BannanaGirl

This is turning into an interesting thread to say the least. I too feel much the same as you do; while I believe in the historical facts that are the foundation of the Christian faith my actions are contrary to that. Reading the bible, going to church - it all seems like such a chore; there is no natural desire to do any of those things. I've come to the conclusion that rather than being "luke-warm" & thus a hypocrite its better to close that chapter of my life completely & just move on as though it never happened. If I'm guilty of hellfire so be it... Quite frankly I like living my life the way I do & can't live by "don't do this, don't say that" etc, etc... Crikey. I wonder if I am "like Warm" then? I dont have a church to go to at the moment. Long story but I just have not found the right place for now but I trust the Lord will guide me where he wants me to be. However I do have fellowship with other Christians like my boyfriend and other friends I have met along the way. Sometimes I really do fail miserably - crash and burn at times, because as you say I maybe am not "of this world" but I am definately "in it". Sometimes I do ok. Even though it can be a chore at times I pray and read my bible as much as possible and study it too so I can have a deeper understanding. But I am a hypocrite....we all are. Only one man was not and he is who I strive to be like. Only through Christ can we come to our Father in heaven. I consider myself, even for all my failings and lack of direction at times, a committed Christian. I love the lord with all my heart no matter what and I dont feel that is luke warm even if outwardly I am not your standard Christian.

It does'nt take too much to set up a face book page and join. Although you can end up wasting huge amounts of time on it if you are not careful! Nice one G on setting up a worthwhile group on there! I've joined! There must be more God botherers out there! Dont be shy in coming forward...your mum was'nt!

Would Sharia law mean people of a muslim origin suddenly being held accountable under a law sytem maybe they have no desire to be under? What would happen to them and how would the UK justice system protect those individuals in such circumstances? Where would the law start and where would it finish....at your ethnic origins? Would it be "tough, you have muslim parents hence you are a muslim and hence under Sharia law?". In this case introducing Sharia law would be like throwing the bird at all these individuals who want to live as british citizens. It seems a very dangerous and cloud cukkoo land idea to me. Maybe I am an intolerant twat though?

No need for either side of the pond to get pissy - they're all good. BTW, Glastonbury is the legendary burial place of King Arthur. So they say..... If you walk down the high street you are likely to meet him, Jesus, Allah, Herne the Hunter, yaddy yah...they are all there.

Ha ha Ace Wayne!!! You passed your FS1 buddy!!! WELL DONE!!! Now you need to join the darkside!!! Squeek xxx

Ha ha that leaves ya out then Mr G!!!! Snort I am sooooo excited here too!!! I feel like I have been banging ribena I am bouncing off the walls so much like a four year old!!!! This is going to be my first AGM!!!! KARNAGE!!!!!!!

I take it this is a series in the US. Sucks. Is there anyway I can view it over here in the UK?

Has also anyone considered the fact that if someone is wrongly convicted and executed that the real perpertrator continues to be free. It does seem seem that the prosceuction becomes so obssesed with chasing the wrong guy and loses the thread of the investigation that how many more victims come from a wrong verdict. Like it has been said earlier what with the advancement of DNA testing and 20-30 year old cases now re-investigated wrongly convicted people have been set free -thankful not having been executed. I get shivers when these people walk free because the real criminal has been out there during the length of that persons sentence most likely commiting further crimes. Again this is another failing in an already inadequate justice system.

You are right my only feelings would be for revenge. This is a highly emotional reaction that is only natural. That is why I am uncomfortable feeling that, how can we administer the correct form of justice in a hightened state of emotions. That is why I find certain parts of the media playing on the victims families to justify the death penalty nauseating and only trying to heightening the publics emotions on the subject. Parading the loved ones around for sympathy - which they deserve ofcourse - kind of goes against the effective retribution we should seek. It can warp our persepctives. All this happening maybe before a conviction has even been passed. As for removing the threat from soceity in a clinically and non emotional way, it is clear this is nigh on impossible to do. Again this man took 27 years to get to his death and when it happened it was a balls up. Nothing effective or clinical about that is there.

In the UK now there are several high profile prisoners that maybe did not do it - there is evidence to suggest so. The recent case of Sion Jenkins (who so called bashed his adoptive daughters skull in with a tent peg) was recently released. The evidence was ambiguous at the best of times, going on his character (lying in a CV, hitting his wife a couple of times - not that that's right), and some DNA evidence that could have pointed to two resonible ways it got there. I found how he was villified in the media and the case against him somewhat medieval. Had we had a death penalty he almost certainly would have swung for his apparent crime. It took them something like 5 years to eventually aquit him. Maybe a success story in proving that the system can be wrong and can be corrected but still 5 years of that mans life, ruined and had he been sentanced to death maybe chopped for it before he was found innocent. A lot can happen in 27 years. I do believe there are people who can be reformed. I am not saying evil sadistic bastards like the guy in Skyrad's link but people who may have killed in a desperate time in a desperate moment. I am not trying to encourage sympathy but to point out that sometimes the solution is not to take another life in a sorry saga. Nobody should take anothers life, it is appalling but if some good could come out of it and the felon is reformed then that is surely a better outcome than just killing them. However I am very much divided what with being a mother and how I would react if someone did something to her. I would probably detact their head for them. It is a double edged sword. Hmmm that is pretty harsh. The reality of beheading someone or shooting them must be beyond all comprehension. I would be very worried if we started wheeling cranes out into the streets and strangling people in the markets place on a wednesday afternoon.

27 years to make sure someone is guilty of a crime they so called are confident they committed so much so they pass a death sentance. It stinks really. If at the time of sentancing there is without ,as you suggest irrefutable evidence of their guilt, then condem them, kill them and be done with it. Why draw out the families anguish? 27 years is just short of how long I have been alive. It just seems incredible it has gone on as long as this. That link you posted is truly shocking, like you though I have no sympathy for that man. But I still find it incredible it took years to execute him too. Yet more money spent on lawsuits, filing appeals, keeping them in jail in a high secure wing. Letting him get fat on taxes.

The thing with capital punishment is what if you get it wrong (I mean murder an innocent). It is all well and good standing there and saying kill the bastard (you know I would probably do the same if it was a loved one of mine if I had no means of doing it myself), but how often do people get murdered who have done nothing except be in the wrong place at the wrong time? I cannot say I am 100% against capital punishment, I don't like the idea of it. but I have not had to be fully faced with the impact of somebody killing someone close to me. I know the anger that comes with grief and I also know these families deserve justice, but at what cost? Like you said people want this form of justice but are rarely able to face up to the gruesome facts of how difficult it is to extirpate these individuals. Apart from being wholey archaic is it really justice when someone sits on death row for 27 years before being executed half arsedly?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/6185007.stm?ls Well. Not very nice huh? I find this case rather disturbing more for the fact that this guy had already served 27 years before they cock up sending him off. I was wondering how others felt about this.

Absoluetly 100% spot on. The sad fact is that there even seems to be what are intelligent people have no ability to empathise how a situation can escalate such as it has for these women. It is easy to to say "not me". Quite the cop out really. This thread has got lost in the rather silly and irrelevant war of words over the titles of these women. Fact is they are dead. They were dead before that mother fucker laid a hand on them. I find this very sad.

Shit if I forget my book whilst on the crapper I am reading the back of toothpaste packets to cope with the situation!!!!!

Shit the bed. I am still laughing now. But saying that why do truly gay men have that effeminate mince to their walk and incredible taste in shoes? It could have been the Soy you know. Maybe he has a point.

Yeah.

I was on the isle of White the day she died and the sunday newspapers are shipped from the mainland (obviously) and they did not get a recall on the pre-death printed newspapers in time after her accident. I deliberately picked up a copy of the "scum of the world" to read with a retrospective view of how she was portrayed to the masses. As I read the very lurid stories about her sons hating her new lover and that she was shacking up in some french castle with a bun in the oven.....I just felt angry at how the general public were her tormentors. The papps may have well fired the gun but the public loaded it. It made me sick when everyone was ranting on at the Queen to show her face and be held accountable for her part in her death. I am no royalist but she had two grandchildren to deal with who had just lost their young mother, it can be a very private time. Cut them some slack I thought. Again the brains of Great Britain dropped into the seat of it pants once more. What a bunch of hyprocrites we are. As for giving a shit about Diana. Well it is very sad and what a violent way to go. It is one of those shocks you always remember. I don't think about it but I can rememeber exactly what I was doing when I found out, I always will. As for a terrible accident - looks that way, despite all our public need to believe that something like this could not actually happen to someone like that. I think it is time the public all let go now. It is getting boring.

Bollocks, many have a choice, they just don't like the alternatives. Your argument makes about as much sense as saying nobody in their right mind would pay some stranger for sex especially when they've been with with thousands of partners, but apparently there's a roaring trade. If only there were "easy" to do alternatives out there for these women. But then again maybe in cloud cukkoo land it does exist? Must do because you said so. Not that I would ever expect you to understand the subject of cause and effect. As for customers in their right mind paying for sex with potentially disease infested prostitutes. This has little relevance to to the subject of these womens desperation but for the record.... Who remembers Hugh Grant (Hollywood superstar, millionare, boyfriend of Liz Hurley) paying a street walker to blow him on some side street when he could have called any expensive agency for any girl he wanted who could have done to him any deviant act he wanted. Right mind. I don't think so. He had a choice sure, but then again it was only his dick driving him to do it, not a couple hundred a day drug habit.

Nobody in their right mind does street walking for money and having sex with a stranger when they have a choice. It is easy to say that somebody has control over their situation but until you have been in the grip of drug addiction nobody can judge somebody or the circumstances that led them there. Ok there maybe are some addicts that do not deserve sympathy but I choose always to view the bigger picture and why people get to where they are. Presented with the same set of circumstances who could be 100% certain it would not be them in that place? I know you will say "well why take drugs in the first place", but it is never as simple as that. Depression, grief, lonliness, peer pressure, mental health (self medicating) even can cause someone to take drugs and then progress onto more heavier ones and then get addicted. Because these women have lost all self respect for their bodies already why not go the extra mile and sell it even if it is for a 10 bag of smack. Most of these poor women are depserate and do not have the adequate support they need to get clean (An ex worked as a support worker for women like this and he said what a shit state of affairs it was and he was often angry at how they were let down), hence they are vunerable to some sick psycho like this. Not forgetting as well women who are hopelessly in debt. A lot of young women/students (some with degrees) turn to escorting/dancing to pay off student loans/credit cards. They get given credit beyond their control by a system that really should be burnt at the stake and then they have to suffer the consequences. A lot of pretty young women decide that it is the only way to solve the issue and that is to sell themselves. Maybe socially they are deemed not as bad as a street walker but they are still desperate enough in their situation to have sex with a complete stranger and for money. Subsequently they may become addicted to cocaine or whatever as these women suffer to handle the reality of what it is they are doing to themselves. The vicious circle then becomes that they are then working to feed the habit they cannot get out of. My point I am trying to make is the image of a down and out is wrong, well at the start anyway. A mix of situations and circumstances will lead a woman (or man even) to sell themselves. Turning tricks on a seedy street can land you in jail or at least with a serious criminal record. This pushes these women to take more unsafe risks than needs be and their punters who can be married men with strong reputations to protect will not put themselves in positions where they could get caught easily. What the police can do for these women in every city is to provide them with a safe zone if at all possible where the clients (who will not be prosecuted) can pick up the women and say they are observed via CCTV (I hear tax payers having an epi now). At the end of the day these women are going to do it. They are utterly desperate. We as humans should try and stop anything happening like this to anyone no matter how down the "social" ladder we think they are. This may not stop some women still taking very serious risks by going with the punters who will not pick up in a safe zone but it would protect at least a number of working girls. The other side is that all the grade A social twats that live in their 5 bedroom detached houses would never allow such a safe zone to exist even if it is 5 miles away from their front door. Another argument altogether. No it is a horrid occupation with a huge stigma attached to it. It is not one I would want for my daughter lets say. However like it has been said supply and demand generates the industry. People need to have sex, and how they want it. They always will. Most of those women would give their right arm to be taken back into soceity again, away from their drug dealer partners or pimps, often they have physical violence inflicted on them, this is not a myth it is true. Most of those womens families may have turned their backs on them - understandable (regardless what is said in the press and how it has all been portrayed). At the beginning their lust for Heroin/crack etc maybe such that they don't give a shit (what are they blanking?) but by the time they are in full swing of dependancy they are basically taking it to survive or what they think is surving. Hence the cycle turns them to turning tricks on a seedy street where they could get raped up the arse with no condom, cut up badly, gang raped...all sorts of sadistic shit we never hear about in the news......until now. I would not call that choice. This bastard that is doing this could have a nice 2.4 children scenario going on at home. Socially fits in, maybe somebody we would have a beer with when ironically we would not with any other the women he has just chopped. This is why he will probably and sadly get more girls in the up and coming weeks/months even years. He may have kinky tastes his missus will not do or even contemplate doing, maybe it is a game that went to far on the first one and now he has got a taste for a corpse now. He maybe angry at abuse he has suffered, who knows. All that can be done to stop him is to make sure the prostitues that are left (and yes they are prostitutes or hookers if you like, even working girls works for me.) are protected and not let down any further by a system that should be there to protect them - as well. Maybe I am too sympathetic but these women are not slappers. They are people. People with serious fucked up situations to deal with. I am glad I am not one fo them. Maybe in another life if I am unlucky though.

I bought a DELL and all I know so far is their customer service is shite.

: 3 : 2 Had a productive if not sketchy weekends skydiving. I managed to get my B licence on the first jump I did! (first beer fine) Also did my 100th (second beer fine) I am a big girl now!!!! Freeflying is next on the menu! I have decided belly is not for me!

They are great are'nt they. Love them, love them, love them. My level 8 I was practically hyperventillating in the door I was so scared, nailed it by pulling on the hill in about 3 seconds, landed rushing my tits off on adrenaline. I had to think at that point what was all the fuss about? Like somebody said do some lower as it is good practice for bail outs should you need to. Only thing is I would probably have to do a backloop exit now because I never leave stable on low ones and probably would screw it right up!

I wonder if you are doing it at Skydive London (based at Redlands Airfield, Wanborough) as that is the only DZ in Swindon? What does it say on your booking form? As for being nervous, no drama, there would be something wrong with you if you had no fear of the unknown. It is a huge challenge mentally chucking yourself out of a plane. That is why there is such a high afterwards, the achievement and the experience itself (which is amazing - under canopy flying with no engine noise or metal around you. Lovely). My first jump was a tandem too. I was scared to death of flying and also I had raised a bucket load of cash for a charity. I had two motivations for doing it basically, be a saint and to face my fear head on. I knew I could not back out because of the cash so I almost found this peace within that I knew I was going to go through with it (even when I saw the Cessna with no door on it. Gulp). Because of this I felt there was no need to waste a huge amount of mental energy worrying the whole plane ride up making the whole experience quiet a serene and peaceful one maybe even a little surreal. When I landed that was it...I had been well and truly bitten on the arse (and no not by my TI!). Thousands of pounds later and minus a few non-skydiving friends and lovers (skydiving messes with your lovelife - good thing hubby is joining you) I'm almost where I want to be in my first year. Breath deeply on the way up - I still do now when I get the willies. Talk a lot too, hopefully you will get a bubbly TI (if it is Buzz ....well!), have faith in your instructor, they have lots of experinence. I felt very calmed and reassured by my tandem brief, talking about the kit and AAD's (fires your reserve if you are going too fast, too low), so even if you have a narcoleptic TI you should be fine....JOKE! As a one off experience you will get nothing like it. You will enjoy it one way or another and as an anniversary present it certainly is one to tell the grandkids chick! Hopefully see you in the New Year.

http://www.bpa.org.uk/forms/docs/Form%20247%20-%20JM1%20&%20CH2%20Record%20Sheet.doc Number 6 on this document is what you have to be able to do in order to be signed off for packing on your B licence.