Interesting Links for 02-10-2018

[andrewducker]

Nicolas Cage: ‘If I don’t have a job to do, I can be very self-destructive’

(tags: acting movies )

Postman Pat and… the law of merchandise

(tags: merchandising law contracts )

NHS to suffer £2.7bn cuts after government miscalculation of public sector pension costs

(tags: nhs pensions Conservatives OhForFucksSake )

Edinburgh Council reveal city-wide electric vehicle plan

(tags: edinburgh electricity cars scotland )

The Financial Times 404 Error Page is brilliant

(tags: web errors 404 funny economics )

Sex worker stall at Brighton university freshers' fairs sparks row

(tags: sexwork university )

Magic Leap Review Part 1 – The Terrible View Through Diffraction Gratings

(tags: augmentedreality fail )

Ruth Davidson doesn't understand what democracy is

(tags: democracy Conservatives Scotland UK europe )

UK will enforce hard border in Ireland if there is no Brexit deal

(tags: uk Ireland Europe NorthernIreland doom )

The Conservatives think Blockchain may resolve Irish border Brexit problem. *sigh*

(tags: ConservatIves technology bitcoin OhForFucksSake uk europe NorthernIreland Ireland )

Cern physicist suspended over 'highly offensive' presentation on sexism in science

(tags: gender physics )

'Star Wars: The Last Jedi' Was Targeted by Russian Trolls

(tags: StarWars russia )

We won't compromise our principles to rescue the Tory party from Brexit, Guy Verhofstadt warns Theresa May

(tags: uk Europe doom )

Traditional societal markers of age aren't applying to millennials, and this is hard for everyone.

(tags: age society )

Artificial sweeteners have toxic effects on gut microbes

(tags: microbiome food )

‘Goblin’ world found orbiting at the edges of the Solar System

(tags: planets space solarsystem )

Why Can a Machine Beat Mario but not Pokemon?

(tags: ai pokemon Mario games )

Civil partnerships: Law to be changed for mixed-sex couples (in England and Wales. Scotland investigating)

(tags: law relationships marriage uk )

Comments

[skington]

When France introduced civil unions, they cleverly deflected the expected “this is only for gay people, and gay people are icky and bad” objection by making it open to more than just same-sex couples: e.g. elderly sisters who had never married, or whose spouses had died, and who wanted to have hospital visitation rights. And I know of some people who decided to start off with a civil union, and then move on to marriage later on, if at all, if that seemed like a good idea. So having civil unions, or civil partnerships, as a weaker but broader version of marriage makes all the sense in the world.

[andrewducker]

I don't believe civil partnerships in the UK are weaker, are they?

[skington]

They might not be, but if they're basically the same as marriage the legislator missed a trick.

[andrewducker]

Why? They were designed to be the same as marriage, except for same sex couples.

Making them lesser would have rightfully been seen as homophobic.

[skington]

OK, but that only makes sense when you don't have gay marriage. Once you do, there's no point in there being another thing that's the same but has a different name.

[andrewducker]

So how do you do that?

You can't convert existing civil partnerships to marriages against the will of the civilly partnered.

You can't make existing CPs less good while people have them.

So what do you do?

[danieldwilliam]

Which makes sense (both the French approach and the way they introduced it) but I'm not sure that there is much difference between civil partnerships and marriage in the UK.