What I’ll Be Voting For

Siggy has a post about the importance of down-ballot voting, and giving examples from his ballot.  I wanted to follow his lead and give some examples of my own; but that turned out to be pretty long; so I decided to use up the space on my own blog instead.

School Boards

This is important.  We seriously need to keep the anti-fact folks off of them; so I always check out the candidates’ websites at least.  In the last school board election I had a vote in, there were five candidates for three positions.  I voted for one who had endorsements from several organizations with some version of “equity” in their names, one who had some version of “inclusive” in several of his issues, and one who likes teachers and thinks they should get a raise.  I declined to vote for a “human resources advisor” and a guy who had “parental rights” as an issue.

About a week from now:

There are 38 candidates in eleven races, U.S. President/Vice President, U.S. Senator, U.S. Representative District 2, Governor, Lt. Governor, Sec’y of State, State Treasurer, Atty. General, State Senate District 1, State Representative Distrint 92, St. Louis County Council District 6.  I see more Democratic than Republican yard signs in my neighborhood, so I might actually be voting on the winning side in the last three of those; in the others, almost certainly not.  Three of the races are, maybe, interesting.

U.S. Senator

Five candates.  In addition to the Libertarian and the Green, there’s a guy named Jared Young who’s running in something called the “Better” party.  His website is all about voting for an independent instead of a Democrat or a Republican.  Although I suppose I agree in principle, such a vote is way too dangerous this year.

The real choice is between the odious Josh Hawley and Lucas Kunce, a career Marine officer (now in the reserves), who seems to be a mostly mainstream Democrat with some progressive-leaning ideas.  He’s well-funded and has lots of TV ads that seem pretty effective to me.  Hawley is also well-funded and has lots of TV ads that, unsurprisingly, lie about Kunce.  I can only hope that Young pulls more votes from Hawley than from Kunce.  It would be cool if deep-red Missouri could flip a Senate seat. 😎  (I wouldn’t bet on it, though.)

U.S. Representative

The odius Ann Wagner is opposed by Ray Hartmann, the publisher of a left-leaning weekly newspaper, The Riverfront Times, and a minor local TV personality on our PBS affiliate.  He seems to have very little money; and his one TV ad strikes me as angry and inneffective.  I was hoping that this would be more fun than it turned out to be.

As a result of the last gerrymandering, Missouri’s Second Congressional District changed from leans Republican to safe Republican; and so the chance of flipping a House seat are slim to none.

Governor

The Democrat, Crystal Quade, grew up poor in Missouri’s bible belt, worked several waitress jobs to work her way through college, and eventually became the minority leader in the state House.  She seems to be very well-funded.  Let’s hope.

Six state constitutional amendments or propositions

Amendment 2 legalizes sports gambling, and amendment 5 sets up a new gambling district along the Osage River.  I’m ambivalent about gambling:  I’d like to keep sleazy people out of the state; but it’s probably too late for that; and legalizing it will probably mean more tax revenue.  (The TV ads for it are all about more money for schools, which is a lie.  There’s no requirement that additional revenue must go to schools.)  I’ll probably vote for both of them.

Amendment 3 overturns Missouri’s abortion ban.  I’m for that.

Amendment 6 funds various law enforcement jobs from higher court costs.  I’m against that.

Amendment 7 makes ranked-choice voting illegal.  Definitely gets my “no” vote.

Proposition A raises the minimum wage to $13.75/hour for 2025, and $15.00/hour for 2026.  Yea.

Other questions

There are three St. Louis County propositions.  I couldn’t find anything about them on the Internet beyond the text of the propositions themselves, so I still have no idea what all the legalese means.  I intend to abstain on these.

There are also 24 questions of the form, “Shall judge [name] of [court] be retained in office?”  I have no clue and will abstain on all of them.

OK, the Debate Happened

I watched a live stream on YouTube with some additional commentary by Robert Reich and Michael Lahanas-Calderón.  I described my plan in a comment on Mano’s blog and won’t repeat that here.

Walz is not a skilled debater.  Although I thought he came prepared, he did stumble in small ways a couple of times; and it came out that, some years ago, he had claimed to be in China during the Tiananmen Square uprising when he hadn’t actually arrived until months later.

Vance did much better than I expected.  He actually spoke in complete sentences and paragraphs and didn’t display any of the incoherence, cognitive decline, or terrible-twos lashing out that we expect from Trump.  He’s clearly smarter and more competent than Trump; and I fear that that makes him more dangerous.  Indeed, if Trump wins the election, he might not last the whole four years; so there’s a real possibility that Vance could actually be President.1

Vance repeated all the lies about things being better under Trump than under Biden, even claiming that Trump saved the Affordable Care Act when he actually tried to get rid of it.  (It was McCain’s thumbs-down during the Senate vote that saved Obamacare.)

One thing that jumped out at me and that I haven’t seen mentioned anywhere else is that Vance would try to tear into Harris on immigration, the economy, or pretty much any subject, by asking, “She’s been in office for over three years now.  Why hasn’t she done anything yet?”  Uh … because she’s the Vice President, not the President, and so not the one in charge?2

The moderators, CBS’ Norah O’Donnell and Margaret Brennan, were mostly even-handed, although I noticed one asymmetry:  O’Donnell did fact-check Vance on one of his many lies about the economy during the Trump years; but Brennan pressed Walz rather pointedly on his misstatement about being in China during Tiananmen Square.  I fear that Walz’ misstatement will be all over TV news while all the lies about things being better under Trump will remain old news that nobody cares about.

1This is a reason to vote for Harris next month.  Don’t abstain, don’t vote for a third-party candidate.  Harris and Trump are the only possibilities, and we really don’t want another four years of Trump (and maybe Vance as president for part of it).

2It occurs to me that it might be fun to start talking about the Vance campaign and possible Vance presidency suggesting that Vance is the one in charge.  That might send Trump over the edge even more rapidly.

The Upcoming Missouri Primary

My local PBS affiliate just aired a 20-minute debate between two Democratic candidates for governor.  The chances of Missouri having a Democratic governor are slim to none, but I was interested since I’ll be voting in the Democratic primary1 early next month.

Two candidates for the nomination showed up for the debate:

Crystal Quade, a young woman who grew up poor in Southwest Missouri (the Bible belt), worked multiple jobs as a waitress, worked her way through college, and all the way to becoming the Minority Leader of the Missouri House of Representatives.

Mike Hamra, a businessman with no political experience; but he has some detailed plans for what he wants to do as governor.

I couldn’t really tell them apart wrt policies.  Both hit all the progressive talking points:  abortion rights, racial discrepancies in law enforcement, etc.  I expect to vote for Quade since she’s the experienced politician and knows how best to get stuff done.

From the TV ads I’ve seen, there’s only one really contentious Democratic primary race with a good bit of vitriol coming from both sides, the one for U.S. Representative from the First Congressional District2; and since I live in the Second District3, I won’t get a vote.  The incumbent, Cori Bush, currently associated with the “squad” in the U.S. House, is being challenged by Wesley Bell, the St. Louis County Prosecutor.  Bush is screaming that Bell is really a Republican, and Bell is screaming that Bush “has her own agenda”.  It’s not pretty.

Although there’s a rational argument that, in heavily gerrymandered places like Missouri, the only election that actually matters is the favored party’s primary, I won’t be voting in the Republican primary because all the candidates are screaming that the other is insufficiently MAGA.  I couldn’t possibly vote for any of them, and I can’t tell them apart.

1Missouri has different elections for presidential primaries and state/local primaries; and it has open primaries:  you just tell the election official which ballot you want when to get to the polling place.  It’s that simple.

2The City of St. Louis and much of northern St. Louis County where there’s still a good bit of poverty and defacto racial segregation.

3I’m not to blame for Ann Wagner, I promise.

By Their Fruits

It might seem strange for an atheist to quote the Bible; but from the stopped-clock-right-twice-a-day department…

Trump’s never-ending lies made me think of Matthew 7:15-20.  Near the end of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus warns against false prophets.  He says that, just as you can’t expect to get grapes from thornbushes nor figs from thistles, so you can’t expect to get the truth from those who customarily lie.

Will “Bible believers” who “love Jesus” be moved by teaching that’s actually attributed to Jesus in a gospel?  A few might; but for the most part, nope, not a chance.  “Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.” (KJV)

That Horrible Debate

I still can’t process the “debate” that some of us endured on Thursday; but it’s clear that Biden’s awful performance is almost all of what the media want to talk about.  Trump’s Gish gallop of one bare-faced lie after another is hardly mentioned.

How can that be?  The only thing I can think of is that Biden’s performance was shocking, but Trump’s lies were unsurprising.

The Debate

I guess I’ll watch the big debate tonight.  I don’t expect to learn anything new about either Biden’s or Trump’s policies; but this boomer thinks it’s a civic duty…or something.  This time, it might be fun to see how Trump reacts to having his microphone cut off when it’s not his turn.

I don’t watch enough TV to justify getting cable; so I won’t be watching on CNN; but all of the usual five broadcast networks will air the debate beginning at 8:00pm central time (my time since I live in St. Louis).  Curiously, the online version of TV Guide shows FOX dumping out at 9:37 with all the others ending at 10:00.  I’m guessing that FOX is worried about having to find nice things to say about Trump in post-debate analysis. 😎  I’ll probably watch on PBS even though I’ll likely have to put up with Amy Walter making self-fulfulling prophecies about “electability” in the post-debate segment.

Two of the networks will have pre-debate analysis:  ABC News Special: Race for the White House from 7:00 to 8:00, andFOX News Special: Democracy '24 from 7:30 to 8:00.  I wouldn’t normally pay any attention to corporate media’s predictions of what will happen, preferring to see what actually happens; but the FOX show is only half an hour long; and it might be interesting to see whether they mindlessly repeat Trump’s claim that Biden will be using performance-enhancing drugs or something even more stupid.

In any event, I guess I’ll have to miss parts one and two of Planet of the Spiders on the Retro TV network.

Social Media and Me

I’ve never used social media*, so I’ve never been affected in any way by the problems Facebook, Xitter, etc.  Am I missing something?

I remember PZ trying to choose between Mastodon and BlueSky, and Mike the Mad Biologist recently mentioned a couple of things that he likes about BlueSky.  Should I try out one of those?  What will I be able to do that I can’t do now?

*OK, I guess blogs are a kind of social media; but aside from that…

I did create a LinkedIn account near its beginning, but I wound up never using it for anything.

My Next Excuse for Riding Trains

I won’t be blogging about riding trains until November when I’ll be traveling to Wrocław, Poland to attend a meeting of the ISO C++ standards committee, but I’m starting to think about it, and I’ve worked up a possible itinerary that includes a three-day conference in Berlin the week before and a one-day conference in Wrocław afterwards.

As I’ve said before, I like to fly Icelandair across the Pond because I like to get off the plane and stretch my legs in Keflavík.  Also, because travel to these meetings is the only thing I spend my fun money on, I’m fortunate to be able to afford Icelandair’s Saga class if I don’t try to afford other stuff that I don’t really want that much anyway.  (Business class on other airlines would probably be out of my price range; and besides, I wouldn’t want to sit in an airplane long enough to get all the way to Europe in one fell swoop.)

Unfortunately, Icelandair serves Berlin only five days per week, so the eastbound trip doesn’t work well.  I’m currently thinking about going a day late and missing almost all of the first day of Meeting C++.  I could fly into Frankfurt instead and take an ICE directly from the airport to Berlin; but then I’d have to return from Frankfurt to get the round-trip air fare; and getting from Wrocław to Frankfurt by train doesn’t look easy.

Update 2024-04-20:  I think I’ve found a way to get from Wrocław to the Frankfurt airport by train, and I like that better.  The link above is to the new version.  The version flying into and out of Berlin is still available here.

Nokia will be sponsoring a one-day conference called code:dive that’s still not officially announced, so I don’t know when or where it’ll be.  My rough itinerary assumes that it’ll be in the same hotel the Monday after the ISO meeting, which could be wrong; so the westbound trip is still subject to change.

Update, 2024-04-17:  I’ve added another option for the first leg that saves a long layover in Chicago.  That train originates in Kansas City and is often delayed on the former MoPac west of St. Louis, so I’m a bit leery about counting on it:  missing the very first connection would likely destroy the whole trip.

I checked out train 318’s arrival times in Chicago and the likelihood of making my connection back to the 1st of October, and it doesn’t look too dangerous; but I’m still not sure I’d want to chance it.  (If I look only at Mondays, which is the weekday I’ll be traveling, I never miss the connection on any of the 29 days; but it’s not clear whether the weekday actually has any effect.)  I probably won’t be making any reservations until the end of July or so, so I’ll check again then.  I’ll probably just stick with the Texas Eagle in any event since that will allow checking a bag all the way to New York.  (The Missouri-Illinois corridor trains don’t have checked baggage service.)

I’ve also been told that Nokia’s code:dive conference will definitely be on Monday, November 25th, but not at the Double Tree where the WG21 meeting will be.

Some Fun Time Zone Geekiness

There were a few e-mail messages on the FtB backchannel a little while ago.  An FtB blogger who lives in Ireland was wondering when the next FtB Podish-Sortacast will happen (https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2024/03/09/in-my-prime/, scroll down a bit), probably just under an hour from when I get this posted.

That got me to thinking about civil time in the Irish Republic.  It winds up that they observe the same time as Great Britain and Northern Ireland, except they get there with rather tortured reasoning.

In the U.K., they switch from “Greenwich Mean Time” (GMT, same as UTC+0) to “British Summer Time” (BST, UTC+1) on the last Sunday in March at 01:00:00 local wall clock time, and they switch back from BST to GMT on the last Sunday in November at 02:00:00 local wall clock time.

In Ireland, they switch from ”Irish Standard Time” (IST, UTC+1) to GMT on the last Sunday in November at 02:00, and they switch back from GMT to IST on the last Sunday in March at 01:00.

Yes, really. Go figure. 😎

The POSIX TZ environment variable for Europe/London:  GMT0BST,M3.5.0/1,M10.5.0
The POSIX TZ environment variable for Europe/Dublin:  IST-1GMT0,M10.5.0,M3.5.0/1

Why did they bother?