Interesting Links for 01-02-2020

[andrewducker]

Westminster Cannot Block Scottish Independence (but 51% is not nearly enough for a unilateral declaration)

(tags:Scotland independence law UK )

SSE Renewables to build first subsidy-free wind farm

(tags:windpower scotland economics )

Fictional characters fight! (My favourite was Granny Weatherwax Vs Professor X)

(tags:fighting fiction funny )

Otters spotted in Edinburgh city centre (in the canal)

(tags:Edinburgh animals video canal otters )

Looks like the government have finally realised they're going to have to have customs checks

(tags:trade UK Doom Europe )

How we pay attention changes the shape of our brains

(tags:brain attention )

Keir Starmer comes out for electoral reform

(tags:Labour reform voting UK )

Comments

[calimac]

I'm trying to apply the principles in the Scottish independence article to the South in the US Civil War.

If I follow this correctly, the argument would be that the Union had no right to stand in the way of secession, and that the failure of secession was measured by the CSA's inability to get other nations (notably the UK and France) to recognize it as a state.

But the reluctance of these other countries to recognize the CSA was a result of its inability to establish itself as a functioning nation, and that inability was in turn caused by the Union actively and militarily preventing it from doing so.

So the cause derives from the result in some head-splitting way.

In actual fact, the Union justified its actions on an entirely different principle, which is that the Constitution contained no provisions for dissolution of the Union and that it therefore must be treated as perpetual. Would the author of this article consider that to be nonsense?

The other problem with the Scottish independence article is that it seems to assume a referendum would be held for the purpose of asking the UK for permission to leave, a permission the author considers unnecessary. But I thought the purpose of a referendum would be to determine whether the Scottish people really want to go.

Fictional characters fight

[nojay]

There were four graphics novels based on Dredd and Batman facing off thanks to dimensional gates. Real Battle of the Chins stuff.

Bruce Wayne tied to a chair in a Hall of Justice interrogation room while Dredd goes through Wayne's bat-belt. "Vigilantism, twenty years in the isocubes."