marius

maddyjean, you are funny!

I thought Matthew already was King. (Well, I did!)

Polenta, do you know what percent of Uruguay's registered voters vote? Here it is rather embarrassing how few people vote, even for the president. (At least, I find it embarrassing, or maybe confusing is the better word.)

sheftali52

Thanks for sharing the information on the Uruguyan elections, Polenta. Do you believe they are conducted fairly?

sheftali52

+a = Uruguayan

maddyjean08

What continent is Uruguay on? And, Sheftali, I bet it's not fair, how they vote.......

polenta

Uruguay is in South America maddyjean.
Marius, maybe about 90% vote but you have to understand it's a compulsory vote. If you don't want to vote, you must leave a blank envelope or annul your vote by putting a strange object into the envelope or two opposing voting sheets. Blank and annuled votes are about 2.5%.
As for the "fair play", I'm ABSOLUTELY convinced they are. No party has said anything about it. The people who take the votes are public servants who may be of any party and there are delegates of the different parties as observers.
We'll have to wait until Nov. 29th now.............................

polenta

The Uruguayan voting system could be a little slow and old-fashioned. There are no machines yet but it's a very TRUSTWORTHY system. No political party has made any complaint, except some minor anecdotes like the female president of a "voting table" went to work drunk. They also advise voters to go with their voting sheet because it's not so easy to find the one you had chosen inside the "secret room" where you must put the "list" you have chosen with the candidates that you want.

Dragon

Sometimes the old ways are the best ways.

sheftali52

It's great to hear that you have faith in the voting system, polenta. Hope the eventual results are good for all.

polenta

I do have faith indeed. I'm sure there is enough protection for all the parties through the party delegates and also because the "voting tables" are integrated by public servants who don't know each other from before and they could be of any party.They meet the day of the election . We all know one or more such public servants and there are no complaints, except stupid details.
Thanks for your interest.

polenta

I would like to make something clear. I've had faith in our elections throughout the decades no matter what political party was in office. I've already seen three parties in office and never thought there was not fair play.

Login

That's good to hear, polenta. I too have faith in our electoral system. It's what they do when they get into Parliament that worries me, lately.

sheftali52

polenta and Login--it's great that both of you have faith in your electoral systems. In general, I feel the same about the American system, though we've had our share of scattered scandals.

polenta

Lol Login!!!
I've always thought that elections anywhere on Earth don't mean 100% of freedom. If we were totally free, each person would have their personal political party because there are no two people who think alike. Absolute freedom would be chaos.... so people who share some ideas get together in a party even if they don't have 100% of coincidence.
I think tensions arise in societies and after four, five or six years, when elections come, it's like when you uncover a pressure cooker, pressure goes out and tensions are released and it's a way for the people to express ourselves. It's not perfect but it's the best we've got. After all, we , human beings are not perfect.

sheftali52

You are sensible and insightful, polenta.

polenta

oh, my God.... Thanks sheftali... very kind of you

maddyjean08

Polenta, was it you who answered my question? If it was, thank you. South America, I kinda figured. If you didn't, thanks to whoever did!

sheftali52

You're welcome, polenta. I really meant it--you bring a lot of interesting insights to this site through your art and your commentary. And, we all learn more about Uruguay in the process--that's a good thing.

marius

ONLY THE ENGLISH COULD HAVE INVENTED THIS LANGUAGE

We'll begin with a box, and the plural is boxes,
But the plural of ox becomes oxen, not oxes.

One fowl is a goose, but two are called geese,
Yet the plural of moose should never be meese.

You may find a lone mouse or a nest full of mice,
Yet the plural of house is houses, not hice.

If the plural of man is always called men,
Then shouldn't the plural of pan be called pen?

If I speak of my foot and show you my feet,
And I give you a boot, would a pair be called beet?

If one is a tooth and a whole set are teeth,
Why shouldn't the plural of booth be called beeth?

Then one may be that, and three would be those,
Yet hat in the plural would never be hose,
And the plural of cat is cats, not cose.

We speak of a brother and also of brethren,
But though we say mother, we never say methren.

Then the masculine pronouns are he, his and him,
But imagine the feminine: she, shis and shim!

Let's face it - English is a crazy language.

There is no egg in eggplant nor ham in hamburger;
Neither apple nor pine in pineapple.

English muffins weren't invented in England ..

We take English for granted, but if we explore its paradoxes,
we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square,
and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.

And why is it that writers write but fingers don't fing,
grocers don't groce and hammers don't ham?

Doesn't it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend.

If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them,
what do you call it?

If teachers taught, why didn't preachers praught?
If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat?

How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same,
while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites?

Sometimes I think all the folks who grew up speaking English should be
committed to an asylum for the verbally insane.

You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which your
house can burn up as it burns down, in which you fill in a form by
filling it out, and in which an alarm goes off by going on.

And, in closing, if Father is Pop, how come Mother's not Mop?

I WOULD LIKE TO ADD THAT IF PEOPLE FROM POLAND ARE CALLED POLES THEN PEOPLE FROM HOLLAND SHOULD BE HOLES AND THE GERMANS GERMS!!!

(Got this in email from my sister. Enjoy.)

matthew

Love it... (hmmm... IT can be anything, yet anything is not necessarily it)...

polenta

The Germs and Holes who praught near our hice have enjoyed marius's comment number 338 very much....... and so did I.