“No punishment has ever possessed enough power of deterrence to prevent the commission of crimes. On the contrary, whatever the punishment, once a specific crime has appeared for the first time, its reappearance is more likely than its initial emergence could ever have been.”

~ Hannah Arendt

If you drive too fast she'll chase you down and punish you!

For some reason, it is part of what we perceive as common sense that deterring bad behavior always has good results. From parents punishing their children for having poor results in school or doing drugs, to the police and legal system punishing those parents for driving over the speed limit or under the influence, all bad behavior is somehow punished in hope of limiting its occurrence. And we’re OK with that, because we think we know human behavior. If you want someone to do less of something, add a punishment and they’ll do less of it, right?

Not really.

Ever since the start of this FIFA World championship I’ve been annoyed by the constant vuvuzela buzz that’s heard during each and every match (good thing I’m not really following all of them). I don’t see the point of the buzzing, and I think that even if the vuvuzela horn is part of the South African local culture, abusing it that does more harm than good. I mean, who will have positive thoughts when they hear the word vuvuzela in the future? I certainly won’t, and I’m pretty sure most of the the world won’t either.

Where does a cat go when it loses its tail? The retail store. To rob it.

Wait wait, I have another one.

What did the cat burglar say to the store clerk? CAN I HAS YOUR MONEY?

The NY Post writes that a catwoman robber is on the loose in New York City. They say she robbed several stores of nearly $600 and never licked herself  (very weird).

Why does this matter to me? Well, check the picture below, it contains two reasons.

With BP already burning turtles alive in the Gulf, Clinton got a brilliant idea: send the Navy to the ocean floor to blow up the well (weeks before the first BP relief well is operational). I was being sarcastic about the brilliant part.

Not allowed!

Alan Poindexter, NASA commander, told a reporter who asked about “the consequences if astronauts boldly went where probably no others have been” that sex on the International Space Station is prohibited.

The decision is, of course, completely understandable. Really, it is.