Fast potato

This is where the baked potato meets the potato skin.

What you need:

  • Nice russet potato
  • Oil to rub potato
  • Butter
  • Dry chives
  • Bacon bits (phony preferred)
  • Cheese of choice

Wash the potato. Cut it in half the long way. Coat both halves in oil, put them flat-side down on parchment paper, salt the backs, and bake at 450 F (230-235 C). Basically, do what Sonja says.

Test to see if the potato is done by poking it with a fork.

Step 1 is over.

Score both halves a few times.

Open up the slits a bit by squeezing from both ends. Add butter and chives (and bacon bits if you have them). Add cheese; I used cheddar jack but would have preferred sharp cheddar. Add more chives (and bacon bits, which I sadly didn’t have).

Put the dressed potato halves back into the oven until they look like the ones below (but with a nicer cheese). I suppose you could broil for a more dramatic effect.

Step 3 is over.

Block-preferential (or sequential) RCV is out in Heber City, UT

The local Park Record has a story here.

Here is a 2023 blog post on a “downward cascade” process in that year’s election results.

I wrote about this system in a 2021 article, which also covered its historical use in Australia and similar rules at other times in the U.S.

McCune et al. (2024) have an interesting article using the block-preferential (or “sequential”) procedure to show how it would change observed results under Scottish STV.

One alternative to outright repeal would be to replace the system with a “bottom-up” RCV allocation. The issue in Utah has been multiseat districts, which formerly were combined with runoffs.