Police Commissioner Elections

The Police Commisioner elections are coming up on Thursday. I want to encourage people to go and cast a ballot. However imperfect the system is, we are privileged to have the vote and we should make use of it.

However, many people think that the PCC elections are a total farce. They don’t want a PCC; they believe the £75 million it’s costing to hold the elections should be spent on, say, front-line policing; they don’t think that the police should be politicised. Even the former Met Commissioner Ian Blair is advocating a boycott. There are major concerns that a record low number of people are going to turn out to vote, meaning that the democratic mandate given to these new PCCs is going to be seriously questionable.

People don’t vote for a variety of reasons: ignorance; apathy; not being on the electoral roll; discontent. Also known as ‘don’t know’; ‘don’t care’; ‘can’t'; ‘won’t’. I expect most people not voting come from columns B and D.

Not knowing about elections is usually difficult, but for this one I have to make an exception. While it has been nice not to have loads of election spam shoved through my letterbox, it has made it trickier to evaluate the candidates. I found a website where you can see all the candidates up for election. It seems to think that a major factor in my decision is which candidate is most active on Twitter, and is rather bland on any other details. The official website is a bit better and of course the candidates’ own websites also give you an idea of what they’re vaguely in favour of (“less crime” seems to be the general consensus).

There are also some special gems:

“Like the rest of [UKIP], Paul sees deep unfairness in allowing the European Courts to send British citizens to rough justice abroad whilst allowing known-terrorists to flout deportation back to the Middle East. He believes that the Human Rights Act is not ‘fit for purpose’ and should be fundamentally changed.”

-Paul Bullen, UKIP Candidate

“UKIP wants to see a Commissioner who isn’t tied to any form of ‘party politics’ or ‘party whip’. Paul is, therefore, truly Independent and able to act how you, the law-abiding public, want. “

-Paul Bullen, UKIP Candidate

President Obama re-elected

Congratulations to President Obama on his re-election as president of the United States of America. He now has four more years to close the Guantanamo Bay detention camp and to leave some of the perpetual wars being waged. If there is no evidence then people need to be freed, if there is evidence, the evidence needs to be subject to review in court. It is completely counter productive to freedom to lock people up indefinitely without trial. I hope with the energy of the victory he can quickly more to end the war being waged on the freedoms of the American people and the people of the world. It’s not good to fight wars on too many fronts at the same time… can the drug war be ended by a surge in troops? or is a rethink in strategy required?

I also hope after four more years he can enter the dictionary, the image below shows the spell check in firefox suggests that Osama or Alabama are better spellings than Obama.

BRIC summit

Russia Today reports on 4th Annual BRICs summit.

The 5 countries are forecast to make up 50% of world GDP in next 8 years.

Theme is how to maximise political clout, how to reform UN e.g. to prevent UN becoming a cover for unilateral action, lending in local currencies, establishment of alternative currency, establishment of alternative bank to IMF and the World Bank.

How to launch an intervention of another country

This is what you need to say when launching an intervention of another country.

Wikipedia offline

The Wikipedia site was disabled today to protest against the restriction of free speech in proposed new legislation. Read More about the SOPA and PIPA bills at Wikipedia.

If you usually use wikipedia you may find this information useful, I previously wrote about how to have access to Wikipedia while offline.

Wikipedia SOPA Protest

If you are really desperate to read Wikipedia today it is still available in languages other than English.