Re: The Bigger, Badder, Even More Serious Thread [2]

[Pettytyrant101]

Can't say I am suprised. Saddened, but not suprised. A Home I worked in many years ago had repeated complaints made by staff, visitors and the Care Commision about the lack of door security- nothing got done about year after year until finally two old dears got out one night. One died of exposure on the beach and the other shortly afterwards of pnemunia. The Home was closed down and is to this day a pile of rubble.

[Pettytyrant101]

Interesting study this. Ever forgotten what the hell it was you went into a room to get? Well it might be the doorways fault! This is from the Notre Dame website.


'New research from University of Notre Dame Psychology Professor Gabriel Radvansky suggests that passing through doorways is the cause of these memory lapses.
“Entering or exiting through a doorway serves as an ‘event boundary’ in the mind, which separates episodes of activity and files them away,” Radvansky explains.
“Recalling the decision or activity that was made in a different room is difficult because it has been compartmentalized.”
Conducting three experiments in both real and virtual environments, Radvansky’s subjects – all college students – performed memory tasks while crossing a room and while exiting a doorway.
In the first experiment, subjects used a virtual environment and moved from one room to another, selecting an object on a table and exchanging it for an object at a different table. They did the same thing while simply moving across a room but not crossing through a doorway.
Radvansky found that the subjects forgot more after walking through a doorway compared to moving the same distance across a room, suggesting that the doorway or “event boundary” impedes one’s ability to retrieve thoughts or decisions made in a different room.
The second experiment in a real-world setting required subjects to conceal in boxes the objects chosen from the table and move either across a room or travel the same distance and walk through a doorway. The results in the real-world environment replicated those in the virtual world: walking through a doorway diminished subjects’ memories.
The final experiment was designed to test whether doorways actually served as event boundaries or if one’s ability to remember is linked to the environment in which a decision – in this case, the selection of an object – was created. Previous research has shown that environmental factors affect memory and that information learned in one environment is retrieved better when the retrieval occurs in the same context. Subjects in this leg of the study passed through several doorways, leading back to the room in which they started. The results showed no improvements in memory, suggesting that the act of passing through a doorway serves as a way the mind files away memories.'

[Kafria]

I like this, but I need a foruth test.

If you exit the 1st room and then return the way you left does this help improve memory (cause I find it does, and would add to the hypothesis! the cross ing through the same doorway could return you to the same event you hdd just left!)

[Orwell]

I sometimes think of doing something, walk to where the thought might take action (usually some room completely different) and forget what i was about to do. When I go back to the room of the original thought, it comes back to me. Not scientific empircism I know, but an interesting coincidence at the least.

[Pettytyrant101]

Day of industrial action here in the uk as the public sector workers strike over pay and conditions, mainly a 3% levy on them to help pay for the deficit and extending the working age, increasing pension contributions and freezing pay , all for less money at the end.
Despite some government claims of 'gold-plated' pensions in the public sector most public sector workers have a pension between 7-9 thousand pounds. As an MP Mr Cameron is guaranteed at least 24 thousand. And as an MP he is also public sector. Seem fair?

Just wondering Kafria if you were out on strike or if you crossed the picekt line (and why you did whichever).
Iv'e got a few family members and friends in the public sector and they were all out and I would have been also if I was public sector.

[Kafria]

I was out, as I was last time!

Reasons......

mainly, if it is unafordable.. okay more may need to be paid, or we may need to work longer, but to be told that I will work longer (till 67 under current proposals and no guarantee they won't change their minds and move the goal posts before then) pay more (an extra £80 per month, more than £27000 by retirement) I will also get less for it. This means there is a real danger that some could retire today on more than they will get even if they work for another ten years (mainly the over fifties!)

I think this is the crux of the matter, I signed up to a pension when I started working and now I am being told the terms and conditions are changing in a huge way, with no guarantees that the government will not change it's mind again and just 6 years after a previous review found it was unjust to change the deal we were already on. (New teachers to the profession are already on a 65 retirement age and different terms to tackle any issues of unaffordability).

The problem with the teachers pension is our contributions go straight into central taxes and are paid straight from central taxes, so it isn't easy to say if it is affordable. It is easy for the government to say we are a drain on the public purse and it to seems like an easy solution. Also we make easy targets to paint as the villan, disrupting all these working parents and businesses, (I am sick of being told I am not considering the ordinary working parents needs! I am one and would like to continue being a productive member of the workforce, providing for my daughter and also making provision for my future so I am not a burden on her!)

Sorry - rant over!

[Pettytyrant101]

I don't think the governments line villifying teachers and dinner ladies and nurses has worked very well or gone down very well. Their claims that the striking would cost the country half a billion in lost work and this would lead to job losses, plague and diverse tragedy was a little silly given not so long ago they gave the entire country a day of work to celebrate a couple of very rich people getting married. Funny how when the upper classes call off the countries work for a day its a celebration and when the workers do it to protect their meagre rights its a disaster.

I see also Jeremy Clakson has landed himself in trouble for saying on a live interview on the One Show that strikers should be taken out and shot in front of their children.



A clear attempt at humour I would say but he has badly misjudged the mood of the workers in this country, as have the government I believe. Also more than a little hypocrictal for a man who lives in a mansion has several sports cars and a tank and all from the money earned working for the BBC who pay his wages using the tax money raised from the very workers he is joking about shooting.

[Pettytyrant101]

A bunch of scientists have come up with a computer program which can analise an image to see ho wmuch digital tampering has been done to it. They are hoping it can be used as the basis for a rating system advertisers will have to put on images saying just how retouched or altered they are.
They have a nice example on here: http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/farid/downloads/publications/pnas11/ Showing what it does with before and after images.

[Pettytyrant101]

A little background here, but don't worry, not much. This is from the BBC news page;

"A woman accused of racially abusing fellow passengers on a busy tram watched a film of her alleged rant when she appeared in the dock.
Emma West, 34, appeared at Croydon Magistrates' Court charged with a racially aggravated public order offence."

The offence was captured on a camera phone and you can watch it here yourself (contains bad language and worse ideoligy and a huge dollop of ignorance)



So racist woman gets done for racism- shouldn't really be much of an issue here. Except there is this;



So is it Freedom of Speech or just abusing strangers on a train?

[Eldorion]

I've seen the original before, so I tried watching the second video from Britain First. I got about 30 seconds in, but turned it off when the guy said he didn't see how this lady had been racist. I'm not entirely sure what falls under the scope of "public order offenses", and I do wonder where the line between freedom of speech and preserving public order is. That said, this woman's rant was way out of line and I think people should have the right to be in public without being accosted or harassed. Regardless, these Britain First wankers are clearly too steeped in their own delusional (and racist) ideology to contribute anything reasonable on the topic.

[Pettytyrant101]

I'm not sure what a public order offence is either Eldo- its English law which is different from Scottish Law, if it had been up here it would have most likely been a Breach of the Peace aggravated by racism. Breach of the Peace is basically anything which is offensive or upsetting or even overly annoying other people without you actually doing anything overt, like attacking anyone or directly threatening them. It therefore covers a very wide range of possible offenses and the sentencing is case by case and just as varied. I suspect a Public Order is the English equivelent law.

I agree there is a discussion to be had about what constitutes a point of view and what should be a crime. If for example she was expresssing those thoughts in her own home and I was there and found them offensive (as I would) I would argue with her but I wouldn't think she deserved to be arrested for it- but when its aggressively aimed at strangers in public I think it is something the law should deal with.

[Eldorion]

Hmm, thinking on it a bit more, I think that saying this is an issue of freedom of speech is missing the point. If this lady just went to a rally or even a street corner and began talking about how much she hated immigrants I might say it's about freedom of speech. However, since she was verbally accosting people in an enclosed space like a tram, I lack sympathy for her. One person's right to express their opinion doesn't override another person's right to go about their daily life free from harassment. In my opinion.

EDIT: I didn't see your most recent post before making this one, but I think we agree.

[Pettytyrant101]

I think we do. But there is a time and a place for it and when people are just going about their daily lives its not the time or the place. And from a soapbox or a public debate its a point of view, but this is directed at individuals which I also think makes it different. She is not saying imigrants should be sent home in general, she telling that particular woman she should go home, for me that makes it a personnal attack and crosses a line.

[Eldorion]

I think you're right about personal attacks crossing a line. In general, I think that even offensive speech should be free if for no other reason than I don't trust any government to determine what is offensive and what is not. (For example, there are plenty of people in America who find anything that doesn't toe the line of the Christian Right to be unbearably offensive, and some of those people hold a fair bit of political power.)

Something unfortunate that I think many people who cry "free speech!" believe, however, is that they not only have the freedom to express themselves but they have the freedom to impede on other's freedom. I'm sure few people would explicitly admit that but I don't see another way of interpreting Britain First's position on the Emma West matter. This is of course a self-contradictory opinion that only makes sense if you're a bigot (and believe some people have more rights than others), but there you have it. I'd love to see what Britain First would say if an immigrant was arrested for screaming abuse at native Britons.

[Pettytyrant101]

The excellent QI shames the US. Or at least, it ought to be ashamed.

[Orwell]

So if I steal a pack of cigarettes, and then I steal a bag of lollies, and then I steal a pack of cards - life imprisonment... So, when does one make the decision to try their hand at Steal Number Three? Why didn't the Judge at Steal One not warn the thief about what would happen at Steal Three?

It's not unlike someone smoking cannabis knowing full well they will lose their job if they get caught... strange strange strange world we inhabit, Petty... (hee hee hee)

[Orwell]

Btw Petty - it is a bizarre planet, that America.

[Eldorion]

The prison system is definitely one of America's biggest shames, I would say at least as much as the CIA blacksites and Guantanamo Bay. One thing that's come to light recently is that some of the harshest anti-illegal immigration laws, that would lock up illegals caught in the US, have been heavily sponsored by privately-owned prison corporations who build and run prisons and stand to make loads of money from having more people locked up. The prison companies have taken a major role in not only lobbying for but also helping to draft the legislation that will benefit themselves at the expense of other people's freedom.

Read the whole story at NPR. Here's an excerpt:

Prison Economics Help Drive Ariz. Immigration Law

Last year, two men showed up in Benson, Ariz., a small desert town 60 miles from the Mexico border, offering a deal.

Glenn Nichols, the Benson city manager, remembers the pitch.

"The gentleman that's the main thrust of this thing has a huge turquoise ring on his finger," Nichols said. "He's a great big huge guy and I equated him to a car salesman."

What he was selling was a prison for women and children who were illegal immigrants.

"They talk [about] how positive this was going to be for the community," Nichols said, "the amount of money that we would realize from each prisoner on a daily rate."

But Nichols wasn't buying. He asked them how would they possibly keep a prison full for years — decades even — with illegal immigrants?

"They talked like they didn't have any doubt they could fill it," Nichols said.

That's because prison companies like this one had a plan — a new business model to lock up illegal immigrants. And the plan became Arizona's immigration law.

[Orwell]

Full employment, safe streets. Sounds good really.

[Pettytyrant101]

This is why European countries are so skeptical about less state and more private sector involvement.

I note the War in Iraq is officially over, again.
Be interesting to see if it was worth it, will Iraq go on to be a democractic nation now or will it succumb back to civil war and sectarian violence?

[Eldorion]

I note the War in Iraq is officially over, again.
Be interesting to see if it was worth it, will Iraq go on to be a democractic nation now or will it succumb back to civil war and sectarian violence?

The difference between now and previous declarations of the war being over is that U.S. troops have left, or will in the next few days, technically. (I'm not sure if there are any Coalition forces left but if so I'd imagine they're leaving too.) While I'm sure that Iraq will continue to have violence and significant struggles in the future, the significance of this point is that foreign troops will no longer be in the picture, at least not directly. I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing for Iraq, to be honest, but it's about time they started asserting themselves as a sovereign nation. That's the reason U.S. troops are leaving: Iraq wouldn't promise to give Americans special legal protections so the Americans gave up trying to renegotiate the exit agreement.

[Pettytyrant101]

"it's about time they started asserting themselves as a sovereign nation."- Eldo

That seems a bit unfair Eldo. How long do you think it would take America to get back on his feet if its civil govenrment, all its beurocracy, its police, army were all disbanded, its infrastructure broken up or abandoned for a decade and had an occuping army, and had a period (arguably still ongoing) of civil war, not to mention the estimated 1,033,000 of its population killed?

I was opposed to the war on the grounds we went in for the wrong reasons (made up ones) but once you have done a thing, right or wrong you have to see it through or all those who died, died for nothing.

[Eldorion]

I was opposed to the war on the grounds we went in for the wrong reasons (made up ones) but once you have done a thing, right or wrong you have to see it through or all those who died, died for nothing.

I was opposed to the war too and I agree that the U.S. and the UK needed to stay and help. However, when the Iraqi government essentially told them to leave after almost nine years, I think it's important to respect that. I'm not trying to say the Iraqi government should be totally self-sufficient, but I think it's an important step for them to stop giving the invasion/occupation forces a carte blanche for all the abuses and murders committed. That's all I was trying to say. I find it somewhat telling that the U.S. considered "American soldiers who massacre Iraqi civilians must be held legally accountable" to be an unthinkable condition for leaving U.S. forces in Iraq.

[Pettytyrant101]

"We remain very concerned that Iran is meddling, not just in the affairs of Iraq but of other countries in the region." -Pentagon spokesman George Little.

Pot, kettle, black anyone?

[Eldorion]

But America is special.

(That's pretty much the only excuse given. )