There are certain unrepentant and horrifically prolific criminals who do deserve to forfeit their lives. For example, had Hitler been captured, he would have qualified for execution, as did Bin Laden and Saddam and sons. That of course is just an opinion I hold, not an empirical observation. The empirical part enters when the question of how humane the execution can be made (if it should, morally, be made humane, that is). The present fad of using several chemicals which are injected serially is running into problems, both with partial ineffectiveness and with shortage of chemical availability to do the job.
There exist several quick and effect methods which have in the past been declared too barbaric, presumably due to the emotional stress on the sentenced individual and not due to lack of effectiveness. These include the firing squad and the guillotine for example, which are virtually instantaneous. And cheap and available quickly.
Hangings and electrocutions have been botched occasionally. But it would be difficult to botch a guillotining.
Why would the Left object to such methods? They already approve of dismemberment as a method of killing; maybe that should be introduced for executions of criminals as a prior approved method for the execution of prenatals.
37 comments:
The psychology of the (for lack of a better word) liberals' fierce aversion to capital punishment baffles me. They call me backwards for being against abortion but for Capital Punishment, which I think is laughable and I attempt to induce some cognitive dissonance (usually unsuccessfully) for how, as you said, they can support dismembering a child who has done nothing, but angrily oppose chemically euthanizing an unrepentant killer.
It isn't like someone ends up actually facing the needle without multiple appeals and an army of pro-bono lawyers working feverishly to find some loophole that will keep the feral animal alive another day, so their guilt is not in question by this point.
What is even more baffling is the Catholic Church's position on the matter, but I suppose it is understandable as they want to believe that given enough time they will repent. The left on the other hand is different. They'd pull the trigger on the firing squads to get rid of their political enemies, yet they prattle on endlessly about the sanctity of life for a person who has been thoroughly proven to have murdered multiple people with malice and forethought.
"Most states abandoned those execution methods more than a generation ago in a bid to make capital punishment more palatable to the public and to a judicial system worried about inflicting cruel and unusual punishments that violate the Constitution."
A simple solution, in keeping with the usual judicial nonsense: simply declare all death row inmates "non-persons". With that stroke of judicial fiat, dismemberment becomes "viable." Of course, to avoid offending the "palette" of the public, there will be no videos allowed of the process. Instead, "medical practitioners" (abortionists) who are already trained can enter a more lucrative field, paid for by the state, and can hone their "medical skills" on life-size non-persons.
A win-win situation for everybody who is declared to be "fully human" beings!
"There are certain unrepentant and horrifically prolific criminals who do deserve to forfeit their lives. For example, had Hitler been captured, he would have qualified for execution, as did Bin Laden and Saddam and sons."
Hold on Stan. Why would Osama bin Laden deserve the death penalty? Al Qaeda was a CIA creation from the get-go and wasn't responsible for 9/11. The Twin Towers were brought down with thermite, hence why it was burning underneath the rubble like a foundary at approximately 2,000 degrees until sometime in December. No way did two planes bring down three skyscrapers and at freefall speed.
The towers collapsed purely due to the heat of the planes fuel, which burned all at the same time with adequate oxygen supply to maintain it. This weakend the steel columns which then dropped all of the floors above onto the single floor below, pancaking it. Then the next floor below, pancaking it. Then the next floor, etc, until the final floor.
The smoldering I believe was due to the plastic and vinyl content of the building, which was considerable: most furniture, dividers, carpet etc is subject to continued smoldering, even when doused.
I once came across a man trying to put out a fire in his dashboard. I had a fire extinguisher, and I put out the flames time and again, until the extinguisher ran out. The flames re-appeared, and burnt with the awful, toxic stench and smoke that burning plastic produces. Plastic melts, flows and burns all at the same time.
Bin Laden was created in the madrassas of Saudi Arabia where he was radicalized as are many others every day; he and others were used by the CIA to contain and defeat the USSR; the CIA failed to comprehend the religious aspect of Islam, when Islam is taken literally according to the dictates of the Qu'ran.
The totalitarian nature of Islam was not commonly recognized until 9/11 and the events in Afganistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Iran brought Islam to the fore in the western mind - at least enough to study the teachings of the Qu'ran and the internal sectarian dogmatic conflicts as well as the global caliphate totalitarianism which infect Islam.
Yes, the CIA armed Bin Laden. But they did not create him: Islam did, especially the toxic Islam of the madrassas.
Another thought: despite the carnage in Syria, Congress is right to stay out of it. There is no good outcome to be had, because democracy is not in the cards for middle eastern Islamic countries. So if we interfered, it would be on behalf of one totalitarian or another.
Witness Egypt: when actual democracy was attempted, they elected an Islamic dictator; he had to be overthrown by a military dictatorship. Both of those governments produced Islamic violence against non-Islamics, especially Christians who are being burnt out and killed daily.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8YaFGSPErKU
This includes eye-witness testimony, pictures, videos, etc. of the thermite.
No way did two planes bring down three buildings and leave molten steel burning underneath the rubble for months on end. It's impossible.
Well we have no business getting involved in Syria anyway. The only reason we did was because the Saudis wanted to run a pipeline through Syria but Assad wouldn't allow them to, thus threatening the petro dollar.
What about WTC5, no plane there!
Well there you have Stan; the confirmation that you have a conspiracy theory mindset. One of the people who agree with you the most was gullible enough to buy into the 9/11 truther movement, at least in part apparently. No wonder you guys agree on conspiracy regarding evolution and climate change.
Bob,
Show what part of what I said is not verifiable before you charge conspiracy theory.
Neither evolution nor AGW have been attributed to conspiracy as far as I know. However, it has been demonstrated that to defy either will lose an academic his future. That is not conspiracy, it is cultural decline into ideological lock-down.
As for 9/11 truthers, it appears to me that the Left is more into that than the Right. I haven't done any surveys but that's how it appears to me.
Stan,
Years of rejection of the scientific facts behind evolution and climate change is enough to put you in the conspiracy theory camp. You prefer to accuse scientists, NEUTRAL scientists, of being biases, leftists, atheists, etc... basically they are anything but 'real' scientists because it does not fit your narrative. That's why you need to quote blogs instead of serious magazine or science papers. Viva the Internet! You can find whatever you want to support your view point... look at Michael, giving a ridiculous Youtube link as starting point for the 9/11... oh and so what if there are more Leftist in that camp? That was my point actually; it has nothing to do with being a Leftist. YOU Stan make that link because YOU are the irrational one here.
If you need to better understand climate change or evolution, ask your buddy Martin, he shows up once in a while when you say stupid things about these 2 topics... but unfortunately you always bury his sound advice under a pile of rubbish arguments, silly quotations, ad hominem attacks and bad sources.
Hey Bob, please, feel free to trot out the old 'conspiracy theorist' label in a failed effort to discredit me. In the video provided you've got police, firefighters and others giving first-hand accounts, explaining how after eight weeks the rubble was still too hot to go near. There's video showing the smoke and molten steel months after the fact. There's even NASA thermal imagery taken of the rubble to back it up. Now then, care to explain, using sound logic, how two planes crashing into two buildings results in three buildings collapsing upon themselves at freefall speed and pools of molten steel? You can easily find video of other buildings with steel structures and whatnot burning (and for much longer periods) and not a single one of them collapses. In one instance they even let one building in China burn all the way until all that was left was the steel frame, then simply rebuilt using the same frame.
Here's a hint: fire alone isn't strong enough to weaken the WTC steel frames, let alone cut through them.
Bob (or whoever you are):
Show one empirical, experimental, replicable, replicated, public data not behind a paywall, peer reviewed, published example of evolution involving the accidental development (random mutation) and selection of a new organ, limb, or brain lobe which allows the future reproduction of like beings containing those features.
If you cannot, and you cannot, then you have nothing of an objective scientific content to present in support of the faux science of inferential evolution.
As for AGW, aka climate change, it cannot be verified until well after the death of the warmists who profit from it. The symptoms of [IR in]>[IR out] are not universal measurements, they are spot measurements by satellite. Further, the results of the simulations are merely linear extrapolations which obviously can't and don't occur in reality.
Your affection for science is noted, but your lack of skepticism seems to be replaced by your lack of analysis. Science should be an objective search for actual facts, without attached ideology. Most science is that (or was that). Scientism is a religion which is taught in schools without any skeptical or critical thinking attached to it. And critical thinking is now merely being critical without any attached facts: exactly the content free rant which you made above.
Both AGW and evolution attract ideologists like yourself
Neither AGW nor evolution meet the standards of objective fact production in support of their conclusions. Prove otherwise, or admit that you cannot. Or if you choose not to, then we will understand your ideological bent which requires their truth.
Michael,
Fire melts steel all the time, every day: welding, cutting torch.
Comparison with a standard burning building is black and white. Standard burning buildings don't have a full load of jet fuel in one story of the building.
"... because it does not fit your narrative."
THAT, in a nutshell, is the sine qua non of the Atheo-Leftist "argument" methodology in all cases. The emphasis is ALWAYS on the narrative. Sadly, it's "An Inconvenient Truth" that reasoned logic does not fit the narrative. If the "facts" support the narrative, then trumpet the "facts" with fanfare. If the "facts" do NOT support the narrative, then the facts" can be twisted, buried, or ignored, or, better yet, the purveyor of the "facts" can be demonized, ostracized, and cast into the outer darkness of the Void.
That's why, so often, the narrative is a "a tale
told by an idiot, full of sound and fury signifying nothing." (With apologies to the Bard, who is no longer "required reading" for a UCLA degree in English literature because he does not fit the narrative.)
Stan, the jet fuel exploded and burned up within seconds after impact, leaving residual office fires. Again I stress, where did the molten steel beneath all three buildings come from? No matter what, jet fuel cannot create such extreme temperatures.
Stan, you had years to UNDERSTAND evolw and agw. For some ideological reasons, you prefer to stick to blogs as your sources and thus disregard all the FACTS we know about the 2 topics.
Look at how Michael fights back, it's a great mirror. He insisted that his YouTube video is a good source and made nothing but stupid comments about steal melting and free fall of buildings, which he clearly doesn't understand. He sticks to his conclusion and will keep reading blogs supporting it.
Bob,
"...the facts we know about the 2 topics..."
So you cannot provide any actual evidence, that is obvious. You provide only rhetorical devices which you think prove something: they do not. Rhetoric is no substitute for actual objective, replicable data.
When you have conclusive proof, then come back and we'll discuss it. Until then, you are merely blathering your irrational attachement to a process which has defects which you do not either address or defeat.
The video is not conclusive, it is pointing to two issues: the discovery of "thermite residue" and the molten metal still superheated after 8 weeks or more.
First, thermite residue.
Thermite is not a fixed compound nor a fixed chemical exothermic reaction, it is a dust explosion of several compounds. Probably what was found fits with the following formulation:
Fe2O3 + 2 Al → 2 Fe + Al2O3
Fe2O3 is naturally occuring as hematite or Ferric Oxide; Al2O3 is known as alumina or aluminum oxide.
The buildings contained Fe, probably in many different alloys. The planes were made of Aluminum, and so is a lot of office furniture. To find oxides of Fe and Al is not surprising, and not to find that would be more surprising than finding it. Showing that the "residue" was actually thermite would be difficult to impossible.
As for the thermodynamics involved, taking a certain amount of heat, Q, and compressing it under pressure to a small volume, will increase the temperature accordingly. To have hot metal compressed under 100 stories of concrete, even at only 2 feet of concrete thickness per story, would be 2*100*(150/144)=208 lb/in^2 pressure.
Because the collapse was not regular, there would have been irregular spots with more pressure, and some with less. What that pressure might have been is unknowable.
But if it were 500 psi or maybe even 1000 psi, buried and without oxygen to convert it to flame and exhausted as hot smoke, I personally have little doubt that the temperatures would have been very high, that they would have persisted until the flow of Q into the cooler zones by conduction-only would have redistributed Q enough to lower temperatures at an earlier time. Concrete is not a good heat conductor. There was in fact, hot smoke; but there also was a bursting into flames as material was brought forth into the oxygen bearing atmosphere.
So I am not convinced of the need for a conspiracy theory by the findings shown in the video. A conspiracy theory involving thermmite overly complicates the scenario. Barring other information which is more specific than that of the video, the scenario is adequately explained by the plane attacks, including the burning of the third building.
Another point should be made, regarding the girder collapse. The issue is not the temperature of the flames being below melt, the issue is the thermodynamic flow of heat, Q, into the girders, vs. the flow of heat out of the girders. The differential, delta Q, is the amount of heat which built up in the girders during the burn. The plastic flow (softening point) for steel is well within the capacity of lower temperatures, 1000 degF to accomodate bending. Young's modulus for carbon and carbon moly steels drops by roughly 1/2 between room temp and 1000 degF.
http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/young-modulus-d_773.html
Girder bending, not melt, is all that was required to bring the building down under the weight of the floors above.
If we are going to pursue this "red herring" away from the original topic (Humane Executions), let's at least leave evolution and AGW for discussion on another day. I can't for the life of me figure out how evolution might have played a role in the WTC collapse. (Maybe Muslim terrorists "evolved" differently from native-born terrorists?!?) I'm also reasonably certain that AGW was not sufficiently warm enough on 9/11 to have materially affected the WTC collapse (since the measured average temperature change over the last 17 years has been less than 1 degree Celsius).
Here is an MIT materials engineer's analysis of the WTC collapse (picked almost at random):
Why Did the World Trade Center Collapse? Science, Engineering, and Speculation
http://www.tms.org/pubs/journals/JOM/0112/Eagar/Eagar-0112.html#authors
Thomas W. Eagar, the Thomas Lord Professor of Materials Engineering and Engineering Systems, and Christopher Musso, graduate research student, are at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
For more information, contact T.W. Eagar, MIT, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Room 4-136, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139-4301; (617) 253-3229; fax (617) 252-1773; e-mail tweagar@mit.edu.
Very detailed explanation, however I still don't believe the official story put forth by the government. There's never been an account of a building collapsing due to fire, even where burning for much longer than the Twin Towers. Besides, even if you explain away the TT, there's still WTC7 which was never hit. Small office fires wouldn't be sufficient to make it collapse at freefall like it did.
The government had everything to gain from 9/11: two wars in the middle east which benefited both military contractors and the oil industry, expanded federal powers, militarizing the police, surveillance state, and eroding our Constitutional rights.
Bob, I seldom read other blogs and don't feel the need to scrounge the internet for stuff pertaining to 9/11. I simply don't buy that the WTC could collapse into rubble like they did. Never before in history has a fire resulted in a building collapsing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eINSQ3YQ65I
That fire was far more intense than 9/11 and burned for much longer duration yet the steel structure remained intact afterward.
I'm afraid that in my pre-coffee stupor I hit delete rather than save when I read Bob's latest comment.
The first part of his comment was just that I (Stan) don't understand science and how scientific evolution and AGW actually are.
I'm not even sure that Bob's comment was for this thread.
Bob, sorry, resubmit and we'll discuss science, its philosophical derivation of intellectual legitimacy, the source of objective knowledge, and the creation of faux science due to the cultural placement of science as supreme, over even Aristotelian rational processes.
Gullibility is replaceable only with analytical capacities based in grounded deductions. The opposing views which support faux claims of faux "science" reject the need for falsifiability, replicability, and capacity for deductive prediction - all of which are necessary to objective knowledge, and are a part of science.
Much of modern "science" has strayed from causality into inferential constructs, and blind extrapolations based on those inferential constructs. This results in serial inferences, which only exacerbates the lowered probability of being the actual case.
This problem is endemic and epidemic to evolutionary biology (and specifically NOT research biology); to AGW model predictions; and to much if not all of particle physics.
Science must now be redefined to preclude its production of objective knowledge, to accommodate its production of subjective opinion and non-predictive hypotheses which are put forward as Truth. The deification of science, and the lack of factual capacities, make Scientism a dangerous delusion and adjunct to totalitarian ideologies.
Michael,
Skepticism is a very good thing, and I encourage it, of course.
In this case, I'm not sure that this is an apple to apple comparison. It might be.
When I was in China and other places in Asia, the buildings I saw were concrete all the way, with the iron embedded in the concrete. I don't know if that applies to this building or not.
Either way, I don't see that this video justifies a leap to conspiracy.
What about Flight 93 which was headed for the capitol? The flight was hijacked, but was taken down by passengers; there was no other explosion. It's purpose and destination were confirmed by Al Jazeera, and the hijackers were positively identified:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Airlines_Flight_93
If thermite were planted in the buildings, why were aircraft needed to set it off? And why wasn't the capitol blown up anyway? Doesn't make sense. Al Qaeda knows full well how to remotely detonate.
Robert,
Thanks for the link. Here's the money quote:
"A basic engineering assessment of the design of the World Trade Center dispels many of the myths about its collapse. First, the perimeter tube design of the towers protected them from failing upon impact. The outer columns were engineered to stiffen the towers in heavy wind, and they protected the inner core, which held the gravity load. Removal of some of the outer columns alone could not bring the building down. Furthermore, because of the stiffness of the perimeter design, it was impossible for the aircraft impact to topple the building.
However, the building was not able to withstand the intense heat of the jet fuel fire. While it was impossible for the fuel-rich, diffuse-flame fire to burn at a temperature high enough to melt the steel, its quick ignition and intense heat caused the steel to lose at least half its strength and to deform, causing buckling or crippling. This weakening and deformation caused a few floors to fall, while the weight of the stories above them crushed the floors below, initiating a domino collapse."
Stan, we'll probably never get the true story. How convenient that 22 members of Seal Team 6, responsible for taking out Bin Laden (at least according to the government), are dead. Then-NY mayor Rudy Guliani had the metal from the WTC remains shipped to China. Why?
The following is taken from the NIST report: http://911encyclopedia.com/wiki/index.php/NIST_Did_Not_Test_The_World_Trade_Center_Debris_For_Explosives
12. Did the NIST investigation look for evidence of the WTC towers being brought down by controlled demolition? Was the steel tested for explosives or thermite residues?
NIST did not test for the residue of these compounds in the steel.
NIST has been asked about this important issue recently, by investigative reporter Jennifer Abel:
Abel: "..what about that letter where NIST said it didn't look for evidence of explosives?"
Neuman [spokesperson at NIST, listed on the WTC report]: "Right, because there was no evidence of that."
Abel: But how can you know there's no evidence if you don't look for it first?
Neuman: "If you're looking for something that isn't there, you're wasting your time... and the taxpayers' money." [27].
--------------------------
How about that? They didn't even bother to look. How convenient ...for the government.
Fortunately there were scientists who took it upon themselves to test for residues in the rubble and they found a nano-thermite composite. I refer you here:
http://911research.wtc7.net/essays/thermite/explosive_residues.html
------------------------------
I'm supposed to buy this crap that cavemen from third-world countries present us with a doomsday threat because they "hate us for our freedoms," according to the government which is currently stripping us of said freedoms. But it's all for our security, right? Gotta keep all those TSA, DHS and other federal workers employed, spying on us and molesting people at airports, train stations and the Super Bowl. Because terrorism.
Believe what you will. I suspect that the US, Israel and Saudi Arabia governments were all involved.
At the end of time, God will reveal everything; there will be no more secrets, our souls will be like an open book for all to see.
"Some even believe we (the Rockefeller family) are part of a secret cabal working against the best interests of the United States, characterizing my family and me as 'internationalists' and of conspiring with others around the world to build a more integrated global political and economic structure---one world, if you will. If that's the charge, I stand guilty, and I am proud of it." - David Rockefeller, Memoirs, page 405
"Believe what you will. I suspect that the US, Israel and Saudi Arabia governments were all involved."
OK, that's your privilege. I personally doubt that the analysis shown in your above link actually shows what it declares to show. Here's one major reason: Figure 15 clearly shows that the Aluminum content has the characteristics of being evaporated onto the chip, after the chip was created (broken). Aluminum evaporation is a very common technique in semiconductor fabrication where it is used to create conductive paths. One of my jobs consisted of researching methods for step coverage with aluminum evaporation. Figure 15 appears to have received evaporation from a single source off to the left and slightly low. Aluminum will burn in an ordinary campfire, and will evaporate
And there is a perfectly absurd statement made by someone who projects, based on two micro globules, that there was 10 tons of thermite (!)
This thermite would have been sneaked in during construction, and would have been contained inside and part of construction materials used in conjunction with the central support columns. This thermite exploded most likely when the planes struck the buildings at the exact point where the thermite was located.
I fail to see the necessity of such an elaborate and high number of personnel scheme, when it is quite possible that it was simply the aircraft which did it.
And invloving both Al Qaeda and Israel? Egypt and the US? To gain world domination by getting Obama elected and the removal of human rights from the US? It doesn't seem to hang together well as an hypothesis, but it also cannot be falsified so it will remain an opinion to be either accepted or rejected, or put on hold. I put it on hold, with an inclination to reject it.
Well, it will not likely be proved either way.
Guess we're at an impass.
At any rate, there's no denying the ramp-up of federal powers post-9/11.
I do agree fully with that.
Consider this Stan. If they were truly at war, would they lay out the details of their security plans like they're doing with the Super Bowl, thus informing the enemy? I think not. The ramped-up security is nothing more than an exercise in conditioning the public to the omnipresence of this power-drunk government's domestic military.
Oh, by the way, although I won't be watching and giving them my ratings, I heard they're going to air an advertisement for atheism during the Super Bowl. How pathetic is that, using an American pastime to flaunt their (communistic) non-belief in God. Why, you'd think they were proselytizing a religion.
Oh wait...
Yeah, I don't watch football either. The restaurant was empty and very pleasant tonight. Super Bowl night is always a good night to go out.
As for the security, it's not just the USA, it's also at the winter olympics. All in cahoots?
No, the terrorist attacks around Sochi are probably retaliation by Saudi Arabia for Russia's prevention of US intervention in Syria.
Really? So the Islamic separatists in Chechnya are sitting this one out?
Don't know but it was reported not too long ago that the Saudis made a thinly-veiled threat to Putin in this regard. Nevertheless, I don't know for certain the reason why -- it's all guesswork.
Hm. Fracking has put the Saudis on notice that both the Russians and the USA could be energy independent. China too, I think. That would hurt the Saudis. That's the only reason I can think of that the Saudis would be after Russia. Well, maybe the Chechnya situation too.
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