so here is the end of the Congressional Speaker vote for the 11th ballot.

As you can see, if the vote stopped right here, after Ryan Zinke got his vote in, Jeffries has a majority. By one. But a smattering of Congress critters who withheld a vote will now bring it to a plurality to allow McCarthy to lose a twelfth time. Why? Why not?

I just saw Matt Gaetz vote for Trump for Speaker. Right at the time I was thinking that, you know, just for shits and giggles, one of the twenty Republican hold outs against McCarthy oughta vote for Alexandria Ocasio Cortez. Paul Gosar the obvious figure, since so much was made of him siding next to her for a discussion.

Or maybe, out of the McCarthy voters in that “nothing left to lose”, the embattled George Santos.

From what I understand, the non Congress critter as Speaker is a bit like “nothing in the rulebook says a dog can’t play basketball”. The Founders intended the Speaker to be a member of the House, even if they did not spell it out. But, I suppose, in that bouncing ball of recurrent speculation, that it was not spelled out the case is there — Air Bud did get to play multiple sports after all.

What, in the end, do you think of bumper stickers for six years off failed presidential candidates? I do not know when the last Kerry / Edwards sign I saw was — which, on one hand was a bad a d inferior design, but on the other hand is better than the messaging of Hillary Clinton’s attempt. The “H” was probably fine and dandy — if coming off as trying to hard to duplicate the Obama “O”. The rest here — love, really?

And this is more like it. To be sure, I guess I have to look up recent Utah elections — this was to a car with a Utah license plate — to see if there was an Igor running for something.

All right. The 19 trouble making Republicans who voted for a handful of candidates for Speaker in the first round, an unwilling Jim Jordan in the second round, and as I sit here and look at the House floor are not budging on the third vote. It would appear Kevin McCarthy is keeping this going, vote tally after vote tally, until somehow something gives, and there is a Q drop that the globalists do not particularly give two craps whether McCarthy or Jordan are Speaker as they are, after all, just two other globalists. Or will be made to be as such.

Rep. Andy Biggs (Ariz.) — Biggs

Rep. Dan Bishop (N.C.) — Biggs

Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) — Jordan

Rep.-elect Josh Brecheen (Okla.) — Banks

Rep. Michael Cloud (Texas) — Jordan

Rep. Eli Crane (Ariz.) — Biggs

Rep. Andrew Clyde (Ga.) — Biggs

Rep. Matt Gaetz (Fla.) — Biggs

Rep. Bob Good (Va.) — Biggs

Rep. Paul Gosar (Ariz.) — Biggs

Rep. Andy Harris (Md.) — Zeldin

Rep.-elect Anna Paulina Luna (Fla.) — Jordan

Rep. Mary Miller (Ill.) — Jordan

Rep. Ralph Norman (S.C.) — Biggs

Rep.-elect Andy Ogles (Tenn.) — Jordan

Rep. Scott Perry (Pa.) — Biggs

Rep. Matt Rosendale (Mont.) — Biggs

Rep. Chip Roy (Texas) — Donalds

Rep.-elect Keith Self (Texas) — Jordan

Update Joining on the third vote — . Byron Donalds (Fla) — maybe hoping his change would lead to a stampede.

i happened upon a CBC broadcast from months back on the history of Technocracy, Inc. When last I saw them, they had headquarters in Ferndale WA, Portland OR, and San Francisco CA and were advertising early in the morning on the flailing “progressive am talk” station a presentation at the same cafe the station held a few public promotions events.

The CBC broadcast was interesting in locating the organization as headquartered in Tennessee, with the either unstated or suggested at reason equal parts sad and fascinating. They hired a woman to do their books, who came in very professionally and very much disinclined to favor their teachings, bit during the course becoming a believer. Meanwhile the other members keeping on in the move to Technocracy are now 80-something, as shown by the other guy the CBC presentation interviewed. Do the math. The Technocracy belongings go with the woman who has youth and vigor on her side, able to be housed in one spot and curated there for a long duration.

Fun fact: Elon Musk’s grandpa was a member. Not figures. And we all live in the technate, whether we want to admit or not…

Years ago I was laughing at the wistful deep dive rooting interest of pre – BCS football fandom, plucking through college football scores and saying hopefully “that team beat that other team! That’s good, because my team beat the team that beat them, and the one loss team we need to usurp to get to number one list to the team that lost to them!”. In reality, it is a bit of over I complexity — in a world where college football rankers kind of petered these out after ten or fifteen and the coaches just had subordinates shrug about to fill the rest up. No one was keeping that deep dive score but the fans marshalling their grudgeful arguments on why their team got screwed.

The NFL season proves fascinating for fans of the team from Southern Alaska / Football Siberia. They are relevant by tangent — no one nationally cares about the Seahawks except for their current relationship with the Denver Broncos. And because this year’s team is and always has been a marginal playoff team at best and possibly has shown that they are about where everyone expected them to be pre-season only a couple bits of luck to move them a game or two up — fans interest seem more primed on the fate of the woeful Denver Broncos and where they will give up their draft picks at than the middling Seattle Seahawks.

So. What. Denver. When recapping the season there will be two moments that symbolize their tragedy, both from gimmick encrusted alternate broadcasts. One is the reaction shot from Peyton Manning as the team lined up for a 64 yard field goal instead of trying to convert a fourth down and five. The analytics for the former play is something like … Two percent chance of success? … While the latter is at something like 46. Also they are paying the hot shot QB a quarter billion dollars to make plays. The other moment, forever to be dumped in any reel of the teams’ season, is a fictional starfish from Spongebob Squarepants on Nickelodeon’s alternate broadvast responding to a Russell Wilson throwing an interception with “That’s not what he wanted to cook.”

A curious thing, though. Seattle and the Pacific Northwest are not getting the Broncos – Chiefs game. Instead they have a game that has some theoretical bearing on the Seahawks’s playoff chances — if the Giants lose twice more, the Seahawks can get in. This, despite the fact that, Seahawks fans are lukewarm on that part of the equation and care more about the failings of the Broncos, hoping for that miracle top draft pick. CBS oughta be showing the Jaguar — Texans game, itself a gambit of comedy in that it has only the slightest chance of mattering for a backup playoff appearance for the Jaguars ahead of next week’s divisional title win and in game.

Oh for the love of god, Safeway is closed. That is, I believe, a new one. Used to close at 4, maybe even 2, Christmas Day. But not this year. I guess it makes some sense in a year that I saw a brazen smash and grab (and hurry for speed off) a couple blocks off on a relatively crowded street, that probably mark off points of consideration.

But what this means is my Christmas dinner is just going to have to be four Big Macs from McDonalds. Why four? Well, it is like this. A month back, I realized that I had a stray gift card to use — at this fast food behometh I had not eaten at in four Yeats and then again four years before that. Having no clue on pricing but knowing it would come to less than twenty five, I ordered 3 Big Macs and 2 large Fries. And then looking at the receipt I saw that 2 Big Macs were $6.50. One Big Mac is $5.50. I could not decide if it was right to feel gypped from this exchange and relative value mismatch, in a situation I would not think a thing if each Big Mac was priced at at $4. Another Big Mac would indeed just be another buck, but that would just be a Big Mac I was not eating right then. It is also a situation where someone else already paid the money a while ago and it was in some danger of falling into an unused ether.

McDonalds is open today, isn’t it? Fifth visit to McDonalds this decade — third this year. Maybe a pile of tacos from Taco Bell is a better bet?