Heh - can you imagine all the free publicity they would have gotten if they had actually run the ads?
The ads did run. One of the stories earlier in this thread said it’s an old campaign that already ended, but some of the ads were still up. Greyhound is now trying to get rid of the remaining ads pronto.
In an institutional setting at least there is the possibility that he can be treated and not tormented to the point of savagery. And perhaps it will provide doctors with an opportunity to study WTF made this guy do such a horrible thing, and provide insight on how to prevent someone else from going similarly nuts.
I had the same thought about Jeffery Dahmer. Having him incarcerated for life in a psychiatric facility woud possibly have been a greater benefit to society because experts could have learned from him. Instead he was sent to prison where intensive psychiatric observation was far, far less likely, and he ended up being murdered.
Sane people, even murderers, don’t put ears in their pockets. This guy lived a relatively normal life and then totally snapped and turned into a brutally savage monster. I hope to see psychiatric experts figure him out.
They certainly ran in Edmonton, where the bus in question began its route. I recall seeing them on the campus of the University of Alberta, for example.
I blame Celine Dion.
There are a couple of organizations using this event as vehicles to promote their agendas.
This opportunistic action by these organizations strikes me as particularly tasteless. That there is a following that will eat up the message and nod their heads in collective agreement is also disappointing.
PETA’s ad.
Phelps’ funeral protest plans.
Here is the Phelps’s website on picketing the funeral. :eek:
I don’t believe the mourners at Tim McLean’s funeral will have much patience for idiots like the Westboro Church. I’m guessing that they will mostly be ignored like the thoughtless cretins they are (I don’t even understand what tenuous connection they think they’re making between their brand of hate and what happened to Tim McLean). The Peta ad, though, is incredible. If I was a member of the victim’s family and I saw that, I would be quite upset.
ETA: I forgot to look at your link, Annie - now I understand. God Hates Canada. Got it.
That’s crass and digusting even for PETA.
Looks like they just moved the line.
Pit-worthy even. :mad:
Marley23, I think you give PeTA too much credit. I have put them and Phelps in basically the same mental box.
Many of the individuals who support PeTA are nice enough. I’ll even give a bye to some of the celebrities who donate their appearances in PeTA commercials. But the leadership is whacked, as are many of the rank and file.
If they picket, it will make for an interesting legal test of our hate crimes provision of the Criminal code. A defence is “if, in good faith, the person expressed or attempted to establish by an argument an opinion on a religious subject or an opinion based on a belief in a religious text”. http://laws.justice.gc.ca/en/ShowDoc/cs/C-46/bo-ga:l_VIII::bo-ga:l_IX//en?page=6&isPrinting=false#codese:319
Check out the comments.
http://blog.peta.org/archives/2008/08/cannibalistic_a.php
Right, exactly. Ingrid Newkirk and company set the bar pretty low, but whichever scumfucking prick conceived of and wrote that ad managed to perform the asshole limbo and go right under it.
Exactly again. Most of the passive supporters are probably just people who think animal rights are nice, and I assume, charitably, that the celebrities are mostly just airheads who aren’t going to bother doing things like examining a good-sounding cause before they go naked in its advertisements. The leadership is crazy, and one can only hope they’ve been spayed or neutered.
Do you anticipate any legal action against the WBC picketing, Muffin?
“God is punishing Canada…” – Pretty standard stuff so far (for them)
“…for passing laws against WBC [Westboro Baptist Church]…” – Little crazier here. What laws are they referring to? Gay marriage, I’m guessing? None of them live anywhere near Canada; their sense of persecution is truly awe-inspiring. “You Canadians let teh gays marry just to attack us!”
“…by exposing Canadians as cannibals and highway decapitaters.” – BWAH??? I feel kinda bad, but I literally can’t stop laughing at that. That’s the broadest damn brush I’ve ever seen.
Plus, decapitator is spelled wrong. And I don’t know how you decapitate a highway - as if performing that kind of murder on the highway somehow makes it worse than doing it on the couch or while flying, or driving on a local road or bike path.
As far as anti-WBC laws, I think Canada has passed some laws restricting vile, Phelps-type protests at funerals.
Under various provincial mental health statutes, a person can be held against his or her will if that person is a danger to himself/herself or a danger to others (please note that this is a simplification – there are other parts to the test depending on which province). It doesn’t take much to confine a person to the nut house for observation (Form 1)for a day or three (depending on the province), where a psychiatrist will then determine if the person is dangerous, if there should be a few more days of observation, or if the person should be cut loose.
Everything in the media so far suggests to me that there was nothing in the headhunter’s prior behavior that indicated that he was dangerous.
The same can be said for the Phelps clan, although one can always hope that some ornery old doc with a disregard for medical ethics Form 1s them just for shits and giggles.
I know - it’s like, I thought we were keeping our cannibalism and highway decapitation habits on the down-low, then one jerk has to come along and blow our cover, and now everyone knows.
Not enough 
in the world.