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Post by Deleted on Nov 9, 2012 12:45:07 GMT
I can never keep up with the Supreme Court rulings on these matters. All I know is what I hear on NPR, amounts like a billion dollars......so obscene!!
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Post by Deleted on Nov 9, 2012 13:58:42 GMT
I find the amount in France obscene already even though all political ads are forbidden (TV, radio, posters, billboards, print media, etc.).
For the presidential race, the ceiling is 16.85 million euros per candidate for the first round and 22.50 million euros for the run-off.
Candidates who overspend can be obliged to pay huge fines and face the possibility of having their ballots invalidated. This happens in the legislative elections all the time, where of course the spending is much lower: 38,000€ per candidate + 0.15€ per inhabitant in the district. 47.5% of the amount can be refunded by the government if they get enough votes.
(Naturally, there are ways to fudge the accounts and ex-president Sarkozy is in hot water at the moment for a campaign investigation from 2007.)
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Post by Deleted on Nov 9, 2012 18:55:56 GMT
What's especially disconcerting to me on the part of all parties, is the amount of time spent by volunteers, who go unpaid, hitting the pavement, knocking on doors, doing the phones...the same people who President Obama thanked so graciously, do they see any money ? No..... It's greed at it's most perverse form....
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Post by Deleted on Nov 9, 2012 19:42:11 GMT
I agree that party volunteers are insufficiently compensated. It's probably hypocritically filed away in the "chastity is its own reward" department.
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Post by patricklondon on Nov 9, 2012 21:17:35 GMT
There is a clue in the word "volunteer"; but granted, what sounds roughly like $10,000 per voter is way off the scale. But I suppose someone would scream "free speech" if anyone tried to impose expenditure limits (FWIW, for our last general election, the limits were about £19 million for central party expenditure in the year before the election, and around £30000 for each constituency candidate - say, less than £0.50 per voter - in the four to five months running up to the election: plus there are limits on donations and on who may donate).
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Post by bixaorellana on Nov 12, 2012 17:35:36 GMT
The money bothers me less than the time used by incumbents in campaigning. Obviously I voted for the incumbent in this election & I understand that the only way in our current system that he could have been re-elected was by campaigning, but sheesh. Any time he was on the campaign trail was time not completely given over to his real job.
That said, I donated to the president's campaign because I so badly wanted him to win. If I lived in the US, I would have volunteered my lazy butt off to get him elected.
The fact remains that with enough money a candidate can reach more people with more sophisticated and relentless messages. We'd like to think that people make up their own minds, but the evidence is against that. Figure it -- right up to election day in the US, there were people claiming "undecided". What -- the candidates were so similar that they couldn't decide between them? More likely the "undecided" are so uninformed and wishy-washy & probably just plain stupid that they could in fact be swayed by advertising.
Bottom line is that elections can be in effect bought by enough money & advertising. Or perhaps I just believe that because there is no other explanation for people with enough IQ to tie their shoes voting for the right-wing psychos overrunning the US.
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Post by lola on Jun 6, 2015 21:57:43 GMT
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Post by htmb on Jun 6, 2015 22:20:36 GMT
I'm all for the change. We've taught metric in schools for years, but most students don't master and retain the information because it's not put to practical use in the U.S.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 6, 2015 22:35:33 GMT
Or, you could have a schizophrenic relationship with metric, like we do in Canada. Litres of gas, kilometres of road, milk sold in litres, but produce/meat is sold in a weird combination of metric/imperial. 2 pounds of apples, please, 100 grams of prosciutto. Drives my husband crazy.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 8, 2015 4:37:26 GMT
That got me to thinking about why the concept of the dozen persists around the world, including mystically (12 signs of the zodiac...).
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Post by mickthecactus on Jun 8, 2015 12:58:21 GMT
Wood can still be bought as 2 metres of 4" by 2"
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Post by lola on Jun 9, 2015 12:51:02 GMT
We buy our 2x4's by the foot. (Though they aren't actually 2" x 4". More like 1.5" x 3.5". Why's that?) We buy soft drinks in 2 liter bottles, but otherwise everything's based on some ancient king's thumb width or something. Sometimes liquid medicine is prescribed in ml, and sometimes in tsp, creating opportunities for med errors by distracted or semi-literate parents. Then there's the tsp vs tbsp thing.
When the Carter (?) administration tried to push metric, they had students converting 2.54 cm x whatever = how many inches? or if you weigh 119 pounds, how many kg? What's 84 degrees F in C? Instead of just saying here's a meter stick; start using it, because you'll like it.
Ha, funny about dozens. I never heard that was zodiac related.
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Post by Kimby on Jun 10, 2015 3:32:51 GMT
Metric system failed to catch on in the US because we didn't commit to it. Milk wasn't sold by the liter, but in a gallon container marked 3.87 liters. Why not a 4 liter jug?
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Post by mossie on Jun 16, 2015 11:20:26 GMT
Lola, your timber is "wrot". That is, it started off as 4x2 sawn, but was then planed or wrot to tidy it up. For wrot read wrought.
Two countries seperated by a single language.
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Post by Kimby on Jun 16, 2015 11:28:42 GMT
Buying trim for lake cottage windows, we discovered that "5/4" means 1 inch. Very confusing.
BTW, they call it a "nominal" 2x4 here when it's been planed from an actual rough cut 2x4.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 17, 2015 17:14:48 GMT
Donald Trump for president. Is that funny?
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Post by Kimby on Jun 18, 2015 0:07:56 GMT
Not if he were to get elected!
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Post by mossie on Jun 21, 2015 15:53:22 GMT
With his money he should walk it, might just be the wake up call USA needs
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Post by bixaorellana on Jun 21, 2015 16:22:37 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Jun 25, 2015 12:27:22 GMT
Bobby Jindal. Time to laugh yet?
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Post by Kimby on Jun 25, 2015 12:32:46 GMT
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Post by htmb on Jun 25, 2015 13:56:52 GMT
I cannot ever begin to think of a time when I found American elections funny. Even way back in the late sixties or seventies I remember my father, a yellow dog democrat, repeatedly saying, "If so and so gets elected, we're moving to Australia."
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Post by bixaorellana on Jun 25, 2015 15:14:29 GMT
Yes, depressing -- not funny.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 25, 2015 17:12:05 GMT
You should all just exercise your 2nd amendment rights to clean up the country.
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Post by bixaorellana on Jul 1, 2015 15:09:12 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Jul 1, 2015 20:46:49 GMT
Ha ha, that is great! I knew that Bobby could be funny. (The hashtag madness has also blown up in the face of several French politicians, as it should.)
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Post by lola on Jul 17, 2015 14:42:46 GMT
Kerouac, I have amendment rights I don't even know what to do with.
Bixa, that hashtag Bobby is very funny. I keep forgetting to pay much attention to the guy or any of them, really. I'm trying to pace myself for the long haul.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 17, 2015 16:32:41 GMT
Well, at least "You're fired!" tops the right wing polls for the moment. That is good news for any other reasonable political party.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 17, 2015 16:37:53 GMT
Kerouac, I have amendment rights I don't even know what to do with. Well, if you ever hear anybody spewing the usual crap about 2nd amendment rights, you should tell them that you hope that they are at least enforcing their 3rd amendment rights, which are much more important. Then just sit back and see if they know what you are talking about it. No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law. (Of course this will work with just about any other of the amendments.)
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Post by Deleted on Jul 17, 2015 18:03:01 GMT
Wow, that 3rd amendment is pretty open ended, isn't it?
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