The Water Cooler

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12:00 AM

One of the few things I like about my country's politics: There's a blanket ban on political advertising more than 6 weeks before an election, a complete ban on paid TV advertising and strict spending limits for campaigns at all levels.

enderland

We've gotten a mailer a day about how Clinton is going to ruin the world

Kaz

To be fair, we do get the campaign leaflets. It's one of the few things the parties are allowed to spend money on ^^

I'm tempted to stay up for the election results, but it's not going to start to be called until 4am my time.

So I might as well just get up early instead.

enderland

I'm taking a month long break from teh interwebs in november anyways

I'm sure good ole Facebook would be pretty ridiculous

Kaz

@enderland What, and avoid all the lovely drama ^^

enderland

I'm sure I'll hear plenty at work

or everywhere else

Kaz

12:17 AM

@enderland Very true.

1 hour later…

DoritoStyle

1:43 AM

@Kaz, at this point, those restrictions sound absolutely lovely.

Monica Cellio

2:18 AM

The big race is, as we all know, quite nasty and revolting. Sadly, we're getting even more of this here in Pennsylvania, as the senate race is also ugly, and as of a couple days ago, the most expensive congressional contest in the country this time around. (They've spent $150M!! Sheesh!)

I get physical mailings nearly every day from one side or the other, and then there are the TV ads (though I watch very little current TV). And it's all negative campaigning; not one of these mailings so far has extolled the virtues of the favored candidate. It's all "the other one is the spawn of satan" stuff.

November 9 cannot get here quickly enough.

4 hours later…

Masked Man

6:32 AM

This might make you guys feel somewhat "better". Here in India, our news channels constantly bombard us with "exclusive" coverage of the US Presidential elections, as if we are not tired enough of our politicians' shenanigans.

3 hours later…

Rory Alsop

9:51 AM

@MaskedMan For us in the UK Brexit and the US election appear to have completely monopolised the news. Nothing on these days about ISIS, Syria, refugees etc

2 hours later…

Richard U

12:14 PM

@MaskedMan I feel your pain.

Richard U

12:39 PM

Keep calm, and vote Saxon for prime minister

Kaz

1:13 PM

@RichardU Vote Cthulhu

Richard U

@Kaz Cthulu saves! (in case he's hungry later)

Richard U

1:41 PM

I haven't been so eager to see the end of an election cycle since the Bush/Gore debacle.

Christopher Estep

2:19 PM

Sweet Meteor O'Death

@smod2016, En route to planet Earth

Candidate for President, Precambrian Conservative, #smod2016, Ready to Make an Impact, Tough on Putin & Iran, I'll probably destroy all Earthly life.

650 tweets, 36.4k followers, following 1k users

Stack Exchange

3:09 PM

Q: I dont know the answer to the question so it is obviously off topic!

I see this quite often. Most recently with this question: you think this question is clear cut? I'm not seeing it. Other than "seek legal help" there's no clear cut answer. original This question is actually pretty clear cut compared to some but it certainly requires some expertise that ...

discussion

2 hours later…

Stack Exchange

5:15 PM

Q: Can we remove the legal advice from the off topic close reason?

Too often the Off-topic close reason asking for legal advice is misapplied to any question that has a question about the law. Instead I think we should reword the close reason to say: This question is beyond the scope that our experts can be expected to be able to answer. Questions seekin...

discussion close-reasons

2 hours later…

Richard U

6:54 PM

Am I the only one who thinks that the work environment went down hill ever since "Personnel" became "Human resources"? We are no longer a person but a resource

Christopher Estep

probably.

The reason I liked personnel better is because it doesn't try to use any fluffy BS term like "human resources" to imply that they value you more than they do.

To paraphrase George Carlin, the more syllables they use, the more full of shit they are. From "Shell shock" to "Battle fatigue" to "post traumatic stress syndrome"

2 hours later…

Richard U

9:03 PM

@ChristopherEstep you got that right. I didn't know about Carlin's quote, but about 20 years ago, I said about the same thing about titles. The longer the title, the less you do.

@Andre too bad you deleted your answer in the programmer question. I was just about to add a comment about the 63 genders

www.apath.org/rede/23.html

@MonicaCellio Just a heads up to the moderators. right now, and I kid you not. I've found references to as many as 63 identified genders. Before the whole "pronouns" things blows up in here, you may want to get ahead of it. I'm not posting this sarcastically or out of frustration but out of sincere concern for the site. I see a mess coming your way.

@enderland see above post

Stack Exchange

9:46 PM

Q: What is the proper reference for gender on workplace?

Being that we live in a post-binary-gender society, the oxford dictionary states that it is grammatically correct to use non-gender specific pronouns, such as "they", as stated in the oxford dictionary post https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/usage/he-or-she-versus-they. However, some users get as...

discussion flagging

Jeff Quick

Haha oh the irony to the last two messages

Christopher Estep

irony? How so?

Jeff Quick

Your message followed by that question

Christopher Estep

Oh, that's an auto-post whenever someone adds a meta question. And it's not surprising consider its author is the gender crusader to which I was referring.

DoritoStyle

10:11 PM

Seeing things like "So fucking sick of the gender crusade" is what makes me what to debate the points. Why is this conversation so hated; and I mean, why is it really so hated?

Someone has a perceived grievance, and you can prove to the stake-holders that's there's no evidence of wrongdoing, but when is it ever OK to

Kaz

@DoritoStyle For the same reasons that *most* questions about culture (and politics in general) often generate deeply opposing views. I don't know what they are, but this topic isn't a special case so far as being polarising is concerned.

DoritoStyle

^ [...] when is it ever OK to criticize someone for even bringing it up?

Kaz

@DoritoStyle Assuming that people's value systems (and, indeed, their interpretations of reality) might be wildly different to my own, I'd say there are infinitely many reasons as to why somebody might consider it justifiable.

Christopher Estep

I don't mind people bringing it up. I object to having it forced on me. I object to generically referring to someone as "he" being treated like I said "that whore".

That's why I said crusaders (which comment has now been deleted by the system because of my f-bomb)

Catija

There's really no way for you to assert that the f-bomb was the reason for the deletion. I didn't remove it but the sentiment could have been the reason. The "Be Nice" policy isn't about curse words... it's about creating a welcoming environment for all users. The sentiment could just as easily have been considered counter to that policy.

Christopher Estep

10:25 PM

perhaps. I'm not complaining that it was deleted. It was an appropriate delete regardless of the reason. I was pissed and it was obviously inflammatory.

And whether my sentiment was over the line or not, I personally don't see my language as productive either way in that case. I'd have deleted it myself actually after a bit.

DoritoStyle

11:03 PM

Oh, there's lots of meta posts reaffirming profanity as breaking the Be Nice policy

Lilienthal

11:30 PM

I swear, some of these SE sites are filled with idiots. They're contributing to a site with a very limited (and boring scope) so instead of actually respecting topicality they just answer any old thing that sounds interesting.

I'm going to have to start filtering even more sites out of HNQ at this rate.