deskthority

Half an hour to go. Ten votes in it. Think I know where my cross is going!

Looks like some people are turning it into some kind of party:

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/201 ... -flotillas

Muirium wrote: Half an hour to go. Ten votes in it. Think I know where my cross is going!

Leave the UK?

It did last time! And hopefully someday again.

Interesting. I read somewhere that for Brexit they want to set up the answer so that "no" means brexit and "yes" means stay in Europe (i.e. Should UK stay in Europe instead of Should UK leave Europe?). So not to give any positive ring to leaving. Probably a psychological trick that would work on many. Scotland was obviously not bothered by such petty details. Or somebody in the higher up really wanted you guys to be independent.

adhoc wrote:
I read somewhere that for Brexit they want to set up the answer so that "no" means brexit and "yes" means stay

In the US almost all ballot referendums are worded to be as convoluted and confusing as possible. That is the norm.

We have an independent body over here that determines such matters of wording:

http://www.electoralcommission.org.uk

They do a pretty good job. Certainly better than the spin-mad politicians themselves. You Americans are completely screwed by yours, from dodgy questions to blatant gerrymandering! Nothing's perfect, but that shit is low hanging fruit in a democracy.



Nothing dodgy here, no sir!

I recently read excerpts from leaked TIPP documents which were almost impossible to understand due to such jabberwocky.

https://www.ttip-leaks.org/

Uhhh Greenpeace, don't get me wrong i am all for renewable energy and clean power generation( lots of solar wind and nuclear power stations please). But i take everything they say with a pinch of salt

Muirium wrote:
an independent body

That concept is all but unknown in US politics.

andrewjoy wrote: But i take everything they say with a pinch of salt

Absolutely, those leaks are the only reason I linked them. Remove?

fohat wrote:

Muirium wrote: an independent body

That concept is all but unknown in US politics.

Which is the fundamental problem you guys have. There's nothing glamorous about them, but the way they reduce the hysteria and the cheating is a sight to behold. Partisans grumble, but in the end the adjudicator decides. Lets us move on to the next thing.

And so it is done.
In one week's time, we'll see what she thinks for real.

Nice pen!

Democracy demands no less.

Muirium wrote:
Democracy demands no less.

Notice the thin, timid, feeble mark compared to the bold strokes in the example.

Because I didn't vote in chubby marker pen? Hey, she gave it what she's got!

If you vote in person, the only thing they give you at the polling booth is a pencil.

fohat wrote:

Muirium wrote:
Democracy demands no less.

Notice the thin, timid, feeble mark compared to the bold strokes in the example.

Wrong pen.

Ballots in the UK usually have to be filled in in pencil to stop the risk of disappearing ink .

While we wait a German perspective on the matter:

http://www.spiegel.de/international/eur ... 97029.html

Europe's suddenly off the media agenda here today, thanks to a murder. Some nutter shot some politician (I'd never heard of but was apparently quite a star in the making) with a gun he'd made from instructions in an American Neo Nazi manual.

Imported from America… he would have paid customs on it. Great to see them doing their job and protecting all of us from terrorist materiel.

If he'd been a Muslim, like that whackjob in Orlando, this could have been Leave's push right over the finishing line. (Yes folks, that's how politics works.) But since the killer was some oddball white fella, and his victim was a Remain campaigner, any effect it has on the vote next week is more likely in the other direction.

Poor Nige Farage, just when he had his election winning poster to unveil:



The gods don't like him. Not enough to have a lunatic shoot him in the head, but enough to crash his plane a few years ago, and now to ruin the campaign of his career.

Could be fixed if he manages to get shot too.

Eccentric animal rights campaigners may be feeling the breath of the police around their collars today…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassina ... im_Fortuyn

Yeah this whole assasination is quite a strange story, from what I understand MP Cox was trying to mediate between two "beyond-grumpy" old farts at that event when one turned on her...which turns out to be a real nutty one.

Let's put it this way: you don't take a firearm with you to see your MP (or your doctor, or lawyer or whoever) over here. If the police spot you with a weapon, you're getting arrested on sight and may well make it to the evening news. One of the things we do right, all across Britain, is take guns deadly seriously. Dunblane will do that to you. Unless you're American…

Muirium wrote:
any effect it has on the vote next week is more likely in the other direction.

And this is why I remain constantly bewildered - these idiotic hateful behaviors can only drive all rational people in the opposite direction.

What am I missing?

I think you just misinterpreted me. What I meant is that if a migrant murders a Leave politician here, the public are more likely to vote Leave, while if a native murders a Remain politician, people are more likely to vote Remain in defiance. Violent acts tend to push people the other direction from the perpetrator.

America, meanwhile, is a different story. All that upward movement in gun manufacturers' stocks on the news of the Orlando shootings, in anticipation of a weapons sales boost!

Muirium wrote:
in anticipation of a weapons sales boost!

The gun crazies always go on a buying spree at any hint of gun legislation having a chance of moving through Congress.

What fascinates me is that the raw number of gun owners in the US has remained constant for generations, and the percentage of families where guns are owned has actually declined steadily for decades.

The difference is that until recently (to me, "recently" generally, in politics, refers to: after the election of Reagan) the average number of guns was just under 2: typically, a shotgun for hunting birds and a rifle for hunting mammals.

Today the average number of guns that a gun owner owns is over 8, the vast majority being pistols.

Well, some of them will be enthusiasts, into it for a collection's sake, like many of us. Some!

I'd prefer that such weapons be useless. Perhaps if gun control is impossible, thanks to republicans, ammo control is the way to go! Trouble is, any sight of a Kalashnikov or the like in public, whether it works or not, has much much the same terrorizing effect as live weapons.

Hard to terrorize anyone with our boards. Even the Model Fs…

Muirium wrote:
Trouble is, any sight of a Kalashnikov or the like in public, whether it works or not, has much much the same terrorizing effect as live weapons.

I live in Georgia. Here, it is not out of the question to see 18-year-old rednecks walking through department stores with loaded assault rifles slung over their shoulders. My guess is that the people most terrorized are the cashiers. And our state legislators, in their beyond-infinite wisdom, also passed a law making it illegal for a policeman to * even ask * whether they have license or permit to own or carry it.