Liberal Burblings

A bill will be brought forward to reform the composition of the House of Lords.

From Political Wire:

“I feel so relieved to be at the stage I’m at in my life right now. Because you know if I want to wear my glasses I’m wearing my glasses. If I want to wear my hair back I’m pulling my hair back. You know at some point it’s just not something that deserves a lot of time and attention.”

– Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in an interview with CNN, on a photograph of her “without makeup, except lipstick, wearing thick rimmed glasses during a recent news conference in Dhaka, Bangladesh.”

That is, the 50 seat bonus which goes to the largest party after an election. “Enforced proportional representation” they call it. But it has left Greece in a crazy situation.

OK, this is me talking from an armchair in Berkshire based on nil knowledge of Greece. Sorry.

On Sunday, 49% of Greek voters voted for anti-austerity parties. Only 32% voted for pro-austerity parties. So it’s insane that the two main pro-austerity parties were left two seats away from a parliamentary majority, due to the 50 seat bonus.

Take away the 50 seat bonus and reduce the parliament to 250 seats and you have a simple solution to the current crisis:

Syriza – 52 seats

KKE – 26 seats

Democratic Left – 19 seats

Independent Greeks – 33 seats

Total: 130 seats and a majority in parliament

All those parties are anti-austerity. Independent Geeks are centre-right. The rest are left wing.

Simples.

Except Angela Merkel won’t like it…

And it would need a constitutional change in Greece….

And the Euro would implode…

But apart from that….

Note: To come up with this preposterous nonsense I read this and this.

FilmAustralia on YouTube have a fantastic collection of films.

I’ve just watched a 1964 Department of Immigration film about Cairns and a similar one from 1967 about Sydney. There’s a series of these “Life in Australia” films which, it seems, were aimed at attracting “Poms” to Aussie. There are also films showing Perth, Brisbane, Melbourne, Adelaide, Hobart, Launceston, Mount Gambier and Wagga Wagga .

The phrases “rose-tinted” and “different world” spring to mind, but the films offer fascinating glimpses of a (presumably) bygone era in Australia, and an interesting insight into film-making at the time (noone except the narrator is heard to speak, for example). In some of the later films they even ditch the narrator and just let you get on with it.

WARNING: If you are French don’t read this. It’s illegal in your country until the polls close.

Sarkozy is toast. So say the exit polls reported by Swiss and Belgian media.

From Talking Points/McClatchy:

French Socialist Francois Hollande appeared headed to victory over President Nicolas Sarkozy, according to exit polls of voters released by Swiss and Belgian news media.

Those polls showed Hollande with 52 to 53 percent of the vote in an election that turned on solutions for Europe’s economic crisis amid record unemployment in France.

French voters were still headed to cast their ballots when the exit polls were released in the early evening _ the results of exit polls cannot be published in France until voting ends at 8 p.m., 2 p.m. Eastern _ but the outcome seemed all but certain.

I am currently fixated with this theme music. The series isn’t bad either. …Although Dr. Isles gets on my nerves a bit. You can overdo turning every daily event into a scientific seminar.