The Death Penalty. Is it an Evil Act?

'under what circumstances would you allow the government to kill you?'

Murder is the ultimate evil, no doubt about it. I hold murder in the same dis-regard as serious crimes such as rape, paedophilia and torture, but I think it is safe to say that Murder itself is the worst, the most evil.

What causes someone to commit murder? passion, revenge or maybe just some kind of twisted mentality? do they even understand the gravity of it? I think many people do not understand the gravity of it whatsoever.

We, the people, the system, the country in our enlightened and civilised view should know and fully understand the impact, the seriousness and gravity of the crime that is murder.

In my mind, how can we, or the system in its cool, calm and collected manner commit murder in response to murder?

If murder is evil, then surely death penalty is even more evil.

At the end of the day, humans commit murder for a variety of reasons, none of which can be tolerated in a civilised society and they must be removed from society for the safety of others.
A murderer kills, and a murderer has a reason for it. This reason may be complex, it may not be understood by society, it certainly is not tolerated and can never be allowed, but at the very least, a murderer has some kind of motive for their actions.

The Death Penalty does not deter murder.
Murder rates are not affected by the Death Penalty, because only a clear-minded person can be deterred and they are exactly the people who will likely never commit murder.
Someone (with a reason) in a fit of rage or passion, will not think clearly about the repercussions at the time of the killing anyway.

Innocent people are executed.
It has happened, it still happens and it will continue to happen. Humans are not perfect, our judicial systems are not perfect, evidence is not perfect and yet we impose the perfect, ultimate and final sentence.

Once an innocent person is murdered by the state, they cannot come back to appeal. Its over.
All over.

Imagine living on death row as an innocent person, awaiting your country, your people and your system to cooly decide your fate. To sentence your existence to be extinguished. Forever.

At the very least, a wrongfully imprisoned person could eventually be set free with new evidence or appeals. A dead person cannot appeal.

Innocent people have been released from prison after being subject to the unimaginable and crushing psychologial weight of being a Death Row inmate for on average, 9.5 Years! >>

Murders will continue to happen in society either way, by the mentally ill one on hand or a simple Joe Bloggs on the other, who knows?

Perhaps medical science will one day discover a gene, or a reason why a person does it, and it gets fixed. How will we feel then, knowing that we exterminated "guilty" people in such a way?

Once a murderer is caught, why not let them sit in a prison and think about it for the rest their lives? I would argue that would be a worse punishment, if they are really guilty, whereas in the event when an innocent person is imprisoned, they at least can have hope.

Short Term Solitary Confinement

I have been thinking about this one for a while, Short Term Solitary Confinement as a viable and real option for certain crimes.

Criminals who commit violent crimes or thefts which generally receive one, two or three months jail time should be put in solitary confinement instead.

People who commit crimes such as these are often in a position where the only people whose opinion they value, are other criminals.

So if a criminal has peers in the criminal fraternity, then why should they be put in a prison where they can mingle and perhaps gain more peers?

Many criminals value their image, how "tough" they are for example and an image like this has only got value if that person's peers can see it.

Why not lock a criminal away in such a way that they have no social interaction instead? I have known people who have gone to jail for car theft, burglaries etc and they end up spending 2 months in a jail, being clothed, fed, socialising, playing pool and PlayStation's.

Instead I say, don't put them in jail for 3 months. Instead put them in a purpose built solitary confinement complex for 1 week. That's right, One Week!

Psychologically, one week in a cell with no human interaction, no music, no day light, nothing at all to distract the mind and no concept of time will feel like 3 months anyway.

I am positive when I say that anyone who experiences this would Never, repeat "never!" want to go through it again. Whereas many criminals don't really mind too much if they get thrown in a normal jail because all of their mates are probably there anyway!

It would save a tonne of tax payers money and be a much better short, sharp, shock.

think about it. Am I onto something here? or have I got it all wrong?

Muzzerino

New Zealand Winter is Crap!

I am from Scotland and I am often asked if I prefer the New Zealand climate, (since everyone knows that Scottish weather is crap) and generally I do prefer New Zealand, in Summer that is.

The New Zealand winter however is crap.

Why?

Well, let me begin by stating that yes, the Scottish winter is much colder than New Zealand and the New Zealand winter is actually quite mild. So whats the problem? sounds good right?

No.

The reason I think the New Zealand winter is crap, is that the mild winters they have here in Aotearoa NZ are drastically offset by the low standard of insulation and heating in NZ buildings.

Let me ask you this, even in summer, 'where do you spend most of your time? Indoors or outdoors?', well unless you are a gardener, farmer, or road worker perhaps, most people will spend most of their day inside at work and then inside at home, with shorter periods outdoors.

So if that's the case in summer, where do you spend most of your time in winter? that's right, indoors!

New Zealand offices, New Zealand homes, New Zealand pubs, New Zealand cafes and New Zealand restaurants are all bloody freezing in winter.

New Zealand is the ONLY country I have ever been to where I have had to keep my coat on while at a restaurant or a pub.

In Scotland, like many places around the world with a colder climate, we have heated offices, pubs, schools, homes and in fact, pretty much every indoor place you can think of has some kind of modern heating, or at the very least basic insulation.

What I find funny is that New Zealander's just accept it, they think it is normal. Many seem to think that New Zealand is as warm as our neighbours in Australia, so why do we need heating?

Trust me New Zealand buildings need heating and insulation!

So, being a Scot, I just laugh when people mention how cold it must be Scotland, I say, "yep, its cold, but only outside".

Little do people realise that Scots, Canadians and probably Scandinavians are all a bunch of wimps when it comes to cold weather. We like to be warm, dry and comfortable, like most healthy human beings require.

Give me a frozen lake or a snowball fight over a cold damp house, any day. :-)

You live in New Zealand during winter when...

Here are some stats about NZ Homes

• 45% of existing homes are mouldy
• 16% of homes have no insulation at all
• 21% of people aged 18–24 say their home is cold and uncomfortable
• 84% of households say they don’t have the financial means to make energy-saving renovations
• Typically more than one third of the energy used in the home is for keeping warm
• Nearly two thirds of homes in New Zealand were built before insulation became a legal requirement in 1979—just over one million properties
• More than a quarter of the nation’s homes could be making their occupants ill
• More than 75% of people who rented or bought a home in the past two years did not check insulation, hot water cylinders, heaters and other water and energy efficiency appliances

• You live in New Zealand during winter when...
  
• Read more @ Idealog.
• NZ Homes are a Health Risk >>

The Moon is Upside Down

The Moon is Upside Down

One day, late in 2002, I arrived in Australia. I looked up into the night sky one clear Sydney evening and saw it. "Holy crap, the moon is upside doon!" (thats Scottish for "Down")

The "man in the moon" was indeed there though, but I had to sort of turn my head and twist my neck before I could see his crater scarred face looking back at me, upside down "cooooool" I said to myself.

Since then I've moved from Australia to NZ, where being a bit further south, the moon is ever more upside down.

A couple of times I have dropped the fact that the moon is upside down into the odd random conversation here and there, what I find interesting is the amount of people who don't believe me!

I was in Paihia (Small NZ Tourist Town) a few years ago for summer and I met up with a bunch of other backpackers (mostly English) and we hung out having drinks each night and I mentioned to some of them "have you noticed that the moon is upside down?" a couple of them thought I was winding them up, others gave me a strange stare as if I was on drugs.

"Um, no" was the reply from one of the girls, "what are you talking about?" and I tried to explain to her the fact that when we are in New Zealand or Australia, we are pretty much upside down in relation to where we would be back in the UK, therefore the moon appears to be upside down to our perspective.

This merely gained me more strange looks and after an awkward silence, someone simply changed the subject.

I've noticed that Some people love it when this question is raised. It often leads the conversation in a direction other than how good last nights episode of Coronation Street was or how hot Justin Timberlake looked at that award ceremony the other night.

I admit, I have an ulterior motive when I ask that sort of question to someone I may have just met, because what I am actually asking is, "do you think the world is flat?"

Now of course if you were to ask that question directly to anyone, they would always say "no, don't be stupid" but asking about the moon being upside down is another way of asking the same thing.

Someone's reaction, or level of interest pretty much lets me know if they are someone Ill get on with or not :-)

The Moon is Upside Down by Muzzerino

Moon / Upside / down / southern / hemisphere /

Things I Love about New Zealand

OK, I have been slagging off New Zealand a bit recently, with the blog on bad Kiwi drivers and the state of the New Zealand Defence Force, so I have decided to say why I live here and the things I love about New Zealand in comparison to Scotland.

People:
New Zealanders are friendly, really friendly and that goes beyond those who are in your own ethnic groups (European White, in my case) for example, at the local corner shop (dairy as we call it) you will always find a smile and a conversation with the person behind the counter, be they Indian, Pakistani, Chinese whatever. Something about NZ really brings the friendliness out of people. In Scotland, the local shop is usually manned by someone who is yapping on the phone, ignores you, takes your money and doesn't say "thank you"

Weather:
As much as I hate the New Zealand winter (cold, miserable, damp and long on the North Island) I love the NZ summers, they are long, hot and for about 4 months out of the year you really do feel like you are in that movie with the picture postcard beaches, bikinis, cars, smiles and general feeling of joy.

Food:
The food you can get here is just fantastic, especially the range of Asian food you can get, such as Thai, Chinese, Laos, Malaysian, Japanese, Korean, Indian and many more. Food is more authentic, cheaper and everywhere! by comparison to Scotland. Food courts are abundant and eating out in general is far more affordable to NZ compared to many other western countries I have been to. Even though NZ is just as far, if not further away from South East Asia than other western nations, we seem to get all the really good stuff here. I have found that since I moved to NZ, my diet has been substantially improved.

Drink: Wine and Beer, NZ does them both in great quality and in an amazing variety given the small size of the country. New Zealand Wine and Beer makers seem to have no problem with experimenting with different flavours and combinations.

Scenery:
Now I would never go as far as saying that the scenery here in NZ is as amazing as Scotland, but in its own right, NZ is simply a spectacular country full of snowy mountains, giant lakes, long rivers, rolling green hills, steep valleys, dramatic gorges, exotic golden beaches and wild surf. One thing in particular that always stands out to me as a Scot (northern-hemispherian) is the colour of the water. What I mean by that is, lakes are blue, silver, turquoise and almost white in some cases. Amazing! The harbours and islands have sublime green and emerald water, enough to make you just stare at it in wonder.

Easy:
Things are generally easy, such as Tax, owning a car, immigration, paying bills. Due to the fact there is only just over 4 million people here in New Zealand, doing the above essentials are just easier, you don't have to wait as long and processes are much more simplified.

Eftpos:
Now I know the rest of the world has probably caught up by now, but NZ was one of the first countries to get EFTPOS and I love it, 99.9% of places accept it.

Beaches:
Where I live in Auckland, we have numerous beaches we go to in summer. One called Cheltenham beach which is simply superb. Clean, clear water, no rip tides, no sharks, golden sand, just perfect and the great thing about NZ is, even here in Auckland, a city of 1.2Million people, you can always find a parking place and get a swim in without too much stress. By comparison, even in Sydney Australia, it can actually be a very stressful and time consuming mission just to get to the beach.

Crime:
Although there is a high rate of organised crime here, I have always felt safe when it comes to my car, house and property etc. Burglaries do happen I am sure, but generally crime here is low and confined to only certain bad neighbourhoods.

Socialising:
Although NZ lacks the great British pub culture, they make up for it in summer when people get together for that Barbecue on a warm summers night, beer flows and steaks sizzle, awesome.

UK-ish
NZ still retains a great many things handed down from the UK and I am not just talking about the parliamentary or legal system. TV is similar, humour can be very similar and if you do find yourself craving something from home there are always expat shops filled with your favourite goodies and you can easily get fish n chips or a pie and probably in much better quality too. Also there is UKTV on Sky (which is awesome) and Sky News regularly cuts over to London for the latest headlines.

It can be very strange watching the Weather report for the UK, while sitting in Auckland :-)

New Zealand Needs Fighter Planes !

Current Royal New Zealand Aircraft : Photos >>>

OK here is my rationale. I know this is a touchy subject among Kiwis but yes, I do think New Zealand needs to get its own Fighter Planes for the RNZAF after labour scrapped them a few years ago.

here goes,

EEZ: Exclusive Economic Zone, we need to patrol it and indeed we do, but with Orions and maybe the Hercules, but they are too slow for all the jobs they will be required for. Orions and Herc's are great for incidents where endurance is neccessary, but sometimes high speed is the top priority.

Shipping Accident / Air Accident: If there was a shipping accident, an airliner went down or perhaps a naughty Japanese whaler in our waters and we needed to get MK1 "Eyeball" on it as quick as possible to assess the situation, then the NZ Prime Minister would be quicker to call up the Australian Prime minister and ask (very very nicely) if he doesn't mind getting the RAAF to take a look, because they would get there quicker than we could by scrambling some F111's or F-18's.

Air Support: We have warships, we have a Royal New Zealand Navy, but no air support? Would any NZ leader risk sending a $200 Million Dollar warship into harms way without air cover? Probably not. So whats the point in having a Navy anyway?

Skills: I am sure that most Kiwis would agree that New Zealanders are at the cutting edge of most industries and NZ skills are regarded highly by international standards, however we do not have a single person in NZ who could call themselves a highly skilled modern fighter/fast jet aviator (unless they are a tourist), or support engineer because they have all ran away! to work for other nations.

Insurance: we all have insurance on our cars and houses and that's what a piece of military hardware is, insurance. Full stop. We may never need it, but the fact that it exists says something about our capability to defend our country or simply secure our airspace if we need to do so.

Airshows: An Airshow is not complete without the roar of a fighter jet squadron overhead. Sorry but it just isn't.

Pride: Also what can instill national pride more that seeing our skies screaming with the sound of our very own Defence force doing their stuff?

Pacific Neighbours: if we needed to help a Pacific neighbour with fast Air Support, "well um, Australia, hello can you do it for us please?"

So that's my rationale why I think NZ needs to get fighter planes back into the RNZAF. Perhaps we should ask the UK if we could grab a few Harriers when they flog them off, they would be awesome in NZ, no need for stealth but still formidable in the air and look amazing at Airshows :-P

Current Royal New Zealand Aircraft : Photos >>>

You may also like...

• Tsunami the first test of HMNZS Canterbury >