Leprechauns rob bank but get no gnomes!

St.Patrick's Day is supposed to be the feast day of the British Christian who went to Ireland. I say went but he was actually captured by Irish raiders who enslaved him. However, such an inauspicious start did not deter him in later life from becoming an important figure in Irish history.

A strange thing happened yesterday in Nashville, Tennessee. Instead of celebrating St.Patrick's Day properly, two men decided to raid a bank. One of them dressed up in a costume representing an Irish leprechaun. What brought this on is anyone's guess, but we won't find out as the two robbers were shot dead.

Perhaps they wanted the publicity? They got that. Perhaps they had a warped sense of humour? Or maybe they were trying to flush out a few gnomes? Whatever the reason, it has gone with them. Raiding banks is no answer to personal problems. Neither does it have any effect on the bank other than scaring the staff witless. Banks carry on, so raiding them makes no sense if it was a kind of political statement.

The BBC reports, "The suspects left their car in a field and fled on foot. They were killed while exchanging fire with officers, police said. No officers were injured and money was recovered from the suspects' vehicle. Both suspects were pronounced dead on the scene." So, on St.Patrick's Day two bank raiders celebrate in this style. As their souls drift passed the presence of St.Patrick will they be wondering if anything has changed since those first raiders confronted Patrick and gave him six years of hard toil and bother?

Brummie bus bows out at last!

Great news! The Birmingham-built Metrobus is being pensioned off, says the BBC. This boneshaker has been seen as a success story and no doubt it has done its job without breakdowns. Phil Bateman was head of the transport authority when the buses were ordered. He said, "They were Brummie buses built for people in the West Midlands to travel on and they suited our streets extremely well. They gave us efficiencies that we were craving at the time." But were they comfy back when they first appeared? I have to admit I don't know as I didn't do bus travel then. But I do now and my heart sinks when one of these turns up.

My guess is that we were never going to be treated to too much comfort as the seat slashers and cigarette smokers were competing for space. Even now the Birmingham buses are subject to blatant drug taking, window decoration and chewing gum impregnations. Seeing as there is no law enforcement to keep these types off buses and I'm looking forward to my bus pass, I'd like all bus companies to put up signs such as "This bus will stop automatically if a whiff of marijuana is detected, a window pane is defaced, or a seat is defiled!" Then I'd suggest all doors close and the perpetrators taken away by a police service that has been given the equivalent of sitting ducks at a rifle range.

A terrible manifestation

Further to the last posting I've found this bit on paedophilia. It seems that most in the medical profession see this as a mental disorder. However, they have no cure for it. Paedophiles are on a treadmill for life. If they get an urge to offend and they get caught they go to prison with no prospects of a cure as they already know there is none. What a life! Literally. Who would want to be a paedophile?

If a cure is not to be found then it must be the fate of a few men (and women, it seems) to live with a psychiatric pathology, knowing that your brain triggers impulses that the vast majority of the rest of humanity finds repellent. You are at the mercy of lynchings at worst and misplaced sympathy at best.

All I can think of currently is that there must be a better way of trying to find a cure. Because the very presence of paedophilia in our midst seems to bring out a desire in many just to "kill off" these predatory people.


From the Italian TV Station RAI

What is paedophilia?
The World Health Organisation includes paedophilia in the list of sexual disturbances. It is a psychiatric pathology which is part of the so-called sexual deviations, meaning disorders which involve an attraction for something unusual, like inanimate objects, or in this case, children.

Treatments: an open discussion
Two treatments have been examined for curing paedophiles: the first is aimed at correcting the hormonal profile, commonly called "chemical castration", the second involves treating the psychiatric disorder.

The idea behind correcting the hormonal profile is to reduce testosterone (male hormone) or at least its effects with some drugs (primarily cyproterone). But to have a lasting effect the individual must be forced to take this substance for a long time and this may lead to irreversible physical injuries.

From a psychiatric viewpoint, paedophilia is manifested as an obsession and emotional disorder. The paedophile is an obsessive because he has the repeated idea of finding a child and using this child emotionally and sexually, an idea which he is unable to control. There are drugs which are capable of relieving this repetitive thought mechanism, but this type of treatment is not seen as a permanent solution. To treat the emotional disorder, often caused by childhood traumas, psychotherapy is used.

The debate over drug treatment to correct the hormonal profile and on psychiatric treatments continues and is very heated. To date it has not led to short term solutions.

Prevention and control: advice from associations
The best way to fight paedophilia continues to be prevention.

Death Row gets another death to add to the others!

John Allen Muhammad was put to death yesterday. He was the so-called Washington Sniper. Apparently he was a schizophrenic. Plus he was paranoid and psychotic and delusional. Just the type to bung in the Death Chamber. There's a lot of death around at the moment. By that, I mean not by natural causes. There was the Brit gunned down by a trigger-happy guy in Amarillo. Then the Muslim soldier went on the rampage killing as he went in the army compound. Death in Afghanistan, now too much for many to bear. And a young footballer in Germany sends himself to the next world by getting hit by a train.

Death all around us. Many Americans think death is something of a punishment. In that they've got some kind of religious schizophrenia. The victims of Muhammad's gunfire were encouraged to visit the execution. All grist to the vengeance mill, quite out of keeping with Dominical Teaching. "Vengeance is mine saith the Lord. I will repay". Not a message that the Correctional Centers like put to them. One visitor welcomed the death. "He basically watched my dad breathe his last breath," she told the Associated Press news agency. "Why shouldn't I watch his last breath?" No reason, but is that going to be repeated at the Last Judgement?

This execution will do not one jot of difference to the safety and wellbeing of Americans and visitors to the United States. I take it as read that if I set foot in the country I may not leave as I arrived. The answer to the justice question is to keep schizophrenics off the streets and to curtail their ability to buy guns. One wonders where the madmen actually are. My guess is that quite a few are sitting in Washington cleaning out their porkbarrels!

Vernon Coaker - what a travesty!

Vernon Coaker is a typical New Labour apparatchik. Straight out of George Orwell's 1984. Why is it that this regime has so many creepy characters in it? This morning Coaker was on the Today Programme sparring with John Humphrys. Coaker thinks that people aquitted of a crime need to have their DNA on a database so that they can be monitored. Basically he was implying that once nicked, a person is deemed to be a serial offender by virtue of natural inclination. Says a lot, doesn't it?

In Vernon Coaker's warped world, a person arrested for a crime is to be seen as evermore a "criminal". The criminal justice system may say you're innocent, but Coaker says your guilty. Of thought crimes. The possibility of thinking of doing a crime. Come on, Coaker, get real. You just want a controlled state run by control freaks. Admit it!

On Sky News this morning the chirpy James Whale was parroting the "I've got nothing to hide" routine. OK, if that's so, give your DNA to the police. Just in case, you never know. The whole thing is pathetic. This is not about fighting crime, but about maintaining a civilised society where people are deemed innocent until proved guilty. It's all well and good saying that you've nothing to hide, but just think. Here's an example. James Whale goes to a dinner party. Great merriment is had by one and all. Next day one of the guests says she's been raped by another fellow guest. James gets a knock on his door from the police. Of course, he's entirely innocent, but it's a bit close for comfort. He's asked to give his DNA as a matter of course. No problems, he's got nothing to hide. The case eventually comes to court and the accused is found not guilty. The acquiitted man's DNA still floats around the system, as does James Whale's. A year later, Whale gets a knock on the door from the police. His DNA has been found at a house where somebody got assaulted. He thinks "what?" but can't think how that could be. It all proves to be a timewasting problem. What happened was that a beer glass Whale drank from at an office party was taken back to the house of the accused for washing but it never happened. My point for James Whale is that glib remarks like "I've got nothing to hide" are not so easy to say when caught up in a DNA-driven investigation.

Thankfully, after a European court ruling, DNA profiles of up to 850,000 innocent people held on an official database will be removed. These are all people presumably with "nothing to hide".

Seeing as this government is hiding pretty much everything they can, from the truth about the Iraq invasion to the number of illegal immgrants, it is a grievous pity that DNA cannot be used on them to check the truthfulness of their words!

Deathbed confession? More like a death row profession!

James Brewer has a few things muddled up. First he thought he was dying because he'd had a stroke. Then he felt confession was good for the soul so he confessed to a murder, after which his stroke symptoms miraculously vanished. However he had not died but remained firmly on Earth to await his fate. That fate could now be death row as an inmate.

The whole story is bizarre. Mr.Brewer is now 58 and apparently shot dead 20-year-old Jimmy Carroll who he thought had been trying to seduce his wife. That was in 1977 when Brewer would have been about 21/22. Two things occur to me. First, guns and hot-headed neighbourly disputes do not mix. Any short period of viewing Jerry Springer re-runs will immediately alert one to the level of aggression that "country folk" can engender. The second is that Brewer and his wife are now involved with church activity and Mrs.Brewer's Bible classes have undoubtedly rubbed off on him.

The irony of all this is that even if the stroke didn't kill him, the state is keen to have its go. Police detective Tony Grasso said, "He wanted to cleanse his soul, because he thought he was going to the great beyond." That in itself is no bad thing. It was good that he confessed. However, it's what happens next that is the issue.

Brewer will probably be charged and then put on trial. Will he be convicted on his confession alone? Maybe. A decent lawyer would probably plead that his client was temporarily insane at the time. Who knows? The thing is he is now in the system. If he is convicted he may end up on death row.

Death row inmate or a dying stroke victim in hospital? Brewer thought he was the latter, now he may the former. The American penal system holds much store in Old Testament style vengeance. Going on death row is a grim reality of this. If he does end up there he may be praying for another stroke. Sounds terrible, I know, but his future is probably better in the hands of the Lord rather than the hands of the warden of a correctional facility. And what a euphemism that is!