My So-Called Life
the random and not-so-random musings of a twenty-something history geek
My So-Called Lifethe random and not-so-random musings of a twenty-something history geek |
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| Lizzie is a fully qualified history teacher having finished her course at Canterbury Christ Church University. She's also a geek who was secretary of the University of Kent Computing Society during her three year BA at the University of Kent. She is very much in love with her shiny Husband, though she is sad that he doesn't glow bloo :( More about her on her website: http://carina.org.uk |
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| Jun. 3rd, 2009 @ 11:17 pm Euro and KCC elections, leaflets specifically. | |||
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This post has been brought on by two things. First, it's the Euro and County Council elections (at least for us in Kent) tomorrow (possibly today, depending on when I finish writing this). Second, we finally received a leaflet from Labour today and I really don't think they're even trying to contest this election. I was shocked by the poor quality and decided to share. Then I figured that I may as well document all the political bumf that Ben and I have had through the letter box during this process. Some were addressed to me, some were addressed to Ben. Interestingly, apart from the Greens, it was different letters/leaflets addressed to each of us (if they were addressed at all), rather than any overlap. Click on pictures to embiggen throughout.  An artfully arranged display of all our leaflets. I'll start with the shoddy leaflet that kicked all this off, which is the last one we have received. This one is courtesy of Labour. I'm not a Labour supporter, so I admit this might be rather biased of me, but this is possibly the worst political leaflet I have ever seen. Acres of blank space, poor grammar and spelling, and clearly has not been proof read before being printed off. Which is sad because I can only assume it's been/being passed around the district, and it's really not a good advert for the Labour Party. Read it and you'll see what I mean. ( Labour leaflet ) The Conservatives have tried hardest, sending round several leaflets, and the only party to send someone to Canvass us. I should mention that neither Ben nor I are currently registered with any political party, so that can't be the reason we have quite so many Conservative mailshots. I can only assume that they're trying this hard with everyone. ( This was the most recent. ) ( Ben had a 'personal' letter from the KCC candidate. ) ( Another Conservative leaflet. Can't remember when this one arrived. ) This last one is a copy of the main Conservative KCC leaflet. This one was hand delivered by the canvasser. We have two copies of this as one was in with the letter that Ben got, shown further up. The problem we had with this is that it reads like a particularly poor CV. On the upside, there was little wasted space and it did appear to have been spell checked/proof read before it was printed. On the downside, it does lie, as did the Canvasser about the John Simmonds (the Cons Candidate for Canterbury West, which is our ward) being "The Local Choice". The Canvasser told me that the candidate lived "just round the corner". This is untrue. John Simmonds lives in Whitstable, which is not "just round the corner". According to google maps it is actually 5.7 miles away from my address to his. I suppose it could be a very large corner... In fact, I believe the Canvasser was referring to the Conservative candidate for the Canterbury South-West Ward (Maureen Robinson), who does live "just round the corner" in Oaks Park (I believe). While Whiststable may be "local", it's not local in the sense the canvasser, and I believe the leaflet, were aiming at. Not impressed. Also not impressed with myself - I only remembered the questions I wanted to ask the canvasser (pot holes, Iceland[as in banks, not supermarkets]) after I closed the door, and I wasn't about to go chasing after him! ( Conservative leaflet for KCC. ) The Green Party sent us two leaflets, one addressed to each of us. Unfortunately they were both identical and both came through the post. Have to wonder about the Carbon Footprint of that. ( Green Party leaflet ) We also got a leaflet from the "No2EU" party, who appear to be endorsed only by Bob Crow of RMT Union fame. ( No2EU ) We have also received the now infamous BNP leaflet. Not sure what we'll do with it yet. Possibly shred it and then set it on fire. Ben pointed out it looked rather like a kebab menu, which is funny because it's true. I don't know where to start on the ways in which this hate filled nasty little piece of racist propaganda annoys and frustrates me, so I shan't even try. I only picture it for completeness and posterity. I hope in years to come I can look back and laugh on the fact that people ever considered voting for these cretins, especially on the basis of this. I just hope they don't win a significant share of the vote, especially a share significant enough to win a seat. ( BNP ) Given my political sympathies swing towards the Lib Dems, perhaps naturally as they were the party supported by my parents while I was growing up (I delivered my fair share of Focuses, did several shifts of telling at several elections at my local polling station, had an action room in our living room during a general election - tables and tables of addresses! - and even attended a Count as Lib Dem representative - all while I was 18 or younger) I am disappointed by the efforts of the local party. No Canvassing, at least, not round my block of flats. Only one leaflet about only one of the two elections. Given they say on their leaflet that "only the Lib Dems can beat the Conservatives here" I don't feel like they really tried at all. One leaflet specifically about the election, and then only about the Europeans, nothing at all about KCC. A Lib Dem publication was the first one we got during this cycle, I seem to remember anyway, but it was a regular quarterly Focus, nothing really to do with the election. It was also in need of a proof read as at the very least the URL at the bottom of page two was wrong - "www.cantlibdem" is no URL at all. What I'm trying to say, badly, is that I'm disappointed in the Lib Dem campaign, at least in my ward. I want to vote for them, but I feel like they've done nothing to deserve it. They've certainly not actually tried to get my vote. I hoped for more. ( Focus ) We got this leaflet, which is the Lib Dem Euro specific one, only very recently - possibly the last week or so? ( Euro specific Lib Dem leaflet ) I know campaigning in a Tory stronghold (Canterbury constituency has elected only Conservative MPs since 1874, the longest any current UK constituency has remained under the control of one party [source=wikipedia]), but really, if you don't make the effort (and I apply this to Labour, much as I dislike them atm, as much as I do to the Liberal Democrats) then they'll never be beaten here. Most elections here (Canterbury) seem to have a depressing enevitability about them. Purely on the basis of who sends out the most stuff and is the most visible (including on the doorstep), it is the Conservatives who are the most visible. Anyway, I should go to bed. I'm getting up early to vote! ETA: the election is today as I finish writing. It's gone 1am! |
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| Mar. 14th, 2009 @ 02:24 pm Government to track movement out of the country | |||
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I'm currently feeling rather annoyed by this. " All travel plans to be tracked by Government". Under the plans, starting to be brought in already: "Anyone departing the UK by land, sea or air will have their trip recorded and stored on a database for a decade." I don't know where to start on this, or what annoys me most. Perhaps it is the justifcation from the government: "The changes are being brought in as the Government tries to tighten border controls and increase protection against the threat of international terrorism." How does tracking people leaving the country and holding the details for 10 years protect us against terrorism? This comes across as a standard line from the government, much like how ID cards will apparently protect us, even if they didn't protect the people of Madrid. Or it might be the "condemnation" of the plans by Chris Grayling, the home affairs spokesman for the Conservatives: ""Of course we need to keep a proper record of people as they come in and leave the country. I don't know about you, but that doesn't sound much like it's condemning the plans to me. Grrrr. This government is making me so annoyed with plans like this I barely know where to start. As soon as one lot are withdrawn, another lot comes up. I'm starting to feel quite worn down by it all. |
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| Jan. 25th, 2009 @ 12:09 pm President Obama's first 100 hours | |||
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| This is pretty cool - it's a bullet pointed list of all the things Obama has done in his first 100 hours of being President. Makes very interesting reading. |
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| Jan. 23rd, 2009 @ 11:38 am Political Quiz: I am apparently a hippy. | |||
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My Political Views I am a left social libertarian Left: 5.14, Libertarian: 4.25  Political Spectrum Quiz My Foreign Policy Views Score: -5.04  Political Spectrum Quiz My Culture War Stance Score: -7  Political Spectrum Quiz From ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif){kind=small} ontd_political and ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} red_pill |
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| Oct. 17th, 2008 @ 10:19 am Ludwig Erhard = Gordon Brown? | |||
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Recently I've been reading The Berlin Wall: 13 August 1961 - 9 November 1989 by Frederick Taylor (which, by the way, is an excellent book that I am highly recommending), and a couple of paragraphs jumped out at me as being completely and utterly appropriate to describe Gordon Brown and everything that is happening at the moment. As George Santayana apparently once said "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it". Perhaps Gordon Brown should pay closer attention to the lessons History has for us :) "In the September 1965 elections, the SPD made further gains. Brandt again failed to achieve victory, but the Social Democrats' share of the vote continued to edge upwards. The conservatives' share continued its decline, while the liberal Free Democrats lost quite heavily. But the conservative/liberal coalition, led by Adenauer's successor, Ludwig Erhard, hung on to power. As Economics Minister, Professor Erhard had been the architecht of the West German 'economic miracle' after 1949, but, like so many long-serving successful second-in-commands, once he finally heaved himself into the top position he swiftly confirmed why he had always been the deputy and not the chief. Erhard proved inept at both party-politicking and foreign policy. Moreover, for the first time since the end of the war, German industry went into recession and a 'black hole' appeared in the state finances. With half a million West Germans unemployed - paradisiacal, at just over 2 per cent of the work-force, as this may seem by twenty-first-century standards - in 1966 there was anxious talk of a return to the 1930s." (Pages 512-513) See what I mean? ;) If you changed some words (Erhard for Brown, West German for Britain etc) it could have been written about our ETA: I just realised I don't have a history icon! :O This will have to be rectified! |
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| Sep. 9th, 2008 @ 12:58 pm A disturbing trend and the solution to the UK's economic woes | |||
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benc has just come to a startling conclusion that I feel must be shared with the world. The last time the economy crashed Norman Lamont was Chancellor.  This time, Alastair Darling is Chancellor.  ( What do they have in common? ) ( Thus, the solution to the UK's economic woes is... ) |
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| Jun. 2nd, 2008 @ 10:54 pm 42 days detention | |||
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I was watching Newsnight just now and there were some politics experts talking about the new Counter Terrorism Bill, which is going to be voted on by MPs next week. There are lots of things in the proposed bill which make me angry, and I'm not going to go in to that right now, but the major thing being discussed tonight was the clause of holding suspects without trial for 42 days (the current is 28 days and the highest in the world already). What made me especially angry tonight, livid in fact, was the man who basically stated that the bill with 42 days would probably pass because most of the Labour MPs who would rebel feel that they have caused Gordon Brown enough trouble right now and that the bad headlines would damage their party. There are just no words for how angry that makes me. The idea that a flawed bill with a hugely flawed detention without trial limit would be allowed through because some people feel that they need to conform for the good of their party and are not willing to stand up for what they believe in (and the fact they were considering rebelling in the first place tells me that they think this is wrong) makes me really angry. What a ridiculous reason for letting this bill though. I could almost respect them if they thought it was the right thing to do but just because they think they've caused enough trouble for now? It strikes me that it is an inherently bad law if the best reason for passing it that someone voting for it can come up with is that they don't want to rock the boat any more. ARGH! AngryAngryAngry. |
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| May. 31st, 2008 @ 01:14 pm Petition to make maternity and paternity leave fairer | |||
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I got this from jmkg, and she explains it best, so I'll let her: "Please sign the petition at http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/flexibleleav We believe that families should be able to choose what works for them, rather than assuming that the mother will always be the parent who will be taking the childcare leave. In a lot of situations the mother may wish not to have a full year off work, or the family may not be able to afford for her to. Yet there is no provision to transfer any leave to the mother's partner, who equally may well prefer to have more than the two weeks allocated to spend with their new baby. Naturally a lot of families would still choose the traditional route of the mother taking the full leave, but *there should be the choice*. Please sign the petition even if you don't think it affects you personally, but you think that other families should be able to choose what's right for their situation. A flexible system of leave could also have the advantage of reducing sexist employment behaviours. MEP Godfrey Bloom (UKIP) said "No self-respecting small businessman with a brain in the right place would ever employ a lady of child-bearing age", but if parental leave wasn't automatically assigned to the mother then a major incentive for unscrupulous businesses *not* to hire women of child-bearing age would disappear. The petition doesn't propose any increase in the overall amount of leave allowed to new parents, though that could be a focus for future campaigns. It is just intended as a first step - a large first step, which could make the world a fairer place without costing money for businesses (a major reason why other proposals to make the leave allowances fairer have failed). What you can do: please sign the petition, and visit our website at equalrights.org.uk for more information. Please pass this message onto other people: tell your friends, tell your online communities, get people interested, help spread the word!" |
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| Mar. 12th, 2008 @ 01:37 pm Stupid chancellor, stupid budget | |||
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The Chancellor is a prick, I am not impressed with today's budget. At all. At least the Daily Mash does The Budget made me laugh. So I'm sharing it. |
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| Apr. 1st, 2007 @ 07:17 pm New Jib-Jab | |||
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(also here) |
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| Mar. 8th, 2007 @ 10:16 am Lords reform | |||
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| As when I did my A-Levels between September 2000 and June 2002, the issue of Lords reform is becoming highly pertinent again. ( politics - cut to save your friends page :) ) |
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| Oct. 28th, 2006 @ 10:50 am Protest Songs | |||
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Listening to the extended version of Barenaked Ladies are Me while heading up to no1typo's to fix the internets there I suddenly caught part of one of the songs on it "Fun and Games" and realised that the protest song isn't dead and BNL had included one on their new album. Having listened to it I don't think they like President Bush, the war on terror or Iraq very much at all... A copy of "Fun and Games" is uploaded ( Lyrics ) ION: Ben and I have tickets to go to the London BNL concert at the end of March! squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee |
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| Mar. 15th, 2006 @ 07:05 pm ID Cards (take two) | |||
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Mostly feeling:
So the House of Lords have rejected the Government proposal to link ID cards to passports for the third time. ecstaticNow Playing: Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares This means that the Government will potentially use the Parliament Act to force it through without the approval of the Lords. I hope not, despite what Charles Clarke says ("passports were "voluntary documents" that no-one was forced to renew" - umm, except when you need to leave the country that is), the linking of ID cards to passports is creeping compulsion. If you are forced to get one when you renew your passport then eventually practically everyone will have one...except for your terrorists, the people they are designed to stop, because they may not have a British passport to start with, they probably won't be worried about them even if they do [after all, they didn't stop Madrid] and they probably have access to forgers who can make the sodding passports without the need for this ID card rubbish. Best quote of the night came from the leader of the Liberal Democrats in the Lords. From the BBC News article: "The Liberal Democrat leader in the Upper House, Lord McNally, said the House of Lords must retain its right to say "no". "There is the Parliament Act and that is the right of the elected House to have its way," he said. "But this House must retain the right to say 'not in our name'."" It's certainly not in mine. (P.S. For those of you who don't read my teacher blog I have a job interview! :D) |
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| Feb. 14th, 2006 @ 06:18 pm ID cards: A rant | |||
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The BBC news story about last night's ID card vote. angryNow Playing: Disasters of the Century It makes me really quite stompy, and I know that I am not the only one. So now we get a seperate law before it is made compulsorary. Whoopdedoo. How is that going to help when from 2009 you will not be allowed to get a passport without also getting an ID card. If you cannot leave the country without a passport and you cannot get a passport without getting an ID card it will be a short time before everyone has one anyway. As for the "it will stop terrorism" issue, don't even get me started. The Madrid bombers had valid Spanish ID, the July bombers were all UK citizens. I do not see how having ID cards would have stopped these atrocities. It will stop identity theft? I don't think so. It will only be a short amount of time before this too will be forged, except now they will be supposedly fool-proof. If your identity is stolen with a forged card then how long will it take you to get it back - if someone has one of these pieces of plastic then they must be who they say they are. Let's not even mention how little I trust this or any other government with biometric data on me, let alone data on me stored on one of those Oh-So-Reliable government IT projects. Oh for pity's sake. How stupid do the Government think we are? The report is full of little quotes from various organisations. Let's start with the one from Home Office minister Andy Burnham. Support, apparently is "Solidifying" and the majority of a whole 31 MPs means that "We think it gives the vote a very clear mandate going forward". Let's now examine what "mandate" means a clear authorization or direction...the authorization to act given by a constituency to its elected representative (sourced from dictionary.com) So the fact that a government, who a minority of the UK voted for, have won a vote gives them a mandate - we, the people, apparently support them. Except, oh wait! We don't! Shock horror. According to a poll by yougov if the scheme cost £6bn - "a figure that some ministers have talked about" - then public support for it was at "2 to 1 against", and when you move to the figures that the LSE* and others have been talking about, £10bn+ then we are at a figure of "8 to 1 against" What this tells me is that the esteemed Home Office Minister has a different understanding of mandate. A slim majority of a government a minority elected into office voted for something that at least two thirds of the country are against. Doesn't sound like a mandate to me. *not even mentioning that the LSE now refuses to release another figure on the cost owing to the high levels of secrecy from the government about how the project will go ahead. Many officials from LSE have been scathing of planning for this project owing to "contradictions, guesswork and wishful thinking" on the part of the Government. [Edit] This is quite interesting for looking at the views of the public on ID cards |
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| Jul. 7th, 2005 @ 07:37 pm Stuff | |||
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I wanted to mention something on this journal about contemplativeNow Playing: Channel 4 News  my dad who would have been 58 today. This brings with it its own difficulties and grief but owing to the events in London today I don't feel that I can possibly wallow in it. Instead there is a teeny mention of this wonderful man, my father, Phillip Robert Overal, who is still greatly missed by his family. As for London, the dead and injured were just ordinary people doing ordinary things. They were people who were thinking about the weather, or work, or what was for dinner tonight and that is the tragedy that hurts so many people but I will not grieve for them. Instead I grieve for the people who are left behind and the years of pain they face. Despite the attacks today I still think ID cards are a very bad idea, as is the further removal of our human rights. That is the only way in which the terrorists will win. |
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| Apr. 26th, 2005 @ 11:32 am An Election Post | |||
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Those of you who get pissed off at politics would do best to ignore this one ;) angryToday ex-MP Brian Sedgemore defected from Labour to the Liberal Democrats. I didn't really pay much attention to this story to begin with cos I didn't really care. Then metamoof pasted the link to his last speech in Parliament which was against Prevention of Terrorism Bill. I read it through and developed a whole hearted respect for this man. The speech is very strong stuff. It's certainly more than a little bit emotive.( The text of the speech ) I was really surprised. At the advanced age of 21 I am incredibly cynical about parliamentary debates and get easily bored by them, but reading this speech made my hair stand on end. He compares the system of justice in this country to being akin to the one that "found favour with the South African Government at the time of apartheid", but for me the most powerful connotations come from a paragraph further down the page where he states: "Many Members have gone nap on the matter. They voted: first, to abolish trial by jury in less serious cases; secondly, to abolish trial by jury in more serious cases; thirdly, to approve an unlawful war; fourthly, to create a gulag at Belmarsh; and fifthly, to lock up innocent people in their homes. It is truly terrifying to imagine what those Members of Parliament will vote for next.I can describe all that only as new Labour's descent into hell, which is not a place where I want to be." For me this conjures up images of the Nazi state, possibly because of the things I have been reading at the moment (including Lawrence Rees' excellent "Auschwitz: The Nazis and the Final Solution"), but it brings up a theme that is touched upon by book after book, time after time. The erosion of the rights of the Jews in Germany were so gradual that it seemed that to ride it out and wait was the best course. It couldn't last, people told themselves, things would get better and they wouldn't get much worse. History tells us these people were wrong, but hindsight is a beautiful thing. I will admit the analogy is somewhat harsh, but it also shows us what a dangerous road we are starting on. Our Human Rights are being chipped away at so slowly that we barely notice it in the name of freedom from fear. First this right is eroded, then that, and then another. If this continues one day we will have nothing left. I want to say, here and now, that the attacks on the 11th September 2001 made me no more afraid of the world around me than I was before. In the wake of all that has happened since I have become more afraid of the actions of our government, at home and abroad, and that of the US than I have those of terrorists. Something in Mr Sedgemore's speech has touched a chord with me. I will be voting in this election and I will be voting against the party that has eroded my rights as a human and as a citizen. I will be voting against the party that took us into a war I did not support under the premise of a lie. I will be voting against the party that has time and again shown themselves to be untrustworthy. I feel motivated to vote, and I will not be denied my oportunity to speak out, even if it is what others proclaim as "a wasted vote" or "a vote that will help the Conservatives win". I will use my vote to make my stand. |
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| Mar. 23rd, 2005 @ 04:00 pm Well that's over with now | |||
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Firstly, CCUC has recieved confirmation that it will be a University before next year \o/ relievedNow Playing: Four Seasons: Summer Secondly, CCUC has a much prettier campus than UKC. Thirdly, I think the interview went ok. I hope it did anyway. I said all the things I needed to, though I can think of some things now that I should have said then it's no good beating myself up over it. I can't change anything now. I should hear how I did before the end of Easter... Finally, a real travesty was revealed to me today: From next year in line with the rest of subjects PGCE students will pay £3000 tution to learn to teach. At the moment student teachers have their tution paid for by the state. Am I the only one who thinks this is quite ridiculous? If the government want more teachers in the classrooms then they are going to have to shell out some money for them. Pfft. I so won't be voting labour at the next election... |
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| Mar. 21st, 2005 @ 06:49 am The case of Terri Schiavo [Post May Offend] | |||
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Mostly feeling:
I have been prompted to post this morning by the case of Terri Schiavo, (and here and here) a woman in the US who has been in a persistent vegetative state since 1990. Her husband who is her legal guardian wants her to be allowed to die with dignity and has been fighting since 1998 for her feeding tube to be removed. He has been successful on three occasions (including this last one) and twice the decision has been overturned by those on the opposite side, Mrs Schiavo's parents and siblings because they: thoughtfulNow Playing: Dawn Chorus My take on it is that if there is anything left of this woman, she is trapped, unable to do anything inside this shell of a body. I don't think being trapped like that is in anyway a meaningful existance and I think she should be allowed to die. It is a difficult decision for people to make and the law courts have constantly approved Mr Schiavo's wishes. I do not think that Congress (overwhelmingly republican) should have got involved and certainly should not be passing laws to prevent it. It is government meddling gone mad, and the wrong people are being caught in the middle. Now we have intervention in this case what is to stop them from doing the same in other cases? Or even make abortion illegal again.* I hope if anything like that happens to me the people who love me will allow me to die with dignity and not stay like that for fifteen years. It isn't a life. It may bring comfort to the family because in a bodily sense the person they love is not dead, but in my opinion they are worse than dead. I have been told before that Greif is a selfish emotion, and I agree with it. It is an emotion for the living and not for the dead, one that doesn't take into account how much the dead person would have suffered if they had lived, just how much the living person wishes they hadn't died. I think the case of Mrs Schiavo is grief taken to its most extreme level of selfishness by the parents and siblings. In not wanting her to be dead they are denying her right to dignity, and trying to justify it by telling themselves and the world it is because they know she can have a meaningful existance. I think that is just unfair to her. *Abortion is something I don't think I could ever do, but I defend the right of women to it. |
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| Feb. 9th, 2005 @ 09:51 am I am sickened | |||
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This morning sickenedNow Playing: Travis: She's So Strange benc pointed me at an article he had read via his RSS feeds that had appeared in the Observer. This article is the account of a British man who was detained in Guantanamo Bay for 33 Months and it is truly horrifying. I don't usually quote from the bible and those who know me best will know that I'm in a very confusing place right now wrt religion, but I feel John 8:7 sums up perfectly what the attitude of the Coalition should be in all this. "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone". Everyone knows that no person or country can be perfect but that they should try as hard as they can to be beyond recrimination. In their "War Upon Terror" the "coalition" is doing things that makes them as bad as, if not worse than the people who committed the September 11th atrocities. Do they really think that by performing torture and denying people their basic human rights they are going to gain support? All they are doing is turning more and more people against them as a country and Bush's regieme.If this is the price of freeing the world from terrorism I want no part of it. |
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| Jan. 28th, 2005 @ 11:30 am No Shit Sherlock | |||
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Apparently the new variable fees may boost student debt irritatedNow Playing: The Verve: The Drugs Don't Work Wow. Wish I'd thought of that... *rolls eyes* |
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| Nov. 2nd, 2004 @ 01:29 pm American Election | |||
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Mostly feeling:
In case some of you have been living in a sensory deprivation tank for the last year and a half, there is the US presidential election today and some of the things I have read about it have led me to consider a few things, which I should like to state here (and hope I don't offend any Americans that read this). pensiveNow Playing: Phantom of the Opera: Notes From doing A Level Government and Politics at the time of the last American Election (and we all know how that one ended) I am aware of the system that the Presidential Election hinges on - that of the Electoral College. Now I am also aware that any democratic system has its issues, however this seems to be the least democratic of all the systems I have studied. It doesn't even mean that the overall winner of the popular vote wins the election (as it is in the UK and I'm well aware that our system sucks). It just seems bizzare to me that the Country often held up as the example of democracy and are fighting wars for (at least partially) democracy to flourish in other countries should have such an undemocratic system of electing their president. Surely at the very least *all* electorial college representatives should be chosen by their state proportionally so that it reflects the popular vote in that state more? Last time around Bush won Florida by less than a thousand votes but had all 25 of the electoral college votes. This doesn't sit well with me. We can only lecture others on what they should do if we ourselves are beyond reproach, and we aren't. It scares me that in the US people need to be advised on their voting rights (warning PDF), and that the same people need to be warned about not giving into intimidation. This is not what an election should be about, and surely no civilisation in the free world should need to deploy observers to ensure that voters rights are respected. The whole thing disturbs me. (P.S. I'm rooting for the Kerry/Edwards camp, and the thought of another four years for Bush/Cheney terrifies me.) (P.P.S I'm for a proportional represenational system for the UK and a fully elected second chamber ;)) |
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sleepy
mellow