http://www.cnn.com/2006/LAW/03/14/si....ap/index.html

didn't know the guy was still around

ps. he should not get parole....

Yes, his 13th parole hearing. Same old thing.

California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation: Lifer parole process:

The 12th was in 2003.

CBS News: Sirhan Sirhan Kept Behind Bars

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Yeah, "eligible for" and "going to get" are two different things. I mean, heck, Charles Manson's been eligible for parole for a very long time, but you don't see him walking around free, now, do you?

(No, I don't think Sirhan Sirhan should get parole, either, but he should before Manson does. Also, Sirhan Sirhan went to the same junior high school as I, though many years before.)

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

Almost every time this comes up there is some interview with Sirhan Sirhan in which he goes on about how he has been punished and rehabilitated, etc. I suppose there are people who would be willing to forgive him, but I'm not one of them. He interfered in our electoral process in such a fashion as to nullify the votes of millions of people. Let him rot.

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Microsoft is over if you want it.

The bar has been lowered for the promotion of ATM ideas; the bar for the acceptance of ATM ideas must remain high.

He will never get out. Ever.

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If you can't convince them, confuse them.

...no Way

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clear skies

If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe. CARL SAGAN

He fits my definition of a predator (the human on human variety) and should therefore have been exterminated.

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Don of Borg - Cool, Calm, Collective.

"Within the next generation I believe that the world's leaders will discover that infant conditioning and narco-hypnosis are more efficient, as instruments of government, than clubs and prisons, and that the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging them and kicking them into obedience." -- Aldous Huxley

I don't know if his initial sentence was death, but a lot of sentences got commuted to life imprisonment when the death penalty was declared cruel and unusual punishment as instituted at the time back in the 70s. That's why the Manson murderers are all still alive, too, as well as those cop killers from The Onion Field.

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

It was a Death Penalty commuted to life.

And remember that his victim was the uncle of the present California governor's wife. I don't see him getting out soon.

Reuters: Parole denied

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Don't get me started on the death penalty as I've just read about the Bartlett Pervert caught by Gonzalez's Untouchables here in Illinois. Sometimes I wonder if there should be a crueller punishment than even life or death for those who so ruin children's lives.

Too late, I'm already started. I am for the death penalty for certain predatorial crimes. I know, the devil is in the details for determining the exact criteria - but that is not a reason not to have the death penalty, especially given the level of forensic science these days.

Most people who object seem to claim so on moral grounds. I don't think it has anything to do with morals; it's just situational ethics at best. Basically, certain kinds of death make them queasy; and putting someone down like a rabid dog is one of them.

A moral sanctity-of-life objection to the death penalty doesn't wash unless a person is also against assisted suicide, abortion, euthanasia, ALL wars, and every other form of intentional killing that exists. If a person claims that life is sacred, then starts making exceptions, then they do not really have an all-life-is-sacred principle.

They just find certain kinds of killing more icky than others. So do I, but I would not claim it is based on moral grounds - it's personal feeling rooted in cultural bias.

People who prey on children should, quite simply, be exterminated. They are incurable, a danger to society, and not worth the expense of keeping locked up until they die of old age.

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Don of Borg - Cool, Calm, Collective.

"Within the next generation I believe that the world's leaders will discover that infant conditioning and narco-hypnosis are more efficient, as instruments of government, than clubs and prisons, and that the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging them and kicking them into obedience." -- Aldous Huxley

No comment as my idea is even less defensible.

I always found the notion of killing people to demonstrate
that it is wrong to kill people pretty silly.

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Punishments are not much of a deterrent. Separation from society is still best choice. Allowing a life to be removed from nourishment already is viewed by many as humane for innocents who are judged as incapable of a good future, why not the same for heinous serial criminals?

My position is not one based on deterence. It has to do with protecting civilized members of society from serial killers and the like in the most effective and efficient way possible. It's not about demonstration or punishment, it's about removal.

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Don of Borg - Cool, Calm, Collective.

"Within the next generation I believe that the world's leaders will discover that infant conditioning and narco-hypnosis are more efficient, as instruments of government, than clubs and prisons, and that the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging them and kicking them into obedience." -- Aldous Huxley

Slippery slope.
Once the government has the legal means to kill citizens,
where does it end?

Historically, where ever the death penalty existed,
it has been abused for political reasons.
Better just not to go there.

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Join the Illuminati

I have more trust in the government to decide who dies than serial killers. I also don't think that because it has problems it should be abandoned. Make the process better. Forensic science has come a long way - and so has our system of justice.

Like I mentioned, I think we could now formulate a system that could address most, if not all past abuses and errors. The only objections then would be the moral ones, which don't really add up. I mean we have codified rules from the church (Thou shalt not kill) and from the state (Life, liberty, ...) but humans cherry pick around those codes - so the moral high ground some adhere to simply does not exist (in my eyes).

It is all about how it makes people feel. Some feel it is OK to kill people in Iraq, but feel it is wrong to kill a serial killer in the electric chair. Or that it is OK to abort a fetus that has a brain wave for reasons of convenience, but wrong to kill a mass murderer with an injection. The contradictions reveal most objections to the death penalty as reflecting emotions and feelings and the practice of situational ethics more than some guiding moral principle such as all life is sacred.

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Don of Borg - Cool, Calm, Collective.

"Within the next generation I believe that the world's leaders will discover that infant conditioning and narco-hypnosis are more efficient, as instruments of government, than clubs and prisons, and that the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging them and kicking them into obedience." -- Aldous Huxley