crozby

Sure, on a Sunday lunchtime a lot of punters might be in for the food, but on a Friday night at 22:00 its going to be mostly drunk people. You may not agree with it - it not being culturally what you're used to - but that's the way people in the UK like it. Guns in pubs in the UK would be a total disaster.

What proportion of obese people in the USA are that way because of a medical disorder, and what proportion because they eat too much of the wrong kind of food and/or don't exercise sufficiently?

It would be interesting to see what proportion of those locked up are actually charged with anything.

How many things have you purhased that were made in China? I'm guessing quite a few. So it's okay to go along with unconscionable human rights abuse, including censorship? Yes, indeed.

Yes, Jeffrey, that is correct. I am for the use of CCTV on trains and buses because, contrary to what you say, their presence not only deters crime but is useful evidence when crime does occur. (Recall how the London bombers were identified and traced using the CCTV cameras dotted around the city.) I am against the collection of genetic information because it can too easily be abused or fall into the wrong hands. Why do you find the juxtaposition of those two opinions so crazy.

From the article: It's pretty clear from the trial that putting prisoners in sleeping bags and making them believe they are being suffocated to death is considered acceptable behaviour by those that operate the interrogations. If that behaviour is acceptable then the only 'crime' this guy comitted was to suffocate the Iraqi just a little bit too long. I guess it comes down to whether you think torturing people, for whatever the reason given, is acceptable or not. Personally, I don't agree with that kind of behaviour under any circumstances. There are probably a similar number of 'westerners' and 'terrorists' that think torture and barbarism are acceptable for the cause. For one side of this alleged war the cause is freedom and democracy, for the other side it is ... umm .. well, what is it? do you even know? There are extremists on both sides and all of them are pretty fucked-up in my opinion.

Now, that's a very good question indeed.

Not sure exactly what you are referring to here, but if its CCTV cameras then, yes, those things are popular in many locations (buses, trains, shopping centres) because they deter crime and they help bring criminals to justice. I think one can be against the use of DNA testing and for the use of CCTV cameras. I am.

Jeffrey, you sound like a muslim fundamentalist.

Yeah, right. Belmarsh? Gitmo? We're talking the real world here, not some fantasy made-up place where the people in charge actually give a heartfelt shit about the people they rule.

I'm genuinely curious how you arrive at this point of view. What countries other than the USA have you spent time in? Of those countries, what percentage of that time was spent mixing with the natives and emersing yourself in the local culture?

Did he convert or something?

with all the non chipped guns around it wouldn't prevent much crime IMHO.

Sorry to be boring and unconfrontational, but i agree with that 100%. Your approach sounds very sensible. Here's an extreme example of how kids get mixed messages from spanking - I've witnessed this many times: 1. Child hits other child or sibling or parent. 2. Parent tells child not to hit. 3. Parent reinforces message by smacking child. I don't know what kind of message the parent thinks they are sending here, but it is not the same one the kid is receiving.

Actually, what I said was: But you can twist it and exaggerate it in an attempt to make it sound stupid if that's what turns you on.

I'm surprised you can feel so strongly this is the case when the available data suggests otherwise. What is your opinion based on?

Spanking a child and grabbing them to prevent them being hit by a car are two different things altogether. I was not suggesting the parent thinks that. I was referring to what the child learns from the spanking experience. They don't only associate spanking with the bad behaviour, they learn other things from the situation. Such as? I like the sound of that. A guy I work with gets his kids (3 of them) to behave on long journeys by opening up a bag of chocolates, telling them they get to share whatevers left at the end of the journey and then tossing one out the window every time they start fighting. He says the look of horror on their face as a chocolate leaves the vehicle is priceless.

Of course you are right. But we're talking about training small kids here and all of that is probably a little too complicated for them to take aboard and understand. They need simplicity and consistency at the early stages. Black and white stuff. Really basic concepts. "You're either with us or against us", that kind of thing.

I think spanking, or smacking people on the arse or legs with the flat of your hand is hitting them whatever you choose to call it. It's even simpler than that. The spanking carries more than one message no matter how cool, calm and collected the parent is when administering it. The first message is "If you behave like that you will revceive pain". The second message is "I can inflict pain on you when you do something I consider bad, because I'm bigger than you and I am in charge here". I don't doubt that in the immediate term the spanking usually gets the child to modify its behaviour, no one here is disputing that fact. But there are significant studies that show links between being spanked as a kid and displaying agressive and violent behaviour as an adult. Its a personal choice. I choose to not spank because I don't want to take the chance my offspring will learn that hitting people is a good way to get what they want. Plus, I simply don't need to use pain administration when there is such an abundance of non-violent training methods available to me.

I don't dispute that spanking a child disuades it from repeating the behaviour that earned the punishment. It's clear that more often than not, that does work. But it still sends the message that hitting is ok. Which it isn't. If it is ok to hit your kids, why is it not ok for kids to hit other kids and why is it illegal to hit other adults your own age. It doesn't make sense to adults, let alone children. Children who hit other children tend to be on the receiving end of physical abuse themselves. When you see little kids hitting their friends or their parents, more often than not their parents hit them too. Like other people here have said, there are plenty of other options open to parents if they care to investigate.

That is a very dumb argument. If you have more children than me, does it make your opinion carry more weight than mine? What if I'm a child psychologist with no kids of my own, which of us understand this topic better then?

Hitting your children sends them the message that it's ok to hit people. For that reason alone it is better to use alternative punishments.

It's amazing that even though it'll end up costing 7k per Americans and that it has cost thousands of American lives and that it has cost hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives and that there weren't any WMD and that there was no link between SH and AQ and that SH wasn't a threat even to his immediate neigbours and that the world is a more dangerous place now than it was then and that the USA has lost credibility and respect in the eyes of the world Bush and his buddies and supporters still claim that it was a good idea.

I still can't see what Clinton has to do with Bush and his administration misleading the American people about the threat that SH posed to the USA and the rest of the world.

You are just playing with words. Do you deny that both the US and UK governments led their citizens to believe that they were threatened by SH and his WMD?