Hm, thank you for getting NAMBLA listed in my workstation's search history....

My company got sucked into moving several thousand numbers to Vodafone (via Crazy Johns) several years ago, suckered in by cheap prices.

The first month, their whole computer system crashed. They couldn't recover the statements and in the end we got that month for free.

The second month, every single charge on every single statement was overcharged by about 30%-40%. It took 3-4 months to get this sorted out, massively delaying our billing cycle. Eventually we had to issue 3 months of bills within several weeks which caused huge amounts of ill will (towards us, not Vodafone).

By then it had turned out that their billing system wasn't actually capable of processing the phone plan they'd sold us. It literally couldn't compute the fees. So, I had to personally develop custom software (took about 2 days) to make the micro adjustments to each item on the bills before we sent them on, then chase Vodafone for the appropriate refund. Running this internal rerate each month is now a standard part of our billing process.

In the midst of all this fucking stupidity, for about the first year, they were unable to bring up our account on screen because it was so large (kept crashing), so they couldn't effectively respond to our account enquiries.

That's just my own personal direct experience, but more broadly they're recognized as having the worst coverage, they may have a class action coming against them for unreasnoable network drop outs, and now on top of that they've demonstrated deplorable security policies.

Vodafone: you suck at life. Fuck you. Fuck you fuck you fuck you.

All home broadband plans throttle speeds after you hit your limit. Most business plans charge you an excess.

What the hell are they supposed to do, let you go past your "limit" as much as you like with no consequence? Some penalty is implicit in the advertising of a x-MB/GB plan.

The fuck am I missing here?

No, that's normal.

(what, isn't it?)

Let's take a look a this:

This is a good guiding principle, but no-one seriously believes in its ubiquity. Why are children not allowed to vote? Why are some people taxed more than others? Why are some people jailed up for years? etc, etc.

Most of them aren't.

Yeah, unless they're being a dick...

Take a person who knows little about politics, the media, the world, or even how various policies will effect them personally. They vote based on personal impression - they like Julia Gillard's hairstyle, for example.

Name one good reason for this person to have a vote, other than the impracticality of discriminating against them?

Except if they're expressing racism, terrorism, pedophilia, etc...

Sorry, this confused me a bit... anyway none of the ideals you mentioned are ACTUALLY considered to be universal. Therefore the question becomes one of degree and context, rather than upholding unalienable and fundamental values...

No no, basically the argument hurts my brain so much that I want to take my own life just to ease the pain.

I said "Basically I hate the way democratic politics works, it's crap" and this came across as hating everything about democracy.

Actually I think democracy is probably the best known political system around, currently.

I do, however, hate the way it leads to populist politics, how it gives influence to people who wield it irresponsibly (members of the public), how political communication in the media is generally in the form of a barrage of universal abuse, and how election campaign degenerate into the kind of mindless rubbish in the ad I linked to.

So I utterly reject the fascism reference, but I concede my last comment could have been interpreted in that way.

Hey, this post is worth responding to without a barrage of sarcasm, so I'll take it seriously.

I, and my post, are not against representative government. I'm against stupid, simplistic, and pathetic criticisms of political events like "She's unelected!!!"

I'm also profoundly disillusioned by the influence of cheesy cartoons in political campaigns. This is not a criticism of the politicians, or even their campaign advisors - it's a criticism of the general population, specifically, the fact that they are influenced by that garbage.

And I do believe it's a tragedy that stupid people are allowed to vote, even if I don't have a workable alternative.

Uh.... no comment.

Why shouldn't we discriminate against stupid people? We already discriminate against young people, or people with extreme mental conditions etc.

Of course we'll never *actually* discriminate against stupid people, but that's because there's no effective way of actually doing it in practice, not because it's inherently wrong.

I didn't know, so I googled it, and thought this summed it up pretty well:

Anyway,

Of course it matters, you (umm....) son of a motherless goat fucker, but the truth remains that the unelected status of Julia is about as relevant to the future of Australian politics as your average slashdot thread. In fact she was elected, indirectly, by the strong support of her party, the party which received more votes (basically) at the last federal election.

How about using "200" as the middle point? That way I can say I have a whopping 170 IQs!!

Yeah but you're basically voting for a party - the structure of polls leading up to the election reflect this. And the voting system on election day reflects this.

Gotta run - too little time too many moronic democracies to twist...

Yeah it really scares me how almost half the people have below average IQ. We need to do something about it.

More seriously though, while I hate certain aspects of democracy, I don't have an alternative. There's something fundamental to the nature of complex systems (like a population of selfish human beings in a resource-limited environment) which leads to crap of some sort or another. Democracy seems to simply be the latest, somewhat-less crappy attempt at working it all out...

More likely he didn't connect at a personal level with the voters, came across as cold, snobbish and distant. He's also a bit ugly (sorry Kevin). The average people on the street have a general bad attitude towards politicians in general, and don't tend to make cold, calculated evaluations of their actual performance.

Realistically, that's the reason he was unpopular, I suspect.

Perhaps, but this is the sort of generic criticism we find levelled at all politicians, from someone, somewhere, basically all the time. There's an almost universal, unstoppable stream of criticism hurled by all sides, at all other sides. This can mean that the actual, specific criticisms of a politician may not be that relevant to their popularity, as anyone who is already supportive or critical will find the praise or abuse they need to justify their bias.

I really find it frustrating, actually. The media is virtually useless when trying to form an opinion on political issues.

While I believe the actual intricacies of the inner workings of a political party are far beyond the comprehension of the average voter (which is why a funny cartoon could be more persuasive than something of substance)... ...yes I agree, the leader is hugely important to the party, and the party is best positioned to select their leader.

How do you think this will be handled differently under Julia's reign?

It was nice of everyone to agree to stop marketing against each other, but that's hardly a game changer.

This argument makes me want to kill myself.

Who cares that she was unelected? You voted for a party, not an individual, you moron. The policies of the party are unlikely to change significantly under Julia. The party leader can and is elected or negotiated) by the party, not the public.

I mean are people really this fucking stupid? I'll give you a hint - yes they are.

While I'm ranting, there's another thing I hate. I hate this ad: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wf3KovsW1Zo Actually I love the ad, it's friggin' hilarious. What I hate is the fact that this is the quality of election campaigning which political advisors think is worth engaging in. I hate this because this indicates that this is the sort of thing people are persuaded by when they decide who to vote for. People are persuaded more by a cute, idiotic cartoon, than actual political records, history and peformance. Those people are fucking stupid.

I mean think about it - Kevin was replaced mostly because he was unpopular with voters, and Julia gives Labor a better chance at the next election. This in itself proves the point - despite things not being significantly different under Julia, this change of leader will sway people's votes. WHY SHOULD IT?! It shouldn't, but it does.

Basically I hate the way democratic politics works, it's crap. And I hate stupid people. Stupid people shouldn't have this much influence.

-Brendan