AV or not to AV:

I have some comments, I’d welcome feedback:

1) The YES campaign state that an MP has to work harder for my vote, yet only those whose 2nd choices are amongst the mainstream parties will have their vote counted.  For example:

If I voted Labour, with my second choice as Green, I can almost certainly guarantee that the Greens will be eliminated in a round before the Conservatives or Lib Dems, so my 2nd choice will be irrelevant. 2) Also, imagine if for example, in a random constituency, the Conservatives won the 1st round with say 25% of the vote, Labour came 2nd with 23%, and the rest of the field had 52%.

If of those 52%, a quarter of the vote were redistributed to each of those two parties after successive rounds, and half the voters didn’t include a preference for either of those parties, then the result would stand at:

38% – Conservative
36% – Labour

Now as far as I can see from all the advertising, I am being told that that an MP MUST have 50% of the vote to win, yet in the scenario I have just gone through, the winning candidate has just won by only 2% of the vote and not only that, but 62% of the electorate have confirmed that of all the candidates, they definitely don’t want that one to win (Where-as under the current system we would just assume as-much! ).

2) Although over the past 20 years, there have been many occasions when Labour supporters may have voted Lib Dem to keep out the Conservatives, and vice versa, that certainly won’t be the case in the near future, so the chances are that there will be a lot of people only putting one choice on their ballot paper, so we’ll be in no better position than we were to start with.

3) The only benefit I can see to the AV system is for fringe parties. Those parties that may get the electorate to put them as a number one choice (perhaps as a protest vote, as has benefited the BNP, and Green party in the past).

Those people that think, “I will vote for the UKIP as my 1st preference to protest to the Government that I am not happy with our stance on the EU, but it’s okay, because they won’t win and the Conservatives will get my vote as usual”. Yet this backfires, because the 10,000 other voters put UKIP as their 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th choices, and the Conservatives are knocked out in the 5th round. UKIP then win because the importance of someone’s single vote has been diluted to the point that they start playing ‘chicken’ with politicians, and they thought they would use their ‘back-up’ vote to protest to the current Government.

Of course all of this is hypothetical, and each scenario relies on specific circumstances, but I’ve just spent the evening talking to my brother, coming up with plenty more scenarios that follow the same lines. I just think that this system isn’t quite what we’re looking for, and the common argument that ‘it’s a step in the right direction’, may work for the likes of equality laws, and healthcare reforms, but that argument shouldn’t be employed for the foundation of our democracy. If we’re gonna change it, it should done right.

A comment on the BBC News article ‘Yahoo chief Carol Bartz sees trouble for Google’ - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/10090449.stm

You are probably wondering why someone so politically vocal hasn’t said a word during one of the most import General Elections in years.

The reason is, that there are so many pundits, commentators, and know-it-alls already wading in deep, that one more voice would be pointless.  There are plenty of people out there already saying what I think.  One of them is the leader of one of the parties.  They will be getting my vote, and although 6 months ago I was a little on the fence, I am now so far over the fence that I’m in the neighbours pool.

Roll on the election, then the Government can get back to business.

Does anyone else think that Labour are almost guaranteed to win the next election?

David Cameron and his travelling circus almost seemed a viable alternative.   Right up until the moment they started revealing their policies.

The latest of which is a promise to cut, cut, cut within days of coming to power.  What they fail to realise is that every cut that gets made will have a knock-on effect to services being purchased from the private sector.  Unemployment will rise, interest rates will fall, and we’ll be back into decline along with our Italian, German, and Spanish friends.

Where-as Labours policy seems rather more sensible to me.  Let the Government take the strain, wait until the country has it’s own momentum in the direction of growth (lets say a year – well, actually the boffins said ‘a year’ as that’s when they’ve forecast the economy will be strong enough), THEN cut the deficit over a very reasonable 4 years to a tune of 50%.

We seem to have a party that will say what it thinks people want to hear, wihtout actually using relevant data to inform themselves.  I want my economic policy decided by a trained economist, who is being fed with all the latest data and opinions from across the globe, to then create a steady, conservative approach to deficit reduction, growth, and job creation.  What I don’t want is a party lurching around, changing it’s policies based on Daily Mail headlines regarding the state of our finances.

Economies go into recession when people stop spending, so the very last thing we need is the Government to lead the charge.  Four years is ample time to clear the deficit in my book.

The only thing that worries me about a Labour win is the effort their ministers and think-tanks put into social engineering policies.  Things like raising the minimum price of alcohol; what a crock!  Government should concentrate on the big things.  Over the past 13 years Labour have succeeded in a lot of ‘big’ areas;  things like Independence to the Bank Of England, Stopping genocide in Kosovo, The Northern Ireland Peace Treaty, repealing Section 28, creating Civil Partnerships and equal rights for same-sex couples, leading the charge to whip off African Debt, the smoking ban creating the amazing entertainment space which is the O2 Arena and surrounding area (which is already making more money than it cost), the successful Olympic bid which is creating Billion of Pounds worth of regeneration to hundreds of acres of land across the country, and we have led the world on climate change, 3rd world debt, resolving the financial ‘crisis’ amongst other things.  But all of these things have been mired by other things like ASBO’s, and those crazy children’s savings account things!

I may update this later,  but it’s Valentine’s day and I have preparations to make for my Valentine!

What is the point of an Inquiry?   Surely, it is to inquire of people, to gather pieces of information that you don’t already possess.  To collate together all pieces of evidence in order to produce a well-informed, educated, commentary or judgement relating to a specific set of questions?

Apparently not.  It seems that the BBC, ITV, Sky, The Guardian, The Mail, The Sun, The Mirror, The Star, The Times, all of the protesters, columnists, bloggers, and stay-at-home Blair-haters have all received the MI5/MI6/CIA/FBI/FSB files, all of the Cabinet Minister’s reports, the Civil Service files, the Military dossiers, not to mention the satellite imagery and witness statements from on the ground in Iraq.

I wish I had signed up to receive these too.  I’m guessing that Mr John Chilcott is also feeling a little foolish, as he appears to have missed out on that mailshot also.  He, just like me, is having to wait until people give evidence to find out what happened.  He like me is having to read through published documents to establish the timeline and decision making process that led to the invasion of Iraq.  What fools we are.

But I suspect that I may be wrong.  That there has been no release of information.  My suspicion is that 95% of the media are using nothing more than the court of uninformed public opinion obtained from what I only hope is a very small percentage of ignorant dullards, on which to base their reports of the facts; rather than using the freely available facts themselves.

The Times report of Tony Blair’s appearance in front the Inquiry today was headlined ‘Unrepentant Blair says ‘I’d do it again‘ , followed by the tagline ‘Tony Blair branded a murderer and liar after ending his appearance before Iraq inquiry with a refusal to voice any regrets‘.   What they failed to do was report any of the factual answers to questions.  They did however report about how he ‘felt’ about it all.  It turns out that one person in the audience of the Inquiry was responsible for the ‘murderer and liar’ comment.  Yet reading the headline, my first assumption was that the Inquiry had made that determination.

What they failed to do, and what all media outlets have failed to do is ask us: ‘If you were in Tony Blair’s position, with same facts at your fingertips that Mr Blair had in 2003; would you have made the same decisions?’, and ‘if nothing had been done, and Saddam had refused for the umpteenth time to abide by UN resolutions and inspections, would the world, and would the region be a safer place now’.   The unfortunate reality is that 95% of the population absolutely would have done the same thing, if in the exact same position, and the even more unfortunate reality is that 94% of the population are too ignorant and uninformed to admit it.

The security situation of the entire world dramatically declined on September 11th 2001.  It has got no worse since 2003.  In fact less people have died per year in terrorist attacks around the world since 2004 than in the years 2001-2003.  I for one am happy to see that Iraq is holding it’s own trials and tribunals against those who committed mass atrocities against it’s own citizens and it’s neighbours in the country’s recent history.   These trials are being held in open court, with findings and evidence being published frequently.  This would never have happened under Saddam, and these people would have never seen justice.  They would have continued their life living in palaces, living off the income from the oil fields whilst the workers suffered, and those that were of a different religious order would be raped, tortured and murdered at the whim of a power-hungry fascist elite.

When the ‘war’ first started a majority of the commentators to this post-war world were not standing on the rooftop crying ‘shame! foul!’.  Most of them were with public opinion, which was a sense of ‘something needs to be done, but we’re not entirely convinced that war is the way to go, however Saddam is making a mockery of the UN, and if this works as it should the actual ‘war’ should be over very soon’.  The silent majority were happy to support our troops and see where it went, as were the commentators.   But since the war, the slow and bloody rebuilding effort has caused a sway of ‘I-told-you-so’s’ from the people who in reality told us nothing of the sort.  They created a very hefty bandwagon on which there appeared to be enough room for everyone to jump.

Opinions are useless in all walks of life unless they are informed ones.  Informed by either a collection of accurate facts, or in the absence of facts, a healthy dose of experience in the field, and history of the situation at hand.  The British public and the media have neither.  They were not subject to the briefings, the reports, the intelligence gathering, and back-room talks; let alone the ‘tipped-winks, unnaturally prolonged hand-shakes coupled with a brief stare, and quiet maneuvering’ that has been a part of international diplomacy for thousands of years.  They were not, never will be, and most definitely shouldn’t be aware of all of the information gathered and where that information came from.

So the people that stand outside the QE2 Conference centre holding up the ‘Bliar’ banners, need to sit back for a moment.  They need to think about what information they have that the Chilcot Inquiry don’t. They should come forward and say what meetings they are aware of that contradict Tony Blair’s testimony.  They need to explain to the people that have yet to make up their mind, why they think that Tony Blair is a murderer, why they feel the coalition that went to Iraq had no business being there.   Why only a minority of Iraqi citizens feel the need to move around blowing things up yet the rest seem happy to create life, jobs and government, whilst the protesters share the same sentiment to the ‘war’ as the minority.  They need to explain why they say the only reason we went to war was money and oil,  yet the amount of oil being imported to the UK and the US in 2003-2008 is on average 44% lower than it was in the years up to 2003.  The oil price is not set by the UK or the US, and the income for the oil being extracted in Iraq is shared between the companies extracting it, and the Iraqi government.   The military operation has cost billions, and will continue to cost billions more.   There has been no financial incentive.   The US military is currently using thousands of troops, and many more engineers to upgrade the oil infrastructure in Iraq, and to ensure the security of it’s workers.  They are not getting paid for this task, and the only benefits are to the Iraqi Government, the people of Iraq, and the companies that work there.

Those people I referred to earlier who appeared to already be in possession of information that eludes the rest of us; the protesters, the media etc., they have already made up their minds.  They are baying for blood. Shouting words like ‘Justice! Murderer!’  Some feel that capital punishment should return for Blair and the like. They shout about an open trial by jury, and the ‘inevitable whitewash’ if the Inquiry was to rule ‘no foul’.  Yet how fair could the trial be, if to all of these people, ANY verdict other than ‘Blair is guilty, and the War was unfounded’ is deemed incorrect.  In reality there is already a trial occurring.  There is a panel of several learned men and women, weighing evidence and ‘judging’ the participants.   The only reason that this isn’t good enough for some, is that the panel was undecided on the outcome at the start, is looking to learn things that were unknown to them before, and wish to be fair and open-minded.  The only trial that would suit the placard holders would have to be made up of people who had their opinions of guilt/innocence registered before the commencement of the Inquiry.

The protesters need to get on with their lives, and start helping others.  If they have the time to stand outside buildings shouting outright lies on a weekday, then they have time to go out into the world, learning how it really works, and helping those that truly need help.  They are spiteful, mean-spirited, and two-faced.

As for the media.  A return to factual reporting, allowing the people to make informed decisions, and leaving the bias, the manipulation, and bare-faced hypocrisy behind would benefit society far more than the current model, yet perhaps wouldn’t be so profitable.

I welcome any comments to this blog, and I look forward to debating with those who may hold a different view.

Colin and Justin praying to the God of Soft Furnishings

So, Colin is out of the jungle. I think I’m as shocked as most. I mean I guess it’s not that surprising that Colin or Justin were near the first to be out as they aren’t that well known to Joe Public. I fell in love with them during their Million Pound Property Experiment several years back, but if you didn’t see that, then you wouldn’t have had many opportunities to to catch them on TV since unless you live in Canada or Scotland. The big (read: HUGE) surprise is that Justin received more votes than Colin to remain.

Colin was always the cutesy one, the compassionate one, the emotional one. You can’t help but have a soft spot for him, but by contrast, I always found that Justin grated on me. I found him that little bit too loud, a smidgen over-opinionated, a tad obnoxious, and I didn’t like the way he treated Colin on their TV shows. However, these two have been together for many years, lived together for 20 years; they are very much in love, suit each-other immensely, and I wouldn’t dream of suggesting that their relationship is confusing, or wrong. So enter Joe Swash, he’ll suggest it live on ITV2, he will also suggest that there is no reason that anyone should like Justin, and no reason why Colin would be dating him. SHAME ON YOU JOE! You may have formed the same opinion as me over Justin’s TV persona, but what on Earth qualifies you to know who the REAL Colin and Justin are? How do you know what life they’ve shared together, or how much they are in love? FOR SHAME!!! Next time, be careful about what you say on TV as an impartial commentator.

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Peanut butter…

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JedWard of the Jungle???

Edward and John (Edwohn)

My only comment is YAAAAAAAAY! I hope they sign! I hope they sign!! I’m going to miss them on Saturday nights. They were always the act I looked forward to seeing the most. Don’t get me wrong, they can’t sing for toffee, and I certainly won’t buy any albums, but boy are they fun to watch on TV!

To read the original story, click here

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AMA-BOWB-AMA-TIDDL-AMA-WOW-AMA!

Adam Lambert and mysterious stranger. Seriously, does this guy know how to kiss without mashing your face in?

Adam Lambert of American Idol fame has got into a spot a bother over a gay ‘kiss’ live on TV during a performance of his new single ‘For Your Entertainment’. First of all, it wasn’t a kiss; it was a mauling. A kiss that aggressive is usually only performed at 4am after a heavy night of drink and debauchery. Secondly, it only recieved 1500 complaints to the relevant authority, which considering the size of the audience, shows that there may be some hope for the American race yet. Thirdly, I thought it was pretty gross, and laughed for at least 15 seconds before trying to pick which of the dancers I would have prefered to snog if I absolutely HAD to live on TV (as the thing he picked wasn’t pretty), which brings me to point Four: If any Americans did have an issue with explaining to their young children why two blokes were kissing on TV, they could have easily just told them that Adam was kissing a pretty young girl wearing WAY too much make-up, and one of those ‘progressive’ European hairstyles.

The ‘uproar’ has proved to be relatively tame, and Adam has now gained a new ‘fan’ in Me; NOT for performing the grossest kiss in live television history, but for remarking the following: that if people had been upset by his performance, then that it is a “form of discrimination and it’s too bad”, adding “I had fun, my dancers had fun, the audience that was in the Nokia [Theatre] had fun. Anybody else who was watching it and enjoying it, thank you for being entertained”.

I take my hat off to you Adam Lambert. In recent times you would have heard a Celebrity apologising even when they did nothing wrongin order to please their more moderate public, in an attempt to increase their ‘brand’ appeal, and whilst it is sometimes necessary to apologise for ‘offending’ people, but not apologise for the ‘offensive act’ itself, in this case, the kiss would only have been offensive to prudes and bigots, and a heterosexual kiss shown at the same time, in the same scenario would most certainly not have offended America’s heartland, and therefore Adam is 100% justified in his response, and it is refreshing to see a celebrity, especially one at the start of his career with so much to lose, being so firm and backing his convictions with very public words.

Hear, hear!

To read the original story, click here

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Michael Sheen

I’ve just realised I really like him, as an actor and TV personality. Shame he’s Welsh. Ho Hum.

I have just spent a couple of hours browsing blogs, vlogs and comments. Now usually this activity makes me smile. I love the innovative new ways people all over the world, find to engage and entertain. However the sheer level of shockingly bad grammar, and atrocious spelling on the internet, has got the point that my head exploded.  Seriously, if you check your seismograph (you all have one right?), you will see a rather large blip about 20 minutes ago; THAT was my head exploding.

I’m a consistent user of text/web slang myself, so I’m not talking about that; but as an example, all of the words in the title of this post were in the comment section of just one YouTube video.

Comment sections should have spelling checkers built in, at least that way the user will be informed in advance that they are a grade-A douchebag.

Jeez!

Rupert Murdoch says he will remove stories from Google‘s search index as a way to encourage people to pay for content online.

In an interview with Sky News Australia, the mogul said that newspapers in his media empire – including the Sun, the Times and the Wall Street Journal – would consider blocking Google entirely once they had enacted plans to charge people for reading their stories on the web.

At least someone in the audience likes him....maybe a little too much.

I know the story is a couple of days old now, but it is such a good’n’ I feel the need to commit something to writing so that I to may basque in the glory of I-WAS-RIGHT-AND-HE-WAS-SO-VERY-WRONG that will inevitably come in the near future.

This glorious day has a 80% chance of arriving in one of two ways:

1. Because his advisors (who MUST be better at running a company than Rupert, otherwise News Corp would no longer be trading) have managed to convince the old crone that he may as well start giving away free anthrax samples with every newspaper for all the good blocking his sites from search engines will do.

or

2. The guy would have stamped his feet enough that News Corp actually go through with his ‘evil’ plan (no, I don’t ACTUALLY think his plan is evil….it just sounded good), that traffic to his sites drops dramatically, he fails to reach existing visit targets for advertisers and loses gazillions of dollars, and the lack of traffic/negative press deter future advertisers from his sites.

So why only 80% chance you ask?  Well…..he’s not a spring chicken any more.  I’m just sayin’!  Even I won’t gloat over the body of a dead man.  I wish him many more happy years,  cause I REALLY, REALLY want to gloat.

So, I must tell you now that I am actually a large customer of Mr Murdoch (no, I’m not fat, I meant financially).  That is, not a small sum of money leaves my account each month in exchange for a Sky+ HD Multiroom subscription.  I also pay for all the TV packages, the Movies and the Sports, the telephone line, telephone calls, and broadband.  I also work away from home a lot, so having access to SKY Player to watch movies and current TV is a real bonus.

I find that technically, the service is sound.  It very rarely goes wrong.  Financially, it is a good deal.  If I were to piece together the same package from separate providers it would cost much more.  Other than Virgin of course, but cable isn’t available in the area for that apartment.   However, the customer service, the engineers, the call centres, and the billing system sucks.  It is a close 2nd for suckiness behind BT.  But, if the technology itself never goes wrong, then I should never have to speak with them.  I will continue to keep my fingers crossed, but if it was to start breaking down and I actually had to start dealing with these people (the people that took 4 hours and 6 phone conversations to understand that I wanted to upgrade to HD), then I would most certainly go elsewhere.  I’m lucky enough to be in a position where my time is more valuable than money, and if Sky start stealing that, then I really would get mad (with steam out of the ears and everything).

My point being that I and I’m sure most other consumers are savvy.  We weigh up what we want, we estimate what we think something is worth.  We will sometimes pay a little more than something is worth, but we will weigh up the benefits of having that item or service against how much it will dent our pockets (the only exception to this general rule of thumb is drugs;  drugs put a whole new spin on ‘reasoned’ analysis, so we’ll quietly ignore THOSE purchases for now). Oh, and by the way, DON’T DO DRUGS!!   So, back to my point; if I get a better, more comprehensive, FREE news/tabloid service from many other companies, there is no way in heck that I’ll be paying any extra for it.

I downloaded a new Sky Mobile App on the iPhone yesterday.  Wow! Does this mean I get the same functionality of SKY Player on my iPhone??  No. Does it mean I get the SKY news channel coupled with a few Sports Channels? Yes; I feel I’m starting to lose you. So I get this free because I’m a SKY customer, already paying for this content with a full SKY subscription? No. What the F%*k?  So how much is it? £6 per month. £6 a month to access something I can already access on my laptop, PC, or at home at no extra cost? Yes. That blows! Yes, yes Mr Stakounis, it does indeed…blow.

The app will most certainly be useful for all those Premierball, ship thing match fans who don’t have a Sky subscription, and I’m sure it’ll make Murdoch a few more quids to line his coffin with, however I resent being asked to pay for the same thing twice.  Just like I resent being asked for money to access something which others are providing for free.

Even before the internet I got all my news from Reuters. I ‘browse’ Reuters for news, if I overhear a snipet or want to lookup a news story, I will Google it, and I will usually pick a selection of sites to read about the subject.  Once on those sites, I almost always start clicking links in the sidebar to other potentially interesting content, whether it be commercial or not.  I have asked a few friends and colleagues whether this is normal surfing behavior (because lets face it, I’m not to know what is normal), and shock of all shocks, a unanimous “yeah, we’re with you Rich, that’s exactly how we ‘do’ the internet too”.  So, I believe that when Mr M said that “readers who randomly reach a page via an internet search hold little value to advertisers.”, he was talking from a point of very little understanding of his readership, the internet, or the modern e-marketplace.  Thank goodness for News Corp that they employ intelligent people to, you know, actually RUN the company.  But as far as pretty-boy, air-headed, company poster-boys go; I don’t rate him.  He doesn’t turn me on to the company, doesn’t turn me on (perish the thought), and doesn’t make me want to buy anything.  In fact every time he speaks in public I feel kinda dirty.

I used to buy the Times on an occasional Sunday morning and spend the day reading at a street cafe in London, just to pass the time, but I have never bought a tabloid, I don’t care for gutter journalism, I like to keep my ‘news’ completely separate from my ‘editorials, opinions, and commentaries’, and I certainly will not be paying anymore money the Sky/News Corp or Mr M in any guise unless absolutely necessary.  My Sky subscription has increased by 25% in 2 years as it is.

The plain truth is, that Murdoch has too much influence on the social and political leanings of his press, his opinions and ideals are separated by a whole world’s worth of space from mine, and I simply won’t pay to be fed it, unless it is done with reason, education, information, and intelligence.

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In response to Jan Moir’s ‘not an apology’ in The Mail Online article http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1222246/The-truth-views-tragic-death-Stephen-Gately.html :

Jan,

1) Everyone who found out about your disgusting article through Twitter or Facebook was able to click a link directly to it. Of course we read it. The bounds of your ignorance is truly staggering.

2) If there is a ‘majority’ of support for your views, why are they so afraid to speak in public about it?

3) The ruling on Stephen Gately’s death WAS ‘natural causes’. This was revealed BEFORE your article. You disagreed outright with the corroner’s verdict with no basis to do so. You didn’t say that you thought the circumstances AROUND his death were unnatural, you said his death WAS unnatural. You’re a journalist Jan, it is your job to be able to express what you mean, if you got it THAT wrong then I submit that you are a bad journalist and shouldn’t be employed by one of the countries most popular tabloids.

4) You have just admitted that you based your article on ‘hear-say’ from other newspapers. Learn to find reputable sources. Do not copy other people’s work; you cannot verify it’s accuracy or validity. Yet another reason you should not have your job as of tomorrow morning.

5) The most ‘orchestrated’ that the ‘campaign’ to complain got, was people linking to your article via blogs, tweets and social networking statuses, and adding their personal opinion of that article. You have an embarrassing mis-comprehension of social media. In your article about Sarah Brown tweeting, you stated that ‘nothing good ever came from Tweeting’. Oh how wrong you are.

Jan, you are sitting in a little bubble with your fingers in your ears singing ‘LaLaLa La La’, imagining that 99% of the population are wrong, and that you are right. What YOU need to do now if offer an unreserved apology. State that although it is obvious you have caused great offense, you are unable to understand why, and as such will have to look deep within to find out, and as you have no idea how you could have hurt so many people, so badly, it is only fair that you step down from your position immediately to avoid this happening again. Then once you have discovered how you could have got it so very wrong, and can be sure that it won’t happen again, THEN you will return to work.

Deal?