It seems I may have jumped the gun on this one. My bad for being such an easy mark of sensationalist pop science headlines.

http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=3127

The problem is that, regardless of whether or not he's innocent, there are powerful people who would like to have Assange out of the way. So while it's perfectly true that he may be guilty as charged, it's not a straightforward situation. Since there's reason to believe to that a government plot is, at the very least, possible then calling for due process of law is problematic- it's even easier to dispose of someone by burying them in judicial bureaucracy than it is to do a full frame-up. Mind you, I'm not saying, "Run Julian, run!"... I think it's a horrible, messy situation and I honestly have no idea what the best way for anyone to deal with it is.

Not quite...when time is infinite, the probability of anything that's possible happening eventually is 1.

You're still misreading it. The part you're quoting is under the case of "oldest child isn't a boy and oldest child isn't born on Tuesday". By its definition, "oldest child whose a boy and born on Tuesday" can't be in that set.

The first case, where I quote from, is "oldest child is a boy and oldest child is born on Tuesday". The 14 possibilities for the youngest child are then ennumerated, which include a second boy born on Tuesday.

Then, he consider the set: NOT(oldest child=boy AND oldest child=born on Tuesday). The youngest child then has to be, since at least one of the children is a boy born on Tuesday. Then, because we're specifically considering the subcase that excludes an oldest child who's a boy born on a Tuesday, there are 13 possibilities for the oldest: a girl born on any day, or a boy born on any day besides Tuesday.

There is no only implied or forgotten in the original question.

At what point did I call you stupid, or even suggest it? And what exactly did you find insulting? The middle paragraph was a sarcastic response to you suggesting that few Australians understand their political system and that they shouldn't be expected to. You need to learn to separate a debate from a personal attack- me being highly critical of your attitude isn't something you should take as being ad hominem. I'm genuinely sorry if you interpreted anything I said as calling you stupid, because you seem like an intelligent person. Just one that, as you said, spoke before becoming informed. And certainly I sometimes speak without properly thinking things through, everyone does. In what way does that validate your position? When I do that, I hope someone gives me hell for it, same as I'm giving you.

That's not a requirement of the problem. The solution allows the possibility that that both children are boys born on Tuesday. Read it more carefully:

One of those 14 possibilities is another boy born on Tuesday. The exclusion mentioned in the next paragraph is to avoid counting that case twice.

I had a friend in high school who genuinely did believe that the probability of anything occurring was 50% because "either it happens or it doesn't"

At the end of the day, the responsibility to be educated and informed is the voter's. The government can take steps to help, like school curriculum and what not, but at the end of the day if you choose to go out and cast your vote then it's your job to make sure you can do so competently. I agree that the government should take steps to resolve confusion about the Westminster system. In the same way, if you and I are doing some electrical work and you're about to cut some wires, I should make sure the power's switched off for you. But it's your own ass on the line, so you'd damn well better make sure yourself. When something like this happens and you don't like it, ignorance is not a defence.

More importantly, I don't think you're giving your fellow Australians enough credit. Essentially, you're saying that, on the whole, none of you can be fucked to skim a Wikipedia article before heading to the polls. I'm sorry you feel that your country can only handle what the nice, caring overlords decide to spoon-feed them. Seriously, give me a break.

Maybe instead of bitching about the government failing to inform you that this was a perfectly legal possibility, you could take this opportunity to try, in your own way, to help educate other people. Phone your local schools and ask about the civics curriculum. Tell them you think this is a problem and make suggestions to fix it. Take ownership instead of saying, "No one did my job for me, how unfair."

As has been said many many times in this thread already, if you voted for your MP, and by extension his/her party, on the basis of who the party leader was then you don't understand how your own political system works. You gave your MP a mandate to represent you. Because enough people did likewise for members of the same party, you collectively gave the party a mandate to govern you. You didn't have this leader "forced" on you any more than you did the last one.

In short, if you thought that at the last election you were voting for the prime minister then you are, as per the meme, doin it rong.