I happened to be staying in Key West at the same time as a convention. There absolutely are people who believe they are mermaids.

The media is often owned by the same people buying the partisan politicians. First past the poll consolidates power. It makes it easier to convince voters to vote for the lesser of two evils while party funding overloads media with their preferred candidates. Some states even get away with laws that only allow the two parties to be on their ballots. If you can vote based on candidate approval, you could choose your best candidate and your lesser of evils. When people see this make a difference after one or two cycles, parties will lose power in the polls.

Buying rights to provide telecom service to an area and not actually providing service.

I would start by asking AI.

I think wasps and hornets are beautiful, fascinating creatures. Most of them don't mess with me even a few inches from a nest. There are one or two species that are looking for war and get the spray.

The US has an effectively two-party system. These parties make decisions based on the money they are given. In order to win votes, they find the most divisive issue to wedge a divide between their party and the other side. If they resolved these issues, they would have to create new ones so they are actually motivated to not compromise. There are many books and other writings about these problems.

As for the rest of the world, the US was dominant in the 20th century in power and influence. This meant that people who wanted power in other countries would look to the US way of doing politics for inspiration. I am not making all the connections for you, but I do want to mentioned how the parties in UK started hiring US campaign managers in the late 90s to help them gain power in their country. It clearly worked. Other countries have followed suit.

End FPTP. House of representatives actually representing the people instead of state or party. Senate still representing states but not parties.

I went to school in CA for a year and a half. In all the states I've also gone to school, that was the only place with blacktop as the school yard. Strange for such large expanses without turf.

Isn't this what sexual harrassment looks like?

I miss my hard drive full of music. Sure some of it was mislabeled, but at least I didn't have to deal with ads.

Best one of these yet.

drop that tar pitch