Re: The Bigger, Badder, Even More Serious Thread [2]

[halfwise]

Hmm, this forum was supposed to be a place to discuss quantum physics, etc. Though I'm qualified to discuss quantum physics and the evidence for dark matter (though not dark energy) I'm no expert on the dark thingies so will give it a pass unless unduly prodded. I'd love to write a Petty-style treatise on quantum mechanics for general readers, but don't really have the time. You will all probably have happier lives if I don't go there anyway.

[Mrs Figg]

[halfwise]

which one praps you poking 'bout?

[Pettytyrant101]

Quantum physics lecture from Halfwise! (I think, or should that be ) Come on Halfwise we await your abbreivated wisdom! I demand enlightenment.

[halfwise]

Will take time and require multitude of diagrams. I can only do small bits at a time owing to severe time constraints. Am tempted to just scan pages out of the 'Feynman Lectures in Physics' in which one of the creators of the modern view of quantum mechanics attempted to explain it to a Freshman audience. The back rows were packed with graduate students. Might be better to direct you to his QED (quantum electro dynamics) which was a series of lectures given to a lay audience.

But I can summarize. Will take a few days to get thoughts and diagrams together. In the meantime start thinking about what waves do when they meet.

(They wave politely and pass on unperturbed)

[Pettytyrant101]

Mid-term local elections in the UK. Local Council elections across the country.
The big stories; Labour made a comeback but not a good enough one (Neil Kinnock did better at this stage against Thatcher and Major and lost both General Elections that followed).
The Conservatives got a kicking and the lib-dems all but annihailated (a man dressed as a pengiun beat the lib-dem candidate in Edinburgh!).
The London Mayor was also re-elected and the Tory Boris Johnston got back in (I assume Londoners must like a laugh) this has led Tory backbenchers to start thinking what is holding them back is their lib-dem coalition partenrs- and the lib-dems if this happens again are looking at being so reduced in numbers to be unable to run a nationwide elcetion campaign come the main elections, and their backbenchers think its being associated with the Tories that is killing them off.
The coalition is looking very wobbly indeed.

Scotland was a bit of a different story. We have a pr list system (I think the English must be easily confused or something as they have no form of pr at all- its all first past the post down there). So overall control of councils is rare, they tend to be coalitions. Therefore the important number at the end of the night is who gets the most councillors- that was the SNP followed by Labour. And both are claiming victory! Labour however could really only improve their numbers after the hammering they got last time, they were already pretty close to rock-bottom.
The remarkable thing was the SNP increased their vote after 5 years in government- especially given the english Tories and Lib-dems are blaming the poor result for them purely on 'mid-term' blues claiming all governments get a kicking mid-term- wel the SNP didn't!
Labours biggest achievement, which they have been loudly crowing about, was keeping control of Glasgow City Council, but in context doing so is not much of a victory as Glasgow has been the Labour heartland for nearly a 100 years, that the SNP ran them so close there is not much of a victory it seems to me.

The most telling sat to come out of it all however was the appalingly low turn out- as low as 30% in some places. For me the biggest problem in modern UK politrics is the disconnect between those who rule and those who are ruled.

And one good stat to come out of it, unlike a lot of Europe, dissatisfaction with the main parties did not lead to people turning to extreme right wing parties- the BNP and EDL had terrible nights and remain tiny fringe parties.

[Pettytyrant101]

So France has gone back to a socialist govewnment. So what happens to the Euro-zone if France and Greece and Holland all abandon the austerity package?
And more worryingly why is the far right on the rise across main land Europe? Is it just a case that immigrants are an easy target when things get tough or is sometiing even more sinister going on?

[Mrs Figg]

I want to know how soon Carla will do a bunk now she isnt First Lady of France.

[Pettytyrant101]

Europe on the brink of chaos- austerity package in turmoil, EU in uproar and you are concerned about some daft bint?
This is why for the foreseeable future women will mainly be seen on the arm of world leaders not as world leaders!

[Mrs Figg]

Behind every powerful man there is a woman with good shoes, and the man may be forgotten but the shoes live on.

[David H]

Imelda Marcos would definitely agree with you.

[Pettytyrant101]

Poor Bill! Hilary getting to be forefront is merely his penance for getting caught!
And I doubt she will ever be President, although I supsect she will be the Democratic front runner for it but I reckon the Republicans will get back in that election.

[Pettytyrant101]

Unpleasantness in the north of England. A gang of 7 guys have been found guilty of grooming girls as young as 13, plying them with drugs and alcohol and then passing them about among themselves, sometimes for years.
As if this was not bad enough there is an added complication to this- all the men are from the Asian Community and all the victims white. And an investigation into it has found there is a 'problem' among a minority in the asian communities in the north of england who view white girls as easy and fair targets.

So far the media, even the tabloids have been careful to highlight the minority aspect of this but the right wing parties like the BNP are all over it, calling them Muslim Pedophile Rapists.
I hope heads stay level but terrible incidents like this can easily lead to innocent members of the Asian community being targeted.

[halfwise]

I hope heads stay level but terrible incidents like this can easily lead to innocent members of the Asian community being targeted.

Good luck with that.

[Pettytyrant101]

Well there is some hope. Leading members in the Asian Community there were involved in helping the police get them and have made their feelings on the whole matter very clear.
But I daresay someone will still use it as an excuse to vent their own prejudices- there always is someone it seems.

[Orwell]

The stupid and maliciously ignorant will have their Field Day - as usual.

[Pettytyrant101]

Was the Queens Speech yesterday- which on a practical side is when the Queens reads out the governmetns planned program for the year ahead.
But its a day of ridiculous costumes, tradtion and ceremony.
So is it all an outdated expensive farce when our leaders should be getting on with the job of running the country andnot indulging themselves in toffs games- or is it an important part of our democratic heritage?



This is from a few years ago but its the same ceremony for the last few hundred years so doesnt really matter (and the MP who heckles Black Rod, Dennis Skinner did it again yesterday too!)

Found this years Skinner heckle!

[Mrs Figg]

I like the pomp, its good for turism.

[David H]

If your government is anything like ours, there's a long list of worse things they could be spending more money on. Think of them as kids: at least it keeps 'em busy and not getting into any trouble.

[Pettytyrant101]

Actually our government managed to waste about 14million today in these autere times.
Whilst public sector workers were on strike and on the march over pay and pensions the government was making a defence announcement.
You see back when Labour was in power they had the choice of two types of aircraft, a harrier type and and one the Americans use. Labour went for the harrier.
When the Tories came in they announced the harrier one was all but rubbish, the other one was much better and despite the need to fit our new carrier with the sling shot sytem the Americans use they were dumping the harrier for the other plane.
Today they announced the cost of fititng the carrier for the new planes was too high, and despite having already spent 14million on the refitting, scrapped the whole thing and went back to the harrier they said wasnt good enough in the first place.
You could train chimps to run things better, probaly be cheaper too.
So thats 14million of tax payers money up in smoke at a time when everyone is being asked to pay more and recieve less.

[Pettytyrant101]

Big fight brewing between the Uk govt and the European Court of Human Rights.
In the UK prisoners do not get the vote- the european court says this is against their human rights.
About a year a go the UK parliament voted overwhelmingly in favour of not allowing prisoners the vote. So this ruling is being seen as a direct challenge to the UK's democratic right to express its peoples wishes through the House of Commons. So the Tories are saying anyway.
However as always there is more being played for here. The Tories are delibetly confusing in the publics mind the Court of Human Rights and the European Union- at Prime Ministers Questions today Cameron called it a 'foreign court'. This is delibretly offensive and provocative- and he must also surely know false. The Court of human rights is a seperate thing from the rest of the European Union stuff. It was set up after WW2 to ensure the future human rights of Europes inhabitants were recognised legaly in the law and to spread this idea all arond the world. Two of its key proposers and who were instrunmental in setting it up were both prominent Tories. One of them was Winston Churchill.
The UK is a signatry to the Human Rights COurt- one of the foundng signatries. By being so signed we have to acknowledge that its rulings must be upheld or we have to leave it altoghether. There is no middle ground here.
If leaving is Camerons end game, and its seeming likely, it is a worrying move in my view.

[halfwise]

If you are complaining about government wasting money, try this one on for size:

New York has long had a bridge that connected Manhattan to the Bronx and Queens. It was always called, quite sensibly, the Triborough Bridge. Then for some reason the city council decided to honor the long dead Robert Kennedy (JFK's brother) by naming the bridge after him. Why? Search me, I don't recall any big rallies about it. I doubt if I know of anyone who would even quietly applaud the move. Anyway, they decide to rename the bridge after a dead guy nobody really cares all that much about.

It cost eight million dollars to change all the traffic signs. What's worse, everybody knew what the Triborough Bridge did; nobody can remember what the RFK bridge is supposed to do. Absolutely ridiculous.

[Pettytyrant101]

Sky media are th elatest internet provider in the Uk to block access to the Pirate Bay torrent site.
I have very mixed feelings about this- i t might stop those who can and should pay for material from getting it and taking money ut of entrtainment industries-but it also stops poor people who otherwise would not have had th emoney to give to the studious anyway from access to modern (and not so modern) culture.
And since video came along the entertainment business has unscrupoulsly used to increase profit margins by rereleasing on different formats, different versions-cinema somehow made profits in the past just out of cinema. So is it really about fairness or huge profit margins?

[Ally]

Sky media are th elatest internet provider in the Uk to block access to the Pirate Bay torrent site.
I have very mixed feelings about this- i t might stop those who can and should pay for material from getting it and taking money ut of entrtainment industries-but it also stops poor people who otherwise would not have had th emoney to give to the studious anyway from access to modern (and not so modern) culture.
And since video came along the entertainment business has unscrupoulsly used to increase profit margins by rereleasing on different formats, different versions-cinema somehow made profits in the past just out of cinema. So is it really about fairness or huge profit margins?

TPB's my longest & nicest internet friend. I'll be very sad if BT block it for me, and speaking from experience, the people who use similar sites regularly are also the sorts of people who consume large quantities of media, often paying for it.

But when I was younger and first discovered the internet, the ability to download virtually anything I wanted FOR FREE, was probably the greatest thing that ever happened to me. I had few interests, liked few bands, saw few movies. But now I could discover stuff, listen to a disco song on youtube, I could listen to the whole album in minutes. In fact it actually inspired me to buy more cds! Now I like to thing I'm a reasonable person who pays for most things! I don't think the impact is as great as these companies make it out to be. I'll be more concerned when the entertainment industry actually does run out of money! God bless the internet!

[Pettytyrant101]

Im largely with you on this Ally.
80% of all the stuff I have ever downloaded from such places was stuff I already had but on a format that was as good as obselete to me-dvd. I want files in divx-avi ect stuff thats easy to use and manipulate.
Most of the time I am getting it for mere convience and I think having to buy it again (In some cases I already have the video and dvd which I payed for) at full price just so its convient is a rip off.
And like you there are many a band or a film or a stand up I would never have heard of or ever seen or heard their work were it not for folks uploading stuff to youtube and the like. And that makes me more likely on a whim if I am out and see something by them that I will purchase it- I certainly would be a lot less inclined to buy something I had never heard of at all.