Trashcan: chaotic remnants 7 Dec 2008 Siris has an interesting piece on the nature of the liberal arts. I loves me some 13th century, I does. Bora objects to Obama’s choices being characterised as “elites” and therefore bad. On the other hand, the term “groupthink” was coined to characterise the elite advisors of the first American Camelot. And an open letter to Obama here on the failures of the Healthcare Information Technology proposals in the US. IT won’t solve problems that aren’t informational in nature. PM of Notes from the Floating World discusses the constitutionality and sense of the proroguing of the Canadian Parliament. I add only that the GG who dismissed a troubled government in Australia in 1975 is still remembered with disgust and disdain. And Denim and Tweed has a nice little summary of speciation in progress in a land snail. It seems that preferred habitat and mating seem to go together. Evolution History Politics Species and systematics trashcan categorial
History How to fix Iraq, and not invade Iran 28 Sep 200718 Sep 2017 There’s been a lot of media spin and unthinking objections to the visit of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to the US. He was called the “modern Hitler”, for example. This strikes me as both unthinking and dangerous. Ahmadinejad is his own kind of threat and problem, and comparisons to past dangerous… Read More
Ethics and Moral Philosophy Religion and well being 22 Jul 2009 A paper in the Canadian Journal of Psychiatry is reviewed by the awesome Epiphenom. The authors do a horizontal study and find that fewer people in religious communities suffer depression, and a longitudinal study that suggests this is not a matter of self-selection: those in religious communities, as measured by… Read More
Evolution The origins of agriculture now extended 28 Sep 200818 Sep 2017 Readers know I think religion is post-agricultural, which raises some difficulties if we find evidence of organised religious behaviours before the onset of agriculture. The case in point here being Göbeli Tepe. Now a recent model of the process of cereal domestication has set back the beginnings of agriculture some… Read More
On the snail trail paper, I read the abstract. I think the question is whether there are two morphs within a single species, or two species which have occassional localized breakdown of reproductive isolation. The evidence presented seems to me to support the later conclusion. However, the folks studying the situation should understand it much better than this casual reader.
On the snail trail paper, I read the abstract. I think the question is whether there are two morphs within a single species, or two species which have occassional localized breakdown of reproductive isolation. The evidence presented seems to me to support the later conclusion. However, the folks studying the situation should understand it much better than this casual reader.
On the snail trail paper, I read the abstract. I think the question is whether there are two morphs within a single species, or two species which have occassional localized breakdown of reproductive isolation. The evidence presented seems to me to support the later conclusion. However, the folks studying the situation should understand it much better than this casual reader.
You mention the troubles that your Westminster brethren in Canada are having. I’m split on this one. On the one hand, our system pretty much demands that the regal or vice-regal figurehead do exactly what the government says, save perhaps for some hypothetically tyrannous act. On the other, having a minority government escape a confidence vote that it would inevitably lose by running to the GG doesn’t exactly fill me with glee either. According to my somewhat lacking memory of Westminster Parliamentary history, you’re little crisis in 1975 and Canada’s infamous King-Byng affair (when Lord Byng refused PM Mackenzie King the election he was looking for and instead asked the Conservatives to form a government) are the only times in the last century when a Governor General has essentially denied the democratically-elected government its wishes. The real concern here in Canada is that this will set the aforementioned precedent of giving a minority government a pause button when they fear they are about to be toppled. It’s not the intent of proroguing Parliament to save anyone’s bacon from the fire. The Governor General, of course, did what she had to. She took the advice of a sitting Prime Minister. The real question is what happens at the end of January when Parliament is recalled and the budget which the opposition coalition still stays it will not support, causes the government to topple. Legally, the GG could ask this coalition of Liberals, socialists and Quebec separatists to form a government, particularly as the last election was held at the end of October. My hunch is that Canada will be going through another election in seven or eight weeks, the problem being that unless someone can gain and hold on to a lot of support, we’re faced with essentially the same situation, and then what? At some point, the GG may be forced by the simple necessity of a stable government to refuse a sitting Prime Minister’s request. Ugly ugly times.
You mention the troubles that your Westminster brethren in Canada are having. I’m split on this one. On the one hand, our system pretty much demands that the regal or vice-regal figurehead do exactly what the government says, save perhaps for some hypothetically tyrannous act. On the other, having a minority government escape a confidence vote that it would inevitably lose by running to the GG doesn’t exactly fill me with glee either. According to my somewhat lacking memory of Westminster Parliamentary history, you’re little crisis in 1975 and Canada’s infamous King-Byng affair (when Lord Byng refused PM Mackenzie King the election he was looking for and instead asked the Conservatives to form a government) are the only times in the last century when a Governor General has essentially denied the democratically-elected government its wishes. The real concern here in Canada is that this will set the aforementioned precedent of giving a minority government a pause button when they fear they are about to be toppled. It’s not the intent of proroguing Parliament to save anyone’s bacon from the fire. The Governor General, of course, did what she had to. She took the advice of a sitting Prime Minister. The real question is what happens at the end of January when Parliament is recalled and the budget which the opposition coalition still stays it will not support, causes the government to topple. Legally, the GG could ask this coalition of Liberals, socialists and Quebec separatists to form a government, particularly as the last election was held at the end of October. My hunch is that Canada will be going through another election in seven or eight weeks, the problem being that unless someone can gain and hold on to a lot of support, we’re faced with essentially the same situation, and then what? At some point, the GG may be forced by the simple necessity of a stable government to refuse a sitting Prime Minister’s request. Ugly ugly times.
You mention the troubles that your Westminster brethren in Canada are having. I’m split on this one. On the one hand, our system pretty much demands that the regal or vice-regal figurehead do exactly what the government says, save perhaps for some hypothetically tyrannous act. On the other, having a minority government escape a confidence vote that it would inevitably lose by running to the GG doesn’t exactly fill me with glee either. According to my somewhat lacking memory of Westminster Parliamentary history, you’re little crisis in 1975 and Canada’s infamous King-Byng affair (when Lord Byng refused PM Mackenzie King the election he was looking for and instead asked the Conservatives to form a government) are the only times in the last century when a Governor General has essentially denied the democratically-elected government its wishes. The real concern here in Canada is that this will set the aforementioned precedent of giving a minority government a pause button when they fear they are about to be toppled. It’s not the intent of proroguing Parliament to save anyone’s bacon from the fire. The Governor General, of course, did what she had to. She took the advice of a sitting Prime Minister. The real question is what happens at the end of January when Parliament is recalled and the budget which the opposition coalition still stays it will not support, causes the government to topple. Legally, the GG could ask this coalition of Liberals, socialists and Quebec separatists to form a government, particularly as the last election was held at the end of October. My hunch is that Canada will be going through another election in seven or eight weeks, the problem being that unless someone can gain and hold on to a lot of support, we’re faced with essentially the same situation, and then what? At some point, the GG may be forced by the simple necessity of a stable government to refuse a sitting Prime Minister’s request. Ugly ugly times.
You mention the troubles that your Westminster brethren in Canada are having. I’m split on this one. On the one hand, our system pretty much demands that the regal or vice-regal figurehead do exactly what the government says, save perhaps for some hypothetically tyrannous act. On the other, having a minority government escape a confidence vote that it would inevitably lose by running to the GG doesn’t exactly fill me with glee either. According to my somewhat lacking memory of Westminster Parliamentary history, you’re little crisis in 1975 and Canada’s infamous King-Byng affair (when Lord Byng refused PM Mackenzie King the election he was looking for and instead asked the Conservatives to form a government) are the only times in the last century when a Governor General has essentially denied the democratically-elected government its wishes. The real concern here in Canada is that this will set the aforementioned precedent of giving a minority government a pause button when they fear they are about to be toppled. It’s not the intent of proroguing Parliament to save anyone’s bacon from the fire. The Governor General, of course, did what she had to. She took the advice of a sitting Prime Minister. The real question is what happens at the end of January when Parliament is recalled and the budget which the opposition coalition still stays it will not support, causes the government to topple. Legally, the GG could ask this coalition of Liberals, socialists and Quebec separatists to form a government, particularly as the last election was held at the end of October. My hunch is that Canada will be going through another election in seven or eight weeks, the problem being that unless someone can gain and hold on to a lot of support, we’re faced with essentially the same situation, and then what? At some point, the GG may be forced by the simple necessity of a stable government to refuse a sitting Prime Minister’s request. Ugly ugly times.
Canada’s infamous King-Byng affair I had never heard of the King-Byng affair until now but your King-Byng (Lord Byng of Vimy) retired to and died in the village in Essex were I was born and grew up. I had to come to an Australian website on the philosophy of biology to discover something about the background of my childhood. Weird!
Canada’s infamous King-Byng affair I had never heard of the King-Byng affair until now but your King-Byng (Lord Byng of Vimy) retired to and died in the village in Essex were I was born and grew up. I had to come to an Australian website on the philosophy of biology to discover something about the background of my childhood. Weird!
Canada’s infamous King-Byng affair I had never heard of the King-Byng affair until now but your King-Byng (Lord Byng of Vimy) retired to and died in the village in Essex were I was born and grew up. I had to come to an Australian website on the philosophy of biology to discover something about the background of my childhood. Weird!
Canada’s infamous King-Byng affair I had never heard of the King-Byng affair until now but your King-Byng (Lord Byng of Vimy) retired to and died in the village in Essex were I was born and grew up. I had to come to an Australian website on the philosophy of biology to discover something about the background of my childhood. Weird!