The US Hamster Wheel

[BenThere]

Popcorn is actually one of the more nutritious popular snack foods. It has protein and fiber that we all need and often get too little of. At home we cook the microwave popcorn packets, coat the popcorn with pure powdered cheddar or parmesan from Hoosier Farms, then sit back and watch a Netflix movie. Makes for a nice afternoon/evening. You can't live on it but it is a decent supplement to your diet. Much better for you than some of the other alternatives such as chips, chocolate bars, or ice cream.

[Boac]

BM - video clip now retitled 'Oranges of the species'? Interesting he uses the word in view of his colour.

[Sasless]

Why do I even bother to scroll down through posts here?

Same cast of characters who hate any and all things American....who left another place just to come here and make this place just like the place they left....as do Californians when they leave for Oregon, Colorado, and Texas.

Just as I do not waste my time there.....I am thinking it is the same thing to do here....give it up as a bad effort.

I look back at Ronald Reagan....who the Left hated to the very bottom of their dark Souls....and him calling for Gorbachev to tear down the Berlin Wall....seeing the Soviet Union collapse....Communism fail....and Europe be rid of a threat.....and I understand why the Left hates him.

A bunch of shallow minded lounge chair political experts holding forth about a Man that accomplished all that and more....thinking others give a ***** what they have to say just demonstrates the futility of their efforts to tell us all about how we got it wrong.

Just proves there are people in this World that are just plain bitter, twisted, and stupid beyond redemption.

[BenThere]

Sasless,

We need you here, fighting the good fight. And this forum offers a pretty long leash for your expression. The opposition's more outrageous assertions just give us more to sink our teeth into, and hones our intellects.

[boing]

Sasless,
The opposition reverting from reasoned discussion to valueless personal attacks simply shows how defeated and desperate they are.

.

[Woody]

The opposition reverting from reasoned discussion to valueless personal attacks simply shows how defeated and desperate they are.

You’re talking about POTUS aren’t you

[boing]

If the cap fits wear it.

.

[Dushan]

Seems to me he got enough electoral votes to be POTUS. That's all that’s needed.

Nope!

He got enough college votes. Not popular votes, as would be needed in a democracy.

USA is a fascist country, based on the model of the Roman Empire.

Democracy is an Athenian thing. Very different to fascism.

Correct. He got the majority of Electoral College votes to become POTUS.
This is actually better than how a party that gets the largest number of MPs forms a government and its leader, who is just another MP, becomes the Prime Minister, in a Parliamentary Democracy, such as Canada.
That guy's name wasn't even on the ballot for anyone other than the people in his riding, which is just one of several hundred (338 in Canada).

[llondel]

I was not a fan of Tony Benn's politics, but I think he came up with five important questions for democracy.

“What power have you got?”
“Where did you get it from?”
“In whose interests do you use it?”
“To whom are you accountable?”
“How do we get rid of you?”

I think one of the main differences between established Western democracies is that for the most part, we accept the result without more than a bit of protest and complaint, on the basis that we know in a few years we'll have a fair chance at #5 on that list at the ballot box. Too many dictatorships transition to a "free and fair" election but all parties involved seem to take it as a once-in-a-lifetime chance in a winner-takes-all contest and there's rarely another election, or if there is, it's fixed.

I think Trump is an arse, but he got there according to the long-established rules, so we put up with him for the most part, in the expectation that #5 gets a fair chance in November, although he's clearly working on that by trying to discredit postal voting and may yet try to postpone the election if he's doing badly in the polls in the belief that he remains in his job past January. However, he fares pretty badly on several of the other Benn Questions, in that he considers he's accountable to no one (supported by Moscow Mitch which is the only reason he's still there), he's clearly using his power in his own interests, and until he's managed to corrupt the other branches of government sufficiently, he hasn't got nearly the powers he thinks he has (latest tweet about clamping down on Twitter being one example).

[Undried Plum]

Tony Benn's politics were democratic. Not Murricane.

He did talk shite sometimes, but most of the time what he actually said made an awfully lot of sense.

Tam Dalyell, whom I knew very well, was somewhat similar.

In the case of Dalyell, it was a matter of an awful lot of sense greatly outweighing an awful lot of ***** on his (and the other) side of politics.

[BenThere]

llondel

The beauty of our system is that the wash comes out in November, when the people have had their say. There is a scramble now to see how many votes the Democrats can steal by virtue of vote by mail, but the backbone of America is used to that and they have prevailed recently. I'm hoping that continues.

[brickhistory]

So after an absolutely soul-crushing day at work ( is there anything worse than an brand new hungry O-6 in a peacetime military), I am quite drunk.

And I realize Winston Churchill was half-American.

Says a lot.

Good night. (no drunken videos. I do still have my dignity)

[John Hill]

So after an absolutely soul-crushing day at work ( is there anything worse than an brand new hungry O-6 in a peacetime military), I am quite drunk.

And I realize Winston Churchill was half-American.

Says a lot.

Indeed it does and it says a lot about you too.

You should learn a bit about that bastard Churchill https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/p ... 18317.html

[Dushan]

So after an absolutely soul-crushing day at work ( is there anything worse than an brand new hungry O-6 in a peacetime military), I am quite drunk.
Good night. (no drunken videos. I do still have my dignity)

So the colonel gave you a hard time? Thank you for no music videos. We will leave those for Caco and/or TGG.

[Undried Plum]

That's a very good piece, John.

[John Hill]

Some bedside reading, more about the bastard. https://www.pacificwar.org.au/battaust/ ... ralia.html

[John Hill]

Some bedside reading, more about the bastard. https://www.pacificwar.org.au/battaust/ ... ralia.html

My ancestors were from England and Scotland but they spent a generation or two on our West Island before coming this way.

[Bob]

The far right remains in the comforting denial afforded by blind allegiance to a country (or more accurately a construct) now lead by a feckless narcissist who can't even string together a coherent sentence
I pity them not as their decline is entirely self-inflicted

[ExSp33db1rd]

And I realize Winston Churchill was half-American.

Who also said that Democracy was the worst form of government .... but better than all the alternatives.

[John Hill]

But even he did not claim the quote was original.