An opinion piece for the UK newspaper The Times condemns the use of the death penalty. Warning: precariously heightened sense of personal virtue ahead.

A botched execution in Ohio should quicken the end of capital punishment.

"Oh no, an idea we don't like for completely insensible moral reasons has shown it doesn't always work perfectly in reality, even though it never claimed to! I have an idea, let's use this as a strawman against the gun-toting Nazis who support capital punishment!"

When the headline says "botched execution" one imagines a grisly, drawn out and painful sort of execution along the lines of the dry-sponge electric chair at the end of The Green Mile. In reality, all that happened in this case is that after two hours they couldn't find a vein strong enough for the lethal injection, so they sent the convicted murderer-rapist away for another week. If no execution took place, how could it be botched?

Their feeble arguments are put forward in the first paragraph.

America is the only big democracy — apart, occasionally, from Japan — that still carries out capital punishment.

America is X, and is also Y. Unfortunately, X + Y does not = Z, where Z is any kind of logical judgement against the use of capital punishment.

The botched attempted execution in Ohio this week of a murderer should prompt America to join the rest of the developed world in consigning judicial killing to history.

Whoops, I've already done this one. Terrible blogging.

There is inadequate evidence that it acts as a deterrent,

Like prison. But use your brain, what one unavoidable aspect of reality has scared the hell out of mankind since time immemorial? That's right, our deaths. Europe's first piece of literature, The Iliad, dealt with overcoming it. Countless other works of art - that form which expresses our human essence - rely on our innate repulsion towards dying. How could death be any less of a deterrent than prison? But the main strength of capital punishment is not its deterrence but rather its protection, by ridding communities of those dangerous and parasitic individuals who threaten any dignified existence.

it ignores the risk of miscarriages of justice

That's a criticism of any failure within the justice system, not the value of the death penalty. Nevertheless, what's to stop us using the death penalty only in cases where there exists undeniable evidence of guilt?

and allows no room for repentance or correction.

Who cares?

But above all it is a barbarity that stains civilised society.

In your timid and haphazardly formulated opinion.

Well that's The Times' main arguments, let's turn to the comments for further hilarity:

PSF London wrote:
Killing a murderer is eye-for-an-eye justice. Surely then it could apply to other crimes such as rape.

Who would be appointed to rape the rapist? Would you care to nominate someone?

Why should we listen to the morals of a person who picks a completely illogical non-sequitur out of the thinnest of ethers, to use as an argument against something completely unrelated? Who ever stated that capital punishment is only ever justified due to its "eye-for-an-eye" style? No, it's justified for other reasons, including the ones I have mentioned above. All you've done is to pick out one characteristic that no-one was talking about, and extrapolate that characteristic into a scenario that no-one is talking about.

In fact PSF's comment is so hilarious, I will reproduce the rest of it here. LOL's are in bold:

Why is murder the only crime - that I can think of - which so many claim deserves this biblical form of justice? Is it because they find it easy to wash their hands of a killing which is carried out so clinically by the flick of a switch or a nice and hygienically delivered poison? Surely we could have a clinical way of raping someone in the name of justice?

You always get people on these forums saying "I would gladly pull the trigger". I wonder if they would gladly do the raping in this form of retributive justice.

It is nonsense to say that state sanctioned murder is legitimate. It is barbaric and lazy. We are better than the killers and that means we have to stand firm and live with the consequences of being ethically superior.

"The consequences of being ethically superior" - genius. I guess those consequences are having to put up with more murderers, rapists, paedophiles and sadists than everyone else.

There are about a thousand other arguments put forward in the comment section, but they are mainly about claiming the moral high ground so our egos can inhabit a fake sense of justification, so I won't bother with them.

Anyone with a brain-cell and some testicles can rightfully see that capital punishment is not only justified, but also totally awesome!

From the comments at Huffington Post:

Susan Boyle, God love her, is not that talented. Her voice is pretty good, but her delivery is conventional and unexciting. Her story is fabulous. but her voice is not.

I have to agree. This was not an extraordinary performance. Ultimately, she lacks the depth, power and character to perform that song splendidly. She's got a decent singing voice, but that in itself is not revolutionary. The crowd loves her because her story makes us tickle inside (hasn't been kissed, appears on national television, misunderstood talent etc.).

We like to cheer for underdogs because it makes us feel good inside, turns us into democratic judges with social power, and creates the illusion that just about anyone could become the next Susan Boyle. Of course, that's not reality. This is how "Memory" from Cats should be delivered:

As I've said before, most people need to be told what to do in some way or another. This includes when and how to be gentlemanly to your fellow man, or the virtue to be polite and respectful, which has been hijacked and distorted by the ruling class, including the media, who by necessity in our modern western democracy must constantly cultivate their popular image. This development eventually led us to what is now referred to as "political correctness".

Wherever there are those flawed people for whom the doctrine was designed, one can find cracks around the edges of political correctness. In other words, rigorous political correctness is not really necessary for those who are already virtuous; but it can make finding idiot behaviour harder. The concept in this sense is counter-intuitive, kind of like how the idea of the welfare-state initially sounds nicely benevolent, before you realise it helps to punish the best among us and also encourages laziness.

Case in point:

When Silvio Berlusconi made a light-hearted joke last year about the new president's 'suntan' the Obama-besotted American press corps expressed outrage at what they tried to blow-up to be a racist remark from a right-wing politician.

Yet last Saturday night, when Obama made a joke about the skin colour of John Boehner, the Republican leader in the House of Representatives -- the president said it was 'not a colour that appears in the natural world' -- the journalists thought it was frightfully witty.

And when a performer called Wanda Sykes stood up at the dinner to do what was supposed to be a comedy turn, she attacked the Conservative radio broadcaster Rush Limbaugh, one of Obama's most on-target critics. She said Limbaugh's opinions were treason and that he was no better than Osama bin Laden. There were big grins from the president through all of this. Then Sykes said she wished Limbaugh's kidneys would fail. The president laughed through it all.

I guess it makes finding their hypocrisy easier.

Below is a parital post on the Continuum Concept board in response to one of mine, stating that TV is damaging and reading should be encouraged.

Brad is obviously an intelligent guy, but the hipster nature of his knee-jerk, contrarian response makes me wonder what his true motivations are. It appears he'd rather play games with people than contribute to the discussion, without offering any real meaning behind his views on "unschooling" - or at least, fails to really give a clear picture on what those views are.

This can be frustrating for a parent...there's a lot of info online, and sadly, many parents just buy into a nicely wrapped present with little substance, like the one Brad is presenting here. As a parent, I encourage others to simplify as much as possible and do what makes logical sense. Books are clearly better than TV for children, so whenever possible, encourage your child to read & use their imagination instead of allowing the idiot box to do it for you. Any arguments to the contrary are going to be window dressing.

Brad said, using my quote and putting "book" in place of "TV":

During developmental years, books can be pretty dangerous to the mind/eyes, etc. So why have them around your child? When they can handle the books,
you're right, it's worth it to consider reading some educational books. Even
if you're creative & enjoy the words and imagery, being outside & using
one's imagination is always far better than books for a very young mind.
When we cut down to only 12 books in our house I started reading history
books and it was great to let go of all the awful things I didn't enjoy in
the other books. The books are mostly for decorative purposes now & that's
the way I like it.

...you get the idea. He goes on about his own beliefs:

When books were new, there was much outcry from the traditionalists who
thought it would rot kids' brains because they would no longer have to
"think for themselves" and "create their own stories"...
...
Today, books are on a pedestal in our society because educators love them.
One impact of the industrialization of education is that the Products of
education (kids) need to be processed through the system as efficiently and
inexpensively as possible with minimal waste of time and effort, no
different than any other product. Books are an efficient and inexpensive
way to disseminate standardized, sterilized, government-approved curriculum
to dozens of kids in a classroom at once...
....

Someone should tell Brad that books existed before the 1800s.

He describes more on his stance here:

We're an Unschooling family, so the TV screen is just another medium for
bringing information into our home. It makes our daily world bigger and
more magical. We don't give TV any more (or less) value/importance than any
other activity in our home, and my 4 y/o son watches whatever he wants,
whenever he wants. We have a 400-hour TiVo, so we have tons of viewing
options and can easily skip commercials.
...
Anti-TV beliefs are simply that: beliefs. I don't see my parental job as
imposing my beliefs on my child. I have thousands of beliefs, and they're
all subject to inquiry and change at any moment.

I'm glad Brad wasn't my father, is all I can say. It is, actually, a parent's job to instill a child with SOME set of values & ideas (maybe not "beliefs", as he calls them). If you don't do that at all, they don't have any roots and are likely to be convinced to join just about any nutty group later in life, as Corrupt member Einzeta pointed out in a prior post.

Choosing to let your child run his or her life as he or she sees fit at too early an age creates an air of irresponsibility in the family. The Continuum Concept is good in theory, but when practiced to an unnatural extreme by families that ignore simple logic, they're abusing the philosophy and mixing it in with their own worldview for their own purposes. This is, in itself, a parenting method and a way to instill (bad) beliefs in your child, even if you choose not to admit it.

I've seen a vision of the future, and here it is: my posts have generally (I hope) been concise & relatively focused since I started this blog. Once that kid exits the womb and enters reality, though, all bets are off: my level of sleep will decline temporarily, my stress will increase, and I'll think of nothing else except my family. I'll still go out and try to follow my own advice of having guy-time as well as being an excellent parent, not just a good one.

Here's one good reason why I bring this up (from Parentdish):

Case in point: "Princess Style" magazines. Okay, so they aren't real magazines. They're actually wall decorations, presumably for a young girl's room. If Ariel's impossibly tiny waist and come hither look aren't painful enough, check out the headlines:

• Great Legs Are a Dream That Can Come True
• What Your Guy Friends Say About You
• Two's Company, Eight's a Crowd
• Find Your Prince: 5 Tips to Show You How

These are, obviously, supposed to be parody, but Disney's target audience is too young to understand sarcasm and satire. My six-year-old is old enough to read them, though. Isn't it a little early to start suggesting to her that her legs aren't perfect? That she needs to worry about finding her "prince" or what boys are thinking about her? (Yes, it's way too early.) And don't get me started on the "eight's a crowd" thing. Sex, body issues, mean girls ... it's all there.

There's a reason they say boys are easier: because, generally speaking, they're less stress. Fathers who grew up with sisters, especially, end up being very protective of females within the pride/family, and thus want to hold off the idea of mating/promiscuity as long as possible. Since our media creates sexy images for younger & younger children with each passing year, it's increasingly difficult for a parent, using natural instinct, to exclude these images from a child's reality.

Does that mean I pray every day for a boy? Not exactly, I just wish it wasn't so damn easy to corrupt the minds of youth (in a bad way...Socrates = good way; Disney = bad way, remember that...).