moon phases

Started this before change to "New Blogger", as backup in case of trouble with digiphoto blog "In a Small Dark Room", or rants & links blog "Hello Cruel World" . Useful - at one stage Dark Room was there, but like the astrophysical Dark Matter, we could't see it ... better now, but kept Just In Case.

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There is nothing. There is no God and no universe, there is only empty space, and in it a lost and homeless and wandering and companionless and indestructible Thought. And I am that thought. And God, and the Universe, and Time, and Life, and Death, and Joy and Sorrow and Pain only a grotesque and brutal dream, evolved from the frantic imagination of that same Thought.
Mark Twain (letter to Joseph Twichell after his wife's death)
[me, on a bad day]

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(and my Wish List)

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I've substituted one of the NewBlogger templates temporarily for the missing HCW one, as without one at all, you can't publish any new posts.
So, if you're looking at Hello Cruel World , just admire the content, rather than trying to be swept away by the colour & movement & general gorgeousness of the thing :)
"She has a lovely personality."

Hey. Just listening to someone talking about situation in California with new "recall" election.
We thought we had troubles with the 'tablecloth' ballot paper for the New South Wales Upper House.
There are apparently about 250 candidates for the Governorship of California. AND THEY HAVE FIRST-PAST-THE-POST VOTING. Omigoddd!
In Australia we have preferential voting, where you number from 1 to however many (more explanation in another post if I get to it). If no single candidate gets a majority of "first preference" votes, the lowest candidate gets knocked out of the running and their votes are distributed according to what their second preference is.
Example: if there are two left-leaning & one right-leaning candidates, and the vote splits, say,
L1 - 25%,
L2 - 35%,
R1 - 40%;
A first-past-the-post system would give the election to the 40%, even though the majority of the voters voted against him or her.
The Australian preferential system would distribute the votes of L1 - probably most would prefer the other left candidate to the right one, say 80/20. On redistribution, the remaining two would have:
L2 - 55%
R1 - 45%
So in general (there are all sorts of examples that might do funny things) this means the preferences of the electors are more fairly represented.
[permalink] posted by Mez at 3:40 am