Dannyboy-the-Dane
-
Posts
14942 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Events
Posts posted by Dannyboy-the-Dane
-
-
-
More info has recently come out about an innocent man put to death in (surprise, surprise) Texas.
Long version
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/09/07/090907fa_fact_grann?currentPage=1
Short version
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/01/opinion/01herbert.html?_r=1&em
TL;DR version:
Willingham, an unemployed twenty-three year old man in a small town in Texas, loses his home and his three infant daughters to a fire. Unscientific arson investigators decide Willingham burned down his house to kill his daughters so he can drink beer and play darts. Psychopathic psychiatrists say Willingham is a psycho without ever examining him. An ambitious prosecutor goes for the death sentence. Willingham's small-town lawyer is convinced of his client's guilt and never tries too hard. A mentally disturbed jailhouse snitch testifies against Willingham, cementing the case. Willingham is sentenced to death. All this happens in the early 90s.
In 2004, a few weeks before the execution, a leading expert on explosives examines the case's evidence and opines that the evidence is all bull. The people who handle clemency never read the expert's report on the Willingham case (or read and disregard it). On February 17, 2004, Willingham recieves a lethal injection and dies.
Stuff like this doesn't give me much hope for the legal system. Just proves that the death sentence is too dangerous to have.
-
Why do people scare away from mentioning these 'popular shops'!!! just give a name. Its a n-europe forum, not consumer watchdog dot com
Plus you do know what legal action involves? Money and time, lots and lots of time, it wouldn't be worth it for your own and your familys health. Plus they'll be able to produce a document in seconds stating that it is your responsibilty to clear the HDD(probably)
I see what you mean, but as soon as everybody takes that stand, the capitalist corporations have won. Just because they have money and power, it doesn't mean they should be allowed to get away with something like this.
-
No, you're assuming that theists follow their religion without considering the theological and historical implications that come with it. How do you prove Jesus existed? How do you prove history? You cannot prove history in a scientific sense, so does that mean we follow history blindly? Of course not. We follow sources. Catholics (of whose ranks I am hoping to join soon) believe the canonical gospel accounts to be legitimate sources of Jesus' life and existence. Those sources are the basis for the entire Catholic faith, and just because you cannot prove those sources in a scientific manner (ie you cannot conduct experiments), it doesn't mean Catholics follow their faith 'blindly'.
Only commenting on the history aspect, historical sources aren't just taken as fact. Their validity is analysed, and a number of sources are proved unlikely - or questionable at best. That's the job of historians.
-
I'm suspicious of you Dannyboy, your voting patterns seem extremely fishy. Voting No Lynch on Day One to make us all think you're a townie...hmm.
Vote: No Lynch
Shush!
-
There's double voters?
Anyway since everyone else is doing it I might as well vote: no lynch
Yup. A double voter's vote counts for two. A double voter is most often a "mayor" role or a "mafia don" role.
-
I think they thought it was a good idea and that somehow language development of your own native language and a foreign one was linked. Enough to have the groups made the same. As for not changing the groups once I stopped taking French... laziness I guess. I used to hate my school for the way my English went. I really started to get "into" English and started to enjoy it in GCSE, but got accused of stealing an original piece I wrote. Basically they thought that someone in such a low group couldn't write a interesting piece. Agh, anger...
I hate that kind of treatment. It pees me off. >:-/
-
And already we have a double voter who isn't me ...
Or Paj, for that matter ... it's either Cube, Ellmeister, or Raining.
But again, I think ReZ has had double voter townies before, so it really proves nothing.
-
I hope we won't get into that debate again.
Vote: No Lynch
Are there more townies than mafias?Yup, a lot more. At least in standard games. I think the ratio's usually somewhere around 1:4.
-
Pretty much the same as everyone here, I can easily survive on English but my french is pretty much just good at reading text and listening to others.
Then there´s Danish which in my opinion I´m quite decent at and knowing Danish means you pretty much know the basics of Norwegian and Swedish.
Also being a native speaker of Icelandic helps a lot with that too.
I dappled in German for a bit but I just couldn´t.
Also a pro-tip on those keen on Danish, the best way to speak is to show a potato down your throat.
The same can be used with German, except the potato must be burning hot.
A potato?
But you're right, the Scandinavian languages are very much alike. Most Danes can automatically understand a lot of Swedish and Norwegian.I'm terrible at languages... after 4 years of being taught French I could say "My name is Wesley" and that I lived in Sleaford... that was all. I think, and I'm not even joking, that I got 1/100 in the final test to see if you should take it as GCSE. There were a few problems with me learning French though.Firstly, I wasn't actually comfortable with my own native language... I struggled a lot until the age of about 14 when I suddenly seemed to be pretty good at it; but, more importantly, started to enjoy it.
The second problem came when I improved with English though. In my school your languages lessons were linked. So, if you were in top class for English you were in top class for French, etc. And being terrible at French I was also in a very low class for English; which made me hate French even more. This was especially the case when I finally started with GCSEs, thinking, "Finally, I'll be in a English class I deserve! No longer French will ruin me! Hurrah!" (or something like that). However, they decided not to change the grouping system... so although I scored higher in my English tests than half the class in the top set, I was still kept in the second from bottom set. Man... I hated my school for that.
Motherfuckers...
That's just ridiculous. What were the reasonings behind this grouping?
-
Yeah it has a lot to do with people´s mentality and reasons for breaking the law, I think the lowering crime rate is more subject to why they commit the crime not with what.
Also, since I heard about the botched gold robbery in Denmark I will never be able to take a Dane with a gun seriously
Ah, I'm not exactly sure what gold robbery you're referring to?
It's kinda off-topic, but I think the gun crime problem in the US is more to do with education and the class divide rather than just that there are more guns. Other countries in the world may have similar gun crime levels but a lower report rate. Gun crime covers robberies and rape as well as murder - things which the criminal is potentially likely to have done with a gun or not.My point is that it's not the guns that kill people (as we've all been sorta saying), it is culture and social oppression. So I guess my point is I sorta agree - it's a mental thing? Useless post this is, then!
Um, that post seems a little ... unfocused?
But yeah, the general point I get from it is that it's the mentality behind it. Which I agree with. I don't think the gun laws are the cause of the large amount of gun crimes, instead I think they're both results of the general mentality in the US. The very liberalistic and capitalistic mentality of many Americans have created great social divides and a culture more competitive and "hostile" by nature.But we're really derailing the thread here. If you wish to discuss it further, perhaps we should have the thread split into two?
-
Indeed, I believe that my frequent activity on here helps a lot in improving my English. Surfing the Internet improves my understanding of English, using it actively on a forum improves my ability to express myself in English.
I was actually having this talk with a friend of mine on my A levels English team. She reads a lot of books in English and can thus understand English very well, but she isn't on any forums or the like and thus doesn't use English very actively, so her ability to express herself in English is not nearly as good.
-
The problem is that when you have a person already illegally breaking into your home I doubt he´s gonna draw the line for breaking the law at owning illegal weapons.
Still, it's interesting to see how gun violence is much worse in the USA than many other places. I'm not saying this is strictly because of the Second Amendment, but both points are expressions of a completely different mentality when it comes to guns. Guns are simply much more common and everyday over there, and so it's natural that more people own them and more criminals carry them. I think a lot of smaller criminals in for example Denmark would never dream of carrying a gun, even during the crime, as it's simply something very alien to most Danes.
This also means, unfortunately, that simply changing the gun laws in the US won't solve the problems, as it won't change the mentality.
-
bit like the matrix durrrrrrrrrrrrr hurr
(actually I love the matrix)
But The Matrix actually has quality.
I know they're sometimes overrated. But that doesn't stop me loving them.
-
Gaius Vallerius Catullus: Lesbia's Sparrow
All you Loves and Cupids cry
and all you men of feeling
my girl’s sparrow is dead,
my girl’s beloved sparrow.
She loved him more than herself.
He was sweeter than honey, and he
knew her, as she knows her mother.
He never flew out of her lap,
but, hopping about here and there,
just chirped to his lady, alone.
Now he is flying the dark
no one ever returns from.
Evil to you, evil Shades
of Orcus, destroyers of beauty.
You have stolen the beautiful sparrow from me.
Oh sad day! Oh poor little sparrow!
Because of you my sweet girl’s eyes
are red with weeping, and swollen.
Sweet and romantic, isn't it? The sparrow symbolising his unrequited love for his dear Lesbia.
Except the sparrow isn't a symbol of his love. It's a symbol of his friggin' penis. The point of the poem? He's gone impotent. But try reading some of those lines again with that symbolism in mente. That's hardcore porn material right there.
-
I wanted to do it quite a few years back, as a friend was going to give it a try. The only thing that stopped us was that we were told you had to be at least 21 in order to do it. So, sadly, we never did it.
I've also missed the boat again as now I am not single anymore. Maybe you could attach a camera to your face when you do it, Danny, so I can see what it's all about.
Relevant question: How long do you get with each person? Because I think I need some time to explain the camera strapped to my face.
Also, I'm still only 18, so it's gonna have to wait.
-
Quo vadis?
Ad lunam!!
-
I want to try speed dating simply for the heck of it. The concept sounds like it could be fun just to try.
-
I dunno what to say. It's simply ridiculous. I've never been able to quite work out the exact definition of art, but I know that much so-called art today is overrated and often simply shit with a famous name.
-
Thats what she said.
Trust me, ReZ, I was aware of the inevitability of that pun as soon as the words first formed in my head. I just couldn't be bothered to try to avoid it.
-
Actually a Dutch guy in Nagasaki did tell me that he found it hard to understand me because I spoke "proper" English whereas he was more used to strongly dialectual. Do you have similar things, hearing different accents and such?
Well, I'd certainly say that standard English is much easier to understand than heavily dialectual English for me. I'm not entirely sure what you mean by your question?
Reading this thread had made me sad i don't know another language. and I reaallyy want to learn one now.It's also made me miss my Latin lessons.
Although I failed it terribly, I did find it really interesting, albeit hard :/
Looking at the literature was good too; although I don't think i'll ever be able to get Catullus out of my head. Those romans could be romantic (and dirty) when they wanted to <3
Ah, yes, Catullus. I remember his Passer poem was one of the first original Latin texts we read. Boy, did we not believe the interpretation when we heard it!
-
There's definitely going to be a difference, but it is pretty cool listening to other people and hearing them switching between two different languages with relative ease. I haven't reached that level of understanding with a language yet where I can flitter between them. It makes me wonder if I even can.
Heh, I often think in English simply out of habit.
I also often use expressions from English when speaking Danish and the other way around because I cannot find a satisfying equivalent in the language in question.It's funny, we're talking about dialects in my English class at the moment, and I have come to the conclusion that my English is a lovely hybrid of British and American English. That's what you get when you're heavily influenced by both dialects on a daily basis.
-
I will forever associate your name with Phoebe from Friends. But that is not a bad thing.
Welcome to the forums!
I can see from your replies that you'll fit in nicely. -
Still, I find languages interesting. Particularly when you start exploring languages that originate from Latin and the "oh, that's logical!" realisation of certain words.
This. This is what sparked my interest for languages and their origins.
It is pretty shocking you, Ine, The Portuguese Mafia et others have brilliant English. I feel a bit inferior when I meet someone who has English as a second or third language to find that they probably speak it better than I do. No fair.I dunno. I think there's a huge difference between speaking it as your natural language and learning it from education. It's two different processes of learning. But I don't know if that affects one's skills with the language.
Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi to be freed from prison??
in General Chit Chat
Posted
And I think that the death sentence is below human standards. I don't believe in killing another human being under any circumstances.
Still, it will always come down to our own ethical views. (Not saying yours are necessarily wrong, just that I disagree with them.)