Crimewatch - Madeleine McCann

[Old Greg]

You do realise that levelling personal insults doesn't actually change any of the facts? Like how you said you don't take special precautions about MRSA "because that's not abduction". And that you said any choice which leads to abduction is a bad one. Which includes deciding to go on holiday... that is a choice they made which directly led to the abduction.

But you seem quite unable to grasp the entire concept, so never mind.

I often find it's best not to bother reading the first 19 pages of threads like this and then just wade in. Glad to see that the thread may have played out along predictable lines.

As to above post, it is interesting that we treat different categories of risk very differently, even if the outcome (e.g. death, is the same). As a society we allow the application of health economics to allow or restrict the prescription of certain life saving drugs according to a cost benefit ratio. But we apply a very different cost benefit ratio to the introduction of a railway safety system. We will spend more money to prevent a life being lost in a train crash than to prevent a cancer death. There is a Tim Harford type book that goes into this.

There may be many reasons for this. I guess we feel that a life lost in a train accident (or in a murder or a fire) is a worse thing than a life being lost due to sub-optimal treatment for cancer.

The same thing for MRSA and abduction I guess. It's no surprise that parents take one more seriously than the other, regardless of the risk score.

Anyway, carry on as you were.

[d000hg]

Of course if you were sat in 1 room while your child is asleep in the other and some fookin ninja stealths in and steals the child that is a completely different kettle of fish but you know most peado's ain't fookin ninja's

but that did not happen

So now not only were the parents out on the lash, presumably discussing how much they hate children, but the kidnapper was a dirty pedo automatically.

I agree the fact she was 3 makes it worse for the parents, but those in this thread have nailed their colours firmly to the mast that this is a question of absolutes... if the parents had gone for 2min outside for a fag that is just as bad, if the child was 10 and quite able to be on her own for an hour, it's just as bad.

[Hairy]

No it didn't but what if it had? why didn't you mine the stairways and put iron bars in the windows?

No need. I feel safe in my home, as it has locks, and alarms. I trust no one could get in, as by the time they got through it all, I'd be awake and most of Devon alight in spotlights and the dog would be having the crack.

[d000hg]

I often find it's best not to bother reading the first 19 pages of threads like this and then just wade in.

I wish I'd thought of that

[Hairy]

I wish I'd thought of that

So have many of us d000hg....

[DodgyAgent]

No d000hg, this is where you are failing. If they stayed in a different room in the same hotel and did everything the same, she MAY NOT have been abducted.

And Boris Johnson's perspective:

"I am interested in this hostility - this aggressive desire to ascribe guilt - and it seems to me to have several causes.

We want the story to end, of course. It has been the most wretched event of a wretched summer, and we want it to climax one way or another, even if the denouement exceeds even the ghastliest Channel Five real-life family murder drama.

Perhaps we are more inclined to blame the McCanns because our sympathy has curdled.

Everyone was so horrified at the idea of a child being snatched; everyone felt they could so easily have been in the same position as those poor parents - and of course people's irritation may be all the greater to find that matters are not as they seemed.

And then there is the simple but awful fact of human nature - the emotional weakness that drives the sale of so many newspapers. It is an inescapable fact of human nature that we seem unable to judge ourselves, and to value ourselves, except by reference to other people. If we see others doing much better than us, we often feel threatened and unhappy; and we too often feel reassured to see someone else fail, or get their comeuppance."

Personally I think he's being too kind. I think there are some low, vicious, stupid, spiteful people out there, and unfortunately they've all learned to use a computer.

[Hairy]

So now not only were the parents out on the lash, presumably discussing how much they hate children, but the kidnapper was a dirty pedo automatically.

I agree the fact she was 3 makes it worse for the parents, but those in this thread have nailed their colours firmly to the mast that this is a question of absolutes... if the parents had gone for 2min outside for a fag that is just as bad, if the child was 10 and quite able to be on her own for an hour, it's just as bad.

Leaving your child alone, with an unlocked door, at any age, could be construed as piss poor parenting. Not too sure why they'd need ot go 2 mins away to have a fag.

There are absolutes here. Answer me a question. Is there more chance of a child aged 3 being abducted if a) You are there and the doors are locked or b) The doors are unlocked and you are 15 mins away dancing, drinking and eating at a restaurant?

[Churchill]

Russell I take back what I said, you're an excellent troll. This thread has caused carnage of a type not seen for ages.

Next?

[Hairy]

God washed codswallap.

If they had not been selfish, we'd not be discussing it. They went 15 mins to a loud restaurant to dance, drink and eat with friends, with their door unlocked.

Sad what happened, heartbreaking, but they have to take some blame. Now some time has gone under the bridge, maybe more people are reflecting on everything the case shows. As I said, Sally the slut on the esate locking her kids in and going on the slash raises more objections, yet arguably, she took more care...

[Old Greg]

I wish I'd thought of that

And Hairy PM'ed me to call you a god-bothering tool.