h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Gone are the days when if a scamp gave you back talk you could assault them.

What´s good about smoking in a cinema? It will affect the projection, and you don´t even have the chance of moving away from the smoker. I´m not sure I agree with the smoking bans, but it really is nice not sitting in other people´s smoke.

"Getting your letters delivered before leave for work is easy, all you need to do is leave later."

Toybox, that is so beautifully French.

And many years before this "recycling" craze, us kids got 3d back on pop bottles - that really did keep us busy and padded-out our pocket money!!

Paper was recycled then too - to wrap the ashes in, and to kindle the fire.

And capital hanging meant you only had to punish a murderer once, not give him 10 years at our expense then let him out to do it all over again ....... oh-oh, I've started-up again ........

Yeahhhh but you had to pay the hangman's wages (not to mention pension plans). And they were paid pretty well - you DON'T want to get on the wrong side of an executioners' union.

we get money back on returned bottles. Plastic and glass.

Smoking in cinemas was disgusting - even as a smoker i couldn't stand the smell, but it used to get in my eyes and eventually I'd have to leave becuase I couldn't see. Not so bad in a pub (but bad enough) but when you actually pay to see something it's a bit of a pain in the backside.

I used to love going to the greengrocer and getting everyting just put in the shopping bag/trolley. None of this shrink-wrapped, put in a plastic tray and shrink-wrapped rubbish.

Redmoss: <>

Yeah, and we didn't have to pay compensation to anyone wrongly convicted

Deb

Redmoss:

"capital hanging meant you only had to punish a murderer once"

Indeed. Except when you executed the wrong guy, of course. Which, given that the justice system is administered by humans, is inevitable.

A lovely excuse to repeat my position on capital punishment: let's have a referendum. Two questions, only. Only answers allowed are "YES" or "NO", no equivocating. No secret ballots, either - you state what you believe and you deal with the consequences.

Question 1: Do you support the return of capital punishment?
Question 2: Given that the return of capital punishment will, unarguably and inevitably, result sooner or later in the execution of someone innocent - do you, personally, volunteer to be the first innocent person murdered by the state?

Anyone answering "Yes" to the first question but "No" to the second doesn't get their vote counted, because they demonstrably didn't REALLY mean it when they said yes to question 1.
Anyone answering "Yes" to both is executed as soon as the votes are counted.

You'd probably only have to run this referendum once to show a massive majority of (counted) votes in favour of NOT having the death penalty. But the beauty of the exercise would be that, in the unlikely event that your volunteers were in a majority and you're required to reinstate the death penalty, the very first action of the executioners is to kill everyone who voted for it (and MEANT it). You can then simply run the referendum again, safe in the knowledge that the nations average IQ has just rocketed.

Tiggy: So if you were to want murderers to to spend 10 years in jail, I assume that also means you would volunteer to spend 10 years in jail yourself?

Better finding out two days after sending someone to jail that they're innocent, rather than two days after the execution.

Going to a state school and singing a hymn and saying prayers or whatever in assembly for 5 minutes in the morning,..and it not even very slightly occurring to you that you would come home and ask the olds, 'do you think god really exists?'

Xan>> So if you were to want murderers to to spend 10 years in jail, I assume that also means you would volunteer to spend 10 years in jail yourself?

No, but we accept as a reality that innocent people will be sent to jail for something they didn't commit. And that we may be one of them.

You can never eliminate incompetence, and corruption from a justice system. What you can do is minimise the harm done by both, by not having a death penalty.

Anyone who is willing demand the return of capital punishment but unwilling to acknowledge that they subject to it without having committed any of the transgressions they regard as meriting it, is someone whose opinion is best ignored.

Many people upon hearing of an extreme crime will express a desire for capital punishment to be used, "They should be strung up." or Bring back hanging, I say.".
What they mean is that people that do such thing deserve death, and they may be right.
But it's utterly different from really meaning you are comfortable with innocents being killed through corruption and incompetence or abuses of power etc, somewhere in justice system.

If capital punishment were to be rought back, which I sincerly hope it isn't, it'd be a daft idea though to use it for murderers. They have some of the lower offending rates of any chrimes.

Returning to the origional thing.... 'progress', I remember when oo a fair few years ago now, some of the supermarkets started* up doing deliverys; I think Iceland was one of the first...
Our family, having never owned a car, took advantage of this.... But, as my Dad pointed out at the time, it was a step backwards, as when he were a child they'd get virtually all their grocerys delivered by the local butchers, bakery and grocery store and fishmongers etc... so it was more reinstaating how it used to be

Oh, today (10. October) appears to be World Day against Death Penalty.

I remain an ardent supporter of a short rope and a long drop

I would prefer that to innocent citizens being shot to death on tube trains nad drunken fools being executed by police firing squads

So, you favor a situation in which we throw in the towel, admit westurn culture is entirely wrong and corrupt, and failed 'as an experiment', and tell terrorists, all over the world, wehrever they are, that they've won? excellent.

Death pelinty would not have any affect on what you mention. Suicide bombers, strangely enough, don't see capital punishment as much of a deterent. Therefore, having it would not reduce the level of terrorist attacks at all; inf act, it would be more likely to increase them:
Were we to reinstate capital punishment, and drive ourselves cultureally backwards several hundred years, it would, following the previous govrnments way of using the law soon be extended, so those caught, in attempting* acts of terrorism, would be murdered. This as we've already seen time and time again, is one of the best ways to fuel further 'reprisal' terroist activity. In the UK, we really oughta have figured this out yonks back, what with all the mess-ups in dealing with the IRA and related groups in the 70's and 80's, and of course most recently by our returning ourselves to a terrorist target through two illegal wars under fabricated remits.
So, it wouldn't do anythign to lessen the likelyhood of terrorist attacks, more likely act to increase them, and so the police, and special forces would remain on increased trigger-happyness and potentially retain the likelyhood of innocents being maimed as a result of poor inteligence in the special forces and police.
Simularly, capital punishment for murderers is pretty pointless, as they have such a low re-offending rate.

Not me. I still believe in a justice system that uses rehabilitation, not punishment. One wrongful execution negates the entire system. Multiple murders are easier to prove, it would seem-
This animal will get 25 years without a chance of parole-
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-columbia/story/2010/07/30/pickton-supreme030.html
Given his age he probably won't make it but if he does there is little to no chance he might get out.

*Section 745.6 gives persons who have been convicted of murder or high treason (and sentenced to life imprisonment without eligibility for parole for more than 15 years) the right to apply, after serving at least 15 years, to the Chief Justice of the province where their conviction took place for a reduction in the number of years they must serve before being eligible for parole. As previously mentioned, the same section makes those convicted of more than one murder ineligible for review.*

http://dsp-psd.pwgsc.gc.ca/Collection-R/LoPBdP/BP/bp348-e.htm

I'd rather have the circumstance of a convicted one person murderer who's been in prison 15 years and who might be innocent have the chance to prove it rather than a dead man having the same chance.

I beg to differ. The utilisation of state sponsored murder of terrorists in the late 80's brought principle terrorist groups to the negotiating table. I'm reluctant to say too much in an open forum, or at any other time for that matter , however the remit was to do whatever necessary to bring about a negotiated settlement.

Western culture wrong? The world leader in Western culture advocates capital punishment ?????

The Talban execute their prisoners and captives in a particularly grotesque manner, not the swift coup de grace I support.

In this time of budgetry restraint, untold millions could be saved in the maintenance of the truely evil - Robert Black, Geoffrey Dahmar etc. Do you seriously think these recidivist have any redeeming features to save them from the gallows? I look forward to your thoughts of why they should be allowed to burden the tax payer in relative comfort and safety for the rest of their lives. Do I have to spell out the details of their offences for you? Perhaps you would like to put the same question to the parents and families of Robert Black's victims

No.
t doesn't matter what method of justification you want to use for your own personal version of state sponsored murder, it is exactly the same as that used by the terrorist states of which you mention, thereby if we lower ourselves to using it we've accepted they're right.

2legs is right.

One mistake would be tragedy and punishment is not the object of modern justice. Perhaps we should cut off the hands of thieves and castrate the mentally handicapped?