Interesting Links for 25-09-2024

[andrewducker]

1. Murdoch family fights in secret over future of media empire

(tags:media journalism death RupertMurdoch )

2. How the molecule was first measured (using some oil and water)

(tags:history science oil )

3. The five lies we tell mothers, and how to cope with the reality

(tags:motherhood parenting lies )

4. How Humans Wrestle Against Rivers

(tags:rivers )

5. Converting dates between 33 different calendar systems

(tags:date history )

6. Brand new luxury British and European cars are entering Russia despite being banned - here's how

(tags:UK Russia trade law OhForFucksSake )

7. Britain Demands to Know WTF

(tags:wtf video news satire funny UK )

8. Reporters Are Asking the Wrong Questions About Labour's Freebie Fiasco

(tags:Labour bribes )

Comments

[anna_wing]

https://www.transparency.org/en/cpi/2023

This measures perceptions of corruption, not necessarily corruption itself. A country that prosecutes cases of corruption is not necessarily actually more corrupt than one where the people are so inured to it that it no longer registers.

[calimac]

2) I like clever science.

3) My mother said that first children should be considered practice efforts. She said this to me even though I was it.

8) The naivete of the reporter is what startles me here. Or maybe it's a UK thing? In the US we live by the advice quoted by Molly Ivins, "As they say around the Texas Legislature, if you can't drink their whiskey, screw their women, take their money, and vote against 'em anyway, you don't belong in office," a line which subsequently found its way into an Aaron Sorkin script.

[andrewducker]

8) I think that the level of corruption has been so startling in the UK recently that people are now going "No, none of it. Not even free clothes. We don't trust you, and we don't particularly trust you to take free things from billionaires."

[channelpenguin]

*snort* I love that quote about 8. Also, are the super rich naive enough to not notice this, ot to think that someone who will lie to and double-cross voters will not also do the same to them?

[bens_dad]

If they vote against you half the time, you have still got them to do half the things you asked for. Ordinary people rarely even get to tell a politician face-to-face what they want.

[calimac]

Huh? There's plenty of chances to tell politicians what you want. Our politicians hold public meetings - often telephonically these days - and do in-person drop-in sessions; it was at one of these that Gabby Giffords was shot. I believe UK politicians also do the latter and call them "surgeries."

What happens as a result of this is another question; but the thesis of your second sentence doesn't hold up.