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I hadn't heard that Mossad story. The one I remember is that there was some doubt about "Maxwell's" dental records and the body being buried in Israel where there is no autopsy allowed.

Mart

If I may say that Britain switched to the Gregorian calendar in 1752, during the reign of George II.

As a result of this European importation, we 'lost' eleven days, thereby causing riots and demands for the return of the eleven days. Some would say a sadly familiar tale of us losing out to Europe and of the great British population losing eleven days to Europe. Much like an 18-30 holiday.

The latinised, Roman Catholic nations in Europe did switch to the Gregorian calendar in 1582 by decree of Pope Gregory XIII.

Sorry to be truly anorak about this but one of the reasons for chronological slippage and errors with the Julian calendar was that those guardians of it just before the birrth of Christ had been having leap years every 3 instead of 4 years. The Julian calendar was named after Julius Caesar who was responsible for tidying up the timelines of the ancient world. Caesar was a clever bastard.

Hey Bimmercat, you are going out of your way to depict us as a load of softies. The only reference to capital punishment in this thread refers to ancient Jewish Law yet you start on your rant.

Mart

jj wrote:

> Most recent UK studies have suggested that imprisoning
> offenders has a negligible effect on recidivism rates, whereas
> non-custodial re-education has a small but greater result.
> Worryingly, the UK has by far the highest prison population in
> the EU...

true but it's still a derisory figure when compared to the bonkers situation, stateside:

......so clever it got him killed !!

......a free-enterprise prison-ssystem?
An oxymoron as far as sensible penal policy is concerned.

The so-called 'deterrent' effect actually backfired on many occasions.
Facing a more-or-less certain death penalty, there was MORE incentive for a criminal to leave no potential witnesses. The authorities' upping of the stakes meant they had less to lose.
Ooops...................never thought of that.

Neither his achievements nor his legacy got him killed. It was a fatal mixture of over-weening arrogance and increasing megalomania with the growing unease and distrust of the Roman political elite, frightened of losing power to one man and his acolytes.

I was, somewhat jocularly, referring to the possiblity that jealousy might have played no small part in the motivation, as well as post facto rationalisations, of the conspirators. I don't think his supposed desire for the title 'Imperator' tells the whole story.
And I found myself thinking of Alcibiades.........