Niners Fan in CT Posted September 20, 2020 Share Posted September 20, 2020 I just want to say that unfortunately a true 3rd party does not work in America. Unlike other systems of government around the world, there is no benefit to voting third party. There's no threshold to reach where some seats are allocated to a third party and then when forming policy it allows for coalitions to be made where the party may gain something from it. The way to truly have your voice heard is to win local elections.. if say AOC and some Democrats that are further left than these old moderates were able to put more progressives in the house or as mayors, district attorneys, etc.. you start to see a shift in local politics and it can lead to an overall shift of the party in Washington. Pretty much have to overtake the party.. cannot really breakaway and form a new one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robert S Posted September 20, 2020 Share Posted September 20, 2020 The only way to have third parties enter parliaments in somewhat significant numbers in those extreme winner-takes-it-all / first-past-the-post voting systems is if you have districts where national minorities build up the majority, like in the UK, where of the 83 non-Tory and non-Labour members (of 650 members in total), 48 are representing the Scottish National Party, 8 DUP (representing the Protestant part for Northern Ireland), 7 Sinn Féin (the political arm of the IRA, to make it simple), 3 Plaid Cymru (apparently a Welsh nationalist party) and 1 another Northern Ireland party. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zimbra Posted October 22, 2020 Share Posted October 22, 2020 James Randi, magician and skeptic famous for debunking psychics, mediums, and faith healers, died at age 92. His NYT obituary has truly great opening and closing paragraphs. Quote James Randi, a MacArthur award-winning magician who turned his formidable savvy to investigating claims of spoon bending, mind reading, fortunetelling, ghost whispering, water dowsing, faith healing, U.F.O. spotting and sundry varieties of bamboozlement, bunco, chicanery, flimflam, flummery, humbuggery, mountebankery, pettifoggery and out-and-out quacksalvery, as he quite often saw fit to call them, died on Tuesday at his home in Plantation, Fla. He was 92. Quote Though he remained a dyed-in-the wool rationalist to the last, Mr. Randi did have a contingency plan for the hereafter, as he told New Times in 2009. “I want to be cremated,” he said. “And I want my ashes blown in Uri Geller’s eyes.” 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Curt McGirt Posted October 22, 2020 Share Posted October 22, 2020 I was gonna mention that after reading about it from AP but didn't know this thread existed. Probably would have never known about him if not for my dad (who, incidentally, is also named Randy). RIP Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Execproducer Posted October 22, 2020 Share Posted October 22, 2020 Flim-Flam! is still one of my favorite books. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Contentious C Posted October 22, 2020 Share Posted October 22, 2020 And Randy McGirt is now one of my favorite names. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Curt McGirt Posted October 22, 2020 Share Posted October 22, 2020 *cue "That's Not My Name" song* haha Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BrianS81177 Posted October 25, 2020 Share Posted October 25, 2020 (edited) James Randi fucking ruled. Teller linked to a great article the onion put out after his death: https://entertainment.theonion.com/psychic-already-sick-of-spectral-james-randi-ragging-on-1845453086 Here's another great story from his obituary: Quote One of Mr. Randi’s most celebrated investigations was that of Mr. Popoff. A California preacher who professed to heal the sick, Mr. Popoff had a wide following on television and radio. He drew large crowds at revival meetings around the country, at which he called upon audience members by name and correctly identified their afflictions. In 1986, The Los Angeles Times reported, his average gross income was $550,000 a month. That year, Mr. Randi planted an accomplice with a radio scanner and a tape recorder at one of Mr. Popoff’s public meetings. The scanner picked up Mr. Popoff’s wife relaying information previously gleaned about audience members into a small receiver hidden in his ear. “Popoff says God tells him these things,” Mr. Randi told U.S. News & World Report in 2002. “Maybe he does. But I didn’t realize God used a frequency of 39.17 megahertz and had a voice exactly like Elizabeth Popoff’s.” Edited October 25, 2020 by BrianS81177 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paintedbynumbers Posted November 17, 2020 Share Posted November 17, 2020 My cousin's son passed away today at age 10. He was born with a defect and was on oxygen the majority of his life. The little guy knew every galaxy in the solar system and could recite things that would blow your mind. He suffered his 2nd stroke last week and I prayed for a miracle that just wasn't to be. Please keep your loved ones close tonight and through this savage of a year and beyond. The stars are going to shine a bit brighter now. 8 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zimbra Posted November 20, 2020 Share Posted November 20, 2020 Not quite the usual, but after 57 years of operation the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico is shutting down due to damage from Hurricane Maria and two earthquakes. While it was probably best known for being the setting of the end of Goldeneye, it was the largest radio telescope in the world until 2016 and was part of the SETI program and responsible for multiple discoveries. A terrible loss. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dolfan in NYC Posted November 24, 2020 Share Posted November 24, 2020 Former New York Mayor David Dinkins has died of natural causes. He was 93. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dolfan in NYC Posted December 8, 2020 Share Posted December 8, 2020 Chuck Yeager, the first man to break the sound barrier, has died. He was 97. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
odessasteps Posted December 30, 2020 Share Posted December 30, 2020 RIP Joe Clark, the principal portrayed by Morgan Freeman in Lean on Me. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dolfan in NYC Posted December 30, 2020 Share Posted December 30, 2020 Republican Congressman-elect Luke Letlow from Louisiana has died of COVID-19. He was 41. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dolfan in NYC Posted January 8, 2021 Share Posted January 8, 2021 Helen Viola Jackson died earlier this week at 101. She was the final Civil War widow. In 1936, as a 17 year old, she married a 93(!) year old Civil War veteran. Though eligible for a Federal pension, she never took it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
odessasteps Posted January 8, 2021 Share Posted January 8, 2021 Should I ask which side her husband fought for? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Contentious C Posted January 8, 2021 Share Posted January 8, 2021 I read that earlier. That story is a movie waiting to happen. An understandable set of choices and yet...you wonder how different her life would have been if her choices weren't shaped so much by social pressures (which is how it sounded). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
odessasteps Posted January 9, 2021 Share Posted January 9, 2021 1 hour ago, Contentious C said: I read that earlier. That story is a movie waiting to happen. An understandable set of choices and yet...you wonder how different her life would have been if her choices weren't shaped so much by social pressures (which is how it sounded). There was that Oldest Confederate Widow Tells All book and TV mini series. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sabremike Posted January 10, 2021 Share Posted January 10, 2021 Kathy Shaidle, the brilliant Canadian writer on politics, film and culture succumbed to cancer this morning at hospice in Mississauga. This was the final thing she ever wrote and is so incredibly powerful and poignant because she knew that she was headed to hospice and that the end was very near. https://www.steynonline.com/10830/ikiru Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dogwelder Posted February 11, 2021 Share Posted February 11, 2021 (edited) Larry Flynt dead at 78 https://www.tmz.com/2021/02/10/larry-flynt-dead-dies-hustler-founder/ Edited February 11, 2021 by dogwelder Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Technico Support Posted February 11, 2021 Share Posted February 11, 2021 Godspeed, Larry Flynt! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raziel Posted February 17, 2021 Share Posted February 17, 2021 Satan called one of his demons home today. 5 4 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Craig H Posted February 17, 2021 Share Posted February 17, 2021 Rest in piss you evil piece of shit. 9 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coletti Posted February 17, 2021 Share Posted February 17, 2021 With everything else going on in the world right now, and especially the United States, the wife and I talk about it a lot and something I come back to often is that there are always people who are willing to be the next George Wallace or Joe McCarthy, especially when there's money to be made. Good fucking riddance to another one of these types. 7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hammerva Posted February 17, 2021 Share Posted February 17, 2021 I just say the same thing that I saw to a lot of people of his gimmick: Judgement day is going to suck for most of us but it is REALLY going to suck for you 7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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