death penalty
gregladen | April 21, 2017We just had an execution by lethal injection. Everything went fine. If, by "fine," we mean a guy died as a bunch of people watched emotionlessly.
The execution was carried out so late in the process that only a few minutes passed between the pronouncement of death and and the expiration of the court order to kill.
What if the execution had taken twice as long? With the order expired, would it be stopped during the final minutes? Would someone dial 911, get EMTs in there, try to save the guy's life?
I'm against the death penalty. I think it is time we recognized that this is the 21st…
gregladen | February 12, 2013Minnesota has three things you may have heard about: Cold weather, “Minnesota Nice,” and a vigorous training program in Passive Aggressive Behavior (PAB). Unless you know about things, you probably didn’t know any of that.1
The part about the cold weather is neither here nor there with Global Warming causing it to go away. The latter two are interrelated and complex, and can only be understood through a great deal of analysis. And, since we don’t have time to put everyone in the state into Freudian therapy, I’ll just give an example.
This week we celebrate Darwin’s Birthday, and Abe Lincoln’s…
gregladen | June 23, 2010How can a nation call itself civilized if it executes its own citizens?
The story goes like this. A famous scientist whom you've likely never heard of was in China for several years excavating a famous archaeological site that you certainly have heard of. During that time, he felt the need, as we all do now and then, to hold in his hand a defleshed human skull. It would be nice to have available the skull of a modern human, in order to compare it with the skulls of not-so-modern humans he was busily digging up.
So he inquired.
He asked local officials and notables who might be able to help…
gregladen | October 15, 2009I have been to Uganda a number times, but only illegally or by accident, in which case I was in the remote bush, or in transit, stopping at Entebbe Airport, so I can't say that I know much, directly, about the culture there. However, I have spent months in Kenya and years in Zaire/Congo, and a little time in Tanzania and Rwanda, so I've kinda got Uganda surrounded. I can tell you that the political culture and government of Zaire/Congo, Kenya, Tanzania and Rwanda are very, very different from one another. At the same time, all of these countries have certain commonalities that are relevant…
scientificactivist | May 18, 2007On Tuesday, California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger released a revised lethal injection protocol in hopes of reversing a moratorium on capital punishment in the state put in place by a February 2006 federal court ruling. From the LA Times:
On Tuesday, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's legal affairs secretary, Andrea L. Hoch, and James Tilton, director of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, said the new protocol addressed all the issues U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel raised in finding that the state's previous procedures violated the constitutional ban on cruel and…
scientificactivist | August 24, 2006Shelley of Retrospectacle asks fellow ScienceBloggers:
"Are you for or against the death penalty, or (if its conditional), in what cases? Furthermore, do you believe that societies that sanction war are hypocritical for opposing the death penalty?"
I'm against the death penalty, and I would agree that if a society uses war as a tool of foreign policy, it would be hypocritical to oppose the death penalty. Fortunately (or, rather, unfortunately) for the US, that doesn't seem to be an issue. In addition to the usual arguments against the death penalty (not a deterrent, risk of executing the…