Re: OT SF Mythology

Paul S Person wrote:

On Fri, 12 Jul 2024 12:56:22 +1000, Mad Hamish
<newsunspammelaws@iinet.unspamme.net.au> wrote:
 

On Wed, 10 Jul 2024 08:55:39 -0700, Paul S Person
<psperson@old.netcom.invalid> wrote:
>

On Wed, 10 Jul 2024 07:59:02 -0000 (UTC), Charles Packer
<mailbox@cpacker.org> wrote:
>

On Wed, 10 Jul 2024 16:39:47 +1200, Titus G wrote:
>

Durandal a sword said to be indestructible, the sharpest of all blades,
once wielded by the knight Roland under Charlemagne, and thenceforth
stuck in stone for 1,300 years, has disappeared from a French village.
>
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/france-excalibur-like-sword-durandal-

disappears-after-1300-years/
>
This seems to be the Year of France. The Olympics, the completion
of repairs to Notre Dame (scheduled for December), the snap election
which my favorite newspapers are telling me is Very Important, etc.
Qu'est-ce que tu as d'autre ? (What else ya' got?)

>
It'll be interesting to see how the winner-takes-all Parliamentary
system copes with a situation in neither the Left, the Right, nor the
Center has control. No winner, no gummint?
>
Perhaps another snap election? Perhaps this will the start of the
Decade of Snap Elections, kind of like the periods where the Romans
went through 10 or so Emperors in two years or so, at least in terms
of social stability.
>
From what I have read, the evil Right was only defeated by many
self-sacrificing candidates withdrawing so as to concentrate the
anti-Right vote on whoever else was on the ballot. Sounds like
cheating to me, but then, I am not French and so not aware of how they
regard it.

>
I'm not sure that anybody is under an obligation to run for
election...

 These were already on the ballot and had participated in the first
round.
 They withdrew after the first round but before the second.
 So clearly they were not under a /legal/ obligation to stay the
course, but I would wonder about an ethical obligation to their Party
and supporters. Well, I would if they were not French, anyway.

Well, it was the party asking them not to run, and the members seemed to be in support.
It's something of a crude way of getting a transferable ballot only instead of filling out (1) Centrist, (2) Leftist it takes two rounds of voting.
The result is that there will be nobody sitting in the chamber from a district which is 60% against him or her.  Unlike, for example, here.
William Hyde