Prince Myshkin

Here is how I see it and it's a touchy subject so I expect dissenters. Firstly, I have absolutely no idea if I'm talking for this man because his views on the matter have been confusing, and with the chance to clear things up he hasn't done. Any response now could be down to a number of things - either he realises he said something he didn't believe and tripped over his own words since he was speaking under pressure, he does believe exactly what he said but he will try and cover it up for the sake of his career and his party, or he isn't sure on the topic and was just talking crap which he hadn't thought through properly. Either way, it doesn't look good as the Justice Secretary. Whether or not he deserves to be sacked is another matter which I doubt I'll address in this post. So it all came about because Conservatives are looking into halving sentences of rapists if they plead guilty from the start. This incentive is used in other crimes. The reason they are looking in to doing this is because apart from the admin side of things where it will save a lot of time and money if they do plead guilty from the start. On top of this, the victim will not have to go through the courts and constantly relive the event and be cross examined and told they are lying. I believe (correct me if I'm wrong) that as it stands a defendant can plead guilty at the last possible moment in order to get a more lenient punishment (around a third off the sentence), even after dragging the case through the courts. It is hoped that because of this more women (it says women, but I think it should say people) will come forward and more prosecutions will take place. That is the reasoning behind why they are looking into these new proposals. In an interview where he was defending this proposal, the interviewer (see my second post in the thread) asked him if he thought this was really fair on the victim that the offender could be out on the streets in 15 months (she used 5 years as the average sentence for a rapist). This is where Clarke messed up, whether it was simply because he was saying what he believed or if he buckled to the pressure and stumbled over his words without realising. Clarke said that the average was 5 years because it took into account different types of rape and that some are more serious than others (this seems to be something he definitely believes as he has since said it again now this whole thing has taken off). He said that there is a difference between a 16 year old having sex with a 15 year old, both willing and in a relationship, when compared to man who rapes a stranger with the threat of violence from a weapon, or using violence etc. This, to me is a fair statement. Those two extremes are very different. But whilst he was talking about this, for some bizarre reason he mentioned date rape (where you spike a persons drink, or drug them, and then rape them whilst they are unconscious, or only semi conscious). This is what seems to be the crux of the problem, as he then went on to use some interesting language to describe the differences between the different rapes. Now, here is me saying what my opinion on the matter is, and personally hoping that this is what the Justice Secretary meant when he said all this. Rape is rape. It's as simple as that. I do believe there should be different sentences for different cases. But this should not be down to the rape side of the crime. I believe it should be down to the assault side of the case. If somebody holds a stranger up with a knife and rape them then they should get more than if two people are in a relationship and one is drunk and has sex with the other person but the other person doesn't really want to have sex and it is out of character for the defendant to behave like this and they have certain mitigating circumstances - say they were an alcoholic and were drunk and didn't realise the other person didn't want it as they are into bondage and he is usually forceful, except this time he misreads the signs. Both of these are ridiculously awful I hasten to add, and I am not suggesting that one of these events isn't rape. They indeed should both be punished as rapists if the case is brought to trial and they are found guilty, but I do think there should be a distinction between these crimes. That distinction should not be made between the rapes though, it should be made between other aspects of the crime. I hope I made this clear, because this could look pretty fucking awful if I haven't. As I have said, rape is rape. To punish all rape the same doesn't make sense though.

I edited my above post now I've had time to finish it.

I believe it is a persons right to overeat and gain weight. We have evolved to a state where we have this luxury, if we choose to pursue it. On the other hand, I, like others in this thread, think that they if they choose to live like this then they should fun it themselves. It does get hard though when they get ill as to what exactly they should pay for, because when you look at a fat person with an illness that comes on from obesity, I know I always make the assumption that it is their weight that has brought them this illness. It cannot always be the case though, because not everybody will be ill because of their weight. it affects people who are not obese as well. Obesity only usually increases the chances of getting it. Obviously there are certain things you could definitely say they should definitely pay for, for example special transportation costs, or if they needed special equipment due to their size. With things like fining people for developing heart disease then you would have to fine smokers for lung trouble, people who regularly drink alcohol for liver and heart problems, and other things like that. What I'm saying is that it's so hard to prove for certain that the weight has caused the issue, when it could simply have increased the chances. I think they should have to pay and other people should have to foot the bill but it's so difficult to find the right balance (it certainly wouldn't be through fines) to do it fairly. In many cases I see obesity has stemmed from depression, and a lack of self respect (not all cases). When I was depressed I was fat (and likewise when I was fat it added to that depression) and I couldn't get out of it for years. Whether it was down to my own self pity, addictive junk food, or a combination of a lot of things, nothing was changing for me. Eventually it clicked and I sorted myself out. Had I not clicked I'd still be there now, more than likely bigger. Depression is something that is treated for free in this country under the NHS and it also appears obesity is too. In America, if this came into force, it would not be free for some people. I'm not for that in a fine sense, but there could be a tarriff in place. As I pointed out above though, it's so hard to gauge.

Interesting indeed. I'm intrigued to see how this will develop. I can't see it making too big a difference though.

According to the live blog on the Guardian site: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/blog/2011/may/18/houseofcommons-pmqs

We have lift off!

Thanks a lot, I'll try that. I appreciate this!

Nope, it seems like lots of things. This site works fine, but quite a lot of times I try and click on links it doesn't work, pornography is a no go, as is torrenting. I've checked them all and I can't get on anything remotely suspicious. Boooooo!

I shall check!

But you can't call a midget a midget, so you call it people who are short but aren't midgets :p Which was my point. You can call a giant a giant :)

As a side point, I want this thread nominated in this years awards for something.

Restart didn't work either. I'm sure I've seen it advertised that they were going to introduce these things and my antivirus is showing nothing strange is happening.

Happy Birthday :awesome: Have a great day :hug:

6 foot is hardly a giant haha.

I wouldn't say it was very likely, otherwise the whole criminal system would be somewhat pointless, but it's certainly possible.

Yeah, not really. But at around noon (five hours ago) I was on the Guardian news website, on this page: http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2011/may/18/pundits-of-the-season-premier-league Under one of the sections it has two small parts in blue that I wanted to click on - the bit that says 'following Gennaro Gattuso's tussle with Joe Jordan' (under the section Graeme Souness) and 'Sit back and enjoy.' under Eamon Dunphy. Now I presume that these are simply clips of what the Guardian are referring to. When I click on them I go to a webpage which tells me: 'Your HomeSafe settings prevent access to this site.' Then I have the option to log in and change the privacy settings etc that allow me to see certain things. This was not in place yesterday, but has randomly appeared today. I logged in and it said there was no restrictions on what I can see (which obviously isn't true because I can't access certain things). When I click edit the privacy settings there is a tick box selection including the likes of pornography, suicide websites, torrenting sites, violent sites. I unchecked all of those and clicked edit, at which point I was told it would take up to two minutes to update my settings. I just tried looking again for my Dad to show him the video but once again the same warning came up. Any ideas on what to do? My service provider is TalkTalk and it is a message from them that comes up when I try to access it. I'm going to restart my computer now and if that doesn't work I have no idea what to do :confused:

People from South America are called South Americans. People from North America can be called North Americans. Usually they are just known as their country - Brazilian, Canadian, etc. You are called the United States of America, and to get a word from that rather pompous title (which appears to look at you as very different to the rest of America - more civilised at least) means you are known as Americans. It has stuck. South Americans, North Americans, Brazilians, Mexicans, Canadians and AMERICANS. I'm afraid that's just the way it goes for having a stupid name.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/blog/2011/may/18/houseofcommons-pmqs Taken from the Guardian live blog

Somebody who you aren't allowed to call a midget.

It would be fun to see some post counts if Lounge Games had never existed.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-13441172 Audio of Clarke discussing it

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/may/18/david-cameron-urged-sack-kenneth-clarke-rape Ed Miliband urges prime minister to sack justice secretary for suggesting 'date rape' is not as serious as other kinds of rape Kenneth Clarke, who appeared to suggest that 'date rape' is not a serious offence. Photograph: Martin Argles for the Guardian

Free Will (This one is shorter as it leads on from a piece in a New Scientist from last month that I do not have access to) The notion that we have free will is deeply embedded in human experience. But the more we learn about the physical universe and the human brain, the less plausible it becomes. One argument goes as follows: the universe, including bits of it that make up your brain, is entirely deterministic. The state it is in right now determines the state it will be a millisecond, a month or a million years from now. Therefore free-will cannot exist. Neuroscience has also chipped in. Around 30 years ago psychologist Benjamin Libet discovered that if you ask people to make voluntary movements, their brains initiate the movement before they become consciously aware of any intention to move. Other experiments have since been performed along similar lines, leading many neuroscientists to conclude that free-will is an illusion. But it feels so real. We all have a sense of agency - the conviction that even though we did oe thing, we could have done another, and that at any given moment we have free choice of any number of actions. Yet it seems that this is an elaborate illusion created by your brain.

Egotism Hows your driving? If you are anything like the average person you probably think it's pretty good. One study found that 74% of drivers believed themselves to be better than average behind the wheel. And, perversely, those who had been in a crash were slightly more confident about their abilities than those who had not been. This, of course, does not reflect reality, unless there are a handful of truly dreadful drivers, not everybody can be better than average. And yet if you ask people to rate themselves on almost any positive trait, most put themselves in the above average category. Asked on negative traits and they are more likely to put themselves in the less than average category. This egotistic illusion has been imaginatively dubbed the 'better-than-average-effect'. It is incredibly pervasive, yet goes largely unnoticed. In an ironic twist, most people believe themselves to be more resistant than average to having an inflated opinion of themselves. We also inflate our opinions of loved ones. Around 95% of people rate their partner as smarter, more attractive, warmer and funnier than average. Ad as anyone who has endured a 30-something dinner party will testify, parents almost universally rate their children as cleverer, cuter and more developmentally advanced than their peers. Optimism bias is a well established effect characterised by unrealistic expectations about the future. Most people expect to live longer, healthier and more successful lives than average, whilst underestimating their chances of getting divorced, falling ill or having an accident. And the more (or less) desirable the outcome, the stronger people believe it will (or won't) happen to them. Parents create positive illusions in childhood by fawning over their children. Throughout life we have an innate tendency to divide the world into 'us' and 'them'. As soon as you forge a connection with someone, you become part of their 'in group', and humans are hard wired to see people within this group more positively than they see others. In this way, we all sign up to various mutual appreciation societies that exaggerate our virtues, ignore our faults and look down on others. This is why most people feel excessively positive about themselves. Far from being pathological though, positive illusions are now viewed as being a marker of a healthy mind. People who don't harbour them are more likely to be clinically depressed - a state called depressive realism. However deluded you are about yourself, the chances are that this is nothing compared to how you think others perceive you. Everybody worries and wonders about how they come across to others, and most of us think we have a pretty good handle on it. We don't. That is not to say you are completely useless, however we are surprisingly poor at determining how we are coming across to others. This is largely down to something called the 'spotlight' effect' - the deluded belief that everything you do and say is being closely observed and scrutinised. Because we are so aware of ourselves, it can be easy to think that others are noticing us when they are not. As a result we blow everything out of proportion. Say you spill water on yourself so it looks like you peed yourself. You assume everyone is going to notice, but they don't, because the world doesn't really revolve around you. People also assume that their emotional states are broadcast obviously, whereas generally they are invisible. It also works the other way. If you do or say something you think is especially clever or admirable, you are likely to overestimate the extent to which other people will notice. most of the time they won't even register as they are busy tending to their own egos. The central problem is that you know yourself too well. You notice all sorts of subtleties that others simply don't. They see general characteristics. This is compounded by the fact that we have difficulty guessing other peoples thoughts. Surprisingly our lack of insight doesn't disappear when we are around people we know well: accuracy does go up but only slightly. There is even evidence that your ability to read the mind of your spouse actually drops after one year of marriage. People can be better at reading how well they are communicating with a stranger. You believe you know your partner very well as you spend more time together, but this can simply lead to more of an illusion of insight rather than actual insight. Perhaps the area we have the least amount of insight is physical appearance. Everybody knows what they look like, but when it comes to judging how we look, we are hopeless. If you ask people to find a photograph of themselves within a sea of other faces they find it faster when the image has been morphed to look more attractive, suggesting we think that we are more attractive than we actually are.

Half Truths (Article begins with a memory of the writer, who talks about being picked up by his Mother in the garden on a sunny day to look at a silver Concorde in the sky. Concordes were white, not silver.) The collection of snapshots known as your 'autobiographical memory' is not a true and accurate record of your past - it is more like a jumble of old diary entries, photographs and newspaper clippings. Your memory is often based on photographs or stories fro your parents or siblings rather than what you can actually recall. In other words, one of your most important components of your self identity is little more than an illusion. If that sounds implausible consider that over the past three decades psychologists have demonstrated beyond any doubt that the memory is staggeringly fallible and suggestible. Most of the evidence comes from false memory research, where psychologists plant fake memories into peoples heads. In one famous experiment Kimberley Wade and colleagues used doctored photographs and fake parental testimony to convince people they had taken a fictitious hot air balloon ride as a child. Other examples have had people believe that they have met Bugs Bunny (a Warner Bros character) at Disneyland. The success rate of such flagrant manipulation is only about 30% but everybody's memory is susceptible to some extent due to an automatic consequence of how our brain processes information. You cannot remember everything so your mind summarises and remembers the gist of the experiences. You form associations and draw inferences. That gives memory great power, but at a cost. It's one thing to implant memories in a controlled lab setting, but how often does it happen in real life? We do not have a firm grasp on that and it's hard to really know without some measure of what actually happened or some corroborating evidence. Even so, the fact that memory can be so easily tricked in the laboratory suggests it must be in daily life too. (Article looks at 'flashbulb memory' - memories of extremely vivid events such as 9/11 and the death of Princess Diana- and concentrates on a 9/11 study in which people are asked a few days after the incident where they were and what they were doing when it happened and how they found out about the news. They were then asked a year later and more than half of the participants had changed their story on at least one count, while still express extreme confidence in their testimony) Flashbulb memory is also highly suggestible and in a 2002 study, when people were asked about the death of Diana, including whether they had seen footage of the crash, nearly half said they had, despite the fact that such footage does not exist. An even higher number confidently 'remembered' seeing non-existent footage of a Boeing 747 crash in the Netherlands in 1992. If such vivid and and confidently held memories can be so riddled with inaccuracy and open to revision, it is probably true that all autobiographical memories are suspect. Again there is evidence that this is the case. When researchers in new Zealand asked twins about their shared childhood, they discovered that most pairs have at least one disputed memory - an event they are both convinced happened to them and not to their twin. Spousal arguments which revolve around disputed accounts of the same even is ripe for exploration. At the University of Hull, UK, it was found that 20% of people have autobiographical memory which they do not believe to be true, often because they contradict established fact. Does it matter that our autobiographical memories are flawed? In some ways it's terrifying to think just how spectacularly wrong they may be. Memories are part of your narrative, part of your self identity. There are legal ramifications too. If you witnessed a crime and were asked to give testimony about it in court, how confident would you be of giving an accurate report? In many other aspects though, it matters not. The illusionary quality of memory is now seen as a strength rather than a weakness. Memory is no longer conceived as being exclusively about the past, but as part of a generalised 'mental time travel' module that allows us to construct and test future scenarios based on past experience. If memory were inflexible that would not be possible.