Link Spam Again
Election-y Articles:
The British Election Debates, the Lib Dem Surge and the Americanisation of Our Politics - It's something that I've felt vaguely concerned about myself. I read a lot about American politics but I read almost nothing about European politics. I have opinions on Europe but, actually thinking about it, a staggering lack of knowledge about how other European democracies work and what their issues are and, I also now realise, that UK news programs may be actively helping to keep me ignorant on that score by their bias towards reporting American news stories and not EU ones. And I promised myself I wouldn't spend a lot on Amazon this month, oh well! :p
Is the progressive case for migration truly progressive? - Thoughtful stuff. "There is in truth nothing progressive at all in a ‘laissez faire’ approach to migration which relies for its logic on an extreme neo-liberal position that people should fight ‘dog eat dog’ for economic opportunities wherever they can find them in an unregulated global economy. A new fairer world economic order is not going to be built on this approach."
And the prize for constitutional illiteracy goes to... - Actually me, and probably most of the rest of us too. *goes to read up on concepts of 'sovereignty of parliament'* Loving this election all of a sudden! There's proper deep thinkiness happening out there!
Shameful scare-mongering over a "hung parliament" ignores all the evidence - "David Cameron even had the cheek to say that the rest of Europe must be astonished that the general election might not produce a decisive single party result. I rather think that politicians, commentators and others in Europe are more likely to be astonished at the false, or even genuine, panic and ignorance that is on display. "
UKIP compares immigration with oppression of Native Americans - Fail.
Political Blogs:
OpenDemocracy - Loving this site a little too much right now. It's all progressive and thoughtful.
Liberal Conspiracy - Apart from the awesome name, interesting thoughts coming out from here.
Left Food Forward - Claim to be non-partisan but self labeled as "progressive".
Conservative Home - Seems to be hub of Tory blogging, a useful counter-point to my liberal squee.
Guido Fawkes - Libertarian dude who's totally spinning hard for the Tories right now. Again, interesting alternate viewpoint.
The Straight Choice - Describe themselves as a "real-time election leaflet project". Basically people posting pics of the leaflets that come through their doors.
Other Articles:
Britain's bingers out-boozed by Irish - "Ireland, Romania, Germany and Austria all have a higher rate of binge drinking than the UK, a European Commission survey has found." There's a turn up for the books!
Christina Hendricks Deemed Fat By Someone Named "Psycho Mike" - "A producer for LA radio station KROQ is shocked that his coworkers don't agree that Christina Hendricks "could lose a few pounds."" Yeah, he can just fuck right off.
Fandom Squee:
Bullet dodged: Fox kills Americanized Torchwood - As bad as the idea of a US Torchwood was, one produced by Fox was a million times worse. This is therefore good news.
Allow me a brief bout of hysteria - The ever wonderful gabrielleabelle - who writes the most fantastic Buffy meta - gets mad over intelligent folks being dismissed as just hysterical shippers just because "one of our (many) fandom activities includes reading fanfic about our favorite couple fucking". It's a rant of glorious proportions and I second every single word it.
The British Election Debates, the Lib Dem Surge and the Americanisation of Our Politics - It's something that I've felt vaguely concerned about myself. I read a lot about American politics but I read almost nothing about European politics. I have opinions on Europe but, actually thinking about it, a staggering lack of knowledge about how other European democracies work and what their issues are and, I also now realise, that UK news programs may be actively helping to keep me ignorant on that score by their bias towards reporting American news stories and not EU ones. And I promised myself I wouldn't spend a lot on Amazon this month, oh well! :p
Is the progressive case for migration truly progressive? - Thoughtful stuff. "There is in truth nothing progressive at all in a ‘laissez faire’ approach to migration which relies for its logic on an extreme neo-liberal position that people should fight ‘dog eat dog’ for economic opportunities wherever they can find them in an unregulated global economy. A new fairer world economic order is not going to be built on this approach."
And the prize for constitutional illiteracy goes to... - Actually me, and probably most of the rest of us too. *goes to read up on concepts of 'sovereignty of parliament'* Loving this election all of a sudden! There's proper deep thinkiness happening out there!
Shameful scare-mongering over a "hung parliament" ignores all the evidence - "David Cameron even had the cheek to say that the rest of Europe must be astonished that the general election might not produce a decisive single party result. I rather think that politicians, commentators and others in Europe are more likely to be astonished at the false, or even genuine, panic and ignorance that is on display. "
UKIP compares immigration with oppression of Native Americans - Fail.
Political Blogs:
OpenDemocracy - Loving this site a little too much right now. It's all progressive and thoughtful.
Liberal Conspiracy - Apart from the awesome name, interesting thoughts coming out from here.
Left Food Forward - Claim to be non-partisan but self labeled as "progressive".
Conservative Home - Seems to be hub of Tory blogging, a useful counter-point to my liberal squee.
Guido Fawkes - Libertarian dude who's totally spinning hard for the Tories right now. Again, interesting alternate viewpoint.
The Straight Choice - Describe themselves as a "real-time election leaflet project". Basically people posting pics of the leaflets that come through their doors.
Other Articles:
Britain's bingers out-boozed by Irish - "Ireland, Romania, Germany and Austria all have a higher rate of binge drinking than the UK, a European Commission survey has found." There's a turn up for the books!
Christina Hendricks Deemed Fat By Someone Named "Psycho Mike" - "A producer for LA radio station KROQ is shocked that his coworkers don't agree that Christina Hendricks "could lose a few pounds."" Yeah, he can just fuck right off.
Fandom Squee:
Bullet dodged: Fox kills Americanized Torchwood - As bad as the idea of a US Torchwood was, one produced by Fox was a million times worse. This is therefore good news.
Allow me a brief bout of hysteria - The ever wonderful gabrielleabelle - who writes the most fantastic Buffy meta - gets mad over intelligent folks being dismissed as just hysterical shippers just because "one of our (many) fandom activities includes reading fanfic about our favorite couple fucking". It's a rant of glorious proportions and I second every single word it.