Fribbizz

And this I believe is where public and corporate interests diverge.

Corps like the current situation of boutique production. Nice margins, easy to manage processes and they can selfimportantly hobnob with politicians and military brass. Apparently a lower cost to produce patriot variant was cancelled. I can't see how corporations want something like that.

I believe easy and cheaply mass producible munitions need to be engineered differently. But why develop such munitions, if the old paradigm produces so much gravy and influence?

Next Monday.

If he's found dead or unable to conduct his duties before then, there's a special election. If that happens after Monday, the seat simply remains vacant until it's filled January with whomever wins the regular election.

But it very much depends on what you count as a language. German used to be a dialect continuum. People could understand their neighbors and a village or two over, but became mutually unintelligible pretty quickly. Transportation was slow, so populations just didn't mix as much and language was more local. Latin used to mostly be the language of a single city.

Most of this entire discussion is missing the point. On the one hand a variety of views and/or options for political representation are needed. This is where first past the post utterly fails. It devolves mostly to a two choice system, as is becoming painfully obvious in the US. Or it might become unstable/unpredictable as seen in the UK where alternative parties are emerging, but probably to the detriment of the old parties. In the end it might well devolve back to a two party system, just two other parties. This is where some form of proportional representation system comes in. More than two parties are viable. But at the cost of stability. Back in schooly politics teacher liked to present Italy as the poster child for why (simple) PR doesn't work well. Though in recent years the Italian government has proven quite stable. Also, in Italys Case I'd love to run the experiment how they did with nothing changed except for organized crime being eradicated. Alas, in humanities controlled experiments like that aren't possible. But I'd not be surprised if spectacular corruption wasn't the bigger problem.

So what could the solution be? First I'd like to see corruption stomped out completely. I know, that's almost like wishing for world peace, and come to think about it, it's mostly the same characters that are in the way. Second, the solution is likely to be neither a simple majority system nor a simple proportional system. Ranked choice? My teacher was taken by the German system (a mixture of both), but that has it's own problems. Or something entirely different, like completely independent publicly funded media. Print, audio and audiovisual. And that media could run regular polls to publicly show which topics are important to people.

I think our problems stem more from the influence on populations rather than the actual modality in which our representation is formed. In Israel you have the corruptive influence of ultra-orthodox and nationalist hardliners mixed with some run if the mill corruption, in Italy you have a gigantic organized crime problem, with some rich people problem, in Germany the Springer group is trying to set up a Fox news situation and in the US you have the Fox/Heritage Foundation/billionaires and general corruption through money problem.

It's in a lot of ways a modern equivalence to a Peeping Tom. People vehemently don't want to be recorded without their consent. Doubly so if it's done underhandedly.

Oh, the possibility that Trump has to hand the trophy to Spain becomes more and more possible. That would be so horrible for him... Go Spain!

They have for decades been at the forefront of cheating. Which party broke into their competitors offices to so on them? Who used the supreme court to stop the count in Florida, where after the fact it was found out they would have (narrowly) lost?

They know they cheat at every opportunity, so they need to accuse their opponents of the same.

More combined starches: Verheiratete (German, something like "married couple") are a kind of dumplings with potatoes together with diced fried bacon. One of my favourite local foods.

Only if there are ways out for the elite. Otherwise it's essentially a defense co-op. If you believe your country is using the military in ethically wrong ways, that's the actual problem, not the draft.

It's not really even about being a democracy. Kommunist East Germany with one of the most formidable surveillance systems to date could only look on when a sufficient percentage of the population rose peacefully.

I believe the plumbing for democratic change is still present in the US. What is preventing change is people doom scrolling on the couch.

Will there be a special song? "Ding, dong, the witch is dead" is Thatcher.

I don't think it's about being able to afford it. More that he is loath to let her have anything at all on principle.