Death and paying taxes.

Recently, Ronnie Lee Gardner was executed by the state of Utah. This caused me to lose about 1/2 of a microsecond of sleep. He killed an attorney during an escape attempt, so I'm not sure if he should've been convicted or awarded a medal, but that doesn't matter now. What gets me is WHEN Mr. Gardner did this. In 1985. Nineteen Eighty Friggin Five. 25 years ago.

That's my problem with the death penalty. Why does it take 25 years to carry out a sentence? Is our court system that sclerotic?

Anti-death penalty people say capital punishment is no deterrent, and they're right. Any sentence deferred for 25 years has long lost any deterrent value.
I think the death penalty is a fantastic idea...but we need to do 3 things with it...
1. Make SURE the person is guilty. The standard for conviction is "beyond a reasonable doubt". Fine...but to execute someone it should be raised to "beyond practically any doubt" or "Only a friggin' idiot would think this guy is innocent." Require DNA evidence if available.
2. Streamline the system. Set an execution date at sentencing that's no more than 6 months away. You get one appeal. Thats it. If you don't bring up your bullshit legal technicality at the appeal, too bad. Death penalty appeals should go to the front of the line. Now THAT is a deterrent.
3. Carry executions live on pay per view TV. Seriously. Charge $4.99 with proceeds going to the families of the victim.

Lastly, why do infamous criminals always seem to have 3 names? Except for Manson they all seem to...

I-g-n-o-r-a-n-c-e

When I was in grade school we had spelling bees, like many other schools. I always liked them and did well. To this day I believe that your spelling says volumes about you, and especially now with spell checkers in practically everything with a keyboard there is no excuse for poor spelling. Evidently I am in the minority. When I wonder aloud at the incredibly bad English used by so many people I'm told "What does it matter, they get their point across"...even by my Dartmouth-educated brother! It's NOT OK, damnit! Spelling IS NOT OPTIONAL. You have to make allowances for a non-English speaker but that's not what I'm cheesed off about. Earlier this morning I was reading some stories on the NH Union Leader website and was skimming through the comments people left. Here are some examples of the rise of total ignorance just in todays posts:

cereal killer (used TWICE in a paragraph)
Loosing sight of...
waistbasket
breaks (in a car)
payed
at lease (should be at least)
hipocritical
lisense
bankrupsy

What's worse? The lousy spelling or the "I'm getting my point across" attitude?

Crime and race

Let me get something out of the way....that this is going to seriously aggravate certain ultra-liberals who think any mention of someone's race is automatically verboten. To any such people I say "Get bent and grow up".

So I'm watching the show "Bait Car" on TruTV. It's unintentionally funny as a steady parade of morons try ludicrous lies to explain how they were caught on tape stealing a car. Over the course of watching the show for a few weeks I noticed something...almost none of the suspects were White. I watched 3 shows in a row (thank you Tivo) and saw not one white suspect. What does this tell us? Either the producers of the show made a conscious decision to not show White suspects (which I seriously doubt) or Black/Hispanic people commit more crimes than other races do for some reason.

I also watch "Lockup" on MSNBC. It's a great series taped inside maximum security prisons. In every prison over the last 3 seasons the majority of prisoners were Black or Hispanic. The one exception to this was in Alaska's Spring Creek prison where Eskimos were a majority, which makes sense considering they are the majority population in much of Alaska. But in the other 49 states the numbers show something strange. Blacks are 12.8% of Americans according to 2008 numbers located here: http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/00000.html.
Hispanics are 15.4% of Americans according to the same source. A quick skip to http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0903755.html says Blacks make up 46.3 % of prisoners as of 2001...almost quadruple the average. Hispanics are 15.6% of prisoners so that makes sense. But Whites are 80.2 % and make up only 36.1% of prisoners.
Let's look at this objectively for a minute...how does a group that is not even 13% of the population represent 46+% of prison inmates? Some of you will wring your hands and say "the system is racist". While only a moron would insist there is no racism in our legal system, you still need to DO something illegal to be arrested and charged, and Black people are doing it far more often than other groups. Watch "Bait Car", "Lockup", or "Lockdown" on Discovery if you don't believe me. The $64,000 question is WHY?
I wish I knew, but I have a theory. I do NOT believe that Blacks are somehow incapable of obeying the law or they are inferior to others but the numbers don't lie. If you want my take on this (and if you've read this far I assume you do) it's cultural. It's the same reason some races are overly represented in colleges, like Asians. Their culture instills in them from birth that education and hard work are important. Jews have very similar mores, but for some reason a large number of Blacks and Hispanics do not value those things, in fact many Blacks will demean someone who is trying to better themselves, accusing them of acting White or being an Uncle Tom. Many prefer the quick, easy money of breaking the law so they end up in prison much more often. Again, why?
Is more police and more prisons the answer? Partly. What we need to do is change Dequon and Shaniqua's attitudes. Put down the bling and pick up a book. People like Bill Cosby and Chris Rock (who did a screamingly funny bit on the difference between Black people and niggers) have said this publicly but they are then criticized by self-appointed black "community leaders" like Sharpton who (despite his protestations) needs the status quo or he will become irrelevant to his followers. He's already irrelevant to anyone who isn't Black anyway.
So I ask again, what is the answer? I'm still not sure but I do know this...the answer MUST come from Blacks themselves. An entire generation is being locked away at a tremendous cost and many just don't seem to care. Those that do care are denigrated. It has to stop.

Global Warming? Meh.

I know, I know...anyone who's halfway civilized accepts global warming as gospel, right?
Not me. Really. I'm just a broadcaster not a scientist or meteorologist but it doesn't seem to me we're getting warmer. There has been some interesting record-setting weather events the last year or so, but this record-busting snowfall and cold was bound to happen. Look, we had an Ice Age at one time, right? Then we got warmer. Was THAT global warmiing? No. However, now we're hearing that the cold is (of course) due to more greenhouse gasses. The only gasses I see are the hot air out of the mouths of academics who wouldn't know the real world if it bit them. And Al Gore. I also seem to recall the hue and cry about acid rain in the 70's. No one mentions it now though. Maybe because it was bullshit all along?
Earth, for reasons way beyond my simple brain, has cycles of warmer and cooler weather. It happens. Live with it and STFU.