(image & idea source)

In the carbon constrained world of the near future, a crack commando unit was sent for rehabilitation by a military court for emissions that weren't theirs. They promptly escaped from a small commune in the San Rafael hills to the Los Angeles underground. Today, still wanted by the government and several large corporations, they survive as bloggers and graphic artists of fortune. If you have a problem, if no one else you know can help, and if you can find their facebook group, maybe you can hire... The A-Team.

Voting, elections & the reasons behind apathy

or 'Yes, I'm rubbish and I know it'


Recently the BNP won 2 seats in the European Parliament with 6.2% of the vote. This included a seat in my local area from 9.8% of the vote in Yorkshire and the Humber, which I am not happy happy about.

Hearing some of the reactions, both in volume, determination and clarity, I feel surprised that there were any votes for the BNP at all.
Although this result seems to have angered many(if not most) of the people I know I wonder about how significant it is - this is a mere 2 seats out of 69 ...


However, enough side-tracking, lets get on with looking at the reasons not to vote, sadly starting with mine ...

For me there are lots of little reasons, none of which would hopefully be enough on their own, although the main two are Disorganisation and Apathy which together form the 'I'll get round to it later & the oh, I needed to have done that already?' problem

Disorganisation - I am probably one of the least organised people you know (or don't know)
I have systems of notes & a reminders calender which sends me emails with lots of items on it (incl 'eat lunch', etc) all of which are capable of failing as I often dismiss them with the Apathy (I'll get round to it in a minute) & then forgetting


Apathy - I often feel rather disconnected from the world, that my opinion is unimportant, incomplete or just plain wrong. This felt like 'just another election' with little significance as it passed by in the background.

Now to move on to what I feel are more likely to be more major reasons for other people
Lack of belief in politicians (and the system) - Politicians are often portrayed negatively in the media, this is partly acceptable - as leaders of our country and society we should be able to hold them to a high standard. Unfortunately they are human too and some, hopefully most, of them are just doing the best job they can.
This doesn't stop it from feeling like no-one is standing for improving the system or making the world better in general as often what we(I) hear is the negative views they have about eachother - 'so and so will ruin the economy/our schools/your life somehow'

What I would like, and perhaps what we need, is Someone I want to vote FOR, someone who has strong beliefs on how to fix, for example, education and who isn't afraid to say that taxes had to be raised or other issues paid less attention to in order to get these more important things done, irrespective of whether I agree on the important things - it all feels so hollow when everything's vitally important. Of course what I missed from that is the fact we are supposed to be voting for parties and their strongly held beliefs rather than an individual who happens to be leading them.

This leads vaguely on to what I see as personal politics vs blanket advertising. How many of you use social networks (twitter/facebook/etc) and out of those how many received messages from politicians in these elections asking you to be involved in a discussion of policies they were involved in? Was there any personal contact by either a politician or a supporter to, not necessarily encourage, but at least discuss your views on their policies? I didn't receive any myself but that's rather a small sample size and I have some hope on this one.

Discounting reasons TO vote
Owing it to someone is often given as an argument in favour of voting - usually the people who fought in WWII are given as an example. I say they fought for our right to vote, not to force us into do so but to enable us in this respect. There is a valid reason in favour of voting in there though - voting because you/I owe it to the people who will be living in the system who will be effected by the results - this would also potentially include me and people I know although my dissolution with politics tells me this will barely have any effect.
I am vaguely proud that I am not forced to participate in the voting system on a per-vote basis and think this would cause me to feel more resent for the system rather than just feeling disconnected.


Concluding - Disappointment with myself and others who didn't vote and with those who voted for the BNP (is this a tiny minority and do the same issues affect their votes - if so it would be a larger number of people than it first appears)
Significance - Some, probably not much, hopefully also positive effects of reinvigorating politics *crosses fingers*
Possible solutions - I think trying to change the result, either by some sort of no-confidence in the European parliament or a national parliamentary motion leading to us re-submitting our candidates, would both cause more harm than good. I just hope that the rest of Europe understand that the individuals that represent us are together an approximation to the will of our people and not take any specific ones personally.


I do feel partially responsible for this result (so very sorry) as I didn't actually get round to voting (indeed I don't think I even registered) but even if I had gone along, I am at a loss as to who I would have voted for and why :-(

To end on a more positive note - here's a link to an article focusing more on hope for the future
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jun/08/europe-bnp-nick-griffin
and a final note that the number of votes for the BNP were apparently actually lower than last time :-)

 - imma :,-)

Tea and Searching

Along the lines of Hitchhikers

How, Why and Where phases. For instance, the first phase is characterized by the question How can we eat? the second by the question Why do we eat? and the third by the question Where shall we have lunch?

I'm thirsty & thoughts turned to tea.

Wolfram Alpha explains the variety
http://www44.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=tea
then narrows to rather detailed nutritional information
http://www44.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=tea&a=*C.tea-_*ExpandedFood-

G.Squared provides types of tea & where they're from (with occasional hiccups but good descriptions)
http://www.google.com/squared/search?q=tea

Google, Bing (msn.com) and Ask link to the uk tea council and the Wikipedia article and several sites reviewing teas :-)
http://www.google.com/search?q=tea
http://www.bing.com/search?q=tea&go=&form=QBLH&filt=all
http://uk.ask.com/web?q=tea&search=search&dm=all&qsrc=0&o=312&l=dir&siteid=
Google also wonders if I meant the Texas Education Agency :-/