Somewhere, I ran across the following story: Fred was the most hated person in the Foreign Legion. Everyone wanted him dead. One day, Fred was assigned to go on a mission alone in the middle of the desert. At midnight the night before, Alex put poison in Fred’s canteen. An hour later, unaware of this,… Continue reading Guilt
The usual argument for the filibuster is that it prevents the majority from simply steamrolling its agenda: if every piece of legislation only needed a simple majority to pass, then in the current Senate, 51 Democrats (including VP Harris) can, if they’re united, do anything they want, and ignore the 50 Republicans. Clearly, that’s not… Continue reading On the Filibuster
Like most people, I hate changing the clocks twice a year, to say nothing of having to get up an hour early for Daylight Saving Time. So naturally my ears perked up when I heard about Senate bill 623, which would make Daylight Saving Time permanent. We’re still switching to DST tomorrow, but if this… Continue reading Ending the Tyranny of Biannual Time Changes
I used to work for a computer researcher who didn’t actually use computers. Academics can sometimes be quirky, you know? He just had ~/.forward set up to print every message (on paper) as it came in. One problem with this setup was that people would send him résumés as PostScript (and later PDF) attachments. The… Continue reading Staying on Top of the Wave
Joe Manchin appeared on Fox News Sunday and said he supports the filibuster, but it should come at a cost: “The filibuster should be painful, it really should be painful and we’ve made it more comfortable over the years,” he said on “Fox News Sunday.” “Maybe it has to be more painful.” … “If you… Continue reading “The Filibuster Should Be Painful”
While researching arguments for and against the National Popular Vote, I ran across the site Keep Our 50 States, which tries to argue for keeping the Electoral College, and, um, it doesn’t do a very good job of it. For instance, the “The Issue” page shows this Mike Lester cartoon: I’m not sure what this… Continue reading When Your Debate Opponents Argue Your Point
Law & Crime is reporting that the North Dakota Senate has passed SB 2271, which would block the release of presidential vote totals in the state until after the Electoral College votes. It’s ironic that Republicans, who were crying for election transparency in the 2020 election, are pushing this kind of anti-transparency bill. But it… Continue reading Republicans Voting Against Their Interests Again
Yesterday, Feb. 25 at 13:19, my Mac ran periodic monthly. I thought it odd that this would run on the 25th rather than the 1st of the month, and in the afternoon rather than late at night, so I dug a little deeper. It looks as though Apple now deprecates cron in favor of launchd… Continue reading What the Hell Is Up With MacOS Periodic Jobs?
A while back, I figured my site needed a bit of a facelift. So here it is. I’ve moved my posts from Epsilon Clue to here, and I plan on posting at ooblick.com rather than there. Obviously, any time you move from one site to another like this, there’s the risk that people won’t follow… Continue reading Grand Reopening
One of the nightmare scenarios sometimes brought up when arguing for the Electoral College and against the popular vote is, what happens in case of a really close election? There would have to be a nationwide recount. Think Florida 2000, times 50. For instance, take the 1960 election, where Kennedy beat Nixon by 0.17% of… Continue reading National Public Vote: Close Elections
