people, for the sake of your beloved friends who are stuck in offices with no work to do (ie me) please do update your blogs! there are only these many times i can visit straits times and bbc in a day!

i have another love now though. i think abiel shares it with me. it's called...CHUZZLE! yes the cute little fuzzballs that squeak, roll their eyes, sneeze, burst and even shed their fuzz if u annoy them. there are fat chuzzles too, also cute. i think the major attraction of this game for me is that, you guessed it, the little fuzzballs are too cute to bear! now if you don't believe me and want to see proof (not my pic):

isn't it just the cutest game? there are even chuzzles that sleep. i got my fat chuzzle to belch which was really funny. ahhh if i remember to bring my laptop tomorrow i might be able to play chuzzle while at work. muahahaha. i am not being lazy, my boss has run out of work for me to do and he knows i have no work because i reminded him. oh well. nvm, i won't complain about more chuzzle time! it is also the first computer game i am playing properly in a long long time, after neopets. i tried abiel's need for speed too, but must confess i really suck at drifting. ah another game to master for another time.

it seems like i haven't been doing much this summer holiday, yet it's almost ending. i have been to greece and back, started working, continued driving (wish me luck, i in turn will ensure your insurance premiums don't increase) trained for ahm (which i don't know whether i am running in the end! sigh) but not touched schoolwork, not even my thesis. i envisage a stress-filled michaelmas. my kor commented that i was being very efficient though, cuz i have a china trip coming right up (in fact flying on the day of ahm), and then driving very shortly after, followed by france! for RWC! yay seeing the all blacks and then going to disneyland and touring paris will be so fab. i think going back to oxford straight after that will be such a bummer, but it can't be helped i guess. anyway efficient perhaps in the number of things i can do and places i can go in a short three month span (honestly i think it's a little embarrassing) but no studying! argh.

anyway today i was reflecting on some things about crime and punishment. there's an outcry in uk about a boy who murdered a man in 1995. he was rather young, 15, stabbed the poor man who was trying to protect another boy in a gang fight. he was sentenced to life in prison with a 12 year minimum term, but could be released as soon as next year if the parole board judges that it is safe for him to be released. the outcry is not just that he will be released (it seems to be a foregone conclusion) but rather that he will remain in uk and not be deported (he's italian and came to england at 6.) it is a tussle between the home office and the asylum and immigration tribunal. basically the home office want him back in italy, where he was born, while the asylum and immigration tribunal ruled that he can stay in uk because of the Human Rights Act. basically because he is an EU national and has lived in the UK for more than 10 years (even though this is in a prison) he can only be removed from UK on the "imperative grounds of national security" and so, respecting the law and his rights mean he can stay in uk.


my intuitions were, this can't be right? he is a convicted murderer, and his act of murder mean in effect he lost all claim to his right of freedom of movement. this is recognized, of course, in his imprisonment. isn't this easily extended to his not being able to stay in uk? well, the more i thought about it, the more i felt this issue was actually incredibly tricky. firstly, examining why his freedom of movement was curtailed in the first place, well i'd say it's both a punitive as well as a preventive measure. there is little direct deterrent effect in this particular case, because well, a life is not paid with a life, and also because a life term is in effect a 10 or 20 year term. even arguing about his early release i would wonder if 12 years is enough punishment for a man's life, and enough to inculcate in one the value of another's life, and what respect for her rights mean. sorry if i sound unnecessarily harsh given his young age, i know he's spent a good part of his years in jail. however if the parole board were to rule that he can be released, they are not only saying he has been punished enough, but also that he poses no threat to society. i can only raise my eyebrows in great scepticism at that claim. i have not met this boy, know nuts about him, but my basic understanding of punishment is that it should be proportional to the crime, and even though there is no way you can ever repay a life, it seems like they are equating the victim's life with 12 years of this boy's life. furthermore, the attack was brutal - the victim was stabbed, not shot - stabbing requires you to physically hold the weapon, plunge it into the other person's body, with the full knowledge of how much that would hurt, the sight of how human this other person is when the blood gushes out onto your hands..i mean the whole nature of stabbing is the close direct contact with the victim, and therefore awareness of the humanity and frailty of the victim, but still choosing to commit the heinous act. (sorry i am not expressing myself very well at the moment) 12 years for a brave professor's life.

even more than that, what intrigued me was precisely what the victim's widow said. what about her family's rights? when do u stop punishing someone, a young person with perhaps a bright future, and when will that, if ever, appease the victim's family? there must be some degree of forgive and forget, no doubt about it, and the murderer should be given a second chance at life, especially if he has really and truly reformed. but how much of this person's life should encroach, if i may use that word, on the victim's family's lifes? i think emotions rule the day, because everyone can emphathise with the woman's claim - i know i would act in the exact same way. how much of your rights do you surrender when you not just disobey the laws of a nation, but also of humanity, and most of all, when you take someone's life away? if that surrender was acceptable even for a period of time, then explain clearly why this is now not the case, rather than hide behind some human rights legislation intended to protect refugees, poor migrant workers and asylum seekers, people who actually need that help.

human rights is always controversial i know - why, who, the extent, even its existence. but this, i think, is a blatantly wrong use of the term, and the scary part is, the only way i can explain it
is by appealing to emotions.