Links I found interesting for 08-05-2013

[nwhyte]

• Hitting Back
  About domestic violence.
  (tags: crime sexandgenderandsexuality )
• Abyei on the edge after killing of top Dinka leader
  Appalling - UN offers military protection to local chief, Sudanese militia kill him anyway.
  (tags: southsudan )
• Sylvia Browne: is she for real?
  Short answer: no. Longer answer: yeugh, what a revolting and disgusting

Comments

[makyo]

Peter Kellner (Mr Ashton): referendum (if it happens) will pass.
Several years ago I was chatting to my friend Mike, and the conversation turned to whatever the government thought it was doing at that point. He said something like "on the other hand, I've seen a slightly different perspective on this sort of thing since my aunt got involved in politics". So I asked him what his aunt did, thinking he was going to say "oh, she's on the local council", because that was what his tone of voice had sort of implied, and it turned out she'd just been appointed Leader of the House of Lords and Lord President of the Council.

[cairmen]

The Liberal Democrats piece is both tremendously interesting and incredibly depressing.

In particular, the discussion on innovation fits both those criteria. I've actually been discussing some disruptive ideas related to UK politics lately - but I wonder if the culture is such that innovation's effectively impossible?

[chess]

I think adoption of 'proven innovations' (if that's not an oxymoron) is still going on - see: online-mediated phonebanking, courtesy of the Obama campaign - so innovation might not be as impossible as the article makes out.

[nwhyte]

I think that's fair. I myself, in my work for the Alliance Party of Northern Ireland two decades ago, set up the first political party website in Northern Ireland, pioneered phone banking and also brought in a new system for storing voter information (EARS). But I would be the first to admit that this was only possible with support from the very top of the party, and had I been a random activist with a bright idea it might have been much more difficult to implement.

[nwhyte]

The article is of course by a disaffected former activist and therefore isn't entirely fair. As chess points out, some innovations are still trickling through the system; also it should be remembered that all current campaigning tactics were innovations once themselves, so clearly it's not utterly impossible.

[nancylebov]

Article about domestic abuse with randomly assigned genders. It also makes the point that any sort of relationship can be abusive.