[Daily Mail, where America gets its news] Psychiatrist Dr Sohom Das, London, debunks common myths about murderers.
1. Dr Das, 44, said that the first myth he wanted to debunk is that all murderers must be mentally ill.
'Some definitely do have mental health diagnoses, but most do not. The ones in the psychiatric units, obviously do.'
He continued, explaining that it 'depends how you define mental illness'.
'If you're the layperson, you might say that anybody who does something as extreme as killing another person - especially if it's somebody they don't know - is mentally ill,' Dr Das explained.
'But that's not the psychiatric definition. The psychiatric definition is somebody that has to have like a recognised mental disorder like depression, like bipolar, like schizophrenia...and of all killers, only a very small proportion have those things.
'And here's something to throw a pie in the ointment - even if they do have symptoms of mental illness, or if they are mentally ill, most of the time, it's quite mild symptoms...not severe enough to control their actions.' A pie in the ointment?
2. The second myth he discussed was that most murderers kill strangers.
He explained: 'That's true, but it's actually more commonly not true. So there are cases [like that]... which shock the nation because [it can happen to] complete strangers who were at the wrong place at the wrong time.
'But you're much more likely to be killed by somebody you know, especially if you're young, and especially if you're female.'
According to Dr Das: The Office for National Statistics said that in the year ending March 2020, which is when the most recent statistics are available, 62 per cent of of victims of murder knew their killer - and this was higher for females - 70 per cent compared to male victims, 52 per cent, and for victims under 16, the proportion that knew their suspects was even higher - about 88 per cent.'
3. According to the expert, myth number three is that murderers will kill again.
But, he said: 'Actually, it's very unlikely for somebody who's killed before, to go on to kill again.'
4. Moving onto myth number four, he said that it is that 'serial killers are these brilliant criminal masterminds'.
He added that around 40 per cent of serial killers have low I.Qs, they live on the fringes of society, and they attack their victims randomly.
'So [there isn't that sort of pre planned effort, stalking people for a long period...they just have this like, this frenzied urge and rage to kil, so they go out and do it randomly.
'They often don't move the bodies, they literally just leave the scene, they try and hide. Or they try and disguise the trend evidence because they just want to get out.
5. Dr Das's fifth and final myth about killers is that...'they are all inherently evil or they are all monsters.
He added: 'So to me, this paints a simplistic and harmful picture. People who've taken life before come from diverse backgrounds, they have different motivations, experiences, have different mental states.
'So judging them solely on this one act ignores the complexity of their life and circumstances, even taking morality out of the question.'
He added: 'I guess what I'm saying, is somebody can have done something horrendous, and it doesn't necessarily reflect their entire personality or character.'
#2
The psychiatric definition is somebody that has to have like a recognised mental disorder like depression, like bipolar, like schizophrenia...
He left out sociopaths. Maybe he doesn't consider reptiles to be insane.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
04/02/2024 11:11 Comments ||
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#3
Seems like murder is a broad topic that can include murder for hire, murder of a significant other, drive by’s, honor killing, jihad, war crimes, etc.. there would also be variation by country. The datasets would need to be huge. The quality of data coming out of places like Haiti or North Korea might not be very good.
That said, I’m glad Dr Das was able to do a lot of debunking. Hopefully, he is not a sociologist. Otherwise, his study is probably not worth much.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
04/02/2024 11:24 Comments ||
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#5
Ok, I'll bite:
(1) Not all killers are crazy. Some people need killing.
(2) Most killers kill someone they think needs killing.
(3) Killing's a lot of work. So's staying out of jail.
(4) Successful serial killers are smart. They also know when to stop.
(5) See (1): Some people need killing.
Your mileage may vary.
Posted by: ed in texas ||
04/02/2024 14:26 Comments ||
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#6
^ Great summary!
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
04/02/2024 14:41 Comments ||
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[Insty's Substack - Subscribe to help continue] It’s feeling a little like 1938. There’s not a great power shooting war going on, but you can smell one coming. There’s the Ukraine war, which involves Russia (kindasorta a great power, but not really nowadays), and which seems to fill the role that the Spanish Civil War played in the 1930s — a testing ground for new technologies and tactics, and an indication of just how destructive, and expensive, modern war can be, but not a main event.
Meanwhile, the main antagonists — this time around, that’s the United States and the People’s Republic of China — are arming up, seeking allies, and thinking strategy and tactics.
The U.S. didn’t really begin to arm up until the massive naval expansion begun (a bit late) in 1940. But weapons development (e.g., the B-17) had begun earlier, and although the politicians continued to talk as if war was unlikely, by 1938 the military and naval folks were expecting a war in the near future.
Chairman Xi, we’re told, has ordered his generals to be ready to invade Taiwan in 2027. Perhaps not coincidentally, rumors are that the Defense Department expects a war, presumably with China, also in 2027, and is preparing for it.
Well, it’s the Defense Department’s job to prepare for war all the time, though these days I suppose I should be grateful they’re still paying some attention to that task instead of pronouns and diversity. And of course it’s entirely possible — probably even some flavor of likely — that this will blow over without World War III. So far pundits and military analysts have predicted something like 11 of the last 0 World Wars since 1945.
But if today is the equivalent of 1938, what should we be doing? Well, let’s break that down into the multiple versions of "we" that could mean.
1. We the Nation.
The United States of America, in other words, though secondarily this includes allies, treaty organizations like NATO, etc. In short, we need to finally begin executing the "pivot to Asia" that the Obama Administration announced, but never really implemented. This means both increased diplomatic efforts to organize China’s neighbors into a containment sphere, and increased military efforts to build up our response capability.
We’re actually making some ground on the first of these, not least because China’s neighbors saw the problem before we did — and also because they’ve lost a lot of confidence in the United States in its role as protector. Vietnam, Singapore, South Korea, Japan, even the Philippines (which for a while was drifting into China’s orbit) have begun resisting Chinese encroachments, and arming up, while talking to each other (even South Korea and Japan) about presenting a united front.
Militarily, well, these countries are arming up, as I said, and the United States is kindasorta working on it, though we lack the shipbuilding capability to expand our navy as we should, and our woke army seems to be unable to convince enough people to sign up, especially for combat positions.
There’s a fair amount of economic decoupling going on, though less than there needs to be if a war is coming. It’s not just in shipbuilding that domestic production capability is weak. We rely very heavily on Chinese and Taiwanese electronics production, neither of which will be available in the event of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, successful or otherwise. Our production lines for manufacturing drones, missiles, smart bombs, etc. are all much too small to meet wartime demands. Even the Ukraine war has put a strain on some of them.
As Austin Bay and Jim Dunnigan said years ago in How to Make War, a major modern conflict will demonstrate how absurdly, and probably unsustainably, expensive modern warfare with modern weapons has become. (But see below for some alternatives.) But you can’t fight without bullets, and the more modern equivalents. (We still need actual bullets too, though, and supplies of those could be better as well.)
If we’re serious about preparing for a war, the production lines for important weapons, sensors, and the like should be running around the clock. They’re not.
The Army has started doing something about recruitment, replacing "woke" recruiting ads featuring diversity with more traditional ads featuring white men jumping out of airplanes, which led some wags to suggest — probably correctly — that this means they expect to have to fight soon. But it won’t be easy to undo the damage of recent years, including the wanton betrayal of Americans, and foreign allies, in Afghanistan. People noticed, and you can’t turn on a dime after something like that.
One thing I would be doing is studying Ukraine closely. In particular, Ukraine’s use of cheap homemade drones in the air and at sea is worth a close look. Invading Taiwan across a hundred miles of water isn’t an easy task; Ukraine, despite lacking a navy, has basically neutralized the Russian Black Sea Fleet with a combination of ship-killer missiles and cobbled-together drones. It has also made up for the lack of an effective air force by using drones to make deep strikes into Russian territory.
But if you wanted to distill what the U.S. could do into one brief phrase it would be this: "get serious." That means, among other things, a defense secretary who’s up to the job (we don’t have one of those) and a commander in chief who takes things seriously, and isn’t on the Chinese payroll. (Oops.) Well, that’s what Iwould do, and what the U.S. should do, not what the Biden Administration will do. We will pay a price for that, if things come to a head.
2. We the People.
What would you have done in 1938 if you had known that war was coming in 1941? If you had been of an age and inclination to serve, you might have signed up early for one of the service branches, so as to get a leg up on the training process and acquire some seniority. If you had been of the age and resources to invest, you might have put money into war-related industries (which would include obvious things like arms and oil, as well as less obvious things like medical equipment and agriculture). If you had been a member of Congress you might have sought membership on war-related committees. If you were an attorney you might have acquired expertise on government contracts and procurement. If you were a nuclear scientist, you might have started having quiet discussions with trusted peers, as in fact was done. Etc., etc.
What are the equivalents today? Well, some are the same — investing in oil or medical supplies or agriculture, for example. Others are new: Cyberwar will be a big thing and while nobody’s really fought one on a grand scale, it’s likely that Chinese efforts would be gigantic, and quite possibly very destructive.
What else should people be thinking about? Talk about it in the comments below, please!
3. Taiwan.
Taiwan is likely to be China’s first major target —but see the Philippines — and having had the advantage of decades to prepare for a Chinese invasion. I don’t know how well they’ve put that to use. My daughter was in Taipei last year and reported a surprisingly lackadaisical attitude on the part of the ordinary Taiwanese she talked to; what that says about the scope and scale of government efforts I don’t know.
Certainly my advice about learning from Ukraine goes double or triple for the Taiwanese. It’s entirely possible that they could bloody or even neutralize a Chinse invasion fleet with a bunch of low-budget swarming drones. It helps that, unlike Ukraine, they have a huge electronics industry already. If there aren’t Taiwanese observers studying Ukraine’s technology, or Ukrainian consultants teaching their tactics to the Taiwanese military, then somebody has really dropped the ball.
The Taiwanese also should be, and to some degree are, moving some of their manufacturing offshore, to other Asian countries or even to the United States. Of course, that’s a mixed bag for them. Having so much of the world’s semiconductor manufacturing capacity on their small island gives them a useful hostage, a way to make sure that the world cares what happens to them. It’s also an attraction to the Chinese, though Taiwan should also have plans to destroy its factories and evacuate its skilled personnel overseas in the event of an invasion. China’s interest in Taiwan is, in the end, political rather than economic, but the less valuable the prize is in economic terms the better.
Finally, we might take comfort from the fact that China is in serious economic trouble:
You know it’s over when 65 million homes — one-fifth of the nation’s total — lie vacant and real-estate prices have collapsed to 2018 levels.
Tens of millions of Chinese plunked down their life savings for an apartment in a high-rise that they will never live in because the builder went bankrupt, leaving the building an uninhabitable empty shell.
You know it’s over when China’s "official" youth unemployment rate reaches double digits, while its Ministry of Finance reports a 16% drop in personal income tax collected year over year.
Given how the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) toys with statistics, the real numbers must be much, much worse.
Finally, you know China’s boom days are over when both capital and people are heading for the exits.
Five hundred billion dollars may have fled the country in 2023 alone and the hemorrhaging continues.
But countries in economic trouble often start wars as a means of getting out of it, or at least distracting from it. Germany invaded Poland because it was facing bankruptcy on its existing course, as the bills for Hitler’s reorganization of the country came due. Chairman Xi is clearly willing to do anything before he’ll admit to error, and he’s wrecked China’s once-flourishing economy too. (Given what’s going on in Western economies, a distraction might become welcome here, too.)
So we may luck out and avoid a war. Heck, we might have done so last time around. But we didn’t, and we may not avoid another one now. And even if we do, it’s likely to be a bumpy ride.
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/02/2024 00:00 ||
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Link ||
[268 views]
Top|| File under: Tin Hat Dictators, Presidents for Life, & Kleptocrats
#1
And the main thing: Western ruling classes and the major part of their populations live in a fantasy world having no connections with reality.
#5
Finally, we might take comfort from the fact that China is in serious economic trouble:
I've been hearing that for decades. The more I hear it, the less I believe it. Underestimating your enemy can only lead to complacency and then to defeat.
What should we be doing? Stop trading with the commie bastards immediately. Their military is only as capable as their economy and ever since the early 1990's we have been the biggest enabler of the Chinese economy. As well as driving the Chinese economy, we have gutted our own manufacturing capacity. That doesn't make any sense.
Next, elect a Republican president. History is very clear: Democrats have always gotten us into the shittiest wars. I think Joe Biden would take rather money from the communists, let them flood our country with fentanyl and prepare for surrender than to deter war with superior fire power.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
04/02/2024 12:37 Comments ||
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#6
We are at war already. This is a fantasy of refighting ww2. Like the Vietnam experience. China does not want to destroy the US. Belt and road seeks resource control. USAs econimic engine is the resource. They want to manage it. China wants do everything it can to avoid the USA realizing it is already in conflict. It does want us to divide and fight each other. Then support one side over the other.
#2
If its funded by the Feds, the Davis Bacon Act applies, which means prevailing union wages for the area. So the real question is who audits the work to make sure the workers get that pay. That is where the graft and corruption comes in.
#6
I think we can rule out high end or tourist accoutrements based on my vague memory of the neighborhood. Even trash can seems pretty optional in Metro Baltimore.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
04/02/2024 11:29 Comments ||
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#7
#4 and #2 are correct. My source at the time was my son and grandson.One is still working as an iron worker and does welding.Yes, the Unions and it being a federal project one would think non union not invited to play. Labor shortage perhaps an angle.
Reclamation of old paper mill locally required 100 Mexicans.1,000,000 dollar loss of drums of copper. Cashed in two states away.
#10
The thing about the I695 bridge (the Scott Key bridge) is the it was a bridge. All the rest of the harbor crossings are tunnels.
That means the I695 crossing is the only direct HazMat crossing between Virginia and Philly.
That means that they better be planning to rebuild, else fuel flows and military cargos are basically have to be routed thru central PA, maybe 300 miles out of the way.
Maybe they can use some the design genuises they got working on hi-speed rail to fix it up for them.
And no, even interstate highways are built under state regulations, not federal. They have to meet federal guidelines, but they're done at the state level. Look for fun times at the Maryland DOT.
Posted by: ed in texas ||
04/02/2024 14:11 Comments ||
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#11
Did Mayor Pete tell that, Ed?
I believe you're right, BTW, but you're the first person I've heard say/write that.
Posted by: Bobby ||
04/02/2024 15:36 Comments ||
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#12
AASHTO regs on Interstates and most states use same.
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/02/2024 19:01 Comments ||
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[FoxNews] DeSantis started flying illegal immigrants to progressive states in late 2022 to highlight the Biden administration’s inadequate response to the border crisis
A federal judge on Monday dropped Ron DeSantis from a lawsuit after the Republican Florida Governor coordinated flights of illegal immigrants from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard in 2022.
In a 77-page ruling, U.S. District Judge Allison D. Burroughs dropped DeSantis and various past and present staff members from the lawsuit over "insufficient facts" presented in the case.
Allison said the court could not "ascertain what actions were taken by whom and therefore cannot determine which, if any, of those individual Defendants transacted business or caused injury here, leaving it no choice but to find that, at least on this record, personal jurisdiction has not been established."
Still, the ruling leaves open the possibility for further litigation against Vertol, the Florida-based company that coordinated the flights for $1.5 million.
Like his counterparts in Texas and Arizona, DeSantis started flying illegal immigrants to progressive states in late 2022 to highlight the Biden administration’s failing at the southern border.
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[BBC] Chinese researchers have unveiled an ancient skull that could belong to a completely new species of human.
The team has claimed it is our closest evolutionary relative among known species of ancient human, such as Neanderthals and Homo erectus.
Nicknamed "Dragon Man", the specimen represents a human group that lived in East Asia at least 146,000 years ago.
It was found at Harbin, north-east China, in 1933, but only came to the attention of scientists more recently.
An analysis of the skull has been published in the journal The Innovation.
"In terms of fossils in the last million years, this is one of the most important yet discovered," he told BBC News.
"What you have here is a separate branch of humanity that is not on its way to becoming Homo sapiens (our species), but represents a long-separate lineage which evolved in the region for several hundred thousand years and eventually went extinct.
The researchers say the discovery has the potential to rewrite the story of human evolution. Their analysis suggests that it is more closely related to Homo sapiens than it is to Neanderthals.
They have assigned the specimen to a new species: Homo longi, from the Chinese word "long", meaning dragon.
Dragon Man had large, almost square eye sockets, thick brow ridges, a wide mouth, and oversized teeth. Prof Qiang Ji, from Hebei GEO University, says it is one of the most complete early human skull fossils ever discovered.
"It has a mosaic combination of primitive and more modern features, setting itself apart from all the other species of human," the researcher explained.
The scientists believe that Dragon Man was powerfully built and rugged. But little is known about how he lived, because his skull was removed from the site in which it was found.
This means that there is currently no archaeological context, such as stone tools, or other elements of culture.
The skull was reportedly discovered in 1933 by a construction worker helping to build a bridge on the Songhua river running through Harbin, in Heilongjiang province, which translated means Black Dragon River, hence the new human's name.
#1
Probably this is a propaganda piece to make all things CCP. But what struck me was in the ‘90’s my Argentinian-Hungarian cultural Anthropology professor informed us that Asians technically met the standard to be classified as a separate homo group, similar to the classification of Neanderthals or hidelbergensis. But that weirdness about racial views post ww2 did not allow the science for that. Oddly denisovans were “unknown at that time”. So the science might have been on to something.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
