The most recent 20 comments posted to Making Light by Sam Kelly:

Very often, a choice to break the law is very much a political statement - break the laws as we break bread, or Quaker noncooperation with some laws, such as the forcible conscription-or-CO-registration in the UK around the World Wars. Or the mass campaigns of noncooperation against the Poll Tax in the last days of Thatcher.

So it's not uncommon to see offenses committed entirely within the political framework, in full expectation and indeed often in hope of a response from the courts, because that's often the only recourse people have. Responding to it by banishing the offender from the political framework is just an attempt to change the rules so nobody except the state can use them.

Denying convicted prisoners the franchise is no more than symbolic, really. If they're in for a serious offense, they're not going to be able to vote and get the law changed so what they did was legal; we don't need to have a discussion about the laws on murder. On the other hand, they have just as much right to an opinion on the euro or on climate change as anyone else, and just as much right to have that opinion counted - and as a society and a democracy, we'd be shooting ourselves in the foot if we didn't listen to them. They may have committed a crime; that doesn't make them less capable or less valuable in other respects, and it definitely doesn't mean that we should encourage a sense of not belonging to society in them.

Shorter version: Person A's vote is not a good thing for Person A. It's a good thing for the polity to which they belong.

albatross at 156: One thing occurs to me, thinking partly about the person I mentioned at 75, who actually admitted during the course of our discussion that they were engaging in that behaviour to maintain their own self-image. The phrase they used was "I would feel bad about myself if I didn't try to improve the people around me" or something similar. So that seems to feed into the whole "not about the victim" problem, and can in theory be remedied by forcing the person who was bullying to recognise the mutual humanity. The problem is, that's not a responsibility anyone can pin on the victim.

On a larger social scale, Walter Wink talks about the same sort of issue - standing up to entrenched social monoliths by (amongst other things) naming them for what they are and establishing a separate identity. It's hard, and some situations make it much harder.

geekosaur at 65 (and previous thread): The thing about three strikes, though, is that with classic bullying behaviour it's often impossible to tell up front. It takes a pattern to emerge, and then they do something egregious and you think, Hang on. That's another, worse, instance of that thing they do which I hadn't realised before was Bad.

The most successful bullies (in the sense of "people who engage in dominance behaviour deliberately, when they don't have to", not essentialist - she's an accordion player, he's a Rugby League player, she's a bully) just keep on doing it subtly, and as various people have said it needs someone else to draw attention to what's going on, because protracted bullying really does twist and warp your world view, and then it just looks normal.

I recently had to deal with bullying behaviour from a friend; it took me a long time, and several other peoples' help, to confront them on it, and I wasn't even the main target. The main issue was that they were continually positioning themselves "above" most of us socially, as though they were more competent and capable and organised and generally had a right and obligation to criticise and improve us all. Definitely a socially abusive relationship.

DDB at 63: how much does everybody really need to win? In the definitive "somebody else loses" sense?

That's only definitive for zero- or negative-sum situations. I like all my debates to be as strongly positive-sum as possible, and if I find myself in one that isn't I leave it. Regarding defending positions - I'll happily clarify my positions, explain something I didn't before, or reconsider them in light of new evidence, but I won't defend them, because I'm not interested in being attacked. (And yes, I do take it personally; if I care enough about something to state a position around known debaters, then it's effectively Me.)

That'd make it even more impressive - geomorphology shows that the lake's been there for 10,000 years. So you have this permafrost island, in the middle of a largeish lake, and someone says: I want a settlement there. Right there. I like the view. And the expensive imported Chinese architect says, Worr, it'll cost you, squire. And he says, luckily I have all these leftover Roman plans. You'll only have to change a few things. Get it done by next March or I'll decapitate you.

So he gets it done by next March, and it falls into the swamp. Then the second one falls into the swamp. The third one burns down, then falls into the swamp. The fourth one vanishes shortly after construction. Then they send a crack squad of Roman military engineers back 10,000 years through time in order to shore up the foundations properly, along with a legion of misfits and criminals to keep the dinosaurs off while they work.

Then six months later, the boss decides he doesn't like the view enough to put up with living on a permafrost island and having to import everything, and they all go home.

So a war robot that lives off the land - that'll be popular with farmers in the area! About as popular as soldiers have always been, really. And modern technology will allow efficient and thorough destruction of crops, rather than just trampling them down where they'll at least form a useful mulch.

I wonder whether clothes and paper products will count as biomass for OMNOMming purposes? (Officially Mandated Neutralization of Offensive Materials)

It's superficially Roman, but it doesn't have the right internal structure - those cells along the outside edge look like individual living spaces (if I'm correctly interpreting the spiral marks in the centres as hearths), there's no via principalis, and the central structure is the wrong shape and layout to be either a temple or a legionary admin centre.

In addition, its website says it's made from clay and body brick, which would be entirely wrong for a Roman camp. Also, the Romans rarely built things on top of glaciers.

It's apparently very similar to the Black City of Kharabalgasun, where the green dragon glorifies the khagans.

The World Uyghur Congress has an article on Por-Bajin here.

Their other MEP is Andrew Brons, who was previously chairman of the National Front and a prominent member of other Neo-Nazi groups.

Daniel Klein at 7: That appearance of unbridled enthusiasm is a Russian thing. Well, Eastern European and Russian. He talks about the black humour in the articles - it's the same as with Kafka, Solzhenitsyn or Jaroslav Hašek. (Reminds me also of Tibor Fischer's book Under the Frog.)

I can see the attraction, really - once you start thinking "OK, we're going to hit bottom soon" you end up thinking about how to deal with it, and you start on black humour and schadenfreude because the only other alternative is No Fun At All.

Regarding what he's saying - the advice is basically the same as I hear from most anarchists, or at least the separatists rather than the smash-the-state ones. The times they are a-changing, the world is turning upside down, so retool now, and make sure you know where all your dependencies and priorities are.

I'm not convinced by "Empires always fail", but the alternative is the Alpha Centauri plan, ie. race to achieve transcendence before you all drown in the thrashing systems.

Kevin Reid at 363: I've been using Dapper for that purpose. It seems to work well - I've been seeing some hiccups in the feeds, but then I use Bloglines too, and that can have occasional issues.

Luthe@24: That one's waiting for the Second Variety, I suspect.

Re: conservative films.

Lord of the Rings is conservative? Well, in a sense. But one of the main themes is a sharp criticism of the panopticon, which doesn't resonate too well with conservatives these days. That's not even touching the anti-war idea, and the concept that even if you're forced to fight you need to retain a sense of the enemy's own humanity and possible helplessness in the face of circumstances. (Incidentally: that line is Aragorn's in the film? It's Sam's in the book, and I think it fits him much better.)

Braveheart? "Armed revolution doesn't get you anywhere except the scaffold".

Team America: World Police... oh, I see what they've done there. They refer to the central characters as "heroes".

The Incredibles: I have to admit, the only clear message I came away with from this one was that all short people are comedy characters.

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe: well, the film did involve a lot of waving swords around at pointless and dramatically inappropriate moments, and the Pevensey children manage to take all the credit despite not actually doing very much of anything. If that's conservative...

As for 300 - this is just how bad 300 is.

Earl at 372: I have a lot of trouble getting Drambuie and beer into the same place in my mind- I can't imagine what it would taste like, and for me that's saying something.

The heather ale tastes, well, heathery. There's some tasting notes here that do a far better job than I can.

Speaking of pine-based alcohol, I was recently alerted to a pine ale from Fraoch. I've only had their heather ale so far, since that's all that tends to make it this far south, but on the showing of that I'll try anything they make. We're going off to Ardnamurchan in a few months' time, and we'll be stocking up on Fraoch ales for the holiday - I'm particularly keen to try the seaweed version.

Jenny Islander at 153: My cynical guess would be "badly".

Personally - I add parsnips, green lentils, chickpeas, and coconut milk to your list. I eat a smaller selection of beans & meats than you do, though I do keep half a dozen kinds of bean in the cupboard - must dig them out. I'm cooking for one, and I have a kickass cooker (six gas hobs and an electric oven large enough to feed 20 from - and I have) but almost no freezer space, so I tend towards roasts and three-day stews.

Speaking of roasts, the best combination of £/kg, tastiness, and relatively low food miles I've found is a shoulder of lamb. (I shop at Tesco for such things, so should be generally available.) I do constrain myself to not eating battery anything, and as local as is possible without actual effort, so that skews the cost curve a bit.

I tend to go heavy on spices, because they're dirt cheap for the effect they have. Mind you, here in East London I've got (to a close approximation) 37,682 ethnic food shops within half an hour's travel, so that's easier for me. Note also that soy sauce, lemon juice, red wine vinegar, sushi vinegar, and Thai fish sauce all count as spices. Mustard oil is also good - incidentally, I've noticed that they've stopped labelling it as "not for food use" now.

Pendrift at 845: That sounds like Rebecca's World, by Terry Nation. (Amazon.co.uk link - the reviews give more details about it.)

Now I want to read it again myself, even if it's not the one you're after!

I got given one grandfather's middle name (Henry) for mine after he refused to let me have Denys inflicted on me.

I don't like my first name all that much, but it has the singular advantage that nobody ever, ever misspells it - except, admittedly, by appending an extra three letters that I never use.

How about Ezekiel (Zeke - and that's the least feminine -el ending I ever saw) or Jeremiah (Jeremy, Jerry, Jer, Jez, or Remy)?

Xopher at 357: Wow, that was your father? That's amazing. I'm sorry for your loss, and glad for his life.

Zack at 25 - I suspect it's the Tragedy of Chrononhotonthologos you're after?

And in news from NASA, Mars may not be so dead after all.

Looking at the intersection of ununoctianity and Mars, on the other hand, we have Geoffrey Chaucer warning us about the upcoming invasion. "Wherfor, herselven for to hyde and save".

Interestingly, the free and open nature of Morris dancing is enshrined in UK legislation (well, England & Wales, at any rate) - the Licensing Act 2003 specifically exempts "morris dancing or any dancing of a similar nature" from any licensing requirements.

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