Re: Poitics, or lack of same

On Fri, 6 Dec 2024 09:15:40 +0000, Martin Brown
<'''newspam'''@nonad.co.uk> wrote:

On 05/12/2024 14:46, john larkin wrote:

https://www.cnn.com/2024/12/05/europe/france-political-mire-macron-kicking-himself-analysis-intl/index.html
 
Parlimentary systems seem chaotic to me. In the USA, we schedule such
trauma to happen every four years. In europe, the chaos is high rate
random time sampled.

>
We have multiple actual opposition parties in Europe covering the entire
political spectrum. Sometimes they even get a turn in government.
>
At least one typically provides the piggy in the middle balancing act
and can form a coalition with either of the main parties to make a
viable government. They do sometimes get shafted as a result.
>
What happened in France was that the ultra right and the ultra left
ganged up to take out the unpopular centrist Prime Minister who was
basically just trying to balance the books with a budget.
>
Politicians over estimate their own importance. Belgium survived OK for
over 650 days without a government - breaking their own previous world
record!
>
https://caw.ceu.edu/other-activities/academic-blog/politics/how-did-belgium-manage-to-survive-without-having-agovernment

Sounds good to me.

>
TBH I'm more worried about Korea declaring martial law. That could
invite very big trouble and there are plenty of US bases there.
>

I guess there worse things than having no government. No running water
or no beer maybe.

>
Lack of running water is inconvenient, lack of potable water is much
more serious. You die of dehydration a lot faster (days) than starvation
(weeks).
>
Beer has the big advantage that in dodgy third world regions it is
usually safe to drink even when the water isn't.

Beer is surely an important component of human evolution. I suspect
it's related to the grandparent effect.