London Election Gerrymandering
April 9th, 2008 at 23:24

One of the big considerations in a democratic society is how to make that democracy representative, and make sure everyone’s votes count. There’s no one way of doing it – there’s all sorts of variations of democratic government, all of which have various mechanisms built in to try and involve as many people in the political process as possible.

The thing is though, some people are still going to feel disenfranchised. In fact, the thing that’s motivated me to write this is that I feel disenfranchised.

That’s right, I, a white male, someone in the demographic that always wins, am disenfranchised.

Y’see, I really, really want to vote in the London Mayoral Election. It isn’t fair. I’m being denied the vote just because I don’t live in London. Its a textbook case of gerrymandering: they’ve drawn up the boundaries specifically to deny people who don’t live in London a vote on who gets to be Mayor of London.

Its annoying too that the vote is in early May, as I have every intention of moving to London before the end of the year – and if I do, I could potentially be stuck in a city ruled by Boris Johnson, a man who can’t even run a quiz show properly, let alone a major world city.

I wouldn’t mind if I had the opportunity to vote, then I can at least say I tried to keep the Tories out, but as it is, its totally out of my hands.

And besides, I deserve a vote. Maybe even two or three votes. I should be made an honorary Londoner. I love London, I think its excellent. I’ve been there loads of times – I even enjoy travelling on public transport and being surrounded by thousands of people at tourist attractions. I have a big tube map on my wall to delude myself into thinking that I live in London – and I’m even a big enough London nerd to know that it’s out of date, and am able to explain how.

As a politics junkie too, it bothers me that I don’t get to vote – its a fascinating election as its the third biggest direct mandate vote in Europe (after Presidents of France and Portugal), and the personalities involved make it the closest Britain is ever going to get to an American-Presidential-style election.

So please, if you’re reading electoral commission, please can I have a vote? I’ve got an Oyster card and know London secrets like that the Bank/Monument interchange isn’t actually entirely closed. I’m asking nicely: please!

The only thing that could possibly cheer me up from this travesty would be finding some Right Price Furniture*…

*Sponsored link.

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Who let the dogmatists out?
April 8th, 2008 at 00:50

“The earth is spherical”

“What?! That’s clearly not true! There’s just a big scientific conspiracy by the liberal left to give the scientists jobs! Anyone who talks about the shape of earth should give a balanced view and give equal time to the flat earth society!”

I hate it when science is politicised. This might surprise you, as I love needlessly politicising everything else: films, TV shows, abstract concepts, politics, I’ll find a political angle on them all. But I think that the politicians should stay the fuck away from science.

Case in point: dangerously credulous Tory blogger Iain Dale keeps posting tenuous stories about how climate change totally isn’t happening. Y’know, despite all of the stacks of evidence and the overwhelming scientific consensus saying that it is.

What bothers me about it that its a purely dogmatic thing: Tory Iain presumably is under the impression that because he’s a Tory, he hates taxes, and therefore, if there’s green taxes to try and manipulate the market away from fossil fuels and carbon emissions, its a bad thing, because taxes are bad full stop, and therefore, any crackpot claiming that climate change isn’t occurring is proof that it’s a New Labour nanny-state socialist money-grabbing exercise to increase state control of the economy.

Its the same with the new laughing-stock of a film, Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, about how how evolution by natural selection is a conspiracy orchestrated by “Big Science” and their Nazi agenda- the latter part of the title being a subtitle, not instructions to the cinema about who to turn away.

Obviously the thought process is even more clearly dogmatic here: “Our book says God created the Universe, therefore, despite stacks of evidence, evolution is totally untrue”.

I think it’s pretty clear that I disagree with them.

“But they just want a balanced view!”, defenders cry. That’s sounds fair, doesn’t it? Freedom of speech and all that? “If we don’t have freedom of speech then its Nazi Germany!”

Unfortunately for the global warming deniers and the creationists, science is not democratic, you cretins. Everyone could think something and it’d still be wrong, because science needs evidence. It’d be madness to suggest that (Godwin alert!) Holocaust Deniers should be allowed to give a “balanced view” of the Holocaust, because there’s stacks of evidence contrary to their ludicrous opinions.

And yeah, I know I’m not a scientist, but I do appreciate and understand the value of evidence – obviously if the scientific consensus on an issue were to shift, it’d be because some new evidence came to light. If the scientists launched a new satellite that scanned the earth’s interior and determined the earth had a honeycomb centre, and there was observations to back this up which falsified previous theories, then I’d be willing to believe the scientists.

So, please, politicians and dogmatists, please can you stay the fuck away from science, for the good of humanity?

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Dawkster Who
April 6th, 2008 at 18:38

Assuming I’m not the victim of an obscure (and late) April Fools joke, apparently Richard Dawkins is going to guest star in Doctor Who. All Russell T Davies needs to get now is Adam Hart Davis and the Misery of Others to cameo and all four of my favourite things will be united at last.

Apparently Davies, who is pictured in the article dressed as a middle-aged Neo at the weekend, is a big fan. Which makes me wonder just how Dawkins will be incorporated into the show.

Hopefully it’ll be in his guise as a gangster rapper.

I think it’d be pretty good if Dawkins would become the new companion – its not as if the Doctor has too many after all. He could provide a level-headed rationalist counter to the Doctor and the villains they encounter.

He’d be great fun – he could sneer at any credulous villains who speak of what they believe, and demolish their arguments academically.

I guess the only downside it would prevent the Doctor from so wrecklessly ignoring the laws of physics and using his sonic-screwdriver to get out of every situation, because Dawkins would tell him that there’s no way it could work, and there’s no evidence to suggest it could.

I can’t wait.

Rejected Post Titles:

• The Ood Delusion
• The Blind Clockwork-Monster-People Maker
• Unweaving the Face-of-Boe
• The Extended Carrionite

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Cohesive Policy Action!
April 6th, 2008 at 01:01

Gun crime is out of control! Gun deaths are up! Loads of young people are being killed in gun violence! So, what can we do?!

Er, why not give them weapons training in school.

Er, what the fuck? Talk about mixed messages. I take it the plan is that if the kids are going to form armed gangs, they may as well make sure they’re an accurate shot, so there’s less collateral damage? Or is this about protecting the weak kids? If they can’t stand up to gun-wielding bullies… then why not arm the weak kids? To paraphrase Peep Show, a gun is basically a short-cut to self-defence.

According to the linked article:

The government-commissioned review of civil and military relations, led by Quentin Davies, the Labour MP, was ‘alarmed’ at the number of schoolchildren who had no idea of military life.

Because obviously its important to know what its like being part of a fascist system of not questioning authority, blindly following commands that are barked at you, and becoming part of a faceless militia who all act, look and think the same way. Oh, and learn how great it is to kill people.

I’m sure increasing the access young people have to guns is going to massively reduce the amount of gun deaths involving young people too.

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If a job’s worth doing…
April 4th, 2008 at 18:18

I’m a perfectionist at heart, and if there’s one thing I hate more than tyranny and oppression, its tyranny and oppression done badly.

Robert Mugabe has made a right hash of rigging the elections in Zimbabwe. For someone who’s been in charge for twenty years, you’d think he’d have been better equipped to rig an election successfully.

The very fact that an election happened is bad enough. I’ve no respect for the sort of despot who tries to maintain the illusion of democracy, like Musharraf in Pakistan, as that’s like admitting you’re being a bit of a twat, and there’s no dignity in getting your cronies to tell bare-faced lies to the press about the election being free and fair. I much prefer the sort of international bastard who acknowledges that he’s a dictator and will wave his middle fingers at the international community. At least there’s some honesty there.

If I were a despot, whenever I met other world leaders at summits, or the UN or wherever, if they were to complain to me about the lack of democracy, I’d tell them I’d write myself a note, and reach to get a pen from my pocket. Then I’d produce a clenched fist from my pocket, and use my other hand to mime “winding up” my middle finger.

But Mugabe has messed up. Zimbabwe is still in the news, what… six days after Sunday’s elections? How is he supposed to retain any credibility after that? A professional, like Putin, could rig an election, declare a fraudulent result and be seen as legitimate in the eyes of the international community in a weekend. Although to be fair, Putin is genuinely popular amongst Russians.

What Mugabe is doing by faffing about letting the opposition have a majority in Parliament, and stalling for time on the Presidential result is like beheading your opponents with a bread knife. Rather than a clean slice with a sword, like granting yourself emergency powers and declaring yourself President for Life would be, Mugabe is hacking away at the neck, getting blood everywhere and causing a horrible mess.

The latest news is that Mugabe will apparently contest a run-off election against Morgan Tsvangirai – this means that there’s going to be all of the administrative hassle of setting up the polling booths again, checking registered voters and doing loads of counting… all because he wanted to maintain the illusion of democracy.

Next time round he should do his homework.

Rejected Satirical Spin On This Story: “Robot Mugabe”

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Decathalon and on and on…
April 4th, 2008 at 15:54

The building work is presumably almost done, the teams have been decided, the torch has started its world tour, all around the world the festivities have began, and the only thing that the organisers of the Beijing Olympics seem to have forgotten about are the main events.

The excitement and hype will increases exponentially as we approach August, when finally a starting pistol will be fired, and then some men will run across the stadium for ten seconds, then everyone will shrug their shoulders and wonder what all of the fuss is about.

Lets face it – the Olympics are going to be bitterly disappointing because at the core of the whole thing is sports. Has anyone actually looked at the utter dross that’s going to displace worthy Adam Hart-Davis programmes from the daytime TV schedules in August? Dressage? Handball? Canoeing? Jesus.

It doesn’t help that sports-people are invariably such monumental dullards with all the charisma of an angry bear. I’m pretty sure that Sports Personality of the Year could be won by a pile of gravel, if gravel were capable of demonstrating an arbitrary selection of skills slightly faster than other people.

Its all going to turn out to be a futile exercise anyway – the games are going to be marred by protests and the Chinese crushing them, as that’s one thing they would win the gold medal in – and besides, by supporting the Beijing games, we’re essentially helping a regime who has a hand in Genocide in Dafur, and helps out bastards in Burma, and isn’t exactly squeaky-clean itself. In fact, I’m going to boycott the games by not watching any sport for the duration of the games. And maybe afterwards too. I may keep this boycott up indefinitely, in fact – unless the England football team reach the finals of a major international football competition and I feel an obligation to keep up with the Zeitgeist… but its not like that’s going to happen any time soon.

Rejected titles for this entry:

1. Bollympics
2. Olympic Torch-ure
3. Ping-pong Inanity

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Twitter on T-Mobile UK
April 4th, 2008 at 15:53

I knew this graphic would come in useful. I’ve discovered yet more problems with T-Mobile. So as you might have noticed by my swish, new, popular sidebar on the left, I’ve got quite into Twittering. The thing that makes it excellent is that you can update your Twitter via text-message, by texting what looks like a UK Number – it starts +44 and isn’t a premium rate short-code or anything like that.

But paranoid that I am, I thought I’d just ring up T-Mobile customer services and double check that I’m not being charged a billion pounds a text. I read out the Twitter number to the man on the phone, who informed me that “+44″ is the code for “A country called U.K”. It turns out that I’m being charged 17p a time for a text… outside of my contract.

Apparently the number is in Guernsey, which despite looking just like a normal number, makes it totally different.

So I’m posting this more as a public service announcement, and in the hope that if I slag off T-Mobile on the internet they might try and win me back by giving me free stuff.

T-Mobile users, for fucks sake, don’t text Twitter!

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Goodbye Blue and White (and Red)
April 3rd, 2008 at 19:27

If you’re a regular visitor, you’ll probably have noticed that things look a little different. I got bored of the red and blue layout, so wrote myself a lovely new green blue, yellow and black one. If you’re reading via RSS, now would probably be a good time to click “view original”, so you can understand what I’m talking about”.

Needless to say, getting it working has been no end of hassle – I am working with computers after all. But I’m quite pleased with the results.

There’s some exciting new features – recent comments are linked to on the left hand sidebar, and perhaps most excitingly, the latest 24 hours of my Twitter feed. That’s right – if you just can’t get enough of me, you can follow the tedious minutiae of my life in near real time. Or at least, you will when I get it working.

I’ve got some other plans for further enhancements that I’ll implement in due course. Its amazing how motivated you become to code stuff when you’ve got a more important, ten thousand word dissertation that you should be doing instead.

So, what do you think? Post comments with suggestions/criticisms/etc below – it’ll help me check that comments are still working at least.

Update: Focus groups don’t like the colours. So I’ve gone for a more conservative blue. That’s small “c” conservative. Big “C” Conservatives are more green and deceitful these days.

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James is writing about Facebook. Again.
April 2nd, 2008 at 18:57

One of my favourite things about Facebook consuming all of our lives is the news feed. Especially the status updates. If you’re over the age of 30, a Facebook status is basically a one line description of what someone is doing at any given time.

Usually, everyone sets them to something trivial or banal – I could probably tell you with some accuracy what some of my friends have been eating lately, and sometimes they’re used for actually useful information, such as explaining where someone is. I try to make mine pithy and whimsical.

My favourite type of Facebook status though is what I’d term dramatic ambiguity. If you’re a regular Facebook user, you must know what I mean – when you read something like “James is annoyed with certain people” or “James wishes someone would stop being a twat” – when they’re used as the 21st century equivalent of bitching about someone behind their back.

I love it when this happens because it lets you wonder and speculate on what the actual gossip is.

“[Facebook friend] wants to tell certain people where to certainly go, but can’t for the sake of diplomacy.” is a pretty obvious cry for attention – what could be going on?! Oh, the possibilities!

The other great thing about the Facebook news feed is that you get to follow all sorts of events in real time. Its always entertaining to see someone go from “in a relationship” to “single”, then to “its complicated”, then “in a relationship” again… and then a week later back to “single” permanently. Its as if Facebook is charting our own personal time lines live.

When I’m out and about doing the sort of things you’d expect a young go-getter like myself to do, I update my status fairly regularly by text message. I like to think that there’s one of my hundred or so friends sitting on their computer following my movements obsessively, like some weird stalker fan. I suppose its probably a good thing that Mark Chapman didn’t have Facebook.

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Terrorvision
April 1st, 2008 at 21:25

I realised the other day that I haven’t seen a new Bin Laden video in some time. Its not something I look out for, and set the Sky Plus box to record, you understand, but I’ve always assumed they keep making them, even if I’ve got no desire to watch – a bit like Last of the Summer Wine.

Its understandable if the terrorists have stopped making videos, I guess. I mean, it can’t be easy putting yourself in the public eye, if everyone hates you. I’m sure Bin Laden would claim he plays up to his panto-villain demeanour, a bit like Wolf from Gladiators used to, but I bet underneath having thousands of people booing you makes you feel unloved and vulnerable.

Although for all I know, maybe they are making new videos and I’m just living in a world of ignorance? That wouldn’t be unchartered mental territory for me after all. Maybe its the TV channels who are deliberately not showing them? They have to be careful with terrorist videos as it is, just in case they contain any secret messages or codes for Bin Laden’s crackpot followers – “LOW BATTERY” flashing in the bottom left corner could be a rallying call for terrorists for all we know.

Or maybe there’s a much simpler explanation: maybe nobody cares any more? Thanks to the internet and YouTube, just about anyone can create a grainy video of themselves full of uninformed whining about politics and complaining about their problems, and they can broadcast it to millions of people. Bin Laden is essentially an emo kid.

Actually, the similarities don’t end there – Bin Laden was a privileged middle class kid, he’s been ostracised by his community is a menace to society too, just like emo kids tend to be. I apologise to any emo kids and dangerous terrorists reading, who may not appreciate this comparison.

The problem with Bin Laden is that he has no credibility – you wouldn’t listen to his opinions without first telling your brain that whatever he says is distorted, wrong and awful. I apply the same filter whenever I read anything Melanie Phillips has written. The only way he’s going to regain any credibility is by upgrading the Al Qaeda television studios – maybe if his broadcasts were in 1080p HDTV with Dolby 5.1 surround sound, with photo-realistic 3D graphics swooshing around the screen, we’d take him more seriously? Content-wise too, simply having a bit of a rant at the west isn’t very appealing, if he wants mass appeal then he needs to employ some more gimmicks – he could have a phone-vote to decide what to name the Al Qaeda cat, for instance. If he doesn’t like the outcome, I hardly think its beyond him to rig a simple phone vote, as he must be a least 10 times more evil than Blue Peter, so could easily get away with it.

If worst comes to the worst, and he’s really desperate for some exposure, he could always send his videos in to You’ve Been Framed – he’d just have to make sure he has a clip of a granny falling over at a wedding at the end of all his videos. They might even pay him £250 to broadcast it.

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