older) on its website (www.grg.org). The GRG is now regarded as the world's authority on this list due to its rigorous criteria for validating extraordinary claims. Dr. L. Stephen Coles, Co-founder and Director of GRG, will discuss the secrets of these Supercentenarians and how they manage to have lived so long. The Supercentenarian Research Foundation (SRF), which he helped to found, aims to sequence their DNA, as we now know that extreme longevity is inherited, not simply due to life-style choices. Nearly all first-degree relatives of Supercentenarians are also long-lived. Dr. Coles is a Director of the Los Angeles Chapter of Physicians for Social Responsibility. He is currently a Lecturer in the UCLA Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry (Molecular Biology Institute) and teaches an Introduction to Gerontology to UCLA freshmen. In addition, he is a Visiting Scholar in the Stanford University Medical School, completing his clinical Internship in OB/GYN at a University of Miami School of Medicine Jackson Memorial Hospital. He has also taught Computer Science at Carnegie-Mellon University, Stanford, UC Berkeley, USC, and CalTech.
Admission Humanlight/Solstice Party: Celebrating Another Year! Sunday,
December 19,
2010 |
