In the last day or two, the Senate Judiciary Committee voted to allow one of Bush's appointees to move forward to a vote in the whole Senate. I'm not interested in the politics of this appointee, but to the curious way the vote was recorded. Although the Democrats have the most votes in the Committee, they held a 'voice vote' in which the appointee was approved. They then recorded the votes individually, showing that more individuals voted against than for. (I guess this is a form of 'dark matter' votes, wherein the sum total is large enough, but a census of individuals can't turn up enough to account for the total.) If this bizarre event is allowed to stand, it will go down as yet another form of legal hubris, along with stopping clocks, and making pi rational. I'm curious if there are any real mathematical situations wherein a class loses, but when considered as individuals, they win. I presume we'd have to be talking about infinite sets, though, in order to even entertain such a notion.