Interesting Links for 23-01-2019

[andrewducker]

MP asks for a foreign government to intervene so as to frustrate a potential UK government policy.

(tags: UK europe OhForFucksSake )

Matthew's experiment changed his family's attitude to sugar

(tags: sugar diet visualisation )

The final parliament battle for Brexit is coming: This is what it looks like

(tags: UK europe politics thefuture )

"I Tried to Block Amazon From My Life. It Was Impossible."

(tags: amazon viaSwampers )

Mary Poppins is Tom Bombadil

(tags: lotr funny )

Comments

[cmcmck]

Isn't the word for that sort of behaviour 'betrayal' or even 'treason'?

Iirc, that and setting fire to royal dockyards still, at least theoretically, carry the death penalty.

[jack]

Doesn't the ECHR prevent the death penalty for anything outside war? At least for another couple of months :( :( :(

[cmcmck]

I'm not honestly sure- these fossil laws tend to have a life of their own if anyone chooses to play games (and with the Brexit idiocy in full cry I wouldn't be surprised if someone does).

[jack]

I mean, weird laws do stick around like that, but I thought new top-down laws like the HRA explicitly replaced older laws -- else they'd be utterly pointless since there's no point banning things if other laws allow them to happen anyway. But I am not at all surprised if I find there's a big hole in my comprehension there.

[cmcmck]

Not so much your comprehension as the way laws are allowed to work sometimes I suspect.

I certainly don't complain about the ECtHR as it's thanks to them that I actually possess any human rights at all. Thankfully, it isn't an EU organisation so whatever happens, we are still signatories.

[danieldwilliam]

It's not treason. In fact it's nowhere close to treason.


High Treason requires you to do one of the following

plan or try to kill the sovereign

violate the sovereign's wife and some other female relations of the sovereign

levy war against the sovereign in the realm (raise a rebellion or a civil war)

adher to the sovereign's enemies, giving them aid or comfort

killing various officers of the Crown

Treason Felony (a separate offience to High Treason) requires you to plan to

deprive the sovereign of the Crown

levy war against the sovereign "in order by force or constraint to compel her to change her measures or counsels, or in order to put any force or constraint upon or in order to intimidate or overawe both Houses or either House of Parliament", or

"move or stir" any foreigner to invade the United Kingdom or any other country belonging to the sovereign

Asking, merely asking, a foreign government to frustrate the government's policy isn't levying war and asking a foreignner to frustrate the government policy isn't stiring them to invade.


The Crime and Disorder Act 1998, S36 abolished the death penalty for treason. The maximum sentence if life imprisonment.

[cmcmck]

Damn!

That just leaves the royal dockyards then. :o)

[danieldwilliam]

Abolished in the Criminal Damages Act 1971.

[cmcmck]

Stiff letter to the Times it is then.......

[danieldwilliam]

That'll show 'em.

[calimac]

Sugar monitor story: "Sarah started eating fruit, and she no longer cried if she was told she couldn't have something sweet like a biscuit." But fruit has sugar in it too, or did little Sarah not know that?

The Sekrit Plan in story #3 would be defeated by the motion described in #1. Actually, it may not even need that. The EU is only likely to grant extension if it's evident that the time granted will be used to make actual progress. But since there's no progress to be made unless some of various people who've staked their political lives on not backing down back down, and the extension would just be used to spin the wheels for N months more, the request is unlikely to be looked on favorably.

[naath]

Mostly that sugar story prompts the same response in me as every other 'track what you eat' story which is that I have no bleeding idea how much of anything there is in most food I eat, and keeping such records would require a huge change in eating habits; I have no idea how anyone would keep accurate track.

[andrewducker]

There are apps which have massive food lists, which do the hard work for you.

[naath]

AFAICT I have to a)laboriously add all of the dozen things in the recepie or b)guess wildly at what the work canteen used; depending on the day...I can believe theyp work well for '1 digestive biscuit' but they don't work for 'plate of pasta bought in cafe' and very tediously for 'pie I made' (I do not make the same things over and over, that would be dull)

[andrewducker]

Yeah, home made is always tricky. Although you'll know what stuff is important,generally, and can ignore trivial ingredients.

[calimac]

A lot depends on what you eat. The apps that list many foods include the offerings of chain food restaurants, and common foods that don't vary much (like a pint of beer). That doesn't help with independent one-off restaurants or house-made foods from shops, but after a while you get good at estimating.

In the US, at least, all packaged foods are required to list carbs and specifically sugars per serving, and the only nuisance is matching their idea of a serving with the amount of the package you're using. Yes, you have to add up what's in all the ingredients of what you make, but I do that all the time and find it no bother. (Since meats and vegetables [as opposed to fruits, grains, and starches] have essentially no carbohydrates worth counting, that cuts out a lot of the ingredients from the calculation right there.)

However, for us it's a matter of an urgent health concern, and not just a piece of abstract virtue, so we're motivated.

[naath]

Packets list things in the UK too, but it's a faff to do for 5 things in a recipie every day; I rarely cook the same thing twice. I also eat a lot of things in the work canteen, which does not label for much. I am not very motivated though, at least partly because the main result of resolving to track food is that I don't eat...

[ninetydegrees]

From the comments on the last one:

"I'm currently trying to reconcile my complete worship of Mary Poppins with my deep hatred of Tom Bombadil"

I'm not that intense about either but that's close to how I feel. Tom Bombadil makes me deeply uncomfortable.