I blew it.
You rightly hold SoylentNews to a high standard and I let you down when I merged three different political stories into a single story.
Rushing to get out the door to get to work, seeing the story queue running out, having seen the interest in the UK elections in our IRC channel, having heard much on the radio concerning former FBI Director Comey's testimony, seeing a story appear on a likely nomination for that vacated FBI post, and aware of the guideline on only one Politics story per day — I made a hurried decision to merge all three stories together.
The community rightly pointed out the shortcomings in that decision. Rest assured I won't make THAT decision again!
In retrospect, it would have been much better if I released two separate stories — one with the UK Election vote, and another with a merge of the FBI-related stories with, say, a 12-hour spacing between them.
It is a privilege to volunteer for this site, one that I do not take lightly. I let down the community — you deserve better. Trust that I have taken this lesson to heart and will strive to do better going forwards.
--martyb
[n1: There will be a UK election story coming in the next day or so, when more details are available. The majority of the coverage so far is speculation and reports of agreements have been retracted.]
(Score: 2) by frojack on Monday June 12 2017, @04:46AM
Seems most voters realize that and just stayed home. [nola.com]
Still, of those that cared enough to vote, 500,000 vs 14,000 (97%) is pretty strong results. (I've given up attributing any validity to vote boycotts. Screw em!).
With the natural resources the place should be a tourist haven. With the amount of farmland, they should be able to supply the lions share of their own food. They get very little aid from the US government compared to States, but they pay no federal taxes.
If they were a state (population 3,679,220) they would be right in the middle of state populations, bigger than 22 existing states, which means they would be entitled to 5 seats in the house an 2 in the senate.
And yes, that's probably why this isn't going to get any attention in Washington.
The US has avoided any extensive military deployment there (even though the main harbor would make a good naval base), fearing stirring up an indigenous anti-us rabble. In fact the US has closed several Army Reserve bases they used to have.
The place has been mismanaged for 100 years (both by themselves and by the US). Like every ex-Spanish colony they have hopeless governments.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.