Yes, lots of baseball players turn up. I’ve also discovered the occasional inventor of something important or former federal cabinet secretary or general, etc.

Oh, those must have been good!

That’s a great idea! I was recently doing the same for some nearby small towns. It was quite interesting.

That’s all fascinating. Thank you.

Anecdotally, I know the last redistricting for my county board of supervisors was altered because of an alleged lack of a “rural” member.

My county area is mostly rural but pop dominated by three substantial cities. So drawing (single-seat) districts that actually rep anything is a challenge.

That’s interesting. I know nothing about municipal district boundaries in Canada. I’m really not even sure of the process here in California for those levels. I think we have commissions but they operate so out of the spotlight that I wouldn’t doubt there’s a lot of political influence.

I prefer not to conflate gerrymandering and malapportionment although I also recognize that these concepts can overlap and that your point about political interference in even the “fairest” commission-drawn maps is valid.

Just at some point the concept of gerrymandering gets a bit stretched.

Ugh. I don’t know how I’d respond in that situation but I’d be awfully upset.

This isn't a foreign psy-op, and it's not the product of social media bots. It's a homegrown menace, and it's getting worse. www.theatlantic.com/politics/202...

I did have to scroll back up to see whether it was the current ruling party in the UK you were referring to, or the one in the US.

I didn’t say anything about entitlements. Just of facts of how you get from here to there as a practical strategy. So, yes, you could call that de facto by definition.

It’s not obvious to me why Saudi normalization would come across to a typical Israeli as such a sparkling jewel, honestly.

It likely was, yes. I’ve been quite surprised to see how many bills turn out to be placeholders for something quite different. But “died at desk” suggests it wasn’t much of a place to hold.

No. Maybe I should. I like getting Segal’s perspective. (I normally hear him via Call Me Back.)

I don’t think I’d have expected softening given recency and fragility of the ceasefire. Plus the fact that the wave of “recognition” was after July (albeit before the ceasefire).

Somehow not too surprising.

The media reaction to Joe Biden not doing enough press conferences was orders of magnitude stronger & more negative to what Trump does on a daily basis to denigrate & threaten freedom of the press. Two wildly different standards. Happy week everyone.

Congrats! And this looks great. Will add to the reading list!