Interesting Links for 03-07-2015

[andrewducker]

• How software in the USA is coping with marriage equality (or not)
  • (tags: marriage software LGBT usa viajohnbobshaun )
• How One Man Poisoned a City’s Water Supply (and Saved Millions of Children’s Lives in the Process)
  • (tags: medicine history water bacteria )
• The IMF seems to have the right idea about Greece
  • (tags: Greece debt economics )
• Oregon

Comments

[bart_calendar]

The IMF may have the right idea now - but that's not the idea they had during the actual negotiations.

http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/jul/02/imf-tells-greece-no-debt-relief-before-reforms

If the IMF had said what they said yesterday a couple weeks ago then there wouldn't be all this mess now.

Plus, it's safe for the IMF to say this now - when they know there is no way it would be accepted by the other members of the troika.

A good idea too late is no good idea at all.

Did you see that Austria is now going to have a referendum about leaving the euro?

[andrewducker]

I hadn't seen the Austria thing - thanks!

Looks like the government has to discuss it, but they don't have to actually hold the referendum. Although I may be misunderstanding.

But I really can see the Euro falling apart if they don't fix the politics aroudn it.

[bart_calendar]

I don't think anyone knows what they have to do. Some stories are saying they have to discuss it, some are saying they have to have a referendum. Either way it shows that there are cracks forming.

[danieldwilliam]

I think the politics are easier if the economics work

[bart_calendar]

Also, why is the Naked Rambler in jail?

Even in puritanical America we have a naked cowboy in New York and a naked graduate student in California and people just look at them as eccentrics.

[andrewducker]

Apparently a child might see a penis, and be scarred for life!

[danieldwilliam]

He was orginally arrested and charged with some form of public order offence as a result of hiking naked in Scotland. It's arguable whether nudity is criminal in Scotland or under exactly what circumstances but that's what he was originally imprisoned for. What followed, and the reason he's spent a long time in prison, is that he was released from prison on condition that he kept his clothes on. He immediately got naked and taken back to prison. I mean, got naked in the car park of the court. And he did that a couple of times and then tried to turn up to court naked and got locked up for contempt of court.

After a few years Scotland pretty much decided to throw him back over the border to England where he repeated much the same pattern.

Some say he's very, very stubborn, others very foolish, others that he's suffering from some mental health issues.

In any event, it's his refusal to keep his clothes on after being told to rather than the actual nudity that is the cause of most of the time he's spent in prison.

[a_pawson]

If I remember correctly, he was originally trying to walk from Land's End to John O'Groats naked, and got as far as Perthshire before the police force decided to arrest him. At various points along the way, he had encountered the police, but they had decided to either turn a blind eye, or give him a lift to the edge of their patch.

[cmcmck]

I'm now trying to remember some good Old Norse blasphemy...........

[lilchiva]

RE Bene Gesserit Pain Box:

Sometimes I feel the future is being made for me and me alone.

[danieldwilliam]

Exit, pursued by a bear.

[andrewducker]

I rather liked this one.