Indeed. My name is Nick, and I would pay for that UID. How much? Probably not much. But it's pretty sweet. My original handle had a UID in the five digits.

Yeah. Putting people in jail is expensive too! (And keeping them there is a separate high cost!) The greater the punishment, the more we spend to assure justice. That's why you can get nicked for an undeserved traffic ticket but a judge will hardly hear you out, while if you get arrested you get more attention, if you're up for life you get more attention, and if you're up for death then you get the most of all. That makes sense to you, right? It makes perfect sense to me.

It turns out that justice is pricey.

Agreed. It is preposterous to claim that advertising will ever become consumer friendly. That is total nonsense. Only rubes accept that.

If they made the threat then that's assault, technically, and if it is bad enough then they'll get arrested (that's arrested). The total lack of capacity to follow through is a positive defense in court (that's prosecuted). And if it is relevant at trial, then it is relevant in the article.

For instance, did you hear about that disabled octogenarian who used a walker and an oxygen tank, who made threats against -- uh -- the President or something. They arrested him (arrested), but eventually released him because they knew they couldn't win a trial (prosecuted). No jury would think the threat was credible. He was just a racist prick saying shit on the internet. If he were able-bodied and surrounded by guns, he might be in jail.

Yep. Killing is the inexpensive part. The cost comes from the justice system. Alas, we don't want to just kill anyone, we want to be totally sure they are guilty first. We feel this way because of the number of convictions that get overturned on appeal.

It makes us feel good to kill very bad people, but it would make us feel bad to kill an innocent person. To avoid feeling so bad, we spend all that money to be sure.

It's expensive because before we execute someone, we want to be super duper DUPER sure they are guilty. In our society we call it "substantive justice". Obviously we could kill a criminal for the cost of one bullet, but to be sure they are guilty, we have a hell of a lot of smartass lawyers fight about it for a long, long time. If, after that long time, the case still seems tight enough, then we kill the criminal, but by then it costs more than to just keep him in jail.

"Constitutional is not synonymous with the opinion of the SCOTUS."

That's what I'm saying. Yes, it is. You're using a different definition of "Constitutional" than the definition used in our society.

"the constitution doesn't grant them sole right to judge what is or is not constitutional"

True: it grants them the final prerogative to judge what is or is not Constitutional, which is really what counts.

"that doesn't make them automatically correct in whatever they decide"

Again, all that means is "I disagree with the Court, so everyone should take my opinion instead of theirs." That's fine, it just won't get you very far.

"I don't even own a gun, but I sleep a lot better at night knowing that the men in black uniforms aren't the only people who have them."

Agreed. I do actually own a gun, but it is an impractical gun, locked in a box, in an inaccessible place, with no bullets. Even though I'm not a 'gun person' myself, I think the presence of 'gun nuts' makes the country better in many ways. It takes all sorts.

Mmm hmm. If you have tools of death, then your threats of killing have increased plausibility.

I refuse to accept that you are too daft to understand that. I am left to assume that you are simply pro-gun, like I am, but that for you it somehow causes you to ignore perfectly reasonable context like this.

If you are pro-drugs, like I am, it would nevertheless be foolish of you to object when a news article reads "James Q Public was arrested in his home yesterday after a police raid turned up three pounds of marijuana and over $15,000 in cash." It would be stupid of you to say "I love how the article points out that there was cash in the house, implying that somehow ordinary American citizens don't have cash."

Let me rephrase that.

"I know what is Constitutional, and if the Supreme Court disagrees with me, then they are wrong. Whatever I think is right and everyone should agree with me."

Yeah, dude, we all feel that way. We could fight about it, or we could appoint some people to sit on a panel and decide which blowhard is right and which blowhard is wrong. And in fact we did appoint those people, and we call that panel "The Supreme Court".

If you want to, you can do the incredibly difficult work of learning and working hard to get yourself onto that panel. Or, on the other hand, you can be a blowhard on the internet.

The death penalty definitely does not save the taxpayer any money. It is very expensive to execute a person, much MUCH more expensive than allowing them to live in prison for the rest of their natural life.

The whole point is that executions are worth the cost.

Yes they do. Civilized people have the death penalty. Only uncivilized people don't have the death penalty.

The sentence you quote sounds like marketing speak to me. I wouldn't base implementation assumptions on it. It might work that way, or that might be the way that the Media Director decided to describe it.

The difference is a quarter-million miles. Science is more precise than that when it is able to be.

Almost every programming job I see posted requests a CS degree. So you only need a CS degree if you want a programming job. Or, if you are a super-elite hacker god, you can probably get by without one.