Talking Politics at Thanksgiving dinner

NHPR has been running a piece on why you should not talk politics.  Polarization is mentioned.  And, the Number 1 political subject, impeachment of Trump, is all the MSM has been covering.  Fox news runs the Adam Shifty hearings live all day long.
   Watergate this is not.  Watergate started out with the arrest of burglars inside the DNC headquarters.  That was clearly a crime and ought to be investigated, everybody understood that.  And one thing lead to another until Nixon resigned before the House impeached him.  Now all we have is an unknown whistle blower claiming that Trump pressured the president of Ukraine to investigate Hunter Biden and both Trump and the Ukrainian president deny it.  Most of us voters out in the real world don't see a real crime here.
   So what's to discuss?  Lot of people want to impeach Trump, and a lot of people don't want to impeach him, but what's to discuss?   Adam Shifty hasn't given us any real evidence of anything so what can you say?  And what else is there to discuss?  As far as the MSM is concerned, the Trump impeachment is the only thing happening all over the world.  

Electoral College.

  What it is and why we care.   Back when the Founders were setting up our constitution they made a number of decisions to even things out between big states and small states.  They had to; otherwise the small states would not join up.  The concept of the Senate where each state got two votes was intended to put the smaller states on a level with Virginia and Massachusetts.  When the Constitutional Convention met in Philadelphia, the big states were all in favor of a legislature where big states got more votes than small states.  The small states came to Philadelphia planning on a legislature where each state gets the same number of votes.  After a lot of dickering back and forth they adopted our current bi-cameral (two house) legislature.  Neither side was completely happy, but the compromise was enough to prevent anyone from walking out.  

   The Electoral College was another such big state-small state compromise.  Direct popular vote would have made it impossible for anyone to win the presidency who was not a citizen of a big state.  In those days Virginia and Massachusetts were the big states, every other state was small.  The thinking was that any candidate from a big state (a native son) would of course take all the votes from his home state, which would be enough to win the election.  It was believed that candidates from small states would not stand a chance under a direct popular vote system. 

    So they set up the Electoral College system.  The college consists of electors, chosen by the states. Each state gets as many electors as it gets representatives plus senators in Congress.  We have 100 US senators, 435 US house members, and they give the District of Columbia three electors.  Which makes an electoral college of 538 electors.  Of which New Hampshire gets four, or ¾ of one percent.  Not much, but better than what we get in a direct popular vote.  New Hampshire’s population is 1.35 million.  The population of the entire country is 330 million, so New Hampshire’s popular vote is only 0.41 of 1 percent.  In short, the Electoral College system gives New Hampshire a bigger slice of the presidential vote than we would get under direct popular election.  As a resident of New Hampshire, I like the Electoral College system just the way it is. It’s been there since the Founding.  It makes the New Hampshire first in the nation primary work.  Every presidential candidate has to come to New Hampshire and pass muster with the New Hampshire voters, who are a conscientious, well informed, and fair minded bunch.  I like that.  Under a direct popular vote for president system only the primaries in the big states would matter. 

$2295.50 for a Z-scale briefcase layout

The Lilliput catalog come in amidst the usual shower of catalogs for Christmas.  Full of neat toys with scary prices.  The Z-scale (as small as they make) layout, nicely scenicked, Alpine setting, your choice of winter snow or summer leaf, is 22 inches by 17 inches.  You can close the brief case and take it with you, to work, to a party, whatever.
   It is EXPENSIVE.  I have a round the walls HO layout, and a collection of rolling stock that will not quit, but I didn't put anything close to $2295.50 into my entire HO layout and rolling stock collection.   

Regulating Facebook

There is talk about doing something about Facebook.  They complain that Facebook is canceling posts, and closing accounts of posters they object to.  I dunno what to make of this. Both right wingers and left wingers are calling out to do something. 
   Me, I am a medium speed Republican New Hampshire politician.  I created a Facebook page to support my campaign for NH Senate.  It was very useful, every post I made got read by nearly 100 people.  I got elected.  Facebook never interfered.  I did try to be fair in everything I posted, largely because I believe my voters want a fair minded representative.  It may be that my fairness kept Facebook from interfering.  Anyhow, I consider my Facebook page to have contributed my election.
   Should we decide to "do something" about Facebook, (I am not convinced that this is necessary, but you never know what CongressCritters may do) the only effective thing we can do is use the anti trust laws to break Facebook up.  What actually happens at Facebook is controlled by software.  Only a very few people who write the software really know what is happening, and these people are Zuckerburg's people.  Doesn't matter what a regulator might demand, the software programmers control what really happens, they work for Zuckerburg and will do what he tells them to.  And the regulator's people cannot read the code to know what is really going on.  For instance Facebook recently promised to stop logging some users data and selling that data.  I bet that somewhere in the software that data is still being logged out to some obscure disk file.  And I am sure they back up all their data onto CD-ROMs or flashdrives and store them off site, just in case of fire or flood. 
    A breakup would create two companies to compete with each other for advertisers and users.  We divvy up Facebook's computer centers, users, advertisers, workers, stock, office buildings 50-50.  Then users and advertisers would migrate to the company with the policies they like best.  Assuming both managements were competent,  both companies would adopt policies about privacy and political correctness and other things that the users and advertisers like.  Because if they did not, they would dwindle down and go out of business.  Like Yahoo did.

Lotta talk about thinking and feelz, little about doing anything of substance

I had the house impeachment hearings on all day.  A lot of yak.  Talk about influencing people's (mostly Trump's) thinking.  Emails and discussions and talk and yak.  Little to no talk about doing anything of substance.  Like sending rations or weapons or US advisors to the Ukrainian army,  broadcasting pro Ukrainian propaganda to Russian occupied Ukraine,  jamming Russian newscasts, you know real actions to tip matters against the Russians and in favor of the Ukraine.  In sort, a whole day of nothing burger on TV.  

Still Not Impressed

I caught the impeachment hearings on  the radio while driving up to Berlin, and back from Berlin this Friday.  About an hour each way, so I heard maybe two hours of chit chat.  The committee had Marie Yavonovitch, former US ambassador to Ukraine, on deck.  She never said anything of substance.  Every statement was bland, and qualified, heavily.  She spoke in a voice so wimpy and indecisive that I judge her unfit to be an ambassador to anywhere, in fact unfit to push a broom.  Don't understand how she ever got appointed ambassador.  She felt (never said directly) that Trump forced her out of her ambassadorship.  For which I say, good work, badly needed housecleaning.  We don't need anyone that wimpy and indecisive representing the United States of America. 
   Bottom line, in two hours I never heard the witness said anything about Trump doing anything bad at all, other than getting her fired that is.

I watched the public impeachment hearing today. Not Impressed

They did a lot of talking, about process and procedures, and secret diplomatic back channels.  The diplomatic witnesses were questioned about their backgrounds, and they were impressive.  Top 1% of his class at West Point, infantry company commander in Viet Nam.  And a good deal of other stuff all good sounding. 
   They never got down to brass tacks.  Like reading the transcript of the famous telephone call aloud.  Or discussing other matters that might convince me, or others, that Trump has got to go.   Or testimony from the famous whistleblower (Eric Ciaramella???).   Chairman Adam Shifty was fairly objectionable.
   I'm thinking that the Democrats don't have anything on Trump, at least not anything that is all that serious.  Watergate this is not.