TheNewTeddy

That shows how it's incorrect, but does hot explain how. Zeno's stuff can be explained very easily IMO. The universe itself can either be Digital - IE there is a "smallest chunk" you can cut it into, or, it is Analog - IE there are no "chunks" to the universe. Lets start with his "halfway there" paradox. Lets presume we live in a digital universe. So what if there are only 2 bits between you and "there"? How can you get "halfway"? You can not. You can either get more than halfway, or less than halfway. Okay, so maybe the universe is Analog In that case, since there are no "chunks" to cut the universe into, you can never be sure if you are halfway or not, you can only be approximately halfway, and when you are approximating like that, sometimes you have to be more than halfway, and sometimes less than halfway. Thus the answer to Zeno's paradox - pretty well all of his paradoxes - is that it is a language trick. It presumes there IS such a thing as "halfway" when I argue there is not. For his Arrow, it argues that you can take a "moment" in time, when by the same logic, you can not. This video (which I will watch all of, Manny) starts with a part on Infinity. I argue there is no such thing. The universe is finite, I argue, and will always be. Infinity, like halfway, is a trick of language. It does not exist.

Frankly, if he won't report you after the admins have told us time and time again to report people, he is more of a rulebreaker than you are (presuming what he says is true - and do nor know or care if it is)

Okay so the new "polls" based on the coalitions as they stand today is as follows: 38.07% - IBC - PD + SEL - Socialists 17.02% - PdL - Conservatives 16.79% - M5S - Populist 9.41% - AMI - UdC + FLI + VTR - Moderate 5.96% - LN - Northern Seppies 3.02% - FD - Liberal Libertarians 2.38% - LD - Social Conservative 2.16% - LdV - Populist 2.08% - FdS - Communist 7.95% - Oth

Current Prime Minister of Italy, Mario Monti, has decided to run for office. He will lead what is expected to be a new party/coalition of centrist forces. Somehow, the media tells us, this means a 3 way race. Frankly, unless Monti is leading M5S, it will not be a simple 3 way race. If he does lead M5S, or more accurately, a coalition including M5S, then he could quite easily win the entire election. edit The head of M5S has called Monti an "unconstitutional madman" (Translated) in response to his desire to run. I guess he won't be leading M5S. edit Monti will be leading a new party, called Agenda Monti per I'Iltalia, or AMI. Both the UdC and FLI will be joining this coalition. I am looking into other parties as well...

See now THAT is a good reason for a public-calling-someone-out thread.

Curious if anyone is as interested in these things as I am, as I'd like to have a discussion about some of them. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox I'd like to have an open discussion on Paradoxes so I'd rather not begin by stating my solutions, but if the mods demand such, I will begin myself with my solution to Zeno's Paradoxes.

I'm reading this post I'm typing. But seriously, I don't read books as such and the reason is because of the company. I find the attitude of many people who do (many, not all) to be problematic. It is similar to those snooty art folks. There seems to be this line of thinking that unless you read books, you are stupid. That those who choose not to read, like me, only do so because we are dumb and/or uneducated. I have no desire to associate with these type of people the same as I have no desire to associate with snooty art people.

That presumes half the world is willing to take out your eyes.

The mindset can not be simply represented on a map following state and provincial borders.

Well there are times to post in public, in short, when you want to try to sway public opinion to your side - but these cases should be reserved for incidences when the administration seems complicit. PMing a mod to say "so and so is doing bad, please stop them" has a good chance of working, while if a mod is not doing what you feel their duties are... well lets just say, go up to anyone in any job and tell them you want them to "start doing (their) job properly" and see how well that works for you. I've posted threads like this, but only when I feel the admins are ignoring an issue and that IMHO putting some pressure on them will get the problem resolved. Otherwise I go straight to the admins.

This. Putting this out in the public only invites others to join in on the "trouble" being "made"

As for who can report, remember what a report is. All a report is, is in effect, standing up, waving your arms, and yelling "HEY MODS, COME TAKE A LOOK AT THIS" Anybody can do it for any reason. If the mods think you are wasting their time, they are then free to warn you to not do it again.

The mods decide what is a good report, what is a bad report, and when a report is abusive, and thus, gains it's own warning.

Japan election map

Rural folk, and people in smaller cities are more religious.

Fun fact: Canada has 13 provinces or territories while the US has 50 states. Canada meanwhile has more of them where the majority of the population lives in the same urban area (ON, QC, BC, MB, NS, NL, PE, YK, NW) than the US does (NY, CO, IL, MI, MN, OK, AK, GA) I originally read this in an older book that argued that this was the case. That in Canada, all of the 'stuff' (the book was not specific) went "in" to our urban areas, while in the US it went "out" of them. That our efforts are put into developing our centres while in the US it is the opposite. I'm curious what people think of this theory?

On my last line 04 = 1871 = 2.21% 15 = 1872 = 8.11% 06 = 1873 = 3.00% 05 = 1882 = 2.43% 04 = 1887 = 1.90% -2 = 1892 = -.93% 01 = 1903 = 0.47% 07 = 1907 = 3.27% 13 = 1914 = 5.88% 01 = 1915 = 0.43% 10 = 1924 = 4.26% 00 = 1933 = 0.00% 10 = 1947 = 4.08% 07 = 1949 = 2.75% 03 = 1952 = 1.15% -1 = 1966 = -.38% 18 = 1976 = 6.82% 13 = 1987 = 4.61% 06 = 1996 = 2.03% 07 = 2004 = 2.33% 30 = 2012 = 9.74%

Egypt Referendum Results: YES - 10.7 million NO - 6.1 million NV - 34 million (apx) Had this referendum had the same turnout as last time, and, if all of those people voted no, it would have been defeated. But it was not. And now it is the new constitution of Egypt. For Reference Last referendum: Last election:

Weimar Germany would have been taken over, not by NAZIs, but by Communists, and WW2 would have been between the West and the Commies. But, France was very left at this time, and, Spain may have fallen too. Hence WW2 could have been between the US, UK, Italy, Japan, and Poland VS the Soviets, Germans, French, and Spanish. The second possibility is still a NAZI government in Germany, but a German failure during the war with Poland - which had a bigger army than France in 1939 - and thus the same end result as above with Poland and Germany swapped. Either way, the Cold War would have been between the Democratic West, and the Fascist East. The problem? The commies of this alternate history are stronger than the fascists were in our reality - they may have won the war - and the fascists would have been a far stronger opponent than the communists during the Cold War. In effect; without Hitler, freedom and democracy might not exist as we know it. An interesting fact is that Poland was really on the up and up and only lost so quickly due to the blitz, and the fact that this happened in 1939 and not 1941 (which is when Poland was expecting a war) In fact there is a real chance that had the war begun in 1941 - which is when the Soviets wanted - Poland could have managed to hold on for the entire war. We could have - though less likely - had a WW2 where Poland - Alone - was the major threat in Europe.

CZECH The presidential race is a battle between Jan Fischer, an independent moderate with a strong economic background, and Milos Zeman, the 'father' of the Social Democratic Party. ISRAEL A few parties have signed surplus vote agreements. What this means is they are rigging the PR system to get more seats... though that is a negative way of looking at it, it's also the simplest way to explain what it means. The sitting government has chosen an orthodox party, and two Arab parties are working together. Orthodox parties like Shas have banished women from their lists (hence, no women will be elected from these parties) Meanwhile, one of the Arab party MKs (MK = MP in Israel) has been disqualified from running, not because she is female, but because she refuses to accept Israel as a Jewish State. One of the big issues is the Tal Law, which would allow orthodox jews to take a pass on serving in the military. Likud (Conservative) and Yisrael Beiteinu (radical Conservative) have formed an electoral coalition. They are the current government and will win the largest number of seats in this coming election. Kadima. Now just about dead thanks to the departure of their former leader. Labour/Avoda. They are expected to regain their position as the strong #2 party. They are lead by Shelly Yachimovich. Shas. The most "moderate" of the orthodox parties, this party is clearly religious in nature. Shas has managed to take 3rd or 4th place in just about every election in Israel. Hatnuah. This is where many Kadima supporters have gone, following Tzipi Livni. This party is "moderate" by Israeli standards, but would still be Conservative here. Yesh Atid. The strongest party without any seats in the Knesset (Parliament). This party is lead by the son of a former leader of a Liberal Party. Most recent election projection: 37 - Likud YB 20 - Labour 12 - Orthodox Parties 11 - Shas 10 - Arab Parties 9 - Hatnuah 7 - Yesh Atid 6 - Another Orthodox Party 4 - Meretz (Left wing) 2 - Others

You think it does not? Seriously?

http://www.elections...sentation_e.htm The original formula was a Quebec formula, where Quebec had 65 seats and all the other provinces had ridings equal to that. Also, no province could lose seats unless it lost more than 5% of it's population. In 1915 it was amended so no province could have less MPs than Senators. In 1946 it was changed to give the provinces 255 seats In 1951 it was amended so no province could lose more than 15% of their seats in a single adjustment In 1974 it was changed to some complicated crap, with large and small and medium sized provinces and so on and so forth, etc, but at it's core, it was a Quebec based formula, with Quebec getting 75 seats. Remember that the old 1915 No-Less-MPs-Than-Senators was in effect at this time. In 1981 they realized the 1974 formula was crap, so they changed it to what I outlined earlier. And finally in 2012 they changed it to what I also outlined earlier. Note that the "Grandfather Clause" - that says no province can have less MPs than they had in 1974, means the "Senatorial Clause" is pointless, since that clause was in effect in 1974, thus in order to have less MPs than Senators, you'd need to have less MPs than you had in 1974. The Grandfather Clause, however, is just part of the election act, while the Senatorial Clause is part of the Constitution. Current formula: http://www.elections...nt=index〈=e "Electoral quotient" was determined by dividing 305 by the population of all the provinces combined. 305 was chosen as it happened to be the number of seats in the provinces at that time. Interesting to note that in 1915 the change was forced by the courts, while all the other changes (1946, 1951, 1874, 1981) were done by Liberal governments. The current formula is the only one done by a Conservative government since Confederation (though it could be argued the original 1867 formula was done by Conservatives, but that was prior to confederation) Also interesting that the current formula represents the largest increase in raw numbers (30) and share (9.7%) to the House of Commons since confederation ... I think. I'm pretty sure and usually I check this stuff before claiming it, but I'm full of Christmas Cheer at the moment, so I'll check it later if anyone wants to challenge it.

Prior to 1974 the formula was (and I don't remember if it was 75 or 65 so forgive me if I get them mixed up) but it was: Quebec gets 75 seats Whatever the population-per-seat Quebec happens to get from this is what the other provinces get

Sounds pretty devastating to me.

You contradict yourself. Edited to add: http://www.cnn.com/2012/12/24/us/connecticut-newtown-police-holiday/index.html?hpt=hp_t3