Walsingham

I can understand your mistake. I have all the insufferable smugness of a PhD.

Hi all, thought I'd tap your expertise again. Can anyone give an example of a good PhD proposal? I need to get a feel for them so I can write my own.

You should NEVER take the Daily Mail seriously. However, buried in the article was a point I hadn't mentioned, which is that thanks to Labour infighting and general malaise we are now on our fourth Home Secretary this Parliament. At a time when one could argue the Home Office is the most crucial department after the Treasury we've got complete no-hopers at the helm.

Updated: Feedback loops added

Freed psychopath kills again on release - another example in the press I pay my taxes so I can be protected from what are essentially human predators. If attempting reform doesn't actually reform then it's not a cheaper option. It's a waste of money. Incarceration is ridiculously expensive, but very very few murderers are likely to kill me while they are still in jail.

Some time later: Note that you can make profit by making the cakes, but can also make profit by buying houses, driving up the local economy by your workforce wages, and selling on the houses. Normally the profit from the houses would be negligible, but if prices are low enough as here then it may become wise. I just realised I've left out a feedback from profits into making more cakes. This is important because it illustrates how house prices will rise without any deliberate effort on your part. I made the model using a program called Vensim, Sando. I suggest strongly that you pickup the student freeware version and give it a whirl.

I'm listening to all of the Tiger Lillies albums in chronological order. I may go a bit weird as a consequence.

Well, yeah, I agree viru. From memory Jamie Bulger's killers grew up in neglect, as did the more recent child mutilators. I'm not for one moment saying it isn't a big part of it. Neglect isn't easy to tackle but I believe it would be far cheaper than the high security incarceration, therapy, new identities, and so on which killers receive. I am, however, drawing a distinction between understanding how the evil arises and what we do about it. Certainly there is a logically consistent argument for saying the best way to triumph over the evil is to reform the evildoer but I am a utilitarian by instinct and profession. If reform represents BOTH a poor return on the investment compared with the same investment in tackling neglect- as I suggest - AND fails to adequately protect society then it is not a choice I could recommend.

Hmm. Hang on. I need to make a model.

Kids understand suffering. I'd hazard a guess it was hardwired in. Some kids can be absolute angels at trying to help out.

The difference between a wookie and a droid is that a droid won't tear your arm off if you forget her birthday.

There's an interesting point there. A conglomerate could make a lot of money buying up the housing along with setting up a factory. Sell the housing to workers/outsiders once the jobs are created and rolling. Good way to offset setup costs.

I think it's only sporting to point out that the majority of meat I do eat is vegetarian meat. With that in mind could I ask you to perhaps supplement your lentils with more beer, saltbush grass, and rosemary?

I've just spent a good wedge of my breakfasting time hunting for recidivism (repeat offending) rates for serious violent crime in the UK. Nothing seemed very workable besides tha inherent suspiciousness of the absence of publicly available data. There seems no reason why such data could not be compiled. It's a very simple matter of record who someone is and how often they have been at HM pleasure. Both must be on record if only to manage liability. The most interesting study I found was a longitudinal study looking at 70 year olds who had committed several crimes, working out when and why they stopped. I also found an article pointing out that with sex offenders even if statistics were compiled domestically they ignore the overseas element. Our offenders are not merely a serious risk to our own citizens, but to everyone else as well.

I wouldn't go that far. But repeat offenders must be committting doubel digit percentages of serious violent crime. This gives me an idea...

After spending more than I'd like to admit replacing doors, keyboard and mouse sets, tennis racqets, a PC screen and a motherboard, a Game Boy and probably more stuff I'm forgetting, I recommend taking deep breaths instead. Not quite as satisfying perhaps, but significantly cheaper. When made angry - which is admittedly rare - I have to cause damage to something. I would rather take it out on a

South African rugby.

How does it compare with 'Bowling'?

Ach rugby's a grand game, provided like me you can't run fast enough to ever get expected to run with the ball. So you only have to tackle rather than get tackled.

That does sound fantastic. I love me some N.O. jazz. Ryan Adams - Cannonball Days Thanks, Drabek, but I'm not sure you'd have liked the later transition to the hiphop feel. the whole thing was pretty weird, even if I did wake up still humming the tune.

Firstly, fruit flavoured beers are for women and men who live in basements and only come out at wekends to stare at engineering or wildlife. Secondly, Bestly, I'm not sure what you point is. If a man is prepared to break his whole hand to avoid rugby that should tell you more about how rugby used to be played than the man.

If I were a Brit I would swallow me pride and vote them in just one more time if it meant getting this done. ****ing unelected bastards. Mind you, I'm highly skeptical of unicameral legislature, but in this case it seems preferable. I guess ideally the best outcome would be for the House of Lords to be a proportionally elected house of review. The fact that this mirrors the Australian system is pure coincidence I am sure. The future of the Lords is a bit off topic, although I think it's interesting to see that's how you look at it.* It was just announced today that military training has been down ONE THIRD this last year. WTF? Seriously. WTF? believe me I know the military budget can't be bottomless, but this is taking the piss, because it's not even just that it's down. The quality of training, as in field training, and live fire is waaay down. But that's before you get into the busines of kit. Brown has never understood the military's contribution, and was always hard on them but he used to be balanced out by a decent team of cabinet ministers plus the PM. Now he has total control it's all out of whack. Don't even get me started on how a Labour government has privatised defence services like housing, catering, and vehicle maintenance. Even Maggie Thatcher didn't consider privatising the ****ing army. It is not OK to go to this poll purely on the basis of political theory. There are some very hard choices before this government which will shape our future, the future of Europe, the future of Afghanistan and by inference Pakistan. I don't know what the answers are for sure. But now is not the time to piss about changing our system of government wholesale when the system is not our main problem. The mere fact that this issue is being raised now in order to polarise their support base (as you've just demonstrated) is characteristic of an administration run by career political animals rather than real people. And it stinks. *I don't see any point in having a second set of people chosen by democratic process. We can't find enough good people to begin filling the first one! Plus the observed fact is that the Lords do a very much better job of intelligently approaching legislation than the Commons who have become more like an internet forum <sic> than a place of debate. I'll admit that point is complex in the details but those are the facts if you have even a cursory glance at Hansard. If reform has to come it should be to replace the ecclesiarchs with the top 100 companies and 100 unions and ban private donations to political parties. The only donation should be personal effort and flat rate membership fees.

Don't you make me cross the pond, Walsh. I will smell like wet dog and beat you with that stick! Grrrr... Go for it, mate. Might sort my back out. Then we can have beer.

Sorry Krez. I've noticed I've been much more of an annoying t*** since I fethed up my back. The only thing is most veggies are insufferably superior about their decision, and I get defensive. As if not eating meat excuses all the other comissions and omissions.

I imagine there must be costs such as insurance in case someone hurts themselves on the property, but ffs it has got to be worth it.