Interesting Links for 15-3-2011

[andrewducker]

• The 5,000 Labour Voters Who Secured This Tory - Lib Dem Coalition
  (tags: libdem conservatives labour voting fptp)
• One Genre to bring them all, and in the darkness bind them - why the BBC's focus on lit-fic puts people off reading.
  (tags: books reading bbc fantasy horror literature)
• Why is Barnes and Noble performing well as a business while Borders has filed for bankruptcy?
  (tags: books borders business economics internet)
• Taiwan hotel offers Batman-sex room with Batman-sex bed. Extra points for saying "I'm the Goddamn Batman!"
  (tags: batman sex wtf)
• A Review Of The Lord of the Rings Movies By A Tolkein Virgin. Amusingly written too.
  (tags: Tolkein review lotr movies)
• Obama defends torture of Bradley Manning
  (tags: torture obama usa military)
• Lib Dems thwart Tory hopes of human rights convention withdrawal
  (tags: libdem rights uk europe)
• Supercritical carbon dioxide Brayton Cycle turbines promise giant leap in thermal-to-electric conversion efficiency
  (tags: efficiency electricity power)
• David Lynch to direct Duran Duran concert.
  (tags: music video DavidLynch DuranDuran)
• Geeks need to stop being negative all the time, and engage in positive criticism for a change.
  (tags: culture geeks)
• Wii sales drop by 24%, still ahead of both MS and Sony
  (tags: xbox microsoft sony ps3 wii nintendo sales)
• NHS plans will not change significantly: Downing Street. This will be....interesting
  (tags: nhs uk government)
• Does Brian Cox have an unlikely lovechild?
  (tags: BrianCox physics funny photo)
• Jobless to be forced to carry out work for no pay. How about creating some jobs and actually paying them?
  (tags: uk government welfare work)
• No, really, pi is wrong: The Tau Manifesto
  (tags: pi mathematics)

Comments

[communicator.livejournal.com]

If those Labour voters had voted Lib Dem, so there were more Lib MPs, they still would have formed a coalition with the Tories, because the stuff which they expressed which Labour voters could get behind was just a ruse to get votes, and promote an anti-poor-person agenda. And as for that comment 'I have grave concerns about the Lib Dems' ability to get over the 50% mark'. Over 50%! You'll be lucky to get double figures.

[andrewducker]

I disagree with your earlier statements entirely. The general sentiment I have seen is definitely a preference for a deal with Labour over the Conservatives. I've not seen any evidence that the Lib-Dem party line is anti-poor in any way.

[communicator.livejournal.com]

Well. I think it's kind of the raison d'etre of the Lib Dem party. Party for those who dislike egalitarianism, but are too educated to embrace Toryism.

[andrewducker]

You are making absolutely no sense to me at the moment. Your statements are making no connection to any kind of reality that I've ever experienced.

Quoting from the Lib Dem constitution:
"...we seek to balance the fundamental values of liberty, equality and community, and in which noone shall be enslaved by poverty, ignorance or conformity."

[spacelem.livejournal.com]

I've been a supporter of τ (well, in as far as the value) for several years, ever since I saw it mentioned. π is the ratio of the circumference to the diameter, not the radius, and yet it is the radius which is the important value. Hell, the diameter is even defined as twice the radius! So many formulae feature the value 2π that it's obvious that something is amiss. Not to mention the fact that a half turn is half τ or quarter π — which is more natural? About the only complaint I've seen is that the area of the circle is π r² vs 0.5 τ r², but again the quantity 0.5 x y² appears with great frequency.

Sadly, I think π is too engrained to change now.

[fub.livejournal.com]

You've misspelled "Tolkien".

[andrewducker]

Fixed - thanks!

[marrog.livejournal.com]

I feel it was a mistake to watch the extended editions.

Also the books are way, way worse. I didn't really know the plot of LotR until I saw the films, and I read the books twice.

[andrewducker]

The books certainly meander a lot.

And his lack of ability to tell people apart if they have the same hairstyle really doesn't do him any favours.

Also, he doesn't half want to be spoonfed. I don't see why we need a background for what Balrogs are before we get to see them. We _do_ get a "they woke something awful" and "a demon from the older world" (both paraphrased). But apparently that's not enough for him...

[marrog.livejournal.com]

It does seem like the manifestation of a dislike for a whole genre of film/fiction rather than a particularly balanced response. I think there are a lot of very valid criticisms for the LotR films (for example wooden/2d characterisation), but he's frequently willfully misunderstanding and playing for laughs in a usually amusing but sometimes rather dense way.

Now me, I hate most fantasy stuff for a lot of the precise reasons he cites, but I completely adore the LotR films, so they really can't be that bad.

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

"Geeks need to stop being negative all the time, and engage in positive criticism for a change."

Worst. Link. Ever.

[momentsmusicaux.livejournal.com]

Lol.

I see what you did there.

I sort of see the point of that post. But at the same time -- screw that.

Right now, I'm reviewing patches. I tend to do this when I can squeeze time in (ie over breakfast), or at the end of a long day when I'm so in the code zone I might as well keep going.

My reviews are often short and sharp. Sometimes they're long and sharp. People expect me to give my time to look at their work, and most of the time they haven't taken the time to properly present it. Why should I bend over backwards to be polite when they're not doing the same? There's no shortage of instructions on how to do it right -- clear, comprehensive documentation on the coding standards for this particular project, on how to roll a patch, and so on. It's not rocket science. The first few perhaps get a brief but not impolite comment to perhaps check up on the guidelines. After that, it's open season on the numpties. Consider it the same kind of scenario as a librarian who's getting handed back books with jam on them: after a couple, out come the scathing glances. And if I get whiny comments about 'I'd really like this feature is there any progress update?'... gah...

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

Ooh, you've kicked a hornet's nest over with this one Andrew...


Seriously people, calm down a little.

If you're interested, I have some observations on liberalism. So you can pre-judge my opinions, I'll declare my politics up front. I'm a libertarian. Like many libertarians, I use that term rather than 'liberal' because the word 'liberal' is now in our view associated with many policies which we would consider very illiberal. At the last general election, I voted Conservative. At the last local council election, I also voted Conservative. At the last European election, I voted UKIP. I would certainly describe my politics as more right-wing than the current government's, so if those are 'extreme right-wing', I must be really far gone. So, there you go. Some of you can safely ignore me now. I studied politics at one of the world's leading universities, so I claim some intellectual justification for expressing my views.



"...too educated to embrace Toryism". Sorry? Do only uneducated people embrace Toryism? Evidence for this please?

"That it's a party for moderately-privileged people, to entrench that privilege by colluding with the more privileged?" Is Labour not a party for privileged people also? Remind me again where Tony Blair went to school, or for that matter most of the Shadow Cabinet. The fact is in this country all three major political parties are dominated by posh people. There have been three working class British Prime Ministers and two of them were Conservative (Heath and Major, the other one being Ramsay MacDonald).

"A lot of the people in the Lib-Dems are left leaning (see the focus at the recent conference on making sure that the NHS isn't privatised) - and I think that many would vote Labour if Labour didn't keep slipping into terribly illiberal approaches. But their focus is on liberalism, followed by being left-wing, rather than being left-wing as a primary objective."
Yes precisely. You could add that quite a few people in the Lib-Dems are right leaning, but their focus is on liberalism. Clegg and Huhne and most of the other Orange Book liberals would fit this latter description in my view.

"The whole point of Liberalism is to *oppose* privilege."
Not sure about that. I think the whole point of liberalism (and I've gone for a small 'l', which may account for the difference) is to espouse personal freedom.

"The fact that we've gone into coalition with one Thatcherite party, rather than the other, doesn't change that."
In what way is Labour 'Thatcherite'? Really? And I'll believe that the current Conservative party is 'Thatcherite' when I see some proper, meaningful cuts to the size of the public sector and a proper determination to go up to the unions and say "No".

"However, within the British tradition liberal is opposed to egalitarian, it's about entrenching the privileges of the few against the interests of the many."
"No. It isn't."
It really isn't - and that's in both andrewhickey's liberalism and my 'libertarianism'.

It's worth pointing out, because some of the people in this debate don't seem aware of it, that a large part of the current Liberal Democratic party is descended from the Social Democratic Party that split from Labour in the early 1980s when Labour seemed to be deliberately trying to destroy itself by choosing obviously loony policies. The SDP types were characterised as being from the right of the Labour party, which they were, but some, like David Owen were also very much liberals. In fact some of the SDP leaders, in favouring a tough line against the unions and a market economy proved to be more liberal than the Liberal Party with whom they merged.

[andrewhickey.livejournal.com]

""The whole point of Liberalism is to *oppose* privilege."
Not sure about that. I think the whole point of liberalism (and I've gone for a small 'l', which may account for the difference) is to espouse personal freedom."

I would argue that those two are the same thing - one can't be personally free if others have privileges.

"In what way is Labour 'Thatcherite'? Really?"
Because it combines a social authoritarianism and a tendency to blame victims (immigrants generally) with an economic agenda that believes the private sector is better than the public sector, that considers large corporations to be better than small ones, that believes the proper business of government is to get out of the way of those big corporations, and that generally believes 'a rising tide lifts all boats'.
It does, of course, have some differences from the Conservative party, but in much the same way there was a social democratic consensus among all parties from 1945 to 1979, despite their differences, I'd argue that there's a Thatcherite consensus now.

"favouring a tough line against the unions...proved to be more liberal"
This is where we really disagree - I consider 'a tough line against the unions' to be an intensely *illiberal* attitude. If shareholders are allowed to bargain collectively by forming corporations, then workers *at the very least* should be able to bargain collectively in their turn. In fact I think the single biggest problem with the Liberal and Liberal Democratic parties has been that they've been disconnected from the traditions of organised labour by the link between the unions and the Labour party.


"You could add that quite a few people in the Lib-Dems are right leaning, but their focus is on liberalism. Clegg and Huhne and most of the other Orange Book liberals would fit this latter description in my view."

Agreed in part, but really the only writers in the Orange Book that one could describe as right-wing are Laws and Oaten, and *MAYBE* Clegg. Many of the same authors also contributed to Reinventing The State, after all... there is, however, a definite right-wing tendency in the party, centred around Liberal Vision, but that's pretty small in contrast to the left wing. We can work together though (and I say this as one of the most left-wing Lib Dems) because we share commitments to liberalism and democracy. One of my friends describes himself as "a liberal, a democrat and a socialist, in that order", which sounds about right to me, but if someone describes themselves as "a liberal, a democrat and a capitalist, in that order" I'm not going to refuse to work with them.

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

"I would argue that those two are the same thing - one can't be personally free if others have privileges."
I wouldn't necessarily disagree with that - possibly where we'd differ is in how much we think the state should intervene.


I take on board what you say about social authoritarianism, although I'd probably differ on how much there is in Labour and the Conservatives. (And for my part, I think there is a tendency for some LibDems to want to fight the wrong battles.) You're dead right on consensus up to 1979, but I don't think there is one now - at least if you believe what Mr Milliband and Mr Balls say. We have a situation where public spending got out of control and two of the main three parties think it is really important to at least try to pull it back, while one blithely goes 'La la la' and pretends that there isn't a problem. Of course that's talking about economic policy. As far as social policy goes, there is more of a consensus (and it includes the LibDems) but I'm not sure it's Thatcherite so much as broadly liberal, broadly pro-EU, broadly pro-immigration.

Yes on the Orange Book. I certainly wouldn't consider Vince Cable a libertarian for example. I suppose if you're left-wing and liberal, the LibDems are really the only party for you. If you're right-wing and liberal, you might find a home in the LibDems, but you'll probably find more like-minded people in the Conservatives.

[andrewhickey.livejournal.com]

"I take on board what you say about social authoritarianism, although I'd probably differ on how much there is in Labour and the Conservatives."
I'm not at all sure we would differ on that - *right now* the Tories are the *slightly* less authoritarian of the two parties, though not by much. But that social authoritarianism was a big part of Thatcherism, in my eyes.

"You're dead right on consensus up to 1979, but I don't think there is one now - at least if you believe what Mr Milliband and Mr Balls say. We have a situation where public spending got out of control and two of the main three parties think it is really important to at least try to pull it back, while one blithely goes 'La la la' and pretends that there isn't a problem. Of course that's talking about economic policy."

I think that's the case *now*, but on the other hand pre-election the Labour party were talking about having to make huge cuts, with Darling saying they'd be 'worse than Thatcher'. I suspect that had they actually won the election, going on their pre-election statements, they'd be making much the same decisions in at least broad outlines that the current government are.

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

Now the Liberal Party had been a proper liberal party in the 19th century, but had slowly moved away from that with the corporatism of 'New Liberalism' that led to the welfare state. (Labour supporters think that Labour invented the welfare state, but both Beveridge and Keynes were members of the Liberal Party.) Classical or 'true' liberalism in the second half of the 20th Century was largely confined to the Conservative Party (people like Keith Joseph), until a younger group of Liberal Democrats started questioning their party's position on liberalism. This led to the publication in 2004 of 'The Orange Book: Reclaiming Liberalism' and ultimately to much of the common ground with David Cameron's Conservatives which made the current coalition possible.

"...evil Tory fuckers"
People will tend to take you less seriously if you say things like that.

"...*TWO MILLION FUCKING PEOPLE* in Iraq"
Really? wikileaks has the total deaths at 109,032. Associated Press "more than" 110,600. World Health Organisation 151,000. Were you by any chance exaggerating for effect?

"...I'm a darnsight more socialist than New Labour"
If you're a socialist, you're not a liberal. At least not by my definition.

"...you will literally be destroyed by it"
What...literally?

"Wah, wah, wah, I went somewhere where there are loads of Lib Dems, and called them all a bunch of cunts, and when they responded politely that I was wrong I did it again - and then they insulted me! I am the most oppressed person in the world!"
Now _that's_ good.

Now as I said, I'm not a LibDem, although I can find common ground with the Orange Bookers, but I'm surprised that none of you more committed LibDems here haven't used the obvious defence. This is the obvious defence:
This country has a truly gigantic national debt and structural budget deficit which is almost entirely due to vast increases in public expenditure between 1997 and 2010. Reductions in public sector spending are inevitable and unavoidable, and to pretend otherwise is totally irresponsible. The Liberal Democratic Party understands this and thereby shows that it is a mature political party acting in the national interest. The Labour leadership also understands this (they aren't stupid), but maintains that cuts are unnecessary either because a) they are scoring cheap political points to get the votes of uninformed voters or b) those rich union leaders have threatened to stop paying them if they say otherwise.

"You have turned this into a place where people all agree with each other. Congratulations."
I doubt that many people agree with my political views on this blog. However, I find that Andrew's blog is frequented (in the main) by people whose views, although different from mine, are well-argued and well thought out (and for the most part politely expressed). I've never felt that I couldn't express my less mainstream views here. Maybe you should reconsider the tone of some of your comments and in particular avoid mass generalisations.

"The Lib Dems have fought Tory proposals to withdraw from the European convention on human rights..."
That's a difference between Liberal (capital 'L') and liberal / libertarian in my view. While there are good things in the ECHR about protecting the individual from the state, it does also remove powers from _British_ democratically elected representatives and put them in the hands of the judiciary and ultimately judges from other countries, many with only a short liberal tradition.

"Where is the entrenched privilege in extending the vote to prisoners? In aiming to offer equal marriage to all couples, mixed- or same-gender? In decreasing or eliminating income tax for low earners?"
I would argue that giving the vote to prisoners is not liberal, although it may be Liberal.
A properly liberal view of marriage (or a libertarian view if you prepare) is that the state should have no role in people's relationships, so 'marriage' of any kind shouldn't have to be sanctioned by the state.
Decreasing tax for any earner is definitely liberal. Truly liberal parties advocate low taxation for everyone (individuals and companies). Of course at the moment, because of the massive budget deficit, this might not be affordable. But that's not the fault of the two governing parties.

[andrewducker]

I haven't bothered with the debt/deficit argument specifically because Communicator has, in the past, scorned it. Which completely baffles me, but there you go.

I did kinda of raise it with the "should have raised taxes, rather than leaving us paying huge amounts of interest."

[andrewhickey.livejournal.com]

You exaggerate the effect of the Orange Book, but that's a fairly minor internal thing,,,


""...*TWO MILLION FUCKING PEOPLE* in Iraq"
Really? wikileaks has the total deaths at 109,032. Associated Press "more than" 110,600. World Health Organisation 151,000. Were you by any chance exaggerating for effect?"
The only reliable statistical study, the one conducted by the Lancet in 2004 and published in 2006, showed between 300,000 and 900,000 people had died up until that point. I misremembered that study as having slightly higher results, and then added on more for the intervening years. The total, however, has almost certainly passed at least one million at this point. It may not be as high as two million though, you're right. I was misremembering, not exaggerating, though.

"...I'm a darnsight more socialist than New Labour"
If you're a socialist, you're not a liberal. At least not by my definition"
Your definition, luckily, isn't the only one. One can be a liberal and a socialist if, for example, one supports market-based socialist solutions like mutualism.

[cosmolinguist]

"...I'm a darnsight more socialist than New Labour"
If you're a socialist, you're not a liberal.

Don't have to be very socialist to be moreso than New Labour, anyway.

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

Fair enough on the Iraq numbers. If I'm being honest, I was selective in the numbers I quoted too!

Your point market-based socialist solutions is an interesting one. It's probably not a common position, but I can certainly see that believing in mutually owned businesses (or co-operatives or 'industrial partnerships' like John Lewis) operating in market economies with minimal state intervention would meet both our definitions of liberal. I'd even go so far as to say that an organisation like John Lewis, or even a privatised company like a BT or a British Gas that gave employees the chance to buy shares, is actually _more_ socialist than a state-owned industry since the means of production are actually owned by the workers and not the state.

On the other hand, I really don't want to start telling socialists what I think socialism means. After all, this whole flame thread is partly due to a non-liberal telling liberals what liberalism means.

[andrewhickey.livejournal.com]

Agreed with all this, except maybe the bit about 'gave the employees the chance to buy shares' - I have shares in the Incredibly Big Megacorp for which I work, and that's as far from socialist as you can get ;)
And while market-based socialism isn't an especially common position in the population at large, it's a very firm tradition within the Lib Dems, and was even more so in the old Liberal Party (and in the continuity Liberals while people like Michael Meadowcroft were members, though I'm sure Meadowcroft wouldn't describe himself as a socialist).

[alitheapipkin.livejournal.com]

"...I'm a darnsight more socialist than New Labour"
If you're a socialist, you're not a liberal. At least not by my definition"
Your definition, luckily, isn't the only one. One can be a liberal and a socialist if, for example, one supports market-based socialist solutions like mutualism.

As the person who wrote the original comment - I said "more socialist than" which is not the same as saying I'm a socialist. I'm a left-wing liberal and very much in favour of mutualism.

[andrewhickey.livejournal.com]

Absolutely. Sorry if I gave the impression I thought you were a socialist - I didn't, but was responding more generally to the comment that one can't be both. I would argue (as would, e.g. the Co-Operative Party) that mutualism is a form of socialism - but one that isn't state-imposed - but absolutely respect your right not to use that label for yourself.

[andrewhickey.livejournal.com]

BTW "evil Tory fuckers" was a reference to specific Tories in contrast with the specific Labourites I was talking about, not a general reference to Tories as a whole. There are decent people in most parties, even if some are more wrong than others.