Weet-Bix the toughest substance known to man

I want to talk about Weet-Bix today after an incident this morning. Anyone who has experienced this culinary one dimensional breakfast food will know that all a Weet-Bix has to do is be in the same room as a liquid such as milk and it turns to mush. In addition anyone who has tasted the delights of this monochromic tasting morning treat will also know that all you need to do is open a box and they fall apart like some ancient Egyptian papyrus leaving most of the content smashed at the bottom of the box. So how is it that you come home after a night out drinking (I am not suggesting it is me) and you’re feeling a little bit esurient and think it’s a great idea to have some Weet-Bix only to find when you wake up on the lounge the next day after passing out that the Weet-Bix has dried around the edges of the plate into the toughest substance known to man and needs to be soaked in hot water and detergent for half an hour to get it off. Work that one out.

The Story of Sammy

1

It was a day pretty much like any other day when you looked out the window but to Sammy it was a day like no other. Today was the day that his school was going to visit Old Sydney Cove, a recreation park of Sydney in the convict era. Sammy’s twin brother Luke bounced out of bed and ran across the room full of excitement and jumped up on Sammy’s bed to look out the window as well, looking forward to the day ahead.

Sammy could hear his mother in the kitchen getting ready for the day packing a cut lunch for all three of them; their mother had agreed to accompany the class on the outing to lend a hand to the teachers that would be supervising them.
“Come on boys” she called as she walked past the bedroom door.
“Get dressed and we will have time for breakfast before we need to go.”
Sammy and Luke quickly got dressed and ran out to the kitchen where their breakfast cereal was already on the table.
“We have fifteen minutes before we need to go” said Sammy’s mother as she packed the sandwiches into a plastic bag. “And don’t spill anything on your clothes please; we don’t have time for a change.” Telling “six” year old twin boys not to spill anything on their clothes was like telling a fish not to swim but the boys were especially careful not to spill a thing, apart from a few drops of milk that their mother did not see.

Sammy’s mother opened the front door and walked out to the car and loaded the few things they needed for the day into the car boot including rain coats just in case. The weather report was good but it had predicted severe thunder storms later in the day, nothing unusual for this time of year and even now, this early in the day, you could sense the humidity in the air that was often a prelude to a storm later in the day.

They needed to meet the bus at the school at nine am and Sammy’s mother had been quite conscious of the time needed to make it on time or they would miss the excursion. After loading the two excited boys into the car and locking the house they were soon on the way to meet the rest of the class at school and then onto the bus for the ride down to southwestern Sydney and the adventure that lay ahead. The whole class was there for the trip when they arrived, only Kathy not able to make it because her mother said she was too unwell to come. Everyone knew she would not be there today because her parents could not afford the price of the entry fee, she had to be the poorest girl in the class but Sammy and Kathy were good friends and in the same class together and did everything together and Sammy was just a little disappointed.
For the rest of the class it was all very exciting and no time was wasted in getting on the bus. The trip took about an hour and no one settled down during the trip with all the children “Quite over stimulated” according to Ms. Johnson who had lost her temper with a number of children by the time they reached their destination.


Old Sydney Cove was long past its use by date with things looking a bit tired and run down. Some argued that it added a sort of authenticity to the place because after all it was set back in Australia’s convict past when things where not so clean and pristine.
Adults could see the tatty and worn out fittings but it all seemed quite realistic and authentic enough to the children.

They all ran from the bus and were soon organized into four small “convict” groups and a teacher or a parent was set as an overseer” to look after each group for the day. Each group would then head off in different directions around the park to visit the various recreations all set out on a large rural property. The park even had a recreation of Port Jackson with a tall ship included, all be it a very rickety scaled down example of one floating on a large water filled dam that had been backed up from the small creek that ran through the property.

Sammy and Luke naturally were placed in the same group that their mother was looking after, much to Luke’s displeasure, but Sammy could not be happier as he was very proud of his mother and more than happy for everyone to know. Each of the little convict groups headed off in different directions but they were to all meet up for lunch at the great shearing shed for the live show and sheep shearing demonstration. First port of call was the convict barracks for Sammy’s group where they were shown the poor conditions that convicts had to live in. Sammy was appalled at what the convicts had to call home much less the way they were treated. After visiting several other displays including the Blacksmith’s shop and the Governor’s house, it was nearing lunchtime and all the groups headed for the great shearing shed for lunch. As the children swapped stories about the things they had seen as the groups met around a giant table for lunch Sammy’s mother looked up at the sky and wished that she had not left the boys raincoats in the bus. The distant sky looked quite menacing.
“The prediction of bad storms in the afternoon looks like it will come true” Sammy’s mother quipped to the man standing next to her who was also looking at the darkening sky as he finished a cigarette. “Looks like the weather bureau got one right for a change” he said as he stubbed out his cigarette on the wall next to him.

After lunch the plan was for each group to once again go their separate ways and to meet for the final show of the day aboard the tall ship. There would also be a mock flogging and the little convict groups would have a photo opportunity to remember the day aboard the rather sad looking vessel sitting in the dam.


As the afternoon went on, the clouds began to gather strong and dark in the west as the storm approached. The teachers were only keen now to get the day over and make it back to the bus without getting caught in the storm. By the time Sammy’s group arrived at the Tall Ship all the other convict groups had arrived. Some of the kids were already on board having photos taken and Sammy was keen to get involved and have a photo taken on board the ship as well. Sammy ran ahead but Luke hesitated and did not want to take part in such a stupid childish game and, despite his mother’s encouragement, refused to board the ship. The ship rocked steadily as children ran from side to side out of control; again all a bit over stimulated for Ms. Johnson’s liking thought Sammy’s mother.

At one end of the ship a group of children were being shackled in pretend leg irons to have a photo taken and Sammy ran across not wanting to miss out. Sammy called for his mother to join in and he ran back and grabbed her by the hand and pulled her towards the action. Sammy’s mother noticed that the wind was picking up as the approaching storm gathered strength and a few large drops of rain began to splat down hard on the deck around them. The photographer, trying to finish before the rain hit, was busily locking the small phony leg irons around the ankles of the children as the wind gathered strength. Sammy and his mother were last to be locked in as the rain drops began to fall around them in ever increasing numbers. Jokingly Sammy’s mother laughed and commented to the photographer that she hoped that the ship did not sink as they would all be pulled into the lake and Sammy reached down and tugged at the light chain around his ankle and hoped she was joking.

With a burst of wind the storm broke and hit from the black ominous clouds as the heavens opened up with the full force of wind and rain. In an instant, children, parents and teachers were running everywhere to escape the storm and the little ship rocked violently as everyone ran to one side of the ship to get off. The ship lurched dangerously to one side and Sammy could feel the boat tilt under his feet as he saw the children in front of him lose their footing and fall over each other as they slid past him screaming, their chains falling off their legs as they went. Sammy looked around to see his mother knocked off her feet by one of the children as she called out his name and slide away from him as he tried to hang on to the railing next to her.
The ship did not seem to right itself as barrels and all kinds of bits and pieces flew past and smashed into the ships railings. Sammy could feel himself losing his grip on the ropes swinging from the rigging as the ship tilted even further.

2

The wind and rain outside Sammy’s window was blowing hard and he could hear his mother calling his name somewhere in the distance and it woke him from his frightening nightmare. He could hear the branches banging outside his window of his room and he sat up and reached over and pulled the blind to one side to look outside. The sun was not quite up but the sky was so dark and angry that it was hard to tell where the sun was as the rain and wind beat against the glass. Sammy was still shaking from his nightmare as he looked over to the other side of the room where he could make out the outline of his brother Luke in his bed. Sammy lay back down relieved that he was just having a bad dream. He listened to the wind outside for a few moments still a little unnerved by his nightmare.

Somehow he felt different, it was obviously cold outside with no leaves on the trees in the front yard of the house but he did not feel cold. He sat up in his bed and looked around the room but Sammy felt that there was something not quite right and he seemed unable to recognise the objects that should be familiar to him in the gloomy light. There was nothing in the room that was his and all of a sudden Sammy did feel cold and alone, somehow lost. As he climbed out of his bed he could see that Luke’s bed was different, the furniture in the room seemed different and he stood in the middle of the room turning slowly on the spot trying to recognise anything that was familiar to him. His toys were gone. Where were his things?
“What is wrong with me”, he thought to himself. “Why can’t I see anything that looks familiar?”
Slowly he walked over to Luke’s bed and reached out to wake him but hesitated as he realized that it was not Luke. He looked again at the form lying in the bed but the outline of the shape in the bed was too big; it was not the form of his six year old brother but the form of a much larger person. Sammy stepped back as his nightmare gradually flooded back into his mind. Sammy turned to jump back into his bed as the sense of terror and fear overtook his mind but as he turned he realized that there was no bed, there is only one bed in the room and it is not his.

The nightmare of the sinking ship flashed into his mind again as the sound of the wind and rain from outside seems to intensify. The ship, the rain and wind” he thought? Slowly but steadily a dark forbidding loneliness crept over his body as he tried to make sense of the things he saw around him, suddenly he felt very alone and lost, what had happened? How long have I been lost? The loneliness began to overwhelm him and he started to cry. “I am alone” he thought to himself?

As Sammy tried to suppress the feeling of dread that now rushed over him along with the strong desire to run, he suddenly remembered he was not alone, his mother was with him on the boat. But why can’t he remember? There are so many questions in his mind. Where has he been?
How did he get into his bed?
Why has he woken from such a nightmare now?
Was his mother looking for him? Hadn’t he heard her call him?
Surely if I have been woken from the nightmare in my room his mother must be here somewhere maybe in her room he thought, “Maybe she doesn’t know I’m here”, he was sure it was her voice that had woken him from his dream. The small boy ran to the bedroom door and out into the hallway calling to his mother; “I’m here mum you found me, you found me, today is the day you found me.”

Sammy reached the door to his mother’s room and ran through the doorway to see his father cradling a weeping woman in his arms who, as she sobbed quietly, repeated in a soft but sad voice,
“He is calling me. He keeps calling that he was lost but I have found him.”
His father whispers into her ear, “It’s ok sweetheart, it’s just the wind outside. It will be all right, it is just another bad dream and it will pass.”
Sammy stood at the doorway to the bedroom and then slowly walked to the side of the bed where his mother was now sitting up trying to wake from the nightmare. As Sammy walked closer to her, he can see his mother’s face in the soft light of the small lamp that sat on the bedside table. Sammy calls to his mother and she began to cry.
“He is calling me”, she says softly.
“Where are you Sammy?” she says between each deep sob.

Sammy’s father reached over and stroked her face and whispered tenderly to her to comfort her. “There is no one there my love. There is no one calling, it is just the wind.” As Sammy reached the side of the bed and moved closer to his mother he could see his mother’s worn face and the dark lines under her eyes, her hair slightly graying. She looked so much older, so upset, and so sad her once youthful happy smile was gone. She looked up and almost seemed to look into Sammy’s eyes and Sammy knew straight away that she could not see him and tears began to well in his little eyes as he whispers softly to her as he begins to understand, you did not find me. Sammy falls onto his mother with his arms around her and he begins to cry but it is as if he is not there.
“You did not save me, you did not bring me home” he sobs. For an instant his mother can almost see her young Sammy and begins to cry again.
“I tried.” she says. “I did my best, we all did but we could not find you in the muddy storm water. We looked for days but you were gone and we could not find you please forgive me.”

With a sudden flash of light the bedroom light came on and Luke is standing at the bedroom door.
“What’s wrong dad? Is mom ok?” he asks still rubbing his face as he tries to wake up? Sammy looked up at Luke and he saw not his brother but a young man of sixteen or seventeen. Sammy stepped back from his mother as the realisation starts to bite. He has been lost for more than 10 years.
“Its ok Luke” his father says. “Go back to bed. Your mother is having another bad dream, she will be ok.” Sammy’s mind raced out of control. He was alone and he was lost but who woke him from his dream?

The moment is broken as the phone rang and the people around him begin to take on a distant hazy appearance.  Sammy’s father walked from the room to answer the phone.
“Sit with your mother Luke”, he asks as he leaves the room.
Luke sits by his mother’s side to comfort her.
“It will be ok mom,” he said putting his arms around her waist and laying his head on her breast.
His mother looked at him.
“I am so sorry” she said. “We all tried to find Sammy, we did our best.”
Luke held his mother tight.
“It was not your fault mum. You did everything you could and Sammy knows that. He knows you tried to save him mum.”
Sammy stood in front of his mother, his little mind trying to put everything in its place and he whispers to his mom.
“It’s ok mum, please don’t cry. I’m ok”
A sudden feeling of relief rushed over the small boy and for the first time since waking that day he no longer felt lost. For a split second his mother seems to hear something and turned to look at him.
“Sammy?” she says tenderly.

Sammy’s father walked back to the bedroom door and stood silently and motionless at the door with a strange look of shock and relief all at the same time on his face as a small teardrop ran down his cheek. Luke looked up at him from his mother’s side
“What is it dad? What’s wrong?” he asks. “They have found him.”
Sammy’s mother looked at her husband.
“What?” she says. He repeats it again in a slow, deliberate, almost disbelieving tone.
“They have found our Sammy. There is an excavation for a new housing development on the site of the old theme park and an excavator has found the bones of a small boy. They have found Sammy.”

Sammy’s mum looked back to where she though for a second she saw something in the soft light but it was gone, but just for a second she thought she saw something, someone.

Phil Wilkinson. 2011

Why is anyone still listening to Rudd?

Just over a month or so ago Australia was ready to punt the federal government for the average job that they have done over the last 3 years and for the disgraceful behaviour of the party as a whole by removing a prime minister. Then we had 3 years of Rudd destabilisation of his leader and party and then there was the mistrust and basic dislike for Gillard and then what do you know “nek minnit” another leader stabbed in the back.

However since Rudd turned up there has been a change and I can’t work out why. I am mystified why anyone is still listening to Rudd let alone considering voting Labor after his and the behaviour of his party over the last 3 years. Over the last week I have been listening to him rabbit on about how well the economy has been managed and how well everything running now that he is back in charge. What justification is there for that statement?

If the economy is doing so well and the party he leads has done such a great job why is he taking credit for it? He can’t possibly take any credit for it as he wasn't leading the party - Gillard was and if everything was going so well and the government that he leads had done such a great job as he keeps telling me why is he the leader and not Gillard who did all the hard work?

Doesn't make sense to me, the reason Rudd is in power and not Gillard is his act of retribution and 3 years of the willful destabilisation of his own party. The reality is that this is exactly the same government that was there when he was in power the first time and stuffed up. It is the same party that Gillard was running and stuffed up and now he is back- it’s still the same party, changing the leader changes nothing! It’s like saying I will change the badge on my Holden with a Mazda and it may make it run better.

Oh and before anyone asks “well what about changes to the asylum seeker policy? He is fixing that up as well as the other things he has fixed since he came back?” Well first of all “fixed” is right he has to as he is trying to fix things Rudd / Gillard and his party stuffed up in the first place. Anyway I am not sure if he is not making things worse. I am not sure hitting us with new tax’s is “better” and sending so called boat people to New Guinea is far from a solution to the issue in my opinion. Oh sure, I hear you ask but what about the low interest rates?  Well what about them? It seems to me that the reserve bank is actually running the economy now not the government. The only reason the reserve keeps lowering interest rates is to try and keep the economy going and stop it stalling completely and sliding into recession because clearly the government has run out of bloody ideas, oh except to introduce more tax’s.

Making a few self-serving political changes over a few weeks leading up to an election doesn't a government make nor will it undo the 3 years of poor government or the crap Rudd has put us and his own party through just to get back into power.

All hail Caesar the return of Rudd.

I simply cannot let the last few days of Australian politics go without making some kind of critique of some of the combatants. While I have commented previously on many of the players it in worth going over it again just to remind myself how we got into this situation.

It started with the announcement on Tuesday that Rob Oakeshott and Tony Windsor would stand down at the upcoming election. While Windsor told a press conference that his health played a major part in his decision I can’t help but feel that his electorate will feel a little cheated not having the chance to “assess his performance” by their vote. Oakeshott was quite different in the way he extoled his own performance over the last 3 years and to be honest I found his self-justification of his actions staggering. In an article by Paul Sheehan in the SMH (http://www.smh.com.au/comment/what-a-load-of-oakeshott-20130626-2owev.html) he called Oakeshott's statements a “load of Oakeshott” and I kind of liked it. In his article he again pointed out the staggering betrayal that both Windsor and Oakeshott delivered to their electorates and the Australian people back in 2010.

 

In Oakeshott's electorate of Lyne, the primary vote of the ALP and the Greens together was only about 17 % with a similar vote for the Senate. In the wash up the Coalition won 45 % of the primary vote to Labor's 30 after preferences. The combined ALP/Greens vote against them was the second largest in the country and you know where the largest was? You guessed it, in Tony Windsor's seat of New England. So despite their electorates clearly voting for independents (conservatives) and not Labor and the Greens they both gave their electorates and Australia a Labor government.  The real slap in the face however to me is the way these two men have stuck to labor despite every stuff up, every political and policy disaster and every grubby scandal that came along they supported them to the very end and even now it would seem they will stick to the party that not only knifed a sitting Prime minister and leader in the back but have done it twice in 3 years. Some may call their actions a great show of loyalty and courage but I call their actions a denial of the truth based on their own political failings and poor judgement.

Now to Mr K. Rudd, I wrote last week of the circumstances of his removal over 3 years ago and how in a nut shell no one could stand him and his failed policies and with his star falling in the eyes of the public they got rid of him in a backroom deal using his own “trusted” colleagues. For 3 years this giant of virtue and righteousness has not only white-anted the prime minister but was more than happy to almost bring his own part to their knees in a indiscriminate, grubby clandestine war of sabotage where even his own supporters were not safe from his treachery with many having to fall on their own sword after the last failed coup attempt where he left them hung out to dry. In fact after Wednesday night the trail of wrecked careers of some of Labor’s best and brightest are scatted across parliament house as a result of this bitter conflict between Rudd and his party with the stench of the labor dead sacrificed on the altar of Rudd filling parliament house with the stench of death.

This brings me to those that are left the likes of Shorten, Wong and Carr among others who categorically said they would not support a Rudd return yet here we are on Thursday with them saying “well we just changed our minds”. The hypocrisy of Carr on the ABC was mind blowing to be honest after categorically ruling out shifting his support to Rudd and working as part of a Rudd cabinet but then it is amazing how low some people will stoop to keep their job and I would not be surprised that if they had to prostitute themselves to keep their job they would, if they have not demonstrated that already. It seems to me that there is nothing this party will not do, there is no betrayal too great and there is no disgraced member of parliament that they would not support and no policy disaster too great that they would not face reality. But it’s worse than that as there is nothing that this party can do that would get the greens or any of the so called independents to withdraw their support and set us free,  what does that say about them?

This brings me to the sanctimonious Christine Milne and the Greens. Despite everything that has gone on over the last 3 years, despite the scandal, the policy failures and the debacle this government has been she said she will continue to support the minority labor government, and why? So that Tony Abbott, not the liberal party but Tony Abbot does not become prime minister. This coming from the woman who has publicly stated numerous times and said at the national press club earlier this year “Labor - by its actions - who had effectively ended the alliance with her party”. Milne’s twisted sense of entitlement and lack of any credibility along with her hatred of Abbott as a man now holds the rest of us hostage, tied to a decaying corpse that was once the labor party with the support of Oakeshott and Windsor and the other independents. Milne seems to have forgotten that we are not voting for the individual and while you may not like Abbott we vote for the party not the person and at this point in time it seems there is only one side of politics that has a cohesive party and you certainly cannot say that of Labor. But none of that matters just so long as those currently in power stay in power and the rest of us, despite the poles, despite the obvious loathing, the scandals, failed policy and 2 failed leaders, well we can all go to hell.

I can’t help but think of Nero who fiddled while Rome burned when looking at all this. Well welcome back Rudd- All hail Caesar. Bring on the election.

The rights of the people

I have a question in light of the actions of people like Julian Assange and Snowden. I don’t know the ins and outs of their actions and it would seem to me that the true impact of their actions is not yet known apart from the obvious damage it is doing to the US ego but as far as lives put in danger that claim remains debatable by some.
My question is: If whistle-blowers become afraid of speaking up for fear of prosecution and if media become afraid to report the truth for fear of prosecution and the authorities that uphold the law are so close to the law makes that they are prevented from acting on doubtful behaviour, when the law makers themselves are part of the deception to operate covertly and it turns out the government authorised the deception - who is going to hold governments accountable for such betrayal of the people?
I hear you all say loud and clear WE the people will when called on to vote at an election. The problem is how will we know what is going on if the whistle-blowers become afraid of speaking up for fear of prosecution and if the media is afraid to report for fear of prosecution and the authorities that uphold the law are so close to the law makes that they are prevented from acting on questionable behaviour, when the law makers are part of the deception to operate covertly in the first place as it turns out the government authorised the deception?
If the whistle-blowers that exposed the systematic torture of prisoners by the US and its allies (directly and indirectly by sending people to second and third party counties) hadn't done what they did it would still be going on?  You bet it would because we wouldn't know about it.
This post is not in support or otherwise of the US, Assange or Snowden. I simply pose the question as I see a big problem.

Climate wars.

I have another rant on climate change (sorry) after seeing this article in the SMH
http://www.smh.com.au/executive-style/culture/blogs/all-men-are-liars/climate-wars-20130612-2o3fg.html

My Prediction.
As the climate changes vast areas that are currently arid will be transformed into arable useful land. Just as the Sahara desert was once a fertile land of plants and animals so it will be again and just as Antarctica was once covered in vegetation so it will be again.
Land that once stood above sea level will be no more just like the land bridges that once existed across The Bering Straits and down through Asia once existed and towns that once stood along coastlines around the Mediterranean now lie beneath the waves. Fertile parts of continents like America and Europe will become desolate while other continents will become fertile and rich. There will be extinctions just like the extinction of the Mammoth 10,000 years ago while other species will rise and dominate just like mammals over dinosaurs. Poor countries will become powerful and powerful countries will become poor as new areas are opened up for development. There will be mass displacement and migration of people just like our ancestors as they migrated across the globe following the seasons and food tens of thousands of years ago.
And how do I know all this? Because that has been our earth’s history of climate change it’s been going on for millions of years and it continues to this day, it is proven scientific fact. Are we contributing to it to some level? Possibly just like our ancestors probably did as well, but the myth of humans being able to stop it is the real danger in my opinion. We divert billions of dollars into climate change projects while people die around us. Money that could be used to feed millions of starving humans and provide clean drinking water right now are diverted into meaningless projects. What justification is there for such policy? Save the world for future generations, while we let millions of this current generation die? Sacrifice the few for the many, is that it? Is that the world you want to live?
Or will the true outcome of the policy of climate change be far more sinister than that (deliberate of otherwise) - maintain the status quo? Rich and developed countries remain rich and developing and the poor remain poor and undeveloped? The countries that have had the benefit of growing their economies unfettered by climate change policy now dictate that policy and inflicted that policy on those countries that now seek to grow. Is it right that these third world countries must take the responsibility and pay the price for the developed world? Will this be the end result of our climate change policies in the long run?
As I said in the beginning our climate has changed dramatically in the past and it will again. Our climate change policy is like trying to stop a tornado by getting everyone to pay a fee (tax) to stand in a line as it bears on them and blow in the opposite direction in the hope that the insignificant waft we produce will change its direction while the guy who came up with the idea hides in a shelter and uses the money to advertise to get more people to help.

Justice for the people

I can't help but comment on 2 high profile murder cases that have taken place in Australia over the past 12 months given some of the reports I have seen today. The first is the Thomas Kelly case and the downgrading of his murder charge and the second is the Jill Meagher case in Victoria.
I can only imagine that in the Thomas Kelly case and the downgrading of his charge to manslaughter that the prosecution have taken this option as they feel certain of a manslaughter conviction without a retrial if a murder conviction failed. The problem for the prosecution is that they will have to prove beyond doubt that he intended to kill Kelly. Given that Kelly’s actual death was because his head hit the ground and not due to the punch they probably feel that a jury would not find him guilty of willful premeditated murder. While I understand that if Kelly had not been hit his head would not have hit the ground the prosecution still have to prove that the perpetrator wanted to kill his target. Given the accused man had assaulted 3 or 4 others that night and none of them were seriously injured probably helped convince the prosecutors that they would be better served with a guilty plea of manslaughter rather than pushing for a murder conviction and fail. What will be interesting is to see what criminal history the accused has. As in the Jill Meagher case if it turns out the assailant has a long serious criminal record of assaults and should not have been on the street in the first place then the DPP could look at appealing any manslaughter conviction if it can.

This brings me to the Jill Meagher case and our parole laws and repeat violent offenders. The problem for our justice system is that they cannot really know what is going on in the human mind. Bayley (Meagher’s confessed murderer) himself has admitted that he lied about his “rehabilitation” to get parole and the parole board that assessed him to be fit for parole agreed when in fact he was not fit. In this case we are dealing with a psychopath and a psychopath is not a normal human condition. Psychopaths are not bound by normal social conventions or normal human reasoning or behaviour for that matter and so should be treated accordingly in the Justice system in my opinion.
There is no real rehabilitation option for people like Bayley because he himself is not bound by normal human constraints. The problem is that in this day and age we have been convinced by the "bleeding heart do gooder's" that we can help these criminals and that we have a responsibility to help them and if we don’t try rehabilitation to help them we are no better than the people we lock away. I come back to my first point we can never really fully understand or know what is going on in the mind of a psychopath like Bayley. The fact is he and criminals like him use our desire to help to gain parole and as with Bayley just so they can re-offend. How many chances to re-offend must a psychopath like Bayley be given with each crime escalating over time? Our responsibility in fact should be to the safety of law abiding people as well as the criminals we incarcerate. He was already in the one place fitting for such a person, safely locked away from reach of his deranged fantasy world in a place where we would have been protected from him and he would have been protected from himself surely that is the responsibility of our justice system. The question we must ask ourselves in the Thomas Kelly case is do we have another Bayley in our care and how many chances do we give him?