Peter Drake, he/him, LFHCfS 🔥 @peterdrake@social.cleverlibre.org

We were worried about putting only "appropriate" books in the neighborhood lending library, but someone else put in "The Complete Kama Sutra", so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

That is a big-ass spider.

Hooning vs dinosaurs. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LgGQ-oGbjF0

A tie bar is supposed to be worn that high? That doesn't seem very effective in terms of keeping the tie from flapping around.

Wait. If you were a phone fraud artist, wouldn't the unenforced National Do Not Call Registry be a gold mine of verified live numbers?

The Washington Post: Pete Buttigieg wouldn’t be America’s first gay president.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/pete-buttigieg-wouldnt-be-americas-first-gay-president/2019/03/26/0b7b1eb4-41de-11e9-922c-64d6b7840b82_story.html

via @googlenews@twitter.com

Pitch: an internet-enabled cybersecurity blanket. @internetofshit@twitter.com

Courtney is going to allow an Oregon senate vote on National Popular Vote! https://www.opb.org/news/article/oregon-popular-vote-movement-presidential-elections/#.XJpPh4qNC5k.twitter

Interesting: I'm having a conversation with someone on Mastodon, which I have set up to cross-post with Twitter. My posts are forwarded to Twitter, but his replies are not. Consequently, it's like you're hearing half of a phone conversation.

Also, to clarify the nature of my disagreement, I'm not hugely bothered that there is a layer of electors between the voters and the selection of the President, just as there is a layer of legislators between the voters and the passage of laws.

I'm much more concerned that the number of electors allocated to each state it not proportional to the population of that state.

Interesting -- I was beginning to think YOU'RE "just trolling, not really interested in conversation on the topic". Still, let's give it a go in the name of the QOTO ideal.

Regardless of what you think about me, the NPV compact has already passed in 12 states plus DC, controlling 181 of the 270 electoral votes it will need to kick in. It's sitting on two more governors' desks. This is a real change that's coming, not idle philosophy.

Despite your (somewhat uncivil) assumption, NPV advocates HAVE done our research. Here's my understanding of why the EC was established. Correct me where I'm wrong:

1) The Founding Fathers, with a narrower concept of "the people" than we have today, didn't want to leave decisions to the masses. They imagined that the electors would meet to discuss their decision. This is no longer relevant because faithless electors are now fantastically rare.

2) When the Constitution was established, getting all of the states to sign on was challenging. There was a debate between "every state equal" (the senate) and "every person equal" (the house). Specifically, the slave states wanted to protect that institution, so they arranged to be able to count 3/5 of their nonvoting slaves as part of their population. This is also no longer relevant.

Of course I'm aware of the notion of the tyranny of the majority. It just seems to me that the EC merely replaces it with a tyranny of the minority, which is certainly worse.