JohnB

Essay, I'm officially fucking bored. I'm sick and tired of quoting peer reviewed literature only to be answered with fucking blog crap. I'm also tired of being constantly misrepresented.

And now for the very hard truth. The climate changes over time, it always has and always will. This will mean some areas become less attractive and others will become more attractive. The insurance companies exist to make money and will use any excuse to pump up the premiums. This is the adult world. Deal with it. Understand that if we could magically stop emitting CO2 and magically reduce the amount in the atmosphere to pre industrial levels tomorrow, the climate would still change. Housing prices and insurance would still vary. And welcome to the forum.

Are you freaking mentally deficient? Seriously? I've been arguing that there must be something suspect in the figures for a number of posts and every responder has disagreed with me. How can you in the name of freaking sanity ask that question? If you don't think the bloody figures for the USA are correct, then why in the name of Thor are you arguing? Jesus wept.

Sorry Cap, I wasn't out to dismiss or even argue the points. I was making an observation concerning another factor that needs to be added to the equation. People are not cut and dried and so move according to many factors, a major one being belief. (Although now you know how I feel a lot of the time. ) People who are confident in their intelligence and knowledge are quite unlikely to change their stance even when shown to be wrong. To admit to being wrong if to admit to being inferior and many people just can't do that. Intelligent people are also more easily fooled because they have confidence in their abilities, but mostly because they believe that only silly people get conned and since they are smarter than most of the population they are not silly and therefore cannot get conned. Most especially they believe they are smarter than the conman involved, and that is their downfall. On the political front, Democrat supporters believe themselves to generally be intelligent and educated and therefore "wise", they also believe their opponents to be uneducated and unintelligent, possibly even a majority are young earth creationists. People such as these cannot possibly have anything intelligent to say or a decent idea to add to the conversation as they are obviously far too dumb to think beyond their 2,000 year old book. Given that as an opening mindset, why would a Democrat even bother listening to what the inferior Republican has to say? More to the point, how could any argument sway him? To do so would be to admit that the "always wrong" right, might actually be correct on something which leaves the door to being open to them being right on a number of things. And this cannot be so, for the superior must be correct always.... The above point isn't so much about left and right as it is about the inevitable result of acute partisanship. If you cannot admit fault on your own side, why do you demand that those opposed admit fault on theirs? Even the Alvin Green thing in SC was blamed on the Republicans and they had nothing to do with it yet the only left of centre commentator who spoke out runs a comedy show. It's pretty sad when your best political reporter is a comedian. Where did Maddox (for example) question the Democrat Senator that said the situation had "Elephant dung all over it" and call him out on such stupidity. How about Hank Johnsons fear that the isalnd of guam would "tip over and capsize"? Is it only those on the right that think he is an idiot? Partisanship means that you will sacrifice "Truth" on the altar of "Political Solidarity", but once you sacrifice the truth, do you really have anything left? What is even sadder is that I've seen Stewart interviewed on real news and current affairs shows and they treat him like a newsman, especially the left leaning cannot tell the difference between the Daily Show and a real news show, a point that Stewart himself keeps making. The first part is incorrect though, indoctrination can be quite subtle and based on an ideology rather than a person. The second part is certainly true for the harder sciences, but do students in the humanities and other soft sciences pass if they disagree with what the professor says? iNow, I'm not sure the figures do show this. They show that the States with the most University graduates tend to vote Democrat. I don't know about US Unis, but in ours the hard sciences are losing out to the soft ones. Physics, Chemistry and Engineering are losing out to Humanites that produce people with PhDs in medieval folk dancing. The vast majority of social worker types are in government jobs, as are many lawyers and many from a lot of other departments. All those who do not have qualifications of value to the private business world would vote for the party that will keep them in a job, the Democrats. I'm not saying that this is the case, but I think it is very likely that the truth is far more nuanced than the raw figures would seem.

And again the main question is sidestepped. Ringer, even if what you say is true then it would apply to all or most developed nations and so the rate for electoral fraud would be similar in all nations. The point here is that it is not. The question is "Why?". Either there is a reason or the figures are suspect. People keep saying the figures must be right, but cannot supply any sort of logical reason in explanation. This isn't about whether electoral fraud is less common in the US compaered to murder, nor is it about comparing apples to oranges. It is comparing the rates for various crimes across international boundaries. The murder rates across boundaries are similar, as are the rates for rape and robbery. You are about as likely to be the victim of a crime in the USA as in any other developed nation. Yet supposedly when we compare the electoral fraud figures Americans are hundreds of times less likely to commit this crime. Really? Why? Other nations have laws against it and fines and imprisonment for committing the crime, so what makes the USA special for this one crime only? It takes just as much forward planning to commit electoral fraud in Australia, some would say more since we have an independent body looking after elections. I'll try putting it another way since it appears that people are constantly missing my point. While I tend to dislike two value logic it does work in this case. The figures are either right or wrong. Given that american rates for all other crimes are roughly in step with the rest of the planet then the expectation would be that rates of electoral fraud would follow the same pattern and also be in step with the rest of the planet. This is not the case. So we have a choice, either the figures are right and therefore America is somehow different and special in that they will commit all forms of crime at the same rate as everyone else on the planet except electoral fraud and there is a good and sufficient reason for this discrepancy. Or the figures are wrong. So far nobody has even come close to providing a decent reason for the discrepancy. All the "reasons" given either apply to virtually all developed nations or apply to many crimes. I'm willing to bet that a drug cartel does way more forward organising and planning to get their stuff in from Columbia than a political party would need to do to fake some votes.

Unfortunately Cap, it has been my experience that they are often the easiest to fool too.

And quite misses the point I'm making. akh, people do things for "the cause", and they do terrible things. It wasn't that long ago that white hoods and burning crosses were seen in the US, are you suggesting that a population containing people who would lynch a n***** wouldn't do voter fraud? The point is that it is out of step by such a margin that a really good explanation is needed. Using the UNDOC figures, (scroll down for the by nation/per 100,000) you find Australia for homicides is 1 and America is 4.2. On a purely statistical basis I am 4 times as likely to be murdered in the USA than here. akh, if you really want the stats, then go here. (I hope the link works) The point is that America scores middling to high on every single major crime when compared to the ROW yet you claim it scores orders of magnitude lower than the ROW on voter fraud. You can't provide a sensible reason for this beyond some vague hand waving about penalties. On any sane planet there would be only two options, either the figures are real and there is a good and logical reason for them or the figures are suspect. I'm suggesting that you have a serious under reporting problem going on. But the rest of us poor plebs would really like to know the secret. Why will Americans murder, rape and rob far more often per 100,000 population than most of the developed world but are supposed to be 100s of times less likely to commit voter fraud? The closest analogy I can think of would be for the Governors of the various States to have a meeting to compare crime figures and they all roughly match until we get to car theft and while 49 States report 100 thefts per 100,000 cars Arizona reports 1 per 100,000. Wouldn't it be reasonable to either question the figures or ask what the reason for the discrepancy is? And the reason I keep saying "roughly" similar is that while the US murder rates is 4 times ours, the practical difference is nothing. 1 in 100,000 or 1 in 25,000, neither are worth worrying over. Edit: I forgot the link to the UNDOC figures.

And my Dining room one has blown again....

iNow, does that prove that better educated people lean to the left or that Universities are indoctrination areas for left wing thinking? I'm not arguing either way, but I'll bet a case can be made for the second.... ydoaps, the onlt problem I have with your answer, and it is quite possibly due to the differences in our systems is that you are essentially saying that when the Democrats control both Houses and the Presidency but fail to pass their Bills, it is the Republicans fault. So when the Republicans hold both Houses and the Presidency and fail to pass their Bills, whose fault is it? On a much lighter note (and to appease the Hurricane Gods);

Then you assume wrong. It also goes to show that you know so little about my nation that you need an education before commenting on it. If you, a Brit thinks that Australia is just Aboriginals and convicts, then you are a maroon. How about addressing my points rather than making offensive personal comments? Or is it that you can't and personal insults are the only weapons in the locker? Nor did I say at any point I was against immigration from anywhere, a nice little strawman there but utterly silly and useless in the conversation. How about the "Left" down here not supporting policies that have directly led to the deaths of over 1,000 people? Or is it that this number of dead is a tiny thing in the "Big Picture"? I don't want an end to immigration, I want an end to policies that encourage illegal immigrants to pay people smugglers $10,000 a head to try the trip in leaky boats. The death toll is way too high. We had an answer that worked, the numbers say so. We changed that because of left ideology and not any reasonable reason and people are dying. Funny how the left was very vocally against the Vietnam war, which killed 521 Aussies in 13 years, but actually defend a policy that has possibly 3 times as many people in less than half the time. I wonder if it's because those dying aren't white? Hypocrisy stinks.

Got it. The figures are right and America has the bestest and truest system in the world. Americans will kill, rape and pillage at the same rates as the rest of the world but won't cheat at election time. This is because cheating in an election is just so much more wrong than murder, rape and importing illegal drugs from South America. The wider point that you avoided is that the stats for fraud are so far out of line compared to other crime stats that there must be a problem. Other crimes have similar rates across the developed world, why is this one different? Please divulge the secret Oh Great Ones as to why the American populace are just likely to kill, steal or rape (per 100,000 population and within a few percentage points) but are orders of magnitude less likely to cheat on a vote. The data diverges and this makes me suspect the data, if you don't agree then what is the reason for the divergence? It's that simple.

Well that touched a nerve, I wonder why? Rather than a correlation, I based my comment on a lack of correlation. Those putting forward the idea of this extremely low rate have to explain why it is an outlier. Your argument is essentially that Americans will defraud, steal, rape, murder and assault at similar rates to the rest of the First world but won't cheat on elections. I'd like some sort of explanation as to why this is. If out of 50 States you had one that tracked with all the others on all figures but car theft was orders of magnitude lower, wouldn't you question as to why this is? Either there is a good and sufficient reason for the discrepancy, or the figures are suspect. I perhaps should have phrased it better and more completely. akh, I should have said "convicted", there were, by the report I read over 1,000 investigations. Some hundreds admitted to the fraud and were given summary fines, other cases were dismissed and others went to court. As to the idea that a larger population makes it less worthwhile to cheat, this is simply wrong. The question is not how many people are in the electorate, but by how many votes is it won. That is the vital point that people forget. TBH, every tme you blokes have an election I'm profoundly grateful for our Australian Electoral Commission, which is totally independent and looks after these things. They check the rolld and issue the voter cardss and they check them at the polling booth. They do everything and the only thing a political party representative is allowed to do is watch the count after polls close. You may watch, you may point out "spoiled" ballots, but your hands must never cross over the top of the table or you will be thrown out. Cheating is made harder by each party aving a scrutineer at every polling booth. 3 or 4 people around a table and the only person trusted is the AEC vote counter. It's hard to slip in some extras if you are being watched closely. And I wouldn't be too concerned about the different IDs thing. Our aussie passport is viewed as the ultimate proof of identity in every nation except ours, you can't even open a bank account with only a passport for ID. But having the passport means that you can get a photo ID drivers licence and that plus the passport is fine. Government rules, not making sense since they were invented.

Phi, I wouldn't be so sure. We prosecuted about 80 people at the last Federal election with some 14 million voters and the US is claiming about 90 prosecutions for 300 million votes. Either Americans are unusually and almost unbelievably honest, or someone is fudging the numbers.

No offence, but I doubt it. He had the lower House numbers for the first two years of his first term and didn't seem to do much with them. (But that could be a wrong impression from far away.)

Firstly I doubt that the OP poster has the foggiest about Nauru. While the nation does have a small police force, the guards at the new detention centre are quite numerous. Add to that, we are spending some $150 million on new facilities on the island and won't want to lose them. This means that if someone wanted to take over, "The Regiment" would be having a word with them. I can assure those interested that the conversation would be very short and extremely painful. Until we can dump our "progressive" government, we need Nauru, and after we dump them we will use the facilities until they are no longer needed. It's not big, bad Oz pushing a little nation around either, we pay very good money for them to have the centres. The icing on the cake is that when the detention centre in Nauru was run by that nasty, racist, exploitive, conservative government the Nauruans were paid some $400 per week, but under the new, caring plan by the compassionate progressives they will be paid $4 per hour, or less than half the old rate. http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/immigration/locals-paid-4-an-hour-at-nauruan-detention-centre/story-fn9hm1gu-1226505683189 If I sound p*ssed by all this, I am. The policies of those incompetents in Canberra, the policies demanded by all the moronic, non thinking, touchy, feely left wingers have directly resulted in more deaths than any other policy by any other non wartime government in my nations history. Even the government now admits that it is probable that more than 1,000 asylum seekers have drowned while attempting the crossing to Australia. I say this to every Australian here who voted for Rudd to get rid of the "Pacific Solution" then the blood is on your hands too. You wanted the policies and you got what you wanted. I hope you're proud of yourselves because you make me sick, I've yet to meet a single one with the moral fibre and backbone, even the basic human humility to admit that they were wrong and be sorry about it. And if any want to doubt what I say, then look at the official government figures of boat arrivals; 2001 43 5516 2002 1 1 2003 1 53 2004 1 15 2005 4 11 2006 6 60 2007 5 148 2008 7 161 Year Number of boats Crew Number of people (excludes crew) 2009 60 141 2726 2010 134 345 6555 2011 69 168 4565 2012 (to 9.7.12) 75 138 5459 The Pacific solution was begun in 2001 ans we saw the boats go from 43 to 1 and illegal immigrants from 5,516 to 1 in 2002. Rudd was elected in 2007 and changed the policy during 2008, just as all the little lefty luvvies wanted and by 2009 we had 60 boats with 2,726 people on board. Note the 2012 figure is Australian dating and is current as of the 9th of July 2012. It is estimated that 1 in 10 have drowned so the figures are only 90% of those who tried the crossing. /rant