Month: April 2026

Big news! One of Muttrox’s pet causes is The National Popular Vote. I first wrote about NPV in 2023. At that time we were at 195 votes (out of 270). Two years later it was at 209.

Virginia and Governor Spanberger just signed HB 965. The count is now 222. It’s getting realerer!

The Path Forward

Let’s look at the math. Virginia, get us to 222 and we we need 270 to trigger the activation. The NPVIC is now 82% of the way to eliminating the Electoral College, without passing a Constitutional amendment. But the nature of this effort is that the remaining states are the toughest. We have exhausted the “easy” blue states. Here are the next couple up (likely):

1. Michigan (15 votes): With a Democratic trifecta in charge, it is the primary 2026 target.
2. Nevada (6 votes): Already passed both chambers previously; currently navigating final procedural hurdles.

If Michigan and Nevada fall, the count hits 243. At that point, any combination of Pennsylvania or a few smaller swing states (Arizona, Wisconsin) pulls the trigger.

“Gerrymandering Madness”

Voters understand that geography has become a weapon. Trumps ongoing efforts to rig the election via gerrymandering (amount other tactics) have made it even more visible. If you’ve seen the disgusting gerrymandering of the 2026 cycle— in Texas, California, North Carolina, Ohio, and the “retaliatory redistricting” referendum happening in Virginia —you see the connection. One promotes the other. Visibility is good – the NPVIC is broadly popular so the more people who understand it is an option the more energy it gets.

By ensuring the candidate who wins the most actual human votes across all 50 states becomes the President, the NPVIC effectively “de-gerrymanders” the election. The frenzy in Virginia—where leaders are fighting for fair House maps while signing the NPV—is a unified front against the idea that your zip code should determine your political utility.

The Legal Landscape

The moment the count hits 270, the legal “madness” will eclipse the redistricting fights. Opponents will point to the Compact Clause of the Constitution, which forbids states from entering into agreements without Congressional consent.

But the NPVIC is built on a clever “states’ rights” foundation. The Constitution gives state legislatures the exclusive power to determine how their electors are chosen. If Virginia wants to award its electors to the national popular vote winner, that is Virginia’s business.

Is NPVIC Blue vs Red, or Pre-Democracy Bipartisanship?

The compact is currently driven by the Democrats. Every governor to sign the NPVIC into law has been a Democrat, and the remaining 33 non-member states are largely Republican-controlled. Many GOP leaders view the Electoral College as a necessary “firewall” against urban dominance. But public polling tells a different story. In Virginia, roughly 50% of Republicans and a majority of Independents favored the move. For a Republican in California or a Democrat in Texas, the compact is the only way their vote for President actually impacts the final tally.

To reach 270, the NPVIC must break this “Blue Trap.” If it is purely partisan, it faces a lethal “Compact Clause” challenge in the Supreme Court. To survive, it needs to flip Republican governors in a state where voters feel their “winner-take-all” status has rendered them irrelevant.

We are moving toward a world where the candidate who gets the most votes actually wins. Virginia just brought us 13 steps closer to finding out if the American system can handle that much transparency. Let’s go!

(This post was partially written by AI Gemini.)

June 2025: I started earning at $20/hour, it’s now up to $25. Gradually learning this system.

July 2025: I go into a housing complex. I text the passenger for the gate code. (This is an ongoing frustration. I’ll idle at the gate waiting for a response so I can pick them up. The clock isn’t running because I’m outside the gates, Uber just sees I’m not at the pin yet. Wasting time and money.) This fare says to drive in through the exit gate when someone leaves, don’t worry there’s enough time. Right… I’m not doing that. Enter the code or walk your ass out here.

July: Cruising down Peachtree near the hotels, some kid in an SUV in the next lane rolls down their window and throws a bunch of food and soda on my hood. Unbelievable. Control your kids, lady.

August: I am no longer working a real full time job. With more ability to pick my hours, I’m actually at $35/hour. Not bad!

August: I go to a housing complex in the pouring rain, stop right on the pin. (As a driver, I go to wherever the pin is set.) The rider contacts me, the pickup isn’t at the pin, it’s at building 21. Annoying, but fine, whatever I try to be flexible, I start driving to 21. There is no building 21. I’ve been in this complex before. The speedbumps are brutal and frequent. She calls me yelling to come to the front. I was just in the front! I ask her why she isn’t at the pin. She has no coherent answer, and yells to come get her by the pool. I’ve been all over this complex, I haven’t seen any pool. I feel bad for her. It’s raining and she’s stuck in the rain, but nope. If you can’t tell me where you are clearly, I’m not going to ruin my suspension trying to find you. Learn how to set the pin (hint – use “current location”).

August: It’s 5:30 a.m. Monday morning. Normally the calmest of times outside of airport rides. Not today. I pick up two loud women from Waffle House. They are still drunk from the Sunday night birthday celebration. I drop off one of them. On the way to the other’s house, driving in the dark, I run right over a huge construction hole on Piedmont road that wasn’t been covered or marked. Bam, my two right tires go flat — instantly. Well dang. I slowly drive towards her house since we are only a mile away (to get rid of her and deal with this), but after 1/4 mile I have to stop. The tires are 100% flat. I’m not going to drive on rims and wreck the car even more.

The passenger calls for another Uber. She isn’t mad at me. In fact she’s mad for me. Excessively so. She’s yelling that I should sue gdmn Uber, sue the motherfn city, sue the motherfn Waffle House etc. Okay, calm down drunky. I get a tow to Discount Tire and spend $573 for two new tires.

For the first time in my life I initiated legal action. I filed a notice of claim against the city to get my money back. I figured they are negligent because they didn’t cover their work up properly. I hand delivered it to the office of the city council. My main takeaway was – gee the City of Atlanta town hall is really very nice. We’ll see what happens. I’m glad my car is always automatically recording video. I have perfect documented evidence. When I went back to the intersection later, the plates had been moved to a proper location and warning cones had been added.

(What happened in the end? It took five months to resolve. They offered $500. I took it. To fight for more would have meant actually appearing in front of the entire City Council during their monthly meeting. Maybe a fun blog post, but not worth my time.)

I drive part time for Uber. Everyone is fascinated by that. Now that I’m retired it seems to be the most interesting thing about me!

The most interesting things to me are the economics, the product fit, how it results in a driver strategy and such. That’s very hard to write up, to articulate clearly, so for now, I’ll just share interesting fares.

Background: I had my first ride in January, 2025, but didn’t drive much (I still had a real full-time job). My goal was $25 per hour. I didn’t know anything about costs or allowable deductibles (they are considerable). I assumed my costs were close to zero, since I drive an electric car and have solar panels. I started driving more after retirement of course. I do 8-15 hours a week. It’s concentrated on Friday – Monday on airport trips but I’ve done a bit of everything .

Volume I

May 29 2025: My first repeat customer. Antonio was going home from the Walmart nightshift. I also got my 100th 5-star rating. That is out of 104 ratings from 205 rides, most people don’t bother rating.

May: I drive two young guys to Alpharetta. The whole way they are talking poker. Of course I listen in. Finally I’m forced to interject, “Of course you have to call! At worst it’s a coin flip!” We talk cards — one of them is part owner of Showdown Social, a new restaurant with daily poker games. Excellent! I went a couple times. They have high tech sit-and-gos with sophisticated RFID table and cards and a dealer. Fun place.

June 2025: When he walked towards my car at the Uber pickup at the airport, I had to catch my breath. He was striding towards the car looking like an athlete or model, he was just ridiculously handsome. For a few seconds I sincerely thought that 1999 Brad Pitt was my passenger. Of course he wasn’t, but he wasn’t far off either. You forget how the extremely pretty or athletic people emanate an aura until you’re around one and feel it.

His name is Rusty Joiner. Rusty was discovered by a modeling scout in Atlanta and soon found himself “hanging out and working with Julia Roberts and all of those folks, it was unreal!” He then turned to Hollywood. You know him best as Blade, one of the Purple Cobras (bad guys) from Dodgeball. When I picked him up, he had just wrapped most filming for a show he was doing. He plays a gym owner in a mockumentary style show somewhat based on his own, but also playing a character somewhat like The Rock. Rusty was dog tired from filming all day. Besides filming and starring he was doing multi-hour workouts both mornings and nights to keep his physique up. This was his first time back home in weeks.

Rusty was about the nicest guy I’ve met. I suppose part of that is the job, and part of that is why he got the job, but either way a real genuine sweetheart. A man of faith and family first, fame and fortune second. Goddamn that guy was good looking.

Monday we went to see Celtics Hawks. No Jayson Tatum or Neemis Queta, but everyone else played. It was tied up at 54-54 at the half. Then the Hawks destroyed the Celtics in the 3^rd quarter and withstood a 4^th quarter push to win it fairly easily.

The Hawks are for real. Don’t kid yourself. Yes the Celtics were coming off a back-to-back and were missing key players, and yes the Hawks haven’t played many elite teams, but they are the real thing. Believe it. You don’t win that many games on luck. As a Celtics fan, I do not want to face the Hawks in the first round.

It was a house divided. My son was born in Atlanta and has always been a Hawks fan. I like the Hawks, but if they are playing the Celtics I’m a Boston man through and through. It’s a lot of fun to go with him! We both appreciate good basketball and judging the refs. We didn’t appreciate the incredibly loud screecher behind us. Wow, I love the enthusiasm but calm down. You’re a grown woman, not a six-year-old who goes through elation and depression cycles at top volume every play. We couldn’t take her. One of the more fun father-son things… teaching him how to sneak up to better seats aggressively. We went from row 30 to row 12.

Trading Trae Young, which I have pushed for three years, was the best thing they ever did. Shortly after he left, all these players suddenly realized they could play defense. They remembered how to move. They saw they could play as a team. Trae was a cancer, and after resection the patient is doing fantastic. They’ve lost three games since the all star break. (This deserves a very long “I told you so” post.)

I had early access to see the pregame warmups. It’s great to see professional ball players practice moves. When you see them play it looks so smooth and natural. You forget how every step and movement has been practiced thousands of times. There are always more moves to practice more times. Garza particularly was putting in the time. Amari Williams, you have lots of great moves, but all of them add a little half step for no reason to gather your legs together. It gives the defense too much time, take your shot with no hesitation please.

Jaylen Brown

I’ve always been a fan of Jaylen Brown. He’s always been better than the media treated him. The season has been amazing for him. But. But, how to solve The Mystery of Jaylen Brown. He almost had a 30 point triple double last night but looked awful for most of the game (and said it was one of his worst games). Jaylen Brown is a mystery because the eyes and the brain are such different stories.

He has been incredible this year. He is the man. He can score on anyone and does. He makes the right play. He is the dominant alpha that every team needs to account for. Going into this year the Celtics roster was Jaylen Brown, a couple more decent to good players (Derrick White and Payton Pritchard) and a huge group of “Who is this guy? I’ve swear I’ve never seen him in my life” players. Shaq said to the country: “I ain’t never going to let anyone named Baylor or Scheierman score on me… Scheierman? Who he play for?” Yet Brown led the Celtics into one of the elite teams in the league even before Tatum returned. He plays defense hard and wants to shut down other stars. He can drive on anybody in the league. He has a legit claim to be the best 2-way player in the league. He level jumped. He’s not the MVP, but has a strong claim to number five, maybe six or seventh best. I watched almost every play he made this year, he’s an incredible player.

The case against JB as a superstar is also strong. His plus minus is crazy. The Celtics are better when he’s not on the court. That’s not true of any other superstar. And this is a very large sample size (since Jan 1) How can that be?

AI suggests one reason is the bench unit is elite. The Celtics bench murders the other bench. Other stars have worse benches, so their differential looks better. Yeah, okay, I guess? Then a bunch of other arguments that don’t add up.

Maybe he’s just taking more shots. His increase in points is proportional to the increase in his usage rate and free throw rate. He shooting percentage is about the same. His assist to turnover ratio has actually dropped. Some of the drop is because he has to take more bad shots (there’s only so many good ones), so keeping his shooting statistics high is an achievement. Other teams focus on him more so it’s harder.

Honestly, it’s a mystery. I don’t get it. The eyes see one of the best players in the league, the math says he’s about the same as ever.