Stats from the last congressional election:

o 14% approval rate -- that was a poll
o 94% re-election rate -- that was actual voters.
o In the same election, national turnout was 36.3%.

I think the advent of the net's new accessibility to information outside of the laundered and agitprop driven channels, the money-based reasoning of SCOTUS, the lobbyist factor, the obvious malfeasance of Fox news, MSNBC, the blatantly unconstitutional legislation coming out of congress... and so on... all combine to give a very large portion of the people who might otherwise vote a sense that the system is so massively corrupt that there just is no point to it.

When you ask them -- polling asks them -- they tell you that. That's why the 14% approval rate.

But the only people voting are the droolers who watch MSNBC and Fox. They're agenda- and plank-driven (abortion! guns! perverts! terrorists! taxes! etc.) and that's driving them to or from one party or the other. And *they* are controlling the narrative here; that's why the polls just aren't -- and won't be -- working in the current context.

It's just an idea. But the data is hard data. Something has to explain it. It's too skewed to be any kind of random happening.

I actually do vote, but I have to say, it's pretty damned fruitless. This is a red (very red) state, and so that's the way the pendulum swings here, regardless of how I vote. If I vote progressive on something, it's not going to happen. If I vote conservative on something, it would have happened any way. This is not encouraging.

The only thing less productive than voting for progressive ideas here is voting for a third party candidate. Neither one does any good at all in terms of biasing the political system, but at least the progressive vote isn't buried or simply not mentioned. Sneered at, I think might be the most accurate term around here, actually. But they at least talk about it.

Any species that doesn't feel a very strong need to reproduce will eventually die out. Wanting "Babies, BABIES, BABIES!" is a required long term survival trait.

What is considered "fit" isn't so simple as a longer neck or stronger muscles.

Technology and social structure are PART of evolution. As a matter of fact it seems that such things outweigh almost any of the other "natural" advantages a species might have.

At the end of the day, we squabble, and we can be short sighted, but the human race is the most evolved and complex species to ever walk this planet. From an evolutionary standpoint we're crowding everything else out. Honestly I don't think most species will survive long-term unless they are of use to us - either as pets, food, or work animals.

-1? Plus five ironic, more like. :)

If you want to open a business in a free country like the United States and advertise your business as a communication platform there is NO problem requiring that business allow open communication by all.

"Private." "Requiring." I do not think those words mean what you seem to think they mean. Free speech, as the constitution mentions it, applies to what the feds are not allowed to do with regard to the speech of the citizens. It's not a mandate enabling them to force the citizens to participate in things they aren't interested in. It just means that the government can't stifle you. A private entity is something else entirely. You may not like it, but there it is.

You should go read Facebook's terms of service. It'll be educational. I promise.

The vast majority of those shootings happen:

A. in cities/States where private ownership of firearms is highly restricted;

B. by people who are legally barred (for other reasons - age, criminal record, etc.) from possessing firearms

So how does adding further restrictions help this situation? We have people illegally possessing firearms, in jurisdictions which ban those same firearms, using them to commit crimes. Does another law eliminate this from happening?

Is it the thing that owned, or how it's used that makes it socially irresponsible? Perhaps rather than banning an inanimate object, we should hold those who misuse them to stronger consequences. After all, which kills more random non-combatants annually - howitzers or cars?

Easy solution - add the extra second at 1 second after midnight on the last Sunday of June. No exchanges are open anywhere in the world at that time - so there's no advantage that 1 second gives anyone.

So what you're saying is we need to create a new language, one that could be "write once, run everywhere" capable...

Agree 100%. It's all a political game so some can feel good about themselves while the State as a whole slowly dies of dehydration. But hey, on the plus side, we'll get a $70 billion train that will whisk us from Bakersfield to Fresno in just 4 hours!

You're going to upset some desert snail-darter lizard or something, and since they might have a range of [$insert_insane_value_here] miles we can't do ANYTHING in the desert. It's for the children, don't you know! After all, we're flushing 4 billion gallons - enough for the ANNUAL needs of 175,000 people - so that 6 steelhead could swim downstream.

Yeah that was the proposed 2013 rate (as reported in the Ventura County Star). My last water bill was $120.84 for 4488 gallons of water (not including service charges, waste water, or meter hookup cost). Or about $0.027 per gallon, which is about double the high-end costs for desalination.

As for Texas, that's your problem. You should also be furious that you're being charged quite a bit more than the costs associated with desalination of water. But then, you don't have an income tax, so you're probably going to pay more in direct costs for basic utilties/State/County services since you don't pay as much into a general slush fund like we do in California.

Desalinated water in most of the world is LOWER COST than the water we pay for right now. Why wouldn't we keep the desalination plants running, when it's lower cost for the consumers and leaves 100% of the "natural" water available so we can send [URL=http://www.westsideconnect.com/opinion/guest_columns/water-alliance-government-ordering-billion-gallons-of-water-for-six/article_35c2d376-df16-11e4-a347-3326ba293ded.html]4 billion gallons downstream for 6 fish to migrate[/URL]. Lower cost, no concerns about fish migration - why not use desalination?

Here in Ventura County we pay more for water than in Israel or Saudi Arabia, two countries with much more severe water problems than California - and who get a large (or even majority) portion of their water from desalination. We have the world's largest body of water right next to us - and we simply don't utilize it. Desalination.

I didn't come here to read what Dice wrote. I came here to read what you wrote.

For better or worse, slashdot attracts a collection of some very smart, and well-informed, and funny, people. And trolls, but hell, trolls are everywhere. Many places seem to only have trolls.