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The Tom Sawyer Principle (Politics)
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Mick Harper
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No, they haven't. Which means I don't know about it either. Please expand.
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Grant



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Last year he signed the criminal justice reform act which gives judges more discretion to reduce sentences and stops people being sentenced to life imprisonment after they stole a pizza under the three strikes rule. It is an attempt to lower the prison population and will disproportionately help young blacks. Not surprisingly it won't be mentioned by Robert Moore on ITV news.
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Mick Harper
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Good stuff.
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Mick Harper
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An amazing denouement to a case you might remember. The London cyclist who knocked down the young woman and, for the first time, it was held that cyclists are 'motorists' for the purposes of English law. They might be uninsured but they're still liable for Third Party payouts.

The cyclist, the judge said, was "a calm and reasonable road user" whereas the woman was a) crossing the road against a red light and b) talking on a mobile phone. This, ruled the judge, meant the accident was the fault of ... wait for it ... both of them equally because ... wait for it ... "Cyclists must be prepared at all times for people to behave in unexpected ways."

So far, so silly. Next: damages. She got four grand, he got nothing because he didn't make a claim. Why on earth would he? He picked himself up and went on his merry way. Apart from anything else, nobody's ever sued a pedestrian before. Next: costs. Estimated at £100,000. Which he has to pay all of because ... wait for it ... he didn't make a claim! I'm off now to look for cyclists on Ladbroke Grove. Is that Melinda Gates on her Moulton?
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Mick Harper
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Three quarters of a million children in England were persistent non-attenders at school last year and 27,000 parents were prosecuted Channel 4 News

When is the penny going to drop and the experiment of compulsory education, begun more than a century ago, is seen to have served its purpose and run its course? If teachers no longer have an audience that is compelled to be there, maybe we can find teachers who can get people through the doors of their own volition. Yup, that's the secret. Kids are people too.
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Wile E. Coyote


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In the main most folks make a decent effort to get the kids in. Gypsy/Roma and Traveller communities basically attend about 50% of the time. School teachers make a decent effort to keep the kids that are misbehaving in line, when they can't, they exclude them (err) for the general good. These excluded children, can't get into other schools as these other schools want to keep their attendance levels up. (It's an unintended consequence)

Most of the parents prosecuted are folks giving their kids a cheap holiday, as there is no point in fining the really crap parents as they won't pay the fines anyway, and the courts are not going to send folks to jail for this.
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Mick Harper
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San Francisco has banned nicotine vaping across the board. You can vape (as well as smoke) cannabis and tobacco to your heart's content. Their justification is twofold
1. It encourages children to get addicted to nicotine
2. It rewards the tobacco companies who are (now, belatedly) profiting from nicotine vaping.

This breathtakingly weird decision from America's furthest left big city (is it still?) illustrates the essential puritanism of the Left (and of America generally). Why can't kids be addicted to nicotine, if it is a harmless pleasure? Why can't the tobacco companies profit from bringing out harmless products that are better than the competition? Answer: because pleasure and Big Tobacco are the enemy.
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Mick Harper
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What have you got against academics anyway?

Nothing. I'm full of admiration for people that can teach teenagers the same thing year after year.
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Mick Harper
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You all know the scam. It's some free euro-health form but some shyster fiddles with the Google results and gets their page to the top, which is identical to the government page, except you have to pay £25. The scammers aren't claiming anything and pass it on to the government so, the theory goes, you have to sue them to get your £25 back when you realise. If you ever realise. Certainly the government agency won't tell you because while they sit there watching it day after day they couldn't give a shit. It's no skin off their nose. More fool you.

But, it turns out, it's been £37 million off the consumer's nose over the last four years so reluctantly Plod plodded round to their drum, arrested them and they got weighed off without the option. Fifteen years for the Big Banana and pro rata for the wife and kids. Blimey, what is this? America? I was expecting a community order suspended for two years. And pro rata. First offence and all that.

Come on, Lauren Order, how much longer are you going to be transfixed by cyber crime? You've got plenty of spare resources now that highwaymen are pretty much a thing of the past. Tell you what, we'll do it ourselves for a percentage of the Proceeds of Crime Act.
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Mick Harper
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Forty-four countries, including several Gulf countries, have sent a counter letter to the UN in support of China's treatment of its Muslim Uighur minority, to counter the letter condemning the Chinese from twenty-two mainly western countries -- Agencies

I don't mind people being sufficiently nervous of the Chinese to decline to sign the condemnatory letter but to actually sign one congratulating the brutes seems a bit steep. Would they have signed a go-ahead round robin to Heinrich Himmler?
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Mick Harper
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Marina Hyde introduces us to "the weak man who thinks he is a strong man" and instances Boris Johnson, Jeremy Corbyn, Nigel Farage and Donald Trump as falling into that category. You might have spotted a pattern there --'sright, she's politically antagonistic to all of them. It would have been helpful to hear of someone she quite likes but falls into the category. For comparative purposes.

It wouldn't have been difficult because this is in fact a part of the male condition. We are all weak, we all think of ourselves as strong, and nature has designed us that way 'cos it's the only way we'd get out the door in the morning. Just as nature has designed women to be strong but think themselves weak, so they don't go out of the door in the morning. (So not that strong, kiddlypips.)

But even taking that into account, surely Ms Hyde is wrong. I can see Boris Johnson is a weak man who thinks he's strong, but personally I would say that Nigel Farage is a strong man who thinks himself weak. Donald Trump is a man who doesn't think, and Jeremy Corbyn is an old woman.
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Mick Harper
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Guardian front page headlines

Turn youself in, police say in ambassador leak enquiry

Trump accuser: I now sleep with a loaded gun by my bedside

A little two faced, I think. The leaker, having brought both Trump and Johnson into disrepute, should not be advised to lose his/her job and spend a year or two in prison as the price for achieving such a brilliant coup. On the other hand, the Trump accuser illustrates the perils of, as it were, 'turning yourself in'. It tends to ruin your life.
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Mick Harper
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Rail worker hit by train was alone because brother was too exhausted to do night shift Guardian

Now I’ve spent a goodly proportion of my life working on a) the railways and b) the night shift, so I smelt a rat. First para

A railway worker killed by a train in south London was on the track alone because he was covering up for his brother, who was too tired to do the night shift after daytime zero-hours delivery work, it has emerged.

I knew immediately these two had been working this scam for years. I also knew the Guardian would not mention the possibility (workers, minorities, someone died) and would instead spend 95% of the article excoriating zero hours contracts, the perils of outsourcing, the greed of capitalists, the need to do two jobs in cash-strapped Tory Britain and so forth. But I also knew the Guardian is not just a propaganda sheet, the truth would be in there somewhere and there it was, paragraph eight

The labour agency supplying Network Rail – Vital Human Resources – which had engaged the brothers on zero-hours contracts work, said it believed previous instances of “ghosting”, where workers fake attendance, were isolated examples

So said the company worried about being stripped of its contracts. What did multiple people worried about going to prison for giving false testimony have to say
although some witnesses told investigators it was a regular occurrence
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Mick Harper
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We're coming under a lot of pressure to ban liberals from the AEL. I say, No! Who's with me?
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Mick Harper
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It's depressing knowing that me and Dominic Cummings are the two most intelligent people in the country.
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