This is the result you get when your country ships off all its petty criminals to a nice sunny mineral rich land, and keep all the worst ones for themselves - basically lose. We may take the piss out of you Ozzies for being a bunch of convicts and for playing knifey-spoony, but you've got a bloody nice place to live.

I don't see the point, it's not like we're ever allowed to extradite Americans to the UK.

Yes, I'm being facetious, and you can argue that the (according to the US embassy in London) the US haven't refused a single extradition request to the UK's 10 refusals, and they do seem to say that the treaty is fair, but a UK MP says that there is a 7:1 disparity in US:UK extraditions. Which to me suggest that either UK citizens are far more likely to break US laws than their own, or that the required proof required for extradition requests is different between the two countries.

The other difference is:

Don't take this as a criticism of Americans, it just shows how our politicians will sell us off for a few favours.

Never noticed this, however I'll be making sure to check it out from now on.

This - the amount of times I've thought or said "it'd be interesting to test $concept on a baby/toddler/child", normally followed by "I'd be a rubbish parent". Luckily, every one I know understands my sense of humour.

I like that one, especially as you can bait people with it - you can easily get away without using any gendered pronouns.

No, as far as I know it'll be switched on for new BT customers, but current customers will be contacted to see if they want to opt in.

It'll be interesting to see if this applied to our leased line from BT.

This reminds me of the news the other day - there have had a few bombs going off recently in Northern Ireland - with warnings. Anyhow, on Monday the news said that a man was being treated for burns in Belfast, which was thought to be linked to sectarian violence, my first thought was "FFS, now they're setting each other on fire", quickly followed by laughter when it turned out the incendiary device he was carrying detonated - serves the stupid fucker right.

Dear Acapulco,

Due to the difficulty in gaining an expert licence, the bridge is unfortunately no longer for sale. However we have just had a completely unique iron tower come into our inventory.

Please let us know if you're interested.

Regards,
Messrs Trotters and Trotters

I don't think guilt is the right word - concern would be better. Much in the same way, if someone were to highlight that the rate of something undesirable* was several times higher than that in similar countries, feeling guilty would be useless. Thinking "what the hell, what can be done to improve this" would be a better option.

Take obesity for example, UK & Ireland are twice that of Scandinavia, so what can we take from those countries to improve this.

* I was going to use rape as an example, but the rates (per 100k) are almost the opposite of what I expected - UK: 28, Ireland: 11, Albania: 0.7, Sweden: 64, and I thought that maybe that's because some countries have broader definitions (Sweden) and reported rates will vary based on the stigma.

Mod comment:
Interesting: For some that may not know about the Swiss banking system
Overrated: For those that do know about the Swiss banking system
Insightful: Well, it's true
Funny: Made fun of the Swiss - always good
Troll: Winding them up about their dodgy banking system

There isn't a day that goes by that I don't hate my mother for being born in a country that was responsible for the holocaust. I suppose I'm also responsible for killing British soldiers as I was born in the Republic of Ireland in the 1980s, as are many Bostonians.

My friends tell me to live in the present not to believe in collective guilt, but it's to bloody difficult not to feel responsible for something I had no control over.

Oh, I know they're not outliers, I was just entertaining an AC's comment about them.

I had a play around with the data, but (as far as I'm concerned, with my basic stats knowledge) there aren't enough data points to start removing outliers.

It works quite well over here - the UK murder rate is about a quarter of the US murder rate.

Yes, you're right, Germany's population is only about a quarter of the US, but they had less than a 20th of the number of murders committed in the US.

Or in terms that normal (no pun intended) people use:
Germany's murder rate is 0.8/100k compared to 4.7/100k

Ok, so we let you cherry pick - you can remove the two regions with the highest murder rate - DC and Louisiana (whose rates are 150% of the 3rd highest state - you get a rate of 4.11/100k

In fact, you have to remove the top 12 states before you get below the European level of 3.5/100k. But wait, if you get to remove your outliers, so do we, so I remove our top two - Greenland and Russia (Europe has really expanded since I left school) - which gives us 2.5/100k. The US would have to remove *half* of the states as "outliers" to get to that level.

However, I disagree with the gun control advocates - removing guns won't reduce your murder rate by much - you'd just find a different way to kill each other.