The Current Events Thread

[Tetrunes]

There's room in Tokyo?

[Kamak]

There's room in NYC which has been bidding for like 20 years?

[Stranaton]

There's room in NYC which has been bidding for like 20 years?

NYC will never get it because the city residents hate the idea of having the Olympics

[Kamak]

Doesn't mean the US olympic committee won't keep plugging it for the notoriety.

[TheStranger]

I read a Cracked article a while back about how hosting the Olympics basically destroys the host city

[Barabba]

Whoa, a real-life white elephant!

[Winchester]

I read a Cracked article a while back about how hosting the Olympics basically destroys the host city

Which makes me wonder why cities want to host the Olympics anyway

Is there like a long-term benefit or something?

[Syobon]

Tourism and exposure I guess.

There's room in NYC which has been bidding for like 20 years?

NYC will never get it because the city residents hate the idea of having the Olympics

Brasil is on the verge of rioting because of the World Cup, didn't stop them.

[Stranaton]

Tourism and exposure I guess.

There's room in NYC which has been bidding for like 20 years?

NYC will never get it because the city residents hate the idea of having the Olympics

Brasil is on the verge of rioting because of the World Cup, didn't stop them.

the one thing that would let NYC have an Olympics would be a sports stadium, which has to be voted on by residents according to NYC law.

[Kamak]

Some do it for short term without thinking of the long term, but the reason a lot of cities get messed up is either because of the extreme focus on making the games perfect leads to them covering up or screwing up other things in the process (Mexico City covering up the social unrest, and Brazil demolishing Favelas to hide how bad the poverty issue is in Rio), or thinking that the olympics will be their savior and that afterwards things will pick up. There are a large amount of past olympic buildings and structures that were supposed to be tourist attractions, but when no one came, they just let them rot and fall apart. Others successfully got re-purposed for other things (the pools in the '08 Beijing summer games were converted into public pools due to the high need for them in the summer).

Plus, if any international incident happens, it can kill the long-term drive of the games. Think of Atlanta or Munich.

But also, I think there's a bit too much hype over the "lasting effects" of the Olympics, because to a lot of people, unless there was something "amazing" that happened, like The Miracle on Ice, the games are largely not going to draw people to them after the games any more than they would to any other site of the games.

[Stranaton]

Some do it for short term without thinking of the long term, but the reason a lot of cities get messed up is either because of the extreme focus on making the games perfect leads to them covering up or screwing up other things in the process (Mexico City covering up the social unrest, and Brazil demolishing Favelas to hide how bad the poverty issue is in Rio), or thinking that the olympics will be their savior and that afterwards things will pick up. There are a large amount of past olympic buildings and structures that were supposed to be tourist attractions, but when no one came, they just let them rot and fall apart. Others successfully got re-purposed for other things (the pools in the '08 Beijing summer games were converted into public pools due to the high need for them in the summer).

Plus, if any international incident happens, it can kill the long-term drive of the games. Think of Atlanta or Munich.

But also, I think there's a bit too much hype over the "lasting effects" of the Olympics, because to a lot of people, unless there was something "amazing" that happened, like The Miracle on Ice, the games are largely not going to draw people to them after the games any more than they would to any other site of the games.

Don't forget the Chinese dumping chemicals into clouds so it would rain and make the smog go away. Weather control!

[Blitz Walrus]

Guess how they're gonna carry the torch.

[Stranaton]

Guess how they're gonna carry the torch.

YES

[Madican]

Study finds that whether Democratic or Republican, liberal or conservative, politicians don't care about poor or middle class people.

Members of the U.S. Senate do not respond equally to the views of all their constituents, according to research to be published in Political Research Quarterly next month. Senators overall represent their wealthiest constituents, while those on bottom of the economic rung are neglected.

“The fact that lower income groups seem to be ignored by elected officials, although not a new finding, remains a troubling observation in American politics,” Thomas J. Hayes of Trinity University wrote in his study.

The study used data from the 2004 National Annenberg Election Survey to compare constituents’ political opinion to the voting behavior of their Senators in the 107th through 111th Congresses. With more than 90,000 respondents, the NAES is the largest public opinion survey conducted during presidential elections.

In all of the five Congresses examined, the voting records of Senators were consistently aligned with the opinions of their wealthiest constituents. The opinions of lower-class constituents, however, never appeared to influence the Senators’ voting behavior.

The neglect of lower income groups was a bipartisan affair. Democrats were not any more responsive to the poor than Republicans.

http://prq.sagepub.com/content/66/3/585.abstract

I realize it may be an "obvious" sort of thing but now there's actual evidence to point at and say "This is how we're fucked and there's the proof."

[Tetrunes]

From first past the post to this, it's a real shame...