Oh my poor sweet summer consumer.

You don't "purchase" games any more, you don't get a "copy". You get a time limited license that expires when you stop paying the ever increasing monthly fees. That's on top of the $100 entry fee per game you get charged.

This is why publishers hate Steam so much, it's not that the 30% is onerous, it's feck all for handling the transaction and customer service components, what they hate is that Steam doesn't enforce a subscription model.

And remember folks, it's got absolutely nothing to do with a violent gun culture that the US refuses to admit could possibly be a problem.

Thanks,

I didn't know it was always a Thursday (in my defence I've only been here for two GEs). Australia is similar to the US where you'll be voting for both your local candidate as we do in the UK as well as for your states representatives in the senate (upper house) and occasionally any other issues that require a plebiscite (which is rather rare, plebiscites in Australia rarely result in a "yes" vote) The senate voting form can easily contain 60+ candidates and has become known as "the tablecloth" due to it's size.

It's because no one sees the hidden comma.

the tough on, crime party.

I'd argue it's far more fascism, the state isn't giving control of the company to the people (that's Marxism, for the people to own the means of production). Fascism is where the state and it's leaders become the beneficiaries.

A simple cow analogy:
Socialism: you have two cows, the government takes both and gives you some milk.
Fascism: you have two cows, the government takes both and sells you some milk.

The thing about cults of personality is that they tended to either have a dearth of personality or completely repulsive personalities. They get the cult by picking on the naive, vulnerable or just plain stupid.

David Koresh (Branch Davidians, A.K.A. Waco) was reported to be an utterly repulsive person. Didn't bathe, had terrible BO, unkempt, no interpersonal skills (I mean almost none, the average /.er would be positively suave in comparison) except he could pick the vulnerable people out of a room and get close to them.

It's the same with people like Trump, Farage, et al. they figured out that they can rile up the stupid people and then use that anger to get what they want. The people they get riled up over non-issues are too dumb to realise that they're the ones being manipulated, so much so they'll defend the manipulation, violently so in many cases rather than take simple and easy steps to stop being taken advantage of.

You are right of course, that the media played a huge role in this.

As a former Australian resident, I'd argue vehemlently against mandatory voting as all it does is force people to vote when they don't want to. It doesn't force people to pay attention to politics, it doesn't make people more aware of the world around them or the issues affecting them. If anything it makes it easier for bad politicians to get elected as they can pander to the easily manipulated who would otherwise not vote by scare mongering rather than campaigning on real issues. The US already has a huge issue with that.

As for a national holiday, that's a uniquely American problem that is of it's own making by allowing political parties to interfere in nuts and bolts of running an election. I've voted in Australia and the UK, it's never taken particularly long, 30 mins max in Australia and you're in and out in 10 mins in the UK. Australia runs it's elections on a Saturday and polling stations are open until 6 PM, the UK runs their elections on weekdays but the polling stations are open from 7 AM until 10 PM. Despite recent attempts by the Conservatives to use American style disenfranchisement (it didn't help them) voting takes minutes in the UK. The US needs to look at what is creating the lines and eliminate it rather than make it a day off... however I suspect many American politicians know what is creating difficulty in voting because they fully support it as they hope it means people won't be able to vote for their rivals.

I used to work for an American company where everyone got 4 hours "National Voting Time Off" and it was asked after the election why no-one in the UK took it. They were surprised to learn that voting over here is so quick that most of us did it outside of work hours (including using part of our lunch break).

Investors are stupid and easy to manipulate. Particularly when it comes to leaders, add to that the fact that it's near impossible for a small investor lead movement to unseat a board or executives as they themselves will hold significant quantities of the shares, in particular voting shares. The whole point of stock buy-backs was to consolidate power back in the hands of the few who support the board and C-levels. Ergo, the current management becomes more or less unaccountable. See Boeing, QANTAS, Intel and those are just the first three I can think of off the top of my head.

Yet another reason why the obsession around the stock market is doing more harm to economic stability and health than good.

Yep, so long as there is no penalty in western countries for providing these services to scam centres, they'll continue to do it.

I don't disagree with your points and it shows the UK is still a free and fair country that we're permitted to criticise our politicians and police without an unidentifiable cosplay agent arresting us for being immigrants (although some people would love that to happen with the complete lack of self awareness that a police state will also be turned against them) but I digress.

I think a large part of the problem is that the UK has become such a safe environment that people are no longer or no longer feel the need to take basic self preservation measures. A lot of the phone theft can be stopped by simply not walking around with your head buried in your phone. The attraction of petty crime is that it's easy (far easier than getting a minimum wage job) and people seem to insist on making it even easier than it used to be. I'm not victim blaming, definitely don't support that kind of thing but people really need to start being a bit more responsible, a bit more aware of the risks and dangers around them. Just a few prudent steps to safeguard yourself and your property like paying attention to what you're doing and what's around you.

Same with the shoplifting problem, a lot of it can be stymied by the shops themselves but they don't want to as it will reduce the sale of impulse items as security measures, especially passive ones, will occupy the space that is most ideal for displaying impulse items. So they'll complain but until the problem gets bad enough for them to make some changes to store layouts (I.E. checkouts by the exits, like back in the 80s and 90s) it's all just "won't someone please think of the profits".

The problem is, there are still some people who didn't think Brexit and the Tories kicked the UK in the bollocks hard enough and want Farage to do it again and again.

Whilst the Tories needed to go, Starmer is a lame duck and Labour really needs to up their game. It is funny watching Starmer have a fit whenever Andy Burnham pokes his head out of Manchester.

Ford has made an electric version of their Transit van, this is a GM problem rather than an America problem. Just about every van manufacturer in Europe now offers an electric version of their van product.

Imagine being able to get the medical care you need without having to worry about it bankrupting you.

You don't worry at all.

That's life in every other western country. Also dealing with the DVLA (DMV here in the UK) is a breeze. It's all done online, in my 10 years here I haven't had to visit a DVLA office for anything and previous to that in Australia, the last time I visited a DOT office was the day I got my license. Everything else could be done by post or online.

Maybe the US needs to start electing adults to fix things. Although you may no longer have that option.

Floriduh has problems, house prices are dropping (and no-ones buying), inflation is going up, cost of living, thus far trying to blame it all on migrants, blacks, gays, women, muslims and jews hasn't magically fixed everything so now they're going after the old stalwart, video games to keep the real problems out of the headlines.

Peak stupidity is allowing, let alone supporting private companies to have control over your health care.

Requiring your shit to be analysed to see what they can charge you more for is so far over the peak you're in another country. I can see it happening though.