This Is Fine

3:00 PM

house district maps and "states get some weird x number of votes based on winning a plurality in the state" are two different systems

Frank

Just use your demographic data to include just enough supporters to outweigh the opposition.

Elva

Americas system is basically a FPTP system to vote for an electoral college... which then is another FPTP system to choose president

RedRiderX

@Yuuki Local Women's and Men's councils could propose laws to the main council but only Women's councils could appoint only male representatives to the main council.

Tim Stone

Old racist man yells at ~~cloud~~ Kevin, to restore his committees

Yuuki

I mean, I suppose that's still better than the other option of "property-owning white males only" of the time.

user15026

3:03 PM

When I went to bed at 2 am, one of the ridings near me wasn't counted yet for some reason. I wonder what happened there.

Yuuki

@Ash They escaped the pasture.

RedRiderX

@Ash If it's the one I'm thinking of someone bungled the paperwork: therecord.com/news-story/…

This is the only riding left undecided, and it's very very close.

user15026

Yep that's the one

user15026

I am so curious to see if it ends up blue or not, it used to be mainly rural but in the last few years there has been a lot of growth in the kitchener end of that riding that could change things

user15026

The Conservative guy has been in charge there for 12 years though

BradC

3:43 PM

Lawmakers outraged after Trump compares impeachment inquiry to 'a lynching'

> So some day, if a Democrat becomes President and the Republicans win the House, even by a tiny margin, they can impeach the President, without due process or fairness or any legal rights. All Republicans must remember what they are witnessing here - a lynching. But we will WIN!

Frank

Essentially, anyone criticizing the Prez or attempting to hold him accountable is Bad, and Has To Be Stopped.

Elva

You forgot "and an Enemy of the State"

Also probably a bunch of other things if trump doesn't consider them white enough?

Tim Stone

4:01 PM

Cursed picture

Yuuki

4:27 PM

@TimStone The sheer quantity of dark energy in this picture distorts reality.

Tim Stone

> When Trump wanted to bring the Cabinet to his June kickoff rally, Mulvaney cautioned about Hatch Act violations. “I’m in charge of the Hatch Act,” Trump barked, saying his chief was “weak” for making the suggestion. Trump later backed off the idea

Big "I AM THE LAW" Energy

GnomeSlice

Wow, I really thought the NDP was going to put in a better showing this election.

My facebook feed must be a bit of an echo chamber for a certain kind of person

I even voted for them

user15026

@GnomeSlice I was surprised by that too

user15026

4:43 PM

Especially because my riding went NDP in the provincial, but went Liberal/Green in the federal, NDP only got like 6% of the votes. (The Green guy busted his butt to get people aware of his party, and it showed)

Yuuki

Strategic voting maybe?

user15026

Yeah, I assume a lot of places were basically going "not-Scheer" in their thinking

Tim Stone

> One of Texas' top statewide officials, the quarterback of his party's efforts to retain the state House against mounting opposition in a redistricting election, completed his self-immolation today

Tim Stone

5:09 PM

One of Trump's worst judge picks would like you to know that if we don't give police officers ultimate qualified immunity then we'll get more mass shootings or something idk

user15026

@TimStone I read this and I still don't get how they got there

Frank

Speaking of feeling like they don't have any agency, my sister in law voted for the first time yesterday, and instantly feels like their opinion is discarded when the riding went overwhelmingly against it.

user15026

We need voting reform like whoa

Frank

We do. But it won't happen until there's massive support for it.

You have to participate in the system to change it, though. I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing.

Tim Stone

@Ash The Extremely Confusing part here is that he had a toy gun!

And the court is just talking about him firing shots as if that's an established fact

If he had actually hurt people with a weapon I don't see how anyone would be out here suing them for wrongful death, so to associate that with mass shootings is just wild

Frank

5:16 PM

@TimStone So, basically, police are above the law, and you should be happy they're not hurting you....right now.

Tim Stone

Essentially. Luckily this is the dissent for the en banc appeal hearing, but still pretty concerning that they got this guy on the bench

> Rep. Lynch on Taylor: “This testimony is a sea change,” adding that it could “accelerate” impeachment timeline in the House

womp wooooomp

Frank

@TimStone I hope that this inquiry will finally start convincing some of the GOP to break ranks and do what's best for the country.

Tim Stone

lol

I have bad news for you about what they're all out there currently doing about his "lynching" comments then

Frank

Defending him, obviously. sigh

Tim Stone

We're in "white people were lynched too" territory already, somehow

Looks like they've agreed to a permanent ceasefire in Turkey by steamrolling the Kurds even more

Wipqozn

5:34 PM

@TimStone The quickest way to peace is to just kill all your enemies. It's just basic math, @TimStone.

Yuuki

@Frank On the one hand, yes definitely. Mixed-member proportional representation would ostensibly solve this by giving everyone a representative. On the other hand, if your district overwhelming votes against you, what does that mean if you get a representative going your way anyways?

Tim Stone

@Wipqozn Yeah but the Kurds were our allies, did you give them your XCOM strategy guide?

Yuuki

Like, a bit of an extreme hypothetical but if you vote 'yes' on an issue and it turns out that 90% of your district voted 'no', I suppose it would be true that your opinion was overridden.

Frank

@Yuuki In a binary situation, sure. There's no real solution other than black or white.

Wipqozn

@TimStone uuhhh, no comment

Frank

5:38 PM

But politics is generally all shades of grey, and proportional representation at least gives enough of a voice to supporters nationwide.

Wipqozn

@Frank Tbh of you wanted grey you should've voted Rhino

Frank

@Wipqozn No candidate in my riding.

I did the next best thing and voted for the closest shade of color.

Yuuki

I agree, I was just slightly put off-step by the "riding went overwhelmingly against it" part.

Wipqozn

@Frank Luckily I'm colour blind, so all the parties are grey for me.

Yuuki

@Wipqozn If you're color-blind, how do you know what grey is?

Wipqozn

5:46 PM

@Yuuki Because it's all I know

Yuuki

I SEE THE FLAW IN YOUR TRICKERY, @WIPQOZN

Wipqozn

Dang, foiled again!

Although I am actually colour blind, but just not like, black and white TV colour blind.

Basically I'm pretty sure you people are all lying about purple being a real colour

Frank

@Yuuki The entire province is essentially Conservative.

Makes it rough if you disagree with being hidebound.

Unionhawk

@Wipqozn insert a single purple square and a claim that it contains two colors here

Yuuki

And then when you bring up that, everyone around you just goes "why don't you move" like that's a viable solution.

Or even a sensible one.

Frank

5:49 PM

Especially if you still love your family, even if they're idiots when it comes to politics.

Unionhawk

stares at the history of the OH-8 I wonder why I'm politically more interested in mutual aid and other such direct action things

user15026

@Wipqozn it's a conspiracy

Tim Stone

Alberta somehow not being open to new ideas like they didn't go along with whoever was like "Let's kill all the rats" as if that wasn't an absurd suggestion, smh

Unionhawk

lol I didn't realize OH-8 was that geographically large

it's this county excluding the city of hamilton, then north excluding the city of dayton and kind of wrapping around

puzzlepiece87

@Wipqozn Google images search on Firefox for Android is the same way. I've taken to using Startpage.com results to be able to copy an image's location since Google is ~~sabotaging~~ curiously incompatible with other browsers.

I tried using Startpage as my primary search engine but I miss lots of the Google supplementary search stuff at the top and on the sidebar, so I went back.

Wipqozn

6:03 PM

@puzzlepiece87 I hate sharing images from google on mobile

It's painful

Wipqozn

6:37 PM

BBC News - Boris Johnson's Brexit bill clears first hurdle
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-50146182

Tim Stone

6:56 PM

lol come on, Trump said McConnell told him his phone call was fine, reporters ask McConnell "was he lying?", McConnell says go ask Trump

Like either you told him or you didn't!

FTC bans company from selling "stalkerware"

looool

The anonymous op-ed writer now has a book please shoot me @Unionhawk

Nzall

@Wipqozn My twitter says it's been rejected

user15026

7:14 PM

Apparently a bunch of people in Western Canada are talking about "what if we just leave Canada" now

BradC

U.S. envoy says he was told release of Ukraine aid was contingent on public declaration to investigate Bidens, 2016 election

Tim Stone

Quid pro quo pro

ToxicFrog

@Ash wut

puzzlepiece87

@Ash Love to be a net recipient of federal funds and still mad.

user15026

News article: edmonton.ctvnews.ca/…

user15026

7:23 PM

They're calling it "wexit"

Frank

@Ash There's lots on my Facebook about just...making a Western Republic of Canada.

Yes, let's just echo chamber everything, so we don't have to have disagreements or worry about others that might think differently than us.

user15026

@Frank I don't see how they think that will help

user15026

Do they realize how much they'd have to figure out on their own if they left?

Frank

@Ash Didn't stop Quebec from trying.

user15026

Oh, I know, I remember that, and I know they're still technically trying (that's the whole point of the Bloc after all)

Frank

7:31 PM

It's just...this current climate makes it the de jour thing to do; divide everything into an easy to classify, "for or against" policy.

user15026

It just always feels like a tantrum

Frank

Makes it super simple to just...write off disagreement as coming from idiots.

user15026

There's so much disunity, and it's frustrating

user15026

It's always "you are with us, or you're a monster". No room for like...consultation or conversation or compromise or anything

Frank

@Ash That's what it seems like almost every conversation has devolved to. It's frustrating to even try to get others to see that there might be something to the disagreement.

user15026

7:35 PM

nods I've been working really hard to not do that for my own self, because I know consultative processes can work, I've seen it in action. It's just hard to sit with at scale.

Wipqozn

Alberta's frustrations make sense, but what they don't understand is WHY they're struggling. They think the Cons would fix their dying economy, but it's dying because their entire economy is oil, a dying industry. The cons can't help that. Heck, the pipeline died because of how much harper mishandled the damn thing.

Frank

Didn't Alberta just vote in an NDP provincial government?

Wipqozn

@Frank I believe they've since voted back in the cons, whose leader has talked about jailing environmental groups.

Frank

@Wipqozn That's scary.

Unionhawk

the earth is not dying it is being killed etc etc

Wipqozn

7:38 PM

@Frank He's talked about respecting Putin. It's fucked.

Frank

No, it looks like the Rachel Notley is still the premier.

Wait...no.

Yeah, they're Conservative now.

Wipqozn

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Premier_of_Alberta

Frank

Granted, Manitoba's not much better; we re-elected Pallister, Mr. "I govern from Cuba"

user15026

Hey, y'all don't have Ford, so.... :P

Unionhawk

We get to watch the slow motion car crash that will be Matt Bevin getting reelected in Kentucky pretty soon here so that's going to be fun

BradC

7:43 PM

Someone got a (poor) copy of Ambassador William B. Taylor's opening statement:

Opening statement of Ambassador William B. Taylor

can see the shadow of the phone

Wipqozn

@Ash why do all of our premiers suck?

user15026

@Wipqozn That is a very good question, friend.

Frank

8:01 PM

@Wipqozn ...Because they're all old rich dudes representing other cranky old guys who don't care about anyone but themselves?

A very simplified statement; it's complicated, but that is more or less the essentials.

Wipqozn

Grade school children are better at voting than the rest of us cbc.ca/news/canada/…

Yuuki

8:23 PM

@Wipqozn Grade school children also suck at strategic voting, which is in fact why they're better at voting.

Wipqozn

Stupid kids

Yuuki

Stupid smart kids or smart stupid kids?

🤔

puzzlepiece87

Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader fail horn sounds

Wipqozn

Why not both but in Spanish dot gif

@puzzlepiece87 I'm dying. Thanks.

puzzlepiece87

9:03 PM

:)

Yuuki

> Vatican launches $110 'click to pray' wearable rosary

:|

angry Martin Luther noises

user15026

9:32 PM

@Yuuki headtilts what

Yuuki

link

user15026

It's activated by making the sign of the cross, which means it's using motion/gyro stuff, which means ten bucks it ends up frustrating people by not working because gesture based stuff is always not great

Yuuki

It sounds more innocuous than the title implies, but still weird that the Catholic Church is selling a wearable.

user15026

Like how my fitbit interprets turning a crank on my spiralizer as walking :P

Yuuki

> The eRosary is an app-driven device that can be worn as a bracelet. To activate it, all you have to do is make the sign of the cross, similar to how Catholics begin praying the Rosary.

Once activated, the wearer can choose between three different options to pray. There is the standard rosary, a contemplative rosary or a thematic rosary, which will be updated every year. The device shows the users progress throughout each prayer and keeps track of each rosary completed.

So I guess it just displays some text that you can read for your prayer?

Tim Stone

9:36 PM

And yet, lol

user15026

I can see how it would be helpful, heck I have an alarm on my phone specifically for my daily obligatory prayer and an app that helps me face the Qiblih when I need to

user15026

but it just feels weird, as a wearable I guess

user15026

@TimStone This was my other concern, yes

Tim Stone

Yay it's time for Nikon's Small World microscopy contest entries again

Yuuki

32 mins ago, by Yuuki

angry Martin Luther noises

user15026

9:38 PM

@TimStone I did not know this was a thing!