Delicious LiveJournal Links for 12-4-2010

[andrewducker]

• A modern response to one's first day at Hogwarts
  (tags: harrypotter comic funny)
• Farmers slowed down by hunter-gatherers: Our ancestors' fight for space
  (tags: society history archeology)
• Comment piece on how wikileaks has uncovered coverups and criminality at the heart of America
  (tags: torture wikileaks usa law)
• Phil Woolas loses bid to overturn election court ban
  (tags: elections government uk fraud)

Comments

[heron61.livejournal.com]

Phil Woolas loses bid to overturn election court ban

Dear gods we could use rulings like that in the US. I think well more than 10% of all elected officials (mostly Republicans) would end up losing elections if this sort of thing was possible in the US.

[lizw.livejournal.com]

Well, it's a once-a-century sort of thing here, at least in general elections. It's harder than it should be, in my view - you have to show that the candidate lied about an opponent's personal character, not just their political record, and I can't for the life of me see why a candidate should be allowed to lie in their campaign literature at all and still keep their seat.

It happens slightly more frequently in local elections - in my local area about two years ago, a Labour council candidate falsely claimed that the Lib Dem candidate had sexually abused a child. That cost the Labour candidate a criminal conviction as well as her seat, but not before her opponent had been hounded out of town by enraged locals who believed the lies.