DZJ

I've always thought the Earth was at its most beautiful when you're hurtling towards it or floating above it. If you're inclined to believe that the Earth is God's creation, then what better way to appreciate it?

I think this paragraph gives the game away: So, the author thinks that black people are thieving, carjacking, drug dealing gangbanger criminals. Is this really the starting point we want for a discussion about race relations?

Like the crap Obama got for being a Muslim?

Interesting, the version I have of Dulce et reads 'Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped softly behind'. I don't know which verses move me most, but there's the verse of Kipling's Recessional, the Kohima Epitaph, When You Go Home, Tell Them Of Us And Say, For Their Tomorrow, We Gave Our Today but I can never read the inscription on the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior in Westminster Abbey without feeling a lump rise in my throat. BENEATH THIS STONE RESTS THE BODY OF A BRITISH WARRIOR UNKNOWN BY NAME OR RANK BROUGHT FROM FRANCE TO LIE AMONG THE MOST ILLUSTRIOUS OF THE LAND AND BURIED HERE ON ARMISTICE DAY 11 NOV: 1920, IN THE PRESENCE OF HIS MAJESTY KING GEORGE V HIS MINISTERS OF STATE THE CHIEFS OF HIS FORCES AND A VAST CONCOURSE OF THE NATION THUS ARE COMMEMORATED THE MANY MULTITUDES WHO DURING THE GREAT WAR OF 1914 - 1918 GAVE THE MOST THAT MAN CAN GIVE LIFE ITSELF FOR GOD FOR KING AND COUNTRY FOR LOVED ONES HOME AND EMPIRE FOR THE SACRED CAUSE OF JUSTICE AND THE FREEDOM OF THE WORLD THEY BURIED HIM AMONG THE KINGS BECAUSE HE HAD DONE GOOD TOWARD GOD AND TOWARD HIS HOUSE Lest We Forget

So you think McCain is going to die in office then?

Ah, of course!

Question from an ignorant Brit; is Bristol a common name? It's just I can't read about this story without wondering why you'd name a daughter after a provincial city in the west of England that used to be quite big on slavery...

Well, the fight ended with the soldier eventually stabbing this bloke to death (though cutting himself with his own knife several times in the process) but I'd imagine whether the gouging changed the outcome is probably more or less impossible to gauge. (Just had another quick read of the book - probably not). Regarding your first two paragraphs, I imagine the soldier in question would have thought he would react in the exact same way.

I just don't see how a person who is facing death at the hands of a rapist would find harming him difficult. I would think that the circumstances would be a huge push past the blockage that normally would restrain us. Interestingly enough I read a memoir not that long ago by an American infantryman who fought through Fallujah. In one instance he found himself fighting hand-to-hand with an insurgent in a darkened room and in the course of the fight starting gouging this insurgent's eyes out. Apparently the physical sensation of digging another person's eyes out, and the apparently horrendous screaming of this man was so sickening he stopped before going through with it. If a hardened combat infantryman declines to gouge another man's eyes out while engaged in combat, I think the average civvie might well do the same. [EDIT - House to House by David Bellavia, if anyone was wondering]

Just to be clear, which tyrants are being held at bay at the moment? Well if you cant' think of a handful on your own just off the top of your head, then you need to keep up more with the news. Ok, so you can't or won't name any, fair enough. For my part, I can think of plenty of tyrants of various sizes who seem to be running their corners of the world quite contentedly.

Just to be clear, which tyrants are being held at bay at the moment?

Alternatively, go back to 1914 and stop Princip from shooting Archduke Ferdinand. (Incidentally, I don't think Versailles was necessarily the problem. It might have prevented the Second World War as we know it had its provisions actually been enforced. The Allies in 1918 could have gone for reconciliation or punishment, and in the end didn't really choose either). (And thanks to Kallend for making the obvious point that WW2 was not a war of choice in anything like the way that Iraq 2003 was).

Heard about this case on Channel 4 News here in the UK. Have to say I sometimes get the impression that the Chinese regime seems to have given up on merely verging on the ridiculous and now seem to be indulging in some sort of full-blown self-parody. More generally though I wonder if, now that the Olympics are over, the combined Western media will simply cruise home and find other things to busy themselves with. I imagine that by now they must have bored themselves stupid harping on about Chinese human rights violations. (Of course, they could show some dedication and keep China under scrutiny, but I'm not optimistic).

The original post, as far as I can tell, doesn't refer to London in the UK, but to some other London (Canada?)

Replace 'hoaxsters' with 'politicians' and I'm with you 100%.

'We'?

I'm interested that your solution is to bump a prisoner off, rather than the pretty obvious alternative of making the prison secure in the first place.

LoGicAL FaLLaCy You cannot conclude that errors will be made; only that they could be made. 'Errors could be made' means that the probability of an error is not zero. On a sufficiently long timescale, those errors will eventually occur. (And anyway, can you really find me an example of a justice system that hasn't made errors?) Again, LoGicAL FaLLaCy. All you can state definitively is that they could. As above. On a sufficiently long timescale, any possible error will occur. The first part of this is fine; the second is not. There are lots of things that are done under color of the law's authority that have the potential to violate the rights or the lives of innocent people. But knowing that an imperfect man in an imperfect system is all we'll ever have to work with, we don't just shut down the system because we can't risk innocents. Can you think of a greater violation of an individual's rights than to be wrongly executed? True, the system will always be imperfect, we could try and make the system less imperfect by eliminating its potential to make the most egregious errors, and advocates of the death penalty accept by default a much higher margin for error. Non-sequitur. Police do not impose the judgement of the state. Well, thanks for the backhanded appreciation, but I'm afraid your critique of my logic seems rather less than convincing.

When I started thinking about the death penalty some time ago, I eventually came up with a fairly simple logical progression as to why I don't think such a penalty is compatible with a decent justice system. It goes like this: Humans are fallible. The justice system is a human institution Therefore errors will be made. Errors in a system which includes the death penalty will eventually lead to the execution of the innocent. Using the death penalty therefore carries an acceptance of the risk of executing the innocent. Knowingly risking the execution of the innocent is incompatible with justice. To my mind, questions of deterrence, expense, punishment/revenge, etc all fade in comparison with the acceptance of jeopardising innocent life.

Ah, but here is a reason. Russia, the Soviet Union, whatever they're calling themselves, has ALWAYS been an expansionist empire. Historically, Russia has always invaded neighbor states like Ukraine, Georgia, the Baltic countries, and Poland. As well as the Islamic camel dung states, like Kazakhstan and the like. It shouldn't surprise anyone that they're doing it again. Under Putin (oh wait - he's just the Prime Minister anymore...), er, Medvedev, they sense the opportunity with this ethnic Russian uprising in the southern Ossetia province. True, Russians have more or less always considered that expansion = security, but after the end of the Cold War the west could have behaved with at least a measure of magnanimity. Instead we've rubbed it in their face and with NATO and the EU advancing towards Russia's borders I'm not at all suprised the Great Bear is lashing out like this. Question is though, what can be done? Calls for restraint don't seem to be doing anything (apparently there's been a second uprising in Abkhazia, and more Russian airstrikes recently), no-one's going to pick a fight with Russia for various reasons, and speaking from the British perspective the UK isn't in a position with any voice, never mind leverage just at the moment (Google 'Alexander Litvinenko'). Strikes me as a very dangerous situation.

Hmm, I don't think you can compare the two like that. 'State' (as in sovereign nation-state) and 'state' (as in federal) are both just legal definitions, where as I'm sure the former Soviet inhabitants of Georgia would tell you that they have a distinct national identity that long predates the merely legal concepts above. [Ed. - Ah, I see billvon's beat me to it, and more succinctly too]

Have the Georgians been massacring South Ossetians?

I had a friend at school, the son of two Christian parents, who was more than a little bit keen on evangelical Christianity. When I voiced the view that if he'd been born to Catholic or Muslim or Hindu or Jewish or Sikh parents he'd probably be as equally keen a Catholic/Muslim/Hindu/Jew/Sikh, he regarded this as totally and utterly impossible because his faith was the true one. Obviously.

Yahoo! News reported (from the AFP) that: http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080730/tc_afp/britainuscourtappealmilitarycomputercrime_080730121914 Though I think I read the same quote in The Times.

He may well believe the UFO stuff, but it'll be the grafitti messages he sent to the Pentagon about September 11th being an inside job that will see him wind up rotting in an American jail...