Today, California voters made history. There is a previously little-known caveat of California politics called the recall, which allows the citizens of the state to effectively undo an election. This process is such a strange and potentially destabilizing thing that—while eighteen states and the District of Columbia have recall procedures—it has only been used once in United States history at the governor level before today (Governor Lynn Frazier was recalled in North Dakota in 1921).
Roberta Lystron
I was a bank investigator for Wachovia branches in Washington, DC. It was my job to look into fraudulent charges on accounts, track people down when they hadn’t made necessary payments, and occasionally I would become involved after a customer’s death.
Trustworthy Stupidity
Somewhere amid today’s news of ‘Do Not Call’ lists being blocked, AMD releasing 64-bit processors, and the gubernatorial debates in California was a wonderful nugget of pure idiocy from none other than Microsoft. In the name of stopping pedophiles and spammers, Microsoft’s MSN division announced that it will be shutting down its chat rooms in 28 countries next month. (You can read about it from CNN.com.)
Mason Inflation
While I had some trouble in Macroeconomics, I’ve discovered that Econ. is actually vaguely interesting to me. I find it fascinating how our economic system works, why money is worth anything, etc.
TANSTAAFL
There is little quite so annoying as not getting your money’s worth, and for me this is most evident when I talk about the services I pay for monthly. For example, if you’re paying for an internet service and their servers are screwed up for a few days. Or if you’re paying for phone service but a wire to your complex were to get cut and take a day to fix. Etc., and so on.
Scott Bradford is a writer and technologist who has been putting his opinions online since 1995. He believes in three inviolable human rights: life, liberty, and property. He is a Catholic Christian who worships the trinitarian God described in the Nicene Creed. Scott is a husband, nerd, pet lover, and AMC/Jeep enthusiast with a B.S. degree in public administration from George Mason University.