California Mountain Snake
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Posts posted by California Mountain Snake
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OK, now that this has been brought back from the brink...
I don't vote Democrat or Republican for any reason; in reality, I would rather vote for a third party unless I have a belief in a particular candidate.
The more a person talks about their own party and what their party is doing, the less inclined I am to vote for that person. I would rather have more Susan Collins types than people toeing the line.
I actually agree. I love Susan Collins (for those of you who don't know, Republican senator from Maine).
In Vermont I don't think you actually have to register with either party, you just ask for whichever ballot you want as you go in on primary day, and of course all other days its the same ballot anyways. But this may be because Vermont will often have third-party candidates gather large percentages of the vote. In the last gubernatorial election, the progressive party candidate actually got more of the vote than the democratic candidate (21.8%) and of course our current senator is an independent (Bernie Sanders).
I vote for who I like unless I really don't know who the candidates are (usually for some obscure local public office), in which case I probably would vote democratic (just because any one who's running as a Republican in my town would be either a dick or extremely old), or just simply not vote for that office at all.
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Charters are basically public schools with less rules and regulations. Less union control and more freedom in terms of management and such. At least as far as I understand it. I think there is quite a bit of variation in these.
Vouchers are pretty easy to understand though (in concept). Basically, instead of the government paying for a kid to go to public school, their parents receive a voucher with some monetary value that mean the government will pay a certain amount of tuition for a kid to go to any school of the parents' choice including private schools (although I suppose you could restrict the school choice somewhat). It's definitely something I strongly support.
And for the kids who have deadbeat parents who would sooner sell their vouchers to some suburban family going to a big fancy private school rather than give their child an education? I'm sorry, but free, mandatory education is in my opinion the number one way of giving children a chance to exceed their parents and be "born equal." The current system already has trouble with this, but I fear that under a charter system even more kids would fall through the cracks simply from parents who can't be fucked to care. Allowing more choice is great, but there should always be a default minimum (as Superbus said, a safety net).
Overall, I think we should focus more on the issues rather than who is pushing them. Personally, I hate the Democrat/Republican labels, and wish there was a way to do away with parties altogether, but with our type of government, I don't see that happening.
With any type of government. Parties are essential, but are universally in every country the most hated part of it. But people don't realize how much they depend on parties. Parties provide accountability. Without them any carpetbagger can run, collect his tribute, and get out while the getting is good and suffer no consequences. But in a party system, the party suffers, and can be punished electorally. This leads parties to be more likely to support candidates who won't hurt the party. Parties simplify options for voters, because when you don't have them you get people like Arnold Schwarzenegger voted into office (100 candidates running and people just voting for the one they've heard of). Parties provide stable platforms, or at least ones which change over time, and can accountable to voters from the local level to the federal level. It also allows shared achievements. You think pork barrel spending is bad now, if there were no parties each politician would need to amass numerous favors for his district just to get elected, making the game even more about money and less about individual politics, getting the exact opposite reaction you hoped for. Being party of a party allows various coattail effects to occur, where party members can take credit for party actions, and thus curry less of their own favor from their district.
But even more importantly, without parties, our government (or any government) would be simply too inefficient to get done what needs to get done. It allows simple allocation of talking time based on representation, it allows majority politics to form (even in parliamentary systems you have the majority coalition) and a clear line of authority is created. Who's to say what happens in a room full of individuals who have no accountability to anyone except for their district? Parties create national concern, and allow federal issues to be discussed which helping reduce individualistic politicking. Trust me, you don't want a system without parties.
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That little pink puffball is trying to fucker me up the ass!
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A shot of screaming orgasm. I was glad however, not to have ordered the elephant's wank my friend did.
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If someone doesn't have the time to read/skim what they vote on, then maybe things should be written in a shorter less verbose manner (without stupidly large amounts of amendments tacked on at the end) or they should stop being lazy.
The bills have to be long because if they aren't absolutely clear, then the executive branch will "interpret" the bill in whichever way it pleases, and if a bill doesn't nullify every previous law which affects it, then the judicial branch can overrule it. Long bills are part of the turf wars which protect the legislature from encroachment upon its power. Bills used to be much, much shorter, but this was in general in a time before we had such polarized politics and the president would act in good faith to interpret the bills passed up to him.
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Force our politicians to actually read the bills before they vote on them.
Unrealistic. Hundreds of thousands of pages worth of bills go through the legislature each year, and even with full time staff reading and briefing a politician, no one can ever process it all. This is why parties exist: rather than hundreds of people rereading the same thing as everyone else, politicians become experts on a few subjects (One major and two minors is the phrase often bandied about), and become the cue givers for their party on those bills, letting others in the party know where they stand. Making 500 people into mediocre analysts on each bill is infeasible and inefficient; it is much better to have a few dedicated experts on a subject in the legislature than a bunch of undereducated dilettantes.
The notion that this country is "broken", especially when compared to any other country in the world, is deluded. There are definitely places that need to be worked on, but in no sense do I think the US has ceased functioning. Obviously we still have the world's largest GDP, high wages, and all the other features of the most advanced countries on Earth.
If I had a magic wand and the ability to change a key structure in the US government, I would probably get rid of the Senate, since all it does is favor rural populations disproportionately and with it a political view that does NOT represent the majority of the population. It also violates the "One person, one vote" system by giving people from rural states way more representation than they deserve. In my state of Vermont, a Senator represents about three-hundred thousand people, whereas Barbara Boxer of California represents nearly 18 million. It's unfair and backwards, and was a system made in the days when the US felt it had to capitulate to the South and powerful land owners, and now that those days have passed it needs to go away.
Every democracy has the power to right itself, and so can the US , it just needs time, and it needs people who want to gut the system to sit down and shut the fuck up because they aren't helping.
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Aye, I assume we're talking about American politics?
Personally I don't follow them. I'm not American, so the way America does business matters not to me, as I have no say in the matter. Quite annoying when I see other brits or people not in America arguing over American politics. The American centralized point of view shall never die I suppose.
No, no one implied that this was about American politics, the topic asked for political views, not party affiliation.
As far as American "politics" go, it's quite funny to watch people defend right/left/liberal/conservative/republican/democrat shit and not really understand what any of it means other than mythical figure heads making profit off your petty bickering and actions.It's like a "good" career choice, only the sheep are even more gullible.
As much as it is prone to corruption, you must realize this polemic-level over simplification does nothing to explain the actual function of our government. I hope you're smarter than a blathering "Big Brother is Watching You"-ite and can realize that the system has nuances beyond what a soap-box demagogue will tell you.
As for myself, I tend to support the maximization of individual liberties in a pretty off-the-tap reading of Locke and various philosophers. Even "libertarians", who are supposed to represent this idea in American politics, tend to falter when it comes to actually representing their beliefs (Ron Paul is staunchly pro-life, and Bob Barr fucking sponsored DOMA). This combined with the fact that the American electoral system is completely incompatible with third parties (Duverger's law, single-member voting districts) and thus voting third-party is asinine, I tend to go Democrat rather than Republican, because despite some of the things Republicans (allegedly) agree with, such as non-interference in personal affairs, liberalized economics, etc., they do a damn good job representing the evangelicals and contradicting their own platform by trying to regulate people's personal lives as it concerns marriage, abortion, etc. If I were to be a Republican, it's definitely the New Hampshire "Live Free or Die" Republican (who more resembles a libertarian) rather than the wing-nut Southern evangelical Republican (who more resemble Mahmoud Ahmadinejad).
So because of this, in various threads of this forum I've argued for things like large scale drug legalization, against a seat belt law, and in general the right to inflict self harm because of one's fundamental ownership of their own body (although I recognize the exception made by parents to control their children up to a certain age). I don't get all bent out of shape about the idea of nationalization or taxation, however, as long as it is justified and doesn't rule out a free market response (IE, I don't agree with a public healthcare plan that restricts people to the government plan and forbids companies from offering an alternative, but I do support the idea of a public option offered by the government). I believe in the strength of a stable democracy to represent the people's views, and if something ever goes too awry in government electoral dynamics will force change because candidates will be elected on promises to fix the problems in government (despite people's sphincter-clench inducing squealing at these national healthcare town meetings, our government is never going to turn into a "Stalinist socialist state" against the majority's will).
But despite how fervent (or vulgar) I may get while arguing on the internet, which I do largely for fun, I do not have these tendencies in real life. I avoid political discussion at most junctures, mostly because I like having friends (IRL) and because I already know how I want to vote and consider other people's votes their own choice. I tend to allow my political philosophy to influence my moral philosophy, causing me to act out my beliefs in every day life (ENFP :\). I often do what I believe is right rather than what the rules or sometimes the law says is right, IE jump fences, smoke pot, etc. I don't go out of my way to break the law, byt I tend to go where I please and do what I please (but of course respecting someone's authority if I get caught). I generally follow two main rules in life:
If there isn't a sign saying no, you're allowed to do it [unless it's blatantly illegal].
and
If you don't ask permission, no one can say no.
Which basically lets you get away with a lot more than most people will let themselves do. This ties into my political philosophy because I'm always surprised at how willing so many people are to give up freedoms they have, or fail to recognize the freedoms they have in everyday life, and so politically I tend to support reduction of unnecessary rules and regulations to help people realize that they don't need to restrict themselves as much as they do.
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Renault is a French car manufacturer, although they may have a F1 team, it's not what they're known for.
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It's strange how, even when given an unbelievable site like YouTube, you suckers still manage to only dredge up the most pathetic videos.
I'm sorry, Y'all just suck.
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Can you only shit and suck?
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So one of my "workers" was talking back (I'm a manager of sorts) and she was making zero money. The moment she said something else, I ended up slapping her with the back of my hand. Did I do something wrong? I mean she did go back to work after that and made even more money than she usually does. Note this took place in Las Vegas.
No, you will not go to jail for abusing your hoe, because it is an inanimate object. I will personally kill you for your bad joke, however.
And yes, those of you who didn't get this are retards. I'M LOOKING AT YOU.
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Man...That's just insane. I mean...does any other language even come close to that? I keep hearing English is the most difficult, but...
Speaking English well is much more difficult than getting by. English has 3x more words than the other top three wordiest languages combined, and understanding when to use certain synonyms and their separate connotations is something even the majority of English speakers don't pick up on. Speaking passable, even more than passable English isn't the hardest thing, but there are probably very few to no languages which are harder to master. Especially when you consider various dialects (including Ebonics, which grammatically evolved out of many Sub-Saharan languages [no, it's not just black people being stupid]), slang, and diction.
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Sophomore year of college starts this Friday, but I have to be there by Wednesday for some recruiting commitments, and so my last day is really Tuesday since I have to spend all of Wednesday driving down to Boston and moving in.
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I just want to know if there are people who are Latin American or from other nationalities and post anything in your native language...
As far as I'm aware, there are many international posters, including several from Brazil and some from other parts of Latin America. But if you read the rules, I believe you will find that this is an English speaking board, and outside of personal messages you may send to each other or a Spanish or Portuguese or whatever topic you create in Far From the Forest, you need to restrict yourself to speaking English.
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To cut this short, the instant it takes of 30 seconds for a post to be made, you're gonna get cut off. Not really a great story, in the end.
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I think that, in modern film, the PMC is taking the place of the nazi as "completely unsympathetic mook whose violent, screaming death you are allowed to enjoy."
Have you seen Inglourious Basterds yet?
I loved District 9. It almost reminded me of TNG or DS9 in that it used scifi as a medium to talk about a completely non-scifi subject (something that shows on the new "SyFy" network seem to only be able to do with seizure inducing amounts of saccharine). Except it was better than any Star Trek ever was. I saw it twice and loved it both times.
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I'm a legal alien resident of the United States
I personally don't think it counts if you're the creator of your own problem. Should have went to America legally.
Don't be a cunt.
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It was a disaster. It took an hour for my glasses to be ready, and that whole time I had a headache that got worse and worse, which mainly started because it took me about ten minutes to put the damn things in; just constantly poking myself in the eye. I was extremely disoriented, and started getting snappy with just about everyone and anyone. I had to take them out after a half hour. When I went back, I explained this, and the clerk insisted I try again. Her... enthusiasm for contacts was extremely off-putting, so I told her that I had to wear the glasses to drive home (even though I didn't drive on this trip). I took the temps home, threw them out, and never tried them again, essentially wasting $100 on the exam.
Are you saying the ones you were so uncomfortable in were the placebo lenses, or ones actually in your prescription? I can tell you if they were placebos and you have astigmatism, then that was only going to drive you up a wall. You definitely need custom made contacts, often hard rather than soft, to deal with that. If they were meant to fit, then sorry, don't know what to tell you. Some people just can't stand having them in their eyes. But by any account, I can tell you the lady you were dealing with was... special.
I personally love mine, Fearless, but I also don't have astigmatism and have only moderately bad myopia (near-sightedness), so I don't need strong lenses. But I find them comfortable and easy to wear all day (soft-lenses), and prefer them to my old glasses in just about every way possible.
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... Miror B, you've given me a fantastic idea. I'm about to make you famous, kid.
Speaking of stealing someone else's idea <3
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We're not hosting an intergalactic kegger.
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Take ten minutes on a Stairmaster, you pudgy bastard.
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DO what?
Swamp gas from a weather balloon was trapped in a thermal pocket and reflected the light from Venus.
Ecology
in Serious Discussion
Posted
I agree with a tax based on carbon emission rather than the cap and trade initiative, although I do so realizing that this is about as hard to regulate as cap and trade. Cap and trade favors companies which are already rich, especially since most of them will be getting free vouchers without having to bid on them thanks to their congressman, and a bidding program will allow companies to do such things like buy up all the emissions permits for the year, even if they don't need them, to corner the market and drive up prices. A tax applied to all companies, while it won't set a limit the amount of CO2 produced, will provide economic incentive to all companies to change, without favoritism (unless of course congressmen start arguing for exemptions).