Marty_d

There's no silver bullet. Start with education. Child care is not too early to start teaching kids not to hurt each other when they want something. All through the education system there should be ethics and philosophy incorporated in the curriculum. In fact I'd go so far as to teach kids - all kids - martial arts, because of the emphasis on having respect for yourself and others. Also reduce access to real violence online. If you're talking about current violence, then we need to increase funding for shelters and support services, so people experiencing violence can leave and not have to stay in the home because they have no funds to leave. Court ordered distance from the victim should be enforced by ankle bracelets. We have GPS, AI and Google maps. It can't be that hard to geofence areas the perpetrator is barred from and alert the nearest police station if the breach them. These are just some ideas from one clueless bugger at midnight. Surely if we prioritize this, get the right experts leading it and throw enough money at it to implement their recommendations, change will slowly happen.

Interesting. So you have a pretty good idea that what you're about to say will be shot down. If you could prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that every person accused of premeditated murder (premeditated is implied in your statement "who murder their wives...") is guilty, without reason or extenuating circumstances (eg mercy killing, assisted suicide, years of physical/emotional/psychological abuse committed on them, etc), then go for it. The simple fact is that you cannot. Courts get it wrong all the time. Juries get it wrong all the time. People have been exonerated after spending 20 years in prison. So they should just have been killed by the state... by ALL OF US... and we just shrug and say "Oops, sorry about that"? It may surprise you to know that I fully support the police killing of a person who is threatening the life of someone else or the police themselves. Classic case in point was the knife killer in Bondi Junction. He had already killed a number of people and probably would have killed more if not shot by the police officer. She should be given a medal, and more importantly lots of counselling, for doing her job exactly right and saving lives. Your claim that the death penalty would act as a deterrent to the perpetrators of domestic violence is not valid. There's a simple test. You mentioned that some US states still have the death penalty (while some do not). If you were to look at the murder rates by US state, and compare them to the states which have the death penalty, your deterrence claim should mean those states have a lower murder rate, no? Let's find out. Below are the figures from the CDC's (Center for Disease Control & Prevention) National Center for Health Statistics. These are for the latest available year, 2021. Beside them I have an indicator "Y" if that state has the death penalty. State Homicides per 100,000 Deaths Death penalty Mississippi 23.7 656 Y Louisiana 21.3 943 Y Alabama 15.9 748 Y New Mexico 15.3 306 South Carolina 13.4 656 Y Missouri 12.4 716 Y Illinois 12.3 1,487 Maryland 12.2 709 Tennessee 12.2 810 Y Arkansas 11.7 335 Y Georgia 11.4 1,206 Y Delaware 11.3 103 North Carolina 9.7 991 Y Indiana 9.6 624 Y Kentucky 9.6 408 Y Ohio 9.3 1,020 Y Pennsylvania 9.2 1,101 Y Oklahoma 8.9 342 Y Michigan 8.7 822 Nevada 8.5 264 Y Texas 8.2 2,391 Y Arizona 8.1 562 Y Florida 7.4 1,468 Y Virginia 7.2 606 West Virginia 6.9 114 Alaska 6.4 49 California 6.4 2,495 Y Kansas 6.4 180 Y Wisconsin 6.4 348 Colorado 6.3 368 South Dakota 5.3 45 Y Oregon 4.9 204 Y Connecticut 4.8 160 New Jersey 4.8 409 New York 4.8 918 Washington 4.5 346 Montana 4.4 46 Y Minnesota 4.3 232 Nebraska 3.6 70 Y Rhode Island 3.6 40 North Dakota 3.4 24 Iowa 3.2 94 Hawaii 2.7 39 Utah 2.7 91 Y Massachusetts 2.3 160 Idaho 2.2 41 Y Maine 1.7 20 New Hampshire 0 15 Vermont 0 10 Wyoming 0 16 Y Far from the death penalty leading to a lower homicide rate, it seems to be weighted the other way. Obviously not much of a prevention. Just to drill down those figures a bit. - Of the top 25 states by homicide rate, 18 have the death penalty. - Of the bottom 25 states by homicide rate, 9 have the death penalty. Just for shits and giggles I also overlay the voting results of the 2020 presidential election. *Just the overall state result, not by electorate. Can you guess? - Of the top 25 states by homicide rate, 14 were Republican (Trump) and 11 were Democrat (Biden). - Of the bottom 25 states by homicide rate, 11 were Republican (Trump) and 14 were Democrat (Biden). One more test. How many of the 27 states which have the death penalty voted for Trump in 2020? - 21. So there you go. The death penalty is not a deterrent. Twice as many states in the top half by murder rate have the death penalty than the states in the bottom half. And 21 of the 27 states with the death penalty voted for Trump.

Labor tried to put a price on carbon. The big miners spent millions in advertising against it. Tony Abbott with his "$100 lamb roasts" and "Great big new tax" slogans managed to confirm that a sizable portion of the electorate are f*cking stupid. So yes. We should have had a proper carbon tax years ago.

Well, then so are opium, cannabis and magic mushrooms.

Well, picture #2 and probably #3 are far prettier than me, and even the lady with the fat lips in #1 is too... so I'm not going to judge. As to the injecting rooms, I find that a bit harsh. We don't know what shit people have gone through in their lives that led to them being addicted to drugs. It's a medical problem, not a legal or moral one, and it's bloody hypocritical for us to say that one type of addictive drug (eg alcohol, nicotine, sugar) is legal and another type isn't. If everything were legalised, produced in clean factories instead of basements and tested, there'd be less crime and premature death and the cartels would go out of business.

Out of all the pictures that would be available for World Naked Gardening day, you had to give us an obese bloke in a g-string?

We installed a couple of those Google Nest smoke detectors. Now when someone burns some oil it says, in a female very English voice - "There's smoke in the family room. The alarm will sound shortly. It's going to be loud." That fortunately gives you enough time to frantically wave a book or something under it to fan away the smoke, so you never actually get the alarm (which is loud!)

Is "kiss" a swearword?

I think Musk reckons his spaceships will transport 100 at a time, but in reality there'd only be enough room for him and his ego.

Elon Musk has plans for Mars. We can only hope that he and his best mates are booked on the first ship there.

That's because sexual preference and gender are two different things. I'm a male, I feel/identify as male, and I am attracted to females. For a gay man, they may feel and identify as male, be attracted to males, and in a relationship may be more submissive/"wife-like" (although that generalisation seems pretty fraught too, the power dynamic in relationships can be all over the spectrum), but that has nothing to do with wanting to be female - they are happy as a male.

That raises a deeper question. If a person is born and always feels that they are the opposite gender to their physical sex, and undertake corrective surgery so that their genders and sex align, is that really a "choice"? Kind of like sexual preference, which no-one except the truly ignorant considers a "lifestyle choice" anymore.

He might be using an Irish accent Peter. In that case minus the "u" would get you the right sound...

...And no, I realise this is not the music thread. It isn't Freddy Mercury crooning that one. Maybe this should be in the random thoughts thread as it was just something I was musing about in the shower today. But the gist of it is, the hook for most religions is that they offer you eternal life, for nothing more than your belief and a small financial gratuity. But they haven't really thought it through. What exactly would heaven be like, for you to be able to bear it forever? The common conception in christianity is a kind of hero worship. God and Jesus are sitting there and everyone is kind of sitting around them, basking in the glory and basically... doing nothing. Look, raising 3 kids and working full time, with countless home renovations and trying to build a plane at the same time, I get that relaxing would be nice. For about 2 weeks. After that, find me something to do or I'm just going to get up to mischief. The muslims make it slightly more interesting by giving the honoured few 72 virgins. (Is it heaven for the virgins, or hell?) So ok. That might be fun for a while. But after a few weeks, they're not virgins. Unless they get replaced? Then they start comparing notes, start complaining that you're not meeting their needs, eventually organise strikes... but anyway. Even if they were gorgeous, eager and easily satisfied, how long would it be fun for? Wouldn't you start wishing for meaningful work, or a decent shed to hide away in? I guess the point is that what makes the fun things in life fun, is that there's a limited opportunity to experience them. Holidays in France are memorable because they're only a few weeks. If they were for years, then it wouldn't be a holiday, it'd just be where you live. The stupid thing is, as humans we are aware that we only have a short time on this planet. So we should be doing something exciting and satisfying every minute of every day. But do we? How many hours to we waste in jobs we don't find fulfilling, housework, arguing with loved ones, worrying about money, about relationships, about all the distracting and boring shit that comprises 99% of our time? So death, inevitably, is what makes life special. We're alive for a mere flash of time between billions of years of not yet being alive, and billions of years of no longer being alive. But even in that short time, up to 100 years if we're lucky, we may get to the stage where we're ready to die. How, then, does the prospect of any sort of eternal life hold any appeal?

Q. How do you turn a duck into a soul singer? A. Cook it in an oven until its bill withers.

No, but they're better than the currant ones, which are a bit fruity.

Well, the current ones reflect headlights at night, which serves the purpose.

As in all things in life, there's nuance and shades of grey. If the parents knew of this behaviour and either showed a reckless disregard (making no attempt to stop the behaviour) or actively enabled it, like those idiots in the US who bought their son a pistol when they knew about his fantasies of doing a school shooting - then yes, they should be accountable and charged accordingly. But what if they didn't know? Kids are incredibly good at hiding behaviours. Most parents, probably including most of us (or our parents if some of us don't have kids) have had the wool pulled over their eyes at some point in their lives. If the parent had no idea of the behaviour, and in general was raising their kid in a reasonable manner, then I don't see how they're responsible for what the kid does. As to the idiot who T-boned the car, the job of his defense counsel is to get him off by any legal means available. So while they might be considering his dislike of being locked up, I will lay money that neither the prosecution, judge nor any sensible jury will.

Yes, they're all over the place.

Reverse mortgage is another option.

It's funny, I've never been able to put up with something on my wrist. Prior to mobile phones I never knew what the time was unless there was a wall clock somewhere.

The round blank face is reminiscent of the robot in the recent Lost in Space series - wonder if that's a good design choice??

That's true and I was thinking about electric aircraft the other night. Even now there's a swag of detractors over in Rec Flying with all the reasons electric aircraft will never work - based on what we know today. Future generations will probably laugh at us the same way as we laugh at those people who said "that'll never work" about all the things we use today.

That's insane. 450,000 before they did the brake pads, and even then they only did them because they were looking at something else. 200,000 before the first service.

May he be mistaken for a statue by every pigeon in New York.