The Constitution specifically follows its version of that clause with "without due process" (amendment 5):

For better or worse (and clearly "worse" in this case), due process was followed. The best legal (as opposed to moral) argument against the death penalty is that due process isn't always followed scrupulously: many cases are overturned only by heroic efforts of lawyers, frequently working for little or nothing because the people who had money are unlikely to have received a capital sentence in the first place. Our system of justice seems poor at granting due process under the best of circumstances, and one could argue that there simply isn't due process that can justify the death penalty.

The "life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness" line is from the Declaration of Independence: a noble and important founding document, but lacking the force of law for a reason. That's not how or why it was written. For better or worse, the Constitution was deliberately crafted with "due process" in mind, and they clearly considered the death penalty to be a valid option.

The show was at its best when it used its absurd, unique situation for black comedy. It got to play around with very dark themes about loneliness and despair. That could be bitterly funny.

Unfortunately, it also kinda ran its course after the first couple of seasons. They had a few other funny ideas, driven in large part by top-notch acting, but it was much more pedestrian in the kinds of jokes they could tell. They kept introducing new characters into a show whose original point had been, "What do you do if you are literally the last man alive in the entire universe?", and that rather undercut what made the show work.

By the end it was decidedly played out; they were just re-treading well-worn sci-fi parody themes (or simply being crude for the laughs). I hear there's even more to come, and I'll probably watch it, but I doubt I'll like it.

How's it working out for you? Less than 10% of Americans still go with OTA broadcasts.

I don't know what the comparable figures are in the UK, but I suspect that they too are moving towards getting their entertainment via media that make the broadcast oligopoly irrelevant. You probably don't care about broadcast providers there and wouldn't care about it if you moved there.

It also doesn't mean it can't be better. We're seeing metabolic diseases at younger ages; we're able to keep people alive longer but they're not healthy. Life expectancy is even starting to drop; not dramatically, but there's reason to think we can do better.

Too little food is definitely bad, and leads to malnutrition. But we're getting people who are malnourished because they have too much food, and of the wrong kind. It's not that hard to do better, but people need to pay attention.

I run with NoScript on Firefox, and unfortunately I'm finding more and more web sites are unusable without Javascript enabled not just for them (and the cloud provider, who could be serving up god-knows-what) but for zillions of "partners". I don't know what those partners are providing, either: probably mostly ancillary crap but the page won't render until it's downloaded.

I keep a NoScripted Firefox for any time I'm visiting web sites that I don't know beforehand; if they don't render then I don't need it that badly. But on my work computers, where I'm browsing only sites that I have reason to believe have things I need and aren't too terribly likely to be hijacked, I've found I just had to turn NoScript off.

That sucks, because the fact is that the vast majority of sites do shit with Javascript that the site would be just plain better off without. I don't object to their need to earn a living by feeding me ads, which is why I don't run with an ad blocker, but Javascript is very easy to abuse, and too many of them create abusive design.

Well... dollars do suck from a security standpoint. There's the paper bits, which are inconvenient in large amounts. And there's the usual electronic methods, whose security is practically criminal: the idea that somebody could find my wallet and use it to drain my bank account, or incur five-figure debts with the onus of disproof on me, is utterly absurd.

Not that Bitcoin is automatically all that much better: it's still rather inconvenient and its security apparently rather doubtful. Rolling out chip-and-PIN in the US might be a better solution, building on the existing infrastructure rather than having to create a whole new one. (Especially since Bitcoin's version of it appears to be heavily based on awarding large profits to early adopters rather than just about creating a better infrastructure.)

Ah, ok. Somehow, I find that less neat, if it's just a built-in Dustbuster. Still, as one whose car is in DIRE need of a vacuuming, I gotta say I'd be glad to have the system there.

In your opinion, but you've already established that meat wasn't something you really cared for to begin with.

Don't get me wrong, there are a few Chinese vegetarian dishes I like and many more Indian dishes, but any good dish is a celebration of its ingredients. No dish should be able to taste the same if you add or remove any one ingredient, because if done properly, a dish enhances the flavors of all of its components. If it does taste the same, then there's probably just some component smothering the other flavors, and I can't imagine that any such dish treats its vegetables any better.

I think you should talk to people who have different life experiences from you rather than just imagine motives for them that cast them in a scary light. I've wanted to go lacto-ovo vegetarian for health and environmental reasons, but I've failed three times. It's not that I didn't want to like vegetarian dishes; it's that I just never stopped wanting the meat dishes too. It's far harder to give up something you enjoy than it is to find joy in other things, and when it comes to food, nothing is quite as tempting as the dish you can't have but want.

Just ask anyone on a diet.

I live in Maryland. We get salt on the roads, but only a few times a year. Surely it would be better to have it washed off, but the rain seems to do the job well enough. I have yet to have rust as a significant factor.

How does that work? Is it tied in to engine vacuum? Or is it just plugged in to the electrical system?

I know of a few authentic places, where they have the Chinese-only menu, but that's not the point. Meat has a distinctive flavor. Unless you do something absolutely horrifying to it to suppress it, you are simply never going to make a dish where it tastes the same with or without meat.

Because people like meat, and you aren't going to get some people to switch until they can get the experience of meat. The problem is that the primary consumers of vegetarian meat substitutes are people who don't like meat.

Imagine if we were talking about giving up chocolate. People could tell you that there's all sorts of yummy, fruit flavored alternatives out there that have "great flavors and textures all their own" and "can satisfy the appetite." But none of them are chocolate. They don't compare at all when you've got that craving, even if they are nutritionally equivalent or better.

So then someone invents carob bars, and all the chocolate lovers look askance at it, while the non-chocolate people are split between those that embrace the new "tastes just like chocolate" treat (which it doesn't) and others are just so puzzled why anyone would want chocolate in the first place. Is it any wonder it fails to attract people who are okay with chocolate?

It's the same with meat substitutes and meat.

Good for you. I'm reminded of a quote from a comic I read when someone expressed shock and incredulity that another character had not seen Star Wars. Her response was simply, "Your life experiences are different from my own." What you are basically saying here is that you don't really like meat all that much and it was no big sacrifice to give it up. That's not the case for everyone.

I find the switch to a meatless diet extremely hard, and I become just absolutely ravenous when I go more than a few days without it. I've tried three times for all the good reasons that you mention, and I just get a craving that cannot be satisfied by anything else.

As someone who likes meat, I find that statement laughable. If the vegetables in the dish are the most interesting and delicious part to you, then that's probably true for you. However, while I do enjoy many vegetarian Chinese and Indian dishes, I will NEVER confuse them for those with meat. The taste of the meat is not found in the meat itself but also in the sauces.

I find that the exterior of my car more or less takes care of itself. Sure, it could be better, but it rains and the worst of the crud is washed off. And then the mud kicked up puts more crud on; even if I did put effort into washing it, it would be nearly as dirty within weeks. I practically never wash my car, and they last well over a decade. It's not the limiting factor in the car's life span.

What I'd really like it something that made the *interior* cleaner. Of course it's not going to neaten up my tool boxes and spare clothes and fast-food wrappers, but if it could somehow at least deal better with stains and dripped mud, that would make me happy.

I gave strong consideration to the Honda Element for just that reason; it's designed to be hosed out. I ended up going with the Fit for the mileage. And it could really use some detailing. I get my car cleaned every so often not for the outside, but because they also do the inside.