Lines on the Death of John Paul II

"No Popery" Ian Paisley cried,
and now that John Paul II has died
there is no Pope,
so can we hope
for Protestants with peace inside?

Nope.
They just can't cope
without a Pope.
The Papists want a Papacy
and Paisley needs an enemy.
Without a Pope
they'd all just . . . mope.

It makes you think:
what if it pushed them off the brink
what if it made them turn to drink
or even . . . turn to dope?

Might be a blessing in disguise.
Imagine if the smokes that rise
above deliberations
(as they all grope
for a new pope)
should indicate a wider scope
for toleration?

What if the newly chosen Pope,
red-eyed, and quoting Rattigan
loped lazily around the Vatican
flashing the peace sign,
Oh yeah. Wow. Yeah. Fine.

But that could be a slippery slope
No-one would want a hippy Pope
We should not hope
for a doped pope;
temptation, get thee hence.
But could we simply go for one
that has a well developed sense
of fun?


(c) Richard Lawson
M4
7.4.05
[NB This poem has been submitted to the Home Office to ensure that it complies with incoming religious offence legislation]

OSCE report takes the Republicans' word for it.

The OSCE report on the US elections is out. Here is a sample:

Civil society groups engaged with the issue of voting with DRE machines made numerous statements, and provided extensive information on their websites, demonstrating distrust of DRE machines that fail to provide a voter-verified auditable paper trail (VVAPT). Neither the vendors nor the county and state election officials with whom the EOM met shared this distrust.

So. That's all right then. Civil society says there is a problem? Ask the vendors and the beneficiaries. If they find no problem, end of story.

The odd thing is not that this is the methodology used, but that there was a 3 month delay before this came out. Was the extra time taken up in assembling the terse descriptive text? Or was it taken up in painful negotiations as the US authorities deconstructed the OSCE report line by line, robbing it of all critical statements?

MAD is not Rational

Our leaders argued in the Cold War that nuclear weapons kept the peace between the West and the USSR. The corollary to this is that if we gave a nuke to every nation on earth, world peace would ensue. Why do we not do this? Because some fool would let one off, and that would probably trigger off a total nuclear war.

Which is evidence that MAD is not infallible.

Now, if the consequence of a breakdown of a system is infinitely negative, we can use that system if and only if the probability of its failure is zero. In the case of nuclear deterrence it is not zero, (see above) and therefore there is no logical case for using the nuclear deterrent system.

So we should go for total abolition, logically.

Which is interesting, but a bit of a waste of time, because the nuclear weapons system stems not from logic, but from an irrational state of mind marked by mutual paranoia ("Paranoid mutualis caesarium") and obsessionality.

Strategic Voter?

I sympathise with the efforts of Strategic Voter 2005 and as a Green I sympathise with the criticism they make of Greens standing in marginal seats. In fact, at considerable political loss to our local party, I withdrew from contesting Weston s mare when it became marginal 12 years ago, in order to let the LibDem in.

However, I would like to draw your attention to the fact that IN SAFE SEATS, NOTHING HAPPENS! Voting changes nothing in Safe Seats, under First Past The Post. People are aware of this, which is why turnout is inversely proportional to winning margin .

In fact the country could save considerable trouble and expanse by holding elections in safe seats every other General Election, or every third in really safe seats, just ot test the waters.

So in safe seats, people should use their (otherwise useless) vote to further the Green cause, because their political philosophy of basing the economy on planetary ecology is the only philosophy that makes sense in the end.