Interesting article thread

[Iron_Maiden]

Man, haven't been able to post recently, but this aught to spur discussion.:

http://news.yahoo.com/report-china-plan ... 05886.html

[APCs r Evil]

No China on the ISS... Bah! If I were in charge of China's flight path I'd order a flyby of the ISS and have the Chinese astronauts moon the bastards. *Sagenod*

[Red Devil]

is there nothing china won't counterfeit?

[Iron_Maiden]

Battlezone?

[Zenophas]

http://www.ballot-access.org/2012/06/07 ... -november/

[MrTwosheds]

So the political outcome is already decided before any votes are cast? Freedom has to be fought for, Riot required.

[Ded10c]

How has America not advanced beyond polar politics yet?

[Zenophas]

So the political outcome is already decided before any votes are cast? Freedom has to be fought for, Riot required.

^this.

[MrTwosheds]

I don't really follow US politics, so I am not sure I understood that correctly, but it gave the impression that some folks in California were having a "one party" election. If that is so, then there are loads of one party states around the world who can learn from this, corrupting democracy to keep the ruling party(s) in power can be tricky task sometimes. If there is a better way, than say, murdering the electorate, bulldozing their homes or just banning all opposition, I am sure they would all love to know how it works.

[Iron_Maiden]

What about Biden?:

http://news.yahoo.com/al-qaeda-offshoot ... ories.html

[GSH]

California recently passed a plan where parties are ignored in the primary elections. (Basically, it's two rounds, the primary election (May/June), and then the full election in November.) In most states, and the way California used to run, each party ran a slate of candidates in the primaries, and then each party's winner from the primary would advance to the full election. That way, you'd be guaranteed a candidate from each party in the full election, as long as the party bothered to nominate someone.

California, voluntarily decided to scrap that system and run all candidates, all parties, against each other in open primaries. Only the top two vote-getters of all candidates & parties in the primary would advance to the full election, so there'd be at most two candidates in November. (Don't ask me to fully explain why they did this. California is the land of wacky ideas being implemented before the brain engages.)

As far as I understand it, in this primary, there were 2 republicans, 4 democrats, and a few minor candidates. The republicans split the republican vote in half (approximately). The democrats split the democrat vote in quarters (approximately). Who advances, given the rules in the paragraph above? The two republicans, because 50% of a pie is better than 25% of a similarly sized pie. I'm sure there's plenty of other districts in California where the reverse happened. It's not some conspiracy against democracy. It's not fraud. It's what's mathematically going to happen with the number of candidates. Get off your high horses, and complain about California's wacky process. Not the results.

-- GSH

[MrTwosheds]

People should not even have to point out that the election process has been made pointless by this nonsense. Voters are being denied their choice. Call in the international election monitors, you clearly need them.
In British elections, anyone who can muster enough cash for a deposit (about £500) can stand for election, there can be any number of candidates or parties, it is up to the electorate who they vote for, not politicians. Your system appears to be rigged to ensure that only the two main party's can actually ever win. Neither of our two main party's won our last election, neither won an overall majority and a coalition of one and the 3rd main party had to be formed to get a majority and form a government.
Seems to be working better than any previous administration I can think of.

[Zenophas]

People should not even have to point out that the election process has been made pointless by this nonsense. Voters are being denied their choice. Call in the international election monitors, you clearly need them.
In British elections, anyone who can muster enough cash for a deposit (about £500) can stand for election, there can be any number of candidates or parties, it is up to the electorate who they vote for, not politicians. Your system appears to be rigged to ensure that only the two main party's can actually ever win. Neither of our two main party's won our last election, neither won an overall majority and a coalition of one and the 3rd main party had to be formed to get a majority and form a government.
Seems to be working better than any previous administration I can think of.

You work at a VA dominated by Republicans in Madison andd you WILL overhear blatant corruption on those phones and down those hallways. Hell, those top guys will just take a chunk of a veteran's money and go and waste it on this other crap.

I'll be so happy when I'm out of this country.... *sigh*

[Red Devil]

when the revolt happens, people like that will be the first ones to go.

[Ded10c]

People should not even have to point out that the election process has been made pointless by this nonsense. Voters are being denied their choice. Call in the international election monitors, you clearly need them.
In British elections, anyone who can muster enough cash for a deposit (about £500) can stand for election, there can be any number of candidates or parties, it is up to the electorate who they vote for, not politicians. Your system appears to be rigged to ensure that only the two main party's can actually ever win. Neither of our two main party's won our last election, neither won an overall majority and a coalition of one and the 3rd main party had to be formed to get a majority and form a government.
Seems to be working better than any previous administration I can think of.

You work at a VA dominated by Republicans in Madison andd you WILL overhear blatant corruption on those phones and down those hallways. Hell, those top guys will just take a chunk of a veteran's money and go and waste it on this other crap.

I'll be so happy when I'm out of this country.... *sigh*

You should come over here, our politics is less polar but still familiar enough