United states of America get the president they deserve because you have a very good way of voting... no I think your system is pretty weird in a democratic pint of view.
If 24 states with 90% of people vote for one candidate, 10% of the rest of population can make the difference and get thier candidate. Am I missinformed?
If 24 states with 90% of people vote for one candidate, 10% of the rest of population can make the difference and get thier candidate. Am I missinformed?
peranders said:
It's not that simple:
http://www.cs.unc.edu/~livingst/Banzhaf/
According to the population figures this site quotes (which are way out of date), each California electoral vote represents 551,112 people, while each Montana electoral vote represents only 266,355, meaning theoretically my uncle's vote in Missoula has twice as much weight as my vote in San Diego. But, as these Monte Carlo simulations indicate, in fact my vote is more than three times more likely to influence the outcome of an election (though not this one) .
All in all, the system isn't really very different from the way the European Commission works. Even after the various re-weightings take effect, a German citizen's opinion will count for slightly less than a Dutch citizen's. Is it fair? Yeah, probably. Otherwise, the interests of smaller or more sparsely populated parts of the federation would never get represented (the city of San Diego twice the population of the entire state of North Dakota).
I think Europeans tend to forget how big and heterogenous the US is. The electoral college is part of a system of compromises that by any standard has been wildly successful. Despite all of the internal differences, the US has remained intact (with only one or two glitches) for neraly 230 years. How many European countries have seen that kind of stability? Maybe the time has come to reconsider the electoral college, but we need to be very careful about whatever we do.
Our system works just fine...barring the lies and deciet of the democrats and liberal biased media (who are being shown for what they are)
My buddy W will win in a landslide next week much like my hero Ronnie did in '84.
Economy? My pay has increased 50% per year for the last 5 years. If you're not working...I would wager it is for a good reason.
Terrorism? We haven't been hit since 9-11. We were hit 3 times I can think of under Sick Willy. And the only retalliation was bombing an asprin factory on the day Monica was to testify. Odd coincidence? I think not!
Presently, the top 50% earners pay 96% of the taxes...How can the second biggest liar (Kerry. 1st is obviously Clinton) say that the rich don't deserve the tax break Bush gave.
Truth will prevail and the eastern elite liberal will be sent back to the Senate with the murdering drunk "where's my pants" Kenedy
My buddy W will win in a landslide next week much like my hero Ronnie did in '84.
Economy? My pay has increased 50% per year for the last 5 years. If you're not working...I would wager it is for a good reason.
Terrorism? We haven't been hit since 9-11. We were hit 3 times I can think of under Sick Willy. And the only retalliation was bombing an asprin factory on the day Monica was to testify. Odd coincidence? I think not!
Presently, the top 50% earners pay 96% of the taxes...How can the second biggest liar (Kerry. 1st is obviously Clinton) say that the rich don't deserve the tax break Bush gave.
Truth will prevail and the eastern elite liberal will be sent back to the Senate with the murdering drunk "where's my pants" Kenedy
I don't get why John Kerry keeps slamming the military and claiming how such a horrible job they have done in Iraq during a time of war. Isn't he running for comand over the military? It almost seems ironic. His smear target is Bush, but the smear seems to be leaking on to our soldiers. I bet our brothers and sisters fighting and putting there lives at risk doing such a dangerous job really appreciate the ridicule.
Apparently this is nothing new to Kerry. These people are, and have died so that he has the right to stand up on his stump and condemn whoever he wants and lie as much as he sees fit. So does George Bush and every other american. Ain't America great! The problem is when people believe all the crap without requiring any proof or sources. Ignorance is the absolute enemy of this country. People who are ignorant, as in not informed, and are to lazy to become informed, are easy to control and herd like sheep. Is this the future of this country? God I hope not. This freedom we enjoy comes at a price. This cost(blood) has been paid before and will always have to be paid if we are to remain free to say what we feel and not have to worry about being prosecuted by government. God bless the USA.
Apparently this is nothing new to Kerry. These people are, and have died so that he has the right to stand up on his stump and condemn whoever he wants and lie as much as he sees fit. So does George Bush and every other american. Ain't America great! The problem is when people believe all the crap without requiring any proof or sources. Ignorance is the absolute enemy of this country. People who are ignorant, as in not informed, and are to lazy to become informed, are easy to control and herd like sheep. Is this the future of this country? God I hope not. This freedom we enjoy comes at a price. This cost(blood) has been paid before and will always have to be paid if we are to remain free to say what we feel and not have to worry about being prosecuted by government. God bless the USA.cunningham said:I don't get why John Kerry keeps slamming the military and claiming how such a horrible job they have done in Iraq during a time of war. Isn't he running for comand over the military? It almost seems ironic. His smear target is Bush, but the smear seems to be leaking on to our soldiers. I bet our brothers and sisters fighting and putting there lives at risk doing such a dangerous job really appreciate the ridicule.
In what little I seen of Kerry he has always been critical of the war, the running of the war and the inadequate number of soldiers not the military. Seems reasonable to me.
sKerry is fairly consistantly a coward with no respect for the truth.
He only joined the Navy because he didn't think he would see action there, but then the n Swift boats were activated. While in country, he bravely ran away anytime there was a hint of enemy fire. When he dumped a crewman off of the back of his boat fleeing and leaving another crew behind after hitting a mine, he reallized there was no enemy fire, returned to pick his crewman from the river, and gave himself a medal. What a *******.
Read the book by John O'Neil about his war record and you'll see what a coward POS he is.
He only joined the Navy because he didn't think he would see action there, but then the n Swift boats were activated. While in country, he bravely ran away anytime there was a hint of enemy fire. When he dumped a crewman off of the back of his boat fleeing and leaving another crew behind after hitting a mine, he reallized there was no enemy fire, returned to pick his crewman from the river, and gave himself a medal. What a *******.
Read the book by John O'Neil about his war record and you'll see what a coward POS he is.
Just curious........
Has anyone here gone through OCS??? Once you sign up for it, you are commited to a 6 year hitch, even if you wash out. I know all about that, almost the hard way. (Actually, the Army had something even more nefarious planned for me...........)
Howcum he was off farting around in France when his 6 years weren't up yet? That may explain his reluctance to have his complete transcript released.
Too bad he came back.............he speaks fluent French.
Jocko
Has anyone here gone through OCS??? Once you sign up for it, you are commited to a 6 year hitch, even if you wash out. I know all about that, almost the hard way. (Actually, the Army had something even more nefarious planned for me...........)
Howcum he was off farting around in France when his 6 years weren't up yet? That may explain his reluctance to have his complete transcript released.
Too bad he came back.............he speaks fluent French.
Jocko
The British "Red Coats" wore red so you couldn't see when they were wounded. The French Army wore brown trousers...need I say why.
Funny how he says wrong war etc after he voted to aurthorize it.
Coward POS will say anything and rely on the stupid uneducated democrat voter to believe his lies and be too lazy to reconcile them against the facts or even his previous statements.
Funny how he says wrong war etc after he voted to aurthorize it.
Coward POS will say anything and rely on the stupid uneducated democrat voter to believe his lies and be too lazy to reconcile them against the facts or even his previous statements.
Brian, it's an ungodly hour of the morning here, I've only had one cup of coffee, and I'm grumpy. Why am I grumpy? Because I had to go in and manually edit your post. The obscenity filter is here for a reason and I get pretty annoyed when people try to get around it and make more work for me.
Don't make me grumpy again.
I have seldomly seen anyone in public office who is such a coward as GWB...
Some excerpts :
"GEORGE Bush pulled out of a speech to the European Parliament when MEPs wouldn't guarantee a standing ovation.
Senior White House officials said the President would only go to Strasbourg to talk about Iraq if he had a stage-managed welcome.
A source close to negotiations said last night: "President Bush agreed to a speech but insisted he get a standing ovation like at the State of the Union address.
"His people also insisted there were no protests, or heckling.
"I believe it would be a crucial speech for Mr Bush to make in light of the opposition here to war. But unless he only gets adulation and praise, then it will never happen."
Mr Bush's every appearance in the US is stage-managed, with audiences full of supporters.
It was hoped he would speak after he welcomed Warsaw pact nations to Nato in Prague last November. But his refusal to speak to EU leaders face-to-face is seen as a key factor in the split between the US-UK coalition and Europe.
"
John O 'Neil is a fraud if ever there was one...well maybe GW Bush beats him.
All men in politics lie. None have lied as much as George W Bush. Apart maybe from Clinton on his affairs with women. But George's lies affect the whole world. Clinton's were pretty benign.
Oh, so anybody in the top 50% of wage earners is rich? LOL, that's rich!Brian Donaldson said:
Brian, do you know where the top 50% of wage earners starts? At just under $29,000, (2002 figures). Once you hit $29,000, you are in the top half of wage earners. That's a $14 an hour job!!
On the other hand, the top 1% of wage earners starts at $286,000.
As you can see, the guy in the top 1%, ($286,000) earns about ten times as much as the guy in the middle, ($29,000). So if you cut the tax percentage of each by 1%, the fellow at the top gets ten times the benefit as the fellow in the middle.
Largely as a result of these tax cuts benefitting the wealthy, we have gone from a budget SURPLUS under Clinton to a 422 billion dollar DEFICIT under Bush.
And you want to give this guy four more years?
As far as the Bush deficits go, the worst is yet to come if we continue down this road. That deficit is covered by the Federal government borrowing money. That money has to be repaid from future budgets. In fact, we have to pay that money back-with interest-before we pay for anything else. Under Bush's father, these interest payments totalled 35% of tax revenues-over one third of your tax dollar was going to pay the interest on previous deficits!
Clinton took office in 1993. As you can also see, he started immediately straightening everything out. He did this by cutting the deficit right away.
Now, Bush the Son is going right back to the same disastrous high deficit course his father pursued.
We can't keep going like this.
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Clinton took office in 1993. As you can also see, he started immediately straightening everything out. He did this by cutting the deficit right away.
Now, Bush the Son is going right back to the same disastrous high deficit course his father pursued.
We can't keep going like this.
Cutting marginal rates is NOT the same thing as cutting tax receipts. I don't know the numbers for the Bush tax rate cuts, but the Reagan tax rate cuts netted an increase in tax revenue. It's pretty easy to understand why from a consideration of the mean value theorem.
The deficit problem is more likely due to the enormous increase in spending. Much as the Reps would like to point to the Iraq and Afghan wars as the reason, when you take those expenditures out, spending still increased at a rate greater than it did under Clinton. With all the pork-laden bills crossing Bush's desk, his total number of vetoes was zero.
BTW, you'll note that the deficit numbers under Clinton shrunk mostly after '95. Not surprising, since that's the point at which Congress changed. With a Dem president and a Rep congress, government is too busy with intramural wrestling to do any actual damage to the economy. What we need is divided goverment and some juicy scandals. Gridlock is the American people's best friend.
The deficit problem is more likely due to the enormous increase in spending. Much as the Reps would like to point to the Iraq and Afghan wars as the reason, when you take those expenditures out, spending still increased at a rate greater than it did under Clinton. With all the pork-laden bills crossing Bush's desk, his total number of vetoes was zero.
BTW, you'll note that the deficit numbers under Clinton shrunk mostly after '95. Not surprising, since that's the point at which Congress changed. With a Dem president and a Rep congress, government is too busy with intramural wrestling to do any actual damage to the economy. What we need is divided goverment and some juicy scandals. Gridlock is the American people's best friend.
In defence of Bush...I think any government in the past 4 years would have a bigger deficit than the 4 years before, purely because of the lack of economic growth...which can hardly be influenced by government in the short to mid term.....even though they all to often take credit for it. For instance...I don't think President Hoover caused the great depression...but the voters punished him all the same.
The Great Depression was brougt on, in large measure, by Smoot-Hawley, then exacerbated and lengthened by Roosevelt's domestic policies. It's all a matter of control of spending and the size of government- if the economy contracts, you just have to spend less. It's not rocket science.
Remember, in this era of lower growth, Bush initiated one of the biggest spending programs in my lifetime, designed to transfer wealth from the least wealthy demographic (the young) to the most wealthy demographic (the elderly). The motivation is pretty simple- the elderly vote at much greater rate.
Remember, in this era of lower growth, Bush initiated one of the biggest spending programs in my lifetime, designed to transfer wealth from the least wealthy demographic (the young) to the most wealthy demographic (the elderly). The motivation is pretty simple- the elderly vote at much greater rate.
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