News and Current Events - 2012

[janjo]

You can probably find the comments on BBC i player listen again.

I loved it!

[AZ.bbm]

The medical bills of his victims are estimated to be in the millions; but if, God forbid, he's attacked and injured in jail, his care will be courtesy of the good people of Colorado.

-Possibly so, but, according to Ralph Nader, keeping him will be cheaper than killing him.

• Since I was a law student, I have been against the death penalty. It does not deter. It is severely discriminatory against minorities, especially since they’re given no competent legal counsel defense in many cases. It’s a system that has to be perfect. You cannot execute one innocent person. No system is perfect...
  ...And to top it off, for those of you who are interested in the economics it, it costs more to pursue a capital case toward execution than it does to have full life imprisonment without parole."-Attorney Ralph Nader,  Law Professor in a Meet the Press interview, June 25, 2000

[AZ.bbm]

Why Astronaut Sally Ride waited until her death to tell the world she was gay

http://cosmiclog.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/07/24/12933519-why-sally-ride-waited-until-her-death-to-tell-the-world-she-was-gay?lite

-Interesting...

[AZ.bbm]

And HE was the one to raise the confidentiality issue with his lawyers. How crazy is that? How does anyone know the whole thing wasn't a set-up. He took his time planning the attack, planning his survival, why not planning his complete get-away? Does the term crazy like a fox mean anything in today's world?

Good point.
But whether he acted alone or in concert with some other forces (-Could it be...Satan?), still, Mr. Holmes willingness to go beyond the pale and act out, in sheer violence, demonstrates a psychopathic level of derangement.

Psychiatrist M.Scott Peck discusses this kind of (human) evil in his book, "People of the Lie."

 

[doodler]

I feel very sorry to hear that your first husband was so ill, and did such terrible things to you and the family, but even so the idea that all people with a mental illness are a drain on society is appalling and not true.
Apart from the fact that you can't put to death everyone with mental illness, which is one in four of us, society would also lose the enormous contribution that people with mental illness make.
No, that is not rubbish, I mean it, some examples:

Winston Churchill who had depression
Vincent Van Gogh - was probably bipolar
Robert Schumann - was bipolar
Isaac Newton -bipolar
Ludwig Van Beethoven-bipolar
Abraham Lincoln-depression
John Nash -schizophrenia

http://www.mentalhealthministries.net/links_resources/other_resources/famouspeople.pdf

If one decided that all people with mental illness were "mad dogs" who deserved to die, and put them to death, we would still be living in mud huts, because we would lose so many creative thinkers.
Of course that is not to understate the amount of suffering that such disorders cause to those affected by them.

WHY do you keep insisting I am talking about all people who are crazy? I am specifically talking about mass murderers who are clearly and indisputably the perpetrator. I could not have made that any more clear in my posts.

[doodler]

-Possibly so, but, according to Ralph Nader, keeping him will be cheaper than killing him.

• Since I was a law student, I have been against the death penalty. It does not deter. It is severely discriminatory against minorities, especially since they’re given no competent legal counsel defense in many cases. It’s a system that has to be perfect. You cannot execute one innocent person. No system is perfect...
  ...And to top it off, for those of you who are interested in the economics it, it costs more to pursue a capital case toward execution than it does to have full life imprisonment without parole."-Attorney Ralph Nader,  Law Professor in a Meet the Press interview, June 25, 2000

It is only cheaper to keep him if we continue to allow all the appeals crap.

[doodler]

Good point.
But whether he acted alone or in concert with some other forces (-Could it be...Satan?), still, Mr. Holmes willingness to go beyond the pale and act out, violently, demonstrates his level of derangement.'

 

My point exactly. He is a threat to any and all of us.

[doodler]

How's that old saying go, "The quality of mercy be not strained..."?! 

And then there's the one... judge not lest ye be judged? I am willing to be judged on this issue.

[AZ.bbm]

^^^
And let's not forget, "A society that lives by the sword will die  by the sword"...?!

It is only cheaper to keep him if we continue to allow all the appeals crap.

Yes, However, the appeals are vital in protecting the innocent from the mistakes of the court.

George W. Bush, Jr.** who as governor executed more people in the history of Texas than all other governors combined, when told of the vast numbers of death row inmates exonerated in other states via then-new DNA testing, declared that the Texas Justice System simply "did not make mistakes."

As you might have guessed, he was proven wrong.

Bush, btw,  had been an armchair vigilante since he was old enough to insert firecrackers into the arses of bullfrogs and light them.


**(My favorite target for scorn & derision)

[Marge_Innavera]

As for planning the murders for months, have you any idea what mental illness and the sort of unreality it can bring, is like?
An 18 year old daughter of some very good friends of ours was affected by severe depression.
She was beautiful, and had the most amazing academic qualifications, but she convinced herself that she was no good for anything.
Her parents got her some help over a period of months, and watched her like a hawk, hardly daring to leave her alone for a moment.
On a fateful day her father had to pop out for a few moments and locked the front door, she climbed out of the window, walked to the station, got a train to London, and threw herself beneath an underground train at Mile End.

Some of the reactions here amount to overexposure to either old cop and lawyer shows, Ayn Rand books or both.  Or maybe to some centuries-old Jacobean revenge tragedies where manifestations of mental illness were influenced by both medical ignorance and what the audience at the time spectated for entertainment at Bedlam.

[janjo]

Laughing at the lunatics by William Hogarth

[janjo]

And then there's the one... judge not lest ye be judged? I am willing to be judged on this issue.

"Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord"

[Lyle (Mooska)]

We can say what we like about ourselves in our usual self deprecating way, but when Romney an outsider criticised our Olympic preparations, we all pulled together and produced last nights fantastic Olympic opening ceremony.

Which is how Fox News is spinning MItt's visit there--that he was just what the Brits needed to pull together and stop complaining about the weather, crowds and traffic and come together to enjoy the festivities.

LOL!

[janjo]

Fox News can obviously spin anything.

He hasn't gone down well at all here.

As for us not being able to put on a good show, how does Mitt think we managed to arrange all those Jubilees and Royal Weddings?

Not to mention our groundbreaking West End Shows.

What a complete and utter idiot, (and that's the polite version).

[kathy]

My first husband was "sick."  He convinced his doctors he was taking his medication and going to work every day. He tried to murder his mother in her sleep. He set our house on fire. I know first hand about "mental illness." And I sincerely believe it is evil manipulation and nothing more. It's amazing how these poor ill people never seem to have any problem when they are getting their own way. They are an unnecessary drain on our society and the pain and suffering they bring is unending for THEIR victims. But by all means, lets spend whatever is necessary to make them comfortable for their entire natural lives and to hell with the people they hurt.

I'm so sorry to read of these awful troubles sheri.  What heartache that must have been.

kathy