My opinion is that the US election system has become too cumbersome/complicated for the average person. I'm Canadian, and I find voting very simple. Federal elections require me to check 1 box. That's it. There is about 7? boxes to choose from depending on which riding you are located in. Each box shows the name of the representative of a specific party. Provincial elections are the same, although there's usually less boxes.
Federal elections are easy, House Member, Maybe Senator, Maybe President. The State elections are what lards up a ballot at least in North Carolina. You have Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Agriculture Commissioner, Attorney General, Secretary of State, Secretary of Education, State Treasurer and State Auditor just for the executive branch. Legislature is easy since it's one Senator and One House member. Then you have Judicial elections which include many Supreme court justices then Appeals court justices then Superior court judges then finally District court judges.
Municipal elections are actually the most complicated, in which I have to vote for Mayor, Councillor, and school board trustee.
Now I don't know about other states but in NC the local elections are held on odd years so it's just things like Mayor, City Council, County Commission, School board, Soil Conservation Board, District Attorney, Sheriff. Of course since none of those are as high profile as the state and federal stuff they usually don't have very high turnout unless there is a major issue festering like happened in the Duke Lacrosse rape case in Durham, NC.
There's too many options on the US ballot, and having different ballots for every state or county when people are electing the president just makes things overly complicated.
I would agree to some extent. I would like to see NC get rid of electing many of our executive branch members with the exception of maybe Attorney General and State Auditor (to keep an eye on the Governor) and switch them to appointments by the Governor. The same could be done with Most of the State Judicial branch as well.
There would be no need for voting machines if people weren't voting on 75 different issues for every election. A simple pencil and paper ballot works a lot better.
Not really. In my part of NC we use paper and it works fine. If your a party person you can simply check the box for straight party ticket and skip to the "non-partition" section of the ballot which is were Judicial elections and Ballot initiatives are.
Basically, Federal elections are not complicated and many people just fill out those and maybe Governor and turn in their ballot.
With SiCKO, it really doesn't matter if you are left or right, conservative or liberal, dem or rep. Health care is a problem for all of us. This system is fucking broken. To all the conservatives fuming at Michael Moore for saying nice things about France's health care system, shouldn't the US be able to outdo France? Shouldn't we be able to beat them at health care if we're the greatest nation in the universe?
According to CNN: ""Sicko" also ignores a handful of good things about the American system. Believe it or not, the United States does rank highest in the patient satisfaction category."
Some new cars have those keys that just have to be near the car to allow you to push a button to start. I knew a guy that hung his keys on a nail in the garage that happened to be close enough to allow him to start the car. You can guess what happened one day when he left to go home and found that he had forgotten his keys.
Or, you just stick the think in a wind tunnel and determine some drag values and add them to the calculation, or make the manufacturer who surely has already done this turn over some data. This is probably the better solution at it completely removes how people drive.
I wonder if they should include some local variables? In the Northeast you have the change in wind resistance from having the window down a lot with your arm sticking out to make obscene gestures while in the South you have your hunting dog in the back seat with it's head sticking out the window.
"It's too damn big. You youngsters probably don't remember this, but there was a time when you could actually see what's going on ahead of you in traffic."
Your Prius makes you less aggressive because you don't have the power to be aggressive. I also have a 90hp TDI which gets 45-50mpg highway and I'm less aggressive driving that because there's absolutely no power there.
I have a full size SUV with one of those displays and after a couple of months I just started ignoring the display.
As far as aggressive driving goes, I drive less aggressive in the SUV compared to my Saturn wagon. The small car handles much better than the 5000+lb truck.
Ok so what would be a parallel to Western people? Almost everyone likes to see clean highway exchanges, hence laws against graffiti. Would you say "why do we need anti-graffiti laws since almost everyone prefers clean concrete structures?" Well obviously, because a minority can ruin it for everybody, and this is even though graffiti don't even harm the functionality of the structure.
This is not a good parallel at all.
While it is true that the graffiti doesn't harm it's functionality, it is still owned by the government which has laws forbidding graffiti on public structures. If someone builds their own bridge they can spray paint it all they want.
The rationale was this: 5 republican-leaning judges is one more vote than 4 democratic-leaning judges. If Gore had been ahead by a few hundred votes in an otherwise identical situation, all of the individual legal arguments would have been inverted and the court would have ruled that the recount proceed.
Possibly but lots of other things could have happened after that finally culminating in Florida not sending any electors to Washington (because time was running out) and the election of being thrown to the US House where Bush would have won easily.
Also, if you go from having one student armed to having all students armed, then the rarity of such events drops as a result.
Here's a better idea: why not go from one student armed to no students armed. It's absurd to solve a gun problem by throwing more guns at it.
I think that was the plan at VT. In fact the President lobbied the VA legislature into keeping in place a law that effectivly kept anyone from legally carrying a gun on campus.
Hammond, who fired on Talovic, is being credited with drawing the gunman's attention until other officers could reach the scene. Talovic was killed, although it was unclear which officer fired the fatal shot, police said.
Would have been a big story if not for this off duty cop becuase:
Talovic had a backpack full of ammunition, a shotgun and a.38-caliber pistol, police said.
Three people died but thankfully officer Hammond was there.
"Actually, I fear crazy people who can just walk into K-Mart and arm themselves."
I don't think many K-Marts even carry handguns which is what this person used. I won't reiterate what else it takes to buy a gun in the USA since that has been covered here already.
I wouldn't presume to know what goes through the minds of the sort of people who go on such shooting sprees, but I'm not certain there is particularly good reason to presume there is significant deterence. Almost all such shooters kill themselves, so I don't think death is particularly troubling to them.
They kill themselves when armed police are closing in.
Slashdot Mirror
you removed my last piece of motivation for getting out of bed today /puzzled look too
I seem to remember reading somewhere that they also weld the manhole covers shut along routes that the President of the US is visiting.
"It's the only kind of adult entertainment fully endorsed by my church and my local clown guild."
I am still trying to figure out how to word my Google search for this one.
Federal elections are easy, House Member, Maybe Senator, Maybe President. The State elections are what lards up a ballot at least in North Carolina. You have Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Agriculture Commissioner, Attorney General, Secretary of State, Secretary of Education, State Treasurer and State Auditor just for the executive branch. Legislature is easy since it's one Senator and One House member. Then you have Judicial elections which include many Supreme court justices then Appeals court justices then Superior court judges then finally District court judges.
Now I don't know about other states but in NC the local elections are held on odd years so it's just things like Mayor, City Council, County Commission, School board, Soil Conservation Board, District Attorney, Sheriff. Of course since none of those are as high profile as the state and federal stuff they usually don't have very high turnout unless there is a major issue festering like happened in the Duke Lacrosse rape case in Durham, NC.
I would agree to some extent. I would like to see NC get rid of electing many of our executive branch members with the exception of maybe Attorney General and State Auditor (to keep an eye on the Governor) and switch them to appointments by the Governor. The same could be done with Most of the State Judicial branch as well.
Not really. In my part of NC we use paper and it works fine. If your a party person you can simply check the box for straight party ticket and skip to the "non-partition" section of the ballot which is were Judicial elections and Ballot initiatives are.
Basically, Federal elections are not complicated and many people just fill out those and maybe Governor and turn in their ballot.
According to CNN:
""Sicko" also ignores a handful of good things about the American system. Believe it or not, the United States does rank highest in the patient satisfaction category."
http://www.cnn.com/2007/HEALTH/06/28/sicko.fact.c
So everyone tells us that our system is so bad but we like it.
"When the roman empire collapsed it took Europe 1000+yrs to relearn plumbing"
They are still trying to relearn Dentistry.
"I couldn't be bothered to read TFA... what's this about?"
A book review of "The Bonfire of the Vanities" by Thomas Wolfe. I think the reviewer hated it.
Some new cars have those keys that just have to be near the car to allow you to push a button to start. I knew a guy that hung his keys on a nail in the garage that happened to be close enough to allow him to start the car. You can guess what happened one day when he left to go home and found that he had forgotten his keys.
I wonder if they should include some local variables? In the Northeast you have the change in wind resistance from having the window down a lot with your arm sticking out to make obscene gestures while in the South you have your hunting dog in the back seat with it's head sticking out the window.
I am not sure what they do out west.
"It's too damn big. You youngsters probably don't remember this, but there was a time when you could actually see what's going on ahead of you in traffic."
That's because everyone drove big cars.
"The algorithms used were inspired by spoken syntax:"
If this is the case they should have added in some ums and uhs and ya knows.
for example:
Ya know like,
the uhhh algorithms
used were um
inspired by like spoken syntax.
"I, for one, think we should be welcoming the Thetans to our culture and planet.
..especially mine.."
Hail Thetans!
It's supposed to be:
I, for one, welcome our new Thetan overlords.
"After that you are supposed to telepathically communicate with these body thetans to make them go away. "
What happens to the thetans? Where do they go?
I have a full size SUV with one of those displays and after a couple of months I just started ignoring the display.
As far as aggressive driving goes, I drive less aggressive in the SUV compared to my Saturn wagon. The small car handles much better than the 5000+lb truck.
In the USA, burning the US flag as a form of protest is perfectly legal.
This is not a good parallel at all.
While it is true that the graffiti doesn't harm it's functionality, it is still owned by the government which has laws forbidding graffiti on public structures. If someone builds their own bridge they can spray paint it all they want.
Original Maine article:
http://ellsworthmaine.com/site/index.php?option=c
Possibly but lots of other things could have happened after that finally culminating in Florida not sending any electors to Washington (because time was running out) and the election of being thrown to the US House where Bush would have won easily.
"Do not forget India, although they seem to be falling behind."
They are having problems figureing out how to get Slurpees to work in Zero-G.
I think that was the plan at VT. In fact the President lobbied the VA legislature into keeping in place a law that effectivly kept anyone from legally carrying a gun on campus.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17124042/
Would have been a big story if not for this off duty cop becuase:
Three people died but thankfully officer Hammond was there.
"Of course not. Nor are all armed cops. "
Heck, didn't BTK turn out to be someone who had been a cop or was a cop of some sort (Animal Control maybe?)
"Actually, I fear crazy people who can just walk into K-Mart and arm themselves."
I don't think many K-Marts even carry handguns which is what this person used. I won't reiterate what else it takes to buy a gun in the USA since that has been covered here already.
He killed himself because he knew the gun totin cops were coming.
They kill themselves when armed police are closing in.