Be Excellent To Each Other

Interesting comments there Mimi, thanks for the reply.

I know that in my own case that, if an elderly person was crying for help in the street (most especially where other people were clearly involved), I'd intervene as a matter of course, that is my nature. At the very least, I'd make it my business to know what the cause of their distress was, and if it became clear they were being subjected to an assault, I would come out with fists or, more likely, with whatever I could immediately lay hands upon. (It wasn't always this way; although I would've always intervened, this 'first strike' resort to physical violence response is entirely due to events of some ago that I won't go into, save to say that I know first hand what it feels like to not receive any help from anyone in an unprovoked, life-threatening attack, when it was 'my turn').

As to his being a war veteran, decorated for bravery in defence of his country (and therefore his fellow countrymen), I do personally think that this makes an already terrible situation even worse, in my opinion.

I just think there are too many people, these days moreso than in previous times, who "don't want to get involved", to the point failing to meet even basic common decency? Of course, muggers and the like well appreciate this, hence the audacious nature of this, and many other violent crimes against the weak and the old, committed in broad public, in the middle of the day, just like this example.

Sadly I wasn't watching on HD so the picture quality was poor, but Craster was just on the One Show.

Yep, that's Craster. I recognise him because he always looks like he's leaning at a 20° angle to you.

Fucksake. Just spent 2.5hours getting a tomato/aubergine chutney going, still 46 minutes of cooking to go before jarring. Why the fuck didn't I do this on Sunday? Or today, since i was working at home? Can't even be arsed ordering a.pizza now.

There aren't even any washing machines in it.

Actually, it turns out I could be arsed ordering a pizza.

Trying to work out which would hurt more - the bottle to the face, or the bollock to the consequences.

But yeah. I was mad enough at the lad who watched the Rothko get defaced. Watching an old dude get mugged would get me angry. More so than usual.

You could do anything to a Rothko and it would be an improvement, in fairness.

«resists»

I'd go for burning, myself.

Illness returned today with a claw hammer. Fucking hell, this is day nine of it.

I had swine flu a couple of years ago. That was fucking funny, I can tell you. Three weeks of being ill, and then another three weeks of being so tired I couldn't move.

I remember you having that. Hopefully this isn't as bad but i hope it clears by friday.

Ha, good memory.

Mrs K had whooping cough this year, so she wins the "weird things to catch as an adult" award.

Beer in the evening and berocca in the morning cure all ills.

Cripes, isn't that right dangerous for an adult? Hope she's ok now.

I think yesterday i accidentally flirted on facebook with the lass who was my girlfriend when I were 18. Oops.

Me too. That was evil. It completely wiped out my energy for what I thought at one point would be forever.

I've had wine flu a fair few times this year.

I've never had glueh wine

I probably could, yeah. But this lad was no throughsilver.

Very dangerous for kids. I very nearly died of it as a wee baby. Intensive care and everything.

Yes, it's v.v.v.v. dangerous for kids, which I why I get so cross at our idiot hippy friend who didn't have her kid vaccinated, who then got whooping cough as a 6 year old and was ill for two months, and will now have respiratory issues for life. (Then again, this woman is so fucking stupid that even though she has cancer she doesn’t want chemo or radiotherapy as they're "unnatural" and is instead attempting to cure her bladder cancer by drinking her own piss.)

The whooping cough vaccine's effectiveness degrades over time, so you can catch whooping cough as an adult even though you’ve been vaccinated, but it's relatively mild. The issue is that because all these IDIOT HIPPIES have stopped vaccinating, we've lost the old herd immunity and it means that the virus gets around and it more likely to get to those who can be killed by it - the babies who are under the vaccination age. This is why they've started vaccinating the mothers.

When we were in hospital with First Born a few years ago we saw quite a few babies in oxygen tents with whooping cough. Absolutely terrible.

But the MMR causes the Autism!

*yawn*
Can someone tell my daughter that four o clock in the morning is not the time to want to play with all her toys.

Couldn't agree more.

It's part of their "meek shall inherit the earth" plan. They've been pushing "introverts are people, too" and gathering some momentum with wearing glasses, skinny jeans,riding fixed wheeled bikes, camping in the street and organising flashmobs. And then the loud, cash rich other people ruin it for them by banging all the chicks anyway whilst they sit in a corner playing Black by Pearl Jam on an acoustic guitar and really, really hoping that Dr Sloan makes it and blogging about how cruel the world is. SO they don't vaccinate their kids in an attempt to off everyone else. As stratagies go, it's a bit fucking stupid.

I hold the same opinion on people that don't want their babies born in a hospital.

I normally ask them something along the lines of "Is that because you don't want your babies born?"

Er, didn't you kave your kid at home?

Just realised the medicine we've been buying for our Pooch is £16.50 when bought online. They've been charging us £45 a bottle at the vets. Still need the prescription from them that costs us £6.50, but still saving a shit load doing it this way now.

Money grabbing sods.

So, disporportionate force, then. The example given on the radio was "if you render an intruder unconcious, stabbing them would be considered going too far". it's really quite depressing, reading about this and the "victims can choose the punishments", as Mr Chris has rightly said that the victims are the worst possible people to have a say in a punishment for an offender.

All this rhetoric is raking up the embers of a seemingly real desire to lurch toward some form of mob justice.

As Cavey mentioned yesterday about people walking on by when bad things have happened, I think there's a real danger that if people do wade in, they'll get the wrong end of the stick. If person A is being attacked by person B, how can a bystander make a judgement involving the narrative leading up to those events? Maybe Person A had robbed person B a few minutes previous and happened to have stumbled over a drain cover and was caught? Maybe Person A is mentally ill and wants to throw themselves in front of a bus and person B is trying to restrain them? What if person A was standing by the side of the road, coutning his money out, and Person B runs past and bundles him to the floor? Seconds later, a piano drops onto the spot where Person A was seconds previous. Intervening is all very well and good when talked about, but 'street justice' is a terrible thing. We grew out of that a long while back, and this causes me real concern.

Also means more armed burglaries too.

Is it really an issue currently? Are people currently being jailed for anything less than chasing the intruder down the street with a cricket bat and beating them on the floor or shooting them in the back when they're running away?

Hells no. Quite simply, if we had, he wouldn't have survived.

Which is why I'm a bit of an evangelist for this, now.

I was sure Mrs Grim... was set on a home birth and you went to Hospital half way through when things got difficult.

Reminds me:

nicking bikes is a very low risk crime

Not us.

She was "high risk" so had to be in a hospital. Turns out she was fine, just the kid was an idiot.

Sorry, got my wires crossed somewhere then.

It's certainly an astonishingly small number of cases. And those that have been done have been done for going overboard. The law, as it stands, is fine, it's the lynch justice mentality I dislike, and can't understand why it is being pushed forwards.

Ditto. I don't think our living room would have been correctly equipped for the Mrs losing half of the blood in her body...

So, Grayling is basically a fucking idiot of the highest order.

That was us, with Second Born. We got more care and attention and had quicker potential access to a doctor then we did in the hospital with First Born. We also weren't exposed to as many filthy unwashed bloodstained surfaces.

Frankly, if you don't need to go into hospital you really shouldn't - you're taking your life in your hands every time you go in there. Mrs K, having worked in the NHS, is rather too aware of this.

Then again, if having the potential to get MRSA* is your idea of a good start to life for your kid, knock
yourself out.


*Mrs K's unclde had a brain tumour in January. He had it operated on, then got MRSA on the brain and needed further brain surgery to clean it all up. Win!

A huge amount of people are a carrier of MRSA, your mrs will certainly be a carrier if she worked in the NHS.

Snap. MrsP had a similar problem.

How does that work? Surely "In the building, ready to be summoned if necessary" is about as quick as it gets? Not criticising, just confused as to the process.

Yup, although it was years ago so she may have stopped asymptomatically shedding by now.

If you're not putting selective pressure on genes, they tend to go away pretty quickly as well.

SCIENCE:

Home birth vs hospital birth, and again

I suspect it comes down to "very much depends on the individual, ultimately", and any lower risk profile for home births is due to them being self-selecting "safe" candidates.

Your biggest risk is being in a hospital at the weekend - highest death rates at theweekend due to lack of consultants.

I think the issue is, or appears to be, that many people these days "don't want to get involved" in the first place - presumably out of fear of prosecution or being otherwise put through the wringer as it were? I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt, though, to be sure. I'm assuming it doesn't just boil down to sheer cowardice, selfishness and/or general contempt for their fellow human beings in need, on their part.

I hear what Mali is saying about "street justice"; it's not ideal. But then, it's hardly an ideal situation in the first place, being confronted with an acute situation (entirely of the assailant's making), requiring a snap decision there and then. Like I've said, for me personally, there is no doubt: if a person is being beaten up in the street in the middle of the day, screaming for help - especially if they're vulnerable (i.e. they're a woman, child or elderly), the question of whether or not to intervene with all the force I can muster simply does not arise, but people differ and I'm not claiming to be 100% right or whatever.

Besides, 'street justice', for all its limitations, certainly prevented entire communities and their businesses from being burned to the ground during the youth riots - that is beyond doubt. More would've been saved, too, if more people were prepared and willing to stand up and be counted in the face of such adversity, intimidation and violence; to have a care for their fellow citizens, people they rub shoulders with every day. (This reminds me of Trooper's commuter thread stuff the other day; the whole "I'm going to ignore you for 20+years every morning" sentiment on the morning/evening train or whatever)

However, I believe in Karma - what goes around comes around. Sooner or later the perpetrators of these ghastly acts will come up against a Grim..., a Throughsilver or a Cavey type of person.

How quickly can you get from your living room to your operating theatre room, though?

20 minutes or so. However, we were far, far, far less likely to need an operating theatre than we were likely to have something go wrong due to being in hospital.

Hospitals basically try to kill you while you're there. Facetious, yes, but that's basically what it amounts to, given the increased risks you have whilst there. I'll ask Mrs K for the stats later.