Posts by Bart Janssen
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I grew up with this. As a child we were taught to trust the police. Yet here was this case, a brutal murder and after the police had apparently done their job and the perpetrator was apparently caught, tried, convicted and imprisoned, we started to see questions.
For a child my age the idea of questioning the police seemed alien. But as I grew up and as the case became more and more public and the doubts grew greater and greater, "could the police lie?"
The answer of course was yes. The police have always had those who lied. Sometimes for gain, sometimes to make sure the guilty were convicted. Sometimes because they needed to get a case solved.
So that the police lied was not the thing that shocked me as I grew up. What did shock was that once it became clear that there was something deeply wrong with the investigation and that the crime had probably not been solved, that instead of opening the case and trying to solve the crime, the institution that is the police force chose to block further investigation.
I'm sure those that tried to hide the problem told themselves they were protecting the reputation of The Police. But for me they did the reverse. I discovered that the institution of The Police would act to protect itself even when the individuals knew they were doing wrong.
You can sneer that I should have known that already, but I was a child at the time. For me and many others it was a shock to discover that such evil could be done by people protecting the institution.
The sad part of the whole affair is that most police are good people doing a shit job. They are there at the traffic accidents. They are there making tea for the victims. They are there dealing with the drunks at 3 am. They are there dealing with people I find very very scary. Their institution allowed their good work to be besmirched once by the police carrying out a hopeless investigation and again by the administration trying to avoid admitting as much.
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Hard News: The Very Worst, in reply to Lucy Stewart,
I don’t think anyone’s arguing that violent bank robberies shouldn’t incur high penalties, but rather that the non-violent type should.
The problem is, if there is no extra penalty for violence in the act of a crime then there is no disincentive for committing violence as well as the crime you are already committing.
However, since we also know that the severity of the punishment has not much influence on the decision to commit a crime then this argument becomes false.
Since the likelyhood of being caught is the critical factor then somehow we need to convince criminals that including violence in their offense will result in more effort being spent on catching them. That is actually the case already but it is not well advertised, maybe a marketing campaign is needed ...
Nick her wallet and slow Joe will be on your case
Punch her as well and smart young Debbie and three other top academy graduates will hound you till the day you die -
From a personal example
We can't afford to support Macs because it would require our help desk to er helpBut we can afford to hire a consultant to tell us if should be using and supporting iPhones
Essentially consultants are used to avoid taking responsibility for making decisions - it was the consultants reccomendation...
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Hard News: The Very Worst, in reply to Richard Aston,
But isn’t the down side of this is it effectively needs a police state or at least a well policed up state.
Not entirely. I think this research was part of the reason NYC tried the broken windows policy where even minor offenses were charged. the idea being that if you established that breaking even minor laws would result in prosecution would create a culture of not breaking laws.
It was by no means a perfect policy in planning nor execution, but NYC crime rates actually dropped.
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Haven't there been studies showing that the probability of being caught is a much stronger preventative measure than the severity of the punishment.
Essentially for many criminals there is a belief that they won't get caught so the punishment is irrelevant.
Of course the ideal is a society where people don't want to commit crimes in the first place, but the ideal isn't going to happen soon.
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Hard News: The Very Worst, in reply to Sacha,
Yet that's what journalists used to do more of, rather than regurgitate whatever is fed to them by those with the loudest mouths.
Their job used to be to inform the public of the truth now it is to inform the public of the news.
Which is not to say "the good old days were better" but rather to say that the truth really isn't their job - it's not what their employer pays them to report.
I think that's why the internet has now become the place you find stuff out rather than the 6 O'clock news.
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Hard News: Belief Media, in reply to Russell Brown,
your kind offer to get me very, very drunk is much appreciated. Islander's further suggestion that this be achieved with collected single malt whiskies is an excellent one.
However I'd put it to y'all it's not necessary to sacrifice the whiskies - we already know McCoskrie is scum.
That unfortunately means we'll need another excuse er reason ah heck lets just drink.
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Hard News: Belief Media, in reply to Ross Mason,
If someone knows someone is praying for them
Oh but the studies show that when you know someone is praying for you there is an effect. It's when you have no idea that someone is praying for you that there is no effect.
It's yet another demonstration of the placebo effect, the belief that a course of action will have a beneficial effect is enough to create a beneficial effect. The more complex and involved the process the stronger the placebo effect ie placebo surgery works better than placebo pills works better than placebo prayer works better than the yellow hankie.
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Hard News: Belief Media, in reply to BenWilson,
Or you could go even simpler and not think at all, and just look.
But thinking is so much fun and I'm sorry nobody who posts here can argue with that.
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Hard News: Belief Media, in reply to Sacha,
I’m fascinated by the implications for understandings of disability.
You might be interested in this from the 1000 genomes project.
The bit that is mind blowing is this
"on average, each person carries approximately 250 to 300 loss of function variants in annotated genes and 50 to 100 variants previously implicated in inherited disorders."
So much for the perfect being made in god's image.