This judge made a decision to ensure that Democracy is preserved -- the only people that would oppose such a decision are Fascists and other supporters of totalitarianism
No. Decmocracy doesn't actually require "provisional ballots" in order to be preserved. Most democracies in history have gotten along just fine without them.
The really neat thing about "provisional ballots" is their utility in enhancing vote fraud. Unlike the traditional ballots, they are not anonymous. Absentee ballots can be non-anonymous, but are not required by their nature to be, but "provisional ballots" MUST be non-anonymous, in order to allow verification that said voter didn't vote elsewhere. And, of course, the more times you vote provisionally, the more likely you are to get more than one of your ballots accepted.
Given that attempted vote fraud were severely prosecuted in the case of provisional ballots, they'd not be much of an issue. Bet on it, though - the first time someone is prosecuted for voting twice via provisonal ballots, the media will be screaming to high heaven that this is just more voter intimidation.
Actually, Pennsylvania (with most-populous Philadelphia) was the 900lb gorilla in the Continental Congress
How odd that Virginia was allocated more Representatives than PA in the Constitution if, as you say, PA was the 900# gorilla. PA was certainly important (more so than New York, now I check, but Virginia was the real 900# gorilla. Washington, Jefferson, Madison, to name a few Virginians who might be familiar to you.
We've outgrown both the distrust of republican democracy and the trust of the State
Speak for yourself. I don't trust either one very much.
"Important areas" sounds a lot more relevant than "important states"
No doubt, especially if you happend to live in an "important area". Note that there's no real guarantee that you will.
Do you propose that the government control the amount of ads seen by each voter?
No, that seems to have been taken care of by McCain-Feingold quite nicely.
That said:
Propose a Consitutional Amendment eliminating the Electoral College. Get it through Congress, and then get it ratified by 38 states. The procedure is there if the current system offends you so much.
Then wait 50 years and tell me if it is really better, or just different. Frankly, the current system has the virtue of having worked pretty well for 200+ years. I haven't seen any real indication that changing it would improve anything . I haven't seen any great groundswell for change, really, other than the "my candidate lost last time, and he would have won if we'd only done our elections differently!!!"
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Fascinating. So, the Supremes are terrified of Bush. Yet, doesn't the Left spend a great deal of time proclaiming that the Supremes were the ones who "chose" Bush to be President?
So, which Justices are terrified? The seven that voted with him in 2000? The two that voted against him? The Liberal ones? The Conservative ones?
Hate to say this, I have seen no more abuse of the Consitution under Bush than I saw under Clinton, Bush the Elder, Reagan, Carter, Ford, or Nixon. Reading history, rather than living it, we can extend that list to Johnson, Kennedy, Eisenhower, Truman, Franklin Roosevelt (perhaps the worst American President for abusing the Constitution), Lincoln (perhaps the other "worst" - it's really a toss-up between Abe and FDR), many others (I don't feel like listing every President since Washington, but they all fit on the list).
The prospect of four more years of this guy, four years in which the Court may not have the endurance to survive, should horrify you.
I'll bite. Why? Because he passed the DMCA? Wait, that was Clinton. Because he tried to sieze control of a significant portion of the economy? Wait, that was Clinton and Nixon and Roosevelt. Because he wants to suspend Habeus Corpus in some cases? Oh, wait! Lincoln did that. And FDR. And Wilson, I believe.
I disliked Clinton, mostly because he spent half his time talking about his "legacy" - if he'd worked at being a bit more honest, and a bit less "it depends on the meaning of the word "is", then he wouldn't have had to worry about his legacy. I didn't succumb to the opinion that the Union couldn't survive four more years of Clinton (if I had, I'd have tried to kill him), nor do I beleive that the Union will be irreparably harmed by four more years of Bush. Nor, in the alternative, will it be irreparably harmed by four years of Kerry. Though I concede that I don't believe that it will be helped by the election of either man (or anyone else running this time).
I am curious... will anyone be upset if Florida's votes are not counted in the Electoral College because of the current "confusion"?
I imagine the people of Florida will be pretty upset. After all, they lose their Congressional Delegation if they don't have any Electors.
Note also that losing Florida's Electors in no way changes the requirement for a majority of the total number (538) Electors. So if Florida didn't have any Electors, the possibility that the Congress would choose the next President goes up. This might be seen as likely to make Bush President again, but, in spite of the nonsense about Republicans always voting along Party lines, there is no special reason to believe that they would so in this case.
Most conservatives I've met consider the idea of a female President reprehensible.
Really? I've never met anyone like that. A lot of Conservatives don't like Hillary, but I've never met one who would've had a problem with Elizabeth Dole, for example.
20000 mice per apatosaur??? Must be some HUGE mice. The size of my cat, perhaps. How about 1,000,000 mice, instead? But the basic idea is sound
Also, for us purists, brontosaur is an invalid designation. Apatosaur is considered correct, since it predates the brontosaur label by some years.
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First off, the man elected this time around gets to appoint so many justices to the Court that his personal views on things like abortion will likely form judicial opinion for the next century.
They said that in 2000. No new Supremes this last four years, though. Probably one or two this time, but by no means as certain as some people are trying to say.
To have a democracy, you need a critical mass of basically decent people
Nope, in democracy the majority decide what is 'decent'. Democracy is about the mass opinion deciding the path of government. It has nothing to do with what you said.
So, in a Democracy, if more than half the people agree that putting the Jews in Concentration Camps and killing them on an industrial scale is "decent", that means that doing so is perfectly ok? You enlarge my view of the possible.
People who are prepared to agree to rules before the election, and stick with them, not swirl around in post-modern uncertainty.
We have a thing called the state, to enforce law for people who break them, otherwise we have anarchy...
And yet. Gore's appeals of the election in 2000 were in violation of Florida's laws regarding recounts. Florida allows recounts, under certain conditions (some of which occured that day, and some of which didn't). When those conditions were met, the automagic recounts occurred.
In addition, Florida has provisions for challenging elections. Gore did not choose to invoke those provisions. Instead he went to the Florida Courts (eventually to the Florida Supreme Court) to get the courts to do something the law didn't allow.
So, yes, we have laws so as to avoid anarchy. Unfortunately, the anarchy happened anyway, when the Democratic candidate refused to abide by the laws.
Absent that, forget it. Why bother? If you're going to demand a perfection that is not of this world,
What is perfection?, You'll find most people in the world all have a different view of perfection. We have a democracy so the mass decide what is acceptable in society, And we have the state to enforce it.
I trust you aren't a US citizen? Because mob rule has never been a hallmark of our system. And "the mass decide[s] what is acceptable in society" is mob rule. Lucky for us, we have a Bill of Rights, which guarantees us certain Rights, EVEN IF THE MASS OF PEOPLE DON'T AGREE.
Like, Freedom of Speech. Yes, even people you disagree with have freedom of speech. And they will continue to do so, even if the majority of the people think that the KKK (for example) should lose that particular Right. At least until a sufficient supermajority of the people precipitate another Civil War by repealing the First Amendment.
Hate to say this, but the Democrats are setting things up for a large-scale idsillusionment about the democratic process. If a significant minority of the voting public thinks that the election results are dishonest, for whatever reason, that marks the beginning of the end of the USA as a Republic. From all I've heard, the Dems playbook this year includes a great deal that reduces to "elections are dishonest unless Dems win"
stop assuming that your opponents are three-headed monsters that eat babies for breakfast.
Better yet, stop assuming the end of the world if someone you disagree with wins an election. I didn't especially care for Clinton (who had an even smaller fraction of the total vote cast than Bush the Younger did), and I was appalled at his reelection. I didn't treat it as the end of American civilization, I just waited till his two terms were up, and he was gone. Whoever wins next month, whether I like him or not (bad choice of words, I don't particularly like anyone who is running), I can rest assured that he'll be gone in four to eight years. And he won't do irreparable harm to the country, since he'll have 535 Congresscritters keeping him on a short leash...
Its "purpose" is to reflect the original balance designed by the creators of the Constitution: balance the state against the people.
Ummm, no. The Electoral College was put into place to convince the States to ratify the Constitution. Given the population spread of the original USA, a direct popular vote for President would have effectively disenfranchised everyone but the people from New York and Virginia. It would have been damn hard to convince Vermont to vote for ratification of the Consitution in such a case. Or any of the eleven states that would have been marginalized. And a Constitution that requires ratification by nine states would't work real well if only two states were happy with its provisions.
In a straight popular vote, there's no assignment of any value to your state
Actually, it is cheaper to advertise, on a per person seeing the ad basis, in a more populous state. You can run a commercial in New York City and Los Angeles alone, and be seen by more people than you could if you ran commercials on every TV station in both Dakotas, Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, & Alaska.
Straight popular vote for President won't stop "swing states" from existing. It'll merely change the important states to important areas.
No. Increasing the money supply relative to the amount of goods produced means inflation. Sometimes increased wages are an EFFECT of inflation, they are seldom a cause.
inflation means higher prices
Quite so.
higher prices insentivise workers
Well, no. Higher prices require more money to pay the bills. But in the hypothetical described in the grandparent, the basics of life are covered by a "universal welfare". Which would have to be indexed to inflation, or it would have no value after only a few years, and defeat its own purpose.
why do you work now ?
That would be along the lines of "if I don't work, I don't eat." If the government were paying for my food, that wouldn't apply.
I can pay my bills without doing much work
So can I. Interesting thing, though - "not much work" is different than "no work". Big difference, mentally, between having to work 20 hours a week, and not at all. If for no other reason, at 0 hours per week, I can find the time for backpacking up the Appalachian Trail, or along the length of the old Oregon Trail. Can't do that when I have to show up for work even one day a week.
Hmm, give everyone welfare, enough to cover the basics. Assume the poverty level, or close to it, is "enough".
290 megapeople implies a budget to cover that welfare of ~$3 trillion per year. 50% more than our current budget, give or take. so increase tax rates by 150%. Increase the size of the bureaucracy by a similar amount.
Then, ask yourself why you work. Why do I work? To pay the bills. This system removes the need to pay the bills.
My house is paid for, and an income at the poverty level would be more than sufficient to pay the required bills, and give me time to visit diverse places I've never seen.
So, I guess I'm in favour of this system - it means I'd never have to work again in my life.
Those of you who choose to work might be a little upset with me, and millions of others who would make the same choice, of course.
Undemocratic: Denying the right to peaceful protests.
I agree. Note that pushing the cops is generally considered by cops to be something other than "peaceful protest".
Undemocratic: Paying $600000 to tear up registrations opposition voter registrations.
Agree
Undemocratic: Lying to get reelected.
As I recall, some time back, one of the State Supreme Courts ruled quite explicitly that lying was perfectly ok in politics. This in response to a suit brought against that state's new law requiring, essentially, "truth in advertising" by political candidates.
In addition, the First Amendment would seem to trump you here.
Undemocratic: Censoring independent media.
I missed this one. Which media was censored, and why do you imagine it was independent?
Undemocratic: An unfair electoral system.
I take if "fair" is more or less equal to "my guy always wins"?
Undemocratic: Keeping the unfair electoral system because it keeps the dominant party in power despite majority opposition.
I don't think you'll find that a majority of US citizens find our electoral system "unfair". I also find it intriguing that you seem to be labelling the Rebpublicans as "dominant". These are the guys, who, up to the time of WJ Clinton, had not controlled the House in 40 years. And who had occasional control of the Senate for that same time period. Remember, when Clinton was elected, the Democrats had controlled both houses of Congress for eight years or so.
Undemocratic: Double standards in rejecting voter registrations and ballots.
What are the two standards? Just curious.
Undemocratic: Censoring information provided to Congress.
Might want to check carefully before you use this one. Democratic Presidents have been doing this forever, as have Republicans.
Undemocratic: You're not reading this anyway blah blah blah bleh.
Wrong.
Undemocratic: Using your power to line your richest friends' pockets.
That would be like the way FDR ran things during WW2, right?
Undemocratic: Funding the campaign of a third party who's opinion is opposite your own but similar to your opponent's for the purpose of dividing the opposing vote.
You forgot the part where it's undemocratic to actively work to prevent someone whose opinion is opposite your's from even getting on the ballot.
Re:Running to the Right requires undemanding voter
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Bush during the debates came out during the last debate when he sidestepped the question on whether he would repeal the Roe vs Wade decision
Umm, Roe v. Wade was a decision by the Supremes. The President has no power to repeal it. Nor does Congress, short of a Constitutional Amendment.
Now, the President and Senate do have some slight control over the issue, in that they collectively determine the membership of the Supremes. But since the Supremes are a lifetime appointment, your appointees don't actually have to vote any way but their own conscience.
No. I specified starting from GEO. From there, it takes ~1400m/s to modify your orbit to enter Earth's atmosphere. Less than that, you go down, miss atmosphere, come back up, repeat.
I'm quite aware of the use of aerobraking in reentry, and the limits of it (you have to hit atmosphere before it can work).
Remove the qualifier for "all candidates for political office". Qualifiers are what is producing the current situation which you dislike so much.
Realistically, there MUST be some qualifiers. Hell, with not too much work, *I* could get on the ballot in some states. And just because I am on a ballot doesn't mean I deserve to be taken seriously as a candidate.
Of course, if you change your qualifiers from the current one to "on the ballot", then you will cause your state government to change the rules for getting on the ballot, so as to weed out the people who just want to abuse the "equal coverage".
Personally, I would rather have national rules for getting on the ballot for national office - there is only one national office in the USA (President - VP doesn't count, since he is elected on a ticket with the President, so this should not be terribly difficult to accomplish.
This would, of course, put Congress in the position of specifying qualifying characteristics for President, over and above those mentioned in the Constitution, which is probably unconstitutional in itself.
I don't really have an objection to you, or anyone else, having ideals about the way elections are run in this or any other country. Nor do I object to you trying to proselyte about those ideals.
I'm just trying to warn you that those ideals may not produce the results you wish them to. A suggestion - look at every way you can think of that someone can game the system, given that a majority of the populace follows your ideals, and a minority does not. If you can't see any way to game it, I suggest you get someone else to look it over, then publish, since a political system that can't be gamed by the unscrupulous should be worth a Nobel Prize, at least.
Please insert "less than 3000m/s or so, you CANNOT escape from Earth's gravity, no matter how that reaction mass is expended. If you are in GEO, you require a deltaV of ~1400 m/s to re-enter the Earth's atmosphere. With less deltaV than that, NO amount of acceleration will be sufficient to change your orbit to an atmospheric entry orbit." before the word "Note" in the above post.
DeltaV is a perfectly correct usage in regards rockets and spacecraft. A spacecraft carries a certain amount of reaction mass (which may also be fuel, but is not required to be) for its rockets. The ratio of empty mass of the spacecraft and the loaded mass of the spacecraft (empty mass + reaction mass) define the total change in velocity that the spacecraft is capable of, once changes due to local gravity fields are discounted.
Therefore DeltaV is a relevant, indeed, a vital, statistic for any spacecraft. If you are in LEO, with a deltaV Note that this is a bit fuzzy. Very low acceleration spacecraft require rather more deltaV for a given maneuver than high acceleration spacecraft. How much more depends on the local gravitational fields, and the extent to which they are aiding your velocity changes. As an example, normally, with a high acceleration (>1m/s, say) spacecraft, deltaV required to reach escape speed from a circular orbit is considered to be ~.4142 orbital speed (Sqrt(2)-1). with a very low-acceleration spacecraft (0.01m/s, say), deltaV required for the same maneuver is ~1.0 orbital speed.
No. Reread the grandparent. The cars started at 0, and accelerated to 60mph. The deltaV (change in velocity) was 60mph. The acceleration was as listed.
No, the problem is that the candidates have no incentive to rush to the middle, since they don't have to sway undecided voters (much) till the runoff. The primary results tend to show that there is a fairly consistent group at each end of the spectrum. Those groups tend to be large enough to get at least one of the two candidates into the runoff, with only a small amount of shift-to-center during the primary. So we get unusual candidates sometime.
On the other hand, if none of the Republican candidates are worth a flip, we can have a runoff between two decent Democrats (happens as often as not). Or vice versa.
And we are more likely to get third party types into serious contention for office, since their Party is irrelevant to the question of getting them to the runoff.
To provide a clue for the clueless. That speed mentioned , if that speed is the hyperbolic excess speed, is about about 98% of solar escape speed. Not fast enough to follow Voyager without a gravity assist somewhere, but sufficient to reach any planet in the solar system except Pluto (sometimes you can even reach Pluto - it's pretty close in right now) directly.
A NERVA, starting from LEO could match that speed with a mass ratio of 2.7 or thereabouts.
In other words, it's not really terribly fast by the standards of the solar system.
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No. Decmocracy doesn't actually require "provisional ballots" in order to be preserved. Most democracies in history have gotten along just fine without them.
The really neat thing about "provisional ballots" is their utility in enhancing vote fraud. Unlike the traditional ballots, they are not anonymous. Absentee ballots can be non-anonymous, but are not required by their nature to be, but "provisional ballots" MUST be non-anonymous, in order to allow verification that said voter didn't vote elsewhere. And, of course, the more times you vote provisionally, the more likely you are to get more than one of your ballots accepted.
Given that attempted vote fraud were severely prosecuted in the case of provisional ballots, they'd not be much of an issue. Bet on it, though - the first time someone is prosecuted for voting twice via provisonal ballots, the media will be screaming to high heaven that this is just more voter intimidation.
You, sir, are a Yankee. Whether you are a Damnyankee remains to be seen.
1) Have you ever lived within the bounds of the former Confederacy? If no, you are a Yankee, if yes:
2) Do you still live within the bounds of the former Confederacy? If yes, you are a Damnyankee...;)
How odd that Virginia was allocated more Representatives than PA in the Constitution if, as you say, PA was the 900# gorilla. PA was certainly important (more so than New York, now I check, but Virginia was the real 900# gorilla. Washington, Jefferson, Madison, to name a few Virginians who might be familiar to you.
We've outgrown both the distrust of republican democracy and the trust of the State
Speak for yourself. I don't trust either one very much.
No doubt, especially if you happend to live in an "important area". Note that there's no real guarantee that you will.
Do you propose that the government control the amount of ads seen by each voter?
No, that seems to have been taken care of by McCain-Feingold quite nicely.
That said:
Propose a Consitutional Amendment eliminating the Electoral College. Get it through Congress, and then get it ratified by 38 states. The procedure is there if the current system offends you so much.
Then wait 50 years and tell me if it is really better, or just different. Frankly, the current system has the virtue of having worked pretty well for 200+ years. I haven't seen any real indication that changing it would improve anything . I haven't seen any great groundswell for change, really, other than the "my candidate lost last time, and he would have won if we'd only done our elections differently!!!"
So, which Justices are terrified? The seven that voted with him in 2000? The two that voted against him? The Liberal ones? The Conservative ones?
Hate to say this, I have seen no more abuse of the Consitution under Bush than I saw under Clinton, Bush the Elder, Reagan, Carter, Ford, or Nixon. Reading history, rather than living it, we can extend that list to Johnson, Kennedy, Eisenhower, Truman, Franklin Roosevelt (perhaps the worst American President for abusing the Constitution), Lincoln (perhaps the other "worst" - it's really a toss-up between Abe and FDR), many others (I don't feel like listing every President since Washington, but they all fit on the list).
The prospect of four more years of this guy, four years in which the Court may not have the endurance to survive, should horrify you.
I'll bite. Why? Because he passed the DMCA? Wait, that was Clinton. Because he tried to sieze control of a significant portion of the economy? Wait, that was Clinton and Nixon and Roosevelt. Because he wants to suspend Habeus Corpus in some cases? Oh, wait! Lincoln did that. And FDR. And Wilson, I believe.
I disliked Clinton, mostly because he spent half his time talking about his "legacy" - if he'd worked at being a bit more honest, and a bit less "it depends on the meaning of the word "is", then he wouldn't have had to worry about his legacy. I didn't succumb to the opinion that the Union couldn't survive four more years of Clinton (if I had, I'd have tried to kill him), nor do I beleive that the Union will be irreparably harmed by four more years of Bush. Nor, in the alternative, will it be irreparably harmed by four years of Kerry. Though I concede that I don't believe that it will be helped by the election of either man (or anyone else running this time).
Bush's core voters oppose stem cell research, but accept IFV because they don't know that it implies the same thing
Stem cell research implies IVF?
Can you read? A implies C. B implies C. This is not the same as A implies B.
I imagine the people of Florida will be pretty upset. After all, they lose their Congressional Delegation if they don't have any Electors.
Note also that losing Florida's Electors in no way changes the requirement for a majority of the total number (538) Electors. So if Florida didn't have any Electors, the possibility that the Congress would choose the next President goes up. This might be seen as likely to make Bush President again, but, in spite of the nonsense about Republicans always voting along Party lines, there is no special reason to believe that they would so in this case.
Really? I've never met anyone like that. A lot of Conservatives don't like Hillary, but I've never met one who would've had a problem with Elizabeth Dole, for example.
Take a brontosaur's mass of mice, say 20,000
20000 mice per apatosaur??? Must be some HUGE mice. The size of my cat, perhaps. How about 1,000,000 mice, instead? But the basic idea is sound
Also, for us purists, brontosaur is an invalid designation. Apatosaur is considered correct, since it predates the brontosaur label by some years.
They said that in 2000. No new Supremes this last four years, though. Probably one or two this time, but by no means as certain as some people are trying to say.
To have a democracy, you need a critical mass of basically decent people
Nope, in democracy the majority decide what is 'decent'. Democracy is about the mass opinion deciding the path of government. It has nothing to do with what you said.
So, in a Democracy, if more than half the people agree that putting the Jews in Concentration Camps and killing them on an industrial scale is "decent", that means that doing so is perfectly ok? You enlarge my view of the possible.
People who are prepared to agree to rules before the election, and stick with them, not swirl around in post-modern uncertainty.
We have a thing called the state, to enforce law for people who break them, otherwise we have anarchy...
And yet. Gore's appeals of the election in 2000 were in violation of Florida's laws regarding recounts. Florida allows recounts, under certain conditions (some of which occured that day, and some of which didn't). When those conditions were met, the automagic recounts occurred.
In addition, Florida has provisions for challenging elections. Gore did not choose to invoke those provisions. Instead he went to the Florida Courts (eventually to the Florida Supreme Court) to get the courts to do something the law didn't allow.
So, yes, we have laws so as to avoid anarchy. Unfortunately, the anarchy happened anyway, when the Democratic candidate refused to abide by the laws.
Absent that, forget it. Why bother? If you're going to demand a perfection that is not of this world,
What is perfection?, You'll find most people in the world all have a different view of perfection. We have a democracy so the mass decide what is acceptable in society, And we have the state to enforce it.
I trust you aren't a US citizen? Because mob rule has never been a hallmark of our system. And "the mass decide[s] what is acceptable in society" is mob rule. Lucky for us, we have a Bill of Rights, which guarantees us certain Rights, EVEN IF THE MASS OF PEOPLE DON'T AGREE.
Like, Freedom of Speech. Yes, even people you disagree with have freedom of speech. And they will continue to do so, even if the majority of the people think that the KKK (for example) should lose that particular Right. At least until a sufficient supermajority of the people precipitate another Civil War by repealing the First Amendment.
Hate to say this, but the Democrats are setting things up for a large-scale idsillusionment about the democratic process. If a significant minority of the voting public thinks that the election results are dishonest, for whatever reason, that marks the beginning of the end of the USA as a Republic. From all I've heard, the Dems playbook this year includes a great deal that reduces to "elections are dishonest unless Dems win"
stop assuming that your opponents are three-headed monsters that eat babies for breakfast.
Better yet, stop assuming the end of the world if someone you disagree with wins an election. I didn't especially care for Clinton (who had an even smaller fraction of the total vote cast than Bush the Younger did), and I was appalled at his reelection. I didn't treat it as the end of American civilization, I just waited till his two terms were up, and he was gone. Whoever wins next month, whether I like him or not (bad choice of words, I don't particularly like anyone who is running), I can rest assured that he'll be gone in four to eight years. And he won't do irreparable harm to the country, since he'll have 535 Congresscritters keeping him on a short leash...
Ummm, no. The Electoral College was put into place to convince the States to ratify the Constitution. Given the population spread of the original USA, a direct popular vote for President would have effectively disenfranchised everyone but the people from New York and Virginia. It would have been damn hard to convince Vermont to vote for ratification of the Consitution in such a case. Or any of the eleven states that would have been marginalized. And a Constitution that requires ratification by nine states would't work real well if only two states were happy with its provisions.
Actually, it is cheaper to advertise, on a per person seeing the ad basis, in a more populous state. You can run a commercial in New York City and Los Angeles alone, and be seen by more people than you could if you ran commercials on every TV station in both Dakotas, Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, & Alaska.
Straight popular vote for President won't stop "swing states" from existing. It'll merely change the important states to important areas.
no-one working means that wages increase
Quite likely
increased wages mean inflation
No. Increasing the money supply relative to the amount of goods produced means inflation. Sometimes increased wages are an EFFECT of inflation, they are seldom a cause.
inflation means higher prices
Quite so.
higher prices insentivise workers
Well, no. Higher prices require more money to pay the bills. But in the hypothetical described in the grandparent, the basics of life are covered by a "universal welfare". Which would have to be indexed to inflation, or it would have no value after only a few years, and defeat its own purpose.
why do you work now ?
That would be along the lines of "if I don't work, I don't eat." If the government were paying for my food, that wouldn't apply.
I can pay my bills without doing much work
So can I. Interesting thing, though - "not much work" is different than "no work". Big difference, mentally, between having to work 20 hours a week, and not at all. If for no other reason, at 0 hours per week, I can find the time for backpacking up the Appalachian Trail, or along the length of the old Oregon Trail. Can't do that when I have to show up for work even one day a week.
290 megapeople implies a budget to cover that welfare of ~$3 trillion per year. 50% more than our current budget, give or take. so increase tax rates by 150%. Increase the size of the bureaucracy by a similar amount.
Then, ask yourself why you work. Why do I work? To pay the bills. This system removes the need to pay the bills.
My house is paid for, and an income at the poverty level would be more than sufficient to pay the required bills, and give me time to visit diverse places I've never seen.
So, I guess I'm in favour of this system - it means I'd never have to work again in my life.
Those of you who choose to work might be a little upset with me, and millions of others who would make the same choice, of course.
I agree. Note that pushing the cops is generally considered by cops to be something other than "peaceful protest".
Undemocratic: Paying $600000 to tear up registrations opposition voter registrations.
Agree
Undemocratic: Lying to get reelected.
As I recall, some time back, one of the State Supreme Courts ruled quite explicitly that lying was perfectly ok in politics. This in response to a suit brought against that state's new law requiring, essentially, "truth in advertising" by political candidates.
In addition, the First Amendment would seem to trump you here.
Undemocratic: Censoring independent media.
I missed this one. Which media was censored, and why do you imagine it was independent?
Undemocratic: An unfair electoral system.
I take if "fair" is more or less equal to "my guy always wins"?
Undemocratic: Keeping the unfair electoral system because it keeps the dominant party in power despite majority opposition.
I don't think you'll find that a majority of US citizens find our electoral system "unfair". I also find it intriguing that you seem to be labelling the Rebpublicans as "dominant". These are the guys, who, up to the time of WJ Clinton, had not controlled the House in 40 years. And who had occasional control of the Senate for that same time period. Remember, when Clinton was elected, the Democrats had controlled both houses of Congress for eight years or so.
Undemocratic: Double standards in rejecting voter registrations and ballots.
What are the two standards? Just curious.
Undemocratic: Censoring information provided to Congress.
Might want to check carefully before you use this one. Democratic Presidents have been doing this forever, as have Republicans.
Undemocratic: You're not reading this anyway blah blah blah bleh.
Wrong.
Undemocratic: Using your power to line your richest friends' pockets.
That would be like the way FDR ran things during WW2, right?
Undemocratic: Funding the campaign of a third party who's opinion is opposite your own but similar to your opponent's for the purpose of dividing the opposing vote.
You forgot the part where it's undemocratic to actively work to prevent someone whose opinion is opposite your's from even getting on the ballot.
Umm, Roe v. Wade was a decision by the Supremes. The President has no power to repeal it. Nor does Congress, short of a Constitutional Amendment.
Now, the President and Senate do have some slight control over the issue, in that they collectively determine the membership of the Supremes. But since the Supremes are a lifetime appointment, your appointees don't actually have to vote any way but their own conscience.
I'm quite aware of the use of aerobraking in reentry, and the limits of it (you have to hit atmosphere before it can work).
Realistically, there MUST be some qualifiers. Hell, with not too much work, *I* could get on the ballot in some states. And just because I am on a ballot doesn't mean I deserve to be taken seriously as a candidate.
Of course, if you change your qualifiers from the current one to "on the ballot", then you will cause your state government to change the rules for getting on the ballot, so as to weed out the people who just want to abuse the "equal coverage".
Personally, I would rather have national rules for getting on the ballot for national office - there is only one national office in the USA (President - VP doesn't count, since he is elected on a ticket with the President, so this should not be terribly difficult to accomplish.
This would, of course, put Congress in the position of specifying qualifying characteristics for President, over and above those mentioned in the Constitution, which is probably unconstitutional in itself.
I don't really have an objection to you, or anyone else, having ideals about the way elections are run in this or any other country. Nor do I object to you trying to proselyte about those ideals.
I'm just trying to warn you that those ideals may not produce the results you wish them to. A suggestion - look at every way you can think of that someone can game the system, given that a majority of the populace follows your ideals, and a minority does not. If you can't see any way to game it, I suggest you get someone else to look it over, then publish, since a political system that can't be gamed by the unscrupulous should be worth a Nobel Prize, at least.
Please insert "less than 3000m/s or so, you CANNOT escape from Earth's gravity, no matter how that reaction mass is expended. If you are in GEO, you require a deltaV of ~1400 m/s to re-enter the Earth's atmosphere. With less deltaV than that, NO amount of acceleration will be sufficient to change your orbit to an atmospheric entry orbit." before the word "Note" in the above post.
Therefore DeltaV is a relevant, indeed, a vital, statistic for any spacecraft. If you are in LEO, with a deltaV Note that this is a bit fuzzy. Very low acceleration spacecraft require rather more deltaV for a given maneuver than high acceleration spacecraft. How much more depends on the local gravitational fields, and the extent to which they are aiding your velocity changes. As an example, normally, with a high acceleration (>1m/s, say) spacecraft, deltaV required to reach escape speed from a circular orbit is considered to be ~.4142 orbital speed (Sqrt(2)-1). with a very low-acceleration spacecraft (0.01m/s, say), deltaV required for the same maneuver is ~1.0 orbital speed.
No. DeltaV is change in velocity. Acceleration is NOT change in velocity. Acceleration is change in velocity per unit time.
Please note that deltaV is measured in units of m/s, NOT in m/s^2, as acceleration is measured.
No. Reread the grandparent. The cars started at 0, and accelerated to 60mph. The deltaV (change in velocity) was 60mph. The acceleration was as listed.
On the other hand, if none of the Republican candidates are worth a flip, we can have a runoff between two decent Democrats (happens as often as not). Or vice versa.
And we are more likely to get third party types into serious contention for office, since their Party is irrelevant to the question of getting them to the runoff.
A NERVA, starting from LEO could match that speed with a mass ratio of 2.7 or thereabouts.
In other words, it's not really terribly fast by the standards of the solar system.