royal.canadian.bandit

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• Commented on Schroedinger's Kingdom: the Scottish Political Singularity Explained
  Britain finished the 'mercan war of independence with more territory in the Americas than we had at the start. (The USA got independed, but the French lost Canada, which had been explored to a much greater depth from the shore.)...
• Commented on Schroedinger's Kingdom: the Scottish Political Singularity Explained
  WHY do you insist that the tories will always go for the "iron fist"? I never said any such thing. I was observing that the UK Conservative Party is not inclined to be generous towards Scotland. This was certainly the...
• Commented on Schroedinger's Kingdom: the Scottish Political Singularity Explained
  Assume for a moment that all of the Bad things which the "no" side are suggesting do occur, couldn't both sides say "oops" I seriously doubt it. It's one thing for a peace treaty to restore the status quo ante...
• Commented on Schroedinger's Kingdom: the Scottish Political Singularity Explained
  If the vote ends up with a bare No majority, would that be enough to scare Westminster in to reform, or would it be more reactionary and take out the hammer? Depends very much on who is in power at...
• Commented on Schroedinger's Kingdom: the Scottish Political Singularity Explained
  It has been argued an independent Scotland would not inherit the legal rights of the UK: It is not legally possible for two new states to inherit the international personality of the former state. The remainder of the UK (comprising...
• Commented on Schroedinger's Kingdom: the Scottish Political Singularity Explained
  The Faeroe islands are not an independent country. Yes, there's a significant independence movement, but for now they are still part of Denmark. Even if they formally declare "independence", as I've said it is questionable how independent they would be...
• Commented on Schroedinger's Kingdom: the Scottish Political Singularity Explained
  Indeed. They still haven't given statehood to the city of Washington DC because it's too left-wing for the Republicans in Congress. What chance does the UK have? The USA might accept the UK as a colony along the lines of...
• Commented on Schroedinger's Kingdom: the Scottish Political Singularity Explained
  The independent Grand Jarldom of Orkney and Shetland would have a combined population of 42,000 which would make it the 3rd least populated country in the world, after the Vatican and Monaco. It's questionable whether this is big enough for...
• Commented on Schroedinger's Kingdom: the Scottish Political Singularity Explained
  I was talking about whether the Con/LD coalition in the Westminster Parliament has an electoral mandate in Scotland. IMO, the results from the last Westminster election are relevant. That was the point of holding the election in the first place,...
• Commented on Schroedinger's Kingdom: the Scottish Political Singularity Explained
  Not by my arithmetic. Labour: 41 seats, 42.0% of votes. Combined Conservative/LibDem: 12 seats, 35.6% of votes. SNP: 6 seats, 19.9% of votes. Others: 0 seats, 2.5% of votes. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_United_Kingdom_general_election_results_in_Scotland...
• Commented on Schroedinger's Kingdom: the Scottish Political Singularity Explained
  @MSB: The Queen is a descendant of Robert the Bruce. The line of Stuart pretenders died out 200 years ago. IIRC their claim has technically been inherited by some German aristocrat, but really there is no serious candidate for an...
• Commented on Schroedinger's Kingdom: the Scottish Political Singularity Explained
  The No campaign are not entirely stupid. They know the Scottish electorate will have little faith in promised rewards from the UK government, least of all from the Conservative party. And to be fair, in recent days Gordon Brown has...
• Commented on Schroedinger's Kingdom: the Scottish Political Singularity Explained
  1) My take on comparing Scotland to Quebec is that Scotland 2014 is much closer to Quebec 1980 (60% against independence) than Quebec 1995 (50.5% against independence). Based on current opinion polls in Scotland, we may see a reasonably convincing...
• Commented on The myth of heroism
  Interesting, I didn't know that. Among other recent winners, Seamus Heaney took a lot of inspiration from Irish and British mythology -- for instance he wrote a highly regarded translation of Beowulf....
• Commented on The myth of heroism
  We're probably still 20-30 years away from a superhero novel winning the Booker prize, much less the Nobel Prize for Literature Nitpick: The Nobel Prize is awarded to authors, not novels. Arguably it has already been won by a...
• Commented on Generation Z
  Sort of. The ones who want to be seriously rich go into finance. Either they do a straight-up economics/business degree, or enter quantitative finance via a maths/physics degree. It's a significant social problem -- instead of, say, engineering more efficient...
• Commented on Generation Z
  The Arab Spring really showed that even against massive force the people will rise if things get bad enough. The Arab Spring isn't a great model for the UK's situation. Revolutions are an occupation of the young, and Egypt is...
• Commented on Tragedy as Comfort Fiction: On Death, Drama, Disaster & Saving the World
  Somewhat off topic, but I once went to an outdoor performance of the stage adaptation of Mort. Early on, Death is explaining to a young man named Mort that he wishes to take him on as an apprentice. Mort says,...
• Commented on Tragedy as Comfort Fiction: On Death, Drama, Disaster & Saving the World
  If the one you tried was The Colour of Magic, I wouldn't be surprised. It's the first one in the series but it is much more lighthearted than the later works. You might want to check out Mort or Wyrd...
• Commented on Tragedy as Comfort Fiction: On Death, Drama, Disaster & Saving the World
  I don't think even the defenders of the ACA believe it to be "the solution", or would describe it as anything but an ugly and complicated political compromise. At best, it helps establish the principle of universal access to health...
• Commented on Tragedy as Comfort Fiction: On Death, Drama, Disaster & Saving the World
  Excellent post. But I would suggest giving Pratchett another try. Underneath the humour there is a real core of darkness in some of his books, particularly the character of Granny Weatherwax. She is old, lives alone, and is very much...
• Commented on The cult of justice
  Yes, exactly. Most legal systems are quite explicit about the fact that they were made by people, for people, and can be changed by people. Reverence of the Constitution in the USA might almost rise to the level of a...
• Commented on Making history personal
  Just remembered, I may have been in a presently inhabited dwelling older than the pyramids. I've had tea in a cave house in Sefrou, Morocco. These are houses built over the entrances to natural limestone caves which are used as...
• Commented on Making history personal
  Oldest I have been in is undoubtedly the Pyramid of Khafre in Egypt, dating to 2500 BCE. Oldest slept in is probably my aunt and uncle's house in Guernsey, parts of which date back to about 1550 CE....
• Commented on Parasites
  There were the organisms in the Futurama episode "Parasites Lost" who occupied Fry and undertook some major improvements. They may be my favourite parasites of all time....
• Commented on Time tourism
  The bar thing is a particularly good example. Even today, if a woman walked into a bar on her own, she'd have to fend off men who assumed she was available for sex. In 1963? Fuhgeddaboudit....
• Commented on Time tourism
  Um, yeah. If you don't have personal safety, then avoiding bureaucratic hassle is kind of beside the point. "Apart from that, how was the play, Mrs Lincoln?"...
• Commented on Time tourism
  I just remembered that Inversions by the late, great Iain M Banks did have something like a female time traveller. There was no time travel involved, she was a representative of a spacefaring society living incognito on a planet with...
• Commented on Time tourism
  Yes, I'd thought of the servant option. Creates interesting dramatic possibilities, especially if her local servant/bodyguard doesn't know she's a time traveller. She'd also be putting a lot of trust in those servants. For example, if she's travelling around the...
• Commented on Time tourism
  I know that less identity paperwork was needed in earlier eras, but that's really not what I'm talking about. Establishing an identity as "independently wealthy recluse" is not that hard. Actually living as part of past society is a lot...