alanschu

I don't care about the stats, just the wins.

It depends on how often people on the whole keep wanting to play their old games. Because video games put you in positions that I'm not capable of being in in real life. Unfortunately, my abilities to compete in NASCAR racing is a bit limited at this time. As is my ability to be a superspy/ninja ala Sam Fisher. That's nice and I don't disagree, but I've seen many good games get overlooked because of poorer graphics, and crap games get a ton of attention because they look nice.

I enjoyed the Dark Brotherhood quests.

I am finding it less of a problem to go back to older games with older graphics than I have in the past.

No, a link that the numbers haven't changed. Well seeing as there are no clinics to go get free booze, supplied by the govornment, I cannot answer your "what if". <{POST_SNAPBACK}> What does the cost have to do with anything? If someone is drunk, they are supposed to find different means of getting home rather than driving. These same drunk people could also theoretically drown in their own vomit if left unattended. You stated that there would have to be facilities in place since people would be incapable of driving. Bars don't require facilities to keep intoxicated patrons around, nor do they need to keep additional people around in case someone drowns in their own vomit. So why would a clinic providing drugs (whether free or for a small cost, since you have issues with the cost) suddenly have to provide the same results. Why couldn't someone on drugs take a cab home, while an intoxicated person could?

Wow, Im shocked! I would have easily belived that those percentages could be reversed (76% recidivism). Quick question about Table 2 though, I think Im misreading it. The top category "All sexual offenders" states 24% recidivism at 15 years. Five categories down we have "Offenders with previous sexual convictions..." which shows 37% recidivism at 15 years. Where am I going wrong here? <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I think the "previous sexual convictions" means that that person was already in for committing sexual recidivism (i.e. they are currently in for at least their second, if not more, sexual crime). Not surprisingly that these people would be a higher percentage of being a repeat offender, since they already were at the 0 year time point of that study. I find it kind of interesting though, that people with a history of multiple sexual convictions at the starting point, weren't actually higher. Well, when the popular opinion is once a sex offender, always a sex offender. You say that that number still looks bad, even the 1.8% number, and justify castration. Look at it from the other side. You just castrated 98.2% of the thousands of prisoners going out on parole that will not commit another sexual crime, "just to be safe." Furthermore, analyzing the 24% (or 1.8%) helps with profiling to help determine if people should be let out on parole. Uh, how often to people typically escape from prison? Furthermore, what's to stop this same person from trying to escape from Death Row? This type of fatuity just astounds me. I mean, once recidivism is shown to perhaps not be as high as the media portrays it (and being solved with life without parole anyways), you want to start killing people (most of which will not kill again) because of a possibility that the "bugger may escape and continue his crime?" I have to ask for some sort of statistic about the likelihood of escaping from prison, because I can't find anything. How exactly do you speed the process up? In what ways is it not very efficient? I mean, you already have people having their appeal process cut short because of defense attorneys failing to file the paperwork in time. You can't just magically make things go faster, unless you want to start glossing over the information with the intent to make things as quick as possible. The only real way to make it more efficient that I can think of would be to hire more people, but then you're just condensing the cost over a smaller time frame, not reducing it. Don't just say "that's not for me to know." You state unequivicolly that the process is not very efficient. How so? For all we know, it's as efficient as it possibly can be. Unless you consider those annoying things like appeals as hindrances to efficiency. Yes, the numbers are always underestimates. As for the innocent lives saved versus lives lost, I can show you a list of people exonerated after receiving the death penalty (and will in a bit). A problem with finding innocent people that have been executed is that there's a bit less motivation to continue investigating someone that has already been executed (since they're dead!). Also, when discussing innocent lives lost to repeat offenders, you have to also make sure you take an appropriate subsample of that list, because you can only use the innocent lives lost to a repeat offender that would have been executed. I have no idea how I can figure that information out. Go here to find a list of people exonerated. One thing to note is that the average number of years between being sentenced to death and exoneration is 9.2 years. That's 123 people, which might not seem like a lot, but there has only been 1057 executions since 1976. So that's more than 10%. You can go here for a small list of people executed despite doubts about guilt. I know the list isn't complete, because it excludes people like Caryl Chessman and the like. Furthermore, I don't feel as though the crux is the innocent lives saved compared to the innocent lives lost. You can effectively eliminate the potential innocent lives lost by putting them in for life without parole. Barring extreme situations such as escaping from prison, this has the same effect as executing the prisoners. No one (outside of prison at least). As for innocents executed, the big issue I have is that it's possible for people to use the death penalty for their own personal gains. Check out this article for an interesting take on the death penalty. It's from The Nation, which I've been told is less than unbiased (who isn't though, especially in the case of the death penalty). I still strongly recommend reading it, and making your own opinion. While not utilizing proper citations, they do talk about various analyses done by 3rd parties, as well as cite case studies. As a result, it's easier to corroborate the stories from other sources. I'm also not big on the casual dismissal of articles by just stating "Oh, it's <blank> and therefore biased." If someone can show me some articles and studies demonstrating the awesomeness of the death penalty, I'll be more than happy to read up on them. The article talks about a lot of fun stuff that I never considered, such as the fact that most death penalty states have their judges elected, and overturning death sentences can lead to their political opponents campaigning against them with the "favoring the rights of criminals over the rights of victims" position. So it's political suicide to do so. Death Penalty cases also create great opportunities for district attorneys, and at times they have built cases around hiding evidence, or using a snitch in prison who lies in exchange for a reduced sentence. There's also issues with juries, who are made up of people just like you and me. The same people exposed to the overrepresentation of capital crimes, and recidivism, in the media. The same people that feel if they don't go for the death penalty, then the revolving door that is prison will let them out in short time, and will have them kill again. There is also issues as to how well the juries understand their own state laws, and whether they recognize whether there are alternatives to the death penalty (such as life without parole). There's also the idea that prosecutors intentionally try to keep juries ignorant of this sort of stuff, which J. Mark Lane (an attorney) published in Is there life without parole? A capital defendant's right to a meaningful alternative sentence (1993). Not to mention that murders typically aren't rich, and typically get crappy public defenders. One black defendant was represented by a former member of the Ku Klux Klan. Not to mention black people being judged by all white juries. And you better hope your public defenders aren't overworked and miss the deadline for your appeal, or your execution's efficiency may have just been bumped up a few notches. Mortis Nai gave us a big discussion about Good and Evil Bad, Right and Wrong, and used it to justify his position on the death penalty. In addition to attacking my character and calling me a hypocrite (while unfortunately not really responding to anything I had to say to him), I found it strange that while he acknowledges that there will always be bad people, he didn't seem to overtly consider that these same bad people could in fact be the ones issuing the death penalty itself. (He was also incorrect about the average stay on death row being a death sentence, and how many people die waiting to be executed. According to The nation, the average stay is 11 years, and if you don't like that source, Texas is 10.43 years, and Florida is 12.19 years. I think that this is where part of problem comes in...is when people start using their hearts (and hence, emotion). Since the protection of people (as apparently the financial investment required for death row) can satisfied with life without parole, what point is there to killing someone? The two big arguments seem to be to prevent them from killing again, and to keep the costs of the penal system down. And both of these seem to be satisfied with a life without parole. And given prisoners convicted of capital crimes do not make up a large chunk of the prison populace, they don't really contribute to prison overpopulation.

My apologies, senor. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Wasn't a criticism. Just stating that I also made the link. I suppose I should have put something along the lines of how I agreed with the assessment, because I actually hadn't said anything along those lines yet.

Backwards compatibility is overrated.

Sooooo, how long until we get that board update?

It was a "year in review," so they were linking to past articles they did over the past year.

I was making the comparison to the drug discussion as well.

I'm not convinced recidivism rates are as high as we may think. These numbers are from Canada: The National Parole Board's Performance Monitoring Report for 1999-2000 shows that the violent recidivism rate for offenders on full parole is down from 2.6 % in 1995/96 to 1.8 % in 1999/00. Violent recidivism refers to offenders who were released on day parole, full parole or statutory release and were subsequently convicted of a crime of violence such as murder, attempted murder, sexual assault, forcible confinement and armed robbery. The media overrepresents things to sell its product. Just like how they overrepresent capital crimes, I think they also overrepresent recidivism, at least for capital crimes. The media is not stupid. People get shocked and all uppity if someone that committed a heinous crime commits another one. Check this out as well. Going down to Table 2, the number of sex offenders that have not committed a Sex Offense crime (i.e. sexual recidivism) is 76% after 15 years. But I thought it was "Once a sex offender, always a sex offender!" Granted, my numbers come from Canada, but I'd be quite surprised if the numbers in the United States where significantly different. And in Canada people still have the idea that our prisons have revolving doors as well. Recidivism is more a problem for smaller scale crimes from what I can tell. And since you mentioned it, if someone is considered a risk to be a repeat offender, life without parole still works. And ironically, it's cheaper than a 10 year stay on death row. And since I missed this earlier: You can't really make it more cost effective. The reason why it's so expensive is because there's those annoying habeas corpus and due process deals. The only way to make it more cost effective is to speed the process up, which I certainly am not comfortable in doing. Unfortunately, sometimes "open and shut" cases are determined, 20 years later, to not actually be an open and shut case. And that was the case with Derek Jamison.

Surely riftworm would disagree!

Do you think decriminalizing it, and perhaps regulating it, would result in it being less "dirty," so to speak?

The interesting thing is that the ones with capital punishment have the highest incidents of capital crime rate. Either the death penalty doesn't really deter people, or states with the death penalty are more aggressive in reporting capital crimes.

I'd need to see it in motion. It's easier to critique when it's a still shot.

That would certainly explain why prostitution still exists then...

Surely thou dost me thine Holy Google Mail!

Which is the cause and effect though. If prostitution was legal, would it be any different. As for stripper, I actually know someone that is an exotic dancer, and my parents have known her parents for years. I wouldn't say that their family was particularly dysfunctional, so nyah nyah Mr. Stern! I actually do know women that have no beefs against pornography either, so I don't know if it's necessarily just a guy thing to say. Though it wouldn't surprise me if it was a position held more by males however. I don't know what their opinions are of prostitution though.

I wouldn't dispute that there actually are some prostitutes out there that are, for the most part, relatively healthy people.

I saw yours. Quite small. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Yeah, and he didn't even put me on the list, that jerk. <_< <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Sorry, but aren't you a Flames fan?

Hence why I quickly deleted mine! I tipped my hand!

If you understand all the ramifications of the death penalty, then supporting it supports the executions of innocent people. Because the executions of innocent people are inevitable. And unfortunately, the executions of innocent people often are not by accident, but rather gross misconduct and malicious intent. Careers are made with high profile death penalty convictions. There's a ton of personal motivation to see someone sentenced to death. I said no such thing. In fact, I asked him outright if he would still state it. I made no presumptions that if he was wrongly convicted of a capital crime, then he would not support the death penalty. I'm asking him to use some perspective, by preferably placing himself in the shoes of someone that has been wrongfully convicted of a capital crime, and seeing if he would still honestly feel the same way. This is because, even in the magical world of CSI, wrongful convictions are inevitable. Your logical assessment is completely incorrect. And unfortunately, he opted to deflect the issue and argue semantics, and attack my character. It's easy to seem apologetic towards the few innocents that will suffer when it isn't you or someone you actually do care about. The thing is, the people that commit capital crimes and are therefore eligble to death by execution is not really a large number of people at all. Most people in jail are serving much, much less severe sentences.

Death Row is more expensive than a 40 year sentence in Texas, so the resource argument is out. What exactly is the recividism rate for murderers?

Perhaps they find sex with a woman to be a more enjoyable sex than masturbation. If it truly was just for the instant gratification of achieving orgasm and ejaculating, then prostitution wouldn't be so pervaisive.