Remember when Democrats called the Republicans’ bluff and offered them everything they wanted about immigration on a plate and the Republicans turned it down?
Because why the hell are they not still telling everyone about that? Especially in situations like this?
All five justices agreed with at least part of the ruling. But two of the justices said they felt the firing squad was not a legal way to kill an inmate and one of them felt the electric chair is a cruel and unusual punishment.
Lethal injection has serious downsides. It turns out the drugs simply keep you from moving about as you slowly asphyxiate.
The electric chair it truly cruel. Yes, it fries your system, but it does it relatively slowly.
The firing squad has the issue of the marksman’s aim. If it’s off, you die slowly. Even if it’s dead on, pun intended, you realize what’s happening.
I’ve always wondered if, perhaps, the fastest method would be the guillotine.
Many years ago, in OMNI magazine, there was a story about a future where it was deemed inhumane to even let someone know they were going to be executed. They were kept in a small apartment awaiting the verdict. When the verdict was announced, no matter what it was, they were told they were free to go. Upon grabbing the doorknob, a neurotoxin was injected into the guilty with almost instantaneous effect.
As to discussions of the death penalty itself, I feel if someone was in their right mind, understood the consequences of their actions, and, if placed in the same situation, would commit the crime again, yes, they need to be removed from society permanently. Those who are deemed mentally fit, but bent like serial killers, should lose all their freedom and be placed at the disposal of mental health professionals to study.
What are your thoughts on ways of killing that would be humane?
I say the death penalty is itself inhumane, focusing on the technical problem misses the point. Killing people you have a high degree of confidence committed murder means on a long enough time span, you’re virtually guaranteed to kill innocents. The process required to minimize these false positive killings makes the death penalty more expensive than life in prison, on average. As far as I can tell, there’s no upside to the death penalty, unless you’re firmly convinced that the criminal justice system needs to focus on retribution.
The only humane option I see is to let them live out their lives in a context where they won’t reoffend.
But that’s kind of my point, the only humane method is not to kill people. Asking “but how do we do it” is like asking how to square a circle; there may be a couple of interesting things to learn along the way, but you won’t find any satisfying answers to the question.
on a long enough time span, you’re virtually guaranteed to kill innocents
On a long enough time span, you’re also virtually guaranteed to lock innocents in prison for the rest of their natural lives. (My guess is that this happens more often than killing innocents because death-penalty cases attract much more attention.) Is killing people so much worse than putting them up in a cage and never letting them out that one is inhumane and the other isn’t?
Nitrogen gas, hands down. Plenty of others gases, except CO2, would work but NO2 is cheap. We don’t have “low O2” sensors, we have “high CO2” sensors. I remember a teen couple making love in a helium filled store balloon/display. They died clueless.
The reason for the very publicized failure last time it was tried was using a mask. Simply put the condemned in a small room and flood it, just like astronaut’s hypoxia trainings. Going out silly and stoned would be about as nice as it gets. And having said that, I have no idea why we don’t OD prisoners on opiates. Seems like a no-brainer.
As to the firing squad, I feel that’s fairly “humane”, would be my third choice if it was me. The condemned just slump and die. Hollywood doesn’t do the nature of gunshot wounds justice. People mostly just drop, strings cut. The lack of drama is far more horrifying than getting knocked through a window. Unfortunately, I saw a video of Mexican police shotgunning a protesting student at 1-2’. The victim looked a little stunned and fell like a sack potatoes. Original cowboy movies showed death like that, but audiences didn’t feel it was realistic.
Rifle rounds setup a shock wave that rearranges your chest cavity. And they’re not using some wimpy bullet such as an AR-15 chambers. Something like a 30.06 or .308 is a monster round. Add up 4-5 hits like that, you won’t know what hit you.
As to the firing squad, I feel that’s fairly “humane”, would be my third choice if it was me.
It seems like our modern execution methods are concerned more about the comfort of the executioner (and onlookers) than the comfort of the condemned. Shooting someone feels more like killing them than the bloodless alternatives (putting them in a machine or carrying out a medical procedure). It’s why one shooter in the firing squad is given a blank cartridge.
Or am I making things up? I wonder if there has been any research into this.
I oppose the death penalty, but not because I think it’s wrong to kill some criminals. I am perfectly fine with ending people like Tim McVeigh or Susan Smith. My problem is that I don’t have confidence courts can reliably tell who deserves and who doesn’t.
They always say the death penalty is for the “worst of the worst”, but many arbitrary factors can make the difference. The race /social class of the criminal/ victim. The ambition of the prosecutor. The location of the crime.
She's electric! In politics I've never seen such a sudden instantaneous jolt of energy and enthusiasm happen basically overnight! iirc even Obama didn't get quite as many people excited as quickly as Harris is doing! iirc even several weeks after Obama got the nomination there were still a good amount of nay sayers and fence sitters
The stories I could tell about how companies will hire a team to run tests on their digital and physical systems while also limiting access to outside nodes disconnected or screened from their core, primary, IMPORTANT systems.
Kicker is that plenty of people who work for these companies get it. Very rarely does someone in a position to do something about it actually understand. A few thousand dollars and they could have hired a hat or two to run penetration on systems and fixed the vulnerabilities, or at least shored them up so this fucking 000 bug didn’t impact them so harshly.
Thanks Common Dreams for the shitty, ragebait headline. The text of the endorsements is just a tad bit less myopic:
“Vice President Harris is a visible leader in the Biden-Harris administration’s successful work to address environmental injustice, tackle the climate crisis, hold polluters accountable, reduce water pollution, and ensure clean drinking water for all,” said Clean Water Action president and CEO Jeff Carter, emphasizing that her actions “have made a real difference in people’s lives.”
Jeff Ordower of 350 Action highlighted that in addition to being “part of the administration that invested in renewable energy through the historic Inflation Reduction Act,” Harris “has a history of taking on Big Oil and advocating for environmental justice.”
“As a global climate movement, we know Harris represents not just the ability to make progress in the U.S., but globally as well,” he added. “For those… who care about democracy, climate, and decreased corporate capture of our government, Kamala Harris is our only choice.”
“Kamala Harris’ record provides a stark contrast with Donald Trump and the far-right, pro-polluter Project 2025,” said Wenonah Hauter, founder and executive director of Food and Water Action. “Of course, much more needs to be done, and Harris’ positions do not yet go far enough to tackle the existential threats to our food, water, and climate.” “But with a President Harris, we will have a chance to build the political power to move the bold climate initiatives we need,”
“Friends of the Earth Action is excited to endorse Kamala Harris for president of the United States,” the group’s president, Erich Pica said Wednesday. “We are not going back to an era dominated by fossil fuel interests, corporate greed, and disenfranchisement. Instead, we’re looking forward to building a healthy and just future with Vice President Harris.”
“We’re breaking our usual rule of not endorsing in presidential elections, given our strong history with Kamala Harris (we endorsed her in her 2016 Senate race), her track record in taking on Big Oil and holding polluters accountable, and the extraordinary moment of this election,” explained RL Miller, the group’s president. “We are climate hawks who vote, and we’ll be flocking together for Kamala Harris.”
“What the Green New Deal really is, is understanding that everything’s connected,” the network’s national director, Kaniela Ing, toldInside Climate News. “Making sure our tax dollars aren’t just going to kill children abroad, but to build schools and hospitals here at home… Local control of resources, self-determination of our communities. That’s the vision Kamala Harris, given her background—being bused to schools, really being a product of a lot of our social programs—really understands.”
How they managed to choose the three words that sounded most like something Eeyore would say is absolutely beyond me.
I wonder if titles (like thumbnails on YouTube) are ai generated or machine selected/biased in some way due to a promp or filter for “most exaggeratory” or something 😂
Inspectors cited the owner for changing the building’s use without a permit. They warned him again the next year. But after that, housing inspectors appeared to drop the matter, even as they ordered the owner to correct other building code violations. A few years later, in 2020, a tenant complained that 14 of the 21 units were listed on Airbnb.
Start giving these parasites prison sentences and huge fines and we'll see them change their tune.
But people under a certain age are required a child seat, no? So unless those rules are changed, it would be hard for any pregnant woman to legally sit in a moving car.
Ah, good point. But doesn’t that mean that the pregnant woman can’t ride in the car at all, since the young “person” inside them doesn’t have a way to be put in a seat?
It looks like Florida and West Virginia have no seat laws, so pregnant woman in the carpool lane are good to go there!
Gradually increasing revenue each year is more sustainable, as it avoids the pressure of constantly surpassing record highs and potentially alienating your customer base. CEOs somehow fail to understand this. Morons.
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