Ohio Absentee Balloting Nuances

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by Lisa

Ohio RC 3509.05 lists approved relatives who are able to deliver a ballot on behalf of another individual (spouse of the elector, the father, mother, father-in-law, mother-in-law, grandfather, grandmother, brother, or sister of the whole or half blood, or the son, daughter, adopting parent, adopted child, stepparent, stepchild, uncle, aunt, nephew, or niece of the elector). So I cannot deliver the ballot for my neighbors, but their kids can. That’s a firm ‘no’ on dropping off ballots for anyone who is not related to you a way listed in RC 3509.05 at the Board of Elections. I won’t get into the probability of enforcement — that’s something an individual would need to decide for themselves. If the ballot isn’t getting submitted any other way, might be worth the risk having an unauthorized person drop it off and having your vote invalidated. To me, the law precludes a mass effort to get people driving around and collecting ballots for a neighborhood and dropping those off at the Board of Elections. Same with dropping off bunch of ballots over at the Post Office closest to the Board of Elections — “elector shall mail” isn’t the same as “elector shall cause to be mailed”.

Ohio RC 3509.08 option where the Board of Elections drops off the ballot and picks it up is currently only for those confined to nursing homes and jails. So if you know someone who is in a nursing home or jail … they totally can request the Board of Elections bring them a ballot, wait while it is filled out {even fill out the ballot if the person is unable to do so themselves — I’m thinking of my great-grandmother who could barely write an “X” in the signature line near the end of her life} and bring that ballot back to be counted. That’s a pretty awesome level of service. And I get that they don’t have anywhere near enough staff to broaden that service.

What you *can* do is drop off a ballot for parents, grandparents, aunts/uncles, siblings, children, and nieces/nephews. So if you’ve got family members who don’t have time/resources/mobility/health to drop off the ballots in person, you can certainly collect *their* ballots and drop them off at the appropriate Board of Elections.

There also appears to be a remote ballot marking system available if you have a qualifying disability under ADA. (Cuyahoga and Medina). I’m e-mailing DeRose’s office and my local Ohio Congresspersons (“Member Search” in the lower left-hand corner of http://www.ohiohouse.gov/ for the House, https://www.ohiosenate.gov/senators/district-map for the Senate) asking them to expand the availability of the 11-G absentee request. Anyone with COVID-like symptoms or asked to quarantine for potential exposure should be allowed to remotely mark their ballot too. It’s not the resource strain that offering in-person pick-up would be, and it allows people to ensure their vote is counted without risking heir health.

And if you request an absentee ballot but decide to vote in person instead, you can. You’ll need to submit a provisional ballot — this is to ensure you don’t both return an absentee ballot and vote in person.

Discourse in Docker on Fedora 32

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by Lisa

I had to make a few tweaks in order to run the Discourse base Docker image. First, I got the following very clear error:

discourse docker this version of runc doesn't work on cgroups v2: unknown

I had to switch from cgroupv2 to cgroup

grubby --update-kernel=ALL --args="systemd.unified_cgroup_hierarchy=0"

At which point I was at least able to run through the configuration. This yielded an access denied error attempting to create /shared/postgres:

Configuration file at updated successfully!

Updates successful. Rebuilding in 5 seconds.
Building app
Ensuring launcher is up to date
Fetching origin
Launcher is up-to-date
cd /pups && git pull && /pups/bin/pups --stdin
Already up to date.
I, [2020-08-11T18:15:03.664400 #1] INFO -- : Loading --stdin
I, [2020-08-11T18:15:03.672609 #1] INFO -- : > locale-gen $LANG && update-locale
I, [2020-08-11T18:15:03.746912 #1] INFO -- : Generating locales (this might take a while)...
Generation complete.

I, [2020-08-11T18:15:03.747838 #1] INFO -- : > mkdir -p /shared/postgres_run
mkdir: cannot create directory ‘/shared/postgres_run’: Permission denied
I, [2020-08-11T18:15:03.754890 #1] INFO -- :

FAILED
--------------------
Pups::ExecError: mkdir -p /shared/postgres_run failed with return #<Process::Status: pid 21 exit 1>
Location of failure: /pups/lib/pups/exec_command.rb:112:in `spawn'
exec failed with the params "mkdir -p /shared/postgres_run"
d98ee8471413ad77ab27ed3506f12c5c94a2b6902622faf4d88d5dbb51a10f63
** FAILED TO BOOTSTRAP ** please scroll up and look for earlier error messages, there may be more than one.
./discourse-doctor may help diagnose the problem.

Gut was that I encountered an SELinux problem. Turns out I was right. There’s a lot of reading you can do about SELinux and Docker — this, for one — but the quick and simple solution is to run the docker container in privileged mode (note: this may not be a good idea in your specific scenario. understand what privileged mode is and the risks it entails). To do so, edit the launcher script (/var/discourse/launcher in my case) and add  “–privileged” to user_args:

And finally (and this may well be a RTFM thing) — you’ve got to have your public DNS set up & whatever firewall rules to get traffic to the http:// website you are trying to build in order to use the LetsEncrypt SSL cert and configure HTTPS. It uses the file-based verification (i.e. create a file named xyz in /path/to/xyz.whatever on your web server, lets encrypt grabs the file and verifies it exists) which fails quite spectacularly when the Internet at large cannot access your about-to-be-a-discourse-server.

Changing Your Mind Due To New Information Is A Problem?!

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by Lisa

Back in 2004, John Kerry was roundly derided for being a “flip flopper”. In the political context, I never thought the term meant simply someone who changed their mind but rather someone who lacked conviction and changed their mind to match the prevailing popular opinion. Now, even that meaning, I had trouble seeing as problematic in a representative democracy. If 80% of the people I represent thought X last year and now think !X … wouldn’t they want me voting a different way this year? While Kerry attempted to explain his votes — approving military action but not a funding source — nuanced discussion isn’t effective in American political discourse.

I’m reminded of this as people protest wearing masks. I questioned the advice not to wear a mask in March — it was illogical except from a scare resource allocation strategy (i.e. if you’re sheltering in place at home where drive-through grocery pickup is the totality of your exposure … save the mask for someone with more risk). There wasn’t any research to support wearing a mask because there wasn’t much research about SARS-CoV-2 at all. But, in March, there was research on the transmission of other virus. Maybe we didn’t know if aerosol transmission was possible, but it’s basic risk mitigation to take not-too-awful precautionary measures to prevent an unknown risk. Several months later, there is research. But the odd line of thinking that means a politician who changed their mind about a vote or had nuanced reasons that their vote for “the same thing” differed seems to mean that emerging scientific research does not warrant revising one’s initial opinion.

Some in the Republican party remind me of my daughter’s default defiance. I’ve heard her refuse to eat ice cream because one of her parents told her to (and her automatic response to just about any request is “No!” or “Why?!”). The Republican party is currently objecting to the NY DA preventing the NRA from continuing to misappropriate donor funds (i.e. how dare you charge the guy who robbed me!?), refusing to wear a mask that at worst does nothing and at best prevents the spread of an infectious disease because they’ve been told to do it.

On Biden

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by Lisa
My reasons for voting for Biden — SCOTUS, slowing down environmental destruction, a minimal adherence to the Constitution, and an actual investigation into WTF has gone on the past four years. I don’t have faith that Biden will pick a *good* SCOTUS nominee. Neither do I think he will implement *good* environmental, health care, criminal justice, education, banking, consumer protection, etc policies. I think he will implement *less bad* ones.
 
It’s something I struggle with — Biden has a level of competency that Trump lacks. I could see Trump spending four more years issuing ludicrous EOs that even Republican-appointed judges have to strike down with specific instructions on what the exec office could have done within the system (and the Trump admin pretty routinely ignoring the court’s suggestions / dropping it to move onto the next ‘trigger the libs’ issues). The executive office will be staffed with people who have financial incentive to not enforce laws. Contracts steered towards friends. Million dollar purchases will materialize out of nowhere. Oval Office addresses will pause for a promo like the news anchors used to do.
 
I see not voting for Biden as the “burn it down” approach — which gives me a lot of appreciation for property destruction in the course of protests. Reagan told us how bad government could be, then spent eight years proving how bad you could make government if you just put a little effort into it. If we let Republicans make the government just as bad as they can, will it all self-destruct and some modern truly representative system could rise from its ashes. Or we’ll got the Greek city-state route and have 100’s of different authorities. Pretty much anything other than the current corporate-money driven non-representative system.
 
But then I tune in to one of Trump’s daily briefings and realize all over again how absurd he will get with the ‘proof’ that the country supports him (and that everything bad he’s encountered has really been some deep state conspiracy). I end up thinking not-as-bad-but-competent is probably better than the Trump alternative.
 
I’d love if Biden showed his love of compromise by compromising with progressives, or if centrists even approached this as an opportunity to make a sales pitch instead of threats. But it seems like it’s up to progressives to pitch Biden to other progressives. Because, seriously, what percentage of the country needs to support an idea before you can just accept it as-is? M4A is a great example — if 70% of Americans support an idea, why ensure no one is happy through compromise? Especially if the other party is negotiating in bad faith (they’re not going to vote for it with the concessions in place anyway, they’re going to manipulate the system to ensure their position is over-represented, etc).

It’d be great if some Biden supporters put effort into understanding what progressives want and articulated how Biden produces actual progress toward that goal (not ‘we will get back to where we were in 2010’). Because “you have to vote for him or fracking fluid will be dumped into the river” and “Trump is going to nominate reanimated Scalia and nominate the first zombie-American SCOTUS jutice”… probably enough to get me to check the box they want checked, I still want an “Any Competent Adult 2020” sign because *that’s* what I’m voting for. Not Biden. Literally whatever halfway competent >=35 year old native-born citizen the Dem’s put on the ballot.

Exporting Microsoft Stream Transcript

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by Lisa

Microsoft has changed the interface on Stream slightly, so my code to export the Stream transcript needed an update. since copy/paste doesn’t seem to work for everyone, the script is also available as a text file.

var objTranscriptionLines = window.angular.element(window.document.querySelectorAll('.transcript-list')).scope().$ctrl.transcriptLines;
var strRunningText = "";
for(var i = 0; i < objTranscriptionLines.length; i++){
    if( objTranscriptionLines[i] ){
        var strLineText = objTranscriptionLines[i].eventData.text;
        strRunningText = strRunningText + "\n" + strLineText;
    }
}
console.log(strRunningText);

Bow tuning notes

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by Lisa

To fix a nock right by yoke tuning, you shorten the right yoke legs and lengthen the left.

Adding one twist and removing the same amount from the other side (right lower / left lower, for instance) should maintain the cam timing. Not 100% true because the amount of take-up per twist changes compared to previous twists. But it’ll be close.

Make sure to check cam timing — may have timing check hole drilled into cam so you can verify cams are in the same place at a point in your draw. Or draw and ensure stops hit cam at the same time.

Found an article on tuning at https://www.gohunt.com/read/skills/what-does-it-really-mean-to-tune-your-bow

What you know

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by Lisa

I don’t get why school boards (and businesses, for that matter) are so stuck on attempting to replicate what we had two years ago. It’s like some form of denial — it’s going away soon, no reason to rethink things we’re doing.

I cannot help but think of veggie burgers. Attempts to be “beef like” are generally awful. Attempts to make a flavorful, filling, crunchy sandwich filling that bears little resemblance to a beef burger? Lots of delicious options. I think that was what I liked so much about SNL’s at home episode … it wasn’t *trying* to be like an in-studio production. It was a new thing that was entertaining in its own way. I don’t know what the school version of my spicy garbanzo sandwich or SLN@Home would be … but, having seen The Reopening Plan, I know that my local school board spent the last four or five months trying to figure out how to achieve the most school-like thing possible regardless of the long-term feasibility of the solution (and they’ve got a slide detailing the “swiss cheese” approach to risk mitigation … something gets through each layer but risk is mitigated by the aggregation of layers. Nothing says safety like swiss cheese!).

Creating continuity between in-class and at-home learning so individuals with resources (time, money, internet access, computers for kids to use) could participate at home and reduce the number of people on the bus, in the classroom, at lunch, etc does not appear to have been an avenue of exploration. This would allow individuals in quarantine to continue their education uninterrupted, too. The district’s plan right now is … they’ve got no idea what to do when a class full of students is asked to stay home for two weeks.

Reopening Plans

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by Lisa

Yeah, this is going to be a nightmare. I have an awesomely well behaved kid. One with a lot of deference to non-parental authority. She’s also decidedly not an automaton and does her own thing. Which is developmentally great, but not so great in a carpark. She would totally wear a mask all day in school, even if it’s 90 degrees in the classroom (which happens, no AC in this old building). She will walk in a spaced-out line and play by herself at recess if that’s what the teacher says to do. She’ll also rub at her eyes, do a crap job of washing her hands before eating (and there’s no way the teacher is ensuring everyone is properly clean before lunch and snack), take her mask off while walking up the driveway and chew on her finger because she’s growing a new molar. There are kids who had three warnings in a day *before* all of these risk mitigation rules went in place.

How much time is a teacher going to spend teaching when they’re also reminding kids to keep their masks on, not share that crayon, no you cannot move your chair and sit closer to Timmy. Even if online education isn’t as effective as in-person education was two years ago … I think it is going to be far more effective than trying to teach in between warning kids about breaking rules.

And that’s just elementary school kids. From what I hear from friends with older kids, the district has been completely unable to address physical assault (which they like to call bullying, but someone who walked up to me on the street and punched me in the face would totally be getting changed with assault). How in the world are they going to address someone who thinks its a gas to rip off someone else’s mask and sneeze in their face?

At that, how are they going to address someone who gets sent into school with a fever? From a strange conversation I had with the nurse’s office when my daughter had bloodshot eyes from allergies, I kind of gather that the nurse cannot make medical diagnoses and could not *make* me come pick her up. Five cycles of “I’m sure you want to get her tested for pinkeye” / “she’s got allergies” and I gave up and got my kid. I guess they can use the gymnasium as a room for possibly infected kids sitting 20′ apart.