CBI president Sir Roger Carr's claim that there can be no moral basis to concerns about tax avoidance is a grave misjudgment (Never mind morals, tax is all about the rules, 21 May). A great many ordinary people see payment – or rather non-payment – of tax as fundamentally a moral question. Perhaps it might be talked about as justice or fairness, but it boils down to the same thing. Christian Aid supporters have been campaigning on matters of tax justice for five years.

At the heart of their concern is the moral question of how societies raise revenues and how that money is spent. We estimate that developing countries lose around $160bn a year in tax revenue from multinational corporations. Contrast this with the UK's aid budget (£12bn) or the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation's estimated cost of tackling global hunger ($50bn a year on top of existing funding to 2025). The fact that tonight one in eight people in the world will go to bed hungry shows that the moral case for a fair and just taxation system is undeniable.
Canon Geoff Daintree
Church advocacy adviser, Christian Aid

• Simon Jenkins is spot-on when he calls on David Cameron to crack down on the UK's own tax havens (Comment, 22 May). Global Witness's investigations have found numerous examples of dodgy deals routed through places such as the British Virgin Islands, favoured by tax evaders and corrupt dictators. There is often a misperception that the UK can't impose its will on these last outposts of empire. In fact, from the decriminalising of homosexuality to banning the death penalty, there are repeated examples of UK governments telling its tax havens what to do, sometimes against their will. After Radio Caroline started broadcasting from the Isle of Man, the UK banned pirate radio stations from there and from the Channel Islands.

If the PM really wants to crack down on tax evasion, corruption and money laundering, he should force the British-linked tax havens to lift their veil of secrecy, for example by requiring them to publish the names of the ultimate owners of companies and trusts registered there.
Robert Palmer
Campaigner, Global Witness

• Paying tax is a social obligation. It is the price we pay for being part of a civilised society and one defining characteristic of such is its willingness to support those who are not considered to be economically productive. This doesn't just mean the unemployed, the sick, disabled and the old, but also artists, musicians and writers, those who enrich us and our society both intellectually and emotionally.

In the commercial world, businesses view taxation as just another cost of doing business and therefore within their fiduciary responsibility to seek ways of reducing their tax obligation as part of their cost base. This is wrong. The payment of corporate tax should be viewed not as a cost of doing business but as the price for gaining access to society.

Businesses that manipulate the tax rules to reduce or avoid paying tax impoverish the society in which they operate both financially and ethically. Good corporate citizenship requires the commercial world to fully engage in society – by making a fair and equitable contribution to the tax receipts of a nation and by paying its employees an appropriate living wage.
Mike Kellett
Cardiff

• In 1974, the then Tory prime minister, Edward Heath, called an election with the question Who governs Britain? – his premise being that the unions had too much power. Forty years on we can ask the same question in respect of big business (Cut tax and we'll pay, says Apple boss, 22 May). I thought governments, elected by their peoples, decided tax rates. Apple (and Google, Amazon and the others) rely on their customers to be healthy and well-educated and for the states where their customers live and buy their products to be stable, orderly and defended.

Without all the benefits that a state provides there would be no Apple sales. Big business has grown increasingly arrogant and no longer plays and pays its part in contributing to the costs that are essential to their profits. Perhaps there should be an additional and hugely hefty tax on the products of those companies who are refusing to pay their way, so that in the end they are left with no profits to quarrel about.
Mark Doel
Sheffield

PHOENIX — Jurors in the Jodi Arias murder trial told the judge Wednesday they are unable to reach a unanimous verdict on whether the convicted murderer should be sentenced to life in prison or death for killing her one-time boyfriend, prompting the judge to send them back to the deliberation room to work through their differences.

The jury reported its impasse after only about two and a half hours of deliberations that began Tuesday afternoon.

DUBAI: Dubai contractor Arabtec said a four-day strike by foreign workers seeking
higher pay was over and the emirate's police chief said 200 of them would be repatriated.
The company,...

Crooks broke into a KGO-TV news van outside an Oakland art gallery on Tuesday, but that's become common in California's city of constant crime. What's weird is that the burglars also broke into the private security vehicle assigned to protect the news van.

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Memorial Day weekend is one of the busiest party weekends in Las Vegas. Over the holiday the best of the best in electronic music will be in Sin City to entertain all the party people looking to escape reality during the extended weekend. With the biggest DJs spinning, two brand new clubs, pool parties, and more events then anyone can possibly attend it's might be hard to decide where you want to go and who you want to see. But, don't worry, here is your guide to where to party and what to pass on this Memorial Day weekend in Las Vegas.

Welcome to our next Hacker Challenge! Each week, we issue a new challenge. You get until Sunday to prepare your submission and send it to us. That gives you a few days to think about it and a whole weekend to work it up. Our editors pick the best submissions and our favorite will win a copy of the Lifehacker book!

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Jack O'Sullivan makes some very important points about the clear difficulty around discussing what men experience and how the post-feminist settlement leaves out matriarchal influences and power relations in the domestic space (A man walks out of a room, 21 May).

For men, feminism has been a gift in how it has opened up new ways of being a man, but it has also left men facing the psychological quandary of how to "be", in response to what has changed. This applies particularly in the home, which, in the conventional heterosexual formulation, is still predominantly defined by women. In my view we have a long way to go before we understand male development and behaviour. Many men are still caught by the tensions inherent in mother-son relationships: part of them yearning for relationship, another striving to define their gendered identity as separate from her. Despite all the commonalities, male development, and attachment patterns, from infancy onwards is not the same as that of females, and we need to face the reality of how this impacts on home life in adulthood as well as how we seem to assume that early-years and primary education should remain a predominantly matriarchal space in the same way that many of our homes are.

What Diane Abbott has spoken to as a crisis in masculinity goes much deeper than its social and interpersonal manifestations. We need a narrative about male development that helps us to make sense of the problems boys and men face (and how girls and women are also affected by this) in the same way as feminism provided a narrative for women. This also needs to be a narrative that makes it OK for men to critique feminism without feeling scared of the reaction they might get.
Dr Phil Goss
Senior lecturer, counselling & psychotherapy, University of Central Lancashire

• Jack O'Sullivan's article is a welcome and perceptive contribution to highlighting men's issues.

What the author misses, however, is that all over the western world men are in fact meeting together to discover and practice more wholehearted and authentic ways of being, and that these initiatives are barely represented in the mainstream media. The chief reason for this is not that men fear ridicule from women for talking about masculinity, or that matriarchy has a lot to answer for, but that other men, and especially in Britain, and particularly journalists, are very fearful of anything they imagine is connected with "tree-hugging". At our centre we are frequently asked by women what groups and events we have for their husbands sons and even fathers. Britain lags behind here. In fact this weekend, a group of men from all over Europe are meeting near Frankfurt in an International Symposium for Men in order to share the different ways being pioneered of working with men's issues. Lamentably, Britain boasts the fewest number of participants, which has to do with the way our culture regularly practices ridicule towards those who are willing to express that they care about things that are beyond others' understanding.
John Bunzl Founder, International Simultaneous Policy Organisation, Nick Duffell Co-founder, Centre for Gender Psychology

Hyatt heir and would-be Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker accidentally left $80 million off her financial disclosure forms. No biggie; couch-cushion money, really.

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The bestest kid costume yet: tiny, female Stan Lee!

Little girl's cosplay of Stan Lee (i.imgur.com)     

Hi Reddit, I'm Richard Linklater, writer/director of films such as SLACKER, DAZED AND CONFUSED, BERNIE, BEFORE SUNRISE and BEFORE SUNSET.

My new film, BEFORE MIDNIGHT, opens in select theaters this Friday. I'm looking forward to answering your questions, so Ask Me Anything!

Proof: http://instagram.com/p/ZnkarmpQvt/

Edit: Signing off now. Thanks for the great questions, Reddit!

Welcome back to Midweek Madness! Every Wednesday, we send Kristine Gutierrez to the newsstand to pick up the new issues of In Touch, Us, Life & Style, Ok! and Star in hopes of getting high on celebrity news. This week, Lindsay Lohan's drug dealer talks about dropping her as a client; the Kardashians are millions of dollars in debt and a lot of it is from car loans; and photographers went inside Amanda Bynes' apartment and documented some weirdness. Ready to take a hit?

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Twitter finally added two-factor authentication and you should enable it right now. We probably don't need to tell you why, but just in case you forgot about social engineering hacks you want to enable this feature to protect yourself.

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I hope the Foreign Office is not being persuaded that supplying more arms into Syria will be a constructive solution to the problem (All sides in Syria armed except the good guys – Foreign Office, 16 May). In 2005 the United Nations adopted the doctrine of the "responsibility to protect" populations from mass atrocity crimes, and since then this commitment has been severely tested, especially in the current Syrian conflict. The UN envoys Kofi Annan and Lakhdar Brahimi have tried to negotiate a peaceful resolution but UN member states have supplied arms to the parties to the conflict. Many experts, exemplified by Jeremy Greenstock (The civil war is still to come, 16 May), consider that the solution to such conflicts must be through developing better mechanisms for encouraging a negotiated settlement. Only a few weeks ago the UN general assembly overwhelmingly agreed an arms trade treaty that is intended to prevent the supply of arms, especially where there is an embargo, to people who are likely to use them in breach of humanitarian laws. We need to be encouraging member states to give greater support to the UN and its peace-building initiatives, not find ways to undermine them. The United Nations Association of the UK, at its recent policy conference, called on the UN and its members to put more resources into such peace-building initiatives and to move rapidly to a strong implementation of the arms trade treaty. I hope the UK government will continue to support these principles.
Trevor Evans
Chair, Harpenden United Nations Association

• Jonathan Steele (Syria's chance for change, 21 May) argues that prospects for a negotiated solution to the Syrian conflict have been enhanced because the main players have recently adopted more reasonable positions, claiming "Assad has dropped his demand that the armed opposition lay down its guns before he sends his people to meet them".

However, in his recent interview with the Argentinian newspaper, Clarin, Assad insisted that no state can negotiate with "terrorists". In case there should be any doubt about the import of this view, he explicitly stated: "We would engage in dialogue with all political entities, internal or external with no set pre-conditions. This also includes the armed groups who lay down their weapons and renounce terrorism. Guns and dialogue are clearly incompatible."

He was also adamant that he will retain the presidency – and hence control of the regime – at least through to the election scheduled for 2014. So the real Syrian position is: no negotiations with the armed opposition; and nothing other than cosmetic changes to the regime for the foreseeable future.

Not a very promising starting point for achieving a negotiated settlement.
Brian Slocock
Chester

• It seems as if the best solution to the problem is to support the multi-sectarian secular regime of Assad and join with them in fighting the Sunni extremists. The result would be a reunified Syria, allowing refugees to return and the suppression of the Sunni extremists. The best that could be hoped for after an intervention would be something like the government left to Iraq, not an encouraging thought. And that would be after a war. At what point would the interveners declare the rebels the enemy?
Paul Baker
London

It's like something out of a comic book: A Minnesota man was in the process of remodeling an abandoned Elbow Lake house he had purchased for $10,100, when he suddenly stumbled across the most valuable comic book of all time hidden inside the wall.

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BOSTON — The state Senate has adopted a proposal allowing Massachusetts to recoup public benefits given to anyone later convicted of using of a weapon of mass destruction.

Gloucester Republican state Sen. Bruce Tarr offered the proposal as an amendment to the Senate version of the state budget.

It would allow the attorney general to recover "any and all money" from anyone convicted of a terrorist act "who has previously collected public assistance, financial assistance or received any other direct financial benefit from the state."

"Captain Geoffrey Spaulding" shares this vintage ad on Flickr, and a quick Google reveals that it's a promo card for a short-lived program on a Philadelphia TV station in 1954: "Let Scott do it." No known tape exists, and if it does, it's definitely not online. That's Mister Rivets pouring coffee.    

Majid Al Futtaim Holding has announced the purchase of the 25 percent minority stake owned by Carrefour Group in Majid Al Futtaim Hypermarkets LLC for 530 million euros.
The two groups also...

Eric Schmidt rejects Ed Miliband's criticisms of tax affairs, saying firm fears being 'double or quadruple taxed' under any changes

The Google chairman, Eric Schmidt, has told political leaders to sort out a rational and predictable international tax system, as he faced a wave of criticism over the firm's failure to pay more tax.

Ed Miliband attempted to deliver his rebuke direct to Schmidt when invited to speak at the Google Big Tent conference, although the US executive missed the Labour leader's address on Wednesday, saying he had to attend a meeting in London.

Nick Clegg disclosed at a press conference he had also criticised Google at a Downing Street meeting earlier in the week at which Schmidt was present. David Cameron's aides, after earlier denying the prime minister rounded on Schmidt at that meeting, later briefed that Google had been implicitly rebuked in the context of the prime minister's general call for greater tax transparency as part of his agenda for the G8 summit next month.

Speaking at the annual Big Tent event after Miliband had left, Schmidt said one of his key concerns about changes to the tax structure was that Google might be "doubly or quadruply taxed".

Asked by Labour MP Stella Creasy how he would reform the tax system, he suggested: "Have a rational system that's predictable and doesn't change very much.

"Virtually all the American companies have tax structures like this, and UK companies operating in the US do too. But if we pay more taxes in one area, then we pay less in another.

"Google feels very, very strongly that tax information, tax policy should be done openly. I don't think companies should decide tax policy, governments should ... we're in a very long-standing tax regime ... we need to have a conversation about this, we're not trying to do the wrong thing, we're trying to do the right thing.

"We don't want to be in a situation where we get double or quadruple taxed."

Asked how he would cope if Miliband were to come to power and, as promised, stop transfer pricing, Schmidt said: "If he does – if he does so, we will follow the rules." Transfer pricing involves firms shifting profits between countries.

Schmidt also said Google would continue to invest in the UK, no matter what tax regime was in place: "We love you guys too much. We will continue investing in the UK no matter what."

He rebuffed Miliband's suggestion there was a distinction between the letter and the spirit of the law. "You'll have to define the difference," he said to a barrister who challenged him to say whether Google would comply with the "spirit" of the tax laws, which might then lead to it being taxed more. "We're governed by US securities laws – in that scenario it might be seen as incompetence," added Schmidt.

Earlier Miliband told the meeting of the firm's staff that he was "disappointed" it had paid £6m in corporation tax on UK sales worth £3.2bn in 2011. Most of Google's profits are routed through Ireland. Miliband said the US company's employees expected it to do the "right thing", as its motto was "Don't be evil."

He said: "I can't be the only person who feels deeply disappointed that a great company like Google, with great founding principles, should be reduced to arguing that when it employs thousands of people in Britain, makes billions of pounds in revenue in Britain, it is fair that it should pay just a fraction of 1% of that in tax.

"So when Google does great things, I will praise you ... But when Google goes to extraordinary lengths to avoid paying its taxes, I say it's wrong."

Labour rejected Schmidt's explanation, saying Google has been making sales to UK customers from its UK staff, but pretending the transactions were being made from Ireland so the firm could register the profits as made in Ireland rather than the UK.

Booking those sales in the UK would not mean taxing profits twice – just taxing them in the UK, not Ireland.

Even after profits were shifted to Ireland, Google avoids paying 12.5% corporation tax there by switching the surpluses to tax havens such as Bermuda, according to a Reuters investigation.

This is done by using two Irish firms, (hence the name, "double Irish") one a tax resident in Bermuda and owning the intellectual property of the company. The offshore firm then charges the onshore one royalties, which shifts the profits out of Ireland and into Bermuda.

By doing so Google would not be taxed on the same profits in different countries; it is shifting profits between tax jurisdictions to avoid paying tax.

Clegg told a press conference in London on Wednesday morning: "My overall approach to tax is the obvious one. I put this directly to Eric Schmidt from Google and other business leaders at a meeting in Downing Street a couple of days ago.

"We are bringing the tax burden on corporations down by lowering the rate of corporation tax but in return people have to pay their fair share."

He said tax havens were symptoms of the growing pains of globalisation. "You have got tax systems that are national rooted in an old economy, and now we have got these new corporate goliaths that operate in this disembodied way particularly in the digital sector, that quite unsurprisingly think they can exploit the best deal for themselves in the cracks and crevices between the national tax systems."

Toronto Mayor Rob Ford, who smokes crack, has parted ways with the Catholic high school football team he used to coaches. He's still mayor of Toronto though.

Read more...

The New England Basketball Hall of Fame announced today that JJ Barea, Mark Halsel, Andre LaFleur and Perry Moss would be inducted as members of the Class of 2013.

Barea, who currently plays for the Minnesota Timberwolves, led the Huskies to four winning season, including their first-ever NIT berth in 2005. He finished his tenure second all-time in both scoring and assists for Northeastern.

DENVER — Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper has indefinitely delayed the execution of convicted killer Nathan Dunlap, citing doubts about the death penalty.

Hickenlooper announced his decision Wednesday. He says he is granting Dunlap a reprieve, not clemency. Clemency would have changed Dunlap's sentence to life without parole.

Under a reprieve, Dunlap could conceivably be executed one day. The reprieve will stay in force until Hickenlooper or another governor lifted it.

Inauguration of ESA's Near-Earth Object Coordination Centre at ESRIN (Frascati, Italy) on 22 May 2013. This is the second centre to be opened under the Agency’s Space Situational Awareness (SSA) Programme after the Space Weather Coordination Centre that was inaugurated in Brussels last month. ESA's Near-Earth Object Coordination Centre (NEO-CC) will serve as the central access point to a network of European NEO data sources and information providers being established under the SSA Programme.

DUBAI: Emirates NBD launched a $ 1 billion core capital-boosting bond yesterday, amid healthy
demand, allowing the Dubai lender to tighten earlier price guidance.
The Tier 1 bond...

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre will convene, in wake of killing and al-Qaida martyrdom video rhetoric heard on London street

Counter-terrorism officers and security officials will doubtless fear that Woolwich fits into the category of crime that they can do little to thwart; random, lone-wolf, unsophisticated attacks, conducted by people who are not on the radar of the police or MI5.

The spectrum in which investigators will be working now is broad, and the characters within it unstable and unpredictable.

In the immediate aftermath of the attack in south London, detectives might have been reluctant to tell the home secretary, Theresa May, conclusively that this was the work of jihadists, but as the hours passed any doubts must have evaporated.

The language attributed to one of the men filmed at the scene, and brandishing a bloodied knife, was stark: "We swear by almighty Allah we will never stop fighting you. The only reasons we have done this is because Muslims are dying every day. This British soldier is an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. We must fight them.

"I apologise that women had to witness this today, but in our land our women have to see the same. You people will never be safe. Remove your government. They don't care about you."

This is classic al-Qaida rhetoric, similar to the phrases used by suicide bombers who have left martyrdom videos. Though the man did not appear to mention Afghanistan, this is the only country in which British soldiers are now directly embroiled in a conflict.

More than 440 soldiers have been killed in the 12-year war in Afghanistan, including some shot by members of the Afghan security forces they are supposed to be supporting. British and Nato involvement in the fight against the Taliban is winding down, but the UK will still have a presence there until the end of next year.

The decision last night to convene Cobra, the Cabinet Office committee that deals with security emergencies, came after the home secretary took soundings from the new head of MI5, Andrew Parker, and the Scotland Yard commissioner, Bernard Hogan-Howe.

The Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre (JTAC), which includes members from MI5, MI6, GCHQ, the police and Ministry of Defence, will convene to decide what conclusions can be drawn from what has happened, even at this early stage.

Crucially, JTAC will recommend whether to alter the national threat assessment level, which now stands at "substantial".

If there is any suggestion that this attack might be the start of a wave, the threat level will be increased to either severe or the highest level, critical.MI5 and Scotland Yard have warned repeatedly in recent years about self-starters – people who have been radicalised in the UK, affected, perhaps, by the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, or by Arab spring events, or by emerging al-Qaida networks in Africa.

Hundreds of Britons are known to have gone to Syria over the last two years to support the rebellion against Bashar al-Assad. The Syrian conflict is now the "jihadist destination of choice", according to Whitehall officials. Britons are also known to have been involved with the al-Nusra front, which is heavily infused with al-Qaida elements from Iraq and has been designated a terrorist group by the US.

Some of those people going abroad from the UK were already known to MI5 and MI6; some have now returned home. Many others will have come and gone without investigators knowing.

The same thing has happened in Somalia, where a smaller number of Britons have been in recent years, to support the al-Qaida affiliate al-Shabaab.

"What they do when they come back here is more worrying to us than what they do when they are out there," is how one official put it.

Even if those responsible for the Woolwich attack had not been abroad, they could have been motivated closer to home or online.

Security officials have highlighted the dangers posed by the al-Qaida online magazine, Inspire, which is constantly urging its readers to undertake attacks, rather than wait for training or orders from above.

Inspire, which is the work of al-Qaida in the Arabian peninsular (AQAP), has been causing concern since it was first published in 2010; the latest edition has just been published and is said to include an "Open Source Jihad (OSJ) section … for aspiring jihadists seeking to assassinate US and European leaders".

Though some academics have doubted whether Inspire is such a powerful tool, there is evidence that people inclined to commit violence have been tipped into action by such entreaties.

Some of the biggest counter terror operations of recent years have involved suspects who have turned by Inspire.

Three men from Birmingham were convicted this year of plotting the biggest potential terrorist atrocity than the 7 July attacks. They had read the magazine and been influenced by the preachings of Anwar al Awlaki, the now dead former AQAP leader.

Attempts have been made to shut down the magazine, and to disrupt it by cyber warfare. Two years ago MI6 and GCHQ hacked into an article which set out how to make a bomb, and replaced the recipe with one for cupcakes. However, the magazine is still disseminated via internet forums.

Other extremists who have used Awlaki as motivation to mount terror attacks in the UK include Roshonara Choudhry, who attacked the Labour MP Stephen Timms in his constituency surgery.

Choudry, who was jailed for life in 2010, is also said to have named a US-based website as a source of inspiration. In 2007 a group of extremists in Birmingham plotted to behead a British Muslim soldier to undermine the morale of the British army and inhibit its recruitment of Muslims. The leader, Parviz Khan, admitted the plot and was sentenced to life imprisonment, to serve at least 14 years.

Though the number of people arrested for terrorist offences have fallen in recent years, the police and MI5 still make arrests, and still uncover plots. "They haven't given up," an official said.

Last year, the Royal United Services Institute [RUSI] thinktank published a report which set out the difficulties now facing counter-terrorism officers; with al-Qaida fragmented and "franchised" across the Arab world and in Africa, identifying suspects was seen as harder than ever.

The report warned: "Though the death of Bin Laden began a succession of counter-terrorist victories in 2011, the threat from Jihadist terrorism has not diminished. If anything, the risk has evolved from plots carried out by organised cells within a leadership structure, to one carried out by lone wolves, radicalised by material on the internet.

"The latter is harder to track down and is potent given the uncertain international situation; where the outcome of the Arab spring has not been settled, and where there are frequent returns of British citizens from war zones such as Somalia and Yemen."

The institute noted the arrival home of self-radicalised fighters would coincide with the steady release from prison of people convicted of terrorist offences in Britain over the last decade. It says their sentences, for good legal reasons, typically have not been very long.

Michael Clarke, the director of RUSI, said: "More experienced lone-wolf terrorists are likely to be returning to Britain in the next couple of years, not from training camps in Pakistan and via airports in Karachi and Dubai, but from wars in Somalia, Yemen, or Nigeria, from the renewed violence in Iraq, and from destinations and via routes that will be far more difficult for security services to monitor."

By Megan Meabh

Only a people devoid of a beating heart which formed or created of a more functional, a robotic move and like the man who sang out crushed on public radio hoping and praying for something better, likely in his dark room by the station for someone, somewhere to feel his pain, the pain of being considered only a piece of the furniture by his own wife ~ A girl woman named Jodi faces a group of people who she prays may look beyond the realm of the temporal and see why she did not understand her own behavior. As a small child, the only thing she really knows for certain at this time is that she has thrown a rabid and threatening pit bull down the farm well, and that for one single act of self-protection, she for what seemed like forever her fear she always did her best to contain before, herself not to commit, she will now be punished and possibly shunned for the rest of her life for a single act ~ And just as forgiveness is selective, and given only to usually the bent of the preferred Aaron of an organized clique or popular group, Jodi does not yet understand how the real life of the world really works. As even most of us have had to learn the hard way that only those who know someone, who know someone, who know someone get by with just a smile, and that unlike Jesus, a group who does love to use bully force to smack together cruel and greased lips of a heightened kill, that for this case, that even the group must know that even the heart of reason argues with the denial of a logic of forgiveness for Jodi.

On the other hand, if puppy who after he said he would kill her first evoked fear and a first response in her, likely shocked by her desire for primary survival, one certain element established by the scenario, is that it is that only one could survive this proposal. I will kill you means that if you do not kill me, you will surely die. Puppy aint' so nice if he bears pit bull teeth, and then only to wait in a dark shadow hiding for you just in order to clomp down with his vicitudinous mouth of knives upon your body just because he knows nobodies looking at him. What would you do? It is the pit bull. Or you?

Imagine how Jodi, who even honorably said as most battered women do. They cover up for him until the death of the very end. Their own. It is the sign of one of them. Try the premise out based on the long supposition of the rugged American backbone of individualism, who you say should not shift just because the concept leaves the throne of a more white, male dominion of this kind of an aficionado. The term must be just as conducive to the seat of the female pant as it is to that of the male counterpart, or else it is so specious as to deny her any true justice. After all, is she not already free by her very own conviction anyway?

The trial might provide a reason for the triangle. Films such as Why I Am No Longer A Christian, make you think, contemplate the actual countenance and heart of every human being. As you try to befriend that which you believe to be great, you find out at the moment about the true intent of the soul of the person. Even the soul of the judge, she resurrects to the memory of her original calling. And just as Jodi hoped and prayed with all of her heart to hold on to the man she dearly loved with all of her heart and with all of her soul, despite the seeming cold function of the oft slow burning U.S. Justice system, Jodi once hoped and prayed for this man she loved, to aspire as a crowning father of her children, a member of her family, and she of his. And now both families own neither, and she grieves as only a woman can. Let her cry.

Alone, and without greatness and now even without a friend in the world, a brave young woman stands alone and admits what most members of the general population of the nation today don't seem to have enough guts to do themselves while on the stand under oath in the court room ~ Openly admit the wrong they committed, and beg God to show them the right. The intent of the soul of a person. Jodi is right. She fully felt the heart of the soul desire of the family to inflict revenge. But, she argues that life in prison for her should satisfy the inner craving enough. Changing her mind about death and dying, she begs for a new chance to live her life, and presenting to the audience that the secret to freedom lives within the walls of her heart, she presents her argument for life. She realizes, as the light bulb goes off that there is so much good left to do, and that suicide is not God's best for her. And that she wants a chance to know a new life within the walls of a heart of another savior, she does not hide this fact either.

Part I. of his independent film, "I really was a Christian," cries out another young man and who the maker of a film about the argument for atheism, his own, Why I Am No Longer A Christian, produced by a boy child with all of the luxury in the world to remain one, still, he who lives somewhere else in the U.S.A., and who does not so especially differ from the polygamous Mormons any more than those Mormons themselves denies them as well, too. The Colorado group of Ruth and The Lost boys, want to escape forever from a cult group, to do as Jodi wants as well ~ And although both of these unlike the producer of the atheist documentary, to serve God with freedom. At the same time, dissenting groups as old as the problem of human nature work so very hard to form the very kind of catalyst behavior, a software malicious enough to attempt to force the healing escapee or victim back into the control factor from which they just escaped. If only the forces could see that the perpetrators have changed only their name and nothing else.

A young man who once a Christian, and now an atheist explains why he turned from Christ and Christianity to a more existential existence. Breaking the film down into three separate parts, he exemplifies the disappointment of many youth his and the similar age of Jodi and how perhaps her prior beau might still feel, were he alive today. And this is another important element of the Jodi trial, which is that she loved this young man who she fully expressed she wished she had known how to leave alone. And that she would like to have faith in a God she knew, and if only there had been someone around to present this kind and wonderful and loving presence to her earlier. A day and an age in which we live in now though Fleetwood Mac sung about in the 1970's. "We live in an age where colors have no meanings, words no rhymes ~ That's why I travel far. Because I come so together where you are." It appears we are a nation who God wants to make take enough time to slow down long enough to explain even the basic philosophy of life and living to your own children. The young blogger of our independent film, spoke deeply of his disillusionment with Christianity largely he said due to uncaring, uninformed or ignorant adult leadership, and Evid3n3c even went on to expound that most religious people think of the race described by the Paul of the Christian bible as something that requires a physics style speed. The patience of Jodi to wait, listen and learn seems a quiet witness so profound that even I am convinced of her experience as a very mind-controlled and oppressed and even possibly even if insidiously, emotionally abused by her ex-young man's family, just as she was physically abused by the young Mormon man. Also, just like Jodi, even his, Evid3n3c's earliest memories of church remind him that just as Jodi, one day, he awoke with fear. The Mormon church should awake with fear at what the fate and the improper teaching of this impressionable young woman who had no knowledge let alone of God, until this young man gave her another gospel, and a very damaging gospel of the flesh, and not of what she wanted to drink, which was the fresh water of a living God.

Jodi did think though that as if suddenly turning to see the sunshine of the hope of a better gospel ~ Even one who seemed deprived of that information all of her life, did not speak of it being in the offering even once during her thirty years. The time of her dispensation now nigh, she seems to look right at the realization that a suicide solution may fail her. The thought of prison is depressing to anyone. Prison residents do not even like prison. Most if you ask them may simply say they bide the time. Only the stronger of them all actually adjust . Some inmates do lose hope at times and hang themselves in prison. Not everyone is strong, and Jodi, although she is fighting with everything she has got and everything she has not, is one of those. Her heart seems more like the broken heart that has more room to love than that of the cold-hearted killer only the Jerry Springer version of America want to label her with. America's embarrassing underside aside, even Jodi herself explained her crime, which truly is a crime born both of love and of human passion. Not at all the glamorized Hollywood broil full of numerous gala affairs and the full drawn pre-prayed murder plan stuffed with vicious intent. Therefore, a crime not of hate, but of a mix of fear and love.

"I did get saved multiple times." If only people knew how strange that sounds to another person. Some their age might wonder why they continue to drown. After all, why did you not learn like the woman Jodi not to do it again after the first time you committed the act? Therefore, the greatest weight of the diaspora of the unemotional heart seemed to fall greater upon the court room guests than the jury, and more with some of her television audience than with Jodi and her family. But let us not stick the proverbial foot out and trip or kick the child as she tries to run toward the light. After all, she did not ever once say she felt justified by doing wrong. She said she realized that she did not do right, and that even her own behavior still surprises her now. She does not know how to take away the pain or the suffering of what she has done, and yet although she has been as if one without a voice up until now, even she has so humbly not said so very much herself about a blatant and obvious mis-trial. As if the whole nation, some of which too quick to put a knife to the accusation of the wrong sacrifice, did not already know. Jodi already knows that the one singular moment in which she made the snap-decision or gave no thought too and simply just snapped has now ruined all of the years of the rest of her life.

It is a frightening thing when someone, and especially the sheep led to the slaughter house, you jail for self-defense. Most who will not take it seriously, or do not care now, you will care when it happens to you. And yet Jodi is a most naïve classicist. At the same time, she is honest and straight forward and not at all the manipulate some of the other media novice accuse her of. Oh well, perhaps one day they too will have her opportunity, and a perfect chance therefore to learn to orate better. It as she said, when you think about it. That after months of hard labor of patience and not ever a display of even a slight chink in the armor, suddenly all of those thoughts of the long hard hours you spent at that labor, and now for the reward of all of your expected appreciation, comes a depreciation of your rock solid heart and love for one man. Well, you suddenly wonder why and on what have you spent all of your time on? Only for it to be called wasted time? In what and where was th e reward? You must start from scratch all over with some other man? And what other life? Do you just suddenly make something up to do with the rest of your life? It is in this advice, along with the proposal speech which this one woman child made that makes you feel as if she is also hot apple pie. The girl next door. Thelma at the small town beauty parlour. For certainly she is someone you could sit right down beside of, a girl who has not ever thought she was anybody and tell of your troubles to, and she would completely understand.

"With new eyes, all seemed more clear and crisp." A tremendously shy young person, still Evid3nc3, back at the studio of the facebook name of our young male film producer, as only a slightly older young man later, he questioned his earlier faith and belief life style. Calling his disappointment with life and living a complete deconstruction of his faith, still he said that he deeply respected the concept of God. This he related strangely to, "How the deconversion happens." By Part II., he said he began his deconversion by discovering that his belief system held together by many small beliefs to form the larger belief diamond, had shattered after he began to suspect that his needs might be met better as an atheist than as a Christian. Evid3nc3 also felt for some reason a great need to express the importance to other Christians and non-Christians alike his once great faith, and his once great walk with Jesus Christ.