In The News Today...

Quote: rxwine

I guarantee you, Florida wouldn't be the half the retirement destination that it is if it weren't for the weather.

The population doubles in the winter simply due to the weather

Quote: JimRockford

- Texas politics is complicated like everywhere else, but there is much stupidity and hypocrisy involved (like politics everywhere).

- Dog tracks are confined to the gulf coast region and I have never given them much thought. If the animals are mistreated, I share your disdain.

- "Texas and Culture..." Depends what you mean by culture. From your complaints above I take it that you mean that Texas is lacking in spacious halls full of hollow eyed losers bleeding their government checks into chiming machines. We go to Oklahoma and Louisiana for that.

- The Republic of Texas era is an over romanticized point of pride here. The military victory over Mexico was remarkable, amazing even. However the nation that followed was a disaster. Most Texans would have gladly joined the US immediately in 1836, but it could not happen until 1845 when Texas could be added as a state without upsetting the ratio of slave to free states. In the meantime the Republic of Texas was in a prolonged depression with a worthless currency and accumulating debt that was still being paid off into the 20th century.

It's not just the casinos, but I'm in a pretty good mood today, so I don't feel like discussing Texas anymore. I'll end up being in a bad mood if I start discussing everything about Texas for which I have disdain.

Bullet Points:

-It's Southern.
-Top 15 Religiosity.
-Second-to-last High School Diploma (or higher) rate (2021).
-Middle of the road 25th for Bachelor's Degree or Higher, largely imports.
-Texas BBQ sucks.
-The political views of the average Texan make no sense. They talk a Libertarian game, but the State Government does whatever it wants and Texans just sit there and take it.

No description, because I woke up in a good mood and am trying to stay that way. There's obviously much more than that I don't like about the state, but I don't feel like getting into it. The good news is that I will never go there unless some plane I am on needs to have an emergency landing, which is good, because y'all don't cotton too good to folks comin' in from outta state anyways.

Quote: ams288

Because ~90% of Michigan is a sh*thole?

Seriously, I will never understand why you think I care about Michigan so much...

Implies 10% is not? That's really generous of you, especially for someone who lives in the state and knows better.

We have Rank Choice Voting in NYC, which allows voters to list their choice of candidates in order of preference. They claim it picks the candidate by consensus, when none of the candidates gets more than 50% of the vote. Which is hard to do when there are ten people running in the primary. It is really designed to allow the Party to decide the candidate, rather than the voters. Eric Adams had more than a 10% lead when the polls closed, but the Party said they would let the voters know who won in a few weeks after the rank choice votes and absentee ballots were counted. The Party wants a female Mayor. The second place candidate is an extreme radical female, who wants to reduce the number of police officers further, and take away their guns. Too extreme, even for NYC Dem Party. Sure enough, they announced two days ago, the third place challenger Kathryn Garcia, is now nearly tied with Adams, which is a set up for their next announcement, that Garcia had won the Primary. Now, we’re finding that 130,000 ‘test run’ votes were counted. It would have gone unnoticed had Adams not flagged the discrepancy. Apparently, the majority of those ‘test votes’ were for Garcia.

Quote: Tanko

We have Rank Choice Voting in NYC, which allows voters to list their choice of candidates in order of preference. They claim it picks the candidate by consensus, when none of the candidates gets more than 50% of the vote. Which is hard to do when there are ten people running in the primary. It is really designed to allow the Party to decide the candidate, rather than the voters. Eric Adams had more than a 10% lead when the polls closed, but the Party said they would let the voters know who won in a few weeks after the rank choice votes and absentee ballots were counted. The Party wants a female Mayor. The second place candidate is an extreme radical female, who wants to reduce the number of police officers further, and take away their guns. Too extreme, even for NYC Dem Party. Sure enough, they announced two days ago, the third place challenger Kathryn Garcia, is now nearly tied with Adams, which is a set up for their next announcement, that Garcia had won the Primary. Now, we’re finding that 130,000 ‘test run’ votes were counted. It would have gone unnoticed had Adams not flagged the discrepancy. Apparently, the majority of those ‘test votes’ were for Garcia.

You were not naive enough to think they did ranked choice for the good of the people were you?

A radical female who wants to reduce the cops and take away their guns. NYC voters will take dat over one of dem wascally wepublicans!

Quote: AZDuffman

A radical female who wants to reduce the cops and take away their guns. NYC voters will take dat over one of dem wascally wepublicans!

Damn right!

Quote: Tanko

We have Rank Choice Voting in NYC, which allows voters to list their choice of candidates in order of preference. They claim it picks the candidate by consensus, when none of the candidates gets more than 50% of the vote. Which is hard to do when there are ten people running in the primary. It is really designed to allow the Party to decide the candidate, rather than the voters. Eric Adams had more than a 10% lead when the polls closed, but the Party said they would let the voters know who won in a few weeks after the rank choice votes and absentee ballots were counted. The Party wants a female Mayor. The second place candidate is an extreme radical female, who wants to reduce the number of police officers further, and take away their guns. Too extreme, even for NYC Dem Party. Sure enough, they announced two days ago, the third place challenger Kathryn Garcia, is now nearly tied with Adams, which is a set up for their next announcement, that Garcia had won the Primary. Now, we’re finding that 130,000 ‘test run’ votes were counted. It would have gone unnoticed had Adams not flagged the discrepancy. Apparently, the majority of those ‘test votes’ were for Garcia.

I have considered this type of voting a possible Ok alternative to doing a second run-off election. However, it is taking forever and proving difficult , so maybe it isn't such a good idea. And if it makes cheating easier I'm really against it.

Quote: AZDuffman

You were not naive enough to think they did ranked choice for the good of the people were you?

I was so confident they would do this, I did not bother to vote. The Board of Elections has a history here.

Quote:

A federal court on Monday dismissed the Federal Trade Commission's antitrust complaint against Facebook.
The dismissal deals a major setback to the agency's complaint, which could have resulted in Facebook divesting Instagram and WhatsApp.
In the filing, the court states that the FTC did not prove Facebook maintains a monopoly.

Quote: Mission146

It's not just the casinos, but I'm in a pretty good mood today, so I don't feel like discussing Texas anymore. I'll end up being in a bad mood if I start discussing everything about Texas for which I have disdain.

Quote: Mission146

-It's Southern.

Yeah kinda. Not like Alabama Southern.

Quote: Mission146

-Top 15 Religiosity.

It has many faiths, but the state religion is football

Quote: Mission146

-Second-to-last High School Diploma (or higher) rate (2021).
-Middle of the road 25th for Bachelor's Degree or Higher, largely imports.

Texas has some demographic headwinds that affect the stats. When controlled for demographics Texas education ranks better. It has the highest percentage of rural school districts in the country. It has a very large Hispanic population who are not raised to speak English. But Texas hasn't done enough to address it's education problems.

Quote: Mission146

-Texas BBQ sucks.

Now you're just trolling. Want to talk about that putrid Cincinnati chili?

Quote: Mission146

-The political views of the average Texan make no sense. They talk a Libertarian game, but the State Government does whatever it wants and Texans just sit there and take it.

I have no idea what the "average Texan" is.

Quote: Mission146

No description, because I woke up in a good mood and am trying to stay that way. There's obviously much more than that I don't like about the state, but I don't feel like getting into it. The good news is that I will never go there unless some plane I am on needs to have an emergency landing, which is good, because y'all don't cotton too good to folks comin' in from outta state anyways.

Texas' reputation suffers from it's own myth. People have no idea how diverse this state is, but go ahead and hate on Texas. We're used to it.

Here is a little nod to Texas culture from the Stones.