Election day

Generally good voting experience today. ( details )

FYI, if you're thinking of voting in the UK:

naath has clear and useful information. In fact, I'm particularly grateful to her for explaining that I, and others in my position, can in fact vote in local elections in two different places, as long as you only vote once in the General Election. Also to ghoti for clarifying ambiguities in the rules

lethargic_man put up on FB the following summary of major policies. Sorry for the image of text; here's a transcription. 38degrees are not entirely politically neutral but they're not affiliated with any one party either and do try to give relatively unbiased information. Of course there is bias in what they consider to be the six "key issues", and I think it's not quite a coincidence that their table comes out with all ticks under Labour and Green and mostly crosses for Con and UKIP. But at least they're not outright lying about what the parties intend to do. I also can't easily find data for Wales, Scotland or NI or at least not for the parties that are only standing in the regions.

Election forecast has reasonably detailed and reasonably unbiased electoral predictions, based on reputable polls and quoted with confidence intervals. I mean, polls are only as good as polls ever are, but again, it's a site that's not actively lying in order to try to influence potential tactical votes. They're predicting a Conservative plurality (and a zero percent chance of a majority government!), and they probably know what they're talking about more than me with my prediction of a Labour plurality.

ewx has a nice summary of election leaflets for Cambridge.

I'm also extremely grateful to everybody who's volunteered for the election, campaigning, voter education and all that proper boots on the ground activism stuff, especially people like cjwatson and naath who got up scarily early this morning to distribute Good Morning leaflets before most people leave for work. And grateful to everyone who has voted or will be voting for a better society today, even if we disagree about which party is most likely to deliver that. And I appreciate my friends who've explained why they support they party they do in detail and without just repeating party slogans. rmc28 and davidgillon come to mind especially, but just everybody who has had civilized, thoughtful discussions about fraught issues, you're making democracy better and you deserve kudos.

So today has gone nicely to heck

I'm mildly ill with a cold, and as a result I've been predictably slow and stupid all day. But it's combined somehow with whatever was wrong with my chest and now my lungs are really painful to the point that it's distracting. I was trying to figure out if I needed medical attention and if so how to obtain such, given that I have been procrastinating on actually registering with a GP since I moved. And I got caught up in a triage system which can't properly distinguish between pain which happens to be localized to my chest, and, you know, chest pain. So I've ended up with an urgent care appointment at quarter to midnight tonight. I'm really hoping that because it's an appointment I'll actually get seen, and it seems better than hanging around all night in A&E, as well as hopefully a better use of resources because I'm pretty sure I don't need to be hospitalized. If I get yelled at for turning up at urgent care with a bad cold, so be it.

Of course in the middle of this I've landed myself in some DW drama, where I managed to give someone I respect the impression that I was mocking her for a completely imaginary social justice fail. I have apologized, not that that ever does any good. Goodness knows that if I thought someone was hunting around for any possible allusions to anything less that perfectly social justice-y in every off the cuff comment I make in order to feel superior to me, I'd be pretty annoyed myself and likely not willing to hear an apology. But I do wish I could find a way to communicate that avoids giving that kind of impression, it's not the first time either. I don't actually think of myself as a particularly good ally or SJW, and I'm certainly not trying to look better than others. (This is something I should think about when I'm not tired, stressed and in pain, obviously.)

I would cry, except I strongly suspect that crying will make my painful lungs feel even worse.