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[Enthalpic + 1,496]

8 minutes ago, Jan van Eck said:

 Mackenzie King used to hold court in Parliament with those seven-hour speeches; he would have this giant glass of water that he would sip out of.  Only much later was it discovered that the jug was filled with gin!  Probably just as well; you really do need to be drunk to survive a session in the House of Commons up there in Ottawa. The place is incoherent enough already.  Did I leave anything out?  North Nevada and South Nevada?  Cheers.

It's part of our commonwealth heritage.

 

 

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

11 minutes ago, Enthalpic said:

It's part of our commonwealth heritage.

Fortunately, my very British Beloved never said that to me!  ("In the morning you will still be ugly").  Churchill actually did say that in some debate in the House of Commons, the ultimate misogynist put-down.  I recall the actual statement was a bit longer, something like:  "Yes, Madam, I am drunk, and you Madam, are ugly.  But in the morning, I shall be sober, and you, Madam, shall still be ugly."   Ouch!

PS:  I just had to go look this one up.  It was retold by Churchill's bodyguard, and took place with lady Braddock, M.P., of the House of Commons.  It was even rougher and rawer than I had thought:

Bessie Braddock: Winston, you are drunk, and what’s more you are disgustingly drunk.

Winston Churchill: Bessie, my dear, you are ugly, and what’s more, you are disgustingly ugly. But tomorrow I shall be sober and you will still be disgustingly ugly.

Now, that is a serious Ouch!

Edited July 27, 2019 by Jan van Eck
Added the P.S.

[John Foote + 1,135]

On 7/24/2019 at 11:55 PM, Douglas Buckland said:

In my opinion, something like the Electoral College should be implemented in each state, with each county given 'electoral votes' to prevent rural communities being handcuffed to the wants and desires of the cities and sanctuary cities.

Variations of this are done. In Texas it's actually done to prevent the cities from having proportional legislative power. 

Perhaps notions start out noble to protect, then those who can manipulate the districts. Right now in Texas this is working to the Republican's advantage, but it's a dangerous game they way they are playing in. Make a few districts outrageously Democratic (a few nutters in Houston for example), then arrange the districts slicing into the cities. The danger for the holding party is, in today's environment, really pissing off soccer moms and the hispanics, who largely don't vote. As one pundit said, Texas is really a non-voting blue state. Cities are blue, rural is red, and suburbs have voted red but are swinging blue, but I don't really believe the are going blue, just Trumpism turns a lot on folks off and assuming you don't have a Hillary, or AOC candidate who scares the bejeezes out of folks, Texas will coming into play within 6 years. A Republican hasn't lost a statewide election in years, but last time it was close for a couple. And the real battle is who get's nominated. And the nomination processes tends to nominate those who vote in the primaries, and that's a small minority.

North Carolina's economy is huge in agriculture. By proportional voting is should be democrat. But it's been largely republican. There is a family farm in my immediate family there. We don't talk politics. What matters is local. But don't grow soybeans or corn. Lot of hogs in the region. But factory farming isn't really IMHO a farmer thing. 

IMHO the only real reason Pennsylvania swung in the house last election was the jerrymandering was go egregious and it was redrawn.

The Supreme Court has essentially help up this sort of redistricting. My belief is the swings now will be harder and deeper. 

And the real extra power in low population states isn't the electoral college, it's in the senate. Now it's hard to jerrymander the senate , but because the party in power in a state as a lot of levers to pull. And that does help a few percentage points for state wide offices, and of course presidential races.