Horrible murderers are sick people. Killing them is an admission that we do not want to think about that fact, or do something about it.
1. Why should we preserve their life even in the face of the probability of other innocent lives due to their survival?
2. Executing them IS doing something about it, I think you're looking more for 'thinking about our inability to do something about their illness'.
The autoguide link made me laugh when I read this line: "Tesla, a company that’s exempt from the CARB mandate, "
It might be exempt, but even if Tesla was selling as many cars in California as GM, it wouldn't give a hoot about CARB mandates because it doesn't produce ANY gasoline vehicles. It's sole concern would be selling enough credits to the other companies.
and restrict how much Fiat can mark up the price of the electric version.
Citation please? I googled some, didn't see any such restriction. I think it's more that if Fiat marks it up too much they can't sell it. As is it sounds like it's a touch underpriced(at a minimum) seeing as how it flies off dealer lots.
I get that there are good intentions behind the regulation, but I don't think this is the way to do it. If California wants to get the ball rolling on green energy and reduce smog then they should invest more into hydrogen fill stations, push bivalent hydrogen cars, and build more trains.
You do realize that the two primary ways to produce hydrogen?
1. Natural gas cracking, in which case it's more energy efficient to burn the NG directly in the vehicle.
2. Electrolysis, in which case you're generally lucky to hit 50%, while batteries are closer to 90%, and you're still over 80% when you figure in power line losses
In addition:
3. Either you're burning the hydrogen in an internal combustion engine, which is incredibly inefficient, or you're using a fuel cell, which is incredibly expensive(and not more efficient at this point than LiIon batteries)
4. Especially with an IC engine you have a hard time getting enough hydrogen into a vehicle to give it gasoline range( >300 miles), since while hydrogen has the most energy by mass, it has one of the lower energies by density until you get into the higher pressures, at which point your pressure vessel masses almost as much as the batteries.
Except, you know, for the part where you're substantially less likely to be exonerated if you're only sentenced to life in prison.
I don't?
You have to understand that I consider life in prison about equivalent to death.
You know what scares me about that study?
There is no systematic method to determine the accuracy of a criminal conviction; if there were, these errors would not occur in the first place.
The high rate of exoneration among death-sentenced defendants appears to be driven by the threat of execution
resentenced to life imprisonment, after which the likelihood of exoneration drops sharply
Sounds like you're more likely to 'make it out alive' if you're sentenced to death than life in prison....
Conclusion: The rate at which innocents are convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison without parole is most logically higher than those who are convicted and sentenced to death. The rate for those who are sentenced to prison for lesser crimes than murder are likely even higher.
Does not make me happy.
Why do they rely on some hard to obtain or complicated mixture when it seems like there are very cheap and not very uncomfortable ways to do such a thing?
Actual testimony from some DP supporters, including legislaters, is that it'd be too good of a death for them. They actually WANT it to be more painful. Then you have the anti-DP types who want the DP to be as messy/painful as possible so they're more likely to be able to win a ban on it.
Personally, I'm all for it, though it wasn't until recently that I found out about the bag option as opposed to building an air-tight room for them. Still think the room might be a good idea - larger volume of air to swap, but no need to restrain the prisoner once inside the room. The person 'throwing the switch' doesn't even have to see the prisoner.
That being said, who is eliminating the death penalty going to save money?
The cost of an actual execution is nothing. The costs for death penalty is focused on court costs, which is part of why if I'm charged when actually innocent I'd almost rather have a death penalty case - I think that the extra attention means that the truth is more likely to come out. Second is that holding a prisoner on death row tends to cost twice as much per year. So 20-30 years on death row equates to 40-60 years in the general population* AND you have drastically increased court costs, easily adding up to more than enough to keep the prisoner for life.
*Not always true/possible. Some LIP convicts will cost more as well due to special handling requirements**
**Just because the average Life in prison sentence is cheaper than the average execution sentence, doesn't mean exceptions wouldn't exist. An 18 year old violent psychopath might be so dangerous he has to stay in solitary at all times anyways and be young enough to have lots of time in prison for costs to add up.
So... best to join the rest of the civilized countries in the world and abolish the death penalty.
I disagree, but I'd only keep the death penalty around as a 'Joker clause'. IE an individual that is, for whatever reason, so dangerous that he's more likely than not to cause more innocent death if he lives. My general standard for this is 'more than 3 killed or deliberate torture in addition to murder'.
That being said, my support for the DP amounts to a 'mad dog' clause. At which point it's about protecting society and doing the humane thing for the dog. No need to drag it out, no need for it to be painful.
Some flavor of nitrogen/helium/carbon monoxide asphixiation is probably the easiest way to go.
Europe vs. US proves that theory is bollocks.
Not entirely. The problem you have with this is that the USA was still substantially more violent/murdering even before Europe eliminated the death penalty, guns, and all that.
Now, a better question is why are we still killing people when at least 4% of ppl killed are verifiable innocent?
Do you happen to have a citation on this?
There were some 'experiments' back in the day with asking the condemned to blink certain codes after their head was removed. Results were inconclusive.
I still think that most executed prisoners have an easier death, pain wise, than normal people, who generally die of a painful heart attack, long cancer, illness, etc...
My vote's for nitrogen asphixiation.
1. No need for injections. Just give them some anti-anxiety medication to swallow.
2. No need for drugs obtained from secret sources in order to protect supply lines. Any welding supply store should do. Heck, they can purchase a machine to produce the necesssary nitrogen, or even carbon monoxide. I'd suggest a couple canisters just to 'keep it simple'.
3. Still doesn't mess up the body.
4. All evidence is that it's a fast, painless, and peaceful death.
No, I covered that. Aluminum is brittle: it flexes until it bends and quickly breaks, and it handles cycling by weakening until it breaks.
I think we're considering different scales of difference here. Depending on how you alloy and shape it you can play around with it's characteristics quite a bit, which I view as different but you don't. You even mention a lot of it yourself. For some reason you don't consider them different while I do.
As for the lectures on Aluminum, I'm not sure why you're writing them. I know the general properties of Aluminum. By the way, a mostly steel airplane would suck - while it could theoretically last forever it'd be too heavy to be useful.
Steel is entirely different, and can carry carbide or titanium or chromium or molybdenum, and so steel and its alloys have their own properties which can be more or less pronounced.
And you can mix Aluminum with copper, magnesium, manganese, silicon, zinc, and scandium to do some of the same.
I'm still not sure why you responded to my post about carbon fiber with a rant about Aluminum.
Claiming that aluminum is not brittle because it's used on airplanes is silly.
It would be, but this statement is attacking a strawman, since none of us claimed it. For that matter, I suggest rereading my post for any mention of Aluminum. You won't find any. I addressed Carbon Fiber. SuperBannana covered Aluminum, but your post agrees with him - summarized as various materials can be engineered to perform various roles, empasizing or minimizing various characteristics within limits.
As for Aluminum flexing too, I agree, I see it frequently. The difference is one of magnitude. Aluminum wings will fail at far lower stress levels and certainly less bend than CF wings. You also have the problem that Aluminum is known to fatigue far quicker even with less flex than steel, much less CF.
Steel is mostly good because it's cheap and has one of the more forgiving failure modes when overstressed.
The aluminum used on airplanes isn't different; it's a grade of aluminum suitable for planes, with some of aluminum's weaknesses more pronounced and some less.
Contradicting yourself here. Airplane aluminum IS different than what you'll find in something like a Soda Can. The alloy will be different, as well as treatment and forming techniques.
Machines have less problems. I'd like to be a machine. -- Andy Warhol
