>> ^Hastur:

>> ^Asmo:
I don't decide, the abstainer decides... Whether it's apathy (my vote doesn't make a difference), indifference (don't care either way) or a genuine protest about a paucity of good candidates, the abstainer chooses (democratically) not to participate. They lose the right to complain (although most will still do so) about who they wind up with, but it's not like they were disqualified against their wishes...
Here's our disagreement in a nutshell:
You claim the most pure form of democracy represents the majority of voters. I claim the most pure form of democracy represents the majority of people. If your aim is a more pure democracy, which is more desirable?
And your last paragraph simply isn't supported. In a direct election, a candidate must appeal to exactly 50.1% of the electorate, and there is no compulsion to distribute that appeal either demographically or geographically. The college at least forces the candidates to broaden their reach. Look at some of the swing states fought over in the past election: Indiana, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida, Missouri, Nevada. There's a lot of diversity represented there, both geographically and demographically. IMO that's the way it should be in a union of states.


Incorrect, I agree with the assertion that the purest form of democracy represents the majority of the people. But how do you resolve an election where the majority refuses to vote? Either you poll again and again and again, or make the vote compulsory (there goes freedom), or just don't have a head of state.

But your point re: majority of the people undermines EC voting as much as it does direct elections. A state doesn't lose EC votes because people abstain, each state get's it's full quota no matter how many people stay at home.

And how does your statement not support my assertion in the second paragraph? Appealing to swing states with an uneven balance of EC votes is not diversifying, it's focusing their efforts (as demonstrated in the video). Candidates wouldn't waste time on safe seats typically. They certainly wouldn't waste time on safe seats (or alternately seats that are locked down by the opposition) that are severely underrepresented in the EC. The college forces candidates to narrow their focus, not broaden it, in the demographic that actually counts. EC votes to be gained. Demographic and geographic broadening is accidental. If those states were all jammed together in one corner of the country and had similar demographics, would you complain that candidates were narrowing their focus, or just admit they are chasing states that will yield the greatest electoral advantage to them?

The "way it should be" in a union of states is that all men (and women) are equal, not that some states get special attention because of a flawed system set up by people who didn't trust the every day person to make the 'right' choice.

edit: rephrased a sentence for clarity.

>> ^Asmo:

I don't decide, the abstainer decides... Whether it's apathy (my vote doesn't make a difference), indifference (don't care either way) or a genuine protest about a paucity of good candidates, the abstainer chooses (democratically) not to participate. They lose the right to complain (although most will still do so) about who they wind up with, but it's not like they were disqualified against their wishes...

Here's our disagreement in a nutshell:

You claim the most pure form of democracy represents the majority of voters. I claim the most pure form of democracy represents the majority of people. If your aim is a more pure democracy, which is more desirable?

And your last paragraph simply isn't supported. In a direct election, a candidate must appeal to exactly 50.1% of the electorate, and there is no compulsion to distribute that appeal either demographically or geographically. The college at least forces the candidates to broaden their reach. Look at some of the swing states fought over in the past election: Indiana, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida, Missouri, Nevada. There's a lot of diversity represented there, both geographically and demographically. IMO that's the way it should be in a union of states.

Yael Averbusch of North Carolina and the US Womens National team holds the record for fastest NCAA goal which was pretty must exactly like what happened here.

>> ^Yogi:

>> ^ridesallyridenc:
Am I the only one here that thinks these people are useless? See a problem, sit around and do nothing. Ask for more stuff. Play the victim and "raise awareness." Right.
How about going out and starting a company and affecting change in a tangible way? How about creating jobs for your friends and giving back to society?

Ever heard of Jim Crow laws? How about the Vietnam war? Were you alive in the 50's when at colleges it was pretty much 99% white and male students? Have you been to a college campus lately?
Yeah idiot protesting and social movements start somewhere and have a purpose. You're uneducated about this subject...go and educate yourself.


You may be right. It may have to start in the streets before it can enact useful change down the road. I guess we all have our own parts to play, and that combination of everyone fighting for their own cause in their own way is what makes the world go 'round. I tend to be impatient and want to jump to solution, while others want to mobilize support for a cause. Not better or worse, just different.

Yes, I've spent plenty of time on campus as a student, as an employee, and as a teacher. There are some good eggs in there, but it always seemed to me that the majority of activists were highly-political, self-important children who liked the attention of being associated with a cause more than the cause itself.

One of my favorite experiences of late was meeting a woman who had just graduated from college. She wanted to start a clothing company that made college apparel. She was also distressed by the trend of off-shoring textile manufacturing into countries who had no regulation and did not pay their employees a living wage.

Rather than picketing, she went to Sri Lanka on her own dime and met local business people. She convinced one to open a textile factory that paid their employees a living wage of three times the national average, and she promised a certain volume of business to that manufacturer. They did, and she ran her clothing company in a responsible way. Once her margins were in order, she brought manufacturing back to North Carolina (her home state, a state that has been plagued economically by the loss of textiles).

She has taken more than 20% market share from the big 2 college clothing providers and continues to grow. Moreover, she has proved that clothing isn't always bought based on price alone, and that a socially-conscious business can afford to charge a premium to people who believe in its cause.

In my opinion, if you want to set an example, do it with success. Do it by proving that what you believe in is possible. Present solutions, and let people use you as a model.

North Carolina will again be on the loosing side of history. *promote

Well, that was an easy one to disprove. Via Wikipedia:

Riots in the 1970s
1970 - Kent State shootings, May 1970, (Kent, Ohio, United States)
1970 - Hard Hat riot, Wall Street, May 8, 1970, (New York City, New York, United States)
1970 - Harakat Tahrir riots, June 17, 1970 El-Aaiun[citation needed]
1970 - Falls Curfew (Belfast, Northern Ireland on 3–5 July 1970)
1970 - Fatti di Reggio, July 1970, (Reggio Calabria, Italy)
1970 - Koza riot, December 20, (Ryukyu Islands, United States, later Okinawa Prefecture, Japan)
1971 - May Day Protests 1971, May 1971, (Washington, D.C., United States)
1971 - 1971 Springbok tour (Australia)
1971 - Camden Riots, August 1971, (Camden, New Jersey, United States)
1971 - Operation Demetrius (Northern Ireland on August 9–11, 1971)
1971 - Attica Prison uprising, (Attica, New York, United States)
1971 - Indo-Pakistani War of 1971
1972 - Bloody Sunday (Derry, Northern Ireland on 30 January 1972)
1972 - Operation Motorman (Northern Ireland on 31 July 1972)
1973 and 1974 - Athens Polytechnic uprising, Greek student riots and revolution at National Technical University of Athens, military junta overthrown, (Greece)
1973 - Oklahoma State Penitentiary Prison Riot, (McAlester, Oklahoma, United States)[citation needed]
1973 - Ageo incident, Tokyo Metropolitan Railways Riot,(Tokyo and Saitama, April 1973)[citation needed]
1974 - Cherry Blossom Festival at the Richmond Stadium, (Richmond, Virginia, United States)[citation needed]
1974 - Ulster Workers' Council strike (Northern Ireland, May 1974)
1974 - Ten Cent Beer Night, (Cleveland, Ohio, United States, June 4, 1974)
1975 - Chapeltown riot Leeds, West Yorkshire ,England
1975 - Nieuwmarkt riot, March - April 1975 (Amsterdam, Netherlands)
1975 - Livernois-Fenkell riot (Detroit, Michigan, United States)
1975 - European cup Final 1975, Leeds United riot in Paris
1976 - Vitoria Riots, March 3 (Vitoria, Basque Country, Spain)
1976 - Kobe Festival Riot by motorcycle gangs (Bōsōzoku), May 15 in Japan
1976 - Notting Hill Carnival Riot (London, England)
1976 - Soweto Riots (Soweto, South Africa)
1977 - 1977 Egyptian Bread Riots, January, 1977, (Egypt)
1977 - New York City Blackout riot, July 1977, (New York City, United States)
1977 - Sri Lankan riots of 1977, (Sri Lanka)
1978 - Rameeza Bee Riots, (Hyderabad, India)
1979 - Disco Demolition Night, (Chicago, Illinois, United States)
1979 - White Night gay riots, May 1979 (San Francisco, California)
1979 - Greensboro Riot/Shootings, Nov. 1979, (Greensboro, North Carolina, United States)
1979 - Southall Riots, (Southall, West London, England)

>> ^quantumushroom:

Of course, watching an atheist angered by a lack of morality in the populace is hilarious. People didn't regularly act this way 40 years ago. What changed?
Not everyone proclaiming to be a Christian follows Thou shalt not steal all the time, but more of them have values than the ones raised with....NOTHING.


So what's the reason that all these god-fearing, morally-informed-with-superior-'Christian'-values people engaged in riots? Ummm... maybe it is because the proximate causes of a riot are based on economic and societal conditions and not prevented by a 2000 year old book. Also worth noting in the list is included Bloody Sunday, which, if I remember correctly, was part of a conflict based on rival gangs within your beloved Christianity kicking the shit out of each other.

Anyone really think we all won't be joining North Carolina soon?... Sad that it doesn't seem like it's a question of if... but when.

Actually, the fire control rooms had more than 20 people all operating in a room the size of a small McDonald's dining area. I looked for pictures, but in the USS North Carolina, they have silhouettes of the operators huddles around the computers and it's mind-boggling how they got it all done. Ah, here it is: https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/_KuYLyRjiSR8/SfXkK4QJYEI/AAAAAAAAFbQ/egYSw3kQhfo/DSC_2338.JPG

>> ^spawnflagger:

Really fascinating videos, I watched all 7 parts. I wonder how much the whole computer weighed?
Seems like it would be a reliable device, as long as it's well greased, and the 3+ operators are well trained.
Of course nowadays a single chip smaller than a fingernail could achieve equal results with 0 operators, but an electronic computer in 1953 would have been much larger and much less reliable (transistor tubes tend to burn out) and required more energy than equivalent to feeding a few humans.

Rank↓ State↓ 2009↓ 2008↓ 2007↓ 2004-2006↓
1 Maryland $79,272 $78,454 $78,725 $77,985
2 New Jersey $68,342 $70,378 $67,035 $64,169
3 Connecticut $67,034 $68,595 $65,967 $59,972
4 Alaska $66,953 $68,460 $64,333 $57,639
5 Hawaii $64,098 $67,214 $63,746 $60,681
6 Massachusetts $64,081 $65,401 $62,365 $56,236
7 New Hampshire $60,567 $63,731 $62,369 $60,489
8 Virginia $59,330 $61,233 $59,562 $55,108
District of Columbia $59,290 $57,936 $54,317 $47,221 (2005)[3]PDF
9 California $58,931 $61,021 $59,948 $53,770
10 Delaware $56,860 $57,989 $54,610 $52,214
11 Washington $56,548 $58,078 $55,591 $53,439
12 Minnesota $55,616 $57,288 $55,082 $57,363
13 Colorado $55,430 $56,993 $55,212 $54,039
14 Utah $55,117 $56,633 $55,109 $55,179
15 New York $54,659 $56,033 $53,514 $48,201
16 Rhode Island $54,119 $55,701 $53,568 $52,003
17 Illinois $53,966 $56,235 $54,124 $49,280
18 Nevada $53,341 $56,361 $55,062 $50,819
19 Wyoming $52,664 $53,207 $51,731 $47,227
20 Vermont $51,618 $52,104 $49,907 $51,622
United States $50,221 $52,029 $50,740 $46,242 (2005) [4]PDF
21 Wisconsin $49,993 $52,094 $50,578 $48,874
22 Pennsylvania $49,520 $50,713 $48,576 $47,791
23 Arizona $48,745 $50,958 $49,889 $46,729
24 Oregon $48,457 $50,169 $48,730 $45,485
25 Texas $48,259 $50,043 $47,548 $43,425
26 Iowa $48,044 $48,980 $47,292 $47,489
27 North Dakota $47,827 $45,685 $43,753 $43,753
28 Kansas $47,817 $50,177 $47,451 $44,264
29 Georgia $47,590 $50,861 $49,136 $46,841
30 Nebraska $47,357 $49,693 $47,085 $48,126
31 Maine $45,734 $46,581 $45,888 $45,040
32 Indiana $45,424 $47,966 $47,448 $44,806
33 Ohio $45,395 $47,988 $46,597 $45,837
34 Michigan $45,255 $48,591 $47,950 $47,064
35 Missouri $45,229 $46,867 $45,114 $44,651
36 South Dakota $45,043 $46,032 $43,424 $44,624
37 Idaho $44,926 $47,576 $46,253 $46,395
38 Florida $44,736 $47,778 $47,804 $44,448
39 North Carolina $43,674 $46,549 $44,670 $42,061
40 New Mexico $43,028 $43,508 $41,452 $40,827
41 Louisiana $42,492 $43,733 $40,926 $37,943
42 South Carolina $42,442 $44,625 $43,329 $40,822
43 Montana $42,322 $43,654 $43,531 $38,629
44 Tennessee $41,725 $43,614 $42,367 $40,676
45 Oklahoma $41,664 $42,822 $41,567 $40,001
46 Alabama $40,489 $42,666 $40,554 $38,473
47 Kentucky $40,072 $41,538 $40,267 $38,466
48 Arkansas $37,823 $38,815 $38,134 $37,420
49 West Virginia $37,435 $37,989 $37,060 $37,227
50 Mississippi $36,646 $37,790 $36,338 $35,261
Puerto Rico $17,500 $17,000

Here's Schwarzenegger's proposed budget from 07-08:

Income:
44.8% Personal Income tax (progressive)
27.3% Sales tax (flat)
9.3% Other
8.5% Corporation tax (?)
4.3% Motor Vehicle fees (regressive)
2.8% Highway Users taxes (regressive)
0.9% Tobacco tax (regressive)
0.3% Liquor tax (regressive)
1.8% Insurance tax (regressive)

Spending:
31.5% Education
26.6% Health & Human Services
10.4% Higher Education
8.4% Business, Transportation, & Housing
7% Corrections and Rehabilitation (Mostly to imprison nonviolent drug-possession offenders)
5.9% General Government
4.2% Executive, Judicial, Legislative
3.9% Resources
1% Environmental Protection
1% State and Consumer Services
0.3% Labor & Workforce Development

http://2007-08.archives.ebudget.ca.gov/BudgetSummary/SUM/1249561.html

Only 5 states do not have collective bargaining for educators and have deemed it illegal. Those states and their ranking on ACT/SAT scores are as follows:
South Carolina -50th
North Carolina -49th
Georgia -48th
Texas -47th
............Virginia -44th
If you are wondering, Wisconsin, with its collective bargaining for teachers, is ranked 2nd in the country

Are you sick of highly paid teachers?
by Meredith Menden on Friday, February 18, 2011 at 3:32pm

Are you sick of highly paid teachers?

Teachers' hefty salaries are driving up taxes, and they only work 9 or10 months a year! It's time we put things in perspective and pay them for what they do - babysit!

We can get that for less than minimum wage.



That's right. Let's give them $3.00 an hour and only the hours they worked; not any of that silly planning time, or any time they spend before or after school. That would be $19.50 a day (7:45 to 3:00 PM with 45 min. off for lunch and plan-- that equals 6 1/2 hours).



Each parent should pay $19.50 a day for these teachers to baby-sit their children. Now how many students do they teach in a day...maybe 30? So that's $19.50 x 30 = $585.00 a day.

However, remember they only work 180 days a year!!! I am not going to pay them for any vacations.

LET'S SEE....

That's $585 X 180= $105,300

per year. (Hold on! My calculator needs new batteries).



What about those special

education teachers and the ones with Master's degrees? Well, we could pay them minimum wage ($7.75), and just to be fair, round it off to $8.00 an

hour. That would be $8 X 6 1/2 hours X 30 children X 180 days = $280,800 per year.

Wait a minute -- there's

something wrong here! There sure is!

The average teacher's salary

(nation wide) is $50,000. $50,000/180 days

= $277.77/per day/30

students=$9.25/6.5 hours = $1.42 per hour per student--a very inexpensive baby-sitter and they even EDUCATE your kids!) WHAT A DEAL!!!!



Make a teacher smile; repost this to show appreciation for all educators.



Update: I'm glad that many people have shown their support for teachers by reposting this note, but I am not the original author. I received this as an anonymous chain letter email, and I wanted to share it to support the public workers of Wisconsin.

>> ^NordlichReiter:
It wasn't under god until 1954. These idiots who think it was need a fucking lesson in history.


I think the guy who was full of bs meant that we were founded on Christain blah-blah beliefs or some such nonsense.

Well, our founders ran from persecution--not toward it. So no, we were not founded on religion or beliefs. We did have religious leaders but that is the extent of god in our nation's creation.

However, that doesn't change the fact that the way history is taught outweights what history really is... To the victor goes the past. Rome was a great example of that... Sorry, I am just rambling... You have a great point Nord... Our "new" history is being rewriten even though we should know its wrong.

Wow. Just Wow.

As a citizen of North Carolina, I'd like to go ahead and apologize for this flaming idiot.

>> ^Almanildo:
I remember reading about this, and I am quite amazed. How does it take two hundred years to get rid of something unconstitutional from a constitution?

Imagine you're a North Carolina legislator. You know there's a clause in the constitution of your state that contradicts the US constitution's protections of freedom of religion. You also know pretty much nothing bad has come from having that clause in there for as long as anyone can remember. Do you take action, making it possible for your enemies to paint you as anti-religious, or do you just sit on it? Does the reward outweigh the risk?

I think this kind of evaluation sheds a lot of light on why politics works the way it does. Doing stuff is risky. As a politician, the stuff you do by definition affects people's lives. People don't like their lives being messed with. So, if you're going to do stuff, there had better be a big payoff. If there's virtually no payoff but even a small amount of risk, you're better of not doing stuff. Thus, representational democracy.

Back some years I poked open a dead fish's mouth with a stick on a North Carolina Beach, inside was some sort of bug thing looking right back at me making a click sound. From that day forward, I could swear I could hear that click sound in my own mouth every once in while. EACK !!! I grew out of it eventually. Or the Host swallowed it.

Nope, no terrorist attacks in the USA 2000 - 2008. Though there was quite a bit of state sponsored terrorist attacks in Iraq from 2003 on.

April;30 0 0 United StatesElettsville, Indiana The Earth Liberation Front (ELF) claimed responsibility for causing over $500,000 in damages to construction equipment in Elettsville, Indiana. Fourteen pieces of logging and construction equipment were destroyed by the perpetrators, who filled gas tanks with sand, cut fuel and hydraulic lines and set a tractor-trailer filled with wood chips on fire. Graffiti found at the scene read, "Go develop in Hell," "ELF" and "This machine is evil." The equipment was being used for a state-run project to build a four-lane highway in the area. In their written statement, the group writes, "the government and developers are mad with greed and there will be no limit to what they destroy until we take away the profit from their schemes."[48]

# United States United States, September 11: Attacks kill 2,997 , and many more later from exposure to toxic dust in a series of hijacked airliner crashes into two U.S. landmarks: the World Trade Center in New York City, New York, and The Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia. A fourth plane, originally intended to hit the United States Capitol Building, crashes in Somerset County, Pennsylvania, after an apparent revolt against the hijackers by the plane's passengers.

# United States United States: Anthrax attacks on the offices the United States Congress and New York State Government offices, and on employees of television networks and tabloids.


# United States United States, May: Luke Helder injures 6 by placing pipebombs in mailboxes in the Midwest. Motivation to protest government control over daily lives and the illegality of marijuana and promotion of astral projection

# United States United States, July 4: An Egyptian gunman opens fire at an El Al ticket counter in Los Angeles International Airport, killing two Israelis before being killed himself.
# Israel

United States United States, October: John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo conduct the Beltway Sniper Attacks, killing ten people in various locations throughout the Baltimore-Washington Metropolitan Area from October 2 until they are arrested on October 24.


March 3 0 9 United States United States: Mohammed Reza Taheri-azar, an Iranian-born graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, drives an SUV onto a crowded part of campus, injuring nine.


July 28 1 5 United States USA:A woman was dead and five others were hospitalized this afternoon after a shooting at the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle building in downtown Seattle by a man who declared he was "angry with Israel."[10]

August 30 1 16 United States United States: An Afghani Muslim hit 19 pedestrians, killing one, with his SUV in the San Francisco Bay area.

October 26 2 United States A pair of improvised explosive devices are thrown at the Mexican Consulate in New York City. The fake grenades were filled with black powder and detonated by fuses, causing very minor damage. Police investigate the connection between this and a similar attack against the British Consulate in New York in 2005.[105]


July 27 2 7 United States Knoxville, Tennessee. Knoxville Unitarian Universalist church shooting, Jim David Adkisson kills 2 people and injures 7 in Knoxville, Tennessee.

17 1 4 United States Dalton, Georgia An explosion at a personal injury law firm in downtown Dalton, Ga., injured four people, including at least one lawyer, and resulted in the death of the apparent bomber in what a federal law enforcement spokesman described as a suicide attack.[212]

December 12 2 2 United States Woodburn, Oregon. Woodburn police Capt. Tom Tennant, and Oregon State Police bomb technician Bill Hakim were killed, and Woodburn Police Chief Scott Russell was critically injured after a bomb exploded at the West Coast branch of Wells Fargo in Woodburn. Customer Service Manager Laurie Ann Perkett was taken, and later released from the hospital after being hit by shrapnel. The explosion happened just before 5:30 p.m. while Hakim and Tennant were trying to open the bomb, which Hakim felt confident was not a bomb. Officers were on the scene investigating a bomb threat called in to the bank at 10:19 a.m., when the explosion occurred. Joshua Turnidge and his father, Bruce Turnidge were charged with the murders.[314]