Chew On This

I saw my dentist this morning. The good news is that X-rays of the tooth on which he replaced a filling but which is paining me show no obvious damage. The bad news is that sometimes cracks don't show on the X-ray, and there had been a crack in that tooth. He thought he'd ground it all out while working on the filling. He did a bit of resculpting of the filling surface to see if he could reduce possible mis-meshing. We'll have to leave it for a few days to see if it works.

At the worst, this could go so far as requiring a root canal, should the problem be worse than it appears on the surface. On the minor bright side, this being open-enrollment month, I can increase the amount of money set aside in my tax-free healtcare savings account to cover the portion insurance would not cover, although it does mean that I'd have to put off the actual work until after the first of the year, due to the way HCSA rules work.

Theoretical Politics

This is a political post that has nothing to do with today's election in particular, but everything to do with the US Presidential election system in general. It's adapted from a comment I made to a friends-locked post elsewhere.

( Neepery about the Electoral College )

I don't forsee the electoral collage ever going away. You'll never get 3/4 of the states to ratify a constitutional amendment that would have the effect of removing the existing over-statement of electoral power in the smaller states. As I said elsewhere, who would ever vote to remove one's own franchise?

Update, 16:45: Correction to minor point noted in comments.