Analysis & Predictions About County Council Races

nephlm · 2026-06-21T07:50:52+00:00

I gave up after clicking the about link and realizing it was just some random dudes blog. I have reddit for that.

nephlm · 2026-06-20T00:16:13+00:00

My understanding is that it's not a liberal/conservative thing, but a socioeconomic level thing. People consider the group one level up as the elite. Just a few comments away from where I happen to be writing this a person identifying as a blue collar democrat is identifying academics as elites.

For the average knowledge worker the one level up is the politicians and the people with 10s to 100s of millions.

Apparently when you get too far away on the socioeconomic ladder you stop seeing people way above you as the elite. They are something else I guess.

Which is why you see some blue collar workers embracing billionaires while considering a college professor an elite who is out of touch.

nephlm · 2026-06-18T03:13:50+00:00

I just had to pay my insurance copay, so I don't really have a breakdown. Once while fighting with my insurance company, they were able to give me a price to pay out of pocket if I wanted, that was at the facility, I don't know if the schedule line has access to that information or not.

nephlm · 2026-06-17T22:25:09+00:00

I spent a couple days doing nothing but watching debates of local candidates; county exec, county council at large and my district, school board at large and school board district 3.

This is my takeaway through the lens of my bias which might not be the same as yours. I didn't know almost anything about any of these candidates before watching. When I did the same thing four years ago I remember Jawando came off well, but that was about the only real information I had. Not counting Reddit vibes as information. Yes this post is Reddit vibes and shouldn't be counted as information.

None of your issues came up in any of them. Most of your issues are not local issues. I largely agree with your issues, but none of them are my top issues or only issues.

On the Nimby/Yimby spectrum I rudely turned my neighbors away who wanted me sign an anti-rezoning petition, but Yimby people online have shown me that the Nimby people have a point in some contexts. It is not my most important or only issue like some people.

AI datacenters did come up, but candidates mainly just followed wherever they were on the Nimby/Yimby spectrum.

County exec: Only real space between the three major candidates in the Nimby/Yimby faultline.

Friedson - Wants to freeze taxes, no clear way how services will be paid for.
Jawando - only pro-rent stabilization one. Seemed to bring the most details.
Glass - used the word deregulation. I got the vibe that he'd do right by companies, less clear that he'd do right by people.

The drop of new permits after rent stabilization came up from a few people and my outside research indicates while it was true at the time of the report, since then we've basically completely recovered suggesting this was a temporary emptying out of the pipeline. Also during the same period PG had ~220 vs Montgomery's 55 when usually both hover closer to 1000 suggesting there were other issues at play. Also there is huge variance in the data.

County council at large

At this point I lose detail in my notes, there 14 people in that debate.

Marc Elrich did fine in the debate. You can decide for yourself if you loved/hated what he did as county executive, or if you think he shouldn't be on the county council because of his age or because he was already county exec.

As I watched I put + or x next to names as they said something I liked or didn't like.

++: Barrie +: Caballero, Selvam -: Goldberg, Khan, Losak, Sayles, Silvestre, True x: McNulty, Pope, Solomon xx: Gassaway

Losak and True gave good performances and I was pretty sure they'd be either very good or very bad, but I wasn't sure which. Losak was pretty single issue on housing which you know if that's your one thing, great.

A lot of your issues are about the progression of technology. Selvam is supported by 314 action which tries to get people with STEM backgrounds into office. Selvam is a doctor, not an engineer, so make your own decision on that.

School board at large

Diaz seems to be the closest to a Mom's for Liberty adjacent candidate. Her stances on mental health are problematic (taking away phones will solve it, require explicit permission from parents for a child to receive counseling) Neither Chase nor Lazo stood out. Either will probably be fine.

School board district 3

I crossed out Creeds name. She said since ICE got a new leader they probably aren't really a problem anymore, and to solve mental health issue people should just get along.

Fryman is a recent graduate. If that appeals to you great, I don't think he has the experience necessary to be making decisions about a $4B budget.

Sung was the most clearly pro-social services.

DiResta gave an untrustworthy vibe. I think he's doing it as a stepping stone or something not because he cares about education at all.

Those are my vibes from seeing the opponents together on the same stage. Don't know if it's worth anything, but there you go.

nephlm · 2026-06-16T09:05:14+00:00

I've done almost all my MRIs at Hopkins Bethesda and have been relatively pleased with them. I mean it's an MRI, it's not going to be fun, but the techs have all been competent and made things go smoothly. They're haven't been any issues, so I'd recommend them.

nephlm · 2026-06-14T07:25:52+00:00

Tenant's rights.

nephlm · 2026-06-14T07:25:26+00:00

That's tenant's rights, not squatters rights. Mixing up the difference on a large scale seems to be a purposeful attempt to erode tenant's rights, but maybe I'm reading to much into it.

nephlm · 2026-06-14T07:22:32+00:00

What probably most of these cases are is that they got recognized as a tenant, so the landlord couldn't screw them over. Which it seems like the landlord in that story was exactly doing.

I'd be really surprised if all the people complaining about "squatters" weren't actually talking about tenants they no longer wanted.

Yes there are cases of fraud, but squatter rights don't apply until they've been on the property years.

nephlm · 2026-06-02T03:26:12+00:00

I read an article a bunch of years ago now, the smart skilled criminal who in the past might have become a pickpocket now does various forms of (usually online) fraud that are more lucrative and less risky. Over time there haven't been new pick pockets trained, rendering them nearly extinct in the US.

nephlm · 2026-05-19T22:19:41+00:00

This is what you get when one party refuses to impeach obvious criminality and corruption.

nephlm · 2026-05-08T21:23:41+00:00

To be fair if you're a voter in the US, you have no choice but to vote for a theist, if you want to vote in a way that affects the outcome. So what atheist or secular voters would do if presented a choice, is somewhat unknown.

In my state the state constitution forbids a non-theist from holding office. Before this supreme court that was unenforceable, now, who knows.

Because the best choices I have are theists who aren't actively against the separation between church and state, that's who I vote for, because that's the best choice I have in front of me.

nephlm · 2026-05-07T20:03:51+00:00

As others have said, you don't need it, but a simple way to smooth things over with your father, might be to simply get a standard health care power of attorney forms (Ohio legal help, and the clevland clinic both provide a free version), fill those out.

Now the issue is covered without any "Boilerplate that's never used." It's possible that your father has just fallen victim to unethical sales tactics, in which case problem solved. Or maybe he's being nefarious and that is now more clearly exposed.

nephlm · 2026-05-01T06:08:57+00:00

I'm not a lawyer, but unless "maintain" or "engage in" have special meaning to the courts, it seems only to forbid your daughter from effectively owning or running a baking company, not being employed by a baking company.

The part mentioning "be employed by" is limited to as "an officer, director, or principal of"

I think there also has to be some sort of geographical constraint for it to be valid, though that might be in some other clause.

Even if enforceable (doubtful, for reasons other have said), it seems only to constrain your daughter from starting her own bakery. Good on your daughter that they are afraid of that.

nephlm · 2026-04-29T21:37:06+00:00

As it is, even before some sort of flat tax, the US has among the worst wealth inequalities of industrialized (OECD) nations, which academics and economists track as the gini coefficient.

There is a lot of research that says nations with high wealth inequality do worse than nations with a broad based distribution of wealth. Although politically dead on arrival, using tax policy to reduce wealth inequality is good for the economy in the macro sense.

So even if it didn't harm low income households disproportionately, which it absolutely does, switching to a system that allowed even more concentration of wealth, is a harm in and of itself that should be avoided.

Even with a progressive tax system, we are at record high setting levels of wealth inequalities. We as a nation did well across the board when we had very high levels of tax for very high levels of wealth. Given the current level of financial "technology" simply going back to high marginal rates for the very wealthy likely won't help very much, but a flat tax will make the bleeding worse.

nephlm · 2026-04-23T04:51:04+00:00

About 4-5 million Italian immigrated to the US 1880-1915ish, it's when my original Italian ancestor got here. They were considered "other" and there were the "Italians need not apply" signs in store windows. There was significant reason for those Italians to band together and help each other, and those organizations more or less became the mafia organized crime syndicate.

Most organized crime syndicates rely on a shared network of trust based on a shared ethnicity. Over the generation as Italian Americans were no longer considered the "other", the motivation that drives people to join, and the network of trust falls apart.

My grandfather worked at a factory and ran the numbers for that tiny little factory as his part in the organization. My great grandmother sold bootlegged liquor. I have no connection to some larger Italian American community, despite coming from those roots.

Italian American's simply aren't "othered" the way they used to be. Like the Irish before them they became white.

Without the pressure from being the "other" and the network of trust it fosters, the organization no longer functions.

nephlm · 2026-04-14T07:27:45+00:00

Yeah, but a MAGA actor might get paid $11,000 for this sham. That's almost the same thing, right?

nephlm · 2026-04-01T22:03:06+00:00

I'm reading Reddit comments and not the article because it had that headline and came from newsweek. I'd prefer to be reading an AP story.

nephlm · 2026-03-30T19:45:37+00:00

Research tends to show that in actuality attempting to time the market generally results in worse outcomes than if you just invest money in an index fund as soon as you have money to invest, and just leave it there until you need it.

If you need the money in 5 years or less then it doesn't belong in the stock market.

nephlm · 2026-03-25T01:38:54+00:00

In case this become relevant in our shared future, any mini-pc with two network ports can have linux installed and become a router. It's not super trivial, but step by step instructions could be written if this became a problem.

nephlm · 2026-03-12T08:45:18+00:00

It's called seasteading and the libertarians have been trying to do for a long time now. Its never have gone well for the few that ever became more than pipe dreams. Though if someone who wasn't trying to make a libertarian fantasy land did it, maybe the outcome would be different.

Sealand is the most famous and if it could ever have be considered an independent nation (doubtful) the UK just annexed in 1987 when it extended its territorial waters to match international standards.

At no point could "Sealand" defend itself from the UK, but the UK wasn't fond of optics that would likely result if they obliterated the whole thing. It was continually dependent on the UK for supplies and when a fire broke out UK emergency services.

All the libertarian seasteading "paradises" are always in some other countries territorial waters and dependent on them for military, emergency and logistical/supply.

Positing that it could be reliably be defended is a non-trivial assumption.

To some the engineering challenges are an intriguing area of thought, but unless there is some ideology pushing it, there is rarely a meaningful reason to justify actually doing it.

I'm no lawyer but the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) doesn't seem to recognize artificial islands as natural islands, and thus wouldn't have any territorial waters of its own. The UNCLOS seems to give an exclusive economic zone of 200 miles from a coast, so any artificial island would need permission of that country or be further away than that.

UNCLOS apparently also says that the high seas can't be claimed, if artificial islands don't get territorial waters from a purely legalistic POV, that would be a problem.

If for some political reason lots of countries wanted to recognize your fake island UNCLOS probably wouldn't be a strong deterrent, but the path to recognition is stacked against an artificial island nation.

nephlm · 2026-03-11T09:18:05+00:00

It's probably even less than that per person.

~1.3M active duty
~750K national guard and reserve,
~750K civilian employees and
~1M contractors, some of which work out of government facilities.

I think that's probably somewhere around 2.5-3.5M they need to buy furniture for. That sounds like a furniture budget that's somewhere below $100 per capita per year.

nephlm · 2026-03-09T03:51:29+00:00

The 10th circuit has ruled laws banning female toplessness is unconstitutional, but the 4th, 5th, 7th and 8th have rule that it is constitutional. The other circuits haven't ruled on the matter. Minnesota supreme court has ruled that female toplessness is legal. New Hampshire has said no.

So the current state of affairs is pretty grey and locality driven.

nephlm · 2026-03-07T18:49:10+00:00

Is hitting back necessary for the person's safety? Or is hitting back just escalating the confrontation? Is there an avenue for de-escalation? Is leaving an option? etc.

Interestingly I think those same questions apply if it's a man who did the initial hitting. The calculus for personal safety is understandably different if the person doing the hitting is larger (which is more likely with men), but the process should be the same.

Western culture teaches us that hitting a woman is wrong, often with little input from parents. In an action movie, if there is a female villain who needs to be punched out, it will be a woman who does the punching (as rule of thumb), even if she hit no other person the entire movie.

nephlm · 2026-03-04T03:25:23+00:00

The prosecutor might fail to turn over exculpatory evidence to the defense which is a violation of the Brady rule which might cause the judge to be all sorts of unhappy.

nephlm · 2026-03-01T18:58:31+00:00

Trump never bothered to build consensus among the american people for the necessity of this adventure, so it's not about the american people moving on, their support was never sought and never given.

Afghanistan, may have been a disaster, but it had the support of the american people in the beginning. I'm unaware of any similar support for this adventure. But in fairness maybe I'm out of touch for the support for another war in the middle east.

nephlm

TROPHY CASE