People are fucked up, man.

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@Curves: Oh tolerant one, you're always understanding ;)

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What in the holy fucking ass-raping, Jesus-stabbing shit is going on in people's heads sometimes??

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doesn't make sense. for that reason alone i'd lean toward believing her side of the story.

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As you've written it, it almost sounds like you are suggesting it would have been less messed up had he just killed the wife. Please tell me your choice of wording/emphasis does not mean that.

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That is because it would've.

Killing is wrong, but his logic would've been sound at least. His wife betrayed HIM and is hurting HIM, she has done him wrong. The kids have done absolutely nothing wrong to him, to kill them out of his anger was entirely blind.

If he would do that to his own kids... I fear what he woudl've done to a stranger who looked at him funny.

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So...you are saying it WOULD have been "less messed up" had he applied logic and merely killed the cheating wife? Because, you know, "she was asking for it, made him do it, had it coming to her?", something like that?

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1) 5 kids, or

2) 1 wife, or

3) 12 lords a leaping

IT'S ALL MESSED UP, with NO degrees of difference. There is no circumstance under which shooting anyone is less "messed up" than shooting someone else.

My fear here is that some people aren't aware of the misogyny, however slight, that comes slithering into the conversation as soon as we identify her as "a cheating wife". Whether or not she cheated on him, whether or not she loved the guy or treated him fairly, whether or not anything, it's so easy to think, even if subliminally, "well, she pushed him to do it" and to conclude she would have been a more logical target.

No. Cheating or not, she didn't push him to do anything, he did all that himself. And it would have been no less messed up for him to have shot her instead.

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It's obvious that she IS the reason he flipped out -- and it would OBVIOUSLY make her the LOGICAL TARGET of his RAGE. The kids are a LESS LOGICAL target.

I have no idea what you're trying to say? That killing a Nazi soldier in WWII is the same as microwaving your child? Because it ISN'T.

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The fact that you would compare a wartime defense situation with a heinous murder makes it pretty clear you don't know what I am saying. Actions of self-defense taken during a war have nothing to do with, and do not belong in the same conversation as, voluntary acts of domestic violence.

He cracked. He was a psycho. Self-defense was not involved in any capacity. There is/was no logic. Challenge my statements all you like but please keep the argument relevant.

"It's obvious that she IS the reason he flipped out -- and it would OBVIOUSLY make her the LOGICAL TARGET of his RAGE."

Rage, yes. But again I cry out, her acts do not, under any conditions, make it "logical" for her to be a target of MURDER. A target of a knockdown, dragout emtionally charged argument? You betcha. A target of a divorce decree? Sure. A target of an abuse-towards-husband lawsuit? Maybe. A target, logical or otherwise, of violence? Never.

"You're digging yourself into a hole."

As you see it, fine. However, I have never been more comfortable with my position.

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On the surface, to say, "Five murders is worse than one murder" actually can sound reasonable and logical. But then, if I accept that as logical, then I must also be prepared to accept the reverse statement as equally logical. That is, I must be able to embrace its flipside, "One murder is better than five murders". I cannot do that. I can never put "better" and "murder" into the same sentence. The logic, as sound as it is in the one direction, absolutely fails me in the reverse.

Consider the laws of physics. We live in a universe of constants, where matter and energy work in predictable, measurable ways. Anything can be reduced into logical equations. As such, actions can thus always be quantified--always, that is, until you introduce an element that lies beyond those laws of physics--an element such as an event horizon. As you approach an event horizon, all the known and understood universal constants change and/or are discarded. The universal laws no longer apply. Math and equations fail.

To me, murder is just such an event horizon. It crosses a line in the laws of our human condition, and it does so irretrievably and illogically. IS one better than five, two better than ten, ten better than a thousand? While the logic may sound plausible when applied to "lesser" atrocities, when applied to murder, it does not. Murder is light changing its velocity. Murder is dividing by zero. Murder cannot be quantified in the same way as "lesser" actions. And that is why, despite the apparent failure of logic, I stand by my position. Should you disagree, I respect your position; allow us to agree to disagree.

When I started this entire line of inquiry, I did not expect to get SO off track into a discusion of logic, (meta)physics and morality. Indeed, looking back at the original poster's first comment and then mine, you can see I only meant to raise an eyebrow of awareness to the possible misogyny in his writing, of how such an internalized element could skew our viewpoints. The discussion has, of course, now veered dramatically off course and in most unexpected ways. Still, I do not regret the discussion. It has made me think. It has made me try to cope with the absolute illogic of my position. It has made me reconcile my personal views on logic and morality. And that's something, for better or worse, that you might not expect to get from a gadget blog. ;^)

Thanks to all for the (mostly) civil discussion that has occurred. I'm moving on now to...well, gadgets. See you in the other stories!

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Part of the funding for Amtrak was to help improve the quality and safety of our rail systems. As it is many commuter routes share with freight. Which increases the chance of such collisions happening.

There are all kinds of reasons this happened, but mostly it was the conductor ignoring his job/stop signals.

To answer your question, where are the automatic safeguards that slow and/or stop cars that are going to run a red light? Or that keep a vehicle from crossing the median into oncoming traffic? Or that stop idiots from droving down the off-ramp into oncoming traffic? Or or or.

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