Third parties are actually very valuable contributors to the US Political system, even if they never win an election.
Most "Realignments" (massive shifts of power between the two major parties) are started by third parties acheiving a critical mass, then the party not in power tends to coopt the ideals responsbile for that third party's success, thereby vaulting into the Majority party status. The third party then falls away, as it has been absorbed.
And yes, I am an expert on this, I wrote a thesis in graduate school on it. Of course, you'll note I'm a DBA, not a political science professor now, so read into that what you will.
The important thing to realize is that the fact that the third party doesn't win isn't the critical part, the fact that it attracts enough support to shift the balance is, *especially* in the 50/50 nation we are becoming. Any even halfway viable issue-centric third party can tip the balance critically.
That isn't something you can just run down to Wal-Mart and get. Absent a very big slip-up the Canadians aren't going let anybody use their fuel to nuke the US with. The fuel for "just one bomb" came from a refinement factory that required extraordinary financing.
Sure you can...you just have to scrape the dials of 27,000 glow in the dark watches...which at Wal-Mart prices would be about...what...$108,000?
Or just wait for the Clearance Rollback and only pay $106,749.82
Only if the range is better than I've seen at the Point.
The team I crew for has tried for the last three races to use the ICard to track times, etc, but it has *never* gotten past "loading data". The range on the transmitter is lousy, or else the antenna sucks, or maybe both...but it hasn't worked.
Which is unfortunate, because it's a great idea...just some major techie problems that need fixing.
Satellite Internet suffers from *extremely* high latency, and it's very expensive to roll out another satellite to increase bandwidth availability.
DSL will never be able to acheive a 99.99% availability rate, because many homes are more than 20,000 wire feet from their Central Office, so the technology can't/won't support it.
Cable is only available in those areas where a Cable Provider finds it profitable to do service. There's still 30%+ of the country who can't get it.
We didn't acheive universal electrification until the Federal Government implemented the Rural Cooperative Act and the TVA to encourage/subsidize companies to provide service to Rural America...we need a similar thing for Broadband.
Or, solve the problems with the power distribution grid and let the electrical companies do it. Either is reasonable, so it isn't pointless to try, just difficult.
and if you don't worry about the slippery slope at all you end up with fascism.
Yep, Child Pornography is bad...no question...but the solution isn't to blackhole every website that some governmental agency decides is "Child Pornography", the solution is to find those who make the images, prosecute the living crap out of them under existing laws (Statutory Rape, for a starter), and let them spend years upon years in Federal Pound Me In The Ass Prison.
That's Government's job, not deciding "You can't see that".
Uhh...actually...no, it doesn't.
There are either 1 or 2 (depending on the Casino rules) "0" spots on the wheel, which are colored Green.
So that changes your bet from pure 50% change to a 48.6% chance of doubling your money with one 0. Two 0's make it 47.3%.
In short, a house advantage of 2.8 or 5.4%, depending.
Did he? Did he really? I don't believe anybody has yet proven that such actions cause the band to lose sales. In fact, it's quite possible that this increases the band's sales because a lot more people get to hear of them, and hear their music.
Uhh...they have the right to make bad decisions...we all do. If I do a performance, I have the right to say "No one can watch", even if it means I'm not going to sell any tickets, and thereby lose my shirt.
If you "create" a player, as opposed to just using the stock ones that they supply voiceovers of the names for, you don't get " runs up the middle", you get "Number runs up the middle".
And since, in my scenario, EA or whoever wouldn't be supplying the player file, but it would be an independantly created thing, you wouldn't get player names.
So Madden couldn't give you the default likenesses of your favorite team with the cartridge...big deal.
Most, if not all, of the games now allow you to create your own player...so I'd give it about...oh...4.5 minutes before someone with too much time on their hands would have used that utility to build the "New England Patriots Roster", which would be available for download on one of the 40,000,000 fan sites out there.
Yeah, you wouldn't get to hear Pat Summerall and John Madden saying "Adam Vinitieri kicks the Field Goal", but really, doesn't everyone turn off those comments after about 20 times through anyhow?
I'd like to see a game that used a decent phonetic text to speech algorythym so that instead of having to hear "Number 10, up the middle" after I create my fantasy running back, I could hear "Gorm, up the middle". Now *that* would be worth buying.
You join the Union (NFLPA in this case) and you automatically cede rights to your football related image to them.
I believe (and I know for certain you can in baseball) an individual player can refuse to cede his image rights to the Union...however...he then no longer gets *any* share of the promotional money that comes from "authentic NFL products", which can be a pretty penny.
It came up a couple of years ago when one of the "scab" football players who had played during the last strike was on a championship team...problem, the Union had kicked him out, so his name didn't appear on the T-shirt listing everyone's name, nor did he get any of the merchandising money.
Uhh...well...actually...there were about 10,000 of us doing just that at Pennsic, a big annual Society for Creative Anachronism event/medieval reinactment sort of thing.
My memory of the blackout amounts to coming into work on the Monday afterwards and being asked "So, you were right in the middle of the blackout area...how did it affect you?" and responding "There was a blackout?"
It didn't affect the firepits, *or* the solar showers:)
Hmm...sounds vaugely like the "New Testament"
All we have is multiply translated copies of documents we are told are the "Gospels" (meaning testimony, essentially) of four dudes who say "Yeah, there was this guy, and he was really cool...look at all the cool stuff he did...we were with him, so you should obey what we say".
There is abundant sociological evidence discussing the unreliability of Eyewitness testimony, particularly when the witness has an axe to grind (or an adgenda to advance).
Not to mention all the contradictions.
Let's face it, Middle Earth is better documented than the Bible is. Tolkein was just born 1500 years too late...otherwise we'd all be worshipping Gandalf...to about the same good Christianity does the world now.
Maybe you can, but for a goodly percentage of the Country (~15% Of population if I recall correctly), a normal antenna gives a grade B- or C or worse signal on one or more of the three major networks (much higher percentage if you count FOX as well). The vast majority of those folks are in geographic areas unserved by Cable TV.
It's folks like me who need satellite if we want to get any Television at all. It's bad enough that I have to pay $6 a month to get "Free" TV channels, but to deal with this interpersonal War is just utter BS.
Of course, I'm on DirecTV, because Dish Network sucked when i had it, but the scrolling messages of doom are still annoying.
Hey, anybody consider a lawsuit to recover damages for the 5% of the television show they paid to see that they don't get to watch because of this crap? Just a thought....
Depends on your definition of "pretty well" I guess...
I've got DirecWay Two Way, and I can hardly wait for my one year committment to expire so I can ditch it with a clear conscience.
Their Piece of Crap software crashes every 2 minutes on Windows ME, it isn't even *available* on Mac or Linux or Unix, or anything other than Windows, Uploads aren't much faster than my old 56K modem (which only gets up to 33.6 courtesy of living in Dinwiddie County, VA, where Cows outnumber people 3-1). Downloads get reasonably quick, *IF* you're downloading a 2 Meg or larger file (which most web pages aren't). As for IRC, Gaming, or any other low latency application, forget it. The smallest ping you'll ever get is 2000 MS. Admittedly, that isn't their fault (distance sucks), but the claims they make on their TV ad just don't hold water.
Oh, and never let your credit card expire...they'll turn your account over to a Collection Agency without even bothering to send you an e-mail saying "your card was declined because it is expired, please update it".
Gee...so daring to think that perhaps the cure is worse than the disease makes someone a spammer sympathizer?
Sounds kinda like McCarthy witchhunts, where those who refused to name names and testify against their friends were branded "Commie Sympathizers"
Oh...I just noticed, the poster is a proud Republican...that explains it. Anyone who feels the need to brag about their conservatism generally has a soft spot for Joe McCarthy.
Yeah, Fox's decision to stop the suit, after a judge dismissed it as being legally ridiculous.
Or were you just watching Fox News's "Fair and Balanced" coverage of the trial (sandwiched inbetween "Weapons of Mass Destruction discovery Any Day Now" and "All those who disagree with Us are Traitors")?
I'd doubt it would be denied...there's that little "In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved,..." clause in the 7th amendment to the Constitution.
My understanding (I am not a lawyer, but I did drive past a Holiday Inn Express on the way to work this morning) is that if either party requests it, a jury must be allowed.
WHich would indeed be boring jury duty...good luck finding a panel for it.
Basically, a bullet point memo is a one-page document with a handful (5 or so) major points, clearly separated out (if it was HTML, probably the UL or OL tags would be used), with a brief paragraph explaining each one.
Something like this:
Flotzenjammer reform is desparately needed
Currently, Flotzenjammers consume more Fleems per paradigm than any other sploo
According to a study by the Bureau of Uninformed statistics, 78% of Fleems per paradigm are consumed by Flotzenjammers. This leaves only 22% of Fleems per paradigm for use by other Blatzes
Flotzenjammers have never been subject to regulation, although they are responsible for high numbers of deaths
Flotzenjammers have been shown to be the cause of death in nearly 96% of Plagel-related fatalities, yet the industry has resisted all attempts to regulate them...
etc, etc, etc.
Pretty straightforward, really, and easy to read and understand.
But it costs money to hold the meeting to officially put the policy in place (if only to turn the lights on), so no $$$ means no policy. It's a common way for Congress to change policy, and it works.
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Most "Realignments" (massive shifts of power between the two major parties) are started by third parties acheiving a critical mass, then the party not in power tends to coopt the ideals responsbile for that third party's success, thereby vaulting into the Majority party status. The third party then falls away, as it has been absorbed.
And yes, I am an expert on this, I wrote a thesis in graduate school on it. Of course, you'll note I'm a DBA, not a political science professor now, so read into that what you will.
The important thing to realize is that the fact that the third party doesn't win isn't the critical part, the fact that it attracts enough support to shift the balance is, *especially* in the 50/50 nation we are becoming. Any even halfway viable issue-centric third party can tip the balance critically.
Sure you can...you just have to scrape the dials of 27,000 glow in the dark watches...which at Wal-Mart prices would be about...what...$108,000? Or just wait for the Clearance Rollback and only pay $106,749.82
The team I crew for has tried for the last three races to use the ICard to track times, etc, but it has *never* gotten past "loading data". The range on the transmitter is lousy, or else the antenna sucks, or maybe both...but it hasn't worked.
Which is unfortunate, because it's a great idea...just some major techie problems that need fixing.
Satellite Internet suffers from *extremely* high latency, and it's very expensive to roll out another satellite to increase bandwidth availability.
DSL will never be able to acheive a 99.99% availability rate, because many homes are more than 20,000 wire feet from their Central Office, so the technology can't/won't support it.
Cable is only available in those areas where a Cable Provider finds it profitable to do service. There's still 30%+ of the country who can't get it.
We didn't acheive universal electrification until the Federal Government implemented the Rural Cooperative Act and the TVA to encourage/subsidize companies to provide service to Rural America...we need a similar thing for Broadband.
Or, solve the problems with the power distribution grid and let the electrical companies do it. Either is reasonable, so it isn't pointless to try, just difficult.
Although, if it meant I got to bang the cute female Top Security Clearance Contractor...well...let's just say that perk perks my interest...
I'm not a lawyer, it's actually a question...one I've wondered about a lot.
Yep, Child Pornography is bad...no question...but the solution isn't to blackhole every website that some governmental agency decides is "Child Pornography", the solution is to find those who make the images, prosecute the living crap out of them under existing laws (Statutory Rape, for a starter), and let them spend years upon years in Federal Pound Me In The Ass Prison.
That's Government's job, not deciding "You can't see that".
Uhh...actually...no, it doesn't. There are either 1 or 2 (depending on the Casino rules) "0" spots on the wheel, which are colored Green. So that changes your bet from pure 50% change to a 48.6% chance of doubling your money with one 0. Two 0's make it 47.3%. In short, a house advantage of 2.8 or 5.4%, depending.
Uhh...they have the right to make bad decisions...we all do. If I do a performance, I have the right to say "No one can watch", even if it means I'm not going to sell any tickets, and thereby lose my shirt.
If you "create" a player, as opposed to just using the stock ones that they supply voiceovers of the names for, you don't get " runs up the middle", you get "Number runs up the middle".
And since, in my scenario, EA or whoever wouldn't be supplying the player file, but it would be an independantly created thing, you wouldn't get player names.
Most, if not all, of the games now allow you to create your own player...so I'd give it about...oh...4.5 minutes before someone with too much time on their hands would have used that utility to build the "New England Patriots Roster", which would be available for download on one of the 40,000,000 fan sites out there.
Yeah, you wouldn't get to hear Pat Summerall and John Madden saying "Adam Vinitieri kicks the Field Goal", but really, doesn't everyone turn off those comments after about 20 times through anyhow?
I'd like to see a game that used a decent phonetic text to speech algorythym so that instead of having to hear "Number 10, up the middle" after I create my fantasy running back, I could hear "Gorm, up the middle". Now *that* would be worth buying.
You join the Union (NFLPA in this case) and you automatically cede rights to your football related image to them.
I believe (and I know for certain you can in baseball) an individual player can refuse to cede his image rights to the Union...however...he then no longer gets *any* share of the promotional money that comes from "authentic NFL products", which can be a pretty penny.
It came up a couple of years ago when one of the "scab" football players who had played during the last strike was on a championship team...problem, the Union had kicked him out, so his name didn't appear on the T-shirt listing everyone's name, nor did he get any of the merchandising money.
My memory of the blackout amounts to coming into work on the Monday afterwards and being asked "So, you were right in the middle of the blackout area...how did it affect you?" and responding "There was a blackout?"
It didn't affect the firepits, *or* the solar showers :)
Hmm...sounds vaugely like the "New Testament" All we have is multiply translated copies of documents we are told are the "Gospels" (meaning testimony, essentially) of four dudes who say "Yeah, there was this guy, and he was really cool...look at all the cool stuff he did...we were with him, so you should obey what we say". There is abundant sociological evidence discussing the unreliability of Eyewitness testimony, particularly when the witness has an axe to grind (or an adgenda to advance). Not to mention all the contradictions. Let's face it, Middle Earth is better documented than the Bible is. Tolkein was just born 1500 years too late...otherwise we'd all be worshipping Gandalf...to about the same good Christianity does the world now.
It's folks like me who need satellite if we want to get any Television at all. It's bad enough that I have to pay $6 a month to get "Free" TV channels, but to deal with this interpersonal War is just utter BS.
Of course, I'm on DirecTV, because Dish Network sucked when i had it, but the scrolling messages of doom are still annoying.
Hey, anybody consider a lawsuit to recover damages for the 5% of the television show they paid to see that they don't get to watch because of this crap? Just a thought....
So they made a profit off the Political Correctness...which is kinda...well...lame
I've got DirecWay Two Way, and I can hardly wait for my one year committment to expire so I can ditch it with a clear conscience.
Their Piece of Crap software crashes every 2 minutes on Windows ME, it isn't even *available* on Mac or Linux or Unix, or anything other than Windows, Uploads aren't much faster than my old 56K modem (which only gets up to 33.6 courtesy of living in Dinwiddie County, VA, where Cows outnumber people 3-1). Downloads get reasonably quick, *IF* you're downloading a 2 Meg or larger file (which most web pages aren't). As for IRC, Gaming, or any other low latency application, forget it. The smallest ping you'll ever get is 2000 MS. Admittedly, that isn't their fault (distance sucks), but the claims they make on their TV ad just don't hold water.
Oh, and never let your credit card expire...they'll turn your account over to a Collection Agency without even bothering to send you an e-mail saying "your card was declined because it is expired, please update it".
In short, it sucks.
I think he meant that Fox news was the Last place anyone would go for un-censored and un-biased information.
Sounds kinda like McCarthy witchhunts, where those who refused to name names and testify against their friends were branded "Commie Sympathizers"
Oh...I just noticed, the poster is a proud Republican...that explains it. Anyone who feels the need to brag about their conservatism generally has a soft spot for Joe McCarthy.
Or were you just watching Fox News's "Fair and Balanced" coverage of the trial (sandwiched inbetween "Weapons of Mass Destruction discovery Any Day Now" and "All those who disagree with Us are Traitors")?
My understanding (I am not a lawyer, but I did drive past a Holiday Inn Express on the way to work this morning) is that if either party requests it, a jury must be allowed.
WHich would indeed be boring jury duty...good luck finding a panel for it.
At least, the holes were, as part of a method of allowing the patties to cook faster and absorb more juices, or something very much along those lines.
Google for it if ya need proof. I would for you, but I go on vacation in precisely 27 seconds.
Something like this:
Flotzenjammer reform is desparately needed
According to a study by the Bureau of Uninformed statistics, 78% of Fleems per paradigm are consumed by Flotzenjammers. This leaves only 22% of Fleems per paradigm for use by other Blatzes
Flotzenjammers have been shown to be the cause of death in nearly 96% of Plagel-related fatalities, yet the industry has resisted all attempts to regulate them...
etc, etc, etc.
Pretty straightforward, really, and easy to read and understand.
Yeah, I know...-1 didn't get the joke...your point?
But it costs money to hold the meeting to officially put the policy in place (if only to turn the lights on), so no $$$ means no policy. It's a common way for Congress to change policy, and it works.