Archanfel

The alternative was right here several decades ago and is still there in some societies, it's just hidden from us by political correctness. Whether the alternative is better is hard to say since what's better for one person might be worse for another. The very action of defining a greater good places society before individuals. Worse yet, none of us are qualified to define what's better. Take education for example, how many people here has a PHD degree in education? How many of the opinions are based on cold scientific researches rather than emotions? However we have the power to define "better" because we got a vote, yet we don't suffer the consequences of such power individually.

The goal is not to lead to the best system since there's no such thing, but to have a system that would adapt and survive. One example would be the dinosaurs. Some of them were at the top of the evolution chain with perfect specialization for the environment. Yet when the environment suddenly changed, they faded away whereas more adaptive species survived. Democracy was never supposed to be the best system either. It can never compete with a wise dictatorship. However, it was suppose to be adaptive through minimum limitation of personal liberty. Unfortunately, liberalism changed and democracy cares far more about political correctness than liberty. Humans are not rational beings, we are very good at learning rather than thinking. We didn't decide what "good" is, we were told what "good" is. Otherwise, religions would never have taken off. How many people scientifically thought about why a particular policy is good or bad? Almost nobody. We were taught a moral code by our parents, our teacher, books, religious figures, pop stars, newspapers, scientists and politicians, and such code dictates our choices. Internet made this even worse as everybody "learns" rather than "thinks". And that's assuming our democracy is perfect rather than being hijacked by some special interests groups, which is a big IF.

Social media is far from free. In fact, I'd say social media is part of the reason political parties becomes ever more radical. The goal of social media is to draw attention, either for ego or for monetary gains. Radical views tend to invoke strong reactions from both supporters and opponents, thus draw more popularity. Social media also allows more ordinary people who are easily manipulated into political arena. Both tea party and 99% are the products of more grass root participation, which unfortunately has not been a good thing.

Then either they were right or their offspring would have less chance of surviving, thus eliminate the gene/culture associated with such behaviour. The problem with public good is that there's no clear and static definition of "good". Science and society change everyday, so is the definition of "good".

Who cares? Why should the government decide what's good and what's not? Schools should implement their own curriculum. You want to teach the earth is flat? Your choice. And if they are not good, parents just wouldn't send their kids to that school.

Newspapers are businesses, they write (or hire the right person to write) what sells. Nothing more, nothing less.

The problem is that politicians are professional liars (except maybe Rob Ford who is not so professional), but journalists are not. It will be a very sad day when journalists sink to the level of politicians. Reading the Toronto Star and the Toronto Sun, I can't help but feel that they each have an agenda that is unrelated to journalism. I undertand journalists have their ideology and biases. I do too. However, I do try to acknoledge both sides of the arguments and not base my judgements on ideologies, but on facts. Apparently, not doing a very good job, but at least I am trying. I don't think it's too much to ask for journalists to show some professionalism and stop the partisanship.

What?! Terrible idea. I doubt they will even break even from the lost of ridership.

Is Petrujkic or Rob Ford more credible than the Star? Rob Ford does not have a very good track record. ps. I love your interests on housework avoidance, had to chuckle.

I wonder where did people get the idea that Rob Ford smokes crack then. I don't think the Star is so naive that they didn't think people would draw their own conclusions based on their reports. They covered themselves legally by avoiding saying Rob Ford smokes crack, but that's essentially what they are saying. I am not saying the Star is lying. I believe them on Rob Ford's drug habit. However, I have to agree with Rue that the Star did covered themselves by avoid saying the exact words. I disagree with him, however, that it's "cowardly and irresponsible". That's standard business practice. Nothing wrong with it.

Not necessarily. For Toronto at least, very few people can afford houses right on subway lines, so it's more like 1 hour across several buses. In fact, very few people can afford houses in Toronto period, so one has to be pay both TTC and regional transit. It's both slower and more expensive than driving (not counting insurance and maintenance). Another issue is once someone drove a car, he/she has to be continuously insured to get a good rate. That stopped a lot of people from getting rid of their cars even if they don't have to use it all that much. I still think it's best that TTC provides free parking to drivers at Finch station and other terminals. Go already does that. Another thing I like about the YRT is that you can use a ticket for two hours rather than having to use two tickets for a return trip to a supermarket.

If Mr. Li was mentally ill, I would think both of them are victims in a tragic event.

Well, I am going to respond anyway. First of all, thank you for the post and I do apologize. I should have qualified the "ignorant tag". I thought it was clearly qualified given the context of the discussion, I guess I was wrong. However, I do wish you wrote this post in the first place instead of your previous terse responses. I think I was confused by your usage of the word "average" since average is meaningless here unless you have a large enough deployment. We are talking about Ontario, which does have a limited deployment. Now that you have clarify the context of your argument, I agree with you that more widely used wind power can alleviate the problem somewhat. However, the frequency of wind power "outages" can not be equaled to other types of power plants. No power plants have a failure rate that cause the power level to flunctuate wildly every day. Also, as I pointed out, nuclear stations, which are widely used in Ontario, are not suitable as backup for wind power. Even with wide deployment, you still have to consider the cost of power transmission over wide areas. Therefore, within the context of Ontario power generation, I still maintain that wind power has severe disadvantages at this point. Do you agree? Within the context of Germany, well, we are not in Germany, nor do we pay German taxes.

Looks like we are all in agreement already.

Ok, thank you for correcting me. I am glad we agree on any future incidents though. A further point though, do you think that would limit Mr. Li's right unfairly? If they have to be responsible for Mr. Li's future actions, the doctors might never release him just to be safe regardless his mental conditions. Do you think that's a reasonable tradeoff for public safety?

I am fine with it if the company stand behind that statement (with no fine prints). I wouldn't write that if I was the company. It brings no benefits since most consumers wouldn't understand it and it put the company in a legally binding position. In fact, it's likely the consumers will not understand that sentence and be scared off.

Yes, so far. Is it really up to them? If so, you wouldn't mind holding them responsible if Mr. Li did have the opportunity to kill again, right? Why do you think Mr. Li had the opportunity to kill the first time? Wasn't it up to his doctors to make sure he didn't have the opportunity to kill? The trial for Mr. Li is over, the trial for those doctors never happened.

Never mind. My mistake.

How did they try? And more importantly, since when did they start to try? Let's say I drove a car at 200km/hr raising towards a red light, and within 10m of the light, I slamed on the brake and tried my best to stop the car. Would you say I have tried very hard to not run the red light? You really don't need to try very hard to earn a living in this country, IF you start early enough. I understand things can happen in life and there are always personal circumstances. However, it's hard to say they are totally blameless in most cases. Food bank is really not the solution. On one hard, people need to be made to take responsibilties for their actions. On the other hand, society needs to give people a helping hand if they really do want to try a different life.

Not sure what you meant by "being hard-boiled pricks about it.". However, what if the ongoing treatment and assessment failed and Mr Li. commited a crime again, who should be responsible for that? Note that Mr. Li was under treatment and assessment before he commited crime in the first place, they apparently failed for some reason yet nobody took responsibility. How would we know that the current treatments and assessments are any better if nobody is going to be responsible for a second failure?

Did I say anything about schizophrenia? I don't know why Li thought he was defending himeself and others. In fact, I don't know why anybody would believe in a superium being. I am wondering whether that matters. If Li did what he did because he lost the ability to reason, then it doesn't matter what he believed in. He could have believed in the victim was his son, but his thought process can still lead to murder. If Li didn't lose his ability to reason, then it doesn't matter what he believed in either as long as it's in his thought process that he can't kill for whatever reason. Even if God told him to do thing, he should have known better than carrying it out. Therefore, what Li believed in should have absolutely no bearing on the issue. The question is whether he could reason or not. If Li could reason, then he should be responsible for his action no matter what he believed in, but he also should have the power to direct his own action. If Li couldn't reason, then he should not be responsible for his action no matter what he believed in, but he also should lose the power to direct his own action. Would you agree?

I am confused, why is it a "savvy investment"? What's the rate of return? What are the alpha and the beta? What's the MER? Exactly what did the author base his conclusions on?

Does it really matter? Can some guy shoot his daughter's boyfriend because he believed he was protecting her? Other than immediate self defense, only the police has the power to protect the public. I also find it's funny that the author concluded "In this, Li is almost certainly telling the exact truth" despite not being a doctor himself. What did he base his conclusion on? Li could very well be lying. Therefore, it's not a look into the "mind" since we haven't invented mind reading yet. It's more like a look into what Li and his doctors said.

But is it his crime if he is not criminally responsible? I ask you the same question as I asked eyeball. If somebody released a tiger in downtown Toronto and people got hurt, should we blame the tiger or should we blame the person who released it?

I am curious, how do you propose that we avoid future incidents? You do have to acknowledge that some people will try to cheat the system using the insanity defense. That's why I like the Chinese system better where you have to have previous records of mental issues before the court consider the defense. It's not perfect, but it works to a certain extent. (Mind you, what they actually do in China is probably far from how the law is written) Having said that, in Mr. Li's case, I think he did have previous records, so I don't really believe he should bear criminal responsibility. The question then becomes who should bear the responsibilities. If somebody let a tiger loose in downtown Toronto and people get hurt. The tiger certainly shouldn't bear any responsibility, but don't you think the owner should bear responsibility? If so, how is that different from a doctor who let a dangerous patient loose? Did Li's previous doctor misdiagnose? What about today? Let's say Mr Li was released and killed somebody else, should the doctor who released him bear responsibilities? Mind you, even if you agree with me, I don't know whether it's feasible. Doctors would simply stop release patients just to be safe, which is not good either. So I am curious what would you do.