The only thing that saves the stupid headline below from joining my Spam Journalism collection is the fact that the article it heads is not trivial: Govt’s tough line on violence isn’t working – police Police say the Government’s policies to reduce violent crime have had little effect, as such offending is still on the [...]

I might have known that the case of Margaret Page, the woman who has decided to starve herself to death, has been taken up as a cause célèbre by the euthanasia lobby, notably Lesley Martin. It seems to me, however, that there is a substantial difference between actively participating in the ending of another person’s [...]

That, apparently, was the defense that was put forward by the killer of Navtej Singh, the man shot by thugs in his liquor store and left to bleed to death. Anitelea Chan-Kee, the man behind the gun that ended Navtej Singh’s life claims that the killing was “accidental” because he “did not realise the gun was [...]

Back from South Africa, anyway. Jet lagged out of my gourd as well. After a decade away (15 years since emigrating), South Africa now feels like a foreign land to me. The South African government claims that crime has dropped since the Apartheid years but I doubt very much that that is true. Absolutely everyone [...]

The Herald carries a fairly level-headed article (from the Independent) on the differing verdicts in the case of two separate “mercy killings” in the UK. I say level-headed because it actually does explore the reasoning behind the difference in verdict and vaguely explore the problems associated with strong mandatory sentences. One woman killed her 31 [...]

Spam Journalism: The spurious use of sensational headlines to add spice to an otherwise pointless article. A post on Whale-oil’s site reminded me that I haven’t produced a spam post for a week. Not that there has been a lack of material, but there is another egregious example of the art of truly appalling, opportunistic spam [...]

Nai Yin Xue, the suspect in the “pumpkin” case, has just been found guilty of murdering his wife and dumping her body in the back of a car. He was taken out of court protesting his innocence, but I have little doubt that the verdict was correct. His lawyer, Chris Comeskey, ably attempted to build [...]

Murdering the Murderer. I’m sure that will be the justification of Scott Roeder, the man alleged to have gunned down America’s most notorious abortionist, Dr George Tiller – ironically while he was ushering people into church. I heartily disapproved of Dr Tiller, but there is absolutely no justification for the barbarity of this act. It is [...]

As a sad reminder that, despite the ANZAC sacrifices, war is still with us, the Iraqi government says it has recorded 87,215 Iraqis killed since 2005 with an estimated 110,600 since the start of the US intervention in 2003. Most of these deaths, of course, have been caused by shootings, bombings, mortar attacks and beheadings and similar acts [...]