Howdy all – thanks for continuing to stop in.
Sorry I haven’t been able to finish my thoughts on the Gun Registry yet, or give you anything new to look at or think about. Clown the Youngest is currently in hospital with a bacterial infection in his blood stream. I have a feeling he got it from his IV’s the last time he was in (and they couldn’t figure out what was wrong with him), but what do I know, right? Either way, he’s doing well – he’s not at death’s door or anything like that. He’s just bored and “rammy”. You would be too if you were looking at 2 weeks in a small room with tubes in your arms and fed bad food. On the other hand, he has a favourite nurse he likes to flirt with. It seems my son has good taste in women for she is a looker. Yowza.
So anyway, it’s open thread time until I can get settled again.
Colonel Williams – bring back the death penalty or no? Was all that graphic evidence truly necessary for the public to see and hear?
US Democrats – going down in the mid-terms this year?
Saskatchewan Roughriders – WTF is going on down at Taylor Field? Coaching troubles? Player motivation? Other teams just getting that much better? Just a whole bunch of whining from fans who are ready to bail on their team as soon as the going gets rough?
BHP Billaton (sp?) – Can Saskatchewan / Canada block their potash bid with a straight face, knowing Canadian interests control a gigantic chunk of Aussie Ag companies?
Anyhow, some things to talk about while I’m sitting in a hospital room….the coffee’s on, there’s a fresh deck of smokes on the table…
Have at ‘er.
20 comments
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October 26, 2010 at 4:36 pm
spdrcln
I really don’t think Canada wants to move away from the civilized society club and institute the death penalty based on the, admittedly horrible, crimes of one man. It never ends up just being used on the worst of the worst… eventually it doesn’t even just get used when there is guilt beyond a shadow of a doubt, and that puts everyone at risk. It’s not about the bad guy in my opinion, it’s about what it means to everyone else. Let’s not give the government the power to execute it’s citizens.
October 26, 2010 at 4:47 pm
The Hillside Circus
I tend to agree with you. My reasoning is this: death is the ultimate penalty. You cannot take it back. Having such a final solution in the hands of an imperfect and fallible and corruptible legal system, as you say, puts wrongly convicted people at risk. Who was it that said “better a hundred guilty people go free than one innocent person to be jailed”?
This is why our legal system says “innocent until proven guilty” and says the burden of proof lies with the prosecution. It is actually to protect society.
October 26, 2010 at 5:10 pm
Coyote
I’m the crazy guy that is all for a death penalty. Except it should be a part of the three strikes rule. Not exactly a three strikes ideal, but if it is reasonably shown that any given offender is going to continue to offend, and shows no desire to rectify the situation or rehabilitate? Kill the fucker. They don’t want to be a part of our society they can go somewhere else.
And maybe not even kill them, give them a sling shot and some minor items of survival and drop them off up on those northern islands. That’d help us out at least by strengthening our claim to it.
October 26, 2010 at 8:56 pm
Neo
Roughriders: I chalk it up to bad coaching/play calling/ Our team (for the most part) does their respective jobs with precise talent and skill. But guess what, the entire world has figured out our run game, and effectively has shut it down. This is due to repeatedly running the same mundane play on ever possession. Also, our inability to effectively stop the opposing running game is effecting our win/loss ratio. And having witnessed the last game in person, the crowd is not behind our team, despite the best efforts of the diehards. And everyone knows that the strength of the Riders is the fans. Put simply, we need new offensive coordinator, defensive coordinator and special teams because they are all, respectively, falling apart.
October 26, 2010 at 8:57 pm
Neo
And the refs, I am pretty sure, are watching a different game than the one they are officiating.
October 26, 2010 at 9:31 pm
Robbo
ceno’s Facebook ‘comic’ on game days is PRICELESS!!
As far as the Rider’s go… Daly… needs… to… go. Period. End of Story. Full Stop.
Oh, and put in Hugh Charles. The boy can play.
Coyote, I’m with you on the Death Penalty issue. Though it occurs to me, on the 2nd ‘strike’ of a violent crime, that proves the person really can’t be rehabilitated, no? Or, if we’re going to use 3 strikes, it shouldn’t have to be 3 crimes committed and tried. What I mean, is if you brutally murder 3 people, those are your ‘strikes.’ While the legal system may not be the best, it’s what we have.
October 26, 2010 at 9:37 pm
The Hillside Circus
Paraphrasing – “The legal system isn’t perfect, but it’s what we got…so kill em!!”
I don’t follow that at all, Robbo.
Isn’t that like saying “This tricycle I have ain’t the best, but it’s what I got. I’ma gonna jump Snake River Canyon anyway!”
October 26, 2010 at 9:42 pm
Coyote
Well no I wouldn’t say that. And it all depends on the situation. Let’s take Williams here. No one caught him. And he deserves a second chance. Everyone does. I don’t buy into the idea that some people are just bad and can’t be rehabilitated.
That has more to do with the fact that I think that he shouldn’t be jailed, he should have to spend the rest of his life trying to rectify the situation he created. When you’re made to face the results of your crime and become the solution to it rather than merely punished, it makes for a far greater influence.
But then again, I’m all craaazeee.
But the folks who don’t try to make it better, the folks who refuse and decide to just serve their punishments, those fuckers can be done away with. That includes those white collar fuckers. They do just as much violence as any other crime.
October 26, 2010 at 9:36 pm
Coyote
Well I’d like to point out it is also the GM we need to worry about. Tillman and Austin were a great combo because both of them were sticklers for accountability. You had to be accountable to yourself, your group, your team, your coaches, your community. And if you failed in any of those you ended up in serious shit.
Taman isn’t that kind of guy. He’s all happy just being our GM and that the team is popular and making money. He’s a businessman with a love of football. Tillman is a football man with a love of making it profitable. Big difference.
And yeah. Berry, Etch, and Daly are the three stooges of the CFL. Someone should make a comic.
October 27, 2010 at 8:44 pm
Robbo
Do we really believe that people who commit several murders (serial killers if you will.) Will really want to be ‘Part of the Solution?’ I disagree. Please, I’m not saying give every 2-bit thug The Chair or Firing Squad… but for the extreme cases… extreme measures are needed.
As far as how we GET there (the legal system), as long as there are Shysters out there willing to take advantage of it, it’ll never be perfect. Also, everyone’s perception of what the ‘Perfect’ legal system entails is probably as vast as the Snake River Canyon, which is why ‘The Law’ is a living thing, which changes with the times. Maybe part of the problem is that it hasn’t caught up yet.
October 27, 2010 at 10:07 pm
Coyote
Yeah I do believe that. Because they are as much a victim of what is wrong with their brain as the people they killed. Compassion shouldn’t be a discriminatory thing, nor does compassion for a criminal diminish the compassion for the victim. Compassion, a form of love, is as endless as we let it be, and should be our first response rather than something we measure by how much money we give.
I agree with the lack of a perfect legal system, I think legal systems are a waste of time and really only pigeon hole us into precedents that encourage lack of thought, and encourage those that would manipulate them to benefit those in power. Hey look! That’s what happens!
A system of restoration, where facing every single consequence of your actions is a part of your rehabilitation, would not only reduce crime, but increase the humanity of our society.
And yes, I realize there are cases where this is not the case, where it is not a possibility to allow a fix, that doesn’t mean it should be the first, second, or even third response. That also doesn’t mean I support something that might endanger public safety. One of these days I’m gonna hafta talk about my perfect ‘jail.’
October 28, 2010 at 2:00 pm
spdrcln
I’d be interested in hearing about your perfect “jail’ or, more properly “gaol”
I think those people who manage to come out of prison better people are rare and truly exceptional. It’s more their triumph than anything that the legal/penal system has managed to do.
There has always been a concern that those in prison might get off easy, but I think there really needs to be a focus on the end result of a sentence, which is that this person WILL likely be released back into society. Only now this person has limited skills – both career and personal/societal skills.
How about we make prisons small walled towns. The prisoners have to maintain a home, work a job and just generally get along while running a town? Trainers help teach cooking, cleaning, etc. Evenings have therapy sessions, night classes and structured social events. After release there is job placement help…just like most colleges do now.
I think the costs per person may be much higher than now, but I bet the number of repeat offenders would drop drastically. And, for those who ARE repeat offenders they go back to a more traditional cell type prison, but still with a focus on therapy and skill building.
November 1, 2010 at 11:13 pm
Coyote
http://coyotesdarkskyden.blogspot.com/2010/11/craziness-judicial-style.html
October 28, 2010 at 7:24 pm
cenobyte
@Robbo – technically, someone who commits several murders is a mass murderer. Serial killers are a different designation; they usually are predators (whereas mass murderers do not usually exhibit predatory behaviour) whose behaviour can be shown to have escalated over a period of time (sometimes spanning decades, and often beginning with cruelty to animals or sociopathic behaviour tendencies) and whose actions can be shown to be related in some way.
Also, serial killers tend to have particular neuropathies or psychopathies, whereas mass murderers may or may not.
Um.
There is *absolutely no reason* I should know this.
October 30, 2010 at 3:53 am
Viper Pilot
Prison should be the place you go to to learn about how society works: how we all benefit from working together, and how the rules we’ve laid down in the form of laws make sure that everyone can do their best to help with this great big stupid-awesome things we’ve got called civilisation. Just throwing people away and using their incarceration to give them ‘skills’ isn’t going to change what flawed philosophy exists inside them.
I back Coyote 100% on the ‘throw them on an island plan’ for repeat offenders. If you’re going to rage on society, then you don’t get to play with society. Sounds fair to me: all this over here is for the kids who play together.
The big problem is that the laws we have are too varied and confusing. Surely, you can break everything down into 1) violations of another person/entity, 2) violations of another person/entity’s property, 3) violations of another person/entity’s reputation (you’ll need more detail on paper, of course, but for education purposes, three rules ain’t a lot to reinforce). Explain our new, simple laws to every student and immigrant and make them sign a declaration that they understand the laws. No test, just a dotted line and a sign here. You don’t want to sign? Fine, enjoy your island retreat. Then, it becomes very easy to say “I told you so” to criminals because three rules isn’t a lot to ask to keep in mind.
I’d like to help Coyote build that jail.
October 31, 2010 at 6:30 pm
spdrcln
Sounds a lot like Coventry, which is ok, so long as you can keep everyone in. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coventry_(short_story)
October 31, 2010 at 6:32 pm
spdrcln
the Wikipedia article doesn’t really describe the concept of Coventry very well, I guess that’s what the story is for.
October 31, 2010 at 7:07 pm
The Hillside Circus
Hey *I* know! Let’s wall off Manhattan Island and put all the dirt bags *there*! Great idea!
November 2, 2010 at 7:50 pm
cenobyte
Viper Pilot, don’t you *live* on that island?
November 2, 2010 at 10:59 pm
Coyote
*snerk!*