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[MetalSlimeHunt]

I don't know why anyone would ever advocate a closed list system.

[palsch]

I don't know why anyone would ever advocate a closed list system.

Probably for the same reason many countries and parties still run closed primaries; the party knows best who is fit to represent them. Hell, the English Tories used to run their selection process based on who could pledge their Parliamentary salary to the local party's dinner party fund, on the principle that anyone who would actually keep their salary would be unreliable as a Conservative politician.

[Nadaka]

I don't know why anyone would ever advocate a closed list system.

Because it is at least somewhat better than the system we have now in the US.

In the US parties hold primaries by their own rules. There would be no reason a party couldn't use the primary to democratically fill/order their representative list.

[Zrk2]

On Proportional Representation - Fuck no. Just... no. Fuck that shit. I enjoy voting for people, and campaigning for people, and even getting them elected, and that is completely impossible under a proportional system.

So sorry, but no, I've no interest in switching to a "let the party bosses pick my representative for me" system, thank you. We have more than enough rule-by-the-elites without handing them complete control over our political representation. I would like a say in the matter, however small.

This may be partially because I come from a smaller state with a history of electing independents and people from the "opposing" party because the popular state party is full of asshats and idiots. It's like all the idiocy of of party-line voting enshrined into law.

This is why we need a two house system: In one you elect your local rep, and they aren't officially offiliated with a party, then the second house is where you vote for the party of your choice and they get the seats here based on percentages. Then you elect the president/prime minister independent of that.

[mainiac]

Ben Bernanke wishes Obama a happy National Celiac Disease Awareness day by giving him the gift of re-election.

The explanation here is kinda complicated but I'll try to do my best.  Up until this point the federal reserve has been using two policy channels to fight the Great Recession.  The first has been lowering the cost of lending by keeping short term interest rates to banks close to 0% (the origin of the complaint free money to the banks).  The second has been buying up mortgage backed securities so that investors will invest in other stuff as well (i.e. firing up the printing presses to turn us into Nazi Germany).  Now the Fed is adding a third policy to it's playbook by making more concrete commitments about the future to try to improve market expectations.  Basically the idea here is that if people expect inflation will keep being below the Fed target then it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy.  And it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy through reducing in economic activity.  The Fed is directly countering that by promising to take actions that will get us closer to the inflation target for the next three years.  And the results seem to show that the markets are reacting as one would hope.  Expectations are still slightly below the target but have moved a lot closer to it.  (The numbers moved before the announcement because this announcement has been predicted and talked about by a lot of different people).  Basically the signs are pointing in the direction of the next three years being a lot better then the last three.

[Moghjubar]

Oooh, are we at the point where we can effectively eliminate noise and see the actual number of people that would elect a Republican candidate no matter what?

[mainiac]

Oooh, are we at the point where we can effectively eliminate noise and see the actual number of people that would elect a Republican candidate no matter what?

No, this won't cause an economic expansion so quickly as to render the election a landslide.  It's too close for November for it to do that.  But it does minimize the downside risk for Obama.  With the Fed taking such aggressive new action to support the economy further economic deterioration seems unlikely.

[mainiac]

Oh man, here's a cool site with footage of old campaign commercials.  Turns out once upon a time democrats had balls.  The MSM thinks today's' ads are hard hitting?  Check out this shit: http://www.livingroomcandidate.org/commercials/1964/poverty#3995

[Karlito]

More than one of those was "Vote for Johnson or die in a nuclear holocaust".

[palsch]

This is a bit of a puff piece, but it's one of the best puff pieces I've ever read.

A lot of good information about the Libyan intervention and a very detailed look into Obama's life and thinking as president.

Late edit: John Scalzi takes Romney behind the woodshed.

He can’t run on his record as a governor, because then the GOP base has its face rubbed in the fact that Romney gave socialized medicine to gay people who could get married, and that just won’t do.

Has Romney’s refusal to walk back his initial screw-up compromised legitimate criticism about how the embassy attacks have been handled? Oh, my, yes. It’s amazing, actually. It’s as if at every turn in the crisis Romney had an opportunity to do something that wouldn’t make him look like a cat with a bag on its head navigating through a room full of bar stool legs, and chose instead the opposing course. It’s impressive in its way, but it’s a not a good way to be impressive.

[GreatJustice]

Wait...

I thought "proportional representation" meant that if your party gets 20% of the vote for, say, Congress, your party gets 20% of Congress?

I mean, yeah, in Canada, you vote for the party, not the person, and the party with the most votes (whether below 50% or not) puts in a guy they choose.

But usually you know who they're going to choose... I don't think it's -illegal- for them to do a bait-and-switch, but it's certainly bad form and I think it'd ruin their chances in the future, so they don't do it.

Then again, we elected Harper to a majority government, so we're basically pants-on-head retarded. He's basically the Canadian G. W. Bush.

But in Canada, the MPs are elected by district, not by overall vote. The parties are far more powerful than the individual reps, however.

For example, say you live in the district of Windsor West. The NDP (the big union party) gets ~50% of the vote and the Conservatives get around 30%, with the liberals getting 15% or so. Yet in the entire country, the NDP gets significantly less of the vote and the liberals/tories get more. Even if the NDP wins 100 seats in Parliament with 90% of the vote in each seat and gets some silly percentage of the overall popular vote like 65%, they are still in the minority because they lost the majority of seats (unless they form a coalition govt). Same process as the US basically, except since it's parliamentary we have three real choices instead of two. Oh, and of our three choices, one is pie-in-the-sky silly/incompetent and the other two are crooked as hell.

What I think would be best would be approval or range voting: instead of voting for one candidate, vote (based on preference) for whoever you like the most and whittle it down until the votes shift enough for one to make a majority. This way, Right Wing Libertarian party A doesn't "subtract" from Right Wing Fiscal Conservative party A as they probably end up behind whichever does better in a given district and the same for the rest of the "compromise" parties.

No, this won't cause an economic expansion so quickly as to render the election a landslide.  It's too close for November for it to do that.  But it does minimize the downside risk for Obama.  With the Fed taking such aggressive new action to support the economy further economic deterioration seems unlikely.

Probably. But then, the US economy is in very bad straits right now, regardless of how much anyone wants to claim there has been a recovery.

What's most telling is that the Fed isn't cracking down on excess bank reserves, which would almost certainly create liquidity. They know quite well that the day that happens is that day the US dollar falls apart.

[palsch]

To go back to the nice red-meat topic of cybersecurity from early August, the administration has now circulated a draft executive order [.pdf] on the topic. I can't find many discussions outside of conspiracy theory sites, and this does seem to be a very early draft version, but could make for some fun in the next couple of weeks.

[Owlbread]

SNP is a cool guy, he pisses off Sassenachs and doesn't afraid of McAnything.

They do indeed. Chan eil Sassanaich cho dona, ach cha toil leam partaidh labour idir. Se Albainnaich a' th'ann cuideachd.

I must say though that I would rather be able to choose who represents my country in the role of prime minister or president through seperate elections rather than having the ruling party decide for me. I'm quite sympathetic to the American system in that respect. This system used to work back in the early 20th century when prime ministers basically led parliament and the government from behind the scenes rather than acting like a de-facto "head of state" or president. Back then, it was more about your skill as a political leader rather than your personality. Personality was still important, but more that you would be a competent leader. However, since people like Maggie Thatcher and Tony Blair we've had prime ministers that acted far too much like presidents or heads of state despite being unelected. That meant they had to concentrate more on appearing to the general public in a certain way and gaining votes for the party rather than leading the country itself. Perhaps the best way to do it is have the PM perform the same function that he has now - to lead the government - and have a president that would act as a proper head of state, meeting with other international leaders and such. Let him be the focus of the PR politics while the PM concentrates on the leadership.

I think that by electing the different houses of government seperately, one gives single parties even less chance for total control. The example I'm thinking of is how the results of Scottish local council elections differ from the national government elections - we may be more likely to vote for a labour councillor in our area than an SNP one, simply because we know that a labour councillor may have had more experience in local government or may have our best local interests at heart more than an SNP one, who may be more concerned about gearing us up for the independence referendum. However, we may be more likely to vote for the SNP in a national government election because, firstly, they're good at treating Scotland like a seperate country with its own interests and affairs, and secondly we may wish for the SNP to defend Scottish interests on a world stage or even amongst the other constituent countries of the UK, as they have fought fiercely for these things in the past. Perhaps the idea of voting for specific parties for specific levels of government would appear again if we started to break the government up into seperate levels.

But here is my question for you gentlemen - my understanding of the US senate is that it is an unelected body of government. Where do the senators come from? Are they appointed by the government and replaced when the next government comes in, or do they remain static?

[Jervill]

Senators are elected every 6 years, Owlbread.

[Karlito]

Though the elections are staggered, so a different third is up for election every 2 years.