poetry aside, there's no doubt the climate is changing. It has changed where I live and apparently in a lot of other places too.
The disagreement is not whether the climate is changing. The disagreement is how much, how fast, and whether it is human-caused.
On the things that ARE human-caused (pollution of rivers/lakes/etc, erosion due to poor farming techniques) we should definitely be working to fix it. On the things that are natural (and Earth's temperature has more to do with irregularities in Earth's orbit and with the cycle of Solar activity than so-called "manmade greenhouse gases"), we can do little.
Yes, in centuries past, there were cold times. The 14-1500s were, according to what little records and the (incomplete) evidence we can gather, colder than we experience today as an average. At the same time, there are periods that were warmer. There is also the problem of having reliable measurements at all (we're talking about maybe 30 years of true recording with properly calibrated instruments, and "measured change" that falls off of most of the measurements if you pay attention to the known accuracy of the instruments and pay attention to your Significant Digits). And then there's the problem of paying attention to what you are measuring rather than cherry-picking your data for your expected result - for instance, if you compare this summer historically to the "average" of the past 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, etc... you will see the "answer" of "hotter" or "colder" fluctuate up and down based on the new data. It gets even worse when you do like the shysters do and compare to an unseasonably cold "reference year" rather than doing a proper analysis of what long-term data we do have.
The "climate change" crazies have one thing in common: they all know how to lie with statistics. My clearest evidence against them is the fact that their "argument" relies more on the star/celebrity power of their spokespeople than on actual scientific evidence, just like the anti-vaccination crowd.
Al Gore's "inconvenient truth" (really Big Fat Lie, which makes him Big Fat Liar) not only was less scientifically accurate than the sci-fi movie "The Day After Tomorrow", but is actually banned from being shown to schoolkids in Britain because it is so inaccurate.
Much of "climate science" is turning out the same way. NASA's major climate "researcher" James Hansen has been repeatedly caught doctoring his data when it didn't support his predetermined conclusions. Other NASA groups have been caught screwing up, announcing "catastrophic" figures, and then silently releasing "corrections" later that disprove the global-warming hysteric crowd.
The end result is, the "climate change" folks have lied, repeatedly. They are the boy who cried wolf. And we are getting pretty damn tired of this constant "OMG we have to save the planet" drumbeat. I'll make meaningful conservation efforts and am all for clean air and efficient technology as their own reward, but don't fucking lie to me or try to scare me into accepting major taxation and other nonsensical changes.
How are you defining "linkfarm," here? Wikipedia cites a great deal of Web-addressable information, but when I hear "linkfarm," the primary connotation that I have implies a lack of contribution on the part of said farm in terms of original content or organization.
Wikipedia articles cross-link everywhere needlessly. Further, Wikipedia implemented "nofollow" on external links, meaning that they feed off the search rankings of external linkers but don't give back in kind. This is linkfarm behavior, pure and simple, and puts the shitty wikipedia "articles" higher in search rankings than any article of genuine useful content.
Excellent. This sounds like an opportunity for you to contribute. Excellent idea!
Been there. Tried that. Fuck you. I'm not subjecting myself to dealing with that insane crap ever again. I have another idea: you go to hell.
The goal of Wikipedia is to allow all of these parties with competing views of history and knowledge to come together and hash out what the consensus is.
You obviously have ZERO experience with how wikipedia actually operates. What actually happens on Wikipedia is that a few editors (from 2-3 to 30-40) stake out a given article or topic space, organize themselves, and then proceed to rule it with an iron fist. When anyone comes that disagrees with them, the harassment campaign begins - accuse of being a sockpuppet, accuse of being a "meatpuppet", troll and try to provoke, set friendly admins to harass, etc. The false accusations don't even have to be true, they just have to claim someone is a "sockpuppet of XX", where XX is a known name that will rile up certain abusive asshat admins with an itchy ban-button trigger finger, such as happened here, here, and here just as a few examples I know of.
But there appears to still be an article there. What you appear to be concerned about is that it's not as extensive as you'd like.
No, what I am concerned about is the fact that a beautifully written, researched, and organized article has been replaced by a pile of dog crap.
The fact of the matter is, however, that Wikipedia has succeeded in fulfilling the dream of a hypertextual Web more so than any other site short, arguably, of the larger search engines.
If you really believe that, please turn yourself in to the nearest psychiatric ward, because you are delusional.
I want to believe that you're a level-headed guy, but any time someone points at a large Web service and starts talking about "influence" on thought processes,
Please study some basic psychology. The importance of the "first impression", "first argument", etc. are welldocumented.
When people write like that about the Wikipedia and go on and on, they usually have some personal axe to grind. Do you, and if so, which one?
When people respond like that, it's usually a sign they're a brainwashed wikipidiot.
What's my issue? I have watched countless articles, worked on hard by tireless individuals, turned into rubbish by a combination of morons, power-hungry game players, and organized POV-pushing mobs. I've watched excellently written and researched articles destroyed, turned into stubs, and then deleted by 16-year-old "administrators" who don't know what a scholarly journal is and believe that if they can't get the text on the internet, it doesn't exist.
I've watched scandal after scandal after scandal when the "inner workings" of wikipedia were exposed. I watched the entire crop of Wikipedia's admins stand by and do absolutely jack crap while Essjay rose up, blocked the publication of truthful information on the strength of falsified credentials, banned whoever the fuck he pleased, and generally made a bigoted douchebag of himself before finally being exposed for a liar and a fraud.
Was there ever an apology to the number of people Essjay libeled? Those he banned from the encyclopedia that didn't deserve it?
Where has there ever been an apology made for the constant misbehavior of ANY wikipedia administrator for that matter? Not only has there not been one, the trend in changes has always been consolidation of power and elimination of any ability for editors falsely accused and abused by the abusive personalities that consist of Wikipedia's "admin" group to speak back in their own defense.
There hasn't, not once. Even trying to investigate whether people were treated fairly and within policy is usually grounds for being called a "troll" and summarily banned by the abuse-defenders. Wikipedia is hopelessly broken as long as the entrenched douchebags are in power.
You forgot a few steps: * get accused falsely of being a "sockpuppet" or "meatpuppet" by the entrenched clique. * get written up on the various administrators' cesspool boards (WP:ANI for instance) and attacked there. * get blocked/unblocked/blocked/unblocked in rapid succession by the entrenched clique's stooge-admins so that they can tar you, Scarlet Letter-style, and say you've been "blocked X times." * get trolled repeatedly by admin-protected "enforcers" for the clique, trying to provoke you into something that can be more justification for blocks/bans
The claim "it's just a website" is often trotted out, but it's untrue.
It's a website set up to function deliberately as a linkfarm, which has search engine rankings far above what it should have if it were treated like every other linkfarm out there. It's full of inaccurate, possibly libelous, or outright harmful (in the case of many articles regarding drugs/herbs/"homeopathic remedies") statements in most of the articles. As a "first stop" for "information" for many searchers, it has an amazing ability to influence thought processes, and as such is a breeding ground for fights and control-freak behavior from people trying to bias a topic their way.
The regulations have already gotten too arduous. Most of the good administrators jumped ship long ago. Some have turned around and exposed the ongoing problems. Most simply gave up in disgust. The result? A biased, horribly squished encyclopedia. Well-written entries, such as one on PSP homebrew software, were nuked to oblivion because of admins and cliques with an agenda against the topic. Articles that at one time were well balanced have been completely destroyed when counterbalancing interests saw only one side run off the encyclopedia, and the other side now rules the articles with an iron fist. Look back into what happened to the Falafel article when a bunch of organized arabs decided to try to eliminate any mention of Jewish influence (or of Jews or Israel in general) on the dish.
Wikipedia exists, but does not function anymore. And the only way to fix it involves getting rid of the entrenched assholes, whereas the proposed change gives entrenched assholes even more power.
Each article should have exactly one maintainer who has total control over it, and an appeal process to replace him if he's caught deliberately changing to incorrect and/or biased versions.
As opposed to each article having a small, organized cadre of nitwits/racists/goons who totally control the article (with blessings from the "admins" and usually one or two as part of their group), which is how it exists now?
The problems with Wikipedia have been gone over at length. It cannot be fixed while the currently-"ruling" regime remains in place.
And BTW, based on the forum responses in the slashdot-linked article, it reminded me why Linux is not (and probably never will be) widespread on the desktop: just to get the damn OS (of whatever distro you chose) running, you have to go to a forum filled with people like them and beg for help only to get a bunch of asstard responses, and then come back again whenever you're trying to find/learn another new program.
The Russians and East Germans sent more bearded "ladies" through the system than I care to count.
Greek weightlifters managed to get to Beijing despite 11 of their 14-man team being caught on steroids.
The Chinese out-and-out lied and presented forged documents to the Olympic committee and IFG about the age of their gymnast girls and got away with it scot-free. North Korea wasn't so lucky since their star girl was still losing her baby teeth at the time.
It used to be that people went to the Olympics as true amateurs to represent their countries and sports. Now? Let's face it, the Olympics have outlived their usefulness. Countries themselves compete, not just athletes. Professional athletes play in half the sports. And the two-year schedule has robbed the games of their scarcity, so much so that 90% of people don't even notice they are happening.
80% of statistics are 77% made up on the spot, according to my latest rectal data extraction.
In other news, it's ridiculously easy to bias a sample. For example, how many PS3 owners use their console to play anything other than Blu-ray movies, DVD's, or old PS2 titles? Or how many of them "also" own a Wii, and are they factoring in the original Wii's 50% failure rate due to the "snow/sparkles" problem caused by Big N not adequately sinking heat off the video board? And of course, if you don't catch up with Big N's ridiculously short warranty, you're just screwed.
I'm not going to contest that the Xbox360 has its flaws. I myself had to replace one once - and it was covered under warranty. On the other hand, I've also had to have work done on my Wii (whereby Nintendo fucked me over by their ridiculously-short 90 day warranty when my video board crapped out at 5 months, and then again by wiping my system memory, doubly annoying since it's impossible to back up certain savegames and "recovered" Mii's can't be edited later). And the only reason my PS3 hasn't had work done on it is that it gets used to watch DVD's, Blu-ray discs, and maybe play 1 hour of games in a given month.
What I find funny is that the hordes of Obama-worshipers are now coming out trying to defend Flickr and everyone else involved in this blatant censorship, simply because the "speech" involved is critical of their messiah.
Of course, this is nothing new. Obama won his first two Illinois election campaigns through dirty tricks and baseless lawsuits that kept him from having opponents on the ballot. Left-wing groups have been screaming for years about how people should "not be allowed to say" things that they disagree with - and the usual canards (calling racism, sexism, godwinning the debate) pop up all the time.
If you never took a class on understanding what bias in reporting really means and how it is achieved, you don't understand it. I suggest reading up, starting with this excellent article which shows you many of the techniques used in the mass media today.
Educate yourselves and be informed. Just beware, if you actually do educate yourself, you may realize precisely how propagandized and brainwashed you have become over the years.
If true, I don't know, you are free to cite rates of incarceration and crimes and the demographics involved, simply being an illegal alien doesn't necessarily translate into being a criminal.
Allow me to point you to the word ILLEGAL in your sentence above.
And it's never "just" being in the US "without papers." There's the fraud of giving fake names to cops, or on welfare documents, or on hiring documents. There's the massive amount of fraud involved in illegal aliens stealing social security numbers, which winds up costing people money in higher interest rates (when they run off on bills) and in damage to citizens' credit ratings.
And that's not even touching the fact that illegals make up almost 30% of federal prisoners, not to mention half of California's state prison population, and the fact that the membership of drug gangs like MS-13 is predominantly illegals as well.
Oh, and then there's the numerous number of illegals who jumped the US border to escape prosecution in Mexico...
Or how about the fact that more Americans have been killed by illegal aliens than in Iraq since 9/11?
If they believe they get the death penalty if caught and they are 100% egotistical, they will now kill anybody necessary to avoid getting caught.
If they are incurably psychotic and have no compunction about killing people, yes. In the same vein, though, we cannot consider someone like that a rational actor.
A "rational actor", for purposes of discussion of crime/punishment deterrence, is a person who (a) is mentally capable of correctly weighing the risk of punishment vs the reward of getting caught. The calculation, while perhaps not as easy to pin down to numbers, is very similar to the idea of your mathematical expectation for playing the lottery.
Now obviously, not everyone is deterred from committing crimes (and we'll leave off the "petty, stupid shit crimes that shouldn't even be on the books") all the time. People determine all the time (probably quite rationally) that the expectation of arrest/fine/accident for exceeding the speed limit by X miles per hour or running a stop sign/red light, versus the "reward" of getting where they are going that much faster, is worth it. Some people are simply psychotic. Some are just plain stupid. Some have a mental defect (due to genetic/hormonal anomalies, illness, physical injury, etc) that prevents their brain from correctly associating cause and predicting likely effect.
In your example, you are assuming a very odd possibility, however. You have assumed:
1 - the person is a rational actor (inasmuch as they see the "risk" of getting caught for committing a robbery with a loaded gun as inconsequential compared to the reward of the money). 2 - the person is relatively sane and moral enough not to wish physical harm or death upon another human being, thus your claim that the guns were brought "just to scare people" (rather than, say, to shoot any uppity guards, or cops, or someone else who got in the way). 3 - that as a "rational actor", the person will then decide that the presence of the death penalty means that they should go on a killing spree, despite the fact that just moments ago they wished harm upon no other human.
I see a major contradiction here. I don't doubt that it could happen, but I do say that your suggested case is inapplicable to rational actor theory and thus inapplicable to a discussion of whether or not increased severity of punishment would increase the deterrence factor for rational actors.
"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
Since the US Constitution says nothing about prisons save for prohibiting "cruel and unusual punishment", as long as Arpaio does not cross the line into "cruel", harshness is definitely allowed. Arizona's constitution says nothing about prisons. Arizona's law (a href="http://www.azleg.state.az.us/ArizonaRevisedStatutes.asp?Title=31">Title 31) deals with prisons and the duties of Sheriffs, but within those provisions, counties have quite a wide latitude on how lenient/harsh they wish to be.
Counties in Texas have about the same number of deaths per capita, in the same circumstances. Other counties across the US wind up with similar circumstances as well, so much so that "Custody Death Syndrome" is being bandied about as a term now.
The jails in Texas are nothing like Maricopa County's. In fact, their jails very much resemble a Motel 6. Free bed, free cable TV, free exercise equipment, free library - the only thing you don't have that you have in a Motel 6, is the ability to leave.
You can use statistics to lie about anything. For example, anti-police groups use a so-called "steady rise in taser-related fatalities" to try to argue that police are too quick to use tasers. The problem? Their "statistic" matches almost exactly the timeline of increased issuing of tasers to police and increased changes in police policy to favor the use of Tasers over a drawn gun. What you've proposed regarding Arpaio is just another out-of-context "statistic" that means nothing once examined.
Every sheriff's office and police department in the US has, at one point or another, been successfully sued for "rights violations" at some point. Making a blanket statement like that means nothing.
Arpaio is also very clear on making prison as UN-palatable an option as possible to criminals. If you subscribe to the theory that some portion of the population considers the possible consequences of their actions (in other words, is a rational actor), then this should result in reduced initial crime rates from that portion of the population. If you don't subscribe to rational choice theory, then your opinion may be different.
Of course, there is a portion of the population that are (temporarily or permanently) mentally incapable of either (A) recognizing the possible outcomes of their actions or (B) believing they will be caught. This strains their calculation to the point where they commit crimes anyways. Society has decided that these people are to be punished and "rehabilitated" (hopefully, taught NOT to break the law in the future). Depending on where you live and what judge you get, the harshness of this varies. Where I live, we have a hell of a lot of revolving-door "petty" criminals who commit "nonviolent" thefts from government/school buildings, always surrender when the cops show up, and then spend 3-4 months as a "trustee" in minimum-security each time before coming right out the revolving door and offending all over again. They don't see the system as a punishment at all. If you're to believe they are "rational actors" (and I have no reason to believe otherwise, based on televised interviews), then the lack of perceived punishment indicates that the system is broken, and I have to suspect that at least some of them would be more receptive to changing their lifestyles if "prison" meant something other than 3 hot meals a day, air conditioning, free cable TV, free library, free access to gym equipment, zero rent, and more.
The people of Maricopa County, by and large, have said they want their Sheriff to be harsh on inmates. Double-digit reelection seems to be an indicator of this, at least. The fact that he, following the indications of his reelection that his methods are supported, butts heads with people who believe otherwise is no surprise at all.
Funny. Joe Arpaio enforces the law so well that the drug gangs and illegal immigrant smugglers' gangs are trying to kill him, and the illegal alien amnesty crowd is constantly bankrolling name-smearing campaigns against him. That tends to indicate to me that he's doing the right thing.
Funny. He keeps getting reelected with double-digit margins, despite propaganda like you put forth.
This probably has something to do with the fact that he actually has his people enforcing the law, and doesn't waste money coddling criminals. Given the amount of ridiculous benefits we see in most prisons in the US that make prison a "no-brainer" for large numbers of people (see here: people actually trying to get themselves thrown in jail), I'd say I like the idea of making prison as unpalatable a concept as possible.
Of course, this isn't unique to the US. The UK is having the samedebate. They just don't also have to deal with a well-funded and ridiculous propaganda campaign based on "legalizing" foreign criminals who jump our borders and cause crime while also having the debate on what prisoners should, or shouldn't, get while incarcerated.
You're on Slashdot. You just criticized Obama (though his "I'll appoint no lobbyists" promise was apparently just as much of a lie as the rest of his campaign promises). Prepare to be modded down by a horde of Obama worshipers any minute.
Slashdot Mirror
Some left-wing nutjobs got a bunch of mod points and modded down the incredibly insightful Parent post. Please remedy this.
poetry aside, there's no doubt the climate is changing. It has changed where I live and apparently in a lot of other places too.
The disagreement is not whether the climate is changing. The disagreement is how much, how fast, and whether it is human-caused.
On the things that ARE human-caused (pollution of rivers/lakes/etc, erosion due to poor farming techniques) we should definitely be working to fix it. On the things that are natural (and Earth's temperature has more to do with irregularities in Earth's orbit and with the cycle of Solar activity than so-called "manmade greenhouse gases"), we can do little.
Yes, in centuries past, there were cold times. The 14-1500s were, according to what little records and the (incomplete) evidence we can gather, colder than we experience today as an average. At the same time, there are periods that were warmer. There is also the problem of having reliable measurements at all (we're talking about maybe 30 years of true recording with properly calibrated instruments, and "measured change" that falls off of most of the measurements if you pay attention to the known accuracy of the instruments and pay attention to your Significant Digits). And then there's the problem of paying attention to what you are measuring rather than cherry-picking your data for your expected result - for instance, if you compare this summer historically to the "average" of the past 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, etc... you will see the "answer" of "hotter" or "colder" fluctuate up and down based on the new data. It gets even worse when you do like the shysters do and compare to an unseasonably cold "reference year" rather than doing a proper analysis of what long-term data we do have.
The "climate change" crazies have one thing in common: they all know how to lie with statistics. My clearest evidence against them is the fact that their "argument" relies more on the star/celebrity power of their spokespeople than on actual scientific evidence, just like the anti-vaccination crowd.
[Wikipidiot Unneeded]
Try again.
Al Gore's "inconvenient truth" (really Big Fat Lie, which makes him Big Fat Liar) not only was less scientifically accurate than the sci-fi movie "The Day After Tomorrow", but is actually banned from being shown to schoolkids in Britain because it is so inaccurate.
Much of "climate science" is turning out the same way. NASA's major climate "researcher" James Hansen has been repeatedly caught doctoring his data when it didn't support his predetermined conclusions. Other NASA groups have been caught screwing up, announcing "catastrophic" figures, and then silently releasing "corrections" later that disprove the global-warming hysteric crowd.
The end result is, the "climate change" folks have lied, repeatedly. They are the boy who cried wolf. And we are getting pretty damn tired of this constant "OMG we have to save the planet" drumbeat. I'll make meaningful conservation efforts and am all for clean air and efficient technology as their own reward, but don't fucking lie to me or try to scare me into accepting major taxation and other nonsensical changes.
How are you defining "linkfarm," here? Wikipedia cites a great deal of Web-addressable information, but when I hear "linkfarm," the primary connotation that I have implies a lack of contribution on the part of said farm in terms of original content or organization.
Wikipedia articles cross-link everywhere needlessly. Further, Wikipedia implemented "nofollow" on external links, meaning that they feed off the search rankings of external linkers but don't give back in kind. This is linkfarm behavior, pure and simple, and puts the shitty wikipedia "articles" higher in search rankings than any article of genuine useful content.
Excellent. This sounds like an opportunity for you to contribute. Excellent idea!
Been there. Tried that. Fuck you. I'm not subjecting myself to dealing with that insane crap ever again. I have another idea: you go to hell.
The goal of Wikipedia is to allow all of these parties with competing views of history and knowledge to come together and hash out what the consensus is.
You obviously have ZERO experience with how wikipedia actually operates. What actually happens on Wikipedia is that a few editors (from 2-3 to 30-40) stake out a given article or topic space, organize themselves, and then proceed to rule it with an iron fist. When anyone comes that disagrees with them, the harassment campaign begins - accuse of being a sockpuppet, accuse of being a "meatpuppet", troll and try to provoke, set friendly admins to harass, etc. The false accusations don't even have to be true, they just have to claim someone is a "sockpuppet of XX", where XX is a known name that will rile up certain abusive asshat admins with an itchy ban-button trigger finger, such as happened here, here, and here just as a few examples I know of.
But there appears to still be an article there. What you appear to be concerned about is that it's not as extensive as you'd like.
No, what I am concerned about is the fact that a beautifully written, researched, and organized article has been replaced by a pile of dog crap.
The fact of the matter is, however, that Wikipedia has succeeded in fulfilling the dream of a hypertextual Web more so than any other site short, arguably, of the larger search engines.
If you really believe that, please turn yourself in to the nearest psychiatric ward, because you are delusional.
I want to believe that you're a level-headed guy, but any time someone points at a large Web service and starts talking about "influence" on thought processes,
Please study some basic psychology. The importance of the "first impression", "first argument", etc. are well documented.
When people write like that about the Wikipedia and go on and on, they usually have some personal axe to grind. Do you, and if so, which one?
When people respond like that, it's usually a sign they're a brainwashed wikipidiot.
What's my issue? I have watched countless articles, worked on hard by tireless individuals, turned into rubbish by a combination of morons, power-hungry game players, and organized POV-pushing mobs. I've watched excellently written and researched articles destroyed, turned into stubs, and then deleted by 16-year-old "administrators" who don't know what a scholarly journal is and believe that if they can't get the text on the internet, it doesn't exist.
I've watched scandal after scandal after scandal when the "inner workings" of wikipedia were exposed. I watched the entire crop of Wikipedia's admins stand by and do absolutely jack crap while Essjay rose up, blocked the publication of truthful information on the strength of falsified credentials, banned whoever the fuck he pleased, and generally made a bigoted douchebag of himself before finally being exposed for a liar and a fraud.
Was there ever an apology to the number of people Essjay libeled? Those he banned from the encyclopedia that didn't deserve it?
Where has there ever been an apology made for the constant misbehavior of ANY wikipedia administrator for that matter? Not only has there not been one, the trend in changes has always been consolidation of power and elimination of any ability for editors falsely accused and abused by the abusive personalities that consist of Wikipedia's "admin" group to speak back in their own defense.
There hasn't, not once. Even trying to investigate whether people were treated fairly and within policy is usually grounds for being called a "troll" and summarily banned by the abuse-defenders. Wikipedia is hopelessly broken as long as the entrenched douchebags are in power.
Indeed. If those things don't work, people can:
* Raise the issue on the talk page to see if other editors are watching.
* Raise the issue on related talk pages, or a related WikiProject page.
* Raise the issue on general pages specifically for this issue - e.g., http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Third_opinion , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_commen
You forgot a few steps:
* get accused falsely of being a "sockpuppet" or "meatpuppet" by the entrenched clique.
* get written up on the various administrators' cesspool boards (WP:ANI for instance) and attacked there.
* get blocked/unblocked/blocked/unblocked in rapid succession by the entrenched clique's stooge-admins so that they can tar you, Scarlet Letter-style, and say you've been "blocked X times."
* get trolled repeatedly by admin-protected "enforcers" for the clique, trying to provoke you into something that can be more justification for blocks/bans
The claim "it's just a website" is often trotted out, but it's untrue.
It's a website set up to function deliberately as a linkfarm, which has search engine rankings far above what it should have if it were treated like every other linkfarm out there. It's full of inaccurate, possibly libelous, or outright harmful (in the case of many articles regarding drugs/herbs/"homeopathic remedies") statements in most of the articles. As a "first stop" for "information" for many searchers, it has an amazing ability to influence thought processes, and as such is a breeding ground for fights and control-freak behavior from people trying to bias a topic their way.
The regulations have already gotten too arduous. Most of the good administrators jumped ship long ago. Some have turned around and exposed the ongoing problems. Most simply gave up in disgust. The result? A biased, horribly squished encyclopedia. Well-written entries, such as one on PSP homebrew software, were nuked to oblivion because of admins and cliques with an agenda against the topic. Articles that at one time were well balanced have been completely destroyed when counterbalancing interests saw only one side run off the encyclopedia, and the other side now rules the articles with an iron fist. Look back into what happened to the Falafel article when a bunch of organized arabs decided to try to eliminate any mention of Jewish influence (or of Jews or Israel in general) on the dish.
Wikipedia exists, but does not function anymore. And the only way to fix it involves getting rid of the entrenched assholes, whereas the proposed change gives entrenched assholes even more power.
Each article should have exactly one maintainer who has total control over it, and an appeal process to replace him if he's caught deliberately changing to incorrect and/or biased versions.
As opposed to each article having a small, organized cadre of nitwits/racists/goons who totally control the article (with blessings from the "admins" and usually one or two as part of their group), which is how it exists now?
The problems with Wikipedia have been gone over at length. It cannot be fixed while the currently-"ruling" regime remains in place.
Point: Loki Games no longer exists.
I think that proves the point.
And BTW, based on the forum responses in the slashdot-linked article, it reminded me why Linux is not (and probably never will be) widespread on the desktop: just to get the damn OS (of whatever distro you chose) running, you have to go to a forum filled with people like them and beg for help only to get a bunch of asstard responses, and then come back again whenever you're trying to find/learn another new program.
No thanks.
Olympic cheating is a sport of its own.
The Russians and East Germans sent more bearded "ladies" through the system than I care to count.
Greek weightlifters managed to get to Beijing despite 11 of their 14-man team being caught on steroids.
The Chinese out-and-out lied and presented forged documents to the Olympic committee and IFG about the age of their gymnast girls and got away with it scot-free. North Korea wasn't so lucky since their star girl was still losing her baby teeth at the time.
Marion Jones.
And on and on... try a basic google search on Olympic Cheating.
It used to be that people went to the Olympics as true amateurs to represent their countries and sports. Now? Let's face it, the Olympics have outlived their usefulness. Countries themselves compete, not just athletes. Professional athletes play in half the sports. And the two-year schedule has robbed the games of their scarcity, so much so that 90% of people don't even notice they are happening.
The "Olympics" have become a joke, nothing more.
80% of statistics are 77% made up on the spot, according to my latest rectal data extraction.
In other news, it's ridiculously easy to bias a sample. For example, how many PS3 owners use their console to play anything other than Blu-ray movies, DVD's, or old PS2 titles? Or how many of them "also" own a Wii, and are they factoring in the original Wii's 50% failure rate due to the "snow/sparkles" problem caused by Big N not adequately sinking heat off the video board? And of course, if you don't catch up with Big N's ridiculously short warranty, you're just screwed.
I'm not going to contest that the Xbox360 has its flaws. I myself had to replace one once - and it was covered under warranty. On the other hand, I've also had to have work done on my Wii (whereby Nintendo fucked me over by their ridiculously-short 90 day warranty when my video board crapped out at 5 months, and then again by wiping my system memory, doubly annoying since it's impossible to back up certain savegames and "recovered" Mii's can't be edited later). And the only reason my PS3 hasn't had work done on it is that it gets used to watch DVD's, Blu-ray discs, and maybe play 1 hour of games in a given month.
What I find funny is that the hordes of Obama-worshipers are now coming out trying to defend Flickr and everyone else involved in this blatant censorship, simply because the "speech" involved is critical of their messiah.
Of course, this is nothing new. Obama won his first two Illinois election campaigns through dirty tricks and baseless lawsuits that kept him from having opponents on the ballot. Left-wing groups have been screaming for years about how people should "not be allowed to say" things that they disagree with - and the usual canards (calling racism, sexism, godwinning the debate) pop up all the time.
If you never took a class on understanding what bias in reporting really means and how it is achieved, you don't understand it. I suggest reading up, starting with this excellent article which shows you many of the techniques used in the mass media today.
Educate yourselves and be informed. Just beware, if you actually do educate yourself, you may realize precisely how propagandized and brainwashed you have become over the years.
So in essence, what we need is to force the candidates to have debates instead of monodirectional campaigning.
Right?
What Comcast was doing is not, and never has been, "traffic shaping."
What Comcast did was fraud, the equivalent of stealing the mail out of someone's mailbox or a Fedex/UPS employee walking off with your package.
If true, I don't know, you are free to cite rates of incarceration and crimes and the demographics involved, simply being an illegal alien doesn't necessarily translate into being a criminal.
Allow me to point you to the word ILLEGAL in your sentence above.
And it's never "just" being in the US "without papers." There's the fraud of giving fake names to cops, or on welfare documents, or on hiring documents. There's the massive amount of fraud involved in illegal aliens stealing social security numbers, which winds up costing people money in higher interest rates (when they run off on bills) and in damage to citizens' credit ratings.
And that's not even touching the fact that illegals make up almost 30% of federal prisoners, not to mention half of California's state prison population, and the fact that the membership of drug gangs like MS-13 is predominantly illegals as well.
Oh, and then there's the numerous number of illegals who jumped the US border to escape prosecution in Mexico...
Or how about the fact that more Americans have been killed by illegal aliens than in Iraq since 9/11?
Well?
If they believe they get the death penalty if caught and they are 100% egotistical, they will now kill anybody necessary to avoid getting caught.
If they are incurably psychotic and have no compunction about killing people, yes. In the same vein, though, we cannot consider someone like that a rational actor.
A "rational actor", for purposes of discussion of crime/punishment deterrence, is a person who (a) is mentally capable of correctly weighing the risk of punishment vs the reward of getting caught. The calculation, while perhaps not as easy to pin down to numbers, is very similar to the idea of your mathematical expectation for playing the lottery.
Now obviously, not everyone is deterred from committing crimes (and we'll leave off the "petty, stupid shit crimes that shouldn't even be on the books") all the time. People determine all the time (probably quite rationally) that the expectation of arrest/fine/accident for exceeding the speed limit by X miles per hour or running a stop sign/red light, versus the "reward" of getting where they are going that much faster, is worth it. Some people are simply psychotic. Some are just plain stupid. Some have a mental defect (due to genetic/hormonal anomalies, illness, physical injury, etc) that prevents their brain from correctly associating cause and predicting likely effect.
In your example, you are assuming a very odd possibility, however. You have assumed:
1 - the person is a rational actor (inasmuch as they see the "risk" of getting caught for committing a robbery with a loaded gun as inconsequential compared to the reward of the money).
2 - the person is relatively sane and moral enough not to wish physical harm or death upon another human being, thus your claim that the guns were brought "just to scare people" (rather than, say, to shoot any uppity guards, or cops, or someone else who got in the way).
3 - that as a "rational actor", the person will then decide that the presence of the death penalty means that they should go on a killing spree, despite the fact that just moments ago they wished harm upon no other human.
I see a major contradiction here. I don't doubt that it could happen, but I do say that your suggested case is inapplicable to rational actor theory and thus inapplicable to a discussion of whether or not increased severity of punishment would increase the deterrence factor for rational actors.
Hint: having people trying to kill you is NOT a sign that you're doing a good job! It means you're hated, not that you're effective.
Since the people who hate him most are organized crime, you have no point.
And I don't give a crap whether there's an "R", a "D", a "Q", or anything else beside someone's name.
I'm a Republican.
No, you're a fucking liar.
Actually, according to the Constitution (10th Amendment):
"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution,
nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the
States respectively, or to the people."
Since the US Constitution says nothing about prisons save for prohibiting "cruel and unusual punishment", as long as Arpaio does not cross the line into "cruel", harshness is definitely allowed. Arizona's constitution says nothing about prisons. Arizona's law (a href="http://www.azleg.state.az.us/ArizonaRevisedStatutes.asp?Title=31">Title 31) deals with prisons and the duties of Sheriffs, but within those provisions, counties have quite a wide latitude on how lenient/harsh they wish to be.
I hope you have learned something today.
How the hell does a post whose entire content is "fuck you, [name]" get modded "insightful"?
Counties in Texas have about the same number of deaths per capita, in the same circumstances. Other counties across the US wind up with similar circumstances as well, so much so that "Custody Death Syndrome" is being bandied about as a term now.
The jails in Texas are nothing like Maricopa County's. In fact, their jails very much resemble a Motel 6. Free bed, free cable TV, free exercise equipment, free library - the only thing you don't have that you have in a Motel 6, is the ability to leave.
You can use statistics to lie about anything. For example, anti-police groups use a so-called "steady rise in taser-related fatalities" to try to argue that police are too quick to use tasers. The problem? Their "statistic" matches almost exactly the timeline of increased issuing of tasers to police and increased changes in police policy to favor the use of Tasers over a drawn gun. What you've proposed regarding Arpaio is just another out-of-context "statistic" that means nothing once examined.
Every sheriff's office and police department in the US has, at one point or another, been successfully sued for "rights violations" at some point. Making a blanket statement like that means nothing.
Arpaio is also very clear on making prison as UN-palatable an option as possible to criminals. If you subscribe to the theory that some portion of the population considers the possible consequences of their actions (in other words, is a rational actor), then this should result in reduced initial crime rates from that portion of the population. If you don't subscribe to rational choice theory, then your opinion may be different.
Of course, there is a portion of the population that are (temporarily or permanently) mentally incapable of either (A) recognizing the possible outcomes of their actions or (B) believing they will be caught. This strains their calculation to the point where they commit crimes anyways. Society has decided that these people are to be punished and "rehabilitated" (hopefully, taught NOT to break the law in the future). Depending on where you live and what judge you get, the harshness of this varies. Where I live, we have a hell of a lot of revolving-door "petty" criminals who commit "nonviolent" thefts from government/school buildings, always surrender when the cops show up, and then spend 3-4 months as a "trustee" in minimum-security each time before coming right out the revolving door and offending all over again. They don't see the system as a punishment at all. If you're to believe they are "rational actors" (and I have no reason to believe otherwise, based on televised interviews), then the lack of perceived punishment indicates that the system is broken, and I have to suspect that at least some of them would be more receptive to changing their lifestyles if "prison" meant something other than 3 hot meals a day, air conditioning, free cable TV, free library, free access to gym equipment, zero rent, and more.
The people of Maricopa County, by and large, have said they want their Sheriff to be harsh on inmates. Double-digit reelection seems to be an indicator of this, at least. The fact that he, following the indications of his reelection that his methods are supported, butts heads with people who believe otherwise is no surprise at all.
Funny. Joe Arpaio enforces the law so well that the drug gangs and illegal immigrant smugglers' gangs are trying to kill him, and the illegal alien amnesty crowd is constantly bankrolling name-smearing campaigns against him. That tends to indicate to me that he's doing the right thing.
Funny. He keeps getting reelected with double-digit margins, despite propaganda like you put forth.
This probably has something to do with the fact that he actually has his people enforcing the law, and doesn't waste money coddling criminals. Given the amount of ridiculous benefits we see in most prisons in the US that make prison a "no-brainer" for large numbers of people (see here: people actually trying to get themselves thrown in jail), I'd say I like the idea of making prison as unpalatable a concept as possible.
Of course, this isn't unique to the US. The UK is having the same debate. They just don't also have to deal with a well-funded and ridiculous propaganda campaign based on "legalizing" foreign criminals who jump our borders and cause crime while also having the debate on what prisoners should, or shouldn't, get while incarcerated.
Be careful.
You're on Slashdot. You just criticized Obama (though his "I'll appoint no lobbyists" promise was apparently just as much of a lie as the rest of his campaign promises). Prepare to be modded down by a horde of Obama worshipers any minute.