There's a great story on "An Evening with Kevin Smith" about how that happened. Most of it concentrated on the producer who Kevin describes as nutty. He wanted a giant spider in the movie for reasons that no one else could understand. Of course, the Superman movie didn't happen at that point, but there was a movie called Wild Wild West soon after. You may recall (if you managed to watch the whole thing) that somewhere in the third act, a giant fucking mechanical spider shows up.
The thing is, they're normalizing based on past election turn out
I wish that was always true. In this page they say that Gallup is normalizing for 40% Republican. The problem with using 40% is that in the last three elections, Republicans were 34%, 34%, and 35% of voters.
At any given time, the 911E side had a dozen or so people working, most of which were not doing anything.
Were these people the ones who would pick up the phone if someone calls 911 then?
If that's the case, I'd say having extra staff for 911 service is kind of a good thing. Because when grandma Betsy is laying on the floor, clutching her chest, I'd rather not have a busy signal at 911.
On the other hand if these people were maintaining the system rather than taking calls, that seems excessive.
How about a voting machine using virtual trout, using Hatchery Oblivion through Marshy Energy from Snowmelt Powers Rapids Insulated but Not Great (HOMESPRING)?
For example, here's a program that adds two single-digit numbers together:
That is quite possibly the stupidest thing I've ever seen. Thank you.
I fail to trust any poll, because most of them only call during the day, when a certain group of people are home, and another group are likely to not be home. They also do not include a large number of younger voters, who are less likely to respond to a survey, and are more likely to have a cell phone and not a landline phone (which means they won't be called.)
They also normalize votes to try to iron out some of those things (doesn't work perfectly but it can help). The problem is that some polls normalize their votes to include a certain percentage of each party. Kind of defeats the purpose of polling as far as I'm concerned.
Seeing the other interviews it's obvious The Daily Show is more like The Tonight Show. Yes the interviews are easy, because they want to have a good time and not scare away celebrities and politicians from coming on.
There was an interview last week where the person being interviewed asked Stewart basically why he doesn't ask the really tough questions. Stewart response was that the reason they do interviews is so that they don't have to write 5 more minutes of comedy.
Lately the interviews have been more political because of the election, but normally a lot of the guests are movie stars and book writers doing the talk show circuit pimping their movie/book.
I hope you're happy. I'll never be able to watch Shaft again without imagining an Ewok playing the role:).
Try thinking of it the other way. The Ewoks all played by Shaft. Now that would give the stormtroopers something to worry about. Han would probably have to be worried too. Once Leia's had Shaft, she'll never go back.
Maybe you don't need to legalize Cocaine all the way, but it doesn't need to be this illegal - make it a $100 fine for possession and sell it at the pharmacy to addicts with a script for $2/gram.
Wouldn't the cops just sit outside pharmacies then?
They're different churches. From what I understand of the UU Church, you don't have to be a christian to belong. The United Church has what you would expect of a normal protestant church. Hymns, a choir, a minister giving a sermon about Jesus, Sunday school classes where they tell the kids the kid-friendly stories while leaving out the dirtier stuff, etc. It's just that the church as a whole is a lot more tolerant and accepting of differences when compared to say a Baptist Church.
Ultimately though, Catholics are much more liberal on issues of spirituality than most Protestants. The only issue that they come down on the conservative side is abortion. And that's just a huge clusterfuck, so I can't entirely blame them.
That depends on where you are. The United Church of Canada is the largest Protestant church in Canada and they allow gay ministers. I believe they also allow their ministers to perform marriages for gay couples.
A little history - sex ed in schools was first sold in the 60's, when there were teen pregnancy rates and vd rates that we would kill for now. The very things it was supposedly going to help with rose in tandem with the growth of sex ed. And it was definitely not "abstinence based" sex ed.
Here's another part of history. The first child of a marriage tends to be quite premature. Sometimes, the child is born only 5 or 6 months after the couple was married. Yet somehow, almost all of these children were as healthy as children who had been in the womb for 9 months. Obviously these children were premature as people back then didn't have sex before marriage. If only we could study how these 3 month early babies managed to grow so fast.
I'd even go to the point to extend that the average voter wants a quick answer to their question, without weighty reasoning, details, and statistics, because they just don't really care beyond the "yes" or "no". This is kind of sad, but to be expected.
I'm probably not the average voter, but what I would like the candidates to do is very simple. Answer the question that was asked. If the question is "Do you think euthanasia should be legal?", no politician with a chance of winning will touch that with a 10 foot pole. Either way they answer, some voters will swing to the other guy so politicians never want to give definite answers to questions.
Thje saying goes that trying to get stoned on hemp is like trying to get drunk on non-alcoholic beer.
When farms started growing hemp around here again (with a special permit), people were really worried that teenagers would try to steal the hemp plants and smoke them. As I recall, a spokeswoman came on the news and said something like this: "For someone to get high off of this hemp, they would need to smoke a joint the size of a telephone pole. They would die of smoke inhalation before finishing"
Stealing hemp is a lot like stealing corn that farmers are growing. Most corn in this area is cow corn. Not exactly tasty stuff.
The people from the 60's are now in power and things are worse.
Why does everyone forget that?
Because the people who are in power are not the same people who were into free love and getting high smoking weed. The people in power are the relatives of those who were in power in the last generation.
Does anybody actually touch garbage or garbage cans anymore? Mostly they pull up to the standardized trash bin and pull the lever so the truck can hoist it up.
Maybe in places where everyone lives in apartment buildings rather than individual houses. In less densely populated areas, garbagemen tend to either work in pairs (one drives, the other grabs the bags and throws them in the back) or sometimes they'll work by themselves (by using standup controls on the right side of the truck for driving)
Michael Moore did a great episode of American Nation about this. He endorsed a convicted felon (drug dealer I think) to run in the 1996 elections.
There was also an episode of The Awful Truth where he ran a ficus tree for congress or the senate (something federal anyway). The tree met federal requirements to run but New Jersey required something else for candidates (either to be registered to vote or to be human). So he was run as a write-in candidate.
In a disturbing precursor to Florida, the woman in charge of counting votes (a former Republican chairperson) refused to count the write-in votes.
Of course, going through the tests on the Canadian Immigration website, it seems that it's quite difficult to immigrate into Canada.
If you have a pile of cash ready to invest in Canadian businesses, you can get in pretty easily. Last I heard it was about a half million dollars but that may have gone up.
Heh. And how well will it deal with a sign that used to say "SPEED LIMIT 35 MPH", but some wise-guy has "adjusted" it with a marks-a-lot to say "85 MPH"?
There's a sign like that on my street. It's supposed to say 40km/h (about 25 miles/hour) but everytime the sign is replaced, someone removes the "k" so it says 40m/h. It doesn't really matter unless some guy going 40 miles/hour runs over a kid and tries to use it in their trial.
I wonder how well this system works in a snowstorm. Or even after a snowstorm when there's clumps of snow on the sign. I expect it can't read things better than a human in those conditions.
Most election methods operate under the assumption that the popular vote is what matters. In America, that simply isn't the case. What matters is which candidate will most accurately reflect the needs and desires of the nation, not only of its population centers.
I wouldn't say most methods operate under the assumption that the popular vote is what matters. For example, in Canada we have 4 parties which got seats in the last federal election. There are 308 seats. The Liberal Party has 135, the Conservative Party has 99, the Bloq Quebecqois has 54, and the NDP has 19 (there's also an independent). If you calculate out the percentage of the house each party controls and compare it to how much of the popular vote they had, you get some odd results. The Liberals control about 44% of the house but only received 36.71% of the vote. The Conservatives control 32% of the house but received only 29.61% of the vote. The BQ control 17.5% of the house yet they only got 12.4% of the vote. The people who really got screwed are the NDP. They only control 6% of the house but got 15.69% of the vote. Of course, the people who voted for parties that didn't get any seats get boned too.
Slashdot Mirror
Kevin Smith even wrote a script for it.
There's a great story on "An Evening with Kevin Smith" about how that happened. Most of it concentrated on the producer who Kevin describes as nutty. He wanted a giant spider in the movie for reasons that no one else could understand. Of course, the Superman movie didn't happen at that point, but there was a movie called Wild Wild West soon after. You may recall (if you managed to watch the whole thing) that somewhere in the third act, a giant fucking mechanical spider shows up.
The thing is, they're normalizing based on past election turn out
I wish that was always true. In this page they say that Gallup is normalizing for 40% Republican. The problem with using 40% is that in the last three elections, Republicans were 34%, 34%, and 35% of voters.
At any given time, the 911E side had a dozen or so people working, most of which were not doing anything.
Were these people the ones who would pick up the phone if someone calls 911 then?
If that's the case, I'd say having extra staff for 911 service is kind of a good thing. Because when grandma Betsy is laying on the floor, clutching her chest, I'd rather not have a busy signal at 911.
On the other hand if these people were maintaining the system rather than taking calls, that seems excessive.
How about a voting machine using virtual trout, using Hatchery Oblivion through Marshy Energy from Snowmelt Powers Rapids Insulated but Not Great (HOMESPRING)?
For example, here's a program that adds two single-digit numbers together:
That is quite possibly the stupidest thing I've ever seen. Thank you.
I fail to trust any poll, because most of them only call during the day, when a certain group of people are home, and another group are likely to not be home. They also do not include a large number of younger voters, who are less likely to respond to a survey, and are more likely to have a cell phone and not a landline phone (which means they won't be called.)
They also normalize votes to try to iron out some of those things (doesn't work perfectly but it can help). The problem is that some polls normalize their votes to include a certain percentage of each party. Kind of defeats the purpose of polling as far as I'm concerned.
Seeing the other interviews it's obvious The Daily Show is more like The Tonight Show. Yes the interviews are easy, because they want to have a good time and not scare away celebrities and politicians from coming on.
There was an interview last week where the person being interviewed asked Stewart basically why he doesn't ask the really tough questions. Stewart response was that the reason they do interviews is so that they don't have to write 5 more minutes of comedy.
Lately the interviews have been more political because of the election, but normally a lot of the guests are movie stars and book writers doing the talk show circuit pimping their movie/book.
I hope you're happy. I'll never be able to watch Shaft again without imagining an Ewok playing the role :).
Try thinking of it the other way. The Ewoks all played by Shaft. Now that would give the stormtroopers something to worry about. Han would probably have to be worried too. Once Leia's had Shaft, she'll never go back.
If you get caught, you simply clam up and take whatever's thrown at you as a point of honor.
I figured that was less to do with honour and more to do with not getting killed.
Maybe you don't need to legalize Cocaine all the way, but it doesn't need to be this illegal - make it a $100 fine for possession and sell it at the pharmacy to addicts with a script for $2/gram.
Wouldn't the cops just sit outside pharmacies then?
The United Church of Canada
Are you sure that isn't Unitarian/Universal?
They're different churches. From what I understand of the UU Church, you don't have to be a christian to belong. The United Church has what you would expect of a normal protestant church. Hymns, a choir, a minister giving a sermon about Jesus, Sunday school classes where they tell the kids the kid-friendly stories while leaving out the dirtier stuff, etc. It's just that the church as a whole is a lot more tolerant and accepting of differences when compared to say a Baptist Church.
Ultimately though, Catholics are much more liberal on issues of spirituality than most Protestants. The only issue that they come down on the conservative side is abortion. And that's just a huge clusterfuck, so I can't entirely blame them.
That depends on where you are. The United Church of Canada is the largest Protestant church in Canada and they allow gay ministers. I believe they also allow their ministers to perform marriages for gay couples.
A little history - sex ed in schools was first sold in the 60's, when there were teen pregnancy rates and vd rates that we would kill for now. The very things it was supposedly going to help with rose in tandem with the growth of sex ed. And it was definitely not "abstinence based" sex ed.
Here's another part of history. The first child of a marriage tends to be quite premature. Sometimes, the child is born only 5 or 6 months after the couple was married. Yet somehow, almost all of these children were as healthy as children who had been in the womb for 9 months. Obviously these children were premature as people back then didn't have sex before marriage. If only we could study how these 3 month early babies managed to grow so fast.
I'd even go to the point to extend that the average voter wants a quick answer to their question, without weighty reasoning, details, and statistics, because they just don't really care beyond the "yes" or "no". This is kind of sad, but to be expected.
I'm probably not the average voter, but what I would like the candidates to do is very simple. Answer the question that was asked. If the question is "Do you think euthanasia should be legal?", no politician with a chance of winning will touch that with a 10 foot pole. Either way they answer, some voters will swing to the other guy so politicians never want to give definite answers to questions.
Thje saying goes that trying to get stoned on hemp is like trying to get drunk on non-alcoholic beer.
When farms started growing hemp around here again (with a special permit), people were really worried that teenagers would try to steal the hemp plants and smoke them. As I recall, a spokeswoman came on the news and said something like this: "For someone to get high off of this hemp, they would need to smoke a joint the size of a telephone pole. They would die of smoke inhalation before finishing"
Stealing hemp is a lot like stealing corn that farmers are growing. Most corn in this area is cow corn. Not exactly tasty stuff.
The people from the 60's are now in power and things are worse.
Why does everyone forget that?
Because the people who are in power are not the same people who were into free love and getting high smoking weed. The people in power are the relatives of those who were in power in the last generation.
Does anybody actually touch garbage or garbage cans anymore? Mostly they pull up to the standardized trash bin and pull the lever so the truck can hoist it up.
Maybe in places where everyone lives in apartment buildings rather than individual houses. In less densely populated areas, garbagemen tend to either work in pairs (one drives, the other grabs the bags and throws them in the back) or sometimes they'll work by themselves (by using standup controls on the right side of the truck for driving)
95% of the people named Pete died in a five year period
That just means my work is not finished. Death to Pete!
Michael Moore did a great episode of American Nation about this. He endorsed a convicted felon (drug dealer I think) to run in the 1996 elections.
There was also an episode of The Awful Truth where he ran a ficus tree for congress or the senate (something federal anyway). The tree met federal requirements to run but New Jersey required something else for candidates (either to be registered to vote or to be human). So he was run as a write-in candidate.
In a disturbing precursor to Florida, the woman in charge of counting votes (a former Republican chairperson) refused to count the write-in votes.
It's something we sip on during our 1000 km road trips. Do you have those where you live? Without the need for a passport?
Hell, I can go on one of those without leaving the province. Many slurpeez are required.
Of course, going through the tests on the Canadian Immigration website, it seems that it's quite difficult to immigrate into Canada.
If you have a pile of cash ready to invest in Canadian businesses, you can get in pretty easily. Last I heard it was about a half million dollars but that may have gone up.
Heh. And how well will it deal with a sign that used to say "SPEED LIMIT 35 MPH", but some wise-guy has "adjusted" it with a marks-a-lot to say "85 MPH"?
There's a sign like that on my street. It's supposed to say 40km/h (about 25 miles/hour) but everytime the sign is replaced, someone removes the "k" so it says 40m/h. It doesn't really matter unless some guy going 40 miles/hour runs over a kid and tries to use it in their trial.
I wonder how well this system works in a snowstorm. Or even after a snowstorm when there's clumps of snow on the sign. I expect it can't read things better than a human in those conditions.
Most election methods operate under the assumption that the popular vote is what matters. In America, that simply isn't the case. What matters is which candidate will most accurately reflect the needs and desires of the nation, not only of its population centers.
I wouldn't say most methods operate under the assumption that the popular vote is what matters. For example, in Canada we have 4 parties which got seats in the last federal election. There are 308 seats. The Liberal Party has 135, the Conservative Party has 99, the Bloq Quebecqois has 54, and the NDP has 19 (there's also an independent). If you calculate out the percentage of the house each party controls and compare it to how much of the popular vote they had, you get some odd results. The Liberals control about 44% of the house but only received 36.71% of the vote. The Conservatives control 32% of the house but received only 29.61% of the vote. The BQ control 17.5% of the house yet they only got 12.4% of the vote. The people who really got screwed are the NDP. They only control 6% of the house but got 15.69% of the vote. Of course, the people who voted for parties that didn't get any seats get boned too.
Just for the record, Australia, or at least Western Australia, has mandatory helmet laws.. for bicycles!
We have that in Canada too but only for those under 18. I don't think I've ever seen it enforced but most kids wear the helmets now.
It already exists.
Stop Motion Goodness
Greedo doesn't shoot first but he and Han do a bit a dancing first.