BBC News reports (with action video!) today (November 27, 2020) about the ongoing peaceful activities of the Ig Nobel Peace Prize-winning Taiwan parliament: Taiwan lawmakers throw pig guts and punches Pig guts were thrown and scuffles broke out in Taiwan’s parliament over the easing of US pork imports. The government have been criticised for a […]
Tag: parliament
The Kidney Stone of Alderman Adams
The History of Parliament blog detects a connection between Ig Nobel Prize-winning roller-coaster/kidney stone research and, yes, the history of Britain’s parliament: The Kidney Stone of Alderman Adams The link between the Ig Nobel Prize for improbable research and the 1640-1660 Section of the History of Parliament Trust is not immediately obvious; but the Ig Nobel […]
London’s top-secret BT Tower revealed (23 years ago today)
On this day, Friday 19th February 1993, Ms. Kate Hoey (member of parliament for Vauxhall, London) used ‘Parliamentary Privilege‘ (which provides immunity from prosecution under the Official Secrets Act) to reveal the existence of a previously secret high-tech installation in central London. “Hon. Members have given examples of seemingly trivial information that remains officially secret. […]
A partial history of parliamentary fistfighting
The NewsLens news site gives a pictorial partial history of fistfights in parliaments in various countries, with a knowing nod to the 1995 Ig Nobel Peace Prize, which was awarded to the Taiwan National Parliament, for demonstrating that politicians gain more by punching, kicking and gouging each other than by waging war against other nations.
On the efficiency of the new Italian Senate
Undiscouraged by history, the winners of the 2010 Ig Nobel Prize for management have applied their methods to try to make sense of the current state of Italian national politics. Their new study is: “On the efficiency of the new Italian Senate and the role of 5 Star Movement: Comparison among different possible scenarios by […]
Choosing politicians randomly produces better results
Democracies would be better off if they chose some of their politicians at random. That’s the word, mathematically obtained, from a team of Italian physicists, economists, and political analysts. The team includes the trio whose earlier research showed, also mathematically, that bureaucracies would be more efficient if they promoted people at random. Alessandro Pluchino, Andrea Rapisarda, Cesare Garofalo, […]
How politicians won the peace prize
This video shows Taiwan’s national parliament again demonstrating why they were awarded the Ig Nobel peace prize in 1995. The citation lauded them for demonstrating that politicians gain more by punching, kicking and gouging each other than by waging war against other nations.