More crime in the UK: The case against nurse Lucy Letby, charged with 8 murders and another 10 attempts of murder is nearing the end. Lucy Letby was a NICU nurse in Countess of Chester hospital at a time where there was a dramatic increase in mortality of new born infants. She was first arrested i 2018 after 1 year of investigations, and then again in 2019 and 2020 when she was was finally charged.
I have followed the court case which has lasted for 8 months somewhat sporadically, and I think the prosecution has made a strong case. The motive seems to be the thrill and excitement of being in the middle of life and death situations, and even to get the attention of a married doctor she fancied (and might have slept with!) Interestingly, the defense had no expert testimony. Their only witness, except Letby, was a plumper who testified that the ward had a sewage leak coinciding with some of the incidents. What has kept me coming back to this case, is how incredibly plain and even boring, Letby appears outside of these charges. No history of violence or aggression, no weird sexual fetishes, no drug use. They have gone through every last text message and email and not found anything offensive, bar discussing her job and the doctor. She had a normal upringing and good relations with her family. I think its very likely she would never have been a murderer if she didnt have access to vulnerable babies as a nurse, which makes it even more of a headf**k, because the crimes she is charged with are against babies! Its absolutely heinous, and my heart breaks for the helpless parents who had no choice but to trust her with the lives of their newborns. She targeted twins and triplets, and one set of parents lost 2 boys.
So where is the culture war angle? I guess the lack of attention and interest that this case has got is baffling to me. Neither BBC nor The Guardian nor Sky news have had it on their frontpage as far as ive seen this week. BBC has confined the whole story to a regional site for Merseyside: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-merseyside-65920366
Apparently a nurse potentially being one of the most prolific female serial killers in history, is not all that exciting in todays newsworld. I guess everyone can have their own biases for why this is happening. Is it the "women are wonderful effect", where a female killer is just so bizarre that it does not warrant any closer scrutiny? Would there be some articles about toxic masculinity if it was a male nurse who killed babies to impress a female doctor? Are people just less upset because she is a conventionally beautiful young woman with blond hair and blue eyes? Some redditors seem to think so, as the first doctor to suspect her was Ravi Jayaram, an Indian male. But I dont buy this either. If her looks where protecting her people would be rallying to her defense, which does not seem to be happening either. The case is mostly ignored.
Is the case just too boring?
rudig
6mo ago
Egypt had for a short period a democratically elected leadership who was closely allied with Hamas. They were deposed in coup in favor the current president Al-Sisi, a move that almost certainly was supported by both US and Israel. Egypt is also the 2nd biggest recipient of foreign military financing from the USA (after Israel of course), so whatever decision Egypt makes about Gaza will be in lockstep with the US. However there is also the added problem that Al-Sisi knows Hamas is allied with his biggest opponents. Egypt is possibly the country in the ME where Palestinians have the most popular support, so I highly doubt the population seeing them as "psycopaths" is a big reason for blockage.
This was a small regional unit who did not take in the most vulnerable newborns. The pasients under Letbys care were broadly expected to survive. Several of her victims were days from being discharged, and at least one of the twins probably should not have been in the NICU, according the medical witnesses (and Letby agreed to this). There is also a smoking gun here, as someone had injected 2 of the babies with insulin, something that is 100% intentional and could not have happened by mistake.
I still think the hospital massively failed by not picking up this sooner, but there is no doubt there was someone doing deliberate harm. Letby also admitted such in her testimony.
Interesting read. I also enjoyed the comments.
Generally people are less likely to socialize if they (real or perceived) have low social standing. So people who cant keep up with the joneses financially will retreat sooner. I also think obesity plays a role here for the same reason. Im a MD and even though I know the official obesity stats, Im still shocked when I walk around the hospital. The number of really obese young people, who I almost never notice in the city. I think many of them feel so much shame, they retire entirely from social life.
You could do the same exercise with Islam 1940 and find that the biggest islamic empire decriminalized homosexuality (the Ottomans in 1858), while most of Europe still had laws penalizing sodomy until after WW2. Even Sweden didnt decriminalize sodomy until 1944.
You could look at the treatment of jews in the islamic world, and conclude that it was far more tolerant than the treatment of jews in most of Europe and Russia. Majority muslim Albania was the only country in Europe to come out of WW2 with a higher jewish population than before the war.
Basically, just as Islam 1940 could undergo huge changes, so can Islam 2022.
And without going into the whole can of worms that is colonialism (and I personally dont think religion or culture played a role here, as others would have done the same if they had the ability), one could look at a snapshot of Europe and her colonies in the first half of the 20th century and conclude that christianity is irredeemably violent.
rudig
1yr ago
Its a verbatim translation of this op-ed from Norway: https://www.nrk.no/ytring/gutta-som-ikke-far-damer-1.16355535
rudig
1yr ago
"At night, I’m unable to sleep as I lie there, grinding my teeth and dreaming of the day when she is made to parade naked through the streets of every town in Britain while the crowds chant, “Shame!�? and throw lumps of excrement at her.!
I sincerely cannot understand what can make a grown person have such an intensity of emotion for someone who isnt a murderer or rapist og war criminal or the like. Meghan Markle is very annoying, sure, but this is beyond unhinged. I realize brits love their royal family, but surely after all the Diana/Charles escapades and then recently with prince Andrew, they learned to temper their emotions just a bit?
rudig
8mo ago
I went to university in norther Europe and in my 6 years of being there I can only remember one guys who had the combo of very nice facial aesthetics, stem PHD level of intelligence, athleticism and above 190 height, and he had an alcoholic father who drank himself to death. I think you are overestimating how many men who are actually this attractive and the ease by which a plain 35 yo woman can have unprotected sex with them.
These women have well paying jobs and often extended family who will help and support them. Im not so sure they will need more government assistance than many other "average" families. Granted we are in Europe where the social safety net is wide and parental leave policies are generous and daycare cheap. But again, this is something that all families benefit from.
"With a rather aesthetically displeasing mother it is likely the child will inherit some unfortunate mutations." Well, by this reasoning they would be much worse off if they would have procreated with their "looksmatch" and the children would have inherited twice the amount of unfortunate mutations.
rudig
6mo ago
There is several things going on here. This is not only about islam, the Uighur situation is geographically/culturally more remote than anything the majority of muslims in the US know or understand. This is a case where optics really matter too. China doesnt broadcast the situation with the Uighurs. They deliberately go out of their way to not frame this in a religious/ethnic sense. You dont have videos of Xi invoking religious imagery of "children of light and darkness". China doesnt try to justify what is going on, they just pretend its not happening. On a global stage, China doesnt seem to have a problem with muslims. Seeing a many middle-easterns dont trust western news sources, its very easy to pretend nothing is happening with the Uighurs.
Both Israel and the palestinians on the other hand have a very active propaganda arms. The picture of Biden hugging Netanyahu will be spread far and wide. Many supporters of Israel invoke clash of civilization rhetoric that is popular on the christian right, but will rile up muslims. The toxoplasmosis of rage is in full effect here.
I entirely agree and feel it is a somewhat departure from the feminism of my childhood, when women wanted to be equal to men also in burdens and responsibility. However I dont necessarily think thats what is going on in this case from Ireland. People generally have a stronger reaction to crime that strikes randomly, and its hard to protect oneself against. Someone murdering their own children, while absolutely horrific, is less likely to make your children less safe.
However that is exactly why Im puzzled this case does not get more attention in the UK. You are rarely more vulnerable than when you or your family need hospital care and you have no choice but to 100% trust the providers. The thought that a intensive care nurse is not just grossly negligent, but is deliberately doing harm is something else...
I used this as a specific example because it happened to me when I took one of these guys to meet my friends. He was livid about George Floyds criminal background not getting enough attention, he kept repeating statistic about black/immigrant criminality and also said something about Obamas dad being a mass-murderer (and how this was somehow suppressed by the internet, but he had seen proof before it was scrubbed).
Imo this is not a good way of making a first impression, and he absolutely refused to accept it. He was adamant that he was the only man I had ever met who had a spine, and was quite proud of himself for saying controversial things that upset people.
In my friend group we keep things easy and light when we first meet someone. We dont even make edgy jokes really, so this kind of demeanor was seriously off-putting (as was his refusal to tone it down). Even my parents who are somewhat conservative never talk like this, and IMO this is the crutch of the problem. Regular conservative people dont base their whole identities around being provocative, they just try to live their lives according to their values.
"So what happens if Israel stops now?". You, me and the talking heads and the people in the halls of power all know the answer to that question. The answer being that Palestinians will forever continue to launch terrorist attacks for Israel doing anything short of just packing up and leaving the Middle East altogether.
I dont see how potential future terrorist attacks are worse than the carnage we are seeing in Gaza today, unless you value Israeli lives much higher than Palestinians. Which I totally can understand that Israel does, but why is it a given that the US population values the safety of Israelis to that extent where the current situation in Gaza is an acceptable trade-off? We are after all talking about the safety of a nuclear armed country with the near unconditional backing of the worlds most powerful state, against a terrorist group that according to Israelis themselves consists of 40 000 men controlling a piece of land under naval blockade and without an airport.
Insemination with sperm does not typically require IVF, but a intrauterin insemination which is much cheaper.
I agree with your assessment of plastic surgery, and it can be very beneficial to many women. A typical nose job can do wonders on some ethnicities. Weight loss, even with the new wonder drugs takes time, and then you have to find and keep a man while approaching your late thirties.
But you have to remember that many women have unrealistic ideas about their own attractiveness. They can attract men, but not keep them. Their friends and family will tell them, they are "cute". Guys who dump them will tell them they were not ready for a relationship. No one IRL is going to sit down and say: "you would be such a catch with some fillers and a nosejob". Instead all they will hear is: " You are a catch, the right guy will turn up one day". I think by the time these women realize they can not compete for the men they want, they are quickly approaching a fertility cliff.
The risks from being raised by a single mother clearly cut through social class and education, and I agree that all else being equal it would be a poor decision. But all else is not equal here. You get to have a child that is likely more attractive and possibly more intelligent than if you have settled for a man that will have you. Surely the risk of criminality is lower in people who are both attractive and smart? If you believe personality traits like conscientiousness are heritable too, the tradeoff looks even better.
And while I agree with your last point, I think these women are at a stage in their lives where they have given up on finding a man. Female sexual drive also falls off a cliff around this age, so the thought of living the rest of their life without a man might not be so daunting any more.
Oz actually did alot better than the R governor candidate, so the split-ticket voting was in his favor. Mastriano was the disaster candidate in Pennsylvania, and possibly dragged Oz down with him.
rudig
1yr ago
On the internet there are a lot of men who are conservative in a way that is informed by their resentments. They feel that the leftist world order hasn’t taken care of them and so they reject it. Fair enough. Obviously women don’t like these men because they aren’t successful or confident or handsome. If they had attractive traits they wouldn’t be resentful in the first place.
This is very true in my experience. Another thing ive noticed is that men like this often have a big part of their social circle online, so they dont realize how off putting their behaviour is to "normies". They actually think everyone agrees with them but is afraid to say it out loud due to political correctness. They dont understand that discussing race and crime with someone you just met signals low social skills for example, so when they inevitably get rejected they think its "wokism" and doubles down on it.
A similar thing can be seen in first generation immigrants who dont understand the social cues of their new society. They act in a way that signals low status, with the corresponding lack of dating success. If they dont have the ability to introspect and work on themselves the easiest solution is to decide that its all due to racism, and become resentful.
I am not American, so cant comment on the exact tone of US media. But perhaps they bought in to the whole "only democracy in the Middle-East" and "most moral army in the would" slogans. After all, Hamas is roundly condemned as a terrorist organization by both sides of the political establishment in the US (and nearly the whole of Europe), so perhaps it doesnt really make sense to make moral appeals to them?
I think the really interesting question here is if Hamas would have anything to gain by an unconditional surrender. While I agree that Israel is likely to win a decisive military victory, I think Hamas so far is winning a slight PR victory and a perhaps even bigger political victory. I dont have any illusions about how Hamas value the sanctity of life, either Palestinian or Israeli, so I think the chance of a political victory is much more important for them in the long term.
It would be an understatement to say that the pre October 7th status quo was dire for the Palestinians. With between 700 000 - 800 000 settlers on the West Bank gradually encroaching on more and more Palestinian land, and talk of annexation of the West Bank becoming mainstream in Israel (Netanyahu had this a campaign promise in 2019 and won the subsequent election). This was all happening with the tacit approval of the US (and probably also most Arab countries), the dream of a two state solution was more or less dead. With this as a back drop Palestinians were witnessing Arab countries pursuing a politic of normalization with Israel, while giving lip service to the Palestinian cause. From the ground in Palestine the status quo probably looked a lot like a slow moving ethnic cleansing. Palestinians gradually getting more sympathy in the US and Europe did not seem to help their case at all, and as we saw earlier this year, having the sympathy of western populations did nothing to help the Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh against being ethnically cleansed by a western ally.
Now fast forward a couple of months to today, the plight of Gaza is front and centre again. The US is finding itself increasingly isolated on the global stage as Israels guardian angel. Arab countries had to distance themselves at least optically from anything Israel does. Behind closed doors many of them are probably wondering if a normalization will be possible at all with the current Israeli political scene. We are also in a situation where there is a real chance that Bidens reelection might be in jeopardy due to his support of Israel. Just the perception that this is a possibility is an unprecedented win for the Palestinian cause, and we now have Blinked take some symbolic steps to be seen addressing Palestinian concerns, such as sanctioning violent settlers.
If we assume that there are countries pulling the strings of Hamas, perhaps Qatar, Iran and even Russia, the case for a political win becomes even stronger. Did anyone even notice or care that a female Iranian dissident won the nobel price just now? Does the liberation of Iranian women even register to people when 50 000 pregnant women in Gaza are being bombed daily? However no country has had a bigger PR win over the war in Gaza than Russia. Not only is the attention towards Ukraine diminished, the passion in the "slava Ukraini" camp has been decimated. Many people who thought they where "on the right side of history" and supporting the little guy Ukraine against the bigger aggressor, are having second thoughts about the morals of their side, which is cheering on the Israeli offensive in Gaza. I clearly see this among my normie friends in Norway. People are seeing the Ukraine conflict more in term of realist politics and not absolute morality, and if you are being a realist, perhaps it makes sense to let Russia keep the Russian speaking parts of Ukraine for a ceasefire.
In this scenario the death of many thousands more Palestinian children seems like a small price to pay for what Hamas has achieved.
rudig
6mo ago
This narrative is awfully convenient from a pro-Israeli perspective, but if this was all motivated with holy war and religious bigotry, how come the Palestinian liberation movement was broadly secular before the 1980s? The leader of PFLP was after all a christian born Palestinian communist. And how come Israel had to help Hamas along in its infancy, to counter PLO? If this was all motivated by religious hatred, surely the islamist organizations would be at the forefront since the very beginning?
http://web.archive.org/web/20090926212507/http:/online.wsj.com/article/SB123275572295011847.html
rudig
8mo ago
Point taken, and I think you are right about the average women. But again, these are not average women, but women who are still single at 35. In my experience they come in 3 groups:
- Hideously ugly/morbidly obese
- OK looking, but go for men who are out of their league.
- Dont mind being lonely, and are therefore not willing to lower their standards to match with a man who will have them.
My friends are a mix of 2. and 3. I think for nr 2 there is a psychological mechanism that keeps people from seing their own shortcomings. For what its worth, I think men who are single at 35-40 also fit into these categories, but with slightly different cutoffs. The typical example would perhaps a short immigrant male with an advanced STEM degree who cant understand why white girls are not attracted to him, because in his mind having a good degree and a well paying job is the pinnacle of male achievement. In the same vein, my friend is an avid runner, but objectively she lacks raw femininity and with skin that has aged quite poorly due to sun damage. She cant see this, because in her mind being a skinny female runner makes a woman very attractive.
I reckon the majority of Muslims will show up for Biden out of self interest. However Michigan in particular has a big levantine Arab community who care alot about this conflict. They are also mostly 2/3rd generation so wouldn't be affected by Trumps muslim ban.
With the razor sharp margins Biden got in several swing states, this could make him really vulnerable. He won Georgia with 12 000 votes, and the state has more than 70 000 Muslims.
I also wonder how this focus on Israel will play with other minority groups, like blacks and Hispanics. I think the feeling that your president and government is beholden to a foreign government you don't really care about can be alienating to alot of these voters. Particularly when Biden is not delivering on bread and butter issues.
rudig
6mo ago
Israel has repeatedly bombed the Rafah border crossing (the only border crossing to Egypt) in the last few days. There is plenty of international citizens in Gaza who can't get out either because apparently the crossing is not functioning from the Palestinian side.
rudig
9mo ago
So is Birdbox, where two black men and one asian man sacrifice themselves so that a white lady and two white kids can survive in the end.
I was somewhat aware of this position of Singer, but still horrified when reading this position out loud.
Christians in Lebanon are mostly anti-Israel, and a majority of them supported the October 7th attacks. I'm not sure they blame Muslims for their diminishing numbers in Lebanon.
Israel is a strong ally and the main weapon exporter to Azerbaijan.
So the big question is, why are christians in the west so eager to support the country responsible for bombing christian churches in Gaza and help a muslim country ethnically cleanse one of the oldest christian communities in the world? The whole thing has a "chickens for KFC" feeling about it.
rudig
6mo ago
Nr 2 is certainly my impression too. Support for Israel is very bypartisan, whereas Jewish politicians are clustered on the democratic side. I'm not sure LGBT rights actually plays a big part here, more than general geopolitical alignment.
I actually suspect that Anthony Blinken is somewhat unsettled right now. He has no choice but to offer full support to Israel, but I think his idea of what is a proportion response is in this case, is very different to the current Israeli government.
One of my friends has decided to have children with the help of a sperm donor and I have taken more than a passing interest in her search. This is actually the 2nd woman in my broader group of acquaintances who have have decided to go it alone. They are both highly educated, but lack the physical attractiveness that would make it possible to lock down the type of man they have been interested in. But while commitment from the right man can be hard to come by, sperm is incredibly cheap. We are taking elite sperm here, like entirely clean bill of health for 2 generations back, model good looks, tall, athletic, pursuing an MD or PHD in STEM, comes from a family of inventors, grandparents who lived to the age of 100 etc. Imagine someone like the Swede in Philip Roths American Pastoral. You can get a vial of this sperm for 1000 USD, and why wouldnt you as a single woman?
Im not entirely convinced that the draw backs of being a single mother in this situation cannot be off-set by the benefits of having this superior genetic material. I have sometimes during this time felt a tad bit guilty for procreating with my partner with our comparatively average genes. Yes, we will probably pass on good intelligence, but what about physical traits and health? Is there anything parental love can provide that can compare to the confidence that comes with being a 190cm athletic, but yet very intelligent young man?
All this has made me wonder if "leftover" educated women will produce the new elite of tomorrow. Surely this is a more efficient way of making superior babies than the pre-implantation embryo testing of the Collinses? https://www.telegraph.co.uk/family/life/pronatalists-save-mankind-by-having-babies-silicon-valley/?
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