A return to normality

Exciting news this week. After one year and ten months my employer is dropping their mask mandate effective Tuesday, March 8th, finally catching up to the city, county, and state in doing so. Therefore this will be my last post talking (specifically) about COVID unless something dramatic happens. With that said I'll end this post with a screencap that perfectly encapsulates my thoughts and feelings on everything that has happened in the last two years.

100 blog posts

This is my 100th blog post and I've been debating what it should be about for the past week. Well, I've figured that it should be about the thing I've cared about for most of my life.

It's been a record breaking season for the Iowa State women's basketball program. They've won 7 Big 12 Conference road games, swept 7 out of 9 Big 12 opponents, won 14 conference games and 25 regular season games overall, which are all school records.

Individually it has also been a record breaker. Senior Ashley Joens now owns the school career scoring record and is staring down the career record for scoring average among other records. (Fun fact: I have the same birthday and last name as she does but I assure you that she is significantly better at basketball than I am.) Sophomore Emily Ryan continues reaching for every assist record at Iowa State while fellow sophomore Lexi Donarski seems to be the heir apparent to Ashley. Statistically Morgan Kane won't blow you away but together with Portuguese transfer Beatriz Jordão they have combined to make a serviceable duo in the post.

They wrapped up the regular season this past Saturday with a win over West Virginia University and now look forward to the Big 12 tournament this coming weekend. Hopefully they'll win a couple of games there and in the NCAA tourney the weekend after.

Photo(s) of the Week: Mother-daughter time.

 

I hate the Baylor Bears

A trash university for trash people that should be legally required to change it's name to Rape Scandal University.

Photo(s) of the Week: Little Drummer Boy

 

"So this is how liberty dies... with thunderous applause"

Paraphrasing here: 

    "It is with great reluctance that I have agreed to this calling. I love democracy. I love the Republic. Once this crisis has abated, I will lay down the powers you have given me!" 

- Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

History doesn't repeat but it often rhymes. Welcome to the Enabling Act period of Canadian history.

An alternative to drug prohibition

It's no secret that drug prohibition isn't exactly popular. Recently, though, an alternative has popped up. I came across a news article about a referendum in Switzerland. The referendum took place on February 13th and 57 percent of voters chose to place a near-total ban on tobacco advertising within Switzerland. Predictably the tobacco companies were not happy. But I think this is a fair compromise with the civil libertarians.

As an American I think it would behoove the Prohibition Party to include a similar proposal to their 2024 platform, only expand it to all drugs: tobacco, alcohol, marijuana, and prescription drugs. Currently only the United States and New Zealand allow marketing and advertising of pharmaceutical products directly to patients rather than health professionals. It's a process called direct-to-consumer advertising and it would not surprise me if it was at least partly responsible for the opioid crisis.

Alcohol advertising is rampant and lawless. This is a fake commercial from the animated TV show South Park but it is not much different from real world alcohol ads. Several countries such as Norway, Russia, Ukraine, Kenya, Indonesia, and Sri Lanka have varying bans on alcohol advertising in media and I feel that the U.S. should join them.

Updated book list #8

 Completed:

• The 9/11 Commission Report
• Columbine by Dave Cullen
• Caught in the Revolution: Witnesses to the Fall of Imperial Russia by Helen Rappaport
• World War I: The Definitive Visual History
• World War II: The Definitive Visual History
• The Romanovs 1613-1918 by Simon Sebag Montefiore
• The Vietnam War: The Definitive Illustrated History
• The Romanov Sisters: The Lost Lives of the Daughters of Nicholas and Alexandra by Helen Rappaport
• The Race to Save the Romanovs by Helen Rappaport
• The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells
• The Last Days of the Romanovs: Tragedy at Ekaterinburg by Helen Rappaport
• What If? and What If? 2 - A series of essays by historians on what might have been.
• Citizen Soldiers by Stephen Ambrose
• Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton
• America Before by Graham Hancock
• All the Gallant Men by Donald Stratton
• Killing the Rising Sun by Bill O'Reilly & Martin Dugard
• The Cay by Theodore Taylor
• Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling
• Touching Spirit Bear by Ben Mikaelsen
• When Zachary Beaver Came to Town by Kimberly Willis Holt
• 1453: The Holy War for Constantinople and the Clash of Islam and the West by Roger Crowley
• Creature by John Saul
• The Civil War: A Visual History
• The Only Plane in the Sky by Garrett M. Graff

In progress:

• War and Peace (abridged) by Leo Tolstoy
• The American Revolution: A Visual History

On the docket:

• The Savage Wars of Peace: Small Wars and the Rise of American Power by Max Boot (A book I bought between 8th and 9th grades in July 2003 but never actually read.)
• Dark History of Russia by Michael Kerrigan
• Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
• 1984 by George Orwell
• Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

Photo of the Week: Maria's creep stare

 

Uncapping the House of Representatives versus term limits for members of Congress

Back on August 9th of last year I made a post talking about reforming the United States government. I'd like to narrow down the focus to Congress and more specifically the House of Representatives. A lot of ideas have been bandied about on how to "fix" congress, most often the idea of term limits to weaken the power of individual congressmen and the ability of lobbyists to buy votes. I used to be a supporter of term limits since someone sitting in Congress for 40 years seemed contrary to the idea of a representative democracy.

However a comment I once read somewhere long forgotten changed my opinion. Enacting term limits would result in politicians 'waiting out' a rival's term hoping for a more favorable congress. Then newly elected officials would 'wait out' those politicians and the cycle would continue indefinitely.

Now I believe the best way to rein in the power of individual congressmen in to increase the number of congressmen. The line of thinking is that by increasing the number it would require a greater consensus to achieve legislation while simultaneously making it prohibitively more expensive for corporate lobbyists to buy the necessary number of votes to pass favorable legislation.

I propose we start by increasing the number of representatives to 573 using first the Wyoming Rule and after the next census to 695 using the Cube root rule. Of course, this is not such a simple fix and would require Americans to vote for parties outside the Democrat-Republican dichotomy but it would be a start.