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Utah Attorney General Tweets Execution Order
Kilrah_il writes "In an all-time low for Internet use, Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff used Twitter to announce to the public his approval of the execution of convicted murderer Ronnie Lee Gardner. 'I just gave the go ahead to Corrections Director to proceed with Gardner's execution. May God grant him the mercy he denied his victims,' the attorney general wrote. The AG's 7,000 followers retweeted the message further on and soon many replied concerning the awfulness of tweeting the execution of a human being. 'Mr. Shurtleff was doing nothing unusual; politicians and news organizations now routinely send out tweets to alert people to the latest developments. But as Twitter users digested endless breaking news flashes alerting them to the death of a man by firing squad in the United States, for some Mr. Shurtleff's remarks stood out from the rest.'"
Hanging has more potential for error than the firing squad but I would still take it over lethal injection. If it breaks you neck then it's quite humane -- if it doesn't then it's a rather lousy way to exit the world. Of course the same could be said for the firing squad if the marksmen screw up but the odds of four men all missing the kill zone with rifles at 30 feet (or whatever laughably short distance is used) is pretty low.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Indeed, hanging is actually very tricky.
Set the drop to be too short, and they guy's neck doesn't break and you have to wait 15 minutes while he chokes to death - not pretty.
Set the drop too long and the head pops off. Better for the guy dieing, as he doesn't suffer nearly as long (a couple minutes until brain death, but as the spine is severed he likely feels nothing). However that's not exactly a dignified death.
If you don't mind popping heads off, why not go back to the guillotine? If well built it's flawless, and far, far cheaper than injection.
All capital punishment is hard on the executioner. You basically have to be some level of sociopath not to be affected by it, which, incidentally, is probably a good use for sociopaths.
If I were to die, I'd want it to be by firing squad - that's just awesome (though really hard on the executioners).
Security is mostly a superstition... Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. - Helen Keller
whether you agree with capital punishment or not, you have to agree that the state should not take its power to kill its own citizens very lightly. even if those citizens are scumbags.
Absolutely. But the message was not light, it was professional and serious in every way.
Just because YOU happen to think of Twitter as a channel of pure entertainment, does not mean it can only be used that way forever. It is a raw channel for information of ANY type.
That's the sign of a good tool, that in the end users are using it in ways the people that built the tool never dreamed of.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
or for that matter, "thou shalt not kill"?
The word "kill" is widely held to be a mistranslation, to my understanding. The more proper translation would be "murder", which means that certain forms of killing may or may not be allowed by such a statement.
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
Singapore, Japan, Taiwan and India aren't "civilized countries"?
I was in Singapore for a week. It was like Chinatown without news stands -- if you can imagine such a thing. I couldn't find a copy of the Asian Wall Street Journal anywhere.
The Asian WSJ had written critically of the Lee Administration's policies of censoring the opposition by bringing frivolous libel suits against rival politicians and bankrupting them (people who are bankrupted aren't allowed to serve in the Singapore congress -- clever). So the Lee Administration sued the Asian WSJ for libel.
The WSJ abandoned its principles and published a groveling apology. As a result, they could send a fixed number of copies to Singapore, but it was like trying to find an uncensored American magazine in Soviet Russia.
Finally, the concierge at a 5-star hotel got me a copy of the Asian WSJ. It reported that an Indian playwright had gone to jail because she insisted on performing a feminist play that the Singapore government had censored.
(I also read in the WSJ that the "paddling" which outsiders treated as a joke is actually a brutal beating which Lee used against his political opponents.)
I was in Singapore for a scientific conference, and on the positive side I was charmed by the high school and college students reading science textbooks everywhere, and their love for science and education. Lee is rightly proud of bringing his people out of medieval poverty and illiteracy into modern education and civilization. So is Fidel Castro. They both did it at the expense of human rights.
Civilized? I'd give them a C. Work harder on human rights.
Many, including myself, consider the death penalty to be state-sponsored murder.
I don't always use unix-like operating systems; but when I do, I prefer FreeBSD.
It's not about the guy that was executed, it was about an official, and extremely serious and somber statement, made via what many consider the lowest form of communication.
What if you had a wedding, and the bridal march was done by some guys farting, or your Masters Degree was on a post-it note?
Some forms of communication are just not considered to be appropriate for some types of information.
Wow, if you are worried about politicians trying to avoid real interaction with the people, you've missed the boat. Politics haven't been like that since (at least) the 1968 democratic national convention. Republicans saw how badly it went and scripted every word of their convention a month or so later. If politicians think there is potential for a shoe being thrown, they will generally avoid the event. And wisely so. And I'm sure if you look back farther, you will find it is not a new thing.
Seriously, get your worries in perspective.
Qxe4