Interesting Links for 02-10-2017
Oct. 2nd, 2017 12:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
andrewducker- New £500m ‘urban quarter’ planned for Edinburgh outskirts
- (tags: Edinburgh housing )
- Len Wein on Alan Moore
- (tags: alanmoore comics )
- A Modest Proposal to Make Babies Less Useless
- (tags: babies funny Technology video )
- Chinese robot dentist is first to fit implants in patient’s mouth without any human involvement
- (tags: robots teeth )
- CamperFor - Amazon's Nomadic Retiree Army
- (tags: amazon age work usa )
- He wanted to understand why racists hated me, so he befriended Klansmen
- (tags: racism usa argument )
- The view from the liberal wing of the Conservative Party
- (tags: Conservatives politics uk )
- Catalan referendum: Catalonia has 'won right to statehood'
- (tags: Catalonia independence spain )
- How The Negro Traveler’s Green Book Helped Black People Get Around in the 1950s
- (tags: racism usa history )
- Tesla says world’s largest battery installation is halfway done
- (tags: australia batteries electricity power )
- Meet the hominin species that probably gave us genital herpes
- (tags: disease sex evolution prehistory )
- Legal Aid changes means 500% more people representing themselves in court - less than half understand what is said
- (tags: law uk OhForFucksSake )
- Why Don't We Build A Telescope Without Mirrors Or Lenses?
- (tags: space Technology light )
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no subject
Date: 2017-10-02 11:49 am (UTC)I'm very pro-Catalonia. I've been there quite often. My mum was there in the 1960's. I have a relative who was there in the 1930's.
I think the Spanish constitution is wrong. Legally, I don't think it meets Spain's obligations under its UN membership to respect the right to self-determination. I suspect it doesn't pass similar EU membership requirements. It's also a bad idea. Unless you are actually prepared to put tanks on to the streets of a large part of your country, you shouldn't have clauses in your constitution that ban independence aspirations in autonomous parts of your state. Doing so can only lead to violence and eventually terrorism and civil war. (See my relative who travelled in Catalonia in the 1930's for how much fun that is.)
I think a number of Catalans think they were forced, more or less, at gun point in to signing up to the current constittuional arrangements and that, like any promise extracted with threats of violence it is not binding.
I appreciate that I'm biased but I also think that there is a long history of the Castillian authorities taking advantage of Catalonia and treating them badly which goes back to Crown of Aragon and the Counts of Barcelona and runs through the last 500 years, perhaps 1,000. I think some Catalans would see the relationship as one where Catalonia works out what the next economic wave is going to be, does that very well, generates lots of wealth and the rest of Spain decides to appropriate that wealth at gun point. Happened with the thallocracy in the 16th century, happened with the Industrial Revolution in the early 20th century.
Setting riot police on half the population of one the most important parts of your state is only going to end badly.
Particularly as the Spanish government had an option to hold a referendum and win it - just like the British government did in 2014.
no subject
Date: 2017-10-03 07:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-10-04 11:03 am (UTC)I can't imagine have had Spanish state riot police rampaging through the streets of Catalonia will have made Catalans less keen on independence - although I reckon it will have made quite a lot of people wonder if independence following a violent resistance is worth it. Which of course is the point of using violence in politics.
no subject
Date: 2017-10-02 12:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-10-02 01:11 pm (UTC)I see that "It is now more than four years since the introduction of major reforms to legal aid, which made it harder than ever to get free access to a lawyer for those who cannot afford one." Four years. That means it was done by the coalition, the one that was supposedly so much less noxious than Tories straight up. Uh-huh.
no subject
Date: 2017-10-02 01:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-10-02 02:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-10-02 03:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-10-02 03:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-10-02 03:54 pm (UTC)So now I have to start giving my condescending explanation:
If the LDs couldn't at least mitigate things that are this bad, or - even worse - if this is the mitigated version of the original proposal, they didn't accomplish very much by signing on to the agenda. The list of bad things enacted, starting with the university tuition business, is very long. The list of bad things prevented is much shorter. The list of good things is almost nonexistent. The one thing that the LDs should have insisted on doing - as I just finished saying in this very journal last week - they totally muffed. Totally.
And - as I also pointed out - this is the party that actually boasted about the whip hand they had over the Tories.
So my point, then, is that they got very little for selling their souls.
"Bad things were done" is not something that you just shrug off. You could sign on to people a lot worse than the Tories and use the same excuse - people have done that; Franz von Papen rather infamously did it; and the excuse wouldn't be any hollower even though the deeds were far worse.
no subject
Date: 2017-10-02 04:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-10-02 08:03 pm (UTC)All I meant by my original, single word comment, "Uh-huh," was to express wry confirmation that the coalition arrangement was not very successful at keeping the Tories from being Tories.
The reason for being wry about it was that there were plenty of LDs at the time, and even some since then, who think that the coalition was pretty successful in that regard, with only a few flaws.
But this legal aid story looks like a major flaw to me. The alternative was not a Conservative majority government which would have been worse - a Conservative majority was not on offer in the 2010-15 Parliament. But the LDs enabled a lot more than they claimed they would, then they should have, or that they could have.
no subject
Date: 2017-10-02 09:00 pm (UTC)I could live with there being a coalition, particularly considering the circumstances. But some of the decisions made me terribly unhappy.
I don't think I know anyone who would stand behind all of the decisions made by the coalition - but I have seen people online do so, and it worries me how little they seem to care about the damage done to people.
no subject
Date: 2017-10-02 11:10 pm (UTC)I'm conflicted about the whole coalition thing. On the one hand, if the LDP isn't to descend into what David Steel once mockingly called "a nice little debating society," it's going to have to get down in the scrum and cooperate from time to time. And if it isn't going to become just an appendage to Labour, sometimes that cooperation is going to have to be with the Conservatives.
But it has to be on the right terms. It wasn't right for Jeremy Thorpe in 1974, and it shouldn't have been right for Nick Clegg in 2010. I think he could have gotten more. Too willing a cooperation just enabled the Tories to be Tories and give the LDs the moral blame for it. If you're going to sell your soul, at least get a good price.
no subject
Date: 2017-10-03 06:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-10-03 10:23 am (UTC)Given the very real hysteria there was at the time about the UK's financial stability I think it was a coalition government or new elections in October 2010.
no subject
Date: 2017-10-02 03:26 pm (UTC)Which would seem to be a point disagrees with, and thus an odd one to make.
no subject
Date: 2017-10-02 03:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-10-02 03:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-10-02 03:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-10-02 04:03 pm (UTC)Which point you were making there is the one you're referring to? It really isn't clear to me.
no subject
Date: 2017-10-02 08:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-10-02 09:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-10-02 02:21 pm (UTC)Clearly, more people living and working there can't hurt but I was wondering how close to capacity the trams were at rush hour and therefore whether adding extra demand would actually turn in to extra revenue if it can't be met.
If you put a bunch of housing next to the tram stop then that means more people moving away from that tram stop in the morning and towards it in the evening.
I wonder if there is much spare capacity going to Edinburgh Park at rush hour.
no subject
Date: 2017-10-02 02:27 pm (UTC)I'm sure it can be increased again:
https://edinburghtrams.com/news/service-frequency-increases
no subject
Date: 2017-10-02 02:34 pm (UTC)Too many trams
Date: 2017-10-02 08:20 pm (UTC)There's a limit to how many trams can run through the city centre when it's busy, push more trams in there and they just stack up and grind to a halt.
As for the idea of expanding housing etc. in the Edinburgh Park and Gyle area area, dealing with commuting from there is easy, just run more bus services. They can even serve commuters who don't live right next to the tram line.
Re: Too many trams
Date: 2017-10-02 09:03 pm (UTC)I wonder if we'll see the movement of buses off of Princes Street at some point, shoved onto George Street and Queen Street.
Re: Too many trams
Date: 2017-10-03 10:16 am (UTC)I fear the geography is a bit against us. Having two big hills in the middle of your city is awkward at times.
Re: Too many trams
Date: 2017-10-03 08:28 am (UTC)And yes to more buses. I think the city bus service could really do with more buses that aren't routed through Princes Street. Princes Street seems close to being full to me.