luckykaa

It's the US presidential election, and I'm getting pretty anxious.

Granted, I personally am not going to suffer if Trump gets another 4 years, but I'm, worried that a lot of people will. More importantly, I really want the world to be moving away from the sort of viewpoint Trump represents. While Joe Biden is not a lot better, I at least get the impression he's a genuine person who wants to do what's right. He's a bit out of touch perhaps but not completely clueless. Nothing interesting will happen in the next 4 years if he does but I don't want anything interesting to happen.

I find myself obsessed with the polling numbers. This is self destructive behaviour.

Pundits love to use polls and other methods to predict what will and will not happen. One expert uses a set of parameters to guess. Not sure if that will always work; It could easily be data dredging.

Most pundits like to throw in references to how wrong previous polls were, and use this to justify why their own take on it will be the right one. The problem is, all this is educated guesswork. You can only tell so much from a poll. They can't predict whether the person asked will vote, or whether they're even being honest. There's no way to correct perfectly for other factors. Ultimately this is soothsaying.

So here's what I hope will happen:

Most of the states leaning towards Biden will do so. This is likely to happen.
Texas turns blue. Not impossible, and would be quite a result.
Most of all, I want to see a decisive win. One that can't be overturned by the Supreme court.

Getting Trump out of the Whitehouse will give me a lot of hope for 2021 being better than 2020.

I usually avoid politics here, but we've just had a general election so I'll allow it...

I am actually rather sad that Julian Huppert lost his seat. There were very few MPs who actually understood science and technology, and now there's one fewer. Also sad that we're losing Ed Milliband as Labour leader. I felt he was quite honest. At least we hang on to Caroline Lucas.

Much as I understand how delighted people are at Nigel Farage not winning South Thanet, I will miss having a politician with his own opinions rather than a party line.

Surprised at how large a margin Boris Johnson had in Uxbridge and South Ruislip. When you have the Monster Raving Loony Party and The Eccentric Party of Great Britain, I'd really have thought the Bumbling Idiot supporters vote would be more evenly split. How did they even tell the difference?

Pakistan, Iran, Sudan, Russia, Kazakhstan, Colombia, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Iraq, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Venezuela, the Philippines, Egypt, Ukraine, Cuba, Morocco, and of course China turn down invitations to the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony. 

What a snub to the Nobel Committee to be spurned by a group of peace loving democratic countries such as those. 

I just don't get the theological arguments against it. 

Yes, I realise Jesus (allegedly) only had male disciples.  Did he actually give a reason for this?  Has anyone speculated on the reason for this?  Could it be perhaps because first century Israel was actually not modern progressive 21st century country?

Is that the reason?  Seems way too simplistic to be seriously considered. 

See, everyone was screaming "oh no! anything but the Tories".  I was more worried about Labour possibly getting in again - even as part of a coalition. 

Labour are better on welfare and equal rights.  However, their civil rights record is pretty rotten.  Constant pushing for longer detention of suspected terrorists, Police stop and search powers, ID cards, anti-terrorism legislation that's used for trivial problems, reduced right to protest, DNA database full of innocent people, probably a few others.

Will the Conservatives be any better?  Maybe.  They have promised to scrap the ID card bill, and roll back some of Labour's excesses.  Even if not, they'll have the Lib Dems to keep them in check. 

Minority rights are important, and yes, progress here will stall.  This is sad.  But minority rights aren't the only rights and you don't have to be straight, white, able bodied and male to want to take a photo of the London skyline without being harassed by the police. 

Discussion with ghostpaw earlier.  Our preferred political parties seem to have the best chance of getting in in each others constituency.

Can we swap?

This is where some sort of preference voting system would be good.  I think that morally one should vote for the party that most fits your own views.  Practically though it makes more sense to vote for a party with at least some chance of winning. 

However, I'm delighted that Citizens for Undead Rights and Equality have a candidate for Brighton Pavilion.  We also have a Leo Atreides standing, but I'm no totally convinced he's really committed to the cause of preservation of the giant sandworm.

So, the Euro elections, and I have no idea who most of the political parties stand for.

Conservative, Labour, Lib-dem.  I have no major issue with any of these platforms in this election.  The MEPs seems to be less affected by the Daily Hate Mail than MPs.  Still going to be highly tailorted to appeal tovoters.  I guess I shouldn;t copmplain. It's what democracy's about anyway. 
Green: Deny being a single issue party but I'm not convinced.  Also their green policies seem to be more about the most visible rather than the most polluting. 
BNP: Racist idiot thugs.
English Democrats/United Kingdom First: These seem to be more of the same bitter middle England party.  Less overtly racist but very much of the opinion that immigration is the source of all out problems.  English Democrats seem to be trying to paint themselves as an English version of SNP.  They want an English parliament, English national identity.  I agree with the principle but can't help feeling they're doing this for the wrong reasons. 
UKIP/N02EU: They seem to have similar plaforms, but NO2EU is a little more moderate.  UKIP is capitalising on the recent expenses issues.  Pot, kettle, black.... 
I tend to have a slight distrust of parties with British or English in the name.  It seems to be a polite way of saying Xenophobic.
Getting out of the EU is a stupid platform.  It's not going to help.  For anythign we export we'll have to agree to EU standards anyway.  Most of the Barmy Brussels Bureaucrat stuff is made up by the media, so is "political correctness".  Immigration is nothing like the problem it's represented as. 
Libertas: Seem to be a slightly more realistic anti-EU/pro-EU party who figure reform is an option and less problematic than leaving. 
Christian Party: Okay - run on a platfom of charity, forgiveness, fairness, love and we'll talk.  Run on a platform of Biblical dogmatism and you cease to be relevent to the 21st century. 
Soicialist Labout Party: I guess they couldn't bear to spend money on a borgois web-designer.  Ouch!  So, a very left wing socialist party.  They are so opposite my political views it's untrue.  Seems it's just a difference of opinion though. 
Peace Party: I like the concept.  All seems a little naive. 
Jury Team: Sounds like a short lived TV series.  Jury by day, crime fighters by night.  The only 24 hour crime-fighters.  Seems to be a collaboration of independents who are against part politics.  I approve.
The Roman Party Ave: A bored french bus driver wants to be an MEP.  Works for me.  Can't be much worse than anyone else.  Always good to have a legitimate protest vote.

So, Libertas and Jury team.  What should I know about them?

For non Americans, this will be your only chance to make no difference whatsoever in this election.  If the world could vote.

And the economist did pretty much the same thing.