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VOTE BIKE

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  1. wingpig
    Member

    "For me, political parties aren't like football clubs, you don't pick one and support it for ever."

    Indeed not - the White Paper thread has covered a bit of that. Whilst I do not exhibit slavish devotion to any single specific colour of rosette there are still some parties who will never ever get my vote entirely on principle, even if hell were to 1: start existing and 2: freeze over.

    Do people get to pick their own association shoutball clubs to support or are they coerced into supporting particular ones by peers and parents and domestic locale?

    Posted 9 years ago #

  2. wingpig
    Member

    Getting spamtrapped again.

    Hermitage Park has lots of railings but the spacing between them disagreed with the curve radius of my U-lock on the most recent voting-opportunity.

    Posted 9 years ago #

  3. twq
    Member

    I voted Green, although I am not only pro-nuclear, I'm also not anti-fracking. Or rather, I think the fracking debate has been hijacked by fear-mongering nimbys.

    Posted 9 years ago #

  4. robyvecchio
    Member

    I agree with twq. I only wish the Green had a stronger stance towards cycling and less we-are-not-UKIP. Still better than the alternatives.
    I know there is going to be no cycle space on the Italian Cultural Institute, but plenty of railings.

    Posted 9 years ago #

  5. kaputnik
    Moderator

    I agree with twq. I only wish the Green had a stronger stance towards cycling

    Like all parties they are probably a pretty broad church. I do get the feeling that there are a number in their ranks whose idea of a green transport policy is motorways full of electric-powered cars.

    I'll still vote for them though as they are the party most closely aligned to my own beliefs / opinions and I generally don't feel their as full of s**t and existing for their own sake as the "big 3".

    Posted 9 years ago #

  6. le_soigneur
    Member

    @acsimpson "Far more damage was done by the earthquake and tidal wave than will ever happen through the radiation leak."
    Fukushima is actually worse in scale than Chernobyl, the only saving grace is that it didn't get air-borne.. The schedule for clean-up is 50 years, they haven't even invented the robots they will need to clean it up. Neighbouring Daichi villages will not be inhabited for decades. The groundwater contamination is contained for now- by freezing the ground. The cooling water is being accumulated in acres of tanks, still more being built, all this water will have to be processed.
    Japan is running exclusively on carbon power until they put the measures in place to build reservoirs above all reactors for emergency cooling if the power/pumps/emergency-generators fail in future.

    Posted 9 years ago #

  7. I were right about that saddle
    Member

    As a site for nuclear reactors, Japan was always quite insane. The West coast of America is only slightly saner.

    I did read that the pre-1945 Japanese culture is essentially one of doing a great deal with very little due to the paucity of fossil fuel there. So food was often raw and art minimalist. You'd think they'd be naturals for the shibui-laden practice of bicycling.

    Posted 9 years ago #

  8. Dave
    Member

    While there's no question that Fukushima cleanup will doubtless be expensive, if we were honest we'd have to offset all of that against the cost of fighting wars for oil.

    The US alone has spent $6 trillion on Iraq. £100bn to clean up nuclear plants is an incredible bargain by that standard. So many externalities of conventional power are concealed that it makes nuclear seem expensive simply because the costs are visible.

    Posted 9 years ago #

  9. kaputnik
    Moderator

    Has anyone written a future systopian sci-fi type novel where countries invade eachother to gain access to wind / solar / tidal reserves?

    Water wars are much easier to imagine in the near term view of things. Particularly once we've pumped all the water into the gound to squeeze out shale gas and poisoned what's left over.

    Posted 9 years ago #

  10. Mandopicker101
    Member

    Having trawled the ocean of electioneering guff I've had, both in the street and through the door (Tories mailing stuff to me personally!), not to mention via the media, I've concluded the Greens are probably nearest my own ideas. Besides, if nothing else, I think electing a Green MEP (rather than, say, a U-Kipper) says something about society's outlook. A Green might also turn up and do something in return for the sizeable renumeration package.

    Even if the Greens weren't on the slate, I'd still probably roll up to vote just to spoil my ballot paper. The right to vote is, surprisingly I think, one of those things we seem to be rather careless of these days.

    Posted 9 years ago #

  11. Roibeard
    Member

    Interesting one this time - my deeply held beliefs are no longer supported by any party standing in Scotland, so I'm working my way down my priority list to find a differentiator at a "less important" level. I don't like "none of the above" type approaches due to being given the privilege to vote, even if I'm choosing between the lesser of two evils...

    I've narrowed it down to X or Y, which most would consider to be diametrically opposed! I might just choose Y for a change because they aren't in power, even though they supported those in power in decisions running against my conscience.

    Still a couple of hours to decide...

    Robert

    Posted 9 years ago #

  12. I were right about that saddle
    Member

    @Dave

    $6 trillion dollars would buy the entire export output of the Iraqi economy including the oil on the open market for over sixty years;

    https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/iz.html

    So it wasn't a war for oil, or someone miscalculated.

    Posted 9 years ago #

  13. wingpig
    Member

    "The right to vote is, surprisingly I think, one of those things we seem to be rather careless of these days."

    Two people within ten feet of me said earlier they weren't sure they'd bother voting. They have obviously not fully considered the possibility of the wrong lizards getting in. I can't imagine anyone deranged enough to consider supporting UKIP would be considering wasting their voting opportunity, therefore all comparatively sane members of the electorate should exercise the relative compotes of their mentes, defensively.

    Posted 9 years ago #

  14. algo
    Member

    Posted 9 years ago #

  15. minus six
    Member

    Even if the Greens weren't on the slate, I'd still probably roll up to vote just to spoil my ballot paper

    this i do (if there is no GREEN candidate), but its better to cast a blank vote instead of actively spoiling the paper, as they have to actually count the blank votes.

    http://www.blankvote.org.uk/blank_votes_count.html

    Posted 9 years ago #

  16. DaveC
    Member

    Back to Voter Cycle parking facilities. My Garage has loads of room. I chose to vote by post a couple of years ago and posted my vote off last week.

    Posted 9 years ago #

  17. Min
    Member

    Did anyone else get a BNP leaflet? We did, complete with a photo of a bulldog on one side and a burka wearing woman flicking a V sign on the other. Now that is class.

    Posted 9 years ago #

  18. Mandopicker101
    Member

    @bax - aha, I had no idea! Thanks for highlighting that.

    Posted 9 years ago #

  19. PS
    Member

    a burka wearing woman flicking a V sign

    Now *that* is a muslim who has successfully integrated into British society. ;-)

    Posted 9 years ago #

  20. chdot
    Admin

    "

    Blank votes have traditionally been few in number because people have been unaware of the option. Instead, nearly 40% of registered voters have simply not voted. There has therefore been no media or political pressure to retain blank votes in the subsequent presentations of the results, or even to require all returning officers to separate blank from spoiled votes.

    "
    As I have suggested on the White Paper thread, I think there will be a higher than usual proportion (though still not many) in the Referendum - people in the polling booth still unable to decide.

    I suspect more will write 'more devo' (or similar) rather than voting No.

    One 'good' reason for "spoiling" a ballot paper is that all the candidates get to see them - this is so that they can claim someone 'meant' to vote for them (eg if someone has put 1,2,3 instead of a single x).

    Apparently some people write very rude things, and "none of the above" is (relatively) common.

    Posted 9 years ago #

  21. crowriver
    Member

    I voted at lunchtime today. Dreich, drizzly at the time. A couple ahead of me who looked as though they had been drawing their pensions for around two decades, and a fellow just after me who turned out to be a professional acquaintance - small world.

    I voted for the Scottish Green Party. Apart from the fact I'm a party member, really I saw no meaningful aternative I could support on the list of candidates/parties as I perused the ballot paper.

    Whoever you decide to vote for, please do vote today. It's a hard won right, and only by exercising it can we send a message to those in power.

    Posted 9 years ago #

  22. I were right about that saddle
    Member

    If anyone writes 'none of the above' in the Yes/No referendum they should immediately be awarded the Chair in Constitutional Quantum Mechanics.

    Posted 9 years ago #

  23. chdot
    Admin

    "Neither" might make more sense there, but anyone who 'habitually' writes nota, might just do it again.

    Posted 9 years ago #

  24. wingpig
    Member

    "Has anyone written a future systopian sci-fi type novel where countries invade eachother to gain access to wind / solar / tidal reserves?"

    Kim Stanley Robinson occasionally has people forcibly dispossessing others of various ecological resources.

    Posted 9 years ago #

  25. chdot
    Admin

    Makes you wonder why some parties didn't bother with subhead/slogan!

    Presume 'anything goes' (see Conservative).

    Posted 9 years ago #

  26. Min
    Member

    Now *that* is a muslim who has successfully integrated into British society. ;-)

    Bwahaha! I bet they didn't think of that.

    Posted 9 years ago #

  27. crowriver
    Member

    Makes you wonder why some parties didn't bother with subhead/slogan!

    Presumably because it is clear what these parties stand for?

    Posted 9 years ago #

  28. fimm
    Member

    Bad chdot, taking a photo in the polling place...
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-27486392

    Posted 9 years ago #

  29. crowriver
    Member

    @chdot, is that you "staring at the ballot paper", unable to decide?

    Posted 9 years ago #

  30. Dave
    Member

    I'm not sure what I'm going to do, as there are no options worthy of my vote.

    I obviously don't want "no blacks, no Irish" UKIP (and the Tories are in many ways just the "lite" version of UKIP). The SNP have failed me on cycling policy, and the Greens have tied themselves to the SNP mast on the referendum, so I feel obliged to vote them down by association. The Lib-dems need to be punished for the coalition, and labour still need to be punished for screwing up the country.

    Voting blank sounds like an attractive option. I don't like the idea of spoiling the ballot as you're just spun as someone who couldn't follow the instructions.

    Posted 9 years ago #

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