rigorousintuition.ca

compared2what? wrote:

Wombaticus Rex wrote:HEREBY ARCHIVED FOR #TRUTHINESS and MOST ILLUMINATING LULZ

Sierra Peterson said...
Ok, I'm trying to understand here...in previous posts you've praised the work of David Lynch, who has literally made horror movies about incest, yet you're blaming the shooting on the violent imagery in the Batman movie? Really? Fire Walk With Me is one of the most disturbing horror movies I've ever seen, even compared to ultra-brutal stuff like Hostel. It doesn't make much sense to point out the voyeuristic hypocrisy of the conspiratainment crowd if you're doing the same thing yourself. Personally, I agree that the abundance of violent imagery in pop culture is a sign of a sick society(not excluding myself), but it starts veering into very dangerous territory when you state that this depiction is the sole underlying cause of a senseless shooting. I don't like the neofascist ideology of the Batman movies either, but holding the filmmakers responsible for this atrocity is heading awfully close to a to tolerance of the kind of ideas that form the basis of mass censorship campaigns.


Christopher Loring Knowles said...
You are deliberately misrepresenting what I said, Sierra. At no point do I claim Nolan or the Batman film is responsible. The shooter is responsible for the massacre. What I am talking about is a general dehumanizing culture and a level of psychological manipulation that is irresponsible and unwise. These mass shootings don't exist in a vacuum- they exist in a culture that reduces human beings to targets to be mowed down. This is something I believe we ALL have to take responsibility for and be accountable to. I don't like it, I've never liked it.


Sierra Peterson said...
"I do know that he deliberately created a brand new archetype with his Joker, the real protagonist of The Dark Knight. A figure of pure, wanton destruction- the killer that every Jugalo would love to be when they grow up. This was pure psychological manipulation of the worst kind, and has had terrible _real_world_results_." The "real world results" you linked to is a list of killers and other disturbed people who adopted the Joker persona. Stating that these murders are an effect of the movie takes responsibility away from the killer and places it in the hands of the filmmaker, and I think that perspective is irresponsible and unwise. Ideas like that can easily lead to the conclusion that depiction of violence and actual violence are of equal moral weight, the same mistake made by Vigilant Citizen, Jones and all the rest when they talk about "predictive programming".

Purely for the sake of the intellectual exercise, let's examine how the conversation doubtless then continued in Parallel Dimension 1, where...I don't know. Where chance'd happened to throw a little more caffeine into Chris Knowles, or something like that:

• Sierra Peterson said... And you have yet to address how it's not hypocritical to criticize the "dehumanizing" themes of Batman while praising the incest-themed horror movie, Fire Walk With Me. At a certain point, it becomes obvious that --
  
  Christopher Knowles said... Wait, wait, wait. Sierra. Sorry to interrupt. But I guess now I'm trying to understand something here. Are you saying that Fire Walk With Me or David Lynch are somehow responsible or to blame for the real horrors endured by real incest survivors?
  
  Sierra Peterson said... No. I'm --
  
  Christopher Knowles said... Great. It almost sounded like you were trying to portray me as, like, some kind of an incest-booster there for a moment. So. Back to topic. You're leaving out some pretty important context, Sierra. The main point I was making -- and I've always been very consistent about this -- WHATEVER TALKING POINT HE MOST WANTS TO HAMMER HOME? THAT GOES HERE!

I randomly came across this thread searching for Vigilant Citizen in the forum, and wanted to respond to this as the quote from Sierra Peterson is my own, and it undoubtedly comes across as over-the-top for those who aren't placing it in the context of an ongoing conversation on the Secret Sun. What I was taking issue with was the outright denial of the more insidious aspects of MK Ultra by the blog's author, Christopher Knowles. I found this stance to be particularly problematic since many Secret Sun posts on occult symbolism provided fuel for some of the more, shall we say, speculative blogs concerning the Monarch Project, and I think these sites followed a similar pattern of the author being fascinated-yet-repulsed and unable to admit the fascination. One of the biggest problems about the way the Monarch Project was handled on those sites was that it turned into quasi-pornography, where ultra right wingers with soft porn obsessions would go on about the "degeneracy" in the media, all while producing page after page of explicit screenshots. I'm actually quite appreciative of much of the material on Secret Sun, especially in regards to the problems of "conspiratainment", but I can't help but see the way he handles MK Ultra as entirely uninformed and irresponsible. It probably seems completely ridiculous to get so worked up about a discussion revolving around Batman, but it's only because I have many loved ones whose lives were negatively affected by MK Ultra projects, so this kind of thing really gets on my nerves.
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Back in a moment with v 2.0.

Aurora movie theater shooting victims being harassed by conspiracy theorists, prosecutors say
Victims and witnesses have had their addresses and phone numbers posted online, and some fear for their safety

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Thursday, February 7, 2013, 11:52 AM

JONATHAN CASTNER/AFP/Getty Images
Police cars in front of the Century 16 theater in Aurora, Colorado where a gunman opened fire during the opening of the new Batman movie "The Dark Knight Rises" on July 20, 2012.DENVER — Victims and witnesses in the Colorado theater shootings have been pestered by conspiracy theorists, impersonated in court filings and had their addresses and phone numbers posted online, prosecutors said.

In a document made public late Wednesday, District Attorney George Brauchler said some victims are concerned for their safety because of the unwanted attention.

PHOTOS: COLORADO SHOOTING VICTIMS

Brauchler asked District Judge William Sylvester to ensure the victims' and witnesses' names are redacted from any documents released in the future, although many were identified in previously released court filings and some have granted media interviews, called news conferences or appeared at public events.

Brauchler said it is important to accommodate the victims' and witnesses' wishes because the prosecution's case requires the cooperation of some of them.

PHOTOS: SHOOTING AT "DARK KNIGHT RISES" SCREENING IN COLORADO

James Holmes is accused of killing 12 people and wounding 70 at a theater in the Denver suburb of Aurora on July 20. He is scheduled to enter a plea next month.

In a court filing dated Tuesday, Brauchler said some victims have been subjected to "relentless contacts by proponents of purported 'conspiracies.'"


RJ Sangosti-Pool/Getty Images
Accused movie theater shooter James Holmes makes his first court appearance at the Arapahoe County on July 23, 2012 in Centennial, Colorado. RELATED: SHOOTING SURVIVORS ATTEND REOPENING OF AURORA THEATER

He also said maps with the addresses and phone numbers of victims have been posted online, and some people allegedly impersonating victims and witnesses have filed court motions in the case.

Brauchler didn't identify the victims of the alleged harassment or the suspected perpetrators or offer further details. His spokeswoman didn't immediately return a call.

RELATED: WOMAN HAS CRUSH ON 'BATMAN' SHOOTER HOLMES

Sylvester has barred attorneys and investigators from speaking publically about the case and sealed many documents. Holmes' lawyers are attempting to compel a Fox News reporter to disclose her sources for a story describing the contents of a notebook Holmes sent to a psychiatrist. The defense contends the leaks violated the judge's gag order.

The secrecy surrounding details of the case have prompted numerous objections and requests for information from media outlets.

RELATED: 'DARK KNIGHT' SHOOTER SPENT MONTHS PLANNING MASSACRE: DETECTIVES

The city of Aurora has also asked Sylvester to reconsider his secrecy orders, saying they became moot when prosecutors outlined their case against Holmes during a preliminary hearing in January.

Attorneys for the city said city officials have received requests from emergency responders in other cities for details on how they managed the response to the massacre, and from media, academics and individuals seeking recordings of 911 calls and other information.



http://www.nydailynews.com/news/nationa ... -1.1257841

Cinema Shooting: Judge Approves 'Truth Serum'
James Holmes could be subjected to 'truth serum' should his attorneys enter an insanity plea at his pre-trial hearing this week.
By Greg Milham, US Correspondent

The student accused of the Colorado cinema massacre could be given "truth serum" to help determine whether he is insane, a judge has ruled.

James Holmes, 25, who is accused of killing twelve people and injuring 70 others during a shooting rampage at a Batman movie premiere, is expected to enter a plea today.

Defence lawyers have indicated that the former neuroscience graduate might plead not guilty by reason of insanity.

If he does, the judge has ruled, he might have to submit to a "narco analytic interview" - including the use of what some have dubbed a "truth serum" - as part of the evaluation of his mental state.

A narcoanalytic interview is a decades-old process in which patients are given drugs to lower their inhibition.

The judge said Holmes could also be given a lie detector test as part of the evaluation.

Holmes will face 166 counts during an arraignment hearing in connection with the shooting spree at a cinema in Aurora, Colorado, last July.

Last week that same judge rejected defence claims that the rules relating to an insanity plea were unconstitutional.

Holmes was arrested immediately after the shootings at a midnight showing of 'The Dark Night Rises'.

A preliminary hearing in January was presented with harrowing evidence of the scene inside the cinema in the aftermath of the shooting and the desperate attempts to save lives.

The court also heard evidence that Holmes spent months planning the mass killing, purchasing weapons, ammunition and body armour and booby-trapping his apartment.

Prosecutors will have 60 days after a plea is entered to announce whether they will seek the death penalty.

Defence lawyers claimed that, if an insanity plea is entered, it would force them to turn over potentially incriminating evidence to the prosecution. That could be used against him, they say, if the death penalty is sought, despite his constitutional right not to incriminate himself.

Colorado is also unusual in putting the burden of proof on the prosecution in case where an insanity plea has been entered.
The Century 16 Theater in Aurora, Colorado The cinema in Aurora at which the massacre took place

Craig Silverman, a former deputy district attorney for Denver, said: "Was he suffering from a mental disease or defect that rendered him incapable of distinguishing right and wrong?

"If the defence had to prove that, that would be one thing but here in Colorado the prosecution has to disprove it. To prove sanity beyond a reasonable doubt with James Holmes could be tough."

He says he expects the case to take many further twists and turns. "I have been predicting delay after delay. Delay is the natural ally of any death penalty defendant. The longer the case drags out the longer the client is assured to stay alive."

Dozens of survivors and relatives of those who died are expected to attend the hearing. Judge William Sylvester has allowed a television camera in court but there will be no audio of the proceedings.

The case, the worst in modern American history in terms of the number of people shot, prompted renewed debate about America's gun laws.

Politicians in Colorado have moved to put new restrictions in place within the state while the nationals effort to tighten the rules appears to have stalled.

Court documents have revealed that Holmes was held for 'several days, frequently in restraints' in hospital in November after authorities said he was in need of immediate psychiatric help.

The same week he was rushed to the hospital after banging his head into a prison wall.

http://news.sky.com/story/1063338/cinem ... ruth-serum

elfismiles wrote:

Cinema Shooting: Judge Approves 'Truth Serum'
James Holmes could be subjected to 'truth serum' should his attorneys enter an insanity plea at his pre-trial hearing this week.

Mind Hacks

A brief history of narcoanalysis

This entry was written by vaughanbell and posted on March 16, 2013

The judge in the case of ‘Colorado shooter’ James Holmes has made the baffling decision that a ‘narcoanalytic interview’ and ‘polygraph examination’ can be used in an attempt to support an insanity plea.

While polygraph ‘lie detectors’ are known to be seriously flawed, some US states still allow evidence from them to be admitted in court although the fact they’re being considered in such a key case is frankly odd.

But the ‘narcoanalytic interview’ is so left-field as to leave some people scratching their heads as to whether the judge has been at the narcotics himself.

The ‘narcoanalytic interview’ is sometimes described as the application of a ‘truth drug’ but the actual practice is far more interesting.

It has been variously called ‘narcoanalysis’, ‘narcosynthesis’ and the ‘amytal interview’ and involves, as you might expect, interviewing the person under the influence of some sort of narcotic.

It’s roots lie in the very early days of 1890s pre-psychoanalysis where Freud used hypnosis to relax patients to help them discuss emotionally difficult matters.

The idea that being relaxed overcame the mind’s natural resistance to entertaining difficult thoughts and helped get access to the unconscious became the foundation of Freud’s work. Narcoanalysis is still essentially based on this idea.

But, of course, the concept had to wait until the discovery of the first suitable drugs – the barbituates.

Psychiatrist William Bleckwenn found that giving barbital to patients with catatonic schizophrenia led to a “lucid interval” where they seemed to be able to discuss their own mental state in a way previously impossible.

You can see the parallels in the first ever use of ‘narcoanalysis’ to the current case, but through the rest of the century the concept merged with the idea of creating a “truth drug”.

This was born in the 1920s where the gynaecologist Robert House noticed that women who were given scopolamine to ease the birth process seemed to go into a ‘twilight state’ and were more pliant and talkative.

House decided to test this on criminals and went about putting prisoners under the influence of the drug while interviewing them as a way of ‘determining innocence or guilt’. Encouraged by some initial, albeit later recanted, confessions House began to claim that it should be used routinely in police investigations.

This probably would have died a death as a dubious medical curiosity had Time magazine not run an article in their 1923 edition entitled “The Truth-Compeller” about House’s theory – making him and the ‘truth drug’ idea national stars.

These approaches became militarised: firstly as ‘narcoanalysis’ was used to treat traumatised soldiers in the World War Two, and secondly as it was taken up by the CIA in the Cold War as a method for interrogation and became a centrepiece of the secret Project MKUltra.

It has continued to be used in criminal investigations in the US, albeit infrequently, although it has popped up in the legal rulings.

In 1985 the US Supreme Court rejected an appeal by two people convicted of murder that their ‘narcoanalysis police interview’ made their conviction unsafe.

However, the psychiatrist who conducted the interview didn’t convince any of the judges that ‘narcoanalysis’ was actually of benefit:

At one point he testified that it would elicit an accurate statement of subjective memory, but later said that the subject could fabricate memories. He refused to agree that the subject would be more likely to tell the truth under narcoanalysis than if not so treated.

The concept seemed to disappear after that but strong suspicions were raised that ‘narcoanalysis’ was still a CIA favourite when the Bush government’s infamous ‘torture memo‘ justified the use of “mind-altering substances” as part of ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’.

There is no evidence that ‘narcoanalysis’ actually helps in any way, shape or form, and at moderate to high doses, some of the drugs may actually impede memory or make it more likely that the person misremembers.

I suspect that the actual result of the bizarre ruling in the ‘Colorado shooter’ case will just be that psychiatrists will be able to give a potentially psychotic suspect a simple anti-anxiety drug without the resulting evidence being challenged.

This would be no different than giving an anxious or agitated witness the same drug to help them recount what happened.

But the fact that the judge included ‘lie detectors’ and ‘narcoanalysis’ in his ruling as useful legal tools rather than recognising them as flawed investigative techniques is still very concerning and suggests legal thinking mired in the 1950s.
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pdf of judge’s ruling.
Link to (ironically locked) article on the history of ‘narcoanalysis’

Shooting suspect James Holmes offers to plead guilty
By Jason Sickles, Yahoo! | The Lookout – 3 hrs ago



[Updated at 6:25 p.m. ET]

The man jailed in the Aurora, Colo., movie theater massacre is willing to plead guilty to avoid being executed, according to a court motion filed on Wednesday.

The offer from James Holmes, who is charged with shooting 70 moviegoers last July, killing 12, would mean his spending life in prison without parole.

News of the offer comes five days before prosecutors were scheduled to announce whether they will seek the death penalty in the case.

"The prosecution at this time has not accepted that offer because it may choose to pursue the death penalty. Consequently, it appears the only impediment to a resolution of this case would be if the prosecution chooses to seek the death penalty," defense attorneys wrote in the motion, which was published online by the Denver Post. "If the prosecution elects not to pursue the death penalty, it is Mr. Holmes' position that this case could be resolved April 1."

“Yes!” shooting victim Marcus Weaver shouted when Yahoo News told him of Holmes' offer.

Weaver's right shoulder was peppered with gunshot pellets when the heavily armed assailant burst in and opened fire during a midnight showing of the Batman movie, "The Dark Knight Rises." Rebecca Wingo, one of his best friends, died in the attack.

"Admitting to what he did is doing us all a favor," Weaver said on Wednesday. "Without a long, drawn-out trial, then we can move forward. As a community, it would bring about more healing."

According to the motion, defense attorneys made the plea offer prior to the suspect's arraignment earlier this month. If prosecutors reject the offer, "counsel will vigorously present and argue any and all appropriate defenses at a trial or sentencing proceeding, as necessary," Holmes' lawyers wrote.

During Holmes' arraignment on March 12, his lead attorney, Daniel King, told Judge William Sylvester that the suspect wasn't prepared to enter a plea because the defense wasn't sure if the prosecution planned to seek the death penalty. Knowing that could alter Holmes' plea and significantly alter how the defense moves forward, King explained.

The judge then entered a plea of not guilty on Holmes' behalf and noted that the defense would have the opportunity to change its plea at a later date.

The prosecution has repeatedly sought input from victims and victims' families on major decisions. Weaver said late on Wednesday that he had not yet heard from the district attorney's office, but he predicted they would be calling soon.

"I'll tell them to take the deal," Weaver told Yahoo News.

Yahoo staff writer Tim Skillern contributed to this story from Denver.

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/sho ... 35570.html

justdrew wrote:Fourth, much of America needs a damn shave

although I like to think all the beardy mcbeards are just trying to follow sharia law

'Gunmen' Hired to Storm Movie Theater for Traumatizing Publicity Stunt

The promote its premiere of the new Iron Man movie, a theater in Jefferson City, Missouri, hired several people to dress in full tactical gear and storm the screening with fake weapons drawn.

Not surprisingly, some people were not too keen on the "publicity stunt."

"We're just getting into the car when I spotted a man in full assault gear, carrying what appeared to be a modified M-4 and 9 mm on his side," said John Molock, an army war vet who says the experience triggered his PTSD.

In addition to stoking the ire of theatergoers, the stunt also garnered poor reviews from the local police department which was forced to field several nervous 911 calls.

"We received a series of 911 calls stating that a man dressed in all black and body armor and a rifle was walking into Capital 8 Theaters," Capt. Doug Shoemaker told the local Fox affiliate.

"Everything was in place, it's the opening night of a superhero movie, it's somebody walking in all-dark clothes, everything pointed to bad things about to happen," Shoemaker added, referencing the Aurora movie theater shooting that took place last July. "There's really no good that can come of this."

But Capital 8 Theaters manager Bob Wilkins remains defiant, telling the ABC affiliate that he did not regret pulling the stunt, which he said was planned months in advance.

"My job is to entertain people," Wilkins said, claiming only "a few" patrons were upset.

Shoemaker noted that angry customers would have been the least of Wilkins' worries if someone with a concealed weapon would have mistaken the stunt for an active shooter event and acted in self-defense.

http://gawker.com/gunmen-hired-to-storm ... -499956436