Facebook Killer strikes again

By Ai Lung Nguyen - August 2010.

TECHNOLOGY - Police in the Colombian city of Puerto Asis originally thought it was a joke when three teenage boys had been killed in the last 10 days, and all their names were on a "Death List" found on Facebook. The original list was only the names of young men in their teens.

A new death list has since been added which includes the names of young women.

On August 15th two of the people on the first death list were found on a road outside of Puerto Asis. Ferney Diego Jaramillo, 16, and Alejandro Ruiz Eibart Munoz, 17.

On August 20th a third person, Norbey Alexander Vargas, 19, was also killed.

The names of 69 people were on the death list which gave the people on the list three days to leave Puerto Asis or else they would be killed. So far the serial killer is making good on their promise.

The second list adds the names of 31 young women, bringing the total number of people to 100. Panic has since spread through the city of Puerto Asis and families of teenagers on the list have been fleeing the city with their families. Colombian police and soldiers have been assigned to protect the teenagers who remain.

Puerto Asis is a small city of 70,000 and the local police don't know who posted the death list anonymously but are continuing their investigation to try and find links between the people on the list.

A 5 million pesos ($3,000) reward has been offered for info about who posted the Death List. Some investigators suspect narcotics traffickers are behind the deaths, but others believe it may be a teenager on some kind of revenge quest...

Or the idea could even perhaps be based off the Japanese TV show "Death Note". (In the TV show a Japanese teenager gets his hands on a supernatural book in which whatever names he writes in it they die within a minute. He can also dictate the method or time of death. He begins using the Death Note book to kill criminals but ultimately becomes corrupt himself.)

The "Facebook Killer" may have seen the show, or may simply be on some revenge streak unrelated to the show and they just want to kill people from their high school yearbook that they don't like. Or, and this is just speculation, it may be completely random people they saw on Facebook.

The real danger is if people in other locations become copycat Facebook Killers.

Argentina legalizes same-sex marriage

SEX - Argentina became the first country in South America to legalize gay marriages and that gays and lesbians have all the legal rights, responsibilities and protections that marriage brings to heterosexual couples.

The Senate vote today was 33 in favour, 27 against and 3 abstained. It had already been approved of in the lower house and President Cristina Fernandez is also a supporter.

The paperwork and forms for getting a marriage license in Argentina have yet to be altered to reflect the changes, but already legalized marriages are going ahead as scheduled.

The changes happened despite huge efforts by the Roman Catholic Church, Pope Benedict in Rome and 60,000 Catholics marching on the Argentinian Congress in a huge demonstration. Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, the leader of Argentina's anti-gay movement had this to say: "children need to have the right to be raised and educated by a father and a mother."

As opposed to all those single mothers or fathers who end up raising their kids alone? Utter hogwash.

But they weren't the only crowd there. An equally large crowd of 70,000 gay activists and supporters chanted enthusiasm for the new changes while police cordoned off the two groups to protect them from possible anti-gay violence.

Argentina has already married 9 gay couples prior to today, after persuading judges that their constitutional rights were being violated by not allowing them the freedom to get married to the person they love. Other judges tried to overturn these marriages in court and it eventually had to be argued in the government.

Same sex civil unions (which is different from a marriage) are already legal in Uruguay, several states in Mexico and Brazil. Colombia recently gave same-sex couples inheritance rights and allowed them to add their partners to health insurance plans.

In North America Canada has already legalized same-sex marriages, but in the United States it varies from state to state.

"Today's historic vote shows how far Catholic Argentina has come, from dictatorship to true democratic values, and how far the freedom to marry movement has come, as twelve countries on four continents now embrace marriage equality," said Evan Wolfson, who runs the U.S. Freedom to Marry lobby.

See Also
Freedom of Expression, Freedom of Marriage
South Africa passes same-sex marriage
Harper Flip Flops on Same Sex Marriages
Rotten Marriages Vs Gay Marriages