What shall we do today?

1. Vote.

97% of those eligible to vote have registered, including many first-time voters. In principle, there could be 4.28 million votes cast today. Anything above 3,424,000 votes cast is record-breaking: that’s over 80%, highest turnout in Scotland in five decades.

Vote Yes: vote No: if you can’t make up your mind go to your polling station and write “Undecided” or “Team Scotland” or “A plague on both your houses” on your ballot. But go to the booth, stare at your ballot, see if you can’t make up your mind for one or the other: and if you can, then make your vote, and no repining.

If you want your vote counted, best to use the pencil provided in the voting booth to make a clear X in the box next to your choice. (Yes, you can use a pen if you want, but the Electoral Commission provides pencils because they make a thick black line that is very difficult to erase and won’t run or blur if the ballot paper gets wet.)

Mary Moriarty is a BEM

Well, it’s all a load of royalist imperialist hooey, of course, but once in a while the Honours List does light on someone who you think “Yeah, she deserves it!”

The Virtual Inglenook said of Mary Moriarty in 2009 that even she “only retires once”. He did not predict that Moriarty’s idea of “retirement” involved the Leith Festival (Gala Day yesterday, continues to the 20th, enjoy!)

Irony, appreciated

On 8th August, PZ Myers published an email from a woman he knows and trusts (but who had asked Myers not to name her) at his blog. The email said that a well-known figure in the American skeptics community had

“coerced me into a position where I could not consent, and then had sex with me”.

Several other named and unnamed sources, known and considered credible by PZ Myers, have confirmed the incident and have described what may be other similar incidents:

…he deliberately got her very drunk while flirting with her — a story that corroborates a particular pattern of sexual assault. All of these are people PZ knows, and whose reliability he is vouching for.

It’s been noted that there will be no legal repercussions for this man, though there may be social repercussions:

So the best we can hope for as far as repercussions are that because his name is so popular, the accusations against him will give his potential future victims pause against trusting him enough to drink with or spend time alone with him. This might hurt his feelings, but it will not ruin his career or his life.

Happy solstice

Soon, the days will be getting shorter again. And it’s going to rain tomorrow.

I intend to keep this poll on the whens of A Scottish Constitutional Convention for the 21st Century open till the weekend when I can blog about it some more.

Best comment I saw today on Twitter about Julian Assange seeking asylum in Ecuadoran embassy in Knightsbridge:

Hope Julian’s been making himself useful around the embassy today. Making cups of tea, ‘accidentally’ leaving documents on the photocopier…

— Political Animal (@politic_animal) June 20, 2012

Best comment off Twitter was from Stavvers:

Usually for the excuses Assange is using–that he might face the death penalty in the US for his work with Wikileaks–the place you would probably want to seek asylum is Sweden. Sweden is pretty fucking good on not extraditing people: their law means they cannot send someone to a country with the death penalty or for political offences. And they take CIA rendition flights very seriously. Simply put, Sweden would not extradite someone like Assange for his work with Wikileaks.

So why won’t Assange go back to Sweden, where he is still phenomenally unlikely to find his arse extradited? All that is left, once the smoke and mirrors of the inflated threat of extradition from Sweden clears, is the fact that Assange raped two of Sweden’s citizens. And of course, Assange’s fans are still banging the rape apologism drum.

I’m sorry this is not a very good blog for today, but today was the day I was berated by Glenn Greenwald and DHothersall – both of them insisting that I was a liar because I had not read their minds and understood what they meant rather than what they said.

Afterwards, Greenwald updated his blog to clarify what he meant (Update II). I’m rather hoping Dhothersall does as well.

#NerdDrinks was fun. This one actually works both as drink and as pun.

Miles Vorkosigan – single shot of ristretto, single shot Kahlúa,double shot vodka. Mark Vorkosigan: as Miles, with whipped cream #nerddrinks

— EdinburghEye (@EyeEdinburgh) June 19, 2012

Brian Presley probably doesn’t remember

From Fu*king Brian: The Attempted Shaming of Melissa Stetten:

Melissa Stetten is the gorgeous model who live tweeted the clichéd alleged pick-up lines of a tipsy D list actor whilst on a red eye from LA to NYC. Turns out said actor is married and claims to be sober and is a big time Christian. Melissa tweeted at one point “Did I ruin Brian’s life?” Prophetic Melissa.

Stage 1: Euphoria – stage one usually occurs during or straight after the first glass. You will feel happy or ‘slightly merry’, which will cause your inhibitions to weaken. You’ll feel more confident, you may say things or do things you wouldn’t usually do and say, or feel a heightened sense of affection towards others. During this stage the length of your attention span will decrease and your reactions will slow down considerably. Stages of drunkenness

Eight days later, in a Q & A from Christianity Today with Ashley Moore, posted 14th June 2012, Brian Presley says this is what happened on the redeye flight out of LA, in the early hours of 6th June:

I was on my way to New York for business, and we were having the screening of Touchback and some other business—two days and [then] back home. I sat next to this person and had a friendly conversation. She seemed like a nice person. She asked why I was going to New York. I said work and shared part of the industry I’m in. She shared what part of the industry she’s in. And I brought up Touchback.

I’m a passionate guy in general and I feel passionate about what I do, but in no way was I rambling on about myself.

Violence in House of Commons bar

MPs can get drunk in the House of Commons more cheaply than anywhere/anyone else in London.

Last night an MP entered the Strangers’ Bar in the House of Commons, shouted abuse, and violently attacked one or more fellow MPs. I anticipate wincingly that, given the kind of abuse the MP shouted, that this is going to turn into a discussion about anti-Tory feeling among Scots or about the appalling behaviour of a Labour oik.

For several years running, the LGBT Tories have shown up to Pride fairs and marches in Edinburgh and Glasgow. Given how Scots feel about Tories, and given how LGBT people feel about Tories, they’re not a big group and they’re not a very popular one. But they have their stall at the Pride fair or they march with their banner, and while I doubt if they’ve convinced anyone in the crowd to vote Tory, no one has ever – to my knowledge – used abusive language to them or been violent. Pride marches and fairs are loud, cheerful, and sober parties.

From PoliticsHome, last night:

Conservative Stuart Andrew, MP for Pudsey, was reportedly head-butted and punched in the incident which happened just after 11pm tonight in the Stranger’s Bar, a Commons bar which is reserved for MPs and their guests.

Mr Joyce is alleged to have “just started lashing out at people”, according to one eye-witness who asked not to be named.

The eye-witness told PoliticsHome that Mr Joyce, a former Army officer who represents Falkirk, pushed a Tory MP and then started punching some of the other Conservative members seated at the back of the bar. Drinks were thrown over other bar partons.

I could be wrong but I think the evidence strongly suggests that Eric Joyce has a drinking problem – he was banned from driving in November 2010, after an incident near Grangemouth where he refused a breathalyzer test. (And he also has an expenses problem.) I have no comment to make on his blog about Vodka stats and the Scots but I expect plenty of other people will.

Not that this excuses the violence last night – I strongly agree with David Allen Green:

How wonderfully amusing. Someone we disapprove of is headbutted. What a laugh, eh? He must have been asking for it, so funny.
Because having one’s head smashed is just a joke, isn’t it?
Why are peeps calling it a “brawl” when the only current information is that it was one-sided? Makes the headbutt ok, does it?
By calling it a “brawl” the implication is that the victim has blame as well as the attacker. So we can laugh at alleged physical assault. (1, 2, 3, 4)

Though I disagree that taxpayers should subsidise their food, there’s every reason why MPs should have somewhere to go have a meal in the House of Commons, as should everyone who works there. I’d rather subsidise the food for the civil servants who work there than the MPs – anyone who gets a salary of £64K can pay for their own dinner. I’m not suggesting that the restaurants should be unlicenced. But the taxpayers subsidise four bars in the House of Commons, and I’m failing to see why we should pay for even one. Nor do I see why MPs should be able to buy as “souvenirs” bottles of wine or spirits at a subsidy of nearly 20% from the taxpayer.

If Eric Joyce is an alcohol addict, he needs help. For all the other MPs who work there, alcohol addicts or not – close down the bars, end the “souvenirs” subsidy, and set your own House in order. Though I doubt if David “Tiger-Tiger” Cameron, Bullingdon boy, will make any speeches in support of that.