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2015 October 1

Oklahoma governor grants last-minute stay of execution after drug mix-up

The methods by which we have agreed to carry out the death penalty is truly ridiculous because of the physical complexity involved and designed into the process. Naturally, this degree of complexity is necessitated because of the need to address the various objections and to compromise with the various interest groups, namely opponents of the death penalty.

Nevertheless, this man should not be executed because he did not physically take part in a murder. the death penalty should only be reserved for people who have physically been actively involved in a planned or reckless killing, and only when conclusive evidence leaves no doubt as the guilt.

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2015 October 2

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2015 October 3

Palestinian Rights Activists in U.S. Routinely Harassed & Censored

The Jewish lobby in the US is very strong and does clearly have a disproportionate influence over the media and US policy, so it is conceivable that Palestinian activists are being targeted to a level that otherwise would not be the case if more appropriate rules were in place to regulate lobbying activities.

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2015 October 4

UNHRC Abandons Plans for Probe into Possible War Crimes in Yemen due to Heavy Railroading from Saudi Arabia who is currently in Charge of the Commission

Corruption is very frustrating. Personal connections and relationships between high-level diplomats and other government officials so often results in suboptimal decisions that it is hard to believe that no greater effort is being made to regulate such interactions to encourage more objectivity in policy-making. I don’t know the degree to which personal relationships may have caused a deviation away from a purely objective outcome, but if policies were discussed in writing, such apparently corruption-tainted decisions would very likely be reduced.

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2015 October 5

NYPD Unveils New Rules to Document Use of Force by Officers

This is a no-brainer. What the heck took so long.  Maybe it’s the logistics of documenting so much data. Every police (law enforcement) force in the country should document all this stuff. Even every interaction with the public (especially any stop or questioning) should be documented.

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2015 October 6

West Virginia: Coal CEO Don Blankenship on Trial for Fatal Explosion

It’s amazing how unpredictable the justice system can be. Richard Glossip’s was given the death penalty (halted just a few days ago) for hiring someone to kill his employer. But this is a case in which a coal executive has been found guilty of blatant disregard for very basic safety measures at his coal mine, especially making repeated violations. When 29 people have died as a direct result of obviously ignoring basic safety measure, but a maximum sentence of only 31 year is sought, there is clearly a judicial imbalance.

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2015 October 7

Right Livelihood Award, Dubbed Alternative Nobel Prize, Announced

The LGBT population should not be discriminated against in most areas. However, though these trait are not as socially deleterious as more obvious genetic or developmental defects or mental disorders, they should still be viewed as defects along the lines of (though still not as debilitating as) gender dysphoria, bipolar disorder, etc.

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2015 October 8

U.S. Gen.: We need new Afghanistan plan

After a decade and a half, obviously something’s not right if we still need to be in Afghanistan. The ultimate solution is to educate and empower the population towards self-determination under basic rules of human governance, and ensure that the macro economic circumstances for economic development are present. Beyond that, the United States should have nothing to do with Afghanistan. These macro environmental conditions need to be created by an international organization with teeth to enforce them. This world does not have such an organization, therefore, unless another country is willing to take the lead, the Afghan people should continue suffering. The US cannot and should not continue to bear these burdens. It is someone else’s turn (and let them deal with the blow-back).

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2015 October 9

6,000 drug offenders to be released from federal prison starting Friday

The vast majority of these offenders should not have been put in prison in the first place. Their crimes likely involved only possession of a drug. That is not a life threatening criminal act, nor is it threatening to property.

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2015 October 10

AP INVESTIGATION: Nuclear black market seeks IS extremists

It is very scary to think that it is virtually certain that nuclear material has already been sold to terrorists. Just another reason to be truly kind and fair to absolutely everyone within our spheres of interaction. Are you listening, United States?

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2015 October 11

Former U.N. leader charged in alleged bribery scheme

In order to increase the chances of catching such corrupt behavior, all public servants should be required to be completely transparent in all economic transactions, including all personal transactions (open bank accounts,, loan records, etc.), to any authority/supervisory agency at any time, upon request, or even permanently, continuously. The penalties should be severe.

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2015 October 12

Flood waters shifting to Lowcountry

If more dams were operated so that they are empty during times of none threatening rains, then they could use their entire reservoir capacity to contain flood waters. This would at least reduce the chances of destructive flooding down stream. Of course, it would also mean less navigable rivers. However, river navigation should not be such a high priority because of the large negative environmental effects of this damming, especially given the hugely negative effects all other human activities have on virtually every other aspect of the natural environment.

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2015 October 13

Good News for Kanye West: California Bans Paparazzi Use of Drones to Spy on Celeb Homes

What took so long for such a law to pass. It’s just common sense. This law says that a drone cannot fly over private property. That’s always been illegal. Of course, regulations still need to stipulate how to deal with cases when drones look into private property while flying over some other property. Something like this should be the principle at work.

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2015 October 14

Ben Carson Defends Hitler Gun Control Statements, Calls ADL Reaction ‘Total Foolishness’

While it is highly likely that the Nazi gun control policy had little ultimate impact on Jewish resistance to Nazi rules, because of chaos theory and human beings’ lack of total knowledge, there is a chance that Ben Carson is correct on this point.

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2015 October 15

Isolated North Korea says it’s ready for war with U.S. as it marks anniversary

An international military organization would have deflected North Korea’s focus on the US since it would have been a much broader coalition of countries aligned against it. More importantly, such an organization would have been much more likely to prevent North Korea to have developed to this degree of anger toward the outside world (because it would have been militarily stopped by now).

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2015 October 16

Diverting retirement savings to pay for college

Retirement savings should be forced by imposing a penalty on individuals if they do not show that they are putting money away according to a government approved schedule. College should be made more expensive, because it would both reduce the demand and increase focus on work experience, rather than college degrees for job qualifications. College education seems to be degrading to become too much like ‘general education’.

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2015 October 17

30 Years on Death Row

Glenn Ford should be entitled to a minimum of minimum wage rates for every hour he has spent in custody from the moment he was arrested to the moment he was freed. That comes out to somewhere around $2.4 million. But then we need to add legal fees and punitive multiples. Compensation for lost wages could perhaps be calculated by determining the unemployment rate for black makes in his home state, ascribing a most likely wage for people with his background, and multiplying his full-time hourly wages by the inverse of the unemployment rate. This would yield a figure that would be added to the minimum wage penalty, as described above.

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2015 October 18

Planned Parenthood stops taking money for fetal tissue donations

Because of the short attention span the public has, combined with their shallow understanding (or care to understand) of pertinent issues, organizations often need to do things or change policies due solely to pubic perception issue. Human ignorance and disingenuousness is a significant cause of complex policies that are meant to pacify people who overreact to superficial media reports.

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2015 October 19

As attacks continue, Israeli army begins deploying troops

Reciprocating violence will continue as long as both sides give the other resons to continue. Even if one side does everything right and removes all the reasons the other side has to complain about, the built-up tensions over the previous decades will undoubtedly still cause significant residual, but decreasing violence that would last for a few years, depending on the thoroughness of the change of heart.

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2015 October 20

Fugitive drug lord ‘El Chapo’ injured while evading Mexican authorities

The reward for any informant providing information leading to the capture of this man should be huge.

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2015 October 21

John Kerry Urges Unity on Fighting Climate Change

The only correct and most logical way to reduce the emissions of CO2 is to tax it on a per unit basis. To try to negotiate a cap and determine the size of the cap and negotiate trading credits and such, is way too complicated. Just charge a tax of say, $50 per ton for every producer.

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2015 October 22

Turkey shoots down unidentified drone near Syrian border

How great it is to actually have proof that the drone did, in fact, fly into Turkey. So many times, counties say that they did not violate airspace, and proof is hard to ascertain. This is why it is important to have objective documentation for as many things as possible, including aircraft.

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2015 October 23

Study serves up ominous quake warning for L.A. area

One way we could prepare is to have an emergency fund for natural disasters that would enable a more orderly recovery.

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2015 October 24

‘Racist motives’ behind Swedish school attack

This guy used a sword. In the US, on this same day, a man killed one and injured three. This type of violence is common in the US, but uncommon in many European countries. The prevalence of guns is clearly a relevant factor.

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2015 October 25

Canada: 99 Detained at Protest Demanding End to Tar Sands Pipelines

If the oil companies are required to pay for absolutely all negative externalities associated with their activities and if they are required to pay for what government subsidies pay for now, the price of oil and related products would be much higher and demand would be much lower.

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2015 October 26

Driver Adacia Chambers faces murder charges in Oklahoma State crash

It is hard to give the death penalty to people who have killed while driving under the influence of some kind of drug, or while sleepy, because it is so easy to just veer off the road, have a slow reaction time or whatever, which causes an accident and death. However, driving is a privilege and people should be ingrained with the idea that they should be completely under control when they drive. However, only when people are obviously and clearly under the influence, should they be charged with murder. Otherwise, it should just be involuntary manslaughter.

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2015 October 27

St. Louis develops disaster plan for nuclear waste dump

Mallinckrodt Chemical company (or whoever has since bought it), which was responsible for illegally dumping the radioactive waste there, should be required to pay to clean it up.

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2015 October 28

FBI, Justice Department investigating S.C. police officer who threw student across classroom

The officer used too much force, but the girl obviously needed to be physically removed. The officer should be charged with a crime or fined. Termination from the job is not enough of a punishment when excessive force is used. But the girl should also be charged with a crime or fined, as well.

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2015 October 29

Fed keeps interest rates at historic lows

Fractional reserve banking should be abolished. The Federal Reserve Board is a group of private banks that operate for profit and not for the public good. That needs to change.

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2015 October 30

Bus driver jailed after allegedly assaulting special needs teen

Instances like this will likely increase as more people will be born with disabilities and as school districts continue to mainstream such children without the appropriate prerequisite services.

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2015 October 31

Poland rejects U.S. extradition request for director Roman Polanski

People accused of crimes should be extradited to the requesting jurisdiction, unless there is reason to believe that the requesting jurisdiction will not be able offer a fair trial.

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