Dear Officer Krupke, it ain't my fault

There is a basic principle (I'm not sure of what, perhaps science, perhaps just plain logic - let's call it philosophy) stating something along the lines of "Don't stop at the first thought." This can take several forms - "Never assume only one cause of damage" may be useful to forensic anthropologists (thank you Kathy Reichs for pointing that one out). The basic principle, however, remains sound in all areas of life. We can even paraphrase it as "Don't jump to conclusions".

Which leads me to this headline, from the ABC: New NT laws will see 'more Aboriginal people jailed'. Huh? A classic example of a headline which says just barely enough to force you to read the article in order to find out what the freck they're talking about. It's rather good, actually.

What it is about which they are talking, turns out to be mandatory sentencing laws. I hear echoes of a different racial complaint from New York... The gist of the story is that new laws are being proposed which would lead to mandatory jail time for anyone who commits a violent assault. The president of the Australian Council of Civil Liberties, one Terry O'Gorman (who seems to have been president for quite some time, if my recollections of his name are anything to go by) complains that this will result in more Aboriginal people being jailed.

Yes... So?

Let's take this statement in the spirit in which it appears to have been meant: As a bad thing. Let's look at the basic facts:

1. The laws will jail people who commit violent offences.
2. All arguments about the uselessness of jail as a reform tool aside, this is at least an internally consistent idea that holds together under shallow scrutiny.
3. Evidence would, we assume, suggest that if Terry can claim that more Aboriginal people would be jailed, then more Aboriginal people currently commit violent offences.
4. Terry O'Gorman's response to this is to complain about a law which seems to have something to do with public safety.

May I suggest that Terry O'Gorman do something useful and start talking about the cultural, social and economic environment which contributes to Aboriginal people being higher perpetrators of acts which society tends to find repugnant?

May I further suggest that this more than a little to do with the environment of touchy hostility on the one side and panicky fear on the other which sees hell raised when sexually abused children are removed from their community because this is "like another stolen generation" (No, it isn't) and sees people pilloried when they say things like "let's not give special dispensations to members of society based upon race, let's give everyone the same help based upon need".

May I, in closing, suggest that this country isn't going to be able to do anything useful for remote and crumbling communities any time soon until we drop the whole automatic guilt thing and start having a sensible debate starting from scratch, here and now, and beating people with the cluestick whenever they complain about past injustices unless they can guide the present debate by illustrating what hasn't worked or explaining why we're were we're at?

Link to ABC Online article.
Link to explain the title.

You know you're a motorcyclist when...

You see a photo of a woman in a string bikini riding pillion on a motorbike, and all you can think of is how much damage she is going to suffer if they crash.

Hint: At any meaningful speed, you'll lose skin, then muscle tissue, then bone.

Yes, I'm serious about that.

You still can't grow schizophrenia as a culture.

I'd just like to point out a piece of beautiful writing from Mind Hacks which highlights the problems facing psychiatry as a diagnostic science. I have tried to make this point myself, but Vaughn has done it better:

"Genes are defined on the neurobiological level, while psychiatric diagnoses are defined on the phenomenological level - in other words, verbal descriptions of behaviour, or verbal descriptions of what it is like to have certain mental states.

 

"There is no guarantee, and in many people's opinion, probably no likelihood, that these 'what it is like' descriptions actually clearly demarcate distinct processes at the biological level.

"It's a bit like classifying people as heavy metal fans if they have five or more heavy metal albums."

Go and read the rest of it.  It will help greatly with your understanding of the problems facing the mental health professions.

Link to Mind Hacks article: Mental Illness: In with the intron crowd

What next, are we going back to morals squads armed with tape-measures?

Police warn opless face fines, jail (Courier Mail) (Yes, that was the spelling, at least when I read it).

Topless sunbathers (women, obviously, it's not considered such a big deal when you can see manly nipples) may be judged a "public nuisance".

Let's work through this for a few seconds:

1. By lying around quietly doing nothing particularly active and displaying non-genital flesh, women may be judged a "public nuisance" and told to cover up, and maybe get taken to jail.
2. Response 1: Spoilsports!
3. Response 2: Any member of the public who is nuisanced by this public display needs to be fined for prudery. Or something.
4. Response 3: We are in what century?
5. Response 4: Cairns, apart from being very hot, tends to collect European backpackers. Who tend to be quite hot in the other sense of the word. And have fewer inhibitions. Refer to point 2.
6. Response 5: Anybody who creates a public nuisance as a result of this, through behaviour that is protesting or offensive, needs to be cleared from our streets and let the rest of us get on with life. But I'm pretty sure that's not what they're referring to by "public nuisance".

I really can't get over the "public nuisance" part of this. I am boggled in mind by how this rule may be applied, and really can't come up with any decent explanation of it. I'm pretty sure there are rules about "public nudity". But how...

I give up.

Link to Courier Mail article

How is this possible?

A stapler is one of the most basic tools known, more complicated than the lever but not much more complicated than a mousetrap.

So how is it possible that the frigging brand new stapler I got given at work, doesn't?

More reasons why Internet Explorer 7 sucks

I can drag from the page icon in the address field to creat a bookmark on the Links bar.

I can not drag from a tab to create said bookmark, despite the fact that clearly tabs can be dragged somewhere.

This is logical how?

Hey, Gizmodo crashes Internet Explorer!

I've just managed to get upgraded from IE6 to IE7 at work, because having to use multiple windows was making my brain bleed and I couldn't push things as far as Firefox.

So I'm checking my news feeds quickly, and... Crash.

Damn, I had several tabs open and IE7 is so crude it doesn't have a crash restore facility.

Swear, open, try and retrace my steps.

Crash.

The third time, I was ready and checked and... Yes, something on the Gizmodo Australia website causes a crash. Repeatably.

Well, fuck you very much.

The third time I even did something I never do and let Windows send off a crash report to Microsoft (hell, you trust them to pay much attention to those?)