It covers pretty much every aspect of the debate in a reasonable way. I pretty much held your view before reading it but now I'm a lot less certain that there is anything out there.
The prison governor in a state prison would have their objectives set by the government. The government would likely be keen on increasing rehabilitation etc.
The prison governor in a privately run institution would be answerable to the board who might be more keen on increasing prisoner numbers and reducing the amount spent on training schemes, perhaps allowing drugs in prison to pacify prisoners etc.
It's not hard to see a possible conflict of interest.
America undoubtedly has the worst penal system amongst civilised countries, and might even be vying for top spot world wide. The simple lesson for Europe is 'don't do what the USA does' which includes private prisons. Sadly my government is headed down the private route.
Did you know that the USA may well be the only country on Earth where more men are raped each year than women?
Although I think it's wrong to prosecute them for what they might have done rather than what they actually did, I can just about live with the guys sent down for the posts encouraging a riot.
The other guy seems to be a perfect example of what should be covered by free speech laws. He hasn't been convicted yet and I don't think he will be. If he is I'm pretty sure it will kick off an almighty fuss, although I could be underestimating how accepting we have become of these restrictions on our free speech.
Apparently the brand name stuff works better because the patient thinks it is better. It's a form of the placebo effect but it is true. Now it may not be true for you as you don't expect the expensive stuff to be better but for the people who buy it it probably makes sense.
Ben Goldacre has a section about this brand effect in his book Bad Science
Pascal's wager is dumb. You can't force yourself to believe something because you've decided to, you either do or you don't.
You can pretend to believe in God because you've thought about the possibility of Hell, but any God that can send you to Hell for not believing in him but can't tell that you're pretending is even sillier an idea than Hell in the first place.
If there is a God, and who knows maybe there is, I doubt he's concerned about whether I believe in him.
Whilst I agree that a book can have a nice style and still be boring, Ender's Game is truly awful.
Liking a really badly written book like Ender's Game is akin to thinking that Transformers II is a good film, and I haven't seen Transformers II to even justify that statement.
I can't draw and no matter how exciting or interesting a subject I pick, any painting I produce will be shite. Orson Scott Card cannot write, consequently his books (I've only read Ender's Game) are shite.
I thought Chomsky and Pinker's theories about language being an 'instinct' were being overturned by the latest research, so maybe you shouldn't hire Chomsky to do anything.
Seems pretty obvious to me that language isn't an instinct as we have to be taught it.
So you're saying that rather than let us use cash, we should force people to use a pre-pay card 'cos otherwise we are losing our fundamental rights?
If this stops arseholes from driving arounf uninsured then I'm all for it.
I don't remember anything about paying for petrol being in the Magna Carta by the way, seem to remember it was mainly about the Barons being able to overrule the King. We don't have a constitution over here because hey things change and it's a good idea not to write things in stone. Remember that when you get shot in your gun obsessed country, or buggered in one of your ridiculous prisons 'cos you had to take a plea bargain because you have no real access to a trial.
You know America is the only country on the world where the majority of rapes happen to men? I guess that's true equality though.
Try adding the occasional html 'br' tag to break up your comments, you have to put the symbol for less than and greater than around it. Use two to get a nice gap..
like this.
Your analysis is pretty naive though. Israel should stop building new settlements and come to a proper agreement with the Palestinians. If they did that and the Palestinians broke the agreement they'd have the moral high ground again, as it is they have lost most of the world's goodwill through illegal 'pre-emptive' killings of officials that also murder civilians (this happened only the other day during an otherwise peaceful period), and continued land grabs.
Also as an Englishman I should probably pedantically point out that 'England' doesn't have a foreign policy it's 'Britain'. We joined with Scotland in 1707 and Ireland in 1800 although it is admittedly all a bit complicated.
Indeed but at least on a betting exchange it's not actually rigged against you. You take either side of a bet, choose your own odds and just pay a commission on any winnings.
Definitely need to define what is 'success'. In your example 50% is as low as you can go since a success rate of 20% really implies 80% as you'd merely do the opposite.
Here in the UK betting is perfectly legal and Betfair (a betting exchange that allows people to take either side of a bet) has a nice API that lets you back or lay most sporting events. People use very sophisticated algorithms to work out the in play odds of football matches, adjusting them second by second as the game goes along.
As a hobby project, trying to beat Betfair is pretty fun, I'm not too bad at it but their 5% commission on winning bets (lower if you place enough bets as the big guys do) means I can't actually make money.
I've got to agree with Nursie on a couple of points here.
'I could care less' clearly grew out of 'I couldn't care less' via an accidental dropping of the negative, not out of a sarcastic twist. Users of 'I could care less' may well nowadays (anymore?) justify it by saying it is sarcastic, and indeed that would make it sarcastic nowadays (anymore? - am I getting the hang of this), but it was obviously originally a mistake, and I can't really see how 'I could care less' is any more sarcastic than 'I couldn't care less' anyway.
Surely with double negatives, most of the time it does resolve to a positive in English (your examples using other languages are interesting but irrelevant) but we all know when a speaker isn't meaning it to. I couldn't care less about your linguistic theory, if you say I haven't got no books, then you sound thick, and you sound thick because you haven't used the language correctly (ain't not used it incorrectly?).
I'm curious about the 'positive anymore' but something in me, and it seems most speakers, seems to rail against it, I think it's something to do with the 'more' part that seems to require a negative to set it up although I can't quite justify saying the 'positive anymore' is wrong.
I think people are overlooking a couple of things here.
They also found a letter he had written saying that he had given himself over to Jihad, and he plead guilty.
I'm not all that comfortable with this case as a UK citizen but it's not as bad as it is being made out.
Since we don't have plea bargaining (thank god - how does the US justify that abomination and why aren't you all more upset by it?) the guilty plea will only save him about 3 months in jail (his 2 year sentence will be halved for good behaviour and a guilty plea gets you a reduction of a 1/3) so we can assume if he was innocent he would probably have fought the charge.
Occupy Wall Street was not as effective as the Arab Spring because Wall Street is part of a democracy which has a proper system of law.
The rule of law is the most fundamental thing we have in the West. It's more important than democracy since you could not possibly have a democracy without the rule of law.
Breaking the law because you disagree with it, even if your cause is just, should only be done with a very heavy heart for a truly just cause, and only when all other avenues have been explored.
The sit ins and boycotts of the civil rights movement met that criteria. Complaining about an internet bill that hasn't even passed yet does not.
Grow up a bit, stop swearing, stop wittering on about war, it does a disservice to people who have died in real wars and makes you look immature. Using CAPITALS generally huts your cause too.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't normally plug books but this is excellent.
It covers pretty much every aspect of the debate in a reasonable way. I pretty much held your view before reading it but now I'm a lot less certain that there is anything out there.
The prison governor in a state prison would have their objectives set by the government. The government would likely be keen on increasing rehabilitation etc.
The prison governor in a privately run institution would be answerable to the board who might be more keen on increasing prisoner numbers and reducing the amount spent on training schemes, perhaps allowing drugs in prison to pacify prisoners etc.
It's not hard to see a possible conflict of interest.
America undoubtedly has the worst penal system amongst civilised countries, and might even be vying for top spot world wide. The simple lesson for Europe is 'don't do what the USA does' which includes private prisons. Sadly my government is headed down the private route.
Did you know that the USA may well be the only country on Earth where more men are raped each year than women?
Maybe you should think about why the crime rate is so high in the first place that you end up jailing that 10%.
The US locks up a higher percentage of its citizens than anywhere else in the world whilst claiming it is the 'land of the free'
Although I think it's wrong to prosecute them for what they might have done rather than what they actually did, I can just about live with the guys sent down for the posts encouraging a riot.
The other guy seems to be a perfect example of what should be covered by free speech laws. He hasn't been convicted yet and I don't think he will be. If he is I'm pretty sure it will kick off an almighty fuss, although I could be underestimating how accepting we have become of these restrictions on our free speech.
Unfortunately we introduced hate speech laws a while back without much fuss from the general population.
That said I'd rather live in a country that bans racist tweets than one that locks up 10% of its young black males in prison.
Apparently the brand name stuff works better because the patient thinks it is better. It's a form of the placebo effect but it is true. Now it may not be true for you as you don't expect the expensive stuff to be better but for the people who buy it it probably makes sense.
Ben Goldacre has a section about this brand effect in his book Bad Science
Pascal's wager is dumb. You can't force yourself to believe something because you've decided to, you either do or you don't.
You can pretend to believe in God because you've thought about the possibility of Hell, but any God that can send you to Hell for not believing in him but can't tell that you're pretending is even sillier an idea than Hell in the first place.
If there is a God, and who knows maybe there is, I doubt he's concerned about whether I believe in him.
Whilst I agree that a book can have a nice style and still be boring, Ender's Game is truly awful.
Liking a really badly written book like Ender's Game is akin to thinking that Transformers II is a good film, and I haven't seen Transformers II to even justify that statement.
I can't draw and no matter how exciting or interesting a subject I pick, any painting I produce will be shite. Orson Scott Card cannot write, consequently his books (I've only read Ender's Game) are shite.
or Slaithwaite (Slough-ert)
Newton's laws weren't overturned, they were refined. Chomsky seems to have had the wrong idea entirely.
I thought Chomsky and Pinker's theories about language being an 'instinct' were being overturned by the latest research, so maybe you shouldn't hire Chomsky to do anything.
Seems pretty obvious to me that language isn't an instinct as we have to be taught it.
Ron Paul doesn't even believe in evolution. Thank god the old people can see through his idiotic populist schtick.
So you're saying that rather than let us use cash, we should force people to use a pre-pay card 'cos otherwise we are losing our fundamental rights?
If this stops arseholes from driving arounf uninsured then I'm all for it.
I don't remember anything about paying for petrol being in the Magna Carta by the way, seem to remember it was mainly about the Barons being able to overrule the King. We don't have a constitution over here because hey things change and it's a good idea not to write things in stone. Remember that when you get shot in your gun obsessed country, or buggered in one of your ridiculous prisons 'cos you had to take a plea bargain because you have no real access to a trial.
You know America is the only country on the world where the majority of rapes happen to men? I guess that's true equality though.
Not sure about the US but in the UK insuring your car so you can cover the expenses you may cause to others is madatory.
Only sociopaths, twats or morons don't do it.
In what way is the situation comparable with WWII?
You sounded slightly reasonable in your first post, turns out you're an arsehole.
Try adding the occasional html 'br' tag to break up your comments, you have to put the symbol for less than and greater than around it. Use two to get a nice gap ..
like this.
Your analysis is pretty naive though. Israel should stop building new settlements and come to a proper agreement with the Palestinians. If they did that and the Palestinians broke the agreement they'd have the moral high ground again, as it is they have lost most of the world's goodwill through illegal 'pre-emptive' killings of officials that also murder civilians (this happened only the other day during an otherwise peaceful period), and continued land grabs.
Also as an Englishman I should probably pedantically point out that 'England' doesn't have a foreign policy it's 'Britain'. We joined with Scotland in 1707 and Ireland in 1800 although it is admittedly all a bit complicated.
Indeed but at least on a betting exchange it's not actually rigged against you. You take either side of a bet, choose your own odds and just pay a commission on any winnings.
Definitely need to define what is 'success'. In your example 50% is as low as you can go since a success rate of 20% really implies 80% as you'd merely do the opposite.
Here in the UK betting is perfectly legal and Betfair (a betting exchange that allows people to take either side of a bet) has a nice API that lets you back or lay most sporting events. People use very sophisticated algorithms to work out the in play odds of football matches, adjusting them second by second as the game goes along.
As a hobby project, trying to beat Betfair is pretty fun, I'm not too bad at it but their 5% commission on winning bets (lower if you place enough bets as the big guys do) means I can't actually make money.
I see this argument on Slashdot every now and then, are you taught something odd in American schools?
What makes you think that Republics and Democracies are mutually exclusive?
They're completely unrelated, you might as well argue that America can't be a democracy because it's always been a country.
No it doesn't, it stands for display
I've got to agree with Nursie on a couple of points here.
'I could care less' clearly grew out of 'I couldn't care less' via an accidental dropping of the negative, not out of a sarcastic twist. Users of 'I could care less' may well nowadays (anymore?) justify it by saying it is sarcastic, and indeed that would make it sarcastic nowadays (anymore? - am I getting the hang of this), but it was obviously originally a mistake, and I can't really see how 'I could care less' is any more sarcastic than 'I couldn't care less' anyway.
Surely with double negatives, most of the time it does resolve to a positive in English (your examples using other languages are interesting but irrelevant) but we all know when a speaker isn't meaning it to. I couldn't care less about your linguistic theory, if you say I haven't got no books, then you sound thick, and you sound thick because you haven't used the language correctly (ain't not used it incorrectly?).
I'm curious about the 'positive anymore' but something in me, and it seems most speakers, seems to rail against it, I think it's something to do with the 'more' part that seems to require a negative to set it up although I can't quite justify saying the 'positive anymore' is wrong.
I've never come across 'positive anymore' before. Does everyone use it in your parts?
Got to admit that it just doesn't work for me, although I'm struggling to justify why I cannot make sense of it.
I think people are overlooking a couple of things here.
They also found a letter he had written saying that he had given himself over to Jihad, and he plead guilty.
I'm not all that comfortable with this case as a UK citizen but it's not as bad as it is being made out.
Since we don't have plea bargaining (thank god - how does the US justify that abomination and why aren't you all more upset by it?) the guilty plea will only save him about 3 months in jail (his 2 year sentence will be halved for good behaviour and a guilty plea gets you a reduction of a 1/3) so we can assume if he was innocent he would probably have fought the charge.
Occupy Wall Street was not as effective as the Arab Spring because Wall Street is part of a democracy which has a proper system of law.
The rule of law is the most fundamental thing we have in the West. It's more important than democracy since you could not possibly have a democracy without the rule of law.
Breaking the law because you disagree with it, even if your cause is just, should only be done with a very heavy heart for a truly just cause, and only when all other avenues have been explored.
The sit ins and boycotts of the civil rights movement met that criteria. Complaining about an internet bill that hasn't even passed yet does not.
Grow up a bit, stop swearing, stop wittering on about war, it does a disservice to people who have died in real wars and makes you look immature. Using CAPITALS generally huts your cause too.
Oh and fuck you, moron.
Motorbikes are more dangerous to the rider but not really to other people.
Maybe 15 years is a bit out, but maybe they'll just exempt older cars.