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Post by cheerypeabrain on Dec 7, 2019 14:50:39 GMT
Good grief. Presumably he won't be free to go wherever he pleases. I'm surprised he has been released as I remember the anger and pain about those awful crimes.
Our own judicial system is pretty rubbish. A serial violent rapist was 'accidentally' released from prison after a series of cockups. He went on to abduct and seriously assault another 30+ victims, including children and pensioners. He's been caught now but whilst the victims are testifying in court the criminal himself refuses to attend. He shouldn't have the choice imo. Criminals have all sorts of 'rights' and protection...bonkers. Lock him up and throw away the key.
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Post by mossie on Dec 7, 2019 16:04:05 GMT
We have had two cases like this in quick succession, the London Bridge knifeman and now this. Our justice system is run by do gooders and there is no real punishment for criminals, prisons appear to be luxury rest camps. I am perhaps a bit extreme, but would like to see capital punishment restored, these last two fully deserve it.
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Post by cheerypeabrain on Dec 7, 2019 21:11:40 GMT
My husband, bless him, is in charge of the central heating wotsit. I trust him to have my interests at heart, but no. Now he has a lovely stove in his man cave he doesn't see why I need the heating on....it was basically set for when he is around the house...off when he's busy in his man cave soldering, wiring, playing his guitar etc....
It reminded me off a joke I saw :-
Husband: Get your coat on Wife: Ooh...are we going out? Husband: No. I'm off down the pub so I'm turning the heating off.
I threw a wobbly today when my fingers were too cold to hold my sewing needle. I have reprogrammed the central heating to suit me too.
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Post by mickthecactus on Dec 7, 2019 22:14:18 GMT
Gosh. I’m not that brave.
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Post by whatagain on Dec 7, 2019 22:37:25 GMT
I am like Mossie. It would not take much to make me like Steven seagall in his movies. I don't want death penalty as a rule but I'd like a lot of child abusers and rapists to be beheaded in public spaces.
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Post by questa on Dec 7, 2019 23:01:24 GMT
Inmates of prisons have wives and kids. They hate pedophiles. I say if you withdraw all the protection that is given to these monsters natural justice will prevail.
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Post by kerouac2 on Dec 7, 2019 23:11:20 GMT
In France yesterday, a rapist murderer from 2002 was finally permanently convicted to a 30 year sentence. He has always said that he was innocent but DNA evidence (sperm) said otherwise. When the sentence for 30 years was pronounced, he suddenly pulled out a dose of deadly pesticide and drank it. Nobody knows how he got it through security because he was thoroughly searched before being taken to the courtroom. But he had said that if he were found guilty, he would commit suicide.
However, he was rushed to hospital immediately and will survive.
It seems that he was finally arrested in 2012 and has been living with the possibility of conviction for the last 7 years on top of all the time since 2002.
He is probably guilty, but all of these years of watching crime series makes me think that something does not add up.
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Post by cheerypeabrain on Dec 8, 2019 8:55:07 GMT
It's a conundrum. We listened to a Wallander crime thriller in the car the other day and that includes a lot of nasty characters and very disturbing violent crime. We lap up violent detective shows with horrific crime graphically portrayed. However we are rational beings (!) and should be able to tell the difference between fiction and real life.
Saying all that...I enjoy crime shows like Endeavour, Mindhunter and even Sherlock, but I tend to look away and put my fingers in my ears during the violent bits,
I do think that our justice system needs to be looked at, reviewed and rebuilt from the ground up (with a sufficiently funded professional police force) the punishment system here is archaic. We don't yet have the 'three strikes and you're out' programme yet..but we are quick to write people off, particularly young black men. Selling off the prison system to a private company was rather silly imo.
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Post by bjd on Dec 8, 2019 9:33:56 GMT
I didn't know that the prison system in Britain had been privatized! Terrible thing to do if the States is anything to go by. It makes money for the companies who run the prisons to put people in them, and of course, the system disproportionately imprisons blacks and Latinos.
I'm not saying that people who commit horrific crimes shouldn't be punished and imprisoned, although I would argue with Mossie's demand to bring back capital punishment. There have been too many travesties of justice, especially in the USA.
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Post by kerouac2 on Dec 13, 2019 22:08:23 GMT
All of those "penis fish" videos have really disturbed me. I never knew that those creatures existed.
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Post by whatagain on Dec 13, 2019 22:21:44 GMT
No link to what is above but the cover of Aeroplane monthly is labelled 'Mossie magic' They must have heard of anyport. 😀
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Post by kerouac2 on Dec 14, 2019 5:50:57 GMT
All of those "penis fish" videos have really disturbed me. I never knew that those creatures existed. The news reports are about the thousands that washed up dead on beaches in California, but here is a Korean video about how to eat them.
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Post by Kimby on Dec 14, 2019 6:08:15 GMT
All of those "penis fish" videos have really disturbed me. I never knew that those creatures existed. If you pee in the water, you deserve to have a fish swim up your hose!
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Post by mickthecactus on Dec 14, 2019 8:26:29 GMT
I believe there are tiny fish that do that. South America?
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Post by onlyMark on Dec 14, 2019 8:43:02 GMT
I looked at those penis fish and then wondered why they are called that when they are at most, half the size of mine.
Must have been named by some male who owns a great big American car.
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Post by questa on Dec 14, 2019 8:48:35 GMT
Is there an optometrist in the house, please?
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Post by whatagain on Dec 14, 2019 10:21:16 GMT
I looked at those penis fish and then wondered why they are called that when they are at most, half the size of mine. Must have been named by some male who owns a great big American car. I love this kind of humour. Subtle classy and on spot on.
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Post by monetsmum on Dec 14, 2019 10:28:40 GMT
I looked at those penis fish and then wondered why they are called that when they are at most, half the size of mine. Must have been named by some male who owns a great big American car.
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Post by bjd on Dec 14, 2019 12:34:58 GMT
Indeed, why LA? My son went there to visit a friend who was doing an internship. He hated the place -- thought it was ugly, boring, too spread out, no transportation if you don't have a car. He went to San Francisco and found it much nicer and more interesting.
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Post by lugg on Dec 16, 2019 20:21:49 GMT
I have never been to LA and probably never will. But what a great treat for your daughter whatagain; I think I may do something similar for my soon to be grandchild.
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Post by kerouac2 on Dec 17, 2019 4:57:42 GMT
I liked Los Angeles when I lived there, but I cannot imagine casual visitors discovering its mostly hidden charms. I despised San Francisco.
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Post by Kimby on Dec 17, 2019 14:27:25 GMT
The Kimbys visited LA 25 years ago with a local tour guide - a college classmate of Mr. Kimby’s who is now an artist and art instructor at Santa Monica College. We had a blast, visiting all the iconic spots and marveling in open-jaw wonder at the bizarreness of the scene, all from the convenience of the back seat of her car with frequent stops to get out and soak it up. Would not go back on my own, though. San Francisco is more manageable and prettier.
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Post by kerouac2 on Dec 17, 2019 16:52:30 GMT
visiting all the iconic spots and marveling in open-jaw wonder at the bizarreness of the scene That is exactly the charm of Los Angeles. But the bizarreness is not on display for the uninitiated.
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Post by htmb on Dec 18, 2019 0:41:23 GMT
My last trip to LA was earlier this year. I rode a bus from the downtown train station to LAX and sat across the aisle from a looney tune who had just been released from a nearby mental facility. It was a very long, 35 minute bus ride, while those of us around him tried our best to act nonchalant and disinterested in his bizarre behavior. Apparently my experience on that bus wasn’t unusual so, if your daughter happens to ride the shuttle bus from the downtown LA train station (Union Station?) to LAX for any reason, I suggest she plan to look for a seat near the front. On the other hand, I highly recommend the Pacific Surfliner train that travels from San Diego all the way to to somewhere north of LA. I rode it up to Oxnard, then back to LA from Ventura. Not a bad ride, for the USA.
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Post by bjd on Dec 18, 2019 7:09:48 GMT
Back in the 1980s, my husband had a stopover in LA on a long flight. Since I have a friend there, he spent 24 hours and bought a book of photographs. Knotts Berry Farm, the Hollywood walk of fame -- absolutely nothing to entice me to visit if that was the kind of thing that was supposed to attract visitors. I can only hope that it has improved.
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Post by kerouac2 on Dec 18, 2019 11:41:58 GMT
I never went to Knott's Berry Farm in all the years I lived in California. On the other hand Hollywood Boulevard was where the principal movie palaces were (and still are) so I went there regularly. Never really paid attention to the sidewalk.
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Post by Kimby on Dec 18, 2019 15:07:30 GMT
Some of our highlights were Sunset Boulevard’s parade of “low-riders” (souped up classic cars with hydraulic lifters that allowed them to skim just inches above the pavement then shoot upward, and even seesaw from end to end), and Venice Beach’s parade of eccentrics: a Muscle Beach-like weightlifter’s pen, grannies in bikinis riding bikes, a long-haired electric guitarist on roller skates with a backpack amplifier, swooping down upon the unsuspecting for a mini-concert of electronic noise....
And we went to our first sushi bar and tried uni (raw sea urchin gonads). I almost barfed. The saki helped me recover.
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Post by bjd on Dec 18, 2019 15:26:32 GMT
My friend lives at Venice Beach, but he has been there since the late 1970s. I don't know if it was like that then.
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Post by onlyMark on Dec 18, 2019 17:57:14 GMT
I'm in France. Near Lyon. I'm probably going to try and cross between Spain and Germany without buying diesel for the car. Why? Because on the motorway in Spain it is Euro 1.28 a litre. On the motorway in France it is 1.72 a litre. I've come into a town where my hotel is and the cheapest I can get it, at an Intermarche supermarket, is 1.62. Jeeeesus.
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Post by kerouac2 on Dec 18, 2019 18:44:10 GMT
Yes, the French government has just about cancelled the diésel advantage for 'green' reasons.
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