The Blue Dogs

These days I don't seem to hear much about the Blue Dog Coalition. It is plausible that the Democrats will regain the Senate on Hillary's coattails. I'd expect it likely that Hillary would then make many important judicial appointments over the next couple of years but one thing not much mentioned is that I don't think she would exactly have carte blanche: despite straight-ticket voters a few of the new senators would probably be carefully looking ahead for retaining their seats next time around when Trump isn't the alternative.

(I wonder if judicial appointments are much help in reducing the House's gerrymandering in the 2020 redistricting.)

Cheap indoor distance swimming

I think that my swimming has slowed such that some mornings I swim less than a mile; never mind. I was thinking about how to continue swimming in the longer term and I wondered to what extent one may swim in even a small pool simply through being harnessed to a bungee cord and staying in place, rather more cheaply than having the water moving fast instead. Some googling does reveal tethers and suchlike though to what extent a reasonable stroke can still be approximated I'm not sure. There also seem to be towable underwater parachutes which obviously still entail some movement, just slower.