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What the Fark???

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Re: What the Fark???

FreshFish said:
So today is the big vote in Scotland about independence from Great Britain.

Two W - T - F elements:

1) How did they come up with a 50% threshhold for the vote? :confused: for a matter this important, the typical standard is more like a 2/3 majority. if 50.01% vote 'yes' and 49.99% vote 'no' that is not a very strong gauge of sentiment one way or the other.


2) I saw a news report about the Shetland Islands, which is currently part of Scotland. The story said that if the Scotland vote succeeds, the Shetland Islands would then petition to have a vote to make them independent of Scotland. :rolleyes:
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I guess in this case that's not quite as silly as it sounds, because Scotland does actually exist as a country, just not an independent one. It would be like a state trying to secede from the US (well, if we forget about that 1861 tiff for a moment). A county within the state couldn't legally choose to "stay behind" because the state does actually have a formal existence, but "inoperative" on such matters as its own borders*. If the state did legally separate, it would become the operating sovereign, then the county could petition for separation.

(* I'm guessing here that states can't just willy-nilly trade counties -- when the state is admitted to the union its borders are fixed and can only be adjusted by federal act. If this isn't true -- though I can't see any workable way in which it wouldn't be -- then my argument kinda falls apart...)
 
Re: What the Fark???

FreshFish said:
Exactly my point. Super-majorities typically are only required for really important decisions.
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Does Scotland have any super-majority requirements for any of its votes? If not, then it's not even a consideration. They do have an absolute-majority rule at their disposal, which states that a majority of all available votes to cast must be in favor of a resolution rather than a simple majority of actual votes cast. In that case, any abstentions would count as No votes. I don't know if that option was enacted for this vote; I would think it would be awfully difficult to evaluate in a populace election.
 
Re: What the Fark???

St. Clown said:
Does Scotland have any super-majority requirements for any of its votes?
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I was speaking conceptually about what kinds of decisions in general "ought to" have supermajority status, not technically about what Scotland's laws in specific might be on the subject.
 
Re: What the Fark???

Kepler said:
Today in derp.
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I took that exam in high school - it got me out of one of my gen eds at MTU. I agree that there should be more writing (in my experience, a majority of my peers were ill-prepared for college-level writing assignments), but I don't agree with decreasing the number of multiple choice questions. You should know the facts as they are taught, and be able to craft good, well-informed written arguments to a set of subjective questions, but you shouldn't be entitled to use emotional arguments that are unsupported by historical facts.

And yes, we can sit here and go back and forth all day about history being written "by the victors".
 
Re: What the Fark???

The problem isn't multiple choice vs essay, it's having Joseph Ignatius Breen censor the facts of history. The general rule of education is you teach the dumbed-down black and white version of things until 11th grade, then you start teaching the grey facts to the people who want to move on and do something. All this does is give the Rick Perry types some cheap applause lines and make the typical Texas high school student fractionally more ignorant.

This is the equivalent of Kansas Creationism. It plays to the knucks on the school board but good luck getting into a tier 1 university. Although I suppose the smartest kids will see through it. The one good thing about authoritarianism is it gives bright teenagers something legitimate to rebel against for a change.
 
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Re: What the Fark???

It looks like the Scotland "no" vote won pretty comfortably after all, I'm seeing something like 55% no according to the crawl at the bottom of the local news.
 
Kepler said:
I'll take that as a compliment. Waters is a silly, silly person, but **** the guy's still a looker.
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He's pompous as hell and I'll never forgive him for sh###ng on his mates, but I still love the music and see him every time he comes to town.
 
Re: What the Fark???

Slap Shot said:
He's pompous as hell and I'll never forgive him for sh###ng on his mates, but I still love the music and see him every time he comes to town.
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He's a great example of the one band member who metastasizes and takes over the rest of the band, blob-like. Waters with Floyd, Townshend with the Who, Collins with Genesis. Their takeover marks the decline of the band (The Wall, Face Dances, Duke). I'm sure there are many others -- it's got a Behind the Music inevitability about it.
 
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