Giving him change to buy cigarettes or alcohol with doesn't help him eat either. Neither does giving him cigarettes to feed his addiction. You can afford to be an addict. He can't.

Donating (or volunteering) at the local soup kitchen, THAT helps him eat.

Actually, nothing says disposable income like smoking. Ear phones are nothing in comparison, unless you've got them plugged into one of those diamond encrusted bling phones. I can't afford to smoke, there's no way I'm going to give money to someone who can.

Many of the genuinely homeless are that way because they have addictions or other mental disorders that make them waste money on drugs or other bad decisions. If you want to help, vote for social treatment and rehabilitation programs. If you can't do that, donate to a decent charity that has a low administrative overhead.

People are continuous, you insensitive clod!

It is hard when your job as a "submitter" consists of copying and pasting the first paragraph of the article. At least they usually remember to put quotes around it.

Why yes, I have been to Iceland.

Coverity: Hey you, proprietary software developer with the deep pockets. Yeah, you. We've got this great tool for finding software defects. You should buy it.

Proprietary software developer: get lost.

Coverity: Hey, open source dudes, we've got this great defect scanner. Want to use it? Free of course!

Open source dudes: Meh, why not?

Coverity: Hey proprietary software developer, did we mention those dirty hippie neck beards are beating the stuffing out of you in defect (that we detect)-free code?

PSD: Fine, how much?

Except that the "impossible" happens every day outside the US. Actually, IIRC, even in the US there are states that frequently have independents, third parties or non-partisan candidates in their legislatures, aren't there? Local governments may be even more diverse.

There seems to be something peculiar about either the US federal system, the American people, or both.

It's your cynicism and tendency to wild generalizations with little to no evidence. Also gratuitous capitalization.

One example? Really? I have no trouble believing that the powers in the US are unhealthily interested in maintaining those powers, but one example (and kind of an iffy one at that) doesn't mean much. It's also irrelevant to the point: the reason there aren't third parties in the US (and the reason the two ruling parties get away with things they shouldn't) is that Americans don't vote for third parties.

True, the US presidency is kind of a strange setup that's not seen much elsewhere, and it's the most extreme possible example of representative voting, where you're electing just one representative.

Most people mean a literal democrat when they refer to it. A democracy is a system in which all eligible citizens participate equally, either directly or through elected representatives.

When the US was founded "democracy" was usually used to mean direct democracy specifically. That's no longer the case.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D...

Duverger's "law" is a "tendency". Whether it's true or not, many democracies around the world demonstrate that it is not necessarily overwhelming. As you point out, it also doesn't mean that one or both of those two parties won't be kicked to the curb.

Most revolutions have failed. Some appear to succeed, but are either quickly subverted or defeated in a counter revolution. The American revolution seems to be one of the few that succeeded and met it's expressed goals at least for a time.

There are a large number of countries (including one just to the north of you Americans) that have strong third (or fourth or fifth) parties and frequent minority or coalition governments. Ruling parties occasionally get slammed so hard in elections they are almost entirely shut out and take years or decades to rebuild.

What you say is true, but it's not a rebuttal of the parent. The reason the US only has two valid parties is that the populace doesn't bother to run alternative candidates, or to vote for them. There are lots of soft factors that have been put in place to discourage it, but there's nothing to prevent a third (or fourth, or fifth) party from gaining power except the will of the people.