Interesting Links for 13-02-2012
Feb. 13th, 2012 11:00 am- BitTorrent doesn't effect movie sales - except for delayed releases in other countries
I could have told them that - make it available and people will buy it. Make us wait for months and it'll get sucked down the intertubes.
- The End of the Mainframe Era at NASA
- What it's like to be Brian Cox's wife
- How the internet is killing magic
- NHS among developed world's most efficient health systems
- Crowdtilt - a less limited version of Kickstarter
- Glasgow Labour rebels forming splinter group. Interesting if it takes off up here.
- Why Arabic is Terrific
- Interview: Ruth Davidson, leader of the Scottish Conservative & Unionist Party
- On Alan Moore's Doctor Who Work
- Portraits created using police composite sketch software - from descriptions of literary characters
- The Order of the Stick Reprint Drive - check the "Updates" for all the awesome stuff you can get!
- Some numbers on Scotland's whether Scotland's incomings and outgoings balance
- The British government is, unsurprisingly, not interested in harm reduction for drug-taking
- It's only a matter of time before Valentine-induced-anxiety is an official disorder.
- Education Gap In The USA Grows Between Rich and Poor
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Date: 2012-02-13 11:06 am (UTC)Finally!
Date: 2012-02-13 11:53 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-13 12:00 pm (UTC)This effect has been observed again and again. Even sadder that the men did not even notice this.
I would have HAD to say something at the time (whilst trying VERY hard not to lose my temper).
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Date: 2012-02-13 12:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-13 12:20 pm (UTC)Nowadays the better ones don't use their interfaces though :->
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Date: 2012-02-13 12:20 pm (UTC)The joys of preferential voting and the reduction of barriers to entry.
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Date: 2012-02-13 12:23 pm (UTC)If the SNP fall apart and Labour doesn't recover then I expect someone to exploit this.
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Date: 2012-02-13 03:05 pm (UTC)I’m not sure how badly Glasgow local politics is afflicted by corruption. There might be a gap in the market for a clean centre-left party in Glasgow.
The credible treat of a new entrant might make the Continuity Labour behave itself.
What I would observe is that under Single Member Plurality I’d be *certain* this would fail. Under PR-AMS, it might succeed and the main driver of succcess isn’t the electoral system, it’s the fact that there are already about 3 or 4 parties in Scotland who might describe themselves as centre-left.
*I’d so dearly love to see one of these. I’d almost certainly never vote for it but I’d love to separate the “Let’s Get Rich Party” from the “Know Your Place Party”
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Date: 2012-02-13 03:26 pm (UTC)And yes, a liberal pro-business party would probably do rather well. I do wonder why the world seems to have ossified in a structure where you can be pro-business authoritarian, or anti-business liberal, but there's not much in the way of pro-business liberal about.
(Although many properly left wing people would say that the Lib-Dems were pro-business from their point of view, what with their putting up with capitalsim and all)
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Date: 2012-02-13 03:45 pm (UTC)Bit of a mixed effort our electoral system and I wonder at the behavioural impact of having STV, PR-AMS and SMP covering different tiers of government.
Lots of Green councilours, a handfull of Green MSP’s, no Green MP’s.
I think the junior party in the German coalition might qualify as a socially liberally economically liberal party.
I think the electoral system has a lot to do with the current broad churchs in the UK but I also think that the Conservative Party is a very successful brand. If you are at all interested in having access to power and you don’t actively want a left wing government or state then, in the UK, difficult to look past the Tories. Their ability to be pragmatic and to do deals is one of their key strengths.
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Date: 2012-02-13 03:56 pm (UTC)The Scottish Conservatives seem to me to be headed in a pro-business pro-individual rights direction, but are shackled to the UK Conservatives. If they had ditched them then they'd undoubtedly be better off. They might have to die in order to be reborn (and on the basis of their dropping electoral performance I give them three more elections before they cease to be any more influential than the Greens.
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Date: 2012-02-13 04:07 pm (UTC)I think it’s all to play for post a Yes vote for the Conservatives. Not sure I can see Brian Souter backing any form of left – liberal or left-authoratian party after indepedence.
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Date: 2012-02-13 03:50 pm (UTC)Kinda depends on your definition of left wing. Whether it’s about economic structure, or equality of opportunity or outcome or about power structures.
I'd say they straddled my defintions of left and right wing.
But then I'd say that about the Labour Party too.
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Date: 2012-02-13 03:52 pm (UTC)Having read the interview with Ruth Davidson I have _no idea_ what the Scottish Conservatives stand for.
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Date: 2012-02-13 04:12 pm (UTC)In terms of soul I think the Labour party are more to the left and the Conservatives more to the right than they like people to see.
I'll go and read the interview now so I can join in with some cod psephology and my deep insights into the political soul of the Conservative Party.
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Date: 2012-02-13 04:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-13 03:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-13 10:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-13 06:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-14 02:14 am (UTC)one of the project suggestions it rotates through is "Wedding Gift for Julie". subtle. :>