Interesting Links for 11-07-2018

India breastfeeding magazine cover ignites debate

(tags: breastfeeding india )

Theresa May will be PM til after Brexit

(tags: Conservatives uk politics )

PETA wants staffies added to the Dangerous Dogs Act

(tags: dogs PETA OhForFucksSake )

Picky Refugee Just Expects To Be Reunited With Exact Same Family As Before

(tags: immigration satire )

The U.S. Abortion Debate Isn’t As Partisan As Politicians Make It Seem

(tags: usa abortion )

EU negotiator Michel Barnier says 80% of Brexit deal is agreed

(tags: uk europe thefuture )

Why Russia is far less threatening than it seems

(tags: Russia economics thefuture )

Please don't pirate books before they've even been released!

(tags: books publishing piracy OhForFucksSake viaSwampers )

Psychology, Numeracy and Biases in Brexit Voters

(tags: referendum Europe UK psychology personality )

What If Trump Has Been a Russian Asset Since 1987?

(tags: Russia politics usa republicans conspiracy )

Netflix's The Dragon Prince: A New Animated Series From Avatar: The Last Airbender's Head Writer Announced

(tags: Netflix animation )

How peopleare misreading the end of Return of the Jedi

(tags: StarWars )

Brits are a _lot_ more in favour of immigratns than they were five years ago

(tags: immigration polls uk GoodNews )

These Bizarre Glasses Promise to Cure Your Motion Sickness

(tags: sick vision glasses )

Turns out you can fight corruption by informing the populace of their rights

(tags: corruption fraud GoodNews food )

Performing meaningless rituals boosts our self-control through making us feel more self-disciplined

(tags: self-control psychology )

Lesbians have better sex than straight women

(tags: sex lesbians lgbt )

On unions, both Kingdom or European

I occasionally see a discussion which goes something like "How can you be in favour of staying in Europe and also of Scotland leaving the UK. Surely you're either in favour of closer ties to other countries or you aren't?"

And I am, frankly, baffled by this.

Because I am in favour of being in close ties which are well-structured, improve people's rights and working conditions, and are an overall positive to the lives of the people within them.

And I consider that the EU generally manages that. It's not perfect, but the benefits seem to be much larger than the costs.

And, as far as I can see, the UK doesn't. The things we'd lose from being a member are definitely _there_, but compared to not having welfare ruled from Westminster, not being stuck under a pair of parties who are anti-reform, anti-immigrant, and frequently illiberal*, I'd be delighted to get out.

If the EU went too far in a direction I didn't like, I'd vote to get out of that too. My support is not tribal, it's based on weighing up pros and cons of each union, and finding Europe acceptable, and the UK not.

*I am in no way convinced that Jack Straw was much better than Theresa May. I have forgotten neither ID cards or the protests against the Digital Economy Act.