Interesting Links for 02-11-2014

[andrewducker]

• Elected senate would replace House of Lords under Labour
  (tags: Labour houseoflords politics UK )
• Twitter conversation about unreported rape goes global
  (tags: rape Twitter )
• Obamacare: what it is, what it’s not
  (tags: usa healthcare )
• Here's how we solve Britain's housing crisis
  (tags: housing UK viafanf )
• Gorgeous art made from natural materials

Comments

[bart_calendar]

God, most of the problems with the US government system stem from us changing from an appointed Senate to an elected one. Why would you want to copy a change that worked so incredibly badly for us?

[steepholm]

Under correction (I'm not American) I think they were always elected: initially by state legislatures, and subsequently by popular vote. The current British system is a question of lists of nominees produced behind the scenes by party leaders, typically on the basis of party donations and other services rendered, mutual backscratching, superannuating irritants, Buggins' turn, etc., with the remainder being eked out by Church of England bishops and hereditary aristos. Oh, and they're there for ever, whether or not they ever turn up for work, and they represent no one but themselves. I'd say an elected senate (or almost anything else) would be preferable.

[bart_calendar]

The original system was that they were appointed by governors - but the state legislature could veto the appointment if the governor tried to appoint a nut bag. Then it switched to popular vote which was a disaster

[steepholm]

If that's true about gubernatorial appointments, Wiki needs amending. (Not for the first time

[cybik]

Andy Goldsworthy's work is awesome. He lives in the village I grew up in and a lot of the stuff that appears in his books was made nearby and are still a few of his sculptures (the more permanent ones, obviously) around.

[rhythmaning]

I was going to say how much I love Goldworthy's work. There's a lot around Edinburgh, too.

[nojay]

Apparently "Britain's housing crisis" actually means south-east England doesn't have enough affordable houses. The solution offered is to build more houses in the south-east thus making the area more attractive to incomers who will need affordable housing in their turn.

Riiiiight.

[andrewducker]

Yes "Build houses where people want to live" seems like a good approach to me.

(Up to a point, obviously. When we actually run out of space, and can't build up or out, that's a problem. But we're a looooong way off of that.)

[cartesiandaemon]

I was trying to decide, is there a certain amount of demand, and if we fulfil it, the situation will get better? Or is it like roads, where if we build twice as many roads, suddenly twice as many people drive and the roads are just as slow or busy? I mean, either way, I think we DO need more housing in the SE, but if the problem is, "we'll have a housing crisis until everyone in Britain lives in a Hilbert Hotel next to the Shard", we may not be able to pretend that will really fix anything, and think about more drastic solutions, like, eg. "build High Speed Rail to the NE and move the houses of parliament there"...

[andrewducker]

Consolidation will lead to more consolidation, certainly.

But I agree that better connectivity between northern cities, and more power to enable them to function well are both good things.

Cambridge historical nugget

[fanf]

BTW I have added a correction to my post: RA referred to Cambridge's radio astronomy observatory.