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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
I've got a soft spot for farmers (my grandfather had one after he stopped working for Kodak back in the day), so I'm gonna side with helping revitalize small towns and rural areas. They've still got a place in the world, and urban areas aren't the only ones that matter.
Here is still the problem of racism and bigotry in those small towns, but those can be battled, rather than letting the towns just die off.
@ small towns: When Young Urban Professionals (Yuppies) find themselves on the verge of becoming Middle-Aged Suburban Professionals (Maspies?), they like to move out of their apartment or "townhome" in the city, and relocate to some picturesque small town where they can build their dream house and raise their family in an idyllic setting.
Then, once they settle in, they begin complaining about the negative aspects of country living — like having to drive ten miles to the nearest convenience store for a quart of milk. Or the godawful stench when the farmers spread liquid sewage on their fields. Or — I shit you not — calling up the local dairy farmer and complaining that his cows are mooing loudly early in the mornings when they need to be milked, and interrupting the city-slickers' sleep.
Fortunately, I read recently that the McMansion is now passé in new housing construction...
edited 17th Oct '16 4:38:56 PM by pwiegle
This Space Intentionally Left Blank.Yeah, having grown up mostly in small town and rural area, if you have the social mobility to live wherever you want, I don't recommend the country unless you actually love the country, cows and all. At the very least, pick a town or suburb with a decent school district and preferably (for me) not further than 30 minutes from a reasonable urban center.
@Ecuador: We don't know why yet but in terms of plausibility i'd say it goes something like:
a: Ecuador's continued housing of a political enemy of the US is doing them no favors and they may be at the point of passive aggressively trying to get him to leave
b: The staff is so annoyed with jules they took action outside of their government wishes
c: jules is losing his marbles and forgot they changed the wifi password.
d: this is all in preparation for clinton to personally break into the embassy with seal team 6 and execute him.
Is using "Julian Assange is a Hillary butt plug" an acceptable signature quote?If Assange gets kicked out there will be two fellows from the Met waiting at the door to arrest him, he'll be put strait on a plane to Sweden (assuming we don't want to charge him for breach to bail over in the UK).
As for farming, don't a lot of the big farmers in some areas tend to use illegal or short term migrant labour? So fruit pickers either just for the summer or illegal ones, as Americans won't do jobs like fruit picking? If rural Americans were more willing to do such jobs and such jobs were more appetising some of the issues might be avoided.
On rural living in general, as someone who grew up in rural England I can attest to folks who move out to the country then complain about the smell whent he farmer is muck spreading on the fields.
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran![]()
That would have some ripple effects. All that migrant labor (and factory farming too) keeps food cheap. Anything that couldn't be mechanized would go up sharply in price (and most of the picking jobs that depend on human labor are those that no one has figured out how to mechanize yet).
edited 17th Oct '16 4:31:28 PM by Elle
So, I just watched the debate between Marco Rubio (running for reelection to his Senate seat, despite promising not to during the presidential primary) and Patrick Murphy (the Democratic nominee opposing him). Marco Rubio honestly terrifies me because the man has no moral scruples whatsoever, but is legitimately a phenomenal public speaker. He's willing to shift to whatever position will benefit him at the moment, and his talent for public speaking lets him excel in a post-fact environment. The best thing I can say about the debate is that it at least convinced me that Patrick Murphy isn't a complete idiot, which is good given that I'd never heard of him before the primary. (He's currently serving in the House, but his district is a few hours south of where I live.)
Rubio did a really good job of appealing to the "a pox on both their houses" crowd by attacking Clinton and Trump, while simultaneously refusing to retract his endorsement of Trump. Probably the most notable thing that happened in regards to national politics during the debate is that Rubio refused to rule out a 2020 presidential run (while making it sound like he was, since he was under attack for his abysmal attendance record in the Senate due to his spending so much time campaigning).
Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.Related with American-Filipino political relations.
If they did they'd have released it. I'm still not ruling out the entire "Assange has lost internet" thing being staged to try and draw media attention away from the sexual assault actusations aimed at Trump.
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ CyranMost of what winds up on Wikileaks' Twitter is very heavily spun.
I have disagreed with her a lot, but comparing her to republicans and propagandists of dictatorships is really low. - An idiot
The apostrophes in the URL break the encoding. I reached it through the MSN news front page and put it through a shortener: http://tinyurl.com/zw5hkcj

@assange: called it. wikileaks tweet about is hilarious "We can confirm Ecuador cut off Assange's internet access Saturday, 5pm GMT, shortly after publication of Clinton's Goldman Sachs speechs."
I give them a day before they start calling the nation (((Ecuador)))
@smalltowns: outside of a Basic Income system I don't see much hope for low density areas and ironically that would probably be fiercely opposed by the very people it helps.
Is using "Julian Assange is a Hillary butt plug" an acceptable signature quote?