Interesting Links for 08-04-2013

[andrewducker]

• Thoughts On Disability From A Guy Who Should Be On It
  (tags: disability welfare usa )
• Nice interview with the awesome Louis CK
  (tags: louisck )
• Fetal exposure to excessive stress hormones in the womb linked to adult mood disorders
  (tags: psychology pregnancy stress emotion )
• Greg Mulholland to propose “complete separation of state marriage and

Comments

What The Male Cast of "Game of Thrones" Looks Like Without Facial Hair

[cartesiandaemon]

I think I fell in love with Nikolaj Coster-Waldau when he played the best friend in Wimbledon, without a beard, but I agree with most of the others. Except they presumably chose men who did look good with beards for the show, it may not be a general principle :)

What shows have done long-term plot better than Babylon 5?

[cartesiandaemon]

Yeah. My impression is that most shows simply haven't tried to tie several seasons together. It's somewhat obscured by several shows that were very popular and claimed to have an overarching plot, but I don't think it counts if the overarching plot is only grafted on later.

Avatar is a good example, where it's so obviously planned to run across three series that I didn't think of it, in many ways it is almost one whole split loosely into three chapters, but each chapter does have it's own identity so it definitely works as a good example.

Re: What shows have done long-term plot better than Babylon 5?

[naath]

I've just started watching Rome (no spoilers!), but it looks like they've got a long-running plot going there.

Game of Thrones is clearly going to at least try to follow the books... so that'll have an overarching plot.

Dr Who tries sometimes.

Re: What shows have done long-term plot better than Babylon 5?

[andrewducker]

Yeah, GoT would be a great example if it wasn't just doing the books!

Re: What shows have done long-term plot better than Babylon 5?

[philmophlegm]

If you're going to exclude GoT for "just doing the books" then should we exclude Rome for "just doing history"?

(Incidentally, I loved 'Rome', and the period it covered is one I studied at A-level, and the one I am perhaps most interested in.)

Greg Mulholland to propose “complete separation of state marriage and religious weddings”

[cartesiandaemon]

Hm. I definitely think that would be better, but my assumption was that the current proposed bill is an improvement on the current situation, but if we rejected it, we'd be more likely to get stuck with the status quo, rather than a complete rewrite.

Re: Greg Mulholland to propose “complete separation of state marriage and religious weddings”

[andrewducker]

Yup, I'll take small achievable steps over improbably leaps any day of the week.

Re: Greg Mulholland to propose “complete separation of state marriage and religious weddings”

[cartesiandaemon]

Yeah. I think there are times to say "this offer is so small an improvement it's insulting, we ignore it and hold out for something worthwhile". I really wish marriage worked better (a) for all people, regardless of gender and (b) for all people, regardless of religion -- but I'm not sure it's worth throwing gay marriage under the bus to get it (and I'm suspicious that anyone who says "freedom of conscience" isn't thinking of those groups at all).

Re: Greg Mulholland to propose “complete separation of state marriage and religious weddings”

[alitheapipkin]

It strikes me more as an achievable step vs wiping away nearly 200 years of history and trying to start with a clean slate. In principle, the idea of state and religious marriage being totally separate institutions is all well and good, but the time for that separation was when civil marriage was brought in in the 19th Century - too much water under the bridge now I think.

Also, principle aside, his objection to the new Bill being that it doesn't sufficiently protect religious freedoms, does make me sympathetic to the commenter who thinks his motivation is to "destroy the whole institution of Marriage rather than let the gays be part of it"... but maybe I'm just being cynical because I'm pissed off with the Lib Dems in general!

[philmophlegm]

I thought the Mulholland proposals were sensible. I'd go further - remove the concept of state marriage altogether. Allow any religion to define marriage however it wants to for its members. Allow any other organisation to define marriage however it wants to for its members. Allow two or more consenting adults to define their relationships however they want to.

[andrewducker]

I can see the advantage for allowing partners to inherit from each other without tax, pension rights, easier residence permits, joint property ownership, and next of kin, being wrapped up together in a nice neat manner.

Like it or not, an awful lot of couple do arrange their finances, etc. as a single unit, and it therefore makes some sense to have a simple recognition of that.

[cartesiandaemon]

That's what I was going to say (although I guess I'd be happy to have it be a standard legally-recognised arrangement other than marriage, which married couples can enter into normally).

[philmophlegm]

Yeah, I think that's my view. Allow each person to nominate one other person to be their legal rights partner or some such term, with no sexual connotations attached.

I'm not sure whether Jeremy Irons was just being mischievous when he suggested that a father should marry his son to avoid inheritance tax (and I don't know which other laws would prevent that - incest?), but when you think about it, why should that relationship be more taxable than husband / wife, husband / husband etc? There have certainly been cases of elderly sisters or friends living together where inheritance tax and similar issues have caused problems when one sister has died, and where that situation would have been much easier if they were in a civil partnership or married.

Interesting Links for 08-04-2013

[livejournal]

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