Interesting Links for 25-09-2014

[andrewducker]

• Please be careful with your iPhone 6 - looks like it bends if you apply too much pressure
  (tags: iphone apple )
• Cats aren't actually domesticated. (And they think of you as a large, not terribly effective, cat)
  (tags: cats )
• India now has a spaceship orbiting Mars
  (tags: mars India space )
• The Surprising Path to a Faster NYTimes.com (How do you

Comments

[danieldwilliam]

Which obviously makes it tricky because, on the face of it you can’t do what we’ve just done in Scotland; vote in a local / state government with a clear manifesto commitment to holding a succession plebiscite and then holding the plebiscite.

It looks like the Alaskan Supreme Court has refused to allow a plebiscite to be run on the grounds that succession is illegal in Kohihaas vs State

http://touchngo.com/sp/html/sp-6072.htm (I haven’t read the decision, I’m just linking to it for interest and completeness.)

So it looks like the routes for successionists are either to change the constitution or a unilateral declaration of independence. Changing the constitution or Constitution seems difficult given that the purpose would be for an unhappy part of the USA to leave and it would be easier for the happier parts of the USA to stop doing what it is that makes the unhappy parts unhappy or the happy parts think what the unhappy parts want to do is so abhorrent that they ought not to be doing it all and certainly not next door. I think the US has been here before.

A UDI seems like the more plausible route. If 70% ish of the state’s population were dead set on leaving the Union I can see a situation where the state legislature has a large majority for succession and just goes ahead and organises a plebiscite. Which would require the US Federal authorities to stop by force a free vote or stop by force the implementation of that free vote.

Which given that one of the more likely scenarios leading to a UDI has gun control as a proximate cause might be very, very painful.