Has nobody noticed that this is how Chinese business works abroad? They get sweetheart deals to place factories and other infrastructure and then they bring in their own contractors.
> Energy cost of 'mining' bitcoin more than twice that of copper or gold: New research reveals that cryptocurrencies require far more electricity per-dollar than it takes to mine most real metals
> The modelling boundaries to determine energy requirements for metals generally considered fuel and energy inputs and excluded sources from infrastructure, such as the energy to produce road-ways or develop the equipment to mine.
> They went that way because they also didn't consider the cost to build a computer.
RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel on Bloomberg TV downplays significance of Democrat takeover of the House, says not a "blue wave" unless near the 63 seat wipeout Obama/Pelosi faced in 2010
@Chippies registering is necessary to determine if you're eligible to vote in that specific place. But sane countries have that and don't require any additional manual registering for elections
I can't just randomly vote anywhere. I have to vote in the assigned place, which is determined by my home address. And then I don't even need any ID, you automatically get a letter notifying you of the election and you just bring that along
@Chippies they can ask for ID, if there is any suspicion. Of course it would be possible to cheat that way, but it's pretty much impossible to do that on a scale that actually would be dangerous
@Chippies once you vote, they cross-check the voter registry for that specific place and cross you out. You can only vote once
Even if you don't require ID at all, you still sign a log book under penalty of perjury that you are who you say you are. And the truth is that research shows that is enough to dissuade cheaters
@TimStone And of course because having a universal ID is actually pretty damn useful, we have to make do with Social Security cards which are emphatically not meant for that purpose and are insecure as hell.
@Chippies I never register for elections. I have to register my home address, this is a general residents registry that is used also for determining where to file your taxes and stuff like that. And that is also used for elections
@Chippies It's important to remember that a lot of this was established back in the early days of the US when everything was a disjoint shitshow beholden purely to the whims of white male landowners, so the fact that politicians have embraced the advantage the dysfunction can give them and stymied widespread change is not surprising
Like if we did America: Rebooted we'd probably go "Ah no that's actually quite dumb" but since it's How It is enough people are convinced that it can't be that bad
@GodEmperorDune It's just stupid like that even means anything "omg y'all technically it's not a wave" "but the Democrats still control the House?" "yeah but it wasn't a wave" "??"
@MadScientist more than 50% gives more flexibility for individual members to break off and vote their district wishes rather than party wishes in critical votes
I'm still speculating that the polls can't predict the effect of increased turnout properly and it'll be a landslide, but I expect to be disappointed there.
@BradC @GodEmperorDune @TimStone @MadScientist For the record, I'm hoping that we don't go forward with impeachment. Clinton seemingly got a huge boost from being impeached but not convicted. "Must not have been anything there" -American voters at that time, probably
@puzzlepiece87 from what i've read/heard, even though clinton didn't get convicted, the impeachment proceedings severely hampered what the white house did at the time
@GodEmperorDune If that's the only effect, I'm sure we've already got it from the special counsel.
@MadScientist Good, I hope so as well.
@SaintWacko For anyone wondering, Nixon was at 34% when he resigned. Trump is at 42%. I've been rooting for 34% for years now, 36.5% is as close as we've gotten and that was a long time ago.
@puzzlepiece87 i mean it also requires the people in the white house to be ashamed of what they are doing and/or worried about what might happen... with this admin...
I have been terribly wrong on this before, but I still think that Republicans will drop Trump the moment he stops being useful. There is a point where they'll go for self-preservation, it's far far from where I thought it would be, but I still think it exists
@GodEmperorDune @Nzall Exactly, I put 0 stock in these reports, there were a bunch before Labor Day too saying he was going to drop a bomb over that weekend. It's just clickbait. The best Mueller reporting has definitely been on stuff he's already done, not speculation on what he's going to do. Don't get your hopes up at all there.
@puzzlepiece87 I mean tbf Nixon also dropped like 30 points in the span of half a year due to Watergate Getting Serious, but I have no strong feelings on that anyway
@SaintWacko I'm pretty sure he can pardon whoever he wants, but I'm he starts casting pardons to protect himself then I'm confident he'll find himself going up against a court with obstruction of justice charges
@puzzlepiece87 there is allegedly a DoJ guideline to avoid interfering with elections in the 60 days prior to it. So the idea is simply that if Mueller has something, he probably followed that and kept it back for now. But nobody has any idea if he is at a point to indict anyone else
@SaintWacko Like I've got to believe that the GOP members of the supreme court aren't just purely corrupt, but just differ on certain laws should be viewed
Regarding impeachment, I think the proper approach for the house isn't just whipping up some charges, it is aggressive public hearings on all manner of things.
(emoluments, taxes, his carelessness with top secret info and phones, abuse of power like asking the postmaster to charge Amazon more to punish the Washington Post, etc).
And just see what sticks, and how exactly they play out
So, investigate hard, and play the rest by ear
I do not think there is any point at which Trump himself has shame enough to resign. I do think there is a point at which Republicans will stop supporting him
at lot of people are bragging about "I voted" stickers. In case you feel excluded because you, like me, didn't get to vote, please feel free to print this out for yourself
@fredley If this is not enough for the Republicans to even lose the House, it's over. We'll have to find another planet to live on, as the US is a lost cause.
I also find it weird that there are actual queues to vote in the US. I've never waited more than a few minutes, so I'm wondering if there are so much fewer voting locations in the US than here in Germany
@BradC They did, but separately, they have live forecasts in the chat.
What the actual fuck
Look at this shit
> Putting a polling place inside a gated community, and requiring people to show ID to enter that community even though they don’t need it to vote, seems like a real problem.
@fredley Correct. Bills must pass both houses to be sent to the President. Also, the Senate does different things like approves nominees like for the US supreme court
@puzzlepiece87 Huh? I was just talking about how number of House representatives used to be based solely on raw population numbers whereas now it's fixed at 438 with each state getting a different slice of that pie based on proportion of total population.
@MadScientist Regarding why elections seem messy in the US compared to Germany - because they're not administered centrally; each state makes its own rules, then each precinct actually carries it out
First Amendment (freedom of speech) is a core value, so a law preventing results from being released until the entire country's polls are closed might not be even possible.
the other thing that non-muricans might not be getting is that most often CNN and other news sites will play voter survey results, not actual election tallies
@GodEmperorDune I have no idea if my numbers are off but did they just subtract the entire population of California from Hillary's portion of the popular vote, ignoring the fact that Trump still got votes in California?
@Yuuki You're thinking way too hard about memes that were themselves made without thought. Don't give trolls that much credit. Or subtract Wisconsin or something instead.
black people now constitute a majority of voters in an Atlanta suburb, so rich local whites are looking to straight-up steal half the city (and over half its tax base) to form a new white enclave https://www.citylab.com/equity/2018/11/eagles-landing-cityhood-vote-atlanta-stockbridge/571990/
Georgia GOP candidate Brian Kemp was foiled by his own state’s voter ID law when he tried to vote
https://www.rawstory.com/2018/11/georgia-gop-candidate-brian-kemp-foiled-states-voter-id-law-tried-vote/
