True, but I don't see it as relevant to the party system. What I do see as relevant to the two-party system is that it soon settled down to Democrats and Republicans as the only two major parties.
You can see it's snowing, sure. So can I. What I don't know is whether the city has declared a snow emergency, and when. Around here, a snow emergency is a legally declared state in which parking in certain places is illegal at certain times. They usually do it somewhere around four inches of snow, but will take other factors into account; in addition, my window only allows me to see what's falling in my immediate neighborhood, not what's falling elsewhere in the city.
Appointment reminders can be nice, and there's no need for an actual person to do it.
I receive robocalls that I welcome. I'm signed up for the robocall if my city declares a snow emergency. I get some robocalls from my health care providers.
The two-party system is pretty much what we get with first-past-the-post voting in individual races. It can be disrupted for a short time, but will restabilize as a two-party system (even if one party is replaced). It's been tried.
National polls do generally include third-party candidates, but may leave off those who have way inadequate support, which is almost all of them. The poll results on the two major candidates do not necessarily sum to 100%, but it won't be far from it. It is possible to elect individuals who are of neither major party. On occasion, people like H. Ross Perot and John Anderson and George Wallace have gotten some attention as third-party candidates for President, but this is rare, and it wasn't by whining to the n
It is damaging to US politics to try to convince people that they can make a real change to how things work without changing some fairly important things about the system first. Ranked-choice voting would be a good start. Failing that, pick the major party closest to what you like and work within it. That's how changes have been made in the parties.
Hillary's lack of Y chromosomes and the incessant right-wing attacks are problems in the general election. Bernie's religion and his self-identification as socialist are problems in the general election. Either one would have been much better off with someone like Kaine for VP than the other one.
If you think there's no difference between the Republicans and Democrats, you're blind. They agree on quite a few things, but they differ wildly on things like health care, what people can do with their genitals, the role of religion in government, and the role of science in education.
Perot had essentially no effect on the 1996 election, although he tried. Nader's absence would have had an effect only since the Florida vote was so close. Eliminating that one county's butterfly ballot would have made Gore President.
There is no ideal voting system, and that's been shown mathematically. There are various different systems that I consider better than first-past-the-post, and ranked choice works in my city. I'm not saying anything against approval voting, mind you, but it isn't particularly better than ranked choice.
There have been disruptions to the two-party system. Once, it even changed what one of the parties was. Every time, we've settled back down in a two-party system because that's the optimum for the election and governance systems we have.
How well does playing outside the rules work? It's rarely been very effective, in contrast to working within the system. Just because the current system has real and major problems doesn't mean that smashing it and starting over would be better.
You might want to do some historical research on what happens when nihilists get a lot of political party. We'd wind up considerably worse off than we are now.
The Tea Party had a large effect by working within the Republican party. Sanders had a large effect by working more or less within the Democratic Party. As independents, neither would have had nearly the impact.
Except that it's possible the House state delegations would fail to provide a majority, so Biden would become President. The rules of how we wind up with a President can get weird in edge cases. I prefer national popular vote, but that would require a Constitutional amendment.
Suppose that all the states went to ranked-choice voting, and had their Representatives elected from party slates, with the number apportioned by number of votes for the party state-wide. That would give third party candidates a decent chance at election, and would make them significant. That would be perfectly Constitutional.
Yes. You're supposed to elect Senators and Representatives that will do a better job. There is nothing in the Constitution as amended that encourages rebellion.
Legally, it would be awfully hard to pin a treason charge on Snowden. Informally, I consider him a hero and a traitor. Had he just revealed the NSA surveillance (which is arguably Constitutional, although some of the arguments seem pretty weak), I'd consider him a hero. He would not have been protected by whistleblower status, so he would have needed to either leave for a country that won't extradite him (a limited number) or have a fair trial and be convicted and serve time until pardoned.
My best guess is that Wikileaks is acting like assholes right now. I can't see any legitimate reason for releasing recordings of random people calling the committee.
Candidates have come out of seemingly nowhere and gotten nominated before. I hadn't heard of Carter before it was clear he was picking up a large number of delegates. Sanders had a darn good run. What the Democrats want to prevent is another nomination like McGovern in 1972.
Bernie is a soshalist, and that's eeeevil. That's not much of a liability in the Democratic nomination process, since a lot of us are seriously left-wing from the start, but it could be a huge liability in the election campaign. He doesn't have much in the way of negatives right now, but that's because nobody has been seriously trying. I'm glad that he did so well, since I want it emphasized that lots of us agree with his ideas, but I'm a lot more confident that Clinton can get elected (she's already been attacked as viciously as is going to happen), and I think she'll be more effective as President than Sanders would have been.
Clinton has already publicly committed to some of the things I liked about Sanders on the issues, and she's pretty honest as politicians go. (If you want to disagree, find some goddam evidence of I'll ignore you.)
What do you mean by "caucus votes"? There are often straw votes in caucuses, but they don't mean anything, and hence are unreliable. Bernie got a lot of delegates, but not enough to win. The superdelegates are there to prevent things like George McGovern in 1972, still a painful memory for some of us. They are intended to make it more difficult for someone like Sanders to win, and there's good reasons for that. If someone coming from out of left field who's going to have serious vulnerabilities in the general election (I don't mind supporting someone self-labeling as "socialist", but it could be a huge problem after the convention), that person really should show that he or she is generally accepted.
If I remember the law correctly, the statutory amount is based on number of copyrighted works,not the number of violations. In that case, counting one violation per image is correct.
I can sell F/OS software. The licenses allow me to do so, and I believe the ability to sell is considered important both by the FSF and the OSI. I don't have to compensate anyone.
Of course, I can't remove attribution. If I do, then I've violated the license and am selling copyrighted works without a license, and the MAFIAA has made sure you can send legions of avenging angels/devils/whatever to scourge the earth and sow salt where once I stood. At least if I'm in the US. I also shouldn't legally threaten people for having their independently obtained versions of the software, and I don't know how bad that is. If I send a DMCA takedown notice, I'm committing perjury.
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True, but I don't see it as relevant to the party system. What I do see as relevant to the two-party system is that it soon settled down to Democrats and Republicans as the only two major parties.
Changes like this tend to start locally, and work their way up. It's a start.
You can see it's snowing, sure. So can I. What I don't know is whether the city has declared a snow emergency, and when. Around here, a snow emergency is a legally declared state in which parking in certain places is illegal at certain times. They usually do it somewhere around four inches of snow, but will take other factors into account; in addition, my window only allows me to see what's falling in my immediate neighborhood, not what's falling elsewhere in the city.
Appointment reminders can be nice, and there's no need for an actual person to do it.
I receive robocalls that I welcome. I'm signed up for the robocall if my city declares a snow emergency. I get some robocalls from my health care providers.
The two-party system is pretty much what we get with first-past-the-post voting in individual races. It can be disrupted for a short time, but will restabilize as a two-party system (even if one party is replaced). It's been tried.
National polls do generally include third-party candidates, but may leave off those who have way inadequate support, which is almost all of them. The poll results on the two major candidates do not necessarily sum to 100%, but it won't be far from it. It is possible to elect individuals who are of neither major party. On occasion, people like H. Ross Perot and John Anderson and George Wallace have gotten some attention as third-party candidates for President, but this is rare, and it wasn't by whining to the n
It is damaging to US politics to try to convince people that they can make a real change to how things work without changing some fairly important things about the system first. Ranked-choice voting would be a good start. Failing that, pick the major party closest to what you like and work within it. That's how changes have been made in the parties.
And I see some of Snowden's actions as heroic and others as treacherous.
Hillary's lack of Y chromosomes and the incessant right-wing attacks are problems in the general election. Bernie's religion and his self-identification as socialist are problems in the general election. Either one would have been much better off with someone like Kaine for VP than the other one.
If you think there's no difference between the Republicans and Democrats, you're blind. They agree on quite a few things, but they differ wildly on things like health care, what people can do with their genitals, the role of religion in government, and the role of science in education.
Perot had essentially no effect on the 1996 election, although he tried. Nader's absence would have had an effect only since the Florida vote was so close. Eliminating that one county's butterfly ballot would have made Gore President.
There is no ideal voting system, and that's been shown mathematically. There are various different systems that I consider better than first-past-the-post, and ranked choice works in my city. I'm not saying anything against approval voting, mind you, but it isn't particularly better than ranked choice.
Minneapolis has ranked-choice voting in city elections. It's possible.
There have been disruptions to the two-party system. Once, it even changed what one of the parties was. Every time, we've settled back down in a two-party system because that's the optimum for the election and governance systems we have.
How well does playing outside the rules work? It's rarely been very effective, in contrast to working within the system. Just because the current system has real and major problems doesn't mean that smashing it and starting over would be better.
You might want to do some historical research on what happens when nihilists get a lot of political party. We'd wind up considerably worse off than we are now.
The Tea Party had a large effect by working within the Republican party. Sanders had a large effect by working more or less within the Democratic Party. As independents, neither would have had nearly the impact.
Except that it's possible the House state delegations would fail to provide a majority, so Biden would become President. The rules of how we wind up with a President can get weird in edge cases. I prefer national popular vote, but that would require a Constitutional amendment.
Suppose that all the states went to ranked-choice voting, and had their Representatives elected from party slates, with the number apportioned by number of votes for the party state-wide. That would give third party candidates a decent chance at election, and would make them significant. That would be perfectly Constitutional.
Yes. You're supposed to elect Senators and Representatives that will do a better job. There is nothing in the Constitution as amended that encourages rebellion.
Legally, it would be awfully hard to pin a treason charge on Snowden. Informally, I consider him a hero and a traitor. Had he just revealed the NSA surveillance (which is arguably Constitutional, although some of the arguments seem pretty weak), I'd consider him a hero. He would not have been protected by whistleblower status, so he would have needed to either leave for a country that won't extradite him (a limited number) or have a fair trial and be convicted and serve time until pardoned.
My best guess is that Wikileaks is acting like assholes right now. I can't see any legitimate reason for releasing recordings of random people calling the committee.
Candidates have come out of seemingly nowhere and gotten nominated before. I hadn't heard of Carter before it was clear he was picking up a large number of delegates. Sanders had a darn good run. What the Democrats want to prevent is another nomination like McGovern in 1972.
Bernie is a soshalist, and that's eeeevil. That's not much of a liability in the Democratic nomination process, since a lot of us are seriously left-wing from the start, but it could be a huge liability in the election campaign. He doesn't have much in the way of negatives right now, but that's because nobody has been seriously trying. I'm glad that he did so well, since I want it emphasized that lots of us agree with his ideas, but I'm a lot more confident that Clinton can get elected (she's already been attacked as viciously as is going to happen), and I think she'll be more effective as President than Sanders would have been.
Clinton has already publicly committed to some of the things I liked about Sanders on the issues, and she's pretty honest as politicians go. (If you want to disagree, find some goddam evidence of I'll ignore you.)
What do you mean by "caucus votes"? There are often straw votes in caucuses, but they don't mean anything, and hence are unreliable. Bernie got a lot of delegates, but not enough to win. The superdelegates are there to prevent things like George McGovern in 1972, still a painful memory for some of us. They are intended to make it more difficult for someone like Sanders to win, and there's good reasons for that. If someone coming from out of left field who's going to have serious vulnerabilities in the general election (I don't mind supporting someone self-labeling as "socialist", but it could be a huge problem after the convention), that person really should show that he or she is generally accepted.
If I remember the law correctly, the statutory amount is based on number of copyrighted works,not the number of violations. In that case, counting one violation per image is correct.
I can sell F/OS software. The licenses allow me to do so, and I believe the ability to sell is considered important both by the FSF and the OSI. I don't have to compensate anyone.
Of course, I can't remove attribution. If I do, then I've violated the license and am selling copyrighted works without a license, and the MAFIAA has made sure you can send legions of avenging angels/devils/whatever to scourge the earth and sow salt where once I stood. At least if I'm in the US. I also shouldn't legally threaten people for having their independently obtained versions of the software, and I don't know how bad that is. If I send a DMCA takedown notice, I'm committing perjury.