FriendOfDeSoto

I beg to differ. If I were a c-word, this behavior would be par for the course.

This is not the behavior of a friend.

I don't mind your suggestion. I think universal mail-ins are a good idea. At the same time, I have an inkling that you didn't read my comment all the way to the end.

I have sympathy for non-voters in the US. Not so much out of principle but because of how it is done. Voting takes place on a Tuesday. That's because in ye olden days you had to allow people to attend church on Sunday before making the trip on horseback to participate in the election. That's a cute tradition but clashes with the way the economy works today. People are very dependent on their low-wage jobs that they can be fired from easily. If you're working two of those jobs to make ends meet, you may not have the "luxury" to skip work to go and vote on a normal weekday. That luxury often includes having to fill in a booklet of stuff that's on the ballot. You're not just voting on a president, a senator, or a congressperson. You may be asked your option on a plebiscite, a judge, a sheriff, a school board, etc. It is overinflated in my view and explains long slow moving lines at ballot stations that you don't often see elsewhere. And that's after a possibly Kafkaesque registration process to be eligible in the first place or to get mail-ins in some states. It is almost designed to keep people away. Maybe you're taking these structural problems as something "politicians cling to."

Make election day a public holiday that forces businesses who are open anyway to allow all their employees to go and vote.

I'm being put in a difficult situation here because I'm gonna have to go ahead and defend the American "snowflakes." When it comes to interpreting the phrase "free elections" I think all democracies or close enough to that (which therefore includes the US) chose to say free means you're also free not to participate. Except for the Aussies. And while I'm not an American snowflake, I'm still a snowflake because I agree with that interpretation. It wouldn't just ruffle feathers in the US if mandatory election participation was prescribed. You can lead a horse to water but you cannot make it drink. Horse = voter, drink = vote. And I don't think the Aussie governments of the last two decades have proven to be superior because they're backed by a larger voter base. Remember the guy who ate raw onions?

Technically, they don't have to be. They could elect a venerable whippersnapper cardinal - Dan Brown wrote a book about that. And that tells you how likely that is if he wrote the story. But it is possible.

It would be rare because it takes seniority to get into the position. And politics to be well liked enough to be put forward and then elected. By mostly old people. Some of whom would like the job themselves.

This is already location-dependent. I think Iceland has the most restrictive legislation with a prescribed list to choose from. Other countries have a layer of "is this really a name?" checking as part of the registration process after birth and parents can be sent back to square one.

I think there is a balance to be had where you can't get away with xc1>df or whatever but you could name your kid after a GoT character that tragically turned evil in the last season. My suggestion would be to include a second given name that is more established than Khalisi or Dumbledore, e.g. Kelly and David. If Khalisi Kelly's last name is Knox obvs I wouldn't insist on the alliteration. My point is then your child has a plan B when they get mocked for being called Hobbit in school. They can just go by Henry or whatever other boring name made the cut. That way you don't need to get into a complicated legal situation where a minor would have to override the wish of their parents.

After reaching adulthood legally, virtually anybody can try to change their name. Although the process may involve having to prove harm to get it approved in some places. I think there is a correlation between a laissez-faire attitude to naming and ease of getting a name change. In countries that are stricter to begin with, the hurdles are much higher and can be much costlier.

The problem with him is that he won't shut up. You'd recognize that stream of consc.... of something anywhere. Hypothetically, if consent was given you'd have to surgically remove his tongue as well.

First of all, all languages do this to an extent. Singling out America or English seems pointless to me.

Geographical names are a nonsensical construct of traditions, conventions, and misunderstandings. Why shouldn't a language come up with names that suit their tongue? Why shouldn't they go with whatever becomes consensus in their language? Being correct is overall less important than being understood. And that's being understood by your peers, not the people on the other end of the world.

With place names it's often old conflicts and historical differences that prevent adoption of modern place names. English is one of the few languages that made the change from Peking to Beijing, others didn't want to be told "by the commies" what to call the city. People who were fighting Napoleon 200+ years ago still call Nice in France by its Italian name Nizza, the name of the city in circulation prior to the French takeover. Out of principle. Europe, where the spoken common language variety is greater than in North America, is more used to this and people just know Brussels can also be Brussel, Brüssel, or Bruxelles. It's like the imperial system of measurements: it makes no effing sense but it works.

If you argue respect you're going to hit a massive wall with some languages. Mandarin Chinese is fresh in my mind that has very colorful names for all the places of the world that often have little or nothing in common with what the locals call it. Meiguo for America? Is that disrespectful? No, when you learn that this sort of means beautiful country. And it would take ages to get English speakers onto the same page calling China Zhongguo. And I'm quite sure the locals of Zhongguo would not understand the average American Joe saying it. So what would be gained by making that switch?

Turkey wanted to change its English name because they don't like the association with the eponymous bird. If the bird was commonly referred to as something else, and English wasn't the lingua franca of the world, this would not have come up. Other languages have stuck with their version of Türkiye. And for the English speaking world I see an uphill battle for this to catch on. People only switched to Kyiv out of spite for Russian bombs. People are still going to say Turkey and not mean the bird. Same is true for recent gulf name changes.

English is half filled with loanwords. Dejavu maybe just stands out to you. Parliament, pork, and necessary maybe not so much. I think all can be traced back via Norman French or later. All languages borrow words. Many of them change meaning and/or spelling after being borrowed. This is normal.

All of the things you complained about seem perfectly alright to me. You're looking for a fight with a windmill.

I don't have a desktop at hand to try and it doesn't work on mobile using the desktop site: can you drag pictures into the Photos folder from your Drive on desktop?

If that doesn't work or you've already tried that I'm afraid your SOL. You'll probably need to bounce them off a hard drive into the photos backup.

They can charge for the room. Why not make that mandatory? Makes business sense.

It's also part of the tradition in North America. It may not be the military but learning to live with people, maybe people you really don't like, is a life experience. And many people look back fondly at that, which they would not have chosen voluntarily.

U be baader-meinhoffing this shit?

People are dyslexic or not native speakers on here as well. English spelling is insane anyway. People fumble-eff around with giant sausage fingers on small screens. We collectively ruin our sight by constantly looking at screens from a foot away. Mistakes happen. I think I heard the first complaints about bad spelling on the collection of tubes in the late 90s. And we're still here.