Quote of the day.

Obama, responds to the latest manufactured controversy from the McCain camp:

"I don't know what's next. By the end of the week, he'll be accusing me of being a secret communist because I shared my toys in kindergarten. I shared my peanut butter and jelly sandwich."



Thanks to feministing.com for this cracker.

Sometimes...

..things just really piss me off.

Can i feel sorry for Alex Salmond

You know I never thought I would almost feel sorry for Alex Salmond, I mean what does the guy have to do to get a break recently.

Well think about it he spent all his time working out the benefits of Scottish Independence and how much better of we would be with oil at $150 a barrel only for the price to go and collapse to under $60 cause a major economic headache and he has no room left on the back of his fag packet to do anymore sums.

Now as if that wasn't bad enough he made a speech where he spoke about the arc of prosperity saying that Scotland should aim to replicate the great successes of 3 countries, now as its a blog and I am doing a history degree please allow me to take the 3 nations he spoke about one at a time.

His first was Ireland which has undergone something of a boom in the last 10-20 yrs and has become the Celtic Tiger, well now its more like the Gretna Tiger (Donald that is a football joke just for you) as a state it is officially in recession and the Celtic boom is well and truly over.

The second one of the countries he choose he did so specifically because it had based its economic growth on its banks taking a major share of the world market and that was Iceland. Now maybe its just me but i don't think basing your economic arguments on a country which you can now buy for £3.50 and a bottle of irn bru is the best thing to do.

Now if those 2 weren't bad enough for poor eck he now goes and finds himself with only one country left, Norway, and what happens then, well the Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Støre comes out and tells him to stop using Norway as an argument as he would be “upset” if he thought that his country were being used as a “source of division or strife in other countries".

I mean do we really need to piss off the Norwegians, the last time we did that they invaded.

I started this blog by saying that I almost feel sorry for Alex Salmond but to be honest I don't as its his brand of economic incompetence that i have fought all my life.

Scotland is a great country indeed it is in my opinion the best nation on the planet, we have given the world some if its greatest inventions and people and we have always looked outward but the brand of nationalism that Salmond and the SNP push is less about looking out and more about looking south and blaming them bad people south of the Solway Firth.

So I don't feel sorry for Alex i feel sorry for us Scots having him as First Minister.

Election Snippet: Lies, Intimidation, and the Youth Vote

This is a post by my favourite blogger about the intimidation of student voters in the swing states of Virginia and Pennsylvania. I suppose the one plus point is that it shows how desperate the republicans are getting.

And this is Rachel Maddow's take on the situation:

If you don't want to sound racist...

...then you probably need to try a bit harder.

Some people are just too stupid to live. Really.

Andrew

God I hope not.

Just click on the title of this entry and remember this could happen.

McCain and Obama's Tax Plans

[Edit: I hade to resize it to fit it to the page so you'll have to open it in a new tab to see it properly.]

This is an interesting graphic I found linked to at Science Blogs. The height of the bars represent how many people fit into that income bracket and the width represents how big their percentage tax change will be.

[And on a side note this graph also illustrates the gulf between median male income and median female income.]



Andrew

Next Meeting

Hi all

Just a post to say that the next meeting of the Labour Club will be on Friday at 12.30 in the societies centre, first floor in the hub.

We have a lot to discuss including:-

Scottish Labour Students Conference

Plans for the next month

and of course anything else that takes our fancy.

So if you are a club member or want to become one then come along on Friday.

Elitism is not a four-letter word

A lot has been made by the Republicans about Senator Obama's elitism (To be fair the sons of single working mothers who relied on food stamps to get by are nearly always more elitist than the son and grandson of Admirals married to a multimillionaire who owns a doen homes. Yeah) A lot has been said in reply to this, a lot of it trying to disparage the notion that voting for Obama is at all elitist.

Well I disagree with that. The President of the United States is quite probably the most elite, the most powerful, and the most important position in the world. And I want someone in that role who is worthy of that position. I want a man who worked his way up through Columbia and Harvard, a man who did hard graft as a community organiser and who cares about the millions of ordinary Americans who don't have health insurance .

What the US needs in not another Dubya (A man who got where he is by the fact of his wealth) but a person who values knowledge rather than denigrates it like his opponents have done on many occasions. Barack Obama worked hard to get where he is and that should not be forgotten.

To finish here's a summary of the academic qualifications of the four people on the Presidential tickets from Pharyngula at Science Blogs:

Educational Background:

Barack Obama:Columbia University -
B.A.Political Science with a Specialization inInternational Relations.
Harvard - Juris Doctor (J.D.) Magna Cum Laude

Joseph Biden:
University of Delaware - B.A. in History and B.A. in Political Science.
Syracuse University College of Law - Juris Doctor (J.D.)

vs.

John McCain:
United States Naval Academy - Class rank: 894 of 899

Sarah Palin:
Hawaii Pacific University - 1 semester
North Idaho College - 2 semesters - general study
University of Idaho - 2 semesters - journalism
Matanuska-Susitna College - 1 semester
University of Idaho - 3 semesters - B.A. in Journalism

Why do we do it?

At times i ask myself why we spend all the time we do working unpaid to see members of the labour party elected.

You know what i mean, standing on doorsteps talking to people who at times are not very nice to you, at other times they make you feel that you are doing one of the most important jobs in the world, we don't get any thanks all we get is asked to do more and more..... so why do we bother.

Well for me that answer is a simple one, its thanks to the NHS that we created 60 yrs ago that my grans last days were pain free, its thanks to the welfare state that we created that my family was able to survive under the worst days of thatcher and it was thanks to this labour government that i had the opportunity as a mature student to go to Aberdeen and for that i am eternally grateful.

so i ask the question of anyone who reads this blog (and i know we are new) so why do you do it, why do you hit the streets and why is it important.

Scottish Labour Students

This years Scottish Labour Youth & Student Conference will take place from 28th-30th of November.It will provide a great opportunity for students and young members from across Scotland to come together to hear keynote speeches from top-level speakers, debate policy, participate in workshops and enjoy some great social events. This year we will be attending the STUC Anti Racisim March on the Saturday morning.Conference is open to all members of Scottish Labour Students and Scottish Young Labour.

Attending Conference is free and Youth Hostel accommodation can be booked in advance for members who require it at a subsidised rate of £25 for both nights. Please fill in the accommodation section of the registration form if accommodation is required. Glasgow-based members will also be able to provide limited accommodation.Scottish Labour Youth & Student Conference is the biggest event in our calendar and usually attracts a range of high profile guest speakers and delegates from across Scotland and beyond.If you would like any further information or if you have any questions please feel free to contact Kirsty or Jillian at:
Jillian Merchant - scottishlabourstudents@hotmail.com
Kirsty Connell - young_labour_scotland@yahoo.co.uk

US Election Night Party

Come and Join us at our Election night party we are starting at 11pm and going on till we get all the results in, places are limited and Labour Club Members and supporters get priority so if you fancy going then contact peter on aberdeenuniversitylabourclub@gmail.com or on 07701013620

The Bradley Effect

Talking to people recently it has come through that the main question with regards to the US election is whether Obama's seemingly intimidating lead in the polls is actually a product of the Bradley Effect.

I'm not concerned. I think Obama's not only going to win, he's going to win big.

The First Post

Well here it is the first post of the new blog and what a great time to start blogging, the opinion polls are getting better, the tories are having a bad week and it looks as if our brothers and sisters accross the big pond are voting in record numbers (dont you love early voting) for Barack Obama and that 8 wasted years are about to come to an end.

So against that background we enter the world of blogging, dont you just love the excitement.