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Monday, November 15, 2004

Just found a great site for all my family and friends around the world, worried about the election (and four more years of a man-chimp with his finger on the button).

Quite a lot of people just want you all to know that we're really, really sorry and if we had the choice we'd have two men called John calling the shots.

Which may not be such a long-shot, even after all this time. The Moderate Independent reports that Ralph Nader, the man that may have given George W. Bush the White House in 2000, is putting a bid in to get votes recounted. One blogger mentions the research of Dr Stephen Freeman that shows the immense improbability that the difference between exit poll numbers and 'counted' votes happened by chance. One chance in a quarter of a billion.

Seriously; we're talking the chances of winning the jackpot on a 6-from-49 Lottery (think New York's State Lottery, or Britain's National Lottery) and then winning double-or-nothing at a Vegas roulette wheel. With every scrap of the winnings. Six times.

Listen : Underwear Goes Inside The Pants - Lazyboy ... Amerika (Jam & Spoon So Kann's Gehen Mix) - Rammstein.

Friday, November 05, 2004

Ah yes. I promised my sister that I would put a picture of her wedding on the blog as soon as she sent one. It's trimmed down a bit...



...but there you are. Congratulations to Wendy and Dave Wootton. No longer living in sin!!!

Listen : Brace Yourself - Brides Of Destruction ... Lovenest - The Wedding Present (I was quite happy with myself for these song choices).

Thursday, November 04, 2004

Did I really miss that many weeks without posting on the blog? Hmmmm...

So, what happened. Four hurricanes hit the country. They may have been gentle reminders to all Floridians that God / Gaia was pissed off at them. I quite liked the fact that three of them were reminders not to vote for Bush (Ivan, Charlie and France's)... OK, you know this is sarcasm. Bush won his first election fairly a few days ago, but pundits on the TV are saying that Kerry's strategy was a failure.

Yet both candidates got more votes than any winning President in past US history.

If you make it to the 100m Finals at the Olympics, when nobody thought you'd get past the preliminaries because your running style was awkward, and then got beaten to the gold medal by less than two-tenths of a second, people wouldn't be saying "that was a disaster... he needs to radically rethink his entire running technique after that silver medal performance..." and yet that's what these expert pundits on the news are now doing.

Blah, blah, everyone's an expert. Here's another example, and it shows that you should make up your own mind instead of investing too much in the opinions of those on TV. When the US Dollar slipped against European currencies in late 2003, so-called "experts" in the financial sector were saying that it would rebound by the end of 2004. £1 in Britain would return to be worth $1.60 in the US instead of $1.80. Guess what? These experts that are paid a six-figure salary to predict trends got it wrong. British tourists still get an absolute bargain when they come to the States to shop because the dollar's so weak. It's still a dollar-eighty to one pound sterling.

The same with the election. Kerry didn't do bad at all. In fact, he posted the second fastest time in Olympic history (if we carry that analogy over), but got beaten on the day. He got more votes than Clinton, Bush the first and Reagan. So I'd say he did something right.

So, for the next four years, I'll be watching the figures. Unemployment, currency rates, promised spending amounts. Bush won by a whisker and if he fucks it up this time like he's done in Iraq, we'll let him know it in no uncertain terms.

Roll on the next election...

Listen : Lola Stars And Stripes - The Stills ... Kill The Poor - The Dead Kennedys ... Freedom Of Speech Won't Feed My Children - Manic Street Preachers.