The Great Orator, not

Plato has never quite understood how Obama became POTUS - apart from the fact he was a Democrat, and black and did a big line in soaring rhetoric that'd put Moses to shame - oh did did Good Teleprompter.

So how did he come up with this tripe? His speech writers need shooting, quite frankly...

"I mean, think about it, these are the folks who were behind the steering wheel and drove the car into the ditch. So we’ve had to put on our galoshes, we went down there in the mud, we’ve been pushing, we’ve been shoving. They’ve been standing back, watching, say you’re not moving fast enough, you ain’t doing it right. (Laughter.) Why are you doing it that way? You got some mud on the car. Right? (Applause.)

That’s all right. We don’t need help. We’re just going to keep on pushing. We push, we push. The thing is slipping a little bit, but we stay with it. Finally -- finally -- we get this car out of the ditch, where we’re just right there on the blacktop. We’re about to start driving forward again. They say, hold on, we want the keys back. (Laughter and applause.) You can’t have the keys back -- you don’t know how to drive. (Laughter and applause.) You don’t know how to drive.

And I do want to point out, when you get in your car, when you go forward, what do you do? You put it in “D.” When you want to go back, what do you do? (Laughter.) You put it in “R.” We won’t do want to go into reverse back in the ditch. We want to go forwards. We got to put it in “D.” (Applause.) Can’t have the keys back. (Laughter.)

But the fact is, most of the members of the other party voted no on each and every one of these initiatives. No on tax cuts to small businesses. No to clean energy jobs. No to the railroad and highway projects."

Richard Dawkins would be weeping at this point... 

Cheap house even if you don't need it? Eh?

Sometimes Plato really does wonder at the 'entitlement society' we seem to have drifted into over the last 40 yrs.

Since when is it okay for your circumstances to be pressing enough for you to benefit from taxpayer largesse and live somewhere you couldn't afford in a month of Sundays - and when you can, you can squat there until you drop dead/then bequeath it to your other half or kids irrespective of your wealth?

What a completely WTF policy is that?

Yet Simon 'I have lots of council estates in my constituency' Hughes in up in arms about it - and ticking off the Prime Minister for daring to talk about it because 'it wasn't discussed by the Coalition'.


Who the fuck does he think he is? Plato was surprised at his willingness to bat for the Coalition after the GE, but frankly he's going native again and being very silly.

*off to watch back to back episodes of House MD = cracking stuff*

Are you tasty?

Well I certainly am considering the number of mozzy bites I've accrued in the last week - I think it's about 20 and counting :-(

The little buggers have nibbled away at any exposed bit of flesh - my love handles, ankles, forehead and yesterday even the hole in the knee of my jeans FFS.  Three of them are now itching like hell despite being smothered in anti-wotsit cream.

I even had to hide under the bed clothes last night and sweltered as another evil insect buzzed about my bedroom going zmzmzzzmmzmzmzmzmmzmzmzmz.

I always thought my kitties would eat these obnoxious insects, yet sadly no - they just snooze on the bed like unwelcome hot-water bottles on a warm night.

I used to love warm sunny weather - now I'm turning into a grumpy after weeks of hot, humid and fly ridden weather... still at least I'm not spending anything on electricity or oil!

*goes off to medicine cabinet for more anti-wotsit cream*

Hello World

Dear Fellow Platonians,

I'm having a weird week.  A friend recommended me to her bank manager and I now have a working bank account and am about to rejoin the normal world by having a debit card and cheque book as well. It is a surprisingly positive experience for what seems like such a 'process' story.

It all started to go horribly wrong back in March when my bank decided without any warning that I was a crap credit risk and excommunicated me with the grand total of £180 in my wallet and a £500 unauthorised overdraft that they created.

As someone who always earned a good crust - that came as a bit of a shock. The credit crunch stopped my small business in its tracks and now I'm selling up as I can't afford my mortgage and have no real prospect of resuscitating my business as it focused on the public sector.

And then there's the fuss about Mandy's book - he doesn't appear to have said anything that wasn't widely reported before but lots of polytix commentators and Labour peeps are up in arms over it - because what they didn't want to admit was true or that what they'd been told was cobblers was also true.

The reason I'm posting about both these things is that often what appears to be the truth - isn't quite what it seems. Mandy put up a very convincing front as did many others about the warfare going on between No 10 and No 11. But it did them no good in the end.

Whilst I've been very fortunate to have been helped/hugged during my crap year - I still pretended things weren't so bad lest I made them feel awkward, myself feel like a failure or worst of all - end up exposed.

That's where Labour missed the point entirely in my view - Gordon and many of their policies were like my nuked business and financial woes. They needed to be faced up to sooner rather than later, but by hanging on and hoping they'd go away - they just got worse instead.

I can't say how glad I am that New Labour has hit the buffers but I fear that it's neither mortally wounded nor so seriously injured that it'll take a long hard look at itself.

Strong and effective opposition is essential for good governance but as it is - it appears that Labour are about to elect either a wonk, a twonk, a hypocrite, a bully or someone who looks like he's about to cry.

That does no one any good.

Blogging Coma

Dear Fellow Platonians,

As you may have noticed, your Supreme Queen has been AWOL since Gordon resigned.

There are several reasons for this, but frankly the main one was that I lost the will to write.

I'm pretty pleased at what the Coalition has managed so far and feel that a huge weight has been lifted from my shoulders psychologically. I simply don't want to hear from Brown, Mandelson or Campbell ever again.

Things are going to be dire for a while and I've been forced to wind up my own business as there is no prospect of a SME like mine which relied on Whitehall spending being a viable concern.

So there we are, I've lost my livelihood and have put my house on the market [no HIPS!!] as I can't pay the mortgage.

But the Coalition are doing the right thing for the country.

I hope that the LDs and Tories continue to grasp the nettle so that peeps like me know the pain was worth it.

Gordon's Final Encounter with the Queen

Brilliant

The real Labour manifesto......

Dear Platonians,

I have some doubts about this list -but hey-ho.The REAL Labour Manifesto, in full:
1. Pretend a terrible defeat was somehow a victory
2. Get together with other defeated parties to steal the election
3. Foist another unelected PM on the people straight after the last one
4. Make sure the most popular party in the country has no say in the government
5. Pretend that this is all part of “progressive governance”
6. Cobble together a ludicrous coalition of tiny parties which ensures that stable government is impossible but who cares as long as we stay in power and keep our ministerial salaries
7. F*ck the people
8. Blatantly betray our explicit manifesto commitment, and force electoral reform on the voters without asking them first
9. Do this deliberately to make sure the most popular party in the country can never be involved in government again
10. Laugh like a hyena in the face of democracy

Many thanx to SeanT for this

Tactical Voting - a novel approach

Dear Platonians,

Plato has been seduced by GE antics to post much of anything in AGES and now she's just getting back in the saddle.

Here is a fabulous pee-take by John Loony on www.politicalbetting.com


"As we’re in the mood for discussing bonkers electoral systems, here is one which I invented aseveral years ago. It was inspired by the Winchester result in 1997, when the Lib Dem won by 2 votes.:


Premise:
In Winchester in 1997, some Labour supporters voted Lib Dem tactically because they wanted to get out the Conservative. Some thought that it was a safe Conservative seat anyway, so stayed voting Labour. But seeing the result, they wished they had voted tactically for the Lib Dem (and would have been happy to do so). Similarly, some Conservative supporters might have voted Lib Dem because thy wanted to protest against the Conservative Party, but were not expecting the Conservative actually to be defeated. Another problem is that lots of people voted Labour in desperation, wanting the Conservative government to be defeated, but were shocked by size of the national landslide.


Solution: Chronological Tactical Voting
In the polling booth, there is a computerised voting/counting machine. The computer tells the voter what the result of the election is so far, based on the votes cast already. It gives the number of votes cast so far in the constituency, and also the number of seats for each party in the country as a whole (also based on who is in the lead so far in each constituency).


Voters who are strong supporters of one particular party go and vote early, because they want to vote for their chosen party regardless of tactical considerations. Voters who want to vote tactically go and vote later, so that they can get a good idea of how the result is likely to go. As they leave the voting booth, their memory is wiped so that they can’t leak the result so far to anybody else - people still have the excitement of watching the results show on TV.


Variation: Instant Tactical Voting
Everybody in the whole country is wired up to a voting machine all at the same time.
Everybody votes, by selecting their chosen candidate.
The voting machine instantly counts the votes and gives a result after a few seconds - again, both for the individual constituency, and for the seats for the nation as a whole.
After allowing everybody a minute or so to consider the result, the machine asks “Considering the result you have provisionally given, do you want to reconsider your choice?”.
Supporters of minor parties in marginal constituencies will transfer their votes to the top two candidates, if they are in the mood to do so.
Supporters of the winners in safe seats may transfer their votes to a minor party, to make a protest.
Various other voters will vote differently, according to the results they’ve seen and the overall result they would prefer.
After everybody votes for the second time (all at the same time), the process is repeated. It continues for several iterations until the overall result converges and settles on a final result."

Brilliant!

St Vince defrocked

Hat-tip to Swiss Bob for the footage

Gordon's the Weakest Link