Current Events Blended Almost Smooth

I think I follow more U.K.ians than Americans on YouTube. Because of this, I happen to know that U.K. general elections are coming up, and have taken an interest in the various differences between the U.S. system of government and the U.K. system of government.

First off the U.K. has a multi-party system, which I find endlessly fascinating. I had never even considered the fact that perhaps a country doesn’t have to be completely polarized into two completely opposite and extreme viewpoints.

The three largest parties, currently, are:

the Conservative Party, which has similar ideologies to that of the Republican Party here in the U.S.

the Labour Party began in favor of socialism, but its ideologies have since shifted to a position of democratic socialism.

the Liberal Democrats promote ideas of social liberalism and progressivism.

Historically, the Conservative Party and the Labour Party have been the two largest parties. In recent polls, however, all three parties appear to be about equal.

From what I could determine, the Prime minister and parliament don’t have set term limits, but instead the monarch dissolves parliament whenever he or she wants, although in accordance with the uncodified constitution, this is always done on the suggestion of the Prime Minister, limited to five year terms maximum. The monarch also has the authority to choose any citizen to be the Prime Minister, although, also in accordance with the uncodified constitution, this is always the leader of the largest party in the House of Commons.

This is different from the U.S. system, in that the voters don’t directly vote for the Prime minister, as they do the president in America. Instead they vote for the party, and they know that the leader of that party will become the Prime Minister.

I find the upcoming U.K. elections fascinating, and I will continue to cover the elections as events unfold.

As expected, the Macheads lined up like sheep yesterday, worshipping their almighty god, Steve Jobs, by paying him up to $800 in return for his latest edition piece of rubbish… wait a minute, what am I talking about? I love Apple. I would’ve been lined up there with them if I could come up with any conceivable use for the iPad that isn’t already accomplished by my phone, iPod, or laptop. . For those of you who have no idea what I’m talking about, Apple released the iPad yesterday, a kind-of-tablet-computer-kind-of-huge-iPod-Touch-thing. With the cheapest one

holding 16GB of memory, no camera, no 3G, and not even supporting Flash Player, I can’t think a possible use I would have for this device that isn’t accomplished better by my laptop. However, I am scratching my head as to what 300,000 people figured out that I couldn’t. The skeptic/hater-of-humanity-and-firm-believer-that-everyone-on-the-planet-is-stupid in me thinks that if Steve Jobs redesigned Windows Vista so

that this was the default desktop, and it made that pretty Mac startup sound (which is so much better than the Windows startup sound, but I digress) it would’ve been heralded as the operating system of the future, and 300,000 people would’ve stood in line to upgrade their Macs. Maybe this is because Mac users are stupid, but I think not, partly because my MacBook Pro releases a telepathic pulse that forces me to defend all members of the iCult at all costs. I think its probably because, well, Apple products are shiny and pretty, and they look like someone took a piece off of the U.S.S. Enterprise and handed it to you. They look like the next big thing, probably because they always are the next big thing, and people want to make sure they’re the first to get their hands on the next big thing.