Posts by BenWilson
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I think it's meant as a mnemonic for criminals. Because, you know how stupid they all are, and aren't capable of remembering the years that they may have spent in prison.
Why a mnemonic should find its way into law, I don't know. Perhaps it's not the criminals that need it, maybe it was the politician who brought it about. It's especially silly when it's not a particularly memorable mnemonic in NZ. 5 tackles without dropping the ball, perhaps? Or maybe it would make more sense if it were simply based on the genuine research into the behavior of repeat offenders with respect to the particular crimes they are accused of.
There is some sense to finding that people are committing the same kind of crimes repeatedly, and figuring that a pattern is being established that warrants a long removal from society. Sex crimes, for instance, could be simply based on attitudes or desires that the offender basically can't or won't alter. I can see the more deviant crimes fitting this, like crimes against children. But if a pedophile is subsequently found guilty of an aggravated assault against an adult, it's hard to see any relationship between the crimes at all. Someone who has already committed 2 aggravated assaults is quite different, IMHO (IANAL, IANAJ). Their history is showing that they can't or won't control their temper, or that they have a cruel streak that is a danger to society. I only put the number 2 in there for argument's sake. Actual research would do a much better job than guesswork and analogies.
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Still, good to get support from him.
Dunno about that. Some support is actually better not to have, when the cost of it is giving people like Dunne a platform.
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Why o why are there no more of the big noisy demos (anti-SIS, Vietnam, FOL, hell, even the abortion ones) of the past?
It's not as cool as it used to be? I'm not surprised that a protest on amendments to copyright law would be bourgeois :-). I'm thinking I'd get some pretty blank stares if I went around canvassing my working class district looking for people who wanted to take time off work for the chance to have a bit of a march and a yell about this. I doubt they'd yell about it at any time. More likely, like everyone I know, they just won't care a stuff about copyright law.
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I hate insurance companies period. The worst thing is that they have done the numbers. If they're charging you heaps for health insurance, then it's because they've had to pay out on a lot of people with your BMI. Of course there could be other factors which actually make your case less likely to cost them, but they probably don't have the numbers for those. As far as I know, they're always looking for ways to add more nuance to their numbers, so that they can offer more competitive rates (without costing themselves anything of course), but I guess the data collection costs a lot and takes a long time.
I don't think there's much moral or even scientific reasoning behind their prices. It's all about the data they have, and making a profit. It could be that high BMI is at risk for reasons that have little to do with 'health' per se. Maybe being more massive makes people accident prone. The bigger they are the harder they fall, and all that. Or more likely to get in a fight even! It seems to me as I get older that being more massive is wearing in every way. Joints, load on internal organs, discomfort from not fitting things, slamming into things harder.
But whatever it is, it sucks to be lumped in with the fatties, like all fatties are just heart attacks waiting to happen. It sucks to be discriminated on something you can do little about. But that is exactly what insurance companies do, whenever they can get away with it.
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RIP Bob :-(
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Yeah, but who can blame them?
I wouldn't really blame anyone for having an opinion. And I guess you have a point that Obama really does have to listen to the overall opinion, regardless of whether it is totally wrong. The more account he takes of it, the more involved the people become in the decision. Which maybe, just maybe, might encourage them to shoulder their responsibilities within the decision. Of course, if that still doesn't work, then Obama will be blamed for not taking a different course altogether. As he should. But that doesn't let the public off. Which makes me wonder whether I've reversed my position, since I'm very much in favor of them buying into the decision. I guess I just have a funny feeling that they can't and won't, ultimately because the decision is going to boil down to "Who to give money to, and who to take it away from". Someone is going to lose, and they won't be happy. It could be the majority, even.
Cheers for chatting. Time for a tea break :-)
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Yes, fat dwarfs are still pretty small, really. It's the fat giants you need to watch out for.
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I think the whole "Let's go to NZ" thing is actually meant as "I want to go to the remotest place I can think of, without being required to rough it". ;-)
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Public Servant on a tea-break.
I pretty much agree with all of that. But I think it's easy to forget that it's not the plan that's going to actually save or damn the economy, all on it's own. Or Obama and his team. It's the public, and the way big interests move, and the way the rest of the world moves. The plan can help or hinder this, of course. But I'm not holding my breath for the plan.
However, it is the American public that adjudicates whether the plan presented by their elected officials should continue based on how good or bad the poll ratings are.
They formally adjudicate every 4 years. But right now there seems to be interest in getting them to adjudicate every day. Same goes for the markets, which seem to get 'consulted' every day. If the market goes up, then they're happy with progress. If it goes down, they're unhappy. So their position jumps around even more than the public's. Which is even more ironic, considering what a huge impact that market has on the economy.
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Public Servant on a tea-break.
These people don’t feel as if they did anything different or wrong, so why would they think it is it their fault?
For much the same reason that any massive collective delusion is the fault of everyone who was deluded. It's really not that hard to say "we were wrong".
Put it another way. The amount of influence that average X voter in the US has over their leadership is considerably less than they have over their own pockets. And it was pocket-control, not leadership-control, that led to the bulk of this slow down.
Put it another way again. If the public doesn't know shit about how the credit crisis came about, then why care what they think about how to get out of it?
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