Has anyone else received this in their in tray yet?
I can’t even be bothered ranting about it. It’s not like I could find anything new to say. Why do people send this stuff out?
Just a nitpick (not against you, MrWhy), but wasn’t the victim’s name Bulger, rather than Bolger? How concerned can these people be if they won’t take the time to check even the most basic of facts?
Still, I like how they inadvertantly compare their email to a virus.
–sublight.
Of course they don’t give a damn about the victim. They just want to see their email perpetuated. As you pointed out, they hope it would be just like a virus. (But I guess you knew that. It just annoys me…)
But now I am going to rant about it if I go on. So I won’t.
yeah it’s James Bulger - Jim Bolger was the NZ PM at the time.
I was astounded by the idea that they could send these boys to Australia! Ummm, no.
I gotta say I don’t know what should be done with these sad creatures… Gitta Sereny’s Cries Unheard, the story of Mary Bell is chilling reading. Mary Bell never reoffended after her release - part of me wants to believe that we can rehabilitate children, even children who have offended as grievously as this 
But no I don’t want them near MY kids or anybody else’s kids for that matter!
Has there ever been an e-mail petition that worked? I get similar letters (and I’m sure I’ll get this one too) every couple of months, and I ignore them no matter how worthy the cause is. It’d be different if people were being encouraged to contact the necessary parties directly, but chains just piss people off.
I remember this incident, and it made me sick to read about it. I think it’s so sad to see it reduced to glurge… and I find it hard to believe that the boys who killed the child would be allowed to live their lives without some kind of required counselling or observation or something (though I am completely unfamiliar with the way of the law in the U.K.), so I wonder what the real details behind the stupid chain letter are.
The email seems to have originally come from somebody in NZ too.
I heard that the PM has said that neither will be welcome in Australia. I hope that is true.
I got it too, except Bulger’s name was spelled correctly and the whole thing was preceded by “Please do not ignore this email.” Plenty of NZ and Aussie signers too.
I’d recommend that people read Dame Elizabeth Butler-Sloss’ summary of judgment before making up their minds based on a chain email.
Anyway, the whole ordeal is a minefield of debatable issues. When I first got the email, I wondered how long it would be before aspects of it wound up in GD. Nothing yet, but I ask that if anyone wants to debate something, start it in GD.
Pit debates are not pretty beasts.
Isn’t this a coincidence? I just got this in my inbox today. I can’t comment on the case, but I can say that e-mail petitions don’t work. No matter how many times I point this out to people, someone always sends me another one. Real petitions often have little impact. Ones that could easily be generated by a computer program really won’t do anything.
Before I left the UK, I heard a lot about the Bulger case. If there’s going to be a debate about it, I wouldn’t touch it with a 10-foot pole. Especially not in the Pit.
If I were a mod (and I know I’m not supposed to be giving advice but hey) I’d close down this thread. The aftermath of the Bulger case is a mega-sized can of worms and the Pit is too hot a place for it.
Thanks for the link, Alphagene.
I think you and Duke have a good point about whether or not aspects of this case can really be discussed in the pit. I’ve just been reading the stuff about how remorseful the killers are, and I find myself getting as angry now as I was when I first heard about the murder in '93. Whether or not rehabilitation is really possible with these boys is definitely a GD worthy topic. For me, it’s hard to separate who they were when they tortured and killed James Bulger from who they are now that they’re older and sorry. I would like to see what other, calmer posters have to say about this, since I tend to get too worked up about things like this to engage in rational debate myself.
I’m hesitant to close a thread in anticipation of bad behavior, but this topic is a minefield alright. You got child abuse, parental responsiblity, mob mentality, the nature of Evil, freedom of the press vs. right to privacy, justice vs. law, punishment vs. rehabilitation…
Still, I’ll close it down if it seems to be going nowhere or if I start to smell smoke.