I usually believe in the inherent goodness of mankind. I find that I am usually doubting that belief.
Prince William Father Fatally Shoots Three Sons and Himself
Robin C. Edwards had arranged with his boss to take Wednesday off, saying he needed to tend to some personal business. That morning, the 37-year-old father retrieved his three young boys from a babysitter, took them to his small home in rural Prince William County and executed them one by one with a shotgun before killing himself, authorities said.
Prince William County police found the bodies of Bradley, 9, Ryan, 7, and Kyle, 5, in a bedroom at Edwards’s Greenwich Road home after the boys’ frantic mother, who had moved out of the home, called police after a fruitless search for her children. Officers then found Edwards in the home’s second bedroom.
Authorities said yesterday that the violence came without warning and emanated from domestic problems that became serious only recently. Police said they had never been called to the Edwards home for a domestic violence call or any other criminal matter.
What is it exactly that drives one to murder their own children? It certainly is not a natural impulse. And I’m sure the breaking point varies for each individual, but what must go wrong in your life before you decide it’s better to kill your children and then yourself than to just let everyone live or just kill yourself? While I don’t take joy in it, suicide is something I don’t have so much of a problem with. It’s an unfortunate personal decision usually made in haste and in a state of mental incapacity, but why must so many people take others with them?
Sniper Case Triggerman Need Not Be Named
Prosecutors do not have to tell defense attorneys whether they believe John Allen Muhammad or his alleged co-conspirator, Lee Boyd Malvo, fired the shot that killed a man pumping gas in Prince William County during the sniper shootings in October, a judge ruled yesterday.
In making that ruling, Circuit Judge LeRoy F. Millette Jr. left open the possibility that prosecutors would not have to prove who actually pulled the trigger to get a death penalty conviction for Muhammad. Instead, prosecutors will have to prove that he was “a principal in the first degree,” the judge said, using a well-established legal term in Virginia case law.
Muhammad’s attorneys argued that if Malvo or someone else pulled the trigger, their client should not be facing the death penalty.
This is almost up there with the conviction of the two boys for murdering their father after prosecutors failed in a trial to convict someone else of the same thing. You can’t try two people at once for killing the same person. They both didn’t shoot him, ONE pulled the tirgger, the other aided in the attempt. ONE person committed murder, the other is an accomplace. You can’t try both for murder. That’s a miscarrage of justice.
On a less serious note…
Blair’s secret war meetings with Clinton
Tony Blair took repeated secret advice from the former American president Bill Clinton on how to unlock the diplomatic impasse between Europe and the US in the build-up to the war on Iraq, the Guardian can reveal.
In the crucial weekend before to the final breakdown of diplomacy in March, Mr Clinton was a guest of Mr Blair’s at Chequers where the pair discussed the crisis.
Mr Blair was battling to persuade the Chilean president Ricardo Lagos - a key figure on the security council - to back a second UN resolution setting a new deadline for Saddam to cooperate fully with the UN or face military action.
Three days after his Chequers meeting, Mr Clinton made a rare public appeal to his successor, George Bush, to give the UN weapons inspectors more time.
Mr Blair and Mr Clinton met at least three times to discuss the war, underlining the extent to which Mr Blair rates Mr Clinton’s analytical powers, despite the bond of trust he has also formed with the Republican White House.
Wait, wait, wait. Blair had a super secret League of Leaders meeting with the Evil Clin-Ton? GASP! Next thing you know we’ll find out he called his mother about the best way to cook pork chops!
Mmmmm….. kitty litter cake!
The Atlantic Monthly’s April issue has a great article on the mind of George W. Bush
George W. Bush, No. 43, is not an easy man to write about. He is not contradictory, not flamboyant, and not well-spoken. He thus deprives reporters, as he will deprive historians, of three of the handles—conflict, gestures, words—they automatically reach for to describe their subjects. It is possible, though, to figure out how Bush makes decisions. Nothing reveals a man’s mind, especially the mind of a man who is not articulate, better than the decisions he makes. Here his very consistency helps. To write this article I talked to insiders and outsiders, higher-ups and lower-downs, who have known him in a variety of circumstances: in Texas and in Washington, in business and in government. Their collective portrait was not of a Jekyll and Hyde sort; by and large everything they said fit together. Even when, in my view, almost all of them were mistaken in their reading of the man, they were mistaken in the same way. The picture of Bush deciding is as close as we can easily come to Bush’s mind.
It’s actually a very interesting insight. Not sure how someone who really doesn’t support him takes the article, but I think it’s well worth reading.
New Fox Reality Show To Determine Ruler Of Iraq
Fox executives Monday unveiled their latest reality-TV venture, Appointed By America, a new series in which contestants vie for the top spot in Iraq’s post-war government.
“Get ready, America, because you’re about to choose the man—or woman—who will lead Iraq into an exciting democratic future,” said Fox reality-programming chief Mike Darnell, introducing the show at a press conference. “Will it be Ahmed Chalabi, leader of the exiled Iraqi National Congress? Or General Tommy Franks, commander of the allied forces? Or maybe Roshumba Williams, the Macon, GA, waitress with big dreams and an even bigger voice? Tune in Tuesdays at 9 to see.”
Describing the new show as “American Idol meets the reconstruction of Afghanistan,” Darnell said Appointed By America will feature contestants squaring off in a variety of challenges, including a democracy quiz, a talent competition, and nation-building activities that will demonstrate their ability to lead a bombed-out, war-ravaged Mideast country.
I wouldn’t be surprized…
