TNA and Politics, one is mildly less ridiculous than the other

[redfiona99]

Due to a mass power outage in Birmingham, I missed the start of Impact. Apparently Magnus is British and evil.

Um Daniels and Kaz, are you sure you want to call out the more senior Guerrero present? It will only end in the more junior doing terrible things to you.

I'm not sure how I feel about Christian York being the Gutcheck guy. Nothing against him, but he's a known quantity. Zeema Ion is making him look like an absolute star though. It's a fun match, the opening especially.

Ah, they've thrown Bischoff-junior into the Aces and Eights thing. Bubba Ray is making it work (because he is incredible).

I also love that ODB calling out Jesse (Tara's boy-toy) is not, 'she's going to get pulverised', but 'he's going to be anhilated'. Bam! If nothing else, new boy is at least capable of basic moves.

Is there a reason why TNA are having a relay of commentators?

Dear lord, I think they just tried to get AJ to burn WWE's version of the angle of great sucktitude. Apparently, being photographed entering lifts with people of the opposite gender is the in-thing for people called AJ.

That's a terrible stipulation. Because I know someone I like is going to get fucked over. (For values of like that involve me occasionally suggesting people hit Roode.)

I doubt that is the same cloak. Because Morgan is ~ 1/2 a foot taller than Hogan. And yet it fits him perfectly. Oh god, they're giving team sleazy whingy mic time. And angstbunny is right about Joey Ryan's wrestling.


~~~~

Adverts

I really like this Ikea advert - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8gtdBqRe2s

I also wish Tesco would stop using the Thunderbirds theme for their adverts, it gets my hopes up every time.

~~~~


I have to join in with the rest of the world going "how does the US screw up it's elections so badly*", I'm thinking, in particular, 2 hour long queues. I mean, I'm bemused when there's anyone else voting at the same time as me.

Then again, most UK polls tend to have much lower turnouts. While it's not where I voted, I used to live close enough to Garswood where the election turn out was 35% one time.

While I understand, in this particular situation, why it's occuring, I'm also deeply disappointed by the number of people yelling at independent and undecided voters. As someone who is both of the above, we're allowed to vote for/with our consciences too.

Actually, I'm pretty much hell on Earth for party politicians, because I have what I believe and then I compare that to what the parties stand for at each level, so I'm Greens at local level, Labour at national and Lib Dem for the Euros. I also plan on spoiling my ballot at the next set of elections, but that's because that's for the moronic political police commissioner thing. I plan on turning up, writing on my ballot paper that it's a terrible idea, putting it in the box and leaving. And, and this is the thing, all of these are perfectly legitimate options.

Also, attitudes like that make it very hard for smaller parties to get started, and I think if there were more plausible parties it would remove some of the venom from the US system, or at least shift it slightly. What the US could do with, would be something like a small government socially liberal party (basically a more reasonable Libertarian party), because, while I disagree with that politically, it would mean that there is someone for people who think that that's the way forward economically to vote for, without them having to vote for a Republican party that is also socially ... backwards. (See rape, rape, rape and rape, esquire, the gays are coming hide your children, and various horrible things about various ethnic minorities**.)

Non-directly related, but the US Ambassador to the UK is lovely.

I have nothing against Jeremy Vine, but where is Peter Snow?

I love how utterly disapproving David Dimbleby is of the way the election adverts are in the US. And him running English to English translations between US and UK reporters (what on Earth does middle class mean in US English?).

We've reached the stage of the night where the reports have found bars, "restaurants" and other drinking holes, and are desperately trying to claim journalistic reasoning.

One of the English poll-crunchers was talking about how the Republicans were hoping for "white-flight" of the working class/blue collar workers to the Republicans. Which okay, I get as a strategy, but why, if that is your strategy, do you vote against things that are good for that segment of the population (car-maker bailouts)? Blue collar workers (plain old working class in the UK) are not as stupid as any political party thinks they are.

If any of the Floridans are at Barry University, one of your Professors was just one of the talking heads.

Talking of the talking heads, the Republican talking heads seem to be on the attack still, while the Democrat talking heads are more future achievement orientated.


Brief gap for question - Can anyone explain why Nebraska and Maine's various Districts get separate mentions?



As an example of how embarrassing the Republican rape problem is - The American poll-cruncher said that Richard Mourdock was the Republican who made the comment about "legitimate rape". He was corrected by the English poll-cruncher saying that Mourdock was the one that said rape was an act of God, the "women can shut things down" guy was a different Republican, Todd Akin. Cue American poll-cruncher saying "yes, there are many morons."

* I realise the US has problems due to it's size and huge population.

**apologies if that's not the right term in US English.

Comments

[lilacsigil.livejournal.com]

We have compulsory voting and the queue is never more than 30 minutes! That's because, as in the UK and Canada, our elections are run by an independent and impartial government body. In the US, the polls are run by all sorts of groups, including political parties and elected officials.

The Maine and Nebraska thing is because they are the only two states that don't give all their electoral college votes to the winner of the popular vote. So if you win 51% in any other state, you get ALL their votes. If you win 51% or more in Maine, you get half their votes, then the other half are given by each district. So to win all Maine's votes, you have to win 51% or more of the popular vote overall AND in each district. Nebraska is divided into three districts, and each district gives 1/3 of the state's votes. So to win all of Nebraska's votes, you have to win 51% or more of the popular vote in each district.

[redfiona99.livejournal.com]

>>In the US, the polls are run by all sorts of groups, including political parties and elected officials. << But, but, that makes no sense. What happened to no just fair but seen to be fair.

A ha, I knew a couple of the states were sensible and split it, but I wasn't sure which it was. Thanks.

[opera142.livejournal.com]

Time it takes to vote: lots of reasons. A big one is that polling locations change often, and are confusing in general. The church across the street from my house is a polling place, but not my polling place. I vote a few blocks down, at a community center. Lots of people will go to the wrong place, wait in line only to be told they need to elsewhere, where the line waiting is repeated.

And because voting locations are farmed out to whoever is willing to open their doors, the quality of voting amenitites can vary. My voting place has never had issues with a jammed voting machine because we are given a ballot and a magic marker. I can't imagine that working well in New York.

Another big reason is that there is generally lots of voting to be done. My ballot was two feet long and used both sides of the sheet. Federal, state and local stuff, plus levies and amendments, some of which by not voting (leaving blank) counts as a vote in certain direction. For instance, there was a state-wide amendment on my ballot concerning constitutional banning of same sex marriage. No did not ban it; yes did. Leaving it blank counted as a "no", which means lots of people who would have just skipped that issue, had to decide if how they wanted their vote to count.

I've heard stories, though I cannot verify them, that some polling places had 10-page ballots. Imagine trying to sort through all the clutter and poli-speak on that.

Shamefully, as much as we crow about our democracy, we're not very good at educating voters. I had someone ask me what "incumbent" means after we finished voting. Add that to the usual run of stupidity (people demanding to know why the name of So-n-So isn't on the ballot--- not in our district, dear), and it creates people spending longer on the actual act of voting that should be needed.

lastly, I feel I'm going to do a little bit of hand waving here, but I also have to say the reason those hours-long lines make the news is because they aren't the experience of many. I live in a large metro area (I believe the 15th largest in the US), my address is in the city proper (not a lower-population suburb), and I've never waited in line more than 10 minutes. Long waits did happen locally, but they were generally later in the day (a rush of people voting after work or school, I'm guessing). My work place allows us two hours to go vote, (many places do, again poor education of voters) so I usually just tell them I'm coming in a little later, and vote in morning before heading to work.

[redfiona99.livejournal.com]

The thing about the polling stations in the first paragraph is crazy.

I think the UK experience has skewed me because all you're ever given is a pencil and your paper, but that's for historical reasons.

Also, did not know about the novel length ballot papers. The most you're likely to get in the UK is 2, 1 for the local council and 1 for the nationals, but I suppose that's because only the central government has any power. Also, the amendments seem to have been written in the most confusing way possible.

I can't think of any country that does a good job of educating its voters.

I think the news may have been lying to us, they were making it sound like the queues were the normal for lots of cities.