Interesting Links for 10-8-2011

[andrewducker]

• The Tea Party is Heinlein's fault.
  (tags: heinlein TeaParty robertheinlein scifi politics usa)
• An amazing post on alienation, lack of education, and why the current riots are the fault of every government of the last forty years
  (tags: parenting education government society uk riots)
• BAD money thing make world have big new scary time, clever men say now.
  (tags: economics news reporting funny)
• Some musing on the rioters. I agree with all of this.
  (tags: riots society people violence law)
• Home Secretary: We can cut police budget without risking violent unrest (last September)
  (tags: police riots uk)
• Haringey youth club closures: 'There'll be riots' (from July)
  (tags: crime uk youth riots)
• photoshop looter
  (tags: Funny photoshop riots uk)
• Drug to prevent Alzheimer's within six years
  (tags: alzheimers brain drugs)
• Building Blocks of DNA Found in Meteorites From Space
  (tags: dna space life)

Comments

[matgb]

Hah, you got the Daily Mash link direct from me and didn't even check the URL.

Just checkin' ;-)

[andrewducker]

I have a firefox addon that strips the google tracking stuff. It never occurred to me to look for other identifiers!

[matgb]

I thought I'd see how far it went if I added it, so far you and Jennie, now it might go further. It was partially sparked by people tweeting stuff that gets translated by Dabr and so you get a massive long URL with multiple different tracking codes and similar, annoying...

[andrewducker]

Yeah, I tend to spot unwieldy things appended to the end, but that one was subtle enough to slip through!

[undeadbydawn.livejournal.com]

[comment self-deleted as i'm probably not well informed enough to state what I stated]

[andrewducker]

I liked the comment. I thought it stood perfectly well by itself, and might incite some interesting further comments.

[undeadbydawn.livejournal.com]

you may repost it if you wish

[andrewducker]

Done:

I had a discussion with Iraqi and Pakistani gentlemen at college a while back, talking about the situations where they grew up. Both pretty dire, all considered.

They asked me how I could be discontent with life here, compared to what they grew up with. I gave a long-winded reply which could be effectively summed up as 'people in power fucked up. Violently. And rather than pay for that themselves, they contrived to pass the bill on to us. People who had very little to begin with. That's beyond infuriating. It's not so bad now, but come April when the cuts kick in, the poor will seriously start to feel it. We're lucky because here in Scotland it wont be quite as bad, but in England I fully expect riots in the streets. There'll be a revolution.'
 
 
I saw the Pakistani chap, Danish, yesterday. I he expressed both surprise that this is happening in London, of all places, and that i saw it coming this far ahead.

this is what happens when you have people in power that have no comprehension at all of what it is to be poor. people who enact policies that blatantly are not going to work, see that they are not working, then tell those most badly affected that it's going to get worse.

and the worst thing is that much as I'd love to see the Con-Dem coalition fall, Labour are nowhere near ready to govern

that's amazingly fucking grim

[alitheapipkin.livejournal.com]

I'm glad this was reposted, it's a valuable contribution. I especially agree with

this is what happens when you have people in power that have no comprehension at all of what it is to be poor.

Yes indeed, the top politicians in this country live in a different world to most of us and what's worse is that I don't think they realise it at all.

[alitheapipkin.livejournal.com]

And this leads me to wonder if one of the reasons things are better in Scotland is that our politicians aren't as far removed from reality?

I'll confess I don't know much about the background of your average MSP but certainly mine used to live in the tenement flats just round the corner from where I live in a solidly working class area.

[andrewducker]

One could argue that smaller, more homogeneous, countries are easier to govern and less likely to be riven by strife.

I suspect there are some large counterexamples to this though.

[andrewducker]

And you have a positive comment!

[eatsoylentgreen.livejournal.com]

say do you know where that income chart is again?

[andrewducker]

Which income chart?

[eatsoylentgreen.livejournal.com]

you had a chart of strips saying how much you make and where you are in the distribution... I think it was a link actually

[coughingbear]

I think you probably mean this: http://www.ifs.org.uk/wheredoyoufitin/, from the Institute for Fiscal Studies.

[eatsoylentgreen.livejournal.com]

ah thanks

or as you funny island people put it, ta very much

[andrewducker]

For future reference, they're all on delicious, broken down by category. In this case:
http://www.delicious.com/AndrewDucker/money

[heyokish.livejournal.com]

re: alzheimer's. Oh please oh please oh please let that be as promising an approach as it seems and not just vapourware, because it's a terrifying and cruel disease.

[andrewducker]

I remain hopeful about all sorts of future-health related stuff. Mostly because I hope they'll work it all out before they affect me!

[apostle-of-eris.livejournal.com]

“There are two kinds of Libertarians; those who don’t know that Ayn Rand was writing fiction, and those who don’t know Heinlein was writing fiction.”

[undeadbydawn.livejournal.com]

somewhat reminiscent of the Scientologists, no?

[though in fairness some of their techniques actually make sense and work]

[apostle-of-eris.livejournal.com]

some of their techniques actually make sense and work
libertarians or Scientologists?