Comment Re:It's already a failure... (Score 1) 119
if you trade goods, including weapons, without choosing sides, locals get to choose their own path
That will never happen.
Comment Re:They just want to grow crops of wage slaves (Score 0) 119
If that's what Gates and Zuckerberg are thinking, I commend them for thinking about the long, long term. Anyways, if that's the plan, it's win-win for future software companies and Africa. I suppose US software engineers might lose, but who cares?
Comment Re:$6.50 is NOT cheap. (Score 1) 119
And I suppose you understand "the little people".
Comment Re:It's already a failure... (Score 1) 119
supplying weapons is meddling
Comment Re:It's already a failure... (Score 2) 119
We've already tried step 1 many, many times. We're pretty good at killing warlords and toppling governments. What we aren't good at is filling the power vacuum that follows.
How To Execute People In the 21st Century 1081
HughPickens.com writes Matt Ford writes in The Atlantic that thanks to a European Union embargo on the export of key drugs, and the refusal of major pharmaceutical companies to sell them the nation's predominant method of execution is increasingly hard to perform. With lethal injection's future uncertain, some states are turning to previously discarded methods. The Utah legislature just approved a bill to reintroduce firing squads for executions, Alabama's House of Representatives voted to authorize the electric chair if new drugs couldn't be found, and after last years botched injection, Oklahoma legislators are mulling the gas chamber.
The driving force behind the creation and abandonment of execution methods is the constant search for a humane means of taking a human life. Arizona, for example, abandoned hangings after a noose accidentally decapitated a condemned woman in 1930. Execution is also prone to problems as witnesses routinely report that, when the switch is thrown, the condemned prisoner "cringes," "leaps," and "fights the straps with amazing strength." The hands turn red, then white, and the cords of the neck stand out like steel bands. The prisoner's limbs, fingers, toes, and face are severely contorted. The force of the electrical current is so powerful that the prisoner's eyeballs sometimes pop out and "rest on [his] cheeks." The physical effects of the deadly hydrogen cyanide in the gas chamber are coma, seizures and cardiac arrest but the time lag has previously proved a problem. According to Ford one reason lethal injection enjoyed such tremendous popularity was that it strongly resembled a medical procedure, thereby projecting our preconceived notions about modern medicine—its competence, its efficacy, and its reliability—onto the capital-punishment system. "As states revert to earlier methods of execution—techniques once abandoned as backward and flawed—they run the risk that the death penalty itself will be seen in the same terms."
The driving force behind the creation and abandonment of execution methods is the constant search for a humane means of taking a human life. Arizona, for example, abandoned hangings after a noose accidentally decapitated a condemned woman in 1930. Execution is also prone to problems as witnesses routinely report that, when the switch is thrown, the condemned prisoner "cringes," "leaps," and "fights the straps with amazing strength." The hands turn red, then white, and the cords of the neck stand out like steel bands. The prisoner's limbs, fingers, toes, and face are severely contorted. The force of the electrical current is so powerful that the prisoner's eyeballs sometimes pop out and "rest on [his] cheeks." The physical effects of the deadly hydrogen cyanide in the gas chamber are coma, seizures and cardiac arrest but the time lag has previously proved a problem. According to Ford one reason lethal injection enjoyed such tremendous popularity was that it strongly resembled a medical procedure, thereby projecting our preconceived notions about modern medicine—its competence, its efficacy, and its reliability—onto the capital-punishment system. "As states revert to earlier methods of execution—techniques once abandoned as backward and flawed—they run the risk that the death penalty itself will be seen in the same terms."
Comment Re:Number of legal positions (Score 2) 186
The reason is obvious. Scientific notation is mainly used for approximate results, and integers are exact.
Comment Re:you care more for your own kind, its science! (Score 1) 251
I didn't say religion causes racism. I said religion has been used to justify racism. eg. "Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be to his brothers"
Comment Re:Ok then... (Score 1) 247
1. Run for office.
when that fails, go to 2
2. Lobby people in office.
Comment Re:When in Rome (Score 1) 247
But a bad law IS an excuse from the law. Fuck that shit. Defend free speech!
Comment Re:you care more for your own kind, its science! (Score 1) 251
That is true. It's one of the more useful aspects of religion. But religion has historically been used to justify racism more than fight against racism, so we are better off with some kind of secular humanism. (Call it religion if you want)
Comment Re:The results are deliberately skewed (Score 1) 251
I think there are some studies that show that even black cops shoot black people more than white people.
Comment Re:The results are deliberately skewed (Score 3, Informative) 251
This is how science works. The experiment does not make claims outside of the experimental parameters. If you interpret that as implying some sort of claim about white people versus black people, that's your problem. Go research other studies to fill in the gaps.
Comment Re:you care more for your own kind, its science! (Score 1) 251
What is natural is not the same as what is right. Sure, I can totally accept that the natural inclination of humans is to be racist. We don't have to search to hard in history for cases of tribes annihilating tribes, or nations annihilating nations. It's science, so we should not try to advance beyond this savagery.
I don't think you understand the point of 'political correctness'. The point is not to deny the base nature within you, but to fight it.
Comment Re:What about the race of the escapee? (Score 1) 251
Wrong, they are all racists. I know there are some people who think that blacks can't be racist, but you don't earn any points for using them in your argument.
