EnsignWashout

The little squiggles are necessary to ensure election outcomes acceptable to the ultra rich.

I'm joking. (Mostly)

The squiggles are probably county line divisions, and probably simply the smallest existing land divisions with good population data available to make the map from.

I say "mostly joking" because existing county line divisions are already weird in some cases, to ensure election outcomes acceptable to the ultra rich. So there's an unpleasant grain of truth in my joke.

the very fact that there is a big urban/rural cultural divide is one of the things killing America.

I agree wholeheartedly about the problem. But blind highest count vote on every topic is one of the big dividers between rural and urban folks.

Rural folks will simply never have the numbers to influence outcomes in a pure vote count scenario. They're aware of this, and it leads to animosity.

Incidentally, I agree that financial decoupling would be ruinous for both, as well.

The real solution is represtational seats that give everyone a voice - no matter how the voting zone is divided.

I suspect that requires doing away with first-past-the-poll. The winner of that race will almost always be a city person, by raw numeric chance. That's fine, city folks have some good ideas. The problem is when there's no rural voice at the negotiation, at all.

And I think any sensible person realizes we also have to put a stop to all gerrymandering.

Also, we need to give seats to what remains of all of the first nations, while we're at it.

The key lesson here is that anyone can find $25 / month to waste on WebVan stock.

It might be possible Ferengi also have higher-than-human-average neuroplasticity and simply adapt easier - this might even aid in the on the job theory.

I think you're on to something.

Various Ferengi having a kind of genius foreign to Federation values is a recurring theme in DS9.

Nog, in particular, gets up to some antics that probably require some brilliance. I recall him hacking or circumventing things even early in the series.

This still has the representative issue that each of the narrow bands are narrow due to a huge metropolis within them, and the rural population of that band will always live with rules created by the metropolis for the metropolis.

It's a pretty map, though.

And is still makes more sense than "carefully negotiated by powerful ultra rich a few hundred years ago to protect each of their giant egos."

It's worth noting that we also lose on the output, contractors tend to underperform compared to long term stable employees.

So there's a case to be made that it is even lose/lose/lose (more expensive/worse outcomes/loss of economic stimulus of good stable jobs).

I'm forced to assume that you are now surprisingly attractive, as well. That's the way out goes with the person I never noticed in school.

Of course, part of it might be that my definition of attractive grew up to be a lot healthier than it was when I was a kid.

Oh!

As they say, them who laugh lasts, probably needed a minute to think about it. Today, that was me.

That tracks with some human social groups I have met or been welcomed into.

There's usually one or two guys who are willing to play the "big scary" when necessary to get rid of creeps. The rest of the time they're usually the chill ones whose couch anyone can crash on.

I guess that is a kind of leadership, in itself.

But they usually aren't the one who decides which theater to go to.

I don't see how even Amazon can try to kill the competition in a market that huge, regardless of price or convenience.

So I assume you wrote this after picking up groceries from your locally owned grocery store? Because you still have one - it didn't collapse due to a Walmart coming to town?

Most of us have a solid example of what driving a grocery store out of business looks like, though.

"Not everyone in the union will celebrate this corporate partnership. Some members have legitimate concerns about tech giants shaping classroom priorities through financial relationships."

When has a corporation and a Union ever not seen eye to eye?

(Please don't answer. This is sarcasm. Otherwise RIP my inbox.)

...all except the delicious animals, obviously.

Crowd cheers again.