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I'm curious - do Americans actually believe the promises their political candidates make? In the cynical UK I think it's a case of 'you can see they're lying - their lips move'.
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Everything is motivated by what will get them elected NEXT time, not what they promised THIS time... that's what I see, anyway...
I don't expect much to get done on the federal level for the next 2 years... now the Democratic House will fight the Republican Senate, and roadblock anything Trump tries to do that can't be done solely through the Senate confirmation process (like appointing judges)... since nobody agrees on anything anymore...
(Not trying to start an American political debate here... tried to keep it neutral, and basically parrot what all the news I've read agrees is going to happen, in my last paragraph)...
Right now it has nothing to do with promises & everything to do with threats & fearmongering
That was a joke, but I really don't vote.
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I just saw, it's already started... on Twitter...
idiffer wrote: "That was a joke, but I really don't vote."You should. People that don't vote are more at fault for our situation than those that did.
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I only just started voting last time, at 29... hadn't before...
Timelord Iain wrote: "idiffer wrote: "That was a joke, but I really don't vote."I only just started voting last time, at 29... hadn't before..."
I registered to vote in 1984 & have not missed a single election.
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I only just started voting last time, at 29... hadn't before..."
I registered to vote in 1984 & have not missed a ..."
Now that I'm into it, it's kind of addicting... I follow a lot of the stats on www.fivethirtyeight.com the website that came to fame for predicting all but one election result in 2014... now they're used as a live odds tracker on TV channels on election night...
Just makes me glad I don't care about sports in the same way, because they're more year-round...
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I tend to see the other response... if you DON'T vote, you have no right to complain about the result... you could have potentially changed it...
Speaking of not voting, serious question: Does voting even matter in Russia?... Popular worldwide opinion is that it's rigged, anyway... or are you allowed to talk about this?
*X-Files theme music*
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That's basically American politics these days... ultra-partisan... I saw some stories around the Kavanagh confirmations of lifelong friends/neighbors so divided they aren't friends anymore...
Timelord Iain wrote: "idiffer wrote: "image: "I tend to see the other response... if you DON'T vote, you have no right to complain about the result... you could have potentially changed it...
Speaking of not voting, ..."
Gonna reply to your first thing.. first
image:
Timelord Iain wrote: "idiffer wrote: "image: "I tend to see the other response... if you DON'T vote, you have no right to complain about the result... you could have potentially changed it...
Speaking of not voting, ..."
Your question.
I really don't follow russian politics, USA is way more funny. So I don't know. And read my previous pic - everything everywhere is rigged. I learned this from a dicumentary about the world being run by 100 superqwealthy corporations. In secret. X-files music
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I tend to see the other response... if you DON'T vote, you have no right to complain about the result... you could have potentially changed it...
Sp..."
If anyone runs everything it's the Saudi royal family... worth over a trillion dollars combined... spread across 1700 relatives...
If there's a documentary about it, I'll believe it. (atempt at lol)
Timelord Iain wrote: "Diana Stormblessed wrote: "I voted at 6:30am, before work. Good thing I didn't wait until after work as on my way home someone rear ended my brand new car on the highway and then just took off. I w..."I thought I did. He took off so fast that I tried to get his plate but I must have missed a digit cuz when the police ran it they said it's not a real plate number. I told him I'm most confident in the first 4 digits and maybe they can run that against the car description. We'll see if they get anything. They said if they get any hits it'll be in the final police report. I'm so pissed cuz normally I drive a beat up 13 year old car. But my husband is out of town so I took his new car. Of course the once time I drive the new car someone decides to hit me.
Shaitarn wrote: "I'm curious - do Americans actually believe the promises their political candidates make? In the cynical UK I think it's a case of 'you can see they're lying - their lips move'."No. All politians lie to some degree. Some actually mean to get things done though and are just forced to accept reality that they can't once they're in office. You basically vote for who you feel is most sincere.
Kirsten wrote: "idiffer wrote: "That was a joke, but I really don't vote."You should. People that don't vote are more at fault for our situation than those that did."
This ^
Don't know. George Carlin is famous, so I trust him more. And he has a beard like me. Do you?
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You look pretty clean-shaven to me, in your profile pic ;)
That is a younger version of me. Now I'm a mess
I’ve seen a lot of people complain about voting on reddit and it is really annoying but fair do’s for them It’s kind of weird in the UK because I’m pretty sure a lot of people are more interested in us politics rather than the uk so it kinda shows how much of a laughing stock america is 😂😂😂
For me I’m starting to take voting seriously I didn’t vote for the referendum and I wish I did but I did vote for the election and while I personally don’t believe I owe any party my loyalty (I don’t get personally) I lean left on a lot of issues and after many years of muddling in right wing beliefs to center belief (long story) I started to believe that you can’t not pick a side in some issues because things aren’t going to get done as well as putting behind the edgy teen shit I had so yeah
It’s weird because I’ve met a surprising number of left wing socialists since I started uni probably due to the media being largely liberal so I guess that opened my eyes
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It’s kind of weird in the UK because I’m pretty sure a lot of people are more interested..."
Complaining how?... US voting is a bit weird, since it's controlled on a state level, so it's not very uniform nationwide...
Some states require multiple forms of ID, some penalize typos, some allow same-day registration, some allow mail-in voting, some allow voting up to 6-8 weeks early, some don't allow felons to vote even if they've served their time for a petty crime, some do... etc etc etc...
I saw one person in a gaming chat room unhappy that there was a vote on the ballot in their state to make voting opt-out instead of opt-in, so everybody becomes a registered voter when they renew their driver's license... so many things for people to be unhappy about...
Complaining the wrong word most of the people I’ve seen are just annoyed they are being told to bot all the time some saying I shouldn’t feel bad to vote and others saying it’s a ploy for the democrats blah blah blah
Gosh, it's really interesting to hear how voting systems work around the world.Although Aussies are pretty laid back in general - voting is compulsory in Australia. If you don't vote, you get sent a fine.
One good thing about voting in Australia is there's almost always a free BBQ to feed the masses at each Voting Centre :-)
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Although Aussies are pretty laid back in general - voting is compulsory in Australia. If you don't vote, you get sen..."
Voting in the US is a big political mess... the country is split up into states, which are represented by the Senate (2 per state = 100)... this allows rural communities in the middle of the country to have an equal vote vs the overpopulated coastal states... then the House of Representatives break the country into 435 even districts (about 700,000 people per district = 300,000,000 citizens)... politics start creeping in when you start trying to make these districts... this is called Gerrmandering, because this guy Gerrymander came up with a way of making weird shaped districts in the 1800s, which can affect who wins elections:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerryma...
Districts get remapped every decade based on the Census, and mapping is generally controlled by whoever is in office at the time... it's a hot button topic these days...
Then there's the whole popular vote vs electoral college... some states give all electoral votes to a whoever gets the most votes in a presidential election... some split... just another example of variance...
Only about 50-60% of eligible voters actually vote in the US, and it tends to be older people... and the entire election process revolves around that fact, trying to get supporters to vote and non-supporters to not bother...
I'm leaving out a ton... this could go on forever and would require research on my part...
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I don't write reviews ('cause I'm terrible at it :p) but yeah... I'm constantly lowering my ratings of stuff I read long ago 'cause I have higher expectations now.
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Oh... I recommended this super-raunchy romance series over in the Naughty Book Club: Seduction and Snacks... on re-read I dropped it from 5-stars funny to 2-stars cringy, and made an entirely new shelf... the humor is over-saturated, and gets to be too much after awhile... nobody particularly liked it... I now use that book as a measuring stick for some of the other books we read (when it comes to humor)
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I tend to let my ratings stand... they're a snapshot of my expectations at the time... I can usually find minor things to quibble about in even books I love on reread... but some just don't hold up, like you said...
I've made comments that I plan to implement a 6-star shelf to differentiate books that are a step beyond all the other 5-star books I've read...
I adjust ratings after the fact with no qualms. Some books seem awesome at the time, but given a few months of breathing room you realize that you don't miss the characters, never intend to re-read, aren't that excited for a sequel, etc. Books like that I will sometimes drop by a star.
The opposite is also true: some books seem good-but-not-great at the time, but then a month later I still find myself not able to get over the book. Those books get a bump in the rating.
And then there's books that are only a partial story and leave lots of loose threads to resolve in later books. Depending on how well those plot threads are eventually resolved will sometimes make me go back and adjust the earlier book's rating.
Niki Hawkes wrote: "Random: y'all ever look back at a book you praised with embarrassment because you've since read so many more amazing books that you're no longer of the same opinion? For some reason my review is Sh..."All the time! Like, now I look back at some of my older reviews and it's so embarrassing. Like, how did I like that garbage?
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I feel the need to add an update line to the Review and be like "as of 2018, I've significantly raised my standards and this no longer makes the cut" haha.
Niki Hawkes wrote: "Lol glad I'm not alone. I feel the need to add an update line to the Review and be like "as of 2018, I've significantly raised my standards and this no longer makes the cut" haha."
Haha, please do so! 😂
Niki Hawkes wrote: "Random: y'all ever look back at a book you praised with embarrassment because you've since read so many more amazing books that you're no longer of the same opinion? For some reason my review is Sh..."Haha, on a similar theme - has anyone else had the experience of re-reading a book that you loved as a child, to your own kids, only to discover that it hasn't aged well?
Shae wrote: "Niki Hawkes wrote: "Random: y'all ever look back at a book you praised with embarrassment because you've since read so many more amazing books that you're no longer of the same opinion? For some re..."The Little Mermaid was my absolute favorite Disney movie growing up, but now my kids have the book and I read it to them and so much is wrong with it. She's 16 and she decides to leave her family and everything she knows for a guy she's seen once, never even talked to?? And she sacrifices everything for him. Just hoping he'll fall in love with her?? What if he didn't blindly fall in love with her like she did with him? What was her backup plan? She needs to be grounded for life. (You know you're old when you side with the parents in Disney movies).
Side note: My son turned 6 today. I'm so oooollllddddd 😭😭😭
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We actually have and read both the Disney and the real one. I like the real one better cuz then I can explain to my 3 year old how Ariel's stupid behavior got her into that mess. Don't be like Ariel. When we read the Disney one now my kids tell me "That's not what really happened." #toughlove
Timelord Iain wrote: "Finally settles on a more generic Santa Assassin..."Shae wrote: "Badass Santa! Very appropriate for the coming Christmas Season :-)"
Virginie wrote: "I have to admit, I love the illustration ;)"
Oh I agree Virginie darlin'...what's NOT to love?
Seasonal + hoodie + assassin = 1/cos C
Also, I seem to have learned what an inverse is...😁😂
EDIT And I am cunningly bypassing all the politalk
2ND EDIT To add obscurity kills
For the trig occluded: inv.cos X = sec X
For the grammatically confunded: Homophones ;)
Timelord Iain wrote: "Are you reading the Disney adaptations?... from what I understand, the original fairytales are much worse... not even happy endings, necessarily..."This is true. The originals are dark. Have you read the Nightingale and the Rose by Oscar Wilde, Diana?
The things they read to kids in those days.
@Diana - haha, bravo re #toughlove. Also, hope your son has a lovely 6th Birthday :-)I loved all the Famous Five books when I was a child, but when re-reading them with my own kids I almost gave myself a brain aneurysm from all the internalised eyerolling!
Author Mark Lawrence has written some hilarious, slightly snarky reviews of his own experience reading these books to his daughter recently. I had a good laugh reading his 'critical analysis' :-)
@Iain and @Zara - I have a beautiful illustrated version of The Happy Prince by Oscar Wilde, although not a particularly cheerful tale, my kids were quite drawn to it at certain times when they were kindergarten age. My guess is that stories such as this introduce concepts like 'the expression of sorrow' in a way that they could process. Or, maybe they just thought the pictures were cool :-)
Diana Stormblessed wrote: "We actually have and read both the Disney and the real one. I like the real one better cuz then I can explain to my 3 year old how Ariel's stupid behavior got her into that mess. Don't be like Arie..."Yeah, that's a bit of a Disney problem, right? I only recently rewatched Snow-White and her whole prupose in life seems to be to wait for her prince. I mean, girl, do you have no other goals and things that matter to you?
But I have to admit that I still love Disney movies and cry in basically every single one 😅
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Shae wrote: "Badass Santa! Very appropriate for the coming Christmas Season :-)"
Virginie wrote: "I have to admit, I lov..."
Even I missed that... I'm 10-13 years away from my last trig homework...
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Disney characters given Pokemon evolutions... the guy did over a dozen of them: https://www.boredpanda.com/disney-evo...
I liked the Goofather the most, I think...
Zaara wrote: "Timelord Iain wrote: "Are you reading the Disney adaptations?... from what I understand, the original fairytales are much worse... not even happy endings, necessarily..."This is true. The origina..."
No... I've never heard of it but now I must look it up and add it to my tbr
Fantasy Buddy Reads
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Michael Lesley (other topics)Michael Lesley (other topics)
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Michael Lesley (other topics)
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Get a description/plates?... Gotta police procedural this :D