Interesting Links for 26-06-2017

[andrewducker]

On roses, violets, and historical perceptions of colour (in verse)

(tags: colour poetry history funny )

The Salvation Army: Still terrible people

(tags: christianity charity OhForFucksSake )

Do NOT trust Anne Rice

(tags: writing fanfic OhForFucksSake intellectual_property abuse )

The List Of Animals Who Can Truly, Really Dance Is Very Short.

(tags: animals dancing )

FACT CHECK: I Secretly Planted a Giant Sequoia Tree in My Mayor's Front Yard

(tags: trees facts fail )

A brief history of Native Americans in Tudor Britain

(tags: uk usa history )

Sega release all of their games on the phone

(tags: games retro )

Efficient music players remain elusive

(tags: music electricity efficiency computers )

Ruth Davidson made Honorary Colonel of former Army regiment

(tags: army Conservatives scotland )

Trump breaks twenty-year White House Eid dinner tradition

(tags: islam usa politics )

There is no down-side to high levels of self-control

(tags: self-control psychology )

Seattle?s Minimum Wage Hike May Have Gone Too Far

(tags: minimumwage economics usa )

Conservatives agree pact with DUP to support May government

(tags: Conservatives NorthernIreland DUP politics uk )

Comments

[danieldwilliam]

My favourite sonnet, Shakespeare Sonnet 99 has violets as purple

http://www.shakespeare-online.com/sonnets/99.html

Words for colours that don't exist or rather words that don't exist for colours that do - not only wine-dark sea but also brazen sky and perhaps bright-eyed Athena.

[danieldwilliam]

That DUP deal sounds like a two year arrangement with, I guess, a renewal in two year's time depending on a) more money, b) successfully getting what the DUP wants in terms of the EU (which I think is impossible as I think it's self-contradictory, c) the arithmetic in the House and d) current opinion polls.

May will probably survive for two years and might even make the full term.

minimum wage

[ironymaiden]

Interesting on the Seattle study results. There was a recent piece in the Seattle Times that said low wage employers in the surrounding suburbs are in a recruiting crisis - everyone wants a Seattle paycheck.
What I would like to see is more information on low margin business...I think this exposes anyone who was already struggling to make payroll. Food places have innovated in response to change, retailers not so much. (Washington doesn't have the "waitress wage" for tipped staff, so it's more apples to apples than it would be elsewhere.)

[conuly]

Wait. We've got a 20 year tradition of celebrating Eid in the White House, but Obama was the first one to host a Seder?

[doug]

With you on your first paragraph, but not so sure about the second. A practical majority of 13 (if my maths is right) is still very, very small. I think there are typically about 4-8 byelections a year, depending of course on all sorts of things. It'd be unusual for a Government to lose seven byelections within one year, not least because only about half the vacancies will be seats they hold, but within two years seems entirely possible, and that's leaving aside political earthquakes. I really can't see a majority of 13 - with a Government that's already plunging in popularity - lasting an entire five-year term.

[danieldwilliam]

There seem to be fewer by-elections now than there used to be in the 60's and 70's .

(The numbers below are mostly me just checking that my understand was correct)

10 in 2015-17

21 by-election in 2010-15

14 in 05-10

6 in 01-05

14 in 97-01

65 by-elections in 20 year or 3.25 a year

31 in 83-87

20 in 79-83

1 in the short parliament

29 74-79

30 70-74

38 in 66-70

149 by-elections in 21 years or 7 a year.

Mostly by-elections are held by the incumbent party because most seats are safe and I think incumbents of safe seats are older than incumbents of marginal seats.

Let's assume 4 by-elections a year, with the Tories losing 1 seat for every 4 by-elections. (2 seats are already held by an opposition party, 1 Tory seat held, 1 lost). That sees May (or whomever) with an effective majority of 8 or there abouts by the time of the next Queen's Speech in two year's time. Very tight, but not impossible. By 2021 it becomes very, very unstable.

What makes me think there might be fewer by-elections than usual over the next few years is that a) we've just a short parliament, if you were thinking of retiring in the Parliament of 2015-2020 then you probably didn't stand in 2017 b) any one thinking of standing down will be heavily pressured / induced to remain.

There might well be something seismic that triggers a bunch of defections. My guess would be bungled Brexit negotiations leading to the threat of a hard and sudden Brexit triggering defections from the Tories to the Lib Dems. There is also a chance that a leadership bid against May sours the atmosphere in the Conservative Party so much that it in effect does a temporary soft split. However, if decades of watching politics has taught me anything it is not to underestamate the ability of the Tory Party to hang together instead of hanging separately.

So I totally wouldn't be surprised if May is ousted, or the government collapses or the DUP-Tory arrangement fails but I think on balance I expect it to survive for at least two years.

(This of course is mostly because I can not bear to hope that it fails).

[andrewducker]

Good question. Apparently there are twice as many Jews as Muslims in the USA:
http://www.pewforum.org/religious-landscape-study/

[conuly]

And while there are lots more Muslims than Jews worldwide, not to put too fine a point on it, we're allied with the only Jewish state in existence.