During his trial last Friday psychiatrist Ulrik Malt testified Anders Breivik is likely to both have Asperger and Gilles de la Tourette syndrome.

I've seen a multitude of news items where the information was either oversimplified or outright wrong, but they still are the basis a lot of people use to form their opinions. This particular item could cause a potentially big image problem, that would be very difficult to rectify.

There are plenty of serial killers and sociopaths out there who haven't been diagnosed with AS, just the same as there are plenty of non serial killers and sociopaths who have been. I don't see how this would produce a bad image problem, except among the ignorant. Will the fact that he was a WoW player also mean bad publicity for gamers? Again, only among the ignorant.

I saw that. This psychiatrist must be cuckoo himself.

The manipulative way in which Breivik planned this - he conned people into thinking he was the police! - , the degree of organisation of the plan and its execution, and his gauging people's reactions to it...Crazy? yes. Bad? yes. Autistic? Absolutely not. I'm sure there must be bad Aspies somewhere on this planet, but this isn't one of them.

I think the psychiatrists just can't get their heads around a perverted mind like that and therefore shout the first thing that comes into their heads.

I vote for narcisstic personality disorder (which was the alternative, as far as I've understood).

This is why I think we should scrap the field of forensic psychology.  The only aspect of psychology relevant to the law is the concept of mens rea.  Making sure we all know which killers have AS or schizophrenia or whatever godsdamn thing is only going to make people with mental illness's lives less safe.

Martin Bryant, who committed a similar mass homicide in Tasmania, was also claimed to have AS.

I think it is a case of people trying to make excuses for truly evil people. Oh look, he has no empathy. Poor fellow must have AS. [/sarcasm]

I think he might have AS. Does it make a difference to what he's done? No.

He's one of those individuals, a well-intentioned extremist, who is fully convinced in his own mind that what he did was for the greater good, no matter how despicable. You may draw certain paralles between him and the Operative from Serenity.

Which reminds me, I need to read his little manifesto thing...

EXACTLY! Thanks, that's just what I'm trying to say. And that makes me really, really angry. If these psychiatrists haven't got a clue, they should shut the *** up!

To think that they're the ones who are supposed to make us understand our children...well, if I didn't have AFF, I'd still be in the dark.

He is an extremely clever individual, that is what frightens me about him. I think he understands the social chaos that is coming, and regards prison as a 'chrysallis' from which he will emerge to lead his 'race revolution' against the 'evils' of the 'left wingers and islam'. I think putting him in prison is only capitulating to his grander matyrdom ambitions. Its more or less the same process as Hitler's Munich Putsch after which Hitler wrote his political magnus opus while in custody. Breivik belongs in an asylum from which he will never be released to fulfill his ambition of fuhrer-dom. The liberal authorities of Norway will be too toothless to do that though.

Magnum.  Opus is third declension neuter, not second declension masculine.

Opus      Opera
Operis     Operum
Operī      Operibus
Opus       Opera
Opere      Operibus

Nouns of the third declension are frequently irregular in the nominative singular.

To count every pea, it'd be "opus magnum". IF you want to use that for what some people call "Mein Krampf" (my cringeing).

This post was last modified: 06-13-2012 09:51 PM by Shnoing.

There are certain adjectives which precede the noun.  If I remember correctly, magn- is one of them.  Adjectives dealing with quality can go before or after (I think).

This post was last modified: 06-14-2012 05:07 AM by Lang.

And, if you write many, magna opera!

It could very well be that he has AS, but, like most of you I hope, I don't see a link a link with having AS.

The problem is stereotyping. The media has this habit of providing very limited information and leaving out the in depth details. Once the public has acociated Breveik with being a murderer and having AS, a lot of people make the unfortunate and incorrect link of AS equals murderer. But once that connection is made, it tends to stick.

"magnum opus" would mean one work which happens to be big (or great, or whatever).

"opus magnum" means THE BIG WORK. The one and only. It's a different meaning.