Interesting Links for 05-06-2020

[andrewducker]

Calls for anti-racist education to be taught in Scottish schools

(tags:Scotland racism education )

Bangalore has 12M residents and only 385 Covid-19 cases. Here's why

(tags:India pandemic )

Woman loses bid for Irish epitaph on mother's grave

(tags:Ireland language death )

How The Lockdown Sex Ban Could 'Break The Chain' Of HIV Transmission

(tags:pandemic hiv )

The chair of the US joint chiefs of staff reminds the military that the constitution safeguards freedom of both speech and assembly

Amazing that they should feel they need to
(tags:USA military freedom )

Coronavirus: No 10 fails to deny reports Boris Johnson told Italian PM he wanted 'herd immunity'

(tags:pandemic BorisJohnson )

Why telepathy (and other psychic nonsense) used to be popular in science fiction. And now isn't.

(tags:scifi telepathy )

Police in Norway Haven't Killed Anyone in Nearly 10 Years (2014 article, but pertinent right now)

(tags:police USA viaCharlesStross )

How much do we need the police?

(tags:police USA )

How the UK paid off its slave owners, and kept paying off until 2015

(tags:slavery UK history )

Coronavirus: Patients refusing treatment because of fake news on social media

(tags:NHS lies pandemic socialmedia OhForFucksSake )

Public inquiry into Edinburgh tram project has now lasted longer than the building of line itself

(tags:Edinburgh trams )

Labour coming out with exactly the kind of nonsense welfare policy ideas that means I wouldn't vote for them. Must be a day with a Y in it.

(tags:Labour welfare OhForFucksSake )

Divorces rise by 30% in Saudi Arabia after quarantine uncovers polygamous husbands

(tags:divorce saudiarabia polygamy pandemic viaElfy )

Comments

[aldabra]

Universal Credit: you fix the problem of having a system which people contribute to and are not eligible for support from by removing the barriers to eligibility, not by creating a two-tier system so that the middle class can ignore the way it fails to serve the people who need it.

Joint Chiefs of Staff: I read that at about this stage in Hitler's trajectory he wrote to the German military requiring that all German soldiers swore an oath of personal loyalty to him, and they did. The Joint Chiefs of Staff may be trying to pre-empt a move such as that, rather than having to refuse it if it is ordered. (I look at those Bible shots and wonder whether Trump is now consciously modelling himself on Hitler...)

[andrewducker]

Agreed on point 1.

Regarding the Bible stunt, this seems important
https://mobile.twitter.com/JYSexton/status/1267831319112761346?s=09

[dewline]

Having already read that thread from Mr. Sexton, I agree that it is important to read it.

[penta]

I read it and something jumps out at me.

"Shining City on a Hill" comes from John Winthrop talking about Boston, in a speech he made before disembarking the Arabella in 1630 to found the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

For an American, this is US History 101 stuff, really basic. If Sexton got that wrong, what else in that thread is he wrong about?

[andrewducker]

Interesting, thank you!

[nickys]

> How the UK paid off its slave owners, and kept paying off until 2015

For what it's worth, I am entirely happy with my taxes being spent on buying enslaved people in order to free them.
I would obviously prefer a strategy of exiling slave owners to remote islands with instructions on how to subsistence farm... but, you know, so long as people are free, that's a good start.

[dewline]

That's fair.

[conuly]

Of course, the enslaved people got no reparations at all, did they?

[dewline]

And that isn't fair.

[alithea]

I note that the Labour piece says absolutely nothing about how a system based on getting out more when you've paid in more won't leave people destitute... And also buys into the middle class privilege thing of thinking you have a moral right to spend your savings on for example, a house deposit, rather than misfortune meaning you need them to live on (while poor people obviously shouldn't have the right to spend their money where they please, no booze and holidays for you!). Bah. UBI already please, then everyone gets it.

[dewline]

The Church of Austerity isn't thrilled with that idea, but stuff them.

As to the HIV consequences of the COVID lockdowns

[dewline]

Yeah, that makes sense. We probably haven't stopped that disease completely, but we'll have further slowed it down considerably.

Woman loses bid for Irish epitaph on mother's grave

[jducoeur]

*boggle* -- that's maddening. The judge seems not to have considered that *preventing* the family from using Irish on the stone is a highly political act. (Far moreso, IMO, than quietly allowing them to have it their way would have been.)