I don’t care what the last installment of the interminable thread was about — I have to show this horrifying clip of a gentle octopus’s last moments beneath the jaws of ravening chordates.
OK, now talk about whatever you want…if you can.
(Current totals: 10,157 entries with 983,758 comments.)
A statement neither I nor apparently Marx theory disagrees with.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Use_value
You’re right. My goof. Time to say six hail ramans, and get more sleep…
Will someone please explain to Joan Collins – BBC coverage – who just loves David Cameron that the nuclear family is a very new and not entirely universal idea.
I’m not parting with my copy of Young & Willmott but if someone has a spare …….
Delurking (I’ve been following the thread, but haven’t commented in forever) to say that there DO EMPHATICALLY EXIST, for a completely hypothetical example that bears no specific resemblance to humanity, say, 25-year-old spontaneous and nerdy female atheists who enjoy sarcasm and Monty Python.
:-D
Looks like the voting problems are quite widespread- a number of parts of London, Birmingham, Sheffield, Liverpool, Leeds, and Chester seem to have had issues of one kind or another.
Some of us are 24.
Meh… some of us are 27, which is older but don’t hate.
As I am so shall you be.
Well hopefully not as I am exactly right now which is a strange mixture of completely awesome and mildly stressed by some business complication :(
Anybody who hears the word “go-live” and cringes… empathize a little right now please? Pretty please?
Oh and I just found out a minute ago I got accepted to the business school I applied to. Is this good?
Anyway, nerdy girls without gods and who like Monty Python. Turns out it’s a species, and we cover a span of ages too.
Who knew!
Falyne, that rates as very, very attractive in these here parts. ;D
Well done, Ol’Greg!
Ol’Greg:
If it’s what you want, yes. Congratulations.
Indeed. Even the advanced age of 52.
Ol ‘Greg:
You got it! Hate that. Also hate the now-ubiquitous use of the ugly, awkward acronyms POTUS and SCOTUS. Hate. Hate.
Um, yeah, I assume so, since you applied:) Congrats!
It’s alright Ol’Greg, I’m 29.
Congrats on the acceptance youngster :o)
Congregs! Ol’Grat.
Caine:
I hope so. I’m (er, wait, the *completely hypothetical pers*… oh, buggerit) also a comp sci/ international relations double-major (read: computer dork and politics wonk), a gamer, a SCAdian… I’m kind of a geek of all trades. And yet, I haven’t managed to find a nerdboy of my own. Sniffle.
Congrats, Ol’Greg!
Peter Robinson lost his seat!
Hey! A real piece of good news: Peter Robinson, the corrupt DUP bigot (DUP bigot is of course tautological – people here will remember his loathsome wife Iris), has been defeated in East Belfast by the Alliance party (which is the only serious non-sectarian party in NI, and allied to the LibDems).
Two other NI results went as expected – one to the DUP, one to Sinn Fein.
Rumours that the Green Party has taken Brighton Pavilion (from Labour). Result not expected for some hours, though.
Since you people appear to enjoy hearing about gigs and plays I get to go to, I want to share that I just got Bill Bailey tickets. Fourth row back – aweseome!
Haha… I did apply. It’s a useful program I think and will leave me with both an MBA and also a grad degree in IT stuffs so I could potentially do something more like data security.
That way once I get my project management certifications I may not have that as the only track open to me. It’s quite stressful.
Eh…I like contingency plans.
But it’s weird to be doing something so far away from academia, I still feel like a bit of a failure over it.
Oh *whine whine* but whatever :P
LibDems have held Thornbury, but with a 4.3% swing to the Tories.
They are just showing Peter Robinson, looking sick as a parrot with a rubber beak!
Falyne:
Why, nerdboys inhabit this thread with not one of my own sniffles.
A couple more Labour holds in NE England, but with high swings to Tories. Plaid Cymru (Welsh Nats) have taken a seat in Wales – didn’t get the details.
Wowbagger:
Oh, cool! Did you say earlier you were rehearsing yet again? (I’m sleep deprived, my memory isn’t functioning too well).
Congratulations, Ol’Greg. Now you can learn to be an
entrepenurentprerenoura business person.First Tory gain – Kingswood, Gloucestershire, gained from Labour – swing of 9.4%. That looks like a Tory majority.
Tories have taken Kingswood with 6.9% swing.
BBC now thinks the Tories may get an overall majority :-(
Hooray – I changed the caps in my name, figuring that they were obnoxious and looked horrid.
@ Walton – Given the erotic tone of your analogy to politics, we definitely need to make you one of those “Mr. Obama, won’t you teach me about sex?” shirts, probably with images of a wide variety of British politicians.
ITV now corrected swing for Kingswood to your figure, Knockgoats. Durham North swing 8.7%, Darlington 9.1%. These would put Tories above 326 seats.
Torbay b- held by the LibDems, which the Tories hoped to take they got a 1.1% swing.
London swing averages 9.9% and there are a lot of marginals there.
You joke about homeopathy, but my mom always urges me to take zicam. It’s difficult to make something take something from hundreds of miles away though.
I’m also a godless monty pythonite, at the age of 18 to widen the margin.
Hey Walton! I hope you and the rest of your countrymen (and women!) get the best possible candidate out of the mix.
Good night! I resisted saying bonne nuit because Proust would have hated it.
Good night thread :P
Haley, are you feeling better?
On screen now, two of the vilest people in the UK – Andrew Neil and Alistair Campbell. I’ve turned the sound down.
Congrats, Ol’ Greg!
And
*Raises hand*
Me, too! Me, too! And I’m 45.
Caine, Fleur du mal wrote:
Yep, I’m in a production of The Tempest (which we’re just calling Tempest since we’re into the whole, you know, brevity thing) that opens in just under three weeks.
It’s going really well and I’m looking forward to it – I don’t have a huge part but it’s with a company I’ve never worked with before and which is (deservedly) one of the more highly regarded amateur companies in Adelaide so, apart from having had fun and learned lots, doing it will still look good on my next audition form.
Wow. Labour just held my constituency.
Gordon Brown has kept his seat in Kirkcaldy.
First Labour figure to say he thinks Tories will get a majority – David Blunkett. Gordon Brown re-elected for his constituency, Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath. His victory speech sounds like a concession of a UK loss – or maybe not…
Lots of results starting to come in now.
I’m feeling much better than this morning, thanks Caine. Just a fever now and that can be fixed.
Wowbagger:
That sounds great. I like The Tempest, it’s a juicy play.
And the Redhead, who just turned mumblety-slur this week.
Lower swings to the Tories in London.
Nerd, you are a very wise man, indeed.
I get to be sad, and then drug-crazed and terrified and finally surprised then overjoyed that my son who I thought was dead is actually alive – though I’m a bit dubious he’s managed to get himself engaged after only knowing her for three hours…
ITV still predicting a hung parliament. Conservatives failing to gain sufficient target seats.
Wowbagger:
*Lots* of juice there. I imagine you’ll have fun with it. I’ve always enjoyed the productions of The Tempest that played more to the comedic than the romantic.
Late to the party but…
It has to be said, UK elections, with their stupid, unrepresentative voting system, are fantastically exciting. The trickle of resuts, turning to a flood, the individual tragedies and triumphs, fantastic.
And my least-favourite party (guess which one) are doing well. Even so, no one knows what will happen.
Haven’t been reading. Did Walton embrace his inner rebel, or did he vote with his mind? He can’t fail to have been changed by his years on Pharyngula – bit is it enough?
OT but I’m currently teaching English (as a foreign language) in Brighton – cool capital of the UK. I’m teaching “advanced grammar”. My colleagues giggle. “Have you met the grammar police yet?” Me: “What do you mean – oh…”
They’re a cohort of primarily Swiss and German students who know more about the structure of English than I do and like to pick holes in my lessons.
“Teacher, when you say that the first conditional is always followed by the future with will” as I had, according to my grammar book, “I understand that the first conditional can be followed by any future tense, including the present continuous. Here is my reference.”
Well, as I’m sure you agree, technically she was right.
[“If it’s sunny tomorrow, I’ll cycle to the beach” vs “I’m cycling to the beach” or “I’m going to cycle to the beach” – it’s a TEFL thing]
Believe me, we are lucky to have English as a first (or fluent second) language and don’t have to worry about shite like that…
Heh. I’ll teach them phrasal verbs next. There – I win.
Don’t know what a “phrasal verb” is?
I don’t know how you guys get up in the morning.
(I’n enjoying it though!)
Back to the election…
I hate to disappoint the gentlemen here, but I would suspect that all of the ladies posting on the Endless Thread are of the nerdy, Monty Python loving variety, regardless of age.
I realized this morning that I have a birthday coming up (that was not surprising – I knew all along when it was) and that I’m turning 47. The amazing thing is that I’ve thought for the better part of the last year that I was already 47. It’s like daylight savings time for age – I get a whole extra year of life!
On the Monty Python subject, my son announced this morning that instead of the Knights of Columbus (RCC zombie men’s group teaching his weird friend to act even weirder), we should join the Knights Who Say Ni, which would be particularly appropriate given that two weekends ago I bought 60 shrubs from a nursery sale (they were $5 apiece and I’d planned this for a while) and I’ve actually gotten all of them in the ground and well watered. I’m sure this shrubbery love provides a better set of role models than the whole chivalrous, romantic (non-sexually-expressed) love, Crusader thing…
Lembit Opik is out.
It’s fucking snowing. Not happy.
Of course, he’s said he’ll leave if Labour loses, so they’ll have to help a byelection.
Remind me again what’s so great about first-past-the-post compared to PR?
With all the nerdlove in the thread, it looks like we need to dim the lights and play some romantic music.
No, wait, I think this fits better (although heterocentric)
Caine – think of it as killing off all the little insect fuckers who have come out already. Not snowing here, but we’re heading into a cold snap and I’m looking forward to spraying the hell out of the carpenter bees when they can’t move.
Of course, he’s said he’ll leave if Labour loses, so they’ll have to help a byelection. – Sili, The Unkown Virgin
He has? He’d leave as party leader, but AFAIK, he hasn’t said he’d resign as an MP.
Still not clear whether the Tories will have an overall majority, or even be close enough to be sure of winning a vote of confidence.
Can’t remember exactly what was said (it’s WAY past my bedtime and everything is starting to blur) but I’m sure in his speech after he won the constituency he was trying to suggest hanging on for a coalition. Something about playing a part in the government and assisting in leading towards economic recovery? Or something, I think I need to go to bed soon :o)
Lembit Opik has just been hit by an asteroid. We did not see that one coming.
I’ve never seen a UK election with this issue of people being turned away when the polls closed. It’s like we forgot how to run a vote.
Figures of the Catholic Church trully just saying anything to justify their egregious behaviour – We’re all potential paedophiles, says archbishop who claims children are ‘spontaneously gay’
I see. Sorry, I’d read it as “leave politics”. My bad, I guess.
Can’t type either, obviously.
Since we’re talking illnesses I’m trying to decide if I’m just being lazy or if my depression is returning. I find it hard to believe that it should return so strongly just because I’ve started trying to get off the ADs. I’ve only gone from 40 to 30 mg a day after all.
Oh, and the mad mad women of Pharyngula are welcome to save up some of their madness for Copenhagen. Though I don’t much enjoy the prospect of having to compete with David at my old age.
I found my beautiful, nerdy, wickedly witty, Monty Python loving wife whe I was 31 and she was 33. I am now 50, and she 51–and I could not have been more lucky.
Iono. A quick wikipeek suggests he handled Expenses like an arse.
Does anyone else feel that Lembit Opik looks like a Muppet?
On current showing: Gordon Brown has lost the election. David Cameron has failed to win the election. And it looks like Nick Clegg hasn’t got that Lib Dem breakthrough. The electorate have risen and declared with a mighty voice “All of you suck”.
I propose government by a coalition of Nigella Lawson, Hugh Fernley-Whittingstall and Jamie Oliver.
The BBC’s handy results map ( http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/election2010/results/default.stm ) is very neat, by the way.
Nerds? Speak for yourselves, guys. I have a charisma of 18. You don’t get to be a 9th level sorcerer without at least some personal magnetism.
Losers.
Lembit Opik is a buffoon. LibDems have taken Eastbourne from Tories as compensation – but they’ve lost Harrogate.
Cameron has (of course) retained his seat and made his speech – but he has not claimed national victory, only that the Labour government has lost its mandate.
Well, I’m assuming that the Tories will have around 300 seats, Labour around 250 and the Lib Dems around 70. I’m off to bed so will wish you all goodnight.
Delia for PM?
LibDems unlikely to get as many as 70 – so far, they are down one (and had 62 last time).
Amusingly, the electorate seems to have managed to give two fingers (it’s two fingers here, not one!) to all the party leaders simultaneously! Brown has clearly been stiffed, but Cameron looks like he may not have an overall majority, Clegg and the leaders of all the smaller parties have failed to make a breakthrough.
I like how the smugertarians in the last thread on smugertarians managed to Godwin in srs.
I mean, there were myriad fails on a variety of levels… but a non-self aware Godwin should rank pretty highly.
I feel like by this time tomorrow, all three major party leaders will have been knifed by their own disappointed followers. Their successors will flee the country rather then take power. The Queen will launch a coup (you know she’s been planning it). The Scots will invade Northumbria. The French will invade at Hastings. The Vikings will reconquer the Danelaw.
Blimey, the BBC is telling me Labour held Oxford East!
I’m moving to Kyrgyzstan to raise sheep.
Labour have held Oxford East – Walton will be thoroughly pissed off!
Shock horror – Tories hold Tunbridge Wells!!
Jeremy Paxman reports rumours that Labout and the LibDems are already negotiating.
Knockgoats
Freudian slip there?
*singing* The Love Thread…soon will be making another run….
Fuck me sideways, Labour increased their majority here! ( http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/election2010/results/constituency/d47.stm )
How did that happen? Looks like turnout is up massively on last time; all parties have increased their actual vote. Once again my vote disappears down the FPTP vortex of loss and misery.
Turnout is turning out :) to be the story of the evening; polling places swamped, and opinion-poll shifts swamped by turnout changes.
@Knockgoats: in Oxford East, Walton is confused, _I_ am thoroughly pissed off.
The trouble with democracy is all the bastards voting the wrong way. People could be free and happy if they would just do what I fucking tell them.
Beeb are back to expecting a hung Parliament. Exactly contrary to expectations, the Tories are doing less well in marginals than in safe seats.
Carlie, it will make the mosquitoes worse. This is the second time it’s snowed since May 1st. Depressing. I’ll get over it, but I’m holding a grudge. ;)
That much at least is good.
Hell! Talk about throwing your vote away if you put it with the Cons there.
::Checks West::
No numbers yet. I hope that dirty campaigning against ‘Dr Death’ backfires. Fucktards.
Christ on a pogodildo, we’re going to have another election in a month, aren’t we? I’m scared.
My pussy’s all wet.
It’s only raining here.
Sili, it rained all day here. Multiple pussies got wet.
@ Caine & Sili
Clearly none of you heathens prayed hard enough. Unless you were praying for wet pussies, which would be a logical thing to do in the right circumstances.
Did you at least follow the NDOP directive to be grateful for the rain?
Rumour that the Nazi leader Griffin has failed even to get into second place in Barking.
The Redhead is enjoying her birthday books. Thanks for the suggestions. Found the second looking for the first since it is by the same author, Elizabeth Wayland Barber. She says one might come up missing if her mother visits.
How does that work? Wouldn’t it kill a bunch of the buggers? Or are we breeding Cold Resistance into them? (or would they have to be Masterwork Mosquitos, first?)
That northern irish first minister Robinson, the one with the cheating uber-christian wife, has lost his seat.
Not everyone can win the lottery, sadly !
Mattir:
I did not. I’m having issues with Rain. It needs to back off.
Falyne:
It’s not that cold. It’s above 20F. Not cold enough to kill anything insect-wise. At least not around here. (ND)
Ok, I forgot about my man crush on fat sweaty red headed Mario Batali
/back to regular programming
FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/election2010/results/constituency/d48.stm
FUCK you, Oxford! Fuck you hard!
A few thoughts.
Firstly, the exit polls seem to have underestimated Conservative support a little: I’m now expecting a plurality of around 320, just shy of an overall majority – but enough for a minority government, with the support of the Ulster Unionists. (If that happens, I predict a dissolution within the year.)
Secondly, the Lib Dems fared very poorly, compared with predictions. Lembit Opik lost his seat (as noted above) and if the current trend continues, they will lose seats overall from their 2005 total of 62. This is a massive slap in the face for Nick Clegg. I think it also, perhaps, shows the continuing tribalism of British politics; a lot of people toy with the idea of voting third-party, and say so to pollsters, but end up returning to their Tory or Labour roots when it comes to the actual election. It’s clear that the two-party political system is definitely not dead.
Thirdly, I needn’t have worried about my vote, as it was wasted either way – Andrew bloody Smith (Labour) was re-elected in Oxford East, as noted above. Gah. I sometimes despair of my fellow students. :-( I should have voted in my home constituency, which has not yet declared (as of five minutes ago) and is a key Tory-Labour marginal.
Fourth, my favourite comment from the BBC election coverage, from that celebrities’ party in London to which they keep cutting when they have time to fill:
“I think Miliband will be the next Labour leader.”
“Which one?”
“The good-looking one!”
Fuck, the Tories have taken Oxford West/Abingdon from the Lib Dems.
Oxford was supposed to get two Lib Dem MPs and now we’ve got a Tory and a Labour.
I thought that Florida 2000 was depressing.
Surprise, surprise
http://election.theyworkforyou.com/quiz/OX141AA
No answers from the MP elect.
Sili@591, are you also Oxford-local, or just raping us from a distance? :)
Circular logic much?
Perhaps if they knew their votes wouldn’t go to waste, they’d vote their mind instead of having to hold their noses and vote tactically.
And a fifth point: I do have some sympathy with the troubles of the various local returning officers. Having managed various student society elections myself in the past, I know that being an RO is not an easy job – and, of course, they had relatively high voter turnouts to contend with. The law does require the polls to be closed immediately at 10pm, regardless of whether there are people waiting outside; it may be harsh, but returning officers do not have a legal discretion with regard to the polling hours, and they cannot be blamed for that. Nor can the Electoral Commission be blamed; they don’t have legal authority to give orders to local ROs, nor are they responsible for individual counts, and the guidelines issued were perfectly correct.
The only incident of real incompetence was the polling stations in Liverpool which ran out of ballot papers. For fuck’s sake. If you have an election to manage, you print off as many ballot papers as you have potential voters, plus an extra ten percent. You do not risk running out of ballot papers and disenfranchising voters – for one thing, the candidates will start whining. Given the closeness of this election, I will not be surprised if we see at least one election petition to the High Court, which could result in a repoll for the affected constituency.
Just a fan of Evan Harris.
The fact that you couldn’t keep him in disappoints me much.
And as I said, we can’t even tell what the winner thinks of the issues, since she couldn’t be arsed to get back to TheyWorkForYou with some answers.
(My supervisor was Cambridge, so that doesn’t even count.)
Fucking asshole Andrew Sullivan on Colbert
Nicola Blackwood is quite good, by all accounts, and I’m happy for her (though I did have a lot of respect for Evan Harris, and would have had a tough decision had I been voting in Oxford West instead of East). But I’m really quite annoyed that the Lib Dems didn’t manage to unseat Andrew Smith in Oxford East.
I did my best but they only let me vote once.
It’s about quarter to five. Latest: Conservative 209, Labour 155, Lib Dem 32.
I’m going to bed now. I’m expecting to wake up tomorrow to find the Conservatives just shy of a majority, with around 320 seats; Labour on 150; Lib Dems around 60. This will likely lead to a Conservative government (with Northern Ireland Unionist support).
But I might be entirely wrong, of course. :-)
Sorry, should obviously read 250, not 150. (Wishful thinking…)
at least you weren’t supposed to do your planting today. which of course didn’t happen.
what a thoroughly miserable excuse for “spring” :-(
Firstly, the exit polls seem to have underestimated Conservative support a little: I’m now expecting a plurality of around 320, just shy of an overall majority – but enough for a minority government, with the support of the Ulster Unionists. – Walton
You’re being optimistic (from your POV): the Beeb (online) are predicting significantly less – but it’s only a graphic so I don’t have an exact figure – and that the Tories might not have as many as LibDem+Lab together. Nearer 300, I’d say – and a paltry 37% or so of the vote. Clearly, no mandate to govern. There aren’t going to be more than 1 or 2 Ulster Unionists – or do you mean the DUP?
Just heard that Fungus the Bogeyman is out.
According to Beeb on air, a lot depends on London.
Jadehawk:
It is. I want sun and warm.
Carlie: I’m looking forward to spraying the hell out of the carpenter bees when they can’t move.
WHAT??? Why? Jeebus Crips, they’re about the best pollinator you’re gonna get, and it’s not like they’re termites! Shitballs, that’s like spraying for bluebirds!
the shitty thing is that it will go from this directly into 100F weather, and the nice 60-70F part will get skipped over completely.
It’s moments like this that I want to club the boyfriend, hog-tie him, and throw him on the next train back to Seattle. Now that place had civilized weather.
@Carlie –
Seriously, don’t spray the carpenter bees. Put up boards or something for them to burrow into, find some exclusion device or something, but don’t spray them – we have enough problems losing pollinators as it is.
A couple years ago we had a nature center event when the carpenter bees were buzzing around and actually had to go out with bug nets and catch all of them, stow them in a critter keeper, and stick them in a fridge in the basement until the “public” left. Unfortunately one of the containers got dropped in the basement, so we then had to dance all over the basement trying to extract the bees from the pipes in the ceiling… Sometimes accomodating the public is quite annoying, even when it does not involve avoiding the evolution word.
Jadehawk:
I understand the impulse. What I wouldn’t give for an actual Spring. Sure as hell didn’t have one last year.
BBC now predicting the Tories to get 306, Labour 262, LibDems 55, others 27. That’s very close to the exit poll result – and does not guarantee that the Tories can form a government.
Tories, Labour, Lib Dems and SNP have all underperformed. Given the weirdnesses so far- the holds and losses have been all over the place, swing-wise – the Tories could still get less than 300.
Apparently the wonderfully decisive first-past-the-post system which protects Britain from horse-trading, compromise and coalition has given us…
Roundup Ready Coca
*gets popcorn*
;-)
Greens take Brighton Pavilion.
Vote Triffid.
Griffin slain in Barking.
Yay! First Green MP in the UK Parliament, Caroline Lucas for Brighton Pavilion!
About 5 hours ago I departed the FGM thread. I just spent 20 minutes there. Terrifying.
Tihs Thread is all about the UK election. With all the front-line grass-root commentary, I’m completely confused (I’m in Canada, we have our own demented shite to deal with). Oh well, tomorrow morning at 7 o’clock the CBC will tell me “All the News I need to know.”&trade
Hopefully, they will mention the UK election.
Also, I have just discovered or invented how to deal with the 5mm crumbs of corn chips and the dregs of salsa: scrape it all into a bowl, stir it up and eat the result with a spoon. Sharing is a problem, what with the spoon licking.
BBC now predicting Tories 308, Labour 260, LibDems 53, Others 29.
The Tories have come fourth in the popular vote in Scotland. Ah dinnae think mah fellow Scots are gaen tae be verra pleased if they Tory bastards try tae rule the place!
re: Jadehawk’s link @#614: Well worth reading, but the guy wrote the whole article without specifying what’s really going on: evolution by natural selection. He attributes it to “10,000 year-old technology,” by which I suppose he means selective breeding (i.e. artificial selection), but in the case of glyphosate resistance it’s dead or alive; not selective breeding so much as survival selection.
sgbm @#415:
About ants? I do wonder what you thought I was fixin’ to say. Nothing further, actually, as I guess is obvious by now.
I’ll spell out the precise meaning of my comment now, though, to avoid any misunderstanding: the labor of sterile worker ants profits them via the currency of ‘inclusive fitness’: more copies of genes identical to theirs by direct descent end up in the gene pool of the next generation of their population than would, on average, if they instead reproduced directly themselves.
And that’s the only currency that matters to ants.
Do you think that’s stupid?
yeah, I figured out that’s precisely what’s going on.
Anyway, that article has a high concentration of varied clusterfuckiness described in it.
Beeb’s latest prediction: Tories 307, Labour 261, LibDem 56, Others 26 – but that can’t be quite right, because there are already 27 others and one result to come from NI which will be another other! Their commenters seem to think Cameron will be the next PM, I seriously doubt it – if Labour and the LibDems can reach an agreement, they would not be far off a majority. The total number of seats is 650, but 1 is the Speaker, who only votes if there is a tie and then always votes for the government, and 4 or 5 will be Sinn Fein, who don’t take their seats. So a government actually needs 322 for a minimal majority. Of the other small parties, the SDLP (3) and Alliance (1) from NI would support a Lib-Lab pact. The Green (1) would vote on an issue-by-issue basis, but are well left of Labour and the LibDems, Plaid Cymru are in coalition with Labour in the Welsh Assembly. That leaves the SNP, who will probably sell their votes to the highest bidder (in terms of money for Scotland). Hmm, that has its advantages from my point of view ;-)
The nastiest outcome is the rise in the Nazi vote, to nearly 2%, and that of UKIP, to 3%.
In the longer view, it is quite extraordinary that in the middle of a huge economic crisis, when everyone knows there are huge cuts coming, the army mired in an unpopular and unwinnable war, and with a PM about as popular as rabies, the Tories have only got 37% of the vote, and failed to win a majority of seats! There must be hope they will never do so again.
Not election-related :
Humans and Neanderthals had sex
Latest BBC projection:
Tories 307
Labour 261
LibDem 54
Others 28
Jeremy Vine is now doing the same arithmetic I did some time ago – seems finally to have realised that Cameron cannot get a majority.
Humans and Neanderthals had sex
Formed a coalition, you could say :-p
SNP say they will vote on an issue-by-issue basis. Plaid Cymru have said they will sell their votes for £300m.
Perhaps you shoulda fucking voted for them then!
Did you see the margin for the Tories? They hadn’t a snowball’s chance in Hell in the first place.
ONE BLOODY HUNDRED AND SEVENTY FUCKING SIX! AND YOU FUCKING CAMPAIGNED FOR THE MOTHERFUCKING TORYWANKERS!!
So let’s see: The LibDems got only 23% of the vote – because as Walton kindly informs us the Brits just lurrrrrrve their Grand Ol’ Parties sooooo much. That lands them 51 seats, give or take, out of 650, that is 8%
And you call yourselves a friggin’ democracy?
Bah! Bah, I say!
I’m sure Walton approves.
(Of course, it was pretty much the same deal with the Faroese over here some years ago.)
Phew, had to go to bed for a bit but it appears the main shocker around here is the Lib Dems unseating the Labour candidate in what was supposed to be a safe seat for them (Bradford East). I’m VERY pleased to note that the BNP vote in this area fell too. Shame the Lib Dems seem to have fared rather poorly elsewhere though.
Sili,
Alas, democracy is rather more ardently claimed than embraced in the UK. Of course I have heard all of the stability arguments (to which I would reply, one party is more stable than two, and would allow much more consistent long term planning – if you are going to water down democracy for a more convenient result why not go the whole hog).
In truth, the cynic in me attributes the status quo with the desire of The People to have the illusion of democracy without the substance – after all if everyone’s views got taken into account, politicians would have to learn to compromise and govern through consensus rather than imposing minority views by brute force (and even landslide wins in English politics are minority views – when was the last time a government was returned with more than 50% of the vote? (save you looking it up, not since 1935!). And if the politicians had to get along, what sort of example would that set the rest of us, eh?
I read this and thought of a spunky band of adventurers with swords and spells…
Sili,
I did. I cast a tactical vote for the Lib Dem (Steve Goddard) in Oxford East, in the hope of unseating the Labour incumbent – because, as you point out, the Conservative candidate did not have a hope in hell.
My effort was, however, wasted. But I’m relieved to know that my home constituency went blue without any help from me.
I think I’m jinxed. When I think back, almost every candidate for whom I have ever voted, in any election, has lost – even when s/he seemed likely to win, and even when my vote was carefully calculated for maximum tactical advantage. This has happened to me in local council elections before, and now seems to have happened in the general election too. It’s almost enough to make me believe in fate. :-(
It’s just become mathematically impossible for the Tories to get an overall majority!
My predictions from last night seem to have been more-or-less right.
I think what will most likely happen now is a Conservative minority government, with the support of the Northern Ireland unionist parties. A Conservative-Lib Dem coalition is very unlikely at this stage, and it would be manifestly undemocratic if Labour were to try to hang on to power in coalition with the Lib Dems.
In the likely event of a minority government, there could be another general election within the year – which the Conservatives will likely win with an increased majority, for the simple reason that the Conservative coffers are still full, whereas Labour has run out of money for campaigning and is heavily in debt.
Good.
Now think what coulda happened if you’d campaigned for them. (Far be it for me to suggest that LD women are more promiscuous than Torrettes.)
Well, the Tories would be a minority gummint as well. I’m sure they can manage to make everyone remember why they’re to be kept away from power within a year. At least I hope so.
FPTP only looks “undemocratic” if you perceive the House of Commons as simply an electoral college for choosing a new government. It is not. When you vote in a British general election, you are not voting for which party you want in government; rather, you are voting for which individual you want as your local MP in your constituency. This is, in itself, no less democratic than any other system. It’s only undemocratic if you see yourself as “electing a party” to govern the country, which is not how our political system works.
Well, I can at least point out that I did not campaign for anyone in Oxford over the last month, as I have been stuck in my room revising for finals.
Even had I not been snowed under with work, I could not, in good conscience, have campaigned for the Conservatives against Evan Harris. Regardless of party, we do need more MPs who will continue Harris’ staunch record of standing up for secularism, LGBT equality and women’s right to choose.
For those British atheists who are depressed about Evan Harris losing, I can offer a ray of sunshine from the judiciary, in the form of one of the recent tort cases that has now appeared on my reading list for finals:
In Maga v Birmingham Archdiocese of the Roman Catholic Church (Court of Appeal, 16 March 2010), a Roman Catholic priest sexually abused a 12-year-old boy with learning difficulties, after having invited the boy to a church-run disco. The claimant sued the Archdiocese of Birmingham, claiming that the church was vicariously liable for the actions of the priest. The Archdiocese argued that because the victim was not Roman Catholic and did not have anything to do with the Catholic Church, the priest was not acting “in his capacity as a priest” and so the church should not be liable. This defence succeeded at trial, but this was reversed on appeal by the Court of Appeal, which allowed the claimant’s appeal and made an award of damages against the Archdiocese.
Lord Neuberger, Master of the Rolls, applied the earlier precedent in Lister v Hesley Hall and the Canadian sexual abuse case of Bazley v Curry, and held that the priest was acting in the course of his employment and so the Church was vicariously liable for his actions. The court noted that one of the priest’s functions was to evangelise and befriend non-Catholics; that he had particular responsibility for youth work at the church, and, in that capacity, groomed the claimant by inviting him to a disco on church premises; and that the priest’s pastoral duties for the church provided him with power over children and opportunity to commit acts of abuse. As such, the church created the risk of the abuse taking place, and was therefore vicariously liable for the abuse.
The really ironic thing, of course, is that the Catholic Bishops’ “apology” to abuse victims came out while this case was being argued – so while publicly expressing remorse, the RCC was arguing in court that it should not have to pay damages to the victims of clerical abuse. :-/
FPTP is only democratic if the elected MP gets over 50% of the vote.
In all other cases the majority of the electors have not voted for the person who becomes MP. That cannot be considered democratic unless you are using democratic to mean undemocratic.
It is similar to the way parties talk about getting a mandate to govern. No party in UK General elections has had mandate to govern since before the war. Not one has been elected with more than 50% of the popular vote.
The only really stable option is a Conservative/Lib Dem coalition. Nick Clegg has said that he thinks the party with the largest mandate should seek to form a government so I expect him to offer a coalition to David Cameron.
Only if Cameron will offer a referendum on voting reform. And it is not at all clear Cameron would be willing to do that.
Walton, I’m sorry that your first voting experience had to be participation in this morning’s triple-decker failure sandwich. I had hoped for better.
I don’t think the Lib Dems will demand electoral reform as a price of co-operation. They aren’t really in a position to do so; their performance was much weaker than they were expecting.
I’d like to see a formal Conservative-Lib Dem coalition, but I don’t know whether that’s likely. More likely is a confidence-and-supply arrangement, but I’m not sure how long this will last. As I said, I wouldn’t be surprised if there were a dissolution within the year.
I’m pissed off with Oxford East, but I don’t see the result nationally as a failure. On the contrary, I was more-or-less hoping for this exact situation: Labour definitely on the way out, the Conservatives as the largest party but without an outright majority, and a prospect of a coalition. I would have preferred the Lib Dems to do a bit better at the expense of Labour, but we can’t have everything.
I don’t think any party “deserved” to win this one. But I’m glad we seem to have ousted the authoritarian, incompetent Labour government; whatever we get (either a fragile Conservative minority government or a Tory/Lib Dem coalition) is likely to be an improvement, IMO.
Clegg would not be able to deliver his party without the offer of a referendum. Lib Dem activists are far more hostile to the Conservatives than they are to Labour so there would need to be a dammed big carrot to get them to go along with the Tories.
I’m not sure that a Tory-Lib Dem pact could agree that kittens are fluffy and the sun rises in the east, let alone on a substantive issue like electoral reform. Also, George Osborne and Vince Cable cannot be put in the same room for more then fourteen and a half minutes before blood is spilt, and we don’t even know where George gets all that blood from.
Anything too vague will cause problems with investor confidence worldwide. I really do hope Nick Clegg decides to put the country’s economic stability ahead of the issue of electoral reform and goes for the coalition with the Conservatives.
I agree. And I suspect Clegg probably personally feels the same way. But Matt possibly has a point that this move wouldn’t be popular with grassroots Lib Dem activists, who are likely to be hostile to the prospect of a formal coalition.
I am puzzled by the idea the Tories might try to form a minority Government.
The Tories have said they will have a budget within 50 days of taking office and that they will make substantial cuts in public spending when they do so. There is little chance of getting such a budget through the Commons, since a majority of MPs are in parties that have said it is too early to cut spending. Cameron could not continue as PM if he lost a budget, which mean either Labour and Lib-Dems forming a Government, or a new election.
I doubt the public would take kindly to the Tories if their budget is a savage as they say it needs to be.
Walton,
My predictions from last night seem to have been more-or-less
rightcompletely wrong.Looks like 306 or 307, not 320. Like I said: “nearer 300”. Not enough, Walton, not enough.
I think what will most likely happen now is a Conservative minority government, with the support of the Northern Ireland unionist parties.
Very unlikely. The NI unionists consist of 8 DUP, 1 or possibly 2 independents. While the DUP are certainly hard right socially, they are not going to support anyone except for hard cash. One of the independents specifically left the UUP because she disagreed with them linking up with the Tories, the other (who may not win – Fermanagh and South Tyrone has gone to a third recount between him and Sinn Fein) was jointly nominated by DUP and UUP – what he will do if he wins, who knows? Even with the maximum 10 NI votes, Cameron will still only have about 217, and he needs 222. Both Plaid Cymru and the SNP have made it clear they will also sell their votes. To get through a vote of confidence, he’ll have to buy them all off – that’s his only chance of taking the course you suggest, and it looks very tricky.
A Conservative-Lib Dem coalition is very unlikely at this stage,
Agreed – or at any stage. What is now likely is that the LibDems will negotiate for an arrangement with Cameron, but the lowest possible price is a referendum on electoral reform, to be held before the next election. My bet is that we’ll never see another majority Tory government unless Cameron can buy off enough of the non-English parties, because if Cameron won’t bite, Clegg will turn to whoever replaces Brown – and Labour Ministers have been falling over themselves to offer more than this.
and it would be manifestly undemocratic if Labour were to try to hang on to power in coalition with the Lib Dems.
I see. So a government whose parties won an absolute majority of the vote would be “manifestly undemocratic”, while one which won 36% would be just dandy. You cannot be serious, as Mr. McEnroe used to say (before your time Walton).
Walton, try looking at this from Clegg’s point of view. He has said that the Tories should have the first opportunity to try to form a government. He’ll stick by that, both to look statesmanlike and to ensure Brown resigns – so any approaches from Brown will be rebuffed, and he’ll resign in the next few days. But Clegg now has a once-in-a-generation chance to get electoral reform. Why would he want to be Cameron’s patsy? As you say, if Cameron gets the chance, he’ll cut and run at a convenient opportunity, and probably get a majority (of seats, not votes). Where’s the profit to Clegg in that? If Cameron concedes a referendum, he’ll almost certainly lose. If he doesn’t, the LibDems will line up with Labour to vote him down when he tries to form a government – and he does not then get to call an election. By then, Brown will have been replaced by someone specifically selected (without election – no time for that!) to work with Clegg. Labour and the LibDems will form a coalition for a fixed term (probably 18 months or so), call a referendum on electoral reform, win it, and call an election. The Tories will increase their number of votes, but in a fair electoral system, won’t have a hope in hell of winning a majority.
This could go wrong at several points, but that’s my prediction.
217 and 222 should of course be 317 and 322 above. Sorry, I haven’t slept!
On second thought, you might be right on that point – there are slightly fewer Conservative seats than I was expecting, and the DUP and UUP votes would not be enough to take them over the majority line. I think it’s most likely that Cameron and Clegg will be negotiating this morning, but a formal coalition is unlikely, for the time being at least. A confidence-and-supply arrangement is a more realistic prospect, but it is unlikely to last very long.
I disagree. A referendum on electoral reform is vanishingly unlikely, in light of the Lib Dems’ weak performance.
As regards Labour getting back into government, bear in mind the regional angle. Many areas of England and Wales voted overwhelmingly Conservative; by contrast, the Conservatives performed very poorly in Scotland. But (considering that many of the areas of competence of the Westminster government do not apply in Scotland due to devolution) there would be an outcry in England if Labour managed to get back in, in coalition form, by relying on their Scottish seats, and impose policies on England which the majority of the English people have rejected. (This is just an empirical observation, not a normative one. As you know, I think nationalism of all kinds, Scottish and English, is a pile of steaming bullshit. But a lot of English people don’t agree with me, and will feel disenfranchised if Labour were to get into a coalition government by relying on their strength in Scotland.)
I will not be surprised if there is a second election within the year, if Cameron and Clegg are unable to reach an agreement. In that regard, don’t forget about the parties’ relative financial positions. The Conservatives still have a fuckton of campaign funds. Labour, on the other hand, are heavily in debt and cannot afford to fight a second election effectively. A second election (under the current electoral system) will likely lead to an outright Conservative majority.
Hmm, and 322 should actually be 323: 650 total, minus 4 Sinn Fein (who won’t take their seats) minus the speaker makes 645, so 323 is needed for a majority. Of course the SNP and Plaid might abstain – but again, only for substantial bribes.
Dow dropped 8% yesterday because someone hit “b” instead of “m” (supposedly).
Investors will do whatever the hell they want without regard for anyone but themselves. I fail to see why Clegg should sell out on that account. It’s not like anyone is forcing the Tories to form a coälition. Quid pro quo seems most appropriate.
But of course Cameron & Co are gonna wail, gnash their teeth and whine about the Good Of The Country. They have nothing to gain from reform – then they’d have to work for their seats.
Of course, it might well be that noöne cares enough to vote in the referendum, should one be announced. And even then the Lords can block it as they usually do.
I disagree. A referendum on electoral reform is vanishingly unlikely, in light of the Lib Dems’ weak performance. – Walton
Well, we’ll see who’s right. I won’t suggest a cash bet because I know you’re an impecunious student. The LibDem performance was weaker than expected, of course, but they got their highest share of the vote since the Liberal/SDP merger, and that’s what he’ll stress – and the injustice of getting around 1/6 the seats of the Tories for nearly 2/3 the vote. As I say, try thinking about it as if you were Clegg – and assume he’s a totally cynical, power-hungry bastard. (He may not be, but if not, he’ll just persuade himself he’s acting from the highest motives.)
Walton #655,
Why is it unlikely, when pretty much every Labour politician and strategist on TV has made it clear that this offer is on the table? The only question is whether the Lib Dems think they can actually form a majority with Labour (and, more importantly, the smaller parties that would be needed to supply the last few votes) that could see it through. If they think it can be done, a switch to list PR would be such a huge boon to the Lib Dems that no amount of policy concessions on the part of the Tories would measure up to it. It’s also very unlikely that their chances to bring this change about will be any better in the near future, since new elections under the old system would only benefit the Conservatives in giving them another shot at a single-party majority.
If I were a Christian, I would be thanking God it’s Friday. However, since I am not:
Thank Pope Gregory XIII, that he laid out the dates as such, that in accordance with the Earth’s rotation of approximately 24 hours and the Jewish calendar week of 7 days, that today is Friday, the sixth day of the week (fifth for Europeans), and the last day of the work week for those who work 5 days a week.
It’s only undemocratic if you see yourself as “electing a party” to govern the country, which is not how our political system works. – Walton
I missed this choice piece of hooey. Come off it, Walton – a general election is about who is going to govern the country. I know it, you know it, everyone knows it. Most seats, you could put a retarded wombat up for the party that always wins, and it would romp home.
there would be an outcry in England if Labour managed to get back in, in coalition form, by relying on their Scottish seats, and impose policies on England which the majority of the English people have rejected. – Walton
If you look at the figures, Walton, you’ll see that the Tories got just under 40% of the vote in England – so a clear majority rejected their policies. Labour and LibDem together got 52%+.
Roestigraben,
I agree with your main point, but it won’t be list PR. The LibDems want STV, Labour will probably offer AV-plus.
That’s true. But perhaps it shouldn’t be.
Some people have argued that a desirable change in our political system would be a weakening of political parties, and a weakening of the whip system. The best way to achieve this would be to implement open primaries, so that political party organisations lose control over who is selected for their party. This would likely mean more MPs would be willing to defy their own parties on a regular basis – meaning that a government would have to negotiate with its own MPs to get each piece of legislation passed, rather than being able to rely on the whip system: this might make it harder for governments to pass godawful liberty-eroding laws like the Criminal Justice Act 2003. And it would mean that political parties would, long-term, metamorphose into loose associations of MPs and candidates with similar philosophies, rather than centralised organisations with a single policy platform.
There are, of course, disadvantages to that model as well. And there are arguments in favour of a European-style PR parliamentary system. But PR (and, albeit to a lesser extent, semi-proportional systems such as Additional Member) would give the political parties a lot more power over who gets elected, particularly if a “closed list” model were adopted. More worryingly, it would also allow the BNP and other fringe parties to get seats in the House of Commons – potentially creating a screwed-up situation like some European countries have, in which the xenophobic far-right has a worrying amount of power and influence (see, for example, the Lega Nord in Italy or Jorg Haider’s movement in Austria).
Ｗａｌｔｏｎ
Except we aren’t governed by individuals, but by parties. The talk is not about the quality of individual MP’s, but who is going to be PM. Parties don’t publish local manifesto’s, and MP’s very rarely defy the party line – local selection processes now weed out likely trouble makers – no more Denis Skinners or Tony Benns – The parties make sure of that.
The truth of the matter is that most people are voting for a government, and the quality of the local MP is a very distant second consideration (if it enters into the decision process at all). Even where a local MP is selected, how often is he selected by a majority of his constituents? The whole process is manifestly undemocratic, a throwback to feudalistic system from which it grew.
How can it be a ‘worrying amount of power in influence’ in a democracy?
PR is used for the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly elections. Neither seems to have fringe parties exerting undue influence.
First, thank you to the people livecommenting about the elections. I’ve had the BBC page with the map up, but the commentary very much helps.
***
I’m still investigating, but you should google “Rick Relyea” and “POEA.” I believe it’s Roundup Ultra (and some other nasty stuff) that DynCorp mercenaries have sprayed (likely from fairly high) over some of the richest ecosystems in the world, where of course people live, tend animals, and grow crops. But stop complaining, poor Colombians! It’s as safe as table salt! Really!
*(This has had fuck-all effect on the drug trade, but this isn’t what’s really at the heart of it.)
Random Bizarre, woke up this morning to find a Markuze rant stuck in moderation for my tiny little blog.
He is a thorough nutter, I’ll give him that.
He’s been hammering my blog recently. It comes in waves.
This is just more evidence that the “War on Drugs” needs to fucking end. Now.
SC, is it true that Josh is your fake husband and that you are one of my sister-wives?
Conservatives now 299, Labour 253, Lib Dems 54 and others 27, with 17 seats still to be declared.
SCIENTISTS FIGHT BACK:
http://scienceblogs.com/classm/2010/05/clarion_call_for_and_end_to_at.php
http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/04/scientist_fights_back_against.php
Brown just made a statement: he understands that Nick Clegg wants to talk to David Cameron first, and Labour is ready to talk to Clegg if that falls through. That was quite statesmanlike. Also a mention of electoral reform. I think it equates to: when the Tories refuse electoral reform, Labour will ally with the Lib Dems. He also didn’t talk about his own position particularly; he’s probably ready to go if that’s the price.
Nothing in his premiership became him so well as the leaving of it, etc.
Hell, no! And if he tells you I’m trying off-blog to get him to fake break* his fake vows by luring him down for a visit, I’ll deny it (including to my real longterm fake boyfriend).
:)
*There’s a sign on my way to work that says “NO JAKE BRAKES.” I had no idea what that meant. Just looked it up.
Walton,
surprise ! where is our valiant and principled defender of freedom of speech ?
If I understand you well, you are completely opposed to any sort of legislation against hate speech, but when a voter expresses his opinion via a democratic vote you think it would be best to not take it into account if that opinion is that of a fringe or extremist party that doesn’t suit you ?
I think if PR let a couple of BNP guys into parliament- which I doubt it would – they would only be there for one term. A nice bright light on them does the world of good in exposing them for what they are. You can’t defend the electoral system against extremists by rigging the system, only be informing the electorate.
NO JAKE BRAKES
Sooooo… Fake hubby just wanted some domestic drama last night. Should have known he is a drama queen. And there is my temper.
Sigh…
What to do…
What to do…
Walton@664,
So you admit you were talking out of your nether orifice when claiming the current system only looked undemocratic if you don’t understand it. It’s no good trying to divert attention now by wittering about primaries. No-one’s interested. The only example I’m aware of – the USA – is not really a very good advertisement for them: pork-barrel politics, legislative gridlock, shedloads of congresspersons who are several sandwiches short of a picnic. Your claims about PR are absurd (you forget, I live in Scotland so I know this from personal experience): the reason fascist parties are powerful in Austria, Italy, etc. is because there’s a shit-ton of fascists there. No-one is proposing a closed list system. The two possible systems for the UK are STV with multi-member constituencies (allows voters to rank all candidates, and there are several for each party), and AV-plus (also allows ranking for most seats). Be honest, the reason you want FPTP is you know damn well the Tories will never be able to form a government alone under any fairer system.
No, I’m not advocating that it should “not be taken into account”. Voting and standing as a candidate are opinion-expressive acts, so you are quite right to point out that they are a form of free speech that must be protected in a free society. Hence, it is right that BNP candidates are free to stand for election, and voters are free to vote for them and have their vote counted in the result.
But that doesn’t mean I have to support an electoral system that would make it easier for the BNP to gain seats. As I’ve explained, I do not think FPTP is any more or less “fair” than PR; I think it simply depends how you want your political system to work.
Well I’ve wanted the electoral and parliamentary system to be reformed since I started voting. I think the system is utterly ridiculous. PR is the start of electoral reform, not the end, other criteria need to be met also.
But whilst I’m pleased at a hung parliament being the result of this election (it could be the stimulus for electoral/parliamentary reform), I have no illusion that the result of this election will be eventually anything other than a minority Tory government followed by a general election within the year, returning a Tory government with a slight majority.
Disappointing. Mind you, I’m a nasty bastard, I think voting should be legally mandatory (although I think spoilt ballots and “none of the above” should be counted as valid votes).
Louis
P.S. Walton, as per usual, the BNP has not even come close to winning a seat and, as Stephen Wells says, even if under some forms of PR they managed to gain a seat or two, they would be exceptionally unlikely to form a sufficient voting block to be anything other than a minor annoyance.
Walton, we have to go back to before the war to find the last UK Government that got more than 50% of the popular vote. Ignoring the National Coalition during the last war every single Government has been in power despite the majority of voters not supporting them. How can than possibly be describe as fair, or even democratic ?
And there aren’t in England? Despite their name, the BNP are largely an English-based party, and have never been strong in Scotland or Wales. You can’t assume from the Scottish and Welsh situations that the BNP would be equally weak in a reformed House of Commons. I think it’s highly likely that they would get at least one seat.
But if we were going to have electoral reform, I’d definitely prefer the Additional Member system, as used in Scotland, Wales and New Zealand, to a party-list system.
Oh and the really annoying thing is that Dr Evan Harris lost his seat. Any UK science friendly person (or human rights/equal rights activist) should know the sterling work he has done in parliament. He was defeated by someone from what passes for the religious right in this country (some batshit insane little Englander godbot….yes I’m bitter, why did you ask?) who participated in a staggeringly unpleasant campaign.
We also lost (perhaps more controversial/less prominent) science advocates like Nick Palmer from Broxtowe, but we gained a Green MP in Caroline Lucas (whose science credentials remain to be seen, the Greens have been all over the map scientifically, advocating alt med woowoo one minute and decrying it the next, for example. Watch this space).
This ain’t gonna turn out well for UK science.
Louis
The BNP got 2.1% of the vote in England. What PR system gives representation to a party scoring so low ?
Jadehawk:
I’m currently across the sound from Seattle, and I’d like to point out that we’ve dipped down near freezing all this week. I’m hoping my vegetables haven’t all been killed.
But the rhododendrons and azaleas are in full bloom, the dogwoods are in flower, and today, at least, the sky is perfectly clear and the sunrise was glorious.
Not so sure. Don’t forget that there is a reservoir of racist authoritarian nutcases in every country, UK included. The british electoral system so far has managed to hide this fact but PR would certainly encourage them to vote for a candidate that is a racist authoritarian nutcase because they wouldn’t have to deal with the issue of making a tactical choice rather than voting for their preferred candidate.
Agreed. It would also force the larger parties to take principled positions before an election on whether they would form a coalition with a fringe party. This is what happened for instance in France where the main right wing party, UMP, was forced to make clear that it would not make any sort of aliiance with the racist authoritarian far right Front National otherwise it would have lost too many centre right votes.
I think transparency and representativeness are important in a democracy. The current british electoral system is one of the most opaque and least representative sytem I have ever come accross.
I know quite a lot of people who vote for the far right. Tactical voting doesn’t really come into it here because as far as their supporters are concerned ALL the other parties are as bad as each other and the only people that’ll ‘sort this country out and get rid of all those damn immigrants coming over here to claim sick when I can’t even get a decent pension/afford heating/feed my kids blah blah blah’ are the BNP/National Front/UKIP/whoever. I don’t think the number of people who vote in that direction would change significantly with PR.
Sorry for the slight rantyness, I have to put up with the stench of their particular brand of bullshit quite a lot!
On the UK election – nice to see a Tory government is unlikely to hold out, although a shame that they even had a chance – I take solace in that either of the two constituencies I would have voted in would have gone to either lab or lib dem – rather disappointed in Scotland having a Tory seat… perhaps the BBC map is just broken?
On “roundup ready coca” – clear from the outset this wasn’t genetically modified – drug barons might be down with taking on their own, and the US government – but they don’t want to face Monsanto clearly.
On a more serious note – it may not ever be known whether the roundup resistant coca was selected for by the growers on purpose, or as a side effect of a campaign of herbicide spraying – my money would be on the spray – if it’s coming down from the air you’re not going to have optimal useage concentration across fields – incorrect useage increases the chance that resistant strains arise, and it is inevitable that as a farmer, if you see one plant out of a whole field that doesn’t die when glyphosate is sprayed you’ll propagate from that plant and giggle to yourself when the government comes in and does your weeding for you the next time round.
Although it isn’t entirely beyond the bounds of imagination that drug barons could use genetic engineering to put glyphosate resistance (or any other herbicide resistance with a known method of GM tinkering) – I believe Pam Ronald over at Tomorrows Table figured that the actual cost of creating a transformed plant, without testing and development of the trait, probably lies in the $100-$1000 dollar range – and given that the only impedements to a commercially succesful transformation are efficacy (roundup resistance is a pretty binary efficacy, either it works or it doesnt – although some fine tuning may be required in terms of yield drag), IP law (and I’m guessing here that columbian drug cartels arent overly concerned about this), and regulatory clearance (again, not a big deal) – I’m not sure exactly what the impedement would be.
Walton,
Yes you are. You are supporting an electoral system that does precisely that. The only reason the UK has such a tiny amount of far right (and far left) votes expressed is because the majority of those who might be interested to vote for these parties just don’t bother as they know with 100% certainty that their votes won’t matter.
When decades after decades you get a turnout of around 60% only that means that the whole country completely ignores what 40% of its inhabitants really think. A great way to hide problems and tensions in society that may be building up.
I lose at blockquotes.
Doubly so, thought I had that one right.
Don’t post before caffeine I guess.
Just got done dealing with one of the dumbest things ever.
My company likes to send me on trips, so I have a company credit card. I have to fill out a form for it before and after the trip (this is how much I expect to pay, this is how much I paid.)
Now, instead of the logical thing – my company paying the credit card company directly – they put the money into my checking account and I have to go pay the credit card company.
Is there a reason for this, or is my company just dumb?
And what about selling the herbicide to the people who are known to be indiscriminately spraying ecosystems?
Sven – not a fan actually – I think this’d be one of those instances where I’d agree wholeheartedly that the company I work for is in the wrong (assuming it is actually Roundup that is used and not a generic glyphosate, which from all the stories I’ve glanced at does appear to be the case)
Correct, but you know people who vote for these parties, the “true believers”. They don’t make tactical choices. But what you don’t know is the reservoir of people who lean towards these parties, who wouldn’t even dare say that they’d vote for them because it would be politically incorrect but in the secret of the voting booth would not hesitate to express themselves if they knew their vote would matter. Some of them just end up not voting, others end up voting conservative tactically because they know that voting BNP or UKIP would end up helping labour.
Look, what I find fascinating about this election is that when you read the blogs that are discussing this, a huge amount of british people don’t end up expressing their opinions but making second best tactical choices. No wonder you get such low turnouts.
That’s definitely dumb.
My company does what I think is dumb, but it’s dumb to me because I have to pay out of my pocket then subject an expense form and I’m reimbursed.
It all works out in the end but I really don’t like having to float my company a loan while I’m on the road.
What they have you doing just seems almost rube goldbergish.
um
submit not subject
*sigh
So being a bad atheist, and enjoying oddball Japanese quotes, I have one of those quote-a-day calendars with a Zen theme. I was a few days behind, and when I ripped off the pages to get to today, here was the quote for the National Day of Prayer:
Somehow I found this amusing.
@Rev BDC:
I think it would be a ton easier if my company just skipped the middle-man, but whatever.
Also – there’s a new Ray Comfort blog post. I made a huge rant to it, so we’ll see if it comes up (my name on that blog is CriticallySkeptic.)
It lays out exactly why I ‘de-converted.’
Huh. I just saw one like that the other day, also. Being intellectually lazy, I didn’t bother looking it up.
Jake brakes – learn something new every day. Didn’t mean anything as salacious as I was hoping…
OK, maybe it’s just my wacky sense of humor, but I find this rather drole. I also wonder if it’s the hijinks of someone from here: Jesus has a Twitter account
To get off British politics for a minute, this is a fascinating article:
“Do ‘Family Values’ Weaken Families?
If you want to find stable two-parent families, bypass Palin country and go to Pelosi territory.”
Naomi Cahn and June Carbone — family law professors at George Washington University and the University of Missouri (Kansas City), respectively — wrote a book that is described as “important” (but one that will probably be ignored): Red Families v. Blue Families: Legal Polarization and the Creation of Culture, from Oxford University Press.
in brief:
In red America, families form adults; in blue America, adults form families.
@Becca:
That’s an intriguing article. I kind of agree with it. My family is very bizarre, from before I was twelve, we were culturally liberal, but then my parents converted and we became Christian. I did suffer through the whole ‘sex before marriage is evil!’ thing so I am a little bit stunted in my sexual growth, but never really got much of a chance to have a relationship long enough to support that growth.
They raised me well, though. I have respect for everyone. I am smart, I’m disciplined – though a little lazy, I’m kind and I keep people happy. I think all that really needs to be taught to a kid, and quickly, is that you have to respect others.
Funny, my Christian parents’ teaching that I should respect other people is what got me out of Christianity in the first place (since I saw it disrespectful to homosexuals to claim – ‘I love you, but don’t love you’)
Rhetorical question of the day: Are the NIH’s grant applications set up the way they are to be some sort of twisted test of the applicant’s persistance and willingness to cope with tiny, apparently entirely random changes or are they just stupid?
@Dianne:
Yes.
So, despite me living in the south for a large portion of my life and not being a fan, I’m going to a NASCAR race for the first time tomorrow.
It’s purely a cultural exploration and photography project deal. Well, that and possibly some adult beverage consumption.
Should be interesting in a budweiser, mullet and jean shorts sort of way.
Huh. They’re made in CT.
Speaking of CT manufacturers (I had just read about this when Bill Dauphin mentioned that he worked for a military contractor) and far-right nationalists, a not-so-fun fact before I get going:
In the antisemitic trial of Mendel Beiliss in 1913 Russia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menahem_Mendel_Beilis
the psychiatrist who testified that the murder was “typical” of Jewish ritual killings was Professor Sikorski, father of helicopter developer and Sikorsky Aircraft founder Igor Sikorsky.
What kind of sacrifice do I have to make to get this damned authentication to work? I seem to have a gremlin infestation in my web server. It only affects one process, and there is a workaround for that. But I’m looking at the nature of the errors and I don’t understand how it ever worked to begin with. The kind of authentication it’s trying to do should just not work. It’s like it finally got smart and figured that out. There must have been some workaround in place that I don’t know about and am not smart enough to figure out. Grrrrrr.
</work rant>
Sorry. Had to get that out.
Argh. I’ve been reading about Nicola Blackwood today, and am not impressed. I didn’t pay much attention to her at the time because I don’t live in her constituency, but I am really glad I didn’t campaign for her. Replacing a decent secular liberal MP with a religious nut is not a campaign with which I would want to be involved.
As I mentioned above, I voted Lib Dem yesterday – primarily as a (sadly wasted) tactical vote against Labour. I am now considering officially severing my links to the Tory Party permanently. I am fed up with authoritarianism and religious nuttery within the party, and I’m, in part, annoyed with myself for not speaking out against it more forcefully during the campaign.
Health insurance sucks, part MMXVI:
My doctor and provider are stuck in an apparently endless loop, whereby the provider keeps requiring information that the doctor insists has been provided already. The best part is, it is apparently my responsibility to deliver updates from one to the other each time (e.g. when my claim gets rejected, or when the doctor confirms that yet again the same information has been sent). It apparently doesn’t occur to either that things would be a lot faster if they just spoke directly to one another.
Uh-oh… this thread is close to coming to its end and I’ve not posted anything yet… Hmmm…
How about this piece of religio-news (forgive me if someone’s already posted it, and for linking to Huff-Po, which I normally don’t do…):
Street Preacher in Britain charged for telling passerby that homosexuality is a sin.
Unless Cameron allies with the Nationalists, giving Wales and Scotland much greater, or total, Independence. That would probably give the Tories, under FPTP, near-permanent government in England.
But, of course, Cameron and the Tories would never betray their principles for power, would they?
Who knows, maybe the tories could become a reasonable choice witin the next 60 years :-)
Not trying to subtract from this actual substance here but..
I need help and wanted to ask if there was a text formatting toolbar kind of thing like they have for Firefox, only for Google Chrome. I’ve tried searching for it but come up with nothing =(
I really can’t stand Firefox personally and would like help with this. I hate html tags, I more often than not fuck them up. I remember this being mentioned on another section of the endless thread but can’t find it now. Maybe I should just let my bf teach me html and I won’t hate it so much……….
Kevin @ 694:
Your company may be claiming those expenses in the salary/compensation part of their accounting spreadsheet, and that’s why they give the money to employees instead of paying the expenses directly. I can’t think why this ploy would be useful, from either an IRS or regulatory standpoint. If they aren’t doing it deliberately, then yes, they’re being idiots.
You need to keep a careful record for yourself. If you are ever audited, you need to prove that those payments were not additional income.
*****
I apologize for my blockquote fail @ #704. Amazingly, the link works anyway.
What are the free speech laws like in the UK?
Rev,
I highly recommend gearing up with some Southern Culture on the Skids. That should get you in the mood, without sacrificing principles.
chgo_liz #704,
WWJT?
WWJT at the Logies?
Good call. I should probably also pick up some fried chicken if that’s the case.
Rev BDC has a Dirt Track Date.
Say anything you like, as long as it’s not with a Geordie accent.
Worse still, a Geordie dialect.
It rained twice while I was writing this comment, ending in a bright double rainbow. ^_^ Temperature: warm enough to go out in shorts whenever the sun shines for long enough.
I like them. They sound so sarcastic (…and of course I first encountered them during the years of Captain Unelected).
Austria has UHBP, “Our Mr. Federal President”.
LOL! Seconded :-D
I felt strangely compelled to google for SCA… but there are too many different results, even without that Swedish cellulose company. So, please explain.
I keep saying I’m glad I speak German natively so I don’t need to learn it!
Not only is that a rather misleading term, it’s also useless to teach to people who know German, because they’re already used to it! What you need to teach to those is which ones are inseparable (almost all are separable in German).
If any of the Swiss speak French natively, however, teach all that stuff at great length. They’ll need a long time to get it.
I suppose the ground is warm, so the snow melts immediately? What a waste.
By no means is this “just saying anything”. I bet he actually believes it – I bet he’s paedophiliac and believes everyone is like him.
That’s a common phenomenon among clueless faithheads. Alan Keyes is gay and believes everyone is; his conclusion that gay sex must be actively discouraged because otherwise we’d stop reproducing and die out follows entirely logically from this moronic premise.
1) Evolutionary ecology: competition avoidance by specialization! Your taste in beauty is most emphatically not mine. <barf>
2) I’m sure there will be more than enough for both of us. <patting self on back reassuringly>
3) …Unless we’re counting the mad single women of Pharyngula. So far, a grand total of one has claimed to be in that category. :-/
4) Your humor is special. Someone must like it. :-)
(About point 3, one of my sisters would say “sooooo what, that’s a reason but not an obstacle”. But it can’t be that simple, can it. Besides, she has never claimed to be in love, and there’s good evidence of her virginity, so I don’t think she’s speaking from experience either…)
…BTW, I can pat myself on the back. I just tried. :^)
Very similar to the latest German election. Or even the horrible Austrian election of 1999, though that one had a protest-voter party complicating things further.
ROTLFMAO!
Do you mean both hands?
Over here, it’s usually just one, but the entire concept of such a gesture was only imported (straight from the US) in the 1990s.
That place isn’t all that stable politically either.
GAAAAAH!!!
OK, next time I need to apply for a postdoc I’ll try Berkeley. Was recommended to me anyway (as one of, like, 50 possibilities); writing to Berlin first was just laziness :-)
(Never got a reply from Chicago.)
<headshake> X-)
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
<loud, prolonged mad cackling>
<pretending to mooch Jadehawk’s popcorn>
Just one thing:
Complete nonsense. It’s just selection. Mutations happen on their own; Roundup is not mutagenic.
Bullshit.
It really is as simple as the next paragraph explains:
It’s a widespread misconception that selection causes mutations. It doesn’t; you have to wait for them. Given enough time and a sufficiently large population, they will happen, and then selection can start.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
:-) :-) :-) Was about time!
<mad cackling>
I say we take awf and nuke the entire site from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.
Only 5 % careless protest voters? Maybe the first-past-the-post system does have its advantages ;-)
ROTFLMAO!!!
Seriously? :-D
(In the Philippines, the newspapers unabashedly print things like “President Arroyo gave every deputee a suitcase with 500 million pesos”. Nobody disputes them, and nothing happens.)
I laughed for half a minute. At least.
FIFY.
See comment 661. It works about as well as the Electoral College in the US, where the states are supposed to elect the POTUS and the outcome is just a clusterfuck.
The big problem in Italy isn’t the Lega Nord, it’s Berlusco”li”ni.
Haider’s party crashed, burnt, split, and together lost the next election before Haider’s death, and even before his involvement in the Hypo-Alpe-Adria bank scandal came to light.
I’d be very surprised if Roundup had any direct effect on animals.
Of course, spraying a rainforest with it is horror, and you mentioned “other nasty stuff”…
…and DynCorp is inherently evil. What happened to the violence monopoly of the state!?!
That’s a bit harsh. It’s more like… under 20 % xenophobes in Austria. The reason their party got more in 1999 is that so many protest voters (fed up with both the Social Democrats and the conservatives, after remarkably inept campaigns by both, and with no alternative other than the Greens – who did increase their percentage) were willing to put up with xenophobic propaganda. Few can have expected all of those campaign promises to be implemented (and indeed they weren’t) in a coalition.
The fascists in the strict sense, those who admire the dictators of 1934 to 1938, are all in the conservative party. Those are really rare, though.
No, because such systems inevitably develop unforeseen* dynamics of their own. A good example is the US, where the Founding Fathers stupidly thought their disgust of political parties would prevent parties from forming, and in hindsight a two-party system is a completely inevitable consequence of the constitution they wrote.
* Not necessarily unforeseeable, but still unforeseen.
Russia used to have “against all” as an option on its ballots. (Putin abolished that; he doesn’t like it when people can vote against him.)
Oooh, scary! One out of over 600!
Besides, many countries have a rule saying that only parties that get more than 4 or 5 % of the vote get any seats.
This holds twice over for US presidential elections, of course.
JustALurker
http://codefisher.org/format_toolbar/
Rev–
For my money, a good demolition derby beats the crud out of any “no-crashing-allowed” car race.
wow, that’s quite the post.
And just as a coincidence type thing, we had one of the brightest double rainbows here in the charleston sc area the other day.
I got some shots of it but haven’t had time to process them yet.
Story entirely based on report from the torygraph and the preacher’s version of the event…
What are the free speech laws like in the UK? – Rev BDC
Sorry, I’m not allowed to tell you that ;-)
David M., the SCA is the Society for Creative Anachronism, a historical re-enactment group, and in the opinion of this history groupie, it is ‘way better than sliced bread. Anything between about 600 AD to about 1600 is fair game, making it a source of as many spare-time hobbies as you have time and money for. The fighters get the big billing, but my heart belongs to the A&S (Arts and Sciences). Calligraphy, illumination, brewing, fiber arts, music, and so very much more. It does tend to Eurocentrism, but there are a few people with Asian, African, or Aztec personas.
Yeah when I lived in Telluride a good friend of mine used to enter the Durango Demo Derby. They’d find some P.O.S. car at the junk yard and fix it up. He’d wear a full Elvis Jumpsuit, with cape and drive in the Derby.
lots of fun.
“502 Server Error” for both, repeatedly.
So I need to ask… aren’t the Geordies those who are now belatedly catching up with the High German consonant shift? Or am I confusing them with someone else?
THE UK count has now finished and it seems the exit poll at 10pm last night was a very accurate indicator of the actual result, in spite of the general scepticism expressed. Perhaps we should avoid the expense of running these in future and just ask 18,000 people what they think!
Depends. Roundup is not synonymous with glyphosate; there are a variety of commercial and industrial formulations and there is good evidence that some of them kill amphibians. There are apparently arguments over ecologically relevant dosages etc., but the culprit seems to be a surfactant rather than the glyphosate itself. Goog-Schol “Relyea Roundup” for specifics.
Do you mean both hands? – David M.,OM
No!
Jessie@734,
I remember reading a short story, set in a future USA, where this was taken to the logical extreme: a single person was selected using a complex algorithm, then asked a long series of questions, from which the election results were calculated!
:-D :-D :-D :-D :-D
I reflexively wrote a blockquote tag around the first line! It’s not quoted at all! LOL!
Ooh. Interesting.
Austria’s leading conservative newspaper says “Tories win British elections” and “Election winner David Cameron is not to be envied – enormous challenges await him”. Did I mention it’s a conservative newspaper??? :-D
Now I feel like an asshole. I have roundup in the garage that I have used to deal with some pain in the ass weeds that are trying to destroy my fence.
@726
THANKS!!
But its for Firefox =(
I want one for Google Chrome, this is the only complaint I have with it. Maybe I will just have to concede to Firefox for commenting here.
Seconded.
Well, we already have been able to get it down to nine people.
Rev – chances are that you release more harmful surfactants into the environment when you shower/bathe/wash the dishes (assuming you participate in these acts, I’m guessing at least two out of three) – surfactants have a pretty high capacity to mess up membranes and therefore it is hardly surprising that some of the surfactants added to make glyphosate more effective may have effects on some amphibians (David M could no doubt provide a sound yay or nay on this) – it also needs to be kept in mind that there is a dose effect – it is massively unlikely that the amount of roundup you spray on your weeds brings any amphibians in the area anywhere near the dosage required to mess them up (and that’s assuming the formulation you have contains one of the surfactants that causes harm)
Just y’know, dont drop hundreds of gallons of the shit from a chopper onto what you suspect might be someone elses coca.
All three
What about environmental build up?
Whew. I’ll be sure to remember that next time i’m in a helicopter with a big 100 gallon bladder of roundup!
18,000 people who have just voted, that is.
Oh shit. All that poisonous slime on amphibians is there for a reason. It should stay there.
Ah, thaaaaat. That’s something else entirely, isn’t it.
So, British people, I have a question that I haven’t been able to answer adequately from various news sources, and I just can’t get my head around. I’ve also scanned the posts above, and maybe I’ve missed it, and if so, please point them out.
Other than distancing themselves from decliningly popular Labour Party, why exactly would Liberal Democrats align with the Tories? It’s a possibility I’ve seen discussed, but just doesn’t make any sense to me. I’m sure I just simply don’t sufficiently understand British politics and various party positions.
Is this a can of worms I’m opening, or is it just an unlikely hypothetical? (Or both, they’re not mutually exclusive.)
JustALurker
Sorry, thought someone here had said it works on Chrome.
Comedy Central thinking about a Jesus Christ cartoon
Nm problem, apparently it’s a xpi file type and that’s just for Firefox. Or at least that’s why my Google says. I can’t open it, only option is to drag into Firefox.
Other than distancing themselves from decliningly popular Labour Party, why exactly would Liberal Democrats align with the Tories? It’s a possibility I’ve seen discussed, but just doesn’t make any sense to me. – IslandBrewer
I agree with you that it’s very unlikely – I think they’re just going through the motions (as one sewage worker said to the other): see my predicted scenario@653. The only possible reason would be to avoid another election – the Tories have practically unlimited funds, but the other parties are skint.
Roundup Ready Coca – Jadehawk, OM
Disgraceful! Of course, I only ever snort fairtrade organic :-p
…which Ewan hasn’t bothered to mention previously, I don’t think. Here he refers to it as “Roundup (glyphosate)”:
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010/04/episode_lii_after_the_giant_an.php#comment-2470781
Gotta love it.
Like killing them. There is already research on this, and you know it.
And then of course there are the massive amounts used in agriculture. But how comforting…
Are you going to campaign to make this the official position of Monsanto – that this practice is, to quote you, “reprehensible”? That such formulations should not ever be used in this way? If it’s such a different company today, and so ecologically concerned, I’m sure the higher-ups want to do the right thing. Let us know how that works out.
Huh. Try copypasta:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSHHbfY6MVc (Geordie accent)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zwx0-oewjsM&feature=related (Geordie dialect)
@Knockgoats #749
Ah, thanks for that! Missed it among the other 700 odd posts.
#745 IslandBrewer
I can think of several (not necessarily in order of priority)
1) “Follow the Money”. It’s just possible the Tories might give a few Government positions to the Lib. Dems. (Junior and Senior Cabinet Ministers get a larger paypacket and better perks than ordinary back benchers.) Depends how much the Tories need the Lib. Dems. and what the Lib. Dems. are prepared to offer. There are some good Lib. Dems. who might be worthy of a post (e.g. Vince Cable and Paddy Ashdown).
2) This might be the only chance they will ever have to feel they are important and can influence British politics.
3) In our “First Past the Post” system, the Lib. Dems. (and any other small party) get disproportionately smaller numbers of seats compared with their %age of the popular vote. This time is a classic. The situation has been made worse by the gerrymandering done by Labour. As a result, the Lib. Dems. have always been in favour of Proportional Representation. (The cynic might say they would be less keen if they were the majority party.) This would be a chance to get some PR in return for favours to a minority Tory Government.
4) The Tories have suggested/threatened (depending on your point of view) to reduce the number of seats in the House of Commons by reshaping constituencies. The Lib. Dems would definitely want a say in this to make sure they got as much out of it (or lost as little from it) as possible.
5) Someone has already mentioned finances. The Lib. Dems. did not have enough money to go after the target seats on their list and were out-spent by Labour and the Tories. Being able to influence the timing of the next General Election (i.e. delaying the need for it by supporting the Tories) might make all the difference between survival and disaster.
6) Following on 5), they might be able to persuade the Tories to change the system so that the cost of elections to the different parties is met from public finances (i.e. they can’t get enough individuals to support them with cash so they want to rob the taxpayer – ME – to pay for it).
I am sure there are other, more noble, reasons but I can’t think of them at the moment.
Alan B.,
I don’t think any of those will hold, because they’ll get more from Labour. (BTW, not Labour gerrymandering – boundaries are decided by the Boundary Commissions. Not that I don’t think they would if they could.)
(i.e. they can’t get enough individuals to support them with cash so they want to rob the taxpayer – ME – to pay for it)
So, you’re fine with elections being bought by the party of the rich.
Isn’t that a shift that left the English behind? Do you mean the Great Vowel Shift?
Geordie also shows generous use of the glottal stop and other crazy phonetic stuff* that I don’t understand.
*While looking up information on ‘rhotic’ accents, I discovered a term to describe one of my own speech tics: epenthetic /r/ sounds. For example, I say, “The law-r-of gravity,” “I saw-r-it”, “Australia-r-and New Zealand”. My wife teases me about this a lot. Strict practicioners of Received Pronounciation are supposed to use a kind of mild glottal stop in place of my -r-.
Good News and Bad News in the election results.
First the bad news. Dr Richard Taylor lost his seat to the Tories. A great pity. He was an honest man, much respected by all parties at Westminster. At least at 75 he is now able to retire. Parliament could use a few mature individuals with a spirit of service to the Nation.
Now the Good News! In a neighbouring constituency (Reditch) Jacqui Smith, the Labour member, has been ousted (again by a Tory but that is not the good news in itself). You need to know a bit more about our Jacqui:
(Quotes from Wiki article “Jacqui Smith” accessed May 7th, 2010. Other sources will give more or less negative views of her behaviour)
Jacqui Smith was not alone in defrauding the taxpayer – ME – in this and similar ways. She was not necessarily the worst, although few have been required to apologise to the House of Commons. It was the way she was so obviously guilty and unrepentant of fraud that stuck in the craw of many. Her voters thought so and so she’s gone from Parliament.
An honest man and a dishonest woman lost from Parliament – the bad news and the good news.
@AlanB
Thanks, that’s helpful.
And why isn’t this true of Labour? While they may not have the cash, couldn’t they still offer Lib Dems Cabinet positions in a coalition?
Again, aligning with Labour couldn’t do that for them?
Ah, and Labour would certainly not be keen on undoing their own Gerrymandering.
Again, that would be only if they too wanted to reduce HoC seats, no? It seems they could have a say in whichever coalition they created, couldn’t they? Or am I missing something?
Ok, I can understand this. It’s certainly not something that would ever happen on this side of the pond, but I get it.
And again, I’m reading into this that Labour is intractable on this issue?
Thanks again.
False dichotomy. There can be, and should be, caps on spending and donations to parties. (At the moment, spending by individual MPs in constituencies is tightly regulated and capped – quite rightly – but the national party organisations get away with raking in a lot of dodgy donations, and spending money indirectly.) I agree that there should be limits on the influence of private money in elections. In this regard, we can look at the US experience – where they have a much bigger and longer-standing problem with the excessive cost of campaigns and influence of private donors – and consider some of the solutions now being adopted.
But public funding for political parties is a truly awful idea. It is profoundly wrong, and a violation of basic civil liberties, that money should be taken from the taxpayer to promote ideas that he or she may find abhorrent. Would you want to be taxed to pay for UKIP or the BNP to make party political broadcasts?
Alan: Regrettably, Jacqui Smith is an alumna and honorary fellow of my college; this connection is considered something of an embarrassment by the student body. I certainly agree with you that she deserved to lose her seat.
IslandBrewer,
Nick Clegg has stated – rightly, I think – that he thinks the Conservatives, as the party with the largest number of seats and largest share of the vote, should have the first chance at forming a government if a coalition arrangement can be reached. If this falls through, however, he has not ruled out the possibility of coalition talks with Labour.
Good News and Bad News in the election results.
First the bad news. Dr Richard Taylor lost his seat to the Tories. A great pity. He was an honest man, much respected by all parties at Westminster. At least at 75 he is now able to retire. Parliament could use a few mature individuals with a spirit of service to the Nation.
Now the Good News! In a neighbouring constituency (Reditch) Jacqui Smith, the Labour member, has been ousted (again by a Tory but that is not the good news in itself). You need to know a bit more about our Jacqui:
(Quotes from Wiki article “Jacqui Smith” accessed May 7th, 2010. Other sources will give more or less negative views of her behaviour)
Jacqui Smith was not alone in defrauding the taxpayer – ME – in this and similar ways. She was not necessarily the worst, although few have been required to apologise to the House of Commons. It was the way she was so obviously guilty and unrepentant of fraud that stuck in the craw of many. Her voters thought so and so she’s gone from Parliament.
An honest man and a dishonest woman lost from Parliament – the bad news and the good news.
DRAT.
Sorry about the double post – the system said it had failed and when I checked I couldn’t find the first post.
Sorry again.
Just dropping in to bring the mormon/republican pain:
#719 Rev. BigDumbChimp
What free speech laws?** The Human Rights Act (thanks EU, thanks Labour) gives rights to minorities but not to Christianity. Thus, it is “Action liable to lead to a breach of the peace” if in public you say something against homosexuality/homosexuals which/who are protected by Equality legislation. Another minority – Christianity – is not able to claim protection under the same laws.
Religion does not seem to be protected unless it can make itself out to be a persecuted minority – like Islam. Moslems are free to go out and carry out near riots and shout for the death of the West, the UK, specific individuals. They are too well-linked a group and going against them could loose the Moslem vote in close elections. The fact that there are more attacks on other groups than on Moslems is immaterial.
** I am not a lawyer. Walton may have a different take on this but there are a lot of people not in the BNP who are fed up with what they perceive as unequal treatment of various minorities.
yeah sorry about that. Surfactants. Or soaps. Shit you lather all over your body, cover your clothing with and which are generally considered to be safe – despite being damaging, particularly once you get down to the cellular level. You can paint it as awful as you want (and even in the scientific literature it gets played that way, notably by Seralini et al – I’m sure you’d enjoy reading/rereading those arguements as a nice backup)
Sodium Dodecyl Sulfate is used a bunch in research as a protein denaturing agent, and as a cell lysis agent (amongst other things), I’m pretty sure if you tried to grow frogs in it you’d end up killing a bunch of em (according to the literature this is the case, although I could only get hold of abstracts so can’t see what dosage is causing issues – there is an interesting paper on detergents in japanese water which suggest 30-200ppm for detergents is bad though) – and yet every day I, and probably you, dump a bunch of it on our heads and rub it all over our bodies, with no ill effects, and care not one jot that we’re dumping all these surfactants down the drain where they can potentially accumulate and kill teh frogs. (If I remember right they normally call it Sodium lauryl sulfate on shapoo bottles and whatnot)
Just like all surfactants. Just because something can cause harm to membranes in a given set of conditions doesn’t mean these conditions exist outside of the lab – doesn’t even mean that in any other conditions anyone’d be concerned about them – I’m assuming you’re also all over “big dish soap” aswell as big ag, on the issue of utilization of surfactants.
The reason I invoked David, was that assuming I got my google search right last time he has way more knowledge of amphibians than I could ever hope to attain, and had already stated earlier in the thread that
although clearly yes, the literature does support a toxicity for POEA to some amphibians, it also supports toxicity for other detergents, including those widely used in personal care
which is utterly besides the point when specifically addressing one persons guilt about using roundup to control a few weeds, assuming of course you don’t think people should feel massively guilty about say, grilling a steak, given that they’re gonna release only a little CO2 – which I guess isn’t comforting either in light of the vast quantities of CO2 released by heavy industry.
Inquiry is ongoing. I’m way too lazy to in any way campaign, but if it roundup that’s being used then I stand by the statement that the use, in this instance, is reprehensible, and that the company are in the wrong for supplying roundup for this purpose (better make the disclaimer again here – these opinions are completely my own and in no way reflect those of Monsanto, yadda yadda)
Oops, I was thinking of Scouse, not Geordie. Geordie consonants are entirely unremarkable; it’s the vowels that are… for the most part closer to the spelling than those of Standard English, har har. (The videos have now decided to work.)
This Australian linguist once mentioned how it took her 2 years of PhD studies in the USA to even notice that she had epenthetic r throughout, even in words like drawing. And this after she had already learned one or two Aboriginal Australian languages, with utterly un-European sound systems, to some fluency. Too bad the search engine prevents me from finding the post. (…Or it wasn’t at her own blog, but a comment elsewhere. It was several years ago.)
The idea is to fund democracy – to artificially keep competition alive for everyone’s long-term benefit.
Over here, every party gets a fixed amount per voter after each election.
Hey Lynna,
I just got your email about the awards fiasco. Most importantly, of course, I am very happy for you and Leland…but I am simultaneously stunned by the incompetence (and latent misogyny) of the officials.
Anyway…CONGRATULATIONS ON YOUR AWARD!
*fireworks* *fireworks* *fireworks* *fireworks*
*bacon* *bacon* *bacon* *bacon* *bacon* *bacon*
Arrrgh!!! The Human Rights Act is nothing whatsoever to do with the EU. Nor is it the same thing as “equality legislation” (which itself comes in several varieties). And it is entirely wrong to say that it “gives rights to minorities but not to Christianity”.
As regards the EU, the confusion comes from this: the Human Rights Act 1998 implements the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms into British domestic law. But while the ECHR has “European” in the title, it is not an EU instrument. It’s a completely separate treaty that is administered by a separate international organisation, the Council of Europe. The European Court of Human Rights, which ensures observance with the ECHR, is a separate institution from the EU’s European Court of Justice (ECJ) and has a completely different jurisdiction and purpose. I wish people would understand this.
The Human Rights Act is also a very, very good thing. Almost all of its opponents (predominantly readers of the right-wing tabloid press) have no idea what the Act actually does, and have swallowed various myths and falsehoods.
The ECHR protects a number of basic civil and political rights. These include the right to liberty and security of person (Article 5), the right to a fair trial before an impartial court (Article 6), the right to private and family life (Article 8), and the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion (Article 9). It also sets out the circumstances in which government can limit these rights in the broader public interest. The courts review any such limitation according to a test of “proportionality”, ensuring that the restriction on fundamental rights is necessary and proportionate to the legitimate objective pursued in the public interest.
Britain has been a party to the ECHR for several decades. However, until the HRA came into force in 2000, the ECHR was not directly a part of British domestic law, so individuals could not rely on its provisions directly before the national courts. (I’m oversimplifying here, since the ECHR did play a role in the courts’ development of the common law pre-1998, but I don’t want to get too technical here.) Rather, if a public authority violated your rights under the Convention and you were unable to gain redress under British law, your only option was (after exhausting all your appeals before the British courts) to bring an action before the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. This was difficult and expensive, and, while the Strasbourg Court could declare the UK to be in breach of the ECHR, it did not have any power to strike down a UK law or administrative act that was incompatible with the ECHR.
The HRA 1998 has made the ECHR a part of British domestic law. The British courts are now required to interpret UK law, so far as possible, so as to comply with the ECHR. If they consider that an Act of Parliament is incompatible with the rights protected by the ECHR and cannot be interpreted in conformity with the ECHR, they cannot strike it down (as courts can in the US), but they can issue a formal “declaration of incompatibility” which will usually lead to the law in question being reviewed by Parliament. The HRA also makes it illegal for a public authority to act in a way which is incompatible with the ECHR; so any administrative act which violates the fundamental rights protected by the ECHR can be struck down by the courts.
This has had important practical implications for civil liberties. For a start, until the landmark House of Lords decision in X v Secretary of State for the Home Department, the British government was detaining a number of foreign “terror suspects” indefinitely without trial at Belmarsh Prison: it was the HRA that gave the courts a basis on which to stop this practice. I could cite dozens of other examples, but I won’t do so right now, as I am slightly exhausted and don’t want to law-spam the entire thread. But I hope this clears up a few of the misconceptions.
Which perpetuates the dominance of the existing major parties, of course. This is somewhat unsurprising, as it is the existing major parties who write the legislation governing campaign finance.
That’s very paternalistic. I, as a citizen, have a fundamental right to decide for myself whether or not donating money to any given party is to my “long-term benefit”. The state is not entitled to make that decision for me.
Just as it is up to me to decide whether to vote for party X, it is up to me to decide whether to donate money to party X. And just as it would be wrong for state officials to decide for me how I should vote, so too it would be wrong for state officials to decide for me whether I should give money to a party.
The various references here to “gerrymandering” give the misleading impression that the Labour Party fiddles with constituency boundaries, for their own advantage.
The constituency boundaries, and the regular necessary changes thereof, are decided by (non-party) public bodies, called Boundary Commissions
Surprised our pet lawyer hasn’t leapt in to correct people about this.
“But, of course, Cameron and the Tories would never betray their principles for power, would they?“
Be patient… I’m getting there. I’m trying to carry on too many discussions at once (and revise land law, all after having had less than four hours’ sleep last night). :-(
That typo could almost invert the meaning of your sentence, if you squint hard enough :)
*waits for Skitt’s Law to apply*
Please mark your sarcasm as such. Otherwise, it will be misunderstood.
First, we’re amniotes. Our skin is special: it has a thick layer of dead cells on the outside, and those cells consist mostly of the protein keratin. This layer is dry or practically so.
Amphibians have a very thin such layer*, and it’s usually not dry. Instead, it’s covered in poisonous slime (so that the animals don’t go mouldy alive). I bet that surfactants can wash that slime off. Google for the fungus Batrachochytridium dendrobatidis, and despair.
Incidentally, many people in the First World do overdo it, reducing the amount of acid and other protections against pathogens on their skin. And even apart from that, I really don’t think you need to wash your hair every day!
I don’t expect glyphosate to be toxic for animals. I didn’t know Roundup wasn’t just glyphosate (though it’s not actually surprising that it isn’t).
* Completely absent in at least some permanently aquatic ones, so that the entire skin is alive. This is also the normal state of affairs for vertebrates.
#765
And you know about libel laws in the UK – see chiropractors vs Singh (or whoever it was) covered recently in Pharyngula!
I get the impression that eventually (that is, after months of delay and substantial legal costs) such cases get dropped (as not being in the public interest* or such rot) and the Government turns round and says, on reflection, they have been misunderstood …
*The Criminal Prosecution Service decides whether a case goes to trial based on evidence supplied by the Police. Their criteria are:
At least a 50:50 chance of a prosecution on their view of the Lawa and the evidence
AND
It is “in the public interest”.
So, not to prosecute because of not being in the public interest seems to say we think you are guilty, if not guilty as hell but it will cause too much fuss if we press on with this stupid case …
Hence, you don’t get your day in Court to demonstrate that you are Not Guilty.
Again, IANAL.
I see. So it wasn’t a coïncidence that she couldn’t be arsed to answer TheyWorkForYou’s question.
Know who didn’t answer questions either?
HitlerThe Animal Protection Party candidate!Doesn’t the present system essentially do the same thing though? The existing major parties automatically have more supporters and generate more revenue. However given that there isn’t a finite pot to pull from, as there would be in a system whereby % of votes = % of cash dished out, isn’t there an inherent unfairness in a donor system whereby the party that caters to the rich (which throughout my time in the UK was the Conservatives – I assume they havent changed that much) gets disproportionately more money than the party that caters to the middle class (New Labour, as far as I experienced) who equally get more than whoever caters to the working class (Old labour – not sure who does that now – looking at the bbc map it appears the working class still votes labour or lib dem (or one of the nation specific parties))
Capping donations and capping spending do seem like the best solutions to me – perhaps it could be assessed what a reasonable spend is and have it capped here, although that still would appear to impinge on your liberty to support whoever you want – if they are popular enough you can no longer give support, it may however be a situation where personal rights to give to whoever they want, however much they want, has to go out of the window for the greater good.
I’ve rented an audiobook of Going Postal from the Discworld series. Pretty good so far. Even better once I realized that the reason it seemed to be going so fast and that I got confused was because my iPod inexplicably skipped a few chapters a couple times.
Additionally, the aquatic larvae of most amphibians breathe water with gills–gill cells have to be naked and very thin to permit significant gas exchange, and those membranes are directly vulnerable to surfactants.
Alan,
Libel in modern English law is a tort, not a criminal offence. It gives rise to a private civil action, not a criminal prosecution. So it has nothing whatsoever to do with the CPS; rather, it is up to the alleged victim of the libel whether to bring a civil action. It is very important to understand the difference between criminal proceedings and civil proceedings. Simon Singh was not prosecuted, nor was there any suggestion that he committed a crime; rather, he was sued in a private civil action, for the tort of libel, by the alleged victim (the British Chiropractic Association).
(I can see why the confusion arises in this case, though: there used to be an offence of “criminal libel” in English common law, as well as the separate offences of “blasphemous libel” and “seditious libel”, all of which were crimes rather than torts. But these should not be confused with the modern tort of libel.)
(I should also add, as an addendum, that it is the Crown Prosecution Service, not the “Criminal Prosecution Service”. But that’s a minor point.)
Flora Day tommorrow
Scones with jam and clotted cream if you’re in town!
50° 5’58.42″N 5°16’18.89″W
Shit – borked link!
Whingeing Pom :)
Walton, I know someone who is also doing their Law degree. (Converting their Politics & History BSC).
They have a permanent (and rather poorly paid paralegal job, and have to do a lot of travelling as part of the job). Person X has to pay for the law course, and all the books, and the travel from Glascow to Manchester, London, or Leeds for their course every second weekend, and has been doing so for the last 4 years.
Person X also manages to run a full social life, including charity fundraising (was abseiling down Battersea Power Station last weekend for the Mines Advisory Group – another Glascow to London return trip), attending football matches, going to music gigs a couple of times a week, and gawd knows what else.
This is their itineray for the first 10 days of May – London, Glasgow, Manchester, Glasgow, Manchester, Leeds, Glasgow, London, Hamburg, Glasgow. All paid out of their salary.
Now they’re unsucessfully trying to find a placement (“too old at 30”, “gradutes now have 5 A Levels” etc etc). Bet you won’t have that problem. In fact, I seem to remember someone here suggesting you contact them after graduation. Anyone want to give my really hardworking and motivated contact a job?
Stop moaning, you lucky little spoonfed blighter!
Just as it is up to me to decide whether to vote for party X, it is up to me to decide whether to donate money to party X. And just as it would be wrong for state officials to decide for me how I should vote, so too it would be wrong for state officials to decide for me whether I should give money to a party. -Walton
That’s the old Walton! I’ve almost missed him. Just as the law allows both rich and poor to stay at the Ritz and forbids both to sleep in shop doorways, so it should allow both rich and poor to use as much of their money as they want to influence the political process. What could be fairer than that?
Please stop quote-mining me. I clearly said that donations to parties should be capped, and should be more strictly regulated than they currently are. I repeat what I actually said in response to you at #759:
To the contrary! It exacerbates both ascents and descents. That’s what happened to the xenophobe party: after having been on the rise for 13 years, it went bankrupt or nearly so upon its crash.
This could make sense if every citizen had the same amount of disposable income.
Parties also get revenue from membership dues (it’s not like in the USA where you’re a member of a party by simply claiming to be one), and private or corporate donations aren’t forbidden, they just seem to be tightly capped (I know next to nothing about this, because the topic never comes up).
Go to bed. Right now. I’m serious as always.
I didn’t mention that at all. I did refer to Relyea.
People care when we’re able to get accurate information on the real environmental risks/effects of any of these products. Part of the problem is that people tend to put too much trust in the government (you know, the one spraying Colombia and hoping to spray Afghanistan) to protect the environment, and that trust is misplaced.
In any case, shampoos are not being sprayed directly like Roundup fucking is. And even if they were, and even if the effects are equally bad, your only argument here would be a kind of “them, too!” This doesn’t make Roundup any safer. [By the way, if Walton or anyone else can get more information on the 1997 suit by the NY attorney General against Monsanto and the settlement in which they paid and agreed to stop advertising Roundup as “biodegradable” or “safe” or “environmentally sound” (I may be slightly off on the exact wording), I would appreciate it.] And you obviously fail to see how bad it makes you look to acknowledge now how obvious this all is.
Tu quoque, detergents.
Relyea. 1995. Several.
Tu quoque, detergents.
That was before he was aware of the surfactant issue.
Glad you’re acknowledging that at least.
Tu quoque, detergents.
You can’t know how much people actually use to get rid of weeds or how close they are to shallow water. (And see Relyea on lower concentrations.) And they generally don’t know the real dangers. Furthermore, you were the one presenting it as a dichotomy between spraying for a few weeds and Plan Colombia, implying that anything short of the latter is just fine. But I love how your alleged ecological consciousness flies out the window here – risk be damned.
There is evidence that spraying Roundup likely has a direct effect on local amphibian populations (at the least). These are not comparable.
So let me see if I have this straight: You spend months and months defending Monsanto across the blogosphere (including on the company’s own blog), dismissing PCBs and Agent Orange as mistakes well in the past, but when the corporation you work for is part of a practice you call reprehensible – destroying ecosystems and livelihoods – you’re too lazy to speak out. Nice. I’m sure the people in Colombia will be happy to know that there are employees like you willing to tentatively stand by a statement. [And it’s pretty clear that it has been Roundup. Even if it turned out that it isn’t all Roundup, the company would still be responsible for a) not making it clear that this wasn’t a safe use of herbicides, and allowing the government to claim that it is; and b) giving the false impression that these formulations generally are nontoxic, which the US government has used to fight the thousands of complaints from Colombians and environmental groups.]
Libel laws in the UK have always baffled me – just jaw-droppingly shocked me as bizarre in a Western nation. American libel laws are nearly toothless (which I quite frankly think is a good thing). Libel cases are so strongly defendant-sided here that it’s rather remarkable when a plaintiff wins one.
I was going to… but Ring Tailed Lemurian @#785 evidently thinks I’m lazy and not working hard enough. So I suppose I’d better stay up in the hope of actually making myself do some work, otherwise he will continue accusing me of “whinging”.
(I’ve more-or-less adjusted to averaging five or six hours’ sleep a night – albeit only by massive caffeine consumption; I can no longer get through the day without at least three cups of coffee and one or two litres of diet cola – but staying up for the election last night was not good for me.)
#775 David Marjanović
May 8, 2008 “Churchgoing on its knees as Christianity falls out of favour”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article3890080.ece
And this is based on the [sarc] arduous [/sarc] criterion of church attendance at least once a month. Anyone not attending church more than once a month is not taking Christianity seriously!
For information:
The population of the UK mid-2008 was approximately 61,383,000.
http://www.statistics.gov.uk/pdfdir/pop0809.pdf
KOPD: Going Postal is a great one to start on. I hope you went back and listened to the skipped chapters, it’s all important.
next: maybe The Truth or Hogfather?
re: the SCA – the Society for Creative Anachronism is a great time/money sink… armor is *expensive* and I swear we’re supporting a duct tape factory all on our own. I enjoy the arts and sciences (don’t myself fight, but my son does). But Pennsic… ah, that has to be experienced. It simply cannot be described. for 2 weeks, it becomes the largest town in the county, and a local business can make enough money to survive the year on. 10,000 – 15,000 (no, I didn’t slip a decimal) people, all in medieval garb (for a very loose value of Medieval sometimes… there’s one woman in very good Xena armor that shows up sometimes, and far more dancing girls than Persia ever saw).
After a few years in a modern tent, I bit the bullet and bought a second-hand canvas pavilion – it’s much more comfortable than a modern tent!
Can go kwok himself sideways with a Leica rangefinder. When you’re tired, you can’t work hard enough.
Are there so few deconversions? Will there still be so few deconversions in 2035?
OK, but you wrote it is already one…
Walton,
Sorry – I missed your #759. You’re right, there’s a clear distinction between restricting private funding and giving state funding. I think there are arguments for the latter, and I admit to being pissed off with Alan B’s whining.
The Human Rights Act (thanks EU, thanks Labour) gives rights to minorities but not to Christianity. Thus, it is “Action liable to lead to a breach of the peace” if in public you say something against homosexuality/homosexuals which/who are protected by Equality legislation. Another minority – Christianity – is not able to claim protection under the same laws.
Religion does not seem to be protected unless it can make itself out to be a persecuted minority – like Islam. Moslems are free to go out and carry out near riots and shout for the death of the West, the UK, specific individuals. – Alan B.
This is a pack of bigoted garbage and lies. The HRA, of course, has nothing to do with laws against conduct liable to cause a breach of the peace; public attacks on homosexuality and gays are routine; all religions enjoy exactly the same degree of protection; and Islamists have indeed been prosecuted and punished for – for example – displaying placards calling for the beheading of “those who insult Islam”.
Er,
Relyea.
19952005. Several.Alan appears to hold some fundamental misconceptions (albeit misconceptions that are fairly commonly-held in the general population) about how British law works, and about what the Human Rights Act actually does. I attempted to correct some of these errors (possibly not clearly enough) at #769.
I really wish the state of civic education in Britain were a bit better. A disturbing proportion of the population, including many educated professional people, seem to have no clue about the difference between the ECHR and the EU, or about what the purpose of the Human Rights Act is. Alan also seems to be conflating the Human Rights Act with a number of completely separate things, including the various statutes on equal opportunities and non-discrimination (such as the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 or the Race Relations Act), as well as the entirely unrelated issue of “hate speech” laws.*
(*In turn, to correct Alan on another point, “incitement to racial or religious hatred” is not the same as “behaviour liable to cause a breach of the peace”; the latter is a common-law offence created by the courts, and has existed for centuries, while the former is a statutory offence created by 2006 legislation.)
I would also add that none of this is obscure or technical legal knowledge. Most of the above information is easily available on Wikipedia. Which is why it worries me that so few of the voting public understand these basic distinctions.
Am I the only one here whose mind consistently reads that as ‘R’lyeh’?
Becca, I can only dream *sigh* of going to Pennsic. Long drive, insufficient funds, insufficient knees….but I hear it’s concentrated awesome.
And I’m sure about the duct tape. :)
I realise you’re misrepresenting what I said for the purpose of making a joke, but I never said you were lazy, just that you moan far too much.
When I think how hard my friend has to work to get a law degree, and how they never moan about it, and then read you continually using your studies as an excuse/explanation for having no time….well, it annoys the hell out of me and I couldn’t bite my tongue any longer.
You don’t know how lucky you are, and the next time you whinge I’ll be on here telling you to shut the fuck up.
Love and Peace :)
PS – And stop with the Diet Pepsi too! A twenty year old I know who drank litres of diet cola daily developed a really nasty brain tumour. Bad stuff, that Aspartamine.
Alan: I should add that my #797 (which I now realise may have sounded excessively critical) is not meant as a personal attack on you, and I apologise if it comes across that way. Rather, I think this is symptomatic of a systemic problem with the way human rights and legal issues are commonly reported in the media.
Alan B,
First, that study focuses on how active people are, not how they self-identify. Second, it’s confusing* but sociologically “minority” status generally indicates not numbers but being set aside in some way and in a disadvantaged position relative to dominant groups*. (Therefore the black population of apartheid South Africa could be called a minority even though they were numerically a large majority.) Surely you don’t think Christians there are disadvantaged or persecuted.
*It seems textbooks are moving away from the terminology.
**(as you yourself imply when you refer to a “persecuted minority”)
To be fair, lots of incredibly technical knowledge is easily available on Wikipedia. Any page on relativity or quantum physics will bury you in math you’ve never heard of.
Mr. Fire @768
Thanks ever so much … especially for the extra helpings of bacon. I sent them a polite request to amend their press release so that I do receive credit for “Backcountry Roads-Idaho” — so far, no response.
So, yeah, I was nominated for and won the Idaho Media Award for 2010. Yay for me.
Prior to the ceremony, the presenter of the awards called around to everyone but me to say that he thought the award was a mistake because Leland and I work together as a team. Then, through a series of errors and misunderstandings, the presenter and associated writers of press releases etc. contrived to give my brother credit for my website, and to remove from my award the mention of the book for which I had been nominated in the first place. Leland’s award bears the name of my website. The press release gives Leland credit for the book, which he deserves, of course.
I would like for them to amend the official press release. As my brother, Robert, said, “I personally would not hesitate to connect an artist’s rep/publicity with the income factor.”
Winners were selected by a panel of judges from the Governor’s office, National Arts Commission, Idaho Historical Society and Preservation Idaho, Idaho Recreation and Tourism Initiative, and Idaho RV Campgrounds Association. So, yours truly was selected by the folks listed above, based on two nominations, one from Mr. Fire, and one from Caxton Printers. Both nominations focused on the book “Backcountry Roads-Idaho”, and Caxton’s nomination also mentioned artmeetsadventure.com. You would think that it would be difficult to screw that up, but they did.
<facepalm>
And with this, I’m off to bed (and repeat my suggestion to Walton to do likewise) so I can work tomorrow morning. See you all on the next subthread.
#794 David Marjanović
From the figures I gave, NOW the number of Christians is only 4 million based on a weak criterion. With a current population of probably 62 million that makes it about 6.5%.
Are you suggesting this is not already a minority?
I know I am speculating but let’s take the number who actually care about their Christianity as being half that (I think that its probably even less). That makes over 95% who do not take their Christianity seriously, no matter what they put on forms or when asked in the street:
“Religion?” [hesitation] “Oh … C of E”
Rubbish!
Congratulations with the award Lynna. You seem to be taking presenters troubles with good humor. Get the award, then poke them with a stick. If you need help, come to the next Kninja Knitters training session.
Congrats, Lynna!
One of us! Gooble gobble. One of us.
I seriously hope the Lambda Legal & al come through for this kid. But if not the atheist community should back him up. Can we give him the next AAI Dick Dawk Prize?
Nerd @806: Good advice! I will sharpen my knitting needles.
I’ll probably just have to take matters into my own hands and prepare a press release that is correct, then send it out with photos and whatnot.
Thanks for the congrats. In addition to the award, I got a free meal and an opportunity for networking with Backpacker magazine, and with the Mayor of Sun Valley.
Oh, yeah, some good jokes were told during the ceremony: including Governor Brad Little identifying himself as someone the Capitol Restoration Commission would not allow near the plans because, “I’m a politician who thinks dogs playing poker on velvet is good art.” All the funnier because it’s true. (Governor Butch Otter was briefly hospitalized in late April, and the former Lieutenant Governor Brad Little was referred to as “Governor” at the awards ceremony — I have not yet figured out this apparent change in the political landscape.)
The presenter, Ron Gardner, who started the cascade of errors associated with my award, seems to otherwise be a very nice guy. Between awards he entertained us with pseudo Twitter feeds, including one that announced that Cinco de Mayo celebrations were sparsely attended in Arizona. To which he added that Arizona ought to be ashamed of itself — a brave statement in front of an Idaho audience.
Count. That’s what I get for being pretentious.
Congrats, Lynna. Count the bastards.
From Sili’s link:
Every quote from this boy I have read affirms the above.
Thanks, Brownian and Sili.
On the topic of the bright, gay rent boy. It really pleases me to think of him holding his own against the doofus gay-basher.
Congrats Lynna! Sucks they dropped the ball, rather significantly, but still congrats!
Lynna, sorry to hear about that stupid cock-up!
On the rent boy: I feel bad for the poor kid. As joemygod’s blog noted, he’s rather innocent about a lot of the world, and it seems like he’s in over his head. I hope he gets some help to weather this.
*stumbling in*
Hi all – grading finals and supervising four 12 year-olds for a sleepover. So far ok, but I had to give a little lecture on how we don’t say “that’s gay” in our house. Sorry I missed most of the heavy threadage the last couple of days. Hope everyone’s having a good weekend so far!
#800 Walton
Hi Walton. Don’t worry about apologising. I freely admit I am not a lawyer, nor am I anything other than a generalist when it comes to civics. It was NOT a class taught anywhere when I was at Grammar School (except possibly at top Public Schools or as an extra O or A level GCE for those who were taking an extra year in the 6th form, prior to trying for Oxford or Cambridge Unis).
I am happy to learn from yourself.
One of the disadvantages of old tyme educashun in England was that one quickly specialised in a relatively small number of subjects but did these at considerable depth. That suited me beause I only ever seriously wanted to become an Industrial Chemist (unlike my parents who were Pharmacists).
Carry on putting me straight and showing me how I can express my views more accurately.
#795 Knockgoats
Hi Knockgoats. Sorry but:
is not so helpful if you want to teach me something. If you really feel that way and aren’t prepared to be positive then you don’t have to read my contributions which I am aware are overly long but will become even longer if I cross all the i’s and dot all the t’s.
I do object strongly when politicians misuse money stolen from me by those same politicians with threats of prison if I do not conform. And what did they spend it on?
Custom-built floating duck house
Cleaning out moats at the ancestoral hall
Buying horse manure for their garden
Claiming £116,000 by saying your main home is a room in your sister’s house instead of the home you share with your husband, where your children go to school, where you spend the majority of your time …
Buying homes (plural) using tax money to fund the interest and forgetting that you had actually already paid off the mortgage.
Switching the title “main home” back and forth between several properties to maximise the cost to the taxpayer and the income to the MP
Having a husband and wife pair of MPs who are already millionaires double claiming for the same costs
and it goes on and on
I don’t care if it was “technically” within the rules. They were entitled to claim for necessary expenses arising specifically from their work as MPs – anything more was obtained fraudulently
They got tens of thousands of pounds of tax payer’s money, subsidised meals, alcohol at reduced prices when they were putting up the price to everyone else, they are the only public or office space where smoking is allowed (having banned smoking to everyone else).
I could go on and on …
You are free to complain about my whining. By all means tell me, “It was ever thus …” but don’t expect me to like the pigs at the trough attitude of what appears to be a considerable majority of MPs. Not all. But honest MPs in the last Parliamnent were a small proportion. I might even say a minority.
It’s after midnight over here. I don’t intend to undergo caffeine poisoning, nor will I overdose of Coke (even of the Cola** variety).
So, Good Night, good people (and to the naughty ones as well). See you on the new thread …
** I once read that the taste of Coca Cola was like sucking the leg of a well-massaged athlete. I can’t verify that hypothesis because I am not prepared to carry out the experiment.
Ethics classes trump scripture classes in Australia.
Sydney Morning Herald report
http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/scripture-classes-lose-half-of-students-to-ethics-say-anglicans-20100507-ujou.html
Thanks, Rev BDC. I think that the mormon-inflected, conservative atmosphere in Idaho affects even those who intend to treat females as equals. Some well-intentioned people act in a misogynistic way quite unconsciously. The general contagion infects them.
I do weary of fighting this invisible, not-acknowledged-by-the-frontal-lobes battle. I may have to bake my famous Sour Cream Chocolate Cake to comfort myself.
Thanks for the empathy, Josh, Official SpokesGay. One just has to shake one’s head and go on. BTW, I saw a young man in skin-tight, animal-print pants strutting the downtown streets of Idaho Falls the other day. Loved the color. The man had a pair.
@818 – cool! I wish they had ethics classes like that in American high schools. Not that we have religious education, just that the class sounds valuable.
(Wide eyes, blink, blink). . .of what?
I can haz? Did you post that recipe ever? I can’t find it in my recipes folder (the one I’m very tardy in organizing for Pharyngulites).
You better get caught up to date, or Patricia will be taking drastic measures if she ever comes up for air. Put all the egg/omelet recipes first as a precaution…
Well… of pants, obviously :P
Josh, the recipe is in the “Is This the Fate …” thread, Linky for you.
Add a note to the recipe that one can substitute whole wheat baking flour for up to half of the white flour. It’s a rich cake, so a small piece is satisfying.
As to your “…of what?” question. Why, a pair of very nice man legs, of course. What did you think I meant?
Oh, I was too slow on the draw. I see Ol’Greg beat me to it.
Kevin #694
Many credit cards have benefits for use, i.e., frequent flier miles, cash returns, discounts for certain items, etc. Folks who use company credit cards often complained that many of these benefits were not being used or could not be used by the company and were going to waste. So a lot of companies decided to let the people who use the cards get the benefits. The easiest way to ensure the benefits were going to the right person was to have the bill submitted to that person. It would be paid by the person who in turn put in an expense claim to the company.
There is a reasonable reason for your company to pay their credit card bills in a round-about way. Check your next bill and see if there’s any mention of benefits accruing to you.
Two UK election related stories, for those who haven’t had their fill yet.
Putin prefers the Tories…..
I’m only sorry I got caught, says 14-year-old voter….
@Lynna – thank you, and note added!
@Nerd – Thanks for the warning. I don’t wanna get Miss Patricia upset, mmm-mm!
Alan B #816
This is such a beautiful straight line. I could wax sarcastic with this straight line for paragraphs and paragraphs. The jocularity, grins and giggles I could generate with this straight line would be impressive.
But Alan B is such a nice person. His chosen profession should not be the cause of acerbic, brusque or scurrilous twitting. So I shall refrain.
Well, the snow is gone but I’m now embroiled in the question and answer phase of my unsought admin nomination. Eeesh.
Lynna, congrats on the award, sorry about the screw-up, and how the hell are ya doin’?
fuck; I’m moving to Greenland and founding a nerd-commune.
Lynna – congratulations! And the screw-up is so outrageous that I would have a really hard time not strangling someone, so I admire both the work and the self-control. I’ll have to check out the website if (when) we plan an Idaho segment of the great homeschool highschool roadtrip (HHRT).
Jadehawk – that is without a doubt the most depressing graphic I have ever seen.
If anyone here is on Ravelry, consider rejoining the Pharyngula group there and we can work on some outrageously atheistic group project or something. Something that justifies the button I bought at Maryland Sheep and Wool – Caution: Bad Attitude – Sharp Needles.
I think I congratulated you before, Lynna, but congratulations again.
Jadehawk, FWIW, I would put my money on a climate sensitivity of between 2.8 and 3.5 degrees per doubling. There are about a dozen separate lines of evidence used to estimate climate sensitivity–and all of them show this range as the most likely. The long tail is simply saying that a higher sensitivity cannot be ruled out entirely.
So the situation is bad, but this is probably not the threat that will do us in wrt climate change. That would be massive crop failure–and Greenland won’t help you there, as glaciers have scraped most of the topsoil away.
I know. I’m just a little fucking ray of sunshine, ain’t I?
cicely @831
Thanks for the congrats. :-) I’m doing fine — thanks for asking. No brain bleeps that I’m aware of. Just finished playing two simultaneous games of Word for Friends with my daughter (on the iPhone app), and won both games. Not bad, considering that my Baby Girl still holds the second highest score ever achieved on the SATs in Iowa. I’m the only person that beats her. I think she plays word games with me to keep track of the health of her mama’s brain.
Been busy trying to make money, and so I’ve had to neglect Pharyngula, which is like trying to break a drug habit. The highest quality of little fucking rays of sunshine are here
Thanks, ‘Tis, for the congrats. And thanks to MATTIR also. The Pharyngula hordes do a better job of celebrating that the people who are being paid to do so. Ah well.
Jadehawk, thanks for the link @#832.
re the commune: I’m pretty handy, I’ll teach, and I can play some music.
Greenland? Sweet. We’ll have ice climbing for at least a few more years…
nsfj:
Jadehawk @832. Alaska doesn’t look bad. We could move there. We’d swiftly outnumber the Palinites. I have a brother that still lives in Alaska. We could start by invading his house. He’s in Boulder, CO right now, building another house and working his fingers to the bone. Good time to sneak into his Alaskan domain.
There’s good soil in Alaska’s Matanuska Valley.
Alaska.
hmmmm…
Alaska sounds good. My grandfather grew up there. You can swing by my place in Washington on your way north.
Then it’s settled!
The rush is on!
@Sven
That link was most unfortunate – it led me to this song about the Gulf of Mexico.
Hey, I can do the linky thing – cool!
Sven, nice Eyes. I love the blissed-out guy in the bib-alls at the front of the stage. IIRC, they show him before the show eating something out of his hand. When asked what it is, he replies; “Chicklets!”
Speaking of Chicklets, did you have fun in NM? Also, have you mailed that HD yet?
Hey Elroy,
That’s also the same guy, I think, who mouths the ecstatic “chicken shack” during the US Blues at the beginning of the movie.
One of the best times of all time in NM, no kidding.
And no, I have not made it to the Post Office yet. I will though; thanks.
I’m a big fucking ray of sunshine.
At least big around the middle.
Funny, a friend gave me a t-shirt that says that.
Superimposed over a happy little sun.
Glad to hear it. I believe you’re right about the “chicken shack” guy. Hah. I’m gonna have to dig that movie out and watch it again. It’s been at least 10-12 years.
“Have your tickets out and ready.”
“I just came from a phone call.”
Priceless. 8-)
*cough* Matanuska *cough* Thunderfuck *cough*
Kevin in 325: Duck-bill + egg-laying + poison barbs + beaver tail + electrolocation + otter feet = WTF was nature smoking.
And no stomach. Don’t forget No stomach.
Mattir #610: Sometimes accomodating the public is quite annoying, even when it does not involve avoiding the evolution word.
Word. Cripes, it’s not as if they were hornets or even honeybees. Maybe it’s different where you are, but IME carpenter bees are peaceable and not sting-inclined. Hell, in some species the males don’t even have stingers.
I confess that one of my life goals is to smell a male (California) Valley carpenter bee. They look like flying teddybears (there’s that epithet again) and are reputed to smell sweet to humans too.
I still want to eat breadfruit too. Didn’t manage it last month.
And damnit damnit damnit I forgot to pick up a pack of smoked um pecan? bacon brittle after we had lunch at Memphis Minnie’s today. Has anyone else here heard a rumor that longterm use of Effexor Makes You Stupid?
Lynna, I echo congrats on the award and arrrrghs on the Twisty-worthy lapsus mentae. Or whatever the lapsus was of.
Speaking of Bacon: South of Santa Cruz, take the Freedom (!) exit off 1 and go east to Corralitos. Also sausage.
Alaska?? Nuts. Hawai’i or bust!
Bah. I guess I shoulda paid more attention to Lynna before rushing into an argument with a Mormon. My bad.
Now I guess I have to read up on the matter, since my accusations have been proven wrong.
Bugger.
I know the USA isn’t doing so hot right now, but we really dodged a bullet to the head when we elected Obama. Watch Palin call for a theocracy on Bill O’Reilly’s show.
Buh? A hvabehva?
Does not compute.
Who is that and what has he done with Glenn Beck?
Carl Zimmer has a nice post up about the Neandertal genome news
Well, I guess if you’re not into uncut dicks and found yourself in this place, this would have come as a relief :
First Turkish naturist club forced to close
The moral life of babies
Nice article supporting the arguments for the existence of an innate moral faculty hardwired into the human brain.
That is awesome! Wish there was video of that anecdote though.
Bruce Bartlett (*) wrote a very interesting article:
The most pernicious fiscal doctrine in history: the All-Time Republican/Conservative Fiscal Fallacy: Tax Cuts Starve the Beast
When will the American and British Right Wing politicians and their followers finally abandon their irrational Starve The Beast mindset and realise we won’t solve our economic problems by cutting taxes?
I think probably this is the single most destructive idea of our time.
(*) former executive director of the Joint Economic Committee of Congress, Deputy Assistant Secretary for economic policy at the U.S. Treasury Department during the George H.W. Bush Administration, and as a senior policy analyst in the White House for Ronald Reagan
Cool. Great link Rorschach, thanks!
This segment jumped out at me:
I’ve always tried to distill right/wrong and good/evil down to mean/nice, because even a 3 year old can distinguish between mean/nice. Turns out, an 8 month old can do it.
Fucking babies, how do they work?
I think the take home message here is, they ain’t working that way because of religion…:-)
Errr… no. I can think of plenty of more destructive ideas of our time, viz:
(1) “Teh eeeebil atheists and gays and feminists are destroying the traditional family!!!11! Won’t somebody think of the children!!!1111!!!!”
(2) “We have to fight terrorism at any cost! If that includes arbitrarily locking people up without trial and torturing them to extract confessions, or bombing the shit out of random countries, so be it. Anyone who disagrees is a traitor and should be punished!!!111!!”
(3) “Alternative medicine is as valid as Western medicine, and you should trust the
quacksalternative physicians to know more than Big Pharma and these so-called ‘scientists’.”(4) “Leftists and libertarians are on opposite sides of the political divide and should attack each other, rather than allying themselves against their common enemies such as religious conservatism and right-wing authoritarianism.”
Ah Walton, explain this to me !
So the Lib Dems have 23%, Labor have 29% of the votes, yet LD have 60something seats while Labor have 250something? What’s going on with that?
And also, I can’t see the Tories ever going for any electoral reform, so how come those 2 are the first to have discussions?
Blimey, until this started I didn’t even know some UK councils said prayers before meetings.
The National Secular Society has intervened in a long-running controversy over the saying of prayers at Bideford and is to seek a judicial review, arguing the practice breaches the European convention on human rights. It hopes that if it wins its case, hundreds of other councils will be forced to stop prayers……
Cue various religious figures saying stupid things –
The former archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Carey –
Bishop Bob Evens, the bishop of Crediton, north Devon –
Christian councillor Tony Inch –
Twas browsing iTunes (usually do to find science lectures or podcasts) and came across a series called Darwin or Design? The question is whether I can put up with listening to Steve Fuller any more than I’ve had to already?
Ahh, but do we know if this study was carried out on good Christian babies exclusively? Was there a double-blind of heathen Muslim and Jew babies? Surely a sampling of atheist baby-eating babies would skew teh error bars all to hell.
Mr. Myers! Shut – down – this – subthread!!!
<cackling with glee>
From there:
See, that’s what I don’t get. Over here, you have to show your passport or driving licence.
LOL!!! He’s probably right.
While that does sound appealing, I have to ask “what Greenland?” – most of it is already below sea level, and if the climate really is that extremely sensitive to CO2 (which would surprise me), the ice caps would melt quickly indeed, so the sea would rise much, much faster than the land.
It already happens in India that people die just so from the heat, but that involves temperatures of 50 °C. I’ve spent 7 h in a very slow train at 37 °C, without any air conditioning and with non-negligible moisture in the air, and while it wasn’t comfortable, danger to health is something else. (I did have enough to drink, though none of that was cold.)
Me, I’m waiting for Peak Oil to cut our CO2 emissions.
Oh yeah. That’s seriously odd.
You know, windy is already there, and she’s smarter and better informed than most of us.
Or both.
In the British electoral system, the country is divided into 650 constituencies, each with a roughly equal population. Each constituency elects one Member of Parliament by “first past the post”, so the candidate who gets the greatest number of votes in that constituency is elected. (This is exactly the same as the system used for the Australian House of Representatives and the lower house of most Australian state parliaments, so I would imagine you’re broadly familiar with it.)
This system tends to advantage Labour and the Conservatives, because their support is traditionally concentrated in particular geographical areas. Most of the industrial north-east has been solidly Labour for generations. Similarly, much of rural southern England is solidly Conservative. Hence there are many “safe seats” in these areas, where the incumbent Labour or Conservative MP regularly gets a majority of 20,000 or more, and the other candidates have no hope of unseating him or her.
By contrast, the problem that the Lib Dems face is that their support is much more evenly distributed throughout the country. There are a lot of Tory or Labour “safe seats” where the Lib Dem candidate will come second with a substantial proportion of the vote, but will not win the seat. There are relatively few areas where Lib Dem support is concentrated enough in one locality to actually win seats. Hence the Lib Dems tend to win disproportionately few seats, compared to the number of votes that they receive nationally.
In essence: the British electoral system rewards parties whose supporters are all concentrated in certain areas. If your party gets 25 percent of the vote in every constituency across the country, then you get no seats, despite 25 percent of people having voted for your party. By contrast, if your party gets 25 percent of the vote nationwide, but your vote is concentrated in certain areas – so you get, say, 70 percent of the vote in Constituency X but no votes at all in Constituency Y – then you get lots of seats. The proportion of the nationwide vote for your party is essentially irrelevant to how many seats you get; what matters is how many votes you get in each individual constituency.
The US electoral college works a similar way (hence why Ross Perot got no votes in the electoral college in 1996, despite winning 19 percent of the vote nationwide: his support was evenly distributed across states, so he didn’t win a majority in any state).
The Conservatives won the greatest number of seats, albeit without an outright majority. Nick Clegg has said – rightly, in my view – that the Conservatives should have the first opportunity to form a government, and is therefore entering into discussions with them. However, in the event that this fails, he has not ruled out coalition talks with Labour (though even if Labour and the Lib Dems entered a coalition, they still would not have an absolute majority of seats).
And 10 sex chromosomes. Don’t forget the 10 sex chromosomes. Platypus males have an XYXYXYXYXY pattern while the females have ten X chromosomes.
Walton,
Very democratic, that.
I do object strongly when politicians misuse money stolen from me – Alan B.
Taxation is not theft. The theft came when MPs stole the money from the public purse. Far more of them should have been prosecuted. I’m not, BTW, interested in teaching you anything, just in refuting your lies.
Which is why it worries me that so few of the voting public understand these basic distinctions.
Alan B.’s misapprehensions all fit with his Daily Heil view of the world.
Fucking UK politics, how does it work?
Despite having been alternately bored/fascinated by the discussions of UK politics recently, I have to admit, I learned a lot of interesting stuff. Thanks, Walton, Nick, RTL, Matt P, Stephen W, maureen.b, Alan B, (and all the others I can’t recall off the top of my head) for your insightful, informative discussions.
Just remember, come November you get to listen to us USians bitching and moaning about our fucked up system. Ad nauseam. ;)
One benefit of the UK system is that it does not go on as long! US Presidential elections seems to last two years.
What Walton said, plus –
if the UK allocated seats by the percentage of the national vote the seats won would be (roughly)-
Conservative (36.1%)…. 235
Labour (29%)…………. 189
LibDem (23%)…………. 150
UKIP (3.1%)……………..20
BNP (1.9%)………………12
SNP (1.7%)………………11
Green (1.0%)…………….7
Sinn Fein (0.6%)…………4
Democratic Unionist (0.6%).4
Plaid Cymru (0.6%)………..4
SDLP (0.4%)……………….3
Cons. & Unionists (0.3%)….2
English Democrats (0.2%)….1
Of course, I would expect most of the non-regional minor parties to increase their vote if their supporters thought their vote might count.
True. But November will merely be the mid-term elections. There will still be months and months of gnashing of teeth and rending of garments to endure.
Except that the UK will most probably have another election within a year.
Environmental cancer – because it’s there:
http://scienceblogs.com/effectmeasure/2010/05/environmental_cancer_because_i.php
***
At my last count:
“First do no harm” FGM thread: 459 comments
“For the boys with boo boos” thread: 475 comments
For the motherfuckin’ win!
That article was pretty hilarious actually. Anglicans showing that they don’t care about anything but Jesus worship…
SC OM;
That’s just… wrong. As a cut male (who did not comment on either thread), I can’t believe the FGM thread has fewer comments than the boo boo thread. FFS, there’s no comparison. WTF?
B
I fully agree. I don’t think there is much doubt the way FGM is done makes it a much, much worse problem than a procedure done in a hospital.
The trouble with proportional representation is that you get too many one-issue splinter groups and a parliament that cannot form a government.
Someone has suggested a compromise where any party with more than 5% of the vote gets a seat (I guess without an actual riding).
I’m with W H Auden on the subject of government, the best kind is dictatorship moderated by periodic assassinations.
Perhaps I’m just in a mood because I know we in the UK have days (at most until 25th of May) of extremely fatuous wankery to come, followed by months of even more mendacious and bitter fatuous wankery, followed by years of conservative* government (see: fatuous wankery that will only further the gulf between rich and poor that New Labour {cough splutter} managed to increase also).
In the immortal words of The Prophet: Arse biscuits and turd pie.
Louis
*”conservative” rather than “Conservative”. Regardless of which party(ies) form a government. Bah! I can’t wait for the revolution.
Boygenius, I think that very few commenters here have any direct experience of FGM, whereas almost all have seen or possess a cut or uncut cock, or know someone who has, leading to their greater willingness to chime in.
And you thought only men could be led around by the poogle!
Germany has a form of PR, essentially an additional member system for Federal elections. Germany has a strong economy and has had a series of stable Governments.
So the problem you cite with PR is not actually problem.
This is true, but even if the FGM were done in a hospital (even just the accommodationist “nicking”) it is done for reasons that are far more reprehensible than the reasons for circumcision. The covenant between Abraham and God can’t hold a candle to the patriarchal custom of “relieving” women of their sexual pleasure so that they can be “pure” for their husband.
Bah. I guess there are already threads devoted to this topic. Never mind.
Oh, and I would add that both the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly are elected using PR.
Both seem to be functioning pretty well.
SC@877
Yeah, I commented on this on the tadger thread yesterday. It would seem that there are lots and lots of men who consider any subject involving genitalia an opportunity to talk about their John Thomases.
It might be interesting to try an experiment involving a thread about yeast infections.
Frankly, whenever the subject of FGM or some other attrocity against females at the hands of a patriarchal society comes up, I’m inclined to keep my wee-wee well out of sight for its own safety.
So, the rest of the time you wave it around?
Mine retracts all on its own, like a turtle.
RTL, OK, how can I not post this:
Good advice.
Arrrrgh…
Alcohol, I love you so much, but you hate me so much.
Woke up with a bit of a hangover, headachey, neckachey… but not a terrible one like I’ve had.
Over here, campaign durations are limited by law, and parties who start campaigning earlier are actually punished. Happened once (in some regional election at least 10 years ago, I think).
Easy to explain. In addition to comment 883, everyone cyber-here agrees FGM is wrong, so there’s no discussion about that; and the two arguments about the AAP’s position have been repeated often enough. On circumcision, there are still morons who actively recommend it in that thread… based on arguments from ignorance that would make a creationist proud…
That depends on a country’s history. For most of its history as a republic, Austria has had two big parties – it could as well have had an official two-party system for a long time, wouldn’t have changed anything. Similar things, though less extreme, hold for Germany.
Having lots of parties doesn’t automatically mean that no government can be formed either; very broad coalitions exist in some countries.
Most democratic countries have a rule saying that parties with less than 5 or 4 (or in one case even 10) % of the vote don’t get any seats.
In such countries there is no such thing as a riding. Elections for parliament are nationwide elections instead, where you vote for a party, not just in practice, but even in theory; the party then sends the first few of its members that are on the list to parliament. The list is published before the election and hangs in each voting booth, too. Deputees to parliament don’t represent any geographical area, they represent their party.
I think you’re being overly pessimistic here. I’m still holding out hope for a Tory-Lib Dem coalition. This would likely be stronger on civil liberties than any other arrangement I can imagine; it’s still far from perfect, and will still be far too authoritarian for my liking (especially on immigration), but will be better than New Labour. And, though I used to be against it, I’m slowly changing my mind about the idea of electoral reform; it’s certainly a possibility that should be taken seriously, and this is the most appropriate opportunity for it in a generation.
Did someone say penis?
Not quite true. Lots of countries have PR systems that operate on a regional basis; thus there are large “super-constituencies” with several seats each. These may be allocated among individual candidates using Single Transferable Vote (as in Ireland), or allocated to parties in a closed party-list system in proportion to their share of the vote (the latter being the system used in the UK for European Parliament elections).
There are a huge number of different electoral systems, not just one option. If we are going to have electoral reform, my preference would be for the Additional Member system used in Scotland, Wales and New Zealand – which keeps constituency MPs, but adds a number of “additional members” elected on a closed party-list system on a regional basis, thus making the system more proportionate (albeit not perfectly proportionate) to the parties’ respective shares of the vote.
(As an aside, I find it weird that every English-speaking country uses a different word for electoral areas in legislative elections. In the UK, they are called “constituencies”; in Canada, they are known as “ridings”; in Australia and NZ, they are known as “electorates”; and in American English they’re usually called “[congressional] districts”. It’s the same concept in every country, but the terminology is different in each.)
Correction to myself @#895: I slightly misread David M’s post. I thought he was saying “in most countries there is no such thing as a riding [constituency]”. Apologies.
He is correct that there are some countries – Israel, for example – which use a nationwide party-list system, so there are no constituencies. You simply vote for a party, and that party gets a number of seats to fill from its list of candidates, in proportion to its share of the vote. But this extreme form of PR is not the norm in other democracies, and would only be sensible in very small and homogeneous countries.
Yeah, this one was pretty fucking stupid:
@Kevin #891,
Alka-Seltzer and a bowl. Works every time.
Unless you’re seriously hung-over. Then you’re screwed.
Repeat after me: “I’m never going to drink again.”
#871 Knockgoats
I believe I win under Godwin’s Law.
http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-godwins-rule-of-nazi-analogies.htm
Unless you seriously think I have demonstrated that I am a supporter of the BNP – which I find offensive. The BNP had a candidate in my constuency. I did not vote for him. I did not even know his name. I believe he ended up with just over 1000 votes i.e. c.2% of the total. (And I had to look up the results to check.)
Taking a small amount of the money I pay in taxes to (mis)use it to feather their own
duck housenests sounds to me pretty close to theft. To equate them is merely hyperbole*. I pay taxes to support legitimate functions of Government – not to have it purloined by MPs. I agree with you – more of them ought to have ended up in court and accused of fraudulant accounting or whatever is the current term for taking money that you are not entitled to by making a false declaration.We are not talking about a pencil or an office stapler. The sums run into 6 figures in £s with the fraud continuing with the connivance of Parliamentary Officers (such as the Speaker) over a period of years.
* hyperbole – A figure of speech in which exaggeration is used for emphasis or effect; an extravagant statement.
@boygenius:
Nah, it’s a dark rum hangover. It’s not the worst ever… but holy crap it’s hard to judge with that stuff. Not very powerful, but hard to tell.
Alan B,
“Daily Heil” = The Daily Mail, just as “Grauniad” = The Guardian. Stems from their 1934 article headlined: “Hurrah for the blackshirts”, Rothermere’s letter of support to Hitler after the invasion of the Sudetenland, etc.
As for tax, you said:
“I do object strongly when politicians misuse money stolen from me by those same politicians with threats of prison if I do not conform.”
That’s the standard glibertarian lie that taxation is theft. The threat of prison for tax evasion does not apply only to the minuscule amounts that would have gone from each individual’s tax to MP’s expenses, does it?
Reminded me of this:
“Classroom Activities: 1) Make the electoral college come alive! Divide your entire school into 50 groups of varying sizes. Then assign a point value to each group roughly based on its size. Have each individual student then vote on an issue say “chocolate or vanilla.” Tally the votes but tell them the side with the most votes isn’t necessarily the winner. Instead, calculate the winner with in each of the 50 groups, then give the previously assigned point value to the respective flavor. Add up the point values and see who has more. Isn’t this a better way to figure out a winner?” – America (The Book): A Citizen’s Guide to Democracy Inaction
I’s not often I agree with Walton on political matters, but I too prefer the AM system (but, of course, I want PR, whereas Walton doesn’t).
I think, however, that 5% is far too high as a cut-off point in large countries. In the UK a party could poll over a million votes and still have no MPs. That’s dangerous imho (as is the current system). Unrepresented opinions become more extreme. Safer to have the loonies inside the tent, and exposed to public scrutiny. In fact, with a 5% cut-off, only the three main parties would have any MPs in England (and maybe one Green MP, and probably not even that one if the constituencies were larger).
negentropyeater #859
Certainly the single most destructive economic idea of our time.
Trickle down economics, also called voodoo economics by George H.W. Bush, doesn’t work. It’s been shown not to work in the Reagan, Thatcher, and Bush II governments. What makes it worse is people don’t want their particular governmental oxen gored so governmental revenue goes down while expenditures remain steady or go up. The end result is governmental debt.
Look at Greece to see why governmental debt is not a good thing.
Did the portcullis get stuck again?
*imagines a muttering peasant PZ shuffling out with a bucket of tallow*
Back on the aftermath of the UK election: SNP calls for ‘progressive’ Westminster alliance. This would be Labour+LibDems+SNP+Plaid Cymru, giving 324 votes, or 327 counting SDLP MPs from NI, who can be counted on to vote with Labour. However, Labour have dismissed the idea – Scottish Labour hatred for Alex Salmond, leader of the SNP, is intense: like the Tories in the UK as a whole, they consider it a monstrous injustice when they are not allowed to rule.
knockgoats,
I don’t believe Alan B is objecting to taxes, he’s objecting to political corruption.
‘Tis,
Then he shouldn’t imply, as he clearly did (see my quote from him), that taxation is theft.
You could the NI Alliance MP, and the Green to the list of progressive parties. The Alliance Party in NI is allied to the Lib-Dems.
Stan Rogers’ “Bluenose”. The video shows footage of the last competition for the International Fishermen’s Cup in 1938 between the Canadian schooner Bluenose and the American schooner Gertrude L. Thibault.
Matt Penfold,
True, Alliance is allied to the LibDems, but their newly elected MP, whose name escapes me, was keen to stress they are an independent party, while the SDLP MPs take the Labour whip. Caroline Lucas (the Green) will vote on a case-by-case basis. However, both could certainly be counted on to prefer a Lab-LibDem government to the only alternatives. Salmond is opposed to a Con-Lib coalition or arrangement because it would not need his support.
Fairport Convention:
The Deserter
Caught up with the circumcision thread, except I didn’t dare read Smoggy Batzrubble’s comment. The rest was disturbing enough.
Heh. Almost the entire vocabulary of government and bureaucracy differs between Germany, Austria, and the German-speaking part of Switzerland!
Germany?
Granted, Austria is small (8 million), but not homogeneous either. Still nobody complains, because a conservative vote in the Holy Land of Tyrol has the same influence on the federal level as a conservative vote in Red Vienna, in West Styria the same as in Rest Styria. It doesn’t matter where you live, your vote counts the same everywhere.
Perhaps the trick is the federal system. Maybe one reason behind geographical representation is that you’d want to have someone representing your particular area when local decisions are made at the national level? Over here, they aren’t made at the national level in the first place (to oversimplify, no doubt).
I’m told you should drink beer when hungover, because it contains ethanol, but no methanol; the ethanol gets processed first, so that processing the methanol is delayed and done more slowly. Methanol becomes methanal = formaldehyde, and that’s what produces the hangover, or so I hear.
I’m seriously uncomfortable with making that kind of accusation about a newspaper based on what previous editors did several generations ago.
Elroy is corect:
plop plop
fizz fizz
spark spark
all better
Bluenose under full dress.
Bluenose II in 1964.
Thanks, Ron. “Lapsus mentae” is a good description. I’ll adopt that. I absolve everyone of bad intentions, but I still think they need to take a look at the way they consistently fail to treat women as equals, while consistently giving men all the props.
Still no reply in response to my request that they issue a corrected press release, with the correction giving me credit for the book. I take this to mean, “We gave you an award, you ungrateful b*tch.”
It’s interesting that I am accused of being petty when crap like this comes up. Reputation correlates with income. Not giving me credit for work I’ve done, or worse yet, giving that credit to someone else, negatively affects my income. When my publisher listed the latest book with Amazon, they filled out the forms in a way that gave my brother credit as co-author. (He’s the photographer.) They compounded the error by sending in descriptive text that read, “…award-winning photographer [my brother] and author Lynna…”. The National Outdoor Book Award was in my name, so it should have read “award-winning author” or at least, “award-winning team.” When I complained, the response was, “It doesn’t really matter as far as book sales are concerned. And I don’t think we can change it now.” So I let them have it with both barrels and the error was corrected.
It’s a fine line to walk, though. People here will just refuse to work with me if they think I am one of those dreaded feminists, taking offense where none is intended.
Does someone need help in arguing with a mormon? Is that you, Sili?
Conjecture, I’ll bet. My understanding is that most hangover symptoms are due to dehydration, in part because ethanol is thought to inhibit the secretion of antidiuretic hormone.
Not sure any of this is known very rigorously. However, whenever I imbibe to slight excess anymore I drink as much water as I can hold before going to sleep, and more when I get up to pee.
I think Knockgoats was simply explaining the common UK nickname for the Daily Mail.
(Btw, it may not be openly “fascist” now, but the Mail is still a really nasty piece of work).
I’m seriously uncomfortable with making that kind of accusation about a newspaper – David M.
It’s a nickname, not an accusation. However, the Daily Heil remains a right-wing hate-sheet, fulminating continually against immigrants, asylum seekers, people on benefits, gays, etc., so it remains apt.
Lots of water and hair of the dog.
Crack an egg into it and call it breakfast.
Lynna, OM #916
I don’t think it’s unreasonable for you to insist on getting recognition for your own work. You wrote the book, you won the award, you should get the benefits. Make some noise. We know how well accomodationism works.
‘Tis @910: I loved the historical footage of the Bluenose. Song wasn’t bad either.
I am imagining the design for a shirt that says, “I’m a big fucking ray of sunshine.” As Rev BDC noted, it’s been done. But has it been done properly? Big yellow shirt, big enough to accommodate a Hitchcockian stomach, with the slogan horizontal across the front. Only a truly big belly would ensure adequate room for the text. Tie-dye rays of sunshine around the slogan?
BTW, congratulations Lynna!
For you Canadians out there, the Grand Banks schooner portrayed on the dime isn’t the Bluenose. It’s a generic fishing schooner. However in 2002 the Canadian government officially declared the schooner to be the Bluenose. And we all know governments never lie and are never mistaken.
Reverse of Canadian dime.
All ten (at least) most recent comments are on a single thread, suggesting a major world event in progress.
Oh, Kevin has a hangover.
Other than that, pretty quiet everywhere.
Please adopt “lapsus mentis” instead. There is no form “mentae”.
…Yeah, OK, there’s a form menthae, but… :o)
Not personal experience! =8-) I’ve read it several times (though not in primary literature, so it could easily be an error endlessly propagated by copying), and my grandfather says it; surely someone must have tried it once?
Ah.
Actually, acetaldehyde, a metabolite of ethanol, is partially implicated in hangovers.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the CO has a hang… er, I mean, is feeling infirm. It’s after 1100 his time and he’s usually active on the blog by now.
I’ll see what I can do here, because on the last two iterations of the Endless Thread, I started typing a comment and the thread got closed and my meandering and disorganized thoughts lost in the ether. I was much amused yesterday to read a comment on the Ravelry Pharyngula group describing comments as “work”. Really, Pharyngula is what I do when I’m avoiding work, like right now, when I should be cleaning out my front hall closet and washing wool stuff to avoid moth damage. So here goes with the post – we’ll see about my magic power to summon the portcullis…
New New Thread Everlasting Omnibus Update Toodle-Oo
46012 (+ 2, possibly 3*)
*90% confidence interval, pulled directly from my ass
Hey, my magic powers failed. Must give more oats to the ineffable unicorns.
#924, back when people checked their car tires for wear, a Canadian dime was useful: if the depth of tread covered the boat’s flag (from the nearer rim, wise-asses!) it was still OK.
#910, like, like, LIKE!
Walton (#82), if you like The Name of the Rose you might like to try some of the Crowner John series. They are set about 500 years after the Brother Cadfael novels but are much grittier. I think the author is Bernard Knight.
I just thought that if I kept typing comments, eventually one would be submitted during the interval when the thread got closed, and I would be able to say “Look, magic works, you ignorant unbelievers.” Plus then I wouldn’t have to clean my closet and finish washing my new sheep fleeces.
Knockgoats @923: Thank you.
And now, to bring the mormon pain, the LDS Church has launched a new website to combat pornography: http://combatingpornography.org/cp/eng/
Elder Jeffrey Holland, with whom we recently did battle via our proxie, Thunderf00t, in the YouTube video rating wars, contributes to the anti-porn site:
Elder Holland is a major shareholder in a TV station in Utah that airs shows containing lots of sex, violence, and moral decay. He makes money off these shows, which admittedly do not come up to the “porn” standard of graphic sexuality, but which do definitely meet his own description of the “darker sides of the movie, television, and music industry…”
Love the way he just had to mention that the women were beautiful, and young. Those husbands had no excuse!
Presumably porn is ok if your wife is plain, or old.
Either that or Hollander can’t think of anything else except sex.
David M.
Ah! Thanks ever so much.
Bringing more mormon pain … this time to unsuspecting Hispanics:
Another feel-good story that fails to mention that it was über mormons that proposed and backed the recent Arizona anti-immigrant bill that will result in racial profiling by law enforcement (except for those law officers with their reason intact, those who have refused to enforce the law).
Another inconvenient fact, the church’s missionary program used to field 60,000 missionaries, now it is diminished, and it’s very iffy to claim “growth” when the active membership is declining.
I find it highly improbable that three recent divorcees due to porn were all at the same airport as the minister.
Though really, there are much bigger problems with mormon credibility.
Grrr…. I finally unsubscribed from Point of Inquiry. Chris Mooney was interviewing someone whose Templeton-funded research found that scientists are surprisingly religious.
I’m not accusing either of them of anything other than extremely poor judgement, but hearing Templeton in stereo was way too much for me.
I unsub’d from PoI a bit ago myself. I found it very disappointing since DJ left. I replaced it with Rationally Speaking, which I’m very much enjoying.
I get my DJ Grothe fix from his new podcast, For Good Reason.
Immigration Law One of Many Changes in Arizona
Yes, we’ve heard a lot about the immigration law, but what about Arizona’s revised gun laws, and abortion laws, and environmental policies, and the growth in general of the nativist/conservative movement? Janet Napolitano left the Governorship when she became Secretary of Homeland Security. Without being elected, Jan Brewer became Governor, providing a brief window of time when the conservatives can pass legislation, and expect Jan Brewer to sign it. The link above leads to a Fresh Air podcast/interview with journalist Howard Fischer. Most of the juicy details are in the podcast, not the text summary. One detail: an Arizona politician saying, “You can’t be Jewish, you don’t have a hooked nose.” For real.
I must say that Howard Fischer seems not to know all the facts in one area, and that’s Russell Pearce’s background with and association with white supremacist groups. This comment says it best:
True Believing mormon in UK politics (the quote is from a post on the ex-mormon forum):
The post goes on to praise Rutley as “handsome and personable” , and as “intelligent, charming, sincere, and genuine.”
Thanks, Becca. I’ll check out the new DJ one.
Bountiful, in British Columbia, is a small town near the northern border of Idaho. I’ve driven through there many times. Parts of the town look normal, and parts give off an odd vibe of fear. The National Post published a good story, with an insider’s view of what goes on in the polygamist colony. Women tell of guarded lives…
Lynna @#943:
Woah. I’m really getting disturbed at how many true-believing religious nuts have become MPs or candidates for my party (Nicola Blackwood, Philippa Stroud, and now this Mormon guy). I had hoped that the wingnut faction within the party would fade away with the retirement of old Tory stalwarts such as Ann Widdecombe, but it seems like it isn’t going that way.
I also note that David Rutley’s biography on the Conservative Party website says nothing about him being LDS. If it’s true, evidently he’s trying to downplay it (maybe he thought it would lose him votes).
@939
No shit. Holland has actually been caught lying before, but it doesn’t seem to faze him, nor does his lying seem to diminish his credibility with the morgbots (mormon organization robots, or sheeple of the mormon persuasion). The LDS Church publishes this kind of pablum all the time, and it seems to be almost a requirement that the tales of woe and possible redemption be larded with falsehoods. Elder Holland asked in prayer if he was right, and received a burning in his bosom for answer, so he wrote up his god-endorsed fabrication.
Walton @946: I hear you. The number of religious whackos bothers me too. I would have thought there would be fewer of them in the UK. Rutley is a mormon
Mormons in UK politics?
Jesus H. Cthulhu on a stick, I’m so sorry!
I didn’t realize that they had infested much beyond the US, Canada, and a handful of Pacific island nations.
Lynna: A few seconds’ digging reveals that Rutley replaced Sir Nicholas Winterton, an eccentric elderly Tory who stood down at this year’s election after a number of embarrassing scandals, notably one in which he was accused of “slapping the bottom” of a female Labour MP. He also complained very loudly after new expenses rules prohibited MPs from claiming expenses for first-class rail travel.
Incidentally, the voting record discloses that Sir Nicholas voted “very strongly against equal gay rights”. What an asshole.
What ho! This Winterton chap sounds like a jolly good Tory, old fruit! We more like him in Westminster, wot? Show those feminists and coal miners and homosexuals a thing or two!
Woah. I’m really getting disturbed at how many true-believing religious nuts have become MPs or candidates for my party (Nicola Blackwood, Philippa Stroud, and now this Mormon guy). I had hoped that the wingnut faction within the party would fade away with the retirement of old Tory stalwarts such as Ann Widdecombe, but it seems like it isn’t going that way.
Gay folks need only know one thing about the Tories: Section 28. Just like Latinos in California need only know Prop 187 about Republicans, and Latinos in AZ need only know 1070.
That was below the belt. As you know, I am a strong advocate of LGBT equality and of respect for women. The fact that I happen to be (loosely) in the same party as this reactionary old buffoon doesn’t make me responsible for his blitheringly idiotic behaviour. That’s like saying that every Labour supporter is personally to blame for Jacqui Smith’s husband claiming porn on parliamentary expenses.
That is not fair. The Conservatives have changed since the days of Section 28 (which I agree was a deeply homophobic and profoundly wrong law, and should be condemned). The Conservative leadership is now largely progressive on LGBT issues, and there are two gay Conservative frontbenchers – Alan Duncan and Nick Herbert – who will likely hold senior ministerial posts if Cameron forms a government. Not to mention Iain Dale, one of Britain’s leading political commentators and bloggers, who is gay and Conservative.
Yes, there are still some religious idiots in the party who oppose gay rights. But that doesn’t mean the whole party should be written off – nor that the many people within the party who strongly support LGBT rights, and are actively fighting the homophobe element within the party, should be condemned by association.
I say, Walton, old bean! It sounds like you’ve been getting some funny ideas since you’ve gone up to Oxford. It was all different in my day. The only buggery we had was in the showers after the rugger match. Nothing at all suspect about that, it was just … traditional.
But it sounds like there’s hope for you yet, my dear boy. At least you didn’t vote for that Labour riff-raff. Awful, grimy fellows in flat caps with grease under their fingernails. Wouldn’t trust them to iron my Telegraph in the morning.
Luckily we’ll always have the House of Lords. I’m not too keen on the rum sorts Labour have been appointing, but we’ll soon be getting more of the Right Sort of People. Like that chap who went to Belize and put one over young Willy Hague, promising he’d be domiciled in Blighty for tax purposes once he was appointed. Astute fellow, that one. Saved hundreds of millions in tax and still got his seat. I expect he’ll buy the other half of that dashed old colony now.
I must say that you’ve got the right idea about keeping the Lords. We mustn’t have an elected senate – just imagine all the coarse types that would get in! It’d be pandemonium, my dear boy!
Well, toodle-pip. Time for a Pimm’s in the conservatory, don’t you know?
Walton,
Twitter from Iain Dale:
“Thinking of my friend Nigel Farage…”
Gay, yes, a Conservative, yes – and a friend of racists.
Knockgoats: I’ve made clear that I’m no fan of Farage. He’s an egotistical, self-serving twit who plays on the irrational fears of disaffected right-wing voters, and I disagree with him on a wide range of issues and would never vote for his party. But I don’t see any real evidence that he harbours racist or xenophobic attitudes (though his party certainly contains some people who are closet xenophobes) and I don’t think Iain Dale can be condemned for being a friend of his.
UKIP are idiots, but they’re not outside the realm of civilised politics. They should not be conflated with real crypto-fascist and racist parties like the BNP.
My sister just watched Star Trek IV with me. Not bad in general, though the treknobabble was hard to bear at times! :-D The persistent misogyny was funny, for instance Uhura being apparently incapable of climbing out of the starship without the help of two men.
Star Trek V is running now. We switched off immediately, and not just because it’s now 11 pm.
So the ECO’s gone missing, then?
No new posts for 30 hours. Unusual, unless he is on a trans Pacific flight.
But I don’t see any real evidence that he harbours racist or xenophobic attitudes
None so blind as those who won’t see. Extracts from: Restoring Our Borders.
“By late century, mass immigration could have reduced British people to a minority in their homeland.”
(Only white people, of course count as British, or what could this possibly mean?)
“For example, it has become common for brides to be brought into the UK from
the Indian subcontinent and married off to UK-born Asians. Many have little say in the
matter, and sometimes are forced to marry. But UK immigration officials rarely if ever
investigate such abuses. Yet individuals trying to bring fiancés and spouses from
developed countries like Canada and Australia are often forced to undergo intrusive
investigations.”
(“developed”, i.e. mostly white)
“The Labour Government’s policy of mass immigration has been deliberately imposed
in order to create a more ‘diverse’ and ‘multicultural’ society without consulting the
British people.”
(Typical racist paranoia)
“Mass immigration over the last fifty years, accelerated under the Labour Government
since 1997, is increasingly turning Britain into a Balkanised patchwork of disparate
ethnic groups. Large areas of Britain’s inner cities are now “majority-minority” in ethnic
character. Some of these have also been transformed into ghettoised enclaves, where the
police rarely venture”
(So it’s “ethnic character”, i.e. how many non-whites there are, that really matters)
“Demographers have already predicted that Leicester will become the first British city in
which white people are a minority, or as the Commission for Racial Equality
euphemistically called it a “plural city”. Demographers at Manchester University have
claimed that white people in Birmingham will be overtaken by those of other ethnic
origins by 2027. Dr Ludi Simpson has predicted that, “Birmingham is likely to become a
minority white city by 2027””
(speaks for itself)
Knockgoats: Ugh. Yes, that’s pretty awful. So much concentrated wrong, so many distortions and so much barely-veiled xenophobia in one document. Their horribly illiberal policy on immigration is a big part of why I would never vote for UKIP. I knew they had a moronic stance on this issue, though I hadn’t read their policy document itself: and you’re right that it contains more blatant pandering to racism than I had expected.
I don’t think we’re in major disagreement here. As you know, I’m an advocate of a much more liberal policy on immigration; the Lib Dem position on immigration was the only one of the major parties which was vaguely rational and sensible, with the others pandering (in varying degrees) to authoritarianism, xenophobia and Daily Mail myths. So in no way would I seek to defend UKIP’s position (nor even the Conservative or Labour positions) on immigration and asylum.
Walton @950: So, you had this old white dude politician that was so bad that it was an improvement to replace him with a conservative mormon? Cheezits!
Oh my heck! Good True Believing Molly Mormons cheating on their hubbies with missionaries?! Actually, the only really surprising thing is that the deep dark secret is being discussed on a molly mormon forum instead of being buried. “So Ashamed” writes:
so the mormon equivalent of the pool boy is a missionary?
A question for those knowledgeable in the ways of cheap coffees; how do McDonalds’ lattes officially stack up, flavor-wise, compared to Folger’s Crystals?
oh yeah… and I guess in light of the facts that Greenland doesn’t have good soil, and will be underwater anyway, I’m moving my nerd-commune to Lynna’s brother’s house in Alaska. I’m sure he won’t mind ;-)
Also, belated congratulations to Lynna on winning the award
Also in Star Trek IV: emotions were blatantly claimed to be human and logic Vulcan, unlike the more nuanced approach of XI; and Vulcans are shown doing profoundly illogical things, like Spock wearing that bathrobe all the time (though not while diving; that would be too illogical!) and Saavik wearing that ugly eye shadow.
cicely, I think the lattes from Mcdonalds are better — still not top quality, but okay. Certainly inexpensive.
Was it you that asked about underwear that wouldn’t act like a tourniquet when you were gardening? I think Jockey for women makes a Hi-cut brief that you would like.
Yes, Jadehawk, the mormon equivalent of the pool boy or pizza boy is a missionary … but usually, no one admits it. And there is one difference in terms of consequences: Molly Mormons tell on themselves and they out the poor missionary as well. Sample comment from the Molly Mormons all a-fluster:
I wish Smoggy were here to comment on the “endowed member.”
Another eye-opening comment from the buzzing hive of Molly Mormons:
Snort! Jeebus, these religious freaks are so deep into their arcane terminology they really have no idea how it looks to the real world.
…Too easy.
Does Dick Cheney’s daughter mean that the Republicans don’t hate gay people?
From what I can see from google searches, the Tories aren’t as bad at gay rights as the Republicans, but still… the most recent votes don’t reflect well on them. OTOH, the party leader seems to be pro gays, so maybe it’ll get better.
BYOB (=bullets)
Also, Spock’s complete inability not to spill every single available bean unless almost physically restrained by Kirk… implausible.
The sister confirms the textbook wisdom that Kirk is teh handsome. I still can’t find anything remarkable about him. I guess I really am 0 on the Kinsey scale. :-)
Sounds… scary.
Jadehawk @967
Actually, my brother might not mind have a nerd commune. He likes intelligent people. He’s also capable in carpentry, plumbing, electrical wiring, survival skills, and is a highly accomplished musician. Next time I talk to him on the phone, I’ll casually mention that we’re all moving to his neck of the woods.
Thanks for the congratulations. After all the good advice and congrats from Pharyngula regulars, the sting has quite gone out of the disrespect accidentally dished out by the award presenters. Maybe I’ll whip the event into the froth of comedy it deserves.
Log Cabin Republicans :
That first thing gets in the way of the second.
Chicks dig a musician.
A friend and colleague in Toronto won an award some years ago from an organization based in Washington, DC. When the day of the big presentation ceremony arrived, we found that her biography had been changed so that her place of residence went from North York to “New York” and her degree had been changed from York University to “New York University,” thus, I guess, making her into an honourary Yank. I was appalled that they would change the details without checking.
Isn’t Papa Zulu supposed to go to Uttar Predesh or California or Bumfuckistan or somewhere benighted like that today? Perhaps he’s presently stuck in a Motel 6 without internet access.
Ha, that reminds me of the one Jew who used to be in Haider’s party. After something like 10 years, he had enough of being paraded around for the purpose of “how dare you suggest we’re Nazis!?! We’re not even antisemites, and look, we’ve got a Jewish member to prove it!1!!1!” and left the party…
Right, right: he’s in Costa Mesa. I used to live there.
Sven:
Me too. Lived there in the ’70s.
The Overlord is in Costa Mesa, wearing a fuzzy sweater, a bow tie, and several groupies.
Mormon Republican and moderate conservative, Senator Bob Bennett, has been thrown out of office for … wait for it… not being conservative enough.
Yep, the delegates at the Utah GOP convention sent the three-term incumbent packing. Bennett was emotional and choking back tears when he talked to reporters, but it’s hard to tell if the tears are from years of testiphony practice, are required from all mormon males, or if the guy was truly stunned by his defeat.
Mormon Republican and moderate conservative, Senator Bob Bennett, has been thrown out of office for … wait for it… not being conservative enough
What’s moderate about him?
Still talking about UK politics, I see. At least I’m not missing too much since I can’t keep up with the Thread except on the weekends. :P
Congrats Lynna! The award is awesome even if it comes with a side of unintentional misogyny. :)
Since the poopyhead is AWOL, lets shove this thread over a 1000 post to tick him off…+1
Speaking of the influence from radio and TV hosts on teabagger politics, James Dobson (Focus on the Family) endorsed Rand Paul.
Comments from Salon’s Alex Pareene:
And here are some of Dobson’s comments about Rand Paul:
So, to succeed in ultra conservative Republican politics, you need to either be a talk show radio host, a Fox News favorite, and/or be endorsed by conservative radio and TV.
Oh, and you also need to be willing to gut the educational system of the USA, and to deny rights to women.
NoR,OM #986
Damn. I was going to say that☄
It makes sense. Why do people picket outside of abortion clinics instead of picketing to help the poor? The answer is that we all agree that helping the poor is a moral thing to do. Abortion, well not so much.
There’s not going to be many who disagree that female circumcision is wrong, whereas male circumcision is a way more controversial issue.
MAJeff, what’s “moderate” about Bennett is that he voted for health care reform, and for the bailout monies that were dispersed. Kiss of death in Utah, I guess. Also, the poor man did not prove his conservative credentials by appearing on Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck shows.
Thanks for the congrats, Pygmy Loris. I’m soaking up the virtual hugs and back-slapping.
Oh, fer cheezit’s sake, our Molly Mormon who copped to having an affair with a missionary, and was then convinced by battalions of other Molly Mormon Moms to confess all to the Bishop, and to turn the poor mishie in as well, now offers more details. Turns out she did not have sex with the guy. WTF?
So there you have it folks. That’s the extent of her sin, but don’t you worry, punishment will be massive, and huge, as befits an endowed member:
The more poopyheads by more people, the better…So say it. +1
Interesting opinion piece at the ABC¹:
UK election: Why politicians need theologians
My pullquote:
—
¹ Australian Broadcasting Corporation
The Thread’s News Rules ( second part here).
Link to the Babycenter Community, which is the forum on which our Molly Mormon is suffering for kissing a missionary … link provided for those who wish to test themselves to see how much crazy they can absorb without imploding.
Nope, I’m not going to say it. Wild horses couldn’t drag it from me. I refuse to say it. Kill me a hundred times, I still won’t say it.
So there! Nyah! :-þ
Feynmaniac @993: Hey, Salman Rushdie is on that episode of Bill Maher. Rushdie is coolness personified.
It’s going to be fun on the bun if he shows up at 1000 and says “YOU SHALL NOT PAAAASSSSSSSSS!!!!1111oneonetwo”
Lynna: Given the granny panties, couldn’t they have danced together and broken sacred covenants?
Mormonism is so uncool it still hasn’t contributed a demon to Shin Megami Tensei. That’s pathetic. Mothman, the Chupacabra, and Big Foot got in. It’s not a high bar. How the hell is that cult still alive? At least Scientology has science fiction. And makes the members of the church into ninjas (However evil those ninjas may be).
AJeff, what’s “moderate” about Bennett is that he voted for health care reform, and for the bailout monies that were dispersed.
I don’t believe he voted for Health Care Reform. He worked with Wyden for a couple years to draft a bill, but this year he joined every other Republican in voting against it. TARP, though, he did vote for.
Bill Maher says, “Instead of confronting real threats, like the debt, or the environment, or … Utah…”
Good point, Rutee. Mormon undergarmies-of-special-significance-and-endowments have a back door — or at least the old style had a back door. We need to do more research.