On Wednesday, May 4, 2022 at 4:04:41 PM UTC-4, Sam Plusnet wrote:
> On 04-May-22 13:24, Quinn C wrote:
> > * Ruud Harmsen:
> Incomprehensible, irrelevant and uncalled for reaction. Who is Locke?
> >> Who is Mattea?
> >
> > If you don't even know who Locke is (or Berkeley or Hobbes), you won't
> > win in Jeopardy against Mattea Roach, who's currently on a winning
> > streak, one of the biggest in history, again (there were two of those
> > quite recently).
> >
> Well, you might have meant this Locke
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josef_Locke
>
> I do know this is a complete swerve, but his biography starts with the
> words:
>
> "Born in Derry, Ireland,[1] he was the son of a butcher and cattle
> dealer..."
>
> Doesn't this at least suggest that his mother was a butcher & his father
> a cattle dealer (or vice versa)?

A second "a" would have made that perfectly clear.

In article <lwAcK.2064$lWNd.1638@fx99.iad>,
Sam Plusnet <not@home.com> wrote:
> On 04-May-22 18:11, Quinn C wrote:
> > Agreed. Ministers are figureheads, which is clear from them getting
> > shuffled around from one portfolio to an unrelated one. They're experts
> > in politics, not necessarily in the field they ad-minister. Although it
> > can be good for an office to sometimes have experts run it.

> The civil servants, who really run a ministry, are generally horrified
> at the prospect of a Minister who has some understanding of their brief.

Indeed so. A neighbouring MP was given a post in the Department of Health.
When it became obvious that she had been a nurse, and knew something about
health, she was sacked from her post.

--
from KT24 in Surrey, England
"I'd rather die of exhaustion than die of boredom" Thomas Carlyle

On Wed, 4 May 2022 20:28:40 +0100
Sam Plusnet <not@home.com> wrote:

> On 04-May-22 19:47, Tony Cooper wrote:
>
> > Oh, no! Please continue to comment on US politics. Intersperse your
> > comments with errors. If there's not something wrong on the Internet,
> > what would we have to talk about?
>
> D. Trump is still President.
>
Sure. In his own mind.

--
Bah, and indeed Humbug.

On Wed, 4 May 2022 20:31:28 +0100
Sam Plusnet <not@home.com> wrote:

> On 04-May-22 18:11, Quinn C wrote:
> > Agreed. Ministers are figureheads, which is clear from them getting
> > shuffled around from one portfolio to an unrelated one. They're experts
> > in politics, not necessarily in the field they ad-minister. Although it
> > can be good for an office to sometimes have experts run it.
>
> The civil servants, who really run a ministry, are generally horrified
> at the prospect of a Minister who has some understanding of their brief.
>
Yes, Minister.

--
Bah, and indeed Humbug.

On 2022-05-04 11:25, Ruud Harmsen wrote:
> Wed, 4 May 2022 08:24:05 -0400: Quinn C
> <lispamateur@crommatograph.info> scribeva:
>
>> * Ruud Harmsen:
>>
>>> Tue, 3 May 2022 10:32:05 -0700 (PDT): "Peter T. Daniels"
>>> <grammatim@verizon.net> scribeva:
>>>
>>>>>> That part of the American system is supposed to separate legislative &
>>>>>> executive powers from each other (unlike "prime minister" systems)
>>>>>
>>>>> Properly separating them is possible there too: executive for the
>>>>> cabinet (secreraries of state and ministers, presided by the prime
>>>>> minister), legislative by parliament (usually two chambers).
>>>>
>>>> How often are those cabinet secretaries not MPs?
>>>
>>> Only if demissionary (sent away, but not yet replaced), otherwise
>>> never. The Netherlands is not the UK, where I think that is possible
>>> and usual.
>>
>> In Germany, there's no requirement for cabinet ministers to be MPs, but
>> by force of habit, 80% of them are.
>
> Are, or were, until taking office?
>
>> The rest come e.g. from state-level
>> politics or very occasionally, were experts like university professors.
>>
>> One of the more famous examples of the latter is Rita Süssmuth, who
>> later was a candidate in my district. But she went from university
>> professor to cabinet minister straight to President of the Bundestag.
>> Rumors said she was so popular that she was seen as a threat to more
>> established politicians and therefore parked in this very honorable but
>> less influential position.
>>
>>>>> In the Netherlands, the separation is not ideal, in that the
>>>>> legislative powers are shared by parliament and government, because
>>>>> the King is formally part of the government (but he doesn't have any
>>>>> real power), and he has to sign any new laws (including laws that
>>>>> stipulate how to amend or enhance existing laws).
>>>>>
>>>>>> as
>>>>>> well as from the judicial powers. (IIRC this comes from Montesquieu's
>>>>>> ideas in _L'Esprit des Lois_.)
>>>>
>>>> They were also very fond of Locke. Mattea would know.
>>>
>>> Incomprehensible, irrelevant and uncalled for reaction. Who is Locke?
>>> Who is Mattea?
>>
>> If you don't even know who Locke is (or Berkeley or Hobbes), you won't
>> win in Jeopardy against Mattea Roach, who's currently on a winning
>> streak, one of the biggest in history, again (there were two of those
>> quite recently).
>
> Don't care, looks like American politics, I don't follow that.

John Locke. English philosopher and political theorist, I suspect. Far
from 'American politics'.

> I don't
> know what a "winning streak" is either, and I don't feel like looking
> it up.

Really? Still, feel free to comment on it.

On 2022-05-04 11:26, Ruud Harmsen wrote:
> Wed, 4 May 2022 07:25:21 -0700 (PDT): "Peter T. Daniels"
> <grammatim@verizon.net> scribeva:
>
>> On Wednesday, May 4, 2022 at 7:58:48 AM UTC-4, Ruud Harmsen wrote:
>>> Tue, 3 May 2022 10:32:05 -0700 (PDT): "Peter T. Daniels"
>>> <gram...@verizon.net> scribeva:
>>>> On Tuesday, May 3, 2022 at 1:24:58 PM UTC-4, Ruud Harmsen wrote:
>>>>>> On 2022-05-02, Quinn C wrote:
>>>>>>> In the American system, there's no good reason for the President to be
>>>>>>> affiliated with a party in the first place. In the German system, you
>>>>>>> elect a party to govern, not a person, so the head of government should
>>>>>>> be very much aligned with the party and its platform, or it's confusing.
>>>>> Tue, 03 May 2022 16:02:55 +0100: Adam Funk <a24...@ducksburg.com>
>>>>> scribeva:
>>
>>>> Screwing with the attributions again (or still).
>>>
>>> Still falsely accusing people, or again. I quoted Adam Funk directly,
>>> and what he quoted from Quinn. So how can I possibly have done
>>> anything wrong?
>>
>> Attributions belong at the top of the message. In order.
>
> I put them directly above the text each person wrote. Much clearer.
>
>> Despite Brader.
>
> Who or what is Brader?

Hello. <tap tap tap> Is this newsgroup arriving in your newsreader?

* Sam Plusnet:

> On 04-May-22 13:24, Quinn C wrote:
>> * Ruud Harmsen:
> Incomprehensible, irrelevant and uncalled for reaction. Who is Locke?
>>> Who is Mattea?
>>
>> If you don't even know who Locke is (or Berkeley or Hobbes), you won't
>> win in Jeopardy against Mattea Roach, who's currently on a winning
>> streak, one of the biggest in history, again (there were two of those
>> quite recently).
>>
> Well, you might have meant this Locke
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josef_Locke
>
> I do know this is a complete swerve, but his biography starts with the
> words:
>
> "Born in Derry, Ireland,[1] he was the son of a butcher and cattle
> dealer..."
>
> Doesn't this at least suggest that his mother was a butcher & his father
> a cattle dealer (or vice versa)?

No. You seem to have added an "a" before "cattle" in your mind.

--
I don't see people ... as having a right to be idiots. It's
just impractical to try to stop them, unless they're hurting
somebody. -- Vicereine Cordelia
in L. McMaster Bujold, Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen

* Peter T. Daniels:

> On Wednesday, May 4, 2022 at 8:24:11 AM UTC-4, Quinn C wrote:
>> * Ruud Harmsen:
>>> Tue, 3 May 2022 10:32:05 -0700 (PDT): "Peter T. Daniels"
>>> <gram...@verizon.net> scribeva:
>
>>>>They were also very fond of Locke. Mattea would know.
>>> Incomprehensible, irrelevant and uncalled for reaction. Who is Locke?
>>> Who is Mattea?
>>
>> If you don't even know who Locke is (or Berkeley or Hobbes), you won't
>> win in Jeopardy against Mattea Roach, who's currently on a winning
>> streak, one of the biggest in history, again (there were two of those
>> quite recently).
>
> Last night Ken all but apologized for the "gimme" Final Question,
> using the excuse that the questions were written months ago and
> used randomly. Would that have prevented them from removing
> one that consisted of nothing but recognizing the second line of
> "O Canada"?

Any intervention that takes the candidates into account introduces
subjectivity and thus unfairness.

--
Quinn C
My pronouns are they/them
(or other gender-neutral ones)

* Sam Plusnet:

> On 04-May-22 6:48, Snidely wrote:
>
>> What the Founding Fathers got really wrong, though, was the idea that
>> there wouldn't be political parties.
>
> Strange, since (from my POV) political parties seem to be deeply
> embedded in the US election process.
>
> In the UK, the ballot paper used to only identify the individual
> candidates by name. Adding text like "The Labour Party Candidate" etc.
> and thus recognising party affiliation, is a comparatively recent[1]
> innovation.
>
> Spoiler candidates were mentioned here a short while back.
> Someone once changed their name to "Edward Heath" by deed poll and stood
> against the 'real' Edward Heath (the leader of the Conservative Party &
> subsequently the Prime Minister) in his Bexley Heath constituency.
> Since the candidate's name alone appeared on the ballot paper, the only
> way to distinguish between them was the order in which the names appeared.

I wonder how Japan would've dealt with this case, where the voters
normally write in the name of their favored candidate. Checking, you're
allowed to write the name of the party instead, so that could solve it.

| Ballots that cannot unambiguously be assigned to a candidate are not
| considered invalid, but are assigned to all potentially intended
| candidates proportionally to the unambiguous votes each candidate has
| received.

That sounds problematic.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elections_in_Japan#Ballots,_voting_machines_and_early_voting>

--
Worf: You are not in my shoes.
Dax: Too bad. You'd be amazed at what I can do in a pair of size 18
boots.

* Ruud Harmsen:

> Wed, 4 May 2022 08:24:05 -0400: Quinn C
> <lispamateur@crommatograph.info> scribeva:
>
>>* Ruud Harmsen:
>>
>>> Tue, 3 May 2022 10:32:05 -0700 (PDT): "Peter T. Daniels"
>>> <grammatim@verizon.net> scribeva:
>>>
>>>>> >That part of the American system is supposed to separate legislative &
>>>>> >executive powers from each other (unlike "prime minister" systems)
>>>>>
>>>>> Properly separating them is possible there too: executive for the
>>>>> cabinet (secreraries of state and ministers, presided by the prime
>>>>> minister), legislative by parliament (usually two chambers).
>>>>
>>>>How often are those cabinet secretaries not MPs?
>>>
>>> Only if demissionary (sent away, but not yet replaced), otherwise
>>> never. The Netherlands is not the UK, where I think that is possible
>>> and usual.
>>
>>In Germany, there's no requirement for cabinet ministers to be MPs, but
>>by force of habit, 80% of them are.
>
> Are, or were, until taking office?

The "are" above was a timeless statement about ministers past and
present at the time of becoming ministers.

But to answer your question, they remain MPs when they become ministers.

This is also allowed in Denmark, Finland, Greece, Hungary, Italy,
Lithuania, Poland, and Romania. In Austria, it's legal, but they resign
as MPs by convention.

The dual function is forbidden in Belgium, Bulgaria, Estonia, France,
the Netherlands, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Sweden.

In Ireland, ministers are required to be MPs.

So it seems to be about 50:50 across the EU.

(This list I found is largely from 2010)
>>The rest come e.g. from state-level
>>politics or very occasionally, were experts like university professors.
>>
>>One of the more famous examples of the latter is Rita Süssmuth, who
>>later was a candidate in my district. But she went from university
>>professor to cabinet minister straight to President of the Bundestag.
>>Rumors said she was so popular that she was seen as a threat to more
>>established politicians and therefore parked in this very honorable but
>>less influential position.
>>
>>>>> In the Netherlands, the separation is not ideal, in that the
>>>>> legislative powers are shared by parliament and government, because
>>>>> the King is formally part of the government (but he doesn't have any
>>>>> real power), and he has to sign any new laws (including laws that
>>>>> stipulate how to amend or enhance existing laws).
>>>>>
>>>>> >as
>>>>> >well as from the judicial powers. (IIRC this comes from Montesquieu's
>>>>> >ideas in _L'Esprit des Lois_.)
>>>>
>>>>They were also very fond of Locke. Mattea would know.
>>>
>>> Incomprehensible, irrelevant and uncalled for reaction. Who is Locke?
>>> Who is Mattea?
>>
>>If you don't even know who Locke is (or Berkeley or Hobbes), you won't
>>win in Jeopardy against Mattea Roach, who's currently on a winning
>>streak, one of the biggest in history, again (there were two of those
>>quite recently).
>
> Don't care, looks like American politics, I don't follow that. I don't
> know what a "winning streak" is either, and I don't feel like looking
> it up.

I see, active willful ignorance of all things American. Never mind there
was a Dutch version under the name "Waagstuk!" (short-lived in NL,
longer in Belgium.)

<https://youtu.be/FBlBArYvUz0>

* Mark Brader:

> C.D. Bellemare:
>>>> In English, the Conservatives are the CPC federally, the PCP
>>>> ("Progressive") in many provinces, and the UCP ("United") in
>>>> Alberta.
>
> Mark Brader:
>>> In my Canada, I have never encountered "PCP" as a political
>>> abbreviation. The provincial Progressive Conservative Parties are
>>> just "the Conservatives" or "the PCs", while the federal one (no
>>> longer "Progressive") is just "the Conservatives", unless the full
>>> names need to be spelled out.
>
> C.D. Bellemare:
>> Yes, the "P" standing for "Party" is often left off...
>
> I claim that it's not there in the first place, as that abbreviation
> does not exist.

| The Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario (French: Parti
| progressiste-conservateur de l’Ontario[6]), often shortened to the
| Ontario PC Party or simply the PCs, colloquially known as the Tories,
| is a centre-right[2][7][4] political party in Ontario, Canada.
|
| The PC Party has historically embraced Red Toryism and centrism, [...]

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_Conservative_Party_of_Ontario>

At least the name sets it apart from the Conservative Party of Canada.
When, however, a party names itself Conservative Party of Quebec, I
understand that they want to be associated with the federal one, even if
there are no formal ties.

--
What Phrenzy in my Bosom rag'd,
And by what Care to be asswag'd?
-- Sappho, transl. Addison (1711)
What was it that my distracted heart most wanted?
-- transl. Barnard (1958)

On Wed, 4 May 2022 13:09:31 -0700 (PDT)
"Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@verizon.net> wrote:

> On Wednesday, May 4, 2022 at 3:24:26 PM UTC-4, Sam Plusnet wrote:
[]
> > In order to say that a "handful" are involved, you must have some
> > information which you haven't shared with us.
> > Or you are just making it up as you go?
>
> How many of the 65,000,000 or so Brits are paying members of
> a political party?

Oh sorry, yes, it's 5. Or could you be Wrong??!

--
Bah, and indeed Humbug.

Quinn C speculated:
> * Sam Plusnet:
>
>> On 04-May-22 13:24, Quinn C wrote:
>>> * Ruud Harmsen: Incomprehensible, irrelevant and uncalled for reaction. Who
>>> is Locke?
>>>> Who is Mattea?
>>>
>>> If you don't even know who Locke is (or Berkeley or Hobbes), you won't
>>> win in Jeopardy against Mattea Roach, who's currently on a winning
>>> streak, one of the biggest in history, again (there were two of those
>>> quite recently).
>>>
>> Well, you might have meant this Locke
>>
>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josef_Locke
>>
>> I do know this is a complete swerve, but his biography starts with the
>> words:
>>
>> "Born in Derry, Ireland,[1] he was the son of a butcher and cattle
>> dealer..."
>>
>> Doesn't this at least suggest that his mother was a butcher & his father
>> a cattle dealer (or vice versa)?
>
> No. You seem to have added an "a" before "cattle" in your mind.

Still, I get Sam's point. With applause.

[As a matter of tidiness, if the "[1]" is the citation for being born
in Derry, I think it should have been before the comma. I will,
however, forgo the WP edit.]

/dps

--
"I am not given to exaggeration, and when I say a thing I mean it"
_Roughing It_, Mark Twain

On 04-May-22 21:36, Kerr-Mudd, John wrote:
> Sam Plusnet <not@home.com> wrote:
>
>> On 04-May-22 19:47, Tony Cooper wrote:
>>
>>> Oh, no! Please continue to comment on US politics. Intersperse your
>>> comments with errors. If there's not something wrong on the Internet,
>>> what would we have to talk about?
>>
>> D. Trump is still President.
>>
> Sure. In his own mind.
>
No. Honest!
I read it on the internet.

--
Sam Plusnet

On 04-May-22 22:06, Quinn C wrote:
> * Sam Plusnet:
>
>> "Born in Derry, Ireland,[1] he was the son of a butcher and cattle
>> dealer..."
>>
>> Doesn't this at least suggest that his mother was a butcher & his father
>> a cattle dealer (or vice versa)?
>
> No. You seem to have added an "a" before "cattle" in your mind.
>
You got me bang to rights Guv.

It's a fair cop.

--
Sam Plusnet

On 05/05/22 00:09, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> On Tuesday, May 3, 2022 at 9:00:34 PM UTC-4, Peter Moylan wrote:
>> On 04/05/22 01:29, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
>
>>> Who administers an election? How do they know who is qualified
>>> to vote and who isn't? How many candidates are allowed in any
>>> one contest? Who decides that the Tinfoil Hats Against Aliens
>>> Party probably shouldn't be on the ballot?
>>
>> Answering that last part for Australia: nobody prevents the Tinfoil
>> Hats party from running. If they can't get enough votes they will
>> lost their deposit, but blocking any party from running would be
>> seen as anti-democratic.
>
> But how do they get on the ballot? Do they just need to say "I want
> to be on the ballot"?

They have to have the signatures of 100 supporters who are eligible to
vote, and they have to be able to prove that they are qualified in terms
of citizenship, etc. They also have to provide a $2000 deposit. The
deposit is returned if they get at least 4% of first preference votes.

That's for a candidate for the House of Representatives who is not a
nominee of a registered political party. Parties nominate a collection
of candidates in bulk, but I have not looked up those details. Nor have
I looked up the Senate rules.

In my electorate, seven of the candidates have been nominated by seven
political parties, and two independents are also standing.

Our present government has made itself unpopular, and the main
opposition party has drifted to the right, so there will almost
certainly be increased votes for independents and the minor parties.

--
Peter Moylan Newcastle, NSW http://www.pmoylan.org

On 04-May-22 21:48, Kerr-Mudd, John wrote:
> On Wed, 4 May 2022 20:31:28 +0100
> Sam Plusnet <not@home.com> wrote:
>
>> On 04-May-22 18:11, Quinn C wrote:
>>> Agreed. Ministers are figureheads, which is clear from them getting
>>> shuffled around from one portfolio to an unrelated one. They're experts
>>> in politics, not necessarily in the field they ad-minister. Although it
>>> can be good for an office to sometimes have experts run it.
>>
>> The civil servants, who really run a ministry, are generally horrified
>> at the prospect of a Minister who has some understanding of their brief.
>>
> Yes, Minister.
>
You know my methods Watson.

(It was a lightly disguised documentary.)

--
Sam Plusnet

On 05/05/22 05:31, Sam Plusnet wrote:
> On 04-May-22 18:11, Quinn C wrote:

>> Agreed. Ministers are figureheads, which is clear from them
>> getting shuffled around from one portfolio to an unrelated one.
>> They're experts in politics, not necessarily in the field they
>> ad-minister. Although it can be good for an office to sometimes
>> have experts run it.
>
> The civil servants, who really run a ministry, are generally
> horrified at the prospect of a Minister who has some understanding of
> their brief.

Around here, a key duty of Ministers is to resign if their boss is
caught screwing up.

--
Peter Moylan Newcastle, NSW http://www.pmoylan.org

On 05/05/22 06:04, Sam Plusnet wrote:
> On 04-May-22 13:24, Quinn C wrote:
>> * Ruud Harmsen:
> Incomprehensible, irrelevant and uncalled for reaction. Who is Locke?
>>> Who is Mattea?
>>
>> If you don't even know who Locke is (or Berkeley or Hobbes), you won't
>> win in Jeopardy against Mattea Roach, who's currently on a winning
>> streak, one of the biggest in history, again (there were two of those
>> quite recently).
>>
> Well, you might have meant this Locke
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josef_Locke
>
> I do know this is a complete swerve, but his biography starts with the
> words:
>
> "Born in Derry, Ireland,[1] he was the son of a butcher and cattle
> dealer..."
>
> Doesn't this at least suggest that his mother was a butcher & his father
> a cattle dealer (or vice versa)?

It looks like a recipe for a successful team.

--
Peter Moylan Newcastle, NSW http://www.pmoylan.org

On 05/05/22 06:16, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> On Wednesday, May 4, 2022 at 3:56:23 PM UTC-4, Sam Plusnet wrote:

>> Spoiler candidates were mentioned here a short while back. Someone
>> once changed their name to "Edward Heath" by deed poll and stood
>> against the 'real' Edward Heath (the leader of the Conservative
>> Party & subsequently the Prime Minister) in his Bexley Heath
>> constituency. Since the candidate's name alone appeared on the
>> ballot paper, the only way to distinguish between them was the
>> order in which the names appeared.
>
> Which one came first?
>
> Over Here, the order of candidates varies from E.D. to E.D., so as
> to minimize selection bias (top of the list, alphabetical, etc.).

Here, the electoral officer for an electorate puts the names of the
candidates into a hat (or the equivalent), and the order of drawing them
out determines their order on the ballot paper.

--
Peter Moylan Newcastle, NSW http://www.pmoylan.org

On 05/05/22 00:09, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> On Tuesday, May 3, 2022 at 9:16:19 PM UTC-4, Peter Moylan wrote:
>> On 04/05/22 01:19, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
>>
>>> The Founders saw how badly the parliamentary system was doing in
>>> Britain in their day, so they came up with something far better
>>> -- three separate branches, with "checks and balances." Their
>>> judgment was only confirmed by the dismal performances of
>>> parliamentary systems in the 20th and 21st centuries.
>>
>> I presume that the original concept included the idea that the
>> judiciary would be independent of the two political branches. There
>> must have been a time, then, when politicians were unable to
>> influence appointments to the highest court in the land. When did
>> that go wrong?
>
> With the nomination of Robert Bork.
>
> That fiasco paved the way for Antonin Scalia's unanimous (or nearly
> so) confirmation.

What you need is a constitutional amendment that makes it illegal for a
president to nominate a judge candidate, and also makes it illegal for
senators to attend the confirmation hearings. Only then will you ensure
a separation of powers.

--
Peter Moylan Newcastle, NSW http://www.pmoylan.org

On 05/05/22 02:18, lar3ryca wrote:
> On 2022-05-04 04:19, Richard Heathfield wrote:

>> Indeed. They are, of course, members of our parliament, but they
>> are not Members of Parliament. In the UK, case can matter a *lot*.
>
> How very Linux.

Writing that used both upper-case and lower-case characters became
fashionable many centuries ago. It continued that way until FORTRAN was
invented.

--
Peter Moylan Newcastle, NSW http://www.pmoylan.org

Peter Moylan suggested that ...
> On 05/05/22 02:18, lar3ryca wrote:
>> On 2022-05-04 04:19, Richard Heathfield wrote:
>
>>> Indeed. They are, of course, members of our parliament, but they
>>> are not Members of Parliament. In the UK, case can matter a *lot*.
>>
>> How very Linux.
>
> Writing that used both upper-case and lower-case characters became
> fashionable many centuries ago. It continued that way until FORTRAN was
> invented.

It never went out of fashion for most people, but the telegraph
probably was culturally more important in uppercasing the world.

/dps

--
"What do you think of my cart, Miss Morland? A neat one, is not it?
Well hung: curricle-hung in fact. Come sit by me and we'll test the
springs."
(Speculative fiction by H.Lacedaemonian.)

>> Wed, 4 May 2022 07:28:17 -0700 (PDT): "Peter T. Daniels"
>>> Four lines of attributions, four lines of text, then another attribution
>>> -- which is thenceforth hidden within the mass of lines -- then text.

>On Wednesday, May 4, 2022 at 1:23:11 PM UTC-4, Ruud Harmsen wrote:
>> What???
>>
>> This is what I posted (quoted directly from Google Groups):
>>
>> What could be clearer, what could be neater, what could be better? I
>> really don't understand what PTD is whining about. Perhaps he needs
>> better glasses, or he should wipe his screen?

Wed, 4 May 2022 11:58:45 -0700 (PDT): "Peter T. Daniels"
>People do not normally read through the attributions. If you need to
>know who wrote a line, you count its chevrons and look up for an
>attribution with one fewer.

You can do that with the way I do it too. It's there right above.

>If text is embedded within the list of attributions, it will simply be
>skipped over when the attributions are ignored. It's conceivable
>that occasionally some piece of such text might be useful for
>clarifying what follows.

And that I quote, nothing else.

Wed, 4 May 2022 17:29:35 -0400: Quinn C
>But to answer your question, they remain MPs when they become ministers.
>
>This is also allowed in Denmark, Finland, Greece, Hungary, Italy,
>Lithuania, Poland, and Romania. In Austria, it's legal, but they resign
>as MPs by convention.
>
>The dual function is forbidden in Belgium, Bulgaria, Estonia, France,
>the Netherlands, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Sweden.

Not really forbidden in NL, because during a formation (goverment
forming), when the cabinet is demissionary as we call it (sent away,
but still handling what must be handled), they do have the dual
function. It lead to strange situation, like people voting about their
own fate.

>In Ireland, ministers are required to be MPs.

Strange, very strange.