[FDNYRHEROES]

Even in the US, a life sentence is considered something like 20 years. That is why in so many of the horrible cases they are sentenced to mutiple life sentences.

Ok, that explains the real meaning of "life sentence". How is "Scottish values" defined?

[mware]

I am not Scottish but I do love their music.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_O88tBPpSW4

[Jakarta ex-pat]

I have mixed feelings. If I were a victim, or a member of a victim's family, I'm certain I would want the man to rot in HELL.

However, what has distinguished the English speaking people from the world IS compassion. REAL compassion, not the Utopian kind. I was stunned after reading a book on Dunkirk how , in fact , The Germans were as masochistic as the Japanese when it came to the treatment of prisoners.

Moreover, we all know how the Russians treated theirs.

Therefore, let's celebrate rather than deny what we have accomplished in establishing the modern day civilization.

"The decline of Rome was the natural and inevitable effect of immoderate greatness. Prosperity ripened the principle of decay; the cause of the destruction multiplied with the extent of conquest; and, as soon as time or accident had removed the artificial supports, the stupendous fabric yielded to the pressure of its own weight. The story of the ruin is simple and obvious; and instead of inquiring why the Roman Empire was destroyed, we should rather be surprised that it has subsisted for so long."[Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, 2nd ed., vol. 4, ed. by J. B. Bury (London, 1909), pp. 173–174.]