This is going to be a very VERY short blog posting, but I would like to ask a quick question.
Firstly, i'm not a person who complains about politics a lot. Ohhhh! I'll talk about why in a blog soon and get some opinions about that.
Anyways, not into politics, but I'm really dissapointed in how Canada budgeted the G8 Summit costs. In a news article I read:
News agency Ria Novosti notes that the 2009 U.S. G20 summit cost US$18 million, while Canada's pricetag for the meetings was well over $1.1 billion.
"Thus Canada will spend 51 times more than the US did just a year ago to protect G8 leaders from Canadians," the agency writes.
So my questions... why? Why did our government feel the need to spend this kind of money. Why did we decide that we needed to spend well over a Billion dollars more than the states did just last year? Do you not realize what you could have done with that money? How many lives you could have saved, hungry mouths you could have fed, scholarships you could have set up? The economic stimulus you could have created with that money, hell even put it into Canada's small but decent space program, scientific research.
Question for people that read this. Why? Does anyone have the SLIGHTEST idea why we wasted an extra billion dollars on something the states was able to do with 1/51 less money?
Sunday, June 27, 2010
Friday, June 25, 2010
So a swiss man walks into a train station...
http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/TopStories/20100625/singapore-caning-sentence-100625/
Thanks Oliver Fricker for the story, I'm now going to ridicule you.
So a swiss man walks into a train station... sounds like the beginning of a bad joke, and in part it kind of is. This man goes to Singapore with a friend and proceeds to vandalise a subway car. Here are a few snippets from the news article I need to post before proceeding.
"Singapore sentenced a Swiss man to three strokes of a cane and five months in prison..."
"...reinforcing the city-state's reputation for severely punishing minor crimes. "
"He feels the sentence is too high, and so do I," Kang told reporters."
Ok so my big problem with this situation is this. We have a guy that goes to a country. He either did 1 of 2 REALLY stupid things. He didn't check to see what the punishment for breaking a law like this is before performing the crime, OR he knew that Singapore is extremely hard on crime and decided to do it anyways.
Now my assumption in this situation is that we're dealing with the latter portion of this. He knew the country was hard of criminals, and just thought he'd ninja-grafiti a subway car and not get caught. But since he did, now he's whining that the laws are too strict and wants leniency.
No. This is ridiculous. First of all, you committed a crime, something which you knew was a crime, as I'm pretty sure there's no where on the planet that this would actually be legal. Second of all you did it in a country that's know for it's strict penaties on crime. Not only known for being strict, they're also knows for flipping other countries the bird when they ask them to play nice.
Singapore is it's own country, with it's own political system, and it's own set of laws. We should either respect how they handle affairs within their country, or dont visit. Another fairly obvious option would be if you dont want to get in trouble, dont break the law.
In closing, I completely agree with the punishment, those are their laws. The country worked hard to get where they are, so if you go and visit them, show them the respect they deserve.
Thanks Oliver Fricker for the story, I'm now going to ridicule you.
So a swiss man walks into a train station... sounds like the beginning of a bad joke, and in part it kind of is. This man goes to Singapore with a friend and proceeds to vandalise a subway car. Here are a few snippets from the news article I need to post before proceeding.
"Singapore sentenced a Swiss man to three strokes of a cane and five months in prison..."
"...reinforcing the city-state's reputation for severely punishing minor crimes. "
"He feels the sentence is too high, and so do I," Kang told reporters."
Ok so my big problem with this situation is this. We have a guy that goes to a country. He either did 1 of 2 REALLY stupid things. He didn't check to see what the punishment for breaking a law like this is before performing the crime, OR he knew that Singapore is extremely hard on crime and decided to do it anyways.
Now my assumption in this situation is that we're dealing with the latter portion of this. He knew the country was hard of criminals, and just thought he'd ninja-grafiti a subway car and not get caught. But since he did, now he's whining that the laws are too strict and wants leniency.
No. This is ridiculous. First of all, you committed a crime, something which you knew was a crime, as I'm pretty sure there's no where on the planet that this would actually be legal. Second of all you did it in a country that's know for it's strict penaties on crime. Not only known for being strict, they're also knows for flipping other countries the bird when they ask them to play nice.
Singapore is it's own country, with it's own political system, and it's own set of laws. We should either respect how they handle affairs within their country, or dont visit. Another fairly obvious option would be if you dont want to get in trouble, dont break the law.
In closing, I completely agree with the punishment, those are their laws. The country worked hard to get where they are, so if you go and visit them, show them the respect they deserve.
Saturday, June 19, 2010
What does law and punishment even mean?
Hi, I'm *insert criminal name here*. I have committed a crime. The court system has declared me guilty of, lets say assault. They have deemed that an appropriate punishment for this crime is 8 months in prison, community service. During my incarceration I have been told I need to take anger management classes to control my violent tendencies and see a counselor.
6 months later I have been released on good behavior. The counselor says I am able to control myself better now. I am a model citizen, caring, responsible. Yet there are still people who believe I am a bad person, deserving to stay in prison, rot, or maybe even die.
The Justice system has been designed so that a certain punishment fits a certain crime. If I speed I get a ticket. If I punch you in the nose, I get an assault charge and community service. If I sell drugs I go to jail for a year, rape or murder your friend I go to jail for life. So why when people are done their terms do people still think poorly of them? How can you tell the difference between the good and the bad?
Karla Homolka. Oh Noes!! Kris is going to say something horrible now!!!
Ok so Karla Homolka did a lot of horrible things... no one denies this. Did she deserve the death penalty for it? I don't know enough about what happened to say either way, but she probably did. But I do have a problem with what the government is doing about her right now.
The government, by proxy of a judge, sentenced this woman to a punishment that "fit the crime"... atleast that's the idea behind the whole system right? So when she tried to get a pardon why does the government freak out? Because the public wants it? So if the government didn't believe her punishment was enough, why did they let her out?
Now please don't confuse this statement with me saying I believe she should be let off and allowed to do as she pleases. But really, why shouldn't she? She was in jail for the amount of time the government said was an appropriate punishment for her crime. This doesn't just go for her, it goes for every criminal that has this happen to them. If you're going to give these people special "fuck you" privileges, maybe the system doesn't work. Maybe you fucked up in the first place and you didn't give these criminals the appropriate punishment, not enough jail time, etc etc etc.
So my question to all the people that read my blog is this. What's wrong with this picture?
Are we not penalizing criminals enough?
Are we not rehabilitating them enough?
Are we being too hard of them?
And finally... what's more broken? The Criminals we incarcerate, the Justice system that can't seem to get it right, or Society for not seeing any of this for its truth?
6 months later I have been released on good behavior. The counselor says I am able to control myself better now. I am a model citizen, caring, responsible. Yet there are still people who believe I am a bad person, deserving to stay in prison, rot, or maybe even die.
The Justice system has been designed so that a certain punishment fits a certain crime. If I speed I get a ticket. If I punch you in the nose, I get an assault charge and community service. If I sell drugs I go to jail for a year, rape or murder your friend I go to jail for life. So why when people are done their terms do people still think poorly of them? How can you tell the difference between the good and the bad?
Karla Homolka. Oh Noes!! Kris is going to say something horrible now!!!
Ok so Karla Homolka did a lot of horrible things... no one denies this. Did she deserve the death penalty for it? I don't know enough about what happened to say either way, but she probably did. But I do have a problem with what the government is doing about her right now.
The government, by proxy of a judge, sentenced this woman to a punishment that "fit the crime"... atleast that's the idea behind the whole system right? So when she tried to get a pardon why does the government freak out? Because the public wants it? So if the government didn't believe her punishment was enough, why did they let her out?
Now please don't confuse this statement with me saying I believe she should be let off and allowed to do as she pleases. But really, why shouldn't she? She was in jail for the amount of time the government said was an appropriate punishment for her crime. This doesn't just go for her, it goes for every criminal that has this happen to them. If you're going to give these people special "fuck you" privileges, maybe the system doesn't work. Maybe you fucked up in the first place and you didn't give these criminals the appropriate punishment, not enough jail time, etc etc etc.
So my question to all the people that read my blog is this. What's wrong with this picture?
Are we not penalizing criminals enough?
Are we not rehabilitating them enough?
Are we being too hard of them?
And finally... what's more broken? The Criminals we incarcerate, the Justice system that can't seem to get it right, or Society for not seeing any of this for its truth?
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