Eloquent and to the point.

As for anyone having the chutzpah to link Kennedy to care … just remind them that you DO NOT want the type of care that Mary Jo got.

Several years back one of my Egyptian friends tried to identify himself as “African-American” for some bit of paperwork (relating to a rent-controlled apartment, I think it was) and got shot down instantaneously. He found it interesting. “Well, I was born in Africa, I’m a naturalized citizen of America – what else is it supposed to take?”

He’s been awaiting the answer to that one for a while, now. Maybe Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton can explain it to him.

The New Russian Cold War.

Interesting perspectives, but I use them as data sources not as opinion sources.

E-harmony tries to match people with like descriptors so they can start (in theory) with all the common things to give the relationship a fair start. This is how friendships naturally start, we see something compatible and either to pursue or allow that friendship to develop. Imagine if they started with the differences, it would be a short date.

This is the problem that I have with the term African-American. It starts with the difference. It uses descriptors that set up a distinguished group – declared to be different than me. I do not identify with the name of this group. This does not sound like anything familiar me and therefore do not identify it as something with which that I have in common. This is bound to fail. If ya gotta have the hyphen, take a little linguistic license, how about American-African? At least we can start on common ground. – being Americans.

That guy is the Tory leader, so to speak. He’s McCain basically. That’s why Republicans are losing.

And why NHS will not be rid of. It’s not that people don’t want something better. They just don’t want to change the status quo, their “great national institute”.

You think that’s a choice? That’s a choice the elites made for you. You don’t have a choice. There won’t be any political party for you. In England, the major parties favor NHS. One more than the other one.

There’s your ‘democracy’ for ya.

Second-degree murder is ordinarily defined as 1) an intentional killing that is not premeditated or planned, nor committed in a reasonable “heat of passion” or 2) a killing caused by dangerous conduct and the offender’s obvious lack of concern for human life. Second-degree murder may best be viewed as the middle ground between first-degree murder and voluntary manslaughter.

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The precise definition of murder varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. Under the Common Law, or law made by courts, murder was the unlawful killing of a human being with malice aforethought. The term malice aforethought did not necessarily mean that the killer planned or premeditated on the killing, or that he or she felt malice toward the victim. Generally, malice aforethought referred to a level of intent or reck-lessness that separated murder from other killings and warranted stiffer punishment.

The definition of murder has evolved over several centuries. Under most modern statutes in the United States, murder comes in four varieties: (1) intentional murder; (2) a killing that resulted from the intent to do serious bodily injury; (3) a killing that resulted from a depraved heart or extreme recklessness; and (4) murder committed by an Accomplice during the commission of, attempt of, or flight from certain felonies.

Some jurisdictions still use the term malice aforethought to define intentional murder, but many have changed or elaborated on the term in order to describe more clearly a murderous state of mind. California has retained the malice aforethought definition of murder (Cal. Penal Code § 187 [West 1996]). It also maintains a statute that defines the term malice. Under section 188 of the California Penal Code, malice is divided into two types: express and implied. Express malice exists “when there is manifested a deliberate intention unlawfully to take away the life of a fellow creature.” Malice may be implied by a judge or jury “when no considerable provocation appears, or when the circumstances attending the killing show an abandoned and malignant heart.”

In Commonwealth v. LaCava, 783 N.E.2d 812 (Mass. 2003), the defendant, Thomas N. LaCava, was convicted of the deliberate, premeditated murder of his wife. LaCava admitted to the shooting and the killing, but he claimed that due to his diminished mental capacity, he could not form the requisite malice when he committed the killing, so as to be convicted of first degree murder. The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts found that Massachusetts law permits psychiatric evidence to attack the premeditation aspect of murder. However, the judge’s instructions to the jury regarding the definition of murder was sufficient to render the error harmless, according to the court.

Many states use the California definition of implied malice to describe an unintentional killing that is charged as murder because the defendant intended to do serious bodily injury, or acted with extreme recklessness. For example, if an aggressor punches a victim in the nose, intending only to injure the victim’s face, the aggressor may be charged with murder if the victim dies from the blow. The infliction of serious bodily injury becomes the equivalent of an intent to kill when the victim dies. Although the aggressor in such a case did not have the express desire to kill the victim, he or she would not be charged with assault, but with murder. To understand why, it is helpful to consider the alternative: When a person dies at the hands of an aggressor, it does not sit well with the public conscience to preclude a murder charge simply because the aggressor intended only to do serious bodily injury.

Some murders involving extreme recklessness on the part of the defendant cause extreme public outrage. In People v. Dellinger, 783 P.2d 200 (Cal. 1989), the defendant, Leland Dellinger, was found guilty of the murder of his two-yearold stepdaughter. The primary cause of the child’s death was a fractured skull caused by trauma to the head. However, other evidence showed that the child had large quantities of cocaine in her system when she died. Moreover, her mother discovered that the defendant had fed the child wine through a baby bottle. Due to the defendant’s “wanton disregard for life,” the verdict of murder was proper, according to the California Supreme Court.

A person who unintentionally causes the death of another person also may be charged with murder under the depraved-heart theory. Depraved-heart murder refers to a killing that results from gross negligence. For example, suppose that a man is practicing shooting his gun in his backyard, located in a suburban area. If the man accidentally shoots and kills someone, he can be charged with murder under the depraved-heart theory, if gross Negligence is proven.

In Turner v. State, 796 So. 2d 998 (Miss. 2001), the defendant, Jimmy Ray Turner, was convicted of the murder of his wife. The couple had contemplated Divorce, but had apparently reconciled. After their reconciliation, they went together to the defendant’s parents’ house to return a borrowed shotgun. As they walked to the parents’ house, the defendant, who testified that he did not think the shotgun was loaded, demonstrated to his wife how he carried the gun with his fingers on the trigger and walked with his arms swinging. His wife stopped suddenly, bumping into the defendant. The shotgun fired, killing the wife. Although the defendant was not charged with premeditated murder, he was indicted and convicted of depraved-heart murder due to his gross negligence in handling the shotgun.
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So, no Earl. Murder is not about first degree murder only, the pre-meditated killing of a person.

And I think that intent is needed to sustain a charge of murder.

Intent is only for first degree. Second degree doesn’t even require it at all.

Where Kennedy, drunk or not, crossed the line was in abandoning Kopechne to die. At that moment, Kennedy was no longer in the realm of accidents. Instead, he made a conscious decision to take her life in order to protect his reputation. He didn’t wander away confused. He didn’t run away to seek help. Instead, when he made the conscious decision to vanish from the scene, take a shower, call his friends, and pretend nothing happened, he deliberately killed her as surely as if he had deliberately put a gun to her head. To my mind, that is truly murder — the deliberate, intentional taking of a human life.