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CFCs do destroy the ozone. Their elevated release due to manufacture and use in consumer products was responsible for the predicable chemistry destroying ozone (O3, particularly in the stratosphere). Since 1987 CFC reduction has been responsible for the predictable chemistry that resulted in the reduction of the very same ozone hole. Understandably this is history for you, but not for those who lived through it and have worked in related industries.

http://law.jrank.org/pages/227...

the president has full power to pardon anyone of all crimes, either before, during or after persecution and that the pardon clears the individuals of any consequences that may have arisen from the action from which they were to be punished.

6: No judge would use this for a sentence in a case. Since mentally ill people tend to not exactly be rich in general, no judge would take advantage of that fact and pass longer sentences to keep the private prison campaign funds rolling in.

If someone is mentally ill to the point where they could not, at some time, tell right from wrong, they are not held criminally responsible, and are committed to a hospital until they are deemed to be a lower risk.

Which brings us to:

5: No DA would ever use this data for arrests so he or she can meet their quota to keep their campaign contributions coming in from the private prison lobby. Remember: 48 states signed an agreement stating they would keep their private jails at 90% or more capacity or else pay fines by the hour. With marijuana being legalized, those bed spaces have to be filled up somehow.

DAs wouldn't want any data that a person is mentally ill to be submitted to the court - it will screw up their conviction rate, which means those cells stay empty.

Now look at this:

IANAL but mental illness generally isn't a defense, the only way it helps is if you were so ill that you couldn't control your actions and/or determine right from wrong. Evidence of a mental illness such as depression (or something more serious) is probably going to help the prosecution by stigmatizing the jury against the defendant and making an irrational action (ie a criminal act) seem more likely.

Either way it's pretty rare:

Successful NGRI defenses are rare. While rates vary from state to state, on average less than one defendant in 100—0.85 percent— actually raises the insanity defense nationwide. Interestingly, states with higher rates of NGRI defenses tend to have lower success rates for NGRI defenses; the percentage of all defendants found NGRI is fairly constant, at around 0.26 percent.

4: This data would never be used by an ex-spouse as a way to say that the kids are in mortal danger and kill all rights completely in a divorce.

So what happens to all those people who are fighting to keep their kids, plan to drop this bomb, do their research and then find out that the only person in the relationship who is mentally ill is them? Or that they're both mentally ill? The most common form of mental illness is depression, and if it's controlled no judge will use it to decide a custody case.

I could go on, but why bother? Seems to me that there are to many from the tin-foil hat crowd who need to see a shrink. And give up their guns, before they hurt someone.

Exactly how do you propose to "control" depression? Anti-depressants and therapy can help, but that's a long way from calling them a cure.

I'm not one of the tinfoil hat crowd but I think these are legitimate concerns. Mental illness is heavily stigmatized and tech companies snooping on your behaviour to determine if you are mentally ill can have serious consequences. I don't think it will happen at this stage but we'll get there eventually.

That being said mental illness is a serious issue, if Google is somehow able to help people dealing with depression or other issues then that could be a very good thing.

No you don't. You just don't realize that the people who fled here in the 17th century to avoid the oppressive regime in England created a whole new oppressive regime for the indigenous people. And it was so rampant into the 18th century that they wrote an entire constitution (that didn't apply to said indigenous people, or the slaves that were imported) to try and protect it. Then in the 19th century, half the country tried to repress the other half - destroying their entire way of life.

If you're referring to the Civil War, the way of life that was destroyed was based on, err, umm, the oppression of slaves, so destroying that way of life was a good thing.

And we can't forget McCarthysim - oooh, that was a really good one, followed by the Hoover FBI.

Hoover did that sort of thing well before he was head of the FBI; see, for example, the Palmer Raids.

Public Law 107-40 does not mention al Qaida or identify any specific enemy. It is useless for the purpose of trying to prove treason.

Treason requires not mere revelation of information or provision of aid, but an actual intentional betrayal of loyalty. Snowden did not engage in this.

You may want to study the following.

http://law.jrank.org/pages/2195/Treason-Elements-offense.html

From which the salient point is:

"In treason cases, however, the prosecution must prove that the accused had a specific intent to levy war or aid enemies."

I disagree, eugenics can only lead one way. Whether it's called bioethics or eugenics, it's the ultimate fantasy of the powerful. It represents a form of control over the unwashed masses that goes far beyond any previous methods of social or economic control. That's why it must be called out at every opportuinty.

It's hardly the nazis that solely gave eugenics/bioethics its bad name. It was alive and well in England and the USA long before Germany joined the party.

It's a supreme tragedy for the human race that eugenics has been so powerfully (perhaps inextricably) linked with the policies of Nazi Germany. It means we're ignorant of knowing that its been around long before, and is still being pushed from the top. That last link goes to a group called Population Matters. Until very recently they were called the Optimum Population Trust. Oh, another name change. That does seem to be a favourite trick of these eugenists/bioethicists.

The human brain is a neural network that provides ample resources to ponder any concept one may choose to contemplate to a much higher degree than any other animal. Unless someone is claiming they are simultaneously contemplating more than 10% of all the concepts mankind can possibly conceive of the entire universe, the notion that we can use 10% of our brains at once is actually a staggeringly high number.

Here's a figure that's much harder to explain: the human brain uses 20W of power at all times. Calculus exam - 20W. Epic sex with a supermodel - 20W. meditation - 20W. Fast asleep - 20W. It seems counter-evolutionary for the brain to not have a power-saving mode since it uses 20% of our average energy expenditure, but the same is true of all animals, except during hibernation.

There are more women than men in the workforce (though Canada beat the US by several years). And after re-reading my post, I still don't see what you are referring to when you write that "the link points out a correction for this."

There are other studies that show that men don't do their fair share ...

As for gender and violence, it IS pretty cut-and-dried.

91% of United States rape victims were female and 9% were male, with 99% of the offenders being male and 1% of the offenders being female.

So, rapists are men 99% of the time, and the victims were women more than 90% of the time. I honestly don't know how you can't get much more cut-and-dried than that.

Also - the car study - a dirty old Ford Fiesta to a clean new car??? (not the same as todays' version, btw). You might as well say that women are more attracted to men who take a bath once in a while.

For the female orgasm study, I think the real point was missed. Here's the salient quote:

From the analysis, they found that 121 of these women always had orgasms during sex, while 408 more had them "often". Another 762 "sometimes" orgasmed while 243 had them rarely or never. Such figures are similar to those for western countries.

The majority of women with partners didn't have orgasms often. It's known that financial stress causes "performance stress" for men ... so it would also explain why couples where there is more $$$ == better sex. Also, more $$$ == better health, and more likelihood to be able to see a doctor to get help for things like problems attaining orgasm - for both sexes. It's not as simple as the headline makes it out to be. And let's be honest - it's also a lot harder for people to get in the mood when there are job problems, money problems, and/or health problems.

Which brings me back to my main point - labeling women as gold-diggers is superficial, to say the least. It would be like me saying almost all men are rapists just because almost all rapists are men.

Financial, job, and in-the-home equality are part of the solution. Another part of the solution is better jobs, period! A sour economy brings out the worst in people, eroding their self-confidence, their resiliency, their willingness to see things as other than "us vs them."

And I'd like to see the statistics that prove that 5-10 years of appeals cost more than keeping someone alive in prison for 40-60 years!

I tend to favor the Texas standard - if 3 credible eyewitnesses see you commit a heinous crime, you go "to the front of the line".

In other words, if there is ABSOLUTELY NO DOUBT you are guilty, why waste any time with keeping your sorry ass alive another day? I have no problem with a moratorium on the death penalty if there is even a shadow of a doubt, but there should be "A WHOLE CROWD SAW HIM DO IT, HE'S DEFINITELY GUILTY" category that doesn't waste time or money on lengthy appeals or a life sentence.

And of course, Texas is the one state that never has had to release an innocent person from death row.

As for costs, well, here is a link that discusses it: http://law.jrank.org/pages/5002/Capital-Punishment-COSTS-CAPITAL-PUNISHMENT.html

You can google "how much does it cost to execute a prisoner" for a whole list of resources, but you won't find many that take the position that execution is cheaper than life in prison.

That's what Kinko's Copies said when they were sued. They lost.

Wrong. The entire book is scanned. The filtration is done at presentation time; the entire work is digitized. I know this because Google tried to do this with my book. They also lied about trying to contact me for permission; I received no such contact even though my contact information had not changed in years, and the publisher is still in business at the same contact points listed in the book itself. Needless to say, when I found out about this I cease-and-desisted Google. My work is not theirs to give away.

The lawsuit notes they they are scanning the entire work, without permission, with intent to provide the entire work to libraries in addition to presenting excerpts to anyone. The lawsuit also asserts that the usage is NOT "fair use". Kinko's Copies used to photocopy portions of textbooks selected by professors, assemble those chapters into custom textbooks per the professor's specifications, and sell them; they too claimed "fair use". Kinko's had their heads handed to them in court, which forced them to greatly diminish their campus income and started a slide into non-profitability that led to the FedEx buyout. (I managed a campus-facing Kinko's in the late 80's; I saw it all firsthand) The only differences are that with Kinko's, the copied material was presented in physical form, and that the financial benefit for the infringement was immediate (a retail sale) as opposed to diffuse (advertising data collection and presentation). The Kinko's case is being cited by the plaintiffs as precedent.

The lawsuit also states that Google is exposing the authors to the risk of having all of their works compromised at once. If someone breaks into Google's storage system, they can get every book Google has ever come into contact with. The pirates won't have to do the scanning and OCR work; Google will have already removed that hurdle. This is a risk which Google has imposed upon authors without consent; it's another example of Google not giving a damn about what authors want, and assuming rights and powers which they have no legal or ethical claim to.

Check your own facts.

His father's suicide didn't help much, either.

What I don't see enough discussion about is the bioaccumulative effect.

For catch-up: fat-soluble toxins can accumulate in the bodies of organisms such that at every step of the food chain, the concentration is multiplied. It's not just a single species accreting the toxin, but what happens when its predators are eating from this concentrated source. Any links up the food chain up to the apex predator are going to have a multiplied effect, which is why a seemingly insignificant amount of mercury pollution versus the ocean's volume has made tuna consumption a point of caution.

We are seeing radiation levels that could be a bit of a concern and the Fukushima situation is still not under control. And are some of the compounds it's emitting bioaccumulative? Yes, Cesium 137 for example, and that has a half-life of 30 years. And the first thing you should do is move your consumption as far down the food chain as possible. Even if you don't plan to go vegan, learn Indian cooking or a low-meat cuisine, because the less animal product you're consuming, the better.

Sources:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11482657
http://www.marietta.edu/~biol/102/2bioma95.html
http://science.jrank.org/pages/854/Bioaccumulation.html
http://www.businessinsider.com/san-francisco-rainwater-radiation-181-times-above-us-drinking-water-standard-2011-4

IANAL but this was something a quick googling found: http://law.jrank.org/pages/6727/False-Advertising-Proof-Requirement.html

Doesn't really seem to quite make the cut for fraud.

Arrgh.

The 1911 Britannica had a good-sized article on Saddlery, going into some detail and covering the history of the invention. http://encyclopedia.jrank.org/SAC_SAR/SADDLERY.html/

The current edition does not have a stand-alone article on Saddlery, addressing the topic more briefly as part of the Horsemanship article.

Similarly, the 1911 Britannica has an entry on "Arsenal", meaning the military facility. The current Britannica touches on the concept briefly in an article on logistics.

We imported most of our scientists. We can thank Hitler and Mussolini for our scientific talent. Einstein, Fermi, many other came here.

In the twentieth century flows of intellectual capital increased from trickles to torrents, measured not just in individuals but in dozens and hundreds of scientists. Some migrated to take advantage of professional opportunity, for instance abandoning the backlog of academic jobs in Germany for the growing academic and industrial research system in the United States early in the century. But many scientists were uprooted either as victims of political persecution or as spoils of war claimed by victorious nations. The rise of fascism in the 1930s drove hundreds of scientists from Germany, Austria, Hungary, and Italy, including many of the leading lights of European science. Over thirty nations took in émigrés, but most went to Britain or the United States. Their colleagues tried to find academic jobs for them, whether out of obligation or opportunity, and often succeeded despite the Great Depression and anti-Semitism.

http://science.jrank.org/pages/48899/brain-drains-paperclip-operations.html

Anti-immigrant sentiment, anti-intellectualism, and declining opportunities in the US as opposed to other immigrant destinations has diminished this desirable in-migration. The same factors that discourage native-born citizens from entering technical professions also discourage immigrants

That's standard practice, and it's for his own good. Just because he's being held pre-trial doesn't mean that the other inmates aren't going to stab him to death before the trial.

Read up on the conditions under which Manning is being held; it's not for his safety, it's psychological torture. Whether the goal is to break him so he'll say whatever they want, or just to leave him a ruined shell as a warning to the next person who might try to embarrass the U.S. government, there is nothing "standard" about prolonged solitary confinement, sleep deprivation, or denial of exercise. Convicted murderers and rapists are not dealt with this harshly; there's no way that an accused whistle-blower should be.

Also, speedy trial, doesn't preclude a thorough investigation, the provision was there to ensure that the government didn't endlessly delay a trial while doing a superficial investigation.

The requirement for a speedy trail is exactly in part so that the state can't implement the "sentence first, we'll have the trial later and figure out what he's guilty of then" strategy they are employing. Manning has been held for seven months; courts have generally held that delays longer that six to eight months are unconstututional. If the feds have a case, put it to the jury; if they don't, let Manning go.

Nearly 90% of violent criminals are known to carry the 'SRY' gene. Hitler, Stalin, Osama bin Laden and all 19 of the 9/11 terrorists are believed to have been SRY carriers. Even worse, the majority of the population in countries like Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan (but not the UK, France or Canada) have a copy of this dangerous gene! While the full results have not been released, it is thought that the genome sequence of Ozzy Osborne, which also revealed evidence of Neanderthal ancestry, contains SRY.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SRY
http://social.jrank.org/pages/1253/Violent-Crime-Gender-Differences-in-Violent-Crime-Offenders.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_sex_ratio
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2010/nov/05/ozzy-osbourne-genes-sequenced-genome

I guess you think modern tools are the first ones ever built and that we never could trap or hunt in packs. I've got news for you. Humans are more like wolves socially than like sheep. Knives and spears have existed for millions of years. Deadfalls, pit traps, and snares have existed for quite some time, too. Humans didn't wrestle the woolly mammoth one on one. Stampeding a herd over a cliff is a lot easier than strangling a steer. Fishing, snake catching, grabbing birds in the nest, throwing rocks at rabbits or squirrels, and sticking sharp sticks into knot holes and burrows have been used to get smaller animals as meals. We even tamed some of the wolves and taught them to help us hunt.

Humans are resourceful. Just because you'd only eat nuts and berries doesn't mean someone who wants meat couldn't find a way to get it without following lions around like hyenas do.

BTW, chimps eat monkeys, and they hunt them in organized groups sometimes using weapons. They also have been known to eat bush pigs, baboons, termites, and antelopes. Sometimes they eat other chimps. They use and even fashion tools to catch termites. They have even been known to rely on certain medicinal plants under the proper circumstances, which leads some researchers to believe they have some idea of which plant helps which malady. These and bonobos are our closest living animal cousins.

A transistor might be easier, given the power supply constraints. Use your smelter to make pure silicon. You would have to know how to dope it though. Hmmm doesn't Arsenic come from wallnuts?

I wonder why it's a different story in the UK, where this has just been published in their 'The Independent' - note the comment about there being no 'public subsidy':

Where's the link to the story? Here's one of my own: British Energy. Notice how it says "It operated former UK state-owned nuclear power stations: eight nuclear power stations and a coal fired power station." Googling for British Energy Generation Limited profit I found this article from May 2008: British Energy profits hit by nuclear shutdowns. While it does say the company made profits, it says those profits were higher than expected because of higher prices. Another article, British Energy Plc Business Information, Profile, and History says British Energy was privatized in 1996. Considering the source, www.no2nuclearpower.org.uk is a big hint it's anti-nuclear power, but Nuclear Subsidies - how the market is rigged in favour of dangerous nuclear electricity [pdf] explains how nuclear power in the UK is subsidized. Also biased Greenpeace has the pdf Invest in a Clean Energy Future which also says nuclear power gets direct and indirect subsidies. Googling British Energy Generation Limited subsidies results in more links saying nuclear power does get subsidies. As does British nuclear power subsidies.

"The Government today dropped plans to build a 10-mile barrage across the Severn estuary to generate "green" electricity from tides.

Okay, the UK dropped plans to subsidize a tidal energy project.

But the Department of Energ

Ah, the typical reaction to to the word "radioactivity."

For good reason too - we can not hear ,smell or taste radiation and its effects will last a life time.

any exposure to radiation causes harm it is just a case of how well are bodies able to tolerate it.

http://science.jrank.org/pages/5635/Radiation-Radiation-health.html

Most areas around Chernobyl are pretty harmlessly radioactive unless you a) spend a long time there or b) get some of the radioactive stuff on or in you and it sticks with you for an extended period of time...................

I will have to take your word for it. Never having been to the areas that surround the Chernobyl power plant, I would however think there must be a reason why the cities of Chernobyl and Prypiat were abandoned.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prypiat,_Ukraine

Not just Denmark.
GP is just exaggerating, probably to reinforce his personal world-view.
Hit up google for recidivism and rehabilitation and you'll find papers like this one that show non-punitive rehabilitation programs can achieve a 25% reduction in recidivism.

I disagree. You get arrested by a public law enforcement agency, have a public trial, and essentially no rights (depending on the crime).

While I'm not for the police state, I do believe that those convicted of a crime need to have their mugshots put up, especially for the following crimes:

DUI/DWI (doc, specifically Colorado's numbers but I imagine the true holds same in TN given the number of those in court for it repeatedly)
Pedophilia
Rape (pdf, specifically Deleware's statistics)
Murder (pdf, Washington state)
Scam/Con

People should know who you are and what your proclivities are. In the above cases you should expect no right to privacy after your first conviction (recidivism in these crimes is high, see links and also this document on recidivism).

I couldn't find numbers for scammers/con artists, though I'm sure they don't give up after their first arrest either. If anyone could find national averages it would be appreciated. All the above docs referred to national averages that I didn't turn up in my searches (search term: <crime> recidivism)

Sigh. Do I have to explain this in small words?

It says it right there in the bit you quoted: marriage is an institution designed to build families. Just because a couple doesn't plan on building a family doesn't mean that they shouldn't be encouraged to do so.

Now I already know where this is going to go. You're going to suggest that gay couples can have children via adoption or other means.

So any heterosexual person that is unable to have children (say the man had testicular cancer and now can't get her pregnant) should not be allow to marry? Same level of reproduction as a homosexual couple.

Well, that's nice, but studies have conclusively proven that children do best in stable, nuclear families. We shouldn't be encouraging people to bring children up in bad situations.

Total hate mongering bullshit.

Which is why marriage, as an institution, is designed to help create stable family units that bring children up in the best manner possible.

Is it perfect? Of course not. But just because it isn't perfect doesn't mean we should make it demonstrably worse.

And yet for many families, marriage is an 'institution', just like a prison institution due to abusive parents that people demand must stay together 'for the children' which only makes it a horrible place to be for the children.

As this system leaves in the human factor for actually deciding if an action is necessary (ie: sending cops), and then leaves the cops deciding what actions to take, it doesnt seem any more open for abuse than the current surveillance system in place.

Except that you left something out, the system is partially paid for with forfeitures. The more forfeiture the bigger the system can be made. We've already been having problems with law enforcement forfeitures. "For example, between 1989 and 1992, the Sheriff's Office in Volusia County, Florida, seized $8 million in cash in roadside stops of motorists. Although the office returned about half of the money in settlements, it still retained $4 million over the three-year period." Today Texas police seize black motorists' cash, cars. Or Asset Forfeiture: Austin Police Use of Seized Funds Probed. Law enforcement makes a lot of money from forfeitures.

Falcon

Wrong.... we have strong evidence of trade going back well before the advent of written histories. Stone age societies were trading amongst each other. We know this not because of things that were written down, but because of the artifacts that they left behind. Stone implements that were manufactured hundreds of miles away, pottery that was manufactured in a different style from the local culture using materials not available locally, etc. Trade long predates government, laws, writing and recorded history.

A quick Google turned up a reference to trade routes in the east involving japan and Papua New Guinea trading in Obsidian tools and art over 20,000 years ago. This was established via radio-isotope dating and sourcing the quarry locations. They also cite references to trade on the Mediterranean and in the British isles in similar time frames. So maybe you don't know quite as much as you think you do about trade and human history.

Really, it doesn't take that much imagination or insight to understand that trade would pre-exist any organized political structure. Trade exists in non-human primate societies for crying out loud, so it definitely pre-exists anything of human creation.

Copyright isn't a moral issue, it's a legal one

Nonsense. Law is simply morality that's been codified. We believe killing people is wrong, so we make a law to reflect our shared morality. We have also decided that it's right that the people who create artworks deserve some reward for that work. The system to make that reward possible is copyright. Saying the system is not working properly, and that you want to change it, is a very different statement from saying that breaking copyright isn't about morality. This is, at its core, *completely* about morality...the question is only whether the law reflects your moral view (or, better, society's overall moral view).

Your "private transaction" argument is also legally questionable. For physical things, (and in US law) if you buy something you have reasonable reason to believe is stolen you will also have committed a crime: Receiving Stolen Goods. It's designed to allow the state to punish fences as well as the thieves themselves, but laws like this will be cited in any discussion of similar behavior online. If you have reasonable reason to conclude that the person you're dealing with is selling you an illegitimate copy of a game, you are not free from liability. Your liability is certainly less than the person selling the thing, but you're not completely innocent in the exchange.

Accident != "Genuine" accident.

Really? I'd have thought a genuine accident would be the most accidental kind of accident there could be.

A genuine accident (I tripped on a crack in the sidewalk and fell over, bumping into you and knocking your head into a building and killing you) is still technically manslaughter (killing a person), but there would be no conviction because it was truly an accident.

Technically schmechnically. If it was manslaughter then there would be a conviction, subject to the usual gubbins like a convincing a jury.

You probably aren't aware that there are two forms of manslaughter - involuntary and voluntary. Taking the phrase at face value, what you describe would appear to fall under the involuntary type. However legal terms often don't mean what they appear to do. As the link says:

In order for a person to be found guilty of involuntary manslaughter the government must prove that someone was killed as a result of an act by the person;

OK, you got that. If tripping constitutes an act, which it may or may not. According to the third subprinciple, it isn't.

Second, in the circumstances existing at the time, the person's act either was by its nature dangerous to human life or was done with reckless disregard for human life; and

Walking along the street is not what I would call reckless or dangerous to human life.

Third, the person either knew that such conduct was a threat to the lives of others or knew of circumstances that would reasonably cause the person to foresee that such conduct might be a threat to the lives of others. "

Which clearly is not the case.

The example I gave of driving an unroadworthy car however satisfies all three.

If I walked up behind you and simply pushed you into the wall, not meaning to kill you but just meaning to hurt you, and you died - that would be considered an accident but I'd probably still face some punishment. That's not a "genuine" accident. But it is an accident.

And that would be voluntary manslaughter - intending to injure but going too far. Google it, you clearly need the practice.

Your history is bad. America was colonised by puritans fleeing the lack of religious values in Europe (read: puritans were no longer in power) which is why it is not really ironic that they persecuted non-Christians and burned wiccan or suspected wicca at the steak.

No, your history is bad. I. America as a Religious Refuge: The Seventeenth Century Says "Many of the British North American colonies that eventually formed the United States of America were settled in the seventeenth century by men and women, who, in the face of European persecution, refused to compromise passionately held religious convictions and fled Europe."
Notice the "loc.gov", that's a governmental website.

For more...
Calverts of Roman Catholic faith, who had fled religious persecution in England, founded Maryland in 1632." Or Religious Persecution in Ireland.

Quite simply early settlers of the New World fled religious persecution. On the other hand you were right about them wanting to persecute others in Europe. I have never denied that. I have actually accused European Christians of persecuting people. The NAZI Holocaust wasn't the first tyme Jews were persecuted, nor were they the only ones. Spain, which was not united until Queen Isabella united it, was quite efficient at persecuting people. Jews, Muslims, other Christians, and others were persecuted. Isabella told Jews and Muslims to convert, leave Iberia, or die. Of course because Jews and Muslims were educated Spain suffered a massive brain drain which set back their civilization back. At least they were given a choice, Agnostic Christians weren't. They were slaughters by the hundreds if not thousands. So called Catholics would burn down entire villages that were still inhabited and make sure no one could escape. Much like Muslims did in Saudi Arabia in 2002 when a girls' school got on fire.

Read up on the Magna Carta, it is the basis of constitutional law and English common law. It was the influence of many constitutional documents including the United States Constitution.

I have read about the Magna Carts, as well as actually read it myself. I have also read the writing of the USA's Founding Fathers. One of the writers of the Constitution of the USA was John Rutledge of South Carolina and he "proposed they model the new government they were forming into something along the lines of the Iroquois League of Nations, which had been functioning as a democratic government for hundreds of years, and which he had observed in Albany."

Falcon

Men are victimized by all violent crimes (except possibly rape, where men report lower rates by a factor of up to ten, but want to bet the reporting bias is huge?) at rates up to several times greater than women. A large part of the difference can be accounted for by differences in crime-avoidant behaviors. Women are taught a lot about how to avoid being a victim of violent crime. Men are not. And no one much cares.

I was skeptical of that claim, but it looks like you're mostly correct. For the lazy, women were 20 times more likely to be raped or sexually assaulted, but men were more than twice as likely to be victims of armed robbery, 2.5 times more likely for aggravated assault, and 1.2 times more likely for simple assault. I'd argue about the wording of "several times greater" but that seems like nitpicking when the general point is sound.

What I don't know that I agree with is the role crime-avoidant behavior plays in those numerical differences. I can't find any studies on the subject, but I'd love to see one. I agree, in general, that victim-avoidant behavior and the overwhelming likelihood the violent crime offender is male account for those differences, but I'm really not sure by how much.

And I don't think any of that changes my original point, that victim-blaming is a bad thing. (radtea, I don't think you were saying this, I just want to make myself clear.)

Men are victimized by all violent crimes (except possibly rape, where men report lower rates by a factor of up to ten, but want to bet the reporting bias is huge?) at rates up to several times greater than women. A large part of the difference can be accounted for by differences in crime-avoidant behaviors. Women are taught a lot about how to avoid being a victim of violent crime. Men are not. And no one much cares.

I was skeptical of that claim, but it looks like you're mostly correct. For the lazy, women were 20 times more likely to be raped or sexually assaulted, but men were more than twice as likely to be victims of armed robbery, 2.5 times more likely for aggravated assault, and 1.2 times more likely for simple assault. I'd argue about the wording of "several times greater" but that seems like nitpicking when the general point is sound.

What I don't know that I agree with is the role crime-avoidant behavior plays in those numerical differences. I can't find any studies on the subject, but I'd love to see one. I agree, in general, that victim-avoidant behavior and the overwhelming likelihood the violent crime offender is male account for those differences, but I'm really not sure by how much.

And I don't think any of that changes my original point, that victim-blaming is a bad thing. (radtea, I don't think you were saying this, I just want to make myself clear.)

or not

Selective enforcement of laws is allowed in Denmark :

For criminal law - no (like everywhere else, including the US)

Actually, in the US, prosecutorial discretion provides a nigh-unreviewable power for prosecutors to decide whether or not to bring charges. About the only way to challenge a selective prosecution in the US is to prove that their is a discriminatory motive and effect in prosecuting decisions.

I don't know how Denmark compares, but I've seen several references to Denmark having "discretionary prosecution." I don't know what that really means, though.

how is the poverty mitigated?

by having tons of cheap, food that lacks real nutritive value, and that contributes to the growing obesity problem of the country? or by the tons of debt that people use to buy things they do and don't need, but can't afford either way, such as houses or big tvs?

if poverty was mitigated, obtaining healthcare wouldn't be a problem for low-income or out of work people. yet, i hear about people with full-time employment who can't afford their health plans.

poverty is one of the factors to affect children early in the education system.

And you clearly don't realize that the laws of a particular jurisdiction may very well be different from the applicable laws where you live.

Well yes, if he lives in the jungles of Bolivia I guess he could get away with shooting a trespasser.

Here's an interesting discussion on self defense justification if you are interested: http://law.jrank.org/pages/1470/Justification-Self-Defense-Necessary-force.html

The same goes for quite a few spots on the southern hemisphere. There is also the little tidbit that global warming stops desertification, and makes e.g. the sahara lose ground. The advantages of that can hardly be overstated.

Let's ignore the rest of your post, and just focus on this. I find it curious that some people will only believe climate predictions by computer models if they can find a positive aspect of Global Warming in them. But even if in the future a (small) part of the southern Sahara would turn green, large parts of Spain are turning to desert right now. And the Gobi desert doesn't seem to be shrinking yet either. And desertification doesn't even stop from the USA.

That is all fine and dandy to say when you are not a Jewish person living in the UK....

I'm a Jewish person living in the US.

I knew a lot of Jewish people who had been living in Germany and the USSR.

We do occasionally send people to jail in the U.S. for nonviolently expressing their beliefs (our Bill of Rights notwithstanding). A disproportionate number were Jewish people. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emma_goldman http://law.jrank.org/pages/3012/Hollywood-Ten-Trials-1948-50.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abbie_hoffman

Overall, I'd take the problems of free speech over the problems of making speech a crime.

Nope. Jeopardy attaches as soon as they begin to pick the jury.

Not as soon as they begin to pick the jury, but as soon as they are done picking the jury. The entire jury must be empaneled, including alternates. Anyway, returning to my original point, there are exceptions to the rule, one of them being as stated here: "... if the dismissal was requested by the defendant and was for a reason that would prevent prosecution, the prosecutor may appeal. If the dismissal is reversed, the defendant may be prosecuted again."

Above and beyond that, double jeopardy does not necessarily apply to multiple prosecutions if there is more than one offense involved arising out of the same act. There's an interesting article about the quandary of double jeopardy here. It is far from an open and shut case.

Private Police can make citizens arrests. This means they can arrest you if they have reasonable reason to believe that a felony was committed. In most states, you can also arrest for a misdemeanors committed directly in your presence.

Off-duty cops sometimes do side jobs as private police. In this case, they have the full authority of real police officers.

None of this seems applicable here, though. There's no law about taking pictures of an open ATM. The most they can do is ask you to leave. Personally, I would have walked away as soon as the rent-a-cop admitted to not being a real police officer. If I got tackled, I'll happily get a lawyer and sue.

The problem is that the line had turned 90 degrees from where it was. Previously, people were responsible for their own safety and the safety of their families/clans, etc. The courts dispensed justice after a crime was committed, but the job of preventing it or defending against it was the individuals.

Around the middle of the 18th century the concept of police emerged. These were not agents of the court, but agents of the government and had an additional charge - prevention of crime. From http://law.jrank.org/pages/1639/Police-History-beginning-modern-policing-in-England.html :

This group, called the Bow Street Runners, was the first group paid through public funds that emphasized crime prevention in addition to crime investigation and apprehension of criminals. While citizens responsible for social control used to simply react to crimes, the Bow Street Runners added the responsibility of preventing crime through preventive patrol, changing the system of policing considerably.

Despite the Bow Street Runners' efforts, most English citizens were opposed to the development of a police force. Their opposition was based on two related factors: (1) the importance placed on individual liberties, and (2) the English tradition of local government (Langworthy and Travis). To reconcile these issues with the development of a police force, a Scottish magistrate, Patrick Colquhoun, developed the science of policing in the late 1700s (Langworthy and Travis). Colquhoun suggested that police functions must include detection of crime, apprehension of offenders, and prevention of crime through their presence in public. The function of crime prevention was supported by other influential scholars at the time. In his 1763 essay On Crimes and Punishment, Italian theorist Cesare Beccaria proposed that "it is better to prevent crimes than to punish them" (p. 93).

For 250 years, the government has been telling it's citizenry that it would protect them. Are we surprised that, when someone is hurt, people demand the protection they were "promised"? And those that wish to protect themselves are viewed as a threat.

Do you have any support for your statement?

My not-very-informed opinion is that a private party probably can use evidence illegally obtained in a civil case, but that he is setting himself up for both criminal prosecution and civil liability.

Gee, here's a web page that backs my guess up. "[A] private citizen may use illegally obtained evidence, as long as he or she did not obtain it on orders from law-enforcement personnel."

-Peter

Listening to some freetards trot out the "convicted monopolist" line is like me calling Redhat a bunch of "convicted patent infringers". I don't, however, because I am not a douchebag.

Using the term "freetard" pretty much denotes that you are in fact a douchebag. I won't hold that against you though. Regarding the remainder of that sentence however; Microsoft (fairly or unfairly in your opinion does not matter) has been convicted of monopolistic practices in several courts.

1). http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/cases/f3800/msjudgex.htm
2). http://software.silicon.com/os/0,39024651,39119500,00.htm
2). http://law.jrank.org/pages/12388/Sherman-Antitrust-Act-Microsoft-Settlement-Twenty-First-Century-s-First-Major-Antitrust-Settlement.html
4). Google for yourself

Now.. can you provide links to any article that shows that Redhat has indeed violated patents; as proven in a court of law or similar venue? I found a single instance of Redhat (co-defending with Novell as it happens) being sued for patent infringement. Coincidentally, the company behind this suit appears to be a patent troll headed up by former Microsoft GM of IP licensing. Regardless, there has yet to be a conviction, if there is even one forthcoming.

In a few decades, we'll have a race of human-adverse crocs.

In a few decades huh? Your understanding of genetics is as simplistic as your understanding of crocodile behaviour.

As a previous poster has said, the objective is to relocate, not shoot them. This species of animal is also considered vulnerable (quote) or facing a high risk of extinction in the wild. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service designates it as Endangered, or in danger of extinction throughout all or a significant portion of its range. The primary threat to this animal comes from habitat loss.

Lawyers can do pro bono work on civil cases as well as criminal cases. For example, the Southern Poverty Law Center has provided pro bono representation to plaintiffs in a number of high-profile civil suits against white-supremacist organizations, such as this recent personal-injury case that's been in the news lately. The decision of whether or not to do so is up to the individual lawyer or organization.

You may be thinking of court-appointed (taxpayer-funded) counsel, which is different from pro bono (third-party funded) counsel. There is a sixth-amendment Constitutional right to court-appointed counsel for indigent defendants in criminal trials, but not in civil trials, although in certain cases one may be appointed for a civil trial.

All right, all together now: I'm not a lawyer, and probably neither are you. But as I've said before, if you put 10 judges in 10 separate rooms and asked them to decide this case (or any other case) independently of each other, you'd be very unlikely to get a consensus anyway. The importance of courts in a civilized society is that they provide a peaceful means of settling disputes, not because we expect that the judges will actually get the "right" answer -- that's why we don't have a crisis of faith in the system every time the Supreme Court splits 5-4. (By contrast, when physicists work on problems involving car safety and satellite trajectories, we do care about them getting the "right" answer, and so physicists are held to a higher standard than judges -- we expect that 9 physicists working on the same problem in separate rooms would all get the same result.) That goes for the rest of us too -- I have no independent confirmation that I'm right, and anyone ranting with supreme confidence that I'm wrong, has no independent confirmation that they're right, either. The best we can do is try to make arguments that are logically consistent, and check that even if they are free of internal contradicions, that they also can't be carried through to an absurd conclusion.

This pretty much illustrates what the law and justice system actually are. The "justice" "system" (it's really neither) is full of contradictory rulings, vague statutes, and all-around bullshit. People are conned into believing in judgments based on "legal principles" because they are given fancy names in Latin; in a relevant example to the article, in loco parentis (read the article to get a sense just how contradictory and fragmented the system really is) could probably be used to justify suspension or even expulsion of this kid, as it is often used to justify the state enforcing its standards; the state essentially can decide which type of speech or position the student expresses is allowable. I'm sure a school could get away with suspending a student based on that student's belief that, say, drugs should be legal or expressing a political opinion that could be offensive to some people. (This is one of the problems with public schooling, I think--if the state has to draw a line between acceptable and unacceptable speech, then some of that unacceptable speech is going to inevitably "massively unpopular opinion or idea"). And, as an aside, and I'm sure a lot of us nerds that sludged through high school can remember, the administators were often more concerned with how students dressed than with what parents are really supposed to care about, like violence, as the violent bullies never got in trouble. Maybe school administrators see themselves in the bullies...

The Republicans are right when they speak of "activist judges", but not quite in the way they've thought of it. All judges are essentially activists for their own personal political and moral philosophies. A judge isn't going to rule against what he thinks is moral and what is just. Our law system is based on tradition, and yet, is fragmented and contradictory, so a judge can usually look back to previous caselaw and find something to justify what he thinks.

Don't believe me that the system is one big play? Look at history. Look at the many times the Supreme Court has overturned themselves (funny how the words of the constitution essentially don't change, but how the Court's rulings do...) and look at how much attention is given to Supreme Court nominees. Look at FDR trying to pack the Court with sympathizers to the New Deal. Look at the whole issue whether the nominees support Roe v. Wade or not. Look at how many goddamn 5-4 splits there are over the goddamn constitution. Look at how we can call judges "conservative" or "liberal" as if they belong to a sports team and how we describe their past cases as if they were sports games, speaking of their decisions as if they were some great playoff

Comparing Guantanamo Bay to China is absurd, utterly absurd, and disproves your own point.

Remember why people object to Guantanamo Bay. It has little or nothing to do with the treatment of the prisoners; people who have actually been there, even those very critical of the facility, find no fault there. (What few allegations there are show every sign of having been trumped up by the terrorists if you actually investigate it, and that is literally out of the terrorist playbook... and by literally, I mean that documents telling terrorists to make allegations of Koran abuse if they are captured have been found.) The complaint about Guantanamo Bay is that the people being held there weren't having their human right to a fair trial upheld, they were simply held there without trial.

This is certainly a strong start to an argument that Guantanamo Bay is a place where human rights are repressed.

However, in China, everyone is treated that way and worse . Everyone. Read that link. (The whole thing. It also shows some interesting progress being slowly made. But the rules for defense would be utterly unacceptable to the same people protesting Guantanamo. Read the last sentence, too.)

To hold up Guantanamo Bay as an equivalent atrocity is to betray the very arguments being made against GB. To complain that treating a handful of active, violent enemies of a state that conduct their activities in flagrant and persistent violation of the Geneva Conventions (which as so many people conveniently forget lays responsibilities upon combatants too, not just countries) is equivalent to treating an entire country worse, not even the same but worse, is to display a moral relativism that simply staggers the mind.

If you object to Guantanamo Bay, you should be objecting to the Chinese regime a millionfold more! In China, Guantanamo Bay would be the progressive prison.

Also keep in mind that you're not likely to get an unbiased view of the legal landscape from the Attorney General of Utah's web site. Major court decisions since the 1970s (where their cites all come from) have gone the other direction entirely, e.g. http://www.freedomforum.org/templates/document.asp ?documentID=13519. And gee, not a Commerce Clause citation in sight.

The Indianapolis case, and the Supreme Court's refusal to grant cert to it, is the one that really makes it impractical to dictate content restrictions to retail game publishers.

The decisions referenced on the Utah site are aberrations. Go back a bit farther than 30 years, and you'll see stuff like the Comstock Laws being cheerfully upheld by the Supreme Court. Want to see that happen again? By all means, write your Congressman and ask for more anti-video game legislation.

My whole point being, don't give the Tipper Gores of the world any legal ground that they haven't actually taken.

Cruel and unusual punishment only applies to criminal cases, where the freedom of the accused is at stake. It does not usually apply to civil cases, where the only thing at stake is money.

In civil cases, the plaintiff is only allowed to recover compensatory damages by statute. At the judges discretion, the plaintiff may also be awarded punitive damages based on the severity of the willful misconduct. Conduct in good faith should not be punished by punitive damages.

The word you're looking for is "excessive punitive damages," which could be a basis for an appeal, but would not work as a defense during the initial trial (and in fact could only work after the judge has ruled in favor of the plaintiff at least once).

IANAL.