Category Archives: Uncategorized

June 6, 2026 · 4:19 PM

Unimpeachable

In a recent post, I suggested several potential amendments to the U.S Constitution, including an amendment to change the method used for handling the impeachment removal trials in the Senate to a secret ballot approach. While I won’t rehash those arguments here, I did want to expand on that with a quick thought exercise to illustrate why reform to the impeachment process is so important.

Basically, the question is: what would a President have to do in order to actually be both impeached and removed under the current process?

The Math

Under the current Constitutional process for impeaching judges or executive officers, the Impeachment is handled in the House by a simple majority vote on the Articles of Impeachment, but at the Senate trial, conviction and removal requires a vote of 2/3 of the Senate. In both cases, under the current process, the votes are almost always held on the record, where you know exactly how each member of Congress voted.

Which means that in order to convict and remove a President, they currently would need 67 Senators to vote against them. In my lifetime1, the largest majority a party has held in the Senate was 59-412 in the 111th Congress (2009-2011), but on average the majority party over that same time frame has only held a 53-47 lead.

So, if you imagine the easiest Senate Trial vote during that post 1980s timeframe, where the defending President was in the most extreme minority (i.e., with 41 senators of the President’s party against 59 senators in opposing parties), the majority party would still need to convince 20% of the President’s party’s Senators to vote against the President in an on-the-record recorded vote…

In the most extremely challenging case, trying to impeach the President of the most extreme majority party (i.e. 59 Senators aligned with the President’s party against 41 senators of the opposing parties), the minority party would need to convince almost 45% of the President’s Party’s senators to publicly vote to convict and remove the President.

So, basically, to actually remove a President, you need to convince somewhere between 20-45% of the senators from the President’s own party to publicly vote to sentence and remove the President…

What Would a President Need to Do to be Convictable?

Given those numbers, let’s go back to the thought experiment. With a public vote, how extreme of behavior do you currently think it would take for a President’s party to publicly vote to convict and remove them?

Imagine first the other party. Those unprincipled cretins. What would it take for 20-45% of their Senators to vote to convict and remove a president of their own party, on a recorded vote?

Then imagine your preferred party. Obviously much more principled than those other guys. But be honest with yourself, what do you think it would take for your party to turn on your own president bad enough for 20-45% of them to vote to convict and remove your own president from power?

Cold-blooded murder in public might actually be enough, so long as the victim was sympathetic, the murder was done in public, and there were no plausibly mitigating circumstances. Maybe3.

That’s about the only thing I think would have a solid chance. I doubt an affair or an accusation of sexual assault would be enough to be reliably convictable, other than in extreme cases. I doubt abusing power for personal gain by accepting or soliciting bribes, or insider trading of stocks or prediction markets would either4. Flagrantly violating the Constitution by say starting a war without Congressional approval, creating taxes without Congressional approval, etc. don’t seem to be anywhere near enough.

This is why I say that impeachment, as it currently stands under the Constitution is functionally useless as a check on executive power.

  1. I’m almost 46 years old, which is older than the current median age in the US of 39.4yrs old. ↩︎
  2. Technically the Democrats only held 57 seats, but they had two independents who regularly caucused with them. ↩︎
  3. I wish I had more confidence that this was a better than 50/50 probability. ↩︎
  4. I heard a joke recently that the best way Iran could tell if the US was about to restart hostilities is if there were any suspiciously large anonymous Polymarket bets on something related. The number of bets that look like insiders making millions on front-running administration announcements is truly impressive. And unlikely to result in any consequences. ↩︎

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Filed under Government, Politics, Uncategorized

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May 30, 2025 · 9:50 PM

Shrimp Ceviche Recipe

Shrimp Ceviche is a Peruvian dish that uses lime juice to “cook” raw shrimp to make it safe for eating. Me and my boys tried it in Ecuador during our trip there last year, and when Tiff asked for Peruvian Chicken for Mother’s Day, we found this delicious and simple recipe to go with it.

Ingredients:

  • 1 lb raw shrimp, peeled, deveined, and tails off
  • 3/4 cup fresh lime juice
  • 1 large tomato, diced
  • 1 large avocado, diced
  • 1/2 cup red onion, minced
  • 1/2 cup cilantro, minced
  • 1 Jalapeño pepper, seeded and diced
  • salt and pepper to taste

Instructions:

  1. Thaw shrimp in a bowl with warm tap water for 10 minutes.
  2. If using fresh limes, squeeze juice from the limes into a bowl while the shrimp is thawing.
  3. Drain the shrimp and gently squeeze them, and then dice them. Mix the diced shrimp pieces in the bowl with the lime juice.
  4. Let the shrimp marinate in the lime juice for 1.5hrs. You can do this in the bowl, or you can put them in a ziploc bag in the fridge. At the end, the acid will have “cooked” the shrimp, changing the color to a more opaque white and pink color.
  5. Shortly before the shrimp is done marinating in the fridge, prepare the other ingredients — dice the tomato, avocado, red onion, cilantro, and jalapeño. Once the shrimp is done marinating, mix them in with the marinated shrimp.
  6. Add salt and pepper to taste, and serve the dish cold with either tortilla chips, or on tacos.

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Filed under Recipes, Uncategorized

January 13, 2024 · 1:36 PM

My 2024 Goals

Continuing another tradition, I’d like to post my 2024 goals, as a way to force some level of accountability. This year I didn’t set as many goals, and many of my goals are actually tied with helping others achieve their goals.

Spiritual Goals

I’ve had some success with spiritual goals that were very routine-based, like reading the scriptures cover to cover or going to the temple on a regular basis. They’ve been helpful, but I wanted to make things more meaningful this year.

  1. Return to the Philippines to participate in the Urdaneta Philippines Temple dedication: 14 years ago, the prophet announced they’d be building a temple within ~25 miles of three of the towns where I served in for half of my mission (Bayambang, Calasiao, and Binmaley). They finished construction late last year, and after a three week open-house period, they’ll be dedicating the temple on April 28th. I haven’t been able to make it back to the Philippines yet since returning home in 2002, and I’d love to go back and visit friends I haven’t seen in person for two decades. I’m not sure how I’ll be able to coordinate getting permission to participate in the dedication, but I think it’s an achievable and very worthwhile goal.
  2. Participate in gospel study daily, using the church’s Come Follow Me curriculum, marking all BofM passages that point to or testify of Christ, and all that discuss gospel principles or doctrines: This one is fairly specific, but is driven from something I noticed from the past two years. My goals of reading the books of scripture cover to cover ensured I was reading regularly, but I was almost never synced up with reading what my family was studying at home, my boys studying in seminary, and our ward studying at church. So this year, I want to stick to the church’s Come Follow Me curriculum, which is focused on the Book of Mormon this year, rather than just trying to read through at a steady pace. Also the marking of scriptures based on specific topics seemed like a way I’ve heard other people have gotten more out of study, so I wanted to try it.
  3. Help Jonny get his mission papers submitted: Getting his mission papers submitted this year was one of Jonny’s personal goals, and I wanted to assist him in doing so. He’s now about the age I was when I served, and he’s pretty excited about the opportunity.

Social Goals

I haven’t been as successful with my social goals, but I’m going to try again. Once again with things that are easily trackable, require consistent effort, and should be meaningful.

  1. Complete levels 1-5 in Pimsleur Spanish lessons: I was thinking about retrying my 2023 goal of visiting somewhere Spanish speaking for a weekend, but I thought this goal would also help ensure I get more comfortable speaking the language. The Pimsleur curriculum is primarily focused on guided conversation practice, and completing levels 1-5 (with ~30x 30min lessons per level) works out to ~75 hours of Spanish conversation, and will require me to complete at least ~3 lessons per week, so I’ll be doing the study pretty consistently. This goal seems both achievable, something somewhat challenging because it’ll take consistent effort over months, but also likely to make a difference in my confidence with the language. I’ll probably keep doing Duolingo study too, because that app is as addictive as crack, but may cut back a little on trying to stay at the top of the leaderboards.
  2. Invite neighbors, church friends, or other friends over for dinner at least 3x per quarter: This is similar to a goal I’ve had in the past, but with a little more increased frequency, and a slightly broader casting of the net. I’m also going to take better notes so I don’t lose track. To be clear, while I say dinner, it could be other meals, a party or other get-together, but something that we’re hosting at our place. I think this is a good way to get me out of my introverted little shell more often.

Physical Goals

Physical goals are ironically some of the ones I’ve had the most success with so far. This year’s goals are ones that will take consistent effort, but which I’m highly confident I can achieve. Since I may be done with both of these earlier in the year, I might decide to add a follow-on goal later.

  1. Help James and Peter prepare for the Bolder Boulder 10K and run it with both of them: Both Peter and Jamie set goals to run the Bolder Boulder 10K this year. Peter ran with me last year, and after the 9.5km point when I told him he could go ahead at his own pace, he left me in the dust. In spite of only joining me for one practice run. So I’m pretty confident he’ll do fine, but this year, I’m trying to help him train enough, and have things like a way of carrying his phone, so I can let him just run at his own pace, and really show us what he can do. Jamie just wants to be able to run the whole thing without stopping to walk, so I’m going to run with him at a nice steady pace. I’m not trying to set any new speed records, unless Jamie is up for it. Just maintaining the capability for myself, and helping them prove to themselves that they can do hard things too.
  2. Get back under 175lb by my birthday: I’ve never set an explicit weight loss goal before. In 2020, I just set the goal to use the Noom app for six months, and see where it got me. In the end, I got down to just under 170lb. Over the past three years, I’ve inched up a little, with my worst weigh-in after Christmas being up around 186lb. I know I can get back to 175lb without trying that hard, so long as I’m consistent, and it would help a lot of other things. Basically, I just have to try a little. And if I’m steadily exercising and prepping the boys for the Bolder Boulder, I have a feeling I’ll likely surpass this one by a decent margin. So while this is an easy one, it’s still worthwhile and meaningful.

Intellectual Goals

I decided to stop trying to set a blogging goal. I’ll either have time to rejuvenate that skill, or I won’t. I decided to focus my efforts a little differently this time.

  1. Learn how to use my Snapmaker 2.0’s rotary 4th axis, 40W laser, and dual-print head, and design and make at least two items using each process: as I mentioned elsewhere, I upgraded my Snapmaker Original to a 2.0 this last fall, right before I got laid off. During the two months I was freelance, I had a chance to start using the module, and made some parts using each of the three basic capabilities — single-nozzle FDM 3d printing, 10W laser cutting, and CNC routing. But I have a lot of other upgrades that I’ve either not tried at all, not figured out all the way, or barely started scratching the surface with them. I’m especially interested in seeing if I can figure out how to do color metal marking of Stainless with my 40W laser, and dual printing of a graphite or glass reinforced nylon with dissolveable support structures using the dual print head.
  2. Help teach each of my boys one or two skills that they want to learn: With my youngest three still in home school, and Jonny preparing for his mission, I wanted to work with each of them on one or two skills that they wanted to learn — either one I’m already good at, or one I’m learning with them.

Anyhow those are my goals for 2024. Do you have anything you want to try to achieve this year?

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Filed under Goal: Learning Spanish, Goals, Philippines, Uncategorized