What This String of Botched Executions Says About Us

What This String of Botched Executions Says About Us

(Spoiler, We're Horrible People)

     "I am concerned by the length of time it took for the administered drug protocol to complete the lawful execution of the convicted double murderer, Joseph Wood. While justice was carried out today, I directed the Department of Corrections to conduct a full review of the process.
    "One thing is certain, however, inmate Wood died in a lawful manner and by eyewitness and medical accounts he did not suffer. This is in stark comparison to the gruesome, vicious suffering that he inflicted on his two victims – and the lifetime of suffering he has caused their family."  -Gov. Jan Brewer

The above quote says just about everything that needs to be said about how barbaric, simplistic, and generally horrible Americans are when it comes to the death penalty.  It explains why we are the only remaining "first world" nation that kills its own citizens.  It demonstrates how shallow and callous we are when it comes to human life.  A relative of Mr. Woods' victims echoed the governor's sentiments about this, but her thirst for retribution was based on her own suffering, which is somehow even more disturbing.  Using murder as a punishment for murder is uncivilized and primitive.  We are a nation of barbarians.

Even if one accepts capital punishment as just (I, for one, do not), holding the idea that it is alright that that punishment be sloppy, drawn out, possibly horrendously painful and, in the words of John McCain no less, torture reduces us, through our representatives, to blood thirsty murderers ourselves.  Gov. Brewer dismisses the horror of this botched execution (one in a series recently) by intimating that he deserved it because of what he did.  The way this execution was carried out has nothing to do with the crimes of the convicted, it is about how we as a people treat the condemned.  Using the "eye for an eye" rational for dismissing concerns about how we treated Mr. Woods points to the larger disgrace of our overwhelmingly bloated, inefficient, and human rights violating prison system and systemically racist, classist, and alarmist judicial system.  Once a shining beacon in the forward march of social progress and human rights we are sliding back towards a society more likely to burn people at the stake and rejoice at their cries of anguish than we are to act like thoughtful, sober, modern human beings.

Thoughts And Whatnot On The Hobby Lobby Decision

What's most staggering to me about this decision (I expect the GOP justices to be horrible) is that it is fundamentally based on a denial of science. Plan B is NOT an abortificant. The Pill is not an abortificant and can actually extend a woman's fertility (and can be prescribed for literally dozens of medical conditions that have nothing to do with sex). The SCOTUS has now made it possible for what someone (or worse a corporation) believes to trump reality in decisions that affect other individuals' lives. They have said that in the eyes of the law religious belief is greater than the truth, that religion is more important than reality.  This is a truly horrible decision that flies in the face of all precedent.

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http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/ruth-bader-ginsburg-dissent-hobby-lobby-contraception

"The absence of such precedent is just what one would expect, for the exercise of religion is characteristic of natural persons, not artificial legal entities," she wrote. She concluded: "Indeed, approving some religious claims while deeming others unworthy of accommodation could be 'perceived as favoring one religion over another,' the very 'risk the Establishment Clause was designed to preclude.' The Court, I fear has ventured into a minefield." [emphasis added]

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Open Carry Guys = Assholes

 

You don't have a god given right to be an asshole.  If you're such an asshole sane people don't feel safe around you then you're a threat to society.  Your rights do NOT supersede everyone else's rights.

Batshit Crazy Club 6/6/2014

Given the time these kind of people will always be found out.  She and her husband live lives full of contradictions, lies, and denial enforced by religion and insanity.  Duplicity is as duplicity does.  Of course they lied and cheated.  It is who they are.

The Second Amendment According to Chief Justice Burger

A Letter to The Horrible Asshole, Governor Steve Beshear

Governor Steve Beshear
700 Capitol Avenue, Suite 100
Frankfort, KY 40601

Alan Miller
Louisville, KY

re:  defense of KY's marriage ban
cc:  Courier Journal, State Journal, Lexington Herald Leader, Kentucky Democratic Party

Governor Beshear,

Between ignoring the separation of church and state by providing massive tax breaks to religious organizations like the Creationist Museum and the Noah's Ark theme park (and, seriously, you also violate the separation of incredibly stupid and state by supporting these tax breaks) and your recent utterly despicable decision to argue for only providing benefits for straight couples based on the utter BS that they're the only ones that can procreate (are you going to deny post menopausal couples or any couples where the man and/or woman are infertile?  Do we have no orphans that need homes, perhaps with a gay or lesbian couple?  Is there no benefit to the state in general in happy and secure couples being able to pool their resources?) you are now officially in the running for worst governor in the country.  Congratulations you worthless piece of garbage.  It's a damned good thing you can never run again because you are a horrible governor and the sooner your generation of intolerant cavemen dies off the better.  You are an embarrassment to the Democratic Party (as is the KDP that backed your worthless hide), the State of Kentucky, and America. 

Sincerely,
Alan Miller

My Recent Encounter With a Fucking Lunatic on Facebook

 This fucking lunatic (Hal Womack) posted to a friend of mine's post which, though factually correct was a bullshit gun nut meme basically blaming slaughtered Native Americans' slaughter on the fact they "gave up" their guns.  It's shameful to claim that they somehow would not have been slaughtered otherwise.  And then this racist, wacko piece of shit chimes in.  Enjoy:

Smelling Rosemary

This meme has been going around Facebook for a little while and links to some bullshit parading as journalism.  It is the perfect example of bogus "facts." I looked at the linked "article" (first saw it last month) and had to stop and bang my head on the table a couple of times. It keeps getting passed around and it's just meaningless nonsense with links to a bunch of actual scientific studies that say no such thing, I can't even see how you pry this "fact" out of the linked studies. Makes me crazy. My favorite part though is that it improves memory 75%... 75% of what? You can remember 3/4 more dates? 3/4 more musical notes? 3/4 more places where you stumped your toe? What does that even mean?!?!? Someone explain to me why anyone would write this nonsense, I seriously don't understand the drive to just make shit up. Do they sell rosemary oil or something?

Kiln

The word kiln is one of the oldest words.  Not oldest English words, oldest words.  Until American school teachers got their hands on it it was pronounced "kil."  Same goes with falcon (fokken) and palm (pom) and their until recent American English pronunciations.  And now you know.