Extra Credits
Published on 31 Jul 2018Asimov’s Foundation stories were absolutely foundational for science fiction — they introduced the concept of a space empire, bringing along analogies from historical civilizations to the social issues of advanced technology and humanity’s future.
August 1, 2018
Isaac Asimov – Foundation & Empire – Extra Sci Fi – #3
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British Labour Party continues to sideline pro-Brexit MPs
Fraser Myers on the most recent pro-Brexit Labour MP deselected by local party activists:
Labour Party activists have passed votes of no confidence in two of Labour’s Brexit-backing MPs, and called for their deselection. Frank Field and Kate Hoey were censured by their local parties for voting with the government against an amendment that would have kept the UK in a customs union with the EU after Brexit. If passed, it would have killed off any prospect of Britain having an independent trade policy after Brexit, and would have kept us under the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice. Recognising this as a betrayal of the Leave vote, Labour Brexiteers had no other choice but to vote with the government to defeat the amendment. Now, for defending the democratic choice of 17.4million voters, Field and Hoey stand accused of ‘betraying’ the Labour movement and ‘siding with the reactionary Tory establishment’.
This sends a disastrous message to voters and pits Labour against the Leave vote, the largest democratic mandate in British history. Labour’s better-than-expected result at the 2017 General Election depended on retaining Brexit-voting seats. Two thirds of Labour MPs represent Leave-backing constituencies, with some of the largest Leave votes in Labour-held seats. Labour needs to win 64 seats at the next election to form a majority government, 42 of which are dotted around blue-collar, Leave-voting England. To attack the few Labour MPs who are on the side of the Leave majority is an astonishing act of self-harm for a party that claims to represent ordinary people.
While some Blairite MPs have long feared the prospect of deselection campaigns launched by the Corbyn-backing Momentum, the no-confidence motion against Kate Hoey was initiated by members of the Blairite pressure group, Progress. And rather than stand up for Hoey, a defender of Corbyn’s leadership, Momentum sided with its erstwhile rivals against the Brexiteer MP. As Owen Jones revealingly writes in the Guardian: ‘Self-professed Blairites, soft lefties and Corbynites were united in this vote.’ While the Blairite and Corbynite wings of the party claim to agree on very little, they appear to be united in their contempt for the electorate and for democracy.
These activists seem to forget that Labour has a long history of Euroscepticism. Labour’s much-celebrated postwar prime minister, Clement Attlee, and the architect of the NHS, Nye Bevan, were against Britain joining the EU’s predecessor, the European Economic Community (EEC). When the left-winger Michael Foot led Labour into the 1983 General Election, the party’s manifesto pledged to withdraw Britain from the EEC. Tony Benn – Corbyn’s hero – opposed the anti-democratic tendencies of the EU all his life. Would Benn, Foot and Bevan face a similar fate to Hoey and Field in Labour today?
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Workbench Customisations: Tool Well Add-on | Paul Sellers
Paul Sellers
Published on 27 Jul 2018This additional tool well is very handy for storing and organising tools you want to keep off the bench but close at hand.
Paul used the following stock, but it will depend on what you have available and the size of your bench:
2 of ¾” x 3” x 66” / 19 x 76 x 1676mm
1 of ¾” x 6 ½” x 66” / 19 x 165 x 1676mm
2 of ¾” x 3” x 6” / 19 x 76 x 152mmFor more information on these topics, see https://paulsellers.com or https://woodworkingmasterclasses.com
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Farewell to Canada’s best trio … and this time, they mean it
Colby Cosh, clearly a fellow long-time Rush fan, heaves a sigh and writes the musical epitaph:
Rush in concert, Milan 2004.
Photo by Enrico Frangi, via Wikimedia Commons
All of this — even Neil Peart’s remorseless flintiness — reflects the distinctive, endearing characteristics of Rush: the band has now ceased to exist for some of the same reasons it attracted adoring generations of listeners. As a commercial proposition, Rush remains a potential superpower. Other groups of similar magnitude have always been able to find ways to push on when important members, or even every member that anyone might recognize, came to the end of the road. (In a rock group there is usually at least one person who could really use the cash from a tour.)
Could Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson find some young drummer with healthy wrists and ankles, take “Rush” to the casino circuit, and sell mountains of $75 tickets? They probably could, and they would probably put on a wonderful show. But it is unthinkable (he wrote, knocking on the wood of his desk) for them to do such a thing under the Rush name.
They could probably even devise a low-stress acoustic-heavy setlist, with slowed-down versions of the hits, that they could take to small venues with Peart in tow. Tempting as such schemes must be — Lee was publicly in denial about Peart’s second retirement for ages, and Lifeson says he would go on if it were entirely up to him — they do not suit the nature of Rush.
The group is a three-piece in which every piece counts more or less equally. And part of what their fans pay to see is physical effort of the highest intricacy. I hope it will not offend my fellow Rush fans if I compare it to juggling or acrobatics, or at least suggest that it has such an aspect. Rush songs are full of unpredictable, shifting time signatures and difficult cues. The band’s numerical paucity leaves nowhere to hide dropped chords or melodic clangers. Unlike most three- and four-piece groups, Rush has almost always refused to ever bring a hired sideman onto the live stage, even though this requires Lee to operate sequencers with foot pedals while playing what are often ludicrously difficult bass lines — AND singing like, well, like Geddy Lee.
This, I say as someone who loves Geddy like a family member, is truculence bordering on absurdity. If Rush could approach fans individually and talk it out with them, they could probably persuade them that it made sense to bring a keyboardist, or even a rhythm guitarist, along on the road. (Some groups even sneak in a second percussionist!) It may even be a bit sad that we were denied a more collegial Rush, one that participated in the life of its musical generation, strayed occasionally from its triune purity, and did fun crossovers with other groups (such as 1980’s “Battle Scar”, recorded with fellow Torontonians Max Webster for the Universal Juveniles LP).
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How did early Sailors navigate the Oceans? | The Curious Engineer
TheCuriousEngineer
Published on 5 Oct 2014Do you know how the early sailors navigate the oceans? The technology today makes it real easy to navigate the oceans. But it’s very interesting to know how the early sailors managed to navigate without it. There’s a lot of history on it. I tried my best to compile some important and interesting parts of it into this video. Hope you like it 🙂
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QotD: The state of Ataraxia
Epicurus says that nature compels all living beings to search for pleasures and to avoid pain. When they reach their goal, they are in a state of contentment and rest that we can call happiness or tranquility of mind. Ataraxia is the term used by Epicurus to describe a perfect state of contentment, free of all uneasiness.
Martin Masse, “The Epicurean roots of some classical liberal and Misesian concepts“, speaking at the Austrian Scholars Conference, Auburn Alabama, 2005-03-18.
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