TIL: Today I Learned

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TIL that Luxembourg sent troops to fight in Korea and Afghanistan, and provided more troops to NATO during the Cold War than you'd expect.
I'm not surprised about Luxembourg, given the Dutch, Danish, and Belgian armies go home for the weekend.

Link to video.
 
Mt. Hood in Oregon is named after British Admiral Hood, who unsuccessfully attempted to relieve General Cornwallis at Yorktown. It grieves me that one of our greatest mountains is named after a foe. :gripe:

We need to rename it.
 
Earlier this week I learned that nicotine is used as a pesticide.
 
TIL homeopathic therapists claim to cure autism. Some 350 therapists followed a course in a so-called Cease (Complete Elimination of Autistic Spectrum Expression) therapy. The therapy claims to "deregulate all causal factors that caused autism: vaccins, regular medication, intoxication, disease, etc." Unsurprisingly, this quackery has been indicted by the Association Against Quackery. According to spokesperson Catherine de Jong "it's a complete fraud". No kidding: there is zero scientific evidence suggesting a correlation between vaccins and autism, nor that homeopathic means would have any effect on autism.

Article in Dutch: http://www.volkskrant.nl/wetenschap/homeopatische-behandeling-autisme-ligt-onder-vuur~a4268936/

Mt. Hood in Oregon is named after British Admiral Hood, who unsuccessfully attempted to relieve General Cornwallis at Yorktown. It grieves me that one of our greatest mountains is named after a foe. :gripe:

We need to rename it.

A Native American name would seem appropriate. But wait, that would be a foe. Oh, dilemma...
 
TIL Jared the Subway Guy is having a tough time in prison.
http://nypost.com/2016/03/16/jared-fogle-beaten-up-by-vigilante-in-prison/



Only 16 more years to go.
I read that he got much more than a slapping.
I wouldn't be surprised if we see a story within the next year or so that Jared has killed himself in prison. I mean, the harassment he's getting isn't going to stop and it's probably just going to escalate until he snaps and kills himself. I also don't see the prison guards making any serious efforts to stop it either.
Yeah, I'm sure that some of the guards think it's good fun to set things up so he can get beat and raped.

I know a lot of people who think this is an acceptable form of justice and they cheer on the other inmates who beat him. It's sick and I really hate the attitude we have developed in this country that makes it totally ok for all of our prisons to become Thunderdomes of brutality.

Being locked away for years is all of the retribution we should need as a society. And as for the rehabilitation function of prisons, well, that is made a moot point by all of the Thunderdome-esque stuff we allow and even expect to go on in prison. We are only making criminals even more hardened criminals.

To top it all off, once Jared or other rapists get out (if he/they aren't killed or kill themselves), they will be treated like pariahs with huge restrictions on their personal liberties for the rest of their life.

I'm not defending Jared, other rapists or criminals. But if we as a society are going to keep up this pretext that prisons are supposed to rehabilitate criminals than we need to allow them to lead normal lives when they get out. If recidivism for rapists is really that bad that so many restrictions on their personal, post-prison lives are required then we should either not ever let them out or we should allow them to live normal lives without restrictions but keep them under 24/7 surveillance.

tl;dr: our prison system is seriously messed up
 
I'm not defending Jared, other rapists or criminals. But if we as a society are going to keep up this pretext that prisons are supposed to rehabilitate criminals than we need to allow them to lead normal lives when they get out. If recidivism for rapists is really that bad that so many restrictions on their personal, post-prison lives are required then we should either not ever let them out or we should allow them to live normal lives without restrictions but keep them under 24/7 surveillance.

I'm with you on this. It's always been a belief of mine that the sex offender database we have should not be open to the public and should only be used by law enforcement agencies to keep tabs on potential repeat offenders. Nor do I agree with sex offenders being publicly humiliated by having to notify everyone in their neighborhood of their past crimes when they move to a new area.

Personally, I don't think prison itself is a very effective form of punishment, but if that's how our society has chosen to punish criminals, then once their sentence is served, that should be the end of it. There should be no further consequences suffered by the criminal. I mean, that's how punishment was handled in the military. Sure, whatever punishment you got would probably be pretty harsh; but once you went through it, the matter was considered resolved. I don't see why that philosophy can't be applied to the criminal justice system as well/
 
Commodore said:
Personally, I don't think prison itself is a very effective form of punishment, but if that's how our society has chosen to punish criminals, then once their sentence is served, that should be the end of it. There should be no further consequences suffered by the criminal. I mean, that's how punishment was handled in the military. Sure, whatever punishment you got would probably be pretty harsh; but once you went through it, the matter was considered resolved. I don't see why that philosophy can't be applied to the criminal justice system as well/

Well conversely you could argue it's unfair to the community to keep them ignorant of the potential for some dude to rape their kids.

I agree with you that there is a big problem with legal discrimination against people who have been convicted of crimes.
 
Well conversely you could argue it's unfair to the community to keep them ignorant of the potential for some dude to rape their kids.

I would agree with this if we made every criminal, not just sex offenders, have to humiliate themselves like we make sex offenders do. Why do other criminals, including violent ones, get to hide their criminal past from the public, but not sex offenders?

My biggest problem with the sex offender database being available to the public is that it is not always kept up to date, which has lead to some problems. Over the years I have seen stories popping up of people attacking someone living at the address that is listed as the home of a sex offender, even though the sex offender moved out long ago and the person living there is just a regular person. I remember one story in particular of a guy having his house burned down because people thought he was the sex offender that lived there, even though that offender hadn't lived there for something like five years or so.
 
I'm not surprised about Luxembourg, given the Dutch, Danish, and Belgian armies go home for the weekend.

Can't speak for the Danes or Belgians of course, but the Dutch military in Afghanistan didn't go home for the weekend. (I do remember this from the conscription era, which ended, let's say, a couple of years ago.) That apart, I can't imagine military on combat duty 'going home for the weekend'. Seems a bit... counterproductive.
 
Commodore said:
I would agree with this if we made every criminal, not just sex offenders, have to humiliate themselves like we make sex offenders do. Why do other criminals, including violent ones, get to hide their criminal past from the public, but not sex offenders?

I guess because we consider raping children to be a bigger deal than robbing a 7-11.

Commodore said:
My biggest problem with the sex offender database being available to the public is that it is not always kept up to date, which has lead to some problems. Over the years I have seen stories popping up of people attacking someone living at the address that is listed as the home of a sex offender, even though the sex offender moved out long ago and the person living there is just a regular person. I remember one story in particular of a guy having his house burned down because people thought he was the sex offender that lived there, even though that offender hadn't lived there for something like five years or so.

Yeah that isn't good.
 
I would agree with this if we made every criminal, not just sex offenders, have to humiliate themselves like we make sex offenders do. Why do other criminals, including violent ones, get to hide their criminal past from the public, but not sex offenders?

I guess because we consider raping children to be a bigger deal than robbing a 7-11.

Yes, but eighteen year olds who have sex with seventeen year old sweethearts have to register, while murderers don't.
 
I guess because we consider raping children to be a bigger deal than robbing a 7-11.
Certainly it is. But if we hold up that our justice system is equal parts punishment + rehabilitation then the assumption should be that released convicts will not repeat their offenses. It follows from that then that released convicts should be allowed to re-integrate into society; by keeping lists and forcing public humiliation upon them (after time served, no less) we are actually not allowing them to integrate and making them more likely to repeat offenses due to the pressures of not being able to build a healthy social network.

Granted, there are currently high rates of recidivism for lots of crime, not just rape. But I see this as a failure of our justice system which is so perverse as to make it acceptable for prisoners to beat and rape each other that we wind up releasing individuals from prison that are more dangerous and deranged than when they went in.

The whole system needs massive reformation.


Additionally, even if we find that reformation of the system doesn't stop recidivism of many individuals, then we need to either never let them out or let them out but keep them under constant watch (which would still be cheaper than keeping them in prison). This way they at least have a chance to live normal lives on release while the public is still protected from those that don't reform.

I don't think that never releasing rapists from prison is morally correct but I still feel it is a better solution than what we currently have because the public is both not protected (no one keeps a watch on them beyond basic parole check-ups) and the current restrictions do not let them re-integrate into society.


Also,

Does anyone really think that restricting where a rapist lives and forcing them to humiliate themselves to neighbors actually does anything to stop them from raping more people???
 
That's actually it's purpose. The plant isn't producing it for us humans, you know ;).
Unless we, too, are to be considered a ‘pest’.
Does anyone really think that restricting where a rapist lives and forcing them to humiliate themselves to neighbors actually does anything to stop them from raping more people???
Not much… if you want the culprit to stop being a rapist send him (or her!) to rehabilitation therapy. Sending a person to jail and saying ‘hope you get raped every day, you *****!’ is not much of a cure.
 
Rehabilitation in jail is a joke.
I can't think of one single thing after a good 5 minutes of effort.

The prison rapes rehabilitate you.
The beatings rehabilitate you. (especially if the guards do it)
The bad food rehabilitates you.
Being one of the 5 million who lost the right to vote rehabilitates you.
Losing your job, house (couldn't make mortgage payment), gf/wife, kids (good luck getting custody), every one of those rehabilitates you.
Maybe it's the job training you study for all the companies that won't hire a criminal after you get out that rehabilitates you.

"Served his debt to society" is about the biggest joke I've ever heard.
The punishment lasts a lifetime.
 
Rehabilitation in jail is a joke.
I can't think of one single thing after a good 5 minutes of effort.

The prison rapes rehabilitate you.
The beatings rehabilitate you. (especially if the guards do it)
The bad food rehabilitates you.
Being one of the 5 million who lost the right to vote rehabilitates you.
Losing your job, house (couldn't make mortgage payment), gf/wife, kids (good luck getting custody), every one of those rehabilitates you.
Maybe it's the job training you study for all the companies that won't hire a criminal after you get out that rehabilitates you.

"Served his debt to society" is about the biggest joke I've ever heard.
The punishment lasts a lifetime.

Which is exactly why we, as a society, need to find some other way to deal with criminals other than just locking them away for a set period of time. Everything about prison seems to be designed to create career criminals rather than reform them.
 
That depends. Crime rates in NYC have been dropping for years, not because of some 'zero tolerance' policy, but a s a result of... rehabilitation. If taken seriously that actually works.
 
Rehabilitation isn't the same as mere incarceration. I recall an article from the graun where a former inmate explained how he had never known how to commit a crime until he went to jail. In his very first day he learned how to commit a burglary. A veritable real-life version of The Shawshank Redemption.
 
Yes, well, incarceration and rehabilitation are two very different things. Incarceration without the latter merely ensures repeated incarceration.
 
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