Some people look for anything to bitch about.
Insane homeowners association tries to fine resident for dick-shaped outline car left in snow
It turns out there's a whole subreddit dedicated to whining about the US phenomenon of homeowners associations (or HOAs), and no gripe better encapsulates their draconian pettiness than the woman who reported being fined $100 for the tenuously dick-shaped outline her car left in melting frost. Following what was described as a …
COMMENTS
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Friday 1st March 2019 00:02 GMT bombastic bob
The neighbor doth protest too much, methinks...
And isnt it just like an SJW to see offense where none is even remotely intended? And, THEN, force everyone to comply with the demands according to 'snowflake' sensitivities?
Yeah, the 'snowflake' and 'snow pattern' coincidental comparison did not go unnoticed, either.
icon, because I'm not sure whether to facepalm or just snark
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Wednesday 27th February 2019 15:52 GMT ThomH
Re: "Insane homeowners association"
Re: "cannot afford better housing", and speaking as a resident of the New York area, a quick glance on Zillow suggests that even the most expensive currently-listed apartment comes with an HOA: the property costs $88m (!), and HOA fees are $13,500/month (!!).
So I'm not sure that what you can afford necessarily comes into it. Living in a densely-packed area is enough, and if anything those tend to correlate with increasing cost.
My life in the UK was a lot easier. This sort of thing is dealt with via leasehold sales*, ground rent and quarterly service charges. I can't think of anybody with (i) a resident's association; that (ii) attempts to police morality.
* this is ownership when you're talking about something like flat (/'apartment'). You've actually purchased whatever remains of usually something like a 125-year lease, with the legal right to renew. But the obligations and rights that transfer with what is technically a lease but wouldn't with a freehold are pretty necessary when you're talking about multiple people owning parts of a single structure. It's a workaround.
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Thursday 28th February 2019 13:14 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: "Insane homeowners association"
" This sort of thing is dealt with via leasehold sales*, [...]"
A block of leasehold flats in our street formed a residents association to fight the leaseholder. The ground rent and leasehold extension fees were getting hiked considerably.
The leaseholder has done none of their mandated grounds maintenance for years. With many of the properties now being BTL there aren't enough people interested in taking the leaseholders to task. So a small minority of resident owners have to do the work on the whole area themselves rather than let the area deteriorate.
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Wednesday 27th February 2019 18:15 GMT usbac
Re: "Insane homeowners association"
When we bought our house 18 years ago, I said I would never live where there is an HOA, but we bough our house anyway. The thing was that we were house number 6 in the development. There weren't even enough homeowners yet to set up the HOA until our house was finished.
I figured that the best way to avoid problems with the HOA was to be a board member. I was VP for the first two years, and then president for the next four years (no one would run for a board position). Finally, someone very reasonable was dumb enough to run against me. She got stuck with it until last summer.
My approach was to ignore most complaints and tell the complainer that the bylaws required complaints to be put in writing and mailed (certified mail) to each board member. That usually ended the problem right there. People will bitch, but they usually won't put it in writing and pay for certified mail. I think in 6 years, I only had one person submit a written complaint. And, that was against the builder of the subdivision who already had a written exemption from HOA rules in the bylaws.
We recently voted to disband our HOA, and I'm so glad we did. Some people at my work are actually glad they have an HOA. I usually suggest psychological treatment when they tell me they like having an HOA. I guess there are enough sheep in this world?
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Thursday 28th February 2019 04:45 GMT KSM-AZ
Re: "Insane homeowners association"
Tried to disband the one I was President of. Here's the rub:
Builder gets some land wants to build houses. City says, "No Problem", You need reserve X space as water retention, and X feet of road frontage and greenbelts with X 2 gallon, X 5 gallon , X trees, blah, and you need to provide play areas. And when you have that, we will approve your plan.... Sounds reasonable right?
Then the city says, all that fun space that needs maintenance, . . . Well you see *we* (the city) don't want it, so it's your responsibility. Obviously the builder is not going to maintain all the lighting and landscaping, so ... They form an HOA and deed it all to the HOA. And then you have deadbeats that don't pay their dues, but you still have to pay the electric bills and the landscapers, and what you have is . . .
City infrastructure, the city doesn't have to pay maintenance for, and in fact TAXES, the residents for, that is managed by an organization with limited means to collect dues (Unlike city property taxes, which must be satisfied) and then you get some idiots elected to the board, and ....
I despise HOA's. I specifically moved from one into an area without one. I'm amazed you were able to get the city to take deed on the greenbelts and commons. I tried and was laughed at by the powers that be. What a joke.
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Wednesday 27th February 2019 19:15 GMT Tikimon
Re: "Insane homeowners association"
Discovered what HOAs really stood for when shopping for my last house. Anyone I asked "do you have an HOA?" made disgusted faces or actually snarled at the mention.
So I filtered my home searches to exclude HOA properties. That eliminated about 90% of the homes on the market! It's difficult to avoid the horrid things. AND YET we managed to find a great house in an awesome 40+ YO non-HOA neighborhood. Everyone keeps their place looking nice, none are painted orange with pink trim, and yard Nazis don't trespass looking for things to fine us for.
I'll live in a hut in the woods before accepting an HOA's interference.
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Wednesday 27th February 2019 16:03 GMT ThomH
Re: Power unchecked
In the UK I'm disappointed that the 48% of the population I found myself a member of in 2016 had 0% of the major parties offering their preferred policies during the general election of 2017. Though that's a minor concern compared to my feelings about the negligible lightweight who was so certain of his political powers that he rushed the country into the events of 2016 without nary a moment's planning for what might happen if he wasn't god's gift to referenda. That was the time to be explicit about whether there'd be a second referendum should the government end up in the position of having to negotiate something concrete, I think.
In the US I'm still slightly aghast that the man who won 3 million fewer votes than his opponent gets to be in charge. As if the horrors of the US's primary system weren't bad enough: letting the hardcore fringe of each party pick the candidates is already fairly crazy, but then having the person who obtains a smaller share of the public vote assume power is outright bonkers.
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Wednesday 27th February 2019 16:38 GMT John Sager
Re: Power unchecked
We'll, they have a particular process for electing their presidents that is not a straight plebiscite. And there are defendable reasons for that.
In our case plebiscites are a relatively new innovation but now well established after several outings, and we weren't told that it would be re-run until TPTB got the 'right' answer. You ask the people, they tell you, and it's then your job to deliver on that, whatever you think of the result.
Shame it doesn't look like that will be the outcome.
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Wednesday 27th February 2019 16:46 GMT Loyal Commenter
Re: Power unchecked
You ask the people, they tell you,
and it's then your job to deliver on that, whatever you think of the result.there, FTFY.
In a non-binding referendum, what you have is an opinion poll that nobody is bound to do anything at all with. What the major political parties have chosen to do is run with the result, with no legal compunction to do so (only political expedience*). This is why we have ourselves in a situation where the High Court has said that although the referendum was fraudulent, it can't strike it down, as there is nothing to actually strike down in a legal sense, but at the same time, we have a PM who keeps insisting it is some sort of mandate, which is only true in a very narrow political sense.
*Although Cameron said the government would implement the result of the referendum, he was exceeding his authority when he said this. Not only can a PM not bind the decisions any future government, the enabling bill explicitly stated that the result did not have to be implemented. This is why the poll was allowed to exclude, for instance, British citizens living in the EU, and EU citizens who would otherwise be allowed to vote in elections here.
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Wednesday 27th February 2019 18:16 GMT John Sager
Re: Power unchecked
I think if Cameron had turned round and said in effect "I'm appalled that you plebs ignored me. In return I'm going to ignore your vote", then there would have been a lot more trouble. UKIP wouldn't have faded away, Farage would have garnered a lot more support and the issue really wouldn't have gone away at all. Distrust of the democratic process would have gone through the roof. So Cameron didn't really have any option.
Are you really sure the High Court said the referendum was fraudulent? There was criticism of activity on both sides, and only the Leave campaign got properly investigated. In any event, we don't have a tradition of electoral fraud in the UK generally, and this referendum wasn't the occasion that demonstrated that that is no longer true.
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Thursday 28th February 2019 21:26 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Power unchecked
Always surprised they didn't just take the nuclear option(s)
1) proscribe UKIP - inciting violence for starters
2) detain farage under the terrorism act - "I'll grab a rifle and head for the front lines" i.e. inciting armed insurrection
3) Deport Farage and other rabble rousers to somewhere like South Georgia
4) let them have start a riot, reinstate the riot act and then forcefully detain the lot of them
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Friday 1st March 2019 11:22 GMT Tomato42
Re: Power unchecked
sorry, but I can't see a situation in which Farage with "reinvigorated" UKIP would have done more damage
> and only the Leave campaign got properly investigated. In any event,
"there were fine people on both sides"
"teach the controversy"
"climate since is not settled"
no, both sides are not the same
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Wednesday 27th February 2019 21:20 GMT Cederic
Re: Power unchecked
re: "the High Court has said that although the referendum was fraudulent"
The High Court case was because a Leave campaign had overspent. Of course, that totally fucking ignores the horrific imbalance in spending between the two campaigns, with 'Remain' campaigners spending over twice as much as 'Leave' campaigners.
I think it's very reasonable to suggest that the extra money spent by the Leave campaign did not unduly influence the outcome.
Sources:
https://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/find-information-by-subject/political-parties-campaigning-and-donations/campaign-spending-and-donations-at-referendums/campaign-spending-at-the-eu-referendum
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-politics-eu-referendum-35982273/eu-referendum-government-to-spend-93m-on-leaflets
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Wednesday 27th February 2019 17:41 GMT ThomH
Re: Power unchecked
I take your point re: rerunning until you get the 'right' answer, and it's why I'm on the fence about a second referendum now. Technically it's a different question — mutated from "these are some hypothetical benefits, should we pursue?" to "this is the deal so far, shall we continue?" — but if you follow that path of logic then I guess you'd end up with at least three polls since even May's current deal is, at least in part, to establish a transition period during which the actual final agreement is obtained. So a different absurdity looms.
The chaos in parliament and the prospect of a no-deal exit, which is a thousand miles from what most leavers voted for (cf. Gove, Redwood, et al and their beliefs that a deal would be easy), is the real tragedy here. That's not delivering on the referendum. That's admitting that the thing was so poorly framed and ill-prepared for that the whole system of government has failed to find a way to deal with the result.
On the issue of substance, the 48% I'm in lost. Game over. Farewell, EU.
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Thursday 28th February 2019 15:24 GMT tfewster
Re: Power unchecked
When asked, 100% of Romans wanted bread and circuses. When asked how they would like to pay for that, many of them changed their minds.
I would have thought a second referendum, on which deal (or no deal) to take would have been May's get-out. If it's seen as her decision, she's damned whatever happens.
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Thursday 28th February 2019 21:01 GMT rdhood
Re: Power unchecked
"When asked, 100% of Romans wanted bread and circuses."
Same with Venezuela and Chavez. And that works... until you run out of other people's money. It's one reason why I ambivalent about their plight. I know that if the money was still there, Venezuela would still be cheering on Maduro. They wanted bread and circuses... they voted for it... they got it. Then the money ran out, they figured out that they had ceded all of their power to a tyrant, and can't get it back.
Any of your freedom that you wish to give up.... someone will gladly take from you. Give up enough freedom, and they will make you their slave. So when someone like AOC advances a "green new deal" that promises government takeovers of health care, the energy sector, the farming sector, the transportation sector, and giving money event to people who are unwilling to work... then you should recognize that someone wants to make you a slave.
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Friday 1st March 2019 10:58 GMT Twanky
Re: Power unchecked
OK. I know I shouldn't feed them - but AC looked so hungry.
'According to Anna Soubry - "Mrs May has a problem with immigrants" coded language for she's a xenophobic racist.'.
Yes, that seems to be a fair translation of that quote. If it's a real quote it strikes me as a wild accusation by Mrs Soubry with no evidence to back it up.
'May was always a closet leaver...' Evidence? I understood Mrs May says she voted 'Remain'.
'...and her ideal society resembles something worse than Orwell ever dreamt up.' Example? Are you really suggesting she would approve of the society described in '1984'?
Come on! Higher standards of thought please.
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Friday 1st March 2019 11:39 GMT BebopWeBop
Re: Power unchecked
Well I would begin by looking at her policies while at the Home Office. From her avowed intention to reduce immigration to the 10s of thousands (a statement that should have been a warning of her basic incompetence) to the Windrush scandal.
The evidence is falling over in its eagerness to show itself to you.
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Wednesday 27th February 2019 17:48 GMT John Gamble
Re: Power unchecked
"And there are defendable reasons for that."
Mmm, semi-defendable. There were contradictory motives (and some political maneuvers) in creating the Electoral College, and the evidence that it's a mishmash is, for example, demonstrated by the 12th Amendment to the Constitution.
Not that this excuses the Trump victory.
(Note, I'm not in favor of a strictly popular vote, but the Electoral College is a set of compromises that were unsatisfactory in the 18th century, never mind the 21st.)
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Thursday 28th February 2019 00:02 GMT sprograms
Re: Power unchecked
The compromise as to the selection of senators was a highly practical recognition of the primitive infrastructure of most states at the time. The practical effect was, really, much like the Europe-typical democratic vote for a party, not a particular candidate. So state elections to state legislatures provided the ground for selection of senators.
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Friday 1st March 2019 00:26 GMT bombastic bob
Re: Power unchecked
ahem... had the rules been different (popular vs electoral college), the campaign stops and overall strategy would have also been different. Trump would still have won but would have spent more time in high population areas.
Trump efficiently went for the electoral votes. The popular vote didn't matter. So regardless of whether anyone likes it, those are the rules of the game, and you play it by those rules if you want to win.
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Wednesday 27th February 2019 16:43 GMT scrubber
Re: Power unchecked
@ThomH I'd love you to show me the UK government that got over 50% of the popular vote, or candidates who do.
You, likely, come from a country with an unelected hereditary head of state and FPTP electoral system that all but demands tyranny of the minority masquerading as a huge majority and yet slag off the country that managed to throw off the shackles of medieval thinking.
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Wednesday 27th February 2019 17:25 GMT ThomH
Re: Power unchecked @scrubber
I've obviously touched a nerve. But to ignore your "over 50%" request as neither 2016 candidate got over 50% (it was 46.2% for the winner, 48.1% for the loser, to 1dp), I can name zero elections in the UK in which the winner got fewer votes than any of the losers.
I was also pretty clear in slagging off both of the countries I have any association with. Both the one that sleepwalked into allowing a 52% majority kick off a constitutional crisis by taking their opinion only in the negative — much like the MPs are now doing every other week, they indicated what they don't want, without providing any indication on what they want and with no mechanism being in place to find out — and the one that allowed the candidate that got fewer votes to assume the highest office in the land, where he's busy ripping apart the constitution all on his own.
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Wednesday 27th February 2019 21:10 GMT Cederic
Re: Power unchecked @scrubber
The current prime minister was voted for by one twentieth of one percent of the population, so hardly a ringing endorsement.
Meanwhile I'm distressed that the single largest vote for something in UK history is being deliberately ignored and its outcome sabotaged by the MPs that are meant to represent the people that voted for it.
As for the US my understanding is that long established rules were adhered to and based on those rules the electorate chose the current president. I'm confused that you find this an issue.
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Thursday 28th February 2019 15:58 GMT desht
Re: Power unchecked @scrubber
"Meanwhile I'm distressed that the single largest vote for something in UK history is being deliberately ignored and its outcome sabotaged by the MPs that are meant to represent the people that voted for it."
It wasn't a vote *for* anything, it was a vote against something, with no consideration of how the implementation was to be carried out. The outcome isn't being deliberately ignored, it's just very clear that nobody has a clue how to implement it.
And no - "no deal" is *not* a plan - it would be the catastrophic outcome of standing frozen in the oncoming headlights, no matter what the yellowjacket nihilist knobs outside parliament would like you to believe.
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Monday 4th March 2019 02:52 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Power unchecked @scrubber
And no - "no deal" is *not* a plan
Au contraire Rodders, it very definitely is a plan and it is a decision that can be taken. It may well not end as you like or be your preferred choice, but it most certainly is a plan. In fact, one could argue that it is just about the only bargaining chip the UK ever possessed in negotiations - "give us a reasonable deal or we're just out".
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Tuesday 5th March 2019 18:33 GMT ThomH
Re: Power unchecked @scrubber
Belated response; apologies.
In the UK we use manifestos to resolve the issue you raise. A set of policy objectives is annunciated by each party in a widely-circulated document; those are the policies that your local candidate for that party promises to work to bring into effect, and the prime minister is whomever the majority of them trust to do the same.
The system is set up to promote input on policies more than personalities. Compare and contrast with electing whomever was most amusing on reality television.
If you really insist that it must be about specific people: what proportion of the UK electorate voted for the Minister of Defence? And what proportion of the American electorate voted for the US Secretary of Defence? Or for any other cabinet member?
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Wednesday 27th February 2019 20:46 GMT MonkeyCee
Re: Power unchecked
"You, likely, come from a country with an unelected hereditary head of state and FPTP electoral system that all but demands tyranny of the minority masquerading as a huge majority"
But the head of state in constitutional monarchies is largely ceremonial. The devolving of power to make laws, declaring war and raise taxes to parliament is pretty fundamental part of the UK constitution. Lizzy is so nice that other countries choose to have her as their head of state.
Not sure where you live that has no FPTP elections, but even in NZ they have FPTP for some roles, MMP is half FPTP, and local councils are FPTP or STV.
The only thing that FPTP does guarantee is a two party system.
"and yet slag off the country that managed to throw off the shackles of medieval thinking."
That's not the USA then? Last I checked congressional and mayoral races are FPTP. So exactly like the UK. The electoral colleges differ by state, but some states are winner take all, which seems like FPTP on crack to me :)
In the other "medieval" countries I've lived in elections are held on weekends or public holidays, so people with jobs can vote. In the "modern" USA they're on a weekday, in order to allow farmers a couple of days to get in to town. You know, like in medieval times...
It's also not possible to tar the USA with a single brush. Certain states take their elections seriously. They're the ones who aren't gerrymandered to pieces (boundaries based on law), have somewhat sane vote counts, and generally aren't big on voter suppression. Other states work VERY hard to ensure that certain voting segments never get their say. Mostly against democrat voters, but I wouldn't be shocked if there was a way to disenfranchise red voters then certain political actors would use it.
Oh, and if you want to shit on UK democracy, the upper house (equivalent of the senate) is unelected, and is for life. Ideologically I object to it, but in practice the Lords have a lot more sense than the commons. In part because they don't need to spend most of their time ensuring they get re-elected, or engaging in the internal party backstabbing sessions.
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Thursday 28th February 2019 19:31 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Power unchecked
"The only thing that FPTP does guarantee is a two party system."
Not at all.
In many elections a majority could go to any of three parties, or a minority government that caries on as such.
Then there are the cases when two parties agree to form a majority coalition, in which case any of four parties could be involved in the government.
The political landscape can be even more complicated when a party which is not the provincial version of one of the three leading federal parties becomes a majority in a province.
As a result, federal/provincial conferences may have representatives of five or more parties, each controlling a government.
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Thursday 28th February 2019 21:38 GMT CountCadaver
Re: Power unchecked
Well until Cameron started stuffing it with acolytes like a certain underwear Tycoon, who some allege is a failure.
I'm of the opinion the Lords should be appointed by an independent panel (fat chance of that happening though) and picking a range of some of the best minds in various areas to scrutinise what parliament is trying to ram through.
I.e. apart from legal scholars, you'd have various medical experts, Teachers, Trade negotiators, Engineers, Technology specialists etc. With the appointments being for 10 years and an ability to remove anyone pushing falsehoods / lobbying for vested interests.
Parliament also losing the right to override the upper chamber, so any daft ideas like this "Porn Block" would be stopped as "unworkable", "orwellian" and "infringing right to a private life" and "watch your children" along with "better pron than violence"
I have less of an issue with a kid watching porn than violent videos or even political videos particularly anything generated by the Tories or UKIP, the latter 2 being more likely to warp minds
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Thursday 28th February 2019 16:06 GMT Santa from Exeter
Re: Power unchecked @ scrubber
Quote "throw off the shackles of medieval thinking."
Men's Suffrage -
UK - Representation of the People Act 1918 – the consequences of World War I persuaded the government to expand the right to vote, not only for the many men who fought in the war who were disenfranchised, but also for the women who worked in factories, agriculture and elsewhere as part of the war effort, often substituting for enlisted men and including dangerous work such as in munitions factories. All men aged 21 and over were given the right to vote. Property restrictions for voting were lifted for men
USA - 24th Amendment (1964): "The right of citizens of the United States to vote in any primary or other election for President or Vice President, for electors for President or Vice President, or for Senator or Representative in Congress, shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State by reason of failure to pay any poll tax or other tax."
Womens Suffrage -
Most independent countries enacted women's suffrage in the interwar era, including Canada in 1917; Britain, Germany, Poland in 1918; Austria and the Netherlands in 1919; and the United States in 1920.
You were saying?
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Thursday 28th February 2019 23:12 GMT Justthefacts
Re: Power unchecked
And they say Americans have no sense of irony. “hereditary Head of State” indeed. Political dynasties in the USA..... Bush’s, Reagans, Kennedys, Roosevelts, Tafts,Rockefellers, Clintons, and that’s just 20thC premier league.
We’ve got....hmmm Milibands, Foots, Churchills, Astors, Pitts, Asquiths, Bottomleys/Callaghan. You’ve got to reach back 200 years to get two related PMs, whereas *non* dynastic POTUS are in the minority.
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Wednesday 27th February 2019 17:24 GMT MericanMan
Re: Power unchecked
In regards to the winner of the overall popular vote not necessarily winning the election, it was designed that way for a reason. You have to remember that the US is not just "a country". It is an alliance of states who agreed to join themselves together, and originally was envisioned that the federal government would play a limited role such as the common defense of the country, with all other rights not specifically granted to it being left to the states, or the people. That's why although the House of Representatives' seats are based on population, in the Senate each state gets two senators, even though a state like California has a population of ~40 million, and a state like Wyoming has a population of ~600,000. The electoral college, which is what *actually* elects the president and vice president, combines the two--each state gets a number of electors equal to the number of House and Senate members that state has. That still means a more populous state like California gets more say in the election (they get 55 electors, Wyoming gets 3), but it also means that lower-population states get a larger say in the election than they would on a purely population basis (in this case, California counts for 18x more than Wyoming, rather than the 67x it otherwise would have).
Each state has an even larger ability to control legislation in the senate, since each state by definition has 2% of the vote there.
What people seem to forget these days, is that this was all very much intentionally done by the founders, because the states wanted to ensure their own rights, and because realistically it was necessary to get the states to agree to form the federal government.
It may not seem "fair" to some that a state with a tiny number of people has as much say in the Senate as California, and an oversized say in the presidential elections, but it's fair to the states and their ability to protect their own rights, even if that fight has largely been lost to the monster the federal government has now become.
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Wednesday 27th February 2019 23:46 GMT Trainee grumpy old ****
Re: Power unchecked
Not a left-pondian nor a great Trump fan, BUT am never ceased to be amazed by people complaining about him not winning the popular vote.
That was not the first ever election with the electoral college.
His opponent was supposedly someone who knew her way around the American political system, had $DEITY knows how many political advisers plus a husband who had won the presidency twice etc etc etc and yet not a single one of them was able to do the simple electoral maths as to how many states they needed to win?
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Wednesday 27th February 2019 23:10 GMT Fungus Bob
Re: Power unchecked
" I'm still slightly aghast that the man who won 3 million fewer votes than his opponent gets to be in charge"
We've had this system for years, everyone knows about it and everyone running for President tries to get the Electoral votes, not the popular vote. If we had a straight popular vote, everyone would simply adjust their campaign strategies to reflect this. In other words, we could still have wound up with cheeto-man in charge. Trump is not the first person to win the Presidency while losing the popular vote, Lincoln managed the same thing in 1860 and he is generally well regarded.
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Thursday 28th February 2019 21:15 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Power unchecked
"" I'm still slightly aghast that the man who won 3 million fewer votes than his opponent gets to be in charge""
That is because you come from an itty bitty country 1/40th the size of the united states. Your country doesn't have to balance the rights of a native Alaskan at the arctic circle with a billionaire in New York City. The entire island of Great Britain is about the same size as the single STATE (out of 50) that I live in. Your concepts of transportation , health care, VOTING simply DO NOT APPLY. Just as the U.K. did not want to be ruled from Brussels, folks in Wyoming or North Dakota or south Georgia don't want to be ruled from New York/California. Infrastructure for a village is simply not going to scale up to the size of a country. So to keep major cities (< 1% of the country in area) from dominating the other 99%, we have a system of government that gives states more equal footing. If you are aghast, it is because you simply cant imagine something 40 times bigger than your country is now, and what it takes to administer that.
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Wednesday 27th February 2019 23:55 GMT sprograms
Re: Power unchecked
The USA is not a unitary democracy, but a federation of states. Each state is a democracy, majority rule. If the majority in many states is by a (fairly common) not-overwhelming margin...but there is one large extremely populous state that has formed something like a Uniparty (generally through very high spending and government-employee unions, i.e. California), then the electoral vote winner may well not be the "popular vote winner." We have, though, no such thing as a "national popular vote winner," because we've intentionally never subjected ourselves, and our states, to such.
The electoral college system actually provides a damping system in case one very populous state has very non-diverse politics. Without it national institutions and laws would quickly come to reflect only that state's Uniparty beliefs and policies.
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Thursday 28th February 2019 13:47 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Power unchecked
"The electoral college system actually provides a damping system in case one very populous state has very non-diverse politics."
It is my understanding that the Founding Fathers intended the Electoral College to be a buffer against an unsuitable populist candidate. They required the college's representatives to use their judgement.
That principle has been undermined.
Some states pick their representatives only from that same winner's party allegiance. A "winner" takes all policy.
Some states have forbidden their representatives to vote against their state's winner - under all circumstances. Legal action against them is possible if they vote contrary to that.
Some states pick their representatives from allegiances according to their state's split vote for the candidates - a much fairer representation of the state's voters wishes.
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Sunday 3rd March 2019 02:49 GMT M.V. Lipvig
Re: Power unchecked
Yes, each state determines how it will participate, which is a states rights thing.
You know, you wouldn't be complaining about the Electoral College if Clinton had lost the popular vote by 3 million but still won the Presidency. The difference is, I wouldn't be complaining about the Electoral College either and I'm happy Clinton lost.
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Friday 1st March 2019 16:22 GMT Slow Joe Crow
Re: Power unchecked
The US Electoral college seems crazy but actually serves as a useful check in the system, Essentially it equalizes the vote among the states so that California and New York don't have absolute control of the Presidency. If you look at vote totals from 2012 and 2016 you'll notice that "flyover country" was decisive and Clinton lost to Trump because states Obama won in 2012 went to Trump in 2016. the most glaring example is Wisconsin where Clinton didn't campaign at all and Obama campaigned heavily. Some of the same complaints about the Electoral versus Popular vote were raised when George W Bush won in 2000 and 2004, echoing Hayes in 1876.
As an Oregonian I loathe the idea of letting California run the country since I already live this in microcosm with the Portland-Eugene axis overpowering the rest of the state.
Back on topic, HOAs seem to be a necessary evil of new developments where mandated common features have to be maintained. I have always lived in older subdivisions free of such nonsense and hope to avoid it since my love of old cars and motorcycles and disdain for yard work will certainly trigger the petty tyrants
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Sunday 3rd March 2019 02:17 GMT M.V. Lipvig
Re: Power unchecked
Why appalled? The US system was designed to make sure the entire nation gets a say, not just the 6 largest population centers.
I think the correct person won the general election, or rather the correct person lost. The loser has been involved in US politics for decades, so should have known far better what is required to win an election than the winner. But, her whole thing on that election was that she was OWED the Presidency, so she didn't need to really do anything to win. And she didn't.
It's not like the rules were changed just this year, we've used this system for decades now. Trump wasn't my candidate in the primary, but the minute Clinton was given the Democratic primary, I and almost everyone I know made the decision to vote for whoever won the Republican primary. That includes both Republicans AND Democrats deciding to vote Republican, to avoid another Clinton in office. We didn't want that vile woman in particular. No more Bushes, no more Clintons.
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Wednesday 27th February 2019 14:10 GMT Anonymous Coward
What's wrong with these people?
Why should they get offended at natural depictions of the human form?
I get quite the opposite of offended (though only so long as accompanied by depictions of the female form... And a coming together of the two as it were) when I see them...
Mines the dirty macintosh....
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Wednesday 27th February 2019 15:04 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: What's wrong with these people?
What's wrong with these people?
Vastly too much time on their hands, a very thin skin, and a degree of reactionary OCD, I'd guess.
The sort of busybodies who in the UK sign up for Neighbourhood Watch, Community Speedwatch, and Parish Councils And about half of the people who write letters to local newspapers.
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Thursday 28th February 2019 22:55 GMT stungebag
Re: What's wrong with these people?
"Not going to argue about the other two though."
I assume you know nothing about a Parish Council, then?
In our village we run the recreation ground, provide a few streetlights where the County won't, provide allotments and that's about it. We have very lttle power, but we do get to comment on things like planning applications, despite routinely being ignored by the planning authority.
The article is about the actions of self-appointed guardians. You've set up a body designed to be just that, yet criticise those who just try to help their community run slightly better?
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Friday 1st March 2019 00:33 GMT bombastic bob
Re: What's wrong with these people?
back in the late 70's I worked out a math equation for a "thigh gap" and then occasionally caused it to print on a Tectronix vector graphics terminal with an attached thermal printer...
it involved a 3rd order equation of the absolute value of 'x', as I recall where the coefficient on x^3 was negative (so it disappeared off the bottom of the screen, like legs...
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Wednesday 27th February 2019 17:26 GMT MericanMan
Re: The land of the free?
To be fair, the popularity of HOAs in the US stemmed from the crazy/weird/stupid things so many people do with their homes when left to their own devices (painting their house "Barney purple", having 5 cars up on blocks in the front yard, dead lawns, etc). Anyone buying a home in a "covenant controlled" (as they call it) neighborhood KNOWS they are doing that, and are voluntarily agreeing to be bound by the HOA rules (which I'm *sure* they all read in detail, right?). There are still plenty of homes to be bought that do not come with an HOA, if that is an important factor for someone, though admittedly they're mostly in much older neighborhoods and you're unlikely to find a new house without one.
In my experience, most people are happy to have an HOA to protect them from the things they wouldn't want their neighbors doing, and only take issue with it when they realize that something they want to do (or not to do, like remove weeds) has the fine-hammer pointed at them. Most never actually read the HOA rules, and so end up surprised that some little thing they think is fine is specifically against the rules (no, you can't leave your RV parked in front of your house for a week, for instance, even if you need to "load" it).
As with any legally binding contract, and especially in this case as HOAs have foreclosure power, you really should be reading the entire thing before committing to it.
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Thursday 28th February 2019 23:11 GMT Intractable Potsherd
Re: The land of the free?
Ummmm - "crazy/weird/stupid things" != "painting their house "Barney purple", having 5 cars up on blocks in the front yard, dead lawns, etc." For a country that has several states with the "castle doctrine", this interference with legitimate enjoyment of property over utterly trivial crap (and I hope you realise that all your examples *are* trivial crap) is completely unacceptable.
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Wednesday 27th February 2019 17:17 GMT Steve Davies 3
Re: Went on vacation...
You have to remember that 'Merikans only get a few days vacation a year compared to us laggards in Europe...
This move by the HOA is pretty SOP for them. They will also fine you for NOT taking your bin in within a few hours of the rubbish being collected.
The one HOA that I dealt with was mosly retired people with nothing more to do in the day. Some of us had to go out to work. I even offered to allow the HOA to put my bin in my apology for a back garden but no. Not their responsibility. They just issued more fines which naturally never got paid.
HOA's need one of these up their backsides [see icon]
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Thursday 28th February 2019 13:57 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Went on vacation...
"They will also fine you for NOT taking your bin in within a few hours of the rubbish being collected."
Some UK local councils issue fines if a bin is put out "too early" or left out "too long" after emptying. Admittedly one reason is that in busy city streets the mandated bins can block the footpath.
One local council gave people nine bins to separate their household rubbish.
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Friday 1st March 2019 00:38 GMT bombastic bob
Re: Went on vacation...
it's probably cheaper to give everyone a "blue can" for recyclables [and ask nicely that they be rinsed, etc.] then hire a few people to separate them at the trash collection facility, recycling stuff and getting money back for it... (that's what San Diego does, and it's my understanding that there's a net profit from plastic+glass bottles, paper+cardboard, and aluminum, or at least a great reduction in cost)
so yeah toss those 'have a deposit' bottles into the blue-can, avoid the inconvenience of taking them to someplace to get the cash back for them, and let the city keep it. they should be happy about that, right, and NOT try to tax sodas out of existence...
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Wednesday 27th February 2019 15:13 GMT Joe Gurman
Based on a single experience....
....of helping a young woman student from Tennessee whose car was stuck in a few inches of snow in Colorado many years ago (she thought it was a good idea to rev her engine up to high RPMs despite having no traction on any of her car's non-snow tires), I'd say most folks from Tennessee, outside of the hillier region in the east end of the state, see snow so rarely they suffer temporary insanity when it starts falling.
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Wednesday 27th February 2019 16:52 GMT TRT
Re: Fake news!
Quite right! That too.
How did that happen?
I mean, I don't see any yellow box markings.
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Thursday 28th February 2019 07:51 GMT Dave 126
Re: Fake news!
I read the article before looking at the actual photograph. I was imagining that the accused woman had performed some sort of maneuver such that her tyres traced the shape of a couple of adjacent circles with two lines extending from the tangent of their intersection... much like the recent case of the bored USAF pilot whose GPS log revealed him to be drawing a sky cock.
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This post has been deleted by its author
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Thursday 28th February 2019 20:29 GMT steward
Re: Fake news!
I agree. This is an anonymous news story with an illogical picture, and not even the HOA is named. These days, a ridiculous story spreads faster than malware. Google shows that several "legitimate" news outlets are eating it up, though - without a hint of actual journalism.
Which is why it's difficult these days to differentiate fake news from real news: so many professional journalists do not even bother to make the slightest bit of investigation into a news story.
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Wednesday 27th February 2019 15:25 GMT ma1010
HOA's - a place for wannabe Nazis
HOA's afford a place for those born too late to have been a real Nazi concentration camp guard to at least pretend a bit. They are mostly run by small-minded, anal twits who feel they have the right to micromanage everyone else's life: what color curtains you can have in your house, exactly when you put the garbage cans out and when you must take them in, what sort of lights you can have, whether you dare open the hood on your car, etc., etc. with no end in sight of their petty crap.
Among many stories I could tell, I think the most amazing is what one friend told me. His hot water heater leaked and made a mess, so he took a mop and cleaned it up. It was 10:00 at night and he took the mop outside and leaned it against the fence in the little alcove behind his condo to dry. Five minutes later, the phone rang and yes, it was the HOA nazis telling him "Take that mop down!"
IMHO, we should gather up all these folk and send them to an island where they can make up silly rules for each other and spend all their time trying to fine each other. Thank $DEITY I have not had to live under their petty tyrannical rule.
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Wednesday 27th February 2019 16:13 GMT Chris G
Re: HOA's - a place for wannabe Nazis
A friend's girlfriend had recentlynrented a house on a very nice development outside. Sacramento.
She went to leave for work one morning only to discover pne of her tyres was flat, the car was on her drive within a couple of minutes of starting to change it for the spare an HOA minion came to tell her she wasn't allowed to do that.
Apparently he was unable to comply with her response due to anatomical limitations.
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Thursday 28th February 2019 01:53 GMT Anonymous Coward
how to get people to keep their religion off your property.
Best way to deal with missionaries is to tell them that you consider them representatives of their local congregation and church and if any of their local congregation show up again you will consider it trespass and put them in the hospital without any additional warning. Along with pressing criminal charges. Tell them they need to leave your property immediately and to never come back and if they don't you are going to regard them as a hostile intruder and defend your yourself according ly. And put them in jail. Tell them they have 60 seconds and Start counting. . Then call their Church and let their preacher know the same thing. I tried everything else under the sun and since I've gone with that method I've enjoyed continued peace from soul grifters . My address is blacklisted in every Church in town. Best way to get rid of people .make them think you're f******
crazy, and willing to to get in trouble just to make them go away.
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Thursday 28th February 2019 00:19 GMT Robert Moore
My tale of woe and dread
A few years back my mother left the lights on in her car, this drained the battery. I stopped off after work, drove into the underground parking with her. Jumpstarted her car, gave her a hug and reminded her to take at least a 20 minute drive before shutting the engine off, then I left. The entire event took under 5 minutes. The next day she got a nasty note telling her that it was against their rules to work on cars in the parking lot.
I still can't figure out WTF they expected us to do. I mean this was the absolute minimum disruption possible.
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Thursday 28th February 2019 07:56 GMT Dave 126
Re: My tale of woe and dread
Sheeiiiit, even UK traffic wardens are normally more understanding that occasionally cars won't start, due to a flat battery or lost keys or whatever. Often leaving a nice note behind the windscreen is enough, or just ringing the council or parking company responsible.
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Thursday 28th February 2019 05:48 GMT jake
Presumably ...
... that particular community in Tennessee has no fire hydrants.
HOAs are the work of the devil, and the plaything of curtain twitchers. They only exist to make the lives of the occupants miserable. There is absolutely no way I could be convinced to buy into such a horrendous thing.
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Thursday 28th February 2019 13:10 GMT Anonymous Coward
RE. demented housing associations (tm)
List of stupid inane rules we have
Not allowed to charge a car battery, put a solar panel on the windscreen (WTF), repair my car, top up ANY tank including windscreen washer fluid.
Not allowed to put anything other than black bag rubbish in the outside bin(s) resulting in said bin bouncing around like a ping pong ball at 4am
Not allowed to park for 45 seconds to unload shopping in a visitor space WITH THE ENGINE RUNNING (FFS)
Not allowed to fix stuff unless a licensed electrician then safety tests it. This one I can understand but seriously...
Not allowed to run a clothes drier unless it is a condensing one costing 3.7* the price, also not allowed to put the hose out of the window.
Not allowed to leave the windows 3" open in the middle of summer
Not allowed to run Wifi hotspots (something something equipment interference something yadayada)
Not allowed to collect DVDs (WTF) or anything that is "creative" like art supplies
Not allowed to have battery powered multimeter, Geiger counter, LCR, grid dip oscillator, toolkit, amateur radio gear, etc.
Not allowed to charge electric bike batteries, lead acid OR lithium
Not allowed to have certain chemicals. Namely nail varnish remover, paint stripper, pretty much anything with "Nol" or "One" in the name.
Not allowed to have broadband
Not allowed to leech next door's broadband because of *8
Not allowed to hack satellite TV because the HA supplied NB sucks like a collapsed star and won't get Pick or half the other channels
Not allowed to buy a used OLED TV because apparently its too big!
Not allowed to complain because the sucky surveillance cameras wreck my Freeview and Wifi
Not allowed to complain about anything "non critical" like someone feeding large squawky things on purpose
Need I go on?
(the regulation tome is 3" thick!)
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Thursday 28th February 2019 20:08 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: RE. demented housing associations (tm)
Actually I think the problem is that someone saw the panel and complained because it was a "Fire hazard". Whisky Tango Foxtrot ?!?! How the $Deity can a 12W solar panel cause a fire again?
Re. nuclear powered charger. I am working on it.
Curtain twitchers are a complete PITA right up there with people that talk/use phones at movies and drive at 40.3 in a 30 zone except when they are in a 45 when they inexplicably drive 19.7 and use cars with the mirrors held on with *WOOD SCREWS* yards of duct tape, bald tyres and flippenflappenmuckenspreaders that go rackaRAKAeeeeeeEEEEEEEEEEK because they are too tight to buy a $25 wiper and squeakenbelten that make dogs howl in the morning!!!!
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Friday 1st March 2019 04:10 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Jeremy Clarkson
Heh.
MORE demented rules.
Not allowed to set up a hotspot using the "Illegal!" channel
Not allowed to have an outdoor weather station
Not allowed to collect "Interesting" crystals, piezo igniters, fridge magnets
Not allowed to disassemble electric drill/laptop/etc batteries then store the remains in the outside bin
Not allowed to charge E-cigarettes or bare 18650s
Not allowed to build or recharge a mobile robot even if it is for "Security" purposes
Not allowed to have more than 3 laptops working or otherwise.
Not allowed to randomly scan things with my PDL or any other handheld device
Not allowed to watch "The Horror Channel" after 9pm or before 5am
Not allowed to run a laser etcher, 3D printer or lathe
Not allowed to have a dirty car. FFS is washing it once a month not good enough?!
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