Month: April 2002

Beer tonight after college with Ian (happy birthday!), Sacha, DA, Kev, Paul F, Matt and Kearn, with sightings of Clare and Dave.

So a remarkable percentage of French voters ticked the box marked “Jean-Marie le Pen” on their presidential ballots. And yet the nation seems outraged and surprised, with thousands pouring onto the streets to protest at their own action and inaction. After all, they were the ones who voted in the way they did – or, more importantly, didn’t vote at all.
This lends more weight to my old argument about the need for compulsory voting with the proviso that each ballot should carry a “none of the above” option.
The result also illustrates what can happen when you have too many political parties – the vote becomes fragmented, and a small party can easily wield far more influence and power than its mandate would suggest. Look at Germany – the Greens hold the balance of power there, even though the Social Democrats and Christian Democrats are both far larger parties representing far more of the electorate. Consequently, the Greens have pushed their manifesto to the forefront of the agenda. I suspect that as a result of this weekend’s ballot in France, we shall see a more right wing agenda in that country, even though 49% of voters voted for socialist candidates.
The question is – how do you ensure that minority interests are represented, but not at the expense of the majority?

Someone is getting desperate.

Probably not good news for pro-Europeans such as myself.

I’m concerned by this map:

It goes with this article.
Surely the BBC can produce better quality maps than this? Since when has Hawaii moved so close to the Mexican coast?

I don’t generally like cluttering my site up with buttons for other people’s websites, but here is an exception because it is the coolest online radio I’ve found yet (and I’ve been listening to it for a very long time):

Perhaps what they say about librarians is true?

Online darts. Oh crap – I was supposed to be productive this evening.

Bizarre moment from last night: as I was walking home from the pub, passing the Park Tavern, a couple in their early twenties or maybe even late teens walked out into the street. The girl was complaining about a friend of hers who was a “tourist”.

Somehow I go embroiled in this conversation (in my role as innocent bystander – I usually find it best to just nod, make agreeable murmurings and say nothing more) as we walked up North Street before they went into the Chinese take away, still discussing this with jaw-slackening volume.

I agree with Luan. We didn’t need to know this.