Representation by population vs representation by area. The same kind of arguments made in favour of switching the U.S. to a fully proportional system (getting rid of all forms of representation by area) could equally be made in favour of having one world government with proportional representation.

When we think about it that way (world elections would be dominated by Asia), it’s easy to see why we might not want such a system. Then, returning to the U.S. system alone it’s easier to see why many people want representation by area preserved. Although the cultural differences between states are much smaller than the differences between continents, they’re still very much present and the issues often dominate American politics.

It was a casual remark, not a hill to die on. That’s entirely your read!

Floor to ceiling stalls are much harder to clean. The gaps underneath allow for water to drain out when washing everything.

Absolutely! Taboos are one of the biggest aphrodisiacs! If it were out in the open and fully accepted then it would lose all the appeal!

Does anyone know what the timeline is for these cases? Seems to me like there won’t be enough time to finish these before the election.

As a Canadian and former campaign volunteer (and poll observer) this is really weird to me. Federal elections in Canada are always hand-counted. Results at each polling station are counted in front of volunteer observers from each party (as well as neutral observers) and then delivered to Elections Canada where they’re tallied (in front of lawyers from each party) and results are reported to the media.

It’s not a big deal and there’s no chaos.

Interviewers in the US are all about themselves. Making themselves look good and preening in front of the camera. Dogging a recalcitrant subject with repeated questions is a bad look for them. Plus it convinces potential interviewees to stay away!

MicroEmacs was written in 1985 and has nothing to do with GNU Emacs (which people just call Emacs these days). It’s entirely outside of the vi-vs-emacs war.

Oh that term is such wasted potential! I thought it was going to be about radical public breastfeeding as a form of protest!

Did Ben Carson attempt to do surgery on himself? Otherwise I can’t explain at all how dumb he was. Wow! Thanks for the example.

Jill Stein may be an idiot politician with laughably unrealistic positions and a totally unworkable take on foreign policy (even dining with Putin) but she’s also a physician who practiced internal medicine for decades.

She’s not an idiot in general. I think she’s just unbelievably naive about people and their motivations.

Should’ve eaten some sauerkraut and fried onions! The manliest of all vegetables! Has the bonus effect of repelling ladies up to 5 feet away!

Just dealing with this tonight!

This process began long before Reagan. I think it started with the automobile manufacturers, and General Motors in particular, in their war on public transit.

The death of the streetcar brought with it the death of streetcar suburbs and mixed-use zoning, which was the foundation upon which most third places rested (neighbourhood pubs, cafes, and barber shops).

Anyway, definitely watch that video if you have the time. Compare the vast landscapes full of roads and parking lots with the old-fashioned neighbourhood of Riverdale, with its narrow streets and cozy houses huddled together on small lots. It’s easy to see which one is more conducive to community, civic engagement, and good government. The car-dependent landscape looks like some dystopian nightmare by comparison.

That’s because the US is not only deeply polarized by party affiliation, it’s deeply segregated regionally by political stripe. Look at how few “swing states” there are and how all the rest are “solid red” or “solid blue.”

Increasingly, people know and have personal contact with fewer and fewer members of the other side. We’re witnessing the creation of the Morlocks and the Eloi, groups that neither interact with nor understand one another to the point of being separate species.

As much as we all would love to see it happen, such “laws” are known as bills of attainder. The US constitution explicitly forbids these.

My rabbit never bit me even once over his entire life. He gave lots of kisses though. And he loved coming over for pets and then running and jumping and spinning around in the air.

Every rabbit has a different personality. They aren’t the smartest pets around but they can be trained not to do the things you don’t want them to do, such as biting. They remember best when you get their attention with something that provokes a fear based response, such as a sharp “no!” That’s all it took for my bunny.

Jeez that is awful! People: if you want a vegan pet, get a rabbit! They are so sweet! There are tons of them in the shelter system, especially after Easter.

I swear they’re the funniest and most affectionate four legged friends around!

For any government to seriously tackle housing shortages means a massive building campaign. What happens then is that a huge glut of new houses flood the market, driving existing home prices down.

This then risks putting millions of homeowners’ mortgages underwater. No government wants to do this! It would be political suicide!

Maybe if she had access to a professional beforehand things would have turned out differently. We look at the justice system as having failed her but really all of society failed her long before that. We have no sense of community anymore.

Heck, I’ve been learning about all the car-centric urban planning we’ve done over the last century in North America. Look up “stroads” on YouTube and you can see lifeless our society has become because of all the stupidity at city hall.